"An elderly Winthrop man is the state’s first coronavirus death, as hospitals absorb influx of more patients
The Globe is telling us that an 87-year-old veteran from Winthrop, had been hospitalized and had preexisting health conditions that put him at higher risk and had recently undergone radiation treatment for cancer, according to a relative in a Facebook post.
So they used him as the first casualty?
The "virus" killed him, huh?
Meredith Hurley, the town’s director of public health, said she didn’t know when the 87-year-old man fell ill or when he was tested for the virus. He was exposed to the virus through community spread, she said. “I think we’re all worried about community spread. Every community in Massachusetts right now is experiencing community spread,” Hurley said. Addressing the state’s first death, Baker said the news was “heartbreaking” but not unexpected. “I think we all knew it would come,” he said. Among the blizzard of statistics released about this virus, news of the state’s first fatality remains a powerful milestone.
Not to be to vulgar with the metaphor, but those lying sock puppets are slinging their usual schite.
Of course, what is even more vulgar is what was reported above.
For physicians and nurses on the front line, there’s worry over bringing coronavirus home
The report is by Dugan Arnett, and it's a far cry from his usual kitsch and insultingly elitist humor.
(flip below fold)
As coronavirus spreads, workers say employers are putting them at risk
They are shutting down the barber shops and hair salons, folks.
What will Americans do?
Younger adults more vulnerable to coronavirus than first thought
The Globe report quotes a Dr. Thomas Heyne, an internist and pediatrician at Massachusetts General Hospital, who echoed Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding’s warning that young people who appear and feel healthy can transmit the disease. “Even though many children or young adults might have mild or no symptoms, they can still be potent vectors for spreading the disease,” Heyne said. “To my fellow millennials and Generation Z-ers, please: Give us a break. The more you are out, the more you may be spreading a virus without realizing it,” he said. “That birthday party could inadvertently lead to more people dying, particularly if the number of sick overwhelms our health system, and we don’t have the beds, staff, breathing machines, or personal protective equipment to care for these people like we should.”
Why don't you give us a break, doc? The fear terminology in an effort to guilt trip the youth is what is making us sick.
Benji Bromberg, 20, a sophomore at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Ore., has changed his thinking about the risks for himself and others in his age group. Bromberg returned to his Brookline home Sunday and has stayed quarantined there, just to be safe. Cavalier or dismissive attitudes among the young in Europe, who continued to flock to bars and cafes as the virus spread, are seen as contributing to the contagion overseas.
Why am I not surprised considering the source?
Total mind f**k.
Spring break revelers watched a game of chicken fight on the beach on March 17 in Pompano Beach, Fla. (Julio Cortez/Associated Press)
All I can think of looking at that is Blessed Are the Children!
Amid coronavirus pandemic, neighbors delivering what government cannot
The Globe is out on a pod with designated “pod leaders” who collect phone numbers of their immediate neighbors, stitching together a hyper-local network that can quickly share news and urgent requests by text message, and collate lists of other free resources and institutions offering help. The idea is to create a one-stop resource that any overwhelmed resident can contact for immediate help, or at least a friendly pointer in the right direction. Already, mutual aid groups say they have helped Massachusetts residents direct thousands of dollars to their neighbors who have been laid off, with no bureaucracy. Other members have welcomed displaced college students into their homes as if they were family or started routinely running errands for elderly neighbors who may be more vulnerable to the virus and fear going out.
This IS reaching the level of obscenity, and not just because of the pre$$ fear porn!
Take the possibly infected but doesn't know it college kid in? Does that make sense or is that a mixed goddamn message?
Then they are talking about elderly shut-ins paranoid with fear. How sad. Golden years my a$$! I do hope they are just leaving the supplies on the stoop for now, at least before the jailed criminals start roaming about. I hope Granny has a gun.
The organizations can also satisfy intangible needs: comfort, community, stability, and hope. Rabbi Margie Klein-Ronkin, a Boston resident who said she may have COVID-19 and is self-quarantining, praised the effort of a Jamaica Plain-Roxbury aid group. Others spring from a longing for normalcy, like the elderly woman who lamented missing out on her traditional Saint Patrick’s Day dinner of corned beef. (A nearby family who happened to be cooking some corned beef was happy to leave a serving on her porch the next day. “It was such a Boston moment,” laughed Anna Kaplan, a 25-year-old volunteer who helps lead the Mutual Aid Medford and Somerville group).
Yeah, everyone is bending over backward for the sick Jews as they laugh in your face regarding what is looking more like an absolute fraud and fakery by the moment -- unless you choose to believe or sick, psychopathic leaders and their megaphone media.
If that offends, I'm sorry. I call 'em as I see 'em.
The counter-clockwise front-page swing leads you to this:
"Coronavirus response, which could reshape economy, scrambles familiar political lines" by Jess Bidgood, Liz Goodwin and Victoria McGrane Globe Staff, March 20, 2020
WASHINGTON — The coronavirus crisis that has upended American life has also turned its politics upside down.
How could it do that, really?
As they weigh a bailout package to boost the cratering economy, Republican senators like Tom Cotton and Mitt Romney are pushing the federal government to send direct cash grants to Americans. Republican Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell called for a massive bill —$1 trillion, and counting — that was bigger than the minimum $750 billion version requested by Senate Democrats like Chuck Schumer and Elizabeth Warren, and even President Trump has claimed to be opposed to corporations using tax cuts and bailout money to buy back their own stock and enrich their shareholders, a position long championed by Democrats like Warren.
The virus outbreak has opened a wide on-ramp that could deliver liberal policies like paid family leave and cash grants into the economy at an unexpected moment, one when the most progressive Democratic candidates seemed likely to fail to capture the party’s presidential nomination. The party as a whole has control over the House only, but this week, it was Republicans who were emerging as the loudest champions of populist economic initiatives and deficit spending while Democrats internally debated how much direct aid they should provide to Americans.
Except Graham already put the kibosh on that because, well, it's only money.
Don't the Globe reporters read their own reporting or paper?
“I’m always happy to hear from the converted,” Representative Richard Neal of Massachusetts said dryly. As the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, the Springfield Democrat is working with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on drafting the House’s version of the stimulus legislation.
Now I'm starting to feel nauseous.
Most Republicans fought tooth and nail against stimulus measures after the 2008 financial crisis, leaving President Barack Obama and Democrats to push through legislation on their own, but faced with this looming economic crisis under a Republican president, GOP senators appeared to more rapidly coalesce around a deficit-spending bonanza than House Democrats, whose leadership is still weighing its own proposal.
“I think they did not start out thinking as big as they needed to,” said one economist who consulted with House Democrats and did not want to be named, in order to speak frankly about private conversations. “Now they understand the magnitude.”
As more Republicans began floating the idea of sending checks to Americans — and several Democrats also drafted legislation to do so — Democratic leaders warned they did not want to sign onto any proposal that gave wealthy people more money.
Schumer, the Senate minority leader, said on Monday that “millionaires” shouldn’t be getting payments, and criticized the idea of sending Americans $1,000 checks as “small thinking” since that money would quickly run out for those in need.
Later in the week, Democrats began to regroup, criticizing McConnell’s latest proposal, which would give $1,200 checks to individuals making up to $75,000, for giving less to lowest-income Americans and favoring corporations. In a letter to Democrats on Friday night, Pelosi called McConnell’s proposal a “non starter” and said the response to the crisis had to increase unemployment assistanceand Medicaid, help small businesses, expand paid leave, and “put money directly into the hands of those who need it most.”
“I think there’s a chance here to do some fundamental restructuring of the American economy,” said Neal. “In moments like this, those who embrace intransigence or a rigid ideological position, they’re not likely to be players in that debate.”
What the hell does that mean, Dick?
What a $cum!
Representative Katie Porter, a California Democrat, said that Pelosi and Neal have not embraced direct cash assistance to families to the degree that she would like. Some of the tools they have embraced, including tax credits, will simply take too long, she said.
“Democrats in 2008 and 2009 in that bailout made the mistake of putting way too many conditions and way too many hurdles in front of American families who needed help to avoid foreclosure,” Porter said. “Big banks got their bailouts literally overnight. I am discouraged that some of my Democratic colleagues don’t seem to have learned lessons from that.”
She is one of the two Katies.
Some Senate Democrats also are pushing for more long-term action to stabilize the economy. Warren supports cash assistance, but she is calling for more permanent fixes, like widespread cancellation of student debt to be part of the stimulus package.
“I’m pushing Democrats to push for more,” she said. “A stimulus package that delivers permanent relief to the grass roots and not the treetops could reshape our economy.”
Warren disagreed sharply with McConnell’s plan to give less assistance to lower-income Americans, but even she expressed some surprise at the size of the Republican’s $1 trillion bailout package, which is bigger than the $750 billion stimulus she initially proposed.
“Based on the Republicans’ unwillingness to give President Obama an adequate stimulus package back in 2009, I assumed they would be resistant to going as high as $750 billion in this stimulus package,” she said. “Obviously with a Republican in the White House, Mitch McConnell has changed his tune.”
The size of a rescue package is not the only indication of how progressive it is, and some Democrats cautioned that the Republicans’ big proposal could still do more to help corporations than working families.
They mean progre$$ive, an offshoot of $ociali$t.
Barney Frank, the former chairman of the Financial Services Committee, said Democrats who backed the $700 billion bank bailout in 2008 got “burned” in the 2010 elections when many of them lost seats as Republicans gained control of the House. That history may make Democrats nervous to back another gigantic rescue package this time around.
“There’s a little hesitancy, but I think it’s being overcome,” Frank said.
That $cumbag who had his live-in lover running the gay prostitution ring servicing Congre$$ (when they weren't abusing pages, that is) and was handing out jobs to his many loves.
What makes them think there is even going to be an election come November?
The fierce blowback to the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the bank bailout legislation known as TARP, which passed under President George W. Bush, may also explain Republicans’ enthusiasm for a more populist framing of the fast-changing coronavirus bailout proposal.
“I think a lot of Republicans don’t want to repeat the PR mistakes of the 2008 bailouts, where it appeared they were just helping Wall Street and not Main Street Americans,” said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist.
All right, that's it.
First, the use the charged term fierce blowback -- sort of like the official 9/11 story, which leads me to my second point.
They bring up that piece of crap, blood-soaked, mass-murdering war criminal on whose "watch" it happened. That's enough to make one wretch.
Lastly, they $hove the thing in your face by "framing" it as populist because of the "PR mistakes" of that past. I gue$$ that means we be foolies again, duuuuuuh!
Progressive Democrats are calling for strict conditions on any aid received by big industries, and for the bulk of the aid to go to individuals.
The cite Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California and Bernie backer, to which I say too late, the DNC chose Joe.
Representative Joseph P. Kennedy III disagreed with the notion that Republicans had moved to the left of House Democrats on stimulus efforts.
Soon to be Senator Joe.
Jared Bernstein, a progressive economist who served as then-vice president Joe Biden’s top economic adviser from 2009 to 2011, pointed to a Goldman Sachs estimate that the economy could contract by an eye-popping 24 percent next quarter
“This is no time to jam the opposition,” he said. “Both sides are going to have to give.”
The bank$ters demand it, and the American taxpayer and citizen gives through the no$e either way.
--more--"
This next article was the turn-in companion to what was above:
"Coronavirus stimulus package spurs a lobbying gold rush" by Kenneth P. Vogel, Catie Edmondson and Jesse Drucker New York Times, March 20, 2020
Vomitous!
WASHINGTON — Restaurants say they need $325 billion in federal assistance. Boeing wants $60 billion. The travel industry has requested $250 billion, and manufacturers are seeking $1.4 trillion in loans to deal with the economic devastation being wrought by the coronavirus, and that’s to say nothing of the casinos, airlines, and franchise owners, all of whom have signaled that they, too, will need relief from the federal government to survive.
Even with that, they will not, and maybe Boeing shouldn't. I don't think mass-murerding companies that either ignored safety problems or withheld them from the pilots, and I really don't care. Cretins, all of 'em.
What we are looking at here, in $low motion, is a controlled demolition of the global economy and in e$$ence a collapse at free-fall speed -- the same as three steel and concrete skyscrapers that fell on September morning long ago.
I counted at least $2 TRILLION ABOVE, and that was to $ay nothing of..... !!
Then there are the industries and companies that do not immediately come to mind as front-line casualties but are still lobbying for their causes to be addressed as Congress prepares to allocate $1 trillion or more in response to the crisis.
At lea$t $omeone's coffers are being filled to the brim in these dark days, 'eh? I'm so relieved.
The prospect of a bailout of a scale without precedent has set off a rush to the fiscal trough, with businesses enduring undeniable dislocation jostling with more opportunistic interests to ensure they get a share.
Oh, God, one can almost $mell the corruption and looting that will take place. It's pungent even at this stage.
I also want to take this opportunity to apologize to all pigs, hogs, swine, etc, for the pre$$ comparison above. That is unfair to you, and I'm beginning to think Orwell -- as brilliant as he was -- had a problem with pork. Did he unfairly demonize them in his book Animal Farm? I know he was using metaphors, analogies, and symbolism for other events near that time, but c'mon! Pigs have way more honor than these guys. So they are hungry and want some slop garbage that would otherwise go to a landfill. Sooey!
Sportswear company Adidas is seeking support for a long-sought provision allowing people to use pretax money to pay for gym memberships and fitness equipment — despite the mandatory closure of fitness facilities in many jurisdictions during the outbreak.
Drone-makers are urging the Trump administration to grant waivers they have been seeking that would allow them to be used more widely — including to deliver medical supplies or food without risking human contact that could spread the virus.
Did you see that before it quickly moved away?
MORE DRONES flying through the sky and LESS PERSONAL INTERACTION, huh?
Jeff Bezos must be having an orga$m right about now.
Movers are requesting $187 million in assistance to make up for revenue lost as a result of a Defense Department order halting moves, while Airbnb is asking Congress to give tax breaks and access to small business loans to people who lost income from a decline in home rentals.
Seems like a PITTANCE considering the numbers they are throwing around above.
Then there are the pig farmers. They are citing the coronavirus in renewing their call for the federal government to expedite foreign worker visas, with an executive at the National Pork Producers Council noting in an e-mail: “many Americans have experienced empty meat cases in recent days, as we adapt to the surge in demand.”
You have GOT TO BE EFFIN' KIDDING?!!!
While the halls of the Capitol are eerily quiet, lobbyists are burning up the phone lines and flooding e-mail inboxes trying to capitalize on the stimulus bills moving quickly through Congress. President Trump has already signed into law a coronavirus relief package including funds to provide sick leave, unemployment benefits, free coronavirus testing, and food and medical aid to people affected by the pandemic.
I don't know; that LOOKS LIKE a BIG DEAL to me.
Negotiations over a new bill, which had been estimated to cost $1 trillion, kicked off in earnest Thursday night. Senate Republicans unveiled legislation that included $58 billion in loans and loan guarantees for passenger airlines and cargo carriers, $150 billion for unspecified “eligible businesses” and $300 billion for small-business loans as well as direct cash payments to many Americans. Democrats in the House and Senate will have their own proposals.
We are now over 3 TRILLION!
Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin hope to see the legislation pass the Senate on Monday. It could be the largest economic rescue bill in history.
It's not a bailout, it's an "economic re$cue bill" -- modeled on the pecking order of the Titanic!!
The pre$$ terminology is appalling, abysmal, and nauseating!
“The only industry that hasn’t been slowed down by the virus is the lobbying industry,” said Representative Ro Khanna, a California Democrat.
Gregory Walden, an official with the drone industry trade association, the Small UAV Coalition, did not entirely dismiss the idea that his group was being opportunistic.
“If you’re opportunistic in helping people, that’s the right kind of opportunism,” said Walden, a former chief counsel of the Federal Aviation Administration, but Sean Kennedy, an executive at the National Restaurant Association, said the flurry of lobbying in recent weeks has complicated the efforts of groups like his seeking Washington’s support to prop up struggling industries.
Yeah, okay.
I oppose all -i$ms, sorry. Such things require people to shut off their critical thinking abilities and follow leaders with blind faith. That never ends well. The fact that this $ickening cretin is pitching drones as helping people, tell that to the who-knows-how-many murdered in wars based on lies the last 20 years.
“The challenge for us is that there are people who are using this crisis as a way to revisit past legislative battles that have nothing to do with coronavirus or the people suffering from it,” Kennedy said.
He said more than 40 state governments have ordered restaurants to be closed or drastically limited in service, which could lead to the elimination of 5 million to 7 million jobs over the next three months. The $325 billion in assistance his group is seeking includes $145 billion to help cover operations and pay employees.
And down go those towers!!
WOW!
“Our goal is not to profit — our goal is simply to survive,” Kennedy said, dismissing the potential of an anti-bailout backlash.
Ever hear of being hoisted on ones petard?
There is a key distinction between most of the industries seeking help from Washington now and the banks that received bailouts during the 2008 financial crisis, said Tori Emerson Barnes, an executive at the US Travel Association.
“This is an unforeseeable natural disaster, national disaster,” she said. “We’re not talking about people that have been acting badly.”
Oh, there was no criminal behavior by the $cheming, $windling looters and bank$ters. They were just "acting badly."
--more--"
Nice to see that prices are dropping on shoes since we will all be living in them like that Old Woman in the nursery rhymes.
Related:
"A decision by the Treasury Department this week said individual taxpayers can defer up to $1 million of federal income tax, and companies can defer up to $10 million of tax payments for 90 days. For those expecting a refund, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin encouraged taxpayers to file by April 15 so that they can receive those funds....."
You ain't getting no $tinking check, Amurkn -- or haven't you been paying attention?
No refund, no ca$h payout, it's all your money, but you get nothing while lobbyi$ts loot and big bu$ine$$ gets bailed out at your expen$e -- and they are going to let the richer hold onto their loot at the same time!
Also see:
Trump angrily defends his handling of pandemic
This will make you angry:
"Burr says he has asked Senate Ethics Committee for review of his stock sales" by John Wagner and Michelle Ye Hee Lee Washington Post, March 20, 2020, 6:15 p.m.
WASHINGTON — Senator Richard Burr, a North Carolina Republican, said Friday that he has asked the Senate Ethics Committee to review his recent stock sales, which included some in industries that have been hardest hit by the coronavirus outbreak.
The Senate Intelligence Committee chairman, who had expressed confidence in the country’s preparedness for the pandemic, sold a significant share of his stocks last month, according to public disclosures.
It used to be called in$ider trading, and people other than politicians get sent to prison (remember the persecution of Martha Stewart? An uppity woman will not be tolerated, especially one with so much influence over the housewives of America. She was on a par with Oprah).
I know, I know, buck up, right?
Burr said he relied solely on public news reports for the sales but asked Senate Ethics chairman James Lankford, an Oklahoma Republican, for a review.
‘‘Understanding the assumption many could make in hindsight, however, I spoke this morning with the chairman of the Senate Ethics Committee and asked him to open a complete review of the matter with full transparency,’’ Burr said in a statement.
Yeah, he's coming clean.
I'm not going to stand in the way of the mob for him, are you?
The sales included stocks in hotels and restaurants, shipping, drug manufacturing, and health care, records show. In his statement, Burr said he had relied specifically on ‘‘CNBC’s daily health and science reporting out of its Asia bureaus.’’
Until about a week ago, President Trump and GOP leaders had projected optimism in the country’s ability to manage the global outbreak of the coronavirus.
The response among GOP Senate colleagues to reports Thursday of Burr’s stock sales were initially muted, but Senator Thom Tillis, Burr’s Republican colleague from the Tar Heel State, said in a tweet Friday that ‘‘given the circumstances, Senator Burr owes North Carolinians an explanation.’’
‘‘His self-referral to the Ethics Committee for their review is appropriate; there needs to be a professional and bipartisan inquiry into this matter, which the Ethics Committee can provide,’’ Tillis said.
Oh, I smell a COVER-UP!
Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, declined to respond to questions from reporters about the matter on Friday morning.
Beyond Capitol Hill, Burr’s actions have prompted widespread criticism, including from some conservative commentators, as well as calls for his resignation from Democrats in his home state, among others.
As head of the powerful Intelligence Committee, Burr reportedly was receiving daily briefings on the threat of the virus. In mid-February, he sold 33 stocks held by himself and his spouse, estimated at between $628,033 and $1.72 million, Senate financial disclosures show. It was the largest number of stocks he had sold in one day since at least 2016, records show.
Burr, who spent a decade in the House before his election to the Senate in 2004, has said his current term will be his last and that he will not seek reelection when his seat is up in 2022.
The rat is deserting a sinking ship, huh?
I would like to take the opportunity to apologize to rats, mice, and all the other sub-categories regarding the rodent world. Comparing these $cumbags to you is very unfair.
More than a decade ago, Burr drew scrutiny for another episode in which he appeared to seek to protect his own financial assets in response to hearing from government officials.
Oh, $o his corruption is a PATTERN, huh?
That was where my printed paper cut the story, and why were the other senators omitted?
In a 2009 speech, Burr recounted how he, after hearing then-treasury secretary Henry M. Paulson discuss a major company’s difficulty moving money between banks at the outset of the financial crisis, directed his wife to withdraw as much cash as possible from an ATM over multiple days.
The recent stock sales of several other lawmakers are now being scrutinized by media organizations in light of questions about whether they acted on information that was not broadly available at the time. Federal officials are barred by law from using the nonpublic information they learn in their positions for their private financial gain.
$ince when?
Insider trading prohibitions apply to all members of Congress, congressional staff, and other federal officials, under the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (Stock) Act of 2012. Burr was among three senators who voted against the legislation at the time.
Under the law, officials must publicly disclose stock sales within 45 days after the transaction. Though the reported date of the 33 transactions in Burr’s financial disclosure is Feb. 13, it is unclear whether all the stocks were sold on that date, and Burr’s office declined to clarify.
On Feb. 7, less than a week before the reported date of those sales, Burr played down the virus’s threat, co-writing a column with Senator Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican, that said although Americans are right to be worried, the United States was ‘‘better prepared than ever before to face emerging public health threats, like the coronavirus, in large part due to the work of the Senate Health Committee, Congress, and the Trump Administration.’’
Even three weeks later, GOP lawmakers and Trump continued to project confidence that the virus’s outbreak was being managed.
On Feb. 27, Trump publicly predicted that the coronavirus would one day disappear ‘‘like a miracle.’’
I wouldn't be surprised if it still did. The remaking of society and the world is being exposed. They very may well pull the plug on this effort soon and go back to waiting decades again.
Yet on the same day, Burr attended the private luncheon on Capitol Hill sponsored by North Carolina business leaders and warned attendees of some consequences of the coronavirus that have since materialized.
‘‘There’s one thing I can tell you about this: It is much more aggressive in its transmission than anything we have seen in recent history,’’ Burr said, according to a record obtained by NPR and aired Thursday. ‘‘It’s probably more akin to the 1918 pandemic.’’
He's an AmeriKan politician; therefore, he mu$t be lying.
--more--"
Burr the only mentioned and $capegoat for them all, right?
Meanwhile, "a POLITICO review of stock sales and purchases reported by members of Congress and senior aides found that while none had engaged in sales of the magnitude of Burr and Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.), several had traded shares at times or in industries that bore a relationship to the coronavirus threat. Previously unreported lawmakers who sold assets in the weeks leading up to the market crash include Rep. Susan Davis (D-Calif.), who unloaded thousands of dollars of stock in Alaska Air and Royal Caribbean cruises. A senior aide to Sen. Mitch McConnell made a mid-January purchase of Moderna, Inc., a biotechnology company that had four days earlier announced it would begin developing a coronavirus vaccine, and an aide to Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, who serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, sold off stock in companies including Delta Airlines in late January and later bought stock in Clorox, Inc., which makes bleach and sanitary wipes. Several senators, including Loeffler, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Sen. James Inhofe (R.-Okla.) and Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.), sold stock in late January and early February as the Senate was ramping up coronavirus briefings....."
Click on the link and read about the other members stand to make money off companies working to combat the disease.
"Spain passed a grim milestone Friday when it became the second European country to report more than 1,000 coronavirus deaths, a mark that Italy passed a week ago, with the country’s doctors warning that the health system may soon be overwhelmed, just as in Italy....."
They are taking "emergency economic measure that would have been unimaginable just weeks ago," as they inflate and conflate the death toll. They are throwing anything and everything, including the kitchen sink, into the figures. Die of natural causes? Coronavirus!
Italy surpasses 4,000 dead due to virus
Mamma mia!
Iran celebrates New Year amid rising death toll
HOW DARE THEY!
China apologizes for targeting doctor who died
At least someone is apologizing for something.
Across Africa, airlines cancel flights, worry rises
Africa’s busiest airport says foreigners can’t disembark.
Can you imagine being stuck on the tarmac in Africa?
Can’t get tested? Maybe you’re in the wrong country
It's New York Times slop, and being in the wrong country has nothing to do with the flawed tests.
‘None of us have a fear of corona’: the faithful at an outbreak’s center
More New York Times slop (thank God for pigs), God help us all.
NYC fire department hit with positive tests, quarantines
Meaning they won't respond and the arsonists they just let out of jail are going to have fun!
National Spelling Bee is postponed
That's the buzz anyway!
Indiana pushing back state primary vote to June
Just in time to cancel them.
Better get used to Trump being around.
"Another virus victim: the US as a global leader in a time of crisis" by Steven Erlanger New York Times, March 20, 2020
More NYT slop.
BRUSSELS — In the name of “America First,” President Trump has pulled out of the Paris climate agreement and questioned the usefulness of the United Nations and NATO, displaying his distaste for the multinational institutions the United States had constructed and led since World War II.
As the coronavirus crisis escalates across the globe, the United States is stepping back further, abandoning its longtime role as a generous global leader able to coordinate an ambitious, multinational response to a worldwide emergency.
Well, let it never be said that the New York Times didn't provide a laugh or two. A generous global leader who slams sanctions upon you, and if that isn't enough, you get the iron hand of the military. A generous global leader that lies about wars. A generous global leader that is responsible for so much misery around the Globe it is incalculable.
Go ask the Iranians, the Cubans, the Venezuelans, the Vietnamese, the Iraqis, the Afghanis, the Haitians, the.... you get the point.
During both the economic meltdown in 2008 and the Ebola crisis of 2014, the United States assumed the role of global coordinator of responses — sometimes imperfectly, but with the acceptance and gratitude of its allies and even its foes.
I'm starting to feel really sick!
In 2003, president George W. Bush established a program, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, that has provided as much as $90 billion and is considered the largest single effort against a single disease. It is credited with saving many thousands of lives in Africa alone, but the United States is not taking those kinds of steps today.
They are talking about PEPFAR, and you really need to see an amazing video by an amazing woman!!!
Yeah, that blood-soaked, lying, mass-murdering war criminal saved lives. Tell me another one!
“There is from President Trump’s America a selfishness that is new,” said Jan Techau, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund in Berlin. While all nations act to protect themselves, he said, the United States traditionally saw that responsibility as having a broader reach.
WhyTF is there still a German Marshall Fund?
That war has been over for 75 years now, and it should now be the American Marshal Fund.
With Trump’s unembellished nationalism and slogan of “America First,” his efforts to blame first China and then Europe for the coronavirus, and his various misstatements of fact, “it means that America no longer serves the planet,” Techau said.
“America was always strong on self-interest, but it has been very generous,” he said. “That generosity seems to be gone, and that’s bad news for the world.”
I don't really care about Chump anymore, and we have given the world chump change when compared to bloated military budgets and bombs dropped.
This $elf-adulating, $elf-aggrandizing, $elf-$erving bull$hit is sickening!!
The pandemic is hardly at its peak, so judgments should be tempered, said Claudia Major, an analyst of international security at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin, “but this crisis is confirmation of a structural change in US political leadership,” she said.
“There is no US global leadership and no US model,” Major added. “Success would be that you manage the pandemic at home, rally allies around you, lead the alliance, supply global public goods, and organize the global response, as with Ebola.”
Instead, US institutions “don’t seem to be able to cope at home,” she said, and there is “a Trump response to act alone.”
Then we are all in great peril.
The United States did provide some early aid to China, but in general, the administration has left even close allies to fend for themselves. Trump has defended his ban on all travel from the European Union, but he did not bother to consult with European leaders or even give them advance notice.
Why not?
We are the ones who loosed it on them -- if it even exists.
The United States has the leadership of the Group of 7 industrialized countries this year, but it was the energetic French president, Emmanuel Macron, who called Trump twice in 10 days to suggest a G-7 virus summit by videoconference. Trump agreed but left Macron to organize it.
Germans and Europeans generally are angry about accusations from German officials that the Trump administration, and reportedly Trump himself, offered $1 billion to a German pharmaceutical company, Cure-Vac, to buy monopoly rights to a potential COVID-19 vaccine.
The White House denies the accusations, and the company has denied receiving a takeover offer, but its lead investor made clear there was some kind of approach.
Whatever the reality, “the point is that people think Trump is capable of that,” Major said. “That’s where we’ve arrived in the trans-Atlantic relationship, that people say, ‘Yes, that sounds right for the American president.’ ”
Yeah, WHATEVER THE REALITY!!
GOOD GOD!!
Peter Westmacott, a former British ambassador to Washington, said, “Most of us see the crisis in terms of what it means for our families, our livelihoods, and the future of our own country, “but obviously we are also looking at how others are dealing with the situation,” he continued. “Seen from a distance, Trump’s performance has pretty much confirmed the views people over here already had of him — that it’s all about ‘me,’ with no acceptance of responsibility for earlier failures.”
Remember when they asked George W. Bush what mistakes he had made in office, and he said he couldn't come up with one?
The suggestion that Trump tried to buy out the German company, “true or not, did not play well in the European media,” Westmacott said. “It felt more ‘America first’ than America in its traditional role of a big-hearted great power.”
(Blog editor's head spinning at warp speed!)
The contrast is to China, which made huge mistakes at the onset of the crisis but since then appears to have managed it effectively, using harsh quarantine measures others are studying.
Yeah, their totalitarian state is the example now.
China is also now sending aid — needed respiratory and surgical masks, ventilators, and medical personnel — to Italy and Serbia, which have condemned their European allies for not providing early and efficient help.
That is where my print story ended.
On Wednesday, China offered the EU as a whole 2 million surgical masks, 200,000 advanced N95 masks, and 50,000 testing kits. On Friday, China sent several million masks to Belgium.
Chinese billionaire Jack Ma has even offered aid to the United States, promising to send 500,000 virus test kits and 1 million protective masks.
“There is a serious battle of narratives,” Major said, “and the Chinese have become good at what was once America’s tool, soft power.”
Yes, they build and leave your government alone; we destroy and meddle.
The Chinese, she said, are “trying to make everyone forget that a lot of what we’re experiencing is because of their domestic failure.”
Same here!
So even as China provides aid to Italy and Serbia, she said, “it is asking, ‘Where are your European friends?’ and giving the impression that China acts, is coordinating, leads,” but the United States, she said, “seems unwilling or unable to lead.”
We NO LONGER CAN!
This CREAKING, FETID, RANK CARCASS of EMPIRE is ROTTED to the CORE!
To many European friends, the US domestic response is disheartening.
Us, too!
The United States “seems at least as fragmented as the European Union, if not more so,” said Marietje Schaake, a former European legislator now at Stanford University’s Cyber Policy Center.
“The US looks more fragile in part because it lacks the social structures we have in Europe,” she added. “There is comfort in knowing that there is a bottom, a net that will catch you.”
And the damn Democrats chose Creepy Uncle Joe!
Schaake is most worried “about a breakdown of what holds society together, and the risk is bigger in the US than in Europe,” she said. “I would wish there would be more constructive coordination instead of shouting matches and rhetoric like Trump’s, denying the problems, while a country like Germany says that if their vaccine succeeds it will be for everyone.”
Wait until the 5 to 7 million are unemployed over the next there months. Going to be one long hot summer, and not because of the climate change fraud.
--more--"
Speaking of the environment:
Celebrating ‘Sunshine’ in the age of the coronavirus
It also dries up $hit!
I’m pregnant during the coronavirus pandemic, and I’m terrified
Will her baby be safe (from the vaccine that caused Zika)?
Maybe she should ABORT!
In thick of crisis, presidential race presses on
Good Lord, who gives a flying fu.....!!!!!??
Massachusetts marijuana companies, workers, patients bracing for worst as coronavirus disruptions loom
How long before they use this crisis -- was the vape crisis actually coronavirus? -- to suspend recreational sales like they have been wanting?
Of course, it is ironic that the potheads have “been watching the news and they’re overcome with anxiety and the doom and gloom and uncertainty of it all — they want to make sure they have access to products that help them deal with those anxieties,” and medical marijuana patients are even more nervous because closure would force them to turn to pharmaceutical alternatives that are addictive or have unpleasant side effects. Never mind the “workers being left behind.”
It’s technically spring now — ugh
I'm sorry, Globe, but not even your fear porn and pos paper can ruin spring for me. The birds are out there chirping. They never heard of mind manipulation or perception management. Music to my ears as I take in the sun and appreciate a clear blue sky unsullied by chem trails. Hallelujah!
Too bad you can't come out and play:
Coronavirus means canceled playdates, closed-down playgrounds
Parents are suddenly left with the vexing puzzle of how entertain their kids, and how will Massachusetts’ emergency child-care centers work anyway?
Amid shutdown, BPS, teachers union negotiate over online learning
Damn unions at a time like this!!
Some people are putting up holiday lights to spread cheer during the coronavirus outbreak
What else is there to do, right, and on Friday, Mayor Jeff Mutter of Cumberland took to social media to publicly thank the family for spreading joy during this unprecedented event, one that has been full of uncertainty and kept people at a distance. “Even when we can’t physically stand with each other we can show up for each other,” Mutter wrote. “All of this to say: Hope is in fact, heroic.”
Related:
With schools closed, Brookline principal reads nightly bedtime stories to comfort her students
Story times for children are becoming increasingly popular as celebrities Jennifer Garner and Amy Adams have united to create the #SAVEWITHSTORIES initiative that provides stories on Instagram and Facebook to kids to distract them and their families from the ongoing pandemic. “The ability to come together as a group, even if it’s just over the Internet, has really helped and it’s probably the best we’re going to be able to do for a while but it’s important,” said Tobias Nanda, 41, who said the stories have been incredibly beneficial for his 7-year-old daughter, Phoebe and his 12-year-old sons, Oscar and Lucas, even enjoy listening in. “It’s a nice, sort of calming, way to end the day given everything else that’s going on in the world.”
Then it was LIGHTS OUT!!
Harvard postpones commencement amid coronavirus pandemic, plans online event May 28
This isn't ending anytime soon if they are planning more than two months out!
Evil!
Look who is $HOWING the WAY:
Britain shows the way with pandemic payroll protections
Think what you will of Boris Johnson, but he’s showing the kind of leadership we need in D.C. and it might turn out to be Boris Johnson’s finest hour. “The only way to get out of this without enormous economic dislocation for years is an act of God,” said Robert J. Shapiro, an economic adviser in Washington who served as under secretary of commerce for economic affairs under Bill Clinton. In other words, we need the pandemic to end swiftly enough to have jobs waiting for people when it’s safe to go back work.
I don't think he is going to come to the re$cue, and if he does it will be in the form of ma$$ executions of war criminals and looters.
Drug company seeks Boston blood donors who have recovered from coronavirus
They ARE LITERALLY OUT FOR BLOOD!
Boston startup Lola.com lays off 34 as coronavirus brings travel business to a halt
Lola, oh, oh, oh, Lola!
Walmart issuing cash bonuses to hourly workers, hiring another 150,000 employees
????????
More importantly, they have set buying limits on paper products, milk, eggs, cleaning supplies, hand sanitizer, water, diapers, wipes, formula, and baby food. That’s little respite for many employees, though, who in some cases have been working through the night to sanitize the stores and restock shelves. Reinforcements may be on the way with the planned 150,000 new hires.
That's called RATIONING, folks, and AMERICANS HAVE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE IT!
The $ANCTIONS have COME HOME to ROO$T!
Time to take in a drive-in movie (will it come with drive-thru vaccination?):
"The drive-in, relic of yesterday, finds itself suited to now" by Jake Coyle Associated Press, March 20, 2020
NEW YORK — The drive-in theater, long a dwindling nostalgia act in a multiplex world, is experiencing a momentary return to prominence.
With nearly all of the nation’s movie theaters shuttered due to the coronavirus pandemic, some drive-in owners think they’re in a unique position to give moviegoers a chance to do something out of the house while keeping distance from others. This weekend, some drive-ins aren’t the only show in town. They’re the only show in the country.
F*** that filth that Hollywood trowels out by the ton.
The Showboat Drive-In Theater in Hockley, Texas, about a 30-minute drive outside Houston, normally sees ticket sales go down about 40 percent on a weekend when they don’t have any new movies. Last weekend, they saw a 40 percent increase, says the theater’s owner, Andrew Thomas. Usually open weekends, Thomas has kept screenings going through the week.
“Obviously this isn’t the way you’d want it to occur, but I’m excited for the idea that there may be a new generation of people that will get to experience going to a drive-in theater and — I was going to say catch the bug,” said Thomas, laughing. “Maybe some other turn of phrase.”
Yeah, ha-ha.... HA!
There are just over 300 drive-ins left in the country. They constitute a small, oft-forgotten flicker in today’s movie ecosystem that hardly competes with the megawatt glare of the megaplex and the nation’s 5,500 indoor theaters, but through decades of disruption and change in American life, they have managed to survive. They’ve somehow clung to life as relics of past Americana only to find themselves, for a brief moment anyway, uniquely suited to today.
It's an eco$y$tem!
Not many drive-ins are open. It’s a seasonal business to begin with, with many drive-ins not planning to open until April. John Vincent, president of the United Drive-in Theater Owner Association, estimates about 5-10 percent were open as of last weekend, and some of those are closing due to the pandemic. In states like California and New York, restrictions on movement and gathering are being ramped up that mandate closures. As infections rise in other parts of the country, Vincent suspects the drive-in’s window is already closing.
“We’d love the drive-ins to shine but this is probably not the moment,” said Vincent, who owns Wellfleet Cinemas on Cape Cod.
However long it lasts, the drive-in is for now, in certain parts of the country, one of the only remaining refuges of public entertainment — of getting out the house to do something while still staying inside your car.....
What is wrong with this goddamn speaker, 'er, radio signal?
Sound, where's the sound?!!
--more--"
If the virus doesn't kill you, dear readers, then enjoy the Good Life.
In "other news":
Under the virus’s cloak, Trump pursues long-sought conservative policies
The New York Times says that the White House, under the guise of its coronavirus response, is quietly advancing policies that President Trump has long advocated, from tougher border controls to an assault on organized labor to the stonewalling of congressional oversight.
Then IMPEACH HIM!
Men convicted in New Delhi bus rape are hanged in India
They may be on to something there.
Taliban kill 24 Afghan troops, with inside help
So says the New York Times.
One-third of the Lower 48 faces risk of flooding this spring, Weather Service says
Did you know coronavirus flourishes in standing water?
Tokyo marks 25th anniversary of subway nerve gas attack
The nerve!
Placido Domingo resigns from opera union, donates $500,000
The sexual harassment allegations have been deemed credible, so we shall see how long he can hold that note.
Lebanon’s foreign minister summons US ambassador over American’s release
Did you see what happened the day after he was released?
Dutch court convicts tram shooter of deadly terror attack
And on the BACK PAGE of the first section was this:
"Bloomberg, abandoning super PAC plans, gives $18 million to DNC" by Reid J. Epstein and Alexander Burns New York Times, March 20, 2020
WASHINGTON — Michael Bloomberg is abandoning plans to form a super PAC for the presidential race and pay his field organizers through November, opting to give $18 million to the Democratic National Committee for the party’s battleground states program.
Bloomberg’s presidential campaign had promised at its outset that it would finance a field program through the November election. Then upon his withdrawal from the race earlier this month, Bloomberg officials said the former New York mayor would continue to employ many of his campaign’s field staff through an independent campaign organization.
In the end, Bloomberg, a multibillionaire, has chosen to do none of those things. He has transferred $18 million from his campaign account to the DNC, which intends to use the funds to hire its own organizing staff in battleground states.
“While we considered creating our own independent entity to support the nominee and hold the president accountable, this race is too important to have many competing groups with good intentions but that are not coordinated and united in strategy and execution,” the Bloomberg campaign wrote in an unsigned memo released Friday.
“We therefore believe the best thing we can all do over the next eight months is to help the group that matters most in this fight: the Democratic National Committee.”
Bloomberg’s $18 million contribution to the DNC, a figure that far exceeds individual limits, is legal, party officials said, because it is coming in the form of a transfer from the Bloomberg campaign. Individuals are allowed to make unlimited contributions to their own campaigns, and campaigns can make unlimited transfers to political parties.
Brynne Craig, a senior adviser to Bloomberg, said Friday that the former mayor remained determined to fund the campaign to topple President Trump, but Bloomberg’s decision not to form a new super PAC represents an abrupt retreat from months of chest-thumping promises from some of his political advisers, particularly his campaign manager, Kevin Sheekey.
I suppose he could still win the nomination on a second ballot if Joe falters -- or if Joe frees his delegates to Bloomberg.
Sheekey boasted for months to Democratic officials and reporters that the former mayor would end up either mounting the best-funded presidential candidacy in history, or funding the biggest independent-expenditure effort ever. If Bloomberg ends up doing the latter, it appears it will not come in the form that Sheekey frequently outlined — a monumental new super PAC.
ALL TALK!
Representatives for Bloomberg declined to explain the reversal beyond the rationale in the campaign’s public memo, but that document offered only a thin explanation. The transfer to the Democratic National Committee is not expected to be Bloomberg’s last huge contribution to the campaign against Trump.
At this point, who f***ing cares?
“With this transfer from the Bloomberg campaign, Mayor Bloomberg and his team are making good on their commitment to beating Donald Trump,” said Tom Perez, the DNC chairman. “This will help us invest in more organizers across the country to elect the next president and help Democrats win up and down the ballot.”
You actually think there will be an election this November?
I don't.
Bloomberg also has an existing super PAC, Independence USA, that he used to help Democrats take control of the House of Representatives in the 2018 midterm elections. The former mayor is said to have a particular sense of pride about the Democrats’ House majority, and one subject on which his advisers have always been consistent is Bloomberg’s determination to help keep those lawmakers in power.
Yeah, he slipped in the debates and said he BOUGHT PELOSI her SPEAKERSHIP!
With Joe Biden’s emergence as the almost-presumptive Democratic nominee, multiple other super PACs have already staked claims on being major outside forces supporting his candidacy. Strategists for several of those groups have already been in contact with Bloomberg’s advisers about plans for the general election.
Priorities USA, a major super PAC that supported former President Barack Obama in 2012 and Hillary Clinton in 2016, said after the March 10 primaries that it was getting behind Biden, and a super PAC formed last fall to back Biden’s candidacy, Unite the Country, released a memo Wednesday arguing that Biden’s victories this past week had “effectively ended the race” for the Democratic nomination and declaring that it was turning its attention to Trump.
“We started this organization to be the outside voice for Joe Biden, and we plan to see that work through to Election Day,” the pro-Biden organization said in a memo.....
--more--"
Page B1 lead:
State Police troopers accused of overtime fraud will get to keep their pensions
UN-FLIPPING-REAL!
Good thing coronavirus subsumed it.
Amherst College suspends men’s lacrosse team, terminates coach in connection with racial incident
Better keep your head on a swivel:
Tom Brady bobbleheads going fast in these ‘unprecedented times’
Yeah, it’s official: Tom Brady is joining the Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Related:
"DraftKings has been bearing some of the effects of the pandemic virus known as COVID-19. Popular sports leagues have suspended their seasons, drastically reducing the number of games that customers can bet on, and some casinos where the company runs in-person sports books are closed, but the company is counting on the proceeds from the merger to help beef up its products. Sports betting has been hotly competitive, and DraftKings wants to strengthen its position when life returns to normal. It also is developing a business in igames, online gambling offerings that don’t hinge on the results of sporting events....."
Honestly, who gives a fuck about $port$ anymore, and what makes them think there will even be a 2020 season?
Good luck finding a parking space.
