News and Headlines: In The News, Politics, World News, Commentary/Opinion. Scroll through or to the section you’re interested in.
In The News:
‘Is my dad alive?’: Outrage as deaths mount at veterans home
Kenney’s father and 69 others who served their country have died after contracting the virus at the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home in what has become the deadliest known outbreak at a long-term care facility in the U.S.
As state and federal officials investigate what went wrong, outrage is building among family members and workers who say leadership failed to protect the veterans and allowed the virus to spread unchecked.
“We sounded the alarm. The state knew… and nobody wanted to listen to us,” said Joe Ramirez, another staffer who contracted the virus himself.
“Unfortunately this virus hits and now they are looking into it,” said Ramirez, vice president of the union that represents many of the facility’s workers.
Skid Row’s Homeless Are Asked What They Know About Coronavirus
Fox News contributor and Author of “Taken For Granted” Gianno Caldwell talked to Los Angeles ‘Skid Row’ homeless population to find out if they have been properly informed on the threat of coronavirus.
US Customs and Border Protection announces launch of border wall webpage
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced the public launch of a border wall system webpage that features construction video and an interactive map.
The border wall system webpage will give the American people a first-hand look at its construction and the border wall system’s impact on our national security.
The border wall system is a critical tool for Border Patrol agents—it helps slow or stop those who attempt to illegally cross into the United States, giving our agents time to respond and make an arrest.
The border wall system’s effectiveness also goes beyond the barrier itself, to include the roads, lighting, and technology that help our agents secure the border.
(PICS) Man opens fire at Cuban Embassy in DC – arrested and motives unclear
The incident took place at approximately 2 a.m. EST when the suspect parked outside the embassy and began opening fire with a rifle. Police promptly responded and took the suspect into custody.
The suspect was not yet identified, but was charged with possession of an unregistered firearm and ammunition, assault with intent to kill, and possession of a high-capacity magazine, a U.S. Secret Service spokesperson told the Associated Press.
Police told WJLA that the suspect was a man driving an SUV with Texas license plates and had an American flag on top of his vehicle.
Hospital ship USNS Comfort heads home to Norfolk on Thursday
(U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class John Q. Hightower)
The ship, which has more than 1,000 beds, discharged the last of its patients this week. The crew treated a total of 182 patients while in New York.
“Even as USNS Comfort departs NYC, the ship and its embarked medical task force remain prepared for future tasking,” officials wrote in the news release.
The ship will return to a “Ready 5” status to remain ready for future COVID-19 operations supporting the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Navy said.
Surf’s down in California: Governor set to close beaches
Laura Dickinson/The Tribune (of San Luis Obispo) via AP, File)
Eric Nuñez, president of the California Police Chiefs Association, said a memo was sent to the group’s members Wednesday so they have time to plan ahead of Newsom’s expected announcement Thursday.
While most state parks and many local beaches, trails and parks have been closed for weeks, Newsom’s order is sure to ignite pushback from community leaders who argue they can safely provide some relief to residents.
“It’s time to move on,” Huntington Beach resident Jim Puro, 59, said Thursday. “We need to start opening up and I can’t think of a better way than to be out in the sun.”
News anchor allegedly caught cheating when half-naked woman walks into live shot
Alfonso Merlos, 41, was hosting the Estado de Alarma channel news report from his home amid the coronavirus lockdown when the scantily clad gal walked into the background of the shot, according to The Sun.
Eagle-eyed fans pointed out the woman was not his partner Marta López, a former star of the “Big Brother” reality show — sparking a media firestorm earlier this week, according to the outlet.
Merlos remained silent for days despite accusations of two-timing, then apologized to López during an appearance on “The Ana Rosa” news show Monday.
Delingpole: RIP Fred Singer, Godfather of Climate Skepticism
It’s probably not a title he would ever have given himself: despite his hugely distinguished career, including wartime service in the U.S. Navy, and a stint designing rockets, culminating as professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, Fred Singer was a charming, modest, soft-spoken and unfailing polite man who never blew his own trumpet.
But he did stick up for his principles and was more than prepared to damn the torpedoes, perhaps most notably when he stood up to a vexatious, powerful and bullying climate alarmist by the name of Al Gore.
Three Previously Deported Illegal Aliens Wanted For Murder, Sent Back To Mexico
Alfredo Medina-Martinez, 29, Guillermo Vazquez-Saenz, 51, and Eduardo Antonio Perez Don Juan, 53, all citizens of Mexico, were escorted to the Laredo, Texas, Port of Entry where they were presented to Mexican law enforcement authorities.
Medina-Martinez is wanted by Mexican authorities for homicide. Vazquez-Saenz and Perez Don Juan are wanted for aggravated homicide.
“These individuals fled Mexico to escape prosecution for their alleged crimes and have continued to engage in criminal activity here in the U.S.,” said Paul McBride, acting field office director of ERO Houston.
“By working together with our foreign law enforcement partners, we have safely returned them to their home country where they will stand trial for their alleged crimes and made our community safer.”
Previously Deported Rapist Re-Arrested In California
Garcia-Castellano has two previous removals in 2007 and 2016.
He illegally reentered the United States at an unknown place and time.
He was arrested by California Highway Patrol for driving under the influence in December. Those charges are pending.
ERO officers obtained a federal warrant of arrest for Garcia-Castellano in Los Angeles for illegal reentry of a previously removed felon.
After completion of ICE processing, Garcia-Castellano was turned over to the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) where he remains pending federal felony prosecution.
Deported Violent Felon Arrested After Illegally Crossing Texas Border
During processing, the agents identified the man as 44-year-old Juan Reynaldo Rodriguez-Morales, a Mexican national.
All apprehended by Border Patrol agents undergo a biometric background investigation.
During a records check, the agents learned that a court in San Angelo, Texas, convicted Rodriguez-Morales on a felony charge of attempted murder in 1993, officials stated.
Judge refuses to block Trump’s coronavirus green card freeze
Trump’s latest order placed a 60-day ban on green cards, and the immigrants who brought the class-action lawsuit in the fall claimed that class members who are turning 21 during that time will be deprived of preferential status that would allow their applications to be processed more swiftly.
Simon recognized the plaintiffs’ concern that Trump’s latest order could result in some people having the processing of their applications delayed indefinitely, but said that alone was not enough to block any order.
Simon went on to say there are plenty of other potential situations where an executive order related to immigration that is based on national security would impact visa applicants that have nothing to do with the plaintiffs’ case, which is based on health insurance.
BREAKING: Funeral Directors in COVID-19 Epicenter Doubt Legitimacy of Deaths Attributed to Pandemic
[Mamaroneck, N.Y.—April 30, 2020] Project Veritas today released another video featuring conversations with funeral home directors and their staff throughout New York City questioning the number of deaths officially attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In late April, a Project Veritas reporter spoke with Michael Lanza, the director of Staten
Island’s Colonial Funeral Home.
“To be honest with you, all of the death certificates are writing COVID on it, they’re writing
COVID on all the death certificates,” Lanza said.
Politics:
‘People Need To Pay For This’: Nikki Haley Lets Loose On FBI Over ‘Shameful’ Treatment Of Michael Flynn
“There is so much to unpack with the new info on Gen. Flynn. The most upsetting is how calculated it was,” Haley tweeted.
“Letting Gen. Flynn off is not enough.
People need to pay for this and the FBI needs to answer to how the public can have confidence that it will never happen again. Shameful.”
Michael Flynn — Here’s How The FBI Entrapped and Prosecuted an Innocent Man
Commentary/Opinion:
The new documents also expose how FBI lovers Peter Strzok and Lisa Page plotted a way to circumvent agency policy designed to protect Flynn’s constitutional rights. Shockingly, emails show that neither Strzok nor Page even understood the policy they were determined to break.
The DOJ should now consider whether crimes were committed by those who obscured the truth. Anyone who corruptly impedes the due administration of law and justice could face potential obstruction of justice charges. Obstruction is a crime against justice itself.
Current FBI Director Christopher Wray must also face scrutiny. He likely knew about the exculpatory evidence for the last two and a half years yet appears to have done nothing. This is consistent with his other actions dedicated to protecting, at all costs, the FBI’s reputation, which was sullied beyond repair by his predecessor, Comey. Wray should have been fired long ago,
The treatment of Gen. Michael Flynn is a cautionary tale of the danger to all Americans. If the people we entrust to enforce and uphold the law are capable of persecuting an innocent three-star general while covering up their mendacious acts, imagine what they can do to any of us.
Lawmakers Probe NIH Over Chinese Espionage Targeting U.S. Medical Research
Reps. Jim Banks (R., Ind.) and Mike Gallagher (R., Wis.) are petitioning NIH leaders to disclose how researchers with ties to adversarial regimes such as China continue to participate in confidential research projects and receive American grant money, according to a letter sent Thursday to NIH director Francis Collins.
The lawmakers express concerns about a lack of oversight at the agency that they say might have allowed foreign spies to gain access to critical research.
Chinese infiltration of the American medical research community has been a concern for federal authorities, including the FBI, for years.
China has been responsible for multiple large-scale hacks on the health care industry, including patient data and medical research into cancer and other diseases.
Pelosi snaps at reporter over Biden allegation, doubles down on support: ‘I don’t need a lecture’
During her Capitol press conference, the first question to the speaker was about Biden, but Pelosi shut down the question, saying she first wanted to address the topic on hand — expanding broadband access as part of the broader coronavirus stimulus measures.
At the end of the press conference, after Pelosi has spoken thoroughly about her legislative priorities, the reporter brought up the sexual assault allegation from Tara Reade against the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.
The Washington Examiner’s Kerry Picket asked whether Democrats had a different “standard” for Biden than for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, for whom Democrats were demanding an FBI investigation over an alleged assault when he was a teenager.
Jim Jordan rips into FBI after Flynn documents released
Commentary/Opinion:
Republican Rep. Jim Jordan sounds off after new documents are released on the 2017 questioning of Michael Flynn in the Russia probe.
Byron York highlights the left’s infighting over Tara Reade: ‘Growing pressure’ on Biden to address allegation
“The pressure is growing for him to say something and also the pressure is growing on a number of Democrats.
Especially women who have defended the vice president and say they support him.
There’s a fight on the left about this,” the Washington Examiner columnist told “America’s Newsroom.”
Among the vocal Democrats, actress Sarah Silverman is taking Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) to task for standing by Joe Biden amid a sexual assault allegation from his former Senate aide Tara Reade.
Shock Poll: Majorities Still Believe Debunked Fake News About Trump And Russia
Commentary/Opinion:
The media’s approval and credibility ratings may be low, but they still have a tremendous amount of political power.
Whether they are attempting to destroy the life and reputation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, working overtime to protect the reputation of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, pushing the impeachment of a sitting president, attempting to control the outcomes of elections, or spending years peddling a false tale of treasonous collusion with Russia to steal the 2016 election, they get significant results despite failure to report accurately.
Evidence of that power and how irresponsibly it is used is found in a recent Harvard-Harris poll for April 2020.
A majority of Americans, 53 percent, believe the Christopher Steele dossier “was real in its findings of Trump colluding with the Russians.
” Only 47 percent of Americans chose the factually correct option that it was Clinton-funded campaign oppo fueled by disinformation.
Tucker: Our leaders are making a mockery of their own quarantines
Commentary/Opinion:
They have no intention of abiding by the restrictions they impose on their citizens.
World News:
7:30 PM.
Editorial: To Resist the Chinese Communist Party Virus, Say No to the CCP
(Photo by Kena Betancur/Getty Images)
Commentary/Opinion;
The CCP’s 70-year tyranny has killed 80 million Chinese people and destroyed traditional Chinese culture and morality.
In the past 30 years, from the Tiananmen Square massacre of pro-democracy students in 1989, to the ongoing persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, which began in 1999, the suppression of and misrule over the Chinese people have brought catastrophe to China and the rest of the world.
For nearly 40 years, the CCP has used globalization and economic incentives to bring other countries under the Communist Party’s influence.
CCP infiltration beyond China’s borders runs deep in the political, economic, cultural, and educational spheres.
Overt examples of PRC influence include the Confucius Institutes programs, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and telecom giant Huawei.
By trapping people and governments within its system of economic interests, the CCP leads them to accommodate its atheist ideology, tolerate its tyrannical rule, and betray the divine.
Chinese Regime Is out of Control Spreading Lies and Abusing Power |CCP Virus| COVID-19 | Coronavirus
00:42 CCTV News Anchor Attacks US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
03:37 Hong Kong Police Out of Control, Tensions Quickly Escalated
05:28 CCP Abuses Power to Control: Human Rights Lawyer is Another Victim
08:30 Crude Oil Prices Drop by 306%: Investors Commit Suicide
15:12 Chinese Doctor Disciplined For Expressing Views on Virus
18:02 Trump’s Live speech – At Least, 30 Million American Jobs Saved
20:01 CCP Virus Numbers
ISRAELI PROFESSOR SHOWS VIRUS FOLLOWS FIXED PATTERN
Professor Yitzhak Ben Israel of Tel Aviv University, who also serves on the research and development advisory board for Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, plotted the rates of new coronavirus infections of the U.S., U.K., Sweden, Italy, Israel, Switzerland, France, Germany, and Spain.
The numbers told a shocking story: irrespective of whether the country quarantined like Israel, or went about business as usual like Sweden, coronavirus peaked and subsided in the exact same way.
In the exact, same, way. His graphs show that all countries experienced seemingly identical coronavirus infection patterns, with the number of infected peaking in the sixth week and rapidly subsiding by the eighth week.
The Wuhan Virus follows its own pattern, he told Mako, an Israeli news agency.
It is a fixed pattern that is not dependent on freedom or quarantine.
“There is a decline in the number of infections even [in countries] without closures, and it is similar to the countries with closures,” he wrote in his paper.
No legal grounds to prevent Netanyahu as Premier; Germany outlaws Hezbollah TV7 Israel News 30.04.20
1) Israel’s Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit informed the High Court of Justice in Jerusalem that while allowing Benjamin Netanyahu to form a government “raises difficulties”, there is no legal grounds to thwart him from serving as Prime Minister.
2) The German Interior Ministry issued a federal order designating Iran’s Lebanese-proxy Hezbollah ‘a terrorist organization’, consequently prompting a number of raised throughout the country.
3) U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the United States is in the process of evaluating its course of action vis-à-vis an imminent expiration of ‘a U.N. prohibition’ that will effectively allow the Islamic Republic of Iran to purchase conventional weapons by October the 23rd of this year.
US Navy moves through South China Sea for second time in 2 days
(U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Nicholas V. Huynh)
A U.S. guided missile cruiser sailed Wednesday through the Spratly Islands, the U.S. Navy’s second freedom of navigation operation in two days amid heightened tension in the South China Sea.
The “innocent passage” maneuver by the USS Bunker Hill followed a separate operation by the destroyer USS Barry on Tuesday near the Paracel Islands, which lie further north, the U.S. 7th Fleet said in a statement.
It was the latest in a series of challenges by Washington to what it calls “unlawful” claims in the South China Sea. China claims sovereignty over most of the area, despite competing claims from Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.
Former police chief of Honduras accused of trafficking drugs to US
According to the complaint filed on Thursday by the Southern District of New York, the former police chief Juan Carlos Bonilla “participated in extreme violence, including the murder of a rival trafficker, to further the conspiracy.”
Prosecutors also allege that Bonilla was entrusted with “special assignments, including murder” by President Hernández – who is identified as a co-conspirator – and his brother, Tony.
Bonilla, an imposing figure known as El Tigre (the Tiger), was appointed as national police chief in May 2012 at a time when Honduras had one of the highest homicide rates in the world.
Germany bans Hezbollah after labeling Iran-backed militant group a ‘terror organization,’ conducts raids
German police raided four mosques with Hezbollah connections and private residences of the group’s leaders in Berlin, Bremen, Dortmund, Münster, and Recklinghausen.
“As the authority responsible for issuing the ban, the Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building, and Community is of the opinion that Hezbollah openly calls for the violent elimination of the State of Israel and questions the right of the State of Israel to exist,” the German ministry said in a statement.
“The organization is therefore fundamentally against the concept of international understanding, regardless of whether it presents itself as a political, social, or military structure.”
Three Mexican National Guardsmen Arrested for Kidnapping in Cancun
As officials responded to the scene, they were able to get a description of the suspect vehicle and pulled it over near one of the city’s busiest avenues. State police rescued a male victims and arrested three men plus one woman.
During questioning, the three men claimed to be members of Mexico’s National Guard but were not in uniform.
The suspect vehicle, a white Dodge Charger, had government plates and police lights. A records check revealed the three men were in fact National Guardsmen and served as federal police officers prior.
Man Arrested Trying to Enter Austrian Parliament with Machete
Police spokesman Daniel Fürst said that investigators have no current statement on the motive for the 33-year-old’s actions, but noted: “There was no threat to the parliamentary operation.” The man is said to be an Austrian citizen.
The arrest comes just days after protests against the national Wuhan coronavirus lockdown in Vienna, with dozens gathering at the Albertinaplatz for around two hours on Friday and another protest taking place on Saturday.
Further protests have been organised for May 1st, including an Austrian University Students’ Union (ÖH) demonstration with an anticipated 500 participants.
Coronavirus vaccine developed by UK researchers could prove effective by July, executive says
Pascal Soriot, the head of pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca, told Sky News that scientists will know if the vaccine works by “June or July.”
On Thursday, AstraZeneca announced a partnership with Oxford University in the development and distribution of the potential vaccine, which is being developed by the Jenner Institute and Oxford Vaccine Group.
The vaccine entered human clinical trials earlier this month.
Commentary/Opinion:
Model Madness – Parallels Between Failed Climate Models And Failed Coronavirus Models
Climate models and coronavirus models have both been used to predict the future, and both have been used to form public policy.
In this podcast between Anthony Watts and UAH climatologist Dr. Roy Spencer, we examine the common denominator of failure they both share.
We also look at why Carbon Dioxide hasn’t been visibly reduced due to the economic shutdowns.
Our Apologies For Breaking The Rules
I hope you guys got to see the video before it was taken down. Not sure what the future holds but it ain’t looking good. Here’s the Simple Truth.