Category: Web Briefing
Spanish Authorities Seize Four Tons of Cocaine on a Ship off the Coast of Spain, Shipment Tied to Venezuelan President Maduro
From The New York Post: Four tons of cocaine worth more than $165 million seized off of the Spanish coast last week has been linked to Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro, US authorities said. Spanish,...
A coronavirus antibody test that is more than 99% accurate is now cleared for emergency use in the US
From Business Insider: US regulators authorized Sunday emergency use of a coronavirus antibody test that is more than 99% accurate, addressing concerns about high false-positive rates that have plagued some of the first tests. The...
This man assembled his own covid antibody tests for himself and his friends
From MIT Technology Review.
CDC’s Wuhan Virus Death Toll as of May 1, 2020: 37,308
See Center for Disease Control Wuhan Virus Death Toll as of May 1, 2020: 37,308
Biden: Wuhan Virus has Killed 600,000
Joe Biden’s coronavirus death count is only slightly off by… 540,000 people. 🥴 pic.twitter.com/PBndtNrWp6 — ForAmerica 🇺🇸 (@ForAmerica) May 1, 2020
Five Eyes: Virus Release was Accidential
New York Post: At the same time, a senior intelligence source told Fox News that while most intelligence agencies believe COVID-19 originated in the Wuhan lab, “it was thought to have been released accidentally.”...
Ferrari Leads the Way with Anti-body Testing to get Back-to-Work
Ferrari Leads the Way: MARANELLO, Italy—Ferrari NV’s normally bustling factory and headquarters here stood mostly deserted earlier this week, except for the line of employees waiting to have their blood drawn and tested for...
Democrats Are Reaping The ‘Whirlwind’ Kavanaugh Warned About
The Federalist: It was a terrifying mob, the worst kind of feeding frenzy many Americans had ever witnessed. Democratic senators on the Judiciary Committee accepted each claim, no matter how outlandish. After Swetnick’s obviously...
Sullivan: By Biden’s Own Standards, He Is Guilty As Charged
From the NY Intelligencer: The objective truth, Biden argued, is what matters. I agree with him. But this was emphatically not the standard Biden favored when judging men in college. If Biden were a...
How Wuhan Virus Shutdowns Are Killing America’s Health Care System
From The Federalist: The “elective” surgeries we can no longer perform are not “optional.” They are important surgeries that need to be done. “Elective” only implies a surgery can be timed conveniently for the...
Vox: Bates Theorem and Why Wuhan Virus Infection Rates in a Local Area that Exceed 10% Are More Accurate
In a nutshell, Bates Theorem shows that areas like New York City with antibody testing that shows 24% of the population has Wuhan virus antibodies are 95% accurate test results, while areas with a...
AOC Will Vote for Biden, But Doesn’t Know If She’ll Endorse Him
From Vice: New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said she will vote for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, but she stopped short of endorsing him in an interview with Shane Smith for VICE TV’s “Shelter...
When will the WH Task Force Acknowledge the Lower Mortality Rate of the Virus?
UPMC doctor argues COVID-19 not as deadly as feared, says its hospitals will shift back to normal: From Pennlive: A UPMC doctor on Thursday made a case the death rate for people infected with...
Osterholm: Pandemic to last as long as two years — won’t be controlled until about two-thirds of the world’s population is immune
From Gulf News: The coronavirus pandemic is likely to last as long as two years and won’t be controlled until about two-thirds of the world’s population is immune, a group of experts said in...
The Very High Cost to Abused Children of ‘Slow the Spread’
From The Washington Post via MSN: The calls came from police or child protective services, sometimes 10 to 15 a week, most of them about sexual abuse. The children would sit across from her...
Elon Musk mobilizes a small army of tech elites behind reopening society
By the Washington Post via the San Francisco Gate: “Time to free us for the sake of progress,” wrote investor Adam Draper, managing director of the firm Boost VC, in a post retweeted by...
medRxiv: COVID-19 Antibody Seroprevalence in Santa Clara County, California Indicates 54,000 Infected
From medRxiv: These prevalence point estimates imply that 54,000 (95CI 25,000 to 91,000 using weighted prevalence; 23,000 with 95CI 14,000-35,000 using unweighted prevalence) people were infected in Santa Clara County by early April, many...
Cuomo: 17.1 percent of FDNY/EMT members and 10.5 percent of NYPD have antibodies
From NBC New York: Gov. Andrew Cuomo revealed the preliminary results of FDNY/EMS and NYPD members who were screened for coronavirus antibodies and tested positive. The preliminary antibody study showed that 17.1 percent of...
Seattle Times: U.S. officials craft retaliatory actions against China
From The Seattle Times: In private, Trump and aides have discussed stripping China of its “sovereign immunity,” aiming to enable the U.S. government or victims to sue China for damages. George Sorial, who served...
New Flynn Documents Show FBI Goal Was To ‘Get Him Fired’
Sean Davis in The Federalist: New documents filed under seal last week by the Department of Justice provide the clearest evidence yet that the investigation and subsequent prosecution of former White House National Security...
‘People need to pay for this’: Nikki Haley sounds off on ‘shameful’ treatment of Michael Flynn
From The Washington Inquirer: Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley reacted to unsealed documents related to the investigation of retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, calling it “shameful.” “There is so much to...
Donald Trump Jr. on General Flynn
Imagine having your life and reputation ruined by rogue US govt. officials. Then years later when the plot finally comes to light the first thing you do is post an American flag. This is...
Rose McGowan: The Scales Fell from My Eyes — the Dems and Media are Just like the GOP
I’m really sad, and I’m really tired. I normally share thoughts, but tonight it’s emotion. pic.twitter.com/mhtaoW6dTd — rose mcgowan (@rosemcgowan) April 29, 2020
Hassett: U.S. Unemployment could hit 20% by June
CNN via MSN: The White House is telling Americans to brace for a period of Great Depression-level unemployment this summer. Kevin Hassett, a senior economic adviser to President Donald Trump, warned Tuesday that the jobless rate in the...
WTF: Washington D.C. Mayor may Extend Shutdown Until August
DC May Not Reopen for Another 3 Months, Officials Say
Trump says China wants him to lose his re-election bid
Reuters: WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said he believes China’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic is proof that Beijing “will do anything they can” to make him lose his re-election bid in...
Trump’s ‘Operation Warp Speed’ Aims to Cut Eight Months Off the Development and Production Time of a Vaccine
From Bloomberg News: The Trump administration is organizing a Manhattan Project-style effort to drastically cut the time needed to develop a coronavirus vaccine, with a goal of making enough doses for most Americans by...
Lockdown Critics Have Some Valid Points
By Joe Nocera in Bloomberg: New York is the densest city in the country, and density is a crucial factor in spreading the virus. Yet cities and states that are far less dense have...
Elon Musk bashes US shelter-in-place orders as ‘fascist’ — ‘Give People Back their Goddamn Freedom’
$TSLA CEO @elonmusk blasts shelter in place orders: “To say that they cannot leave their house and they will be arrested if they do, this is fascist. This is not democratic, this is not...
Hollywood’s Great Depression: Meet the Entertainment Workers Left Jobless by the Coronavirus Pandemic
From Variety: Mac Brandt was one of the lucky ones. For the past six years, he’s made a living purely from acting, appearing in television shows like “Kingdom” and “Arrested Development,” and scrounging up...
Fauci: As ‘quarantine fatigue’ spreads, second wave of coronavirus is ‘inevitable’
The Washington Post via MSN: Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the second wave of infections is “inevitable” in the United States, which has recorded more...
Politico: Tara Reade allegations rattle Biden’s VP search
Is this one of the reasons Biden wants a woman on his ticket? From Politico: The job description for Joe Biden’s running mate has suddenly become more complicated: the Democratic vice presidential nominee must now...
Stacey Abrams on Tara Reade sexual assault allegation: ‘I believe Joe Biden’
Stacy Abrams from The Hill: Former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams (D) on Tuesday night defended presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden when asked about sexual assault allegations from Tara Reade, a former Biden aide who has alleged that the then-senator sexually assaulted...
Dems’ COVID Bill Would Expand Tax-Funded Abortion
From RealClearPolitics: If you want a preview of Democrats’ agenda should they gain more political power this fall, look no further than coronavirus legislation that Nancy Pelosi released last month. That bill includes an...
Senator Harry Reid: Pentagon Just Officially Released Videos on UFOs “only scratches the surface”
I’m glad the Pentagon is finally releasing this footage, but it only scratches the surface of research and materials available. The U.S. needs to take a serious, scientific look at this and any potential...
‘UFOs are real,’ Blink-182 founder says
From FOX NEWS: “UFOs are real and my partners at @TTSAcademy (that hail from CIA, DOD and Lockheed Martin SkunkWorks) stood with me for three years to let you know this (and more) was...
Delaying Herd Immunity is Costing Lives: “The current lockdown is protecting the healthy instead of the vulnerable.”
Martin Kulldorff is a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, in Spiked: Climate scientists are frustrated by people who do not believe in climate change. In epidemiology, our frustration is with anti-vaxxers. Most...
U.S. “Hospital Management” Software Used Up Personal Protective Equipment Reserves by Design
Capitalism cannot plan for or prepare for a black swan event like a pandemic — as U.S. hospital management software specifically used up personal protective stockpiles and did not replace them for financial reasons,...
Thomas Friedman in the NYT: The Swedish Approach — Herd Immunity by Design
Things have really gone off the rails when I am agreeing with Friedman, here, and quoted below: Mother Nature does not reward the strongest or the smartest. She rewards the species that are the...
Results Matter: Why is Florida’s Mortality from the Wuhan Virus is 95% Less than New York?
Read about Governor DeSantis’s Wuhan Virus strategy, from FOX NEWS: There’s one state in America that has a larger elderly population than New York, which is more ethnically diverse than New York, and that...
Swedish official Anders Tegnell says ‘herd immunity’ in Sweden might be a few weeks away
From USA Today: Sweden, unlike its Nordic neighbors Denmark and Norway – and virtually every other country in the western world – has resisted extensive lockdown restrictions to stem the coronavirus outbreak. Instead, it’s largely kept society, including...
Infographics Show the Wuhan Virus is Unlike other Leading Causes of Death in the U.S. — including the Flu
The infographics below are from The New Atlantis, a Journal of Technology and Society. Their main point clearly and graphically illustrated below is that the Wuhan virus death toll is unlike all other leading...
BBC: China rejects call for probe into origins of disease
From the BBC: A top diplomat in the UK, Chen Wen told the BBC the demands were politically motivated and would divert China’s attention from fighting the pandemic. Information about the origin of Covid-19...
Ground Zero: A fifth to half of all U.S. Wuhan Virus deaths have been in nursing homes
From Just the News: A few days ago the World Health Organization’s European regional director garnered global headlines by providing a grim statistic that pinpoints the ground zero in this coronavirus pandemic. More than...
Trump says China could have stopped Covid-19 and suggests US will seek damages
From The Guardian: “We’re doing very serious investigations … We are not happy with China,” the president said. “We believe it could have been stopped at the source. It could have been stopped quickly and...
Senate Majority Leader McConnell: “The next pandemic coming will be the lawsuit pandemic….we need to prevent that now”
From Politico: “We probably will do another bill. What I’m saying is it won’t just be about money,” McConnell said. “The next pandemic coming will be the lawsuit pandemic in the wake of this...
Americans for Tax Reform Backs Republican Study Committee Pandemic Health Care Framework
Read all about it here.
Gov. Cuomo: 24.7% positive for Wuhan Virus Antibodies in New York City
From CBS 2, in New York City: Regionally, the results suggest: 24.7% positive in New York City 15.1% positive in Westchester/Rockland 14.4% positive on Long Island 3.2% positive in the rest of the state...
Dr. Atlas: Science says It’s Time to Start Easing the Lockdowns
Dr. Atlas in The New York Post: First, we know the risk of dying from COVID-19 is far lower than initially thought, and not significant for the overwhelming majority of those infected. Multiple recent...
Wuhan Virus Reality Check
From First Things: Data are coming in, and their import is clear. The coronavirus pandemic is not and never was a threat to society. COVID-19 poses a danger to the elderly and the medically...
Politico: Schumer to introduce legislation preventing Trump from signing stimulus checks
The “No PR Act” will give President Trump negotiating leverage.
Pentagon Officially Releases Fighter Gun Camera Video of UFOs, Acknowledges Retrieval of ‘Objects’ from Crashes
Watch the news video from CBS NEWS.
Mainstream Republicans Back Decoupling Health Savings Accounts from High Deductible Health Plans
Three-quarters of the U.S. House of Representative’s Republican Members of Congress belong to the Republican Study Committee, which is not to be confused with the Freedom Caucus, which has about 30 members and was...
China’s ‘Chernobyl moment’
Father Raymond J. de Souza in the National Post: Is the coronavirus pandemic China’s “Chernobyl moment”? A cruel and callous cover-up that will mean the beginning of the end for the Communist Party of...
CNN: Meet the American Woman China says Began the Wuhan Virus Pandemic
From CNN, the Face of the American Woman says Started the Pandemic: Maatje Benassi, a US Army reservist and mother of two, has become the target of conspiracy theorists who falsely place her at...
Let’s Stop the Economic Suicide, and Get Back to Work
From Real Clear Economics: Let’s All get Back to Work.
Lock-down Economics are Driving the Social Security Trust Fund to Insolvency
THREAD: This week, Social Security’s trustees projected that reserves in the retirement trust fund will deplete in 2034 & the disability fund in 2065. But the report didn’t look at how a significant COVID-19...
WSJ: Fear and Loathing Driving a Pack-Up-and-Move Exodus from NYC — “I don’t know if I’ll ever feel comfortable getting on the subway again.”
Read all about it in The Wall Street Journal.
Virus may Destroy 40% of the US economy, Congressional Budget Office Officials say
From the New York Post: The coronavirus pandemic could wipe out 40% of the U.S. economy, quadruple the federal deficit to $3.7 trillion and push the national debt to nearly $27 trillion, the Congressional Budget...
People Turn to the Gig Economy for Income during the Pandemic State Lockdowns — Postmates, the New Critical, National Infrastructure
From CNN: Since last week, Gomez has driven to more than 50 homes and apartments in Los Angeles for Postmates, the on-demand food delivery startup. He was nervous at first about interacting with many...
Millions of years of learned human behavior, not Trump’s tweets, are about to overwhelm the state lockdowns
Daniel Henninger in the Wall Street Journal: The coronavirus lockdown model is about to collapse beneath its own weight, undermined by politics, confusion about the virus itself, and the basics of human nature. ….As...
Jenkins, Jr.: The Lockdowns Were the Black Swan, not the Wuhan Virus
By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. in the Wall Street Journal: Columbia University once found that only 20% of flu sufferers and 5% of cold sufferers bothered to see a doctor. This is why the Wuhan...
Darwinism in the Pandemic Age
Posted by Mike Ahmadi this morning: Darwinism. It’s tough to deny it and even tougher to fight it. I’m not talking about the whole man evolving from apes thing that gets the collective panties...
Doctors at Texas Health Dallas relied on their experience with Ebola — and a treatment from the history books — to help a Dallas man recover from 30 Days on Life Support
From The Dallas Morning News: Then they turned to a treatment from the history books. Convalescent plasma, antibody-rich blood donated by survivors of infectious disease, was developed in the late 1800s to fight diphtheria....
Atlas: The data is in — stop the panic and end the total isolation
Read the ground-breaking story with more than 557,000 shares.
Hinderaker: Courage and Truth are in Short Supply
Hinderaker in PowerLine: One can think about it in this simple way: the virus doesn’t disproportionately strike nursing homes relative to other institutions. It’s just that when it reaches a nursing home, it has...
Michael Osterholm, the Only Guy to Be Consistently Warning of a Pandemic before it Happened, Predicts 800,000 Americans Dead, with a 0.5% to 1.0% Mortality Rate
From an excellent interview by CNN’s Peter Bergen who interviews Michael Osterholm. OSTERHOLM: I’m from rural Iowa where a lot of very commonsense, smart people live. I think to myself: if I were at...
Mac Donald: The Deadly Costs of Extended Shutdown Orders
From American Greatness: The focus on saving “just one life” from the coronavirus, as Cuomo put it in March, to the exclusion of all other considerations likely will prove a catastrophic failure of policymaking....
HuffPo: Please Do Not Bathe In Clorox Like Cristina Cuomo Has Been Doing
From the Huffington Post: “Both days, I added 1/2 cup of Clorox to my bathwater to combat the radiation and metals in my system and oxygenate it,” she wrote of her routine. If you’re...
Bill de Blasio’s virus ‘snitch line’ met its inevitable fate
From the New York Post: De Blasio wants you to report people violating the lockdown orders (even if cops are reluctant to get tough in many cases), so he set up an account where...
Revealing S. Korean studies show antibodies could thwart COVID-19 reinfection, spread
From ABC NEWS: Results from two new South Korean studies shed light on whether antibodies will be a reliable form of protection against COVID-19 for those who have recovered from the disease. In one ongoing study,...
When will the White House Task Force Heed the Multiple and Varied American Antibody Test Results?
For the ‘Slow the Spread’ aficionados — the two California studies findings that there are about 50 times more unknown infecteds for every known infected or yesterday’s study announced by Gov. Cuomo that one...
US Navy recommends reinstating captain of coronavirus-stricken aircraft carrier
From CNBC: WASHINGTON — The U.S. Navy’s top officials recommended Friday that the captain relieved of duty after sounding the alarms of a growing coronavirus outbreak aboard an aircraft carrier should be reinstated. The decision to reinstate...
Pompeo blasts China for causing ‘enormous amount of pain’ and ‘loss of life’ with coronavirus coverup
From FOX NEWS: Pompeo Blasts China over Global Deaths and Economic Damage from the Wuhan Virus.
Marcus: Looks Like Trump was Right about the Mortality Rate of the Wuhan Virus
The Federalist: In early March, President Donald Trump was lambasted for saying on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show that he had a hunch the coronavirus fatality rate, which the World Health Organization pegged then...
Dr. Scott W. Atlas, Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution: Five Key Facts Being Ignored about Lockdowns
From Big League Politics: According to a recent Stanford University antibody study, the fatality rate of the infected is likely 0.1 to 0.2 percent. These numbers are far lower than past World Health Organization estimates that were 20...
Season One, Episode 30 of Star Trek — Operation Annihilate: Light Cures a Pandemic that Swept Multiple Planets in an Entire Solar System
Once again we can look to Kirk’s actions on the planet Deneva for guidance during this challenging time. Hat tip to my Democratic friend’s husband, for that great line.
Durham Expands His Investigative Team
From the Washington Examiner: U.S. Attorney John Durham has expanded his team as his review of the Trump-Russia investigators ramps up during the coronavirus pandemic, which has gripped the country and swept the globe....
ELITE SUPER SHOCK: Judge Throws Jussie Smollett’s Lawsuit Out of Court — DISMISSED!
The lying, super-scumbag, hand-wringing racist Jussie Smollett chalks up the latest of his soon-to-be-long-string of court losses.
Joe Biden is a Hillary Clinton Retread
Donald Trump, Jr. in the Daily Caller: Joe Biden is an older, less coherent version of Hillary Clinton, and he seems to enjoy proving it. Like the last Democrat presidential candidate, Biden is an...
Kennedy: The Chinese Art of War
The American Mind: And the result is also what might have been expected. Nearly 330 million Americans have been sheltering in place, stopping the largest and most powerful economy on earth. Almost thirty million Americans...