President Trump on Thursday said his administration will begin withholding funding from self-described sanctuary cities after a federal court ruled last week that it could do so.
“As per recent Federal Court ruling, the Federal Government will be withholding funds from Sanctuary Cities,” Trump tweeted. “They should change their status and go non-Sanctuary. Do not protect criminals!”
The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan ruled on Feb. 26 that the Department of Justice (DOJ) could withhold funding from cities and states that refuse to cooperate with the Trump administration’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants.
The three-judge panel found Congress had delegated authority to the attorney general to set conditions on the federal grant program it had created, called the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program.
The decision came after multiple courts had ruled against the Trump administration on the issue, saying it lacked the authority to impose immigration-related conditions on certain funding.
A group of seven states and New York City sued the DOJ in 2017 after then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the agency would start withholding funding from local governments that refused to share information about undocumented immigrants or provide jail access to federal authorities investigating inmates’ immigration status.
This spells bad news for several of the far left lunatics who are in charge of many of the big cities in the country.
More shocking leaked footage published by theBBCshows bodies piling up at a local morgue in Qom, said to be victims of the country’s spiraling coronavirus outbreak. Located 140km to the south of Tehran, Qom is believed ground zero for Iran’s epidemic, and crucially is a popular place of Shia religious pilgrimage.
Mideast-based correspondent Joyce Karam comments of the newly published video: “If these are confirmed to be from Corona as videos claim, death toll is higher than the government claims (officially at 77).”
Horrific thread of BBC obtained Videos from #Iran shows bagged bodies in Qom from moment of death till burial.
If these are confirmed to be from Corona as videos claim, death toll is higher than Gov. claims (77): pic.twitter.com/vxmTren3Lt
As of Tuesday Iranian health officials announced 2,336 coronavirus cases and 77 dead, including 23 parliament members confirmed for the virus, which is roughly10% of Iran’s legislature.
All of this strongly suggests much bigger numbers of infected nationwide, after multiple reports alleged the Islamic Republic is hiding its true numbers, or at least refusing to test.
Chuck Todd and the rest of the propaganda goon machine are gas lighting America by claiming that they didn’t push a manufactured narrative claiming that the Trump Administration is calling the Coronavirus outbreak a hoax. Chuck Todd, in a fit of hypocritical outrage went as far as to confront Vice President Mike Pence who is leading the effort to respond to the Coronavirus outbreak in the United States. Todd insists that no one in the mainstream media created anything resembling what the Trump Administration claims. Of course, as usual, Chuck Todd neglected to check the facts.
Further leaked video published in the series Tuesday by BBC Persian shows health workers in full Hazmat gear burying victims believed infected by Covid-19.
قبرستان بهشت معصومه قم؛ ردیفی از قبرهای جدید دیده میشود که ادعا شده مربوط به جانباختگان کرونا در قم است. آمار رسمی شیوع کرونا در ایران در تاریخ ۱۳ اسفند، ۷۷ مرگ و ۲ هزار و ۳۳۶ مورد ابتلا اعلام شده است اما برخی منابع بیمارستانی به بیبیسی تعدادی بسیار بالاتر را اعلام کردهاند pic.twitter.com/cxu397q4Uk
قبرستان سرخحصار، شهر قدس، استان تهران؛ تدفین با تمهیدات بهداشتی ویژه ناظران، مقامات ایران را به پنهانکاری در مورد ابعاد شیوع ویروس کرونا متهم میکنند اما آیتالله خامنهای، رهبر ایران امروز گفت که اطلاعرسانی درباره ویروس کرونا در ایران شفاف و صادقانه است. pic.twitter.com/YzcGEBMo8u
The country is bracing itself for the possibility of “tens of thousands” getting tested and possibly being confirmed for the virus after the latest spike in cases, an official said previously.
Among the new series of leaked videos includes footage that appears to show preparations for mass graves as the crisis rapidly worsens in the Islamic Republic.
گلزار شهدای مرودشت، فارس، ۱۱ اسفند ۹۸؛ تمهیداتی مربوط به آمادهسازی برای تدفین ویژه جانباختگان احتمالی کرونا از جمله تلی از آهک دیده میشود. مقامات بیمارستانی در ایران اعلام کردهاند تنها از بیماران با علائم حاد تست کرونا میگیرند، از جمله آنها که به بخش مراقبتهای ویژه رفتهاند pic.twitter.com/ZM2YLd67Z6
قبرستان بهشت معصومه قم؛ ردیفی از قبرهای جدید دیده میشود که ادعا شده مربوط به جانباختگان کرونا در قم است. آمار رسمی شیوع کرونا در ایران در تاریخ ۱۳ اسفند، ۷۷ مرگ و ۲ هزار و ۳۳۶ مورد ابتلا اعلام شده است اما برخی منابع بیمارستانی به بیبیسی تعدادی بسیار بالاتر را اعلام کردهاند pic.twitter.com/cxu397q4Uk
Ayatollah Khamenei and others among Tehran’s top leadership have claimed Iran’s handling of the epidemic has been timely and transparent.
But on Tuesday the supreme leader ordered the armed forces to assist Health Ministry in combating the spread.
As the footage went viral after first appearing on Iranian social, later picked up by BBC, the video maker’s commentary has been translated and captioned in the below, which noted the number of bodies being processed “seems like it’s never ending”:
This is what’s going on in Iran amid #coronavirus outbreak. Reminiscent of early days of COVID19 epidemic in China. My friend, a journalist from Iran just translated this video and confirmed the authenticity, I’ll post it shortly. (Video by @HeshmatAlavi) pic.twitter.com/dV9pi3b526
A new video with translation, a dire situation in Iran (Video by @HeshmatAlavi), Translated by my friend, an Iranian journalist, can’t publish journalist’s name due to concerns for safety of her family in Iran. There’s no freedom of press in that country. pic.twitter.com/bHqUZQqLwR
It’s as yet unclear what role national troops could play, but hundreds of thousands could be mobilized: “After downplaying the coronavirus as recently as last week, Iranian authorities now say they have plans to potentially mobilize 300,000 soldiers and volunteers to confront the virus,” Fox News reported citing state sources.
The series of clips published by BBC Persian Tuesday is not the first such to come out of Iran, but underscores the widespread allegation that authorities are greatly downplaying the true death toll and infected count.
BREAKING: Mike Bloomberg has ended his presidential campaign after falling well short of Democratic front-runners Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders on #SuperTuesday.
Fired FBI Director James Comey endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden and said he voted for him in Virginia’s Democratic presidential primary on Super Tuesday.
“Voted in first Dem primary to support party dedicated to restoring values in WH. I agree with @amyklobuchar: We need candidate who cares about all Americans and will restore decency, dignity to the office,” Comey wrote on Twitter. “There is a reason Trump fears @joebiden and roots for Bernie. #Biden2020.”
Andrew Bates, the Biden campaign’s rapid response director, seemingly rejected Comey’s endorsement, tweeting: “Yes, customer service? I just received a package that I very much did not order. How can I return it, free of charge?”
Comey, who quit the Republican Party in 2018, donated $2,700 to Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s (D-MN) now-defunct campaign, while his wife made two contributions — $1,000 and $1,700 — to her last year. After dropping out of the Democrat presidential primary on Monday, Klobuchar endorsed Biden, saying the former vice president “can bring our country together and build that coalition of our fired-up Democratic base.”
In addition to Klobuchar, former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg threw his support behind Biden after dropping out of the race Sunday. Appearing together in Dallas, Buttigieg said Biden is the only candidate who can “bring back dignity to the White House.”
“When I ran for president we made it clear that the whole idea was about rallying the country together to defeat Donald Trump and to win the era for the values that we share,” the former mayor said. “And that was always a goal that was much bigger than me becoming president and it is in the name of that very same goal that I am delighted to endorse and support Joe Biden for President.”
Former Rep. Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke (D-TX) also endorsed Biden on Monday.
“I, like a lot of people in Texas, really wanted to make sure I made a good decision. So I watched the debates, watched the town halls, listened to the candidates. And you know, by the end of last week, I knew that I wanted to vote for Biden. And it was a huge relief to finally figure out the candidate who I wanted to vote for,” O’Rourke said of his decision to back Biden.
“And then this weekend I was talking to my oldest son, Ulysses, and told him I was going to vote for Biden,” he added. “And he said, ‘Well, you should endorse him.’ And I said, ‘OK, that makes sense.’ He said, ‘If you want this guy to win, you should do everything you can to help him.’”
Dr. Matt McCarthy, a staff physician at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, just went on national television and warned that there will be “thousands” of confirmed coronavirus cases inside the United States “by next week”.
I certainly hope that he is completely wrong, but obviously he has a better vantage point for observing the progression of this outbreak than any of us do.
As an emergency room doctor in New York, he is dealing with potential COVID-19 cases every single day.
And as you will see below, he says that he has had to “plead to test people” and that it is a “national scandal” that more people have not been tested.
As I discussed in a previous article, up until just a few days ago the CDC has had extremely restrictive guidelines for who should be tested for the virus. Only those that have visited China recently and those that have had close contact with a known victim were supposed to be tested. Obviously this allowed a lot of potential victims to fall through the cracks, and now we have a major outbreak in the Seattle area.
Owen is joined by Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai to dive deeper into how viruses affect our bodies and how different vitamins protect us.
Health officials in South Korea tested 10,000 people for the coronavirus on Friday alone. This week, they built drive-thru coronavirus screening locations, giving hundreds of patients an assessment of their health in just 10 minutes.
The US announced its first coronavirus case on the same day South Korea did. But six weeks later, less than 500 potentially infected Americans have gotten tests, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The agency’s official test count — which had previously been updated daily — was stripped from the CDC site on Sunday, though US Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar told ABC the same day that the US had tested 3,600 people.
There is absolutely no reason why we can’t do at least as well as South Korea.
And without a doubt, a lot of doctors around the country are quite upset about the current state of affairs. During his appearance on CNBC, Dr. McCarthy explained that he literally has had to “plead to test people”…
“I’m here to tell you, right now, at one of the busiest hospitals in the country, I don’t have it at my fingertips,” he said. “I still have to make my case, plead to test people. This is not good. We know that there are 88 cases in the United States. There are going to be hundreds by the middle of the week. There’s going to be thousands by next week. And this is a testing issue.”
You can watch video of Dr. McCarthy making these comments right here. The fact that he believes that there will be “thousands” of confirmed cases by next week should be making headlines all over the nation. But so far it isn’t.
Ultimately, the CDC should be held accountable for dropping the ball so dramatically. Not only have they not been testing enough people up until now, it also turns out that the test kits they initially sent out were “problematic and potentially inaccurate”. The following comes from CNBC…
The CDC sent test kits earlier in the outbreak to public health labs around the country, but those kits were problematic and potentially inaccurate, CDC officials have since said. Because local clinicians can’t depend on the test kits, some have had to ship samples to a laboratory with the ability to run the tests, delaying the process of diagnosis and treatment.
This virus could become the biggest public health crisis of our lifetimes, and the CDC response has been a complete and total disaster.
“Testing for coronavirus is not available yet in New York City,” city Department of Health spokeswoman Stephanie Buhle said in an email late Thursday. “The kits that were sent to us have demonstrated performance issues and cannot be relied upon to provide an accurate result.”
There is no excuse.
For weeks, hospitals all over the nation have had to send samples to the CDC for testing, and that has greatly limited the number of Americans that have been able to be tested.
If you can believe it, only 32 people in the entire state of New York have been tested so far, and Dr. McCarthy is calling that “a national scandal”…
The team at New York-Presbyterian Hospital is isolating suspected coronavirus patients and taking proper precautions to prevent the spread, McCarthy said, but “they’re hamstrung.”
“In New York state, the person who tested positive is only the 32nd test we’ve done in this state,” he said. “That is a national scandal.”
Of course he is right.
The mainstream media should be hammering this story like there is no tomorrow, but other than CNBC they have mostly been ignoring it.
Did officials at the CDC think that if they just neglected this crisis that it would go away?
A lot of people have been comparing COVID-19 to the flu, but that is not true at all.
This is an extremely insidious virus. Once it gets into the lungs, it starts killing cells as it moves along. And once enough cells are killed off, it becomes increasingly difficult to breathe…
It does this by attaching to and reproducing in tissue inside the lungs, where it kills cells in the process of spreading.
As the cells are killed they drop off the lungs’ linings and build up in clumps inside the organs, making it hard to breathe and triggering further infections.
The virus can also send the immune system into overdrive as it tries to fight off infection, triggering swelling which can lead to more breathing difficulties.
Does that sound like something that you want to catch?
I truly hope that what we are facing is not nearly as dire as Dr. McCarthy is making it out to be. But nobody can deny that he is on the front lines of this battle every day, and right now he is warning that we have a complete and utter nightmare on our hands.
BY JULIA MANCHESTER AND AMIE PARNES – 03/02/20 02:20 PM EST
Former South Bend, Ind., MayorPete Buttigiegis set to endorse former Vice PresidentJoe Bidenin the Democratic presidential race one day after ending his own bid, according to a source close to the Biden campaign.
Buttigieg’s planned endorsement comes as fellow moderate Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) also throws her support behind Biden after dropping out of the race Monday.
The latest endorsements for Biden point to a consolidation of the moderate lane of the Democratic race in an effort to block progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) from getting the nomination.
Biden’s campaign got a new push after Saturday’s South Carolina primary, where the former vice president won every county in the state.
WASHINGTON — The Federal Emergency Management Agency is planning for the possibility that President Donald Trump could make an emergency declaration to bring in extra funds and personnel to assist the administration’scoronavirus response, according to internal documents obtained by NBC News.
FEMA officials are preparing for an “infectious disease emergency declaration” by the president that would allow the agency to provide disaster relief funding to state and local governments, as well as federal assistance to support the coronavirus response, according to agency planning documents reviewed by NBC News.
The Trump administration would have to use the 1988 Stafford Act to enable FEMA to provide such disaster assistance. Emergency declarations are most often used in the event of natural disasters but can be used to help manage disease outbreaks.
“To me this is another indication that the president and the White House are finally aware of the gravity of the situation,” said Michael Coen, who was FEMA chief of staff during the Obama administration. “They need to consider all tools available to them and have contingencies for action.”
“I actually find this reassuring,” said Tim Manning, who was a FEMA deputy administrator under President Barack Obama. “I hope this discussion has been happening continuously over the last couple of months.”
An emergency declaration would allow FEMA to provide disaster medical assistance teams, mobile hospitals and military transport, among other kinds of federal support, Manning said.
FEMA’s disaster relief fund has a current balance of $34 billion, according to the latest agency update. “It’s money that’s sitting there and ready,” said another former FEMA official, who declined to be identified.
FEMA spokesperson Lizzie Litzow said the agency is currently focused on supporting the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which separately declared a “public health emergency” on Jan. 31, allowing HHS to access funds and other resources to aid the government’s virus response. “At this time, there isn’t anything additional to the HHS public health emergency,” Litzow said.
It would not be the first time the federal government has used FEMA’s resources to assist in a medical event.
In 2000, President Bill Clinton used a Stafford Act emergency declaration for outbreaks of the West Nile virus in New York and New Jersey, ordering up to $5 million in federal aid to supplement state efforts to combat the mosquito-borne virus.
Emergency declarations are distinct from “major disaster” declarations, which are more far-reaching and are typically used for hurricanes, floods and other natural disasters.
Politico published an article Friday claiming that Trump called the coronavirus a “hoax” at his rally in South Carolina.
The article claimed that Trump “tried to cast the global outbreak of the coronavirus as a liberal conspiracy intended to undermine his first term.”
In reality, Trump referred to “politicizing” of the coronavirus by Democrats as “their new hoax.”
Even Facebook flagged Politico’s piece as false information:
The President clarified his remarks over the weekend, noting noting that he was “referring to the action that they take to try and pin this on somebody because we’ve done such a good job.”
“The hoax is on them. I’m not talking about what’s happening here. I’m talking what they’re doing. That’s the hoax,” Trump said, according to NBC News.
Mike Bloomberg proved Trump’s exact point by spreading an edited video and claiming that Trump believes the virus isn’t real:
Here it is, folks. With a pandemic at our doorstep and the country looking to its president for leadership, Trump decides to call the coronavirus… a "hoax."
Bloomberg repeated that claim in an interview with CBS, prompting host Scott Pelley to correct him:
Michael Bloomberg repeated the false claim that President Trump referred to the coronavirus as a "hoax."
CBS News' Scott Pelley pointed out that President Trump actually said the media & Democrat hysteria about the government coronavirus response was a hoax, NOT the virus. pic.twitter.com/HmSWsnaQFw
— Francis Brennan (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@FrancisBrennan) March 1, 2020
“He said that the Democrats making so much of it is a Democratic hoax, not that the virus is a hoax,” Pelley told Bloomberg.
Mini Mike simply ignored Pelley, and argued “This is up to the scientists and the doctors as to whether there is a problem,” adding that Trump’s response to the coronavirus outbreak has been “ignorant and irresponsible.”
Meanwhile, over at CNN, the mental gymnastics went a step further, with Inside Politics host John King saying that “you can read this how you wish” as far as Trump’s ‘hoax’ comments go.
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