Attention

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not represent our advertisers

Friday, April 17, 2020

McDonald's China 'bans black people from entering due to coronavirus'

A McDonald's restaurant in China has banned black people from entering the store out of fears that they might be coronavirus carriers.

A video recently circulating online showed a customer holding a sign that read: 'We've been informed from now on black people are not allowed to enter the restaurant.' The store is believed to be located in the southern Chinese city Guangzhou.

The footage sparked uproar online after the fast-food chain was accused of fuelling the rising xenophobia, particularly towards African nationals, in the country.

McDonald's said the notice 'is not representative of our inclusive values'. The US fast-food giant has temporarily closed the branch, according to a statement.

More

ACLU Sues Idaho for Banning Male Athletes From Female Sports

The American Civil Liberties Union of Idaho announced it will sue the state government over the Fairness in Women's Sports Act, a law that made Idaho the first state to ban biologically male students from participating in all-female sports.

"When [Republican governor Brad Little] signed a law to ban trans athletes, he sent a message that trans people do not deserve the benefits of sports available to their peers," ACLU of Idaho wrote on Twitter.

More

Manipulation Through Racial Hoaxes

We black people are so convenient and useful to America’s leftists. Whenever there’s a bit of silencing to be done, just accuse a detractor or critic of racism.

A recent, particularly stupid, example is CNN’s Brandon Tensley’s complaint that the “coronavirus task force is another example of Trump administration’s lack of diversity.”

Tensley said the virus experts are “largely the same sorts of white men (and a couple women on the sidelines) who’ve dominated the Trump administration from the very beginning.”

I’d like for Tensley to tell us just what racial or sex diversity contribute to finding a cure or treatment for the coronavirus.

More

Gov. Mike DeWine Announces Ohio Will Begin Reopening May 1

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) announced Thursday that the state will begin to re-open on May 1, the same day its stay-at-home order prompted by the Chinese coronavirus pandemic is scheduled to expire.

In his daily press briefing, DeWine affirmed the importance of restarting Ohio’s economy to recreate the jobs lost in recent weeks. He also said the state is still forming guidelines for companies that enable their employees to return safely.

More

Sorry, Joe Biden: Barack Obama’s endorsements have a huge record of failure

At long last, former President Barack Obama has endorsed Joe Biden, who claimed he didn’t want his ex-boss’ endorsement during the nominating process.

You know what? Maybe Biden was right, even though he was lying. Maybe he shouldn’t have wanted Obama’s endorsement. For while it is true that Obama is a genius at winning elections, he is only a genius at it when he’s the one running.

No one has ever done better for himself in US politics — or been as ineffectual in his efforts to get other people elected. No one has ever so thoroughly dominated politics — or so thoroughly decimated the party he led to victory.

When Obama was elected president in 2008, Democrats had been in control of the House of Representatives and the Senate for two years. His colossal victory — 70 million votes — extended Democratic congressional margins substantially. Indeed, for much of his first year, Obama had a supermajority in the Senate.

More

Ilhan Omar is on track to pay her husband's company nearly DOUBLE

Radical congresswoman Ilhan Omar is on track to pay her new husband's company nearly double the half million dollars she funneled his way last year, new figures obtained by DailyMail.com show.

In the first three months of this year Omar paid more than $290,000 to the E Street Group, a fundraising and consulting group run by Tim Mynett, who she married last month.

If she continues at this rate it will mean the company would get a whopping $1.16 million from Omar's campaign in 2020. It received a total of $523,000 for the whole of last year.

'Omar's campaign chest is looking more and more like a dowry,' Peter Flaherty, the head of a group which has filed a complaint with the FEC over Omar's spending, told DailyMail.com.

More

How To Think About The Fed Now

It was precipitated by the virus, and made worse by the crazed decisions of governments around the world to shut down business and travel. But it was caused by economic fragility.

The supposed greatest economy in US history actually was a walking sick man, made comfortable with painkillers, and looking far better than he felt—yet ultimately fragile and infirm. The coronavirus pandemic simply exposed the underlying sickness of the US economy. If anything, the crash was overdue.

Too much debt, too much malinvestment, and too little honest pricing of assets and interest rates made America uniquely vulnerable to economic contagion. Most of this vulnerability can be laid at the feet of central bankers at the Federal Reserve, and we will pay a terrible price for it in the coming years. This is an uncomfortable truth, one that central bankers desperately hope to obscure while the media and public remain fixated on the virus.

But we should not let them get away with it, because (at least when it comes to legacy media) the Fed’s gross malfeasance is perhaps the biggest untold story of our lifetimes.

Symptoms of problems were readily apparent just last September during the commercial bank repo crisis. After more than a decade of quantitative easing, relentless interest rate cutting, and huge growth in “excess” reserves (more than $1.5 trillion) parked at the Fed, banks still did not have enough overnight liquidity? What exactly was the point of taking the Fed’s balance sheet from less than $1 trillion to over $4 trillion, anyway? Banks still needed money, after a decade of QE?

As with most crises, the problems took root decades ago. What we might call the era of modern monetary policy took root with the 1971 Nixon Shock, which eliminated any convertibility of dollars for gold. Less than twenty years later, in October 1987, Black Monday wiped out 20 percent of US stock market valuations. Fed chair Alan Greenspan promised Wall Street that such a thing would never happen again on his watch, and he meant it: the “Greenspan Put” was the Maestro’s blueprint for providing as much monetary easing as needed to prop up equity markets. The tech stock crash of the NASDAQ in 2000 only solidified the need for “new” monetary policy, and in 2008 that policy took full flight under the obliging hand of Fed chairman Ben Bernanke—a man who not only fundamentally misunderstood the Great Depression in his PhD thesis, but who also had the self-regard to write a

More

Michael Cohen to be FREED because of coronavirus outbreak at prison

Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former personal attorney who has served less than a year of his three-year prison sentence for financial crimes, will be freed because of the coronavirus outbreak, it was reported on Thursday.

The US Bureau of Prisons informed Cohen that he will be released from the Federal Correctional Institution in Otisville, New York, and allowed to serve out the remainder of his sentence in home confinement.

As of Thursday, 14 inmates and seven staffers at the complex have tested positive for coronavirus, according to CNN.

More

I Never Would Have Guessed That I Had Coronavirus Before I Tested Positive

The moment the girl next to me in vocal class sneezed, I had a bad feeling. I texted my mom, "Guess what . . . I just got coronavirus." This was in early March, when, for the most part, Americans still thought of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) as something that was happening on the other side of the world. Schools, stores, and restaurants remained open, and the possibility that they would close hadn't entered our minds. While I had become worried about the vocal warmups we were doing in classes at my performing arts high school (picture blowing air out of your mouth, lips buzzing, spit flying), my text was mostly meant as a joke. "You're fine," my mom replied.

Then, a week later, I tested positive.

Friday, March 13, turned out to be our last day of school, possibly for the entire year. The next day, just a few days after I had sent that text to my mom, we received a long email from the school chancellor with updates on the coronavirus. Buried in the third paragraph was the news that someone in my school had tested positive. The following day, I came down with a terrible headache. Then I developed a fever that went up to 101.7°F, fatigue, and dizziness, and I lost my sense of smell. (I remember saying, "Why does everything smell like mucus?") I never had a cough or shortness of breath, though — so in our minds, it was unlikely that it was COVID-19.

By Tuesday, I still wasn't feeling well. My mom called one of her best friends, who's a nurse, and she urged us to see a doctor. We made an appointment and walked the three blocks to my pediatrician's office. The doctor initially thought I had a cold, but she decided to give me a test because of the fever and the fact that there was at least one confirmed case at my school. The testing guidelinesweren't as strict then as they would be just a few days later, but my mom and I were still surprised when my doctor pulled out the swab — and even more surprised later that week when the results came back positive.

More

27-year-old coronavirus patient says virus 'tricks you' and comes 'back with a vengeance'

A 27-year-old coronavirus patient described his hellish experience with the virus saying it started with a kink in his neck but only got worse from there.

Cameron Karosis said in a Monday interview with CBSN Boston that what started as a neck ache quickly became a full body ache and a migraine.

"I was trying to get sleep, but the migraine was making it hard to do that," he said in the interview. "And any time I did get sleep, my fever would make me sweat and I would wake up drenched."

Karosis said it took him a while to get the test because his initial symptoms were not enough to qualify for a test until he had his respiratory problems.

More

Sen. Mike Braun: ‘If we go beyond two weeks to a month you're going to have supply-and-demand destruction’

As most of America remains in lockdown, small businesses are taking the biggest hit. Sen. Mike Braun, R-IN., said “small businesses aren't generally going to be equipped with lines of credit.”

Most small businesses rely on liquid currency to function, and with the country’s economy practically shutdown, the effects can create irreversible damage.

“Many small business owners live out of their business, [and] maintain cash balances that are more hand-to-mouth,” Braun told Fox News. “And it's impacted the restaurants and bars, in hair salons, the service economy disproportionately hard.”

With the current stimulus bill being carried out and Americans receiving their checks this week, the question on many people’s minds is: Does this bill offer adequate support to small businesses? Braun said what has been done so far is just a temporary measure and that the U.S. government “shouldn’t be expected to replace the dollar” in a real economy.

“Everything that small businesses are enduring is a result of the government trying to tamp down the disease. And we know that needs to be done until that's accomplished. There's going to be great national anxiety out there and it's going to impact all businesses,” Braun explained.

More here

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/exclusive-sen-mike-braun-on-small-businesses-and-the-effort-to-recover

DHS Allows H-2A Foreign Workers to Stay in U.S. for More than Three Years

A new rule issued by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Agriculture Department (USDA) allows H-2A foreign visa workers to remain in the United States for longer than three years.

Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf announced on Wednesday that the agency, in coordination with USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue, will allow American farms to hire H-2A foreign visa workers who are already in the U.S. — bypassing existing rules that require them to hire incoming H-2A foreign visa workers.

The H-2A program allows American farms to import a limitless number of foreign workers and pay them below-average U.S. wages. American farms do not wholly rely on H-2A foreign visa workers to fill agricultural jobs, as the foreign workers make up only about ten percent of the total U.S. crop farm workforce. Last year, U.S. farmers hired roughly 250,000 H-2A foreign visa workers.

The DHS-USDA rule means that H-2A foreign visa workers can stay in the U.S. beyond their three-year residency period without ever having to return to their home countries. The majority of H-2A foreign visa workers arrive from Mexico and Central America.

“Providing flexibility for H-2A employers to utilize H-2A workers that are currently in the United States is critically important as we continue to see travel and border restrictions as a result of COVID-19,” Perdue said in a statement.

More here

NYT Destroys Stacey Abrams's Chances of Becoming VP

'Paper of record' currently 0-2 on endorsements this cycle

Former vice president Joe Biden needs a running mate. He's going to choose a woman, but it almost certainly won't be Stacey Abrams, the self-declared governor of Georgia, now that theNew York Times has published an op-ed endorsing her as the "obvious" choice.

Notwithstanding the fact that no one cares what the New York Times editorial board thinks about politics, the so-called paper of record endorsed two candidates in the Democratic primary—Senators Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) and Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.). Neither candidate came close to winning the nomination, which is a bad sign for Abrams.

In the Times op-ed touting Abrams as the "smartest move" for Biden's VP choice, one would expect the word "experience" to appear at least once. It does not. Biden is 77 years old and barely coherent at the best of times, which means his running mate should probably be someone who is ready to be president.

More

Primo Hoagies, OC


UN Report on Religious Freedom Deems Abortion and Gender Identity as Human Rights

Billions of people around the world exercised their religious freedom during Holy Week, but a new United Nations report threatens to undermine both this freedom and women’s rights.

The report of Ahmed Shaheed, the U.N. expert responsible for protecting religious freedom, advances a “progressive” agenda of abortion and new “rights” based on membership in sexual identity groups.

It seems the U.N. is willing to trample the rights of the vulnerable and undermine the credibility of universal human rights to promote the values of a small number of wealthy countries—a travesty the Trump administration should oppose.

The report to the infamous U.N. Human Rights Council undermines the empowerment of women and girls by lumping their concerns together with novel claims based on sexual orientation and gender identity. It includes a controversial interpretation of “gender equality” that promotes acceptance of transgender ideology and the concept of multiple, fluid, “gender identities.”

At one time, “gender equality” referred exclusively to decreasing the many inequalities that women face. But the U.N. bureaucracy has begun attempting to redefine gender to include “gender identity,” referring both to women who identify as men and men who identify as women.

More

FREDO BUSTED!

Parishioner from Pastor Tony Spell's Church Dies of COVID-19

A 78-year-old man who was a member of Life Tabernacle Church has reportedly died from COVID-19. According to NBC Local 33, the man's cause of death was "acute respiratory distress syndrome, 2nd pneumonia, 2nd COVID-19."

Spell disputed the man's cause of death, saying he died of a broken heart after recently losing his son. It's unclear when the man last attended service at Spell's church.

Biden’s Secret Senate Papers May Hold Key to Sexual Assault Allegation

Thousands of not-yet public documents from Joe Biden’s nearly 40-year congressional career may hold the key to the sexual assault allegation being leveled against the former vice president.

Late last month, Tara Reade, who came forward in April 2019 to accuse the former vice president of unwanted touching and sexual harassment, revealed there was more to her story. Reade now claims he pushed her up against a wall and forcibly penetrated her with his fingers, while she was briefly employed by his Senate office in the early 1990s.

The purported assault, which Reade claims took place either in the U.S. Capitol or the Russell Senate Office Building in 1993, has been vehemently denied by the former vice president’s campaign. The denial has been echoed by Biden allies, including onetime members of his Senate staff.

Some, like Ted Kaufman, who was Biden’s Senate chief of staff when the incident allegedly took place, denies that Reade ever mentioned sexual harassment.

“She did not come to me,” Kaufman said recently. “I would have remembered her if she had, and I don’t remember her at all.”

Reade, however, contends that there is official documentation to back up her timeline of events. Not only does she claim to have raised accusations of sexual harassment while on Biden’s staff, but she also filed written report with the Senate personnel office laying out the supposed misconduct.

More

Scientists have found something very disturbing with the coronavirus

Every day scientists are finding more and more about the coronavirus, and what it's capable of. Some days we hear good news about vaccine progression, and some days we learn more about how hard the coronavirus is to kill.

Unfortunately, today is the latter of the two. A new study has been published in bioRxiv, and before I get into what the researchers did, I will say that the study is yet to be peer-reviewed. The results from the study could unlock some deeper understanding of just how strong the coronavirus is at a genetic level. French researchers from the Aix-Marseille University in southern France decided to see how high of a temperature the coronavirus could survive at.

The researchers injected a COVID-19 sample into African green monkey kidney cells. The cells were then separated into two tubes; one "clean" environment and on "dirty" environment. The "dirty" environment had animal proteins in it as well to simulate a real-life sample. The researchers then proceeded to heat up the vials to 60 degrees Celsius or 140 degrees Fahrenheit for an hour. What they found was that the virus in the "dirty" tube was able to survive the high temperatures and was even still able to replicate.

This way of killing a virus is quite common across all laboratories and was even reported to have killed Ebola. Researchers are still yet to know if a sample that has been heated up, and it's viral load reduced, could still infect new hosts. It is assumed that samples which have a more concentrated amount of COVID-19 will remain active and dangerous.

More

A Good Read

The bottom line has been that President Trump is a jerk. He’s crude, he bloviates, he gets his feelings hurt and he’s a hot head.
Let me tell you what else he is. He is a guy that demands performance. He is a guy that asks lots of questions. The questions he asks aren’t cloaked in fancy phrases, they are “why the hell....” questions.

For decades the health industry has thrown away billions of face masks after one use. Trump asks, “Why the hell are we throwing them away? Why not sterilize them and use them numerous times?” He’s the guy that gets hospital ships readied in one week, when it would have taken a bureaucrat weeks or months to get it done. He’s the guy that gets temporary hospitals built in three days. He’s the guy that gets industries to build ventilators and face masks in a business that’s highly regulated by agencies that move like sleuths.

He’s the guy that asks why we aren’t using drugs that might work on people that are dying; what the hell do we have to lose? In spite of all the naysayers. He’s the guy that shut down travel from China, when the liberals and the media were screaming xenophobia and racist. He’s the guy that ran on securing the border in the face of a screaming press and media. When he shut down borders in the midst of the coronavirus virus they were up in arms over such a draconian move. Then the rest of the world followed suit all over, including the European Union between member countries.

Has he made mistakes, yep. Everyone I know would have. All of these experts wouldn’t have done any better. Trump is working harder than I’ve ever seen a President work. He isn’t hiding in his office, he’s out front every day.

Take for instance, all the shortages of PPE’s and ventilators. I’m unaware of anything that prevented all of these governors from ordering all the PPE and ventilators for emergency purposes over the last two years. And yet, it is Trump’s fault that they didn’t.

He’s balanced his approach and listened to the experts, when his distractors said he wouldn’t and couldn’t. When he offers hope, he’s lying and when he’s straight forward, he should be hopeful. It’s a no win, but he is not deterred by all of that BS coming from the press and the liberals.

I’ll take this kind of leadership over a nice guy that can make eloquent speeches.

COVID-19: How long is this likely to last?

Living in self-isolation has profound socio-political implications, in addition to the effects that it has on a person’s mental health and well-being.

Although more and more studies are showing that quarantine and isolation methods are indeedeffective and that we should all continue to keep our physical distance, it is hard not to grow impatient and wonder how long this is likely to last.

Medical News Today have spoken to several experts in infectious diseases, and in this Special Feature, we round up their opinions on the matter.

We also look at some of the predictions that other researchers have made on the availability of a vaccine and the impact it will have on the outcome of the pandemic.

More

Cuomo Giving Away Ventilators… After Weeks of Demanding More from White House

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) said on Wednesday at a press conference that he would start giving away ventilators to other states during the coronavirus crisis.

“We’ve stabilized our healthcare situation. New York had one of the earlier curves. There are other places in this country that are now seeing increases in the death rate,” Cuomo said, explaining why he was ready to donate ventilators.

Cuomo announced he would send 100 ventilators to Michigan and 50 ventilators to Maryland.

Cuomo spent weeks spreading the alarm that there might not be enough ventilators for New York, demanding that the federal government provide him 30,000 to 40,000 ventilators for his stockpile.

“You pick the 26,000 people who are going to die,” Cuomo said in a press conference in March, in a strong message to President Donald Trump and the federal government.

Trump was widely criticized for challenging the numbers in March, asserting in an interview that Cuomo probably did not need that many ventilators.

“I have a feeling that a lot of the numbers that are being said in some areas are just bigger than they’re going to be,” he said in an interview with Sean Hannity. “I don’t believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators.”

More

Dr. Brownstein: Fake COVID-19 Death Numbers and There Still Is Good News

We are past the worst of COVID-19. I have been following the numbers and, IMHO, we have passed the peak (or soon to pass the peak) of this illness and are on the downside. Unfortunately, there will still be more deaths as we still have many infected.

Last week in the office, I could sense the fear level lowering among my staff and patients. That is a good thing. Our natural fear level was much too high for COVID. This was being driven by the media who refused to share any good news about this epidemic and continually fanned the flames by promoting their doomsday predictions.

Recall that the original models predicted 1-2 million deaths. I told you that would not happen. Later, they lowered their predictions to 100-200,000. At that time, I predicted the numbers would be much lower. And, they are.

The COVID death numbers are, unfortunately, still climbing. But they will not reach 100,000. I don’t think the TRUE numbers will reach 50,000. Recall last week, the CDC stated that COVID can be a valid diagnosis of the death of someone whether there is positive testing or not for COVID. If the doctor suspects COVID is part of the reason why the patient died, COVID can and should be listed as the cause of death. That only serves to inflate the death numbers of COVID.

I have a friend whose 95-year-old mother was hospitalized for COVID. On day two of the hospitalization, the patient died of a massive heart attack. Guess what the primary cause of death was listed on the death certificate? If you guessed COVID-19, you win the prize.

I saw reports from the MSM that COVID death rates will be under-reported due to COVID-suffering patients dying at home and not being given a proper diagnosis. That is pure FAKE NEWS! Everyone who dies is given a diagnosis—at home or in the hospital. The CDC has already given doctors the green light to give COVID diagnoses without proof that COVID was the actual cause of death. Because of this, COVID will be diagnosed as the cause of death far more than it should.

Why would the CDC tell doctors to diagnose a death as COVID when COVID may have not been the cause of death? Follow the money.

More here

A new statistic reveals why America’s COVID-19 numbers are flat

Few figures tell you anything useful about how the coronavirus has spread through the U.S. Here’s one that does.

How many people have the coronavirus in the United States? More than two months into the country’s outbreak, this remains the most important question for its people, schools, hospitals, and businesses. It is also still among the hardest to answer. At least 630,000 people nationwide now have test-confirmed cases of COVID-19, according to The Atlantic’s COVID Tracking Project, a state-by-state tally conducted by more than 100 volunteers and experts. But an overwhelming body of evidence shows that this is an undercount.

Whenever U.S. cities have tested a subset of the general population, such as homeless people or pregnant women, they have found at least some infected people who aren’t showing symptoms. And, as ProPublica first reported, there has been a spike in the number of Americans dying at home across the country. Those people may die of COVID-19 without ever entering the medical system, meaning that they never get tested.

There is clearly some group of Americans who have the coronavirus but who don’t show up in official figures. Now, using a statistic that has just become reliable, we can estimate the size of that group—and peek at the rest of the iceberg.

More

Report: Coronavirus Blocking Foreign Graduates from Taking U.S. Jobs

The coronavirus epidemic may block many foreign graduates from getting the college-level jobs needed by U.S. graduates this year, according to an article in QZ.com.

The piece of good news for U.S. graduates is a minor compensation for the millions of American college jobs wiped out in the economic crash caused by China’s lethal disease. U.S. students and political activists have begun targeting the program.

Every year, many U.S. universities accept tuition payments from foreign students and then help them get jobs via the little-known Optional Practical Training (OPT) and Curricular Practical Training (CPT) programs. In 2018, 200,000 foreign graduates and 151,000 foreign students got work permits from these two programs, for jobs starting in the summer.

More here

[Unlike many U.S. students, foreign students are usually paying full tuition rates at the universities they attend. --Editor]

NYC's subways blamed as 'major disseminator' of coronavirus, MIT researcher says

A study, according to a report, claims that New York City became the American epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic because of the close proximity of its residents in mass transportation.

The paper, by MIT economics professor and physician Jeffrey Harris, claims a parallel between high ridership of the subway system, which packs in up to 5 million passengers a day, “and the rapid, exponential surge in infections” in the first two weeks of March.

“New York City’s multitentacled subway system was a major disseminator — if not the principal transmission vehicle — of coronavirus infection during the initial takeoff of the massive epidemic,” argues Harris, who works as a physician in Massachusetts.

“We know that close contact in subways is fully consistent with the spread of coronavirus, either by inhalable droplets or residual fomites left on railings, pivoted grab handles, and those smooth, metallic, vertical poles that everyone shares,” he added.

City officials questions the study’s data and the interrogation of causation.

More

https://www.foxnews.com/us/nyc-subways-blamed-major-disseminator-of-coronavirus

Maryland Covid-19 Data 4-17-2020



COVID-19 Statistics in Maryland
Number of Confirmed Cases: 11,572
Number of negative test results: 50,437
Number of Deaths: 425
Number of Probable Deaths: 69
Hospitalizations: 2,612 ever hospitalized
Released From Isolation: 736
 

Cases and Deaths Data Breakdown
Note: Parenthesis = Number of confirmed deaths
Asterisk = Number of probable deaths
NH = Non-Hispanic

By County
County Cases Deaths
Allegany 26 (1)
Anne Arundel 966 (34) 6*
Baltimore City 1,273 (38) 4*
Baltimore County 1,569 (37) 7*
Calvert 109 (2)
Caroline 28
Carroll 288 (25) 2*
Cecil 127 (2)
Charles 337 (15)
Dorchester 20 (1)
Frederick 525 (23) 7*
Garrett 4
Harford 176 6*
Howard 475 (10) 1*
Kent 14 (1)
Montgomery 2,280 (63) 15*
Prince George's 2,966 (77) 10*
Queen Anne's 19 (1)
St. Mary's 100 (1)
Somerset 9
Talbot 14 (1)
Washington 116 (1)
Wicomico 103 (1)
Worcester 28

Data Not Available
(91) 11*


By Age Range and Gender
Age
0-9 86
10-19 242
20-29 1,227 (2)
30-39 1,882 (8)
40-49 2,088 (7)
50-59 2,287
(24) 3*
60-69 1,710
(68) 9*
70-79 1,171
(87) 13*
80+ 879 (141) 33*
Data Not Available
(88) 11*



Gender Cases

Female: 6,249 (198) 35*
Male: 5,323
(227) 34*


Race/Ethnicity Cases (Deaths)
African-American (NH) 4,301 (166) 16*
Asian (NH) 252 (13) 1*
White (NH) 2,681 (137) 40*
Hispanic 1,357 (17)
Other (NH) 429 (12) 1*
Data Not Available 2,552 (80) 11*

U.S. Military Planes Fly near Taiwan After China Threatens ‘Military Struggle’

Two United States military aircraft reportedly flew close to Taipei’s southern airspace on Monday, the Taipei Times said.

The newspaper, citing flight charts posted on Twitter, identified a U.S. RC-135W Rivet Joint and a Lockheed P-3 Orion in the airspace north of the South China Sea. Aircraft Spots, a military air movement tracker, posted the images.

The two planes flew at different intervals, with the RC-135W reconnaissance plane spotted first over the Bashi Channel, southwest of Taiwan, according to the flight charts. The Bashi Channel connects the South China Sea with the western Pacific Ocean and runs between Taiwan and the Philippines. China claims nearly the entire South China Sea despite an international court ruling in 2016 that its claims are entirely illegal.

China views Taiwan as a breakaway province, despite the fact that Taipei has never been governed by Beijing in its history.

The U.S. Air Force presence near Taiwan’s airspace on Monday comes as a direct response to China staging military drills near Taiwan over the weekend.

More

EHRLICH: TRUMP’S THREAT TO ADJOURN CONGRESS COULD BE A NEGOTIATING TACTIC

Former Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. said President Donald Trump’s threat to adjourn Congress to make recess appointments without Senate approval in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic could be a negotiating tactic.

“Difficult to say in light of this president’s willingness to break precedent. He typically does these things to create leverage in order to get a deal,” Ehrlich, a Republican who served in Congress from 1995-2003, told MarylandReporter.com in an email on Thursday.

“As I understand it, he would need a disagreement between the respective chambers to do so — but I believe that would require UC (Unanimous Consent) in the Senate. Such is not likely of course.”

More

Watchdogs Suspect Video from Missing Doctor ‘Staged by the Chinese Regime’

Dr. Ai Fen, the whistleblowing Wuhan doctor punished for trying to warn colleagues about the coronavirus pandemic in December, posted a video message on Tuesday after human rights groups called on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to “urgently clarify” her condition.

Ai disappeared at the end of March, shortly after criticizing the CCP in an interview that China’s vast censorship apparatus tried to erase from the Internet. Human rights activists are worried that her new video message might have been produced under coercion.

Ai was one of the original Wuhan whistleblowers, punished for attempting to warn other doctors about the rise of a new SARS-type virus while the CCP was desperately trying to conceal its existence. In her March interview, she complained bitterly about the people who died because she was silenced and regretted not standing up to Communist Party intimidation.

“If I had known what was to happen, I would not have cared about the reprimand. I would have f**king talked about it to whoever, where ever I could,” she said.

More

Be Very Careful What You Wish For...


Stacey Abrams says she would be an 'excellent' running mate for Biden

Former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams says she would be an “excellent” running mate for former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic White House nominee.

Abrams, the former Georgia House minority leader who has been vocal about her aspirations for higher office, touted in an interview published Wednesday her ability to bring together disparate demographics the Democratic Party is targeting in the presidential race.

"I have the capacity to attract voters by motivating typically ignored communities," Abrams told Elle magazine. "I have a strong history of executive and management experience in the private, public and nonprofit sectors. I've spent 25 years in independent study of foreign policy. I am ready to help advance an agenda of restoring America's place in the world. If I am selected, I am prepared and excited to serve."

More

Schumer, AOC Seek Federal Funds for NYers Funeral Costs: ‘Systemic Racism’ in U.S.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) called on Congress Tuesday to appropriate federal funds to help pay for the funerals of New Yorkers who died from the coronavirus.

The Democrats wrote a letter to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Pete Gaynor asking him to approve activation of the Individuals and Households Program (IHP), which provides access to the Disaster Funeral Assistance Program.

The letter included the newly updated number of deaths in the state, re-calculated to add deaths “presumed” [but not verified by testing] to be coronavirus:

“As the tragic number of deaths from COVID-19 continues to rise in New York, individuals who are facing incredible loss are also being saddled with an additional financial burden,” Ocasio-Cortez and Schumer wrote.

The Hill reported on the letter and Ocasio-Cortez’s remarks about racism in a tweet posted by the Washington media outlet:

“We know that these mortality rates are doubling and that they’re higher due to the underlying effects and underlying systemic inequalities and systemic racism that we have,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

More here

Thank God It's Friday 4-17-20

What will you be doing this weekend?

Reported U.S. coronavirus deaths reach record 4,591 in 24 hours

The number of reported deaths in the U.S. from the new coronavirus spiked to nearly double the prior record Thursday, as governors extended their lockdown orders, and the Trump administration released new federal guidelines to reopen the economy.

In the 24 hours ending at 8 p.m. Eastern time Thursday, 4,591 people were reported to have died from Covid-19, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University. The prior record was 2,569 on Wednesday....

More

China Gleeful That 4 US Carriers Hampered By COVID-19, Boasts PLA Navy "Not Impacted"

The US carrier outbreak aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt is now a major military disaster, with nearly 600 confirmed Covid-19 infections among sailors reported as of Tuesday, including one death and at least four hospitalizations.

As the outbreak among the approximately 4,860 crew members grew aboard the Western Pacific deployed ship last month, it was diverted to Guam, it's commander Capt. Brett Crozier fired after speaking out in a leaked letter. The nuclear carrier has essentially had to be evacuated of much of its crew.

Amid the continuing saga there's been little attention paid to the reaction of America's rivals and enemies, who have been watching closely as a multi-billion dollar nuclear carrier has been rendered ineffective by an 'invisible enemy'.

More