At least 1 Bronx Zoo tiger tests positive for coronavirus, but the whole streak may be sick too

The USDA has advised that anyone sick with coronavirus maintains minimal contact with animals, including pets until more information is known on the transmission of the virus.

Although there are currently no other cases of animals contracting the disease in the U.S., other countries, including China, have reported cases in which dogs and cats have become infected after contact with pet owners or caretakers sick with the coronavirus. While pets, including dogs and cats, can acquire the virus from human beings, they cannot pass it on to them, health authorities found. “There doesn’t appear to be, at this time, any evidence that suggests that the animals can spread the virus to people or that they can be a source of the infection in the United States,” Dr. Jane Rooney, a veterinarian and USDA official, said according to the AP. While other animals have been tested in the U.S. only Nadia’s results came back positive, Rooney said.

According to the AP, the results came as a shock to zoo officials, who now hope the knowledge of this test result will provide more information on how different species react to COVID-19 and serve as a resource for people on how the disease is transmitted.

via Daily Kos At least 1 Bronx Zoo tiger tests positive for coronavirus, but the whole streak may be sick too

First they said that this virus could not be transmitted from people to animals, until now.. How much do these supposed ‘experts’ actually know about the virus? It looks like they know NOTHING!

Drug pusher Trump has a share in the malaria drug he keeps overselling for coronavirus

Chloroquine may prove to have some benefit. But pressing people to use it—especially telling people to take it even if they don’t have COVID-19—has definite, clear, and bleak consequences. Not only is this a powerful drug that is not indicated for people with known heart issues, it can generate new heart arrhythmia, and even heart attacks, in those without known issues.

Even more importantly, Trump’s daily advocacy of the drug is driving up a gray-market demand that is making it harder and harder for those who really do need the drug for malaria, or for its anti-inflammatory effects against lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, are finding it nearly impossible to get their prescriptions refilled. In drug store after drug store, people genuinely ill with a condition that can genuinely be addressed by this drug are finding their prescriptions delayed, sometimes indefinitely.

Why is Trump causing genuine harm to push a drug that may or may not have any benefit? Hidden several paragraphs down in the Times story about the supposedly “divided” medical community comes this information: “Mr. Trump himself has a small personal financial interest in Sanofi, the French drugmaker that makes Plaquenil, the brand-name version of hydroxychloroquine.”

A small interest in a drugmaker may not seem like the kind of thing that would put Trump in front of a camera every day, encouraging Americans to treat a dangerous drug like Tic Tacs and tossing on his trademark “What have you got to lose?” But this is Trump. This is the guy who tried to stiff every small contractor, on ever trivial task, in the middle of billion-dollar construction projects. Whether it was curtains, pipes, or cabinets, Trump was more than willing to shaft companies to weasel out of bills.

Of course Trump is willing to push a possible worse-than-worthless drug on America for a small gain—and that’s assuming the known stock ownership is the limit of how Trump is benefiting from this deal. Trump isn’t alone in this, his whole criminal gang, including well-known medical expert Rudy Giuliani, are out there both touting this drug and using it as a means of lining their own pockets.

via Daily Kos Drug pusher Trump has a share in the malaria drug he keeps overselling for coronavirus

While Rome Burns, Trump Gets What He’s Always Wanted | Common Dreams Views

Now, he’s labelled Covid-19 the “Chinese virus,” using that label to escalate tensions with China (and provoke a xenophobic backlash here at home). He recently mentioned a friendly hour-long conversation with that country’s president, Xi Jinping, about combatting the virus. But while reportedly preparing temporary relief when it comes to tariffs generally, Chinese imports are expected to be exempted from the proposed pause in payments.

So, too, the virus has been used to escalate tensions with Iran. Trump had already increased the drumbeat to war with that country by ordering the drone assassination of Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani in Iraq, leading to retaliatory missile strikes on U.S. military bases in that country. Congress then passed a law aimed at preventing the president from further attacks on Iran without its approval. Nevertheless, in the early days of the devastating spread of the pandemic in Iran, the Trump administration launched several attacks on pro-Iranian militias in Iraq and continued to uphold its economic sanctions on Iran itself. And there are reports of more to come from his administration.

4. Isolationism: Since the onset of his presidency, Trump has sought to separate the U.S. from allies and diminish its participation in international treaties and agreements of all sorts. He, for instance, withdrew from the nuclear agreement with Iran and announced his intention to pull the United States out of the Paris climate accord. As if to put a fine point on his disapproval of global engagement, there has also been a wholesale reduction in the size of the State Department in his years in office. A hiring freeze from the spring of 2017 to the spring of 2018 was reinforced by recommendations from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and his successor, Mike Pompeo, which reduced the State Department’s operating budget by one-third, while many key ambassadorships went unfilled. Today, 13% of them remain vacant.

via While Rome Burns, Trump Gets What He’s Always Wanted | Common Dreams Views

c’Moronic But Consistent’: Outrage Over Trump Admin Giving PPE to Private Companies, Not States | Common Dreams News

Acording to Pritzker, President Donald Trump’s “Project Airbridge” transportation scheme that delivers personal protective equipment (PPE) and other needed medical supplies to the U.S. from manufacturers in China is interrupting what should be a straightforward policy of getting equipment to the places which need it the most.

“We’re bidding, unfortunately, for all of these items of equipment against the federal government and against the other states and against other countries, because what the White House has done is created—you know, they call this the air bridge, where they’re bringing stuff back from China to the United States, and then they’re delivering it to private companies in the United States, not to the states,” said Pritzker. “And they’re letting all of us bid against each other for those goods that are owned by the private companies.”

As Common Dreams has reported, shortages of PPE and other needed medical supplies have been a flashpoint of controversy as frontline healthcare workers demand better protection and equipment.

Project Airbridge, which is transporting the supplies to the U.S. with the coordination of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), is instead delivering the product to a network of private companies—which are exempt from antitrust regulations for the duration of their role in distribution, according to a Justice Department memo (pdf)—which then resell the goods at a profit.

via ‘Moronic But Consistent’: Outrage Over Trump Admin Giving PPE to Private Companies, Not States | Common Dreams News

President Donald Trump was warned COVID-19 could be catastrophic, according to a bombshell new report published online by The New York Times on Monday evening.

“A top White House adviser starkly warned Trump administration officials in late January that the coronavirus crisis could cost the United States trillions of dollars and put millions of Americans at risk of illness or death,” the newspaper reported.

“The warning, written in a memo by Peter Navarro, President Trump’s trade adviser, is the highest-level alert known to have circulated inside the West Wing as the administration was taking its first substantive steps to confront a crisis that had already consumed China’s leaders and would go on to upend life in Europe and the United States,” The Times continued.

via ‘Devastating’ leaked memos: Peter Navarro warned Trump coronavirus could kill 500,000 Americans — back in January – Alternet.org

Trump Has ‘Financial Interest’ in Hydroxychloroquine Manufacturer: NYT

The Times reports the president’s family trusts all have investments in a mutual fund whose largest holding is Sanofi, the manufacturer of Plaquenil, the brand-name version of hydroxychloroquine. Associates of the president, including Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, have also run funds that hold investments in the pharmaceutical firm.

via thedailybeast Trump Has ‘Financial Interest’ in Hydroxychloroquine Manufacturer: NYT

https://youtu.be/5bl-PAwQkMg

via (1) NYC nurse calls to nationalize the U.S. healthcare system – YouTube

Economic Relief For Churches Raises Debate Over Church-State Separation : Coronavirus Live Updates : NPR

In a development that could challenge the Constitution’s prohibition of any law “respecting the establishment of religion,” the federal government will soon provide money directly to U.S. churches to help them pay pastor salaries and utility bills.

A key part of the $2 trillion economic relief legislation enacted last month includes about $350 billion for the Small Business Administration (SBA) to extend loans to small businesses facing financial difficulties as a result of the coronavirus shutdown orders. Churches and other faith-based organizations are among the businesses that qualify for aid under the program, even if they have an exclusively religious orientation.

“Faith-based organizations are eligible to receive SBA loans regardless of whether they provide secular social services,” the SBA said in a statement. “No otherwise eligible organization will be disqualified from receiving a loan because of the religious nature, religious identity, or religious speech of the organization.”

Under the Trump Administration, the federal government has already been providing funds directly to churches, synagogues, mosques, and other religious organizations. In 2018, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) changed its rules to make houses of worship eligible for disaster aid.

via Economic Relief For Churches Raises Debate Over Church-State Separation : Coronavirus Live Updates : NPR

This is a clear violation of separation between church and state.

Meet the Ignorant Cranks Behind Trump’s Big Hydroxychloroquine Push | Vanity Fair

In the case of hydroxychloroquine, the president has latched onto the counsel of a group of individuals who are no more qualified to opine on the matter than Melania “The tennis pavilion must go on!” Trump. One of those individuals is White House economic adviser Peter Navarro, who you might remember from such hits as sending emails under a fake name in support of his tariff policies; the claim that an impaired manufacturing sector leads to “an increase in abortion, spousal abuse, divorce, and infertility”; and being hired by Jared Kushner after the first son-in-law found him on Amazon. Despite the fact that the drug has not been shown to work against the COVID-19 in any significant clinical trials, and that previous reports from China and France did not include control groups, Navarro loooooves himself some hydroxychloroquine, a position he made clear by flipping out on Dr. Anthony Fauci over the weekend for having the temerity to suggest the medicine was not ready for primetime.

According to Axios, in a meeting over the weekend, Navarro—who, to be clear, has zero public health experience—dropped a stack of folders in front of the group and started talking about studies he’s seen showing the “clear therapeutic efficacy” of the drug that, in the real world, don’t actually exist. Fauci, who did go to medical school, reportedly pointed this out, saying that at this point there is only anecdotal evidence that the drug works. He then added that much more data is needed, which Navarro seemingly heard as, “Your mother’s a whore, Pete.”

via Meet the Ignorant Cranks Behind Trump’s Big Hydroxychloroquine Push | Vanity Fair

‘A Really Chilling Moment’: Trump Refuses to Allow Dr. Fauci to Answer Question on Dangers of Hydroxychloroquine | Common Dreams News

“This is a really chilling moment from a science standpoint, with Trump having just pushed an unproven COVID treatment and Fauci, the top infectious disease expert in the U.S., getting muzzled on live TV,” tweeted Andrew Freedman, a climate reporter for the Washington Post. “Was clear Trump didn’t want to be contradicted.”

Dr. Lucky Tran, a biologist, said Trump’s interruption was “unacceptable.”

“Dr. Fauci, one of the world’s top infectious disease scientists, was just censored live at a White House press conference,” tweeted Tran.

The exchange came just hours after Fauci, in an appearance on CBS’ “Face the Nation” Sunday morning, said that “in terms of science, I don’t think we could definitively say [hydroxychloroquine] works.”

“The data are really just at best suggestive,” said Fauci. “There have been cases that show there may be an effect and there are others to show there’s no effect.”

During a press briefing Saturday evening, Trump said “I really think they should they should take it,” referring to coronavirus patients and hydroxychloroquine. Three people in Nigeria overdosed on the drug last month after the president said, without evidence, that the drug may be able to combat the novel coronavirus.

via ‘A Really Chilling Moment’: Trump Refuses to Allow Dr. Fauci to Answer Question on Dangers of Hydroxychloroquine | Common Dreams News

Supreme Court blocks Wisconsin from extending absentee voting | TheHill

In a 5-4 vote along ideological lines, the conservative justices sided with Republican state lawmakers by halting a lower court order to extend absentee voting to April 13, a measure that would have expanded options for avoiding in-person voting amid the coronavirus pandemic.

“Extending the date by which ballots may be cast by voters — not just received by the municipal clerks but cast by voters — for an additional six days after the scheduled election day fundamentally alters the nature of the election,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote for the majority, saying the lower district court erred by providing such relief.

via Supreme Court blocks Wisconsin from extending absentee voting | TheHill

Why does it seem like more people voting is evil, bad, Satanic?

Isn’t it a good thing to get more people to vote in a democracy?

A Fire at Chernobyl Is Releasing Large Amounts of Radiation

Ukrainian authorities say a forest fire is causing radiation levels to spike in the area of Chernobyl, a nuclear power plant that melted down in 1986.

“There is bad news — in the center of the fire, radiation is above normal,” wrote Egor Firsov, the head of Ukraine’s ecological inspection service, in a Facebook post. “As you can see in the video, the readings of the [Geiger counter] are 2.3, when the norm is 0.14. But this is only within the area of the fire outbreak.”

via Futurism A Fire at Chernobyl Is Releasing Large Amounts of Radiation

Acting Navy secretary rips into ousted captain who sounded alarm over COVID-19 outbreak

Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly on Monday delivered a scathing attack against the captain who sounded the alarm over the spread of the coronavirus on his ship.

Speaking in Guam to the crew members of the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, Modly said Capt. Brett Crozier was guilty of a “betrayal of trust” in choosing to express his concerns to a broad audience in an email that ultimately was leaked to the media, according to a recording of the speech obtained by NBC News.

“If he didn’t think, in my opinion, that this information wasn’t going to get out into the public, in this day and information age that we live in, then he was either A, too naive or too stupid to be a commanding officer of a ship like this,” Modly said. “The alternative is that he did this on purpose.”

via NBC Acting Navy secretary rips into ousted captain who sounded alarm over COVID-19 outbreak

Coronavirus tests: Elizabeth Warren, Ayanna Pressley and other Democrats demand racial data on COVID-19 response – CBS News

Five Democrats in Congress are demanding data from the federal government about racial disparities in the nation’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. The lawmakers said in a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar that the government is “currently failing to collect and publicly report on the racial and ethnic demographic information” for COVID-19 tests and patients.

“Without demographic data, policy makers and researchers will have no way to identify and address ongoing disparities and health inequities that risk accelerating the impact of the novel coronavirus and the respiratory disease it causes,” the letter said.

via Coronavirus tests: Elizabeth Warren, Ayanna Pressley and other Democrats demand racial data on COVID-19 response – CBS News

70 Percent of People Killed in Chicago by the Coronavirus Are Black – Mother Jones

In Chicago, new data released Saturday showed that 70 percent of people who have died from COVID-19 in the city were Black, according to a report by the radio station WBEZ. Black people make up 29 percent of the city’s total population.

Similar numbers are emerging elsewhere. In New York, the epicenter for the coronavirus in the United States, the highest concentration of infections has been in low-income neighborhoods with big immigrant populations. In Wisconsin’s Milwaukee County, 81 percent of people killed by the virus have been Black, according to a ProPublica investigation, though just 26 percent of the county’s population identifies as Black. In Michigan, where Black people make up 12 percent of the population, 40 percent of those killed have been Black, many of them in Detroit.

via 70 Percent of People Killed in Chicago by the Coronavirus Are Black – Mother Jones

‘Confusion, Fear And Distrust’: U.S. Hospitals Slam Federal Coronavirus Response In Watchdog Report

Ventilator shortages left hospitals scrambling to repurpose anesthesia machines or double up patients on one machine, the report said, with hospitals fearing “difficult decisions about ethical allocation and liability.”
Crucial quote: “I think one moment that stands out for me is when I was talking to a hospital administrator and he told me that he had staff in the hospital out trying to procure masks and gloves from auto part shops, from home supply stores, from beauty salons, from art supply stores,” Ann Maxwell, assistant inspector general for HHS, told NBC News. “It is unprecedented.”

via forbes ‘Confusion, Fear And Distrust’: U.S. Hospitals Slam Federal Coronavirus Response In Watchdog Report

Watchdog report finds severe shortages and significant challenges to hospitals’ coronavirus responses – CNNPolitics

According to the HHS IG report, the shortage of testing supplies, coupled with delays in results, led to patients staying in beds longer, staff using personal protective equipment that they may not have needed to use, and staff possibly exposing themselves to patients with the virus without knowing.
Hospitals reported waiting seven days or longer for test results, the HHS IG found. One hospital said 24 hours would usually be considered an extensive wait time for virus testing.
“An administrator at another hospital noted that the sooner the hospital knows whether patients are negative, the faster it can move them to a lower level of care that consumes fewer resources,” the report reads. “As one administrator put it, ‘sitting with 60 patients with presumed positives in our hospital isn’t healthy for anybody.'”

via Watchdog report finds severe shortages and significant challenges to hospitals’ coronavirus responses – CNNPolitics

Government watchdog: Hospitals face severe shortages of medical gear, confusing guidance from government

WASHINGTON — Hospitals across the country face dire shortages of vital medical equipment amid the coronavirus outbreak — including testing kits and thermometers — and fear they can’t ensure the safety of health care workers needed to treat patients with COVID-19, according to an internal government watchdog report released Monday.

The alarming findings, based on interviews conducted from March 23 to March 27, represent the first government assessment of how the country’s hospitals are coping with the outbreak and confirm previous media reports and warnings from health workers that the medical system is under unprecedented strain.

Hospital administrators also said conflicting guidance from federal, state and local governments on how to use personal protective gear and other issues has led to “a greater sense of confusion, fear and distrust among staff that they can rely on hospital procedures to protect them,” according to the report from the inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services, or HHS.

via Government watchdog: Hospitals face severe shortages of medical gear, confusing guidance from government

By One Conservative Estimate, 32,000 U.S. Churches Are Still Open For Business

If the Christian Post is right, there are about 300,000 Protestant churches in the U.S., while Catholic ones number roughly 20,000.
Ten percent of 320,000 is 32,000. That’s right: If Dreher’s pro-Christian, don’t-blame-all-of us apologia is correct, thirty-two thousand churches are still open, with congregants prepared to become vectors of disease for the greater glory of God.

via By One Conservative Estimate, 32,000 U.S. Churches Are Still Open For Business | Terry Firma | Friendly Atheist | Patheos

Texas Woman Who Claimed COVID-19 Was ‘Media Driven’ Hoax Dies From Virus | Michael Stone

The ultimate “Karen”. Died of COVID-19 related issues after ranting how it was a hoax, and choosing to cling to her guns, God and Trump. Another tragic, gun-related death that could have been avoided. #KarenKolbSehlke

— The Social Gadfly (@MarcCal78558344) April 5, 2020

Bottom line:  A Trump-loving woman from Texas is dead from COVID-19 after claiming the virus was a “media driven” hoax.

via Texas Woman Who Claimed COVID-19 Was ‘Media Driven’ Hoax Dies From Virus | Michael Stone

The Army warned Trump two months ago that COVID-19 was a ‘black swan’ on the way to wreck America

The number of warnings that President Donald Trump missed in order to make the United States home to a quarter of all COVID-19 cases on the planet seems almost as endless as the supply of virus. There was the simulation that was set up for Trump’s team by the Obama administration during the transition, which included specific warnings about shortages of ventilators and protective gear. There was a 2016 Pandemic Playbook that emphasized the need for a unified central response and the perils of having states fight for scarce resources. There was Operation Crimson Contagion just last fall, in which Trump’s team flunked every possible stage of preparation and response. And there was the annual DHS simulation that should have taken place … except that Trump canceled that annual review. Just like he destroyed the pandemic response team within the National Security Council, ignored the warnings of the rear admiral in charge of preventing pandemics and biological attacks, and, most amazingly, canceled a program designed to find potential viral threats that was working specifically with labs in Wuhan, China on issues with novel coronavirus.

If Donald Trump’s actual intention was to knock down every barrier to infection, paint a giant welcome sign above the country, and declare America host to Virus-con 2020, he could not have done a better—meaning worse—job. But as it turns out, that’s not all. Because Trump was still ignoring the information on the coming pandemic, even when that pandemic was already underway.

As The Daily Beast reported on Thursday evening, the U.S. Army evaluated the situation with the 2019 novel coronavirus at the beginning of February. That analysis said what epidemiologist around the world were already saying—that this was a potential “black swan” event that would completely disrupt the American economy and bring an estimated 80,000 to 150,000 deaths.

via Daily Kos The Army warned Trump two months ago that COVID-19 was a ‘black swan’ on the way to wreck America

Boris Johnson moved to intensive care as coronavirus symptoms worsen | TheHill
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who was hospitalized with coronavirus Sunday, has been moved to intensive care, the prime minister’s office said Monday.

“Over the course of this afternoon, the condition of the Prime Minister has worsened and, on the advice of his medical team, he has been moved to the Intensive Care Unit at the hospital,” a spokesperson said, adding that Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has been deputized to assume his duties in the meantime.

via Boris Johnson moved to intensive care as coronavirus symptoms worsen | TheHill

Opinion | Google Searches Can Help Us Find Emerging Covid-19 Outbreaks – The New York Times

The three searches most related to Covid-19 disease rates were not a surprise: loss of smell, fever and chills. The fifth and sixth searches weren’t much of a surprise either: nasal congestion and diarrhea, which have also received a lot of attention as Covid-19 symptoms.

However, the fourth-place search was a surprise: eye pain, which has not garnered much attention as a possible symptom of the disease. Searches for “my eyes hurt” over the previous week were highest in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Louisiana and Michigan. Such searches seem to have risen in the past two weeks almost exclusively in parts of the country that have reached very high Covid-19 rates (although the data is fairly noisy and the rise isn’t as large as it is for some other symptoms).

There have been some reports of eye-related issues related to Covid-19. A March 31 paper based on a study of 38 patients in China reported that one third of the patients later tested for ocular irregularities.

via Opinion | Google Searches Can Help Us Find Emerging Covid-19 Outbreaks – The New York Times

99% of U.S. Farmed Animals Live on Factory Farms

According to a new analysis conducted by animal rights think tank Sentience Institute, around 99% of US farmed animals live on factory farms.

The new analysis uses data from the 2017 USDA Census of Agriculture, which was released on April 11, 2019. The most recent previous data available was for 2012, which showed around 98.66% of U.S. farmed animals lived on factory farms compared to the current figure of 98.74%. The analysis uses EPA regulations for what constitutes a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) in combination with the USDA data on how many animals live on farms of various sizes.

“Most people are woefully wrong about where their meat comes from. 75% of US adults believe they usually buy humane products, yet only 1% of food animals live on non-factory farms,” said Sentience Institute’s Executive Director Kelly Witwicki in reference to a 2017 poll conducted by the group in collaboration with Ipsos Group.

A global analysis conducted by Sentience Institute suggests over 90% of farmed animals worldwide live on factory farms.

Medium-large factory farms, or CAFOs, in the U.S. generally consists of 1,000 beef cattle, 700 dairy cows, 2,500 pigs, 55,000 turkeys, 30,000 egg-laying hens, or 125,000 broiler chickens.

via sentientmedia. 99% of U.S. Farmed Animals Live on Factory Farms

When Will Coronavirus Crisis and Stay-at-Home Orders End?

If the countries held up as models for how we should proceed can’t figure it out, what does it mean for the U.S., which is saddled with broken institutions and has already bungled and delayed its response at nearly every stage? Here in New York, we are about to enter our third week of sheltering in place; in San Francisco and Seattle, the social-distancing orders have been in effect even longer. Yet there is no clarity to be found from the federal or state or local level for how long these measures will last. And there is no public or concrete plan for, and little visible discussion about, what it would mean to sunset them: how and at what point and in what ways we will try to exit this temporary-but-indefinite wartimelike national bunkering almost all 330 million of us now find ourselves in. What, exactly, is the endgame here?

Some of this ambiguity is inevitable — it may be hard to remember, given the way the coronavirus has distended our sense of time, but this crisis is just a few months old and the scientific and public health wisdom just as preliminary. But while it may not be possible to pinpoint a date, or a month, at which point we can expect to transition out of bunker living, no one seems to have any sense of how we’ll arrive at that determination, how much we will have wanted to contain the outbreak, at what levels, before moving forward, and what steps moving forward would then entail. That there is no coherent federal plan to deal with the outbreak as it currently stands is horrifying enough — an absolute evacuation of presidential leadership that has already cost thousands of lives and will likely cost tens of thousands more. But the fact that there is also no planning to speak of for how we might leave behind the present crisis means all we can see looking forward from the darkness — is more darkness.

via NYMag When Will Coronavirus Crisis and Stay-at-Home Orders End?

Just like the war on terror, the war on drugs, the war on poverty, the war on crime, and the never ending wars against everything else, the war on COVID-19 is not meant to be won. It will be never ending, and a huge source of PROFIT, just like all other never ending wars that end up doing nothing but making the problems worse, as root causes are ignored/denied.

Trump Overruling Scientists to Pursue Pet Coronavirus Drug

Trofim Lysenko was a Soviet biologist who gained the favor of Joseph Stalin by promoting pseudoscientific theories that purported to apply Marxist-Leninist theory to biology. Lysenko’s insight was to dismiss the burgeoning field of genetics as a capitalist lie, and to posit a socialist alternative theory of biology that refused to accept that plants were bound by any such thing as “genes.” Orange trees would flourish in Siberia, he promised Stalin. Catering both to the regime’s state ideology and its yearning for prosperity — he promised his methods would yield orange trees in Siberia — Lysenko established his crackpot theories as official Soviet science, and purged scientists who refused to endorse them. Stalin directed Soviet farmers to follow Lysenko’s bizarre theories, contributing to mass starvation.

There are eerie echoes of Lysenkoism in President Trump’s obsession with promoting hydroxychloroquine, a medication used to treat malaria, as a cure for the coronavirus. The parallel is not exact: Hydroxychloroquine has shown some anecdotal promise as a coronavirus therapy. It might emerge as a treatment, and conceivably even the major treatment, for the coronavirus. What gives Trump’s hydroxychloroquine obsessions its creepy Lysenkoist tinge is that the fervor is altogether disconnected from science.

Trump has repeatedly touted the medication, at times with a fervency that makes him sound like a marketer hired to promote the drug. “Hydroxychloroquine. Try it. If you like,” he suggested from the podium Saturday. In perhaps the most surreal moment of his pitch, he announced that he might personally try the medication, even though he does not have the coronavirus: “I think people should — if it were me — in fact, I might do it anyway. I may take it. Okay? I may take it. And I’ll have to ask my doctors about that, but I may take it.”

Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, has repeatedly lobbied Trump to adopt hydroxychloroquine, which he has falsely described as “100 percent effective.” Giuliani told the Washington Post that he hasn’t discussed his views with Fauci, “I’m sure he thinks I am an ignoramus,” he concedes. Upon realizing that one of the country’s most prestigious scientists considers them an ignoramus, most laypeople would begin to question their own views, but Giuliani operates at a level of self-confidence that few people can fathom. Trump’s trade adviser, Peter Navarro, has enlisted in the cause. In a bizarre episode, he confronted Fauci at a Saturday White House meeting, denouncing his caution.

via NYmag Trump Overruling Scientists to Pursue Pet Coronavirus Drug

Trump promotes unproven unsafe patent drugs and vaccines, while denying, suppressing and attacking proven safe Naturopathic remedies, which have plenty of scientific and medical studies that prove they work.

Virginia Pastor Who Said Coronavirus Was Anti-Trump “Hysteria” Dies From Virus

Landon Spradlin, 66, died from COVID-19 this week after previously saying it was being hyped by the media to hurt Trump.
Pastor Landon Spradlin of Virginia shared posts on social media in recent weeks suggesting the coronavirus crisis was merely an anti-Trump media manipulation and opted to take his family to New Orleans last month to help “wash it from its Sin and debauchery” during Mardi Gras.

But the “mass hysteria” that he believed the pandemic to be reportedly claimed his life this week…

via mavenroundtable Virginia Pastor Who Said Coronavirus Was Anti-Trump “Hysteria” Dies From Virus

Some Amazon Employees With Fevers During Coronavirus Aren’t Getting Sick Leave

Atiya felt under the weather when she reported to work at Amazon’s JFK8 Staten Island facility on Wednesday. But her condition worsened during her shift, she told BuzzFeed News, and when she asked management to take her temperature it was 101.1 degrees.

Management immediately gave Atiya, who asked to be identified only by her first name for fear of losing her job, a mask and escorted her out of the facility. She said she was handed a piece of paper with information about COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, sent home, and told not to report back until she was fever-free for 72 hours. Since then, Atiya, who started working at Amazon a little over two weeks ago, said she hasn’t heard from anyone at the company about whether she’ll continue to be paid while she stays home from work.

By Thursday, her fever was 102 degrees, and she said she’d spoken to a health care worker in Brooklyn who told her not to come for a coronavirus test but to stay home in quarantine for the next two weeks. Atiya currently has $50 in her bank account and is expecting a paycheck from Amazon on Friday. Because she’s only worked for the company for a couple of weeks, she’s only accrued a couple shifts’ worth of paid time off, most of which she’d already used to stay home to care for her 4-year-old daughter.

“I received my pay statement today and it says $0.”

via Some Amazon Employees With Fevers During Coronavirus Aren’t Getting Sick Leave

Some Amazon Employees With Fevers During Coronavirus Aren’t Getting Sick Leave

Atiya felt under the weather when she reported to work at Amazon’s JFK8 Staten Island facility on Wednesday. But her condition worsened during her shift, she told BuzzFeed News, and when she asked management to take her temperature it was 101.1 degrees.

Management immediately gave Atiya, who asked to be identified only by her first name for fear of losing her job, a mask and escorted her out of the facility. She said she was handed a piece of paper with information about COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, sent home, and told not to report back until she was fever-free for 72 hours. Since then, Atiya, who started working at Amazon a little over two weeks ago, said she hasn’t heard from anyone at the company about whether she’ll continue to be paid while she stays home from work.

By Thursday, her fever was 102 degrees, and she said she’d spoken to a health care worker in Brooklyn who told her not to come for a coronavirus test but to stay home in quarantine for the next two weeks. Atiya currently has $50 in her bank account and is expecting a paycheck from Amazon on Friday. Because she’s only worked for the company for a couple of weeks, she’s only accrued a couple shifts’ worth of paid time off, most of which she’d already used to stay home to care for her 4-year-old daughter.

via Some Amazon Employees With Fevers During Coronavirus Aren’t Getting Sick Leave

‘Essential’ Farm Workers Are Putting Food on Your Table With No Insurance, No Sick Pay, and Few Safety Regulations – VICE

very morning, while most of America sits at home on coronavirus lockdown, José Gutierrez heads out into the West Texas countryside to tend fruit trees. He doesn’t have health insurance, but he also can’t afford to stop working. So each day, he risks contracting the virus.

“To work in the fields, maybe we are exposed, but we have to keep working,” the 52-year-old said. “I’m afraid of not having food for my family.”

Originally from Mexico, Gutierrez, bounces between different Texas orchards, wherever he can find work. None of his jobs cover healthcare, even though he’s a legal permanent resident. He and his colleagues are taking precautions to avoid spreading COVID-19 — driving separate cars instead of their usual carpooling, working with extra distance between them — but most of his information about the virus has come from the news, not his jobs.

“If we don’t work, they don’t pay us,” he said. “Even if we are sick, we have to go to work.”

via ‘Essential’ Farm Workers Are Putting Food on Your Table With No Insurance, No Sick Pay, and Few Safety Regulations – VICE

AMA President Has A Stark Warning About Trump’s Coronavirus Treatment Advice | HuffPost

Dr. Megan Ranney, an emergency room physician and researcher at Brown University, echoed these remarks in a subsequent interview. She said the president’s advice to Americans made her “nervous” and there is, in fact, a “lot to lose.”

“This medication has major side effects including paranoia, hallucinations, suicidal thoughts, suppression of your blood counts so that you become more susceptible to infections. It can cause severe cardiac arrhythmias that can even cause death,” she said.

“They are not common side effects, but they are common enough that this should not be taken willy-nilly. It is not like water, it is not harmless, and it may have major side effects.”

via AMA President Has A Stark Warning About Trump’s Coronavirus Treatment Advice | HuffPost

‘S**t Sandwich’: Florida GOP Reportedly Rigged Jobless Site To Block Applicants | HuffPost

A Florida lawmaker is demanding an investigation into the state’s unemployment benefits website, which an adviser to current Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis claims was deliberately designed by the prior GOP administration to block applicants, Politico reported.

As thousands of newly unemployed Floridians were unable to obtain benefits in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic — because the cumbersome and overwhelmed web application system was constantly freezing up — the DeSantis adviser laid the blame on former GOP Gov. Rick Scott.

via ‘S**t Sandwich’: Florida GOP Reportedly Rigged Jobless Site To Block Applicants | HuffPost

It’s Time For All 50 States To Allow Voting by Mail | Cognoscenti

With a critically important presidential election less than eight months away, we must take a foolproof approach now to protect our democracy from catastrophic harm: all 50 states should move immediately on legislation allowing every American to vote by mail. Public health demands it, and the health of our democracy depends on it.

Our current 50-state patchwork of vote-by-mail rules roughly breaks down into four categories. A handful of states, like Colorado and Washington, conduct virtually all their elections by mail; as a voter, you receive a ballot in the mail and then return it to a designated drop box or through the postal service. Other states, such as Arizona, still have in-person elections but allow anyone to register permanently to vote by mail. If you live in a state like Florida, however, you can only get a mail-in ballot by proactively applying anew every two general elections. Then, there’s the large number of states that do not permit any voting by mail, unless you apply for an absentee ballot and sign an affidavit swearing to your legitimate excuse for not voting on Election Day.

via It’s Time For All 50 States To Allow Voting by Mail | Cognoscenti

By Letting Small Businesses Fail, the State Is Handing Power to Corporate Giants | Novara Media

Part of the problem facing small businesses is that they are finding it much harder to gain access to state-provided emergency loans than their larger peers. The Chancellor has made available £5m worth of Coronavirus Business Interruption Loans for small businesses through the UK’s pre-existing network of retail and commercial banks.

But small business owners are struggling to get through to their banks amid heightened demand for banking services. Many of those that do get through have their loan requests denied, despite their businesses having been in good health before the crisis hit. Others are being approved, but at extortionately high interest rates – some as high as 30%.

Over the last decade, extremely loose monetary policy has made borrowing – whether for government, or households and businesses – cheaper than ever. In the context of stagnant productivity and low growth, many businesses have taken advantage of this cheap debt just to get by – total credit to UK businesses reached 81.5% GDP in the third quarter of 2019, far before the crisis hit.

via By Letting Small Businesses Fail, the State Is Handing Power to Corporate Giants | Novara Media

Same strategy in the USA. Big globalist corporations will benefit by gaining market share from the pandemic shut down, and small companies will suffer and/or die.

Follow the money.

The lockdown is not necessary. Five nations are doing very well by not locking down everything and doing a prudent pandemic response instead.

Trump Administration Takes Steps to Get Farmworkers into the Country – Modern Farmer

Figuring out how to get enough workers to keep the American agriculture industry going has always been hard, and it’s much harder in the age of COVID-19.

Earlier this month, the embassy and consulates in Mexico were shut down due to the coronavirus. Those facilities were needed to process the H-2A visa, which provides hundreds of thousands of temporary agricultural workers to American farms. This, obviously, prompted some panic about how American farmers—already understaffed—would survive.

A quick attempt was made to facilitate the H-2A holders’ movement within the US, but with tens of thousands waiting in Mexico—which provides by far the most temporary foreign farmworkers—that was not seen as sufficient. Clearly some method of getting those farmworkers to the US was needed; they are essential workers in the most basic of ways, providing the food this country needs.

This week, the State Department decided to temporarily waive in-person applications for H-2A and H-2B (the latter is non-agricultural) workers. A USDA spokesperson wrote in an email, “the Department has advised that H-2 applications are ‘mission critical’ and should continue to be processed to the extent permitted by post resources and local government restrictions.”

via Trump Administration Takes Steps to Get Farmworkers into the Country – Modern Farmer

There are 2.5 million immigrant farmworkers in US fields, picking foods and processing them for US consumers.

What happens if they are too afraid to come to the US and do this hard work?

Why are they not provided with healthcare, as a RIGHT?

Has No Clothes – PopularResistance.Org

The claim that the U.S. was an exceptional nation and that the capitalist order represented the highest expression of human development has been shattered by the second global collapse of the capitalist order within twelve years. Millions thrown out of work, global supply chains disrupted, trillions disappeared in the capitalist casino euphemistically called the stock market… The state’s feeble and class-biased response to COVID-19 has resulted in a costly lesson in class politics for the U.S. public.

The dictatorship of the capitalist class has survived because the class reality of the dictatorship has been obscured. Limited democracy, social democracy, white nationalism in the form of patriotism, the corruption of unions, the post-war compromise between capital and labor, state subsidies for the expansion of the white middle-class, debt-driven consumption and cross-class white suppression of the democratic and human rights of African Americans provided the material and ideological basis for the perpetuation of the dictatorship throughout most of the 20th century and into the 21st.

“The claim that the U.S. was an exceptional nation has been shattered by the second global collapse of the capitalist order within twelve years.”

However, the systemic failure of the capitalist order triggered by the coronavirus has reinforced the growing awareness among the population that extreme wealth inequality is not just a temporary quirk that can be remedied with tax and some redistributive policies but a fundamental characteristic of the system.

via COVID-19: The Capitalist Emperor Has No Clothes – PopularResistance.Org

Letter To The People Of The US From President Maduro – PopularResistance.Org

In expressing my solidarity to you in this important historic challenge, as well as our consternation and grief for the consequences of the pandemic in the U.S., I also have the obligation to make you aware that as the world focuses on dealing with the COVID-19 emergency, the Trump administration, once again instrumentalizing institutions in order to fulfill electoral objectives, and based on infamies under the pretext of the War on Drugs, has ordered the largest U.S. military deployment in our region in the last 30 years, with the purpose of threatening Venezuela and bringing to our region a costly, bloody, military conflict of indefinite duration.

In the runup to this fallacious maneuver, last March 26, William Barr, an Attorney General of questionable independence (who recommended the 1989 invasion of Panama against Noriega and helped cover up the irregularities of the Iran-Contra scandal), filed, without showing any evidence whatsoever, accusations of drug trafficking towards the United States against myself and senior Venezuelan state officials, even though data from the Department of Defense itself showed that, unlike Colombia and Honduras, two of Washington’s allied countries, Venezuela is not a primary transit country towards the United States.

It is clear that the Trump administration is creating a smokescreen to cloud the improvised and erratic handling of the pandemic in the United States. The most optimistic forecast shows that close to 240,000 souls will be lost in the United States. From the beginning, Donald Trump downplayed and even denied it, the same way he has done with climate change. Today, the crisis in the United States aggravates simply because, despite having the resources, he is not willing to transform the healthcare system to prioritize full care for the population instead of profit-based private medicine, insurance companies, and pharmaceutical industry.

We in Venezuela do not want an armed conflict in our region. We want brotherly relations of cooperation, exchange and respect.

We cannot accept war threats, nor blockades, nor can we accept the intention of installing an international tutelage that violates our sovereignty and disavows the progress made in the last year in the sincere political dialogue between the government and a large part of the Venezuelan opposition that wants political solutions and not oil wars.

via Letter To The People Of The US From President Maduro – PopularResistance.Org

Fauci: no evidence anti-malaria drug Trump pushes works against virus | World news | The Guardian

On 21 March, the day after another nationally-televised Trump claim that the drug “looked promising”, Fauci was asked directly if it could be used to treat Covid-19.

“The answer is no,” he said.

Last month, a man in Arizona died after he and his wife took chloroquine phosphate, an additive used to clean fish tanks that is also found in hydroxychloroquine.

via Fauci: no evidence anti-malaria drug Trump pushes works against virus | World news | The Guardian

However, a study just published in a French medical journal provides new evidence that hydroxychloroquine does not appear to help the immune system clear the coronavirus from the body. The study comes on the heels of two others – one in France and one in China – that reported some benefits in the combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin for COVID-19 patients who didn’t have severe symptoms of the virus.

I am a medicinal chemist who has specialized in discovery and development of antiviral drugs for the past 30 years, and I have been actively working on coronaviruses for the past seven. I am among a number of researchers who are concerned that this drug has been given too much of a high priority before there is enough evidence to show it is indeed effective.

There are already other clinical studies that showed it is not effective against COVID-19 as well as several other viruses. And, more importantly, it can have dangerous side effects, as well as giving people false hope. The latter has led to widespread shortages of hydroxychloroquine for patients who need it to treat malaria, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, the indications for which it was originally approved.

via Yahoo A small trial finds that hydroxychloroquine is not effective for treating coronavirus

Voting Amid COVID-19, Wisconsin Relies On DIY Safety Measures : NPR

Thousands of poll workers in Wisconsin have been put in the unenviable position of deciding whether to do their job on Election Day or stay safe at home.

Daina Zemliauskas was scheduled to be a chief inspector at her polling place in Madison and said she was brought to tears by the decision.
“I feel guilty. I wanted to hold out,” Zemliauskas said. “But, of course, the risk was just too great.”

She spent three excruciating hours writing a resignation email to her city clerk. Zemliauskas said the response she got back was “terse,” but she understands clerks are under incredible stress right now.

“I thought, why should I put myself, my family and my community at risk?” she said. “You know, this is just outrageous. It’s madness.”

via Voting Amid COVID-19, Wisconsin Relies On DIY Safety Measures : NPR

No by mail voting is allowed in many states. Why not?

Federal Reserve to lend additional $1 trillion a day to large banks | PBS NewsHour

The Fed also announced Friday that it would expand an emergency lending program, which it just launched Wednesday, to loan money to banks, which would use the funds to purchase highly rated municipal bonds from money market mutual funds or from muni bond funds. The goal is to stabilize the $3.8 trillion muni bond market and ensure states and cities and other public entities, including hospitals, can borrow at low cost.

The emergency lending program, known as the Money Market Mutual Fund Liquidity Facility, was first used during the 2008 financial crisis, but its expansion to include muni bonds is a new step that wasn’t taken back then.

States and cities are facing a looming cash crunch as revenue from sales taxes and other levies are likely to fall sharply in the coming weeks and months. At the same time, many public institutions are facing higher costs, particularly hospitals and other health programs.

via Federal Reserve to lend additional $1 trillion a day to large banks | PBS NewsHour

Never enough money for a social safety net, but always enough for huge corporations and the 1 percent. No one is asking how this will be paid back.

If the current debts are unpayable, what makes anyone believe that even BIGGER debts will be payable?

Inspector General finds hospitals face ‘severe’ shortages of needed coronavirus supplies | TheHill

“Hospitals reported that widespread shortages of PPE put staff and patients at risk,” stated the report conducted March 23-27. It consisted of interviews with administrators from 323 randomly selected hospitals across the country.

Hospitals said they are turning in some cases to construction masks or homemade masks, which they worried put staff at risk.

Supplies from government stockpiles did not always help. One hospital reported receiving 2,300 crucial N95 masks from a state stockpile, only to find they were not useable because the elastic bands had rotted. Another hospital said its last two shipments from a federal agency contained protective equipment that had expired in 2010.

One hospital said it is accepting homemade cloth gowns from a quilter’s guild to try to address supply problems.

“The level of anxiety among staff is like nothing I’ve ever seen,” one hospital administrator said.

via Inspector General finds hospitals face ‘severe’ shortages of needed coronavirus supplies | TheHill

During A National Crisis, Trump Fires Two Men Of Honor For Telling The Truth – National Compass

At a time when more than 9100 Americans are dead and 321,000 sick by a pandemic made worse because the president of the United States failed to do his job, Donald Trump chose to fire two men of honor because they did theirs with integrity and distinction.

Under the cover of darkness late Friday night, impeached president Trump fired Michael Atkinson, the second inspector general of the Intelligence Community and a Trump appointee, claiming the former U.S. Department of Justice prosecutor “…did a terrible job, absolutely terrible…” when he turned over what the president called “a fake report” to Congress outlining a credible whistleblower charge that led to the president’s impeachment.  The president added, “The man is a disgrace to IGs. He’s a total disgrace.”

Earlier, Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly fired U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt Captain Brett Crozier for expressing his concern about the safety of his sailors after 155 tested positive for COVID-19 after the ship was ordered to virus-stricken Vietnam in February.

“I thought it was terrible, what he did, to write a letter,” said Trump, defending “100%” the captain’s firing. I mean, this isn’t a class on literature. This is a captain of a massive ship that’s nuclear powered. And he shouldn’t be talking that way in a letter.”

via During A National Crisis, Trump Fires Two Men Of Honor For Telling The Truth – National Compass

When lies become the norm, truth becomes a dangerous toxic hazard to the liars, and to those who believe the lies.

Falling through the cracks: Many Americans won’t get coronavirus checks

If someone else claims you as a dependent on their taxes, you won’t get your own check. Parents will get an extra $500 payment per child, but that’s only for kids under 17.

Most 17-year-olds, some young adults and many of the country’s roughly 20 million college students are claimed by their parents as dependents. They won’t get checks, and their parents won’t get an extra $500.

“They’re not on their own. And so you feed them and you still provide for them,” said Susan Anderson of Lubbock, Texas, who has a 19-year-old at home and a 23-year-old about to graduate from college. “So you’re not getting anything, and they’re not getting anything. There’s a huge gap.”

via  NBC Falling through the cracks: Many Americans won’t get coronavirus checks

Trump fires intelligence community watchdog who flagged Ukraine whistleblower complaint | TheHill
President Trump has fired the inspector general for the intelligence community, saying he “no longer” has confidence in the key government watchdog.

Michael Atkinson, who had served as the intelligence community inspector general since May 2018, was the first to alert Congress last year of an “urgent” whistleblower complaint he obtained from an intelligence official regarding Trump’s dealings with Ukraine. His firing will take effect 30 days from Friday, the day Trump sent a notice informing Congress of Atkinson’s dismissal.

via Trump fires intelligence community watchdog who flagged Ukraine whistleblower complaint | TheHill

Will a COVID19 Vaccine be the First Vaccine to Alter Human DNA to Further Advance Transhumanism?

This process is not without problems.

• The DNA snip can be incorporated into the host’s DNA, leading to chromosome instability. The mutagenic affect can turn on oncogenes and turn off tumor suppressor genes, leading to cancer. 
• Genetic expression is the process where genes create proteins. Genetic over-expression is when the process “goes rogue” and produces massive amounts of foreign protein, destroying human tissues via both acute and chronic inflammation.
• Often the plasmid used is resistant to antibiotics; the same antibiotic resistance can be transferred to the host.
• The plasmid DNA can appear very similar to the vaccine recipient’s DNA. The anti-DNA antibodies can attack human organs with similar DNA sequences. The result is autoimmunity, clearly identified as the cause of nearly  100 different diseases and suspected to be the cause at least 40 more chronic and potentially life-threatening conditions.

via Will a COVID19 Vaccine be the First Vaccine to Alter Human DNA to Further Advance Transhumanism?

Food Banks Warn They Will Soon Run Out Of Food As Economic Suffering Explodes All Over America

What are hungry Americans going to do when the food banks don’t have any more food for them?  Over the past couple of weeks, we have witnessed the largest spike in unemployment in all of U.S. history.  Since most of those workers did not have any sort of a cushion to fall bank on, a lot of of them have been forced to seek out emergency assistance for themselves and their families almost immediately.  Of course our national network of food banks was not built to handle this sort of a scenario, and as you will see below, many of them are already starting to run out of food.  But if things are this bad at the very beginning of this new economic downturn, what are things going to look like a few months from now?

Following Friday’s report, Ellen Zentner, chief U.S. economist at the New York-based investment bank Morgan Stanley, lowered her growth forecast for second-quarter gross domestic product to -38 percent on an annualized basis. She says the U.S. economy will lose 21 million jobs, running the unemployment rate up to 15.7 percent, a level not seen since the Great Depression.

Of course the people that are going to feel the most pain are those on the lowest rungs of the economic food chain.

According to Bloomberg, “bread lines are forming” even in some of the wealthiest areas of the country…

via theeconomiccollapseblog Food Banks Warn They Will Soon Run Out Of Food As Economic Suffering Explodes All Over America

 

https://youtu.be/MtsBNyGlMHI

via (1) War on COVID-19 | Trump deploys army to NYC as promised – YouTube

Report: Black People Are Contracting and Dying of Coronavirus at Higher Rates

ProPublica reports that early data show that black people are not only contracting the coronavirus at disproportionate rates but also dying at higher rates. Though data on race and ethnicity of COVID-19 patients are limited, some localities have begun tracking the racial breakdown of infected patients.

As ProPublica reports:

As of Friday morning, African Americans made up almost half of Milwaukee County’s 945 cases and 81% of its 27 deaths in a county whose population is 26% black. Milwaukee is one of the few places in the United States that is tracking the racial breakdown of people who have been infected by the novel coronavirus, offering a glimpse at the disproportionate destruction it is inflicting on black communities nationwide.

via The Root Report: Black People Are Contracting and Dying of Coronavirus at Higher Rates