News and Headlines: In The News, Politics, World News, Commentary/Opinion.
In The News:
Son of Santa Ana daycare operator charged with molesting girls at facility
Jesus Herrera of Santa Ana was charged with two felony counts of oral copulation or sexual penetration on a child 10 years or younger after he was arrested Tuesday, according to court records.
One of the two girls, a 12-year-old, reported to police that she was sexually assaulted by Herrera when she was 7 years old, Santa Ana police said.
At the time, the girl was being cared for by Herrera’s mother in her home day care.
Police had arrested Herrera last year after investigating similar allegations from a victim who is now 19 years old, police said.
That victim said that Herrera sexually assaulted her when she was 10 years old and also in the care of the man’s mother.
No charges were filed at the time in that case, court records show.
Virginia declares state of emergency over coronavirus
Gov. Ralph Northam (D) announced the state of emergency on Thursday as the number of coronavirus cases rose to 17 in Virginia.
“Our top priority is to make sure Virginians stay safe and healthy, and that our response to this situation leaves no one behind,” the governor said in a statement.
Northam’s announcement comes one day after Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) announced a state of emergency for the city, allowing the mayor to implement quarantines and cancellation of events and gatherings.
National Communication Association shuts down conservative talk, professor says
Professor Richard Vatz, a professor of communication for more than four decades, said that the National Communication Association is now led by far-left scholars and is guilty of suppressing center-right discussion.
“My national organization, the National Communication Association, has a profound liberal dominance which slightly ebbs and flows in ideological anti-conservative domination with its leadership – it is now in a decidedly ‘flow’ period,” Vatz told The College Fix.
To back up his claim, Vatz points to many examples in a lengthy op-ed published in early February by the Daily Caller.
Trump to defer April 15 deadline for some taxpayers
In an address from the Oval Office, Trump said he would use his emergency authority to allow individual taxpayers ad businesses to defer paying their taxes by next month’s deadline if they have suffered adverse effects from the spreading virus.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told Congress earlier Wednesday that the payment delay would have the effect of putting more than $200 billion back into the economy that would otherwise go to paying taxes next month.
He did not indicate what the new deadline would be.
St. Louis man guilty in 2017 killing of woman whose body was found in Illinois landfill
Authorities said Stepter shot Morrison in the head, killing her in his home in the 6100 block of Laura Avenue, before dumping her corpse in a bin nearby.
Police tracked the trash collection route to a landfill in Marissa, about 30 miles southeast of St. Louis, where police found her body a few days later.
Jurors on Wednesday acquitted Stepter of abandoning Morrison’s body and evidence tampering.
Prosecutors said witnesses reported hearing gunshots from the basement and later seeing Williams’ vehicle parked behind the house with its trunk open. Witnesses also said they saw Stepter with a gun earlier that day.
New York Times’ Mara Gay blames “racist Twitter mob” for criticism of her major math blunder on MSNBC
But despite most of the criticism being focused on math, Gay is claiming that “it wasn’t really about math.”
In an opinion piece published in The New York Times, Gay wrote: “When you’re a black woman in America with a public voice, a trivial math error can lead to a deluge of hate.”
She added that: “Across social media, right wing trolls celebrated. And some journalists did too. Most of them were men who are prolific on Twitter.”
In a tweet about the opinion piece, Gay also blamed “a racist Twitter mob” for the criticism of her math error.
Fed announces massive cash injection to relieve U.S. debt market
The announcement that more than $1.5 trillion will be pumped into the banking system over the next two days comes as the Treasury market has shown signs of strain.
Interest rates on U.S. government debt recently plunged to record lows, as investors poured money into safe assets, but now trading in that market is not flowing smoothly.
“These changes are being made to address highly unusual disruptions in Treasury financing markets associated with the coronavirus outbreak,” the New York Fed said in its announcement.
Brown University Advisory Committee Recommends Endorsing BDS
Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
The Advisory Committee on Corporate Responsibility in Investment Policies (ACCRIP), which met on Tuesday, cited criteria in the recently released UN Human Rights Council’s database of 112 companies that do business in Israeli neighborhoods in the West Bank.
These activities include supplying “equipment and materials facilitating the construction and the expansion of settlements and the [security] wall,” supplying “equipment for the demolition of housing and property” and providing “security services, equipment and materials to enterprises operating in settlements.”
In December, ACCRIP voted in favor of supporting the BDS movement that works to boycott Israel.
ICE: Undocumented immigrant, deported twice before, caught raping woman under stairwell
The first patrol officer to arrive on the scene stated he witnessed the man, later identified as Jose Lopez-Gonzalez, 35, raping the woman.
The outdoor, metal stairwell was in plain view of the sidewalk and street and located between a dollar store and a Mexican restaurant.
“Lopez-Gonzalez was on the top of [the victim] who was naked from the waist down,” police wrote in court documents filed late last week in Montgomery County District Court.
“[The officer] advised that he initially yelled at Lopez-Gonzalez to get off [the victim] but that he had to physically pull him off her because he was still engaging in sexual intercourse.”
Trump: Coronavirus is a world problem and we need separation
President Trump speaks to reporters in the Oval Office amid growing concerns on coronavirus.
Pence joins ‘Fox & Friends’ to detail Trump’s Europe travel ban
Vice President Mike Pence says there will be thousands more US cases but majority won’t be serious.
Pence discusses what’s being done to prevent community spread at home.
Chelsea Manning Is Recovering After An Attempted Suicide
This news comes two days shy of a hearing to rule on dismissing civil contempt sanctions against Manning.
The sanctions came after Manning refused to testify in May 2019 in front of a grand jury investigating.
Manning was being investigated for leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks and Julian Assange in 2010.
Alexandria Sheriff Dana Lawhorne confirmed the suicide attempt in a statement to Refinery29, saying, “There was an incident at approximately 12:11pm today at the Alexandria Adult Detention Centre involving inmate Chelsea Manning.”
Ohio court weighs whether doctors can be charged for abortions targeting Down syndrome
(Scott Olson/Getty Images)
The law, “Ohio Down syndrome Non-Discrimination Act,” has been on hold since it was enacted, and a federal judge and three-judge panel previously ruled that the law is likely unconstitutional.
The ACLU of Ohio argues the law is unconstitutional and attempts to take “the ultimate decision” on abortion away from the woman.
The law prohibits doctors from performing an abortion if they’re aware that the unborn-child in question has been diagnosed with Down syndrome and that reality, or the possibility thereof, is influencing the decision of the mother.
Here’s What It’s Like to Have and Recover From Coronavirus
Wanting to shed light on the issue, recovered coronavirus patient, 48-year-old Hyun Park, has opened up about what it was like to have the disease.
He shared his experience in a series of Facebook posts, urging others to be more vigilant.
“This might be my last post for a while as I still need to focus on recovering my body damaged by coronavirus and side effects of the medicine,” he began his most recent post.
Park warned that he still contracted the coronavirus even though he lived a healthy lifestyle. He exercised in a gym five times a week, washed his hands frequently, and even “overused” hand sanitizer.
He also lived in a coronavirus-free area. Because of this, he was lax in taking precautions and called himself “stupidly overconfident.”
Some People Are Rushing to Buy “Survival Condos” Amid Coronavirus Fears
Everyone has their own way of getting through an outbreak: some go out and mass-purchase toilet rolls, hand sanitizers, or antibacterial wipes; while others drop big bucks on a survival condominium out in the middle of nowhere.
It goes without saying that the latter option is only available to those with means, and shows a direct link to how some wealthier groups of the population believe bunkering down — quite literally — is the only way to survive a mass health outbreak.
There’s an interesting pattern to notice here among those who can afford such shelters.
Coronavirus in NY: Passenger on JetBlue flight from JFK tests positive
Flight 253, with 114 passengers and crew aboard, landed at Palm Beach International Airport shortly before 9 p.m. Wednesday but remained on the tarmac for about three hours, according to WPTV.
One of the passengers told the station that a man near him was taken to the back of the aircraft.
“He was wearing masks and gloves. His wife was sitting in the same row as me and mentioned to others that he wasn’t feeling well,” Scott Rodman said.
An NBA player mocked coronavirus — days later, he tested positive and caused the entire NBA season to be suspended
Wednesday night, the entire NBA season was suspended indefinitely — because Gobert had tested positive for coronavirus.
The Jazz were ready to play in Oklahoma City against the Thunder on Wednesday night, but just before tip-off, officials convened and the players were escorted back to the locker room.
After a delay, during which event organizers moved the halftime show pre-game in order to stall, the PA announcer told everyone the game had been postponed, and assured everyone in the arena that they were safe — but didn’t tell them what was going on.
Pentagon announces 60-day coronavirus travel restrictions
The travel restrictions will begin Friday according to a statement from the Pentagon.
The order bars all military and civilian DoD employees to suspend movement in areas designated by the CDC as “Travel Health Notice Level 3” designated areas – those which have “widespread sustained transmission” – for the 60 days.
The Pentagon order has also suspended all official travel for family members of military service members and civilian DoD employees to CDC “Travel Health Notice Level 2” designated areas – those with “sustained community-level transmission” – for the same 60-day period.
DoD components are also asked to consider what travel is mission-essential in areas below CDC Level 3 and defer all non-mission essential travel.
Ilhan Omar announces marriage to Tim Mynett in Instagram post
Rep. Ilhan Omar shared some personal news Wednesday night: She’s a new bride.
The Minnesota Democrat posted on Instagram a photo of herself and her former political consultant, Tim Mynett.
Word of a romance between Omar and Mynett became more than just talk last August when Mynett’s then-wife, Beth Mynett, 55, filed for divorce from her 38-year-old husband.
Coronavirus can remain in air for 3 hours, live on plastic for days, new study says
The research, published in the medRxiv depository, also notes that the virus can remain on copper surfaces for four hours and carboard for up to 24 hours.
The research found it could stay on stainless steel and plastic for anywhere between two and three days.
“Our results indicate that aerosol and fomite transmission of HCoV-19 is plausible, as the virus can remain viable in aerosols for multiple hours and on surfaces up to days,” the researchers wrote in the study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed.
Another study published in February concluded that if COVID-19 is similar to other coronaviruses, such as SARS or MERS, it could live on surfaces like metal, glass and plastic for up to nine days, Fox News previously reported.
By comparison, the flu virus can only live on surfaces for approximately 48 hours.
Politics:
Gabbard: Partisanship is getting in the way of protecting Americans
Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard weighs in on federal and local responses to the coronavirus pandemic.
Tom Cotton: Coronavirus Outbreak Is ‘Moment of Reckoning’ Between U.S. and China
“We are now largely dependent on China having outsourced so much of our pharmaceutical manufacturing for basic pharmaceutical ingredients, like Tylenol or Advil,” Cotton stated.
“They feel empowered to threaten our people if we hurt their feelings, if we extend the travel ban.
So we have to have the immediate response to the Wuhan coronavirus, but this is a moment of reckoning in which we will have a far-reaching reevaluation of our relationship with China.”
China could effectively shut down America’s healthcare system within months given the one-party state’s “global chokehold” on the manufacturing of medicines and medical supplies, explained Rosemary Gibson, author of China Rx: Exposing the Risks of America’s Dependence on China for Medicine, to Breitbart News in February.
Attitudes towards China among politicians, particularly Republicans, are changing as a result of President Donald Trump, determined Cotton.
House Democrats reject GOP amendment adding antifa to domestic terrorism prevention bill
“These are reasonable, measured policies to help focus the federal government’s resources on the threats that continue to terrorize and kill Americans,” said Chairman Jerry Nadler, according to the Washington Times.
Rep. Ken Buck, a Republican, called the bill “one-sided” as he introduced an amendment that would add antifa and other far-left extremist groups to the bill.
Buck introduced an amendment that listed more than 80 incidents of violence tied to antifa and other left-wing extremists and warned Democrats the Republican-controlled Senate would not pass the domestic terrorism bill without his amendment attached.
US should pass legislation, enact sanctions to address forced labor violations in Xinjiang: report
Lawmakers should pass legislation addressing forced labor violations in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), and Washington should sanction Chinese businesses and officials complicit in those abuses, a U.S. congressional advisory panel said in a report, released Wednesday.
The CECC said that forced labor exists both within the XUAR’s vast network of internment camps, where authorities are believed to have held up to 1.8 million ethnic Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities since April 2017, as well as throughout the region, and called for “a concerted response from the U.S. Government and the international community.”
A report last week by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute said that tens of thousands of detainees in the XUAR have been transferred to factories throughout China, where they are forced to produce goods for at least 83 global retailers, including Apple, BMW, The Gap, Nike, Samsung, Sony, and Volkswagen.
McConnell delays Senate recess amid coronavirus crisis and FISA deadline
“Notwithstanding the scheduled state work period, the Senate will be in session next week,” the GOP leader tweeted.
“I am glad talks are ongoing between the Administration and Speaker Pelosi. I hope Congress can pass bipartisan legislation to continue combating the coronavirus and keep our economy strong.”
Keeping the Senate in session also gives senators more time to reach an agreement to renew expiring provisions in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which are set to expire March 15.
IfNotNow Endorses Bernie Sanders for President
The anti-Israel group IfNotNow has endorsed Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) for president, announced the presidential candidate’s campaign on Wednesday.
“IfNotNow is building an inspiring movement of young Jews working to promote peace in the Middle East,” said Sanders in a statement.
The Sanders campaign released an ad on Wednesday featuring the endorsement by IfNotNow.
Why Islamophobia Was Invented & Opposing Ilhan Omar (Pt.2)| Dalia al-Aqidi | POLITICS | Rubin Report
Commentary/Opinion:
Dave Rubin of The Rubin Report talks to Dalia al-Aqidi (Journalist, Republican Candidate) about why she is challenging Rep Ilhan Omar for her congressional seat in the fifth district of Minnesota.
Dalia is a Muslim refugee who grew up in Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Daila describes why the term islamophobia is deployed as a tactic to silence critics.
She describes how she is immune to Ilhan Omar’s identity politics because she is also a Muslim immigrant.
Because of this she has the ability to ask Omar about her connections to Recep Tayyip Erdogan the President of Turkey, as well as CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood.
She also details some of the absurd lies of Ilhan Omar such as the time she voted against a Somali aid package, but then praised the bill in a press conference after the vote.
GOP senator rips Biden in Op-Ed: ‘He’s on China’s side – not yours’
(Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
“And Joe Biden? Well, he’s on China’s side – not yours,” Cotton begins his roughly 800-word essay in “The National Review.”
“Despite the occasional box-checking, wishy-washy comment slapping Beijing on the wrist for the worst of its abuses, the reality is that the former vice president’s support of the People’s Republic of China is deep and longstanding,” continues Cotton, an Afghanistan and Iraq wars veteran.
“Wherever a brake might have been applied – by placing human-rights or labor conditions on most-favored-nation status, for example – Biden voted the measures down and lobbied other senators for Beijing.
Unfortunately, China and Biden got their way, and American workers are still suffering from it,” writes Cotton.
AOC urges universal income, ‘Medicare-for-all’ as part of coronavirus response
The tweet was an apparent effort to suggest that these measures are not only policies that progressives like, but that could help limit the hardship Americans suffer during emergencies.
Ocasio-Cortez, who endorsed Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders for president, has supported “Medicare-for-all;” introduced legislation to make it harder for landlords to evict unlawful tenants; thanked former presidential candidate Andrew Yang for bringing the debate about a universal basic income (UBI) into the mainstream; and has blasted President Trump for a plan to add work requirements to SNAP (food stamps).
On Tuesday night, she talked about the need to pursue “decarceral” policies – i.e. criminal justice reform – on an Instagram Live video.
Tucker Carlson: Racist for saying ‘Chinese coronavirus’? Now’s not the time for the dumbest identity politics
Commentary/Opinion:
To be clear, this is a virus that spreads twice as easily as the flu and is likely to be at least 10 times deadlier. It’s not something to take lightly.
The country needs a clear plan to protect its people. Decisive action in China and South Korea appears to have kept the virus somewhat under control in those countries and saved lives.
One of the reasons that Americans may have missed the significance of this virus is because unfortunately, it came enmeshed with politics.
On television, talking heads have wasted hours upon valuable hours yammering not about the virus and its potential victims, but how it is racist to tie the coronavirus to China, where it came from.
And yet ingrained habits are hard to break, and among our professional class, no habit is more deeply ingrained than seeing the world through the lens of race, which they do.
When Congressman Kevin McCarthy tweeted information about the Chinese coronavirus, Ilhan Omar responded this way: “Viruses don’t have nationalities. This is racist.”
World News:
Israel mobilizes to combat coronavirus; Iran rejects nuclear inspections – TV7 Israel News 12.03.20
1) Israel is stepping up its efforts to limit the spread of the coronavirus, as the contagion continues to plague the Jewish State, with over 100 cases confirmed since this morning.
2) The World Health Organization declares the coronavirus to be “a global pandemic”, prompting a call on the international community to redouble efforts to contain the widespread outbreak.
3) The International Atomic Energy Agency condemns the Islamic Republic of Iran over Tehran’s persisting refusal to allow access to suspicious – potentially undeclared nuclear – installations.
Iranian-backed militia launched deadly rocket attack on US troops, top US general says
(DoD photo by Army Staff Sgt. Nicole Mejia)
Marine Corps Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie, Jr., commander of U.S. Central Command, told Senate lawmakers on Thursday morning that Iranian-backed Iraqi militants are responsible for the rocket attack that killed two Americans and one Brit on Wednesday.
“The Iranian proxy group Kata’eb Hezbollah is the only group known to have previously conducted an indirect fire attack of this scale against U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq,” Gen. Kenneth McKenzie said.
Kata’eb Hezbollah is the same militia group responsible for the retaliatory attacks on U.S. troops in January, just days after a U.S. airstrike killed Iran’s Quds Force General Qassem Soleimani.
Russian Constitutional Amendments Spark Protests, Police Detentions
Earlier, a coordinator with the opposition organization Open Russia, Sergei Kuzin, another member of the group, Larisa Kucherova, and municipal lawmaker Vasily Kunin, were held by police as they tried to leave their apartments.
In the Urals city of Yekaterinburg, police detained the local leader of the opposition Yabloko party, Sergei Khorenzhenko, as well as activists Sergei Tiunov and Yelena Pary while they were protesting in the city center.
OVD-Info, a group that monitors protests and arrests in Russia, said one activist, Sergei Ryabov, was detained in front of the Tula city parliament.
EU to give migrants €2,000 to go home from Greece
This month, hundreds of migrants and refugees have reached Greek islands near Turkey by boat, increasing the pressure on struggling reception centres.
The camps on those islands already have more than 37,000 asylum seekers, though they were designed for about 6,000.
Ms Johansson said seven EU member states had agreed to take in at least 1,600 unaccompanied children from the camps, seen as especially vulnerable.
Inside China’s high-stakes campaign to smear the United States over coronavirus
Commentary/Opinion:
If you listened to Chinese state-run media, you’d think President Trump went to China and released vials of COVID-19 on groups of unsuspecting men, women and children.
Beijing has been bending over backward trying to convince the world that the United States is the real culprit behind the quickly spreading virus that’s already claimed more than 4,600 lives across the globe.
It’s a high-stakes strategy for the Asian nation fighting to keep its superpower status amid a national lockdown and palpable anger over claims that Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the coronavirus, at first covered it up, triggering a worldwide health and economic crisis.
At best, China’s aggressive new campaign can be chalked up to ambitious propaganda.
At its worst, it’s a reckless display from a country that has actively misled the world while working overtime to save its own skin, foreign affairs expert Gordon G. Chang told Fox News.
Iraq base attack: Strikes ‘kill 25’ Iran-backed fighters after troops killed
It was not clear who conducted the strikes. The coalition did not comment.
But it followed a rocket attack on the Taji military base in Iraq that killed a British soldier and two Americans.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported that three aircraft targeted Popular Mobilisation camps in the al-Hassian area and the Imam Ali military base, which is believed to have been built by Iran.
The UK-based monitoring group said all of those killed in the strikes were Iraqis, and that weapons and ammunition stores were also destroyed.
Commentary/Opinion:
Take a Stand Against Coronavirus Hysteria – Dan Bongino
In this episode, I address the latest key takeaways from the coronavirus outbreak.
I also address the hysterical, ridiculous media coverage of the issue.
Finally, I address the latest explosive revelations in the Spygate case, which are damning for the plotters.
Socialist Destructionism
Not only would Socialism fail to make economic life more rational, it would abolish social cooperation outright.
That it would bring justice is merely an arbitrary assertion, arising, as we can show, from resentment and the false interpretation of what takes place under Capitalism.
In fact Socialism is not in the least what it pretends to be. It is not the pioneer of a better and finer world, but the spoiler of what thousands of years of civilization have created.
It does not build; it destroys. For destruction is the essence of it.