Friday, February 28, 2020

Pence tells 'Hannity' risk of coronavirus spread in US 'remains low' thanks to Trump's 'decisive action'



Vice President Mike Pence told Fox News' Sean Hannity in an exclusive interview Thursday that "the risk of the spread of coronavirus in the United States of America remains low" and credited what he called "decisive action" by President Trump earlier this year.
"We continue to prepare for whatever may come, but the reality is that because of the actions that President Trump took ... literally, you know, ending travel, closing our borders to people coming in from China, establishing a quarantine process, setting up a task force," Pence said. "I mean if the president hadn’t taken those unprecedented steps we’d be in a very different place today, Sean."
At a news conference Wednesday, Trump announced that Pence was in charge of coordinating the federal government's response to the outbreak, nearly one month after Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar declared the coronavirus to be a public health emergency on Jan. 31.
"When we first received word of the outbreak of the coronavirus shortly after the first of the year, " Pence recounted. "The -- the health team came in. I was there in the Oval Office, and they said to the president, 'Look ... what we ought to do is we ought to end air travel, we ought to close our border and we ought to establish a quarantining process for any American citizens that we allow back in.'
"And they said, 'No president has ever done this before, but we’re recommending out of an abundance of caution that you do it.' And President Trump didn’t hesitate for one second. He said, 'Do it.' ... our health experts told me again yesterday when we huddled right after that [Wednesday] press briefing for the first time -- they said we would be in a very different place today if President Trump hadn’t taken the decisive action that we had.
"And today, we haven’t had a new case for the last two weeks until the word that reached the public in the last 24 hours," Pence added. "We’ve had 15 cases in this country. People are being treated and -- and doing well."
Pence also said the White House is hopeful that Republicans and Democrats will put politics aside to deal with the outbreak, saying that both parties can do what the American people want them to do on the issue.
"We continue to hope that we’ll see, not just Republicans, but Democrats dial down the rhetoric and -- and come alongside the president as we work the problem. That’s going to be our objective," Pence told host Sean Hannity. "We have an opportunity to do exactly what the American people want us to do and -- and that is [to] keep the politics out of this, follow the facts, follow the science and work the problem."
The vice president said Trump asked him to reach out to Democratic leaders in Congress, particularly House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. about efforts to counter the in an effort to "push politics aside." Pence told Hannity he had "good conversations" with both leaders.
"Look, the President said to me, 'Look I want you to reach out to the Republican and Democrat leadership,'" Pence said, "Because we want to push politics aside, we want to make sure we get the resources that we need to respond to this to make sure that the CDC, all of our agencies, have the support that they need."
CLICK HERE FOR COMPLETE  CORONAVIRUS COVERAGE
Pelosi criticized the White House’s emergency planning as “inadequate" Monday while Schumer said the administration's response was "towering and dangerous incompetence" on the Senate floor Tuesday.
At Wednesday's press briefing, Trump accused Pelosi and Schumer of politicizing the coronavirus issue, calling Pelosi "incompetent" and accusing her of trying to cause panic.
The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told a congressional subcommittee on Wednesday that the risk of contracting the coronavirus in the United States remains low, but warned that the country will most likely see more cases as the outbreak spreads globally.
Fox News' Andrew O'Reilly contributed to this report.

Thursday, February 27, 2020

Labor Union Cartoons





Labor union unveils $150M campaign to help defeat Trump

President Donald Trump with members of the president's coronavirus task force speaks during a news conference at the Brady press briefing room of the White House, Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

WASHINGTON (AP) — One of the nation’s largest labor unions is unveiling plans to invest $150 million in a nationwide campaign to help defeat President Donald Trump, a sweeping effort focused on eight battleground states and voters of color who typically don’t vote.
The investment marks the largest voter engagement and turnout operation in the history of the Service Employees International Union, which claims nearly 2 million members. The scope of the campaign, which quietly launched last month and will run through November’s general election, reflects the urgency of what union president Mary Kay Henry calls “a make-or-break” moment for working people in America under Trump’s leadership.
“He’s systematically unwinding and attacking unions. Federal workers rights have been totally eviscerated under his watch,” Henry said in an interview. “We are on fire about the rules being rigged against us and needing to elect people that are going to stand with workers.”
The union’s campaign will span 40 states and target 6 million voters focused largely in Colorado, Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin, according to details of the plan shared with The Associated Press. The union and its local members will pay particular attention to two key urban battlegrounds they believe will play a defining role in the 2020 general election: Detroit and Milwaukee. There may be some television advertising, but the investment will focus primarily on direct contact and online advertising targeting minority men and women who typically don’t vote.
Few groups of voters will be more important in the 2020 general election. Trump won the presidency four years ago largely because of his popularity with working-class whites and a drop-off in turnout from minority voters.
The union’s political director, Maria Peralta, noted that Trump’s campaign has been working effectively in recent months to win over some minority voters, particularly men, who have traditionally voted Democratic.
“He’s going after our communities in ways that are pervasive. We’re deeply aware of that,” Peralta said. “They’re talking about the strength of the economy.”
The Service Employees International Union, like the Democratic Party and its allies across the nation, faces significant headwinds in its fight to deny Trump a second term. Voters who may dislike his overall job performance are generally pleased with his leadership on the economy, and unemployment for black Americans has hit record lows in recent months.
At the same time, Trump’s campaign is far ahead of where it was four years ago, when it had little national organization.
On Wednesday, the Trump campaign announced plans to open 15 “Black Voices for Trump Community Centers” in battleground states and major cities, including Michigan and Wisconsin. The offices will feature a line of campaign swag adopting the “woke” label, and videos of prominent Trump surrogates like online stars Diamond and Silk explaining their support for the president and pamphlets outlining the president’s record.
SEIU is the most diverse union in the United States. The union’s membership features those who work in health care, food service, janitorial services and state and local government workers, among others. Half its members are people of color, and more than half make less than $15 an hour.
The 2020 investment is designed to benefit Democrats up and down the ballot this fall, though defeating Trump stands as a primary goal.
That said, SEIU’s political team has determined that a message simply attacking Trump isn’t effective with its target audience, which includes a significant number of conservatives.
“We don’t want to get too caught up in the Trump bashing,” Peralta said. “Data shows people care about wages, and they care about health care across the board.”
The union also determined that it’s particularly effective to highlight Trump’s work to weaken labor unions and conditions for working-class Americans.
After campaigning for a higher minimum wage, Trump has done little to raise the federal minimum wage, which has been stuck at $7.25 for more than a decade. His administration has also taken steps to make it harder for new groups of workers to form unions. And labor officials have decried his appointments to the National Labor Relations Board and the Supreme Court, which dealt a huge blow to labor in 2018 by ruling that government workers no longer could be required to pay union fees.
When asked, Henry had little to say about the specific Democratic presidential contenders fighting for the chance to take on Trump. SEIU may endorse a candidate in the coming months, she said, but it has decided to stay out of the messy nomination fight for now.
“We’re trying to figure out, inside our union as we walk through Super Tuesday and through March, what do working people and our members think about the choice in the field,” Henry said.

Baltimore ex-mayor releases apology video ahead of Thursday sentencing: ‘I really messed up’


Catherine Pugh, a former mayor of Baltimore who is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday following her conviction on federal tax evasion and conspiracy charges, apologizes for her crimes in a 13-minute video that went public Wednesday.
“I accept responsibility,” Pugh says in the video, among the public materials being reviewed the judge who will determine her punishment, according to Baltimore’s FOX 45.
“I accept total responsibility. I pled guilty and I’m sorry. I don’t know any other words that could be strong. I am so sorry,” Pugh says.
“I accept total responsibility. I pled guilty and I’m sorry. I don’t know any other words that could be strong. I am so sorry.” 
— Catherine Pugh, former Baltimore mayor
The former mayor, who will turn 70 on March 10, resigned last May after taking an indefinite leave of absence a month earlier, claiming health problems, as pressure mounted on her following allegations that she profited from questionable sales of large quantities of the “Healthy Holly” children’s books she authored.
She was ultimately indicted last November on 11 counts of charges that included tax evasion, conspiracy and fraud, and pleaded guilty to four charges the following day.
The collapse of Pugh’s mayoralty was another black eye for Baltimore, a crime- and poverty-plagued city that saw a previous mayor, Sheila Dixon, resign in 2010 after her conviction on embezzling gift cards intended for poor people.
Dixon later tried to regain the mayor’s office after completing her probation but was defeated by Pugh in the city’s 2016 Democratic primary. The mayor who served between Dixon and Pugh – Stephanie Rawlings-Blake -- decided not to seek re-election in 2016, following a tumultuous term that included criticism for her handling of riots in the city in reaction to the death of Freddie Gray, a black man who died while in police custody.
According to authorities, Pugh received $500,000 from the University of Maryland Medical System, where she was a board member, for 100,000 copies of her books, but there was no contract, and the system described some of the purchases as “grants" in federal filings. She returned her most recent $100,000 payment and described the deal as a “regrettable mistake.”
Health care provider Kaiser Permanente also disclosed that it had paid Pugh's Healthy Holly LLC about $114,000 between 2015 and 2018 for about 20,000 copies of her books. Pugh oversaw Baltimore's spending board in 2017, when the city awarded a $48 million contract to the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan for the Mid-Atlantic States Inc.
“I messed up. I really messed up,” Pugh says in the video, according to The Baltimore Sun.
“I messed up. I really messed up.”
— Catherine Pugh, former Baltimore mayor
The video also includes biographical details about Pugh, as well as statements from others who defend Pugh’s character. Among them are the late U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, who made his remarks at Pugh’s mayoral inauguration. (Cummings died last October at age 68.)
Prosecutors have recommended a sentence of five years in prison for Pugh, according to FOX 45.
Fox News’ Barnini Chakraborty contributed to this story.

Hillary Clinton took more cash from Harvey Weinstein than any other Democrat


WASHINGTON — Hillary Clinton raked-in more cash from convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein than any other politician despite brushing off his donations by claiming he gave money to “every” Democrat.
Federal Election Commission filings show the disgraced movie mogul bundled $1.4 million for Clinton during her presidential bid in 2016 and handed her another $73,390 dating back to her 1999 New York Senate seat run.
On Tuesday, the former first lady defended her long relationship with the sex creep, quickly deflecting scrutiny from reporters by noting that Weinstein also raised funds for Barack Obama, John Kerry and Al Gore during their presidential bids.
“He contributed to every Democrat’s campaign,” Clinton said at screening of her new film “Hillary” at the Berlin Film Festival on Tuesday, one day after Weinstein, 67, was found guilty on rape charges.
“He contributed to Barack Obama’s campaign, and John Kerry’s campaign and Al Gore’s campaign and everybody’s campaign,” Clinton added.
“He contributed to every Democrat’s campaign. He contributed to Barack Obama’s campaign, and John Kerry’s campaign and Al Gore’s campaign and everybody’s campaign.” 
— Hillary Clinton
The Miramax founder raised $72,100 for Obama but only bundled $679,000 for his 2012 reelection bid — half of what he raised for Clinton, the FEC data shows.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, bundlers are “people with friends in high places who, after bumping against personal contribution limits, turn to those friends, associates, and, well, anyone who’s willing to give, and deliver the checks to the candidate.”
The generous donor also made five-figure contributions to Democrat lawmakers such as Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand, who replaced Clinton as the junior senator for New York, and Chuck Schumer, Cory Booker of New Jersey, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Patrick Leahy of Vermont.
Booker pocketed $17,800, Schumer $14,200, Gillibrand $11,000, Leahy $5,600 and Blumenthal $5,400.
The Democratic National Committee also received $305,149 from Weinstein dating back to 1994. In total, the disgraced movie producer contributed more than $2.3 million to Democrat coffers.

Federal Election Commission filings show Harvey Weinstein bundled $1.4 million for Hillary Clinton during her presidential bid in 2016 and handed her another $73,390 dating back to her 1999 U.S. Senate run in New York.

Federal Election Commission filings show Harvey Weinstein bundled $1.4 million for Hillary Clinton during her presidential bid in 2016 and handed her another $73,390 dating back to her 1999 U.S. Senate run in New York.
Facing huge blowback after sexual assault allegations emerged against Weinstein in 2017, Democrats vowed to repay the contributions to women’s charities.
Spokespersons for Schumer and Booker on Wednesday confirmed they had repaid their Weinstein contributions to women’s charities, Booker choosing to give his to the New Jersey Coalition Against Sexual Violence.
In 2017, Gillibrand announced she was giving the $11,500 she accepted from Weinstein to RAINN, the nation’s largest anti-sexual-violence group.
Blumenthal and Leahy also repaid the cash to women’s charities, their spokespeople said. The DNC committed to donating $30,000 to political action groups including pro-choice Emily’s List.
In an interview with CNN in 2017, Clinton said it wasn’t possible to give back all of the money Weinstein donated but would instead contribute $13,000 to a woman’s organization.
Spokespeople for John Kerry and Barack Obama could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.
In recent days, Weinstein’s ties to billionaire presidential wannabe Mike Bloomberg have also been thrust into the spotlight — the convicted rapist recording a robocall endorsing Bloomberg during his 2005 mayoral bid.
A Bloomberg spokesman downplayed the relationship, saying Weinstein for known for raising “tens of millions of dollars for 9/11 responders” years before “the truth” about his predatory behavior was known.

Coronavirus infects woman in Japan for the second time, a first in the country

A man wearing a mask visits a beach as snow-capped Mount Fuji is visible in the distance in Fujisawa, Japan, Thursday, Feb. 27, 2020. According to local businesses in the area, the number of visitors has dropped significantly since the outbreak of COVID-19. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

A woman in Japan tested positive for the coronavirus for the second time on Wednesday, as the country grips with 190 cases separate from the Diamond Princess cruise ship outbreak, according to multiple reports.
The tour bus guide in her 40s first tested positive in late January and was released from the hospital after recovering. She was readmitted after having a sore throat and chest pains, according to the local government.
It's a first known case of a second positive test in Japan, which prompted Health Minister Katsunobu Kato to inform Japan's central government of the need to review previous patient lists and monitor the condition of those previously discharged, according to Reuters.
CORONAVIRUS PROMPTS SAUDI ARABIA TO LIMIT TRAVEL TO HOLY SITES -- MONTHS AHEAD OF HAJJ PILGRIMAGE
“Once you have the infection, it could remain dormant and with minimal symptoms, and then you can get an exacerbation if it finds its way into the lungs,” said Philip Tierno Jr., professor of microbiology and pathology at NYU School of Medicine, according to the news organization.
The virus can reportedly spread without symptoms showing up, which forces officials to play catch up and makes it far more difficult to manage.
Health officials analyzed the implications of a patient testing positive after having an initial recovery. Second positive tests have been reported in China.
“I’m not certain that this is not bi-phasic, like anthrax,” Tierno Jr. said in regards to the disease being able to go away before reappearing.
RESPIRATORY MASK SUPPLY AT NEW YORK CITY HOSPITAL DWINDLED AMID CORONAVIRUS SCARE, REPORT SAYS
With the 2020 Summer Olympic games scheduled in July, Toyko has urged large gatherings of people to be stopped or limited over the next two weeks to contain the virus, according to Reuters.
“The Olympics should be postponed if this continues ... There are many people who don’t understand how easy it is to spread this infection from one person to another," Tierno Jr. said.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE CORONAVIRUS COVERAGE
Another death was also reported in northern Hokkaido, which brings the total killed by the virus in Japan to eight. Four have died from the 704 cruise ship cases.

Wednesday, February 26, 2020

Ilhan Omar Brother Cartoons







Israeli foreign minister slams Sanders ‘horrifying comment’


JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s foreign minister denounced Democratic front-runner Bernie Sanders on Wednesday for what he called his “horrifying comment” about Jerusalem, saying that those who support Israel would not back Sanders’ presidential candidacy after such remarks.
At a contentious Democratic debate on Tuesday night in South Carolina, Sanders labeled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “reactionary racist” and said he’d consider reversing President Donald Trump’s historic move of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem and return it to Tel Aviv.
In a daring foray into American domestic politics, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said there was a not a Jew in the world who “hasn’t dreamed of Jerusalem” and Sanders words were so severe that he had no choice but to retort.
“We don’t intervene in the internal American electoral process, which is splendid,” Katz told Israel’s Army Radio, before noting that Sanders had a long history of attacking Israel and the things most sacred to its identity and national security.
“Naturally, people who support Israel will not support someone who goes against these things,” he added.
Sanders’ comments at the debate came after he recently announced he would skip an appearance before the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC, which he called a “platform for bigotry.”
He’s also called for cutting back American foreign aid to Israel and redirecting it to the Palestinians instead. Sanders, who if elected would become America’s first Jewish president, doubled down Tuesday saying: “What you cannot ignore is the suffering of the Palestinian people.”
Sanders prefaced his remarks by saying he was “very proud of being Jewish,” and noted how he had volunteered in the 1960s on a socialist Israeli kibbutz, where he honed his leftist leanings. But his harsh criticism of modern-day Israeli policies, and embrace of supporters who have called to boycott Israel and been accused on anti-Semitism, has raised great concerns in the Jewish state about his surging candidacy.
Sanders has firmly established himself in the lead after scoring primary and caucus victories in the first three nominating states: Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada.
Yair Lapid, a leading opposition figure who aims to replace Katz as foreign minister after next week’s Israeli election, said in a recent TV interview that he was “very worried” about Sanders’ rise because of his “lack of understanding of our unique situation in the Middle East.”
The majority of American Jews vote Democrat and have been very critical of the Trump presidency.
But in Israel, Trump has been warmly embraced by Netanyahu and his allies, which has contributed to undermining the traditional bi-partisan support for Israel in the United States.
Even so, Trump has remained very popular in Israel for backing it in a hostile region and delivering it a string of diplomatic achievements. Last month, Trump unveiled his much-anticipated Mideast plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It sided with Israel on most of its core demands and granted it sovereignty over large parts of the West Bank that the Palestinians seek for a future state.
Previously, Trump reversed decades of American foreign policy by recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moving it’s embassy there.
Michael Bloomberg, another Jewish candidate seeking the Democratic nomination, said at Tuesday’s debate that it was too late to reverse the embassy move and people should instead focus on advancing a two-state solution.

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