Beware the Ides of March

Time to put your mask on:

"To tame coronavirus, Mao-style social control blankets China" by Raymond Zhong and Paul Mozur New York Times, February 15, 2020

SHANGHAI — China has flooded cities and villages with battalions of neighborhood busybodies, uniformed volunteers, and Communist Party representatives to carry out one of the biggest social control campaigns in history.

Coming soon to your town, America.

The goal: to keep hundreds of millions of people away from everyone but their closest kin.

The nation is battling the coronavirus outbreak with a grassroots mobilization reminiscent of former Communist Chairman Mao Zedong’s mass crusades, not seen in China in decades — essentially entrusting front-line epidemic prevention to a supercharged version of a neighborhood watch.

Meanwhile, on Saturday, the United States said Americans aboard a quarantined cruise ship will be flown back home on a chartered flight Sunday, but that they will face another two-week quarantine. About 380 Americans are aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which has docked at Yokohama, Japan. So far, 285 people from the ship have tested positive for the new virus that began in China, after 67 new cases were found Saturday.

China reported 143 virus deaths and a dip in new cases Saturday. France, meanwhile, reported Europe’s first death from the new virus.

A "new" virus, huh?

In China, housing complexes in some cities have issued the equivalents of paper hall passes to regulate how often residents leave their homes. Apartment buildings have turned away their own tenants if they have come from out of town. Train stations block people from entering cities if they cannot prove they live or work there. In the countryside, villages have been gated off with vehicles, tents, and other improvised barriers.

Do you have your vaccination papers with you?

Despite China’s arsenal of high-tech surveillance tools, the controls are mainly enforced by hundreds of thousands of workers and volunteers, who check residents’ temperature, log their movements, oversee quarantines, and — most important — keep away outsiders who might carry the virus.

The cameras are everywhere.

Residential lockdowns of varying strictness — from checkpoints at building entrances to hard limits on going outdoors — now cover at least 760 million people in China, or more than half the country’s population, according to a New York Times analysis of government announcements in provinces and major cities. Many of these people live far from the city of Wuhan, where the virus was first reported and which the government sealed off last month.

Throughout China, neighborhoods and localities have issued their own rules about residents’ comings and goings, which means the total number of affected people may be even higher. Policies vary widely, leaving some places in a virtual freeze and others with few strictures.

China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, has called for an all-out “people’s war” to tame the outbreak, but the restrictions have prevented workers from returning to factories and businesses, straining China’s giant economy, and with local officials exercising such direct authority over people’s movements, it is no surprise that some have taken enforcement to extremes.

Oh, this is hurting the Chinese economy after the failures of Hong Kong and the stories of Uigher concentration camps, huh? Almost as if it were a politically useful tool.

China’s prevention efforts are being led by its myriad neighborhood committees, which typically serve as a go-between for residents and local authorities. Supporting them is the government’s “grid management” system, which divides the country into tiny sections and assigns people to watch over each, ensuring a tight grip over a large population.

That type of state action is being applauded by the pre$$ over here.

Authorities are also combining enormous manpower with mobile technology to track people who may have been exposed to the virus.

An app developed by a state-run maker of military electronics lets Chinese citizens enter their name and national ID number and be told whether they may have come in contact, on a plane, train, or bus, with a carrier of the virus.

Let's hope it worked better than the Iowa caucuses app.

It is too early to say whether China’s strategy has contained the outbreak. With large numbers of new infections being reported every day, the government has clear reasons for minimizing human contact and domestic travel, but experts said that in epidemics, overbearing measures can backfire, scaring infected people into hiding and making the outbreak harder to control.

“Public health relies on public trust,” said Alexandra Phelan, a specialist in global health law at Georgetown University. “These community-level quarantines and the arbitrary nature in which they’re being imposed and tied up with the police and other officials is essentially making them into punitive actions — a coercive action rather than a public health action.”

Yeah, but mandating vaccines isn't such a thing.

In all honesty, it's the duplicitous and disingenuous pre$$ that mouthpieces for authority that has lost the trust. 

In Zhejiang, one of China’s most developed provinces and home to Alibaba and other technology companies, people have written on social media about being denied entry to their own apartments in Hangzhou, the provincial capital. Coming home from out of town, they said, they were asked to produce documents from landlords and employers or be left on the street.

It's all coming your way, Americans!

Many places have banned large gatherings. Police in Hunan province this month destroyed a mahjong parlor where they found more than 20 people playing the tile game.

With local governments deciding such policies largely on their own, China has become a vast patchwork of fiefs.

Like America and Colombia (that's cover for a CIA base next to Venezuela).

I mean what do you think state, local, and federal governments are as well as control of schools systems or an agency for that matter? The power goes to their heads.

“It can be quite haphazard,” said Zhou Xun, a historian of modern China at the University of Essex in England. “A perfect plan on paper often turns into makeshift solutions locally.”

That's where the print version ended.

The lockdowns are not necessarily oppressive. Many people in China have been happy to wall themselves off, ordering groceries online and working from home if they can. Some neighborhood officials act with a humane touch.

Bob Huang, a Chinese-born American living in northern Zhejiang, said the volunteers at his complex had helped chase down a man who stayed out overnight to drink, in violation of rules about how often people can step outside. Yet they also delivered food from McDonald’s to a quarantined family.

Huang, 50, has been able to dodge the restrictions by using a special pass from the property manager, and he has been driving around delivering protective face masks to friends. Some building complexes don’t let him in. Others take down his information.

A nearby village took a less orthodox approach.

“They always start asking questions in the local dialect, and if you can respond in the local dialect, you are allowed to go in,” Huang said. Unable to speak the dialect, he had to wait, though the villagers were friendly. They gave him a folding chair, offered him a cigarette, and didn’t ask for an ID.

Some parts of China have imposed other, often severe policies for fending off the epidemic.

Hangzhou has barred pharmacies from selling analgesics to force people with symptoms to seek treatment at hospitals. The eastern city of Nanjing requires anybody who takes a cab to show ID and leave contact information. Yunnan province wants all public places to display QR codes that people must scan with their phones whenever they enter or exit.

Officials seem to recognize that some local authorities have gone too far. This month, Chen Guangsheng, the deputy secretary-general of Zhejiang’s provincial government, called it “inappropriate” that some places had employed “simple and crude practices,” like locking people into their homes, to enforce quarantines.

If you don't get your shot, you can't leave. Or you can, risking imprisonment.

National officials on Saturday urged towns and villages to remove unnecessary roadblocks and ensure the smooth transport of food and supplies.

“Banning everyone from out of town wasn’t realistic,” said Zhang, 29, an accountant. “There are so many of them, after all. Some needed to come back for work.”

Still, many in China are uneasy about loosening up virus controls too quickly.

Zhang Shu, 27, worries that her parents and neighbors are becoming cavalier about the virus, even as workers drive around her village near Wenzhou with loudspeakers telling people to stay home.

“Ordinary people are slowly starting to feel that the situation isn’t so horrible anymore,” she said. “They are restless.”

We are a lot more similar than you would think, 'eh?

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The Globe also had a reporter on the scene (Nick Kaufman).

Related:

"Secretary of State Mike Pompeo traveled from a security conference in Germany to Senegal this past weekend, where he emphasized economic partnership, even as tensions festered over the Trump administration’s recent restrictions on visas for citizens of four African countries and a potential drawdown in military assistance just as extremist attacks have surged across West Africa’s arid interior. Pompeo’s arrival in Dakar, Senegal’s seaside capital, on Saturday, marked the first time in more than a year and a half that an American Cabinet official had stepped foot in sub-Saharan Africa. Pompeo traveled to Angola on Sunday night and was to visit Ethiopia on Monday. In Senegal, Pompeo met with business leaders and announced five projects that would involve US companies, including a new 100-mile-long highway. The United States has lagged far behind China in establishing trade relationships with African countries, and China has been the continent’s biggest trade partner for more than a decade. Much of China’s economic relationship with Africa is driven by investments by state-owned companies that have contributed to a boom in factories, ports, power plants, railways, and paved roads across the continent."

"Climate activists dressed as Wonder Woman and other movie superheroes interrupted a cricket game in South Africa on Sunday by invading the field, and protesters also climbed a floodlight pylon to display a banner. The protest at the SuperSport Park stadium near the South African capital Pretoria was meant to draw attention to air pollution in South Africa and was carried out by Greenpeace Africa, it said on its Facebook page. The action came during a series-deciding game between South Africa and England. Numerous protesters in costumes managed to get on the field during play. One of them, wearing a Wonder Woman costume, reached South Africa captain Quinton de Kock in the middle of the field and spoke to him before handing him a white face mask. Smiling, de Kock took the mask. Protesters also managed to climb one of the floodlight pylons and unfurl a bright yellow banner high above the field. It read: “Toxic Air Is Not Just A Game” and “#BowlOutAirPollution.” On Facebook, Greenpeace Africa posted a photo of a man and a woman in Superman and Wonder Woman outfits high up on the floodlight pylon and said they were activists. The protest was directed at South Africa’s national electricity supplier, which operates coal-burning plants and is causing “runaway air pollution,’’ Greenpeace Africa said....."

The game resumed after a short delay and England, which was batting at the time of the protest, went on to win the game and series.

Time to come home:

"‘I want to go home.’ Westford couple returning to US from quarantined ship following coronavirus outbreak" by John Hilliard Globe Staff, February 16, 2020

When they left Massachusetts early last month for an Asian cruise, Jacqueline Kineavy-Bowes and her husband never expected what would happen during the trip: an outbreak of coronavirus that forced the quarantine of thousands on board their ship while docked at a Japanese port.

Now, after spending nearly all of the past two weeks stuck inside their cabin, Kineavy-Bowes, 51, and her 65-year-old husband, Richard Bowes were returning to the US Sunday, where they face the prospect of another 14 days in quarantine at a California military base far from loved ones.

The Westford couple were among the 2,666 guests and 1,045 crew on board the Diamond Princess cruise ship when it was delayed by Japanese health officials during a stop at Yokohama on Feb. 4. The ship was then ordered quarantined.

In the days since, forty-four Americans who were on the cruise ship were found to have been infected, said Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, according to the Washington Post. In all, health officials have identified a total number of 355 cases of coronavirus on board the ship as of Sunday, according to the Associated Press.

Those who were not symptomatic were being allowed off the ship, and flown to military bases in California and Texas, according to a letter Sunday from the US Embassy in Japan that was sent to American passengers and crew.

About 300 Americans — including the Westford couple — were leaving for the United States Sunday, according to the AP, citing the Japanese defense ministry. The two planes had left Haneda Airport in Tokyo for the United States, the embassy said in a statement posted to its website.

Americans who are transported to those bases will be quarantined before they are allowed to return home. Those who don’t take the flights won’t be able to return to the United States any earlier than March 4, the embassy said.

“The US Government is taking these measures to fully assess and care for these repatriated Americans to protect them, their loved ones, and their communities,” the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement.

The CDC said it believes the risk of exposure to the general public in the United States is low.

In Massachusetts, the Department of Public Health has not been notified of any residents returning as part of this group of travelers, a spokeswoman said Sunday afternoon.

Kineavy-Bowes spoke by telephone Saturday night to the Globe from the cabin she shared with her husband; at one point, the interview was interrupted when a Japanese doctor arrived to check on them.

Kineavy-Bowes said she was frustrated with what she said is a lack of communication from American health officials ahead of their flight back to the United States.

She said they didn’t answer questions about whether her medication would be available when she arrived in the United States, or make it clear ahead of time to which base they would be sent.....

She “wants to go home because a couple of my nieces and nephews just had babies, and they’ve been sending me pictures of them every day and she just can’t wait to get home to see them,” and now she knows how the Japanese felt.

What if this is all fake, dear readers?

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Oh, I'm sorry. The staged photograph in my propaganda pre$$ convinces me.

Related: American woman who left cruise ship tests positive for coronavirus

I hope she had a good health plan.

"Home quarantine for travelers buys time as new virus spreads" by Carla K. Johnson Associated Press, February 16, 2020

On his return from China last week, Dr. Ian Lipkin quarantined himself in his basement. His wife now puts his food on the stairs. He has run out of things to watch on Netflix. At odd hours, he walks in New York’s Central Park, keeping 10 feet away from others.

Lipkin is among hundreds of people in the United States and thousands around the world who, although not sick, live in semivoluntary quarantine at home. With attention focused on quarantined cruise ships and evacuees housed on US military bases, those in their own homes have largely escaped notice.

They, too, specialists say, play a crucial role in slowing the spread of the new viral disease now called COVID-19.

Lipkin, you say?

Yeah, this is starting to reek of the same old agenda for the same old chosen interests. It never ends.

Most cases and nearly all deaths have been in mainland China. Around the world, authorities are urging two weeks of home quarantine and symptom monitoring for travelers returning from there.

It’s the only tool they have.

“We don’t yet have a vaccine and we don’t have approved drugs for prevention of disease or treatment of disease. So all we have is isolation,” said Lipkin, who directs Columbia University’s Center for Infection and Immunity.

An expert virus hunter, Lipkin was invited by Chinese health authorities to help assess the risk posed by COVID-19. He did similar work in China during the SARS outbreak in 2003.

“This is my second time in the slammer,’’ said Lipkin, who spent time in quarantine then. He will end his confinement Tuesday, celebrating with a dry martini in public.

The cavalier way in which this was presented invites skepticism.

The numbers in home quarantine are constantly changing and hard to pin down. New York state, for instance, has received the names of more than 350 who recently returned from mainland China. Local health departments are monitoring them, recommending quarantine for those without known exposure to the virus.

State and US guidelines sort people into high-, medium- and low-risk groups and have advice for each group, but local health departments have discretion in how to carry out the quarantines.

Yeah, U.S. good, China bad, got it.

Authorities in Taiwan have fined those who violate quarantines, but so far US officials are relying on people’s sense of responsibility, though they have the power to order a quarantine and get help from police to enforce it. Breaking a quarantine order is a misdemeanor in most states. Violating a federal quarantine order can mean fines and imprisonment.

I give it another ten days or so. We will then see the National Guard in several states encircling and quarantining several areas.

Some have put themselves in quarantine without an order from health authorities. In Highland, Ind., Ken and Annie Zurek finished 15 days of self-imposed home quarantine Thursday. “We grew together as a couple,” Ken Zurek said.

OMFG! 

This stinks of fakery!

You know, it could go the other way, too.

Pat Premick, a 57-year-old executive coach who had been living in China, has been in self-quarantine in the Pittsburgh area since returning to the United States early this month. On Friday, she said she had two days left.

To keep busy, she has been doing puzzles, reading books, and talking to friends in China who are going through the same thing. Since there aren’t many people in the area where she’s staying, she takes occasional walks. Friends have been leaving food for her outside, which she fetches after they walk away.

“I’m waving from the window,” she said.

Bye!

Yeah, that convinces me of the veracity of the lying, agenda-pushing, issue-distorting pre$$.

In Shanghai, China, home quarantine for journalist Michael Smith, of The Australian Financial Review newspaper, began when he returned from a trip to Hong Kong.

“I imagine this is how prison must feel,” Smith said in an e-mail to the Associated Press on Friday, two days into a 14-day confinement. Smith can work at home, but no visitors are allowed and guards are monitoring the only entrance to the housing compound where he lives. He is finding “an odd comfort” in not worrying about appointments and wearing track pants all day. “I’m treating this as a rare opportunity to read some books, binge-watch some Netflix series, and get some rest.”

Another media witness like on 9/11, and you can forget about going out to eat and seeing a movie. 

Israel’s Health Ministry on Sunday extended a two-week home quarantine for people arriving from mainland China to include those who have recently spent time in Thailand, Macau, Singapore, and Hong Kong.

It will take time to assimilate.

In New York, Lipkin finds in the COVID-19 outbreak echoes of the movie “Contagion,” for which he was chief science adviser. He has heard the movie has gained new popularity, and he hopes people are learning from it, washing their hands, and listening to public health authorities.

I knew that was a piece of propaganda the moment I watched it. Now it is being cited as a model. Talk about preparing for perception management!

He takes his temperature twice a day and reports by e-mail to the medical officer at Columbia, which directed him into home confinement. Unlike others in his situation, he was able to send a swab sample from the back of his nose and throat to his own lab to test for the virus. The result was negative. No virus.

He uses an exercise bike, but most of the time, he works.

“There’s more work than I can possibly do because not only am I running the laboratory at Columbia and writing and dealing with media, but I’m also running programs in China,’’ he said. “I’m not getting a lot of sleep.’’

HMMMMM!

Lipkin and his wife, Katherine Lewis, are keeping their sense of humor. “My wife is terrific,” he said. ‘‘She’ll make dinner for me and leave it on the stairs and say, ‘I’m putting it down here so I don’t have to get your cooties.’

“I hadn’t heard the term ‘cooties’ in probably 50 years.”

I'm supposed to be taking this seriously as a life and death matter and it is all a joke to them!

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Also see:

"Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, repeated a fringe theory suggesting that the ongoing spread of a coronavirus is connected to research in the disease-ravaged epicenter of Wuhan, China. Cotton referenced a laboratory in the city, the Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory, in an interview on Fox News’ ‘‘Sunday Morning Futures.’’ He said the lab was near a market some scientists initially thought was a starting point for the virus’s spread. ‘‘We don’t know where it originated, and we have to get to the bottom of that,’’ Cotton said. ‘‘We also know that just a few miles away from that food market is China’s only biosafety level 4 super laboratory that researches human infectious diseases.’’ Yet Cotton acknowledged that there is no evidence that the disease originated at the lab. Instead, he suggested it’s necessary to ask Chinese authorities about the possibility, fanning the embers of a conspiracy theory that has been repeatedly debunked by specialists. Cotton is referring to a well-known lab in Wuhan, a ‘‘Cellular Level Biosafety Level 4’’ facility with a high level of operational security that works on researching dangerous pathogens. In response to Cotton’s remarks, as well as in previous interviews with The Washington Post, numerous specialists dismissed the possibility the coronavirus may be man-made. ‘‘There’s absolutely nothing in the genome sequence of this virus that indicates the virus was engineered,’’ said Richard Ebright, a professor of chemical biology at Rutgers University. ‘‘The possibility this was a deliberately released bioweapon can be firmly excluded.’’

I need to make a couple comments regarding the above article. 

The first is Porton Down being miles away from the alleged Skripal attack, as well as the presence of Fort Dietrich and others on U.S. soil (B.U. has a lab, btw) and the presence of research facilities studying Ebola in Africa near where that originated.  That's the first point.

The second point, as pointed out by bloggers at the time as Cotton is a neocon, was to preemptively strike down the possibility of a U.S. bioweapon being blamed by spinning the lab origination on to China, then using the disinformation to discredit the "fringe conspiracy theory."

Thus the need for this:

"While much of the world focuses on the rising death toll and infection rates from the coronavirus, a new on-line magazine produced by international students at Northeastern University aims to put a human face on the outbreak and challenge some of the falsehoods surrounding the crisis. In a recent post in the Global Observer, graduate student Yushu Tian painted an eerie picture of conditions in Wuhan, the city of 11 million at the center of the epidemic: Transportation in and out the city shut down; residents primarily confined to their homes. Included in her post were photos of a barren subway and vacant main road. Recently, Tian has faced the dilemma of whether to wear a surgical face mask in public. “If I wear a mask, will other people believe that I’m the bio-weapon who has coronavirus?” Tian asked......"

The students are well aware of China’s history of attempting to silence reporters over sensitive topics, and one of his students was thanked by his Asian Uber driver for not canceling his ride.

Allston woman says she was victim of attempted ride-hail kidnapping

Should have called an Uber instead, and maybe it is time to ban booze. It only brings trouble and violence, and be careful taking the T, too, until the next generation of bus lanes comes to Greater Boston.

You doctors better administer the shot as well:

"Doctor’s suicide note has parents asking: Was my child really vaccinated?" by Derrick Bryson Taylor New York Times, February 16, 2020

An Illinois pediatrician’s mysterious suicide note has raised troubling questions about the immunization records of children in the Chicago-area community he served for years.

The doctor, Van Koinis, had been missing since August when he was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound Sept. 10 in a forest preserve in Palos Township, authorities said.

Investigators said they had found an “unusual” and “dark” suicide note at the scene in which Koinis expressed “horrible regrets” regarding immunizations over the past 10 years. A statement from the Cook County Sheriff’s Office said investigators had obtained information that suggested that in some cases, Koinis “did not provide vaccinations to children at their parents’ request.”

Ooooooooh. 

Despite the NYT spin on this, informed speculation says this looks like this doctor's conscience got to him regarding the poisons they are injecting into the kids, and someone offed him!

I would never have thought such a thing even a few years ago; however, the opioid crisis that was foisted upon us and the drug prices that are untouchable seem to indicate that this is $eriou$ bu$ine$$ that needs constant gardening.

“Was he just doing this pursuant to patients’ requests and then lying about the records, where these kids get into schools where you’re required to have immunizations?” asked said the Cook County sheriff, Thomas Dart, on Friday. “Or was it something where he went beyond that, where people who thought they were immunized were not getting it?”

In their investigation, authorities had spoken with two people who had worked for Koinis but were unable to gain clarity on the matter. After speaking with some patients, investigators learned that Koinis, who had been licensed to practice medicine in the state since 1991, was a proponent of homeopathic medicine, Dart said.

“He was pretty well known for that,” the sheriff said. “It wasn’t a secret.”

There you go.

The physician was also popular in the Evergreen Park community where he practiced, Dart said. Numerous reviews on Zocdoc, an online medical care appointment booking service, praised his professionalism and bedside manner.

Since revealing their concerns about the suicide note, authorities have received phone calls from people expressing worry or detailing “strange experiences” at the doctor’s office in regards to vaccinations, Dart said.

At least a few of Koinis’s patients have come to his defense.

Tatiana Rudolph, a mother of two, told CBS Chicago that Koinis “never hesitated to give vaccinations.” Another parent, Dana Hamed, praised the doctor for constantly checking up on her and her daughter, according to the station. “I was absolutely blown away because I would have never in a million years imagined a doctor to do that,” she said.

Melaney Arnold, a spokeswoman for the Illinois Department of Public Health, said in a statement Friday that the agency was very concerned about the situation, noting that “vaccination is the best protection against many diseases.”

Dr. Len Horovitz, an internist and pulmonary specialist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York, said Friday that falsifying medical records was an offense that could land a physician in trouble, especially if it concerned public health.....

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I'm told more than 1,100 former federal prosecutors and Justice Department officials called on Attorney General William Barr to resign, but the Globe editorial staff beat 'em to the punch. 

Related:

"The Florida attorney general’s office has announced that it was wrong to deny reparations to a Jacksonville man who was wrongfully convicted of murder. According to the Times-Union, the AG’s Department of Legal Affairs sent a letter granting a petition to compensate Nathan Myers, who spent 43 years in prison for a murder that Jacksonville prosecutors said he didn’t commit. The paper reports the state should now pay Myers $2 million, the maximum allowed under the state’s Victims of Wrongful Incarceration Act, for his more than four decades behind bars. A judge in 2019 granted Myers’s petition for reparations for his prison time, but last month, the Office of Attorney General vetoed that court order. Myers was a teenager when he was arrested in 1976 and is now 62. He said he wanted to care for his wife, who married him while he was still in prison. The reversal by the attorney general’s office came after stories in The Florida Times-Union and First Coast News sparked outrage. The wrongful convictions were overturned after a yearlong investigation from the Jacksonville State Attorney’s Office conviction integrity review unit found significant problems with the original case....." 

It's the rule regarding AmeriKan JU$TU$, not the exception.

How that Kraft case coming along down there?

Also see:

Illinois man, 80, set for release in 1960 triple-killing

Shoplifting arrest ends search for teen accused of killings

"President Trump’s appearance as grand marshal of the Daytona 500 was the first of several events this week for the president as he rallies supporters in a handful of key states. On Wednesday and Thursday, Trump will headline ‘‘Keep America Great’’ rallies in Phoenix and Colorado Springs. Then, on Friday, he will hold a rally in Las Vegas, on the eve of Nevada’s hotly contested Democratic presidential caucuses. Trump is the second sitting president to attend the Daytona 500; George W. Bush attended the race in 2004. Ahead of Trump’s arrival, which came more than a week after his acquittal by the Senate this month, support for the president was on full display. There was a flag reading ‘‘Impeach This’’ and bearing an image of a red, white, and blue middle finger extended. There was a cardboard cutout of Trump side-by-side with President Vladimir Putin of Russia. A few Trump supporters climbed onto the roofs of their vehicles to watch Air Force One cruise overhead. The president’s visit was a pleasant surprise to a lot of the fans who came earlier in the week in their campers and RVs. Most had plenty of Trump gear already with them. Trump’s motorcade then took a lap around the track as cheers rained down from the grandstands......"

"President Trump mixed reelection business with pleasure during a weekend stop at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, attending a fund-raiser on Saturday evening expected to raise $10 million for his campaign and the Republican National Committee. The event was believed to be his most expensive fund-raiser ever, with invitations going to donors who gave $580,600 per couple, according to the Washington Post, which obtained an invitation to the event at the Palm Beach estate of billionaire investor Nelson Peltz. Pro-Trump groups have been shattering fund-raising records on the path toward a goal of raising $1 billion this election cycle....."

"The list of supporters for individual pardons was a who’s-who of the president’s elite orbit. For instance, Nelson Peltz, the billionaire who threw Trump a fund-raiser Saturday night, backed pardoning Milken, along with Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, Patriots owner Robert Kraft, Fox host Maria Bartiromo, House minority leader Kevin McCarthy, a range of Trump’s New York friends, and Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao....."

Yes, the viru$ of politics are far more important than the coronavirus:

"Trump moves to calm fears as first US death from coronavirus is reported" by Michael Crowley, Mike Baker and Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs New York Times, February 29, 2020

WASHINGTON — Hours after officials confirmed the first death in the country from the coronavirus, President Trump on Saturday moved to calm public fears and demonstrate aggressive action against the illness, including by issuing new travel restrictions.

Presiding over an abruptly announced news conference in the White House briefing room and flanked by top public health officials, Trump warned that additional coronavirus cases in the United States are “likely,” but added that “healthy individuals should be able to fully recover.”

The person who died had been a patient at EvergreenHealth hospital in Kirkland, Wash., according to its spokeswoman. He was described as a man in his 50s with underlying health problems.

The Sunday Globe presented this in a SPECIAL SECTION called A SPREADING THREAT, and even provided a VIRUS NOTEBOOK!

What that tells me is an agenda is at work since they would normally not frighten its elite readers on a Sunday. I've been reading them a long time, and the Sunday Globe is usually a lot of fluff as to not disturb elite minds. Not yesterday.

Adding to growing signs that the virus may be spreading in the United States, officials in Washington state also revealed that more than 50 people in a nursing facility are sick and being tested for the virus.

It is just the “tip of the iceberg,” and the gene sequencing suggests the coronavirus may have spread in US for weeks.

What a novel way to cull old people, too.

Health officials in California, Oregon, and Washington state are worried about the novel coronavirus spreading through West Coast communities because a growing number of people are being infected despite not having visited an area where there was an outbreak, nor apparently been in contact with anyone who had.

Related: Second coronavirus case confirmed in R.I.

The teen and a man in his 40s were on a trip organized by a Pawtucket high school last month.

Governor Jay Inslee of Washington declared a state of emergency, directing state agencies to do everything reasonably possible to assist affected communities. The proclamation allows the use of the Washington National Guard, if necessary.

!!!!!!!

The death and indications of possible spread signaled a new, urgent phase in the response to the virus in the United States, where 65 cases had previously been reported, none of them fatal.

!!!!!!!!

Most of the cases could be explained by overseas travel or contact with someone who had been ill. This past week, though, four new cases, in California, Oregon, and Washington, were the first in the United States where the cause was mysterious and unknown — a sign, experts warned, that the virus, which has killed more than 2,800 people worldwide and sickened tens of thousands, might now be spreading in the US.

Trump, who is anxious about the virus and the toll it has taken on the stock market, which he tracks closely as a measurement of his economic record, suggested that the virus was manageable and that “the markets will all come back.”

The Globe says the fairly measured sell-off is on the brink of turning irrational and could collapse the economy.

He appealed to “the media and politicians and everybody else involved not do anything to incite a panic, because there’s no reason to panic at all.”

“Our country is prepared for any circumstance,” Trump added. “We hope it’s not going to be a major circumstance, it’ll be a smaller circumstance. But whatever the circumstances, we’re prepared.”

Joining Trump at the briefing, Vice President Mike Pence announced that the administration was issuing its highest-level warning, known as a “do not travel” warning, for areas of Italy and South Korea most affected by the virus. Pence said the United States was also banning all travel from Iran, and barring entry to any foreign citizen who has visited that country in the last 14 days.

The travel ban should not even be in question in the long fight to protect citizens from the virus, right?

Officials in Washington state were already discussing the possibility that they may recommend cancellations of public events, including sports and entertainment, to limit the spread. They began warning that life in the coming weeks may change drastically.

Better cancel the Marathon as the ill winds blow in Bo$ton. 

At least you will be able to bet the sports games with a “bill that was in the best interests of the taxpayers . . . and the consumers of the Commonwealth” -- unlike the pot law!

Related: Boston prepares for its first marijuana store, and its future pot industry

After four years they are “now very much focused on the opening of this shop." 

Also see: In Salem, a buyback for vape pens and e-cigarettes

Then you can buy more and get more money, go back, buy more, get more money. Kids aren't that dumb.

Washington state leaders, who had for weeks reiterated that the risk to the general public was low, issued a more insistent message.

“We really believe that the risk at this point is increasing,” said Dr. Kathy Lofy, a health officer for the state.

So were we lied to or are we just being played?

In Oregon, where officials say that an elementary school employee was among the new, unexplained cases, concerns were raised that children may have been exposed. District officials announced they would shut schools until Wednesday and conduct a deep cleaning of the building.

Yeah, the all the kids will have to get shots!

Dr. Dean Sidelinger, Oregon’s state health officer, said a broader closure of schools is an option the state could pursue at some point.....

At the same time, they want to “convey to Oregonians, and frankly folks on the entire West Coast: Stay calm, continue on your daily lives, and follow public health precautions.”

--more--"

At least the virus is going to be fatal to Trump's reelection campaign:

"Coronavirus could be the most important issue of the 2020 election" by James Pindell and Victoria McGrane Globe Staff, February 27, 2020

It’s the coronavirus, stupid.

OMG, the damn elitist swill makes you sick!

Related: It’s still the economy, stupid

Gee, that's funny. The page was not found and they're sorry for the inconvenience. 

As fear spread about the potential for a global epidemic of novel coronavirus and US markets had their worst drop since the 2008 recession, no one knew whether it would be a passing panic or something much worse, but this much is clear: Coronavirus is now the biggest X-factor in the race for president, and it could boost or bust President Trump’s campaign.

“This is what keeps the Trump reelection up at night," said Chris Krueger, an analyst at Cowen Washington Research Group. "The worst thing for a Trump reelection is the market going down, consumer confidence weakening, talk of a potential recession, and then, God forbid, if there’s a pandemic or something, all of a sudden Bernie Sanders talking about free health care doesn’t sound like the craziest thing in the world.” 

Then the Russians must have released it, huh?

In all seriousness, folks, the above needs some response. 

First of all, it has become downright pathetic for the Globe to grasp on to each and every issue that comes down the pike and try to use it to defeat Trump. It's wishful thinking journalism meant to appeal to the lemmings that believe in them. First it was Mueller, then impeachment, now this that is going to take him down.

The second thing one notices is it would help Bernie Sanders, huh? Then the Democratic e$tabli$hment is in one hell of a pickle, isn't it? I suppose it's enough to make them (cough) sick.

The virus, known as Covid-19, has only recently emerged as the prevailing issue in the presidential race, but its spread has been rapid.

I would laugh but then I would start coughing.

Amy Klobuchar used precious debate time on Tuesday to plug the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website. Michael Bloomberg was the first to cut an ad attacking President Trump about it Wednesday. Elizabeth Warren put out a plan Thursday to swap funding for a border wall for efforts to contain the flu’s spread, and everyone from Joe Biden to Pete Buttigieg to Bernie Sanders to Tom Steyer wrote tweets and sent out statements on the topic.

She was just talking sh!t, and Buttigieg was just strong-armed out of the race.

Then there was Trump himself, holding a news conference Wednesday evening where he appeared as focused on the political fallout as he was on the spread of the illness, but if the president is wrong, the political impact could be catastrophic.

The Globe is hoping with crossed fingers that the president is wrong. To hell with the health of the country and its citizens. This is political!

Dr. Sandro Galea, dean of Boston University’s School of Public Health, said Trump made a mistake in being so definitive that coronavirus won’t spread widely within the United States.

“The moment there is an outbreak in the country, his credibility on this issue is shot,” Galea said. “History shows us that with epidemics, government leaders need to be honest and clear about what they know, what they don’t, and what needs to happen next. Credibility is a big deal.”

It is to them, and yet somehow when it comes to the same pre$$ that has lost all credibility and is nothing but a piece of political propaganda, it is not a big deal. They have been hollering liar at Trump for so long it has lost its resonance.

Beyond presidential trust, a significant spread of the coronavirus could alter the way that campaigns are conducted.

Ahead of a tight national election in Israel next week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stopped shaking hands with voters, and special polling places have been set up for coronavirus patients.

OMG! 

That is not even mentioned in the article regarding the weary and wary Israeli voter:

"A French Tunisian who immigrated to Israel five years ago from the Paris suburbs, he expressed astonishment that Israelis, who he said were ordinarily gifted at problem solving, seemed incapable of or unwilling to fix their political system. A good portion of the voting-age public seems to have some disturbing thoughts on the brain: Is this election more “Groundhog Day” or an episode of the “Twilight Zone”? A Sartre novel, or a Beckett play? Each Israeli election is a day off for those who want it, at great cost to the Israeli economy as a whole, though the parks are expected to be full of happy picnickers, but Ben Saadon said there was a limit to how many days of her own income she could sacrifice to a political system that was not holding up its end of the bargain. “I see how we’ll end up in a fourth election,” she said, “and this makes me feel like I live in a country that has no father or mother. I’ve never felt this way before.” “It’s like we’re in a game,” she continued, “and the citizens are being used. We’re little pieces being moved around in a game. We’re being played by the powerful forces, and they don’t even see us.”"

Just like Americans, and  “there’s a feeling of desperation because we live in a twisted reality, where our leaders don’t do their job and everybody is laughing at us.” 

Oh, woe is them, the poor supremacist Israelis who treasure their democracy!

"For the third time in under a year, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking reelection, and once again the Israeli leader is on the ropes. After two inconclusive elections last year, opinion polls forecast another stalemate — a troubling scenario for Netanyahu, who will go on trial on corruption charges just two weeks after Monday’s vote. This election campaign has been especially tumultuous. President Donald Trump launched his long-awaited Mideast plan, a proposal that heavily favored Israel and was seen as an election gift to Netanyahu. The Israeli leader, meanwhile, was forced to drop his bid for immunity from prosecution, and just a week ago, Israel battled Gaza militants in a two-day round of fighting. Monday’s election is seen as another referendum on Netanyahu, the country’s longest serving prime minister, and once again, the country seems hopelessly divided. With seeming boundless energy, the 70-year-old Netanyahu has taken to the airwaves and hit the campaign trail, presenting himself to adoring audiences as a global statesman uniquely qualified to lead the country through its many complicated challenges. In recent weeks, he jetted from the White House to Moscow to bring home a young Israeli woman jailed there on drug charges, and flew to Uganda for a surprise meeting with a leader of Sudan, a longtime enemy country. “We have turned Israel into a world power, a leader in cyber technology, natural gas, water, agriculture, technology, intelligence,” Netanyahu boasted at a recent campaign stop."

They have literally bulldozed anyone in their way, and its funny, but the coup that deposed Bashir in Sudan eliminated one of the Palestinians strongest supporters. 

Related: 

"The chief American envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, signed on behalf of the United States. Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, a current Taliban deputy and a figure from the original Taliban government, signed for the Taliban. The two shook hands as the room erupted in cheers. During the signing, another senior American official, Defense Secretary Mark Esper, was with Afghan officials in Kabul. They issued a joint declaration asserting the United States’ commitment to continue funding and supporting the Afghan military, and Esper emphasized that if the Taliban did not honor their pledges, “the United States would not hesitate to nullify the agreement.”

I hope they washed the blood of their hands first, and start preparing for the false flags so the U.S. can keep a small counterterrorism and CIA presence in the country. 

I mean, the roadblocks have already been put up even as the wars come to an end.

If such precautions become de rigueur in the United States, it could mean no more Warren selfie-lines or rallies for any candidate — even Trump.

“If we do have a widespread coronavirus outbreak, then there will be a lot of social-distance measures taking place that would impact a number of gatherings and assemblies,” Galea said.

Okay. 

That means no voting, right?

The past is prologue when it comes to public health crises disrupting politics.

Oh, this is now a disruption. Hmmm.

In 2014, the Ebola outbreak in West Africa shook up campaigns, including the US Senate race in New Hampshire, in which Republican Scott Brown hammered the incumbent, Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen, with accusations the Obama administration wasn’t responding forcefully enough.

Shaheen won, but it gave Brown a closing argument in ads and on the debate stage.

??????? 

What is their point there?

“When something bad happens in the world, the incumbent gets blamed,” said Republican strategist Ryan Williams, who was a consultant for Brown in the 2014 Senate race.

Alec T. Beall, a postdoctoral fellow in the psychology department at the University of British Columbia, presented an academic paper about the impact of the Ebola scare on the 2014 midterm elections.

Good thing last year's conflagration flamed out quick. 

Beall said recent political research agreed with Williams that incumbents are often blamed for a pandemic, which could be bad for Trump if the outbreak spreads.

At odds with this, however, is research into human behavior that shows evolutionary instincts kick in when there’s an infectious disease outbreak — and people who may be perceived as posing an infection risk, such as immigrants from unfamiliar countries, are used politically as scapegoats.

“Traditionalist attitudes and xenophobic policies are characteristic of political conservatism," Baell said. "Therefore, if people begin to feel greater vulnerability to Covid-19, they may become more likely to express conservative political attitudes and to show greater support for conservative political candidates in upcoming elections.”

Beyond the virus itself, the economy is nearly certain to ripple through the race for the White House.

Polling by the Pew Research Center found that the 2008 race tipped toward Democrat Barack Obama after the investment banking giant Lehman Brothers collapsed. The crisis became a centerpiece of the campaign coverage, which turned increasingly negative for Republican John McCain.

There are those out there, and I am one of them, who believe the collapse was allowed to happen at that particular time for a particular reason, hope and change and all that, after the war criminal, regime change Bush years. 

Of course, after eight years of Obama and a regime changes in Libya and the Ukraine and attempted regime changes in Syria and Yemen, the Amurkn public voted for change again in Trump -- an unabashed Zioni$t agent.

The severity of any economic effects will be key to the Republicans’ political fortunes, strategists said.

“The health of the economy is President Trump’s central rationale for reelection,” Williams said. “If there’s a significant downturn caused by this outbreak, it could have serious implications.”

So Democrats are rooting for a deadly epidemic!

Of course, the plug can be pulled on presidents at any time. Bankers and investors simply withdraw capital from a country and ask for what they are owed. That is how they keep politicians ing li9ne and the $y$tem $ecure.

It’s less clear what impact, if any, the outbreak could have on the Democratic primary.

Forgive me, but they implied above that it helps Democrats.

Jon McHenry, a Republican strategist, said Bloomberg may be the only candidate who’s really able to capitalize on it.

“He has the money, and therefore the flexibility, to say this is the issue right now" and to start running ads about how he is the best manager to tackle the problem, he said.

OMFG, cui bono?

Not Bernie and Medicare-For-All, huh? 

How quickly they forget what they write!

For now, it’s unclear how the coronavirus scare will play out on the battlefield of politics, but Democratic strategist Christy Setzer said the issue could break through a lot of the political noise of the Trump era.

(Blog editor leans to side and pukes on floor)

“Voters may not care how many days Donald Trump spends at Mar-a-Lago, whether he’s besties with Vladimir Putin,” Setzer said. “But every soccer mom in America just ran out and got the flu shot for her kids, and they’ll be watching very closely.”

It's a terrific opportunity, right?

--more--"

And you wonder why I am tired of their $elf-$erving whining?

Related:

How a spate of shark attacks in 1916 might predict how the new coronavirus outbreak will affect Trump’s re-election chances

Are you ready for Medical Martial Law?

"The battle plan was aggressive: Close the office buildings the infected soldier used. Have “clean teams” disinfect anywhere the soldier had been. Quarantine whoever he had come in contact with. At the post gates, screen everyone for fever, troops and civilians alike. Tell many civilian workers to stay home. Close the post’s schools, golf course, and bowling alleys. Cancel upcoming social events like the father-daughter dance. The coronavirus threat may still seem distant to much of civilian America, but it has been a clear and present danger for the military almost from the start. Several US bases sit next to cities where the virus is spreading....."

No more libraries, either. 

You wouldn't want to play Russian roulette with your health or you will end up dead.

"France’s government invoked a sparingly used special power Saturday to push contested pension reforms though Parliament without a vote. Prime Minister Edouard Philippe’s surprise announcement that he was cutting short debate in the National Assembly was the latest twist in the difficult birth of the pension shake-up that has sparked sustained protests and weeks of crippling strikes. Philippe told Parliament he was invoking the power “not to end debate but to end this episode of non-debate.” He said he got approval to do so during a special Cabinet meeting Saturday that focused on France’s response to the coronavirus outbreak (AP)."

How much further from the French Revolution can you guys get?

Of course, the South Carolina primary was the more important in the Globe's eyes:

"Joe Biden wins big in the South Carolina primary, propelling him into Super Tuesday" by Laura Krantz Globe Staff, February 29, 2020

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Former vice president Joe Biden scored a do-or-die victory in the South Carolina primary Saturday, giving his struggling campaign a much-needed shot of momentum heading into the Super Tuesday contests in two days.

With Black voters getting their first major say in the Democratic race, Biden’s landslide victory bolstered his case that he is the top moderate challenger to liberal front-runner Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and is the strongest candidate to defeat President Trump.

With most of the returns counted, Biden had about 49 percent, followed by Sanders at 20 percent and billionaire investor Tom Steyer, who despite getting 11 percent of the vote, said he would drop out of the race. Former South Bend, Ind. mayor Pete Buttigieg was in fourth with nearly 8 percent and Senator Elizabeth Warren, who put great effort into winning support among Black voters, was headed toward a disappointing fifth place finish, with around 7 percent.

Well, it looks like the DNC and the corporate donor cla$$ that controls it has decided that Biden and all his problems will thus be trotted forth as the lone alternative. Warren has said she will stay in and will do nothing but siphon delegates and votes from Bernie, thus ingratiating herself within the e$tabli$hment in hopes of a Cabinet job. Klobuchar stays in to take away some in Minnesota, then she quits.

Big victories in South Carolina propelled Barack Obama in 2008 and Hillary Clinton in 2016 to the Democratic nomination. About 60 percent of the state’s Democratic electorate are Black, and winning here demonstrates support from that key component of the party’s base. Biden has had strong backing from Black voters over his long Senate career, and particularly after serving as Obama’s vice president.

So much for the winner of Iowa and New Hampshire always securing the nomination.

(As an aside, the Globe has begun capitalizing Black in regard to race, as if they were Jewish. It will be interesting to see what happens when they do a piece on white/White? voters)

The celebration might be brief. Biden now has to carry that momentum into Super Tuesday, with polls putting Sanders in the lead in California and Texas, while former New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg is on the ballot for the first time and challenging him for moderate voters.

Still, the South Carolina victory was a relief — and a campaign-saver — for Biden. It was the first presidential contest he’s ever won in three attempts at the White House, and it came after he guaranteed in recent days that he would win here.

Sanders was widely touted in South Carolina as having had the best campaign organization, with a network of staff, volunteers, and surrogates that fanned out across the state over the course of a year, but it didn’t translate into a strong performance for him. At a rally in Virginia Beach, Va., Saturday night, he acknowledged that “you cannot win 'em all.” 

He don't speak jive?

“A lot of states out there, and tonight we did not win in South Carolina,” Sanders said. "And that will not be the only defeat, there are a lot of states in this country, nobody wins them all. I want to congratulate Joe Biden on his victory tonight, and now we head to Super Tuesday in Virginia.”

Steyer, who had not been a factor in the early contests, spent tens of millions in South Carolina cultivating Black voters. Although he was on track for a comfortable third-place showing, he under-performed given all his spending and announced he was suspending his campaign.

He ain't no Bloomberg (must be who you know), who is heading the Globe website when you click on it.

For Warren, South Carolina was a major disappointment given her campaign’s emphasis on issues of race.

“I will be the first to say that the first four contests haven’t gone exactly as I’d hope,” Warren told supporters at an event in Houston Saturday night. "Super Tuesday is three days away. We want to gain as many delegates to the convention as we can — from California to right here in Texas. My campaign is built for the long haul — and we’re looking forward to these big contests.”

In interviews at polls in South Carolina on Saturday, many voters seemed to be second-guessing themselves, voting not for their preferred candidate, but for one they thought would fare best against Trump. This strategy seemed to give Biden an edge.....

--more--"

Related:

"Pete Buttigieg ended his presidential campaign Sunday after former vice president Joe Biden’s landslide South Carolina primary victory reshaped the Democratic race and boosted the former vice president heading into Super Tuesday. As many old guard Democrats fret about democratic socialist Senator Bernie Sanders’ front-runner status, Biden’s big win opens up a path for him to coalesce support as the leading alternative to Sanders in a now slimmed-down field. Biden’s blowout victory also points to potential weaknesses in Sanders’ ability to attract Black voters. but Biden still faces several dire challenges as the race barrels toward 14 coast-to-coast primaries on Tuesday....."

One blogger pointed out how long the ma$$ media took to call Bernie wins, but they announced Biden the winner not more than one second after the polls closed. The proce$$ is rigged with pre-approved pre$$ narrative.

Biden warmly welcomed in Selma as Democrats court Black voters

I don't want to taint Joe's victory, but the Ukraine investigations are heating up again.

Also see:

"Warren speaks often of race, but lags with voters of color despite emphasis on issues of race — and even her willingness to change her policies on criminal justice, agriculture, and housing in response to feedback from activists of color and other progressives — she has struggled to gain support from voters of color. There was a time when Warren’s campaign hoped she would be able to build more support with voters of color than Sanders, and leapfrog him in states with diverse populations, but she came in fourth in Nevada, where Sanders built a landslide victory on his support from Latinos. South Carolina, where Black voters make up the majority of the Democratic electorate, will be Warren’s next test, but she seems unlikely to finish higher than fourth place....."

She finished a distant fifth, but will persist! 

Time to quit and throw support behind Bernie and not attack him if you are a true progressive, but, oh, yeah, Globe endorsed her which explains their cheerleading coverage of a stalking horse.

I wonder if the Globe will look into the illegal campaign contributions she took.

"I've been thinking how much the Democrats fucked themselves with this superdelegate nonsense. In a normal situation, Warren would have already dropped out, thrown her support to somebody, and whoever that was would thereby grow in stature. The whole process is supposed to build up the eventual nominee by building both excitement, and a consensus, around the eventual nominee.  That's why the whole process is staggered over months. As it is, there's no reason for anybody to drop out, and staying in keeps you in a more likely position to be undemocratically crowned by the superdelegates. The '((('donors'))) have reason to stick with the most unlikely candidates because the longest odds could still pay off.  I'll bet that the only reason Buttigieg dropped out is because somebody - Bloomberg - paid him to.  Now we're headed to a situation where Bernie gets shivved on the convention floor, again, but this time his supporters leave the party, and Trump then rolls over the eventual nominee, as actual voters just don't care for the decisions of the Clintonista back rooms, or the fact they have been disenfranchised, without even a concern from party bigwigs that the optics of the process are disgusting. The Biden campaign gaffs are starting to remind me of the similar situation with the doomed Bob Dole campaign."-- xymphora

It's a tag team effort to reject Sanders by the usual suspects.

Globe already looking ahead to Tuesday:

"New Suffolk/Globe poll finds Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren locked in statistical tie in Massachusetts" by Jess Bidgood Globe Staff, February 29, 2020

Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders of Vermont are locked in a statistical tie ahead of the Massachusetts primary on Tuesday, according to a poll released Saturday by Suffolk University, The Boston Globe, and WBZ-TV, raising the possibility of an embarrassing loss for Warren on her home turf as her presidential campaign struggles to find a single contest she can win.

The poll comes as Sanders mounts an all-out offensive to win Massachusetts, one of 14 states holding primaries on Super Tuesday, that included rallies in Springfield and Boston in the last two days, which some Warren allies viewed as a brazen attempt to humiliate her.

What is he supposed to do, let her win, Globe? 

Is that how she wants to EARN the presidency?

Bernie is in the fight of his life against the DNC pukes and their media mouthpieces like the Globe here, and they take that tack?

The Suffolk/Globe poll of 500 likely voters in the Massachusetts Democratic primary found another tight skirmish for third place, with former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg at 13 percent, former South Bend, Ind., mayor Pete Buttigieg at 12 percent, and former vice president Joe Biden at 11 percent, all within the margin of error. The poll was conducted Wednesday through Saturday with live callers surveying respondents on landlines and cellphones.

How much you wanna bet Biden finishes third and over 15%?

If the rallies Sanders held in Massachusetts this weekend are any indication, he appears to be drawing significant support from voters Warren ordinarily could count on.

“We in Massachusetts kind of owe her our vote — you know, favorite daughter,” said Jon Weissman, 73, a retired letter carrier from Granby who went to Sanders’ rally in Springfield on Friday. He said it wasn’t until Warren “waffled on single-payer” health care that he decided to vote for Sanders instead.

That is such a Nazi-like attitude. 

We don't "OWE" anybody our vote -- unless it is Pelosi owing her speakership to Mike Bloomberg!

As Sanders campaigned on her turf, Warren spent Saturday hopping among South Carolina, Arkansas, and Texas.

Then she deserves to lose here! 

She isn't guarding her own back yard! How is she going to defend the country?

“This is winning,” she told reporters in Columbia, S.C., as she touted voter enthusiasm for her ideas such as a wealth tax. She did not directly answer a reporter’s question about whether she needed to win Massachusetts.

“It’s always been about getting out and talking to as many people across Massachusetts, but across the country as I can, and that’s what I will keep on doing,” Warren said.

Then she is delusional, too.

Also, the poll found voters roughly split whether, in their gut, they believe President Trump will be elected. Two-thirds of respondents said they preferred a unifier as the nominee, compared to 19 percent who wanted a fighter (Warren has campaigned as both). A majority, 54 percent, said they would be comfortable with a billionaire as the nominee, and there was broad backing in the poll for Medicare for All, the universal health care proposal supported by Sanders and Warren, with six in 10 respondents favoring it.

Actually, it is closer to 80% and they must all be Never Bernies, 'eh? They are more comfortable with a billionaire!

Let me clue you in on Warren, too. She is no unifier. She rubs lots of people the wrong way, and Trump will dance all over her.

The main drama is in the ground war between the Warren and Sanders campaigns in Massachusetts. That played out in real time on Friday as Sanders’ campaign launched a four-day “Berniepalooza” festival of music and canvassing, with Sanders himself appearing before 4,750 people in Springfield Friday night. On Saturday, the Sanders campaign said at least 13,000 supporters attended a rally on Boston Common, where chants of his first name seemed to bounce off the State House’s glinting golden dome.

I just want to say how tired I am of the self-internalized war terminology that divides, 'er, frames every issue this $tink pre$$ covers.

In Boston, Sanders did not mention Warren by name, although he seemed to take a dig at the Persist super PAC that has spent $14 million on ads on Warren’s behalf — an effort she has not disavowed despite her long-held opposition to dark money in politics.

“We don’t have a super PAC, we don’t want a super PAC, we don’t need a super PAC,” Sanders said, as the crowd roared.

Well, she has been ripping him all week so..... won't find that in the Globe.

Sanders is beating Warren 35 percent to 23 percent among nonwhite voters, and has a 23-point margin on her among voters under the age of 35.

“He’s sort of spearheaded the movement in the Democratic Party toward free health care, socialized medicine,” said Jason Monsignore of Medford, a security company employee in his late 20s who supports Sanders. “He’s the one who’s going to try to do what he’s going to say.”

Sanders also leads Warren among male voters, while Warren edges him among women voters. While she tops Sanders among voters over the age of 65, other candidates are also not far behind in that cohort, with Biden at 19 percent, Buttigieg at 15 percent, and Bloomberg at 16 percent.

Warren and Sanders each get the support of 32 percent of liberal voters, Paleologos said, but he performs significantly better with moderate voters. The polling data suggests Bloomberg has cut into his advantage with independent voters.

Her goose is cooked!

“The categories Sanders is winning, he’s winning outright and by large margins,” Paleologos added.“In categories where [Warren] needs to grow, there are other viable candidates holding her down." He added, "Although she’s close, it’s like, ‘Where do you make it up?’”

Joan Peterson McWilliam, 79, said she was voting for Warren because she wants her to hold the state, even though she does not think the Massachusetts senator will ultimately win the primary.

I'm glad she is taking that scared duty so seriously! Acting like it is a baseball game! Wanna hold home field!

“If we were inclined to elect women, I think she would be terrific," McWilliam said. “She stands up to special interests, to banks, to corporations — she’s not afraid.”

Linda Benoit, a 62-year-old social worker, said she had voted early for Sanders because she saw him as the candidate with “momentum.”

Sanders’ Friday night rally even drew one of Warren’s endorsers, Springfield City Councilor Adam Gomez, who watched from the crowd, although he insisted he was sticking with Warren when approached by The Boston Globe.

“You see that Western Massachusetts is fired up for Bernie, it never stopped,” he said. Referring to Warren, he said: “I don’t think she necessarily needs to win, but she needs to do well.”

Will she persist if she does not?

--more--"

Related:

Kennedy holds narrow lead over Markey in Senate race

My print copy said that the incumbent's record still largely unknown -- after having been down there for 47 years! 

Time to call it a day, Ed.

The Globe already knows how Mass. will vote on Super Tuesday as progressives look to make sausage in Boston and Baker looks to regain control of his party.

Meet Sister Norma, the pope’s favorite nun

That's the kind of meat a priest eats on Friday.

He's driven to do it in Ireland:

"The driving force in Irish politics? Finding a decent place to live" by Benjamin Mueller New York Times, February 29, 2020

DUBLIN — After Ireland’s economy cratered in 2008, the friends and fellow activists watched a mass exodus of young people do what the Irish had always done in times of crisis: leave the country for more prosperous shores, but now that Ireland has rebounded to become the fastest-growing economy in Europe, it has a different problem: how to stay.

Ireland is in the grip of a housing crisis so severe that it has rendered thousands of people homeless and hollowed out a social contract that for decades allowed many Irish people to purchase their homes.

I'm confused. The economy is great yet there is a housing crisis?

It has also unmoored Irish voters from the center-right consensus that has dominated the country’s politics since 1932. Sinn Fein, a left-wing party long considered a pariah for its ties to the Irish Republican Army and that group’s often-violent struggles with the British government, catapulted to a second-place finish in Ireland’s general election last month.

Those angry Irish!

Breaking from the government’s landlord-friendly policies, the party proposed freezing rents and building 100,000 homes, plans that dovetailed with housing protests of recent years and that have turned the party into a kingmaker in Ireland’s splintered political scene.

In doing so, Sinn Fein became the latest example of how housing is shaping politics across Europe. Back in the 1980s, right-wing parties such as Britain’s Conservatives under Margaret Thatcher encouraged homeownership in the belief it would make people sympathetic to low-tax, right-wing politics. Today, left-wing parties may now stand to benefit from a generation of young voters watching the dream of homeownership vanish.

Right-wing populist parties have largely benefited from new divisions in the electorate over housing, with people living in areas untouched by the boom in property prices supporting causes like Brexit in greater numbers, but the Irish election showed the potency of a rental crisis for younger and more left-wing voters, too.

“This is the first example in Northern Europe of a left-populist party really managing to capture the discontent of younger renters,” said Ben Ansell, a professor at Oxford University who has studied links between the housing market and populism.

And that is the REAL THREAT! Right-wing populism can often be diverted and is more often funded by big money. U.S. coups in South America have been overthrowing populist leftist movements and installing right-wing regimes for decades. It is the LEFT WING, REALLY SHARE THE WEALTH POPULI$M that must be stamped out (hello, Bernie Sanders!)

Ireland’s housing crisis has its roots in the financial crash of 2008, which devastated the country’s economy and stopped virtually all new building projects. People’s wages eventually recovered, but home prices exploded, soaring by 90 percent in Dublin since 2012. That pushed more and more people into the private rental market.

Strict new rules on mortgage lending, widely embraced as needed protection from another financial crisis, are one factor limiting people’s housing options. Another is the government’s decision to rely on what critics deride as market-based responses to the housing shortage, rather than building public housing.

Soaring rents — driven even higher, critics say, by a misguided subsidy system — are taking ever larger chunks out of young people’s wages, making it all but impossible for them to save for a down payment on a house, and because Ireland has long treated renting as little more than a stopgap before people inevitably buy homes, its weak tenant protections allow landlords to evict renters almost at will.

Brian McLoughlin, of Inner City Helping Homeless in Dublin, said the group had seen an explosion of families seeking help in recent years after being evicted by landlords. Often, the government houses them in hotel rooms, where the conditions can be severely cramped.

That is the same thing they do here.

Large technology companies, attracted by government tax breaks, have created thousands of high-paying jobs in Dublin. That has helped push property developers into the higher end of the market, while creating the perception of a two-tiered recovery, with longtime Dubliners on the short end.

It's pandemic!

Brian Breathnach, 61, an artist who grew up there, said he remembered when it was “part of the tradition that most people went from their parents’ home into buying their own home,” but no longer. With his wife, who works in a shopping center, and two children, Breathnach spent 18 years on a waiting list for public housing.

In rental homes, he said, they faced regular negotiations with landlords over rent hikes and an expectation that they not complain about broken appliances, lest they “waken the sleeping giant or such.”

A few years ago, they were evicted by a landlord who said a relative was moving in, a story often used as legal cover to drive out renters and break a house into smaller units to make more money.

This summer, Breathnach moved into an apartment in an affordable housing complex run by the Iveagh Trust, a charity, a reprieve after decades of instability. He lamented that housing had become a vehicle for building wealth.

“It’s a bit like an art auction, where things become rare and they go out of the reach of ordinary people,” Breathnach said. “And it seems to me housing should not be treated like diamonds or Rembrandts.”

Sinn Fein made those feelings the centerpiece of its campaign. The party, seeking to raise the pressure on its rivals to include them in talks about forming the next government, held a series of public rallies last week that drew a thunderous reception, but Sinn Fein’s left-wing policies and its old ties to the Irish Republican Army, a paramilitary group that fought for an end to British rule in Northern Ireland, have also made it unpopular.....

Sure it did, New York Times. They helped kick out the British but no Irish like 'em.

--more--"

The New York Times has become such a $hamele$$ mouthpiece for wealth it is pathetic.

Whatever you Irish do, don't head West:

"In prosperous California, anxiety over inequality abounds" by Tim Arango New York Times, February 29, 2020

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. — Mark Marquez, a retired Border Patrol agent, had hoped to keep his extended family intact in the same part of central California where his parents and grandparents had worked the watermelon fields.

Yet the state’s high cost of living is threatening to pull the family apart. His son, a truck driver, is vowing to move from California to Oregon to live on a river and grow cannabis, and his own financial straits have left him wondering about his future.

“I pay the bills and I have nothing extra,” said Marquez, 59, who gets by on a $2,200 monthly pension and has no savings to draw on. “I have to hustle here and there. I am living paycheck to paycheck. And almost everyone I know is doing that.”

In Trump's economy? The greatest economy ever? And in California, no le$$.

The affordability crisis in California has sent families fleeing from high-cost places such as San Francisco, where the average apartment rents for more than $4,000. Yet the crisis also reverberates well inland, affecting communities such as Bakersfield and Stockton that are not known for their glitz.

Do they have to clean sh!t off the street in those cities?

By one measure, the housing crisis is even more acute for residents of California’s agricultural Central Valley, where 38 percent of people pay more than 30 percent of their household income in rent.

That's where all the illegals bend and stoop, right? 

Good thing there are no fires now.

As the state prepares to vote in the Super Tuesday primaries, the unaffordability crisis — wide-scale homelessness, poverty, and the stress of making ends meet — has emerged as a foundational issue, one to which many Americans can relate.

No kidding!?

Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who has built a large organization in California and has campaigned extensively in the state, including at a rally in Bakersfield recently, has a commanding lead in polls, underscoring how his campaign theme of inequality has resonated with Democrats in California. A recent Los Angeles Times poll showed Sanders at 34 percent in California, double the support of Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who is in second place, according to the poll.

Sanders opened his Bakersfield rally by framing the election as a contest to see whether America will have “a government or economy that represents all of us, or whether or not we have an economy and government that represents the rich and powerful.” He later referred to the “obscene level of income and wealth inequality that exists in America” and vowed to tackle homelessness and affordable housing, two paramount issues for Californians.

California has by far the largest number of delegates to the Democratic convention — it is sending 50 percent more delegates than the second-largest delegation, New York — and the anxiety of its voters will resonate well beyond the state’s borders. The state’s decision to move its primary to Super Tuesday, three months earlier than in 2016, will only serve to make California’s voice more decisive.

On paper, California, which is overwhelmingly Democratic, may look rich, but it does not feel rich to the residents who work two or three jobs to pay the rent or who spend four hours a day commuting to them. Nearly 150,000 homeless people sleep on sidewalks, on vacant lots, and in vehicles, a daily reminder of the state’s pronounced rich-poor divide.

While California is one of the world’s wealthiest places — if it were a country, it would be the world’s fifth-largest economy — it also has the America’s highest poverty rate when housing costs are factored in.

This means that working-class families, even ones far from the high-cost coastal cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco, said that more than ever they are struggling to raise their children. Saving for retirement is a pipe dream, many said, with the costs of everyday living so high.

Take Bakersfield, a city that has long been stereotyped as a place of smog and economic malaise. There are newfound signs of prosperity all around downtown — new townhomes, a hipster coffee shop, and an old bank building built in 1910 in the beaux-arts style that has been converted into a restaurant offering farm-to-table dishes from the bountiful agricultural fields in the region.

You $ee? The pre$$ think gentrification and hiding wealth inequality is pro$perity.

Yet the city was recently ranked the worst place in America to raise children in a study by Brandeis University, which examined factors such as air quality, experience level of teachers, commuting times, and poverty levels. In fact, four of the five worst places for families in America were inland areas of California, the study showed. The other three are Fresno, Stockton, and Riverside.

Maybe they should all move to Ireland!

Meanwhile, Stockton, an impoverished city east of San Francisco that was one of the hardest-hit places during the 2008 economic crisis, has been testing a universal basic income program, giving 125 residents $500 per month. It is an idea that was championed by Andrew Yang, a tech entrepreneur who dropped out of the presidential race in February.

Nothing more than wi$hful thinking. The bankers are never going to pass out free money unless its to themselves.

“Cost of living just keeps going up, up, up, and the wages didn’t keep up with that,” said Virginia Medina, 62, who has been receiving the extra income and using it to pay credit card bills. Medina voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and said she will do so again. (In 2016, Hillary Clinton won big in California, receiving more than 4 million more votes than Trump.)

UH-OH!

In San Francisco, a liberal city awash in tech industry riches, the inequality crisis is particularly acute. The city has a budget larger than those of many countries. Yet the public school district is preparing to lay off teachers.

Greg Espy earns $25 an hour working security for the school district. He also coaches football, but to get to school on time he needs to leave his house in Pittsburgh, across the Bay from San Francisco, at 4:30 a.m. Gas and tolls alone cost him $6,000 a year, a big chunk of his salary.

“California is now for the rich,” Espy said. “That’s my conclusion.”

So is Bo$ton, imho, and what isn't these days?

--more--"

Sanders being set up for a letdown as the moment of truth arrives?

"Bernie Sanders is set up for a big win in California, a victory that could pivot the race" by James Pindell Globe Staff, February 26, 2020

RICHMOND, Calif. — Bernie Sanders’ relentless focus on California this cycle seems to be paying off. A KQED/NPR poll released Wednesday found the Vermont senator dominating the field with 36 percent, outpacing Senator Elizabeth Warren’s 18 percent, former vice president Joe Biden’s 10 percent, and all other candidates, who were in single digits, and consider this: For any candidate to earn a single delegate, he or she must get at least 15 percent support either statewide or in any of the state’s 53 congressional districts. The most recent poll from the respected Public Policy Institute of California showed Sanders with a bigger lead — and the only one above 15 percent statewide. If that number holds, he could take all the delegates.

That's it, Globe, raise expectation so they can be dashed!

How much you wanna bet Biden comes in over 20% in California Tuesday?

Even the Bloomberg campaign, which has spent oodles more than any other presidential primary campaign in this state, is openly talking about conceding the contest and the implications of doing so.

“There is a real possibility, because California is so big and so early in the schedule this year, that Bernie racks up a lead in that state on Super Tuesday that quite frankly is just uncatchable,” said Bloomberg’s campaign manager Kevin Sheekey on MSNBC Thursday. “I think we may know a lot [about] this campaign very early. It may be that there is not very much of a campaign in March after that date.”

All that money wasted, and now Mike will have to spend it on Bernie!

To be sure, in a Democratic presidential nomination race with multiple candidates splitting up delegates in each state, many analysts conclude that the race could go all the way to the Democratic convention in July, but even if that happens, California’s vote share will largely set the table for the politicking in back hallways of the Milwaukee arena.

Ah, to be sure! I love it when "journali$ts" concede the truth of something that conflicts with another point they wished to advance.

In recent days, the California focus of the Sanders campaign — and its leading status there — has never been more evident.

While rival campaigns essentially camped out in Nevada last week, ahead of the state’s caucuses last Saturday, Sanders held three rallies in the Bay Area, the Central Valley, and Orange County.

At his rally last Monday in Richmond, in the Bay Area, 6,000 Sanders supporters filled a warehouse. With early voting already underway, since the day of the Iowa caucuses, the Sanders campaign asked supporters to drop off their ballots on the way into the event.

Johnny Huerta, 32, a barista from San Bruno, passed by the two black boxes on a folding table, but he had already voted by mail. 

Let's hope all those mail and early ballots are not somehow lost or misplaced, 'eh?

Near him at the rally was Coyote, whose tattoo portrays Sanders’ trademark glasses, but takes some artistic license, making his white hair rainbow.

“Helping the Bernie campaign is essentially my job now,” Coyote said...... 

I hope they are paying you.

--more--"

The link is from five days ago. 

It took that long to get it to print?

Related: Reject Big Pharma

Damn populists!

"Slovakia’s center-right populist opposition claimed victory Sunday in the country’s parliamentary election, ending the reign of the long-dominant but scandal-tainted leftist party in a move that analysts said showed a strong desire by voters to end corruption....."

People are the same the world over, 'eh?

"A right of center president took office in Uruguay on Sunday, promising to crack down on crime and tighten government finances after a 15-year string of left-leaning governments. Luis Lacalle Pou, a 46-year-old surfing enthusiast and son of a former president, narrowly won election in November in his second try for the office. Lacalle Pau inherits a country of nearly 3.4 million people that had grown steadily under the outgoing Broad Front government, but rising crime in recent years dented its popularity and economists have grown concerned about a rising fiscal deficit that reached 4.9% of gross domestic product last year....."

"For the first time since World War II, Charlottesville won’t honor the Founding Father’s birthday this spring. Instead, on Tuesday, the city will celebrate the demise of the institution with which Thomas Jefferson increasingly has become associated: slavery. The switch is the latest sign of a city struggling to come to grips with its past. The reckoning began with the legal fight over Charlottesville’s Confederate monuments, which inspired white supremacists to stage the deadly 2017 Unite the Right rally, but the debate has moved far beyond it — to the consternation of some longtime residents. ‘‘I have a problem expunging Thomas Jefferson from our history,’’ said Charles L. Weber Jr., a local attorney and one of a dozen plaintiffs in a lawsuit to keep the city’s Confederate statues. ‘‘Expunging him is not the right answer, just like taking the statues down is not the right answer.’’ Across the country, especially in the South, communities are arguing over how to tell more inclusive and accurate histories. In Charlottesville, parks have been renamed, then renamed again, streets have been re-christened, and stickers bearing white supremacist slogans go up as quickly as activists can remove them. The Confederate monuments that drew neo-Nazis to town remain. After a judge ruled last year that the statues should stand, protesters covered them in graffiti....."

It's all a moot point at this stage.

"A man shot and seriously wounded by a Chicago police officer in a downtown train station won’t face charges, as prosecutors on Sunday dropped the criminal case stemming from an incident captured on bystander video and shared widely. Cook County prosecutors moved to drop resisting arrest and criminal narcotics charges against Ariel Roman at the request of Chicago police, which was approved Sunday by a judge, according to the Chicago Tribune. Interim Police Superintendent Charlie Beck said he asked Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx to drop the charges, which were initiated by police, according to a statement. “Given the totality of circumstances and the department’s significant level of concern around this incident, it would be insensitive to advocate for these charges,” police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said. “While we will not rush to judgment, the level of concern over the tactics used in this incident is significant.” Mayor Lori Lightfoot said footage of Friday’s shooting was “extremely disturbing” and that she supported Beck’s rare request for prosecutors to be sent directly to the scene. The shooting came the same day that Lightfoot and the department announced a safety plan for the city’s rail system amid a spike in crime, including more officers on trains and at stations. The Civilian Office of Police Accountability was investigating the use of force, while the state’s attorney and FBI conducted the underlying criminal review. Guglielmi said the department was cooperating. Foxx’s office said they agreed with Chicago police’s request to drop the charges. Roman’s attorney, Gloria Schmidt Rodriguez, has said he underwent surgery after he was shot in the abdomen and buttocks, and that he will likely need more operations. He remained hospitalized Sunday but was no longer in critical condition."

Here is the line-up they brought in from Oklahoma, and please don't sue the city for needlessly shooting another citizen!

Look who is on thin ice:

Turkey, Syria fighting escalates

"Syrian troops have made significant advances against the last rebel held enclaves in the country’s northwest, state media said on Sunday, consolidating the government’s hold over the key Aleppo province. The Syrian government advance also appeared to put the provincial capital of Aleppo out of the firing range of opposition groups for the first time in years, another sign of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s growing control of the area. The fighting in the Aleppo region and nearby Idlib province has unleashed a humanitarian crisis. More than 800,000 civilians out of nearly 4 million living in the enclave have been displaced, living in open fields and temporary shelters for the most part in harsh winter conditions....."

There goes the pre$$ again, waving civilian refugees at me to get me to back some regime change policy against whichever enemy has been designated at the time.

Turkey vows to escalate military action

They are doing it to protect an extremist group that once had ties with Al Qaeda, and Erdogan has a choice to make. Does he want to be on the winning side encompassing Russia, Syria, and Iran, or does he want to be a collaborator with the EUSraeli Empire that has tried to overthrow him? How can he not see it?

{@@##$$%%^^&&}

NEXT DAY UPDATES:

Today's front page features:

First coronavirus case confirmed in N.H.; Mass. reports its second

Joe Biden gets endorsements from Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar as moderates rally behind him before Super Tuesday

(flip to below fold)

Jack Welch, who built General Electric into industrial powerhouse, dies at 84

He did it on the basis of cooked books; however, the story will melt your heart. 

As audit looms, Boston schools brace for more bad news

A brutal slaying at Timberland and a search for answers

{@@##$$%%^^&&}

Page A2 National lead:

"The Supreme Court agreed Monday to hear a third major challenge to the Affordable Care Act, setting up likely arguments this fall in a case that could wipe out President Obama’s signature domestic achievement. The court granted requests from Democratic state officials and House members who wanted to thrust the fate of the Affordable Care Act into the public eye just as Americans prepare to vote this November. Democrats, who consider health care a winning issue and worry about possible changes in the composition of the Supreme Court, had urged the justices to act quickly even though lower courts had not issued definitive rulings. They wanted to focus political attention on the health law’s most popular provisions — and to ensure that the case was decided while justices who had rejected earlier challenges to the law remain on the court......"

I am so, SO, tired of the Democrats politicizing every damn thing. I voted in their primary today; however, they are really turning me off as a party.

Related (after the full-page ad from Bloomberg on page A3 a Special Section titled Election 2020 Super Tuesday begins on page A6):

What’s next for Pete Buttigieg?

My initial reaction was who cares?

Mayor Pete Launches The Revenge of the Democrats

Otherwise known as Stop Sanders at all costs.

The Globe tells you how to watch the election results on Super Tuesday as Mass. voters finally have say in wild Democratic primary race. I voted for Sanders while Vicki Kennedy endorsed Joe Biden, and even as some candidates are dropping out Elizabeth Warren still sees a path forward as the woman who dares (she was anti-abortion, btw) to take on Mike Bloomberg.

"In a major escalation of a media war between Beijing and Washington, the Trump administration on Monday ordered four Chinese news outlets operating in the US to reduce the number of Chinese nationals working on their staffs by more than a third. The action comes on the heels of a State Department decision on Feb. 18 requiring five Chinese news organizations considered organs of the government to register as foreign missions and provide the names of employees. China responded by expelling three Beijing-based Wall Street Journal reporters, condemning as ‘‘racist’’ an essay that ran in the news outlet’s opinion section criticizing China’s response to the coronavirus outbreak. US officials said it was an effort to bring ‘‘reciprocity’’ to the US-China relationship and to encourage the ruling Chinese Communist Party to show a greater commitment to a free press. They noted that only 75 American reporters are known to be working in China. ‘‘As we have done in other areas of the US-China relationship, we seek to establish a long-overdue level playing field,’’ Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement. ‘‘It is our hope that this action will spur Beijing to adopt a more fair and reciprocal approach to US and other foreign press in China. We urge the Chinese government to immediately uphold its international commitments to respect freedom of expression, including for members of the press.’’ In announcing the move, senior administration officials cited the disappearance of citizen journalists chronicling the outbreak of the coronavirus in Wuhan....."

That sure is going to poison the environment between the two:

"An official at the Interior Department embarked on a campaign that has inserted misleading language about climate change — including debunked claims that increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is beneficial — into the agency’s scientific reports, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times. The misleading language appears in at least nine reports....." 

A debunked claim that plants sucking up carbon dioxide is beneficial?

I will give credit, though. If f there is one thing the New York Times knows about it is misleading language.

Back to page A2 (briefly):

Three killed, dozens injured in 100-car pileup on snowy highway in Wyoming

Climate change, yeah.

New US guidelines urge a hepatitis C check for most adults

I see that, in conjunction with the coronavirus, as an attempt to get us all tested and vaccinated for something, anything!

"The husband of the first black woman to lead the country’s largest local prosecutor’s office pointed a gun and said, “I will shoot you,” to Black Lives Matter members demonstrating outside the couple’s home before dawn Monday, prompting an apology from his wife on the eve of her primary election. In an emotional press conference, Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey said she and her husband, David, were awakened and frightened by the demonstration, which occurred before 6 a.m.. Black Lives Matter organizers spurned Lacey’s apology during a separate news conference. They said they were “traumatized.”

I don't blame them. Who wants an antifa mob outside your house at 6 am?

"A software engineer on trial in the largest leak of classified information in CIA history was “prepared to do anything” to betray the agency, federal prosecutors said Monday as a defense attorney argued the man had been scapegoated for a breach that exposed secret cyberweapons and spying techniques. A Manhattan jury heard conflicting portrayals of Joshua Schulte, a former CIA coder accused of sending the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks a large portion of the agency’s computer hacking arsenal — tools the agency had used to conduct espionage operations overseas. Schulte left a trail of evidence despite attempting to erase his digital fingerprints, Assistant US Attorney Matthew Laroche said in closing arguments. Schulte became disgruntled, he said, and took meticulous steps to plan and cover up the 2016 theft. “He was the only one who had the motive, the means, and the opportunity to steal the information,’’ Laroche said. ‘‘He was prepared to do anything to get back at the CIA.”

Whose fingerprints would those be?

"They had the weighty mission of creating the hacking tools used by the C.I.A. to spy on foreign governments and terrorists. If that job description conjures Hollywood images of serious officers in dark suits huddling over clandestine operations, a different picture emerged during a federal trial in Manhattan this month. The work culture described by C.I.A. officers on the witness stand more closely resembled comedies like “The Office” or “Silicon Valley” than spy thrillers like “Jack Ryan.” From their cubicles, the programmers sent prank emails, taunted colleagues about their physical appearance and shot each other with Nerf guns and rubber bands, according to trial testimony......"

Ah, the life of a coder!!

Must be why he was disgruntled, huh? Everybody goofing off!

Man gets 5 years’ prison for harassing Parkland victims

Related (page A6 Political Notebook):

Supreme Court leaves bump stock ban in place

The Globe's web version thought that Chris Matthews stunning viewers by abruptly quitting his show was more important.

Senate Republicans plan first subpoena in Burisma, Biden probe

The web Globe didn't want to slow Biden's momentum so they replaced that story with Trump yanking a nominee who questioned his Ukraine move.

Supreme Court appears divided on asylum case

US announces troop withdrawal in Afghanistan as respite from violence ends

Except the article is President Trump gloating about the stock market roaring back Monday.

At least the Navy is overhauling its education system as US advantages erode.

{@@##$$%%^^&&}

As for the rest of the World:

"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel held a significant lead in his third electoral showdown with former army chief Benny Gantz, and was on the cusp of an outright parliamentary majority, exit polls showed Monday night. If the official returns are borne out by the polls, Netanyahu, who faces trial in two weeks on felony corruption charges, could have the first chance to assemble a majority coalition and win a record fifth term in office. Israeli exit polls have been unreliable. Gantz accused Netanyahu of Mafioso-like tactics and of wanting to hold onto power at any cost. In one sordid chain of events, Gantz’s top strategist unburdened himself to a rabbi and, in the process, denigrated his client. The rabbi turned out to have been secretly recording their conversation. The tape wound up on the nightly news last week. The prime minister denied any hand in it, but yet another recording showed Netanyahu had been directly involved. The mudslinging and cutthroat machinations prompted President Reuven Rivlin to offer an apology to the Israeli public Monday morning. “I have a bad sense, even a sense of shame when facing you,” he said upon casting his ballot in Jerusalem. “We simply don’t deserve this,” he added. “We don’t deserve another terrible election campaign that declines to the point of filth.” Much was at stake for Israel’s relations with the Palestinians, particularly in light of the Trump administration’s green light to Israel to begin annexing West Bank territory. Netanyahu held off on annexing at the White House’s request, but he promised right-wing voters that he would proceed after the election. Gantz also embraced the Trump plan, which heavily favors Israeli interests above those of the Palestinians, but said he would not annex West Bank territory unilaterally......"

I guess our elections aren't the only ones rigged to the hilt. Heck, Netanyahu is the perfect face for that tribe just as the course and crass Trump represents the face of the ugly American.

For the record, I really don't care which blood-pouring-from-the-fangs Zioni$t is in charge of the land theft and murder of Palestinians at this point. All part of the same crowd and the intramural basketball is no longer exciting.

Child dies at sea as Greece cracks down on migrants from Turkey

Connected to Syria, no doubt, as the Jewi$h War Pre$$ waves dead children at us once more.

Putin’s new amendments revere God, ban same sex marriages

I'm told Crimea was annexed from Ukraine, a blatant lie that my pre$$ keeps repeating and repeating.

Hostages are freed from Manila mall

A signal to Duterte?

North Korea launches two unidentified projectiles

The New York Times tells me it a return to their provocative behavior as part of a military drill North Korea began Friday.

"Guyana voted for a new government on Monday in a bruising fight for control of a tiny South American country whose oil revenues in the next decade could make it one of the richest in the hemisphere. A consortium made up of ExxonMobil and Hess Oil of the United States and CNOOC of China began in late December to pump oil from offshore deposits that so far contain an estimated 8 billion barrels. Guyana in late February sent its own first shipment of 1 million barrels to Asia and the United States as part of a production-sharing agreement. The commercial finds have already brought all of the world’s majors, like Tullow of the United Kingdom, Repsol of Spain, and Total of France to the continent’s only English-speaking nation. All plan to drill wells this year. Members of the governing multiparty coalition led by 74-year-old retired army General David Granger and supported mainly by descendants of Africans brought to Guyana as slaves say they will be better stewards of the country’s newfound wealth....."

Climate change not much of a concern here, even as half of the world’s sandy beaches are at risk.

{@@##$$%%^^&&}

Just kicking off the debate as to whether Uber and Lyft could survive if the state levies higher fees on the rides they provide in lieu of lawmakers seeking lots of changes to the gas tax bill (going to seek a special excise tax on motorcycles.

Store shelves wiped clean of some products amid increasing coronavirus fears

There has been a sales surge in cleaning wipes and price gouging on hand sanitizer.

Related:

"Coronavirus: the contagion of propaganda

by Jon Rappoport
March 2, 2020

“The virus is coming, the virus is coming.”

As my readers know, I’ve been presenting evidence that this so-called viral epidemic is unproven. I’ve detailed the fraud from a number of angles (archive here).

Here I want to comment on the true contagion of propaganda.

The press is piling on, as it always does. A story, true or false—it doesn’t matter—describes how basic items are disappearing from store shelves in a town like there’s no tomorrow.

The STORY causes fear. So more products disappear from store shelves in more places. Now a NEW story with photos of empty shelves takes center stage. More fear. More panic buying. And so forth and so on. The build-out of propaganda.

The ladder, descending from the top, looks something like this:

--MORE--"

You have to love that last paragraph!

Related (from page D1 of the Business Section):

Hospitals readying for a surge in sickness

Coronavirus cases among health workers climb, underscoring the chaos on an outbreak’s front lines

Then avoid the hospitals and clinics.

Stocks surge as central banks vow to act to counter coronavirus damage

So far, virus fears aren’t hurting Boston’s convention business

Phew!

CEOs from two Massachusetts biotechs meet with Trump on coronavirus

The apprenticeship program comes with a new name.

EU to allow Italy to spend more to fight coronavirus

They don't want to talk about anything else.

{@@##$$%%^^&&}

So who is going to put out the fire?

Time to go fishing:

New Hampshire man reels in largest trout ever caught in New England, officials say

Climate change, radioactive water, or evolution?