Nacht Owl
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Pro-Trump protesters push back on stay-at-home orders
“It enrages something inside of you,” said Ackison, who was among those who protested Republican Gov. Mike DeWine’s orders at the statehouse in Columbus with her 10-year-old son. She has “no fear whatsoever” of contracting the virus, she said Thursday, dismissing it as hype.
The Ohio protest was among a growing number staged outside governors’ mansions and state Capitols across the country. In places like Oklahoma, Texas and Virginia, small-government groups, supporters of President Donald Trump, anti-vaccine advocates, gun rights backers and supporters of right-wing causes have united behind a deep suspicion of efforts to shut down daily life to slow the spread of the coronavirus. As their frustration with life under lockdown grows, they’ve started to openly defy the social distancing rules in an effort to put pressure on governors to ease them.
Some of the protests have been small events, promoted via Facebook groups that have popped up in recent days and whose organizers are sometimes difficult to identify. Others are backed by groups funded by prominent Republicans donors, some with ties to Trump. The largest so far, a rally of thousands that jammed the streets of Lansing, Michigan, on Wednesday, looked much like one of the president’s rallies — complete with MAGA hats or Trump flags — or one of the tea party rallies from a decade ago.
https://apnews.com/ea4c17f541c7c63fac52941a6f43b885
View from a Brit: Dangerous Buffoon At It Again
I really like this guy and his channel.
Reporter calls Trump out to his face for airing campaign ad at press briefing
Brian Tyler Cohen
April 14, 2020
We need more of this.
I.M.F. predicts the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression
Source: New York Times
The International Monetary Fund issued a stark warning about economic damage from the coronavirus, saying on Tuesday that the global economy faces its worst downturn since the Great Depression as shuttered factories, quarantines and national lockdowns cause economic output around the world to collapse.
In its World Economic Outlook, the I.M.F. projected that global growth will contract by 3 percent in 2020, an extraordinary reversal from earlier this year, when the fund forecast that the world economy would outpace 2019 and grow by 3.3 percent. This year’s fall in output would be far more severe than the last recession, when the world economy contracted by less than 1 percent between 2008 and 2009. A 3 percent decline in global output would be the worst since the Great Depression, the I.M.F. said.
“As countries implement necessary quarantines and social distancing practices to contain the pandemic, the world has been put in a Great Lockdown,” said Gita Gopinath, chief economist of the I.M.F. “The magnitude and speed of collapse in activity that has followed is unlike anything experienced in our lifetimes.”
Ms. Gopinath said that the loss of global output will be “far worse” than the 2008 financial crisis and that policymakers are facing an unusual predicament in that traditional stimulus measures are little match for a pandemic that is being fought with shutdowns and quarantines.
“It is very likely that this year the global economy will experience its worst recession since the Great Depression,” she said.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/14/us/coronavirus-updates-usa.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage#link-1a97c55
Reporter FORCES Trump to answer for wasting ALL of February in US response
Brian Tyler Cohen
14 Apr 2020
Yes, remember her name.
, Paula Reid!
Shifting gears: The climate protest movement in the age of coronavirus
By Paul Hockenos on Apr 10, 2020
For more than a year, just about every Friday at noon, Invaliden Park in downtown Berlin was transformed into a vivacious, noisy, swarming hubbub with teenage speakers, bands, and live dance acts — as well as Germany’s top climate scientists — all sharing a makeshift stage and a microphone. Several thousand mostly school-age pupils waved banners and placards proclaiming “There is no Planet B,” “School Strike for Climate,” and “We’re on strike until you act!” Their chants against fossil fuels and for swift, decisive action on global warming echoed against the granite facades of the federal ministries for economy and transportation, both adjacent to the square.
The happening was the weekly “school strike” in Berlin of Fridays for Future (FFF), the climate crisis movement that began in 2018 with the Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg skipping school once a week to protest her country’s half-hearted response to climate change. The movement then ricocheted across the globe, mobilizing school-age young people — in wealthy countries as well as poor — as never before. Last year, the campaign culminated in international demonstrations of millions in cities and towns from Cape Town, South Africa to Anchorage, Alaska, all with the same goal: to force their nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions and become carbon-neutral by 2050.
“There was a brilliant logic to the school strikes that drew people in,” explains Bill McKibben, author and cofounder of the climate action group 350.org. “If [the adult world] can’t be bothered to prepare a liveable world for me, why should I be bothered to sit in school and prepare for that future? That basic idea really hit home.”
Now, the worsening coronavirus pandemic is forcing Thunberg and other leaders of FFF to further alter tactics. Fridays for Future in Germany and other countries has suspended all public demonstrations — until now the movement’s mainspring and source of its high-profile media image, as well as donations. “In a crisis we change our behavior,” Thunberg tweeted earlier this month, “and adapt to the new circumstances for the greater good of society.” The Global Climate Strike, an international demonstration scheduled for April 24, has been called off. Thunberg proposed that FFF go digital by blanketing the internet and social media with the movement’s message.
Thunberg’s tweets don’t hint at it, but the virus and the public lockdowns have thrown the movement — already struggling to build on its spectacular protests of 2019 — into confusion. How can it pressure governments or businesses when gatherings are banned? How can the movement attract media coverage in the midst of a global pandemic? Will ordinary people faced with children at home or sick relatives or no jobs care about the climate when the COVID-19 crisis has turned their lives upside down? And will countries now sideline climate protection in order to put all of their energy and money into fighting the pandemic?
https://grist.org/climate/shifting-gears-the-climate-protest-movement-in-the-age-of-coronavirus/
The only way I can react to this is
Fauci says 'rolling reentry' of US economy possible in May
Source: Associated Press
By MARK SHERMAN and DARLENE SUPERVILLE
49 minutes ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States’ top infectious disease expert said Sunday that the economy in parts of the country could have a “rolling reentry” as early as next month, provided health authorities can quickly identify and isolate people who will inevitably be infected with the coronavirus.
Dr. Anthony Fauci also said he “can’t guarantee” that it will be safe for Americans to vote in person on Election Day, Nov. 3. Rather than flipping a switch to reopen the entire country, Fauci said a gradual process will be required based on the status of the pandemic in various parts of the U.S. and the availability of rapid, widespread testing. Once the number of people who are seriously ill sharply declines, officials can begin to “think about a gradual reentry of some sort of normality, some rolling reentry,” Fauci said.
In some places, he said, that might occur as soon as May. “We are hoping that, at the end of the month, we could look around and say, OK, is there any element here that we can safely and cautiously start pulling back on? If so, do it. If not, then just continue to hunker down,” Fauci said.
Whenever restrictions ease, Fauci said, “we know that there will be people who will be getting infected. I mean, that is just reality. “
Social distancing guidelines imposed by President Donald Trump are set to expire April 30. Trump is eager to restart the economy, which has stalled because most Americans are under orders to “stay at home” to help slow the virus’ spread.
Read more: https://apnews.com/d8bb23be7a589b28768fd33aa24ace55
Remember when George Dubya Bush used (and ruined) Colin Powell's good reputation to sell the bullshit Iraq War? Can't help but wonder if Trump-Fauci might be a sequel. Just sayin'
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Name: NickGender: Male
Hometown: Freehold Township, NJ
Home country: USA
Member since: Fri Apr 10, 2020, 04:37 AM
Number of posts: 66