theblaze--2020-05-04--Data show Americans are returning to normal life whether state and local officials like it or not

As the coronavirus pandemic wanes, new mobility data shows that Americans are no longer sheltering in place to the extent they did several weeks ago, despite continued state and local guidelines.
What are the details?
According to Apple's mobility trends report — which tracks people's searches for directions on Apple Maps — traffic in America has more than doubled in the last three weeks since its low point at -60% from the baseline. As of Saturday, that number had risen to only -16% from the baseline.
Another report, this one from location data provider Foursquare, found that "fast food and gas station visits have returned to pre-COVID-19 levels in the Midwest and in rural areas across the nation." Foursquare collects its data from willing participants who allow the company to track locations they visit.
The reports correspond with mobile phone data provided to NPR by SafeGraph over the weekend which also showed that Americans are not sheltering in place as much as they had in early April.
"About 50% of those mobile phones that SafeGraph had data on stayed home on April 12, which was Easter — the highest point in the data," the NPR report noted. "That number hasn't since come anywhere close, showing a steady decline with the most recent numbers showing that less than 40% stayed home on April 27."
The report added that the trend is consistent across the entire country.
Why does it matter?
While many states across the country have begun a phased return to normalcy, easing shelter-in-place orders and reopening certain nonessential retail businesses, the trend is not consistent across the board. Some states, such as New York, California, and Michigan, have continued their strict social distancing guidelines.
Yet even in states where a phased reopening has begun, that process did not officially begin until late April or early May. But by that time, data show that many Americans were already easing back into normal life.
It appears that the nationwide shelter in place is ending, regardless of what state and local officials say.
"Whether governments, medical professionals, and scientists want it to or not, people seem tired of the shutdown and eager to get back to some semblance of normal life," John Koetsier, a writer and data analyst for Forbes, wrote.
Nick Singh, a marketing lead at SafeGraph, agreed with that sentiment, as well.
"Regardless of what the orders say or the governors say, we're seeing the whole country softening up," he said.


theblaze--2020-05-04--'What is this, a military state now?': NYC residents annoyed at 'Orwellian' cops monitoring their ev

'What is this, a military state now?': NYC residents annoyed at 'Orwellian' cops monitoring their every move on sunny day at public parks

'What is this , a military state now ? '
: NYC residents annoyed at 'Orwellian ' cops monitoring their @ @ @ @ @ at public parks 'It 's like something out of `` 1984 '' '

New York City, hardest hit by COVID-19 in the United States, hasn't caught many breaks lately.
But it finally got one over the weekend: warm weather.
In fact, Saturday the mercury climbed into the 70s — the warmest day in the city since March 20, the New York Post reported.
Which meant that a lot of New Yorkers headed outside, went for walks, played sports, and gathered at parks. And more than 1,000 New York City police officers were right there with them, too, making sure they abided by social distancing rules, the paper said.
What are the details?
And the sight of the NYPD didn't sit too well with everybody.
"It's Orwellian to be watched like this," one 36-year-old told the Post as she took in the sunshine at Staten Island's Clove Lakes Park.
"It's friggin' nuts," she also remarked to the paper regarding the influx of patrol cars, park police officers, and bike cops with video camera-equipped helmets equipped.
"It's like something out of '1984,'" the woman added to the Post, yet another reference to George Orwell's oft-mentioned novel about totalitarianism. "What is this, a military state now?"
The paper said thousands gathered at Central Park to sunbathe and have picnics, and while few wore masks, the groups and individuals kept the required six feet away from each other.
"I walk out of my building [in Chinatown], and I have a cop telling me it's illegal for me to not wear a face mask outside," Malcolm Brown, 26, recounted to the Post, adding that when he "started to really pay attention" he noticed "dozens of police vans everywhere. It's an overwhelming feeling. I understand they are keeping us safe, but do we really want to become China, where they're recording you when you come out of your building?"
Photo by Noam Galai/Getty Images
Witnesses noted to the paper they saw an unusually large law enforcement mobilization at tiny Silver Lake Park in Staten Island: two foot patrol officers, a pair of squad cars, one undercover car, one uniform state Department of Environmental Conservation car, and a Parks Department vehicle.
At Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens, the Post said cops got busy when soccer players created makeshift goals with sneakers — as such an object in an organized game draws too much close contact.
"Gentlemen, gentlemen," one officer told the players, the paper said. "Bring it in, bring it in. Break it up. You can kick the ball back and forth, but these goal posts, they have to go, Okay?"
While the group dispersed as requested, one player called out, "I mean, we wanted to play. It's nice outside," the Post said.
Carlos Eduardo, 56, was trying to relax nearby, the paper reported, and found it difficult with so many officers around.
"I don't want to be watched so much," he told the Post, adding that "in the house it's like jail. I don't want to come to the park and feel like I'm in jail."
Eduardo added a zinger, the paper said: "We're all going to die of something."
What did police have to say?
NYPD has made 60 arrests and handed out 343 summonses since March 16 related to social distancing issues, the Post said.
"The public should expect to see social distancing patrol officers on foot, on bikes, and in vehicles ensuring that social distancing procedures are followed," NYPD spokeswoman Sgt. Jessica McRorie added to the paper.
Photo by John Nacion/NurPhoto via Getty Images
What did the governor have to say?
Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo told New Yorkers to "go for a walk, but respect the social distancing and wear a mask," adding that he's told officers all over the state to "enforce the mask executive order," the Post said.
Cuomo also wasn't happy with those who didn't wear masks during protests Friday while calling for the state to reopen, the paper said.
"It's reckless, it's irresponsible, and it's not about your life. It's about other people's lives," he said.


theblaze--2020-05-04--DHS report: China 'intentionally concealed the severity' of COVID-19 to hoard supplies for itself

DHS report : China 'intentionally concealed the severity ' of COVID-19 to hoard supplies for itself ' I can tell @ @ @ @ @ significant amount of evidence that this came from that laboratory in Wuhan '

The Chinese communist government "intentionally concealed the severity" of the coronavirus outbreak from the international community to hoard medical supplies, according to a new Department of Homeland Security report.
The Associated Press obtained a copy of the report, which was dated May 1. From the AP:
Not classified but marked "for official use only," the DHS analysis states that, while downplaying the severity of the coronavirus, China increased imports and decreased exports of medical supplies. It attempted to cover up doing so by "denying there were export restrictions and obfuscating and delaying provision of its trade data," the analysis states.
The report also says China held off informing the World Health Organization that the coronavirus "was a contagion" for much of January so it could order medical supplies from abroad — and that its imports of face masks and surgical gowns and gloves increased sharply.
The report states that it is 95% likely that changes in China's import-export behavior "were not within normal range."
The report's revelations came on the same day that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said there is "enormous evidence" proving COVID-19 was leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
"There's enormous evidence that that's where this began," Pompeo said on ABC's "This Week." "I can tell you that there is a significant amount of evidence that this came from that laboratory in Wuhan."
Indeed, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a statement last week saying they are "rigorously" investigating whether COVID-19 came from the Wuhan lab. Other reports from the weekend said the majority of U.S. intelligence agencies believe the virus accidentally leaked from the lab.
Meanwhile, a dossier from Five Eyes — an intelligence alliance between the U.S., Canada, England, Australia, and New Zealand — that recently leaked laid out how the Chinese communist government orchestrated a cover-up of the COVID-19 to mislead the world.
According to the document, China deliberately lied and destroyed evidence, "disappeared" scientists and doctors who dared speak up about the truth, lied about human-to-human transmission, and refused to provide international scientists working on a vaccine with a live strain of the virus.


theblaze--2020-05-04--Dave Rubin issues ominous warning about Calif. leaders’ stay-at-home mandates: ‘People will break …

Dave Rubin issues ominous warning about Calif. leaders’ stay-at-home mandates: ‘People will break … Americans love liberty’

He only said what many are thinking

Dave Rubin, conservative author and host of the "Rubin Report," appeared on Fox News' "Fox & Friends" Monday, where he blasted California leaders for closing the beaches and other public areas across the state.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) ordered the beaches in Orange County to close Friday in order to stop the spread of coronavirus across the state.
An estimated thousands of area residents converged on Huntington Beach on Friday to protest Newsom's order.
What are the details?
Rubin, whose program, "Rubin Report," is distributed on Blaze Media's BlazeTV network, explained that he believed California's lawmakers simply want to flex their political muscles by closing large swaths of public areas — such as beaches — amid the COVID-19 pandemic in order to stop the spread of the disease.
"Just because they have the power to do something, doesn't mean they automatically should," he said. "[Liberal politicians] don't really explain why they are doing it. So you may have seen the video of the deputy mayor of Los Angeles in a helicopter. And he is showing a completely empty beach. And the way he treated it implied he was sort of proud of it.
"It's like that is really a recipe for disaster in a state like this," Rubin insisted, pointing out the fact that residents will remain cooped up in their homes only for so long.
"It's like, if you don't let us do these things, then at some point people will break," he reasoned. "What I think that the progressives are misunderstanding here is that Americans love liberty. Americans love being free. We will be responsible, and we're willing to take some risk. But we can't live like rats trapped in our houses forever."
Huntington Police Chief Robert Handy told KTLA-TV that he estimated that at least 2,500 to 3,000 people showed up Friday to protest against Newsom's order.


theblaze--2020-05-04--California's new list of approved outdoor activities includes 'meditation,' 'yoga,' 'soft martial ar

California's new list of approved outdoor activities includes 'meditation,' 'yoga,' 'soft martial arts' — oh, and 'watch the sunrise or sunset'

California 's new list of approved outdoor activities includes 'meditation , ' 'yoga , ' 'soft martial arts ' — @ @ @ @ @ sunrise or sunset' And do n't forget 'exploring rock pools , ' 'throwing a football @ @ @ @ @ ( not in groups ) , ' and 'tree climbing '

As you've no doubt noticed, tensions are mounting around the country as governors hold fast to coronavirus shutdown measures that have closed businesses far and wide and sent tens of millions of Americans to unemployment lines.
Among the hot spots is California where Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom got angry at residents last week who flocked to still-open beaches — so much so that he ordered all California beaches closed Friday.
In response, thousands of residents made their way to Sacramento the same day to protest Newsom's stay-at-home orders, and 32 demonstrators were arrested. And Modoc County in the far northeast corner of the state is defying the governor's orders and allowing churches, schools, and nonessential businesses to reopen during the pandemic.
Wanna go outside? Have we got a deal for you!
But amid the upheaval, Newsom & Co. has residents covered when it comes to lawfully being outside. The state recently released a new "non-exhaustive list" of approved outdoor, recreational activities — with the caveat that partakers must "maintain a safe physical distance of six feet and gather only with members of your household."
Among some of the more interesting pastimes in the allowed list are "meditation," "yoga," "soft martial arts" — and "watch the sunrise or sunset." Here's one apparent yoga enthusiast going for it:
And some of the detail is rather funny, even if unintentional. There's an entry for "throwing a baseball/softball" — as opposed to watching it slowly decompose — but there's no additional instruction for "catching" the baseball or softball. Hopefully Newsom's charges need no further hand-holding in this department. Also golfers can't use carts — they have to walk — and it's not clear why. And it's also unclear if the "kite boarding and kitesurfing" approved activity is still possible with the newly closed beaches.
Here's the list:


theblaze--2020-05-04--DNC chairman: Searching Biden’s records is just like searching Hillary Clinton’s emails — ‘because t

DNC chairman: Searching Biden’s records is just like searching Hillary Clinton’s emails — ‘because there’s nothing there’

DNC chairman : Searching Biden ’ s records is just like searching Hillary Clinton ’ s emails — ‘ because @ @ @ @ @ ’

Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez compared calls for searching presumptive nominee Joe Biden's Senate records to searching 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton's emails, saying there is "nothing there."
"This is like the Hillary emails because there was nothing there," Perez said during a Sunday interview with ABC News' Martha Raddatz, in which the DNC chair defended Biden against allegations of sexual assault by his former Senate aide Tara Reade.
Former FBI Director James Comey concluded that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and staff had been "extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information," though no charges were brought following the search of Clinton's private server.
Biden has denied the accusations launched against him by Reade and has asked the National Archives to release any record, should it exist, of the sexual harassment complaint Reade alleges she filed with the Senate in 1993.
The former vice president, however, is denying outside access to his career-spanning Senate records, which some believe may contain corroborating evidence. The files are currently being kept under lock-and-key at Biden's alma mater, the University of Delaware, where Biden has close ties with the people in charge.
Despite refusing to allow even a search of "Tara Reade" in the records, Biden reportedly sent campaign operatives to look through the records last spring shortly after he launched his presidential bid.
During the interview, Perez backed up Biden's refusal to allow a search of the Senate records, arguing that there's "nothing there." If there was anything there, argued Perez, former president Barack Obama would have found it.
"The most comprehensive investigation of the vice president was when he was vetted by Barack Obama in 2008," Perez suggested. "I'm very familiar with vice-presidential vetting process. They look at everything about you. They looked at the entire history of Joe Biden, his entire career, and I will tell you, if Barack Obama had any indication that there was an issue, Barack Obama would not have had him as his vice president.
"Barack Obama trusted Joe Biden. I trust Joe Biden," he added.


theblaze--2020-05-05--Joe Scarborough tells Trump to 'take a rest' and let Pence take over after tweet about past murder c

Joe Scarborough tells Trump to 'take a rest' and let Pence take over after tweet about past murder conspiracy

Joe Scarborough tells Trump to 'take a rest ' and let Pence take over after tweet about past murder conspiracy @ @ @ @ @ Trump 's tweet

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough fired back at President Donald Trump over a tweet that drudged up a decades-old murder conspiracy theory against the former Republican congressman.
"I know you meant to be extraordinarily cruel to me by attacking me, by bringing up a conspiracy theory that has lived in the gutters of the internet for some time now. But just like the Seth Rich conspiracy murder that was pushed by your allies, you don't understand the pain you cause," Scarborough said on his show on Monday.
He was responding to a tweet the president sent early Monday morning.
"'Concast' should open up a long overdue Florida Cold Case against Psycho Joe Scarborough," Trump tweeted.
"I know him and Crazy Mika well, used them beautifully in the last Election, dumped them nicely, and will state on the record that he is 'nuts'. Besides, bad ratings!" he added.
The president was referring to the sudden and surprising death of Lori Klausutis, a 28-year-old intern at Scarborough's offices when he was a United States congressman in 2001. A coroner said that she had passed out from an undiagnosed heart condition and hit her head.
Scarborough fired back at the president that he was causing pain to the family of Klausutis by bringing up her death in such a manner.
"You don't understand the pain you cause," said Scarborough, "you cause to families who've already lost a loved one. Not me. Not my children. Not anybody that knows me. They know the truth. You once again drag a family through this and make them relive it again, just like Seth Rich's parents, as if losing a loved one the first time isn't enough."
He went on to excoriate the president for tweeting insults and "hateful things" about reporters and others during his working weekend.
"Mr. President, I ask that you get checked out," Scarborough continued. "I ask that you take a rest. I ask that you take care of yourself, maybe let Mike Pence run things for the rest of the week. You're not well."
Here's the video of Scarborough's comments:


theblaze--2020-05-05--Kentucky parents of 7 investigated for abuse after breaking social distancing rules

Kentucky parents of 7 investigated for abuse after breaking social distancing rules The attorneys representing the family say the COVID-19 @ @ @ @ @ false reports

A family of nine has found themselves under the thumb of child protective services in Kentucky, after what they say started as a social distancing warning from a bank teller developed into an investigation of possible abuse.
After the story was first reported anonymously, the mother involved has since come forward to explain more details to BlazeTV host Glenn Beck.
What are the details?
Reason reported the parents' story last week, protecting their identities and explaining that the alleged social distancing "offense" occurred shortly after the family moved to Kentucky from New York City.
The parents went to the bank in order to open a joint checking account in early March, and brought five of their seven children inside because the kids were too young to stay outside unattended.
According to the account detailed by the Home School Legal Defense Association, who represents the family:
The teller immediately interrogated [the parents] about why they had brought five kids into the bank at one time. She [the teller] told them they could not get within six feet of her and that they needed to take the children out. [The mother] explained that the children were too young to be unsupervised by an adult, and neither she nor [her husband] could take them elsewhere because the couple were opening a joint account, and both had to be present.
While [the father] stayed with the children away from the counter, [the mother] opened the account, feeling self-conscious as the staff whispered to each other and watched her family suspiciously. When [the father] walked to the counter to show his New York ID and to sign, the bank staff asked why [the parents'] identifications were from different states, which the couple explained.
After the couple left, they chatted on the drive home about how ridiculous the experience had been, only to arrive at their house to find a state trooper and a social worker from child protective services who explained that they were there to investigate an anonymous hotline call claiming, according to Reason, "that a mother of five had taken her children out with a man who wasn't their dad, and they had bruises on their arms that indicated grabbing."
The mother offered to present her children's birth certificates to prove that her husband was, indeed, their father, pointed out that the kids were all wearing jackets so it would be impossible for an observer to see their upper arms, and objected to the male social worker searching under her daughters' clothing. The investigator did make at least one of the boys take off his shirt, and pulled up the girls' sleeves to take photos.
But, despite being presented with evidence that the father was related to the children and that there were no signs of abuse, the social worker was not satisfied. The mother, Mary Sabbatino, told Glenn Beck, "After all was said and done after the initial call...now he wants an investigation because why am I homeschooling and how can I give adequate attention to that many children."
Anything else?
HSLDA cited the Sabbatinos' case as an example of why the organization is pushing for reforms in child protective services, such as ending anonymous reports and banning open-ended investigations.
Vice President of Litigation and Development James Mason wrote of the case that it "appears that whoever made the call knew how to juice up the details with just the right kind of false information to cause an overreaction by CPS."
He added, "I suspect the COVID-19 crisis could lead to more panicked false reports of this kind."


theblaze--2020-05-05--CNN sends cease and desist letter to Trump over 'American Comeback' video ad

CNN sends cease and desist letter to Trump over 'American Comeback ' video ad 'Just declare yourselves a SuperPAC for @ @

Lawyers for CNN's parent company sent a cease and desist letter to the re-election campaign for President Donald Trump over an ad using video from their show in a reportedly 'deceptive' manner.
WarnerMedia accused the Trump campaign of using CNN video in a "false, misleading and deceptive" manner.
They were objecting to an ad released on Sunday entitled, "American Comeback," where video is edited to make it appear as if CNN's medical expert Sanjay Gupta is crediting Trump's policies with preventing more coronavirus cases.
The re-election campaign said they would spend more than million dollars to support the video advertisement.
But in their demand letter, lawyers for CNN point out that Gupta was not referring to the travel ban that the president instituted early in a response to the coronavirus, but rather to "the stay at home orders, the social distancing orders."
Lawyers for WarnerMedia claimed in the letter that "the advertisement purposely and deceptively edits the clip to imply that Mr. Blitzer and Dr. Gupta were crediting the President's travel ban policy issued in January for saving millions of American lives, when in fact Mr. Blitzer and Dr. Gupta were discussing recently implemented social distancing guidelines and stay-at-home orders issued by state and local governments."
The letter included a demand that the campaign cease using CNN's video in their ad.
The response
In a tweet posted on Monday, the Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale hammed CNN media correspondent Brian Stelter for apparently only giving the campaign 7 minutes to respond to his request for a comment.
"@CNN rejected another accurate Trump ad because they're stooges for Dems but they'll run any bogus Dem ad," Parscale tweeted.
"Drop the 'news' veil already & just declare yourselves a SuperPAC for Biden," he added.
Here's the video ad to which CNN is objecting:


theblaze--2020-05-06--Breaking: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg hospitalized

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was hospitalized on Tuesday after a non-surgical treatment for a gallbladder condition .
The office for public information of the Supreme Court released a statement with details of the condition of the liberal 83-year-old justice lauded widely by the left .
The statement said Ginsburg suffered from a gallstone that had blocked her cystic duct and caused an infection .
The benign condition is called acute cholecystitis .
`` The Justice is resting comfortably and plans to participate in the oral argument teleconference tomorrow morning remotely from the hospital , '' the statement read @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore , Maryland , for up to two more days .
In August 2019 Ginsburg underwent a treatment to remove a malignant tumor on her pancreas .
She also was hospitalized in November for flu-like symptoms .
The Supreme Court has changed the process for their hearings to teleconferencing in order to accommodate social distancing guidelines over the coronavirus pandemic .
Ginsburg is the oldest sitting member of the U.S. Supreme Court , the highest court in the United States .
Here 's the latest from the Supreme Court @

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was hospitalized on Tuesday after a non-surgical treatment for a gallbladder condition.
The office for public information of the Supreme Court released a statement with details of the condition of the liberal 87-year-old justice lauded widely by the left.
The statement said Ginsburg suffered from a gallstone that had blocked her cystic duct and caused an infection. The benign condition is called acute cholecystitis.
"The Justice is resting comfortably and plans to participate in the oral argument teleconference tomorrow morning remotely from the hospital," the statement read.
She expects to stay hospitalized at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, for up to two more days.
In August 2019 Ginsburg underwent a treatment to remove a malignant tumor on her pancreas. She also was hospitalized in November for flu-like symptoms.
The Supreme Court has changed the process for their hearings to teleconferencing in order to accommodate social distancing guidelines over the coronavirus pandemic.
Ginsburg is the oldest sitting member of the U.S. Supreme Court, the highest court in the United States.
Here's the latest from the Supreme Court:


theblaze--2020-05-05--Mike Rowe: 'We're being treated like children ... fed platitudes, bromides, and bowls of warm milk'

Mike Rowe : 'We 're being treated like children ... fed platitudes , bromides , and bowls of warm milk' @ @ @ @ @ factor in the equation

As the coronavirus shutdown continues well into its second month, former "Dirty Jobs" host Mike Rowe joined Glenn Beck to discuss the balance between keeping Americans safe and losing everything that makes us Americans -- not just the economy, but what makes us free, what gives us pride, and what gives us meaning in our life.
"There are times ... where safety first is wise and prudent. You don't drive 55 when there's an ice storm. You adjust, you re-calibrate, you take the temperature of the room and you adjust your behavior. It's called homeostatic risk, risk equilibrium. We're all hard-wired to adapt and adjust our behavior to the circumstances around us. There are times when putting safety above all things makes absolute sense, but there has never been a time where arbitraging everything else out of the equation, and venerating safety to the point that nothing else is even allowed to be discussed, there's never been a point in our history, at least as I understand it, where that's made a lick of sense," Mike said.
"I think most of the country is going to come through this with the realization that we're being treated like children and we're being fed platitudes, bromides, and bowls of warm milk by people who want us to look at them as parents," he added.
Watch the video below to catch more of the conversation:
Watch the full special with Mike Rowe on YouTube or BlazeTV.com.
In response to the COVID-19 crisis, BlazeTV is offering our BIGGEST discount ever! Get $30 off your subscription when you use promo code GLENN. Claim your special offer here.
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theblaze--2020-05-05--In unearthed private letter, Obama excoriated GOP-led probe into Biden as aiding Russian disinformat

In unearthed private letter, Obama excoriated GOP-led probe into Biden as aiding Russian disinformation

In unearthed private letter , Obama excoriated GOP-led probe into Biden as aiding Russian disinformation He called the request unprecedented @ @

A newly unearthed private letter showed former President Barack Obama's response to a Republican-led demand for information on Joe Biden, and it was not well received.
The letter was sent from the office of the 44th president to the National Archives and Records Administration in March over a request from Republican Sens. Grassley (Iowa) and Ron Johnson (Wis.) for records relating to Biden's actions in Ukraine.
Critics have accused Biden of using his former position in the Obama administration in order to personally benefit his son Hunter Biden, who sat on the board of a Ukrainian energy company.
Obama called the request improper and said it was aiding a Russian disinformation campaign.
"It arises out of efforts by some, actively supported by Russia, to shift the blame for Russian interference in the 2016 election to Ukraine," claimed Obama in the letter, published by Buzzfeed News.
"The request for early release of presidential records in order to give credence to a Russian disinformation campaign — one that has already been thoroughly investigated by a bipartisan congressional committee — is without precedent," he added.
Despite the strong objections, Obama agreed to the release of the documents in "the interest of countering the misinformation campaign underlying the request."
The National Archives released 9,400 pages of the records requested since mid-March.
While he was hounded by questions surrounding his involvement in Ukraine, Biden became the presumed Democratic candidate for the presidential election.
Here's more about Biden's Ukraine scandal:


theblaze--2020-05-05--Dallas salon owner sentenced to 7 days in jail, hit with thousands in fines for refusing to close

Dallas salon owner sentenced to 7 days in jail , hit with thousands in fines for refusing to close Shelley @ @ @ @ @ had to keep her business open in order to feed her kids

The owner of a Dallas salon has been sentenced to seven days in jail and fined thousands of dollars for openly defying state, county, and city government mandates by reopening her business and refusing to re-close amid the coronavirus shutdown.
What are the details?
Shelley Luther, who owns Salon a la Mode, reopened her business on April 30 in violation of Texas's statewide lockdown on businesses deemed nonessential during the COVID-19 crisis. She argued that she was behind on her mortgage along with several of the 19 stylists who work at her salon, and that the government did not have the right to prohibit citizens from working to provide for their families.
Luther was issued a citation from the City of Dallas, followed by a cease-and-desist letter and a restraining order from the county. Yet, she stood her ground and continued to operate.
On Tuesday, Dallas Civil District Judge Eric Moyé, who issued the restraining order, found Luther both criminally and civilly in violation of his order, according to WFAA-TV. She was also found to be in violation of Gov. Greg Abbott's (R) stay-at-home order.
Moyé sentenced Luther to seven days in jail and a $7,000 fine.
According to KTVT-TV, the judge told Luther he would consider not giving her jail time if she would agree to close until the governor's order was lifted and "if she admitted that she was wrong, that she was selfish, and that she should apologize to the elected officials whose orders she violated."
Luther told the judge:
I have much respect for this court and laws. I have never been in this position before and it's not someplace that I want to be. But I have to disagree with you, sir, when you say that I'm selfish — because feeding my kids is not selfish. I have hair stylists that are going hungry because they'd rather feed their kids. So sir, if you think the law is more important than kids getting fed, then please go ahead with your decision, but I am not going to shut the salon.
Salon A La Mode Owner, Shelley Luther Arrested: 'Feeding My Kids Isn't Selfish, I'm Not Closing The www.youtube.com
Anything else?
A GoFundMe account has been set up to support Shelley Luther.
Also on Tuesday, Gov. Abbott announced that all Texas hair salons, nail salons, and tanning salons may reopen on Friday.


theblaze--2020-05-05--REVOLT IN CALIFORNIA: Counties defy Gov. Newsom's shutdown orders

'We ca n't live like rats trapped in our houses forever '

BlazeTV's Dave Rubin, host of "The Rubin Report", talked to Fox & Friends recently about counties in California that are defying California Gov. Gavin Newsom's (D) stay-at-home orders as anti-lockdown protests continue across the Golden State.
In the past few of days, Modoc, Yuba, and Sutter counties have begun to reopen parts of their economies without Newsom's approval.
A longtime California resident, Dave offered his thoughts on how Newsom and other state governors are using the COVID-19 pandemic to abuse their power, and how applying blanket policies across diverse counties, cities, and towns doesn't make sense.
"Just because they have the power to do something doesn't meant that they automatically should, and they don't really explain why they're doing it," Dave said of state governors.
"At some point people will break," he continued. "What I think that the progressives are misunderstanding here is that Americans love liberty. Americans love being free. We will be responsible and we're willing to take some risks, but we can't live like rats trapped in our houses forever."
Watch the video below to catch more of the conversation:
CA Counties Revolt Defying Lockdown Order, Dave Rubin Responds | POLITICS | Rubin Report youtu.be
Dave just released his new book, "Don't Burn This Book: Thinking for Yourself in the Age of Unreason," available now at https://bit.ly/2VptpYs. He joined Glenn Beck on the radio program to break down what he calls "the four kinds of fake news."
Watch:
Want more from Dave Rubin?
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theblaze--2020-05-05--Report: Top Chinese leaders told to prepare for 'armed confrontation' with US over coronavirus lies

Report : Top Chinese leaders told to prepare for 'armed confrontation ' with US over coronavirus lies China 's culpability @ @ @ @ @ to light

China's top leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping, were recently told to prepare for "armed confrontation" with the United States.
Chinese intelligence presented the Chinese Communist Party's top leadership with a report last month detailing surging anti-Chinese sentiment around the world for unleashing the coronavirus, according to Reuters.
Sources familiar with the report told Reuters that global anti-Chinese sentiment has risen to the highest levels in more than three decades. Not since the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, and subsequent massacre, has the world so disliked China, the report indicates.
According to Reuters, the breakdown in U.S.-China relations is akin to the fragile U.S.-Soviet Union relationship in the aftermath of World War II.
From Reuters:
One of those with knowledge of the report said it was regarded by some in the Chinese intelligence community as China's version of the "Novikov Telegram", a 1946 dispatch by the Soviet ambassador to Washington, Nikolai Novikov, that stressed the dangers of U.S. economic and military ambition in the wake of World War Two.
Novikov's missive was a response to U.S. diplomat George Kennan's "Long Telegram" from Moscow that said the Soviet Union did not see the possibility for peaceful coexistence with the West, and that containment was the best long-term strategy. The two documents helped set the stage for the strategic thinking that defined both sides of the Cold War.
China's culpability for the COVID-19 outbreak is being increasingly uncovered.
Although there are doubts about where COVID-19 originated, what is clear is that China misled the international community about the severity of the virus.
An intelligence dossier from Five Eyes — an intelligence alliance between the U.S., England, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand — claims that China suppressed the truth about the virus by destroying evidence, "disappearing" scientists and doctors who knew the seriousness of COVID-19, lied about the virus being transmittable by humans, and refused to provide international scientists working on a vaccine with a live strain of the virus.
Meanwhile, an internal Homeland Security report said China dramatically increased its imports of medical supplies and substantially decreased exports of personal protective equipment to hoard the value materials for themselves knowing the severity of the unknown virus.
And it's still not clear where the virus originated.
Beijing claims it originated in China's infamous wet markets. However, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said last week it is "rigorously" investigating whether the virus accidentally leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan.


theblaze--2020-05-05--President Trump: 'DC will never be a state' because Republicans aren't 'stupid' enough to give Democ

President Trump: 'DC will never be a state' because Republicans aren't 'stupid' enough to give Democrats two automatic Senate seats

President Trump : 'DC will never be a state ' because Republicans are n't 'stupid ' enough to give Democrats @ @ @ @ @ thank you .
That 'll never happen . '

For decades, advocates for statehood for Washington, D.C., have complained that it's not fair that the nation's capital city doesn't have its own representation in Congress. Those advocates have said the district's 700,000 residents deserve to have their voice heard on Capitol Hill with more than just a non-voting delegate in the House of Representatives.
Opponents of the District of Columbia statehood have repeatedly noted that the Founders designed the seat of government to be represented by all of Congress and not have its own representatives for its own interests.
The New York Post asked President Donald Trump for his thoughts on the idea of D.C. statehood.
The president was clear in his answer: "D.C. will never be a state."
Why? No self-respecting Republican is going to vote to give Democrats two more Senate seats.
Trump is a no
The GOP has long opposed D.C. statehood generally — both because of a deference to the constitutional intentions of the Founders and because the city is heavily Democratic. So any senators or representatives elected from the district would almost be guaranteed to be Democrats.
And President Trump understands this: He won only 4% of the D.C. vote in 2016.
When the Post asked him about it, Trump replied, “DC will never be a state. You mean District of Columbia, a state? Why? So we can have two more Democratic — Democrat senators and five more congressmen? No thank you. That'll never happen."
Trump told the Post that Democrats back D.C. statehood not because they care about the district's citizens but because they're seeking a political advantage.
"They want to do that so they pick up two automatic Democrat — you know it's a 100 percent Democrat, basically — so why would the Republicans ever do that?," he said.
The only way it could possibly happen is if Republicans are "stupid" enough to vote for it.
"That'll never happen unless we have some very, very stupid Republicans around that I don't think you do. You understand that, right?" Trump said to the paper.
He added, “Why don't you just take two senators and put them in there? No, it's not gonna happen. And it how many House seats is it? Like four, three or four? Whatever it is. You'd have three or four more congressmen and two more senators, every single day of every single year. And it would never change. No, the Republicans would never do that," the Post reported.


theblaze--2020-05-05--New York adds 1,600 previously undisclosed deaths to coronavirus nursing home total

New York Gov .
Andrew Cuomo speaks during his daily press briefing on May 1 in Albany , New York @ @ @ @ @ )

The New York state health department added more than 1,600 new deaths to the total number of people who have died from COVID-19 in nursing homes, the New York Times reported.
These new deaths were people who are presumed to have died from the novel coronavirus, but that diagnosis has not been confirmed by a lab test. The total number of nursing home coronavirus deaths in New York is now listed at 4,813, which doesn't include nursing home residents who died in hospitals.
The addition of the presumed deaths is a part of a state revision in data collection and publishing.
"This crisis and our response to it continues to evolve," a health department spokesperson said. "And the unprecedented amount and specificity of data we are providing to the public will continue to evolve with it."
So far, nursing homes account for about a quarter of all coronavirus deaths in New York, although David Grabowski, a Harvard University researcher who specializes in nursing homes, said that he expects nursing homes to account for half of all COVID-19 deaths in every state.
Getting accurate data out of nursing homes has been an issue during this pandemic, NYT reported:
Nursing homes had fought the release of death counts for individual facilities, arguing that a large toll might not indicate poor infection control and might scare families unnecessarily.
Even after the state started to release data about nursing home deaths on April 17, workers at several homes told The New York Times that their employers were not reporting accurate counts for fear of bad publicity.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) who has called nursing homes a "feeding frenzy" for COVID-19, has defended a state policy that requires nursing homes to admit patients even if they've tested positive for the coronavirus.
"There is no way for us to prevent the spread under these conditions," Donny Tuchman, the head of the Cobble Hill Health Center in Brooklyn, said in an email to the state health department in early April. At least 55 of his patients have died of the coronavirus.


theblaze--2020-05-05--Dollar Tree clerk tells man to wear mask in store, so he wipes his nose and face on clerk's shirt: '

Dollar Tree clerk tells man to wear mask in store, so he wipes his nose and face on clerk's shirt: 'Here, I will use this as a mask'

Dollar Tree clerk tells man to wear mask in store , so he wipes his nose and face on clerk @ @ @ @ @ I will use this as a mask' The idiocy is strong with this one

A man was caught on surveillance video wiping his nose and face on a Dollar Tree clerk's shirt after she told him he must wear a mask while inside the store in Holly, Michigan, on Saturday afternoon, police said.
What are the details?
The clerk also referred the man to signs posted on the store's entry doors instructing customers to wear masks before entering, police said, which has become standard operating procedure in most stores around the United States in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
But instead police said the man walked over to the clerk and wiped his nose and face on her shirt while stating, "Here, I will use this as a mask."
Police said the man continued to be loud and disruptive inside the store before leaving in a white van.
Image source: Holly Police Department
Holly is about an hour northwest of Detroit.
Arrest made
But after their initial Facebook post about the assault, police said someone offered a tip about the culprit's identity, after which police arrested the suspect.
Police didn't identity the suspect but said more details will be released after an arraignment has concluded.


theblaze--2020-05-05--Dave Rubin dedicated his new book to Ben Affleck — here's why

Dave Rubin dedicated his new book to Ben Affleck — here 's why

Chad Prather was joined by author and BlazeTV host Dave Rubin and they discussed Rubin's new book, "Don't Burn This Book." The book was written to encourage people to be free thinkers and to accept all critics that accompany thinking for one's self.
In this clip, Rubin explains why he dedicating his new book to actor Ben Affleck.
Use code CHAD to save $30 off one year of BlazeTV.
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theblaze--2020-05-05--Staggering 730 employees at Tyson Foods meat factory test positive for COVID-19

Just the tip of the iceberg

At least 58% of workers at a Tyson Foods meat factory in Perry, Iowa, have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to NBC News.
What are the details?
A Tuesday report from the Iowa Department of Public Health revealed that 730 workers contracted the virus at the Tyson Foods meat plant in Perry.
Last week, at least 900 plant workers were confirmed to test positive for the virus at another Tyson Foods plant in Indiana.
In a statement, Tyson Foods said it had no choice but to shutter plants in Nebraska, Washington, and Iowa, and was forced to slow production elsewhere.
"We have and expect to continue to face slowdowns and temporary idling of production facilities from team member shortages or choices we made to ensure operational safety," a spokesperson said.
According to WHO-TV, Iowa Premium Beef in Tama, Iowa, saw an infection of 39% of its workforce, while Tyson plants in Columbus Junction and Waterloo had respective infections of 26% and 17% of its workforce.
What else?
In April, John Tyson — chairman and CEO of the company — issued a dire warning about the state of the nation's food supply chain as more and more meat processing plans began to close their doors.
"As pork, beef and chicken plants are being forced to close, even for short periods of time, millions of pounds of meat will disappear from the supply chain," Tyson said,
"As a result, there will be limited supply of our products available in grocery stores until we are able to reopen our facilities that are currently closed," he continued. "The food supply chain is breaking."
On Monday, 373 workers at one meatpacking plant in Missouri tested positive for COVID-19. All COVID-19-positive employees at the Triumph Foods pork processing plant were asymptomatic.
The News-Press reported that Triumph Foods is just one of the latest meatpacking plants hit hard by COVID-19 outbreaks across the Midwest.
"Coronavirus outbreaks have hit meatpacking operations throughout the Midwest, with some plants closing temporarily and farmers expressing concern about losing an end market for livestock," the outlet reported.


theblaze--2020-05-05--Weeks after getting a $5 billion bailout from the government, United Airlines is cutting worker sche

Weeks after getting a $5 billion bailout from the government, United Airlines is cutting worker schedules and threatening layoffs

Weeks after getting a $ 5 billion bailout from the government , United Airlines is cutting worker schedules and threatening @

United Airlines is facing criticism after a leaked memo from Chief Operating Officer Greg Hart encouraged employees to take voluntary severance packages and warned that layoffs were coming as soon as Oct. 1. The airline also rankled employees and the public by cutting around 15,000 employees from full-time to part-time schedules.
According to the memo, which was first published by CNN, Hart warned United employees that the company would need to "right size" its workforce as soon as Oct. 1. In light of that, he encouraged employees to consider if they wanted to take a "voluntary separation" from the company, that would presumably include some measure of severance pay.
The memo stated, "We recognize that this is painful news, but it provides what we believe is the most accurate assessment of what lies ahead for our company." The memo also claimed that the company's high-level corporate officers are taking pay cuts or foregoing their pay entirely at present.
Under the terms of the CARES Act, the company is precluded from laying off employees for at least six months, but United was clear with its employees that layoffs would likely begin on October 1. The memo stated that at least 3,400 management and administrative positions would be cut, and that potentially as many as 30% of all pilots could face layoffs.
United posted a net loss last quarter of $1.7 billion.
Airlines have been hit particularly hard from the lockdowns imposed as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, as the market for air travel has essentially evaporated. United has announced that it will cancel 90% of its travel schedule for May and June.
Also, according to an email obtained by the Daily Beast, United told some 15,000 employees on Friday that they would have their status reduced to part-time. The company claims that the hourly cuts are in full compliance with the provisions of the [Collective Bargaining Agreement] and the CARES Act." However, some of the unions whose members comprise United's workforce have stated their belief that these cuts are, in fact, a violation of the law.
United, of course, is not alone. Delta Air Lines and JetBlue also announced schedule cuts last week after having received government bailout funds.


theblaze--2020-05-05--DNC is asking people to pay upward of $100K for a ‘virtual dinner’ with Hillary Clinton

DNC is asking people to pay upward of $ 100K for a ‘ virtual dinner ’ with Hillary Clinton

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is set to appear at a "virtual dinner" campaign event for presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden later this month that could cost attendees up to $100,000.
The event, put on by the Biden for President Victory Fund and the Democratic National Committee, will be hosted on Zoom and is scheduled for May 19, Politico reported Tuesday.
A PDF of the flyer shows that the event will be extremely pricey to attend. "Hosts" are expected to pay $100,000 to attend the virtual dinner, while other tickets are available for $50,000, $41,100, $15,600, $5,600, and $2,800 at "limited availability."
As a bonus, attendees will be joined by DNC Chair Tom Perez for the one-hour dinner.
Clinton endorsed the former vice president last week during a virtual town hall after largely staying out of the political spotlight during the Democratic primary.
"I've been not only a colleague of Joe Biden's, I've been a friend, and I can tell you that I wish he were president right now but I can't wait until he is — if all of us do our part to support the kind of person that we want back in the White House," the failed 2016 Democratic candidate said.
"I've been in the lobby of the Senate. I've been in the cloakroom and I've watched Joe bring people together. We have a lot of the same values in common, the same work ethic, the same belief in America, the same focus on family," she said. "We need a leader, a president, like Joe Biden."
Biden responded to the endorsement, saying, "I really appreciate your friendship. What a, just a wonderful personal endorsement."


theblaze--2020-05-05--Navy's Blue Angels are headed to Texas and Louisiana to honor health care workers Wednesday

Navy 's Blue Angels are headed to Texas and Louisiana to honor health care workers Wednesday Many thanks to health @ @

The U.S. Navy's Blue Angels will be passing over the Dallas, Houston, and New Orleans areas Wednesday.
The Blue Angels and U.S. Air Force's Thunderbirds have been thanking health care professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic by carrying out flyovers across the country.
What are the details?
On Tuesday, the squadron's Twitter announced Wednesday's flights along with flight paths.
"Your #BlueAngels are heading your way Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston and New Orleans! Check out the overhead times and route on the graphic below," one tweet read.
Another tweet added, "Residents should observe the flyover from the safety of their home-quarantine and should refrain from traveling to see the flyover. Social distancing should be practiced at all times. Stay home and stay safe!"
The flyovers are set to last about 20 minutes.
What else?
In late April, President Donald Trump announced "Operation America Strong" to honor the nation's health care workers.
At the time, he said, "I'm excited to announce that in the coming weeks, the Air Force Thunderbirds — are incredible — and the Navy Blue Angels — equally incredible — will be performing air shows over America's major cities. What we're doing is we're paying tribute to our frontline healthcare workers confronting COVID."
"[I]t's really a signal to all Americans to remain vigilant during the outbreak," Trump said. "This is a tribute to them, to our warriors. Because they are equal warriors to those incredible pilots and all of the fighters that we have for the more traditional fights that we win and we win."


theblaze--2020-05-05--NYC 8th-grader has advice for Mayor de Blasio and other leaders: Here's why I'm learning so much bet

NYC 8th-grader has advice for Mayor de Blasio and other leaders: Here's why I'm learning so much better online than in my out-of-control city school

NYC 8th-grader has advice for Mayor de Blasio and other leaders : Here 's why I 'm learning so much @ @ @ @ @ out-of-control city school 'Something is wrong with our system '

Veronique Mintz is a 13-year-old eighth-grader who attends a New York City school.
And she's fed up — fed up with her classmates, her teachers, her education.
Well, she was — until the coronavirus pandemic hit, closing the schools and forcing New York City students into online-only education.
Now Veronique says she's thriving.
In an op-ed for the New York Times on Tuesday, Veronique told the world her educational woes and how her schooling has markedly improved since the forced closures.
What's her story?
The young teen wrote that the biggest obstacle in her education has been sitting in classrooms where students misbehave and teachers can't or won't get a handle on it.
Veronique said an observer could be excused for thinking any of her classes were filled with 9-year-olds rather than teenagers:
Talking out of turn. Destroying classroom materials. Disrespecting teachers. Blurting out answers during tests. Students pushing, kicking, hitting one another and even rolling on the ground. This is what happens in my school every single day.
You may think I'm joking, but I swear I'm not.
Based on my peers' behavior, you might guess that I'm in second or fourth grade. But I'm actually about to enter high school in New York City, and, during my three years of middle school, these sorts of disruptions occurred repeatedly in any given 42-minute class period.
But since she started distance learning on March 23, Veronique has found that she has been learning more — and learning it more easily — than she ever did in class. For her, it's easy to understand why.
"I can work at my own pace without being interrupted by disruptive students and teachers who seem unable to manage them," she said.
She said that instead of taking tests on subjects the class hasn't mastered because teachers are unable to get through the necessary lessons, she's able to focus, learn the material, and appropriately master a subject before moving on. It helps that at home, things are more peaceful, rather than in the various classrooms at her public school where "only a few teachers who had strong command of their classrooms — enforcing consistent rules, treating students fairly and earning their respect."
Add to that the frustration she feels when her teachers would assign "collaborative learning" — a major emphasis in many public schools where work is done as part of a teacher-assigned group of four or five kids. Often, higher-performing kids are put into groups with lower-performing kids.
This type of "learning," as Veronique noted, "forces students who want to complete their assignments into the position of having to discipline peers who won't behave and coax reluctant group members into contributing."
But with distance learning, students have more control over their studies, she said, adding:
I can focus more time on subjects that require greater effort and study. I don't have to sit through a teacher fielding questions that have already been answered. I can still collaborate with other students, but much more effectively. I am really enjoying FaceTiming friends who bring different perspectives and strengths to the work; we challenge one another and it's a richer learning experience.
Veronique has also found that she prefers some teachers' recorded lessons over their in-person lessons: Teachers, she said, didn't have patience for questions because a third of class time was spent "trying to maintain order"; plus, when she did try to meet with a teacher before school, there was usually a "pileup" of other students who also had questions — and sometimes the teacher just wasn't there.
"Often, when I scheduled time to meet with him before school, there would be a pileup at his door of students who also had questions. He couldn't help us all in 20 minutes before first period," she wrote. "Other times he just wouldn't show up."
Now Veronique has found that learning at home saves time and frustration. She can rewatch teachers' video lessons, attend teachers' online office hours, and attend question-and-answer sessions without crowds of other students.
According to Veronique, the success of distance learning shows that the city's school system has a problem — but she has some suggestions:
The fact that I am learning so much better away from the classroom shows that something is wrong with our system. Two weeks ago, my school began experimenting with live video teaching on Google Meet. Unfortunately, the same teachers who struggle to manage students in the classroom also struggle online.
What lessons from remote learning can be taken back to the classroom? I have a few suggestions. First, teachers should send recorded video lessons to all students after class (through email or online platforms like Google Classroom). Second, teachers should offer students consistent, weekly office hours of ample time for 1-to-1 or small group meetings. Third, teachers who are highly skilled in classroom management should be paid more to lead required trainings for teachers, plus reinforcement sessions as needed.
Hopefully, Veronique wrote, New York City's schools will learn something through all of this and use this time to "improve the learning experience of all their students."


theblaze--2020-05-05--NYC children diagnosed with rare illness officials speculate could be tied to the coronavirus

NYC children diagnosed with rare illness officials speculate could be tied to the coronavirus Not much evidence for that connection @ @ @ @

More than a dozen children between the ages of 2 and 15 have been diagnosed and hospitalized with an inflammatory syndrome that doctors don't have a good understanding of yet, but which they speculate may have some connection to the novel coronavirus, according to the New York Times.
The mystery disease causes the children to show symptoms of toxic shock or symptoms associated with Kawasaki disease, which is marked by inflammation of the blood vessels, according to the New York City health department.
None of the 15 New York City children who have been hospitalized have died. Despite the extremely small number of children known to be sick with this particular illness, city health authorities put out a bulletin about it Monday.
"The full spectrum of disease is not yet known," the bulletin read. "Of the 15 patients, most either tested positive for the coronavirus or were found, through antibody testing, to likely have been previously infected."
The children exhibited symptoms like rash, vomiting, diarrhea, and respiratory issues. Most of them also "required blood pressure support," the Times reported.
Still, since not all of the 15 sick kids tested positive for COVID-19, it is possible that this sickness is not related to the coronavirus at all. After all, serology studies continue to show that asymptomatic COVID-19 cases are far more common than official statistics reflect.
"Even though the relationship of this syndrome to COVID-19 is not yet defined, and not all of these cases have tested positive for COVID-19 by either DNA test or serology, the clinical nature of this virus is such that we are asking all providers to contact us immediately if they see patients who meet the criteria we've outlined," New York City Health Commissioner Oxiris Barbot said.
In 2009, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Kawasaki disease resulted in 5,447 hospitalizations for children under 18 years of age, with 4,040 of them being children younger than 5 years old.


theblaze--2020-05-05--Dan Rather tries to humiliate President Trump over Lincoln comparison — and gets embarrassing histor

Dan Rather tries to humiliate President Trump over Lincoln comparison — and gets embarrassing history lesson in return The past @ @ @ @ @ sometimes

During President Donald Trump's virtual town hall in front of the Lincoln Memorial on Sunday, a viewer asked him about his contentious relationship with the media — and Trump replied, "I'm greeted with a hostile press the likes of which no president has ever seen."
Then pointing at former President Abraham Lincoln's statue, he added "the closest would be that gentleman right up there. They always said ... nobody got treated worse than Lincoln. I believe I am treated worse. You're there, you see those press conferences, they come at me with questions that are disgraceful."
As you might imagine, many in the media and on the left ran with Trump comparing himself to Lincoln — but noticeably without mentioning Trump's comparison was in regard to how he believes the media treats him.
Such as:
There's indeed much more where that came from, but you get the picture.
Dan Rather chimes in — and strikes a bum note
Among the peanut gallery throwers was former CBS News anchor Dan Rather, who in recent years left in the dust all questions as to whether or not he's a left-wing sympathizer in a journalist's unbiased uniform by launching consistent diatribes against Trump.
Here's Danno's take on the Trump-Lincoln flap:
Indeed, Rather has scads of admirers on the left who loved his tweet. But it didn't escape the notice of others only too happy to remind the former newsman of his checkered professional past, namely that he infamously stepped down from his CBS News perch after it came to light that his 2004 report on then-President George W. Bush's national guard service used documents that weren't verified as authentic.
And they let Rather have it:
Oh, by the way...
As RedState points out, former President Barack Obama created a kind of cottage industry by frequently invoking Lincoln: "Virtually his entire campaign was based on making comparisons to Abe Lincoln, including his campaign launch and his inaugural address and beyond. Not only that, but the media ran right along with him in making the comparisons throughout his presidency."
In fact, Obama uttered words practically identical to Trump's in 2011: "Lincoln? They used to talk about him almost as bad as they talk about me."
Uh, Dan?


theblaze--2020-05-05--An influential coronavirus model nearly doubled its US death toll prediction overnight

An influential coronavirus model — one often cited by the White House coronavirus task force — nearly doubled its United States death toll estimate in a revision to its projections Monday.
The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington now predicts that 134,475 Americans will die as a result of the virus by Aug. 4. Its previous April 29 release, which ran unchanged until Monday, predicted that 72,433 Americans would die during the same time period — that's an increase of 62,042 deaths.
What changed?
According to the update notes from the new release, the higher projections take into account new data on the increased mobility of Americans and the loosening of social distancing guidelines.
"These projections are considerably higher than previous estimates, representing the combined effects of death model updates and formally incorporating the effect of changes in mobility and social distancing policies into transmission dynamics," the notes say.
It's true that data has emerged in recent days showing that Americans are no longer sheltering in place to the extent they had been in early April, despite continued social distancing guidelines in many states.
The update notes also highlighted specific states such as New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, where the modeling significantly increased its cumulative death totals.
The higher predictions, researchers wrote, is based on "longer epidemic peaks and slower downward trajectories" in those areas.
Some disclaimers
TheBlaze has been reporting on coronavirus models for some time, giving specific attention to the IHME model, which has emerged as one of the key models used by the government for predicting U.S. deaths and hospitalizations.
While several early models forecasted grim death toll predictions as high as 2.2 million, the IHME model, has been comparatively modest in regard to death toll projections. In its first release on March 26, researchers predicted that 81,000 Americans would die from the virus. In subsequent revisions, the number had always landed under the 100,000 number, until Monday.
However, though modest, the model has certainly been erratic, constantly altering its projections by thousands at a time.
Moreover, besides death toll projections, the model also predicts state-by-state hospitalization numbers which state and local officials use to prepare for the outbreak in their jurisdictions. These estimates have often been wildly inaccurate, failing to accurately predict hospitalizations for the very next day, never mind months down the road.
In the new May 4 release, IHME notes that it uses The COVID Tracking Project to gather state-by-state data. That's the data tracker that TheBlaze used to assess IHME's hospitalization predictions. It should be noted that the project's data is only as reliable as the data given to it by individual states.


theblaze--2020-05-05--Dem senators who vehemently opposed Kavanaugh and believed his accusers exonerate Joe Biden

Some of the loudest Democratic voices in the Senate who declared Brett Kavanaugh unworthy of the Supreme Court due to unsubstantiated sexual assault allegations are now exonerating Joe Biden.
Tara Reade has accused Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, of sexually assaulting her in 1993 when she worked as an aide in Biden's Senate office.
In an interview Friday on MSNBC, Biden vehemently denied the allegations.
"No, it's not true," Biden said. "I'm saying unequivocally, it didn't happen. It never happened."
But as CNN anchor Jake Tapper noted over the weekend, Kavanaugh's main accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, "did not have the contemporaneous accounts of her view of what happened that Tara Reade does." Despite that alarming fact, Biden's mere denials are apparently enough for Senate Democrats to exonerate him of wrongdoing.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), for example, has called Biden's denials "credible and convincing."
"I support the vice president, I support his campaign, and I'm proud to endorse him for president," she said, the Boston Globe reported.
Ironically, Warren used the same language in 2018 when announcing her opposition to Kavanaugh. She called Blasey Ford accusations "credible and compelling" and explained most sexual assaults go unreported to police because victims fear "they won't be heard or taken seriously."
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) was perhaps the most outspoken male Democrat against Kavanaugh's nomination. He said he believed Blasey Ford, whom he called a "survivor."
Does Blumenthal believe the alleged "survivor" now? No — he believes Biden.
"He has been straightforward and seemingly very honest," Blumenthal said recently, the Washington Examiner reported.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) who demanded the FBI investigate Kavanaugh lest his nomination became a "sham," said last week that she "stands by" Biden.
"I stand by [former] Vice President Biden," Gillibrand said. "He's devoted his life to supporting women and he has vehemently denied this allegation."
Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) decried the presumption of innocence during Kavanaugh's confirmation, telling CNN in September 2018 that due process "makes it really difficult for victims and survivors of these kinds of traumatic events to even come forward."
Of course, Hirono has already endorsed Biden's campaign.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) — who brought Blasey Ford's allegations against Kavanaugh forward and led the charge to block Kavanaugh's nomination — wants Reade's allegations to be confirmed before Biden is investigated (yes, you read that correctly).
"I think we ought to find out whether the allegations are correct before you launch a big investigation of the former vice president," she said recently, the Examiner reported.


theblaze--2020-05-05--Nearly half of all US small businesses could close permanently this year due to coronavirus

Nearly half of all US small businesses could close permanently this year due to coronavirus 'It 's a crisis that @ @ @ @ @ generations '

More than 40% of small businesses in the United States may be forced to file for bankruptcy and permanently close because of the economic harm caused by the coronavirus lockdown policies across the country, according to The New York Times.
The statistic comes from a poll conducted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which surveyed about 500 small business owners in late March, just a few weeks after COVID-19 lockdowns became widespread.
According to the poll, 43% of small businesses reported that they were three to six months away from having to permanently shut down. More urgently, 24% of small businesses said they were two months or less from permanently closing because of the coronavirus-related economic downturn.
The primary causes business owners cited for their struggles were shortened hours of operation, temporary closing, and adjustments to salaries or hours for employees. In the more than one month since that survey was conducted, conditions have not improved for most businesses as government-imposed coronavirus restrictions persist in many states.
"It's a crisis that will impact our economy for generations. We're going to lose so much of the small-business sector," said Amanda Ballantyne, executive director of Main Street Alliance, according to NYT.
The April jobs report will be released on Thursday this week, and is expected to provide the most complete picture so far of the economic consequences of coronavirus mitigation efforts.
Economists estimate that unemployment could hit 16.1%, and that the economy may have lost 22 million non-farm payroll jobs, which, according to The Wall Street Journal, is "the equivalent of eliminating every job created in the past decade."
The true scope of unemployment could be even more severe, however, with a WSJ self-reported survey of 18-to-64-year-olds indicating that as many as 34 million jobs have been lost since mid-March.
Some states have begun allowing certain businesses to open with limited capacity in areas of the country that have been less impacted by COVID-19, however, it could be months before a potential return to normal, depending on how the pandemic progresses and whether the cooler weather in the fall and winter brings a new surge.
(H/T The Daily Wire)


theblaze--2020-05-05--Utah trooper stops ‘impaired driver’ who turns out to be a 5-year-old on his way to buy a Lamborghin

Utah trooper stops ‘impaired driver’ who turns out to be a 5-year-old on his way to buy a Lamborghini — he had $3 in his wallet

Utah trooper stops ‘ impaired driver ’ who turns out to be a 5-year-old on his way to buy a @ @ @ @ @ 3 in his wallet Not something you see every day

When Utah Highway Patrol Trooper Rick Morgan pulled over a swerving vehicle near Ogden Monday afternoon, he expected to find an impaired driver at the wheel — not a 5-year-old boy on his way to buy a Lamborghini.
Morgan said the boy, Adrian, didn't initially respond to lights but pulled over immediately as soon as he hit the siren. He was heading southbound on Interstate 15, heading to California, where his sister lives.
"I approached the vehicle and I was expecting to find somebody who needed an ambulance or paramedics," Morgan said, adding that when the window came down who he actually found was "a very underaged driver who was behind the wheel."
"Where did you come from? How did you get this car?" a baffled Morgan is heard saying to Adrian in dashcam video of the incident.
Full dashcam video: UHP trooper pulls over 5-year-old (Footage courtesy Utah Highway Patrol) www.youtube.com
He was on his way to California
KUTV-TV reported that Adrian grabbed the keys to the family's Dodge Journey and drove the care two miles through downtown Ogden and then onto Interstate 15 while his sister Sidney Estrada took a nap. She told the outlet that she was watching her little brother while their parents were at work.
Adrian told police that he took off with the car after an argument with his mom, in which she told him that she wasn't going to buy him a Lamborghini.
"He decided he'd take the car and go to California to buy one himself. He might have been short on the purchase amount, as he only had $3 dollars in his wallet," Utah High Patrol said in a post on Twitter.
Thankfully he didn't get too far
After Morgan pulled the boy over, he was able to reunite him with his family, who were also in disbelief over the incident.
"I saw that the truck was gone, and he was gone, and the keys were gone ... I don't know what went through his mind," Adrian's sister, Sidney Estrada, said.
The family said they have no idea how Adrian was able to operate the vehicle. He has always loved cars, but had never driven one before.
"How does a little 5-year-old, 11 years younger than me, do it and I can't?" Estrada exclaimed.
Adrian's family say that they have learned never to leave the keys out in the open again.


theblaze--2020-05-05--Chris Christie: America must return to work and accept that 'people are going to die' from COVID-19

Chris Christie: America must return to work and accept that 'people are going to die' from COVID-19 — or face years of devastating economic fallout

Chris Christie : America must return to work and accept that 'people are going to die ' from COVID-19 — @ @ @ @ @ economic fallout The Republican and former New Jersey governor said if economy does n't reopen @ @ @ @ @ way of life '

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie argued that America must go back to work and at the same time accept that "people are going to die" from COVID-19 "no matter what" measures officials take to flatten the pandemic's curve.
Christie, a Republican, offered his take on what should be done going forward during an interview Monday on CNN Chief Political Correspondent Dana Bash's "Daily DC" podcast.
What are the details?
"Of course, everybody wants to save every life they can. But the question is, towards what end, ultimately?" Christie pondered. "Are there ways that we can ... thread the middle here to allow that there are gonna be deaths, and there are gonna be deaths no matter what?"
When Bash asked Christie if Americans will be able to accept new projections of about 3,000 daily deaths from COVID-19 by June 1, the former governor said resolutely, "They're gonna have to."
'We have to stand up for the American way of life'
Christie noted that if he were sitting in the Oval Office, he would tell the country that "the American people have gone through significant death before. We've gone through it in World War I, we've gone through it in World War II. We have gone through it, and we've survived it. We sacrificed those lives. We sent our young men during World War II over to Europe, out to the Pacific ... knowing that many of them would not come home alive. And we decided to make that sacrifice because what we were standing up for was the American way of life. In the very same way now, we have to stand up for the American way of life."
To illustrate the economic devastation already gripping many U.S. households, Christie recounted a recent story about three car lines, each a mile long, in Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey, all headed toward a food bank — and a husband and wife saying they both were laid off from their casino jobs and are afraid they won't be able to pay their mortgage.
"The mental health, addiction, domestic violence, and suicide costs of this — of not letting people go back to work — are gonna be ... very, very difficult for the American people to take," Christie said.
'What are those lives gonna be worth if they can't go to work?'
He also decried the "false choice" between "money and lives" argued by many in favor of continuing the economic shutdown.
"What are those lives gonna be worth if they can't go to work, if they can't support their families if they're gonna become homeless, if they have to go to food banks every week to be able to feed their families? That's not sustainable, either," he said.
Christie added that "we've got to let some of these folks get back to work, because if we don't, we're gonna destroy the American way of life in these families — and it will be years and years before we can recover."
He added that small businesses should be allowed to reopen, albeit with as many safety precautions as possible — and that "corner stores" are just as capable of taking those precautions as supermarkets, which have remained open since the shutdown began.
'People are going to die'
Christie also called for governors to exercise boldness and honesty about the inevitable.
"In the end you're going to have to tell them, 'people are going to die.' And it's going to be awfully sad," he said.
"If we leave this purely up to the physicians and epidemiologists ... we'll be locked in our houses for another year," he also said, adding that medical professionals "don't want us doing anything until there's a vaccine. I don't think that's reasonable.
"We don't let the epidemiologists run the state," Christie also told Bash. "If we did, they should be governor."


theblaze--2020-05-05--Fact check: Did Fauci contradict Pompeo on whether coronavirus outbreak originated in Wuhan lab?

Fact check : Did Fauci contradict Pompeo on whether coronavirus outbreak originated in Wuhan lab ?

Numerous media outlets have reported that Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and most prominent face on President Donald Trump's coronavirus task force, contradicted Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's claim that there is "enormous evidence" that the coronavirus outbreak originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Fauci's full comments can be found in an interview with National Geographic.
Numerous liberal media outlets have claimed, with blaring headlines, that Fauci's comments contradict Pompeo's. For example:
Business Insider: Fauci again dismisses conspiracy theory that the coronavirus was made in a Wuhan lab after Pompeo touted 'enormous evidence' of a cover-up
Newsweek: Dr. Fauci dismisses Wuhan lab as source of coronavirus, contradicting Pompeo and Trump
The Hill: Fauci dismisses 'circular argument' coronavirus originated in Chinese lab
It is true that Fauci stated his belief, which is consistent with what other scientists have said, that the virus was not artificially engineered or created in the Wuhan lab.
"The best evidence shows the virus behind the pandemic was not made in a lab in China," Dr. Fauci said in his interivew.
This, however, does not contradict Pompeo, who did not state that the virus was engineered or artificially created in the lab, but rather that the outbreak began in the lab. The claim that has been made by administration officials, which is consistent with evidence unearthed elsewhere , is that Chinese scientists were studying the virus, which they found in nature, when it escaped.
Some of the reports accurately note that this distinction exists, but falsely claim that Fauci "denied" or "dismissed" this contention as well. For example:
The Hill: "Fauci similarly dismissed theories the virus was naturally-occurring but had been accidentally released from a lab where it was being studied, setting off the pandemic."
The New York Post: "He added that he doesn't believe 'an alternate theory — that someone found the coronavirus in the wild, brought it to a lab, and then it accidentally escaped.'"
Even National Geographic's own writeup of Fauci's remarks characterizes it this way: " Based on the scientific evidence , he also doesn't entertain an alternate theory—that someone found the coronavirus in the wild, brought it to a lab, and then it accidentally escaped."
However, the actual text of Fauci's remarks make it clear that he said no such thing. Here is the relevant question and answer from the National Geographic interview:
Q: Sure, but what if scientists found the virus outside the lab, brought it back, and then it escaped?
A: But that means it was in the wild to begin with. That's why I don't get what they're talking about [and] why I don't spend a lot of time going in on this circular argument.
Fauci does not "dismiss" or "deny" this theory. Nowhere in this answer does he indicate that he does not believe it or has evidence to contradict it. What he does say is that it does not matter to him, as a scientist who is trying to figure out how to defeat the virus, whether the outbreak started in a wet market, as a result of faulty lab procedures, or anywhere else. So he doesn't think about it or consider it.
That is clearly not a denial, or a contradiction, or a statement that he does not believe the theory. It is a statement that the question is outside his purview, so he does not care.
Other people, of course, might very well care whether negligent containment procedures led to the outbreak of the coronavirus, and a full accounting of its origin might be important in shaping United States policy in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic. But it is not surprising that Fauci, whose sole concern ought to be minimizing the public health impact of the pandemic, would not care.
A statement of indifference, however, is not a denial or dismissal of the theory, nor is it a statement that he does not believe it. For these reasons, the claim that Fauci contradicted Pompeo's claim is false.


theblaze--2020-05-05--Federal gov't considering easing infection control requirements for nursing homes despite coronaviru

Federal gov't considering easing infection control requirements for nursing homes despite coronavirus deaths

Nursing home coronavirus deaths are about 25 % of the U.S. total Medical staff carry a patient 's belongings as @ @ @ @ @ Rehabilitation and Nursing Center after 39 tested positive for the coronavirus on April 8 in @ @ @ @ @ Gina Ferazzi/ Los Angeles Times via Getty Images )

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought renewed attention to a proposed rules change by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that would, among other changes, ease infection control requirements for nursing homes, USA Today reported.
What's the proposal? Last year, before the coronavirus pandemic, CMS proposed a rule change that would give nursing homes more authority to decide how much time an infection control preventionist has to devote to their facility. The current requirement is "at least part time," but the change would modify that to "sufficient time," which is an undefined term that gives more flexibility for facilities to decide.
The rule would also change the requirement for frequency of facilitywide assessments from every year to every other year.
What's the argument in favor of this change? Some medical officials believe the current federal government regulations are too burdensome, and not effective in improving infection control at nursing homes. The change also wouldn't require less infection control, but it would allow facilities to have more if they felt it was needed.
"This is a person-centered approach to care and would allow CMS to hold facilities accountable by having the infection preventionist onsite full time, especially in times of an outbreak," a CMS statement said last week, USA Today reported.
Gregory Johnson, the chief medical officer for the Good Samaritan Society, said strict regulations can prevent facilities from allocating resources where they're most needed, and the annual assessment, of which infection control is a small part, is a time-intensive process.
"Sometimes regulation hinders us from putting resources where we know they need to be," Johnson told USA Today.
What's the argument against the change? The COVID-19 pandemic has severely hurt nursing homes. Roughly 25% of all the coronavirus deaths in the United States have been nursing home deaths. Infections have always been a big problem for nursing homes, and COVID-19 has highlighted that issue in an unprecedented way.
According to CMS, between 1.6 million and 3.8 million infections occur in the nation's 15,600 nursing homes, with about 388,000 deaths attributed to infections.
Who will make the decision? CMS said the proposal is still under review. The agency has the authority to change the regulations for nursing homes without legislation.


theblaze--2020-05-05--Scientists say they’ve identified mutated COVID-19 strain — and issue a dire warning about new conta

Scientists say they’ve identified mutated COVID-19 strain — and issue a dire warning about new contagion

Scientists say they ’ ve identified mutated COVID-19 strain — and issue a dire warning about new contagion

Scientists say they have discovered what they believe is a mutated strain of COVID-19 — and are now warning that this new strain could be way more contagious than plain old coronavirus.
What are the details?
According to a Tuesday report in the Los Angeles Times, researchers say that a new "mutant" strain of coronavirus has emerged.
The study, led by scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, reveals that the new strain is more contagious than versions that spread in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. In addition to being more contagious, the new strain could reportedly make people more vulnerable to a second infection after a "first bout with the disease."
The study was published on Thursday in BioRxiv and has yet to be peer-reviewed, but researchers said they felt an "urgent need for an early warning" to advise people of the potential danger of the new strain.
The outlet reported, "Wherever the new strain appeared, it quickly infected far more people than the earlier strains that came out of Wuhan, China, and within weeks, it was the only strain that was more prevalent in some nations. ... The new strain's dominance over its predecessors demonstrates that it is more infectious."
"The report was based on a computational analysis of more than 6,000 coronavirus sequences from around the world, collected by the Global Initiative for Sharing All Influenza Data," the Times added. "Time and time again, the analysis found the new version was transitioning to become dominant."
At the time of this writing, researchers at Johns Hopkins University estimate at least 3,606,038 COVID-19 cases have been confirmed around the world, with at least 252,151 deaths because of the virus.
What else?
Study leader Bette Korber — who is a computational biologist — addressed the study on her Facebook page, the outlet reported.
“The story is worrying, as we see a mutated form of the virus very rapidly emerging, and over the month of March becoming the dominant pandemic form," Korber wrote. “When viruses with this mutation enter a population, they rapidly begin to take over the local epidemic, thus they are more transmissible."
She also pointed out that she is very concerned over the study's results.
“This is hard news," she continued, “but please don't only be disheartened by it. Our team at LANL was able to document this mutation and its impact on transmission only because of a massive global effort of clinical people and experimental groups, who make new sequences of the virus (SARS-CoV-2) in their local communities available as quickly as they possibly can."
Korber said that it is of utmost importance to remain aware and with a fluid, working knowledge of the disease and its metamorphosis.
"We cannot afford to be blindsided as we move vaccines and antibodies into clinical testing," Korber insisted. “Please be encouraged by knowing the global scientific community is on this, and we are cooperating with each other in ways I have never seen … in my 30 years as a scientist."


theblaze--2020-05-05--California man arrested and released three times in one day thanks to the state's $0 cash bail polic

California man arrested and released three times in one day thanks to the state's $0 cash bail policy

California man arrested and released three times in one day thanks to the state 's $ 0 cash bail policy @ @ @ @ @ one exploiting the system

California law enforcement arrested a man three times in one day for different offenses, but each time they were forced to release him from custody due to the state's new zero-bail policy.
In a post on its Facebook page, the Glendora Police Department reported that Dijon Landrum, 24, was apprehended by officers three separate times in roughly 12 hours last Wednesday — twice for driving a stolen vehicle and once for being in possession of stolen property. Each time he was issued a citation and released.
The first offense was committed at around 8:30 a.m. local time, when police responded to a call about a man attempting to break into a vehicle. When they arrived, Landrum was allegedly attempting a getaway but was stopped by police. In addition to reportedly driving a stolen vehicle, officers said they found stolen property and narcotics in Landrum's possession.
Just one hour later, police arrested Landrum for allegedly stealing property out of people's front yards. Then later that night, at around 8:50 p.m., Landrum reportedly stole another vehicle. Police chased him from La Puente to Pasadena, where they finally tracked him down and arrested him for a third time.
"[But] due to the California Zero-Bail Policy, Landrum was released with his third citation of the day," the Facebook post read.
The newly implemented zero-bail policy in California sets the cash bail at $0 for most misdemeanor and lower-level felonies, which effectively mandates release. The controversial move is part of an effort to reduce inmate population and limit the spread of the coronavirus amid the outbreak.
Landrum's recent alleged crime spree is not the only example of offenders who have abused the new policy.
The Los Angeles Times reported last week that in the first 30 days of the policy, the Los Angeles Police Department alone has arrested 213 individuals multiple times — and 23 of those individuals were arrested three or more times.
LAPD Chief Michel Moore confirmed to the outlet that while crime is down overall during the coronavirus pandemic, career criminals are exploiting the situation by getting arrested again and again with no consequence. He is calling for a re-examination of the zero-bail policy as it pertains to multiple arrests.
"I think repeat offenders need to be off the streets," Moore said.


theblaze--2020-05-05--Boston shutdown protesters to governor, mayor: 'We’re tired of your BS. We’re tired of your lies. We

Boston shutdown protesters to governor, mayor: 'We’re tired of your BS. We’re tired of your lies. We’re tired of you acting like wanna-be dictators.'

Boston shutdown protesters to governor , mayor : 'We ’ re tired of your BS .
We ’ re tired @ @ @ @ @ ’ re tired of you acting like wanna-be dictators . '
'We do n't want @ @ @ @ @

A crowd of angry protesters gathered outside the Massachusetts State House demanding that all businesses be allowed to reopen amid the coronavirus shutdown that's sent tens of millions into unemployment lines across the country, WBZ-TV reported.
Who said what?
"We don't want your shutdown anymore!" conservative radio host Jeff Kuhner hollered into a microphone during Monday's demonstration.
Image source: WBZ-TV video screenshot
The station said Kuhner helped organize the rally, which drew hundreds of supporters of President Donald Trump.
Matt Stout, state house reporter for the Boston Globe, noted another exclamation from the protest directed at Republican Gov. Charlie Baker and Democratic Mayor Marty Walsh: "We're tired of your BS. We're tired of your lies. We're tired of you acting like wanna-be dictators"
"Freedom" and "USA" chants erupted through the crowd, WBZ said.
Image source: WBZ-TV video screenshot
"The only thing that Baker is doing by keeping the businesses from opening is causing more people to become victims by losing their jobs, losing their businesses," attendee Louis Murray told the station. "If you want to wear a mask, you can wear a mask. We're Americans, we're individualists."
"We are all essential ... not just you, Gov. Baker!" a woman exclaimed, WBZ said.
Image source: WBZ-TV video screenshot
Last week, Baker said nonessential businesses would remain closed until at least May 18, the station said, adding that the stay-at-home advisory and ban on gatherings of more than 10 people also are scheduled to end that day.
(H/T: BizPac Review)


theblaze--2020-05-05--Wendy’s begins to cut hamburgers from menu amid meat shortages: ‘Where’s the beef?’

Wendy ’ s begins to cut hamburgers from menu amid meat shortages : ‘ Where ’ s the beef ?
@ @ @ @ @ to have when your biz is burgers

Some Wendy's franchises are cutting meat from menus as fresh beef is becoming harder to acquire during the coronavirus-related food shortages across the U.S.
What are the details?
According to a Time report on Tuesday, Wendy's consumers have aired their frustrations over being unable to order hamburgers or cheeseburgers from the popular chain restaurant.
The outlet reported that the restaurant's online ordering app showed only chicken and side items available for purchase from some of its California stores.
COVID-19-related meat processing plant closures began to impact United States' fresh meat supply chain over the last several weeks.
According to a Daily Mail report, California isn't the only state to see locations removing burgers from their menus. Restaurants in South Carolina and Kentucky have also reportedly cut burgers from their offerings.
In a statement to the Daily Mail, Wendy's said, "As you've likely heard, beef suppliers across North America are currently facing production challenges. Because of this, some of our menu items may be in short supply from time to time at some restaurants in this current environment. We expect this to be temporary, and we're working diligently to minimize the impact to our customers and restaurants."
What else?
Just last week, the CEO of Tyson Foods — which suspended operations in April — warned that "millions of pounds of meat will disappear from the supply chain" because of COVID-19.
According to the Associated Press, the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union said that at least 20 food-processing and meatpacking union workers across the United States have died because of COVID-19. An additional 6,500 workers have been sickened or exposed to the deadly virus sweeping the country.
In response to the unfolding shortages, President Donald Trump invoked the Defense Production Act to classify meat processing as critical infrastructure.
"The vast majority of processing plants could have shut down, reducing processing capacity in the country by as much as 80%," a White House official said at the time. "We see it as an urgent need and there should not be a panic on food supply at the moment when our country is embarking on the path of recovery from the fallout of COVID."