The new coronavirus apparently has a functional mutation - a cleavage site for an enzyme that makes it highly pathogenic https://t.co/cJwCWN386v#Covid19
Nigeria's first case of coronavirus [NEWS.YAHOO] Residents of Nigeria's economic hub Lagos scrambled for hygiene products Friday, after the chaotic megacity of 20 million announced the first confirmed case of new coronavirus in sub-Saharan Africa.
Health Minister Osagie Ehanire said in a statement overnight that the infected person was an Italian citizen who flew in from Milan, at the heart of Europe ...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum... 's largest outbreak, earlier this week.
"The patient is clinically stable, with no serious symptoms," Ehanire said, adding that he was being treated at a hospital for infectious diseases in Lagos.
The low number of cases so far across Africa, which has close economic ties with China, the epicentre of the deadly outbreak, has puzzled health specialists.
Prior to the case in Nigeria, there had been just two cases on the continent -- in Egypt and Algeria.
BREAKING: The Santa Clara Public Health Department has confirmed that the third case of COVID-19 in the county.https://t.co/c30ScdIdcr
[Fortune] The pet dog of a coronavirus patient in Hong Kong has been found to have a "low level" of the virus, the Hong Kong government said early Friday.
The dog tested "weak positive" for the coronavirus, the city’s agricultural and fisheries department said in a statement, without giving further details. Officials will carry out further tests to confirm whether the dog has really been infected with the disease, or if it was a result of environmental contamination of its mouth and nose.
Much is still not known about the virus that is spreading around the world after emerging in central China late last year. It is thought to have transferred to humans from bats and has been shown to spread in a number of ways, but the Hong Kong agricultural department said it doesn’t have evidence that pet animals can be infected, or be a source of infection to people.
If confirmed, the dog would be the first case of a pet catching the coronavirus amid a global outbreak that’s now infected more than 82,000 people and claimed more than 2,800 lives.
The dog is being quarantined at an animal facility, the Hong Kong government said. The department strongly advised that pets of confirmed virus patients also be put under quarantine.
China almost 79k infected, almost 2900 deaths
SKor 2337 infected 13 deaths
Diamond Princess 705 infected 5 deaths
Italy 655 infected 17 deaths
Iran 338 infected 34 deaths
Japan 228 infected 4 deaths
...
USA 60 infected no deaths
Also fwiw (but not in the article) there are now enough diagnostic kits available from WHO, CDC, etc. so that any country that wants one can get as many as they need; so, going forward, the numbers coming from open government countries (i.e., not NKor, etc.) should be pretty good.
No info from Nkor, no reported infections from Indonesia.
Posted by: lord garth ||
02/28/2020
08:47 ||
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#3
I’ve been watching this site since its inception. Data for other countries other than China may be reasonably accurate. However China’s data is suspect. That skews the overall site data ito a very low value.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/28/2020 10:27
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#4
What's the best guess as to the real #'s for China?
#5
What's interesting is that everyone is reporting about 2% mortality rate. However, Iran is almost 10% mortality. That'll have the turbans spinning.
Posted by: BA ||
02/28/2020 10:54
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#6
Mortality rate is definitely widely different in developed vs 3rd world countries.
Chronic pollution damaged lungs, smokers, drug abusers, lack of good medical care, etc. are showing to have a huge spike in COVID-19 deaths. Developed nations with free flow of information and good health and health care have a much lower mortality rate.
We will see Africa, the ME and Asia get hammered with deaths while Western Europe and the US have lower rates.
#7
Lex--My guess from the 24/7 operation of crematory operation in the Wuhan area and acquiring of more portable units, that the mortality numbers are 10 times what the Chinese say. There is some really bad sh*t going down over there and it's not from bat meat.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/28/2020 16:32
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[Politico] Some supporters of President Donald Trump see a threat bigger than the spread of a highly contagious novel coronavirus: a conspiracy by deep state actors to use the virus against the president.
One key piece of evidence fueling their theory: An official from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention making public statements on the outbreak is the sister of Rod Rosenstein, the former deputy attorney general who oversaw the Mueller probe and, according to a disputed report, once discussed removing Trump from office.
Dr. Nancy Messonnier, head of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases ‐ who got a shoutout from her brother for attending his 2017 confirmation hearing ‐ warned Americans in a Tuesday media briefing that an outbreak in the U.S. is inevitable.
Messonnier’s comments got widespread attention, sparking calls for further actions by the administration, which had long struck a more reassuring note. The furor appeared to catch Trump flat-footed while en route back from his summit with the Indian prime minister, during which he had declared the outbreak "very well under control." Emphasis added para 2.
[TheAspenBeat] The Democrat leaders and candidates blasted President Trump's response to the Coronavirus outbreak, just as they blast everything else that he does.
Note that the Dems; criticism of Trump's response to the virus is unaccompanied by any specific suggestions. They do suggest spending more money on the problem, though they don't say how. Maybe they think they can curry favor with the virus by buying it free stuff.
#2
Next thing you know our betters will have Coronavirus parties like they have measles parties. It's not like the virus would ravage Dem urban bastions and leave the countryside relatively unscathed.
#3
The Dems might be crazy enough to root for the virus. However, unless the Dems have a vaccine, they could be rooting for their own demise.
Personally, I think the Coronavirus is over-hyped and surrounded by too much hysteria. Ordinary flu is a greater problem as more people die from flu annually.
#5
Iblis, I think that is the goal. They are trying to crash the economy to make Trump look bad. The Russian hoax and impeachment were failures. This is the latest ploy. The Dems want the country to fail--they don't give a flip who it hurts.
#8
One could theorize that a stock market crash was the goal of the Chicoms. They probably wanna get rid of the Orange Man as bad as the Democrats. They'd love to get Bloomingbird in the White House.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
02/28/2020 10:59
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#9
You talk about election meddling...
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
02/28/2020 11:00
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#10
Personally speaking I'd have thought a globalist pandemic which causes problems from over outsourcing would play INTO Trump's hands, not away from them and the chance to control the border more strongly would also.
[WJZ Baltimore] — Former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh was sentenced Thursday to three years in prison and three years of probation after pleading guilty to multiple charges in the “Healthy Holly” book scandal.
Pugh walked into a federal courthouse Thursday morning for her sentencing in a lucrative, years-long scheme in which she sold her self-published children’s books to nonprofits and foundations to promote her political career and fund her run for mayor.
The sentencing came hours after Pugh’s lawyers released a pre-produced video apology from her.
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/28/2020
07:16 ||
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#1
When I was a reporter, a news photographer told me it's possible to get a bad picture of anyone. But, jeebus, just when you think you can't see a worse looking picture of this person...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/28/2020 8:06
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#2
will they let her wear her page-boy wig in prison?
Posted by: Bob Grorong1136 ||
02/28/2020 8:45
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[SD UnionTrib] The U.S. Navy’s Pacific Fleet says the Feb. 17 incident violated international agreements.
U.S. Navy patrol plane was lasered by a Chinese destroyer, in an incident the Navy says was "unsafe" and a violation of an international agreement.
The incident occurred in the Philippine Sea about 350 miles west of Guam on Feb. 17, according to a statement from the U.S. Pacific Fleet Thursday. International Waters
The laser, invisible to the naked eye, was detected by a sensor on-board the patrol plane, a P-8A Poseidon, the statement says.
The Navy did not say if the laser injured anyone or caused damage.
According to the Navy, the ship’s action violates the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea, a multilateral agreement, as well as a Memorandum of Understanding between the Pentagon and China’s Ministry of National Defense.
The aircraft is based in Jacksonville, Florida and deployed to Okinawa, Japan.
"U.S. Navy aircraft routinely fly in the Philippine Sea and have done so for many years," the Navy said. "U.S. Navy aircraft and ships will continue to fly, sail and operate wherever international law allows."
The incident is the latest in a string of encounters with Chinese ships in the region, as China seeks to expand its military footprint. The U.S. Navy makes a point of sailing and flying in international waters in the area, in what it calls "freedom of navigation" exercises.
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/28/2020
07:03 ||
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#1
So roll over and sink the SOB and wait for the next one. Say nothing, report nothing.
This Chinese BS (at multiple levels) is just getting way, way out of hand.
[PJ Media] China’s stock market is the world’s best performer, thanks in part to massive fiscal stimulus in response to last year’s trade war and this year’s virus epidemic. That’s what governments are supposed to do in response to natural disasters, and the rest of the world should do the same thing.
p
...With US and many other government bond yields at record lows, government budgets have nearly unlimited capacity to expand in response to the short-term economic shock caused by quarantines, travel restrictions, and business closings. Emergency response has nothing to do with Keynesian fiscal stimulus. Natural disasters delay economic activity but do not change the economy’s long-term growth potential, unless they kill very large numbers of people. That manifestly is true of Covid-19, which has a low fatality rate. The economic impact of the virus stems from preventative measures, which temporarily suspend economic activity. Governments should step in and provide a fiscal bridge. This is no different than storm or flood damage.
...To be effective, emergency measures must be big, dramatic, and immediate. Emergency tax reductions, including a temporary suspension of social insurance payments by individuals and businesses, are the ideal measure. Forty-four percent of Americans pay no income tax, but Social Security contributions comprise 12.4% of income, split between workers and employers. The US Congress should authorize emergency borrowing authority to make up the difference in the Social Security Fund.
The Export-Import Bank, the Small Business Administration and other government entities should authorize emergency zero-interest loans for businesses especially affected by the epidemic, including oil drillers, transportation companies, hospitality and retail.
#1
Pardon me, the Fed hasn't let up on its Obama era massive fiscal stimulus to start with. Banks directly are funded by the Fed which is why saving deposits pay crap. Why bother with enticing savings with a decent return on investment when the Fed just turns it over to you for basically nothing?
This all smacks of the money boys looking to protect their racket rather than dealing with the fact that so many business tied themselves to China rather than taking the hint and moving labor and production back to the US. One of the aspects of real capitalism is literally life and death of companies that fail to be managed for the long term rather than the quick buck. Adapt, improvise, overcome.
#6
Damn, this guy sounds jut like Paul Krugman, doesn't he? Throwing gobs of money at the problem works every time it's tried, doesn't it?
He should / will get reamed by the Dems for wanting to 'raid Social Security', thus insuring someone out there is either laughing at him or ripping him.
#7
I would hold off until it seems things will collapse without it.
The bank I work at learned its lessons from the 2008 crisis and is working with customers that have supply lines in China so they can continue to have credit and operate during this time.
#9
Some investment in domestic production of pharmaceuticals might be in order, computers too while you're at it.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
02/28/2020 11:33
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A payroll tax holiday is not a bad idea. Directly tied to increasing domestic employment of wage & salaried workers rather than execs or offshore jobs.
REYHANLI, Turkey (AP) ‐ The presidents of Turkey and Russia spoke over the phone on Friday, a day after Syrian government airstrikes killed 33 Turkish troops, significantly ratcheting up tensions between Ankara and Moscow. It was the highest number of Turkish soldiers killed in a single day since Ankara first intervened in the Syrian conflict in 2016.
The development was the most serious escalation in the conflict between Turkish and Russia-backed Syrian forces and raised the prospect of all-out war with millions of Syrian civilians trapped in the middle.
NATO envoys held emergency talks at the request of Turkey, a NATO member, and scores of migrants began converging on Turkey’s border with Greece seeking entry into Europe after Turkey said it was "no longer able to hold refugees." Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose country already hosts more than 3.5 million Syrian refugees, has long threatened to "open the gates" for millions of refugees eager to flee to Europe unless more international support was provided.
Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy warned the movement of migrants to the West could continue if the situation in Idlib deteriorated.
"Some asylum seekers and migrants in our country, worried about developments, have begun to move towards our western borders," he said. "If the situation worsens this risk will continue to increase." However, he added that there was "no change" in Turkey’s migration policy.
Posted by: Besoeker ||
02/28/2020
06:36 ||
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[AP] Fear of the spreading coronavirus has led to a global run on sales of face masks despite medical experts’ advice that most people who aren’t sick don’t need to wear them.
Many businesses are sold out, while others are limiting how many a customer can buy. Amazon is policing its site, trying to make sure sellers don’t gouge panicked buyers.
In South Korea, hundreds lined up to buy masks from a discount store. Rumors that toilet paper and napkins could be used as masks have emptied store shelves in Asia of paper goods over the past few weeks.
Both ordinary people trying to protect themselves from the outbreak and medical professionals are facing shortages. well.
Some industry officials are attributing the shortages not just to high demand but to disruptions in supply: An outsize share of the world’s surgical masks are made in China ‐ 50%, by its own estimate. But even factories there that have ramped up demand say they are hard pressed to meet local demand. The government has taken over manufacturers, and exports have plunged.
"Before the outbreak of the epidemic, we used to export 600,000-700,000 surgical masks a month, but now the amount is zero," David Peng, manager of Ningbo Buy Best International Trading Co. in Ningbo, south of Shanghai, said. The company’s dozen or so suppliers in Hubei, near the center of the outbreak, have been ordered to prioritize government orders.
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Indian police have arrested 514 people for deadly Hindu-Muslim violence that broke out in the capital, the government said, as it faced mounting international criticism for failing to protect minority Muslims.
Police said the toll from days of blood-letting stood at 35, but local media, citing unnamed sources, said it was likely to be more than 40 as the full extent of the violence that began on Sunday in a densely-packed locality in northeastern Delhi becomes clear.
Police are still searching drains and homes that were burnt down for bodies, officers said.
More forces had been deployed at mosques in the area for the weekly Friday prayers, the government said. There had been no new violence since Wednesday morning, it said in a statement late on Thursday.
The violence began over a citizenship law that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government introduced in December providing a path to Indian citizenship for six religious groups from neighboring countries, but not Muslims.
Critics say the law is discriminatory and comes on top of other measures such as withdrawal of autonomy for Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir that has deepened disquiet about the future of India’s 200 million Muslims.
Critics of the government however blamed this week’s violence on members of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which was trounced in local Delhi elections at the beginning of the month. The BJP has denied the allegations.
[Red State] - A California woman who tested positive for coronavirus eight days after being hospitalized for flu symptoms is the first case of an individual in the United States for whom officials don’t know the source of infection. The patient was treated for three days at a small hospital in Vacaville before being transferred to UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, where she was treated for five days before testing positive. I'd guess the current tests are not very sensitive - PCR requires lots of DNA.
[Babylon Bee] U.S.‐A new study from JAMA Pediatrics found that most millennials choose not to have kids because their parents just can’t afford it right now.
The study followed 900 millennials nationwide, just under half of which had full-time jobs. 90 percent were completely reliant on their parents for financial support, and three-quarters of these financially dependent adults want to have children someday.
There’s only one problem: parents of millennials can’t afford to support both their children, and their grandchildren anymore. This troubling reality has been stressing out millennials from coast to coast. Unfortunately, many boomer parents had children without preparing themselves financially to raise multiple generations and spend more and more money the older they got. Now their millenial children are paying the price for their lack of foresight.
"I just can’t take it anymore," said Gretchen Hillerman, a millennial from southern California. "It’s like, I know I’m fit to raise a child, I just can’t afford it," she complained during an interview at a local Starbucks. "Apparently my parents can’t afford it either. College was, like, super expensive, and they're still paying off my student loan. I wish my mom would just get a second job or something." Gretchen says she had big plans to not reveal the child's gender and to name them something nonbinary like Threshgar.
Gretchen studied Gender Non-Binary Statistics at Northridge, but dropped out after six years in the program. Her parents said they helped her every night with homework, but it didn’t seem to improve her performance.
While many of today's Gen X and boomer parents strongly desire grandchildren, they say they just can't imagine supporting more children on top of all the concert tickets, Starbucks, European vacations, seafaring voyages around the world, the latest iPhone, dolphin rides, avocado toast, battery-powered sports cars, and VR headsets.
"You also have to take retirement into account," said Gretchen's father Ron Hillerman. "I mean my daughter's retirement. I already cashed mine out to pay for her forty-day vegan yoga hot spring hike in India."
[AyPee] A professor at the University of Tennessee has been arrested on charges that he hid his relationship with a Chinese university while receiving research grants from the federal government, the Justice Department said Thursday.
Anming Hu, an associate professor in the department of mechanical, aerospace and biomedical engineering at the university’s flagship Knoxville campus, was charged with three counts of wire fraud and three counts of making false statements.
After the indictment was announced, the university said Hu had been suspended and that school officials had cooperated.
[Red State] Today’s chock-full slate of speakers at CPAC (covered thus far by my colleagues Stu Cvrk and Bonchie here and here) included U.S. Ambassador to Israel, David Friedman. Friedman, a native New Yorker and bankruptcy attorney who was appointed (and confirmed following a contentious Senate hearing) to his current position in 2017, was joined by his senior adviser, Aryeh Lightstone, who moderated a discussion between Friedman and Ze’ev Orenstein of the City of David Foundation.
This discussion didn’t take place in the ballroom at CPAC, however. They spoke from a platform beside the Pool of Siloam, in the City of David, in Jerusalem. The Pool of Siloam is: "a rock-cut pool on the southern slope of the City of David, the original site of Jerusalem, located outside the walls of the Old City to the southeast. The pool was fed by the waters of the Gihon Spring, carried there by two aqueducts."
Orenstein and Lightstone described the Pool’s discovery and spoke to its historical significance. In 2004, a sewage pipe burst. The City of Jerusalem (being the City of Jerusalem) sent in construction crews AND archaeologists. And, as it turned out, they had inadvertently uncovered 2000-year-old steps. These were steps that lead up to the southern side of the Temple Mount ‐ which makes sense, as those who wished to enter the temple would need to wash and purify themselves before entering.
[Epoch Times] As key Wall Street indexes extended their losing streak on Feb. 27, experts pointed to a growing concern among investors that the effects of broken global supply chains due to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) may be greater than previously thought.
"COVID-19 brought the production and transportation of many goods to a near standstill from which they have not yet recovered, and at a time when pandemic concerns are still rising," said Allen Sukholitsky, chief macro strategist at Xallarap Advisory.
He told The Epoch Times in an email that concerns over broken supply chains are one reason investors are fleeing risky assets.
"Quarantines. Closed borders and ports. Suspended flights and freight," he said, adding that "equities are reacting to the implied impact of almost 80,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19."
"Records are being broken across asset classes," he said.
The benchmark 10-year Treasury note, viewed as a haven bet in times of crisis, hit a record-low yield of around 1.24 percent Feb. 27, while the 30-year Treasury bond set a new all-time low last week. Bond yields move in the opposite direction to prices, with falling yields a sign of capital fleeing to a safe harbor.
#1
Stop buying Chinese goods. Check your labels. I've noticed that an inordinate amount of clothing comes from China and I'm betting its true of other goods as well.
[Epoch Times] Attorney General William Barr reiterated on Thursday the importance of supporting America’s men and women in blue amid a rise in police officer attacks and death by suicide.
Barr said in an address to law enforcement officers in Florida that the United States has a "moral obligation" to support the wellbeing of law enforcement who are facing an uptick in challenges over recent years to keep Americans safe. He added that the Trump administration is committed to counteracting and surmounting the problems.
He underscored that the role of a police officer comes with a great degree of danger, which is exacerbated by the "emergence of a deeply troubling attitude towards police," where people try "to scapegoat and disrespect police officers" or "disparage the vital role" police officers play in society.
Police officers are facing a rise in attacks in recent years, including physical attacks, Barr reiterated, highlighting that assaults against officers have jumped about 20 percent to about 60,000 assaults per year. Moreover, 106 officers died in line-of-duty incidents in 2018, according to FBI data. The number of incidents last year rose to 134 officer deaths, Barr said.
Along with attacks, officers are also required to combat a number of incidents that stem from a range of social pathologies, including mental illnesses, broken homes, and drug abuse, that could inflict serious trauma on the officers, as well as leading to stress-based physical health problems such as high blood pressure.
#2
^ When cops feel like a greater percentage of the populace than usual is against them, with encouragement from the left, where's the incentive for that?
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/28/2020 12:06
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#3
And, I'd add, when the left is covering for dirty cops at the top, what is the average patrol guy supposed to think?
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/28/2020 12:09
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#4
How does Barr feel about "no duty to protect" doctrine?
Do I have a "moral obligation" to support the wellbeing of the Portland/San Jose/Berkeley/Virginia State Police even as they run interference for Antifa?
[Summit] Some store shelves in the UK, Australia, the Czech Republic and South Korea are beginning to empty as coronavirus panic buying increases and people begin to hoard products.
As we previously highlighted, Italy experienced panic buying at some supermarkets in affected regions after hundreds of people were infected with coronavirus in just a few days.
Now similar concerns are leading to empty shelves in other countries around the world.
In the UK, supermarkets in the town of Cheltenham all ran out of antibacterial hand gel.
"Tesco in Tewkesbury Road, Sainsbury’s in Gallagher Retail Park and Morrisons in Up Hatherley have all got empty space where the antibacterial hand gel should be," reports Gloucestershire Live.
It’s a similar situation in Sydney, Australia, where shelves have been stripped of medicine and toilet paper. Longer lasting food supplies are also running out.
[Summit] The Milwaukee man who killed five co-workers at a beer company’s corporate office is a black Elizabeth Warren supporter, providing a clue as to why the mass shooting disappeared from the discussion so quickly.
51-year-old Anthony Ferrill showed up at the MillerCoors facility from where he had been fired earlier in the day wearing his uniform and carrying a silenced gun.
He proceeded to gun down five colleagues before turning the weapon on himself.
It subsequently emerged that Ferrill was an African-American Elizabeth Warren supporter (presuming that Ferrill shared the same political beliefs as his wife, who took a selfie with Warren at a rally last year)
Ferrill’s neighbors said he was a married father of two adult children and one younger daughter. They said he had worked at the brewery for about 15 years as an electrician. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported he served in the U.S. Coast Guard from 1987 to 1991 and was honorably discharged.
His brother, Benjamin Ferrill, of The Colony, Texas, told The Associated Press: “It’s a tragic loss to everybody. We’re still trying to digest it.”
Erna Roenspies, who lived next door to Ferrill, described him as a nice guy and helpful neighbor who enjoyed building guns with mail-order parts.
Several years ago Ferrill slipped off or fell off a ladder at the brewery and hurt his shoulder, forcing him to miss work. He told Roenspies that “spies” from the brewery were lurking in the neighborhood, watching his activities to make sure he wasn’t faking the injury. Once he pointed out the spies’ car to her, she said. The spying “irritated” him, she said.
Still, Roenspies, 82, said Ferrill was a “gentleman” who checked up on her to make sure she was all right.
“I considered him a son,” she said. “He wasn’t violent. He wasn’t a drunk. He was a gentleman. I just can’t believe it.”
Another neighbor, Elizabeth LaPine, described Ferrill as a quiet person who walked his Doberman pinscher every day, and would sometimes throw a ball around for his dog in the street. She said she lived across the street from Ferrill for 11 years.
“It’s heartbreaking,” she said.
LaPine said Ferrill had several cars and always kept them shiny. She said that the last time she saw Ferrill was Sunday, and he had polished up his burgundy Chrysler, which she called his “Sunday car,” and took it for a ride.
[Red State] How Dr. Xiangguo Qiu morphed from a medical doctor to a virologist is not known, but she ended up doing leading work at the Canadian lab.
And she was not alone at that lab. Her husband, Dr. Keding Cheng, a bacteriologist was also at the National Microbiology Laboratory, and who also mysteriously shifted into virology.
Together they infiltrated the NML and engaged in theft of technology, secrets, and of actual viral samples, which they sent secretly to China.
Of importance, is that Xiangguo Qiu is a specialist in biological warfare.
The management and staff of the NML were sleeping at the wheel while these two engaged in theft of dangerous viral samples. Perhaps political correctness played a role in turning a blind eye to possible irregularities.
In addition to their own espionage and thefts, these two arranged for additional Chinese nationals to infiltrate the NML...
Stolen materials, including samples of the Novel Coronavirus were somehow taken or shipped by this group of six to Wuhan. Emphasis added.
#1
How Dr. Xiangguo Qiu morphed from a medical doctor to a virologist is not known, but she ended up doing leading work at the Canadian lab.
And she was not alone at that lab. Her husband, Dr. Keding Cheng, a bacteriologist was also at the National Microbiology Laboratory, and who also mysteriously shifted into virology.
Who is the author? People in academic research change their fields all the time - depending on the job market.
#4
This article is badly flawed and should be discounted. It appears that both the author and her source are making errors and misinterpretations, intentional or not.
The virus sample sent to the Canadian lab from the Netherlands was the MERS coronovirus. It was not covid-19, which didn’t exist in 2013.
Similarly, the virus stolen from NML was MERS.
Based on published information, which I think I’ve posted here previously, it’s likely that covid-19 was engineered in Wuhan.
The article is taking the 2013 term “new coronavirus” (referring to MERS) and changing it to “novel coronovirus”, which was the name applied last January to covid-19, before it was officially named. This seems somewhat more than just sloppy reporting.
If it’s speculation you want, here’s mine: SARS, MERS, and covid-19 all originated in the lab at Wuhan. That’s SPECULATION, enjoy.
[Epoch Times] Chinese officials in Wuhan and other cities within Hubei Province, where the novel coronavirus outbreak is most severe, reported to their higher-ups in the provincial government that people are not able to secure treatment, running out of supplies amid restrictive lockdown measures, and feeling fearful and anxious about the spreading disease.
The Bureau described life in Hubei thusly on Feb. 21: "In general, residents lack basic life necessities. For example, some families used up all their gas for cooking; some families need baby formula and diapers… A large number of residents want to leave the city and go out to make a living… They become extreme in behavior." Much more at link
#4
Yeah, it's commie-speak for "We must protect our phony baloney jobs!" Not to mention avoiding the hangman when the People decide they won't get fooled again.
[American Thinker] Thinking about the institution of slavery, Thomas Jefferson once said, "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever."
If Jefferson were alive today, he would say, "I tremble for my party when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever."
Why do I say this? Senate Democrats recently voted to block legislation that would have required that medical care be provided to babies who survive abortion procedures. The Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act did not receive the 60 votes necessary to advance out of the Senate. The final tally was 56 for, 41 against, with every single vote against the bill cast by Democrats.
Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) addressed the chamber prior to the vote, saying: "The piece of legislation we're voting on today, the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, is not about abortion. The bill we're voting on doesn't change anyone's access to abortion. It doesn't have anything to do with Roe v. Wade. It is about babies that are already born."
In other words, babies. Infants. Viable young human beings outside the womb. He added, "There is nothing in the bill that's about abortion. Nothing. It's about infanticide. That's the actual legislation." Sasse cited CNN's characterization of the bill as requiring "abortion providers to work to 'preserve the life and health' of a fetus that was born following an attempted abortion as they would for a newborn baby." Because a "fetus that was born" is, by definition, a newborn baby. And Democrats voted, en masse, not to preserve the life and health of newborn babies.
Those on the left demand we pay for health care for illegal aliens. They want insurance to cover the costs of "sex change" operations and procedures. They worry endlessly about "marginalized" groups being bullied and feeling "unsafe." Yet they have seen to it that taxpayers subsidize the abortions that Planned Parenthood commits ‐ to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
[Washington Examiner] The coronavirus outbreak has injected a high level of uncertainty for many businesses who depend on products from China but are clueless as to when they will arrive.
"You can’t get a straight answer," said John Mack, president of Frontier Illumination. "We talked to somebody recently for a pretty big order, and they told us mid-May is the best they can do. Other guys are saying ’we just don’t know,’ so there’s a lot of variables. ... The level of certainty is rather low."
Mack’s company provides LED lighting for commercial, industrial, and institutional markets and is located in Carson, California. More than 90% of the components for LED lighting are produced in China, according to Mack. And with the virus shutting down plants there, lead times for those products have increased from four to six weeks to waits that stretch to 15 weeks.
"We’re finding significantly increasing lead times and a great deal of uncertainty around them," Mack said, adding that "my biggest concern is sitting around with no product."
Mack said his company is flush enough to handle lagging lead times in the short term, but it could eat into his bottom line if the problem persists.
"There will be projects in April that won’t get done until May, at the very least. I think it’s going to hurt us, yes," he said. Mack, age 50, started his business in 2014 after losing his job trading stocks. Not wanting to move to New York City to find another job on Wall Street, Mack decided to change careers and start his own business.
#1
Here's a "straight answer." As the Orange Man has attempted to tell us since he arrived in office, we've become too dependent upon Chinese manufacturing and the Chinese economy. If you have doubts, take a look at our stock market turn-down over the past few days.
The Chinese appear to be having a huge problem with the Conona virus. Luckily, we do not. The impact of their problem however, is wrecking our stock market. This is a problem of our own making and an obvious betrayal of the American worker and investor.
#4
Why the fook did we - deliberately, consciously, willfully - raise up a harmless third-world backwater into our mortal rival?
Why?
To rescue Apple computer from oblivion?
To put a million pensioners in the black, and line the pockets of maybe 100,000 D.C. insiders and assorted tech employees?
#6
Why the fook did we - deliberately, consciously, willfully - raise up a harmless third-world backwater into our mortal rival?
Same folks who thought you could turn the Middle East and Central Asia into an oasis of democracy (ignoring they were throwing away democracy home at the same time). The best and brightest aren't. But, hey, the Chinese got missile and satellite technology and the Clinton Foundation got contributions.
#7
What if all of a sudden a large number of Americans discover they can get along without most of the Chinese made crap they buy?
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/28/2020 7:35
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Why the fook did we - deliberately, consciously, willfully - raise up a harmless third-world backwater into our mortal rival?
It's the same greed that privatizes profits and socialized losses that gave us the 2008 crash. The gamed political-financial elite will always benefit from the shit they stir up.
#9
This has been a disaster in the making for a long time, at least from 1990 +/-. It was called outsourcing at the time. If we needed parts or sub-assemblies, they were farmed out willy-nilly to "offshore suppliers" and damn the quality. Supply chain management became the cry, and just in time delivery reigned. All fads, with some real benefit at core, but carried to extremes. These 'fads' reduced costs (American jobs), relocated warehousing out of reach of the IRS (reduced on-hand inventory subject to taxation), but increased profits. Short term gains weakened the economy as a whole, and many industries were hollowed out. I could write a book about how we off-shored our semiconductor manufacturing capabilities and lost control of our own well being and security. In all, very discouraging. People will still argue that was the correct course of action, but I disagree.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
02/28/2020 8:26
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It would appear the decoupling is no longer a topic of idle discussion.
Scrap iron was selling for top dollars in the 1930's. People were carrying buckets and walking RR tracks to pick up stray spikes and rail plates. I suppose it would be racist to tell you who owned a vast majority of the scrap yards. Who was the end user of the iron? Where was it going? Japan.
#12
Stupidest decision of many stupid policy decisions our idiot elites made over the last 35 years.
They were not interested in the wisdom or stupidity, they were interested in fattening their bank accounts.
Posted by: Spanky Scourge of the Brontosaurs1917 ||
02/28/2020 9:00
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#13
a harmless third-world backwater
Communist China had sponsoring Maoist revolutionaries all over the world, including Western/American universities. Harmless they were not. This diverted their attention into making widgets. But now that Maoist revolution is discredited and the teeth of the revolutionaries blunted, the cost of labour in China has been increasing, so we’ve been slowly moving manufacturing to lower cost countries, Even without the coronavirus panic, China would have ended up with a good deal less control of the world than they’d planned.
#14
Fair enough, TW, so not entirely harmless. But I would trade the giant monster we created for the spider that was piss-poor, 3rd-world Maoist China in a nanosecond.
Now our fortunes are hitched. A nightmarish, almost suicidal marriage that will take us many painful years - decades, perhaps - to unwind.
#3
We ought to change the name of Coronavirus to Hellfire virus. It seems to be eliminating more Iranian leadership than the US Government did in 40 years.
#Nairobi#Kenya: Terrorist groups may be plotting an attack against a major hotel in Nairobi. The exact hotel has not been identified, but it is believed to be a hotel popular with tourists and business travelers. Exercise increased vigilance. https://t.co/PL7VWqTQ0Opic.twitter.com/ZDiJqwNGyS
Posted by: Matt ||
02/28/2020 13:20
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#3
It's Calvinball. There are not really sides, per se. As spectators, the polite thing to do is clap whenever someone scores a point. Or someone gets waxed.
#4
I would, shoot down is a shoot down, but it would be something silly, like a highly pixelated Space Invaders ship, or a flying carpet, picture of Mr. Hankey in a turban.
[ToloNews] Along with a security incident in Balkh that claimed an Afghan policeman's life, on the sixth day of the reduction in violence plan (RIV) there was also twin blasts in Kabul, three reported incidents in Herat ...a venerable old Persian-speaking city in western Afghanistan, populated mostly by Tadjiks, which is why it's not as blood-soaked as areas controlled by Pashtuns... , and the Taliban ...the Pashtun equivalent of men... claimed two IED attacks on government forces vehicles in Kandahar.
The incident in Balkh occurred when a police convoy struck a roadside mine, according to the MoI: "...A roadside mine in Chimtal district of Balkh province targeted a convoy of police and, as a result, one brave officer was martyred," said Nasrat Rahimi, a front man for the Ministry of Interior.
Also on Thursday afternoon one civilian was killed and 10 were maimed in twin blasts from IEDs placed on bicycles that detonated in PD6 of Kabul city. The Taliban claimed no involvement in this incident.
There were also two Taliban-reported incidents in Kandahar of government forces vehicles striking roadside mines. The group did not give any details about the casualties.
Local officials in Herat reported three security incidents in their province.
"Over the past 24 hours, three security violations were reported in districts in Herat. A retired colonel was kidnapped and there were some attacks and firing on the security forces in Shindand district," said Ghulam Jailani Farhad, a front man for the governor of Herat.
In the northern part of Afghanistan, a number of civil society activists came into the streets and announced their support for the reduction in violence plan.
"We hope that this one week (RIV) leads to a permanent ceasefire in Afghanistan," said Tahmina Aryan, a woman rights activist in Badakhshan.
"Casualties have significantly dropped, the people are very optimistic, now it depends on the politicians and how they want to take advantage of this opportunity so that the negotiations are started next week once the agreement (US-Taliban agreement) is signed," Sayed Qaribullah Sadat, a member of Pashtun-infested Logar provincial council, told TOLOnews.
#1
On the sixth day of Christmas
My true love sent to me
Six geese a layin'
Five golden rings!
Four calling birds
Three french hens
Two turtle doves
And a partridge in a pear tree!
[The New Arab] Iranian cleric Ayatollah Tabrizian has written extensively on violet leaf oil, which he says has miraculous properties.
A local cleric from the Iranian city of Qom has suggested a novel cure for the new coronavirus - the pre-bedtime rectal administration of violet leaf oil.
Users on Twitter describe how the Ayatollah Tabrizian has publicly denounced Western medicine as "un-Islamic". Dearest, have you changed your fragrance? Let us know how that works out for you, ayatollah.
#8
let me guess, it should be applied using only the tip of the Imam's holy rod. young boys should be immunized first of course.
Posted by: Bob Grorong1136 ||
02/28/2020 8:44
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#9
I'd love to see this clown put two drops of clove EO (essential oil) on his bunghole -he'd burn for 1/2 an hour.
BTW, I'm pretty familiar with these things (EO's). I have one combo that basically has me walking nearly pain-free now. I had nerve damage in the right leg caused by a 17 year old basketball injury (torn ACL & MCL), and eight or nine years ago I started with acupuncture treatments, as Dr. Chan noticed my left leg was 1/2" shorter then the other one. That was a result of my body unconsciously favoring the right leg over the left leg, causing more weight to be placed on the latter. I was moving in the direction of getting better through bike riding, acupuncture and magnesium oil sprayed on the leg when I discovered EO's, the use of which started fourteen months ago. I'm now at a point where I can walk 1/2 a mile in about 11 minutes, whereas that time was more like 15 or 16 back in November.
I have also got rid of dysphagia (constricted esophagus / part thereof). The regrowing of hair shit isn't working, nor is the correction of eyesight.
The moral of the story - EO's work, but I'm skeptical of certain grandiose claims like violet bunghole virus cure.
The Turkish Army is heavily targeting Latakia, Hama, Nubla and Zahraa with missiles. This comes after several Turkish soldiers were killed by an air strike in Idlib Governorate.https://t.co/49Hh6dZ1GApic.twitter.com/AMsHfPdtJb
Graham calling for Pentagon to establish a no-fly zone in Russian-controlled airspace in Idlib likely a difficult sell for the Trump admin. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said on Thurs that US has not had "discussion about reengaging in the civil war"https://t.co/aDyLwPQWAShttps://t.co/WeJR6o9SrH
Just about as crummy an idea as NATO joining in the festivities on the Turk side. We're out of it. Sit and watch the show and pass the popcorn. Assad - bad. Think we can all agree on that. Al Qaeda (al-Nusra, etc.) worse. ISIS worse. Since Erdogan's now allied with al-Nusra, why in the world would we support him in any manner?
Posted by: Fred ||
02/28/2020
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#5
Now why would Lindsey say this? It's an amazingly bad idea.
Theory: Whatever the Trump admin proposes, the Dems are against automatically. Lindsey says no-fly zone. Everyone freaks out. Trump says OK we're not going to do what we weren't going to do anyway. Great Victory for the Dems. And Trump is immunized against some idiot calling for a no-fly zone.
#11
Lindsey has been fairly unpredictable lately. He does have to face us SC voters in a primary in June or July (separate from the Democrat one tomorrow), and so he may be zigging and zagging...he is unpopular with a fairly large segment of the Republican party down here.
Posted by: Tom ||
02/28/2020 14:07
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[AlAhram] Kuwait now has 43 confirmed cases of coronavirus, according to a health ministry official on Thursday, who added all cases involved people who had been to Iran.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/28/2020
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02/28/2020
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#1
Also attacked:
TEHRAN – Masoumeh Ebtekar, vice president of Iran for Women and Family Affairs, has tested positive for the coronavirus. "Ms. Ebtekar showed signs of infection with coronavirus and was tested. The results came back positive," her adviser was quoted as saying by the state news agency IRNA.
The vice president is also known as the English-language spokeswoman for the 1979 hostage-takers who seized the US embassy in Tehran and sparked the 444-day diplomatic crisis.
#BREAKING#Turkey has activated Article 4 of the #NATO Alliance. This means that NATO & Turkey will discuss if Turkeys Independence & Security has been threatened by #Russia killing Turkish Troops. pic.twitter.com/ijhJWi2DW1
The Parties will consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the Parties is threatened.
When you invade another country, it's tough spit if somebody shoots back. Erdogan's cynicism is awe-inspiring.
Posted by: 3dc ||
02/28/2020
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#1
Your guys were on someone else's turf? (Not sure whose, but not yours.) Not defense. Too bad, so sad, Yipyip. You want the Turkish empire sultanate back, spend your own blood and treasure.
#2
territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the Parties is threatened
territorial integrity? Nope political independence? Ha ha ha security? You've got it backwards, Yipster. Your "security" is your neighbors' (and other nations' insecurity.
#9
Turkey and Syria sure seem to be heading toward full scale war. Saw some reports that Turk UAVs destroyed around 100 Syrian armored vehicles/artillery overnight. Also attacking infantry.
#11
Turkey needs to be kicked out of NATO. They have proven themselves under Erdogan to be no friend of the West, further, attacking another country then crying because they struck back can hardly be considered a valid reason to invoke article 4.
#BREAKING: SANA reports Israeli military helicopters over the Golan Heights have attacked a number of positions near Quneitra in southern Syria https://t.co/Dx3pDTW18W
Syrian State TV said on Thursday night that Israeli helicopters attacked Syrian military points with missiles in al-Qahtaniyah, al-Hurria and al-Qunaitra, injuring three soldiers.
[KhaamaPress] The Taliban ...the Pashtun equivalent of men... group and Afghan government are expected to exchange at least six thousand prisoners following the signing of peace deal between Taliban and Washington.
Suhail Shaheen, a spokesperson of the political office of Taliban in Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi... has confirmed to RFE/RL that the group would definitely launch intra-Afghan talks after the signing of the deal.
However, Switzerland makes more than cheese... Shaheen said trust-building measures would be a prerequisite for the launch of the intra-Afgahn dialogue.
According to Shaheen, the Afghan government will release 5,000 Taliban prisoners in its first step to build trust and similarly the Taliban group will release 1,000 security personnel.
Shaheen also confirmed to RFE/RL that the Taliban group is expected to sign the peace deal with the United States on coming Saturday.
He also added that Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar will likely sign the agreement in Qatari capital of Doha, in the presence of the representatives of 26 countries.
Must have Mike Pence's approval for EVERYTHING they say about mounting crisis - despite VP having zero medical qualifications
Clampdown comes a day after Donald Trump put Pence in charge of response
Even NIH virus expert Anthony Fauci is muzzled without prior approval
News comes after White House unveiled ANOTHER coronavirus coordinator amid market selloff
Pence said she would oversee the effort
HHS Secretary Alex Azar, a former pharmaceutical exec, leads a coronavirus task force Good idea. Pharmaceutical company = vaccine development, manufacture, distribution.
Concerns California patient contracted disease without coming into contact with a known traveler or infected person
Pence himself is appearing on 'Hannity' to discuss the coronovirus
All those poor NeverTrump Deep Staters are being kept from whipping up hysteria through selected leaks and pronouncements to their mainstream media pals while an experienced executive gets on with managing the various teams involved in researching tests, treatments and vaccines on one side and making sure supplies are in place for hospitals and police managing quarantines and keeping public order on the other.
#3
How many hospital executives have medical degrees?
Pence has a management role; after Rosenstein's sister had her little fear-fest press conference, restricting what idiots can say makes sense.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
02/28/2020 7:37
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#4
It's not like VP Pence, along w/ Pres Trump, has the power to knock down agency silos, cut red tape and move funding to contain the virus. Yeah, zero qualification. Way to inform the public, MSM.
#6
We can kill viral transmission in drinking water without chemicals (like chlorine) or added energy (like UV radiation). Carbon nanotube-based filter assemblies utterly disrupt bacterial DNA and viral RNA so that the fragments are destroyed - no grow through. SOCOM bought all we could make. Chlorine and UV can sterilize surfaces and clothing. You can't make people wash their hands or instantly adopt sanitary habits. And you can never silence the fools in media.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
02/28/2020 8:46
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#7
Yah. TLA's suck and have no sense of humor.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
02/28/2020 9:32
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#8
First it was information warfare vs OrangeMan.
Then Mueller-Congressional lawfare.
Now it's - what, medi-fare vs OrangeMan?
#10
And then there's this nugget, which appears in article posted by CU6397 farther down on Page 6 "An official from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention making public statements on the outbreak is the sister of Rod Rosenstein..."
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
02/28/2020 10:46
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#11
You don't have to be a doctor to see that Information releases are causing panic. They need to do their jobs in controlling this virus and stop grandstanding in front of the press.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
02/28/2020 13:09
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#12
Quarantine Congress will solve a lot of public health and safety issues. Just sayin'.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/28/2020 16:39
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Following anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim attacks in Halle and Hanau, Israeli ambassador to Germany Jeremy Issacharoff warned Thursday that: "No democratic society can survive if minorities are constantly threatened or harmed."
"The Holocaust has shown us all where such hatred leads," he told the German regional newspaper Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung. "An open society can tolerate many things, but never violence. People are starting to act violently against minorities, against Jews and Muslims again."
The ambassador also appealed to Jews and Muslims not to hide their religious affiliation.
"More security for every kind of community in Germany cannot be achieved by people hiding their identity, their religion," said the Israeli ambassador, who has been living in Germany for two and a half years.
"Not wearing a kippa or Muslim headgear would also mean hiding the problem. We have to protect everyone, stem terrorism and hatred, and maintain an open society where we can celebrate our diversity."
Posted by: Herb McCoy ||
02/28/2020
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#1
Nevertheless, celebrating diversity hardly the Islamic gameplan...
#4
Committed our treasury and manhood for pulling them out of two suicide attempts in the 20th Century. Then we indebted ourselves for generations doing the same to protect them from Moscow only to have them erect an authoritarian system in Brussels that is basically no different, other than having better suits. As lost as Justinian's attempt to resurrect the fallen Western Roman Empire.
Long, so just excerpting a few paragraphs.
[WarOnTheRocks] When I saw the Washington Post reports on the so-called Afghanistan papers, claiming that "senior U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan ... making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable," it took me back to a conversation I had with then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the May 2012 NATO Summit in Chicago. Lying, warmongering pieces of shit. Hang all of them in front of the US Capitol for treason.
The Post based its coverage on interviews conducted by the office of the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction with serving and former officials of the U.S. government, including me. From April 2009 to October 2013, I served as senior adviser to the U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. I had been hired by that position’s first incumbent, the late Richard Holbrooke, who died from a torn aorta that erupted during a Dec. 10, 2010, meeting in Clinton’s office. That was less than two years after he was sworn in and less than two weeks after the first diplomatic contact between the United States and the Taliban since 9/11, at a safe house outside of Munich. Opening that channel had been my principal task. In May 2012, as adviser to Holbrooke’s successor, Marc Grossman, I attended the NATO summit, where, according to the Chicago Tribune, "the main agenda item was the future of Afghanistan." In his opening address, President Barack Obama called for a "transformational decade of peace."
Posted by: Fred ||
02/28/2020
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#1
According to the reports, Imad al-Tawil, a Hezbollah terrorist was working with Iran to set up an Iranian infrastructure in the Golan. Israel has not commented on the story.
[NY Post - Page Six] An Arkansas judge has nixed Hunter Biden‘s bid to put off his child support deposition until after most of the key Democratic primaries are over, according to a news report.
"He needs to make himself available unless his hair is on fire," Circuit Court Judge Holly Meyer fired back at Biden's lawyers during a conference call Wednesday, according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. "He needs to be in Arkansas and he needs to be in a deposition."
Biden, 50, the son of former vice president and Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden, had asked Meyer to postpone his deposition until April.
That would place the questioning after the March dates of many of the decisive state primaries ‐ including Super Tuesday next week ‐ in which his father is battling for the Democratic party's nomination.
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/28/2020
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#1
Can someone in Burg shipping & receiving please send Circuit Court Judge Holly Meyer a MAGA hat ?
#6
Fatal "overdose" in the offing for Strawz Biden?
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/28/2020 8:08
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#7
If Hunter has any affairs not fully in order, he may wish to tidy up lose ends rather quickly. My guess is he's got a bulls eye painted on his arse.
#11
#8 Ha good one, Raj. No question that the DNC are figuring out a way to keep Hoover Crackpipe out of sight for the next 8 months.
If not the virus then maybe they'll just rely on a strict embargo by their media wing, complete with perfunctory dismissals of any reference to Biden family corruption as a "debunked" "conspiracy theory."
[IBT] Earlier last week, reports had suggested that a North Korean trade official was shot dead for leaving coronavirus quarantine to visit a public bath. According to South Korean media, the victim, who had returned to the country after a visit to China, was executed for risking the spread of the deadly virus.
As per its official statement, North Korea has repeatedly emphasized the country has not a single case of the highly contagious virus on its soil, though it suggested that there are people showing suspected symptoms. Raising fears that Pyongyang might be concealing an outbreak.
The casualty count from tonight is likely to climb, Turkish politics is likely to slide into turmoil and Turkish forces are left in Idlib without air cover or safe lines of communication. At best, retaliatory fire tonight causes sufficient damage to force a halt to regime ops.
#2
Tobias Schneider is an independent International Security Analyst specializing in the political economy of violence in the Levant. He has worked as a consultant for think tanks, governments, multilateral institutions, as well as private clients. His research on the Syrian Civil War in particular has been published and cited across international media.... wiki
Commandant General David Berger issued an order that Confederate-related paraphernalia be removed from Marine Corp installations worldwide Like it or not, they're suppressing both speech and culture. First they come for the guys you don't like, then for the people you disagree with. Eventually they'll come for you. The ghost of Thomas Jefferson is is saying some very bad words.
The decision comes after a survey revealed 36 percent of troops have experienced white supremacy or racism in their ranks "A = B" equation. If your description of "racism" is pretty loose, then 36 percent of everybody's probably experience "white supremacy or racism."
Half of minority service members had personally witnessed racism We're "racist" in a combat environment. In Vietnam, the enemy (and to lots of people the Vietnamese in general) were zips, slants, gooks, what have you. I have no doubt that Afghanistan, Iraq, and similarly unpleasant places are populated by rag heads, hajjis, and folks of that ilk. Under other circumstances we're more polite. I fear those witnessing the racism under other circumstance are including "microaggressions" in the total. In the course of twenty years in the Army, I personally saw two instances of actual racism, one of them on my second day of basic training.
Troops listed white supremacy as a larger threat to the country than immigration Yeah, buddy. It's those klansmen in uniform you gotta watch for. We have 1.3 million active-duty troops. Statistically, some of them are bound to be anuses.
Berger's decision also comes in the wake of high-profile incidents in which troops were shown to be engaged in extremism Crawling out the walls, are they? White supremacists under every bed? Senator McCarthy sez he has a list of 100200 300 white supremacists in government!
Lance Corporal Vasillios Pistolis was kicked out of the Marine Corps in 2018. He was identified violently smashing a Confederate flag onto a counter-protester at the 2017 'Unite the Right' rally in Charlottesville, Virginia They forgot Timothy McVeigh. Shucks, that was just 25 years ago.
I don't like racists, and if I ever met a white supremacist I probably wouldn't like him/her/it. Neither can I stand having my opinions scrutinized and "corrected." When I was a kid (in this case, anything under about age sixty) the Confederate flag could be seen on cars, in houses, on bathing suits, state flags, underwear, you name it. Lots of places used to fly both the national flag and the Stars and Bars. The implication wasn't white supremacy, but Southerness.
#1
Harsh but correct. Confederacy = insurrection. It existed in order to preserve slavery, which everyone recognizes was abhorrent.
Sentimental, BS history is bo excuse for upholding symbols of sedition in the military.
Silent Sam, other local statues are OK: these are monuments to history. But a fighting force can gave only one loyalty: Union Now and Forever.
Perhaps the general should have softened the blow by simultaneously banning any / all BLM, black power etc "Woke" or "Reaistance" symbolism. But you cannot serve Jeff Davis and Uncle Sam. Pick one.
#2
"Perhaps the general should have softened the blow by simultaneously banning any / all BLM, black power etc "Woke" or "Reaistance" symbolism. But you cannot serve Jeff Davis and Uncle Sam. Pick one."
#5
Silent Sam, other local statues are OK: these are monuments to history.
Got to remember that for many of them it was the United STATES of America with states being their tribe first. Echos of that come every fall when Georgia vs Alabama, Texas vs Oklahoma, Ohio State vs Michigan. Even though they were killing each other days before, those who had been doing the killing saw it different.
While Chamberlain’s role at Gettysburg is oft-repeated, his contributions during the Richmond-Petersburg Campaign of 1864-65 were of equal import. During that campaign Chamberlain sustained what was thought to be a fatal wound to the groin on June 18, 1864. Fearing his death was imminent, Grant promoted Chamberlain to brigadier general as a symbolic act of thanks. Miraculously, Chamberlain survived and returned to command in late 1864. He was in command of the Army of the Potomac’s 1st Brigade, First Division, V Corps on March 29, 1865, when he was severely wounded again, earning him a brevet promotion to Major General and the nickname “Bloody Chamberlain.” Chamberlain was profoundly honored to command the surrender ceremony. Writing to his wife just one day later, he stated:
For my personal part I…have been in five battles…twice wounded myself—my horse shot—in the front line when the flag of truce came through from Lee—had the last shot + the last man killed, in their campaign; + yesterday was designated to receive the surrender of the arms of Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia.
The ceremony itself deeply moved Chamberlain, who would later write:
Instructions had been given; and when the head of each division column comes opposite our group, our bugle sounds the signal and instantly our whole line from right to left, regiment by regiment in succession, gives the soldier’s salutation, from the “order arms” to the old “carry”— the marching salute. Gordon at the head of the column, riding with heavy spirit and downcast face, catches the sound of shifting arms, looks up, and, taking the meaning, wheels superbly…with profound salutation as he drops the point of his sword to the boot toe; then facing to his own command, gives word for his successive brigades to pass us with the same position of the manual, honor answering honor.
#6
Again, lifelong civilian here. Everything I've ever read re mil hist says tradition is a big deal. And now it's not. Let's see how that works out.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/28/2020 12:36
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#7
Probably only one leftist administration away from jamming this down the memory hole.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/28/2020 13:06
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#8
One question, Did he just order the removal of state flags with the confederate flag imbedded in it? IE FLA?
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
02/28/2020 14:56
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#9
I like our Alaska state flag: the Big Dipper and the pole star in gold on a field of blue. Looks good along side Old Glory, too, properly placed of course.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/28/2020 16:46
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#11
Interesting he only explicitly singles out the Confederate flag.
Troops listed white supremacy as a larger threat to the country than immigration
Which troops? How many? And how many are actual combat troops vs. future Buttgags and McMuffins?
Southern white men are disproportionately represented in our ranks -- going out of your way to alienate them seems like something a "perfumed prince" would do.
But hey, I confess to not being conversant with custom in these matters.
Political analyst Ali Fadhil: #AlSadr's speech today has been full of contradictions. He says killing protesters was just to pinch them. He says a government will only be formed after I approve it and that he may restore Jaysh al-Mahdi militia.#BaghdadPostpic.twitter.com/zeezAI4qO0
A civilian helps wounded Turkish soldiers after the Syrian / Russian forces targeted them in Al-Bara village in Idlib countryside. pic.twitter.com/QvO0NmGgIL
In what looks like a media stunt, a group of Syrian refugees were allowed by Turkish authorities tonight to cross from Edirne, NW Turkey, toward the Greek or Bulgarian border. https://t.co/5VJ8oyXVPjpic.twitter.com/x7PDfXawQ2
....the bearded former manager at a Chechen state telecom who fled west when accused of being a Wahhabi, which in Chechnya means membership in the Al Qaeda-linked Caucasus Emirate...
posted a video showing him disheveled and breathing hard, standing over the bloodied body of another man. “Who sent you? Where have you come from?” Abdurakhmanov asks, before producing a hammer, which he says was used by the man in an attempted murder.
The injured man on the ground, whose voice is muffled, replies that he came “from Moscow”7 and says, “They have my mother.” There was no immediate comment from Polish authorities.
The Sweden-based Chechen rights group Vayfond described the attack as an assassination attempt.
Abdurakhmanov is one of the most prominent and outspoken critics of Ramzan Kadyrov, the head of Russia’s Chechnya province. He left Chechnya in 2015 following threats from a Chechen official linked to Kadyrov.
After being refused asylum in Georgia, Abdurakhmanov moved to Poland, where he lived at an undisclosed location while attempting to apply for asylum. The application was rejected by Poland’s interior ministry in 2018.
#BREAKING: Tens of wooden coffins are sent to the hospital of #Reyhanlı for use for the dead #Turkish Army soldiers. According to eyewitness reports, they are over 100. So, they will be used for the the dead #TFSA members as well. pic.twitter.com/BBYZBpTzsg
Please keep headline length under 42 feet. The US news media perversely view the prospective liberation of millions of Syrians from a Turkish-backed Al Qaeda tyranny in Idlib as a humanitarian tragedy, betraying their allegiance to Washington’s geopolitical agenda and its aim of dominating every country in West Asia without exception, even if it means relying on Al Qaeda to accomplish its goal. Just yet another example of the media backing up the globalists in DC. Screw what's in the interest of Americans, let's keep innocent people under the boot of Al-Qaeda. Everyone knows the globalists allied us with headchopping Islamists in Syria, right? Because that's what happened.
Imagine journalists deploring the Allies’ liberation of Europe because the project created refugees, and you’ll understand the US news media’s reaction to the prospect of the Syrian military liberating Idlib from the rule of a branch of Al Qaeda. Implicit in the condemnation is support for the status quo, since any realistic attempt to end an occupation will trigger a flight of civilians from a war zone. What is in fact support for continued occupation by reactionaries, and their imposition of a terrorist mini-state on millions of Syrians, is slyly presented by the US news media as concern for the welfare of Syrian civilians.
On February 20, The Wall Street Journal ran an article on what it said could be the "biggest humanitarian horror story of the 21st century," namely, the advance of the Syrian military into Idlib, "backed by Russian airstrikes and pro-Iranian militias" which has "forced the flight of some 900,000 people" as Syrian president Bashar al-Assad vows "to retake every inch of Syria." [1]
To illustrate the so-called impending horror, Journal reporter Raja Abdulrahim follows "Amro Akoush and his family" as they flee "their home in northwest Syria with no time to pack a bag and no vehicle to escape the machine-gun fire and falling bombs." [2]
"I feel like this is the end, the army will advance and kill us all and that will be the end of the story," Abdulrahim quotes Akoush as saying. "We no longer have hope for anything other than a quick death, that's it. That's all we ask for." (3)
In Abdulrahim's narrative, Assad is a tyrant setting in motion a humanitarian catastrophe to satisfy his urge (are we to construe it as greed?) to "retake" every inch of his country (not recover or liberate it.) Assad's foil, his nemesis in this tale, is Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, presented as the personification of the calvary, rushing to the aid of hapless Syrian civilians, by dispatching tanks across the Turk-Syrian border.
Erdogan, Abdulrahim writes, "has threatened to launch a full attack on Syrian government forces if Mr. Assad doesn't halt the military offensive. Turkey has sent more than 10,000 troops and more than 2,000 pieces of artillery, tanks and armored vehicles into Idlib." (4)
It all seems fairly simple: Assad is a brute who has launched a military offensive "to defeat the remnants" of Syria's "armed opposition", sparking a humanitarian catastrophe in embryo, while Erdogan, our hero, acts to stay the tyrant's hand.
It's a good story, but wrong. The "armed opposition" is not a group of plucky liberal democrats fighting for freedom, but Al Qaeda; Turkey is not the calvary, but a foreign aggressor with designs on Syria that has long backed Al Qaeda as its proxy in Idlib; and Erdogan's goal isn't to rescue Syrians from a tyrant, but to impose a Turkish tyranny by proxy on Idlib. All of this has been reported previously in the US news media, including in Abdulrahim's own Wall Street Journal, but has since been lost down to the memory hole. Additionally, other realities have been minimized, including the continued Al Qaeda attacks on the Syrian military and Syrian civilians.
In early March, 2015 Erdogan flew to Riyadh to meet Saudi Arabia's recently crowned King Salman, to agree on a new strategy to oust Assad. Both leaders were keen to see Syria's Arab nationalist republic dissolved. Erdogan, an Islamist with connections to the Muslim Brotherhood, objected to Syria's secularism and long-running war with the Muslim Brotherhood. Salman, a misogynistic, democracy-abominating monarch backed to the hilt by Washington, objected to Syria's anti-monarchism, Arab nationalism, and insistence that the Arab world achieve independence from US domination–ideologies which threatened his family's rule over the Arabian peninsula and its vast oil resources.
To overcome the Syrian menace, Erdogan and Salman agreed to establish a joint command center in Idlib in order to coordinate the activities of Al Qaeda (operating in Syria at the time under the alias Jabhat al-Nusra.) Al Qaeda and other jihadist groups had taken up the Muslim Brotherhood's struggle against the Assad government's secularism and Arab nationalism. The jihadists were threatening to seize control of all of Idlib, and the Turkish Islamist and Saudi despot were eager to lend a hand. [5]
Erdogan wanted to run Idlib through his Al Qaeda proxies to gain leverage in order to shape the outcome of post-conflict talks on a new political arrangement for Syria. [6] This would allow him to further his Islamist agenda in a neighboring country‐he had taken numerous steps to Islamize his own country‐and to acquire profit-making opportunities in Syria for Turkish business people.
Erdogan's plans were soon brought to fruition. By February, 2018, Brett McGurk, the U.S. envoy to the US campaign against ISIS, could call Idlib "the largest al Qaeda safe haven since 9/11." [7] The veteran foreign affairs correspondent Robert Fisk would refer to the Syrian province as a territory teeming with "the Islamist fighters of Isis, Nusrah, al-Qaeda and their fellow jihadists." [8] In September, 2019 The New York Times' Eric Schmitt said that Idlib province contained "a witch's brew of violent Islamic extremist groups, dominated by the larger Qaeda-linked organization Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, formerly the Nusra Front." [9] Hayat Tahrir al-Sham would control 99 percent of Idlib and surrounding areas. [10], creating what Cockburn dubbed an "al-Qaeda-run mini-state" [11]‐behind which sat Erdogan, on the Sultan's throne.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and Al Qaeda are one and the same. After undergoing a previous rebranding as Jabhat al Nusra, Al Qaeda's Syrian branch morphed once again, this time into HTS. As the Syrian delegate to the United Nations, Bashar Ja'afari, explained to the UN Security Council in May,
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham … is the Al-Nusra Front, which itself is part of Al-Qaida in the Levant, which in turn is part of Al-Qaida in Iraq, which in turn is part of Al-Qaida in Afghanistan. Therefore, we are all talking about Al-Qaida, regardless of its different names; all are designated by the [UN Security] Council as terrorist entities. [12]
The Washington Post described Hayat Tahrir al-Sham as "an extremist Islamist group that began as al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria and has tried to rebrand itself several times during the war." [13] The New York Times says Hayat Tahrir al-Sham "is affiliated with Al Qaeda," [14] while The Wall Street Journal lists the group as "a branch of al Qaeda." [15]
But of Western mainstream journalists, Cockburn perhaps describes the group best. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, he wrote in early 2019, is "a powerful breakaway faction from Isis which founded the group under the name of Jabhat al-Nusra in 2011 and with whom it shares the same fanatical beliefs and military tactics. Its leaders wear suicide vests studded with metal balls just like their Isis equivalents." [16]
HTS's size is a matter of dispute. Cockburn estimates that it "can put at least 50,000 fighters into the field" [17] while The New York Times puts the number closer to "12,000 and 15,000 fighters." [18] The Syrian government says that the group has "tens of thousands of foreign terrorists, including 15,000 Europeans." [19]
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham has "centered its agenda on combating the government of Mr. al-Assad, with no interest in conducting attacks abroad, according to a recent United Nations assessment." [20] This makes the Al Qaeda group acceptable to the United States, and, in train, to the US news media. It also explains why an organization seen as terrorist outside of Syria, is often described by US new media in neutral language when it operates in Syria, like "armed opposition" and "rebels." Following this convention, we could talk of the "armed opposition" and "rebels" who attacked the United States on 9/11, and Washington's 19 year war on Al Qaeda as the war on "the armed opposition to the US regime."
"In September 2018, Russia and Turkey brokered a cease-fire agreement for Idlib to forestall a military offensive," explained The Wall Street Journal. "The deal required that" Al Qaeda fighters "withdraw from a demilitarized buffer zone along the front line." [21] Rather than withdrawing, Al Qaeda expanded areas under its control. [22] while continuing to carry on its fight against the Syrian military. The jihadists attacked Syrian army positions, targeted the Russian airbase at Khmeimim, and shelled towns and villages, "killing civilians and forcing more than 10,000 to flee," according to the United Nations. [23] Turkey stood by while its proxies violated the cease-fire, failing "to meet its commitment to disarm" its fighters. [24]
In response, the Syrian army, backed by its Russian and Iranian allies, launched an offensive to liberate Idlib. It has done this because Al Qaeda's attacks have never stopped and because the government of Syria has an obligation to protect its citizens and control its own territory.
When Ja'afari addressed the Security Council in May he asked:
When will it be recognized that the right we are exercising is the same right others have exercised in confronting terrorist attacks against the Bataclan theatre and the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris, as well as terrorist acts in Niece, London, Boston and other cities? The terrorists that members have confronted in their own countries were not equipped with Turkish rocket launchers and tanks. [25]
Apart from glossing over such inconvenient facts as the true character of the "armed opposition" and Erdogan's connection to it, the US news media have failed to address a number of key questions.
First, is it legitimate for a government to use force to recover territory occupied by an armed enemy, even if the use of force endangers civilians or sparks their flight? If the answer is no, then the Allies acted illegitimately during World War II in liberating Europe from Nazi occupation, for their project was impossible without endangering some civilians and creating refugees.
Moreover, if civilian casualties and their displacement were acceptable consequences of US forces taking Raqqa from ISIS‐the US defense secretary at the time, James Mattis responded to concerns about the effect of the US siege on civilians by noting that "Civilian casualties are a fact of life in this sort of situation" [26]‐how is it that they are unacceptable in the case of Syrian forces liberating Idlib from Al Qaeda?
A still more basic question is, Is it acceptable to respond in force to attacks from an enemy? The answer is obvious, which may be why it is never asked, for if asked, Syrian military operations against continued Al Qaeda attacks would have to be accepted as legitimate, rather than falsely portrayed as acts of aggression against Syrian civilians.
Third, is Turkey's presence on Syrian soil legitimate? The answer is categorically in the negative. The invasion of Syria by Turkey and the occupation of part of Syrian territory by Turkish forces is no different in law, politics, or morality than the Nazi invasion of Poland, France, the low countries, the Soviet Union, and so on. It is clearly illegal, and an affront to the ‘rules-based international order' to which the United States, Turkey, and other NATO countries so conspicuously and hypocritically profess allegiance. The invasion and occupation have been carried out in defense of Turkey's Al Qaeda proxy, and to advance the interests of Turks and Islamists against the interests of Syrians and secularists. Erdogan is no hero, but a villain, whose hands are as maculated by the blood of Al Qaeda's Syrian victims as are those of his Al Qaeda proxies.
Finally, what are the costs of Al Qaeda's continued rule over millions of Syrians in Idlib? Are they greater than the costs in civilian casualties and displacement of bringing that rule to an end? The US news media have been generally supportive of the immense costs in blood and treasure Washington has incurred to wage its war on Al Qaeda in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yemen. While noting the civilian cost of driving ISIS from its strongholds in Iraq and Syria, the US news media have never denounced the US war on ISIS as a humanitarian horror story, a term it uses to denounce Syria's war on Al Qaeda. Instead, ISIS itself is portrayed as a humanitarian horror story, and efforts to undermine and defeat it are welcomed. This should be true too of Syria's war on Al Qaeda. It is Al Qaeda that is the humanitarian horror story and it is the actions of the Syrian military in undermining and defeating it that ought to be welcomed and met with approbation.
The Syrian military advance to recover Idlib and liberate it from Al Qaeda, a terrorist organization which has imposed a harsh regime of religious intolerance and Islamist despotism on millions of Syrians, has not been welcomed by the US news media. Although the campaign is praiseworthy on multiple levels‐it recovers national territory held by proxies of a foreign aggressor, and aims to liberate millions of people who have been tyrannized by a rule imposed on them by an organization made up of thousands of foreign fighters‐US media, betraying their commitment to US geopolitical agendas, portray the commendable as indefensible. We ought to applaud the actions of the Syrian military, along with those of its Russian and Iranian allies, not deplore them. These actions are blows against reaction, oppression, and foreign aggression, and in defense of democracy on an international level, as well as in the furtherance of the welfare of the Syrian people.
1. Raja Abdulrahim, "'I feel like this is the end': A million fleeing Syrians trapped by Assad's final push," The Wall Street Journal, February 20, 2020.
2. Abdulrahim, February 20, 2020.
3. Abdulrahim, February 20, 2020.
4. Abdulrahim, February 20, 2020.
5. Desmond Butler, "Turkey officials confirm pact with Saudi Arabia to help rebels fighting Syria's Assad," AP, May 7, 2015.
6. Carlotta Gall, "Syrian attacks draw Turkey deeper into Syrian war," The New York Times, February 12, 2020.
7. Sune Engel Rasmussen and James Marson, "Syrian offensive creates new frictions among foreign powers," The Wall Street Journal, February 4, 2018.
8. Robert Fisk, "To unlock the diplomatic mysteries behind the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, take a look at Syria," The Independent, November 22, 2018.
9. Eric Schmitt, "U.S. Officials Warn of Rising Threat From Qaeda Branch in Northwest Syria." The New York Times, September 29, 2019.
10. Kareem Fahim and Sarah Dadouch, "Russian-backed Syrian offensive kills dozens, displaces tens of thousands," The Washington Post, December 25, 2019; Vivian Yee and Hwaida Saad, "Syrian forces move into strategic town, tightening grip on rebels," The New York Times, August 20, 2019; Patrick Cockburn, "Trump says Isis has been defeated, but he is ignoring the bigger and much more worrying picture," The independent, February 8, 2019; Russian Ambassador Vasily Nebenzia, 553rd meeting of the United Nations Security Council, June 18, 2019.
11. Patrick Cockburn, "Trump says Isis has been defeated, but he is ignoring the bigger and much more worrying picture," The independent, February 8, 2019.
12. Mr. Ja'afari (Syrian Arab Republic) United Nations Security Council, 8535th Meeting, May 28, 2019.
13. Kareem Fahim and Sarah Dadouch, "Russian-backed Syrian offensive kills dozens, displaces tens of thousands," The Washington Post, December 25, 2019.
14. Vivian Yee and Hwaida Saad, "Syrian forces move into strategic town, tightening grip on rebels," The New York Times, August 20, 2019.
15. Raja Abdulrahim, "Syrian government captures strategic town in last opposition stronghold," The Wall Street Journal, August 20, 2019.
16. Patrick Cockburn, February 8, 2019.
17. Patrick Cockburn, February 8, 2019.
18. Eric Schmitt, "U.S. Officials Warn of Rising Threat From Qaeda Branch in Northwest Syria." The New York Times, September 29, 2019.
19. Syrian Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari, 553rd meeting of the United Nations Security Council, June 18, 2019.
20. Eric Schmitt, "U.S. Officials Warn of Rising Threat From Qaeda Branch in Northwest Syria." The New York Times, September 29, 2019.
21. Raja Abdulrahim, February 20, 2020.
22. Raja Abdulrahim, February 20, 2020.
23. Vivian Yee and Hwaida Saad, "Syrian forces move into strategic town, tightening grip on rebels," The New York Times, August 20, 2019; Russian Ambassador Vasily Nebenzia, 553rd meeting of the United Nations Security Council, June 18, 2019.
24. David Gauthier-Villars and Nazih Osseiran, "Turkish troop losses mount after clash with Assad forces," The Wall Street Journal, February 10, 2020.
25. Mr. Ja'afari (Syrian Arab Republic) United Nations Security Council, 8535th Meeting, May 28, 2019.
26. Raja Abdulrahim and Nour Alakraa, "Civilian casualties mount as coalition moves to oust ISIS in Raqqa," The Wall Street Journal, June 16, 2017.
Posted by: Herb McCoy ||
02/28/2020
00:00 ||
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#1
Author:
Published by Stephen Gowans, Author of Israel, A Beachhead in the Middle East: From European Colony to US Power Projection Platform (2019); Patriots, Traitors and Empires: The Story of Korea's Struggle for Freedom (2018); and Washington's Long War on Syria (2017.
#2
Read like any other dime-a-dozen Self hating Communist propagandizing for his favored flavor of mass murderer (Arab Fascists aren't his saviors). I hope he got his 30 pieces of Loonies (taxed at 90%) for his effort.
#3
If they wanna fight, let 'em fight. Stay out of it.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
02/28/2020 11:59
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#4
Style Note: isn't thare a "Fair Use Restriction" that requires an article to be presented in abbreviated form to protect Rantburg from legal hassles?
#5
The author is something of a Russophile and apologist for Soviet Communism. Being pro-Russia means anti-Turk in this context. Hard to determine if anything he says is valid, given the jigsaw puzzle of Syria, and trying to determine who's on first...
[IsraelTimes] Two leading Democratic presidential hopefuls said Wednesday that they would not attend the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s (AIPAC) upcoming conference, shrinking the list of potential 2020 Democrats to show up as the pro-Israel lobby tries to maintain its bipartisan identity.
Former South Bend, Indiana mayor Pete Buttigieg ...the testicleless mayor of South Bend, Indiana, since 2012. Buttigieg graduated from Harvard College and, on a Rhodes Scholarship, from Pembroke College, Oxford. From 2007 to 2010, he worked at McKinsey and Company, a consulting firm. From 2009 to 2017 Buttigieg served as an intelligence officer in the United States Navy Reserve, attaining the rank of lieutenant and deploying to Afghanistan in 2014. Buttigieg was first elected mayor of South Bend in 2011 and was reelected in 2015. During his second term, he announced he was gay. Buttigieg also campaigned for Indiana state treasurer in 2010 and for chair of the Democratic National Committee in 2017, losing both elections. He is running for the Dem nomination in 2020 on the theory that being mayor of a nondescript medium sized city is qualification to run the country... and Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar
Continued on Page 49
[THEBAGHDADPOST] The United States on Thursday granted a license to allow for certain humanitarian trade transactions with Iran's sanctioned central bank, a move it said was in step with the formalization of a Swiss humanitarian trade channel.
The newly created channel, which the US Treasury Department said became fully operational on Thursday as it granted the license, would allow for companies to send food, medicine and other critical supplies to Iran.
""The Swiss Humanitarian Trade Arrangement will help ensure that humanitarian goods continue to reach the Iranian people without diversion by the regime," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/28/2020
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#9
The death of Qasem Soleimani only two months ago by a missile fired from hell was terrible.
Soleimani's death by a hellfire was as bad as the death of Jamal Khashoggi in a Saudi consulate.
I pray the coronavirus from hell is not near a bad on Hasan Rouhani as the death of these other two men.
Allah rest his soul.
[THEBAGHDADPOST] Head of al-Wataniya (National) Coalition Ayad Allawi affirmed his determination to pursue the demonstrators' killers and bring them to justice.
Allawi earlier censured those who seek assuming posts regardless protesters’ demands, describing it as dishonorable.
In a Tweet, Allawi said the government should, during the next period, be keen on holding the murderer of protesters accountable and on holding early elections.
Allawi condemned ignoring protesters’ demands and the oppression against protesters for five months.
Days earlier Turks firing MANPADS on Russian jet over Idlib.
"First clear and close up footage of TAF firing Roketsan produced version of Stinger MANPADS in an earlier incident in Qaminas, Syria." (via @aldin_ww ) pic.twitter.com/EyqQpjRprj
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Fortune] The pet dog of a coronavirus patient in Hong Kong has been found to have a "low level" of the virus, the Hong Kong government said early Friday.
[TheAspenBeat] The Democrat leaders and candidates blasted President Trump's response to the Coronavirus outbreak, just as they blast everything else that he does.
[WJZ Baltimore] — Former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh was sentenced Thursday to three years in prison and three years of probation after pleading guilty to multiple charges in the “Healthy Holly” book scandal.
Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has found the best Corona Virusma mask. 
[Babylon Bee] U.S.‐A new study from JAMA Pediatrics found that most millennials choose not to have kids because their parents just can’t afford it right now.
[Epoch Times] As key Wall Street indexes extended their losing streak on Feb. 27, experts pointed to a growing concern among investors that the effects of broken global supply chains due to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) may be greater than previously thought.
[Summit] The Milwaukee man who killed five co-workers at a beer company’s corporate office is a black Elizabeth Warren supporter, providing a clue as to why the mass shooting disappeared from the discussion so quickly.
This is why. Normal questions are out the window. Guns legal, past legal records in so on. MSM racism in full force. 
[Red State] How Dr. Xiangguo Qiu morphed from a medical doctor to a virologist is not known, but she ended up doing leading work at the Canadian lab.
[Epoch Times] Chinese officials in Wuhan and other cities within Hubei Province, where the novel coronavirus outbreak is most severe, reported to their higher-ups in the provincial government that people are not able to secure treatment, running out of supplies amid restrictive lockdown measures, and feeling fearful and anxious about the spreading disease.
[Washington Examiner] The coronavirus outbreak has injected a high level of uncertainty for many businesses who depend on products from China but are clueless as to when they will arrive.
/\ Well said Mike. 
...the Pashtun equivalent of men...
[The New Arab] Iranian cleric Ayatollah Tabrizian has written extensively on violet leaf oil, which he says has miraculous properties.
...the Pashtun equivalent of men...
[NY Post - Page Six] An Arkansas judge has nixed Hunter Biden‘s bid to put off his child support deposition until after most of the key Democratic primaries are over, according to a news report.
[IBT] Earlier last week, reports had suggested that a North Korean trade official was shot dead for leaving coronavirus quarantine to visit a public bath. According to South Korean media, the victim, who had returned to the country after a visit to China, was executed for risking the spread of the deadly virus.
