CORONAVIRUS UPDATE…
WORLDWIDE — 2,567,327 CASES, 177,521 DEATHSUSA — 825,306 CASES, 45,075 DEATHS(As of 03:38 AM EDT, Data via Johns Hopkins COVID-19 tracking…)
Trump Announces 60-Day Pause On Immigration For ‘Individuals Seeking Permanent Residency’
Trump teased the idea late Monday night on Twitter, writing that “in light of the attack from the Invisible Enemy, as well as the need to protect the jobs of our GREAT American Citizens,” and saying he would soon sign an executive order banning immigration into the country.On Tuesday, he clarified that it will result in a 60-day pause “for individuals seeking a permanent residency, in other words, those receiving green cards.”“By pausing immigration, we’ll help put unemployed Americans first in line for jobs as America reopens,” he told reporters in the Brady Briefing Room. “It would be wrong and unjust for Americans laid off by the virus to be replaced with new immigrant labor flown in from abroad.”Trump added that the administration will weigh taking additional measures to “protect U.S. workers” and could possibly extend the 60-day pause if necessary. Trump said he expects to sign the order Wednesday. […]The Department of Labor’s most recent unemployment report added 5.25 million jobless claims to the 22 million already caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Reacting on Tuesday night’s “Tucker Cadrlson Tonight” to what could turn out to be a watered-down immigration pause that doesn’t include many of the temporary immigrant workers who compete with lower-skilled Americans for jobs, Carlson began by saying critics of the pause, like former Democratic Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke, “needn’t have worried.”“The ban will apply only to individuals seeking permanent residency in this country. In other words, people who like the United States enough to stay permanently and would like green cards to be able to do it legally,” Carlson said after describing what he knew about the pause so far. “But the ban will not apply to those entering the United States on a temporary basis, and that means this will not affect guest workers. That’s an awful lot of exceptions.”“Every year our government hands out 80,000 non-agricultural guest worker Visas as well as 85,000 H1B Visas, and hundreds of thousands of [agriculture] worker Visas,” the Fox News host continued. “The purpose of this tidal wave of immigration has nothing to do with what advocates of immigration claim immigration is for. These Visas do not improve American society in any way. We have no moral obligation to give them. There is no mention of guest workers on the Statue of Liberty.”The “only” reason, Carlson contended, that these Visas are handed out is to “placate big business.”
Attempting to criticize President Donald Trump’s stated intention to temporarily halt immigration to the U.S., O’Rourke tweeted Tuesday: “Who the f*ck do you think is working on the farms and feed lots, in the packing houses and processing plants at a time where we are struggling to feed ourselves? Who is in the kitchen? Who is picking, preparing, serving the food we eat and cleaning up afterwards?” […]“Honestly, those are all very good questions, if you are an 18th century French marquis,” Carlson said after reading O’Rourke’s tweet. “As the country falls apart around him, Beto’s first and main concern is preserving America’s sacred caste system.”“The native-born working on farms, in kitchens and factories?” the Daily Caller co-founder mocked. “It’s unnatural, unthinkable. It is wrong. We must have a compliant underclass. We must! Who will iron the sheets?”
People Can’t Stop Talking About What Bret Baier Did As Soon As Trump Closed The Coronavirus Briefing (VIDEO)
Baier got numerous questions in during the briefing and didn’t stop there. Upon its conclusion and after candid words with Trump, Baier immediately turned around to face the camera and transitioned back to a host – and people couldn’t stop talking about it.“The President of the United States wrapping up his press briefing, welcome to Special Report,” Baier said as he stood up from his old seat in the front row of the press room. “I’m Bret Baier.”“We’re doing it tonight from the White House briefing room, a little bit different tonight. We’ve just watched the daily coronavirus task force briefing,” Baier said and continued to report on the briefing that he had just attended as other reporters slipped out of the room.
Ivy League Universities Flush With Cash Set To Receive Millions In Federal Coronavirus Funding
The eight elite private colleges of the Ivy League are slated to receive millions in taxpayer-funded coronavirus stimulus money despite controlling endowments with a combined value in 2019 of over $140 billion.Five Ivy League schools posted operational surpluses of over $200 million in 2019, according to their financial statements from that year. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos said that schools with significant endowments should determine whether they really need federal assistance and to send any unneeded stimulus funding to schools that are actually in need.The eight Ivy League schools are set to receive a combined $61.7 million in federal funding through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act.Harvard University spokesman Jason Newton said Monday that the school will be giving 100% of its $8.6 million federal funding package to its students with urgent financial needs amid the pandemic.And a Brown University spokeswoman said its $4.8 million CARES Act package would be used to help sustain its commitment to offer “generous financial aid” to its students in financial need.None of the other six Ivy League schools responded to multiple inquiries from the Daily Caller News Foundation asking if they would relinquish any of their federal coronavirus funding.
“We have to give businesses more freedom to operate in a way that’s reasonably safe,” Barr said, according to Bloomberg. “To the extent that governors don’t and impinge on either civil rights or on the national commerce — our common market that we have here — then we’ll have to address that.”Barr said the federal government may weigh in to support any lawsuits against states they believe are pushing lockdown limits too far. One state that is likely to fit the bill is Michigan, where hundreds have flaunted distancing guidelines to protest at the state capital, arguing Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is abusing her authority.“We’re looking carefully at a number of these rules that are being put into place,” Barr said, according to Bloomberg. “And if we think one goes too far, we initially try to jawbone the governors into rolling them back or adjusting them. And if they’re not and people bring lawsuits, we file statement of interest and side with the plaintiffs.”
Photos of extended middle fingers, the mayor dropping the Staten Island groundhog and news coverage of him going to the gym have all been texted to a special tip line that de Blasio announced Saturday, according to screenshots posted on Twitter.One user sent the message “We will fight this tyrannical overreach!” to the service and got an automated message that in part said, “Hello, and thank you for texting NYC311.”“F–k you!” replied @MorganLSchmidt1, along with a meme showing Adolf Hitler and the words “TO THOSE TURNING IN YOUR NEIGHBORS AND LOCAL BUSINESSES — YOU DID THE REICH THING.”
White House Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy director Peter Navarro joined “Hannity” Tuesday night and laid out China’s mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic, a process he said Beijing might call “the four kills.”“They spawned the virus, probably in that … lab right there in China and then they hid it behind the shield of the World Health Organization,” Navarro began.“What that did over a six-week period is allow hundreds of thousands of Wuhanians basically to get on aircraft and seed the world,” Navarro continued.“While they were doing that, and this is just disgusting — what they did was they vacuumed up all of the world’s masks, gloves, goggles, personal protective equipment, two billion masks,” he went on. “That’s why in Milan, New York and other places, our people didn’t have them. And now, Sean, you know what they’re doing?“What they’re doing is profiteering from this crisis, charging … for a 50-cent mask, $3, $4, $5 and more and sending us counterfeit tests,” Navarro went on.“That’s the four kills, the killing of Americans and people internationally. What is puzzling to me is why the mainstream media and the national Democrats don’t get that.”
IMPORTANT RESOURCE… VICTIMS OF COMMUNISM: The Coronavirus Cover-Up: A Timeline
In this situation brief, the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation compares the timeline and facts with China’s ongoing disinformation campaign about the coronavirus’ origins, nature, and spread. This brief also demonstrates how the World Health Organization (WHO) has promoted and helped legitimize China’s false claims. […]Through the middle of January, Chinese state-run media claimed that the virus was containable. Yet other actions indicate the PRC already knew otherwise. Beginning that same month, the PRC activated a predatory global campaign to acquire medical supplies and equipment from North America and Europe for urgent shipment to China—a sign that the virus was spreading faster than Chinese authorities acknowledged. Special attention was given to personal protective equipment such as respiratory masks and gloves, meaning the PRC knew that the coronavirus was spreading between humans, though it refused to publicly acknowledge this fact.The WHO was also aware of human-to-human transmission at an early date. Taiwan highlighted this concern to the agency on December 31. The next day the WHO asked China for more information, but on January 14 the WHO was still reporting that “preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission.
At no point has the WHO criticized China for refusing to let it verify the PRC’s data or for pilfering global medical supplies. Instead, the WHO quickly praised China in glowing terms, even saying they were “reassured of the quality of the ongoing investigations and the response measures.” The WHO also repeated the PRC’s claim that there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission despite doctors contracting the coronavirus from patients. The WHO maintained its position about the unverified or limited nature of human-to-human transmission until January 23—three days after the PRC admitted the fact.
Americans’ opinion of China nosedives amid coronavirus pandemic, poll finds
Two-thirds of Americans say they have an unfavorable view of China, according to a national poll by the Pew Research Center.That’s up 20 percentage points since the start of President Trump’s tenure in the White House — and it’s the most negative view of Beijing by Americans since Pew began asking the question a decade and a half ago.When the Trump presidency began, 47 percent of Americans had an unfavorable view of China, with 44 percent holding a favorable opinion. In Pew’s latest poll — which was conducted March 3 through 29 — 66 percent now hold an unfavorable view, with just 25 percent saying they see Beijing in a positive light.
The state of Missouri is suing the Chinese government over the coronavirus, alleging that nation’s officials are to blame for the global pandemic.The lawsuit, filed in federal court by the state’s top lawyer, alleges Chinese officials are “responsible for the enormous death, suffering, and economic losses they inflicted on the world, including Missourians”.Eric Schmitt, the state’s Republican attorney general, said in a written statement that the Chinese government lied about the dangers of the virus and did not do enough to slow its spread.“The Chinese government lied to the world about the danger and contagious nature of Covid-19, silenced whistleblowers, and did little to stop the spread of the disease,” he said. “They must be held accountable for their actions.”It was unclear whether the lawsuit will have much, if any, impact. US law generally prohibits lawsuits against other countries with few exceptions, said Chimene Keitner, an international law professor at University of California, Hastings College of the Law.
The Wall Street Journal left out a critical detail in its report Tuesday about China’s top virologist on bat-borne viruses saying her lab in Wuhan has no connection to the coronavirus outbreak.TheWSJ did not include in its report that the virologist told the Scientific American in March she lost sleep worrying about the possibility that her Wuhan lab, which studies coronaviruses, could have been responsible for the release of the novel coronavirus when she first learned of the outbreak in late December 2019.Shi Zhengli, known by her colleagues as the “bat woman,” told the Scientific American that she frantically searched for any evidence that laboratory records from her lab at the Wuhan Institute of Virology could have been mishandled when she first learned of the spread of viral pneumonia in Wuhan.“I had never expected this kind of thing to happen in Wuhan, in central China,” Shi said, adding that she remembered thinking if coronavirus was responsible for the pneumonia outbreak, “could they have come from our lab?”
Lululemon issued an apology Tuesday and said it fired an executive who recently took to Instagram to promote a “bat fried rice” T-shirt design during the coronavirus outbreak, according to the New York Post.Trevor Fleming, the fitness apparel company’s senior global art director, reportedly shared a design that showed a white shirt with a drawing in red ink of a Chinese takeout box, a pair of bat wings and chopsticks. […]
Lululemon was quick to respond to an Instagram comment and said it “acted immediately, and the person involved is no longer an employee.”“We want to apologize that an employee was affiliated with promoting an offensive t-shirt,” the brand replied to another comment. “We hold our values at our core and find the image and post inexcusable.”
Meghan McCain Says Trump Ad Featuring Nancy Pelosi’s Ice Cream Is Devastating. Her Co-Hosts Disagree (VIDEO)
“This ad is an absolute savage blow and an example what I was trying to explain today regarding having empathy for the protesters and people living in fear of how they will feed their family and keep the lights on,” McCain said on Twitter.Co-host Whoopi Goldberg asked her about the tweet, and McCain was quick to respond.“I thought it was a kill shot. It’s not the ice cream in her fridge. It’s the fact that she’s standing behind giant refrigerators, multiple ones that cost $24,000 each, and you’re right, Joy, politicians are wealthy, Trump is wealthy, but I think in this specific moment, optics are narratives,” McCain explained. “I don’t make the rules of politics. This is just how it works and when it looks like — what she’s saying in the video and I also agree with Joy that if I were advising any politician at this point I would also say tread very carefully with a comedy show. This is not the time or the moment to be doing something like this.”
“So, I want to point out that the ice cream she’s talking about actually comes from a small business,” Goldberg began. “I know that because I send this ice cream out to people, and she is one of the people that is fighting to make sure that small businesses are able to get the testing they need and the stuff that they need.”Goldberg then turned to Behar, adding, “So Joy, you kind of feel like she’s being scapegoated here?”“Of course. But I love that you just said that that’s a small business. That’s perfect,” Behar said, joining Goldberg in defending Pelosi. “You know, the Democrats are, in fact, fighting for more funding for hospitals as well as relief for small businesses for minorities and veterans, okay? That’s what the Democrats are fighting for, so this is just another distraction.”
Former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign has spent nearly $11,000 on Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s favorite ice-cream, which she has come under fire for after showing off her collection in an interview.According to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), Biden’s campaign has spent $10,600 on Pelosi’s favorite ice cream as donor gifts between May 2019 and March 2020. The description for the ice-cream in the FEC filing says “donor gifts.” The Daily Caller contacted the Biden campaign to ask about the gifts but did not immediately receive a response.
The Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia is actively investigating the complaint against Joe Biden brought by Tara Reade, the woman who accused Biden of sexually assaulting her in 1993, despite her allegation being impossible to prosecute since it is past the statute of limitations.“This is an active, ongoing investigation, and there are no further details to provide at this time,” a Metropolitan Police Department spokesperson told the Washington Examiner Tuesday regarding Reade’s case. “Cases that are handled by the Metropolitan Police Department’s Sexual Assault Unit go through a multi-review prior to being assigned a disposition. This case is progressing through the review process.” […]Reade, 56, said that she filed an incident report for “safety reasons,” for the purpose of establishing a paper trail in case “something happened to me” and to show that she is serious about her allegation since it is illegal to make a false police report. Since coming forward with her allegations against Biden, she regularly receives threatening and vulgar messages, she told the Washington Examiner. […]Reade said that she was assigned a victim’s advocate within the police department and connected to another one through an outside nonprofit group. “They’re helping me mainly with safety planning,” she said.
CNN has continued its bizarre on-air blackout of Tara Reade nearly one month after she came forward accusing former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democrats’ presumptive presidential nominee, of a sexual assault in 1993. […]The New York Times, The Washington Post and NBC News published their first reports on Easter Sunday. ABC News and CBS News followed suit that Monday and Tuesday. CNN waited until Friday to issue its first report about the allegation on its website.Meanwhile, there has been no mention of Reade’s claim on-air.
AND HE’S NOT DEAD, YET… National Security Advisor Confirms White House ‘Closely’ Monitoring Kim Jong Un’s Health — Says Successor Will Likely Be In The ‘Family’ (VIDEO)
Robert O’Brien, President Donald Trump’s national security advisor, confirmed Tuesday morning that the White House is “closely” monitoring reports regarding the health of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.O’Brien, speaking during an interview on Fox News, noted that “North Korea is a very closed society, there is not a free press there,” before adding U.S. intelligence agencies are still reviewing reports on Kim’s health. […]He also told reporters gathered at the White House that the “basic assumption” regarding Kim’s successor would be someone within his family.“Again, it’s too early to talk about that,” O’Brien continued. “We don’t know what condition Chairman Kim is in, and we’ll have to see how it plays out.”