‘We have to have each other’s back in the press corps. So I appreciate that….’
Yamiche Alcindor / IMAGE: Overheard with Evan Smith via Youtube
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) PBS White House correspondent Yamiche Alcindor admitted that the mainstream press works together in their effort to oppose President Donald Trump.
“We know that covering President Trump sometimes is like a team sport,” she told MSNBC. “We have to have each other’s back in the press corps. So I appreciate that.”
Alcindor had a brief altercation with the president during a Sunday press briefing, after she asked a “negative” and “threatening” question that attempted to pin responsibility on Trump for the initial lag in Wuhan virus testing.
“Why don’t you act a little more positive?” Trump responded. “It’s always get ya, get ya, get ya. You know what? That’s why nobody trusts the media anymore. Look, let me tell you something. Be nice. Don’t be threatening.”
Within moments of the exchange, dozens of leftists and mainstream journalists rallied behind Alcindor:
The Washington Post even published an opinion column claiming Alcindor has been “abused” on national television—managing, in the process, to deploy the gender and race cards without evidence.
“Though Trump is a blabbermouth, he managed to bundle a sexist and racist jab in the span of five words,” wrote Post columnist Erik Wemple.
“‘Be nice. Don’t be threatening’—those admonitions play off expectations of how women should behave toward men and stereotypes of black people, respectively,” Wemple claimed.
Alcindor similarly suggested she had been the victim of veiled racism and sexism:
President Trump today at the White House said to me: “Be nice. Don’t be threatening.”
I’m not the first human being, woman, black person or journalist to be told that while doing a job.
My take: Be steady. Stay focused. Remember your purpose. And, always press forward.
In her follow-up interview with MSNBC, Alcindor claimed she was just trying to “hold [Trump] accountable” and thanked the other members of the press who “had my back.”
‘There’s no sign that they’ll be anywhere on-site helping out anywhere in the country for weeks yet…’
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) A little over a week ago, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow called President Donald Trump’s claim that he’d send two U.S. Navy medical ships to New York City and Los Angeles “nonsense.”
“There is no sign that the Navy hospital ships that the President made such a big deal of—the Comfort and the Mercy—there’s no sign that they’ll be anywhere on-site helping out anywhere in the country for weeks yet,” Maddow said during a March 20 broadcast of her show.
Maddow tried to argue that Trump wasn’t willing to give New York City, which is now the epicenter of the U.S.’s coronavirus outbreak, the aid that it needs.
“The president said when he announced that those ships would be put into action against the COVID-19 epidemic. He said one of those ships would be operational in New York harbor by next week. That’s nonsense. It will not be there next week,” she claimed.
Flashback to last week when @maddow claimed it was “nonsense” when President Trump said there would be a Navy Medical Ship operational in a week.
The USNS Comfort arrived in New York City this morning.
But on Monday morning, the USNS Comfort arrived in New York Harbor, providing an additional 1,000 beds and nearly a dozen operating rooms to relieve New York City’s healthcare system.
“This great ship behind me is a 70,000-ton message of hope and solidarity to the incredible people of New York,” Trump said on Sunday as the USNS Comfort prepared to depart.
Even New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat and frequent Trump-basher, has admitted that President Trump has followed through on his commitment to help the state as it battles the coronavirus.
Maddow, however, has yet to acknowledge her false claims, and has instead doubled down.
“Everyone’s glad it’s there now,” she wrote on Twitter. “But you really have been terrible about communicating true, factual information to the public in this crisis.”
Hi again, Mr. President! That clip was from March 20, after you said the ship would be in New York harbor by last week. The ship was not in New York last week — which is what I said on my show.
‘We do not have confidence that the FBI has executed its Woods Procedures in compliance with FBI policy… that FISA applications be “scrupulously accurate”…’
Michael Horowitz / IMAGE: CBS News via Youtube
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) The Justice Department’s inspector general on Tuesday sent a memo to FBI Director Christopher Wray saying that a review of multiple FISA-authorized surveillance applications showed widespread, systemic failures in following agency directives.
Among the requirements needed for submitting the applications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the FBI’s Woods Procedures outline several different types of supporting documentation required in order to justify the request.
But the audit showed the agency—whether due to ineptitude or deliberate cover-up—was unable to furnish the needed documents in four of the 29 randomly sampled cases. In three instances, or more than 10 percent, the FBI denied knowing if the documents existed.
“As a result of our audit work to date … we do not have confidence that the FBI has executed its Woods Procedures in compliance with FBI policy,” wrote Inspector General Michael Horowitz.
“Specifically, the Woods Procedures mandate compiling supporting documentation for each fact in the FISA application,” he said. “Adherence to the Woods Procedures should result in such documentation as a means toward achievement of the FBI’s policy that FISA applications be ‘scrupulously accurate.'”
Horowitz’s December report examining the procedural failures in the FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation into alleged Russian collusion with the Trump campaign found 17 critical instances of mishandling. That included the active efforts of partisan anti-Trump operatives to alter documents in order to justify surveillance.
The FISA court, which authorized the initial application and three renewals to spy on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, also was criticized for lack of oversight after reports that the secretive tribunal rubber-stamped eavesdropping approval in 99.7 percent of all cases.
Related to his earlier FISA investigation Horowitz audited a sampling of warrant applications from a range of other FBI field offices, selecting eight offices to review from a data set of around 700 completed surveillance operations.
Of the 25 applications in the initial sample of 29 that were able to furnish the requested documents, the IG’s office found “apparent errors or inadequately supported facts” in every case.
It also found that the oversight process had broken down in its failure to prevent the flawed applications from moving forward, and said those interviewed during the audit acknowledged making no efforts to comply with the procedural mandates.
Horowitz noted that the audit, like his earlier investigation of the FISA process, was narrowly limited in its scope. The IG’s office made no determinations as to the underlying merits of the FISA requests, examining only their compliance—or lack thereof—with the Woods Procedures.
“Nevertheless, we believe that a deficiency in the FBI’s efforts to support the factual statements in FISA applications through its Woods Procedures undermines the FBI’s” self-imposed standards for accuracy, he wrote.
In early March, Congress approved a temporary re-authorization of the FISA courts’ domestic-surveillance authority under the USA Freedom Act, but both the courts and the FBI are expected to be working toward a drastic overhaul of the warrant process pursuant to Horowitz’s earlier recommendations.
Horowitz concluded by recommending further that the FBI not only implement additional requirements for reviewing the accuracy of the FISA applications, and that it also perform a “physical inventory” of all pending applications to ensure that the documents were properly vetted.
After CBS Correspondent Catherine Herridge tweeted out the recent memo, several Twitter users expressed cynicism that the FBI agents responsible would face any genuine accountability for the FISA abuses, which may have allowed U.S. citizens, including President Donald Trump, to be spied on in secret without adequate justification.
Any consequences? Or is this just another “oops” moment? ?
How about – We believe that the blatant attempt of the FBI to hide the true statements in the FISA applications through its Woods Procedures has proven that there are rogue actors in the FBI with criminal behavior. This must be prosecuted and disclosed to the public!!!!!
It is expected that any prosecutions—if they were to come—would stem from an ongoing criminal investigation being led by special prosecutor John Durham.
However, several recent probes, including IG investigations of top Obama-era FBI officials James Comey and Andrew McCabe, have concluded by declining to prosecute, despite evidence of unethical—and potentially criminal—misconduct.
‘This tweet is objectively true. Amazing how many blue checks are triggered by it…’
EDITOR’S NOTE: This article contains profanity.
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) A tweet by Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., which poked holes in the leftist media narrative that the U.S. surpassing China in coronavirus diagnoses was newsworthy, sent the activist press into a deranged tizzy.
Some in our media can’t contain their glee & delight in reporting that the U.S. has more #CoronaVirus cases than #China
Beyond being grotesque,its bad journalism
We have NO IDEA how many cases China really has but without any doubt its significantly more than why they admit to
Rubio’s observation was but one of several ways the “horse-race” coverage over confirmed coronavirus cases is misleading.
The rise—largely due to increases in testing—belies, on one hand, leftist claims that draconian “social distancing” and quarantine measures are containing it significantly.
Rather, it suggests that many people may be living with the virus who are asymptomatic or exhibiting only mild symptoms.
However, the U.S. mortality rate has remained substantially lower than many other affected nations as a ratio of cases to deaths, suggesting that the response, itself, has been effective in treating patients.
Despite pockets of higher mortality in densely populated “blue” areas like New York, California, Washington state and the city of New Orleans, all of which have been rapidly inundated by cases, scientists who initially hyped millions of American deaths have scrambled to revise those numbers downward.
Marco Rubio / IMAGE: The Hill via Youtube
Meanwhile, China has continued to spread misinformation and propaganda according to its own people, painting a vastly rosier portrait than exists on the ground.
Following the implementation of travel bans and other health-related measures, the communist Chinese government proceeded to claim the outbreak had crested and that there were no new cases. That has been disputed, however, by those who report long hospital lines in regions like Wuhan, where the virus originated, as well as round-the-clock incinerators.
Still, in the U.S., partisan, liberal journalists have deployed a variety of methods to justify their own shoddy reporting and egregious, knee-jerk Trump-bashing.
The Left has sought, for instance, to play the race card when it comes to blaming China.
Meanwhile, Democrat fear-mongerers insist that any information which undermines or contradicts their own radical prescription of a complete, economy-wrecking, Constitution-curtailing lock-down should be considered socially irresponsible and dangerous.
Progressivist Twitter trolls came out in full force against Rubio for daring to present a factual alternative, although responses—many from the “verified” accounts of public figures, as denoted by the blue check—tended to deflect entirely from the point.
Blogger Andy Ostroy, for example, blamed President Donald Trump for not jumping into action when the virus was first detected.
Or maybe we’re livid that ur president…whose ass you so pathetically kiss…wasted a couple of precious months calling this a “democratic hoax” when he could’ve learned from #China & gotten us weeks & weeks ahead of this disease. #COVID19#coronavirushttps://t.co/G8SG9Ty6X1
Other left-wing tweeters dispatched entirely with presenting any sort of a counter-argument to Rubio’s criticism of the media coverage.
Sam Stein, who promoted himself as a journalist at left-wing outlets MSNBC and the Daily Beast, opted instead for an ad-hominem verbal attack on Rubio that cast him as a bully for disparaging the poor, sensationalist press when, after all, people are dying.
Senator, either you have no clue what you’re talking about or you’re being a jerk. I have friends in this industry who have the virus. We have to make exceptionally challenging calls about sending reporters into hot spots or places where they could get it. Do better.
Tony Posnanski, an apparent self-help guru and E-bay auctioneer, opted simply to spew invective in defense of his perspective (profanity warning):
We have no idea either, asshole. And there is no glee in it. It’s to protect Americans from going out because you don’t take it seriously as it shows in Florida. Fuck all the way off.
Matthew Yglesias, a Vox reporter notorious for his partisan hot-takes, coyly denied that the media had spent nearly a week incessantly harping on the U.S. having taken the lead in coronavirus cases, with many blatantly and unabashedly attempting to saddle Trump with the blame.
— Rep. Steven Smith (R-GA) ?? (@RepStevenSmith) March 29, 2020
Others chimed in to support Rubio, with conservative investigative journalist Mike Cernovich making note of a recent Gallup poll that showed the media was the only major institution or figure on a recent survey to have less than 50 percent approval in its handling of the pandemic.
Media approval rating as seen by the public has declined during coronavirus coverage.
It seemed unlikely, though, that Rubio’s having called them to task would urge any reporters on the Left to rethink their misguided emphasis on the number of cases or to shift greater scrutiny toward the cover-up in China.
But if anything, the response to Rubio’s tweet begged the curtain to be drawn back on another dubious process shrouded in secrecy: Twitter‘s questionable choices over which “public” figures should qualify for verified accounts.
As Wuhan virus infections explode in the Bayou State, and state hospitals and emergency medical personnel fear overwhelm, Louisiana’s lack of lifesaving breathing ventilators could have been avoided.
Both former Gov. Bobby Jindal, a Republican, and current Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, looked past years of federal warnings about ventilator shortages and how a lack of pandemic preparedness would lead to rationing care. Undoubtedly, other states have done the same and time will tell which ones will also suffer.
By the numbers, the Wuhan virus is literally spreading faster in Louisiana than anywhere else in the world. As of Monday, 3 p.m., the state had 4,025 positive cases and 186 deaths. Two weeks ago, it had few reported cases.
Louisiana trails only New York, Washington and New Jersey in total death count, despite having millions of fewer residents than the least of those states. Louisiana is also expected to run out of ventilators this week.
The deadly super-virus attacks the lungs and causes shortness of breath. With severe infections, and in cases involving older patients and people with preexisting health conditions, the virus can it impossible to breathe. Ventilators solve the issue by pumping oxygen and functioning as artificial lungs.
Now, hard-hit states are scrambling for ventilators and are even competing with each other.
“This is a very very difficult item to find because everyone is looking for them all at the same time,” Edwards said at a press conference last week.
Bobby Jindal/Photo by Michael Vadon (CC)
But he’d been warned, as had his predecessor Gov. Jindal.
A 2017 CDC study titled “Stockpiling Ventilators for Influenza Pandemics,” found that “substantial concern exists that intensive care units might have insufficient resources to treat all persons requiring ventilator support.”
A 2017 CDC white paper, published by the American Association for Respiratory Care, acknowledged that the agency’s Strategic National Stockpile of about 10,000 ventilators “might not suffice to meet demand during a severe public health emergency.”
And a 2015 study by researchers from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the CDC calculated that an additional 7,000 to 11,000 ventilators would be needed to avoid 35,000 to 55,000 deaths during a nationwide pandemic. A “severe” pandemic would require an estimated 35,000 to 60,500 additional ventilators to avoid 178,000 to 308,000 deaths.
A 2009 report by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration stated, “Healthcare facilities can be overwhelmed, creating a shortage of hospital staff, beds, ventilators and other supplies.”
Another 2009 report said a full-scale H1N1-type outbreak means “1 or 2 out of every 2,000 Americans might be hospitalized,” and that 50–100 percent more ventilators and ICU capacity might be needed.
The list goes on. But both Jindal, a two-term governor serving from 2008–2016, and Edwards, elected in 2016, failed to stockpile ventilators and other critical supplies while federal health agencies warned of pandemic response shortages almost annually. The reports repeatedly identified weaknesses in federal preparedness and effectively put states on notice to better prepare for a respiratory pandemic.
But in failing to act, Louisiana’s governors have put their state in the hands of the federal government to be rescued despite its repeated pandemic shortage warnings.
Liberty Headlines examined a 2011 Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals “standard of care” document that outlined the state’s emergency health guidelines. When there is a shortage of ventilators and critical supplies, state hospitals are advised to invoke the “Life Cycle Principle.”
“This means that younger individuals should have a right to the same number of years to live as an older person has already had. Using this principle, age would become the driving force. All other things being equal, with one ventilator to spare, it would go to someone 28 y/o over someone 82 y/o,” the guidelines say.
The document also explained the need for medical staff to have access to ventilators, not just patients: “If the medical personnel have some assurance that they may get a ventilator, they may be more likely to come in to work especially once the fatality rate of the ‘really bad virus’ becomes obvious.”
Louisiana’s alarming lack of ventilators didn’t happen overnight. At approximately $36,000 per device, they were not a priority over the past 12 years. Now, state hospitals desperately need them and it may be too late.
“We could potentially run out of vents in the New Orleans area in the first week in April,” Edwards said last week.
Chief among the suspected reasons for the crisis is the decision not to cancel Mardi Gras. The week-long raucous celebration in the historic French Quarter of New Orleans ended Feb. 25, after some portion of the hundreds of thousands of partygoers were likely exposed to the coronavirus.
In mid-March, John Bel Edwards postponed Louisiana’s primary election that was scheduled for April 4th./AP Photo
Neither Edwards nor New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell has taken responsibility for the colossal failure to protect city residents and tourists; Instead, they’re blaming President Trump.
Cantrell, a Democrat, said she didn’t cancel Mardi Gras because of the “response of our national leader.”
“Well, you know that the city of New Orleans as it relates to Mardi Gras, we plan Mardi Gras as a year-long effort. Around a part of our unified command is the federal government. Homeland Security, as well as the FBI,” said Cantrell in a CNN interview.
“No red flags were given. So absolutely, we moved forward,” she said.
In a Sunday interview with ABC News’ “This Week” host Martha Raddatz, Edwards said 1.5 million people participated in Mardi Gras just 13 days before the first confirmed coronavirus case was discovered on March 9.
CBS News’ “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan confronted Edwards on the same Sunday morning, “You didn’t cancel it. Do you regret not doing so?”
“There was not one person at the federal level, not at the CDC or otherwise, who recommended canceling anything,” he said.
‘During a Pandemic it is essential that the Media gives us real and accurate information…’
UPDATE 3/31/2020: Fox News reports that CBS admitted a “mistake” in including footage from an Italian hospital in a report about the Wuhan virus pandemic in New York City. Not everyone bought that explanation:
Totally understandable. I hate when I mistakenly find a video online that is used within an Italian news story, take the time to download the video onto my computer and then upload and edit it into a news story about New York City.
Happens all the time. https://t.co/c7XEft5vo7
ORIGINAL ARTICLE: (Joshua Paladino, Liberty Headlines) In an effort to push coronavirus hysteria, CBS News placed a March 22 clip from an Italian hospital into a March 25 report on New York City‘s response to the outbreak, the Gateway Pundit reported.
During a Pandemic it is essential that the Media gives us real and accurate information.
It’s completely irresponsible for @CBSNews to use footage from an Italian Hospital when talking about the outbreak in New York City.
This is unacceptable. pic.twitter.com/Essp4uEHle
— ALX ?? (@alx) March 30, 2020
The segment aired after Gov. Andrew Cuomo demanded that the federal government supply 30,000 ventilator machines to the state, which has become one of the global epicenters for the outbreak.
President Donald Trump rebuffed the request, casting doubt upon the outlandish figure, although he since has dispatched General Motors to aid in the production of additional ventilators. New York City alone was likely to surpass 800 coronavirus-related deaths on Monday.
But despite the severity of the crisis, it has been nowhere near the level that anti-Trump media have sought to make it, with the U.S. mortality rate significantly lower than most other affected countries even as greater testing has seen the number of confirmed cases escalate.
In the CBS video report, the narrator ominously says, “New York’s governor says FEMA gave the state 400 ventilators. To that he said this, ‘What am I going to do with 400 ventilators when I need 30,000? You pick the 26,000 people who are going to die because you only sent 400 ventilators.'”
As Cuomo and the narrator speak, the video pans across a crowded hospital, but there’s one problem: the clip is from a Sky News report covering the largest hospital in Bergamo, a city in northern Italy.
“They’re fighting a war here, and they’re losing,” Sky News journalist Stuart Ramsay says in the original clip profiling Italy’s over-worked hospitals. “The sheer numbers of people succumbing to the coronavirus is overwhelming every hospital in northern Italy.”
Watch the CBS News and Sky News videos:
‘We thought if anything it would help us ‘cus that’s what we’ve been hearing on the news…’
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) The Arizona woman who drank aquarium cleaner and poisoned her husband before falsely blaming President Donald Trump for touting a possible coronavirus cure was, in fact, a major Democratic donor.
Wanda Jo Lenius, 61, of Mesa, Ariz., was not exhibiting symptoms of coronavirus but claimed that she and her late husband, Gary, “were afraid of getting sick,” according to an NBC News interview last week.
Many of the news reports conveniently left out the fact that the chloroquine phosphate the couple poured into their drinks was not the anti-malaria medication hydrochloroquine, touted by Trump in tweets and in his daily press briefings, but was actually a chemical used to clean the retired couple’s koi pond.
The media then allowed the woman a platform to bash Trump and spread misinformation about the president while guarding her identity.
“Trump kept saying it was basically pretty much a cure,” Lenius told NBC News.
She also advised others: “Don’t take anything. Don’t believe anything. Don’t believe anything that the president says and his people … call your doctor.”
Using local reports that identified the two by first name, the Washington Free Beacon was able to identify the couple and perform a records search of their political donations.
The news site interviewed Wanda, who confirmed the story but continued to claim the poisoning was accidental and that Trump was to blame.
“We weren’t big supporters of [Trump], but we did see that they were using it in China and stuff,” Lenius told the Free Beacon. “And we just made a horrible, tragic mistake,” she said.
“It was stupid, and it was horrible, and we should have never done it,” she continued. “But it’s done and now I’ve lost my husband. And my whole life was my husband.”
Liberty Headlines, which was able to independently confirm the couples’ identities, reached out to Mesa Police Chief Ken Cost to inquire as to whether there were an open investigation into the poisoning and will update with any developments.
Chloroquine phosphate / IMAGE: Reefahholic via Youtube
“We didn’t think it would kill us,” Lenius told the Free Beacon. “We thought if anything it would help us ‘cus that’s what we’ve been hearing on the news.”
According to the Federal Election Commission, the Lenius’s political donations included contributions to 314 Action Fund, an anti-Trump advocacy group that claims to be “pro-science” due to its advocacy of stem-cell research.
Among the organization’s leading 2018 donors was Gemini Trust Company, a brokerage firm founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss of Social Network fame, according to the Center for Responsive Politics’ OpenSecrets.org.
The Leniuses also gave to the pro-abortion group Emily’s List, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Hillary Clinton campaign and Act Blue, a small-donation aggregator that allows candidates to effectively mask the identities of their donors and vice versa.
Additionally, public records revealed that the Leniuses, who formerly resided in Iowa, had waged a series of legal battles against their former employer, the John Deere Company, alleging sexual harassment, violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act, age and sex discrimination, retaliation, hostile work environment and the infliction of emotional harm after Wanda, who was on long-term disability for a medical condition, was passed over for a promotion.
While Trump has tried to balance a realistic outlook on the current pandemic with messages of hope and optimism about its eventual resolution, many in the left-wing press have sought repeatedly to undermine him and bludgeon him with sensationalist fearmongering.
A recent Gallup poll revealed, however, that while Trump had gained in public approval over his handling of the crisis, media credibility has plummeted to below the 50 percent mark, the only institution in the survey to have that dubious distinction.
UPDATE: Further vetting of the Leniuses has revealed that Wanda also may have had a history of mental illness, as well as a fraught relationship with her husband, according to American Greatness.
However, Mesa police told Liberty Headlines that there was no criminal investigation because the two had clearly told police what happened prior to being transported to the hospital.
NEW:
Court records show the wife who fed her husband fish cleaner (poison?) has a history of mental illness (paranoia, depression) and had considered divorcing her husband as far back as 2012.
‘This is one of the worst cover-ups in human history…’
A store employee in a protectively suit waits for customers outside a re-opened retail street in Wuhan in central China’s Hubei province/AP Photo
(Joshua Paladino, Liberty Headlines) Chinese government scientists have discovered and isolated more than 2,000 animal viruses, including bat coronaviruses, in the past 12 years.
They have studied these viruses in a research facility three miles away from Wuhan’s Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, where Chinese officials say the coronavirus originated, according to the Washington Times.
Tian Junhua led the bat coronavirus research near Wuhan, according to many Chinese state media organizations that praised the country’s pioneering virus research.
The Chinese Communist Party did not promptly disclose its knowledge about the new coronavirus, leading Americans to suspect that the virus may have come from a Chinese laboratory. Americans most wary of the Chinese government wonder whether virus accidentally escaped or was released.
“This is one of the worst cover-ups in human history, and now the world is facing a global pandemic,” said Rep. Michael T. McCaul, Texas Republican and ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
In a December 2019 video, Tian Junhua works in a cave in Hubei province where he collects samples from bats and puts them into vials.
“I am not a doctor, but I work to cure and save people,” Tian said. “I am not a soldier, but I work to safeguard an invisible national defense line.”
The Wuhan Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where Tian works, is the nation’s central location for bat virus research.
The video, called “Youth in the Wild — Invisible Defender,” shows researchers working with bats without proper precautions. At least once, Tian did not wear personal protective equipment, and bat urine touched his skin.
Chinese state media companies reported that Tian quarantined himself for 14 days.
“As long as I am not getting sick during the incubation period of 14 days, I can be lucky to get away with it,” he said.
The state-funded film says that China has “taken the lead” on the world’s virus research, discovering 2,000 viruses in 12 years, while only 2,284 viruses were found in the past two centuries.
“Bats have a large number of unknown viruses on their bodies,” Tian said. “The more thorough our research on bats is, the better it will be for human health.”
Tian also works with viruses from ticks, mice, and wasps.
Richard Ebright, a biosecurity researcher at Rutgers University, said the new coronavirus is a 96.2 percent match with a bat virus that the Wuhan laboratories isolated and studied in 2013.
He did not know whether virus escaped from the Wuhan laboratory or moved through natural animal to human transmission.
“Bat coronaviruses are collected and studied by laboratories in multiple parts of China — including Wuhan Municipal CDC and Wuhan Institute of Virology,” he told the Washington Times. “Therefore, the first human infection also could have occurred as a laboratory accident.”
For the first time since the coronavirus outbreak began, Wuhan opened public transportation last weekend and stores on Monday, including the wet wild animal markets.
Despite the pandemic, it does not appear that Wuhan’s wet market will be deterred from selling bats, scorpions, and other unhealthy animals.
Sanitary concerns remain low, too, as vendors will continue to slaughter some animals on site.
‘If you’re under 50 and you’re healthy, which is most New Yorkers, there’s very little threat here…’
Bill de Blasio / IMAGE: Meet the Press via Youtube
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio threatened to permanently close churches, synagogues or other houses of worship that continue to defy the city’s shelter-in-place order.
Speaking to the city’s residents during a daily press briefing last week, de Blasio warned that religious centers that do not obey the city’s instructions could face long-term repercussions.
“A small number of religious communities, specific churches and specific synagogues, are unfortunately not paying attention to this guidance even though it’s so widespread,” de Blasio said.
“I want to say to all those who are preparing for the potential of religious services this weekend: If you go to your synagogue, if you go to your church and attempt to hold services after having been told so often not to, our enforcement agents will have no choice but to shut down those services.”
He added that if shutting down the service failed to settle it, the city would consider additional actions, including fines and permanent building closures.
De Blasio: churches and synagogues that hold worship services may be closed permanently pic.twitter.com/kdUsdbP2YO
Just two weeks ago, de Blasio was encouraging New York City’s residents to go about life as usual.
“If you’re under 50 and you’re healthy, which is most New Yorkers, there’s very little threat here,” de Blasio told MSNBC on March 10, just one day before President Trump suspended travel to and from Europe.
“This disease, even if you were to get it, basically acts like a common cold or flu,” de Blasio insisted.
Bill DeBlasio March 10: “We want to encourage” New Yorkers going out…
“If you’re under 50 & you’re healthy, which is most New Yorkers, there’s very little threat here. This disease, even if you were to get it, basically acts like a common cold or flu.”pic.twitter.com/azfGg0dnyK
As of Monday, nearly 800 people had since died from COVID-19 in New York City alone.
Churches across the country have protested state governments’ social distancing orders. One church in Louisiana met on Sunday in direct defiance of Gov. John Bel Edwards‘s demands.
The decision to meet was “grossly irresponsible,” Edwards said. The churchgoers “take the time and attention of first responders and make it much more likely that this disease will continue to spread,” he said.
Jerry Brown, Gavin Newsom bickered w/ President Trump over wasteful boondoggle…
Jerry Brown/IMAGE: NBC News
(Michael Barnes, Liberty Headlines) As the Wuhan virus grips the nation, America’s most populous state is facing an explosion of confirmed infections and its governor is begging the federal government for lifesaving breathing ventilators.
But California’s ventilator shortage is problem of its own making — not that the progressive-controlled state government would admit it.
According to the Los Angeles Times, former two-term Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, cut ventilator funding while boosting wasteful “green” energy projects and other politically motivated spending initiatives instead. The misplaced priorities continued under California’s current Democratic governor and outspoken Trump critic, Gavin Newsom.
For perspective, the annual cost to maintain California’s medical ventilator programs was $5.8 million. The cost of Brown and Newsom’s supposed environmentally friendly bullet train connecting San Francisco to Los Angeles was $77 billion — and the train was never built.
California suffers from a surge in coronavirus infections that’s second only to New York. It recently passed 5,000 positive cases and has reached more than 120 deaths. And health experts expect the crisis to get much worse in the coming weeks.
Newsom admits his state is unprepared and that hospital systems will soon be overwhelmed, if not already.
“The one treatment we know works are ventilators… so we need more of them,” Newsom said over the weekend as he petitioned for help from the Trump administration.
Arnold Schwarzenegger/Photo by Zero Emission Resource Organisation (CC)
But the emergency was entirely predictable. In fact, former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, anticipated the likelihood of a devastating pandemic in 2006 and pushed for state resources to protect tens of millions of Californians against the exact type of scenario state residents now find themselves.
Among many pandemic preparedness measures, Schwarzenegger authorized three 200-bed mobile hospitals that could be rapidly deployed to virus hotspots and provide advanced health care.
“Each hospital would be the size of a football field, with a surgery ward, intensive care unit and X-ray equipment,” the Times reported.
Emergency supplies would have been stockpiled for the Wuhan virus outbreak, including kits for an extra 21,000 critical care beds and 2,400 portable breathing ventilators.
A 2008 California Department of Public Health report provided justification for the plan, stating that shortages of ventilators, antibiotics, and ICU beds during a statewide health emergency would cause supplies to be “denied or discontinued or withdrawn in order to allocate limited resources.”
The report also offered that, “Facility staff are likely to be injured or killed by the catastrophic event as well, potentially resulting in a shortage of trained staff at the facility.”
At $200 million dollars, the emergency preparedness proposals weren’t cheap. But they were a fraction of the state’s budget $130 billion then-budget, which ballooned in the interim to $215 billion last year.
“In light of the pandemic flu risk, it is absolutely a critical investment,” Schwarzenegger said in a news conference at the time. “I’m not willing to gamble with the people’s safety.”
Gavin Newsom / IMAGE: The View via Youtube
Apparently, Governors Brown and Newsom are.
In 2011, Brown cut funding for the pandemic response infrastructure and neither he nor Newsom resurrected it. The emergency equipment, including the now priceless ventilators, was dumped on local hospitals and health agencies without funding or maintenance provisions, where they deteriorated and become useless.
“Together, these two programs would have positioned California to more rapidly respond as its COVID-19 cases exploded. The annual savings for eliminating both programs? No more than $5.8 million per year, according to state budget records,” the Times concluded.
The costs pale in comparison to California’s current pandemic crisis, not to mention the state’s many climate change-subsidized programs. Chief among them is the $77 billion high-speed train to nowhere that was never built.
Many critics consider it an expensive microcosm of the Green New Deal, which would similarly come at the expense of society’s more practical needs.
As many predicted, the train vastly exceeded its initial price tag — more than seven times its proposed budget — and it was years behind schedule by the time Brown left office in 2019. It also never carried a single passenger.
Consider the average flight from San Francisco to Los Angeles, or vice versa, is $149.
But Brown insisted on the mass transit project throughout his tenure, and long after it was clear that tens of billions of taxpayer dollars were being hopelessly wasted.
Brown deflected by picking fights with President Trump. He claimed Trump was “undermin(ing) America” and sabotaging the “world order.” He called the president “a liar, criminal, and fool,” at the 2018 Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco.
“I’m calling him out because climate change is a real threat of death, destruction and ultimate extinction,” Brown said.
When he finally left office, however, Brown had cut pandemic preparedness while tying a nearly $100 billion bullet train millstone, all told, around his successor’s neck. For his part, Newsom committed to the rail project while trying to blame Trump for the epic green failure.
It didn’t work. Newsom was forced to kill the rail project after Trump denied a bailout and cut California off from federal funding.
“California has been forced to cancel the massive bullet train project after having spent and wasted many billions of dollars. They owe the Federal Government three and a half billion dollars. We want that money back now. Whole project is a ‘green’ disaster!,” Trump tweeted.
California has been forced to cancel the massive bullet train project after having spent and wasted many billions of dollars. They owe the Federal Government three and a half billion dollars. We want that money back now. Whole project is a “green” disaster!
Newsom responded by tweeting, “This is CA’s money,” adding, “We’re not giving it back.”
But Newsom has taken a new tone with the president, now that California is in dire shape due to the deadly Wuhan virus and the state’s lack of preparation.
CNN reported last week that Newsom has “warmly praised the Trump administration for its assistance,” while more recently Newsweek said that the California governor spoke to Trump on the phone and called the conversation a “privilege.”
