"Saudis start to unleash oil wave despite US pressure" by Javier Blas and Brian Wingfield Bloomberg News, March 31, 2020
Saudi Arabia has made good on its pledge to ramp up oil exports in April, with a first wave of crude already on its way toward Europe and the United States, a clear sign the price war remains in full swing.
Why they would be shipping it at this time? What are we going to do with it? We are overflowing in oil. We can't go anywhere, so it must be for the war machine.
The kingdom has loaded several of the supertankers it hired earlier this month to boost its ability to increase exports, according to ship-tracking data. In addition, Riyadh has used the last few weeks to shuttle large amounts of crude into storage in Egypt, a stepping stone to the European market.
The movements suggest that Riyadh is ramping up its oil production toward its target of supplying a record 12.3 million barrels a day in April, up from about 9.7 million in February, despite American pressure to end the price war.
By flooding the market they hope they can put everyone else out of business, mostly US shale frackers, and they are also contributing to this global takeover using coronavirus as a cover.
Saudi Arabia earlier this month slashed its official selling prices and announced the output hike after Russia refused to join other nations inside the OPEC+ alliance to cut output. The announcement, interpreted in the market as an oil price war, sent Brent and West Texas Intermediate crudes tumbling. Since then, the collapse in oil demand due to lockdowns to stop the spread of the coronavirus has depressed prices even more.
In a sign that Riyadh is opening the valves, oil shipments have already surged in late March. For the first three weeks of March, Saudi Arabia was exporting at a rate of around 7 million barrels a day, but that jumped to more than 9 million barrels a day in the fourth week of the month.
With oil prices at the lowest in nearly two decades, Secretary of State Michael Pompeo last week directly asked the kingdom to “rise to the occasion and reassure” the energy market, diplomatic language for ending the oil price war.
President Trump and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, agreed in a phone call Monday that “current oil prices aren’t in the interests of our countries,” according to a Kremlin spokesman, though he declined to say what might be done to change the situation.
I didn't see any Democrats raise a stink, and Put-on won't be coming to the rescue. He has thrown in with the rascals.
Trump earlier indicated that he was concerned about the impact of low oil prices on the American petroleum industry. In an interview on “Fox & Friends,” he said Russia and Saudi Arabia “both went crazy” and started an oil price war.
Despite the diplomatic pressure, Saudi Arabia is preparing to export more in the next few days. At least 16 very large crude carriers, collectively able to carry about 32 million barrels, are stationed near the Saudi oil terminals of Ras Tanura and Yanbu, according to shipping data tracked by Bloomberg.
Terror attack like with the USS Cole?
Also see: The USS Liberty Cover-Up
Seems like a PATTERN, doesn't it?
Why advertising this for Chrissakes?
They get to port and a hijacked plane crashes into them?
No more air travel except for the elite, right, and it's Hunger Games for the rest of us.
Riyadh has already loaded three supertankers that are likely to head to the US, and it’s loading a fourth right now, according to oil market intelligence firm Vortexa Inc. The tankers, all hired by the Saudi national tanker company in the past few weeks to boost its shipping capacity, include the Dalian, the Agios Sostis I, the Maran Canopus, and the Hong Kong Spirit.
I have not a clue who they are, but why would they leak this?
Already through March, Saudi Arabia has exported about 1.3 million barrels a day into Egypt — the highest level in at least three years — to pre-position crude for re-export into Europe, according to shipping tracking data compiled by Bloomberg and people familiar with the operation.
COVID-19 going to just up and vanish?
The surge in shipments to Egypt was so large that the African nation may become the largest destination for Saudi crude in March, displacing China and Japan, which traditionally top the ranking.....
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I flip the page from C8 to C9and I'm sure everything will be fine come fall. Football will have started and the Bo$ton $peakers $eries will have begun:
That was a jarring FULL PAGE AD, and how about that wonderful fella with the nice smile on the far left there? He's speaking in October during the second wave of this sh.... sigh.
How appropriate is it that the Globe Bu$ine$$ section is buried in the $ports $ection?
NFL going full steam ahead with plans for 2020 season starting on time
I'm told league executives expressed confidence the NFL will play a full season, so much so that they voted to expand the playoffs to 14 teams this coming $ea$on -- if there even is a season -- and there will be more Passing than ever.
Former Davis Cup captain Patrick McEnroe tests positive for coronavirus
But he feels fine so don't worry (exit, stage right).
Oh, right, back to bu$ine$$:
Construction unions urge a statewide halt to building projects
Boston Medical Center furloughs 10 percent of its workforce as part of cutbacks across the health care industry
WTF?
They aren't getting any of the $6 TRILLION or whatever the 'eff it is now?
What the hell is really going on?
Aren't they being overrun?
"Social distancing has forced an exodus from traditional offices, which means people around Massachusetts and beyond have been finding ways to be productive at home ― occupying spaces and encountering problems they might have never considered before COVID-19. The Boston Globe is looking for stories and images that show how our readers are making work-from-home work for them. Whether it’s a laptop and phone on your basement workbench or a card table in the backyard shed, we want to see what you’ve done. We may include your story in a special “at home” version of our regular Work Space column. You can e-mail business reporter Andy Rosen at....."
I never put up emails or telephone numbers. I don't doxx people and never will, and the Globe is basically advertising for crisis actors to supply propaganda.
"Dow caps worst-ever first quarter with a more than 400-point slide" by Jacob Bogage Washington Post, March 31, 2020
WASHINGTON — Wall Street concluded one of its worst-ever starts to a year on Tuesday with markets staggering under trillions in losses from an economy paralyzed by the coronavirus.
No, men and women made the decision to shut it all down.
The Dow Jones industrial average plunged more 400 points, or roughly 1.9 percent, for the worst first-quarter finish of its 135-year history. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index also neared historic lows.
The virus has killed thousands across the globe, including in the United States. The national lockdown imposed to contain the virus has sent the American economy into a self-induced seizure and stocks into a steep decline.
The end of a historic bull run came swiftly to investors riding high from a 30-percent stock gain in 2019. The Dow was within a wisp of the 30,000 threshold just weeks ago.
Many thought that the bull market was on shaky ground from trillion-dollar federal deficits, wild stock valuations, and years of ultralow interest rates. “We were at significant risk to any catalyst given the froth that was in the market,’’ said Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab. ‘‘We were at risk for at least a pullback with even a mild catalyst because sentiment was at an extreme. What we got was the ultimate negative catalyst.’’
First I've seen of such talk in the Globe's bu$ine$$ pages.
WTF?!!
Now we get this distorted revisionism passing itself off as news and the virus being blamed!?
Analyst warned earlier in the week that volatility could dominate the final days of the first quarter and first weeks of the second, and with wild swings on Tuesday, the markets proved those predictions correct, a marker of how confounded investors appear as the covid-19 economic crisis takes a fuller form.
Traders earlier Tuesday were buoyed in the short term by better-than-expected readings on a wounded economy. Then harsh realities set in. Oil, which seemed poised for a day in the green, surrendered its 7-percent bump amid realizations that, while it could have been worse, consumer confidence and demand are still lifeless.
Economists predicted the number of jobless claims nationwide could rise from a record 3.3 million when new figures are published Friday. Some projections forecast that by mid-April 40 million Americans could be out of work, which could leave many struggling to make rent and mortgage payments.
Macy’s on Monday announced it will furlough most of its 125,000 workers after sales flatlined, while Kohl’s, Gap, and Sysco Corp. confirmed tens of thousands of furloughs and layoffs. On Tuesday, Simon Property Group, the nation’s largest mall owner, furloughed 30 percent of its workforce.
That's a huge hit.
‘‘The consumer confidence index is likely to continue to fall as the hit to the economy is going to be even harder than it was in the Great Recession over a decade ago,’’ Chris Rupkey, managing director and chief financial economist for MUFG. ‘‘We are starting to lose confidence ourselves that the economy can be restarted as easily as government officials are saying as the expected length of the coronavirus shutdown grows ever longer.”
That's what Bill Gates wants (shudder).
‘‘Near-term volatility was lower in recent days, but longer-dated volatility has remained relatively stable,’’ said Lauren Goodwin, an economist and multi-asset portfolio strategist at New York Life Investments. ‘‘To us, this means [Monday’s] equity rally is a part of short-term optimism, not the end of market volatility. Investors are buying into the market, but they are more cautious with respect to longer-term opportunities.’’
Overseas markets gained after better-than-expected news on output from Chinese manufacturers. The German DAX was up one-third of a percent and London’s FTSE grew three-quarters of a percent. The HSI out of Hong Kong grabbed 428 points, or nearly 2 percent, and Japan’s Nikkei lost 0.9 percent. Indian investors finally saw some relief; the BSE Sensex in Mumbai grew more than 1,000 points, or 3.6 percent.....
I'm feeling better already!
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UPDATE: Dow tumbles Wednesday amid worsening coronavirus figures
I can't keep watching that thing go up and down like a ping-pong ball, and it ended down another 1,000 points.
Also see:
"Three major health insurers based in the state, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts and Tufts Health Plan, have begun waiving all patient-related payments for treatment of the coronavirus, joining several national health insurers that have announced similar breaks for policyholders. The moves expand upon a directive from the state Division of Insurance earlier in March that insurers waive copays for any treatment related to COVID-19......"
"Danaher Corp. has completed the $21.4 billion acquisition of General Electric’s Healthcare Life Sciences division, a unit that employs about 850 people in Massachusetts. Under Danaher’s ownership, the business will be called Cytiva, loosely based on the Greek word for “cell.” Cytiva is already ramping up hiring locally, with plans to add 40 to 50 jobs at its operations in Westborough and Marlborough, according to Cytiva president Emmanuel Ligner. In Massachusetts, Cytiva makes bioreactors, filtration devices, and other equipment for the biotech industry and has research and administrative operations here. The entire Cytiva business reported $3.3 billion in revenue last year, and about 7,000 employees. Ligner said he expects the company to continue on its growth trajectory, in terms of revenue and workforce. He said he’s proud of his company’s role in fighting the coronavirus pandemic, by supplying companies that are working on vaccines and tests. While Ligner is based in the United Kingdom, the Massachusetts operation is considered one of Cytiva’s main business hubs."
"The coronavirus pandemic is sparking enormous changes in e-commerce over a very short period of time, according to a study from Adobe Analytics. Average daily online sales for groceries, for example, doubled by the middle of March compared with the start of the month, the study shows. Overall, e-commerce is up 25 percent over the same period, which compares March 13 to 15 with the first 11 days of the month. Using a longer view, grocery spending now represents 8 percent of overall e-commerce, up from 6 percent three years ago, Adobe Analytics said. The buy-online-pickup-in-store option, known as BOPIS, saw a 62 percent surge in the Feb. 24 to March 21 period compared with a year earlier, according to Adobe Analytics."
Soon they will deliver everything you need and pick up anything going out.
"German companies filed almost half a million applications for financial aid under a government support program in March, when factories and other businesses were forced to shut because of the coronavirus outbreak, the Federal Labor Agency said. The pandemic sparked thousands of furloughs in Europe’s largest economy, a development echoed across the continent. Figures published Tuesday showed 470,000 companies sought kurzarbeit, a form of state wage support, this month."
No wonder they started surveilling the right wing before all this.
"The Federal Reserve is intervening once again to try to smooth out the world’s lending markets, this time by lending dollars to other central banks in exchange for Treasurys. The Fed’s move Tuesday marks its latest aggressive effort to keep borrowing rates down and ensure that financial markets can continue to function in the face of the coronavirus outbreak. The virus has caused a near-shutdown of economic activity in the United States and abroad and made it harder for some banks and companies to borrow. The Fed is trying to facilitate lending and boost confidence that it’s ready to do everything it can to support the global financial system. The new lending program will allow other central banks to access dollars without having to sell Treasury securities. Excessive selling of Treasurys typically causes their interest rates, or yields, to rise, and that makes borrowing more expensive. The Fed is trying to prevent this."
No, evil leaders and their political puppets did that. The virus is not responsible for how we have reacted to it, if it exists at all and isn't just seasonal flu gussied up to look like corona.
"Over the course of more than three decades, Dubai has morphed from distant desert outpost into business metropolis, relying on state-owned airline Emirates to funnel many millions of travelers through the bustling hub each year. Now that the coronavirus has forced the carrier to suspend operations, the government is quickly swooping in to protect its most important growth engine. Dubai’s deputy ruler, Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum, said on Tuesday that the state will grant unspecified financial aid to Emirates, and that the government is committed to providing the full support by injecting fresh capital. It’s among the first state-sponsored bailouts of a carrier due to the coronavirus, which has upended the industry on an unprecedented scale."
The next thing you know, they will be blaming coronavirus for smelly elevators and post-nasal drip.
"Hong Kong’s shops and businesses buckled under the full force of the coronavirus outbreak in February as retail sales plummeted by the most on record amid growing travel restrictions and social-distancing measures. Retail sales by value fell 44 percent in the month, the largest drop on record, to $2.93 billion, according to a government release."
They are ready to "revenge shop" now.
"Cruise line operator Carnival Corp. is turning to all corners of the capital markets to raise $6 billion of cash after the COVID-19 pandemic halted travel, bringing its business to a near standstill. The company is tapping bond investors on both sides of the Atlantic with a $3 billion sale of secured notes in dollars and euros, according to people with knowledge of the matter who asked not to be identified because the details are private. The new notes will be secured by a first-priority claim on the company’s assets and mature in three years, the people said. Carnival said it also plans to raise $1.25 billion by issuing common shares and another $1.75 billion through the sale of convertible notes to improve its liquidity position."
Those things are breeding grounds for contagion, and watch out for icebergs, 'er, for the Saudi oil tankers.
"British Airways suspended operations at its second London hub at Gatwick airport as the airline industry enters deep hibernation to weather the impact of the coronavirus. With just over a week to go until the Easter holidays, the carrier is contacting customers with the news that flights are off, a spokesperson said by email. Gatwick largely serves British Airways’ leisure travelers, and some flights are still operating from its larger Heathrow hub. The Gatwick halt mirrors moves by rivals to preserve cash. EasyJet Plc announced Monday that it had parked all its planes, while Irish low-cost carrier Ryanair last week announced plans to ground over 90 percent of its fleet in coming weeks. In France, Orly airport outside the capital was to shut down by the end of Tuesday, with all remaining flights transferred to Paris-Charles de Gaulle, where five terminals have been closed and three remain in operation."
I will touch down in France later in this post.
"Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte is preparing an unprecedented emergency handout for workers trapped in Italy’s underground economy, as his government seeks to stave off the risk of social unrest during a nationwide lockdown. Conte is expected to host a cabinet meeting this week to approve a request to parliament for a wider budget deficit, paving the way for a second stimulus package worth at least 30 billion euros ($33 billion), according to officials. Italy’s initial package was worth 25 billion euros. The government is assessing emergency relief for the country’s hardest-hit workers which may be worth 600 euros a month, valid for the duration of the lockdown period, the officials said."
Time for vespers:
"Consider Vesper MEMS, a Boston startup that makes microphones for smartphones and other consumer electronics products. It started to prepare for the coronavirus in late January, says CEO Matthew Crowley. Now, the company is seeing its customers and suppliers in Asia return to work; Vesper’s sales activity in that region is “back to normal levels,” Crowley explains. That’s encouraging for other parts of the world, he says, “because it shows a potential path back to business normalcy.”
The "normal" innovation is the end of world as we know it.
Thousands of businesses flood Baker administration with inquiries over ‘essential’ list
Did you make the list?
Is your business "e$$ential," or has your luck run out?
Shutdowns and stay-at-home orders may be slowing spread of coronavirus, new data show
The dramatic social distancing measures in Massachusetts and beyond have shown the first potential hints of slowing the advance of the novel coronavirus, evidence that public health officials said underscores the importance of keeping people home to blunt the impact of an increasingly deadly pandemic, but “we’re talking about the slowing down of an uphill trend, but the uphill trend is still continuing.”
I'm about to go on a self-imposed lockdown to build up defenses.
Holyoke death toll rises to 13, as mayor accuses suspended Soldiers’ Home director of concealing deaths
Looks like a contrived scandal to distract from the drill. Some of the old and sick soldiers were probably going to die anyway.
Btw, remember the Obama VA scandal where there were layers and layers of six-figure administrators who spent more time making up phony appointment lists while neglecting veterans' care? Or did you memory hole that?
He served his country on dangerous ground for 40 years. The Holyoke coronavirus outbreak took his life.
It's his FEMA photo, and I'm told "Ted Monette, an Army colonel and FEMA official, was one of at least five at the Soldier’s Home to succumb from complications of COVID-19. As a colonel in the Army, he served in both Vietnam and the Gulf War. As an officer for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, he oversaw operations at Ground Zero following 9/11 and later aided in the grisly aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. It was a coronavirus infection at a nursing home for veterans, however, that eventually took his life."
I'm wondering if he was rubbed out or simply had cancer from overseeing operations at the toxic site.
Whatever the cause, he was possibly a person who could blow some whistles with a deathbed confessions.
Community hospitals in Massachusetts particularly hard hit in coronavirus pandemic
All the facilities they refer to are from the eastern part of state, and it has been quiet around here like in so many others places!!!
Newly minted doctors march toward front lines to battle virus
Sorry, I never read Farragher and who chose the headline?
The cannon fodder are being minted like the trillions coming off the Fed printing pre$$es, huh?
In$ulting.
"A Cambridge biotech founded by researchers from MIT and Harvard University has developed a diagnostic test for COVID-19 that resembles an over-the-counter pregnancy test and delivers results in about 15 minutes. If the product made by E25Bio is reliable, it could make testing simple and faster, and ease the shortage of tests that public health officials say has accelerated the spread of disease in the United States....."
Did it turn pink?
"The White House projects that between 100,000 to 240,000 people in the United States will die from the coronavirus pandemic if social distancing measures continue to be followed. The projections were presented during a White House briefing Tuesday. They suggest that, if no social distancing measures had been put in place across the country, between 1.5 million to 2.2 million people would have died. Dr. Anthony Fauci, who is helping to lead the effort, said of the lower projection, ‘‘As sobering a number as that is, we should be prepared for it.”
Those numbers they are citing have been revised down drastically!
The evil liars in leadership and government are going all-in on a busted flush!
NYC reports 1st coronavirus death of a person under 18
That'll grab you, huh?
White House reconsiders guidelines on masks
One concern, which Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, voiced in an interview with CNN, is that such a recommendation could cause even worse shortages of N95 and other medical masks for health care workers, who need them most.
He should place a call to Baruch Feldheim. I heard he has a warehouse full of stuff, and if that doesn't work, Madison Park Technical Vocational has some stuff or he can call Rob Gronkowski.
Cruise boat, hit by outbreak, stuck in Fla. political tussle
The Navy ship that just docked in NYC has been forgotten?
"The captain of an American aircraft carrier grappling with a coronavirus outbreak made an unusual appeal to the Navy to move thousands of sailors into quarantine on shore, illustrating the difficulty of containing the virus on crowded military vessels. In a March 30 letter first made public by the San Francisco Chronicle, Captain Brett Crozier, commanding officer of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, asked that 90 percent of the ship’s crew of more than 4,000 sailors be moved into isolation on Guam, where the ship has been located since a spate of coronavirus infections emerged on his ship. ‘‘Decisive action is required,’’ he wrote. ‘‘We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die.’’
We are at war, according to Trump and the pre$$, and the sailors must follow orders and not talk even if it is a drill! The US bioweapon hangout is starting to stink, as all governments are jumping on the bandwagon and using corona to bring forth drastic measures of domestic repression (except Sweden).
"President Trump said Tuesday that a $2 trillion infrastructure package should be part of Congress’s next response to the coronavirus pandemic, reviving a 2016 campaign pledge to ramp up construction projects despite public health guidance that Americans should stay home and isolated to the greatest extent possible. Citing extraordinarily low interest rates that have reduced the cost of federal borrowing, Trump said on Twitter that now ‘‘is the time’’ to push forward with an infrastructure package in response to the severe economic downturn caused by the coronavirus that causes the disease COVID-19. Numerous House Democrats have also discussed in recent weeks advancing infrastructure legislation as part of their response to the coronavirus pandemic......"
He's talking about ‘‘Phase 4’’ been a lot of that lately!
Border wall work in Arizona speeds up
The fear is contagion from migrants with coronavirus.
Trump’s virus defense is often an attack, and the target is often a woman
Yeah, if they are a Democrat.
"Why Asia’s new coronavirus controls should worry the world" by Motoko Rich New York Times, March 31, 2020
In China, international flights have been cut back so severely that Chinese students abroad wonder when they will be able to get home. In Singapore, recently returned citizens must share their phones’ location data with authorities each day to prove they are sticking to government-ordered quarantines.
In Taiwan, a man who had traveled to Southeast Asia was fined $33,000 for sneaking out to a club when he was supposed to be on lockdown in his home. In Hong Kong, a 13-year-old girl, who was spotted out at a restaurant wearing a tracking bracelet to monitor those in quarantine, was followed, filmed, and subsequently shamed online.
That is happening here in America, too, and the tactic is distinctly American because what could be more effective than a little public shaming?
Across Asia, countries and cities that seemed to have brought the coronavirus epidemic under control are suddenly tightening their borders and imposing stricter containment measures, fearful about a wave of new infections imported from elsewhere.
Then it is NO LONGER a PANDEMIC!
The moves portend a worrisome sign for the United States, Europe, and the rest of the world still battling a surging outbreak: Any country’s success with containment could be tenuous, and the world could remain on a kind of indefinite lockdown.
Even when the number of new cases starts to fall, travel barriers and bans in many places may persist until a vaccine or treatment is found. The risk otherwise is that the infection could be reintroduced inside their borders, especially given the prevalence of asymptomatic people who might unknowingly carry the virus with them.
Make sure you look at your fellow human with suspicion and fear, yes.
Following a recent uptick in cases tied to international travelers, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan barred foreigners from entering altogether in recent days. Japan has barred visitors from most of Europe, and is considering denying entry to travelers from countries including the United States. South Korea imposed stricter controls, requiring incoming foreigners to quarantine in government facilities for 14 days upon arrival.
“Countries have really been struggling to implement their own domestic solutions, and domestic solutions are insufficient for a transnational global health problem,” said Kristi Govella, an assistant professor of Asian studies at the University of Hawaii, Manoa.
“Even countries that have been relatively successful in managing the pandemic are only as safe as the weakest links in the system,” she said, adding that in the absence of cooperation among countries, “closing borders is one of the ways that individual governments can control the situation.”
The virus, which emerged in Asia and spread to the West, is at risk of ricocheting back. Citizens who were worried about outbreaks in Europe and the United States rushed home after finding themselves in the new epicenters of the pandemic.
Now it's a pandemic again.
Almost immediately, countries and cities in Asia started seeing a rise in new cases, often detecting infected passengers at airports as they passed through health screenings. Hong Kong, which had been reporting new daily cases in the single digits, suddenly saw new cases spike as high as 65 in one day. In Japan, where infections have remained relatively controlled, cases started to rise last month in Tokyo as travelers returned from overseas.
To try to stem the influx of infections, governments clamped down on their borders.....
They did a complete 180 on that, and the goal is to KEEP YOU IN NOW!
You are not only under house arrest, American; you won't be going anywhere except the gulags. See you there.
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Related:
"UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned Tuesday that the world faces the most challenging crisis since World War II, confronting a pandemic threatening people in every country, one that will bring a recession “that probably has no parallel in the recent past.” There is also a risk that the combination of the disease and its economic impact will contribute to “enhanced instability, enhanced unrest, and enhanced conflict,” the UN chief said at the launch of a report on the socioeconomic impacts of COVID-19. Guterres called for a much stronger and more effective global response to the coronavirus pandemic and to the social and economic devastation that COVID-19 is causing. He said this will only be possible “if everybody comes together and if we forget political games and understand that it is humankind that is at stake.”
OMG!
"The shaky mobile phone video pans across the cavernous convention center that is being converted into three vast virus wards. The space goes on and on — six football fields long. It had been booked to host a wedding expo this week, before the ban on large gatherings. Instead, it will house as many as 4,000 beds and two morgues. ‘‘If you’re not taking it seriously, like I wasn’t, I think we really need to start, because they’re preparing for an absolute high death toll here,’’ said Alex Woodside, who was laying cables at the new, temporary ‘‘Nightingale Hospital’’ in east London’s ExCel Centre when he shot the video, which he posted on Facebook. British newspapers called the footage ‘‘chilling.’’ Just as foreboding, Britain’s National Health Service announced this week that, so great is the need for staff at the Nightingale, furloughed flight attendants from easyJet and Virgin Atlantic airlines will be sent in to assist doctors and nurses. The cabin crews will perform duties such as changing bedding."
Is that what they signed up for, to change bedpans and contaminated sheets?
Good Nightingale Nurse!
"Hundreds of stranded Americans left Nepal on a repatriation flight Tuesday, days after a complete lockdown was imposed in the Himalayan nation to help fight the coronavirus. A Qatar Airways flight arranged by the US government flew out 302 Americans from Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport to Washington, D.C. The elderly, families with children, and people with a medical condition were given priority on the flight. The US Embassy in Nepal estimates that 3,000 to 4,000 Americans are still in the country, but says that not all of them are seeking to leave....."
Whatever happened to that Canadian pedophile they busted?
"One by one, elderly residents of French nursing homes are going into forced isolation into their rooms. Their caregivers are walling themselves in as well. They are running out of body bags, but no one knows for sure how many people have become sick. Governments in Europe’s hardest-hit countries — Italy, Spain, and France — are not routinely testing for coronavirus among elderly residents who fall ill in nursing homes or even those who eventually die there, including those who suffered from symptoms of the disease. The three countries together make up around a third of the global pandemic’s confirmed cases, and the lack of testing leaves hundreds, potentially thousands, of victims of the disease uncounted as health authorities try to trace its path. The heavy dependency upon hospitals to count coronavirus fatalities poses particular problems for evaluating the disease’s spread among the oldest citizens. Hospitals are increasingly reluctant to admit elderly coronavirus patients judged to have little chance of successful treatment. Indications are they have paid a steep toll in anonymity."
The French are in on the fraud and fakery as well.
"Israeli police are cracking down on ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods around the country, which have emerged as coronavirus hot spots as residents continue to ignore stay-at-home orders and bans on gatherings meant to stem the epidemic. Authorities have carried out raids on synagogues and deployed helicopters, which hover over streets filled with black-clad religious students, after these crowded, insular communities recorded some of Israel’s highest rates of infection. As police have pushed into some of these neighborhoods, violence has broken out. Young ultra-Orthodox men threw rocks at police in Jerusalem’s Mea Shearim neighborhood Monday after officers broke up a gathering at a synagogue and cited residents for straying more than 100 meters from their homes. Thirty residents were fined up to $1,400 for violating health restrictions, and the army sent patrols into the neighborhood on Tuesday. Officials are now considering locking down on entire ultra-Orthodox areas."
Netanyahu's power grab knows no bounds!
We are all Kenyans now, and who ever thought the Jewi$h extremists would be in the life raft with the rest of us?
Welcome aboard!
What you realize at this point is all world governments are on board with the crashing of the world economy and the resulting one-world globalist government with the mark of the Beast in the form of a patch from Bill Gates.
Globe's turn to scold us:
Ramp up enforcement of social distancing
The Globe recanted on it -- or did they?
They are compiling that "some residents haven’t gotten the message. Towns and cities need a strategy for convincing holdouts to heed the orders while leaving the door open to fines and arrests if flagrant, repeated violations persist. As a first step, mayors and the governor should keep using their bully pulpits to emphasize — again and again — the importance of avoiding any gatherings, even among people with no coronavirus symptoms. If moral suasion doesn’t work, cities can also try some low-tech, albeit unpopular, deterrents, like removing the hoops on basketball courts so that they’re unusable. Mayor Marty Walsh said Sunday that the city had already started putting zip ties on hoops, but if that doesn’t work, taking down the rims would be a logical next step. Boston is also trying to put up more signage at parks to explain social distancing. Officers can also tell people to disperse. Closing parks and beaches, as Florida did after much foot-dragging, should be a last resort, since that also deprives people who are following the rules of a place to walk or jog, but it could become necessary as the weather warms. Time is of the essence in fighting the pandemic’s spread, and fines shouldn’t be off the table. It’s an unfortunate reality of America’s fragmented public health system that mayors are stuck making decisions that national officials make in other countries. Whatever it takes to send the message that residents must obey bans on public gatherings, mayors need to be ready to do."
Look at that band of totalitarians!
YOU MUST OBEY!
I can $ee the fine for the money-grabbers; however, they are emptying the jails because of coronavirus.... so they can put us in?
Oh, and don't expect the lockdown to ease when the weather warms. They just confirmed it will not.
Excluding Taiwan from the WHO is a political and medical outrage
I'm sure China is to blame, right?
The futility of hate-watching Trump’s coronavirus briefings
She has got it wrong; it is funny and entertaining (about 14 minutes in).
Coronavirus crisis frames our election choice
Advantage: Democrats!
Even in this sullied spring, the urgency for life inspires and rewards us
Speaking of sullied things:
"Nursing home halts residents’ move after a positive COVID-19 test, families say; The development could jeopardize Baker’s plan to repurpose facilities" by Robert Weisman Globe Staff, March 31, 2020
The Central Massachusetts nursing home that was being converted into the state’s first COVID-19 recovery center has halted its hurried relocation of residents after one who was preparing to move tested positive for the novel coronavirus, according to the adult children of two residents.
Governor Charlie Baker said Monday that he hoped to open the recovery center at Beaumont Rehabilitation and Skilled Nursing Center in Worcester within days as part of an ambitious plan to repurpose a dozen nursing homes across the state to handle virus patients who were out of intensive care but still needed oxygen and physical therapy, but the sudden suspension of Beaumont’s push to transfer 147 residents over five days to other nearby facilities jeopardizes that timetable, and it throws into question the feasibility of relocating hundreds of long-term care residents ― the population at the highest risk for getting seriously ill or dying from the virus ― in the midst of the public health crisis.....
Not really repurposing, it's all part of the drill?
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Of course, home healthcare visits are fraught with fears of coronavirus as well.
City councilors, parents, educators blast state overhaul of Boston schools
Educators, families, and elected leaders from Boston pleaded with state education officials on Tuesday to freeze plans for overhauling the Boston Public School system, blasting the effort’s launch amid the coronavirus pandemic as inappropriate and insensitive.
Tried to slip it by you while you were under house arrest, huh?
At doctors’ offices, this is the year of the rescheduled appointment
That reminds me, I have a call to make.
When talking to your therapist from the bathroom is all you can do
Her articles literally stink like sh....
Preparing for a surge in cases, Mass. recruits retired doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists
Can't you hear the bugle call?
The chief nurse at the Brigham needs surgery, but it’s the time off that really hurts
Can't heal thyself?
Lawyers for Mass. man accused in horrific N.H. crash calls initial police assessment ‘deeply flawed’
Remember him?
"SJC hears arguments in suit to force DOC to release inmates to protect them from coronavirus; Several district attorneys are opposed, fearing the release of dangerous criminals" by Vernal Coleman and Andrea Estes Globe Staff April 01, 2020
Debate over efforts to head off a disastrous coronavirus outbreak inside Massachusetts prisons and jails intensified Tuesday, as several attorneys for and against the wide release of inmates presented arguments in a four-hour telephone hearing, the first in the history of the state’s supreme court.
With the rate of coronavirus infection rising, and most of the state relegated to working in isolation, justices and attorneys appeared via phone to debate a petition, filed last week, for inmates’ release.
The coalition, which includes the Committee for Public Counsel Services (CPCS), the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, and the Massachusetts Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, says that crowded and unsanitary conditions make COVID-19 “virtually impossible” to stop in prisons and county jails.
Lawyers for the coalition on Tuesday argued for releasing nonviolent pretrial offenders, along with older inmates and those who are vulnerable to the virus or nearing the end of their sentences. Prisoners who pose a danger to public safety would not be released, they said.
The petitioners aren’t asking for blanket releases, but a faster process for reviewing the cases of eligible pretrial detainees, said Rebecca Jacobstein, who argued on behalf of the CPCS. "We’re asking them to take a quicker look and to get people out faster,” she said.
Umm, where are they going?
Will they keep their social distance?
During the hearing, Justice Frank Gaziano questioned whether the request by the defense lawyers that all inmates 60 or older be released might mean that murderers like Edward Corliss would be free. Corliss was convicted in 2011 of gunning down a Jamaica Plain store clerk even after the clerk had given him $748 from the register. “Does that case illustrate the danger of a blanket release?”asked Gaziano, but advocates for the inmates said they would not support releasing potentially dangerous prisoners.
That's what we would all like to know.
To some observers, keeping people in cramped, possibly unsanitary conditions could amount to a death sentence. “These people were sentenced, but not sentenced to death,” a retired federal judge, Nancy Gertner, said in an interview. “This is a tragedy in the making.”
So far, the department’s efforts to prevent a wide outbreak of the virus have mostly worked. Only 17 of the estimated 8,000 inmates in state custody have turned up infected with the virus, all of them housed at the Massachusetts Treatment Center in Bridgewater. Five Department of Correction staff have tested positive.
WTF?
They want to empty the jails based on a 0.2125 percent infection rate? That's less than 1/4 of 1 percent!
This isn't about protecting us from a virus, this is about fostering and fomenting societal chaos so that a totalitarian state will be embraced!
Meanwhile, prosecutors in several counties have begun identifying prisoners awaiting trial who could be released. Advocates have asked prosecutors to consider releasing inmates being held on bails of $5,000 or less, are over age 60, or have preexisting medical conditions.....
Stay out of Norfolk and Middlesex County, and let us pray they don't head west.
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Also see:
Archdiocese of Boston accepts online donations through parish support campaign
Thousands sign online petition to allow only year-round residents and trucks over Cape Cod bridges amid coronavirus pandemic
The rich want you to stay out! Stay out!
I'm sure that is one reason among many that the Guard has been called up and activated.
Firefighters rescue man from Charles River near Museum of Science
Fire that destroyed barracks at former Weymouth Naval Air Station was arson, officials say
The hero is the one who started the fire?
"In 1945, American forces launched the amphibious invasion of Okinawa during World War II. (US forces succeeded in capturing the Japanese island on June 22.)"
We are still there against the wishes of the locals.
"In 1987, in his first speech on the AIDS epidemic, President Reagan told doctors in Philadelphia, ‘‘We’ve declared AIDS public health enemy no. 1.’’
That era's coronavirus, and probably manufactured in the same place.
"Michael Sorkin, a fiery champion of social justice and sustainability in architecture and urban planning who emerged as one of his profession’s most incisive public intellectuals over a career as a critic, author, teacher, and designer, died March 26 in Manhattan. He was 71. The cause was complications from COVID-19, said his wife, film theorist Joan Copjec....."
Every death is from COVID-19 now. That's how you goose the numbers.
Time to enter your ComfortZone:
A psychologist talks to Love Letters’ Meredith Goldstein about health anxiety, relationship stress, and “toxic positivity” during COVID-19
Sorry.
My one page Nation/World section, and the A2 Lead:
"US proposes transitional government for Venezuela, without Maduro or Guaidó" by Anthony Faiolaand Carol Morello Washington Post, March 31, 2020
The Trump administration said Tuesday that it would lift sanctions against Venezuela if both President Nicolás Maduro and his political nemesis, opposition leader Juan Guaidó, stepped aside and agreed to a transitional government guided by both the ruling socialists and opposition lawmakers.
Isn't that interfering in the affairs of another state?
The deal, announced as Venezuelans confront grave danger from the global coronavirus pandemic, is the first road map to relief from some of the harshest sanctions ever imposed by Washington. Described by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at a news conference in Washington, it amounts to a power-sharing arrangement that would guarantee Maduro’s socialists — if not Maduro himself — a seat at the table of a transitional government.
The U.S. government simply proves its inhumanity by not lifting sanctions entirely, and clues the reader into the fact that this virus is cover for so many agendas -- and advancing regime change in Venezuela is one of them.
US officials insisted Tuesday that they did not support any particular political party in Venezuela, but the move appeared to be an attempt to set up new elections in which the US-backed Guaidó could run. The Justice Department indicted Maduro and several members of his inner circle last week on narcoterrorism charges, and the administration announced a $15 million reward for information leading to Maduro’s capture or conviction.
Interfering in their election? Forced march for Maduro?
‘‘We want Guaidó to be able to run for president,’’ said Elliott Abrams, the US special representative to Venezuela. ‘‘And according to the polls I’ve seen, he is very likely to win.’’
Those would be the made-up polls based on the rigged voting machines, right?
Btw, do you know who is Elliott Abrams?
It's a tragic story.
Washington is facing calls from UN Secretary General António Guterres and others to ease economic sanctions in the midst of the pandemic. Maduro’s attempts to obtain an emergency loan from the International Monetary Fund to fight the coronavirus have been rejected based on his contested status as Venezuela’s head of state.
He's better off without the loans, for afterward comes brutal, cru$hing au$terity.
Maduro has not hinted at willingness to leave power, and the US offer seems unlikely to change that, as long as his inner circle and military backing hold.
The proposal was never meant as an olive branch to Maduro. It appeared instead to be a message aimed at his fellow socialists, as well as the military power structure, that they could defuse Venezuela’s long political crisis and hold on to some power if they turned against him. Doing so, US officials argued, would end the mix of a broken economy, political repression, and a mounting pandemic that has deepened Venezuela’s national malaise.
US officials make one want to puke.
Guaido’s US-backed opposition movement, meanwhile, is running out of steam. Even before Maduro instituted a coronavirus lockdown, the numbers of supporters turning out for Guaido’s street protests had fallen sharply.
Abrams said he would win the presidency according to the polls. WOW!
Similar terms were discussed by government and opposition negotiators during peace talks hosted by the Norwegians last year. US officials then appeared skeptical of such a deal, and analysts called a breakthrough now less likely than it was then.
I'm skeptical of any peace talk after almost 14 years of false reports. The US doesn't want peace. With anyone.
‘‘This is an important statement, but it comes about six months too late,’’ said Geoff Ramsey, Venezuela director at the Washington Office on Latin America.....
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Aaaaaaaaah!
That is the scariest thing I've seen yet!
A2 Co-Lead:
"Problems with FBI surveillance went beyond probe of Trump campaign, inspector general says" by Devlin Barrett and Ellen Nakashima Washington Post, March 31, 2020
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department inspector general revealed Tuesday that he found errors in every FBI application to a secret surveillance court his office examined as part of an ongoing review — suggesting the problems exposed in the bureau’s probe of President Trump’s 2016 campaign extend far beyond that case alone.
The memorandum issued by Inspector General Michael Horowitz stems from an audit launched last year after his office found 17 serious problems with the FBI’s surveillance applications targeting former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
Good thing coronavirus overshadowed this. Turns out the Obama administration did indeed spy on the opposing party's presidential candidate and campaign, but they lied -- or misrepresented, what's the difference? -- to do it.
The interim results of that audit suggest the problems that plagued the Page investigation may exist in other counterterrorism and counterintelligence cases. The memo may buttress some of the criticism that Trump and his supporters have leveled at the FBI, but the findings also suggest that, rather than political motives, the issues at the agency may be broader institutional weaknesses.....
Then his report is CRAP!
It's a limited hangout and cover up by the IG because that is his job. The $y$tem must remain intact so that we will believe in it; otherwise, we are all exiting our homes.
--more--"
Briefs:
"Senator Bernie Sanders acknowledged Monday night that he has an ‘‘admittedly narrow path’’ to overtake Joe Biden in the Democratic presidential race, but he insisted he could still become the party’s nominee. Sanders, a Vermont independent, who appeared on the ‘‘Late Night with Seth Meyers’’ show via Skype, has fallen behind Biden by 277 delegates in the suspended Democratic contest and would need to win more than 60 percent of those still up for grabs to catch the former vice president. ‘‘It is admittedly a narrow path, but I would tell you, Seth, that there are a lot of people who are supporting me,’’ Sanders said. ‘‘We have a strong grass-roots movement who believe that we have got to stay in, in order to continue the fight to make the world know that we need Medicare-for-all, that we need to raise the minimum wage to a living wage, that we need paid family and medical leave . . . that we must address climate change and education.’’
That's where the print ended, and Bernie didn't mention the coronavirus. He just repeated his standard stump speech, and somehow Biden has 1,094 delegates even after the pushed back primaries.
"Joe Biden is working the phones with top donors while cloistered in his Delaware home. His digital team is searching for the right tone to ask small contributors for cash during the sharpest economic downturn in their lifetimes, and his finance operation is plotting how to keep the checks coming in as the campaign itself readies for a 100 percent virtual and digital operation when catered parties for big contributors are on hold — indefinitely. Top Biden fund-raisers and donors, as well as campaign, super PAC, and Democratic Party officials, described urgent efforts to reimagine the ways they raise money during a pandemic and global economic slowdown, and in nearly two dozen interviews, they expressed deepening concern that the downturn could choke off the flow of small online donations as millions of people lose their jobs. The coronavirus shut down much of the American economy just as the former vice president took control of the Democratic presidential race, upending his plans to consolidate support among party donors who had previously supported other candidates and diminishing his ability to replenish his cash reserves to compete with President Trump’s well-funded reelection campaign. Trump and Biden face the same headwinds, but the president began March with an enormous financial advantage over the Democrats: a combined roughly $225 million in cash on hand between his reelection campaign, the Republican National Committee, and their shared committees. Biden and the Democratic National Committee had only $20 million, after accounting for debts....."
Funny how the virus and stay at home orders allow Joe to avoid the media so we don't see how mentally incapacitated he is. I'm sure that is why Bernie is holding out.
Beyond that, think of how out of touch is the above article. At this time of economic collapse and viral threat, the Biden campaign is worried about how they are going to keep the grift going.
HA-HA-HA-HA!
With everything going on, can you imagine it? You are sitting at home under lockdown and house arrest, your job is gone, the government check is still weeks away, and the ding in your email is the Joe Biden campaign asking for money! Are you kidding me!??
Related:
"Biden’s campaign has not said how much money he has raised since mid-March, when the virus began taking its toll on the country, but multiple fund-raisers said that giving was slowing and that they were reluctant to make aggressive requests for cash at this fragile moment. These should be some of the busiest and headiest days for Biden and his fund-raising team in normal times, now that he has knocked out all of his rivals but Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who trails by a nearly insurmountable 300 delegates, but instead he has found himself holed up in Wilmington, Del., and limited so far to three video fund-raisers from a makeshift studio installed in the retrofitted rec room of his house. “It is definitely harder to raise money now,” said Mathew Littman, a former Biden speechwriter in California who is organizing a video fund-raiser and recently started a separate super PAC to raise money to support Biden in Western states. “The fun aspect of the fund-raiser is taken out of it.”
That would be the catered affairs and elbow-rubbing with big corporate donors, right? That's the fun part.
“You have to be very sensitive to what’s going on with people’s lives,” Littman added. “This is definitely a much softer pitch than it was two weeks ago because the economy is going to be in either recession or a depression for a bit.” Some top fund-raisers said the notion of thumbing through call lists of friends to raise money for politics during an unprecedented economic and health crisis was tone deaf.
Ya' think?
Others are simply focused elsewhere right now. They are investors who have seen their portfolios hammered, business owners trying to triage their holdings and take care of their employees, philanthropists with links to cultural institutions at risk of collapse, or even health care systems bracing for the virus’s full impact. “You don’t fund-raise now,” Ed Rendell, a Democratic former governor of Pennsylvania and a Biden supporter, said in an interview a week ago. “I haven’t called anyone for money in the last 10 days and I don’t intend to. Not while people are confined to their homes. I just don’t think it’s appropriate. Plus, people are worried about money.”
Maybe they should nominate him instead. He's corrupt as sin, but at least he has his wits about him.
While the Trump campaign begins with a big financial advantage, a suite of Democratic super PACs are helping the Biden cause, with more than $275 million in announced ads already. Michèle Taylor, vice chair of a pro-Biden super PAC, Unite the Country, said the group was not proactively seeking out new donors right now given that “people don’t know what their economic future looks like,” but money is still flowing. “We’re still having donors coming to us, our fund-raising continues to go well because people understand the urgency,” she said of getting rid of Trump. “We don’t have to tell people we need a change of leadership.”
And yet they are worried about getting the small contributions from us?
How $hamele$$!
Terry McAuliffe, the former Virginia governor and Democratic National Committee chairman, began meeting with donors on behalf of Unite the Country before the coronavirus froze such activities earlier in March, but after the primary ends, McAuliffe is expected to join the Biden campaign in some capacity, according to Democrats familiar with the planning. The Biden campaign held one call in mid-March with an intimate group of some of the most prolific Democratic bundlers in the country, including Jonathan Gray, the president and chief operating officer of the private equity firm Blackstone; Jane Hartley, a former ambassador to France; Blair Effron, a founder of the investment firm Centerview Partners; Roger Altman, the founder of the investment firm Evercore; and Mark Gallogly, the founder of another investment company, Centerbridge Partners, according to people familiar with the call.
And they have the gall to ask the average American for cash.
Wow!
From his home, Biden has been making some calls personally, reaching out to those who initially supported other candidates while thanking early contributors and his most influential bundlers. “In politics, we usually go back to the people who did the most,” said John Morgan, a Florida donor who hosted an event for Biden last year and spoke recently with him. One person close to the Biden campaign said preliminary discussions were underway for how to plan for a situation in which in-person fund-raisers do not happen all the way through the general election in November, though that is not seen as the likeliest outcome. More and more of the campaign’s finance operation is going virtual. The Biden campaign also recently held a national finance committee call on which Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, Biden’s new campaign manager, was introduced. Money has been relatively scarce for Biden throughout the 2020 race. Entering March, he was only the sixth biggest spender in the Democratic field, after running a relatively threadbare campaign during the primaries.
And yet somehow, he rolled to victory!
All told, he has raised less than Trump had in the bank at the start of March. “The press kept saying, ‘Biden has no money,’ ” Biden said at the last debate, on March 15, “and they were right. Biden had no money,” but Biden struck it big with online donors after a South Carolina victory that propelled him down the path toward the nomination.
That's the narrative.
He said at the same debate that he had raised $33 million in the first 15 days of March — far more than in any previous full month. Then came the coronavirus, which has sapped overall online donations to Democrats on ActBlue, the party’s main portal for online giving. The site processed an average of $7.2 million per day of donations in the first half of March; that number has plunged to $3.7 million on average since March 16. Biden does continue to spend heavily on Facebook fund-raising ads — a sign that donors are still responding and giving, according to veteran digital operatives. Biden has invested more than $100,000 per day on Facebook since Super Tuesday, a level he had previously hit only in his first week as a candidate.
I guess all the worries about Facebook interference in the elations was nothing at all, and what could all that cash do in this trying times for Americans, huh? Fuck politics!
A number of top Biden contributors had hoped for a splashy in-person national finance committee meeting in April, seeing that as an opportunity to kick off the general election — but almost no one believes that such a gathering could occur in person now. “If there are people who are waiting to contribute in association with an event, they need to get past that and go online and make a contribution,” said Howard Wolfson, a top strategist for former mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York, who dropped out of the presidential race in March and has redirected $18 million to the DNC.
How did he do?
Multiple donors said they had been told that Greg Schultz, whom O’Malley Dillon replaced but who remains a top Biden campaign adviser, would be moved to the DNC, with a senior role coordinating between the party and the campaign, according to people familiar with the matter. The campaign, which declined to comment for this article, has said publicly only that Schultz would be focused on “organizational planning for the general election” and “external outreach.” Biden has not yet entered into a joint fund-raising agreement with the DNC, which would allow him and the party to solicit far larger checks — for hundreds of thousands of dollars — compared with the current $5,600 limit. The absence of such an accord is one of the more concrete effects of Sanders’s decision to stay in the race, hindering Biden’s and the party’s ability to close the fund-raising gap with Trump. Biden almost certainly cannot formally clinch the nomination until June unless the Vermont senator exits sooner.
No wonder so many fake left sites are calling for him to get out.
The DNC has said it would offer matching agreements in 2020 only to all “bona fide” candidates, after a backlash from the Sanders campaign to its 2016 agreement with Hillary Clinton. Biden’s campaign had actually started experimenting with videoconference fund-raisers months ago, after he was unable to attend an event in Baltimore because of a tractor-trailer accident. Biden held his first planned dial-in event in November and another in December. The benefits are significant: It takes far less time — often as little as 30 minutes. It does not involve any traditional hosting expenses, and there is zero time spent traveling from event to event. “If used properly, you can still create a bond,” Michael Kempner, a public relations executive and top Democratic fund-raiser who cohosted two of the recent Biden virtual fund-raisers. “You can still create deep personal interactions that feel as if you are in the room.”
Di$gu$ting.
As the campaign adjusts to the new reality, several pro-Democratic outside groups have been jockeying to serve as leading anti-Trump and pro-Biden entities in the coming months. On Monday, two of those groups, Unite the Country and American Bridge, announced a partnership. There have been intensifying discussions among strategists and donors over which Democratic super PAC should lead the charge into November. Priorities USA, which was the biggest pro-Clinton super PAC in 2016, has already set a $150 million ad budget before the Democratic National Convention this summer, and the group announced a $17 million digital ad reservation Friday in a show of financial force."
If only they could make peace:
EU launches new naval mission to police Libya arms embargo
The European Union announced Tuesday the launch of a new naval mission in the Mediterranean Sea aimed at enforcing the United Nations arms embargo on Libya, after Italy blocked a previous operation claiming that the warships attracted migrants to Europe’s shores. The new operation, dubbed Irini, the Greek word for “peace,” will start work for a year from Wednesday.
WTF?
They aren;'t busy enough fighting coronavirus?
Also see:
Taliban team arrives in Kabul to monitor prisoner release
They are holding peace hostage!
Up to 45,000 dead worldwide now, or so the simulation says.
