Source: YouTube
Source: YouTube
Editor’s Note: Protests, rioting and looting across the USA occurred primarily in the following cities: Minneapolis, MN, Los Angeles, CA, New York, NY, Philadelphia, PA, Nashville, TN, San Francisco, CA, Detroit. MI, Portland, OR, Memphis, TN, Chicago, IL, Atlanta, GA, Washington, DC, Madison WI, Denver, CO, Santa Monica, CA, San Diego, CA (Republican), Boston, MA, Miami, FL (Republican), Oklahoma City, OK (Republican), Scottsdale, AZ (Republican), Windemere, FL, Albuquerque, NM, Sioux City, SD (Republican), Fontana, CA (Republican), Columbus, OH, Houston, TX, Phoenix, AZ, Louisville, KY, Davenport, IA, Jacksonville, FL (Republican), St. Louis, MO, Las Vegas, NV, and Oakland, CA. All but the seven noted had Democrat Mayors.
The death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died in police custody after a white officer kneeled on his neck for more than 8 minutes, has sparked widespread violent protests in dozens of American cities.
Floyd, 46, was pronounced dead Monday night after he was pinned to the ground under the knee of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who is white. In a video recorded by a bystander, Floyd is heard saying he could not breathe.
Four police officers – Chauvin, Tomas Lane, Tou Thao, and J. Alexander Kueng – were fired from the force Tuesday. Chauvin was arrested Friday and charged with murder in the third degree.
In the days since his death, unrest in every corner of the country left charred and shattered landscapes in dozens of American cities. Here is a list of some of the cities where protests have erupted:
Minneapolis, Minn.

Police stand watch as a firefighters put out a blaze Saturday, May 30, 2020, in Minneapolis. AP Photo/Julio Cortez (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Minneapolis has been the epicenter of protests since the death on Memorial Day of Floyd after a police officer pressed his knee on Floyd’s neck for several minutes. The protests have spread to cities across the United States.
Peaceful protests broke out a day after Floyd’s death. The demonstrations quickly escalated to outright violence and looting. For several days after, city residents woke up to fires still burning from the violent protests.
The building of the Minneapolis Police’s 3rd Precinct was overtaken by protesters and burned down by the end of the week.
Be Saturday, protesters were seen defying curfew orders issued by Frey as firefighters sought to put out several business fires after the fourth night of unrest. The curfew lasts from 8 p.m. until 6 a.m. and any violation of it could lead to a misdemeanor charge, which entails 90 days in jail and a $1,000 fine.
Gov. Tim Walz, who authorized the “full mobilization” of the state’s National Guard, said it’s the largest civilian deployment in the state’s history. He said it was three times the size of what was in place during the race riots of the 1960s.

Fire burns inside The Family Dollar Store after a night of unrest and protests in the death of George Floyd early Friday, May 29, 2020 in Minneapolis. (David Joles/Star Tribune via AP)
The Pentagon has been ordered to prepare troops to be sent to the Twin Cities, a move said to be rare in nature.
“This is no longer about protesting,” Frey said Saturday. “This is about violence and we need to make sure that it stops.”
After the fifth day of protests, police said early Sunday they succeeded in stopping violent protests that ravaged parts of the city for several days

People clear the area after curfew Saturday, May 30, 2020, in Minneapolis.
(AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Police, state troopers and National Guard members moved in to break up protests after an 8 p.m. curfew took effect, firing tear gas and rubber bullets to clear streets outside the city police’s 5th Precinct and elsewhere. The show of force came after three days where police mostly declined to engage with protesters.
The tougher tactics also came after the state poured in more than 4,000 National Guard members and said the number would soon rise to nearly 11,000. Dozens of people were arrested as of Sunday morning, FOX9 reported.

Police in riot gear prepares to advance on protesters, Saturday, May 30, 2020, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
As Minneapolis streets appeared largely quiet, Corrections Commissioner Paul Schnell said the heavy response would remain as long as it takes to “quell this situation.”
The tougher tactics came after city and state leaders were criticized for not more strongly confronting violent and damaging protests.
Authorities made a new round of arrests on Sunday night as they worked to enforce the curfew, FOX9 reported.
Hours earlier, a semitrailer sped toward a crowd of people protesting on an interstate bridge in a harrowing series of events, forcing the protesters to run for safety.

A tanker truck drives into thousands of protesters marching on 35W north bound highway during a protest against the death in Minneapolis police custody of George Floyd, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S. May 31, 2020. (REUTERS/Eric Miller)
The driver was later identified by the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office as Bogdan Vechirko, according to Fox 9. Police said he’s being held on suspicion of assault.
Los Angeles, Calif.

Los Angeles Police Department commander Cory Palka stands among several destroyed police cars as one explodes while on fire during a protest over the death of George Floyd, Saturday, May 30, 2020, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
Protests in Los Angeles began two days after Floyd’s death, with dozens temporarily blocking Highway 101. The demonstrations turned violent in the days after and lasted through the weekend.
On Saturday morning, police worked to disperse crowds in downtown Los Angeles as multiple businesses were looted. Hundreds were reportedly arrested, and at least five police officers were injured, multiple media outlets reported.
By later in the day, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti imposed a rare citywide curfew and called in the National Guard after demonstrators clashed repeatedly with officers, torched police vehicles, and pillaged businesses in a popular shopping district.
Garcetti said Saturday he asked Gov. Gavin Newsom for 500 to 700 members of the Guard to assist the 10,000 Los Angeles Police Department officers.
Garcetti said the soldiers would be deployed “to support our local response to maintain peace and safety on the streets of our city.”
Firefighters responded to dozens of fires, and scores of businesses were damaged.

A protester holding a sign stands behind the burning trash cans during a protest over the death of George Floyd, a handcuffed black man in police custody in Minneapolis, in Los Angeles, Saturday, May 30, 2020. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)
“If you’re in pain, I feel that pain. If you’re angry, I get it. But this has moved from a being a protest, to vandalism to destruction, and nobody should be out there making a mistake,” Garcetti told FOX11.

A protester shouts in front of a fire during a protest over the death of George Floyd, a handcuffed black man in police custody in Minneapolis, in Los Angeles, Saturday, May 30, 2020. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)
One of the hardest-hit areas was the area around the Grove, a popular high-end outdoor mall west of downtown where hundreds of protesters swarmed the area, showering police with rocks and other objects and vandalizing shops.

Members of California National Guard stand guard in Pershing Square, Sunday, May 31, 2020, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)
A countywide curfew was in effect Sunday night into Monday morning after another day of violence and destruction throughout parts of Los Angeles city and county, FOX11 reported.
The Los Angeles Police Department estimated there were 398 arrests on Saturday night and Sunday morning related to the police protests.

A U.S. National Guard soldier watches over Hollywood Blvd., Sunday, May 31, 2020, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
During a press conference Sunday afternoon, LAPD Chief Michel Moore said at least five officers were injured with two being hospitalized. One officer was hit on the head with a brick and suffered a fractured skull but is expected to recover, according to Moore.
The scale of the destruction in Los Angeles was being compared to the 1992 riots when there was more than $1 billion in property damage. There was no estimate of how many businesses suffered damage since protests began Wednesday, but it was clearly extensive.
New York, N.Y.

In this photo provided by Khadijah, firefighters work to contain the flames from a New York City Police Department van ablaze, Friday, May 29, 2020, in the Brooklyn borough of New York, amid a protest of the death of George Floyd in police custody on Memorial Day in Minneapolis. (Khadijah via AP)
Demonstrators took to New York City streets in protest of Floyd’s death and invoked the names of other black people who died at police hands. Street protests have spiraledinto some of the worst unrest the nation’s largest city has seen in decades.
Fires burned, windows got smashed and dangerous confrontations between demonstrators and officers flared Friday and Saturday amid crowds of thousands decrying police killings.

Protesters march down the street as trash burns in the background during a solidarity rally for George Floyd, Saturday, May 30, 2020, in New York. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)
The names of black people killed by police, including Floyd and Eric Garner, killed on Staten Island in 2014, were on signs carried by those in the crowd, and in their chants.
But as day turned into night, a handful of stores in Manhattan had their windows broken and merchandise stolen.
Officers sprayed crowds with chemicals, and video showed two police cruisers lurching into a crowd of demonstrators on a Brooklyn street, knocking several to the ground, after people attacked it with thrown objects, including something on fire. It was unclear whether anyone was hurt.
On Saturday, President Trump gave an incredibly touching and unifying speech to the nation concerning the death of George Floyd. If you’re wondering why you missed it, the answer is simple:
The media refused to give it much attention. Instead, they decided to focus on the violent riots in the streets.
As a result, the liberal media and celebrities everywhere have accused President Trump of being ‘divisive’ and ‘weak’. Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson even made a viral video this week asking Trump ‘Where are you? Where is our compassionate leader?’
Turns out, President Trump has been incredibly unifying and compassionate, but the social media giants are censoring that content.
On Wednesday, the Trump campaign released a video called ‘Healing, not hatred’ which highlighted President Trump’s unifying remarks about George Floyd on Saturday, but it was promptly removed from the left wing platform.
Their excuse for taking the video down was due to ‘copyright’ reasons, but we all know the real reason it was taken down. In our humble opinion, this video displayed perfect messaging on the part of President Trump, and Twitter couldn’t stand to see it go viral.
“Twitter and Jack are censoring this uplifting and unifying message from President Trump after the George Floyd tragedy. The same speech the media refused to cover. Here is the YouTube link.”
As of right now, the video is still up on YouTube. Watch below and share it with EVERYONE YOU KNOW:
“The death of George Floyd in the streets of Minneapolis was a grave tragedy. It should never have happened. It has filled Americans all over the country with horror, anger, and grief,” Trump says in the video.
“We support the right of peaceful protesters, and we hear their pleas,” added Trump. “I stand before you as a friend and ally to every American seeking justice and peace.”
As you can see, President Trump stood with the PEACEFUL protesters, vowed justice for George Floyd, AND supported our law enforcement!
However, the liberal media has spent all week acting like this speech never happened. They swept it under the rug and they are shielding the truth from the American people.
Source: Trending Politics
The recently appointed Facebook oversight board that will decide which posts get blocked from the world’s most popular social networking website is stacked with leftists, including a close friend of leftwing billionaire George Soros who served on the board of directors of his Open Society Foundations (OSF). Judicial Watch conducted a deep dive into the new panel that will make content rulings for the technology company that was slammed last year with a $5 billion fine for privacy violations. The information uncovered by Judicial Watch shows that the group of 20 is overwhelmingly leftist and likely to restrict conservative views. More than half of the members have ties to Soros, the philanthropist who dedicates huge sums to spreading a radical left agenda that includes targeting conservative politicians. Other Facebook oversight board members have publicly expressed their disdain for President Donald Trump or made political contributions to top Democrats such as Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren. As one New York newspaper editorial determined this month, the new Facebook board is a “recipe for left-wing censorship.”
Among the standouts is András Sajó, the founding Dean of Legal Studies at Soros’ Central European University. Sajó was a judge at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) for nearly a decade. He also served on the board of directors of OSF’s Justice Initiative. Sajó was one of the ECHR judges in an Italian case (Latusi v. Italy) that ruled unanimously that the display of a crucifix in public schools in Italy violates the European Convention on Human Rights. The decision was subsequently overturned. Sajó’s deep ties to Soros are also concerning. Through his OSF Soros funds a multitude of projects worldwide aimed at spreading a leftist agenda by, among other things, destabilizing legitimate governments, erasing national borders and identities, financing civil unrest and orchestrating refugee crises for political gain. Incredibly, there is a financial and staffing nexus between the U.S. government and Soros’ OSF. Read about it in a Judicial Watch special report documenting how Soros advances his leftist agenda at U.S. taxpayer expense.
At least 10 other members of the Facebook oversight board are connected to leftist groups tied to Soros that have benefitted from his generous donations, according to Judicial Watch’s research. Alan Rusbridger, a former British newspaper editor and principal at Oxford University, serves on the board of directors of the Committee to Protect Journalists, which received $750,000 from OSF in 2018. Rusbridger also served as a governor at a global thinktank, Ditchley Foundation, that co-hosted a conference with OSF on change in the Middle East and North Africa as well as understanding political Islam. Afia Asantewaa Sariyev, a human rights attorney, is the program manager at Soros’ Open Society Initiative for West Africa. Her research includes critical race feminism and socio-economic rights of the poor. Sudhir Krishnaswamy, an Indian lawyer and civil society activist, runs a progressive nonprofit called Centre for Law and Policy Research that focuses on transgender rights, gender equality and public health. The group is a grantee of a justice foundation that received $1.4 million from OSF between 2016 and 2018. Krishnaswamy’s Centre also received money from a radical pro-abortion group, Center for Reproductive Rights, generously funded by the OSF.
The list of Facebook judges connected to Soros and the organized left continues. Julie Owono is the executive director of a Paris-based nonprofit, Internet Sans Frontieres, that advocates for privacy and freedom of expression online. In 2018, Internet Sans Frontieres became a member of the Global Network Initiative, an internet oversight and policy consortium handsomely funded by Soros. Nighat Dad is a Pakistani attorney and the founder of the Digital Rights Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in Pakistan that has received $114,000 in grants from OSF. Dad’s group also gets funding from Facebook Ireland. Ronaldo Lemos, a Brazilian law professor, served on the board of directors of the Mozilla Foundation, which collected $350,000 from OSF in 2016 and was also a board member at another group, Access Now, that also got thousands of dollars from Soros. Tawakkol Karman, a journalist and civil rights activist, sits on the advisory board of Transparency International, which gets significant funding from Soros’ OSF.
Rounding out the Soros-affiliated field on the new Facebook censorship board are Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Catalina Botero-Marino and Maina Kiai. Thorning-Schmidt, Denmark’s former prime minister, sits on the board of the European Council of Foreign Relations, which took in more $3.6 million from OSF in 2016 and 2017. She is also a trustee at the International Crisis Group which has collected over $8.2 million from OSF and includes George and Alexander Soros on its board. The former Danish prime minister is also a member of the Atlantic Council’s International Advisory Board, which received approximately $325,000 from OSF in the last few years and the European Advisory Board of the Center for Global Development, which got north of half a million dollars from OSF in 2018. Botero-Marino is the dean of a Colombian law school called Universidad de Los Andes that obtained more than $1.3 million from OSF between 2016 and 2018, the records obtained by Judicial Watch show. Botero-Marino also sits on the panel of experts at Columbia University’s Global Freedom Expression Project, which gets funding from OSF, and she was a board member at Article 19, a group that got about $1.7 million from OSF between 2016 and 2018. Kiai is the director of the Global Alliances and Partnerships at Human Rights Watch, which accepted $275,000 from OSF in 2018. He is also a member of OSF’s Human Rights Initiative advisory board and was the founding executive director of the Kenya Human Rights Commission, which got $615,000 from Soros in the last two years.
Others on the Facebook board have slandered President Trump in social media posts and donated money to high-profile Democrats. Taiwanese communications professor Katherine Chen’s Twitter account includes retweets of numerous anti-Trump and pro-Obama posts and articles. Nicolas Suzor, a law professor in Australia, retweeted a column implicitly comparing Trump to Hitler and Columbia University law professor Jamal Greene has made campaign contributions to Obama, Hillary Clinton and Warren. Pro-Trump impeachment Stanford law professor Pamela Karlan, who took a cheap shot at President Trump’s teenage son during the Brett Kavanaugh impeachment hearings, has also contributed money to Obama, Hillary Clinton and Warren. The new board has only a few token conservatives such as Stanford law professor Michael McConnell, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. The overwhelming majority of those making Facebook’s “final and binding decisions on whether specific content should be allowed or removed,” are leftists. They represent a new model of content moderation that will uphold “freedom of expression within the framework of international norms of human rights.” Facebook’s economic, political or reputational interests will not interfere in the process, the company writes in its introduction to the new board. Eventually the board, which will begin hearing cases later this year, will double in size. “The cases we choose to hear may be contentious, and we will not please everyone with our decisions,” Facebook warns.
Source: Judicial Watch
By David J. Lynch & Emily Rauhala
President Trump on Friday leveled an extraordinary broadside at the Chinese government, accusing it of a comprehensive “pattern of misconduct” and ordering U.S. officials to begin the process of revoking Hong Kong’s special status under U.S. law.
The president did not outline a deadline for the historic action. But if carried out, it would mean that the United States would no longer treat Hong Kong and China as separate entities for the purposes of extradition, customs, trade and visa issues, he said. And the announcement could include sanctions on Hong Kong or Chinese officials.
In Rose Garden remarks, Trump alleged that the Chinese government covered up the coronavirus outbreak and instigated “a global pandemic that has cost more than 100,000 American lives and over 1 million lives worldwide.” The president also attacked the World Health Organization as effectively controlled by Beijing.
“We will today be terminating our relationship” with the WHO, the president said, adding that the organization’s more than $400 million annual U.S. contribution will be diverted to other health groups.
The president later issued a proclamation to protect sensitive American university research from Chinese spying and to bar an unspecified number of Chinese nationals from entering the United States for graduate study. He also directed an administration working group headed by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to evaluate Chinese corporations listed on U.S. financial markets as potential targets of future restrictions.
The moves seemed certain to intensify growing U.S.-China tensions , though investors on Friday took them in stride.
The president’s comments were as notable for what he did not say. There was no mention of his irritation with China’s failure to quickly increase purchases of American goods as required by the trade deal he signed in January. He also made no direct reference to Chinese President Xi Jinping, even as he said “the world is now suffering as a result of the malfeasance of the Chinese government.”
In one sign of Trump’s increased fury with the world’s second-largest economy, on Friday morning he tweeted simply: “CHINA!”
His formal Friday announcement — while long on harsh rhetoric — was short on details. The president reiterated some familiar grievances, blaming the Chinese for stealing American trade secrets and jobs and assailing his predecessors for allegedly letting them get away with it.
He expanded his indictment of the Chinese government to include its program of island construction in the South China Sea, a national security concern he rarely addresses.
“The Chinese government has continually violated its promises to us and so many nations,” he said.
Trump also stopped short of taking concrete action against the U.S.-listed Chinese companies he said posed “hidden and undue risks” for American investors. The Securities and Exchange Commission and other regulators have complained for years about China’s refusal to grant access to their companies’ audit records.
As of last year, 156 Chinese companies — including 11 with significant government ownership — traded on U.S. markets, according to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a nonpartisan congressional body.
After Trump’s remarks, Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) suggested the president was trying to use China to distract from the pandemic and battered economy.
“President Trump’s Rose Garden event just now was pathetic,” he said. “It perfectly encapsulates his inability to lead when our nation needs it most. The only question is whether President Trump is afraid to lead or just doesn’t know how.”
Trump’s announcement followed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s statement earlier this week that Hong Kong was no longer sufficiently autonomous from mainland China to deserve separate treatment. Under the 1997 handover agreement with the United Kingdom, China agreed to preserve the former British colony’s democratic system for 50 years. Xi’s decision to impose security legislation on Hong Kong directly rather than by working through the territory’s local legislature may mark the collapse of that “one country, two systems” approach.
Some advocates of a tougher U.S. approach to China were disappointed by the president’s 10-minute statement.
“They didn’t do anything with regard to Hong Kong. His Hong Kong comments could have been issued as a statement a week ago,” said Derek Scissors, a China specialist at the American Enterprise Institute. “The administration has absolutely considered specific actions since the NPC proposal was made public but decided not to announce a single one.”
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Caught in the middle of the deepening U.S.-China dispute are more than 1,350 U.S. corporations with offices in Hong Kong. The erosion of the city’s freedoms, including an independent judiciary, threatens to turn one of the global economy’s financial centers into just another Chinese city and calls into question the rationale for such a sizable commercial presence there.
The Chinese National People’s Congress, the country’s rubber-stamp legislature, on Thursday approved a plan to impose national security legislation in Hong Kong. The move was denounced in a joint statement by the United States, Canada, Australia and United Kingdom as in “direct conflict” with China’s promises in 1997 when it regained sovereignty over the former British colony.
“The United States may well have to do something the market doesn’t like in light of its longer-term interests,” said Patrick Chovanec, economic adviser for Silvercrest Asset Management in New York. “But there is concern about whether the U.S. is in a spiral of escalation with China on several fronts.”
The president’s visa move targets Chinese graduate students in the United States who have worked, studied, or been employed by entities linked to China’s efforts to “acquire or divert” technology for the People’s Liberation Army.
It is not immediately clear how many of the 350,000 Chinese students in the United States will be affected. And the announcement is expected to draw strong pushback from U.S. universities; some are heavily reliant on the full-fee tuition payments from Chinese students.
Over a 10-year period, the People’s Liberation Army dispatched 2,500 scientists and engineers to study overseas, focusing on democracies like the United States, according to a 2018 report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank.
In January, the FBI arrested a 29-year-old Boston University student, accusing her of failing to disclose on her visa application that she was a lieutenant in the PLA.
Friday’s action represents only the administration’s latest slap at Beijing. The president earlier this month pushed a federal retirement pension board to abandon plans to invest in Chinese securities. And the Commerce Department tightened limits on Chinese telecom giant Huawei’s ability to purchase American computer chips.
Just four months after Trump celebrated a partial trade deal with China, marking an apparent truce in a two-year diplomatic conflict, relations between the two countries have plummeted. The president has been openly displeased with China’s failure to quickly fulfill the trade deal’s terms, including massive additional purchases of American crops, energy products and manufactured goods.
“Frankly the U.S. government is — I’ll use the word furious with what China has done in recent days, weeks and months. They have not behaved well and they have lost the trust I think of the whole Western world,” Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council, said Friday on Fox News.
Lawmakers in both parties also are increasingly impatient with Beijing, and the president failed to address some issues of concern on Capitol Hill. He made no reference, for example, to new legislation that requires him to impose sanctions on Chinese officials implicated in human rights violations in the Muslim-majority province of Xinjiang.
Trump’s decision to “terminate” the United States’ relationship with the World Health Organization comes after repeated threats to act.
Of the $893 million the United States sent in the 2018 and 2019 funding period, $237 million was an “assessed contribution” — a type of membership fee that may prove hard to cut without congressional approval.
At greater risk is what’s known as the “voluntary contribution,” that is money provided to U.S. agencies for health efforts and then given to WHO programs. The largest share of this money goes to polio eradication, with large chunks to fight vaccine preventable disease, malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and the provision of basic health care.
The prospect of cutting U.S. funding for public health issues like polio in the middle of the pandemic drew immediate fire. Patrice Harris, president of the American Medical Association, said the action “serves no logical purpose and makes finding a way out of this public health crisis dramatically more challenging.”
Source: Washington Post
By Mari Groff
If you find yourself scratching your head at recent Washington COVID-19 headlines, don’t worry, you are not alone.
Last week, the Attorney General of Washington sued two gym owners for remaining open, threatening severe penalties. That was the day after four more Washington casinos reopened. You still can’t get a haircut here, but you can buy pot. Crowded parking lots at Home Depot are a common occurrence, but if you participate in a religious service in a church parking lot, you cannot open your windows or get out of the car. A cashier at McDonald’s drive thru can hand you a burger, but a priest may not hand you a bag of communion bread and grape juice. You can shop for a new shirt inside Target, but small local clothing shops cannot let you in without violating the law.
Some people are confused; some are getting angry.
Looking south to Oregon, a judge last week found coronavirus restrictions “null and void” only to be halted by the Oregon Supreme Court hours later. A different result occurred in Wisconsin where their state Supreme Court struck down its stay-at-home order.
In North Carolina, a federal judge ruled the governor’s coronavirus restrictions violate religious expression. In Minnesota, the governor’s May 13 order allowed the giant Mall of America to re-open, but restricted religious gatherings to 10 or fewer.
This past weekend President Trump reentered the fray, demanding that governors allow places of faith to open right now. The next day, Minnesota’s governor changed course. U.S. Attorney General Barr says, “There is no ‘pandemic exception’ to the U.S. Constitution.”
What is going on?
Fundamentally, governors are pushing the limits of their “emergency powers.”
For the last two months, governors have wielded king-like authority, controlling our day-to-day lives in ways previously unimaginable, at times, in seeming violation of the U.S. Constitution.
They have forbid us from peaceably assembling (what about the First Amendment?), we can’t gather for religious services (First Amendment?), we can’t freely travel (Privileges and Immunities Clause, Fifth Amendment?), we can’t operate our businesses (Fifth and 14th Amendments?).
Can governors really infringe upon our civil liberties in times of trouble? What is the source of these emergency powers? And what are the limits?
First, the source: You may remember from high school civics that ours is a system of limited federal government. The federal government does not have a police power; state governments do. It’s the police power that allows states the ability to regulate in the interest of the health and safety of citizens — which of course, is what governors are doing with their proclamations, orders and directives keeping us home, closing businesses, and schools to slow the spread of COVID-19.
Specifically, here in Washington, Gov. Inslee is purporting to act under RCW 38.08, Powers and Duties of Governor, 38.52, Emergency Management, and 43.06, State of Emergency Powers (but maybe it should be RCW 70.26, Pandemic Influenza Preparedness, time will tell.)
There are several lawsuits pending against the governor, including suits by public school parents, state legislators, and small business owners. And last Friday, two more suits were filed by local folks right here in town.
The governor’s emergency powers are vast, but not without limits.
The most obvious limit is that emergency powers last only for the duration of the “emergency.”
Who decides when the “emergency” ends? Here in Washington, the governor. Are Chelan and Douglas counties in a state of emergency right now? Gov. Inslee says yes.
What criteria is he using to make that decision? Well, that’s a moving target: Most recently it was having an average of less than 10 new coronavirus cases per 100,000 in a county over 2 weeks’ time, but the governor’s spokeswoman recently said additional criteria could be announced this week.
Here is another limit: the Constitution forbids arbitrary government action. Government action — even governor “directives” issued using those broad emergency powers — must, at a bare minimum, be rationally related to a legitimate public interest.
Government action that affects First Amendment rights must meet an even higher standard, which makes sense given the importance of such rights.
Remember back in March? The “legitimate public interest” given for the shut-down was “flatten the curve!” Preventing the health care system from becoming overwhelmed was a legitimate public interest at the time, given what medical professionals were projecting about COVID-19 mortality and transmission rates.
But that was months ago. We have learned more about COVID-19 since then. Just last week the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lowered its estimates for future coronavirus infections and deaths. Testing shows that many have had COVID-19 and produced antibodies while never experiencing symptoms. Our health care system here in Wenatchee is not overwhelmed. Our state just sent 400 more ventilators back East because we do not have the shortage we anticipated.
The rationale that initially justified shutting down our whole state is now, with more information and changed circumstances, called into question.
Yes to Target, no to local clothing shop; yes to Home Depot, no to church; yes to marijuana, no to gyms: things are starting to look arbitrary.
If governors’ directives restrict some, but not others, using changing criteria we can no longer understand, and under circumstances that no longer look like the original “emergency,” the constitutionality of those directives is called into question.
At this point, governors’ use of emergency powers is undermining the checks and balances in our federal and state government. It’s time to call our state legislature into special session. We need more local, representative voices at the table to lead us through the coming phases of COVID-19.
Source: Wenatchie World
Editor’s Note: An Associated Press article by Michael Biesecker and Jason Dearen that includes a description of the 600-physician letter is headlined “GOP fronts ‘pro-Trump’ doctors to prescribe rapid reopening,” which has led to criticism of Gold and her colleagues on social media. However, as the article acknowledges in the text, “Gold denied she was coordinating her efforts with Trump’s reelection campaign.” Gold echoed those comments to us, saying, “This was 100% physician grassroots. There was 0% GOP.”
More than 600 of the nation’s physicians sent a letter to President Trump this week calling the coronavirus shutdowns a “mass casualty incident” with “exponentially growing negative health consequences” to millions of non COVID patients.
“The downstream health effects…are being massively under-estimated and under-reported. This is an order of magnitude error,” according to the letter initiated by Simone Gold, M.D., an emergency medicine specialist in Los Angeles.
“Suicide hotline phone calls have increased 600%,” the letter said. Other silent casualties: “150,000 Americans per month who would have had new cancer detected through routine screening.”
From missed cancer diagnoses to untreated heart attacks and strokes to increased risks of suicides, “We are alarmed at what appears to be a lack of consideration for the future health of our patients.”
Patients fearful of visiting hospitals and doctors’ offices are dying because COVID-phobia is keeping them from seeking care. One patient died at home of a heart attack rather than go to an emergency room. The number of severe heart attacks being treated in nine U.S hospitals surveyed dropped by nearly 40% since March. Cardiologists are worried “a second wave of deaths” indirectly caused by the virus is likely.
The physicians’ letter focuses on the impact on Americans’ physical and mental health. “The millions of casualties of a continued shutdown will be hiding in plain sight, but they will be called alcoholism, homelessness, suicide, heart attack, stroke, or kidney failure. In youths it will be called financial instability, unemployment, despair, drug addiction, unplanned pregnancies, poverty, and abuse.
“It is impossible to overstate the short, medium, and long-term harm to people’s health with a continued shutdown,” the letter says. “Losing a job is one of life’s most stressful events, and the effect on a person’s health is not lessened because it also has happened to 30 million [now 38 million] other people. Keeping schools and universities closed is incalculably detrimental for children, teenagers, and young adults for decades to come.”
While all 50 states are relaxing lockdowns to some extent, some local officials are threatening to keep stay-at-home orders in place until August. Many schools and universities say they may remain closed for the remainder of 2020.
“Ending the lockdowns are not about Wall Street or disregard for people’s lives; it about saving lives,” said Dr. Marilyn Singleton, a California anesthesiologist and one of the signers of the letter. “We cannot let this disease change the U.S. from a free, energetic society to a society of broken souls dependent on government handouts.” She blogs about the huge damage the virus reaction is doing to the fabric of society.
Dr. Jane Orient, executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, also warns that restrictions are having a huge negative impact on non-COVID patients.
“Even patients who do get admitted to hospital, say for a heart problem, are prisoners. No one can be with them. Visitation at a rare single-story hospital was through closed outside window, talking via telephone,” she wrote us. “To get permission to go to the window you have to make an appointment (only one group of two per day!), put on a mask, get your temperature taken, and get a visitor’s badge of the proper color of the day.”
How many cases of COVID-19 are prevented by these practices? “Zero,” Dr. Orient says. But the “ loss of patient morale, loss of oversight of care, especially at night are incalculable.”
Virtually all hospitals halted “elective” procedures to make beds available for what was expected to be a flood of COVID-19 patients. Beds stayed empty, causing harm to patients and resulting in enormous financial distress to hospitals, especially those with limited reserves.
Even states like New York that have had tough lockdowns are starting to allow elective hospital procedures in some regions. But it’s more like turning up a dimmer switch. In Pennsylvania, the chair of the Geisinger Heart Institute, Dr. Alfred Casale, said the opening will be slow while the facility is reconfigured for COVID-19 social distancing and enhanced hygiene.
Will patients come back? COVID-phobia is deathly real.
Patients still are fearful about going to hospitals for heart attacks and even for broken bones and deep lacerations. Despite heroic efforts by physicians to deeply sanitize their offices, millions have cancelled appointments and are missing infusion therapies and even chemotherapy treatments. This deferred care is expected to lead to patients who are sicker when they do come in for care and more deaths from patients not receiving care for stroke, heart attacks, etc.
She waited almost a week before going to the hospital where doctors discovered she had a brain bleed that had gone untreated. She had multiple strokes and died. “This is something that most of the time we’re able to prevent,” said her neurosurgeon, Dr. Abhineet Chowdhary, director of the Overlake Neuroscience Institute in Bellevue, Wash.
As the number of deaths from the virus begin to decline, we are likely to awaken to this new wave of casualties the 600 physicians are warning about. We should be listening to the doctors, and heed their advice immediately.
Source: Forbes & Associated Press

The number of U.S. citizens filing for unemployment increased to 38.6 million since March 18, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Over the same two months, the wealth of U.S. billionaires has surged $434 billion – an increase of 15 percent.
The combined fortunes of Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg alone grew by nearly $60 billion during these two months, according to a new analysis, jointly released by Americans for Tax Fairness and the Institute for Policy Studies, which released Billionaire Bonanza 2020 in April to examine billionaire wealth during the first month of the pandemic.
Between March 18 and May 19, the total net worth of the 600-plus U.S. billionaires rose from $2.948 trillion to $3.382 trillion. In March, there were 614 billionaires on the Forbes list. There are 630 two months later, including newcomer Kanye West at $1.3 billion.
Among other COVID-19 victims are the more than 16 million Americans who have likely lost employer-provided healthcare coverage. Low-wage workers, people of color and women have suffered disproportionately in the combined medical and economic crises. Billionaires are overwhelmingly white men.

Wealth growth of other select billionaires in the top 30 on the Forbes May 19 list are below.

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Sources: All data analyzed by ATF and IPS is from Forbes and available here.
March 18, 2020, data is from the Forbes World’s Billionaires List: The Richest in 2020.
May 19, 2020 data was taken from Forbes real-time estimates of worth that day.

Between March 18 and May 14, 2020, over 36 million U.S. workers lost their jobs, with 2.98 million claims in today’s announcement. Over these same eight weeks, U.S. billionaires saw their wealth increase by $368.8 billion, a 12.51 percent increase.
On March 18th, U.S. billionaires had a combined $2.947 trillion, down from $3.111 trillion a year earlier, according to Forbes annual global billionaire survey. As of May 14, total U.S. billionaire wealth has increased to $3.316 trillion. In the last eight weeks, 14 new billionaires joined the U.S. billionaire list, which increased from 614 to 628.
Even with a decline in markets, Elon Musk’s wealth increased $3.5 billion in the last week, since May 6. Jeff Bezos’ wealth increased by $900 million and Eric Yuan saw his wealth increase by $800 million. Mike Bloomberg saw his wealth increase by $400 million.
Between March 18, when Forbes published their 2020 annual Global Billionaire Survey, and the morning of Thursday, May 14, these billionaires have seen their wealth surge:
Read more about IPS’s methodology in our report and in this fact check by USA Today.

Between March 18 and April 30, 2020, over 30 million U.S. workers lost their jobs. Over these same weeks, U.S. billionaires saw their wealth increase $406 billion, an increase in 13.8 percent increase.
On March 18th, U.S. billionaires had a combined $2.947 trillion, down from $3.111 trillion a year earlier, according to Forbes annual global billionaire issue.
As of April 29, total U.S. billionaire wealth had increased to $3.353 trillion. This is a boost of $406.2 billion, a 13.78 percent increase in six weeks.
Between April 22 and April 29, billionaire wealth increased $98.1 billion, a 3 percent increase.
Our Billionaire Bonanza 2020 report has struck a nerve around the world with over 200 media stories in U.S. and global press. See the full report, Billionaire Bonanza 2020: Wealth Windfalls, Tumbling Taxes, and Pandemic Profiteers
Highlights of coverage include: Reuters, Newsweek, New York Post, The New York Times, Washington Post, Fox News, Investing.com, Nasdaq, GQ, US News & World Report, Fortune, The Week, Business Insider , Futurism, Bill Moyers.com, LA Progressive. In These Times, Yahoo Finance, Gizmondo, and GQ Magazine, and Jacobin.
Several feature pieces include:
Fast Company, “American Billionaires Have Gotten $280 billion richer since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic,”
Capital & Main: “Tale of Two Pandemics: The Rich Are Getting Richer”
Sunday Guardian (UK): “Heads we win, tails you lose; America’s rich have turned pandemic into profit.”
Business Insider did four different stories, including: “9 mind-blowing facts about America’s richest people”.
New Republic, “Billionaires Are Eating the Economy,” May 7, 2020
We were fact-checked as true by USA Today, which resulted in one of the best stories about our methodology. See: USA Today: Molly Stellino, “Fact Check: The super rich did indeed get richer in early weeks of coronavirus pandemic,” May 7, 2020.
Billionaire Bonanza made a splash in the sports reporting world, including this story in Football Times, “Arsenal owner Stan Kroenke’s wealth increases by £323m as players take wage cut”, May 6, 2020. James Benge wrote, “ The wealth of Arsenal owner Stan Kroenke has increased by over £300million since the start of 2020, a study by a leading American think tank has revealed.”
Sample of international coverage: Straits Times (Singapore) Observador (Portugal), Daily Mail (Australia), Regina Leader Post (Saskatchewa, Canada), Sunday Times(South Africa) “Corona boost for richest in the U.S.” International Business Times. La Jornada (Mexico), Publico (Spain),
Our own commentaries appeared in CNN and The Guardian. An op-ed by report co-authors, Omar Ocampo and Chuck Collins, “Rich Getting Richer Despite Pandemic,” has been syndicated in over 60 U.S. newspapers by the Tribune News Service/ Progressive Media Project, including in Houma Today (LA), Daily Comet (Lafayette, LA), Tyler Paper (TX) The Derrick (Oil City, PA), Bozeman Daily Chronicle (MT).
Source: Inequality
This article is just a quick run-down of the Top Twelve Lies.
1. People dropping dead in the streets.
Guardian January

Metro January 31st

The Sun January 31st

This is how the media portrayed COVID-19 at the beginning: a disease so dangerous that people walking along the street suddenly dropped down dead. Virtually all the UK media carried these photos. It’s very odd that in the first two pictures, and variants of them in other papers, those emergency workers have no equipment with them, and appear to be just standing around doing nothing. Are these faked photos? There have been no reports of people dropping dead in the street anywhere since then. And if it had been true in China, the virus would have been noticed very quickly. We now know that the symptoms are indistinguishable from colds, flu or pneumonia. These photos were the start of the Coronapanic lies.
2. Three Percent Will Die.
The WHO put out this 3% death rate figure early on. You don’t need to be a maths wizard to know that’s one person in thirty. That’s a serious reason to panic. We now know that the death rate is around 0.1%. That’s about one in a thousand, and comparable to seasonal flu. But just as important, the figures are massively skewed towards people around eighty who have at least two existing serious conditions, and are already in a care home: people who have minimal quality of life, and little remaining expectation of life. For younger, healthy people, and younger here can mean under seventy, never mind twenty or thirty, the risk of death is vanishingly small.
3, Herd Immunity is a Dangerous Idea.
This is one of the most serious corruptions of science ever. You don’t need a degree in Epidemiology to know that epidemics come and go. The very definition of the word implies that. (Conversely, a disease which stays around for many years is called endemic.) You do need to know just a smidgen of Epidemiology to understand why epidemics come and go. It’s not rocket science. When the new disease arrives, everybody is susceptible to it, because it is new and therefore nobody has any immunity. The disease can race through the population, but as it does so it leaves immune people in its wake. As the number of immune people grows, the disease finds it harder and harder to spread. When the number of immune people reaches a certain point (which varies with different diseases) the bug can find no new people to infect, so the bug itself effectively dies. That point is called herd immunity. It is the only way to defeat a new virus. But see number 4.
4. We Need a Vaccine to Give us Herd Immunity.
Vaccines work by creating artificial herd immunity, but that’s no better than natural herd immunity. And the simple fact is, as everyone knows, we don’t have a vaccine. How long will it take to make one, test it properly, and roll it out? Eighteen months? Three years? Never? In any event, even if we use a vaccine before proper safety testing, it will still take longer than it does to reach herd immunity naturally. (And note that the Common Cold is also often caused by some other Coronaviruses. Still no sign of a vaccine for any of those.)
5 Lockdowns Work.
The evidence here is very, very weak. It is common sense that they must have some effect. But we have New York, with a hard lockdown and massive deaths, while Tokyo with a minimal lockdown has hardly any. Or Sweden with a very mild lockdown having a lower death rate than Britain with a draconian one. Or Spain and Portugal, which together make up the Iberian Peninsula, having massively different death rates. There is another factor, or factors, involved here, and the mass media seem to have no concern as to what they might be. Happily there are some scientists who do seek to explain the differences. Several factors have been put forward with good evidence:
One could tease out many other factors, but not one comes close to the Grand Deal-Breaker in Epidemiology, which is immunity. Immunity is the principal reason people do not get sick with any disease. Hence the primary factor in differential death rates must be how long different countries had the virus before they realised. As the infection travelled through populations, confused with colds and flu, it was steadily building immunity. China has a truly miniscule number of deaths given its huge population. The virus there was on the rampage right through Winter Flu Season, before they realised there was something new. When they did, they locked down, and the lockdown appeared to be very effective; but only because they were already close to herd immunity. The countries surrounding China, which have a great deal of intercourse with it, have similarly low death rates (Vietnam, nobody at all!) How and when the virus got into other countries is difficult to unravel now; but one should be aware that Wuhan Airport is a major hub, with flights all over the World. We can reasonably infer that Norway, for example, was infected early, yielding the much lower recorded deaths later. Such a conclusion is borne out by the fact that, having now eased its lockdown, cases are still going down. In other words, there is no sign of a “Second Wave”. After a tight and effective lockdown preventing transmission, and also therefore preventing the growth of immunity, there should indeed be a second wave. The lack of one points very strongly to previously acquired immunity. (In all of this New York remains the ultimate outlier, and I’m no more prepared to attempt a complete explanation of NY statistics at this stage than anybody else.)
6. Lockdown Does Not Cause More Deaths than it Saves.
The leaked figure of 150,000 lockdown-caused deaths has never been refuted by the UK Government. It is only common sense that with the NHS shut down to almost everyone, there will be more deaths from other causes. Also more suicides, more domestic violence, and the array of problems that increase mortality when poverty increases. The economic crash is going to have a big effect there. And do we regard the suicide of a healthy 20-year-old as equivalent to the death of an ailing 85-year old? Lockdown is not a One-Way Street when it comes to saving lives; more likely a Wrong-Way Street.
7. Being Infected May Not (or Does Not) Make You Immune.
This is a truly bizarre assumption to make about any specific infection. (Note that the Common Cold, which is endemic, is caused by a number of different viruses.) This “fact” was allegedly based on some people who seemed to be infected twice. But the extreme difficulty of distinguishing between Colds, Flu, Covid19 and Pneumonia means this was always a ridiculous conclusion to reach. And if it were true it would be a one shot kill of the “Race for a Vaccine.” Vaccines only work because they stimulate the immune system in the way a natural infection does. If Covid19 did not provoke a normal immune response, any vaccine would be useless.
8. Having Covid Means Having Serious Symptoms.
In the beginning of this sorry saga, the most serious symptom, as noted in Lie 1 above, was instant death. Now we know that it mostly has no symptoms at all, or presents like a Common Cold. All the World’s highly-paid and endlessly-promoted “experts” somehow didn’t notice this.
9. Masks Work.
If they do, why can’t we all wear them and get back to normal? If they don’t, why are we ever recommended to use them? The effectiveness or otherwise of masks has been a controversial matter for months. Some Doctors have said that healthy people wearing them outside of a clinical setting is definitely a bad idea. Is the mask controversy just another way to ramp up fear and confusion?
10. Two Meter Social Distancing is Necessary.
There is no good science behind this. In Norway, with its incredibly low death rate, they use one metre. And there is never a reference to whether you are indoors or out. If you breathe out virus indoors, it has little choice but to hang around in the room for a while. If you are outside in fairly still air, which has a speed of about 2 metres per second, the virus you breathed out 2 seconds ago is already 4 metres away. And because the air you breathe out is always warmer than the surrounding air, and warm air rises, that potentially virus-laden air will rise up outside with no ceiling to stop it. So two metres is not necessary in Norway, but it is in England, whether you are in a small room or on a breezy beach. Is this fear-mongering nonsense, or science? It is certainly not the latter.
11. Money has Nothing to do with Any of This.
The influence and mega-bucks of Bill Gates and Big Pharma is supposedly not skewing the debate. Bill Gates’s donations to Prof Lockdown Ferguson’s Imperial College, or to the WHO, make no difference, and Bill Gates’s desire to produce seven billion doses of vaccine does not give him a financial interest. Bill Gates is a nice guy who knows a lot about computer viruses, so we should all look to him as our Saviour from this virus. I fancy there’s more logic in Alice in Wonderland.
12. The Destruction of Basic Human Rights is a Price Worth Paying.
People being under virtual House Arrest, with Freedom of Movement, Freedom of Association, Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Work, Freedom to attend School, all curtailed, is OK? The introduction of mass personal surveillance is a good thing? If a foreign invader threatened our Rights like that we would fight for them, and accept casualties in the process. Why are we suddenly turning that logic on its head, and deciding to give up Rights to (possibly) save lives? Do we all fondly imagine that we will soon have our Rights back? History shows that Rights are generally hard won, and once lost they are very hard to get back. And if you think you still have Freedom of Speech, try as I and others have, to put across a view that is different to the Government. Yes, you can get it across to a few. But if it reaches many more, Google, or YouTube, or Facebook will soon censor it. If you are reading this article, it is because you are one of a small number, meaning the article is still below the censor’s radar, or the popularity level that triggers censorship.
In those wonderful days before Covid19, we all knew that Politicians, Journalists and Salesmen are inveterate Purveyors of Porky Pies. Now these same people are regarded as Saints and Saviours, with absolutely nothing but our best interests and well-being in their hearts. It is a fact, meaning a real one, not a fake one, that I can think of no topic ever that has had so many utterly bizarre lies told about it. It is also a fact that I cannot think of any matter where politicians around the World all suddenly started braying like donkeys with the same awful hoo-ha. And also a fact that I cannot think of any occurrence which has simultaneously destroyed human rights and wrecked the economy across the entire Globe. Is it not odd that all of those three extreme observations should apply to the very same little virus? If anyone can’t see a problem here, it can only be that Coronapanic has totally obliterated their thought processes.
Source: The Lockdown
As the COVID-19 crisis continues to drift on, western governments are looking for more excuses to extend what is now known to be a disastrous lockdown policy. One of the hooks which politicians and health officials like Dr. Anthony Fauci continue to dangle in front of the public is the promise of a “cure” for the Coronavirus, or more specifically – a vaccine. The sheer scale of the corruption between industry and government is difficult to fathom. Masterminding the public campaign for a Coronavirus vaccine ‘panacea’ is billionaire Bill Gates and his funding machine, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, who are now partnering with Big Pharma to roll-out a global vaccine program for 7 billion people worldwide. This incessant rush to market means that this new ‘miracle vaccine’ will not go through the normal research, development and safety procedures. With such a well-connected and well-financed corporate and ideological cartel now in control of western governments, there’s a very real danger of unprecedented corruption on a global level – a clear and present danger to the health and well being of many millions.
Source: 21 Century Wire