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Donald Trump claimed the oil price crash which led to the plunging stock market was ‘good’ for consumers because it is based on cheaper gas Monday as Wall Street faced a fall so dramatic trading was briefly halted.
‘Good for the consumer, gasoline prices coming down!’ Trump tweeted Monday, one of a string of tweets accusing the ‘fake news’ of prompting the sell-off.
He accused the media of ‘inflaming’ the virus outbreak and dismissed the collapse in oil prices as the result of Saudi Arabia and Russia ‘arguing.’
As the Dow Jones lost a year’s gains, he was shuttling across Florida from Mar-a-Lago to a $100,000-a-head fundraiser – and tweeting that flu was worse than coronavirus.
‘Saudi Arabia and Russia are arguing over the price and flow of oil,’ Trump continued in another tweet Monday morning. ‘That, and the Fake News, is the reason for the market drop!’
Markets all over the world plummeted Monday over the growing threat of the virus spreading, but Trump has not addressed the economic impact as the coronavirus death toll bypassed 20 in the U.S.
Global markets opened with big losses Monday morning as the economy saw its worst day in more than 10 years.
Trump continued to downplay the threat, citing that more people died from the flu last year, and insisting life and the economy will ‘go on’ even over the escalation in coronavirus outbreak.
‘So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year,’ Trump cited in a tweet.
‘Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on,’ he insisted. ‘At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!’
The president has repeatedly expressed incredulity at the number of flu deaths, and the idea that people die of it. In 1918, his grandfather Freidrich died of Spanish flu.
Trump claims that media outlets are working with Democrats to make the coronavirus outbreak seem worse than it is.
Donald Trump claimed Monday morning that the market drop is ‘good for the consumer’ because gasoline prices are coming down
The Dow Jones saw its worst single-day drop since 2008 as Saudi Arabia goes into a price war over oil and concerns over coronavirus spreading continues to rock, but Trump said the ‘fake news’ is the reason for the plummet
During his trip to attend a fundraiser in Orlando, Trump shook hands with supporters gathered to greet him
![The president insisted while tweeting from Florida Monday that 'life & the economy [will] go on' as markets plunged and coronavirus concerns spread](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2020/03/09/18/25739826-8091389-The_president_insisted_while_tweeting_from_Florida_Monday_that_l-a-17_1583778020973.jpg)
The president insisted while tweeting from Florida Monday that ‘life & the economy [will] go on’ as markets plunged and coronavirus concerns spread
Instead, he took to Twitter to laud himself and his administration for the response to the outbreak
Trump also praised himself for making the decision to halt travel from high-risk countries as the fast-spreading respiratory virus rose as a worldwide threat
‘The Fake News Media and their partner, the Democrat Party, is doing everything within its semi-considerable power (it used to be greater!) to inflame the CoronaVirus situation, far beyond what the facts would warrant,’ the president tweeted Monday morning.
‘Surgeon General, ‘The risk is low to the average American,” he continued, quoting U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams.
‘So much FAKE NEWS!’ he lamented in a separate tweet Monday morning.
Trump’s claims comes as the death toll in the U.S. reached 26 on Monday afternoon and cases continued to spread to new areas of the country, including the first confirmed case in Washington, D.C.
Kansas and Missouri also announced their first cases over the weekend as the cases number now exceeds 600.
The most U.S. deaths occurred in Washington state after the virus spread among residents at a nursing facility in a suburb of Seattle.
But Trump insists the threat is less serious than is being portrayed by media reports and Democratic lawmakers.
He then praised himself in another tweet Monday morning for banning travel from high-risk countries early on in the outbreak.
‘The BEST decision made was the toughest of them all – which saved many lives,’ Trump lauded of his administration. ‘Our VERY early decision to stop travel to and from certain parts of the world!’
Trump stopped travel from certain countries to the U.S., including from China and Iran – and Americans have been warned of traveling to other high-risk countries like Italy and South Korea.
The president is usually the first to address stock market gains under his administration, but since coronavirus has caused markets to fall, he has remained largely silent on the matter.
Earlier this month, the U.S. saw its worst week since the 2008 financial crisis and on Monday markets plunged nearly 7 per cent.
Markets in Asia, Europe and the Middle East also opened sharply lower on Monday as investors came to grips with the global spread of coronavirus.
Trump also praised Vice President Mike Pence, who he appointed last month to lead the charge by the coronavirus task force on addressing the outbreak and halting the spread
The global market plunged, causing the worst one-day crash in crude oil prices in 30 years, after Saudi Arabia launched a price war.
On Friday Russia refused to follow OPEC’s efforts to stop market plummets caused by the escalation of the coronavirus outbreak.
In early trading, BP was down by 18 percent, Royal Dutch Shell was down 14 percent and ExxonMovil was down 11 percent.
Ordinarily, a slump in oil prices offers a boost for airlines because their fuel costs are low.
But with the ever-shrinking demand for flights due to the virus, they have been left unable to capitalize.
The coronavirus crisis, which has now infected more than 110,000 people globally, has crippled supply chains and prompted cuts to global growth forecasts for 2020.
Downtrodden brokers on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Monday morning before the market opened
There are now more than 500 cases of the virus in the US alone
There is no sign that the spread is close to slowing down, either.
Traders are now expecting the Federal Reserve to again cut interest rates next week after an emergency reduction on March 3, putting the yield on benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury on course for its biggest one-day fall in almost a decade.
Shares of rate-sensitive U.S. banks Citigroup Inc, Bank of America Corp, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo & Co and Morgan Stanley slid between 7.4 percent and 9.6 percent.
Marathon Oil Corp, Devon Energy Corp, Apache Corp, Pioneer Natural Resources Co slipped between 22 percent and 28 percent and were some of the biggest losers among S&P 500 components.
At 7:12 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were down 1,255 points, or 4.87 per cent. S&P 500 e-minis were down 145 points, or 4.89 percent and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 410 points, or 4.82 percent.
Much of the chaos has been sparked by the failure of a deal between OPEC Saudi Arabia and non-OPEC leader Russia.
Generally, the world’s largest oil producers agree on production rates and cuts in order to stabilize the industry.
With coronavirus slowing demand for supply, they met last week with Russia, which is not part of OPEC but is a large oil producer, to discuss cutting production.
Russia refused, setting in motion a chain of events described by analysts as a ‘worst case scenario’ that could descend into an all-out price war.
Last month, Trump appointed Vice President Mike Pence to head the task force addressing the coronavirus crisis.
‘Great job being done by the @VP and the CoronaVirus Task Force. Thank you!’ Trump tweeted Monday.
Coronavirus has infected more than 108,000 people worldwide and is throwing many countries’ economies into turmoil.
The number of confirmed cases in New York rose by 13 over the weekend, nearing the state total to 90.
New York governor Andrew Cuomo issued a declaration of emergency in the state.
But Trump claimed late Sunday night that the messaging from Cuomo is ‘political weaponization’ of the coronavirus.
‘There are no mixed messages, only political weaponization by people like you and your brother, Fredo!’ Trump insisted in his tweet, making reference to Cuomo’s brother, CNN anchor Chris Cuomo.
Saudi Arabia slashed its oil export prices over the weekend and declared a price war with Russia that sent global markets reeling and marked the sharpest decline in oil futures since 1991.
The price drop came after Russia refused to sign on with a proposal by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to cut production globally as the coronavirus outbreak has slowed the demand for oil.
OPEC nations met with allies like Russia on Thursday and Friday in Vienna to reduce oil production by an additional 1.5million barrels per day to stabilize the market starting in April through the end of the year.
But Russia refused to join to agreement.
From Russia’s perspective cutting production would boost US oil producers at the expense of international competitors and lead to a loss in profits.
On Saturday, after the group failed to come to a consensus, Saudi Arabia – which runs the world’s large oil company Saudi Aramco – slashed its export oil prices to saturate the market and trigger a price war aimed at Russia.
An oil price war triggered by a falling out between Saudi Arabia and Russia is exasperating the economic chaos. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (left) and Russian president Vladimir Putin (right)
Saudi Arabia slashed crude prices to Chinese customers by as much as $6 to $7 a barrel and is looking to boost output by as many as 2million barrels a day.
China is the world’s biggest oil importer and has purchased oil at cheap prices to stockpile for future use in the past.
As a result the Brent global oil benchmark fell dramatically on Sunday by 30 percent, dropping to $31.02 a barrel at its lowest.
US West Texas Intermediate crude, the other main price benchmark for oil, dropped 27% to $30 per barrel – the lowest level since February 2016.
Sunday’s decline in the oil market was the sharpest slump in 29 years since the Gulf War in 1991.
Global stock markets took hits on Sunday with the Tokyo stock market index plunging 6.2 percent, Hong Kong 3.9 percent, Sydney 6.1 percent, and Riyadh eight percent.
The failed talks marked the first break in a three-year alliance between Saudi Arabia led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.
The alliance was key to competing with a surge in American oil production that turned the US into a major crude exporter for the first time in decades.
In response to the price cut Russia said its companies were free to pump as much as they could, as per Bloomberg.
‘If you are Russia, it’s worth it for you to take a three-month price hit to see if you can knock out U.S. oil exports,’ Amy Myers Jaffe, an oil and Middle East expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, said to the New York Times. ‘They might be correct for three months but the shale never gets destroyed.’
Jaffe said the disagreement between the two nations ‘signals that the relationship between Saudi Arabia and Russia is on the skids.’
Analysts speculate the actions over the weekend may have been a game between Saudi Arabia and Russia that will end when they come to a compromise.
If not, oil prices could tumble to the lowest level in five years
Health officials have warned, though, that it may not be safe for everyone to fly everywhere.
In a statement Tuesday morning, the trade group Airlines for America said that “false media narratives … have led to confusion and uncertainty across the country,” and argued that it’s safe to fly, saying “numerous health officials have affirmed that the risk remains low for travelers who follow CDC guidelines.”
Sen. Maria Cantwell, the top Democrat on the committee that oversees aviation, said she didn’t fly home to Washington state last weekend and doesn’t plan to in the foreseeable future.
“I have an 88-year-old mom who’s living at my house [in Washington] and she’s been ill, and I want to give her the comfort of being there. When you have elderly people you want to make sure you’re not putting them at additional risk,” she said. “And look, do I think that there can be airline travel that is safe? Yes. But if you don’t have to…”
Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), 85, noted that the doctor said “stay off of those planes as much as we can.”
“If any of you is going to Alabama Thursday night, can I get a ride?” Shelby quipped to reporters gathered around him Tuesday. “I’ll ride in the back of the truck.”
Also Tuesday, a coalition of mostly travel interests spearheaded by the U.S. Travel Association made a similar plea, noting that canceling travel and events “has a trickle-down effect that threatens to harm the U.S. economy, from locally owned hotels, restaurants, travel advisors and tour operators to the service and frontline employees who make up the backbone of the travel industry and the American economy.”
Yesterday, the credit rating agency Moody’s downgraded the industry’s outlook from stable to negative, warning that there is an “increasing risk to demand for passenger air travel as the coronavirus expands globally.”
And today, the Global Business Travel Association reported that business travel is “slowing at an alarming rate,” finding that 13 percent of its members have canceled even domestic travel, along with high rates of canceled international business travel.
“Those are the customers that are the most profitable for airlines,” said airline analyst Henry Harteveldt.
Though airlines have yet to publicly ask for assistance from the government, the potential for some kind of stimulus has been a topic of discussion on and off Capitol Hill for days, and President Donald Trump has indicated that he favors some assistance for airlines and the cruise industry.
On Tuesday, Trump, along with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow, met with Senate Republicans at their weekly lunch to discuss potential stimulus ideas on a range of topics.
Several Republican senators said that support for the airline and cruise industries was discussed generally, but that few specifics were given.
Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, said that he had not been approached by either industry asking for aid.
Despite the fresh bad news, there is still a high level of uncertainty in the outlook for airlines and the travel industry broadly. “At this point, you cant really do forecasting because we’ve never really been in a situation quite like this before,” said Harteveldt.
And it remains true that overall, the industry is in much better shape than it was after 9/11 and in 2008, when airlines were hit hard by the recession, said Bob Mann, another airline industry analyst.
“The industry structure and company’s balance sheets individually are in far better shape,” he said. “Even the worst balance sheets are better than the average balance sheets in 2008 and 2001.”
Airlines have been taking steps to reduce their capacity, which Mann called “prudent.”
American Airlines is the latest to make that call, announcing this morning it would cut summer international flights by 10 percent and domestic flights by 7.5 percent. Delta Air Lines also said Tuesday that it is cutting international flights by 20 percent to 25 percent and domestic flights by 10 percent to 15 percent.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/10/airlines-travel-slump-coronavirus-125016
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Jack Keane
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General Jack Keane in 1999
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| Born | February 1, 1943 New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Allegiance |  United States |
| Service/branch |  United States Army |
| Years of service | 1966–2003 |
| Rank | General |
| Commands held | XVIII Airborne Corps 101st Airborne Division 1st Brigade, 10th Mountain Division |
| Battles/wars | Vietnam War |
| Awards | Presidential Medal of Freedom Defense Distinguished Service Medal (2) Army Distinguished Service Medal (2) Silver Star Legion of Merit (5) Bronze Star |
John M. “Jack” Keane (born February 1, 1943) is a retired American four-star general, former Vice Chief of Staff of the United States Army and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient. He is a noted national security analyst, primarily on Fox News, and serves as chairman of the Institute for the Study of War and as chairman of AM General.
Keane was born in 1943 in Manhattan, New York,[1][2] the son of Elizabeth (Davis) and John Keane. He has a brother, Ronald. Keane married Theresa Doyle in 1965 and has two sons.[3] His wife died in 2016 after having Parkinson’s disease for 14 years.[4]
Keane attended Fordham University, where he participated in The National Society of Pershing Rifles, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in accounting in 1966. He then attended Western Kentucky University, graduating with a master’s degree in philosophy. He later attended the Command and General Staff College and the Army War College.[3]
Keane (left) meeting with an army colonel
Keane served in the Vietnam War as a paratrooper.[5] He later served in U.S. engagements in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo. His commands include the 1st Brigade, 10th Mountain Division, 101st Airborne Division and the XVIII Airborne Corps.[3]
In 1991 Keane saved the life of David Petraeus during a live-fire exercise. According to Keane, Petraeus was shot “accidentally, standing right next to me, and I had to fight to save his life. He had a hole about the size of a quarter in his back and is gushing with blood, and we stopped the bleeding and got him on a helicopter and got him to a surgeon and so we were sort of bonded ever since that time.”[6]
Keane retired from military service in 2003.
Following his retirement, he has served as an informal advisor to presidents and other senior officials. He served an advisory role in the management of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, as a member of the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee. In January 2007, Keane and scholar Frederick W. Kagan released a policy paper titled “Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq,”[7] through the American Enterprise Institute that called for bringing security by putting 30,000 additional American troops there for a period of at least 18 months. In part convinced by this paper, President George W. Bush ordered on January 10, 2007, the deployment of 21,500 additional troops to Iraq, most of whom would be deployed to Baghdad. This deployment has been nicknamed the 2007 “surge“.[8][9]
Of his initial meeting with President Bush regarding the surge, Keane said he made a phone call to Newt Gingrich to ask his advice prior to the meeting. As Keane said in 2014,
Gingrich gave me some good advice. He said, “Look, Jack. Most people go in the Oval Office, even people who go in there a lot, have a tendency in front of the President of the United States to always leave something on the table.” He said, “Don’t leave anything on the table.” He said, “You’re going to get about 15 minutes at best and put it all out there. And when you walk out of that room, feel good that you got it all out there.” So that was sound advice, and I did put it all out there.[10]
Keane was asked by then-Vice President Cheney to go back on active duty and lead the surge in the field. When Keane declined, Cheney pressed him to come work in the White House and oversee both the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; Keane again declined. Keane ended up briefly working at the White House and then later traveled to Iraq several times to advise General Petraeus.[11]
Keane is a regular contributor to Fox News, and is involved in a variety of business, think tank and charitable activities. He serves as chairman of AM General, the firm that produces the Humvee.[12][13]. In June 2016, Keane co-founded IP3 International (IP3), a nuclear energy consulting firm.
Keane is an advisor to the Spirit of America, a 501(c)(3) organization that supports the safety and success of Americans serving abroad and the local people and partners they seek to help.[14] He formerly served as a strategic advisor for Academi and is a former director of defense giant General Dynamics.
Shortly after Stanley A. McChrystal declined the Secretary of Defense job, Vice-President Elect Pence heard the emotional reasons for the newly widowed general’s decline of the same job. After the departure of General Mattis, the President offered the job again to the subject, but he declined because he was newly remarried.[15] He is considered an influential voice to leaders from both major political parties, including President Trump, particularly on foreign policy issues related to the Middle East.[16]
Keane is a cofounder and director of IP3 International.[17] According to a staff report to the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign of Donald Trump, and subsequently, Trump aides such as Jared Kushner and others have been engaged in promoting IP3’s plan to transfer nuclear technology from the U.S. to Saudi Arabia. According to the report, IP3 founders and others have been seeking to broker a deal with Riyadh without the “gold standard,” a provision — tied to section 123 of the 1954 Atomic Energy Act which establishes conditions for nuclear cooperation between the U.S. and its allies — that seeks to limit weaponizing of nuclear energy.[18][19] In July 2019, the committee chairman released a second staff report that detailed various activities and contacts between IP3 and the Trump administration.[18] [20]
Military awards Keane has received include two Defense Distinguished Service Medals, two Army Distinguished Service Medals, the Silver Star, five Legion of Merits, the Bronze Star Medal, three Meritorious Service Medals, one Army Commendation Medal, the Joint Chiefs Service Badge, the Humanitarian Service Medal,[3] Ranger Tab, Combat Infantryman Badge, Master Parachutist Badge, and Air Assault Badge. President Donald Trump has announced that Keane is set to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom on the second week of March 2020.[21]
His civilian awards include the Fordham University Distinguished Alumni Award, the USO 2002 Man of the Year award, and the Association of the United States Army 2001 Man of the Year award.
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to John M. Keane. |
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Vice Chief of Staff of the United States Army 1999–2003 |
Succeeded by George Casey |
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President Trump speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
AS DEMOCRATS BATTLED IT out in 14 states on Super Tuesday, President Donald Trump easily won the Republican primaries, defeating challengers in a much-expected outcome.
The president won all 14 states, picking up more than 740 delegates. Candidates need at least 1,276 delegates to win the Republican party’s nomination and Trump’s victory brings his count to 859. His opponent, former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld has picked up one delegate so far.
AS DEMOCRATS BATTLED IT out in 14 states on Super Tuesday, President Donald Trump easily won the Republican primaries, defeating challengers in a much-expected outcome.
Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who dropped out of the race Wednesday, won American Samoa. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts had a disappointing night, failing to win any state, including her home state of Massachusetts, which went to Biden.
Trump tweeted as the results came in, exclaiming that the “Democrat establishment came together and crushed Bernie Sanders, AGAIN!” He added that it was “selfish for Elizabeth Warren to stay in the race.”
The president’s campaign argued Super Tuesday only caused more chaos in the Democratic Party and that, while voters may be excited about Biden, he is a “terrible candidate.”
“The results only increase the likelihood that no candidate will have enough delegates for a first ballot victory at their convention, which only means more chaos! The media is hyperventilating about Joe Biden but everyone should remember that he is just as terrible a candidate right now as he was a few days ago,” the campaign said in a statement.
“President Trump will wipe the floor with whatever Democrat is unlucky enough to be the nominee,” the campaign added.
Mike Bloomberg dramatically quit the presidential race Wednesday morning after a disastrous Super Tuesday and immediately backed Joe Biden.
The billionaire gained just 44 delegates by 10.11am, the time he announced his departure – but ran up a bill of $1 billion.
He immediately and whole-heartedly backed Biden, the night’s big winner, hinting that his vast fortune is now at the former vice-president’s disposal.
‘I’ve always believed that defeating Donald Trump starts with uniting behind the candidate with the best shot to do it,’ he said.
‘I’ve known Joe for a very long time. I know his decency, his honesty, and his commitment to the issues that are so important to our country – including gun safety, health care, climate change, and good jobs.
‘Today I am glad to endorse him – and I will work to make him the next President of the United States.’
Democrats are also urging Elizabeth Warren to drop out after further pulling votes from frontrunners Biden and Bernie Sanders without winning any states – including her home of Massachusetts.
She was reported by NBC News to he holding talks with aides about ‘the path forward,’ suggesting that she too is on the brink.
And in yet another blow to Warren early Wednesday morning, Biden was declared winner in Maine, the last of the 14 Super Tuesday states to declare – and Warren did not even get the 15 per cent threshold to pick up delegates there.
In the White House Donald Trump took time out of the coronavirus crisis to send a string of mocking tweets about his richer would-be rival and notably about Bloomberg’s campaign aide Tim O’Brien. Trump had tried and failed to sue O’Brien for libel for writing in 2006 that he was not a real billionaire.
Bloomberg had been a late bloomer to the race.
Seeing the relative weakness of frontrunner Biden, and after first saying he would not run for the White House in 2020 the billionaire decided to jump in after all around Thanksgiving.
Out: Mike Bloomberg quit the race hours after a drubbing, saying: ‘After yesterday’s results, the delegate math has become virtually impossible – and a viable path to the nomination no longer exists.’
Like another former New York City Mayor, Rudy Giuliani, who ran for the White House in 2008, Bloomberg decided to skip the first states that held primaries – Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.
But a change in the Democratic National Committee rules allowed for Bloomberg to still make the Las Vegas debate stage last month.
It was the first time for American voters to see Bloomberg the candidate outside the flurry of television ads his hundreds of millions had bought.
And while the expectation was for Sanders, a democratic socialist, to push back on Bloomberg being there, within the first 10 minutes Warren brought up some of the alleged sexist behavior from the ex-mayor’s past.
‘I’d like to talk about who we’re running against: A billionaire who calls women ‘fat broads’ and ‘horse-faced lesbians.’ And no, I’m not talking about Donald Trump. I’m talking about Mayor Bloomberg,’ Warren said. ‘Democrats are not going to win if we have a nominee who has a history of hiding his tax returns, of harassing women, and of supporting racist policies like redlining and stop and frisk.’
Warren’s debate performance was the beginning of the end.
The results of the single-biggest primary contest night essentially narrowed the field to a two-horse race with Biden edging Sanders.
On Super Tuesday, 14 states and the U.S. territory of American Samoa voted, and Bloomberg only walked away with a win in Samoa – where six delegates were up for grabs.
Every other state was won by either the former vice president or senator from Vermont.
The scale of Biden’s comeback is not in doubt – and neither is Sanders’ ability to keep going, possibly even to the convention in Milwaukee in July.
Biden began by winning state after state, and appeared to stumble when California went to Sanders just after the polls closed there at 8pm – 11pm Eastern.
For the two frontrunners, Sanders’ win in California initially threatened to upend the narrative of the night being a sensational comeback for Biden.
However, the state may yet deliver the kind of resounding win or delegate haul for Sanders that had been forecast.
Sanders had a strong lead, with 87 per cent of the vote in, Biden was running nearly 9 points ahead, and the Vermont senator had garnered over a million votes. In California, Bloomberg also slipped below the 15 per cent threshold he would need to hit in order to collect delegates.
There was a dramatic race playing out through the night in Texas, the night’s second biggest prize. Biden opened up a lead over Sanders early Wednesday morning.
By the time the race was called around 2 am, he was leading Sanders by 50,000 votes, with 89 per cent reporting. Biden was at 33 percent, Sanders was at 30 per cent, and Bloomberg was at 15 per cent – just enough to earn delegates.
As votes continued to come in Wednesday morning, Bloomberg had slipped below that 15 per cent.
There were long lines in Harris County, home to Houston, where Biden was running up strong margins. As in southern states, Biden was running up big margins with the state’s African American voters, but Sanders heavily targeted Latino voters in the state. Biden’s margin, however was bigger.
Some voters were online for six hours, in a state that had pared back polling locations. Biden cleaned up among those who decided who to back late – winning the group 49 to 20 per cent in the state.
Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe called it ‘astounding,’ noting that Biden didn’t spend ‘a penny’ there, speaking on CNN.
Biden staged a dramatic rally in Dallas Monday where he secured endorsements from former presidential rivals Amy Klobuchar and Beto O’Rourke. Earlier Monday, Pete Buttigieg had also endorsed the former vice president.
O’Rourke later took Biden out to a Whataburger, a regional chain, for a milkshake.
Across the map there were signs of Biden’s sudden revival.
Biden dealt a humiliating blow to Warren in her home state of Massachusetts – snagging at least 28 delegates out of the state and beating her in her backyard. She vowed to stay in the race all the way to the conventions even as more centrist candidates flocked to 77-year-old former vice president.
He also denied the prize to Sanders, who hails from a neighboring state.
Bloomberg was born there, and had actor Michael Douglas stumping for him in Boston.
But the region where he dominated was the south, with wins stretching from Virginia to Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama, North Carolina, and Oklahoma. Biden scored a surprise win in Minnesota.
Warren, hosting a rally in downtown Detroit, called herself ‘the woman who’s going to beat Donald Trump.’
The final details of delegate distribution were yet to be determined as the night wore on. But Biden’s overwhelming performance, and the collapse of Bloomberg and Warren, immediately reset the race, with the prospect that Sanders and his political ‘revolution’ would be up against a long slog against the Demoratic establishment-backed candidate as he was against Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Biden rushed to win after win early in the night, with Virginia, North Carolina and Alabama falling in rapid succession.
He took Minnesota without spending a dime on advertising and despite being third in the polls until Amy Klobuchar dropped out on Sunday. She endorsed Biden on Monday.
‘Prediction has been a terrible business and pundits have gotten it wrong over and over,’ she said. ‘Here’s my advice. Cast a vote that will make you proud.’
Then Sanders took some western wins in Utah and Colorado and snared the biggest state of all.
Bernie Sanders seized a victory in California in the last act of a dramatic Super Tuesday which saw Joe Biden win state after state in landslides across the nation – only for his rival to take the biggest prize of all
s Biden raced to a series of state victories, Mike Bloomberg’s campaign said he plans to ‘reassess’ whether he should stay in the race tomorrow. His aides said his campaign chiefs were considering their next move. Dropping out would hand a huge victory to Biden and also the potential for Bloomberg’s almost unlimited resources to be thrown behind him immediately
Donald Trump skewered his critics while toasting his own successes on Twitter as results rolled in from Super Tuesday ballots across the country.
The President reserved most of his ire for ‘Mini’ Mike Bloomberg and Elizabeth ‘Pocahontas’ Warren, who both had poor showings in the polls.
Hitting out at fellow New York billionaire Bloomberg, Trump branded him ‘the biggest loser of the night, by far’.
‘His ‘political’ consultants took him for a ride,’ Trump tweeted.
‘$700 million washed down the drain, and he got nothing for it but the nickname Mini Mike, and the complete destruction of his reputation. Way to go Mike!’
Trump also took aim at Warren after she failed to win her home state of Massachusetts, landing her a distant third in the delegate stakes.
‘Elizabeth ‘Pocahontas’ Warren, other than Mini Mike, was the loser of the night. She didn’t even come close to winning her home state of Massachusetts,’ he wrote.
While Trump made sure to put down his rivals, he donated most of his energy to cheering his own successes – albeit while facing token opposition.
As each win rolled in he tweeted out a message of thanks to his supporters, while vowing to retake the presidency in November.
In Los Angeles, before California was called for Sanders, Biden took to the stage and cast himself the victor, regardless if Sanders took both California and Texas.
First, he mixed up his wife Jill and sister Valerie, a characteristic gaffe which has clearly done nothing to put off Democratic voters.
Biden declared: ‘It’s a great night and it seems to be getting even better. They don’t call it Super Tuesday for nothing!’
The former vice president recalled how just days ago the suggestion was that Super Tuesday would mark the end of his campaign.
‘Well it may be over for the other guy,’ Biden said, a clear shot at Sanders.
Energized, coherent and not put off even by two militant vegan protesters who ran onto the stage to protest against the dairy industry, he painted himself as the one Democrat who can take on Trump.
‘A lifelong Democrat, an Obama-Biden Democrat,’ he said to cheers – a pointed way to contrast himself to Sanders, who is an independent senator.
Jill Biden was captured in a photograph grabbing the protester by the arm and grimacing. Symone Sanders, Sanders’ former press secretary who’s not a top Biden adviser, had rushed across the stage to pull a protester off.
It was a return in part to the early days of the race, when Biden held a strong polling lead before the first states voted and caucused. With Sanders on the rise days ago and party leaders warning the democratic socialist could seize the nomination Tuesday, forces coalesced around Biden in South Carolina.
A key factor was the endorsement there of James C. Clyburn, the state’s most senior African American elected official.
In Vermont, Sanders pinned his hopes on California, pivoting to a victory speech and a string of attacks on Biden.
‘Tonight I tell you with absolute confidence we are going to win the Democratic nomination,’ he said.
The path to the nomination in Milwaukee now runs through a mini-Super Tuesday on March 10, when Missouri, Michigan, Washington and Mississippi vote.
Sanders had appeared to be ahead in Michigan but Biden’s upset in Minnesota is likely to weigh heavily there, and the combined demographic of African-Americans and disaffected blue collar voters could play to Biden’s strengths.
The following Tuesday, March 17, offers another selection of massive delegate counts when Florida, Illinois and Ohio all vote, along with Arizona.
The following week, March 24, sees Georgia vote, which Biden’s southern firewall should make a surefire victory.
For Sanders, the loss of momentum from a rocky Super Tuesday could be critical.
In 2016 he stayed in by rallying his base and railing against an ‘establishment’ determined not to give him the nomination and to install an ‘inevitable’ candidate in Hillary Clinton.
That may be more difficult as he faces in Biden an opponent whose comeback narrative offers him some of the advantages of the underdog, and whose narrative of empathy and standing up for those who were left behind overlaps with Sanders’ more radical rhetoric.
The string of endorsements Biden has garnered in the last few days from centrist party figures, including three of his former rivals, have been crucial in driving momentum.
Energized, coherent and not put off even by two militant vegan protesters (pictured) who ran onto the stage to protest against the dairy industry, Biden painted himself as the one Democrat who can take on Trump
Elizabeth Warren’s campaign for president fell flat on Super Tuesday as she was unable to win even her home state of Massachusetts.
Warren lost to both Joe Biden – whose South Carolina win Saturday night restored his frontrunner status – and Bernie Sanders, who represents neighboring state Vermont. Warren was in third place with 22 per cent of the vote with 70 per cent of the votes counted.
‘Predictions are a terrible business. Pundits have gotten it wrong over and over,’ Warren told the Michigan crowd. ‘Cast a vote that will make you proud. Vote from your heart. And vote for the person who you think will make the best president of the United States.’
During her final rally in California Monday night, Warren dismissed the surging Biden as a same-old, same-old Washington politician.
Supporters of Bernie Sanders look over Super Tuesday election results at a campaign center in Denver, Colorado
Tulsi Gabbard, a congresswoman from Hawaii, remains in the race though has only campaigned sporadically. She did make a pitch to voters in American Samoa, where she was born, to vote for her Tuesday
People wait to vote during the presidential primary in Santa Monica, California on Super Tuesday
People line up to vote at a polling station on Super Tuesday in Beverly Hills, California
Students at the University of Vermont Franklin fill out voter registration forms at a polling place on Super Tuesday in Burlington, Vermont. At the close of the polls on Tuesday night, Sanders won his home state
Now Biden will have Bloomberg out of his way in order to capture more moderate voters – and Bloomberg’s commitment to help him remove Trump from office.
President Trump, for his part, touted his string of Republican primary victories Tuesday night, tweeting his thanks after state after state was called in his favor.
The president only had token competition – former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld – in the Super Tuesday contests and one state, Virginia, canceled its GOP primary as Trump, like most incumbent presidents, is easily expected to win his party’s nomination.
Trump has played armchair pundit on Twitter as he’s watched the shake-up on the Democratic side.
‘Elizabeth “Pocahontas” Warren, other than Mini Mike, was the loser of the night. She didn’t even come close to winning her home state of Massachusetts. Well, now she can just sit back with her husband and have a nice cold beer!’ Trump tweeted early Wednesday.
The president relished the news that Bloomberg had bowed out.
‘Mini Mike Bloomberg just “quit” the race for President. I could have told him long ago that he didn’t have what it takes, and he would have saved himself a billion dollars, the real cost,’ Trump wrote. ‘Now he will pour money into Sleepy Joe’s campaign, hoping to save face.’
‘It won’t work!’ Trump said.
JOE BIDEN
Age on Inauguration Day 2021: 78
Entered race: April 25, 2019
Career: No current role. A University of Delaware and Syracuse Law graduate, he was first elected to Newcastle City Council in 1969, then won upset election to Senate in 1972, aged 29. Was talked out of quitting before being sworn in when his wife and daughter died in a car crash and served total of six terms. Chaired Judiciary Committee’s notorious Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings. Ran for president in 1988, pulled out after plagiarism scandal, ran again in 2008, withdrew after placing fifth in the Iowa Caucuses. Tapped by Obama as his running mate and served two terms as vice president. Contemplated third run in 2016 but decided against it after his son died of brain cancer.
Family: Eldest of four siblings born to Joe Biden Sr. and Catherine Finnegan. First wife Neilia Hunter and their one-year-old daughter Naomi died in car crash which their two sons, Joseph ‘Beau’ and Robert Hunter survived. Married Jill Jacobs in 1976, with whom he has daughter Ashley. Beau died of brain cancer in 2015. Hunter’s marriage to Kathleen Buhle, with whom he has three children, ended in 2016 when it emerged Hunter was in a relationship with Beau’s widow Hallie, mother of their two children. Hunter admitted cocaine use; his estranged wife accused him of blowing their savings on drugs and prostitutes
Religion: Catholic
Views on key issues: Ultra-moderate who will emphasize bipartisan record. Will come under fire over record, having voted: to stop desegregation bussing in 1975; to overturn Roe v Wade in 1981; for now controversial 1994 Violent Crime Act; for 2003 Iraq War; and for banking deregulation. Says he is ‘most progressive’ Democrat. New positions include free college, tax reform, $15 minimum wage. No public position yet on Green New Deal and healthcare. Pro-gun control. Has already apologized to women who say he touched them inappropriately
Would make history as: Oldest person elected president
Slogan: Our Best Days Still Lie Ahead
TULSI GABBARD
Age on Inauguration Day: 39
Entered race: Still to formally file any papers but said she would run on January 11 2019
Career: Currently Hawaii congresswoman. Born on American Samoa, a territory. Raised largely in Hawaii, she co-founded an environmental non-profit with her father as a teenager and was elected to the State Legislature aged 21, its youngest member in history. Enlisted in the National Guard and served two tours, one in Iraq 2004-2006, then as an officer in Kuwait in 2009. Ran for Honolulu City Council in 2011, and House of Representatives in 2012
Family: Married to her second husband, Abraham Williams, a cinematographer since 2015. First marriage to childhood sweetheart Eduardo Tamayo in 2002 ended in 2006. Father Mike Gabbard is a Democratic Hawaii state senator, mother Carol Porter runs a non-profit.
Religion: Hindu
Views on key issues: Has apologized for anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage views; wants marijuana federally legalized; opposed to most U.S. foreign interventions; backs $15 minimum wage and universal health care; was the second elected Democrat to meet Trump after his 2016 victory
Would make history as: First female, Hindu and Samoan-American president; youngest president ever
Slogan: Lead with Love
BERNIE SANDERS
Age on Inauguration Day: 79
Entered race: Sources said on January 25, 2019, that he would form exploratory committee. Officially announced February 19
Career: Currently Vermont senator. Student civil rights and anti-Vietnam activist who moved to Vermont and worked as a carpenter and radical film-maker. Serial failed political candidate in the 1970s, he ran as a socialist for mayor of Burlington in 1980 and served two terms ending in 1989, and win a seat in Congress as an independent in 1990. Ran for Senate in 2006 elections as an independent with Democratic endorsement and won third term in 2018. Challenged Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination in 2016 but lost. Campaign has since been hit by allegations of sexual harassment – for which he has apologized – and criticized for its ‘Bernie bro’ culture
Family: Born to a Jewish immigrant father and the daughter of Jewish immigrant parents in Brooklyn, New York. First marriage to college sweetheart Deborah Shiling Messing in 1964 ended in divorce in 1966; had son Levi in 1969 with then girlfriend Susan Cambell Mott. Married Jone O’Meara in 1988 and considers her three children, all adults, his own. The couple have seven grandchildren. His older brother Larry is a former Green Party councilor in Oxfordshire, England.
Religion: Secular Jewish
Views on key issues: Openly socialist and standard bearer for the Democratic party’s left-turn. Wants federal $15 minimum wage; banks broken up; union membership encouraged; free college tuition; universal health care; re-distributive taxation; he opposed Iraq War and also U.S. leading the fight against ISIS and wants troops largely out of Afghanistan and the Middle East
Would make history as: Oldest person elected president; first Jewish president
Slogan: Not me. Us.
ELIZABETH WARREN
Age on Inauguration Day: 71
Entered race: Set up exploratory committee December 31, 2018
Career: Currently Massachusetts senator. Law lecturer and academic who became an expert on bankruptcy law and tenured Harvard professor. Ran for Senate and won in 2012, defeating sitting Republican Scott Brown, held it in 2018 60% to 36%. Was short-listed to be Hillary’s running mate and campaigned hard for her in 2016
Family: Twice-married mother of two and grandmother of three. First husband and father of her children was her high-school sweetheart. Second husband Bruce Mann is Harvard law professor. Daughter Amelia Tyagi and son Alex Warren have both been involved in her campaigns. Has controversially claimed Native American roots; DNA test suggested she is as little as 1,064th Native American
Religion: Raised Methodist, now described as Christian with no fixed church
Views on key issues: Was a registered Republican who voted for the party but registered as a Democrat in 1996. Pro: higher taxes on rich; banking regulation; Dream Act path to citizenship for ‘dreamers’; abortion and gay rights; campaign finance restrictions; and expansion of public provision of healthcare – although still to spell out exactly how that would happen. Against: U.S. presence in Afghanistan and Syria; liberalization of gambling
Would make history as: First female president
Slogan: Warren Has A Plan For That
“For most people a mask may actually risk catching the disease rather than preventing it” If you’re thinking about wearing a mask to protect yourself from the coronavirus, you may want to think again. One of the UK’s most senior health officials, Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Jenny Harries, has explained the best way of protecting yourself while going about your day to day routine. She’s also given detail answers to questions about the government’s plans to rely on the NHS if an epidemic happens. ► The UK is preparing for a potential epidemic – but will it be ready in time?:
You can also keep up with CDC updates on Coronavirus Disease 2019 by signing up for email updates, syndicating available content, and subscribing to Coronavirus Disease 2019 RSS Feed.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/whats-new-all.html
These are the 10 things you MUST KNOW about CORONAVIRUS COVID-19 to keep your family safe. The video also explains why you should take this outbreak seriously and where to go for CREDIBLE INFORMATION to help you stay ahead of the news curve.
1) Coronavirus Covid-19 is not the flu, it’s not SARS, and it’s not MERS. It’s a completely new virus.
2) Coronavirus Covid-19 is 20x deadlier than the flu.
3) Although 81% of people experience mild symptoms, Coronavirus Covid-19 has a high complication rate.
4) If you contract the virus and you’re older, your chances of dying are higher. But young people in their 20’s and 30’s have died too, so don’t be complacent.
5) Coronavirus Covid-19 can have a very long incubation period, and it spreads asymptomatically.
6) Coronavirus Covid-19 spreads via droplets in the air and AEROSOL!
7) The R0 factor of this virus is incredibly high.
8) There have been reports out of Asia of people getting Covid-19 again, so recovering once does not guarantee immunity afterward.
9) In the United States, we are in the early part of the curve, where it looks like nothing much is happening.
10) Vaccines are not yet available and probably won’t be for 6-18 months, no matter what you read in the headlines.
*****3 TO FOLLOW***** Chris Martenson, Peak Prosperity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVQC1…
Dr. Roger Seheult, MedCram: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quDYb…
Dr. John Campbell, Retired: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmIRM…
*****SOURCES***** Lessons from the Coronavirus outbreak in China 2019: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama…
Age of Coronavirus deaths: https://www.worldometers.info/coronav…
Outbreak country charts: https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitica…
Why some Covid-19 cases are worse than others: https://www.the-scientist.com/news-op…
Too early to compare Coronavirus to Flu: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/w…
Covid-19 Coronavirus reinfection in Japan raises questions:
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/202… #coronavirus #covid19
World health officials said Tuesday the mortality rate for COVID-19 is 3.4% globally, higher than previous estimates of about 2%.
“Globally, about 3.4% of reported COVID-19 cases have died,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a press briefing at the agency’s headquarters in Geneva. In comparison, seasonal flu generally kills far fewer than 1% of those infected, he said.
The World Health Organization had said last week that the mortality rate of COVID-19 can differ, ranging from 0.7% to up to 4%, depending on the quality of the health-care system where it’s treated. Early in the outbreak, scientists had concluded the death rate was around 2.3%.
During a press briefing Monday, WHO officials said they don’t know how COVID-19 behaves, saying it’s not like influenza. They added that while much is known about the seasonal flu, such as how it’s transmitted and what treatments work to suppress the disease, that same information is still in question when it comes to the coronavirus.
“This is a unique virus, with unique features. This virus is not influenza,” Tedros said Monday. “We are in uncharted territory.”
Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of WHO’s health emergencies program, said Monday that the coronavirus isn’t transmitting the same exact way as the flu and health officials have been given a “glimmer, a chink of light” that the virus could be contained.
“Here we have a disease for which we have no vaccine, no treatment, we don’t fully understand transmission, we don’t fully understand case mortality, but what we have been genuinely heartened by is that unlike influenza, where countries have fought back, where they’ve put in place strong measures, we’ve remarkably seen that the virus is suppressed,” Ryan said.
Medical experts have urged people to stop panic buying face masks, warning that such equipment is not an effective way to protect yourself from the fast-spreading coronavirus.
The advice comes at a time of intensifying concern about COVID-19, which has killed more than 3,000 people worldwide since late last year.
The outbreak was first identified in Hubei province, China, where over 90% of the deaths have been reported. More recently, the virus has been spreading at a faster rate outside China than inside the country.
The WHO has declared the outbreak a global health emergency, with almost 60 countries reporting cases of the coronavirus.
Epidemiologists and infectious disease experts have been at pains to emphasize against an unwarranted scramble for face masks in recent weeks, particularly because such hoarding behavior elevates the prospect of an equipment shortage for medical workers.
“Seriously people — STOP BUYING MASKS!” U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams said via Twitter over the weekend.
“They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!”
U.S. Surgeon General
✔@Surgeon_General
Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS!
They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!
http://bit.ly/37Ay6CmCoronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a virus (more specifically, a coronavirus) identified as the cause of an outbreak of respiratory illness first detected in Wuhan, China.
cdc.gov
The warning from America’s top doctor is consistent with medical advice from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has said there is no evidence to support wearing face masks.
Instead, Adams said “the best way to protect yourself and your community is with everyday preventative actions, like staying home when you are sick and washing hands with soap and water, to help slow the spread of the respiratory illness.”
It has been suggested wearing face masks could be useful if you’re sick in order to prevent you from sneezing or coughing into somebody’s face, David Heymann, who led WHO’s infectious disease unit at the time of the SARS epidemic in 2002-2003, said at a Chatham House press briefing last month.
But, “a mask that is used to stop getting an infection is sometimes not very effective because people take it off to eat, many times they are worn improperly (and) if they get wet and somebody sneezes on that mask it could pass through.
So, there is really not a lot of evidence (to support wearing masks).”
“One of the most important ways of stopping respiratory outbreaks such as this is washing hands,” Heymann continued.
That’s because “if you touch a patient, if you shake hands, if you touch a door that has a droplet on it — which could theoretically happen — then you touch your face (or) your mouth and you become infected.”
“So, handwashing is the most important. And second is, people who are suspected as being patients, be very careful when you are dealing with them. Avoid face-to-face contact and wash hands when you’re treating,” Heymann said.
“It is very important that people understand that they can prevent themselves from being infected if they follow a few simple measures,” he added.
South Korea, Italy and Iran have all recorded sharp upticks in cases of the coronavirus in recent days, with many other countries imposing travel restrictions on virus-hit areas worldwide.
Infections have now been reported in every continent except Antarctica.
Emily Landon, medical director for infection control at the University of Chicago Medical Center, told CNBC late last week that face masks were “not a great choice” for everyday use.
“First of all, there are multiple different kind of face masks. There is the surgical mask that people wear that doesn’t really seal up very well. That’s super good if you put it on the patient who’s sick because that will contain their secretions and protect everyone around them.”
“However, if you are the one who wants to protect yourself, those N95 masks … are much better,” Landon said.
“Keeping your hands clean so that you don’t touch your face no matter what things you are touching with your hands is a really important piece of preventing infection in hospitals, in schools and everywhere you go.”
“Soap and water works really well. It can dry your hands out a little bit more but when you do it, you want to do it right. That means getting your hands wet with warm water, cleaning them, getting all of the surfaces with soap for 20 seconds — that’s a full time through ‘Happy Birthday’ — and then also rinsing them off afterwards,” Landon said.
Stocks surged on Wednesday as major victories from former Vice President Joe Biden during Super Tuesday sparked a massive rally within the health-care sector.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average soared 1,173.45 points higher, or 4.5%, to 27,090.86. The S&P 500 jumped 4.2% to 3,130.12, while the Nasdaq Composite advanced 3.8% to 9,018.09. The Dow posted its second-highest point gain ever, and it was the second time in three days that the 30-stock average swung 1,000 points or higher.
With Wednesday’s rally, all three major averages moved out of correction territory, meaning they are now less than 10% down from their 52-week highs. The tech-heavy Nasdaq also turned positive on the year, up 0.5% in 2020.
Biden scored key primary victories in states including North Carolina, Texas and Arkansas, giving his campaign momentum and increasing his odds of being the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee. Many investors applaud Biden for his middle-of-the-road tack in contrast to the more progressive policies of Sanders, I-Vt., and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.
Tuesday’s primary results sent health-care stocks flying. The S&P health care sector surged 5.8%, posting its best day since 2008. UnitedHealth and Centene jumped 10.7% and 15.6%, respectively. Shares of UnitedHealth had their biggest one-day gain since 2008.
The major averages also got a boost from strong economic data. The U.S. services sector expanded at a faster-than-expected pace in February, data from the Institute for Supply Management showed. ADP and Moody’s Analytics said private payrolls jumped by 183,000 last month, topping expectations. Lawmakers also struck a deal on more than $8 billion in emergency coronavirus funding.
“Investors fear Bernie because he wants to cut off the head of capitalism by raising taxes significantly on the rich and using the funds to provide free everything to everybody else,” said Ed Yardeni, president and chief investment strategist at Yardeni Research, in a note. “Getting everything for free trumps freedom, according to Bernie. No wonder investors are reacting to him as though he is going to infect us all with the virus of socialism.”
Warren, a former law school professor who specialized in bankruptcy law, is not a favorite on Wall Street as she proposes detailed plans to break up big banks and technology companies and raise taxes.
“Stocks will be even more relieved at Warren’s coming concession as they are at Biden’s big showing,” Ritholtz Wealth Management CEO Josh Brown tweeted. “Wall Streeters have always secretly been more afraid of her than anyone else given her domain expertise.”
Wednesday’s moves come after yet another volatile session for U.S. investors as the Federal Reserve announced Tuesday an emergency interest rate cut in an effort to help pacify investors worried about the economic consequences of the coronavirus.
The decision to cut rates by half a percentage point came two weeks before the Fed’s next scheduled meeting and reflected the central bank’s belief that quick action would be most effective to combat the dampening impact of the virus.
Though stocks initially traded higher, the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite all reversed course to end Tuesday’s session markedly lower. The Dow fell more than 780 points, or 2.9%, and the S&P 500 dropped 2.8% with both indexes back in correction.
The Fed’s “Beige Book” report on Wednesday showed the U.S. economic activity expanded at a “modest to moderate” rate over the past week, citing coronavirus as a risk to the outlook.
“We’re trying to reprice the entire stock market based on an unknown, the coronavirus,” said JJ Kinahan, chief market strategist at TD Ameritrade. “When we have such a large unknown, it’s going to affect people in different ways.”
Impeachment couldn’t stop President Donald Trump’s job approval from rising, but the coronavirus might. As Americans’ near-term view of the economy soured in February, amid worry over the coronavirus and a Dow Jones correction, Trump’s job approval rating relapsed.
Just 41% of Americans approve of how President Trump is handling his job, while 54% disapprove, the March IBD/TIPP Poll finds. That negative 13-point differential has nearly doubled in the past month. In late January, Trump’s job approval registered 44% and disapproval 51%.
Now just 37% of independents give Trump positive reviews, while 57% disapprove. That’s down from 39%-53% in late January.
The drop in Trump’s job approval coincides with a sudden shift in the economic outlook. The U.S. economic outlook just suffered its biggest one-month drop since October 2013 amid spread of the coronavirus, the March IBD/TIPP Poll finds.
The six-month economic outlook index fell to a modestly pessimistic 47.8 from a strongly optimistic 57. Readings above the neutral 50 level reflect optimism.
Trump continues to get positive ratings for his handling of the economy, with 47% approving and 35% disapproving. Still, that’s a big comedown from late January. Back then, 53% of Americans rated his handling of the U.S. economy as good or excellent, while just 28% give him a negative rating.
Joe Biden leads Trump 49% to 46%, the March IBD/TIPP Poll finds, after Trump had cut the margin to 49%-48% in late January.
Sanders now leads Trump 49% to 47%, having trailed 47%-49% a month earlier. Warren leads Trump 48% to 46%, a reversal of her 46%-50% deficit.
Still, a narrow popular vote edge would not necessarily translate into an Electoral College victory for Democrats.
Trump leads all Democrats among self-described investors, with a four-point lead over Biden. He leads Sanders by seven points.
The IBD/TIPP Poll reflects responses from 908 adults contacted via mobile phones and landlines from Feb. 20-29 and carries a 3.3-point margin of error.
Please follow Jed Graham on Twitter at @IBD_JGraham for coverage of economic policy and financial markets.
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AS DEMOCRATS BATTLED IT out in 14 states on Super Tuesday, President Donald Trump easily won the Republican primaries, defeating challengers in a much-expected outcome.
The president won all 14 states, picking up more than 740 delegates. Candidates need at least 1,276 delegates to win the Republican party’s nomination and Trump’s victory brings his count to 859. His opponent, former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld has picked up one delegate so far.
AS DEMOCRATS BATTLED IT out in 14 states on Super Tuesday, President Donald Trump easily won the Republican primaries, defeating challengers in a much-expected outcome.
The president won all 14 states, picking up more than 740 delegates. Candidates need at least 1,276 delegates to win the Republican party’s nomination and Trump’s victory brings his count to 859. His opponent, former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld has picked up one delegate so far.
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A comparison of three major U.S. stock indices: the NASDAQ Composite, Dow Jones Industrial Average, and S&P 500 Index. All three have the same height at March 2000. The NASDAQ spiked during the dot-com bubble in the late 1990s, a result of the large number of technology companies on that index.
A stock index or stock market index is an index that measures a stock market, or a subset of the stock market, that helps investors compare current price levels with past prices to calculate market performance.[1] It is computed from the prices of selected stocks (typically a weighted arithmetic mean).
Two of the primary criteria of an index are that it is investable and transparent:[2] The method of its construction are specified. Investors can invest in a stock market index by buying an index fund, which are structured as either a mutual fund or an exchange-traded fund, and “track” an index. The difference between an index fund’s performance and the index, if any, is called tracking error. For a list of major stock market indices, see List of stock market indices.
Stock market indices may be classified in many ways. A ‘world’ or ‘global’ stock market index — such as the MSCI World or the S&P Global 100 — includes stocks from multiple regions. Regions may be defined geographically (e.g., Europe, Asia) or by levels of industrialization or income (e.g., Developed Markets, Frontier Markets).
A ‘national’ index represents the performance of the stock market of a given nation—and by proxy, reflects investor sentiment on the state of its economy. The most regularly quoted market indices are national indices composed of the stocks of large companies listed on a nation’s largest stock exchanges, such as the S&P 500 Index in the United States, the Nikkei 225 in Japan, the NIFTY 50 in India, and the FTSE 100 in the United Kingdom.
Many indices are regional, such as the FTSE Developed Europe Index or the FTSE Developed Asia Pacific Index. Indexes may be based on exchange, such as the NASDAQ-100 or groups of exchanges, such as the Euronext 100 or OMX Nordic 40.
The concept may be extended well beyond an exchange. The Wilshire 5000 Index, the original total market index, includes the stocks of nearly every public company in the United States, including all U.S. stocks traded on the New York Stock Exchange (but not ADRs or limited partnerships), NASDAQ and American Stock Exchange. The FTSE Global Equity Index Series includes over 16,000 companies.[3]
Indices exist that track the performance of specific sectors of the market. Some examples include the Wilshire US REIT Index which tracks more than 80 real estate investment trusts and the NASDAQ Biotechnology Index which consists of approximately 200 firms in the biotechnology industry. Other indices may track companies of a certain size, a certain type of management, or more specialized criteria such as in fundamentally based indexes.
Several indices are based on ethical investing, and include only companies that meet certain ecological or social criteria, such as the Calvert Social Index, Domini 400 Social Index, FTSE4Good Index, Dow Jones Sustainability Index, STOXX Global ESG Leaders Index, several Standard Ethics Aei indices, and the Wilderhill Clean Energy Index.[4]
In 2010, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation announced the initiation of a stock index that complies with Sharia‘s ban on alcohol, tobacco and gambling.[5]
Strict mechanical criteria for inclusion and exclusion exist to prevent market domination, such as in Canada when Nortel was permitted to rise to over 30% of the TSE 300 index value.
Ethical indices have a particular interest in mechanical criteria, seeking to avoid accusations of ideological bias in selection, and have pioneered techniques for inclusion and exclusion of stocks based on complex criteria.
Another means of mechanical selection is mark-to-future methods that exploit scenarios produced by multiple analysts weighted according to probability, to determine which stocks have become too risky to hold in the index of concern.
Critics of such initiatives argue that many firms satisfy mechanical “ethical criteria”, e.g. regarding board composition or hiring practices, but fail to perform ethically with respect to shareholders, e.g. Enron. Indeed, the seeming “seal of approval” of an ethical index may put investors more at ease, enabling scams. One response to these criticisms is that trust in the corporate management, index criteria, fund or index manager, and securities regulator, can never be replaced by mechanical means, so “market transparency” and “disclosure” are the only long-term-effective paths to fair markets. From a financial perspective, it is not obvious whether ethical indices or ethical funds will out-perform their more conventional counterparts. Theory might suggest that returns would be lower since the investible universe is artificially reduced and with it portfolio efficiency. On the other hand, companies with good social performances might be better run, have more committed workers and customers, and be less likely to suffer reputation damage from incidents (oil spillages, industrial tribunals, etc.) and this might result in lower share price volatility.[6] The empirical evidence on the performance of ethical funds and of ethical firms versus their mainstream comparators is very mixed for both stock[7][8] and debt markets.[9]
Some indices, such as the S&P 500 Index, have returns shown calculated with different methods.[10] These versions can differ based on how the index components are weighted and on how dividends are accounted. For example, there are three versions of the S&P 500 Index: price return, which only considers the price of the components, total return, which accounts for dividend reinvestment, and net total return, which accounts for dividend reinvestment after the deduction of a withholding tax.[11]
The Wilshire 4500 and Wilshire 5000 indices have five versions each: full capitalization total return, full capitalization price, float-adjusted total return, float-adjusted price, and equal weight. The difference between the full capitalization, float-adjusted, and equal weight versions is in how index components are weighted.[12][13]
An index may also be classified according to the method used to determine its price. In a price-weighted index such as the Dow Jones Industrial Average, NYSE Arca Major Market Index, and the NYSE Arca Tech 100 Index, the share price of each component stock is the only consideration when determining the value of the index. Thus, price movement of even a single security will heavily influence the value of the index even though the dollar shift is less significant in a relatively highly valued issue, and moreover ignoring the relative size of the company as a whole. In contrast, a Capitalization-weighted index (also called market-value-weighted) such as the S&P 500 Index or Hang Seng Index factors in the size of the company. Thus, a relatively small shift in the price of a large company will heavily influence the value of the index.
Capitalization- or share-weighted indices have a full weighting, i.e. all outstanding shares were included. Many indices are based on a free float-adjusted weighting.
An equal-weighted index is one in which all components are assigned the same value.[14] For example, the Barron’s 400 Index assigns an equal value of 0.25% to each of the 400 stocks included in the index, which together add up to the 100% whole.[15]
A modified capitalization-weighted index is a hybrid between capitalization weighting and equal weighting. It is similar to a capitalization weighting with one main difference: the largest stocks are capped to a percent of the weight of the total stock index and the excess weight will be redistributed equally amongst the stocks under that cap. In 2005, Standard & Poor’s introduced the S&P Pure Growth Style Index and S&P Pure Value Style Index which was attribute-weighted. That is, a stock’s weight in the index is decided by the score it gets relative to the value attributes that define the criteria of a specific index, the same measure used to select the stocks in the first place. For these two indexes, a score is calculated for every stock, be it their growth score or the value score (a stock cannot be both) and accordingly they are weighted for the index.[16]
One argument for capitalization weighting is that investors must, in aggregate, hold a capitalization-weighted portfolio anyway. This then gives the average return for all investors; if some investors do worse, other investors must do better (excluding costs).[17]
Investors use theories such as modern portfolio theory to determine allocations. This considers risk and return and does not consider weights relative to the entire market. This may result in overweighting assets such as value or small-cap stocks, if they are believed to have a better return for risk profile. These investors believe that they can get a better result because other investors are not very good. The capital asset pricing model says that all investors are highly intelligent, and it is impossible to do better than the market portfolio, the capitalization-weighted portfolio of all assets. However, empirical tests conclude that market indices are not efficient.[citation needed] This can be explained by the fact that these indices do not include all assets or by the fact that the theory does not hold. The practical conclusion is that using capitalization-weighted portfolios is not necessarily the optimal method.
As a consequence, capitalization-weighting has been subject to severe criticism (see e.g. Haugen and Baker 1991, Amenc, Goltz, and Le Sourd 2006, or Hsu 2006), pointing out that the mechanics of capitalization-weighting lead to trend following strategies that provide an inefficient risk-return trade-off.
While capitalization-weighting is the standard in equity index construction, different weighting schemes exist. While most indices use capitalization-weighting, additional criteria are often taken into account, such as sales/revenue and net income, as in the Dow Jones Global Titan 50 Index.
As an answer to the critiques of capitalization-weighting, equity indices with different weighting schemes have emerged, such as “wealth”-weighted (Morris, 1996), Fundamentally based indexes (Robert D. Arnott, Hsu and Moore 2005), “diversity”-weighted (Fernholz, Garvy, and Hannon 1998) or equal-weighted indices.[18]
Passive management is an investing strategy involving investing in index funds, which are structured as mutual funds or exchange-traded funds that track market indices.[19] The SPIVA (S&P Indices vs. Active) annual “U.S. Scorecard”, which measures the performance of indices versus actively managed mutual funds, finds the vast majority of active management mutual funds underperform their benchmarks, such as the S&P 500 Index, after fees.[20][21] Since index funds attempt to replicate the holdings of an index, they eliminate the need for — and thus many costs of — the research entailed in active management, and have a lower churn rate (the turnover of securities, which can result in transaction costs and capital gains taxes).
Unlike a mutual fund, which is priced daily, an exchange-traded fund is priced continuously, is optionable, and can be sold short.[22]
Media related to Stock market indexes at Wikimedia Commons
The Influenza Division at CDC collects, compiles and analyzes information on influenza activity year-round in the United States. FluView, a weekly influenza surveillance report, and FluView Interactive, an online application which allows for more in-depth exploration of influenza surveillance data, are updated each week. The data presented each week are preliminary and may change as more data is received.
The U.S. influenza surveillance system is a collaborative effort between CDC and its many partners in state, local, and territorial health departments, public health and clinical laboratories, vital statistics offices, healthcare providers, clinics, and emergency departments. Information in five categories is collected from eight data sources in order to:
It is important to maintain a comprehensive system for influenza surveillance for the following reasons:
1. Virologic Surveillance
U.S. World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Laboratories System and the National Respiratory and Enteric Virus Surveillance System (NREVSS) – Approximately 100 public health and over 300 clinical laboratories located throughout all 50 states, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the District of Columbia participate in virologic surveillance for influenza through either the U.S. WHO Collaborating Laboratories System or NREVSS. Influenza testing practices differ in public health and clinical laboratories and each source provides valuable information for monitoring influenza activity. Clinical laboratories primarily test respiratory specimens for diagnostic purposes and data from these laboratories provide useful information on the timing and intensity of influenza activity. Public health laboratories primarily test specimens for surveillance purposes to understand what influenza virus types, subtypes, and lineages are circulating and the age groups being affected.
All public health and clinical laboratories report each week to CDC the total number of respiratory specimens tested for influenza and the number positive for influenza viruses, along with age or age group of the person, if available. Data presented from clinical laboratories include the weekly total number of specimens tested, the number of positive influenza tests, and the percent positive by influenza virus type. Data presented from public health laboratories include the weekly total number of specimens tested and the number positive by influenza virus type and subtype/lineage. In order to obtain specimens in an efficient manner, public health laboratories often receive samples that have already tested positive for an influenza virus at a clinical laboratory. As a result, monitoring the percent of specimens testing positive for an influenza virus in a public health laboratory is less useful (i.e., we expect a higher percent positive). In order to use each data source most appropriately and to avoid duplication, reports from public health and clinical laboratories are presented separately in both FluView and FluView Interactive.
The age distribution of influenza positive specimens reported from public health laboratories is visualized in FluView Interactive. The number and proportion of influenza virus-positive specimens by influenza A subtype and influenza B lineage are presented by age group (0-4 years, 5-24 years, 25-64 years, and ≥65 years) each week and cumulative totals are provided for the season.
Additional laboratory data for current and past seasons and by geographic level (national, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) region, and state) are available on FluView Interactive.
Virus Characterization – Most U.S. viruses submitted for virus characterization come from state and local public health laboratories. Due to Right Size Roadmapexternal icon considerations, specimen submission guidance to public health laboratories for the 2019-2020 season is that, if available, 2 influenza A(H1N1)pdm09, 3 influenza A(H3N2), and 2 influenza B viruses be submitted every other week. Therefore, the numbers of each virus type/subtype characterized should be more balanced across subtypes/lineages but will not reflect the actual proportion of circulating viruses. The goal of antigenic and genetic characterization is to compare how similar the currently circulating influenza viruses are to the reference viruses representing viruses contained in the current influenza vaccines and to monitor evolutionary changes that continually occur in influenza viruses circulating in humans. For genetic characterization, all influenza-positive surveillance samples received at CDC undergo next-generation sequencing to determine the genetic identity of circulating influenza viruses and to monitor the evolutionary trajectory of viruses circulating in our population. Virus gene segments are classified into genetic clades/subclades based on phylogenetic analysis. However, genetic changes that classify the clades/subclades do not always result in antigenic changes. “Antigenic drift” is a term used to describe gradual antigenic change that occurs as viruses evolve to escape host immune pressure. Antigenic drift is evaluated using hemagglutination inhibition and/or neutralization based focus reduction assays to compare antigenic properties of cell-propagated reference viruses representing currently recommended vaccine components with those of cell-propagated circulating viruses.
CDC also tests a subset of the influenza viruses collected by public health laboratories for susceptibility to the neuraminidase inhibitor antivirals (oseltamivir, zanamivir, and peramivir) and the PA cap-dependent endonuclease inhibitor (baloxavir). Susceptibility to the neuraminidase inhibitors is assessed using next-generation sequencing analysis and/or a functional assay. Neuraminidase sequences of viruses are inspected to detect the presence of amino acid substitutions, previously associated with reduced or highly reduced inhibition by any of three neuraminidase inhibitorspdf iconexternal icon. In addition, a subset of viruses is tested using the neuraminidase inhibition assay with three neuraminidase inhibitors. The level of neuraminidase activity inhibition is reported using the thresholds recommended by the World Health Organization Expert Working Group of the Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System (GISRS)pdf iconexternal icon. These samples are routinely obtained for surveillance purposes rather than for diagnostic testing of patients suspected to be infected with an antiviral-resistant virus. Susceptibility to baloxavir is assessed using next-generation sequencing analysis to identify PA protein changes previously associated with reduced susceptibility to this medication; a subset of representative viruses is also tested phenotypically using a high-content imaging neutralization test.
Results of the antigenic and genetic characterization and antiviral susceptibility testing are presented in the virus characterization and antiviral resistance sections of the FluView report.
Surveillance for Novel Influenza A Viruses – In 2007, human infection with a novel influenza A virus became a nationally notifiable condition. Novel influenza A virus infections include all human infections with influenza A viruses that are different from currently circulating human seasonal influenza H1 and H3 viruses. These viruses include those that are subtyped as nonhuman in origin and those that cannot be subtyped with standard laboratory methods and reagents. Rapid detection and reporting of human infections with novel influenza A viruses – viruses against which there is often little to no pre-existing immunity – is important to facilitate prompt awareness and characterization of influenza A viruses with pandemic potential and accelerate the implementation of public health responses to limit the transmission and impact of these viruses.
Newly reported cases of human infections with novel influenza A viruses are reported in FluView and additional information, including case counts by geographic location, virus subtype, and calendar year, are available on FluView Interactive.
2. Outpatient Illness Surveillance
Information on outpatient visits to health care providers for influenza-like illness is collected through the U.S. Outpatient Influenza-like Illness Surveillance Network (ILINet). ILINet consists of outpatient healthcare providers in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands reporting approximately 60 million patient visits during the 2018-19 season. Each week, approximately 2,600 outpatient healthcare providers around the country report data to CDC on the total number of patients seen for any reason and the number of those patients with influenza-like illness (ILI) by age group (0-4 years, 5-24 years, 25-49 years, 50-64 years, and ≥65 years). For this system, ILI is defined as fever (temperature of 100°F [37.8°C] or greater) and a cough and/or a sore throat without a known cause other than influenza. Sites with electronic health records use an equivalent definition as determined by public health authorities.
Additional data on medically attended visits for ILI for current and past seasons and by geographic level (national, HHS region, and state) are available on FluView Interactive.
The national percentage of patient visits to healthcare providers for ILI reported each week is calculated by combining state-specific data weighted by state population. This percentage is compared each week with the national baseline of 2.4% for the 2019-2020 influenza season. The baseline is developed by calculating the mean percentage of patient visits for ILI during non-influenza weeks for the previous three seasons and adding two standard deviations. A non-influenza week is defined as periods of two or more consecutive weeks in which each week accounted for less than 2% of the season’s total number of specimens that tested positive for influenza in public health laboratories. Due to wide variability in regional level data, it is not appropriate to apply the national baseline to regional data; therefore, region-specific baselines are calculated using the same methodology.
Regional baselines for the 2019-2020 influenza season are:
Region 1 — 1.9%
Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont
Region 2 — 3.2%
New Jersey, New York, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands
Region 3 — 1.9%
Delaware, District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia
Region 4 — 2.4%
Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee
Region 5 — 1.9%
Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin
Region 6 — 3.8%
Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas
Region 7 — 1.7%
Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska
Region 8 — 2.7%
Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming
Region 9 — 2.4%
Arizona, California, Hawaii, and Nevada
Region 10— 1.5%
Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington
ILI Activity Indicator Map: — Data collected in ILINet are also used to produce a measure of ILI activity for all 50 states, Puerto Rico, the District of Columbia, and New York City. Activity levels are based on the percent of outpatient visits due to ILI in a jurisdiction compared with the average percent of ILI visits that occur during weeks with little or no influenza virus circulation (i.e., non-influenza weeks) in that jurisdiction. The number of sites reporting each week is variable, therefore baselines are adjusted each week based on which sites within each jurisdiction provide data. To perform this adjustment, provider level baseline ratios are calculated for those that have a sufficient reporting history. Providers that do not have the required reporting history are assigned the baseline ratio for their practice type. The jurisdiction level baseline is then calculated using a weighted sum of the baseline ratios for each contributing provider.
The activity levels compare the mean reported percent of visits due to ILI for the current week to the mean reported percent of visits due to ILI for non-influenza weeks. The 10 activity levels correspond to the number of standard deviations below, at or above the mean for the current week compared with the mean of the non-influenza weeks. There are 10 activity levels classified as minimal (levels 1-3), low (levels 4-5), moderate (levels 6-7), and high (levels 8-10). An activity level of 1 corresponds to values that are below the mean, level 2 corresponds to an ILI percentage less than 1 standard deviation above the mean, level 3 corresponds to ILI more than 1, but less than 2 standard deviations above the mean, and so on, with an activity level of 10 corresponding to ILI 8 or more standard deviations above the mean.
The ILI Activity Indicator map reflects the level of ILI activity, not the extent of geographic spread of flu, within a jurisdiction. Therefore, outbreaks occurring in a single city could cause the state to display high activity levels. In addition, data collected in ILINet may disproportionally represent certain populations within a state, and therefore, may not accurately depict the full picture of influenza activity for the whole state. Differences in the data presented here by CDC and independently by some state health departments likely represent differing levels of data completeness with data presented by the state likely being the more complete.
The ILI Activity Indicator Map displays state-specific activity levels for multiple seasons and allows a visual representation of relative activity from state to state. More information is available on FluView Interactive.
3. Summary of the Geographic Spread of Influenza
State and territorial health departments report the estimated level of geographic spread of influenza activity in their jurisdictions each week through the State and Territorial Epidemiologists Report. This level does not measure the severity of influenza activity; low levels of influenza activity occurring throughout a jurisdiction would result in a classification of “widespread”. Jurisdictions classify geographic spread as follows:
Additional data displaying the influenza activity reported by state and territorial epidemiologists for the current and past seasons are available on FluView Interactive.
4. Hospitalization Surveillance
Laboratory confirmed influenza-associated hospitalizations in children and adults are monitored through the Influenza Hospitalization Surveillance Network (FluSurv-NET). FluSurv-NET conducts population-based surveillance for laboratory-confirmed influenza-related hospitalizations in children younger than 18 years of age (since the 2003-2004 influenza season) and adults (since the 2005-2006 influenza season). The network includes more than 70 counties in the 10 Emerging Infections Program (EIP) states (CA, CO, CT, GA, MD, MN, NM, NY, OR, and TN) and additional Influenza Hospitalization Surveillance Project (IHSP) states. The IHSP began during the 2009-2010 season to enhance surveillance during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic. IHSP sites included IA, ID, MI, OK and SD during the 2009-2010 season; ID, MI, OH, OK, RI, and UT during the 2010-2011 season; MI, OH, RI, and UT during the 2011-2012 season; IA, MI, OH, RI, and UT during the 2012-2013 season; and MI, OH, and UT during the 2013-2014 through 2019-20 seasons.
Cases are identified by reviewing hospital laboratory and admission databases and infection control logs for patients hospitalized during the influenza season with a documented positive influenza test (i.e., viral culture, direct/indirect fluorescent antibody assay (DFA/IFA), rapid influenza diagnostic test (RIDT), or molecular assays including reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR)). Data gathered are used to estimate age-specific hospitalization rates on a weekly basis and describe characteristics of persons hospitalized with influenza illness. The rates provided are likely to be an underestimate as influenza-related hospitalizations can be missed if testing is not performed.
Patient charts are reviewed to determine if any of the following categories of high-risk medical conditions are recorded in the chart at the time of hospitalization:
During the 2017-18 season, seven FluSurv-NET sites (CA, GA, MN, NM, NYA, OH, OR) conducted random sampling to select cases ≥50 years for medical chart abstraction, while still performing full chart abstractions of all cases <50 years. During the 2018-19 season, six sites (CA, GA, NM, NYA, OH, OR) conducted random sampling of cases ≥65 years for medical chart abstraction. All other sites performed full chart abstractions on all cases. Data on age, sex, admission date, in-hospital death, and influenza test results were collected for all cases. For each season going forward, including 2019-20, sampling for medical chart abstraction may be considered in cases ≥50 years. In early January of each season, observed case counts across all FluSurv-NET sites will be compared against predetermined thresholds to determine whether sampling will be implemented for the season.
Additional FluSurv-NET data including hospitalization rates for multiple seasons and different age groups and data on patient characteristics (such as virus, type, demographic, and clinical information) are available on FluView Interactive.
5. Mortality Surveillance
National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) mortality surveillance data – NCHS collects death certificate data from state vital statistics offices for all deaths occurring in the United States. Pneumonia and influenza (P&I) deaths are identified based on ICD-10 multiple cause of death codes. NCHS surveillance data are aggregated by the week of death occurrence. To allow for collection of enough data to produce a stable P&I percentage, NCHS surveillance data are released one week after the week of death. The NCHS surveillance data are used to calculate the percent of all deaths occurring in a given week that had pneumonia and/or influenza listed as a cause of death. The P&I percentage for earlier weeks are continually revised and may increase or decrease as new and updated death certificate data are received from the states by NCHS. The P&I percentage is compared to a seasonal baseline of P&I deaths that is calculated using a periodic regression model incorporating a robust regression procedure applied to data from the previous five years. An increase of 1.645 standard deviations above the seasonal baseline of P&I deaths is considered the “epidemic threshold,” i.e., the point at which the observed proportion of deaths attributed to pneumonia or influenza was significantly higher than would be expected at that time of the year in the absence of substantial influenza-related mortality.
Additional pneumonia and influenza mortality data for current and past seasons and by geographic level (national, HHS region, and state) are available on FluView Interactive. Data displayed on the regional and state-level are aggregated by the state of residence of the decedent.
Influenza-Associated Pediatric Mortality Surveillance System — Influenza-associated deaths in children (persons less than 18 years of age) was added as a nationally notifiable condition in 2004. An influenza-associated pediatric death is defined for surveillance purposes as a death resulting from a clinically compatible illness that was confirmed to be influenza by an appropriate laboratory diagnostic test. There should be no period of complete recovery between the illness and death. Demographic and clinical information are collected on each case and are transmitted to CDC.
Additional information on influenza-associated pediatric deaths including basic demographics, underlying conditions, bacterial co-infections, and place of death for the current and past seasons, is available on FluView Interactive.
It is important to remember the following about influenza surveillance in the United States.
For CDC/Influenza Division influenza surveillance purposes, the reporting period for each influenza season begins during Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) week 40 and ends week 39 of the following year. MMWR weeks pdf icon[65 KB, 2 Pages]refer to the sequential numbering of weeks (Sunday through Saturday) during a calendar year. This means that the exact start of the influenza reporting period varies slightly from season to season. The 2019-2020 influenza season began on September 29, 2019 and will end on September 26, 2020.
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U.S. stock indexes plunged dramatically yet again on Thursday, as the rapid spread of the coronavirus outside China deepens investor worries about growth and corporate earnings.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted 1,190.95 points, or 4.42 percent, to 25,766.64, the largest one-day point drop in history. It comes during the quickest market plunge on a percentage basis since the financial crisis of October 2008.
The Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq all closed more than 10 percent below their recent highs. That means the market is officially in a correction, which is a normal phenomenon that analysts have said was long overdue. T
At their heart, stock prices rise and fall with the profits that companies expect to make — and Wall Street’s expectations for profit growth are sinking as more companies warn that the virus outbreak will hit their bottom lines.
Trader Peter Tuchman reacts at the opening bell on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday as the Dow opens down another 500 points and the market enters correction territory
Adding to worries, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed an infection in California in a person who reportedly did not have relevant travel history or exposure to another known patient.
‘In the recent week, markets have come to realize that the outbreak is much worse and are now realistically pricing in the impact of the virus on the economy,’ said Philip Marey, senior U.S. strategist at Rabobank.
‘In that sense it’s a bit of a catching up from the relative optimism that was there in the beginning when markets thought (the virus) will be contained to China with some minor outbreak outside.’
Rising fears of a pandemic, which U.S. health authorities have warned is likely, have erased about $1.84 trillion off the benchmark S&P 500 this week alone.
Industry analysts and economists continued to sound the alarm as they assessed the impact of the coronavirus, with Goldman Sachs saying U.S. companies will generate no earnings growth in 2020.
Apple and Microsoft, two of the world´s biggest companies, have already said their sales this quarter will feel the economic effects of the virus.
Microsoft’s stock lost 2.8 percent after it told investors that the virus will hurt revenue from its Windows licenses and its Surface devices.
A one-day view of the Dow Jones Industrial Average shows Thursday’s punishing losses
A five-day view of the Dow Jones Industrial Average shows the cumulative declines this week
Traders work during the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday. About five minutes into trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1.8 percent
The world’s largest brewer Anheuser-Busch InBev forecast a 10 percent decline in first-quarter profit on Thursday after the coronavirus outbreak hit beer sales during the Chinese New Year, sending its shares skidding.
The maker of Budweiser, Corona and Stella Artois said the virus had led to a significant decline in demand in China – both at bars and drinking at home, notably during the Chinese New Year.
AB InBev stock plunged on Thursday after the beer maker said that it expected profits to be down 10% for the first quarter due to slumping Chinese sales
The outbreak, along with an expected weaker Brazilian market, could lead to a 10 percent drop in first-quarter core profit (EBITDA) on-year, AB InBev said, adding that it expected 2020 core profit growth of between 2 percent and 5 percent, with most expansion occurring in the second half.
The Belgium-based company, which sells more Budweiser in China than in the lager’s key U.S. market, said the disease shaved up to $285 million off its revenue in China in the first two months of this year, 2.3 percent of its first-quarter group revenue last year.
American Airlines plunged 8.5 percent as airlines continue to feel pain from disrupted travel plans and suspended routes.
Delta Airlines, which is reducing flights to South Korea because of the outbreak in that nation, fell 4.5 percent.
Bank of America slashed its world growth forecast to the lowest level since the peak of the global financial crisis.
Financial warnings also came from Budweiser maker InBev and cloud-computing company Nutanix.
The virus has now infected more than 82,000 people globally and is worrying governments with its rapid spread beyond the epicenter of China.
The price of crude oil fell 4.7 percent. The price has been falling sharply as investors anticipate that demand for energy will wane as the economy slows.
Bond yields continued sliding as investors shifted money into lower-risk assets. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell further into record low territory, to 1.28% from 1.31% late Wednesday. Gold prices edged higher.
A number of companies that could see their business jump if coronavirus reaches epidemic levels in the U.S. saw their shares rise in mid-morning trading on Thursday.
Shares of 3M, which counts surgical masks among its many products, rose 1.5 percent.
Canadian company Alpha Pro Tech, which makes medical protective garments, saw shares skyrocket 57 percent on Thursday.
Chlorox, which makes the popular bleach brand that can be used to sterilize surfaces, was up 2.8 percent. 7
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York on Thursday
Netflix stock was up on Thursday, with investors betting that binge-watching at home could become more appealing than going out during an outbreak
Chlorox, which makes bleach that can be used to sterilize surfaces, was also up Thursday
Gilead Sciences jumped 6.4 percent, as the drugmaker said it had started two late-stage trials to test its experimental antiviral drug, remdesivir, in patients with cases of illness caused by coronavirus.
While travel stocks were punished, companies that focus on ‘stay at home’ products also saw shares rise, as investors anticipated that consumers will be more likely to avoid crowds and remain indoors.
Netflix was up 1.6 percent, with investors betting that binge-watching at home could become more appealing during an outbreak.
Teleconferencing company Teladoc, which offers remote medical consultations with doctors over the internet, surged 19.8 percent.
The coronavirus outbreak began to look more like a worldwide economic crisis Friday as anxiety about the infection emptied shops and amusement parks, canceled events, cut trade and travel and dragged already slumping financial markets even lower.
More employers told their workers to stay home, and officials locked down neighborhoods and closed schools. The wide-ranging efforts to halt the spread of the illness threatened jobs, paychecks and profits.
“This is a case where in economic terms the cure is almost worse than the disease,″ said Jacob Kirkegaard, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “When you quarantine cities … you lose economic activity that you’re not going to get back.′
The list of countries touched by the illness climbed to nearly 60 as Mexico, Belarus, Lithuania, New Zealand, Nigeria, Azerbaijan, Iceland and the Netherlands reported their first cases. More than 83,000 people worldwide have contracted the illness, with deaths topping 2,800.
China, where the outbreak began in December, has seen a slowdown in new infections and on Saturday morning reported 427 new cases over the past 24 hours along with 47 additional deaths. The city at the epicenter of the outbreak, Wuhan, accounted for the bulk of both.
New cases in mainland China have held steady at under 500 for past four days, with almost all of them in Wuhan and its surrounding Hubei province.
With the number of discharged patients now greatly exceeding those of new arrivals, Wuhan now has more than 5,000 spare beds in 16 temporary treatment centers, Ma Xiaowei, director of the National Health Commission, told a news conference in Wuhan on Friday.
South Korea, the second hardest hit country, on Saturday morning reported 571 new cases, the highest daily jump since confirming its first patient in late January. Emerging clusters in Italy and in Iran, which has had 34 deaths and 388 cases, have led to infections of people in other countries. France and Germany were also seeing increases, with dozens of infections.
The head of the World Health Organization on Friday announced that the risk of the virus spreading worldwide was “very high,” citing the “continued increase in the number of cases and the number of affected countries.”
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged all governments to “do everything possible to contain the disease.”
“We know containment is possible, but the window of opportunity is narrowing,” the U.N. chief told reporters in New York.
The economic ripples have already reached around the globe.
Stock markets around the world plunged again Friday. On Wall Street, the Dow Jones index took yet another hit, closing down nearly 360 points. The index has dropped more than 14% from a recent high, making this the market’s worst week since 2008, during the global financial crisis.
The effects were just as evident in the hush that settled in over places where throngs of people ordinarily work and play and buy and sell.
“There’s almost no one coming here,” said Kim Yun-ok, who sells doughnuts and seaweed rolls at Seoul’s Gwangjang Market, where crowds were thin as South Korea counted 571 new cases — more than in China, where the virus emerged. “I am just hoping that the outbreak will come under control soon.”
In Asia, Tokyo Disneyland and Universal Studios Japan announced they would close, and events that were expected to attract tens of thousands of people were called off, including a concert series by the K-pop group BTS. The state-run Export-Import Bank of Korea shut down its headquarters in Seoul after a worker tested positive for the virus, telling 800 others to work from home. Japanese officials prepared to shutter all schools until early April.
In Italy — which has reported 888 cases, the most of any country outside of Asia — hotel bookings are falling, and Premier Giuseppe Conte raised the specter of recession. Shopkeepers like Flavio Gastaldi, who has sold souvenirs in Venice for three decades, wondered if they could survive the blow.
“We will return the keys to the landlords soon,” he said.
The Swiss government banned events with more than 1,000 people, while at the Cologne Cathedral in Germany, basins of holy water were emptied for fear of spreading germs.
In a report published Friday in the New England Journal of Medicine, Chinese health officials said the death rate from the illness known as COVID-19 was 1.4%, based on 1,099 patients at more than 500 hospitals throughout China.
Assuming there are many more cases with no or very mild symptoms, the rate “may be considerably less than 1%,” U.S. health officials wrote in an editorial in the journal. That would make the virus more like a severe seasonal flu than a disease similar to its genetic cousins SARS, severe acute respiratory syndrome, or MERS, Middle East respiratory syndrome.
Given the ease of spread, however, the virus could gain footholds around the world and many could die.
“It’s not cholera or the black plague,” said Simone Venturini, the city councilor for economic development in Venice, Italy, where tourism already hurt by historic flooding last year has sunk with news of virus cases. “The damage that worries us even more is the damage to the economy.”
Europe’s economy is already teetering on the edge of recession. A measure of business sentiment in Germany fell sharply last week, suggesting that some companies could postpone investment and expansion plans. China is a huge export market for German manufacturers.
In the U.S., online retail giant Amazon said Friday that it has asked all of its 800,000 employees to postpone any non-essential travel, both within the country and internationally.
The chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, said that the U.S. economy remains strong and that policymakers would “use our tools” to support it if necessary.
Larry Kudlow, the top economic advisor to President Donald Trump, told reporters that the selloff in financial markets may be an overreaction to an epidemic with uncertain long-term effects.
“We don’t see any evidence of major supply chain disruptions. I’m not trying to say nothing’s happening. I think there will be impacts, but to be honest with you, at the moment, I don’t see much,” Kudlow said.
The pain was already taking hold in places like Bangkok, where merchants at the Platinum Fashion Mall staged a flash mob, shouting “Reduce the rent!” and holding signs that said “Tourists don’t come, shops suffer.”
Tourist arrivals in Thailand are down 50% compared with a year ago, according Capital Economics, a consulting firm.
Kanya Yontararak, a clothing store owner, said her sales have sunk as low as 1,000 baht ($32) some days, making it a struggle to pay back a loan for her lease. The situation is more severe than the floods and political crises her store has braved in the past.
“Coronavirus is the worst situation they have ever seen,” she said of her fellow merchants.
Economists have forecast global growth will slip to 2.4% this year, the slowest since the Great Recession in 2009, and down from earlier expectations closer to 3%. For the United States, estimates are falling to as low as 1.7% growth this year, down from 2.3% in 2019.
But if COVID-19 becomes a global pandemic, economists expect the impact could be much worse, with the U.S. and other global economies falling into recession.
“If we start to see more cases in the United States, if we start to see people not traveling domestically, if we start to see people stay home from work and from stores, then I think the hit is going to get substantially worse,” said Gus Faucher, an economist at PNC Financial.
After the WHO raised its alert level, the agency’s Emergencies Program Director Michael Ryan called the situation “a reality check for every government on the planet.” Friday. “Wake up, get ready. This virus may be on its way.”
https://apnews.com/7d1a054f19cf1f33b4ee22c244603ebe
Expansionary monetary policy constitutes a transfer of purchasing power away from those who hold old money to whoever gets new money. This is known as the Cantillon Effect, after 18th Century economist Richard Cantillon who first proposed it. In the immediate term, as more dollars are created, each one translates to a smaller slice of all goods and services produced.
How we measure this phenomenon and its size depends how we define money. This is illustrated below.
Here’s GDP expressed in terms of the monetary base:
Here’s GDP expressed in terms of M2:
And here’s GDP expressed in terms of total debt:
What is clear is that the dramatic expansion of the monetary base that we saw after 2008 is merely catching up with the more gradual growth of debt that took place in the 90s and 00s.
While it is my hunch that overblown credit bubbles are better liquidated than reflated (not least because the reflation of a corrupt and dysfunctional financial sector entails huge moral hazard), it is true the Fed’s efforts to inflate the money supply have so far prevented a default cascade. We should expect that such initiatives will continue, not least because Bernanke has a deep intellectual investment in reflationism.
This focus on reflationary money supply expansion was fully expected by those familiar with Ben Bernanke’s academic record. What I find more surprising, though, is the Fed’s focus on banks and financial institutions rather than the wider population.
It’s not just the banks that are struggling to deleverage. The overwhelming majority of nongovernment debt is held by households and nonfinancials:
The nonfinancial sectors need debt relief much, much more than the financial sector. Yet the Fed shoots off new money solely into the financial system, to Wall Street and the TBTF banks. It is the financial institutions that have gained the most from these transfers of purchasing power, building up huge hoards of excess reserves:
There is a way to counteract the Cantillon Effect, and expand the money supply without transferring purchasing power to the financial sector (or any other sector). This is to directly distribute the new money uniformly to individuals for the purpose of debt relief; those with debt have to use the new money to pay it down (thus reducing the debt load), those without debt are free to invest it or spend it as they like.
While we delever, investment by American corporations will be timid, and economic growth will be faltering at best. The stimulus imparted by government deficits will attenuate the downturn — and the much larger scale of government spending now than in the 1930s explains why this far greater deleveraging process has not led to as severe a Depression — but deficits alone will not be enough. If America is to avoid two “lost decades”, the level of private debt has to be reduced by deliberate cancellation, as well as by the slow processes of deleveraging and bankruptcy.
In ancient times, this was done by a Jubilee, but the securitization of debt since the 1980s has complicated this enormously. Whereas only the moneylenders lost under an ancient Jubilee, debt cancellation today would bankrupt many pension funds, municipalities and the like who purchased securitized debt instruments from banks. I have therefore proposed that a “Modern Debt Jubilee” should take the form of “Quantitative Easing for the Public”: monetary injections by the Federal Reserve not into the reserve accounts of banks, but into the bank accounts of the public — but on condition that its first function must be to pay debts down. This would reduce debt directly, but not advantage debtors over savers, and would reduce the profitability of the financial sector while not affecting its solvency.
Without a policy of this nature, America is destined to spend up to two decades learning the truth of Michael Hudson’s simple aphorism that “Debts that can’t be repaid, won’t be repaid”.
The Fed’s singular focus on the financial sector is perplexing and frustrating, not least because growth remains stagnant, unemployment remains elevated, industrial production remains weak and America’s financial sector remains a seething cesspit of corruption and moral hazard, where segregated accounts are routinely raided by corrupt CEOs, and where government-backstopped TBTF banks still routinely speculate with the taxpayers’ money.
The corrupt and overblown financial sector is the last sector that deserves a boost in purchasing power. It’s time this ended.
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Richard Cantillon
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| Born | 1680s[1] |
| Died | 1734[2] (aged about 54)
London, England, Great Britain
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| Era | Age of Reason |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| School | Physiocracy |
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Main interests
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Political economy |
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Notable ideas
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Entrepreneur as risk-bearer, monetary theory, spatial economics, theory of population growth, cause and effect methodology |
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Richard Cantillon (French: [kɑ̃tijɔ̃]; 1680s – May 1734) was an Irish-French economist and author of Essai sur la Nature du Commerce en Général (Essay on the Nature of Trade in General), a book considered by William Stanley Jevons to be the “cradle of political economy“.[4] Although little information exists on Cantillon’s life, it is known that he became a successful banker and merchant at an early age. His success was largely derived from the political and business connections he made through his family and through an early employer, James Brydges. During the late 1710s and early 1720s, Cantillon speculated in, and later helped fund, John Law‘s Mississippi Company, from which he acquired great wealth. However, his success came at a cost to his debtors, who pursued him with lawsuits, criminal charges, and even murder plots until his death in 1734.
Essai remains Cantillon’s only surviving contribution to economics. It was written around 1730 and circulated widely in manuscript form, but was not published until 1755. His work was translated into Spanish by Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, probably in the late 1770s, and considered essential reading for political economy. Despite having much influence on the early development of the physiocrat and classical schools of thought, Essai was largely forgotten until its rediscovery by Jevons in the late 19th century.[5] Cantillon was influenced by his experiences as a banker, and especially by the speculative bubble of John Law’s Mississippi Company. He was also heavily influenced by prior economists, especially William Petty.
Essai is considered the first complete treatise on economics, with numerous contributions to the science. These contributions include: his cause and effect methodology, monetary theories, his conception of the entrepreneur as a risk-bearer, and the development of spatial economics. Cantillon’s Essai had significant influence on the early development of political economy, including the works of Adam Smith, Anne Turgot, Jean-Baptiste Say, Frédéric Bastiat and François Quesnay.[6]
While details regarding Richard Cantillon’s life are scarce,[7] it is thought that he was born sometime during the 1680s in County Kerry, Ireland.[1][6] He was son to land-owner Richard Cantillon of Ballyheigue.[8] Sometime in the middle of the first decade of the 18th century Cantillon moved to France, where he attained French citizenship.[9] By 1711, Cantillon found himself in the employment of British Paymaster General James Brydges, in Spain, where he organised payments to British prisoners of war during the War of Spanish Succession.[10] Cantillon remained in Spain until 1714, cultivating a number of business and political connections, before returning to Paris.[11] Cantillon then became involved in the banking industry working for a cousin, who at that time was lead-correspondent of the Parisian branch of a family bank.[12] Two years later, thanks in large part to financial backing by James Brydges, Cantillon bought his cousin out and attained ownership of the bank.[13] Given the financial and political connections Cantillon was able to attain both through his family[14] and through James Brydges, Cantillon proved a fairly successful banker, specialising in money transfers between Paris and London.[15]
At this time, Cantillon became involved with British mercantilist John Law through the Mississippi Company.[16] Based on the monetary theory proposed by William Potter in his 1650 tract The Key of Wealth,[17] John Law posited that increases in the money supply would lead to the employment of unused land and labour, leading to higher productivity.[18] In 1716, the French government granted him both permission to found the Banque Générale and virtual monopoly over the right to develop French territories in North America, named the Mississippi Company. In return, Law promised the French government to finance its debt at low rates of interest.[19] Law began a financial speculative bubble by selling shares of the Mississippi Company, using the Banque Générale’s virtual monopoly on the issue of bank notes to finance his investors.[20]
Richard Cantillon amassed a great fortune from his speculation, buying Mississippi Company shares early and selling them at inflated prices.[21] Cantillon’s financial success and growing influence caused friction in his relationship with John Law, and sometime thereafter Law threatened to imprison Cantillon if the latter did not leave France within twenty-four hours.[22] Cantillon replied: “I shall not go away; but I will make your system succeed.”[22] To that end, in 1718 Law, Cantillon, and wealthy speculator Joseph Gage formed a private company centred on financing further speculation in North American real estate.[23]
In 1719, Cantillon left Paris for Amsterdam, returning briefly in early 1720. Lending in Paris, Cantillon had outlying debt repaid to him in London and Amsterdam.[24] With the collapse of the “Mississippi bubble”, Cantillon was able to collect on debt accruing high rates of interest.[25] Most of his debtors had suffered financial damage in the bubble collapse and blamed Cantillon—until his death, Cantillon was involved in countless lawsuits filed by his debtors, leading to a number of murder plots and criminal accusations.[26]
On 16 February 1722, Cantillon married Mary Mahony, daughter of Count Daniel O’Mahony—a wealthy merchant and former Irish general—spending much of the remainder of the 1720s travelling throughout Europe with his wife.[27] Cantillon and Mary had two children, a son who died at an early age and a daughter, Henrietta,[28] wife successively of the 3rd Earl of Stafford and the 1st Earl of Farnham. Although he frequently returned to Paris between 1729 and 1733, his permanent residence was in London.[29] In May 1734, his residence in London was burned to the ground, and it is generally assumed that Cantillon died in the fire.[2] While the fire’s causes are unclear, the most widely accepted theory is that Cantillon was murdered.[30] One of Cantillon’s biographers, Antoine Murphy, has advanced the alternative theory that Cantillon staged his own death to escape the harassment of his debtors, appearing in Suriname under the name Chevalier de Louvigny.[31]
Although there is evidence that Richard Cantillon wrote a wide variety of manuscripts, only his Essai Sur La Nature Du Commerce En Général (abbreviated Essai) survives.[6][32] Written in 1730,[33] it was published in French in 1755,[34] and was translated into English by Henry Higgs in 1932.[35] Evidence suggests that Essai had tremendous influence on the early development of economic science. However, Cantillon’s treatise was largely neglected during the 19th century.[5] In the late 19th century and it was “rediscovered” by William Stanley Jevons, who considered it the “cradle of political economy”.[4] Since then, Cantillon’s Essai has received growing attention. Essai is considered the first complete treatise on economic theory,[36] and Cantillon has been called the “father of enterprise economics”.[6][37]
William Petty is considered to be one of Richard Cantillon’s greatest influences.[38]
One of the greatest influences on Cantillon’s writing was English economist William Petty and his 1662 tract Treatise on Taxes.[39] Although Petty provided much of the groundwork for Cantillon’s Essai,[38] Anthony Brewer argues that Petty’s influence has been overstated.[40] Apart from Petty, other possible influences on Cantillon include John Locke,[41] Cicero, Livy, Pliny the Elder, Pliny the Younger, Charles Davenant, Edmond Halley, Isaac Newton, Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban, and Jean Boisard.[3] Cantillon’s involvement in John Law’s speculative bubble proved invaluable and likely heavily influenced his insight on the relationship between increases in the supply of money, price, and production.[42]
Cantillon’s Essai is written using a distinctive causal methodology, separating Cantillon from his mercantilist predecessors.[6][43] Essai is peppered with the word “natural”, which in the case of Cantillon’s treatise is meant to imply a cause and effect relationship between economic actions and phenomena.[44] Economist Murray Rothbard credits Cantillon with being one of the first theorists to isolate economic phenomena with simple models, where otherwise uncontrollable variables can be fixed.[45] Cantillon made frequent use of the concept of ceteris paribus throughout Essai in an attempt to neutralise independent variables.[46] Furthermore, he is credited with employing a methodology similar to Carl Menger‘s methodological individualism,[47] by deducing complex phenomena from simple observations.[48]
A cause and effect methodology led to a relatively value-free approach to economic science, in which Cantillon was uninterested in the merit of any particular economic action or phenomenon, focusing rather on the explanation of relationships.[49] This led Cantillon to separate economic science from politics and ethics to a greater degree than previous mercantilist writers.[45] This has led to disputes on whether Cantillon can justly be considered a mercantilist or one of the first anti-mercantilists,[50] given that Cantillon often cited government-manipulated trade surpluses and specie accumulation as positive economic stimuli.[51] Others argue that in instances where Cantillon is thought to have supported certain mercantilist policies, he actually provided a more neutral analysis by explicitly stating possible limitations of mercantilist policies.[52]
Differences between prior mercantilists and Cantillon arise early in Essai, regarding the origins of wealth and price formation on the market.[53] Cantillon distinguishes between wealth and money, considering wealth in itself “nothing but the food, conveniences, and pleasures of life.”[54] While Cantillon advocated an “intrinsic” theory of value, based on the input of land and labour (cost of production),[55] he is considered to have touched upon a subjective theory of value.[56] Cantillon held that market prices are not immediately decided by intrinsic value, but are derived from supply and demand.[57] He considered market prices to be derived by comparing supply, the quantity of a particular good in a particular market, to demand, the quantity of money brought to be exchanged.[58] Believing market prices to tend towards the intrinsic value of a good, Cantillon may have also originated the uniformity-of-profit principle—changes in the market price of a good may lead to changes in supply, reflecting a rise or fall in profit.[59]
Rendition of Cantillon’s primitive circular flow model[60]
In Essai, Cantillon provided an advanced version of John Locke’s quantity theory of money, focusing on relative inflation and the velocity of money.[61] Cantillon suggested that inflation occurs gradually and that the new supply of money has a localised effect on inflation, effectively originating the concept of non-neutral money.[62] Furthermore, he posited that the original recipients of new money enjoy higher standards of living at the expense of later recipients.[63] The concept of relative inflation, or a disproportionate rise in prices among different goods in an economy, is now known as the Cantillon Effect.[64] Cantillon also considered changes in the velocity of money (quantity of exchanges made within a specific amount of time) influential on prices, although not to the same degree as changes in the quantity of money.[65] While he believed that the money supply consisted only of specie, he conceded that increases in money substitutes—or bank notes—could affect prices by effectively increasing the velocity of circulating of deposited specie.[66] Apart from distinguishing money from money substitute, he also distinguished between bank notes offered as receipts for specie deposits and bank notes circulating beyond the quantity of specie—or fiduciary media—suggesting that the volume of fiduciary media is strictly limited by people’s confidence in its redeemability.[67] He considered fiduciary media a useful tool to abate the downward pressure that hoarding of specie has on the velocity of money.[68]
Addressing the mercantilist belief that monetary intervention could cause a perpetually favourable balance of trade, Cantillon developed a specie-flow mechanism foreshadowing future international monetary equilibrium theories.[69] He suggested that in countries with a high quantity of money in circulation, prices will increase and therefore become less competitive in relation to countries where there is a relative scarcity of money.[70] Thus, Cantillon also held that increases in the supply of money, regardless of the source, cause increases in the price level and therefore reduce the competitiveness of a particular nation’s industry in relation to a nation with lower prices.[71] However, Cantillon did not believe that international markets tended toward equilibrium, and instead suggested that government hoard specie to avoid rising prices and falling competitiveness.[69] Furthermore, he suggested that a favourable balance of trade can be maintained by offering a better product and retaining qualitative competitiveness.[72] Cantillon’s preference towards a favourable balance of trade possibly stemmed from the mercantilist belief in exchange being a zero-sum game, in which one party gains at the expense of another.[73]
A relatively advanced theory of interest is also presented.[74] Cantillon believed that interest originates from the need of borrowers for capital and from the fear of loss of the lenders, meaning that borrowers have to recompense lenders for the risk of the possible insolvency of the debtor.[75] In turn, interest is paid out of earned profits originating from the return on invested capital.[76] While previously it was believed that the rate of interest varied inversely to the quantity of money, Cantillon posited that the rate of interest was determined by the supply and demand on the loanable funds market[77]—an insight usually attributed to Scottish philosopher David Hume.[78] As such, while saved money impacts the rate of interest, new money that is instead used for consumption does not; Cantillon’s theory of interest is therefore similar to John Maynard Keynes‘s liquidity preference theory.[79]
Traditionally, it is Jean-Baptiste Say who is credited for coining the word and advancing the concept of the entrepreneur, but in fact it was Cantillon who first introduced the term in Essai.[6][80] Cantillon divided society into two principal classes—fixed income wage-earners and non-fixed income earners.[81] Entrepreneurs, according to Cantillon, are non-fixed income earners who pay known costs of production but earn uncertain incomes,[82] due to the speculative nature of pandering to an unknown demand for their product.[83] Cantillon, while providing the foundations, did not develop a dedicated theory of uncertainty—the topic was not revisited until the 20th century, by Ludwig von Mises, Frank Knight, and John Maynard Keynes, among others.[84] Furthermore, unlike later theories of entrepreneurship which saw the entrepreneur as a disruptive force, Cantillon anticipated the belief that the entrepreneur brought equilibrium to a market by correctly predicting consumer preferences.[85]
Spatial economics deal with distance and area, and how these may affect a market through transportation costs and geographical limitations. The development of spatial economics is usually ascribed to German economist Johann Heinrich von Thünen; however, Cantillon addressed spatial economics nearly a century earlier.[86] Cantillon integrated his advancements in spatial economic theory into his microeconomic analysis of the market, describing how transportation costs influence the location of factories, markets and population centres—that is, individuals strive to lower transportation costs.[87] Conclusions on spatial economics were derived from three premises: cost of raw materials of equal quality will always be higher near the capital city, due to transportation costs; transportation costs vary on transportation type (for example, water transportation was considered cheaper than land-based transportation); and larger goods that are more difficult to transport will always be cheaper closer to their area of production.[88] For example, Cantillon believed markets were designed as they were to decrease costs to both merchants and villagers in terms of time and transportation.[89] Similarly, Cantillon posited that the locations of cities were the result in large part of the wealth of inhabiting property owners and their ability to afford transportation costs—wealthier property owners tended to live farther from their property, because they could afford the transportation costs.[90] In Essai, spatial economic theory was used to derive why markets occupied the geographical area they did and why costs varied across different markets.[91]
Cover of the Ludwig von Mises Institute’s edition of Cantillon’s Essai
Apart from originating theories on the entrepreneur and spatial economics, Cantillon also provided a dedicated theory on population growth. Unlike William Petty, who believed there always existed a considerable amount of unused land and economic opportunity to support economic growth, Cantillon theorised that population grows only as long as there are economic opportunities present.[92] Specifically, Cantillon cited three determining variables for population size: natural resources, technology, and culture.[93] Therefore, populations grow only as far as the three aforementioned variables allowed.[94] Furthermore, Cantillon’s population theory was more modern than that of Malthus in the sense that Cantillon recognised a much broader category of factors which affect population growth, including the tendency for population growth to fall to zero as a society becomes more industrialised.[95]
While Essai was not published until 1755 as a result of heavy censorship in France, it did widely circulate in the form of an unpublished manuscript between its completion and its publication.[96] It notably influenced many direct forerunners of the classical school of thought, including Turgot and other physiocrats.[97] Cantillon was a major influence on physiocrat François Quesnay, who may have learned of Cantillon’s work through Marquis of Mirabeau.[98] While it is evident that Essai influenced Quesnay, to what degree remains controversial. There is evidence that Quesnay did not fully understand, or was not completely aware of, Cantillon’s theories.[99] Many of Quesnay’s economic beliefs were elucidated previously in Essai,[100] but Quesnay did reject a number of Cantillon’s premises, including the scarcity of land and Cantillon’s population theory.[101] Also, Quesnay recognised the scarcity of capital and capital accumulation as a prerequisite for investment.[99] Nevertheless, Cantillon was considered the “father of physiocracy” by Henry Higgs, due to his influence on Quesnay.[102] It is also possible that Cantillon influenced Scottish economist James Steuart, both directly and indirectly.[103]
Cantillon is one of the few economists cited by Adam Smith, who directly borrows Cantillon’s subsistence theory of wages.[6][104] Large sections of Smith’s economic theory were possibly directly influenced by Cantillon, although in many respects Adam Smith advanced well beyond the scope of Cantillon.[105] Some economic historians have argued that Adam Smith provided little of value from his own intellect, notably Schumpeter[6][106] and Rothbard.[107] In any case, through his influence on Adam Smith and the physiocrats, Cantillon was quite possibly the pre-classical economist who contributed most to the ideas of the classical school.[108] Illustrative of this was Cantillon’s influence on Jean-Baptiste Say, which is noticeable in the methodology employed in the latter’s Treatise on Political Economy.[6][109]
Coronaviruses (CoV) are a family of viruses that cause sicknesses like the common cold, as well as more severe diseases, such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. A novel coronavirus (nCoV) is a new strain – one that hasn’t previously been recognized in humans. Coronaviruses cause diseases in mammals and birds. A zoonotic virus is one that is transmitted between animals and people. When a virus circulating in animal populations infects people, this is termed a “spillover event”.
How does CoVID-19 affect the body? The virus is fitted with protein spikes sticking out of the envelope that forms the surface and houses a core of genetic material. Any virus that enters your body looks for cells with compatible receptors – ones that allow it to invade the cell. Once they find the right cell, they enter and use the cell’s replication machinery to create copies of themselves. It is likely that COVID-19 uses the same receptor as SARS – found in both lungs and small intestines. It is thought that CoVID-19 shares many similarities with SARS, which has three phases of attack: viral replication, hyper-reactivity of the immune system, and finally pulmonary destruction.
Early on in infection, the coronavirus invades two types of cells in the lungs – mucus and cilia cells.
Mucus keeps your lungs from drying out and protects them from pathogens. Cilia beat the mucus towards the exterior of your body, clearing debris – including viruses! – out of your lungs. Cilia cells were the preferred hosts of SARS-CoV, and are likely the preferred hosts of the new coronavirus. When these cells die, they slough off into your airways, filling them with debris and fluid. Symptoms include a fever, cough, and breathing difficulties.
Many of those infected get pneumonia in both their lungs. Enter the immune system. Immune cells recognize the virus and flood into the lungs. The lung tissue becomes inflamed. During normal immune function, the inflammatory process is highly regulated and is confined to infected areas.
However, sometimes the immune system overreacts, and this results in damage to healthy tissue. More cells die and slough off into the lungs, further clogging them and worsening the pneumonia. As damage to the lungs increases, stage three begins, potentially resulting in respiratory failure. Patients that reach this stage of infection can incur permanent lung damage or even die. We see the same lesions in the lungs of those infected by the novel coronavirus as those with SARS. SARS creates holes in the lungs, so they look honeycomb-like. This is probably due to the aforementioned over-reactive immune response, which affects tissue both infected and healthy and creates scars that stiffen the lungs. As such, some patients may require ventilators to aid breathing.
The inflammation also results in more permeable alveoli. This is the location of the thin interface of gas exchange, where your lungs replace carbon dioxide in your blood with fresh oxygen you just inhaled. Increased permeability causes fluid to leak into the lungs. This decreases the lungs’ ability to oxygenate blood, and in severe cases, floods them so that you become unable to breathe. Sometimes, this can be fatal. The immune system’s over-reaction can also cause another kind of damage.
Proteins called cytokines are the immune system’s alarm system, recruiting immune cells to the infection site. Over-production of cytokines can result in a cytokine storm, where there is large-scale inflammation in the body. Blood vessels become more permeable and fluid seeps out. This makes it difficult for blood and oxygen to reach the rest of the body and can result in multi-organ failure. This has happened in the most severe cases of CoVid-19.
Although there are no specific treatments for coronaviruses, symptoms can be treated through supportive care. Also, vaccines are currently in development. What can you do to protect yourself from CoVid-19? Basic protocol comes down to regular hand washing, avoiding close contact with anyone coughing or sneezing, avoiding unnecessary contact with animals, washing hands after contact with animals, thoroughly cooking meat and eggs prior to consumption, and covering your mouth and nose while coughing or sneezing. Respiratory viruses are typically transmitted via droplets in sneezes or coughs of those infected, so preventing their travel stops the spread of disease.
For Immediate Release:Statement From:
Stephen M. Hahn M.D.
As I have previously communicated, the FDA has been closely monitoring the supply chain with the expectation that the COVID-19 outbreak would likely impact the medical product supply chain, including potential disruptions to supply or shortages of critical medical products in the U.S.
A manufacturer has alerted us to a shortage of a human drug that was recently added to the drug shortages list. The manufacturer just notified us that this shortage is related to a site affected by coronavirus. The shortage is due to an issue with manufacturing of an active pharmaceutical ingredient used in the drug. It is important to note that there are other alternatives that can be used by patients. We are working with the manufacturer as well as other manufacturers to mitigate the shortage. We will do everything possible to mitigate the shortage.
Since January 24, the FDA has been in touch with more than 180 manufacturers of human drugs, not only to remind them of applicable legal requirements for notifying the FDA of any anticipated supply disruptions, but also asking them to evaluate their entire supply chain, including active pharmaceutical ingredients (the main ingredient in the drug and part that produces the intended effects, e.g., acetaminophen) and other components manufactured in China.
Also, as part of our efforts, the FDA has identified about 20 other drugs, which solely source their active pharmaceutical ingredients or finished drug products from China. We have been in contact with those firms to assess whether they face any drug shortage risks due to the outbreak. None of these firms have reported any shortage to date. Also, these drugs are considered non-critical drugs.
We will remain in contact with manufacturers so that we can continue to assist them with any potential issues in the fastest way.
We are aware of 63 manufacturers which represent 72 facilities in China that produce essential medical devices; we have contacted all of them. Essential devices are those that may be prone to potential shortage if there is a supply disruption. We are aware that several of these facilities in China are adversely affected by COVID-19, citing workforce challenges, including the necessary quarantine of workers. While the FDA continues to assess whether manufacturing disruptions will affect overall market availability of these products, there are currently no reported shortages for these types of medical devices within the U.S. market.
Regarding personal protective equipment—surgical gowns, gloves, masks, respirator protective devices, or other medical equipment designed to protect the wearer from injury or the spread of infection or illness—the FDA has heard reports of increased market demand and supply challenges for some of these products. However, the FDA is currently not aware of specific widespread shortages of medical devices, but we are aware of reports from CDC and other U.S. partners of increased ordering of a range of human medical products through distributors as some healthcare facilities in the U.S. are preparing for potential needs if the outbreak becomes severe.
It is important to note that no law exists requiring medical device manufacturers to notify the FDA when they become aware of a circumstance, including discontinuation of a product, that could lead to a potential shortage, and manufacturers are not required to respond when the FDA requests information about potential supply chain disruption. As with prior emergencies, the FDA has taken proactive steps to establish and remain in contact with medical device manufacturers and others in the supply chain, including hospitals and group purchasing organizations. The agency also encourages manufacturers and healthcare facilities to report any supply disruptions to the device shortages mailbox, deviceshortages@fda.hhs.gov. This mailbox is closely monitored and has proven to be a valuable surveillance resource to augment FDA efforts to detect and mitigate potential supply chain disruption.
The FDA is not aware of any cellular or gene therapies that are made in China for the U.S. market. There are no shortages of biologics to report at this time.
The potential for transmission of COVID-19 by blood and blood components is unknown at this time; however, respiratory viruses, in general, are not known to be transmitted by blood transfusion. Further, there have been no reported cases of transfusion-transmitted COVID-19.
The FDA has made information available to blood establishments and to establishments that manufacture human cells, tissues, or cellular or tissue-based products that may wish to consider additional donor screening measures in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.
We are not aware of any reports at this time of human illnesses that suggest COVID-19 can be transmitted by food or food packaging. However, it is always important to follow good hygiene practices (i.e., wash hands and surfaces often, separate raw meat from other foods, cook to the right temperature, and refrigerate foods promptly) when handling or preparing foods.
There are 32 animal drug firms that make finished drugs or source active pharmaceutical ingredients in China for the U.S. The FDA has contacted all 32 firms and no shortages have been reported at this time. However, six of those firms have indicated that they are seeing disruptions in the supply chain that soon could lead to shortages. The FDA is working with these firms to help identify interventions to mitigate potential shortages.
The FDA is using all our existing authorities to address COVID-19, and we welcome the opportunity to work with Congress to further strengthen our response capabilities and emergency preparedness. There are four specific proposals included in the President’s budget that would better equip the FDA to prevent or mitigate medical product shortages.
Overall, this remains an evolving and very dynamic issue. We are committed to continuing to communicate with the public as we have further updates.
We also continue to aggressively monitor the market for any firms marketing products with fraudulent COVID-19 diagnosis, prevention or treatment claims. The FDA can and will use every authority at our disposal to protect consumers from bad actors who take advantage of a crisis to deceive the public, including pursuing warning letters, seizures or injunctions against products on the market that are not in compliance with the law, or against firms or individuals who violate the law.
We know the public may have questions or concerns for the FDA as a result of this outbreak, including you and your family’s risk of exposure, or whether your critical medical products are safe and will continue to be available in the future. The FDA is working around the clock to monitor and mitigate emerging coronavirus issues through collaborative efforts with federal partners, international regulators and medical product developers and manufacturers to help advance response efforts to combat the COVID-19 outbreak.
The FDA, an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, protects the public health by assuring the safety, effectiveness, and security of human and veterinary drugs, vaccines and other biological products for human use, and medical devices. The agency also is responsible for the safety and security of our nation’s food supply, cosmetics, dietary supplements, products that give off electronic radiation, and for regulating tobacco products.
https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavirus-covid-19-supply-chain-update
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Donald and Melania Trump stopped by the Taj Mahal Monday evening, capping off their first day in India with a sunset visit to the world’s most famous monument to love.
They held hands as they posed for photographers and spent a few minutes staring at the white marble tomb as the sun started to dip below the horizon.
‘It’s incredible, truly incredible,’ Trump said. ‘Really incredible, an incredible place.’
Melania also weighed in: ‘Lovely, beautiful,’ she said.
The couple signed the guest book and walked through the gardens as part of their tour of the tomb, built by a 16th century emperor for his deceased wife.
‘Taj Mahal inspires awe, a timeless testament to the rich and diverse beauty of Indian culture! Thank you, India,’ the president wrote in the guest book. Melania Trump signed her name under her husband’s.
It is not the president’s first experience of a Taj Mahal; one of his Atlantic City casinos also held the name and after a checkered history of corporate bankruptcy, was sold to Carl Icahn in 2016, closed, and bought for just $50 million by the Seminole Indian tribe of Florida who have re-opened it as a Hard Rock casino and stripped it of its minarets and dome.
One thing appeared to be missing from the visit to the real Taj: monkeys.
There was no sign of the nearly 1,000 rhesus monkeys who live around the tomb and who sparked fears of a diplomatic incident should they act out. India put extra ‘monkey police’ – guards with sling shots – on duty to keep away the animals.
President Trump called the Taj Mahal ‘incredible’ while Melania Trump said it was ‘beautiful’
White House senior advisors Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner pose in front of the Taj Mahal
President Trump and Melania Trump arrived in Delhi Monday night to spend the night
Melania Trump waves from the Beast as the president limo makes it way toward their hotel
Not to be confused with…: Donald Trump had his own Taj Mahal, an Atlantic City casino whose fate ended in being sold to Carl Icahn in 2016 after a checkered career
Inspired by: The Trump Taj Mahal is now a Hard Rock casino which was stripped of its minarets and domes – and Trump branding – after being soold to the Seminole Indian tribe of Florida in 2016
Landmark: The Trump Taj Mahal was designed to invoke the grandeur of the original with a distinct gold theme inside and out. It was opened in 1988 by Trump who brought along Michael Jackson
Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner also posed in front of the famous monument to love and then Kushner moved aside so Ivanka could get solo shots in front of the tomb.
Built by a Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan in 1643, the Taj Mahal is a tomb for his wife Mumtaz Mahal. He built it for his favorite wife after she died giving birth to their 14th child. He is also buried there.
President Trump could have a special interest in the Taj. During his building days in the 1980s, he built the Trump Taj Mahal hotel and casino in Atlantic City. It opened in 1990 and cost nearly $1 billion to construct.
It came to closing in 2014 as its parent company went through bankruptcy, but ultimately remained open under the new ownership. It was sold again in October 2016 to the Hard Rock Cafe and reopened under that name.
The Trumps were given a framed photo of themselves in front of the monument when they returned to Air Force One to leave Agra for New Delhi, where they will spend the night.
The sunset trip to India’s most famous location came after the Trumps’ spent the day with Narendra Modi in his home state of Ahmedabad, where the president and prime minister got a raucous welcome when they entered the world’s largest cricket stadium.
The day gave the president the kind of pageantry and adoration he likes to see.
The 110,000 stadium was filled to capacity and Trump acknowledged the spectacle when he addressed the Indian people.
‘America loves India. America respects India. And America will always be faithful and loyal friends to the Indian people,’ the president said to cheers.
‘You have done a great honor to the American people. Melania, my family, we will always remember this remarkable hospitality,’ he said.
He later told reporters it was a ‘fantastic event.’
‘I thought it was fantastic,’ he said on his way to Agra to visit the Taj Mahal. ‘They worked really hard.’
President Trump received the welcome he wanted when he touched down in India Monday morning – a spectacle of Indians lining the streets cheering on his motorcade, guards on camels standing by, and native dancers in bright costumes moving to live music and the beat of the drum.
Modi designed the day to appeal to an audience of one: Trump, wooing the president as the two nations struggle to end a trade war that has damped relations between them.
President Donald Trump, first lady Melania Trump, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrive for a ‘Namaste Trump’ event at Sardar Patel Stadium
President Donald Trump hugged Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he and Melania arrived in India, which was a rare display of affection from the president and spoke of his affection for Modi
President Trump and Melania Trump – who donned prayer shawls and removed their shoes – visited the home of Gandhi where Trump tried his hand at the loom
The stadium, which was filled with capacity saw people sitting in the sun head out as the two leaders wrapped up their remarks
Melania Trump and President Trump exit Sardar Patel Stadium – the world’s largest cricket stadium – after Trump’s remarks
The colorful and festive arrival ceremony in India featured dancers and live music as the Trumps and Modi walked the red carpet
Thousands lined the streets to welcome the Trumps but it was not the million people the president predicted would come out to greet him
Ivanka Trump and Jared Trump, the president’s daughter and son-in-law who serve as White House advisers, joined the president on the trip
President Trump, for his part, hugged Modi upon his arrival in the country in a rare display of affection that spoke volumes for his fondness for the prime minister.
Their three hours on the ground in Modi’s home state of Ahmedabad brought out thousands of cheering Indians, but not the millions Trump predicted would come out to greet him. Officials estimated about 100,000 people lined the 14-mile route the Trumps took through the city.
The Trumps were headed to the Taj Mahal after their time in Ahmedabad.
In their first stop in India, President Trump and Melania joined Modi for a visit to the home of Mohandas Gandhi, where the president donned a prayer shawl and removed his shoes to learn about the life of the famed independence leader.
Then it was on to the main event – the massive rally Modi had promised Trump, held at the biggest cricket stadium in the world.
Trump, who loves a large crowd, added on to the 110,000 capacity size when he thanked the crowd for its warm welcome.
‘To the hundreds of thousands of everyday citizens who come out and line the streets in a stunning display of Indian culture and kindness, and to the 125,000 people in this great stadium today, thank you for the spectacular welcome,’ he said.
Sardar Patel Stadium was packed to capacity, with thousands wearing white ‘Namaste Trump’ hats and waving masks of Trumps and Modi, cheering as the two leaders entered to the Village Men song ‘Macho Man.’
But the sections of the stadium facing the sun emptied out as the leaders wrapped up their remarks. The day was hot and baking.
Seats in Sardar Patel Stadium started to empty as President Trump and Prime Minister Modi wrapped up their remarks as the day was hot and baking
Prime Minister Modi welcomed President Trump to the world’s largest cricket stadium
First lady Melania Trump, President Trump and Prime Minister Modi stand as the national anthems are played
President Trump praised Prime Minister Modi and American-Indian relations in his remarks
‘India will soon be the home of the biggest middle class anywhere in the world, and within less than ten years, extreme poverty in your country is projected to completely disappear,’ Trump said.
He stumbled over Indian names, including over one of their spiritual gurus and famous cricket player Sachin Tendulkar.
The president also hit upon some of the talking points he uses in his campaign rallies, touting the strong U.S. economy, advocating for stronger border control, and bragging about the killing of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani.
‘Every nation has the right to secure and patrol borders,’ Trump said.
He also discussed relations with Pakistan, India’s neighbor and rival, and said the U.S. was working with them to fight terrorism.
The president also mentioned the trade war that has aggravated relations between Delhi and Washington.
Trade talks are at the top of the agenda even as American officials down played expectations a deal would be reached during Trump’s two-days on the ground.
‘Modi and I will discuss the efforts to expand the economic ties,’ President Trump said. ‘We will be making very very major, the biggest ever trade deals.’
‘I am optimistic that working together the prime minister can reach a fantastic deal that would be good – even great – for both countries,’ he noted and then added: ‘Except he’s a very tough negotiator.’
Modi rallied the crowd by calling out ‘Namaste Trump.’
He praised the U.S.-Indian friendship, saying ‘new history is being created.’
‘Welcome all of you to the world’s biggest democracy,’ Modi said, telling Trump all of India welcomed him, adding that U.S. India relationships are ‘no longer just another partnership.’
The rally was designed to appeal to Trump’s love of big events, a crowd of thousands cheering him on as he and first lady Melania Trump came in.
Modi lavished on the praise to the president and his entire family, calling out the accomplishments of Melania Trump, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. He even mentioned the first lady’s ‘Be Best’ campaign by name and praised the work she has done with children.
Trump has touted his friendship with Modi and he hugged the prime minister when he touched down in India, a rare display of affection.
Indian officials rolled out the red carpet for the Trumps and have dubbed the visit as ‘two dynamic personalities, one momentous occasion.’
Modi was on hand to greet the first couple as they stepped off Air Force One as were an array of dancers in colorful native costumes, who gave a festive start to the visit.
They danced alongside the red carpet amid live music as the prime minister led the Trumps to their car.
Melania Trump wore white pants with a long-sleeved white shirt and green sash around her waist for the arrival.
Trump hugged Modi, a rare display of affection that showed his friendship for the prime minister
It was a festive arrival ceremony with music and dancers in native costume greeting the party as they walked the red carpet
Melania and Donald Trump descend the steps of Air Force One for their two-day visit
President Trump gives his daughter Ivanka a kiss
A woman explains about a charkha, or spinning wheel, to President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump as India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi looks on
The area where President Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi will speak in the stadium
The stadium holds 110,000 and will be the largest cricket stadium in the world
Trump sent a tweet in Hindi saying he was on his way
Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, who serve as White House advisers, were also on the trip and watched the arrival festivities from the sidelines.
And the president showed his enthusiasm for the state visit, sending a tweet from Air Force One in Hindi while he was in route that read: ‘We are ready to come to India, we are on our way, we will be meeting everyone in a few hours.’
Modi and the Trumps first stopped at the home of Mahatma Gandhi, where the president tried his hand at a loom – the same type used by the revered Indian leader.
The Trumps took a tour of the small complex made of a series of small houses. Modi explained to them how to use a charkha, a traditional spinning wheel used by Gandhi.
While the Trumps made their way through the city, thousands filled Motera Stadium – which will be the world’s largest cricket stadium after Trump formally opens it Monday – to greet the president.
The massive rally was dubbed ‘Namaste Trump,’ which translates into ‘Greetings Trump.’
The president loves a big show and has bragged this could be the biggest event India has ever seen with millions in attendance. The stadium, which is still under construction, holds 110,000 although many more Indians are expected to line the 14-mile route Trump will traverse from the airport to the rally site.
‘I hear it’s going to be a big event. Some people say the biggest event they’ve ever had in India. that’s what the prime minister told me – this’ll be the biggest event they’ve ever had. So it’s going to be very exciting,’ he told reporters at the White House Sunday as he prepared to leave for India.
President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump attend a welcoming ceremony with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the airport
Native dancers were on hand to greet the president
Rapid Action Force (RAF) personnel stand guard at the cricket stadium ahead of Trump’s visit
Billboards welcoming the Trumps have been hoisted around the towns of India they will be visiting
A monkey sits on a billboard featuring Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Donald Trump
And the place will be spick and span for the president.
Workers cleaned the roads and erected billboards welcoming the first couple. And a four-foot wall has been built to hide the nation’s infamous slums, which house more than 2,000 people, from the Trumps’ view.
Modi loyalists and police will line the road side in Ahmedabad – where the Trumps land Monday – to greet the first couple in the kind of pomp and circumstance the president adores – providing a grand lead-up to the world’s largest largest cricket stadium where Trump will hold the biggest rally of his presidential career.
Trump’s campaign rallies average between 10,000 and 20,000 depending on the venue size.
Trump said last week 7 million people in total would be out to welcome him, which would include the 14-mile route from the Ahmedabad airport to Motera Stadium.
‘He told me we’ll have seven million people between the airport and the event,’ Trump said last Tuesday.
Two days later, he raised crowd estimates.
‘I hear they’re going to have 10 million people,’ he said at a campaign rally. ‘They say anywhere from six to 10 million people are going to be showing up along the route to one of the largest stadiums in the world.’
It’s unclear how many will actually appear to cheer the president on his route but it is unlikely to be 10 million and may not hit six digits.
Ahmedabad has a population of eight million.
Modi’s government is dropping more than $14 million, according to the Associated Press, to woo President Trump as the two countries are embroiled in a trade war that shows no signs of abating.
That includes four-foot brick wall that has been quickly erected close to the stadium with some saying it is being built to block the view of a slum area inhabited by more than 2,000 people.
It will shield the President as he arrives at the event.
The stadium, which was built for $100 million, is a perfectly round venue that promises unobstructed views from every angle. It seats 110,000.
When Modi visited the United States last year, he and President Trump attended a ‘Howdy Modi’ rally in Houston that drew a crowd of 50,000 Indian Americans. Trump compared Modi to Elvis Presley at that event.
Bernie Sanders was declared the winner of the Nevada caucuses Saturday despite only a fraction of the vote in.
Sanders had a formidable lead, taking 46.6 per cent of the delegates with 22 per cent of precincts reporting.
‘I’m delighted to bring you some very good news,’ a jovial Sanders announced to a crowd of supporters at his rally in San Antonio, Texas Saturday evening, alongside his wife Jane.
‘I think all of you know we won the popular vote in Iowa. We won the New Hampshire primary. And, according to three networks and the AP, we have now won the Nevada caucus,’ Sanders said as audience members erupted in chants and cheers.
Trump went ahead and congratulated Sanders before most networks had called the race.
‘Looks like Crazy Bernie is doing well in the Great State of Nevada. Biden & the rest look weak, & no way Mini Mike can restart his campaign after the worst debate performance in the history of Presidential Debates,’ Trump said.
‘Congratulations Bernie, & don’t let them take it away from you!’ the president wrote.
In response to the president’s tweet, Sanders told rally-goers not to reveal how much support he had in the country’s most populous red state.
‘Don’t tell anybody, I don’t want to get them nervous, we are going to win the Democratic primary in Texas. And you know, this is also important the president gets very, very upset easily, so don’t tell him we’re going to beat him here in Texas,’ Sanders said.
Bernie Sanders won Nevada, taking 46.6 per cent of the delegates with 22 per cent of precincts reporting. He was pictured with his wife Jane, who he introduced as ‘the future first lady’
Joe Biden, who came in second with 19.25 per cent of the vote, claimed his second place finish was enough to reboot his struggling campaign. In Iowa, Buttigieg beat Sanders in the delegate count by a hair, but placed third in Nevada with 15.38 per cent of the vote
Elizabeth Warren, whose debate performance against newbie Mike Bloomberg dominated the headlines in Nevada all week after Wednesday night’s Democratic debate, took 10.27 per cent of the vote. Amy Klobuchar, who took 4.5 per cent of the vote, headed back to her home state of Minnesota soon after the results were called
Sanders left Nevada before precinct locations had adjourned their caucuses and headed to Texas for two rallies Saturday.
Texas is a state Sanders will likely struggle to gain support in the Democratic primary, since voters are generally more moderate in the Lone Star State.
During his first rally Saturday in border city of El Paso, Texas, Sanders did not bring up his jarring lead.
As Trump tweeted, NBC News said the race was ‘too early to call.’ The network then called the race as Sanders’ rival Joe Biden was speaking in Nevada, claiming his second place finish, with 19.25 per cent of the vote, was enough to reboot his struggling campaign.
‘I know the press is ready to declare people quickly dead,’ Biden told his supporters. ‘We’re alive and we’re coming back and we’re going to win.’
One person loudly yelled that Biden was the ‘comeback kid,’ while Biden boasted he would go on to win South Carolina, where voters will head to the polls in a week.
Sanders is coming off a win in New Hampshire, with Pete Buttigieg coming in a close second in the Granite State. He came third in Nevada, with 15.38 per cent of the vote. In Iowa, Buttigieg beat Sanders in the delegate count by a hair, while the Vermont senator won the popular vote. Biden finished in fourth place in Iowa and fifth place in New Hampshire.
Reporting for Nevada started to filter in the early afternoon Saturday, though stayed at 3 per cent for more than an hour, as Democrats tried to avoid having reporting problems like they did in Iowa thanks to a malfunctioning app. CNN reported that some precinct chairs had trouble calling in and reporting the results.
Despite the major momentum for the Vermont senator in the Silver State, the candidate had already left to campaign in Texas before the Nevada caucus sites adjourned.
Sanders is holding two campaign rallies in the Lone Star State Saturday, where a more moderate Democratic electorate could spell trouble for the democratic socialist. He’ll also hold a Houston rally Sunday. Texas votes on March 3, with 13 other ‘Super Tuesday’ states.
Although only 4 per cent of reporting was in by the time of Sanders’ rally, several networks had called the caucus for Sanders as he took a substantial lead with more than 50 per cent
Sanders claimed at his rally in Texas, and on Twitter, that Donald Trump would get ‘nervous’ if he found out how much support he has in Texas – the most populous red state
Buttigieg and Biden stayed in Las Vegas, while Amy Klobuchar – who came fifth with 4.51% of the vote – headed back to her home state of Minnesota for a rally. Minnesota is one of the 14 so-called ‘Super Tuesday’ states.
Buttigieg used his event to both congratulate Sanders and warn Democratic voters about the victor.
‘I congratulate Senator Sanders on a strong showing today, and we certainly celebrate many of the same ideals,’ Buttigieig admitted, although he rarely likens himself to the Democratic socialist candidate.
‘But before we rush to nominate Senator Sanders, in our one shot to take on this president, let’s take a sober look at the consequences – for our party, for our values, and for those with the most at stake,’ he urged.
The former mayor of South Bend, Indiana also reminded the 300 or so audience members that he won against Sanders in Iowa.
‘Ours is the only campaign that has beaten Senator Sanders anywhere in the country,’ he said to a cheering crowd gathered at a the Spring Preservation nature area just five miles from the Vegas strip.
Mike Bloomberg, the billionaire 2020 hopeful who decided to skip the four opening states, had his campaign manager send out a statement also warning of what Sanders win could mean.
‘The Nevada results reinforce the reality that this fragmented field is putting Bernie Sanders on pace to amass an insurmountable delegate lead,’ Bloomberg’s campaign manager Kevin Sheekey said. ‘We are going to need Independents AND Republicans to defeat Trump – attacking your own party is no way to get started. As Mike says, if we choose a candidate who appeals to a small base – like Senator Sanders – it will be a fatal error.’
Bernie Sanders easily won Saturday’s Nevada caucuses, with networks reporting the double-digit win with only a small percentage of precincts reporting
Sanders, however, left Nevada before caucus sites adjourned Saturday for two rallies in Texas, a state where he struggles among more moderate Democratic voters
President Trump sent a back-handed congratulatory tweet to Bernie Sanders before most networks had called the race for the Vermont senator. Trump said Biden and the other Democratic hopefuls looked ‘weak’
The caucuses kicked off at noon on Saturday, though 75,000 Nevada Democrats had participated in early voting.
At the Bellagio Hotel on the iconic Las Vegas strip, 123 people participated in the caucuses, with the room breaking out into chants for Sanders and Biden – as the vast majority only supported those two candidates.
The site consisted of residents from a 2.5 mile radius as well as shift workers from the hotel who wanted to participate in the middle of the work day.
There was a small showing for Elizabeth Warren – who came fourth, with 10.27% – as well, whose debate performance against newbie Bloomberg dominated the headlines in Nevada all week after Wednesday night’s Democratic debate.
At the Bellagio, for candidates to be ‘viable’ at least 19 caucus participants had to back them.
Only Sanders and Biden qualified during the first counting, while seven people came out for Warren.
Bernie Sanders’ supporters at the Bellagio hotel cheered for their candidate, who won that particular caucus site
Bernie Sanders’ supporters raise their hands at the Liberty High School in Henderson, Nevada Saturday afternoon
Vice President Joe Biden greets Democratic caucus-goers Saturday at Cheyenne High School in North Las Vegas
Elizabeth Warren only had a handful of supporters caucus for her at the Bellagio Hotel caucus site
Pete Buttigieg showed up to caucuses being held at Sierra Vista High School on Saturday. Buttigieg and Biden both stuck around in Nevada, while the other top candidates left
us totals were reported on these paper worksheets, one for each precinct. Caucus volunteers had to factor in early vote totals along with totals on-site
e early realignment was announced over the microphone, Sanders’ supporters cheered enthusiastically while Biden supporters booed.
The site only required one realignment, with Sanders ultimately earning 76 total ballots cast for him after one person moved to the senator’s camp and Biden earned support from 45 caucus-goers – earning 6 more after the realignment.
The president of the caucus-site announced that they would send 32 delegates to the county convention for Sanders and 19 for Biden.
The Bellagio is an at-large caucus site, encompassing several hotel and casino workers, and there were tables set up outside of the ballroom where attendees could register to vote.
Ahead of the caucuses, the tables were surrounded by individuals filling out the paperwork to be able to participate.
A rideshare driver on the way to the site told DailyMail.com that he wanted to cast a ballot, but after finding out it was a bigger ordeal than pressing a button, decided he had to work and earn money instead.
At Rancho High School in north Las Vegas two precincts simultaneously caucused in a gymnasium. At both precincts, Sanders was the only viable candidate – and early voters far outnumbered those who showed up to the school.
In one precinct, just 20 people caucused in person, while another 61 had cast early votes. Sanders picked up 46 of those early votes, while another 13 caucused for him Saturday in person, during the precinct’s first alignment.
Happening directly beside that precinct was another that overwhelmingly felt the Bern.
Of the 16 Democrats who came to caucus in person, 12 were there to support the Vermont senator. Sanders was supplemented by an additional 20 early votes.
He won all 13 delegates from that precinct, while earning 24 from the adjacent precinct. No other candidate won any.
However, there were 11 precincts caucusing at Rancho High School overall, with Biden and Steyer also winning some delegates.
Nevada began caucusing in primary contests in 1981, but the state did not earn early primary status until 2008, when the Democratic National Committee made Nevada the second-in-the-nation caucuses following Iowa’s caucuses and New Hampshire’s primary election.
The final two Nevada polls that dropped Friday had shown Sanders with a comfortable lead. And he was leading in entrance polls Saturday as well.
Mike Bloomberg made his debate debut in Nevada Wednesday night, but then headed to Utah – a Super Tuesday state. The billionaire has staked his chances on competing in the 14 states that vote on March 3, instead of competing in the first four, which includes Nevada
Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez told DailyMail.com earlier in the week that he couldn’t predict when the results of the Nevada caucus would come out
Democrats are hoping that Nevada’s caucuses go off without a hitch after an app glitch led to chaos in Iowa at the beginning of the month, with Sanders’ campaign still challenging the count that saw Buttigieg win by a tiny fraction.
Earlier in the week, Democratic National Committee chairman Tom Perez told DailyMail.com he couldn’t predict when results would be up for Nevada.
Perez couldn’t guarantee whether the crop of 2020 presidential candidates competing in the Democratic primary would see results by the end of Saturday.
‘I don’t know how many people are going to show up, so that’s an impossible question to answer,’ Perez said. ‘I know we’re going to try to get results as soon as possible. But we want to get results that are accurate and we want to make sure we count every vote.’
While the Nevada Democratic Party is holding its official nominating contest on Saturday, the state experienced days earlier a massive number of participants in its first-ever early voting in Nevada.
Nearly 75,000 people cast early voting ballots, the party announced Friday, which is only 10,000 voters shy of the entire caucus count from 2016, which stood around 84,000.
In the 2016 primaries, around 1.3 million of the 3 million residents in Nevada voted.
The population of the western state is mostly contained to Las Vegas, Henderson and Reno, its three largest cities.
The state ended up voting to nominate Hillary Clinton and in the primaries voted for Clinton by a margin of 2.4 per cent more than Donald Trump.
urrent role. A University of Delaware and Syracuse Law graduate, he was first elected to Newcastle City Council in 1969, then won upset election to Senate in 1972, aged 29. Was talked out of quitting before being sworn in when his wife and daughter died in a car crash and served total of six terms. Chaired Judiciary Committee’s notorious Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings. Ran for president in 1988, pulled out after plagiarism scandal, ran again in 2008, withdrew after placing fifth in the Iowa Caucuses. Tapped by Obama as his running mate and served two terms as vice president. Contemplated third run in 2016 but decided against it after his son died of brain cancer.
Family: Eldest of four siblings born to Joe Biden Sr. and Catherine Finnegan. First wife Neilia Hunter and their one-year-old daughter Naomi died in car crash which their two sons, Joseph ‘Beau’ and Robert Hunter survived. Married Jill Jacobs in 1976, with whom he has daughter Ashley. Beau died of brain cancer in 2015. Hunter’s marriage to Kathleen Buhle, with whom he has three children, ended in 2016 when it emerged Hunter was in a relationship with Beau’s widow Hallie, mother of their two children. Hunter admitted cocaine use; his estranged wife accused him of blowing their savings on drugs and prostitutes
Religion: Catholic
Views on key issues: Ultra-moderate who will emphasize bipartisan record. Will come under fire over record, having voted: to stop desegregation bussing in 1975; to overturn Roe v Wade in 1981; for now controversial 1994 Violent Crime Act; for 2003 Iraq War; and for banking deregulation. Says he is ‘most progressive’ Democrat. New positions include free college, tax reform, $15 minimum wage. No public position yet on Green New Deal and healthcare. Pro-gun control. Has already apologized to women who say he touched them inappropriately
Would make history as: Oldest person elected president
Slogan: Our Best Days Still Lie Ahead
Age on Inauguration Day: 78
Entered race: November 24, 2019
Career: Currently multi-billionaire CEO of Bloomberg PL, the financial information firm he founded in 1981 and which remains a private company. Educated at Johns Hopkins and Harvard, he became a Wall Street trader at investment bank Salomon Brothers and was laid off in 1981, walking away with $10m in stock which he used to set up his own financial information firm, now one of the world’s largest. Three times mayor of New York 2002 to 2013, running first as Republican then as independent; had to get term limits suspended for final term. Once flirted with running for mayor of London where he has a home; holds an honorary knighthood from Queen Elizabeth. Has spent large amounts on philanthropy in line with his political views as well as on political campaigns
Family: Born in Brookline, MA, to first-generation Jewish immigrant parents whose own parents had fled Russia. Divorced wife of 18 years, Susan Brown-Meyer, in 1993; former couple have daughters Emma, who has a son with her former boyfriend, and Georgina, who has daughter Zelda with her husband Chris Fissora. The child has a portmanteau surname, Frissberg. Partner since 2000 is Diana Taylor, former New York state banking commissioner, 13 years his junior
Religion: Jewish
Views on key issues: Self-professed fiscal conservative, although painted as a Democratic moderate by other conservative groups. Opposed to Medicare for all. Social progressive who backed gay marriage early, but has flip-flopped on marijuana legalization, most recently opposing it.. Wants firm action on climate change. Fiercely in favor of gun control. As New York mayor banned smoking in public places and tried to outlaw large sugary drinks. Backs increased immigration. Apologized for his stop-and-frisk policing strategy as mayor
Would make history as: Oldest person elected president; first Jewish president; richest president ever; first New York mayor to become president
Slogan: Fighting For Our Future
PETE BUTTIGIEG
Age on Inauguration Day: 39
Entered race: Announced formation of exploratory committee January 23, 2019. Formally entered race April 14, 2019
Career: Currently mayor of Sound Bend, Indiana. Harvard grad and Rhodes scholar who got a second degree from Oxford before working as a McKinsey management consultant and being commissioned as a Navy Reserve intelligence officer. Elected South Bend mayor in 2011 and served in combat in 2013, won re-election in 2015
Family: Came out as gay during second mayoral run and married husband Chasten Glezman, a middle school teacher in 2018. Parents were University of Notre Dame academics; his father was Maltese-American. Surname is pronounced BOOT-edge-edge
Religion: Raised as a Catholic, now Episcopalian
Views on key issues: Has said Democratic party needs a ‘fresh start’; wrote an essay in praise of Bernie Sanders aged 17; backed paid parental leave for city employees; other policies unknown
Would make history as: First openly gay and youngest-ever president. First veteran of post-World War II conflict
Slogan: A Fresh Start For America
Age on Inauguration Day: 39
Entered race: Still to formally file any papers but said she would run on January 11 2019
Career: Currently Hawaii congresswoman. Born on American Samoa, a territory. Raised largely in Hawaii, she co-founded an environmental non-profit with her father as a teenager and was elected to the State Legislature aged 21, its youngest member in history. Enlisted in the National Guard and served two tours, one in Iraq 2004-2006, then as an officer in Kuwait in 2009. Ran for Honolulu City Council in 2011, and House of Representatives in 2012
Family: Married to her second husband, Abraham Williams, a cinematographer since 2015. First marriage to childhood sweetheart Eduardo Tamayo in 2002 ended in 2006. Father Mike Gabbard is a Democratic Hawaii state senator, mother Carol Porter runs a non-profit.
Religion: Hindu
Views on key issues: Has apologized for anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage views; wants marijuana federally legalized; opposed to most U.S. foreign interventions; backs $15 minimum wage and universal health care; was the second elected Democrat to meet Trump after his 2016 victory
Would make history as: First female, Hindu and Samoan-American president; youngest president ever
Slogan: Lead with Love
AMY KLOBUCHAR
Age on Inauguration Day: 60
Entered race: Announced candidacy February 10, 2019 at snow-drenched rally in her native Minneapolis
Career: Currently Minnesota senator. Yale and University of Chicago law graduate who became a corporate lawyer. First ran unsuccessfully for office in 1994 as Hennepin, MI, county attorney, and won same race in 1998, then in 2002, without opposition. Ran for Senate in 2006 and won 58-38; re-elected in 2012 and 2018
Family: Married to John Bessler, law professor at University of Baltimore and expert on capital punishment. Daughter Abigail Bessler, 23, works fora Democratic member of New York City council. Father Jim, 90, was a veteran newspaper columnist who has written a memoir of how his alcoholism hurt his family; mom Rose is a retired grade school teacher
Religion: Congregationalist (United Church of Christ)
Views on key issues: Seen as a mainstream liberal: says she wants ‘universal health care’ but has not spelled out how; pro-gun control; pro-choice; backs $15 minimum wage; no public statements on federal marijuana legalization; has backed pro-Israel law banning the ‘boycott, divestment and sanctions’ movement; spoke out against abolishing ICE
Would make history as: First female president
Slogan: Let’s Get To Work
BERNIE SANDERS
Age on Inauguration Day: 79
Entered race: Sources said on January 25, 2019, that he would form exploratory committee. Officially announced February 19
Career: Currently Vermont senator. Student civil rights and anti-Vietnam activist who moved to Vermont and worked as a carpenter and radical film-maker. Serial failed political candidate in the 1970s, he ran as a socialist for mayor of Burlington in 1980 and served two terms ending in 1989, and win a seat in Congress as an independent in 1990. Ran for Senate in 2006 elections as an independent with Democratic endorsement and won third term in 2018. Challenged Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination in 2016 but lost. Campaign has since been hit by allegations of sexual harassment – for which he has apologized – and criticized for its ‘Bernie bro’ culture
Family: Born to a Jewish immigrant father and the daughter of Jewish immigrant parents in Brooklyn, New York. First marriage to college sweetheart Deborah Shiling Messing in 1964 ended in divorce in 1966; had son Levi in 1969 with then girlfriend Susan Cambell Mott. Married Jone O’Meara in 1988 and considers her three children, all adults, his own. The couple have seven grandchildren. His older brother Larry is a former Green Party councilor in Oxfordshire, England.
Religion: Secular Jewish
Views on key issues: Openly socialist and standard bearer for the Democratic party’s left-turn. Wants federal $15 minimum wage; banks broken up; union membership encouraged; free college tuition; universal health care; re-distributive taxation; he opposed Iraq War and also U.S. leading the fight against ISIS and wants troops largely out of Afghanistan and the Middle East
Would make history as: Oldest person elected president; first Jewish president
Slogan: Not me. Us.
TOM STEYER
Age on Inauguration Day 2021: 63
Entered race: July 9, 2019
Career: Currently retired. New York-born to wealthy family, he was educated at elite Phillips Exeter Academy, and Yale, then Stanford Business School. Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs banker who founded his own hedge fund in 1986 and made himself a billionaire; investments included subprime lenders, private prisons and coal mines. Stepped down in 2012 to focus on advocating for alternative energy. Longtime Democratic activist and donor who started campaign to impeach Trump in October 2017. Net worth of $1.6 billion has made him one of the Democrats’ biggest single donors
Family: Married Kathryn Taylor in 1986; they have four adult children who have been told they will not inherit the bulk of his fortune. Announced last November he and his wife would live apart. Father Roy was a Nuremberg trials prosecutor
Religion: Episcopalian
Views on key issues: On the left of the field despite being a hedge fund tycoon. Backs single-payer health care, minimum wage rises and free public college. Previously spoke in favor of Bernie Sanders’ agenda. Aggressive backer of climate change action, including ditching fossil fuels
Would make history as: Richest Democratic president ever
Slogan: Actions Speak Louder Than Words
ELIZABETH WARREN
Age on Inauguration Day: 71
Entered race: Set up exploratory committee December 31, 2018
Career: Currently Massachusetts senator. Law lecturer and academic who became an expert on bankruptcy law and tenured Harvard professor. Ran for Senate and won in 2012, defeating sitting Republican Scott Brown, held it in 2018 60% to 36%. Was short-listed to be Hillary’s running mate and campaigned hard for her in 2016
Family: Twice-married mother of two and grandmother of three. First husband and father of her children was her high-school sweetheart. Second husband Bruce Mann is Harvard law professor. Daughter Amelia Tyagi and son Alex Warren have both been involved in her campaigns. Has controversially claimed Native American roots; DNA test suggested she is as little as 1,064th Native American
Religion: Raised Methodist, now described as Christian with no fixed church
Views on key issues: Was a registered Republican who voted for the party but registered as a Democrat in 1996. Pro: higher taxes on rich; banking regulation; Dream Act path to citizenship for ‘dreamers’; abortion and gay rights; campaign finance restrictions; and expansion of public provision of healthcare – although still to spell out exactly how that would happen. Against: U.S. presence in Afghanistan and Syria; liberalization of gambling
Would make history as: First female president
Slogan: Warren Has A Plan For That
MICHAEL BENNET, Colorado senator
CORY BOOKER, New Jersey Senator
STEVE BULLOCK, Montana governor
JULIÁN CASTRO, former Housing Secretary
KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, New York senator
BILL DE BLASIO, New York City mayor
JOHN DELANEY, former Maryland Congressman
MIKE GRAVEL, Former Alaska governor
KAMALA HARRIS,California senator
JOHN HICKENLOOPER, Former Colorado governor
JAY INSLEE, Washington governor
WAYNE MESSAM, mayor of Miramar, Florida
SETH MOULTON, Massachusetts congressman
RICHARD OJEDA, former West Virginia state senator
BETO O’ROURKE, former Texas congressman
DEVAL PATRICK, former Massachusetts governor
TIM RYAN, Ohio congressman
JOE SESTAK, former Pennsylvania congressman
ERIC SWALWELL, California congressman
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON, author
ANDREW YANG, entrepreneur
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8032979/Sanders-strong-showing-Las-Vegas-caucus-sites.html
Summary: The math behind how the Democratic National Committee calculates the number of delegates a candidate needs to win.
A candidate will need 1,991 of the 3,979 pledged delegates to win the Democratic nomination on the first ballot. Per the Democratic National Committee, a candidate needs a majority of those eligible to vote on the ballot. Most importantly for the calculation, the candidate needs “a whole unit of delegate above half.”
Half of 3,979 is 1,989.5. As there are no delegates in this round with a half vote, a whole unit of delegate is one. Therefore, the requirement is 1,990.5 (1,989.5 + 1) delegates, which is rounded to 1,991.
If no candidate wins on the first ballot, all delegates become unpledged. There are 4,750 delegate votes on the second – and any subsequent – ballot. This total is comprised of the 3,979 formerly-pledged delegates from the first ballot as well as 767 automatic delegates with a full vote and 8 automatic delegates with a half vote.1 This means there are 775 automatic delegates with a total of 771 votes, with 4,750 equal to 3,979 + 771.
Since there are delegates with a half vote, a half vote is considered a whole unit of delegate for any ballot after the first round. Half of 4,750 is 2,375. Therefore, the requirement is 2,375.5 delegates to win the nomination when all delegates are voting.
Note that since automatic delegates are specific people or positions, the number can vary slightly – up or down – over time. For example, all Democratic members of the U.S. House are automatic delegates. If there was to be a new vacancy that remained unfilled at the time of the convention, there would be one less delegate in this category.
A Fine Point
If a candidate earns pledged delegates greater than a majority of all delegate votes (i.e., 2,375.5 or greater) during the primary and caucus contests, that person’s nomination will be a foregone conclusion. In this scenario, all delegates will be able to vote on the first ballot. This outcome seems unlikely given the size of the field and the party’s proportional allocation of delegates in each contest.
https://www.270towin.com/content/delegates-needed-to-win-2020-democratic-nomination
[youtubehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okg7uq_HrhQ]
Stocks fell sharply on Monday as the number of coronavirus cases outside China surged, stoking fears of a prolonged global economic slowdown from the virus spreading.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 1,031.61 points lower, or 3.56%, at 27,960.80. The S&P 500 slid 3.35% to 3,225.89 while the Nasdaq Composite closed 3.71% lower at 9,221.28. It was the Dow’s biggest point and percentage-point drop since February 2018. The Dow also gave up its gain for 2020 and is now down 2% for the year. The S&P 500 also had its worst day in two years and wiped out its year-to-date gain as well.
“The second-largest economy in the world is completely shut down. People aren’t totally pricing that in,” said Larry Benedict, CEO of The Opportunistic Trader, adding a 10% to 15% correction in stocks may be starting. He also said some parts of the market, particularly large-cap tech stocks, appear to be over-owned. “It seems like there’s much more to come.”
Coronavirus-impacted names led the way lower. Airline stocks Delta and American were both down more than 6% while United closed 5.4% lower. Shares of casino operators Las Vegas Sands and Wynn Resorts dropped at least 5.2% each. MGM Resorts slid 5.4%.
Chipmakers, which are highly leveraged to the global economy, were also down broadly. Nvidia shares were down 7.1% while Dow-component Intel ended the day down 4%. AMD dipped 7.8%. The VanEck Vectors Semiconductor ETF (SMH) was down by 4.5%.
“The market had been sanguine about the spread of the coronavirus,” said Quincy Krosby, chief market strategist at Prudential Financial. “That sanguine stance is being tested today.”
“Companies are assessing their suppliers and their supply chains and seeing whether or not their revenue is going to slow,” Krosby said. “Because of that, this has become a sell-first, ask-questions later type of market.”
Overseas markets fell sharply. The European Stoxx 600 dropped more than 3% while Korea’s Kospi index slid 3.9%.In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index fell 1.8%.
Legendary investor Warren Buffett said the coronavirus spread has softened up the U.S. economy, but noted growth is still healthy. “Business is down but it’s down from a very good level,” Buffett told CNBC’s Becky Quick on “Squawk Box.” “You look at car holdings —railcar holdings, moving goods around. And there again, that was affected by the tariffs too because people front-ended purchases, all kinds of things.” Buffett added he still recommends buying stocks for the long term.
The coronavirus outbreak that was first reported in China, but has spread rapidly in other countries especially South Korea and Italy, which reported a spike in the number of confirmed cases in recent days.
South Korea raised its coronavirus alert to the “highest level” over the weekend, with the latest spike in numbers bringing the total infected to more than 800 — making it the country with the most cases outside mainland China.
Meanwhile, outside of Asia, Italy has been the worst affected country so far, with more than 130 reported cases and three deaths.
“There remains a large degree of uncertainty surrounding the virus, and no one knows how this will ultimately play out,” said Keith Lerner, chief market strategist at Truist/SunTrust Advisory. “With stock prices and valuations still near cycle highs, the risk of a worsening virus outbreak has not been priced into the market to a great extent.”
The major averages hit record highs all hit record highs earlier this month despite lingering concerns over the coronavirus.
In the earlier days after the outbreak, many economists had predicted a V-shaped recovery, which describes downturns that see a steep fall before recovering sharply. However, traders are loading up on traditional safe havens such as U.S. Treasurys and gold.
The benchmark 10-year note yield fell to 1.369% on Monday, putting the key rate close to it all-time low closing around 1.36%. Yields move inversely to prices. Gold futures jumped 1.7% to around $1,676.60 per ounce and hit its highest level since January 2013.
The Cboe Volatility Index (VIX) — considered to be the best fear gauge on Wall Street — jumped more than 7 points, or about 46%, to 25.04.
“Simply put, the markets were not setup for where we are today,” said Gregory Faranello, head of U.S. rates trading at AmeriVet Securities, in a note. It’s an “extremely dynamic environment. And one which continues to warrant respect and caution.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/24/us-futures-coronavirus-outbreak.html
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Mike Bloomberg has been declared the loser of Democratic debate after Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders relentlessly attacked the former New York mayor over his past ‘racist’ policies and treatment of women.
Six candidates took the stage Wednesday night in Las Vegas to face-off for a 5-to-1 face-off that ended disastrously for Bloomberg.
Pundits chose Bloomberg as the loser after he became the object of scorn, ridicule and contempt within the first five minutes of the debate.
What is becoming an increasingly bitter nomination fight, the Democratic presidential candidates focused their attacks on Bloomberg on the debate stage.
He has spent more than $400 million so far on advertising that in turn has given him strong standing in state and national polls.
Sanders recalled Bloomberg’s support of stop-and-frisk policing targeting minorities while Warren spoke about how Bloomberg had mocked women.
‘I’d like to talk about who we’re running against, a billionaire who calls women fat broads and horse-faced lesbians,’ Warren said.
Pundits chose Bloomberg as the loser of Wednesday night’s debate after he became the object of scorn, ridicule and contempt within the first five minutes
Six candidates took the stage Wednesday night in Las Vegas to face-off for a 5-to-1 face-off that ended disastrously for Bloomberg
‘And no I’m not talking about Donald Trump, I’m talking about Mayor Bloomberg.’
Amy Klobuchar also quipped that, ‘I don’t think you look at Donald Trump and say I think we need someone richer in the White House’.
Former Vice President Joe Biden said Bloomberg condoned racist police practices, and Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, said Bloomberg was trying to ‘buy out’ the Democratic Party.
But his biggest struggle came when Warren hammered him over allegations of sexism and mistreatment of women in his company.
Bloomberg attempted to defend his record and deflect the attacks on him by turning them into attacks on President Donald Trump.
And he effectively raised questions about whether Americans would embrace a socialist like Sanders.
Cillizza also said the ‘first hour of the debate was an absolute and total disaster for the former mayor’ who was also the third most tweeted about candidate Wednesday night
But the glare was harsh, and the attacks landed with force. Even if you are worth $60billion it is hard to win a 5-on-1 fight.
CNN’s Chris Cillizza said the ‘first hour of the debate was an absolute and total disaster for the former mayor’.
‘He looked lost at times – and those were the best times for him! Warren dunked on him repeatedly. Sanders slammed him. Biden bashed him,’ Cillizza wrote.
Cillizza compared Bloomberg’s performance to that of a pro-wrestling match where ‘everyone decided to gang up on a single wrestler in the ring – and that wrestler was totally and completely caught off-guard’.
ELIZABETH WARREN: RETURN OF THE FIGHTER (WINNER)
Warren rose to prominence in the Democratic field with a fighting spirit that defined the early months of her campaign. But her disappointing showings in Iowa and New Hampshire left her campaign struggling.
But on Wednesday, Warren got back in the fight.
She slammed Bloomberg – which was no surprise as she’s been an antagonist of billionaires playing in politics for years.
But Warren also attacked Klobuchar, saying her health care plan was just a ‘Post-it note’.
She accused Buttigieg of being in debt to his rich campaign supporters and having a healthcare plan that was just a ‘PowerPoint’ designed by his consultants.
Warren rose to prominence in the Democratic field with a fighting spirit that defined the early months of her campaign. But her disappointing showings in Iowa and New Hampshire left her campaign struggling. But on Wednesday, Warren got back in the fight
Warren slammed also fellow liberal Sanders, accusing him of letting his supporters trash anyone with a plan. But it was her prosecutorial approach to Bloomberg over his company’s treatment of women that stood out.
She hit the former mayor hard when it came to his refusal to release women from the nondisclosure agreements with his company regarding complaints of a hostile working environment.
Warren was relentless, leaving the former mayor stumbling and fumbling for a response.
‘Anybody that does anything wrong in our company, we investigate it and if it’s appropriate, they’re gone that day,’ Bloomberg said.
‘Let me tell you what I do at my company and my foundation and in city government when I was there. In my foundation, the person that runs it is a woman, 70 per cent of the people there are women,’ he added.
‘In my company, lots and lots of women have big responsibilities. They get paid exactly the same as men. In city hall, the top person, my deputy mayor was a woman and 40 per cent of our commissioners were women,’ he said.
Warren then hit him harder.
‘I hope you heard what his defense was. I’ve been nice to some women. That just doesn’t cut it. The mayor has to stand on his record. What we need to know is exactly what’s lurking out there,’ she said.
‘He has gotten some number of women, dozens, who knows, who sign nondisclosure agreements both for sexual harassment and for gender discrimination in the workplace.
Van Jones tweeted about Warren shortly after the debate, saying: ‘Elizabeth Warren needs Bloomberg like a “lion needs an antelope.” He is the human embodiment of everything she’s against. If @ewarren is effective at landing those blows, the air could very well come out of the Bloomberg bubble.’
BERNIE SANDERS: LEADING THE PACK (WINNER)
Sanders has continuously tried to cement himself as the Democratic frontrunner, and he may have just pulled that off, according to some pundits.
‘The ganging-up on Bloomberg was just fine for Sanders, who, in case you forgot, is the clear front-runner for the Democratic nomination,’ Cillizza wrote.
Before Wednesday night, Sanders has been hammering Bloomberg for weeks for trying to buy the election, though at a CNN town hall Tuesday night he wouldn’t guarantee he wouldn’t take Bloomberg’s money, which the billionaire candidate promised to the Democratic nominee, should he not be chosen for the job himself.
‘I don’t think we’re going to need that money,’ Sanders eventually said.
Sanders has sprung to the lead for the nomination in the RealClearPolitics polling average on the race with Biden in second and Bloomberg in third.
Sanders has continuously tried to cement himself as the Democratic frontrunner, and he may have just pulled that off, according to some pundits
Sanders and Bloomberg locked horns on political philosophy during the debate, arguing over who’s a communist and who’s a socialist.
Bloomberg was defending his net worth, pointing out he earned it through ‘hard work’ and that he was giving his money away when Sanders argued the workers helped make that money.
‘Mr Bloomberg, it wasn’t you who made all that money. Maybe your workers played some role in that as well,’ Sanders said.
‘And it is important those workers are able to share the benefits also. When we have so many people who go to work every day and they feel not good about their jobs.
‘They feel like cogs in a machine. I want workers to be able to sit on corporate boards as well so they can have some say over what happens to their lives.’
MAYOR PETE BUTTIGIEG: THE GIFTED DEBATER (WINNER)
Some pundits crowned Buttigieg as one of Wednesday night’s winners.
‘Buttigieg is, without question, the most naturally gifted debater in the Democratic field, meaning he is simply not going to turn in a clunker. He was steady if not spectacular in this debate,’ Cillizza said.
According Cillizza, Buttigieg spent parts of the night taking on Sanders, which is a ‘clear effort to send a signal to voters that he is the most credible alternative to the Vermont senator’.
Buttigieg, who finished in the top two in Iowa and New Hampshire with Sanders, reserved some of his harshest criticism for Sanders.
Some pundits crowned Buttigieg as one of Wednesday night’s winners. Buttigieg, who finished in the top two in Iowa and New Hampshire with Sanders, reserved some of his harshest criticism for Sanders
He warned that Democrats could wake up after more than a dozen states vote on Super Tuesday on March 3 and have only Bloomberg and Sanders left on the ballot.
Buttigieg then quipped that the party may want to nominate ‘someone who is actually a Democrat’.
The crowd inside the Las Vegas casino hadn’t yet finished chuckling and hooting when he continued by saying Sanders ‘wants to burn this party down’ and Bloomberg ‘wants to buy this party out’.
Sanders, a senator from Vermont and avowed democratic socialist, responded by saying that Buttigieg’s campaign has been too reliant on ‘billionaire’ big donors, kicking off another intense exchange.
Their back and forth continued through criticism of Sanders supporters who have frequently been accused of bullying behavior online.
Sanders said he personally had denounced such behavior. This prompted Buttigieg to say he believed the senator but, ‘What it is it about your campaign in particular that seems to be motivating this type of behavior?’
On this night, Buttigieg had the most at stake, with Sanders standing in Nevada polls well ahead of the man who has run even with him in the first two contests.
AMY KLOBUCHAR: WHERE’S THE KLOBENTUM? (LOSER)
The last debate was rocket fuel for Klobuchar. Her strong performance vaulted her to a third-place finish in New Hampshire and onto Nevada.
But it may be hard for lightning to strike twice.
The Minnesota senator was often drowned out in the high-octane bickering Wednesday, or pulled down into the mud.
At one point she pulled from her supply of ready quips, saying of Sanders and Bloomberg as they argued over capitalism that there is ‘a boxing rematch in Vegas on Saturday and these guys should go down there’.
The last debate was rocket fuel for Klobuchar. Her strong performance vaulted her to a third-place finish in New Hampshire and onto Nevada. But it may be hard for lightning to strike twice
The most damaging exchange was between Klobuchar and Buttigieg, who have tangled before.
When asked about her embarrassing gaffe in forgetting the name of Mexico’s president, she had to fend off Buttigieg, who claimed it disproved her argument that her work in Washington has prepared her to be president.
She also alternately scrapped with and aligned with Warren.
‘Are you calling me dumb?’ Klobuchar asked Buttigieg incredulously. Later, she added: ‘I wish everyone was as perfect as you, Pete.’
A little over a week ago in New Hampshire, Klobuchar clearly stood out. This time was much harder as everyone battled for survival.
FORMER VP JOE BIDEN: THE BYSTANDER (LOSER)
Another candidate in need of a big night to reverse perceptions that his campaign was struggling was Biden.
For a good portion of the debate, he receded. He joined in the attacks on Bloomberg, but largely avoided some of the more testy exchanges.
Biden called the stop and frisks ‘abhorrent’ and the former mayor admitted that it ‘got out of control’.
‘When we discovered – I discovered – that we were doing many, many – too many – stop and frisks, we cut 95 per cent of it out,’ Bloomberg asserted.
Another candidate in need of a big night to reverse perceptions that his campaign was struggling was Biden. For a good portion of the debate, he receded. He joined in the attacks on Bloomberg, but largely avoided some of the more testy exchanges
The former mayor said he is and was trying to ‘learn’ how to change policies to help continuing reduce crime in New York City.
Biden hit back at Bloomberg, claiming he couldn’t apologize it away and said it violated every right people posses.
‘Let’s get something straight. The reason that stop and frisk changed is because Barack Obama sent moderators to see what was going on. When we sent them there to say “this practice has to stop,” the mayor thought it was a terrible idea we send them there – a terrible idea,’ Biden said, invoking the name of one of the most famous Democrats.
‘It’s not whether he apologized or not, it’s the policy. The policy was abhorrent, and it was, in fact, a violation of every right people have,’ he said, claiming Bloomberg pushed back against stopping the policies.
‘He figured out it was a bad idea after we sent in monitors and said it must stop. Even then he continued the policy,’ Biden said on stage.
When Warren said that Biden was ‘in the pocket’ of Republican Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, Biden fought back.
He also tried to return to his ‘Middle Class Joe’ biography about his family’s financial struggles.
Biden did not offer voters any new rationale for voting for him.
Trump speaks in Las Vegas at ceremony for former prisoners, says what happened to Roger Stone was unbelievable.
Roger Stone swerved a federal prison cell Thursday despite a judge slapping the longtime Donald Trump ally with a 40-month sentence for lying to Congress – and savaging not just him but the president.
Stone was convicted last fall of lying to lawmakers over his efforts to procure stolen Democratic Party emails from WikiLeaks in 2016 to boost Donald Trump’s chances of becoming President.
The self-declared political dirty trickster was spared immediate incarceration Thursday while U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson decides whether or not to grant his request for a retrial.
The sentence was far below the nine years demanded by the prosecution before that was over-ruled in a political tumult and furious tweets by Trump.
Instead she turned his sentencing hearing into a stunning rebuke not just of Stone but of the president himself, saying the prosecution was not brought by ‘political enemies,’ and that there was no ‘anti-Trump cabal’ at the hear of the case.
‘He was not prosecuted, as some have complained, for standing up for the president, he was prosecuted for covering up for the president,’ she said.
‘There was nothing unfair, phony or disgraceful about the investigation or the prosecution.’
Trump tweeted in rage against the prosecution accusing it of lacking ‘FAIRNESS’ as the hearing was under way in federal court in Washington D.C.
”They say Roger Stone lied to Congress.’ OH, I see, but so did Comey (and he also leaked classified information, for which almost everyone, other than Crooked Hillary Clinton, goes to jail for a long time), and so did Andy McCabe, who also lied to the FBI! FAIRNESS?’ the president tweeted.
It was unknown whether Berman Jackson was aware of his latest intervention but it came amid a case roiled by politics and mounting speculation Stone will be pardoned.
Even before she spoke, prosecutors staged their own revolt against the president calling the case ‘righteous’ and demanding a lengthy prison sentence despite their initial call for nine years being over-ruled by Attorney General Bill Barr in one of the main acts of an unfolding constitutional crisis.
Stone, 67, stood in silence as Jackson told a federal courtroom Washington, D.C. that he should spend 40 months -three years and four months – behind bars.
She had savaged him in his sentencing remarks – and rebuked the president himself, possibly for his tweet this morning which was during the first part of her hearing.
‘This case did not arise because Roger Stone was being prosecuted by his political enemies,’ Berman Jackson said.
She said Stone told ‘flat out lies,’ and that his conviction had nothing to do with whether Russia interfered in the 2016 election.
He was guilty of a ‘corrupt, unlawful,’ campaign to stop his lies being exposed when he threatened Randy Credico, who he named as his ‘go-between’ to Julian Assange, to stop Credico revealing the truth, that there was another go-between.
Stone was also guilty of withholding texts and emails from Congress, prompting Berman Jackson to again lash out at the president.
Grinning: Roger Stone had shown no emotion as he was sentenced, and left the court building with a smile on his face
Lightning rod: Federal judge Amy Berman Jackson will sentence Roger Stone in a case which has caused a crisis to engulf Bill Barr who pleaded with Donald Trump to let him do his job and stop the tweeting about his Department of Justice
And she pointed out that it was a Republican-led inquiry which he had initially defied.
Then she laced into the president, without naming him, saying it was right for sentencing to be done by a judge, ‘Not someone who has a longstanding friendship with the defendant, not someone whose political career was aided by the defendant.’
Stone was joined by a vast entourage led by his wife Nydia as he walked into the federal court, where his legal team has been bolstered by a Mafia lawyer who helped keep John Gotti Jr., head of the Gambino crime family and son of the ‘Teflon Don,’ out of prison.
Pro-Stone demonstrators brought a ‘pardon Roger stone’ banner which they held behind him when he arrived while counter-protesters tried to hurriedly erect an inflatable effigy of Trump as a rat as Stone arrived.
Hours before he arrived Trump launched another fusillade against Stone’s conviction, tweeting: ‘What has happened to Roger Stone should never happen to anyone in our country again.’
Trump’s tweets have plunged his own attorney general, Bill Barr, into a crisis over the rule of law, with the president declaring himself the ‘chief law enforcement officer,’ and demanding Barr ‘clean house.’
His wife Nydia was behind him in the courtroom as Stone, wearing a dark gray chalk stripe double-breasted suit, blue shirt with cutaway collar and sober gray tie, sat beside his attorneys.
Department of Justice attorneys had originally requested a far harsher punishment of seven to nine years only to see their recommendation ripped up by Attorney General William Barr, who drew praise from Trump for labeling it ‘excessive and unwarranted’.
The intervention sparked accusations of political interference, forcing Barr on the defensive as he denied bowing to White House influence and appealed for Trump to curb his explosive Twitter criticisms of Judge Jackson and the supposedly ‘tainted’ case against Stone.
More than 2,000 former justice department employees have since signed a petition calling on the Attorney General to resign.
The original prosecution foursome of Aaron Zelinsky, Jonathan Kravis, Adam Jed and Michael Marando were replaced for today’s proceedings at Washington, D.C. District Court, having all resigned in protest.
Stone’s sentencing got off to a rocky start when U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson said that anyone in the court who did not have a medical reason to wear sunglasses should remove them. Stone had arrived in round sunglasses.
Jackson took the opportunity to grill prosecutors on why the Department of Justice decided last week to submit a second sentencing memorandum, a nod to Attorney General William Barr’s controversial decision to rip up the original seven to nine year recommendation submitted by his own attorneys.
It fell upon newly-assigned federal prosecutor John Crabb to apologize for the ‘miscommunication’, insisting that the original prosecution team – who resigned last week in protest – had acted in ‘good faith’.
Stone stood in silence as Jackson recalled the seven offences of which he was convicted: five counts of making false statements to Congress, a single count of obstructing a congressional proceeding and single count of witness tampering.
That final charge would be of particular significance as she warned Stone his sentence would likely be higher because it involved specific threats of violence.
Last November’s trial heard how Stone bullied the radio host Randy Credico into pleading the Fifth to avoid contradicting his 2016 testimony before Congress, branding him a ‘rat’ and threatening to take away his therapy dog.
In front of the protest: Roger and Nydia Stone walked past the inflatable Trump rat as they made their way into court
Grin and bear it: Roger Stone kept a fixed smile as he headed into court with his wife Nydia on his arm
Raised a smile: Roger Stone’s wife Nydia reacted positively to a group of supporters’ banner calling for Donald Trump to issue the dirty trickster with a pardon
Arm-in-arm: Roger Stone wore a navy blue double-breasted topcoat with contrasting collar, blue cutaway collared shirt and sober gray tie, topped off with a black trilby as he arrived in court with Nydia, his second wife
Asked if he had anything to say, Stone, dressed immaculately in a pinstripe suit, grey tie and suspenders, told Washington, D.C. District Court: ‘Your honor I choose not to speak at this time, thank you very much.’
Jackson slammed the 67-year-old defendant as an ‘insecure person who craves and recklessly pursues attention.’
‘This case did not arise because Roger Stone was being pursued by his political enemies,’ she added.
‘It arose because Roger Stone characteristically injected himself smack into the middle of one of the most significant issues of the day.’
Judge Jackson said Stone had interfered with matters of ‘grave national importance’ and repeatedly lied under oath. She characterized his defense as: ‘So what?’
‘Nothing about this case was a joke. It wasn’t funny,’ she cautioned.
‘This was not Roger being Roger. He lied to congress, he lied to elected representatives.’
The no-nonsense judge praised the ‘professionalism’ of the original four prosecutors, saying their recommendation was ‘true to the record’ and in line with Department of Justice guidelines.
However she agreed with Barr’s revision and said she was concerned seven to nine years would be ‘greater than necessary.’
She sentenced Stone to 40 months for obstruction, 12 months each for the counts of lying to Congress and 18 months for witness tampering, all sentences to be served concurrently.
He was also fined $20,000 and will have to serve two years’ probation. Federal rules means he has to give the court his tax returns.
Judge Jackson quizzed Crabb about how she came to receive two competing sentencing memorandums, noting that the original recommendation had never been formally withdrawn.
Crabb agreed and confirmed the prosecution was still asking for a substantial prison term for Stone, insisting the Justice Department had operated ‘without fear, favor or political influence’.
‘This prosecution was and is righteous,’ he said. ‘This confusion was not caused by the original trial team. There was nothing in bad faith about the prosecution team’s recommendation.’
Quizzed over who had ordered the new memorandum and why, Crabb replied: ‘What I understand is, there was a miscommunication between the Attorney General and the United States Attorney.’
Asked to explain who wrote the second memorandum, he repeatedly declined to say.
‘I cannot engage in discussions on internal deliberations,’ he said, to Judge Jackson’s obvious displeasure.
Ginsberg told the court that Stone had a history of ‘rough, provocative and hyperbolic language’ and that his threats to Credico should not influence his sentence, given that Credico and Stone went back decades and he knew Stone was ‘all bark and no bite.’
Judge Jackson disagreed, saying the sentencing seriousness level jumped from 14 to 27 because of Stone’s threats, witness tampering and efforts to disrupt justice.
‘The defendant refers to this as banter, which it hardly is,’ Jackson added, reeling off a list of insults Stone had directed toward Credico, including ‘rat’ and ‘c**sucker’.
She also slammed Stone over his repeated outbursts during last year’s prosecution, in particular his speaking out via InfoWars host Alex Jones to relay a message to Trump pleading for a pardon the night before he was found guilty.
That was in defiance of a gag order Judge Jackson had earlier slapped on Stone after he posted a mocked up photo of her face in rifle crosshairs online.
Jackson said Stone was deliberately trying to undermine proceedings and was stoking anger towards court officials, risking a scenario in which someone with ‘even less judgment’ could actually do something violent.
‘This is intolerable to the administration of justice. The court should not sit idly by, shrug its shoulders and say, that’s just Roger being Roger,’ she said.
Ratcheting up his sentencing level another two notches, she added: ‘It wasn’t an accident he had a staff that helped him do it. Using the new social media is his sweet spot.
‘He knew exactly what he was doing and in using Twitter and Instagram he deliberately magnified his message.’
Stone’s decades-long career on the shadier margins of US politics appeared to be over last November after he was found guilty of five counts of making false statements to Congress and single counts of obstructing a congressional proceeding and witness tampering.
Jurors agreed the smooth-talking agent provocateur, who briefly served on Trump’s 2016 Presidential campaign, told a series of ‘whoppers’ when he testified before members of House Intelligence Committee investigating Russian collusion in the 2016 election.
Stone lied to lawmakers when he denied asking Julian Assange for the cache of Democratic Party messages stolen by Russian hackers and further lied about the identity of his go-between to the WikiLeaks founder.
He also concealed numerous texts, emails and telephone conversations in which he discussed WikiLeaks and Assange with then candidate-Trump and senior campaign figures including former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, ex Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort and former campaign official Rick Gates.
Acknowledgment: Roger Stone gave a salute to supporters outside court
Counter-protest: Anti-Trump activists put up an inflatable effigy of the president as a rat in time for Roger Stone’s arrival
Publicity opportunity: The Stone spectacle has also been a magnet for a local tour company whose placard made a return to the entrance to court for the sentencing
Ready for the walk: Nydia Stone grasped her husband’s arm as they prepared to walk into court
The net result of him lying ‘over and over and over again’ was that the House Intelligence Committee was impeded in its inquiries and its final report into Russian election inference was inaccurate because it didn’t mention Stone’s true intermediary, prosecutors said.
The tampering charge referred to his effort to bully the comedian and radio host Randy Credico into pleading the Fifth so he would avoid contradicting Stone’s sworn September 26, 2017 testimony.
Stone had told lawmakers that Credico was his ‘back channel’ to WikiLeaks when it was actually the conspiracy theorist and author Jerome Corsi.
When Credico threatened to set the record straight, Stone branded him a ‘c**ksucker’, a ‘rat’ and urged the rattled comic to do a ‘Frank Pentangeli’, referencing a character in Godfather Part II who lies to a congressional committee to help the Corleone family before committing suicide.
He also took aim at Credico’s therapy dog Bianca, a 13-year-old Coton de Tulear, writing in an text message: ‘I’m going to take that dog away from you.’
Prosecutors cited the threats of physical harm and Stone’s repeated media outbursts attacking Judge Jackson as aggravating factors against the former Nixon campaign adviser who has the disgraced former president’s face permanently tattooed on his back.
However Credico was among those who argued against incarceration, saying in a January letter to the judge: ‘I never in any way felt that Stone himself posed a direct physical threat to me or to my dog.’
Tomeka Hart, a former Memphis City Schools Board President, stoked the flames further when she outed herself last Wednesday as the jury forewoman in a Facebook post voicing support for the overruled prosecutors.
‘I have kept my silence for months. Initially, it was for my safety. Then, I decided to remain silent out of fear of politicizing the matter,’ Hart wrote.
‘But I can’t keep quiet any longer. I want to stand up for Aaron Zelinsky, Adam Jed, Michael Marando, and Jonathan Kravis – the prosecutors on the Roger Stone trial.
‘It pains me to see the DOJ now interfere with the hard work of the prosecutors. They acted with the utmost intelligence, integrity, and respect for our system of justice.
‘For that, I wanted to speak up for them and ask you to join me in thanking them for their service.’
Hart, it further emerged, had unsuccessfully ran for Congress as a Democrat in 2012 and had participated in anti-Trump rallies and protests.
She had frequently denounced Trump on social media, calling the President and his supporters racists, and posted emojis of hearts and fist pumps after finding Stone guilty last November.
Hart had also re-tweeted a post by pundit Bakari Sellers dismissing Stone’s claims that the FBI used excessive force when they arrested him at his Fort Lauderdale, Florida home in January 2019.
Sellers had listed black victims of ‘police force’, including Sandra Bland, Walter Scott and Eric Gardner, scoffing: ‘But Roger Stone!!! Think about that.’
Stone’s lawyers have already made one failed attempt to secure a re-trial, arguing that a completely different juror, an IRS employee who worked with the Justice Department on criminal tax cases, should have been struck.
The juror admitted reading news articles about Stone’s arrest but denied having any opinions about Stone when asked about it by Judge Jackson in court.
The defense had failed to demonstrate the ‘sort of inherent bias’ that would prompt a retrial, Judge Jackson ruled.
Stone entered the political arena in 1972 when he ditched his studies at George Washington University, supporting Nixon in his re-election campaign then landing a job on his administration.
In one of his first stunts he contributed $135 to one of Nixon’s Republican rivals in the name of the Young Socialist Alliance – then slipped the receipt to a journalist.
During congressional hearings into the Watergate scandal in 1973 it emerged Stone had recruited a spy to infiltrate the campaigns of several of Nixon’s Democratic rivals.
He was fired from his job with then-Senator Bob Dole but went on to work for several more presidential campaigns: those of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and, eventually, his longtime friend Donald Trump, who first hired Stone to lobby for his casino businesses in the 1990s.
The National Enquirer in 1996 revealed that Stone had placed ads on a swingers website seeking sex partners for himself and his second wife Nydia Bertran Stone, 72. Stone later referred to himself in an interview as ‘a libertarian and a libertine’ and a ‘trysexual – I’ve tried everything’.
GUILTY: ROGER STONE
Convicted in November 2019 on seven counts including obstruction of justice, witness tampering, and lying to Congress about his communications with WikiLeaks. Sentenced to 40 months in prison.
Stone was a person of interest to Mueller’s investigators long before his January 2019 indictment, thanks in part due to his public pronouncements as well as internal emails about his contacts with WikiLeks.
In campaign texts and emails, Stone communicated with associates about WikiLeaks following reports the organization had obtained a cache of Clinton-related emails.
According to the federal indictment, Stone gave ‘false and misleading’ testimony about his requests for information from WikiLeaks. He then pressured a witness, comedian Randy Credico, to take the Fifth Amendment rather than testify, and pressured him in a series of emails. Following a prolonged dispute over testimony, he called him a ‘rat’ and threatened to ‘take that dog away from you’, in reference to Credico’s therapy dog, Bianca. Stone warned him: ‘Let’s get it on. Prepare to die.’
GUILTY: MICHAEL FLYNN
Pleaded guilty to making false statements in December 2017. Awaiting sentence
Flynn was President Trump’s former National Security Advisor and Robert Mueller’s most senior scalp to date. He previously served when he was a three star general as President Obama’s director of the Defense Intelligence Agency but was fired.
He admitted to lying to special counsel investigators about his conversations with a Russian ambassador in December 2016. He has agreed to cooperate with the special counsel investigation.
GUILTY AND IN JAIL: MICHAEL COHEN
Pleaded guilty to eight counts including fraud and two campaign finance violations in August 2018. Pleaded guilty to further count of lying to Congress in November 2018. Sentenced to three years in prison and $2 million in fines and forfeitures in December 2018
Cohen was investigated by Mueller but the case was handed off to the Southern District of New York,leaving Manhattan’s ferocious and fiercely independent federal prosecutors to run his case.
Cohen was Trump’s longtime personal attorney, starting working for him and the Trump Organization in 2007. He is the longest-serving member of Trump’s inner circle to be implicated by Mueller. Cohen professed unswerving devotion to Trump – and organized payments to silence two women who alleged they had sex with the-then candidate: porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal. He admitted that payments to both women were felony campaign finance violations – and admitted that he acted at the ‘direction’ of ‘Candidate-1’: Donald Trump.
He also admitted tax fraud by lying about his income from loans he made, money from taxi medallions he owned, and other sources of income, at a cost to the Treasury of $1.3 million.
And he admitted lying to Congress in a rare use of the offense. The judge in his case let him report for prison on March 6 and recommended he serve it in a medium-security facility close to New York City.
GUILTY AND IN JAIL: PAUL MANAFORT
Found guilty of eight charges of bank and tax fraud in August 2018. Sentenced to 47 months in March 2019. Pleaded guilty to two further charges – witness tampering and conspiracy against the United States. Jailed for total of seven and a half years in two separate sentences. Additionally indicted for mortgage fraud by Manhattan District Attorney, using evidence previously presented by Mueller. That indictment was dismissed by the DA is appealing
Manafort worked for Trump’s campaign from March 2016 and chaired it from June to August 2016, overseeing Trump being adopted as Republican candidate at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. He is the most senior campaign official to be implicated by Mueller. Manafort was one of Washington D.C.’s longest-term and most influential lobbyists but in 2015, his money dried up and the next year he turned to Trump for help, offering to be his campaign chairman for free – in the hope of making more money afterwards. But Mueller unwound his previous finances and discovered years of tax and bank fraud as he coined in cash from pro-Russia political parties and oligarchs in Ukraine.
Manafort pleaded not guilty to 18 charges of tax and bank fraud but was convicted of eight counts in August 2018. The jury was deadlocked on the other 10 charges. A second trial on charges of failing to register as a foreign agent due in September did not happen when he pleaded guilty to conspiracy against the United States and witness tampering in a plea bargain. He was supposed to co-operate with Mueller but failed to.
Minutes after his second sentencing hearing in March 2019, he was indicted on 16 counts of fraud and conspiracy by the Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., using evidence which included documents previously presented at his first federal trial. The president has no pardon power over charges by district and state attorneys.
GUILTY: RICK GATES
Pleaded guilty to conspiracy against the United States and making false statements in February 2018. Awaiting sentence
Gates, a Trump campaign official, was Manafort’s former deputy at political consulting firm DMP International. He admitted to conspiring to defraud the U.S. government on financial activity, and to lying to investigators about a meeting Manafort had with a member of congress in 2013. As a result of his guilty plea and promise of cooperation, prosecutors vacated charges against Gates on bank fraud, bank fraud conspiracy, failure to disclose foreign bank accounts, filing false tax returns, helping prepare false tax filings, and falsely amending tax returns.
GUILTY AND JAILED: GEORGE PAPADOPOLOUS
Pleaded guilty to making false statements in October 2017. Sentenced to 14 days in September 2018, and reported to prison in November. Served 12 days and released on December 7, 2018
Papadopoulos was a member of Donald Trump’s campaign foreign policy advisory committee. He admitted to lying to special counsel investigators about his contacts with London professor Josef Mifsud and Ivan Timofeev, the director of a Russian government-funded think tank.
He agreed to cooperate with the special counsel investigation but is now highly critical of it.
There’s a deadly virus spreading from state to state. It preys on the most vulnerable, striking the sick and the old without mercy. In just the last few months, it has claimed the lives of at least 39 children.
The virus is influenza, and it poses a far greater threat to Americans than the coronavirus from China that has made headlines around the world.
“When we think about the relative danger of this new coronavirus and influenza, there’s just no comparison,” said William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine and health policy at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. “Coronavirus will be a blip on the horizon in comparison. The risk is trivial.”
To be sure, the coronavirus outbreak, which originated last month in the Chinese city of Wuhan, should be taken seriously. The virus can cause pneumonia and is blamed for more than 7,000 illnesses and more than 170 deaths.
The World Health Organization on Thursday declared the outbreak a global emergency requiring a coordinated international response after the number of cases spiked sharply over the last few days. But officials warn much remains unknown.
In the United States, at least six cases of the virus have been reported, including the first case of person-to-person infection. Public health workers are monitoring dozens of additional patients.
And yet, Americans aren’t particularly concerned.
Fewer than half of adults got a flu shot last season, according to the CDC. Even among children, who can be especially vulnerable to respiratory illnesses, only 62% received the vaccine.
If Americans aren’t afraid of the flu, perhaps that’s because they are inured to yearly warnings. For them, the flu is old news. Yet viruses named after foreign places — such as Ebola, Zika, and Wuhan — inspire terror.
“Familiarity breeds indifference,” Schaffner said. “Because it’s new, it’s mysterious, and comes from an exotic place, the coronavirus creates anxiety.”
Some doctors joke that the flu needs to be rebranded.
“We should rename influenza; call it XZ-47 virus or something scarier,” said Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
Measles in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has killed 5,000 people in the last year — more than twice as many as Ebola. Yet UNICEF officials have noted that the measles, which many Americans no longer fear, has gotten little attention. Nearly all the measles victims were children under 5.
The big question, so far unknown, is just how easily the virus is transmitted from an infected person to others. Officials warn much remains unknown, but each patient with the new coronavirus appears to be infecting about two other people.
By comparison, patients with SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, spread the infection to an average of two to four others. Each patient with measles — one of the most contagious viruses known to science — infects 12 to 18 unvaccinated people.
Health officials worry that the new coronavirus could resemble SARS — which appeared suddenly in China in 2002 and spread to 26 countries, sickening 8,000 people and killing 774, according to the WHO.The U.S. dodged a bullet with SARS, Schaffner said. Only eight Americans became infected and none died, according to the CDC. Yet SARS caused a global panic, leading people to shutter hotels, cancel flights, and close businesses.
Coronaviruses can be unpredictable, said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. While some patients never infect anyone else, people who are “super-spreaders” can infect dozens of others.
At Seoul, South Korea’s Samsung Medical Center in 2015, a single emergency-room patient infected 82 people —patients, visitors, and staff — with a coronavirus called MERS, or Middle East Respiratory Syndrome. The hospital partly shut down to control the virus.
“This is one of the finest medical centers in the world, on par with the Cleveland Clinic, and they were brought to their knees,” Osterholm said.
Yet MERS has never posed much of a threat to the United States.
Only two patients in this country — health-care providers who had worked in Saudi Arabia — have ever tested positive for the virus, according to the CDC. Both patients survived.
Hotez, who is working to develop vaccines against neglected diseases, said he worries about unvaccinated children. Most kids who die from the flu haven’t been immunized against it, he said. And many were previously healthy.
“If you’re worried about your health, get your flu vaccination,” Hotez said. “It’s not too late.”
https://www.inquirer.com/health/coronavirus-infection-death-risk-influenza-20200129.html
The deadly coronavirus rapidly sweeping the world kills up to 15 per cent of patients over the age of 80, scientists have revealed.
Chinese health officials carried out the biggest ever study on the never-before-seen strain of the virus, using data from 72,000 cases.
Results showed the SARS-CoV-2 virus posed the greatest threat to older patients and those with underlying conditions, such as cancer and heart disease.
Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention researchers also found 80.9 per cent of infections are mild. Less than five per cent are critical.
More than 73,000 cases have been recorded worldwide, with 99 per cent in China. Almost 1,900 patients have already died.
Residents walk through a disinfection channel set up as a protective measure against the coronavirus at the entrance to their compound in Tongzhou, east of Beijing
A child wearing a face mask plays near a slide at a commercial and residential complex in a residential complex in Beijing
A medical worker takes a swab for testing from a Chinese paramilitary police officer in Shenzhen, Guangdong province
Cases of a mysterious pneumonia-causing virus first emerged in the now-deserted Chinese city of Wuhan late last year.
Researchers blamed a seafood market in Hubei city that illegally sold wild animals for being the source of the virus.
The virus has no known cure and most patients who are struck down recover within a couple of weeks without needing medical treatment.
Those who develop more serious infections in their lungs, such as pneumonia, need expert medical care to stop their illness turning deadly.
They looked at 72,314 confirmed, suspected, clinically diagnosed, and asymptomatic cases of COVID-19 illness across China as of February 11.
COVID-19 is the name of the disease caused by the virus, which has effectively been named as SARS-2 by the World Health Organization.
Results showed the overall case-fatality ratio – the percentage of patients who die – was just 2.3 per cent.
And more than 73,000 patients have been struck down with the deadly SARS-CoV-2 infection, including nearly 1,000 outside of China
Almost 1,900 people have now died from the killer coronavirus rapidly sweeping the world
In comparison, SARS – which only infected a fraction of patients during the 2002/03 epidemic – killed around 10 per cent.
While the death rate for MERS, another type of coronavirus that was first reported in Saudi Arabia in 2012, is even higher (34 per cent).
One of the world’s deadliest diseases, Ebola, kills around half of all patients it strikes. Ebola is not caused by any type of coronavirus.
When data for the SARS-CoV-2 infection was broken down, researchers found over-80s had the highest fatality ratio at 14.8 per cent.
The likelihood of death was just eight per cent of patients aged between 70 and 79, and 3.6 per cent for those in their sixties.
The case-fatality ratio was less than 1.5 per cent for patients in their fifties, and less than 0.5 per cent for everyone else – meaning roughly one in 200 will die.
There were no deaths among children aged up to nine, despite at least two cases of newborn babies infected through their mothers.
In contrast, the death rate for flu is around 0.1 per cent, according to the US Centres for Disease Control (CDC).
Older adults have weaker immune systems, meaning it is harder for the body to fight off a virus such as SARS-CoV-2 or flu.
Patients with heart disease were most likely to die from the virus, followed by those with diabetes, chronic respiratory disease and hypertension.
CCDC academics also found 80.9 percent of infections were classified as mild, 13.8 percent as severe and only 4.7 percent as critical.
And men are more likely to die (2.8 per cent) than women (1.7 per cent). But experts have yet to work out why men are more vulnerable.
Nearly 86 percent of those who have contracted the illness either lived in or travelled to Wuhan.
And 3,019 health workers have been diagnosed and five had died as of February 11, the report said.
The epidemic, which has seen cases in almost 30 countries, reached its ‘first peak’ between January 24 and 26, the report said.
It suggests there is has been a ‘downward trend’ in the overall epidemic curve since February 11 – meaning the spread of the disease was slowing.
A separate group of scientists published their findings about the virus on bioRxiv – an archive of papers before they have been peer-reviewed.
Scientists at the University of Texas at Austin found SARS-CoV-2 was 20 times more likely to bind to human cells than its original predecessor.
South China Morning Post reports the team said the virus shares the same host-cell receptor, angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), with SARS.
The researchers wrote: ‘Compared with SARS-CoV, 2019-nCoV appears to be more readily transmitted from human to human.
‘The high affinity of 2019-nCoV for human ACE2 may contribute to the apparent ease with which 2019-nCoV can spread from human to human.’
Schools were shuttered, churches told worshipers to stay away and some mass gatherings were banned as cases of a new virus swelled Friday in South Korea, the newest front in a widening global outbreak.
The country said two people have died and 204 have been infected with the virus, quadruple the number of cases it had two days earlier, as a crisis centered in China has begun strongly reverberating elsewhere.
The multiplying caseload in South Korea showed the ease with which the illness can spread. Though initial infections were linked to China, new ones have not involved international travel.
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Dec 11, 2019
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal prosecutors have declined to charge former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, closing an investigation into whether the longtime target of President Donald Trump’s ire lied to federal officials about his involvement in a news media disclosure, McCabe’s legal team said Friday.
The decision, coming at the end of a tumultuous week between the Justice Department and the White House, is likely to further agitate a president who has loudly complained that federal prosecutors have pursued cases against his allies but not against his perceived political enemies.
The case was handled by the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, which was at the center of a public rift with Justice Department leadership this week over the recommended sentence for Trump ally Roger Stone. Senior Justice Department officials overruled a decision on a recommended prison sentence that they felt was too harsh, prompting the trial team to quit the case. Attorney General William Barr also took a rare public swipe at Trump by saying in a television interview that the president’s tweets about the Stone case and other matters were making his job “impossible.”
Separately, the Justice Department has begun reviewing the handling of the case against former national security adviser Michael Flynn, a person familiar with the matter said Friday.
On Friday, prosecutors notified McCabe’s attorneys in a phone call and a letter that they were closing the case. The letter, signed by the chief of the office’s public corruption unit, did not give a precise reason but said the decision was reached after “careful consideration” and “based on the totality of the circumstances and all of the information known to the government at this time.”
McCabe’s lawyers, Michael Bromwich and David Schertler, said they were gratified by the decision.
“At long last, justice has been done in this matter,” the lawyers said in a statement. “We said at the outset of the criminal investigation, almost two years ago, that if the facts and the law determined the result, no charges would be brought.”
Speaking Friday on CNN, where he works as a contributor, McCabe said it was an “absolute disgrace” that the investigation had taken so long and that he was relieved to be done with a process that he described as “so unbelievably tense.”
Though federal prosecutors wrote that they consider the matter closed, Justice Department actions in the last few months have proven unpredictable, with a willingness to scrutinize or revisit decisions that had appeared resolved.
McCabe, a frequent target of Trump’s attacks, has denied that he intentionally misled anyone. He has said his 2018 firing — for what the Justice Department called “lack of candor” — was politically motivated. He sued the Justice Department in August, saying officials had used the inspector general’s conclusions as a pretext to rid the FBI of leaders Trump perceived as biased against him.
The decision is likely to further exacerbate tensions between Trump and Barr, who before speaking out in the television interview had privately complained to aides and the president himself that Trump’s comments about the Justice Department were undercutting his political agenda and raising questions about the department’s credibility. The White House was not given a heads-up about the decision beforehand, a person familiar with the matter said. The person spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.
The moment came against a backdrop of growing anger from Trump at the Justice Department. The president has seethed that more of his political enemies have not been charged, included former FBI Director James Comey and his associates.
The president was particularly incensed no charges were filed over Comey’s handling of memos about his interactions with Trump, a matter that was referred to the Justice Department for potential prosecution, according to a White House official and Republican close to the White House who weren’t authorized to speak publicly about private discussions and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The president angrily denounced the decision and berated Barr over it, according to the officials. Aides expected that the decision not to charge McCabe could produce a similar eruption of rage. Trump did not address the matter during a media appearance Friday.
Trump has also repeatedly complained about FBI Director Christopher Wray in recent months, saying he has not done enough to rid the bureau of people who are disloyal to Trump.
It was not immediately clear what had prompted a review of the Flynn case, though the person familiar with the matter said U.S. Attorney Jeff Jensen of St. Louis was working on it. The New York Times first reported Jensen’s involvement.
The decision to spare McCabe criminal charges eliminates the prospect of a sensational trial that would have refocused public attention on the chaotic months of 2016, when the FBI was entangled in presidential politics through investigations touching both main contenders — Democrat Hillary Clinton and Trump, her Republican opponent.
The criminal investigation arose from an October 2016 story in The Wall Street Journal that described internal debates roiling the FBI and the Justice Department weeks before the presidential election about how aggressively the Clinton Foundation should be investigated. The article recounted a particularly tense phone call between McCabe and a senior Justice Department official.
The inspector general’s report said McCabe told internal investigators that he had not authorized anyone at the FBI to speak with the reporter and that he did not know who did. The report said McCabe ultimately corrected that account and confirmed that he had encouraged the conversation with the reporter to counter a narrative that he thought was false.
McCabe has denied any wrongdoing and has said he was distracted by the tumult surrounding the FBI and the White House during the times he was questioned. One of the interviews took place the same day that Comey was fired.
“During these inquiries, I answered questions truthfully and as accurately as I could amidst the chaos that surrounded me,” McCabe has said in a statement. “And when I thought my answers were misunderstood, I contacted investigators to correct them.”
McCabe has been a target of Trump’s attacks since even before he was elected, after news emerged in the fall of 2016 that McCabe’s wife had accepted campaign contributions from a political action committee associated with ex-Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe during an unsuccessful run for the state Senate there.
Andrew McCabe, acting director of the FBI, at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing in Washington on May 11, 2017.Andrew Harrer / Bloomberg via Getty Images file
The Department of Justice has told lawyers for former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe that he will not face criminal charges for allegedly lying to investigators about a leak to the media, the ex-official’s attorneys said Friday.
The decision was released on the same day it was revealed that a federal judge had expressed concerns months ago that McCabe’s case was looking like a “banana republic” prosecution.
“We write to inform you that, after careful consideration, the government has decided not to pursue criminal charges against your client,” J.P. Cooney of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C., told McCabe’s attorneys in a letter Friday. “Based on the totality of the circumstances and all of the information known to the government at this time, we consider the matter closed.”
McCabe’s lawyers Michael R. Bromwich and David Schertler responded in a statement, saying, “At long last, justice has been done in this matter.”
SEPT. 13, 201904:20
President Donald Trump had publicly urged that action be taken against McCabe, the former deputy FBI director who briefly became acting head of the agency after Trump fired James Comey in 2017.
“He LIED! LIED! LIED!” Trump wrote in one 2018 tweet about McCabe after the Justice Department’s inspector general found McCabe “lacked candor” when being interviewed about whether he was a source for two news articles pertaining to the FBI in 2016.
The Justice Department’s announcement came one day after Attorney General William Barr pushed back against criticism he’s using the department to do Trump’s bidding, and said Trump’s tweeting about his agency’s work was undercutting his authority.
“Public statements and tweets made about the department, about people in the department, our men and women here, about cases pending in the department and about judges before whom we have cases make it impossible for me to do my job and to assure the courts and the department that we’re doing our work with integrity,” Barr, who was sworn in a year ago Friday, told ABC News.
McCabe told CNN on Friday that “the timing is curious” but he was relieved that the Justice Department “did the right thing today.”
“To have this horrific black cloud that’s been hanging over me and my family for almost the last two years, to have that finally lifted is just unbelievable,” he said. “It’s a relief that I’m not sure I can really explain to you adequately. It’s just a very emotional moment for my whole family.”
McCabe has denied intentionally misleading investigators. He told CNN that he has maintained from the day the inspector general’s report came out that if investigators “followed the law and they followed the facts, that I would have nothing to worry about. But as the president’s interest in pursuing his perceived political enemies continued over the last two years, we were getting more and more concerned about where this would end up.”
Those worries had increased in recent days, he told the network.
“I’ve been greatly concerned by what I’ve seen take place in the White House and in the Department of Justice, quite frankly, in the last week,” McCabe said. “And certainly the president’s kind of revenge tirade following his acquittal in the impeachment proceeding has only kind of amplified my concerns about what would happen in my own case.”
The Justice Department’s decision came the same day it was required by a judge to make details about the McCabe investigation public in a case stemming from a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
The court transcripts, released after the Justice Department’s letter to McCabe’s lawyers, show prosecutors struggling with how to proceed in his case, and the judge in the matter expressing concerns about political pressure
[youtubehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UtzbA0qQgM]
The Department of Justice has announced new criminal charges against Huawei, accusing the Chinese tech giant of being engaged in a ‘decades-long’ effort to steal trade secrets from a slew of US companies.
The 16-count superseding indictment unsealed on Thursday adds RICO charges to the criminal case against Huawei and its CFO Meng Wanzhoua, who is currently fighting extradition in Canada.
The charges come in addition to previous criminal charges accusing Huawei and Wanzhoua of operating a secret subsidiary in Iran and lying to U.S. financial institutions about the violation of sanctions on that country.
The new charges detail a brazen decades-long scheme to steal trade secrets from at least six U.S. companies. Cisco and T-Mobile are among the alleged victims in the case, though the companies are not actually named in the new indictment.
Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei is seen with Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2015. US officials accuse the company of building a secret back door into its mobile network hardware
Prosecutors say that in 2013, Huawei instituted a cash bounty program ‘to reward employees who obtained confidential information from competitors’ and that the more valuable the secrets were, the more the company paid out.
The indictment details a shocking incident from 2004, at a trade show in Chicago, where prosecutors say a Huawei employee was busted in the middle of the night while breaking into a competitor’s booth.
The employee was wearing a bogus badge identifying him as an employee of ‘Weihua’, which is the syllables of Huawei reversed, and was caught taking pictures of the interior circuit boards of a competitor’s product, according to the indictment.
A Huawei spokesman denied the allegations, saying that the indictment was ‘part of an attempt to irrevocably damage Huawei’s reputation and its business for reasons related to competition rather than law enforcement.’
The company called the racketeering accusation ‘nothing more than a contrived repackaging of a handful of civil allegations that are almost 20 years old.’
Huawei pleaded not guilty to the earlier indictment unsealed against the company in January 2019, which charged it with bank and wire fraud, violating sanctions against Iran, and obstructing justice.
Wanzhoua, the CFO, was arrested in December 2018 in Canada on charges in the prior indictment, but she has protesting her innocence and fighting extradition to the US. She is the daughter of Huawei’s founder and CEO, 75-year-old Ren Zengfei.
Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhoua was arrested in December 2018 in Canada on charges in the initial Department of Justice indictment against the Chinese tech company. She is protesting her innocence and fighting extradition to the US. She is pictured wearing a court-ordered ankle monitor last month
The new indictment also includes ‘new allegations about Huawei and its subsidiaries’ involvement in business and technology projects in countries subject to sanctions, such as Iran and North Korea’.
The DoJ asserts that the Chinese company even tired to cover up the fact they were doing business with such countries, by using code names. ‘A2’ reportedly referred to Iran, and ‘A9’ is alleged to have referred to North Korea.
The new indictment is the latest effort in a global campaign by the United States against the company, which Washington has warned could spy on customers for Beijing. The United States also placed Huawei on a trade blacklist last year, citing national security concerns.
‘The indictment paints a damning portrait of an illegitimate organization that lacks any regard for the law,’ U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Richard Burr and vice chairman Mark Warner said in a joint statement.
The Republican and Democratic Senators called it ‘an important step in combating Huawei’s state-directed and criminal enterprise.’
In a statement on Tuesday, the DoJ alleges that Huawei’s ‘campaign’ to steal trade secrets from US competitors formed part of their global growth strategy.
The DoJ statement alleges that Huawei even launched a policy ‘instituting a bonus program to reward employees who misappropriated intellectual property from competitors.’
Prosecutors allege some Huawei employees entered into confidential agreements with the six US companies, before violating such agreements by then handing over the information to the Chinese tech giant.
Thus, the DoJ statements alleges that ‘Huawei’s efforts to steal trade secrets and other sophisticated US technology were successful.’
Trump administration officials, increasingly intent on preventing China from global technological domination, have urged allies not to use Huawei hardware
‘As a consequence of its campaign to steal this technology and intellectual property, Huawei was able to drastically cut its research and development costs and associated delays, giving the company a significant and unfair competitive advantage,’ the statement goes on to say.
The case was unsealed as the Trump administration is raising national security and surveillance concerns about Huawei, the world’s largest telecommunications equipment manufacturer.
Huawei, one of the largest tech firms and a major telecom equipment maker, has been blacklisted by Washington amid concerns of its ties to the Chinese government and intelligence services.
New charges have been filed in the US against Huawei (Dominic Lipinski/PA)
Earlier this week, White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien alleged that Huawei builds secret back doors into its hardware that allow it to covertly access mobile-phone networks around the world.
‘We have evidence that Huawei has the capability secretly to access sensitive and personal information in systems it maintains and sells around the world,’ O’Brien told the Wall Street Journal.
US officials say that Huawei’s back door allows the company to access network data without the carrier’s knowledge, potentially giving the Chinese government a potent spy tool.
Huawei denied the allegations, telling the Journal that it ‘has never and will never do anything that would compromise or endanger the security of networks and data of its clients.’
The U.S. has long tried to convince its allies, such as the U.K. and Germany, to ban the use of Huawei telecom equipment in the building of 5G networks.
Germany’s legislature is set to vote in the coming weeks on a bill that would allow Huawei full access to its 5G market if the company provides security guarantees.
Meng Wanzhou, 46, is widely assumed to be the heiress of her billionaire father Ren Zhengfei who founded Huawei in 1987
Meng Wanzhou, also known as Sabrina Meng and Cathy Meng, is the daughter and eldest child of Huawei’s founder Ren Zhengfei, 74, by his first wife Meng Jun.
Billed as a ‘Red Princess’, the 47-year-old is widely assumed to be the heiress of her former Communist soldier father, who founded the world’s current second largest smartphone seller at the age of 43 with just 21,000 yuan (£2,388).
Ms Meng, who is also the Vice-Chairman of Huawei, was ranked No. 12 by Frobes on the list of China’s most outstanding businesswomen in 2018.
She graduated from Huazhong University of Science and Technology in central China’s Wuhan city.
She worked in a bank for a year upon graduation before taking up a position at Huawei’s front desk in 1993 to answer phone calls.
Over the years, Ms Meng worked as the director of the international accounting department, CFO of Huawei’s Hong Kong branch office, president of the accounts management department and brought Huawei to its current success.
Ms Meng has a brother and a 20-year-old half-sister Annabel Yao who is a ballerina and debutante.
Annabel is said to be extremely international and have lived in Britain, Hong Kong and Shanghai.
She was one of the 19 young women to be presented at the 25th annual Bal des Débutantes held at the Shangri-La Hotel in Paris in 2018.
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The Left Banke
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The Left Banke in 1966
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| Background information | |
| Origin | New York, New York, U.S. |
| Genres | Baroque pop[1] |
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The Left Banke is an American baroque pop band, formed in New York City in 1965.[1] They are best remembered for their two US hit singles, “Walk Away Renée” and “Pretty Ballerina“.[2] The band often used what the music press referred to as “baroque” string arrangements, which led to their music being variously termed as “Bach-rock” or “baroque rock“.[3] The band’s vocal harmonies borrowed from contemporaries such as The Beatles, The Zombies, and other British Invasion groups.[1]
In 2004, Rolling Stone placed “Walk Away Renée” at #220 in its list of “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time“.[4]
The Left Banke was formed in 1965 and consisted of keyboard player/songwriter Michael Brown, drummer/singer George Cameron, bass guitarist/singer Tom Finn, singer Steve Martin (who also used the name Steve Martin Caro), and drummer Warren David-Schierhorst. Brown’s father, Harry Lookofsky, a well-known session violinist, ran a studio in New York and took an interest in the band’s music, acting as producer, manager and publisher.[5]After some initial recording sessions, David-Schierhorst was ousted, with Cameron switching to drums and Jeff Winfield on guitar. Brown’s song, “Walk Away Renee”, was sold to Smash Records, a subsidiary of Mercury Records, and became a huge hit in late 1966. The band’s second single, “Pretty Ballerina”, also written by Brown, charted in early 1967, and The Left Banke released an album entitled Walk Away Renee/Pretty Ballerina, by which time, Rick Brand had replaced Winfield on guitar.
Tension between Brown and the rest of the band soon began to surface. When “Walk Away Renee” belatedly became a hit, the original band had become inactive. Brown decided to capitalize on the single’s success by assembling a new version of The Left Banke for touring purposes, with Bert Sommer on lead vocals, original drummer Warren David, and (future member of Spinal Tap) Michael McKean on guitar. Brown also recorded a single, “Ivy, Ivy” b/w “And Suddenly” as The Left Banke, with Sommer and a group of session musicians.[6][7] The remaining members of the band hired attorneys to issue a cease and desist order and urged their fan club to boycott the record,[8] which led to confusion among radio stations over which “Left Banke” to support. Radio and Smash Records ultimately removed their support from the single, which subsequently failed to make the Billboard Hot 100. The “New” Left Banke never performed live. “And Suddenly” was eventually recorded by a group called The Cherry People and became a minor hit.[9] McKean would later find fame as an actor (Laverne & Shirley, This Is Spinal Tap, Better Call Saul).
In late 1967, the original group reunited and recorded more material, including the single “Desiree.” Brown left the group permanently shortly thereafter and was replaced for touring purposes by Emmett Lake. Cameron, Finn and Martin continued to record and tour, with Tom Feher replacing Lake on keyboards and writing half of the band’s new material. The songs recorded by various incarnations of the group in 1967 and 1968 were assembled into a second LP, The Left Banke Too, which was released in November 1968. This album featured backing vocals by a young Steven Tyler (who later became the lead singer of Aerosmith) on “Nice To See You”, “My Friend Today” and “Dark Is The Bark”. The band continued playing live in 1969, without Martin, but soon disbanded due to lack of success and financial problems. Later that same year, Brown and Martin reunited in the studio to record another single as The Left Banke, “Myrah” b/w “Pedestal”, which was their final single for Smash Records.
In 1971, Brown, Cameron, Finn and Martin reunited briefly to record two songs for the movie Hot Parts. The songs, “Love Songs in the Night” and “Two by Two”, were released as a Steve Martin solo single on Buddah Records, despite featuring contributions from four founding members of The Left Banke. In 1972, producer Les Fradkin offered to produce the group for a project on Bell Records. Although these sessions were not released at the time, one of the songs, “I Could Make It Last Forever”, composed by Fradkin and Diane Ellis, was released on Fradkin’s Goin’ Back solo CD in 2006. It was a rare recording since it featured Caro, Finn, Cameron and Brown, along with Brown’s father, violinist Harry Lookofsky. Fradkin sang and played 12-string guitar on the sessions. In 1978, Martin, Cameron and Finn reunited as The Left Banke to record an album’s worth of material which unfortunately was not released at the time. However, a single from these 1978 sessions, “Queen of Paradise” (b/w “And One Day”), was released in late 1978 with modest success. The album was eventually issued by Relix Records in 1986 under the title Strangers on a Train (Voices Calling in Europe). However, the album did little to restore the popularity of the group.
After leaving The Left Banke in 1967, Michael Brown helped form the band, Montage. Although Brown was never an official member of Montage, his presence is unmistakable in its music.[10] The band released one self-titled album in 1969, which included a re-recording of The Left Banke song “Desiree”, before Brown left. Brown’s next project was the band Stories, featuring singer Ian Lloyd. The band had a hit in 1973 with “Brother Louie“, which reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts.[5] However, Brown had left the group after their 2nd album “About Us”, but before the success of “Brother Louie”. Brown’s next project was with The Beckies, although the band achieved only modest success and Brown soon left.
In 1992, Mercury Records released a Left Banke compilation titled There’s Gonna Be a Storm: The Complete Recordings 1966–1969. It was intended to bring together the band’s entire recorded output from the years 1966 to 1969, although a 1969 outtake titled “Foggy Waterfall”, which had previously appeared on two earlier compilations, was not included.
In 1994, Michael Brown and his wife Yvonne Vitale produced and released an album titled On This Moment. Between 2001 and 2006, Brown hosted a series of recording sessions at his home studio with Ian Lloyd (vocals), Tom Finn (bass guitar/vocals), Jim McAllister (guitar), and Jon Ihle (drums).[11]
In 2005, Alice Cooper included a cover version of “Pretty Ballerina” on his album Dirty Diamonds. In 2006, ex-member of The Bangles Susanna Hoffs and Matthew Sweet, as Sid ‘n’ Susie, covered “She May Call You Up Tonight” for their first album Under the Covers, Vol. 1. In addition, Stuart Murdoch of the band Belle and Sebastian has cited The Left Banke as one of the early influences on the sound of the band.[12]
Former guitarist Jeff Winfield died of complications from pneumonia on June 13, 2009, at age 60.[3]
The previous touring version of The Left Banke featured one original member, George Cameron. Initially, Tom Finn and George Cameron reformed The Left Banke in March 2011, tapping New York City’s Mike Fornatale (already a veteran of numerous other 60s band reunions, including The Monks and Moby Grape) to sing lead vocals in Steve Martin Caro’s stead. The reunited group also featured new players: Paul Alves (lead guitar, backing vocals), Charly Cazalet (bass), Mickey Finn (keyboards), Rick Reil (drums, percussion, backing vocals) and second keyboardist/synth player Joe McGinty (replaced by John Spurney in 2012). They appeared live at Joe’s Pub in New York City on March 5, 2011, and March 6, 2011, to sold-out audiences. In April 2011, Tom Finn revealed in a Facebook posting that he had reformed the group,[13] with two shows planned for July in New York City.[14][15] Tom Finn only performed with the re-formed group in 2011, after which he left due to disagreements with Cameron and due to back trouble.
In early 2011, Sundazed released reissues of the two Smash vinyl albums on CD and LP, utilizing the original running order and artwork.
In February 2012, Tom Finn notified the YouTube community that the Left Banke was in the process of creating a new record featuring contributions from co-founder Michael Brown.
George Cameron (3rd from left) and Tom Finn (Center, 4th from left) with band during their 2012 reunion tour.
On April 29, 2012, Brown joined the reunited Left Banke on stage at B.B. King’s in New York City for a version of his “Pretty Ballerina.” His performance was greeted with a standing ovation. Rick Brand, guitarist with the band in 1966-67 was also in attendance. Tom Finn sang a newly written song called “City Life” which showed a heavier rock version of the Left Banke with baroque string section intact. No new recordings begun in 2012 were ever released, and Brown died in 2015.
At the beginning of their reunion dates, the group was joined onstage by a two or three-piece string section and even a guest oboe player for one or two shows. Both Michael Brown and George Cameron were in touch with Steve Martin Caro, who wanted to rejoin the group, but was unable to tour in 2012 due to previous commitments.
On March 18, 2015, the day before Mike Brown’s death, it was announced that original vocalist Steve Martin Caro officially rejoined the current touring version of The Left Banke. Photos on The Left Banke official Facebook and Twitter pages displayed Steve signing a contract. Two 2015 shows featured co-headliner Ian Lloyd of Stories and Sam Kogon as vocalist. The re-formed Cameron band played for the last time twice in 2015; once in Sellersville, PA and once in Natick, MA. No shows under any Left Banke configuration have been performed since 2015, and by 2020 the major players of 1966 were all deceased except for the disabled Tom Finn.
In January, 2018, it was announced on the official Facebook page operated by Steve Martin Caro and George Cameron that they were planning a tour. Several photos of Steve Martin Caro rehearsing with George Cameron and guitarist Sam Kogon were posted with a message which stated “it was Steve’s first time behind the microphone in over 15 years. We went through and workshopped much of the Left Banke catalog.” However, Cameron passed away five months later, before any performances could take place under this collaboration.
Michael Brown died from heart disease on March 19, 2015, at age 65. Brown had been writing new material and planned to participate in the 2015 reunion of The Left Banke with Steve Martin Caro and George Cameron. Brown’s funeral and memorial service was held on March 25, 2015 at Fort Lee Gospel Church in Fort Lee, New Jersey.[16]
Justo George Cameron (born October 16, 1947 in New York City) died of cancer at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan on June 24, 2018, at age 70.[17] Thomas Leo Feher died from heart failure on August 5, 2018.[18] Steve Martin Caro died from heart disease on January 14, 2020. He was 71.[19] This left Tom Finn (later a renowned disc jockey) as the only surviving member from the original “Walk Away Renée” lineup.
Current members
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PHOTO: CHRIS WATTIE/REUTERS
The Treasury sold $19 billion of 30-year bonds on Thursday afternoon at a 2.061% yield. That beat the previous record of 2.170% set last October, according to data from BMO Capital Markets.
The auction came as Treasury yields generally moved lower after Chinese officials changed the way they counted coronavirus infections, leading to a big jump in the number of confirmed cases in the country’s Hubei province. The yield on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note settled at 1.616%, compared with 1.629% Wednesday.
Yields fall when bond prices rise.
Fear that the coronavirus will slow global growth has helped push down Treasury yields in recent weeks. Other factors include persistently soft inflation, which has limited one of the main threats to the value of longer-term Treasurys, analysts said.
Investors have also grown more comfortable buying 30-year bonds because they view them as insurance against losses in riskier assets, said Jon Hill, a U.S. interest-rates strategist at BMO. Prices of 30-year bonds increase more for every one-percentage point decline in yields than those of shorter-term bonds. That means on days like Thursday, when investors are selling stocks and buying bonds, the holders of 30-year bonds are well-hedged, Mr. Hill said.
Thursday’s level doesn’t represent the lowest point that the 30-year bond yield has ever reached. Last August, it settled as low as 1.941%, but yields rose again before the next 30-year auction in September.
In recent years, low Treasury yields have, at times, caused U.S. officials to flirt with issuing bonds with maturities beyond 30 years to lock in low interest rates for a longer period.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said last September that the Treasury Department was “very seriously considering” issuing a 50-year bond. The department, however, dropped that idea due to a lack of interest from bond dealers. Instead, it recently announced plans to issue 20-year bonds, which haven’t been issued regularly since the 1980s.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/treasury-to-sell-30-year-bonds-at-record-low-yield-11581614475
Jump to navigationJump to search
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The Left Banke
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|---|---|
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The Left Banke in 1966
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|
| Background information | |
| Origin | New York, New York, U.S. |
| Genres | Baroque pop[1] |
| Years active |
|
| Labels | |
| Associated acts |
|
| Members |
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The Left Banke is an American baroque pop band, formed in New York City in 1965.[1] They are best remembered for their two US hit singles, “Walk Away Renée” and “Pretty Ballerina“.[2] The band often used what the music press referred to as “baroque” string arrangements, which led to their music being variously termed as “Bach-rock” or “baroque rock“.[3] The band’s vocal harmonies borrowed from contemporaries such as The Beatles, The Zombies, and other British Invasion groups.[1]
In 2004, Rolling Stone placed “Walk Away Renée” at #220 in its list of “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time“.[4]
The Left Banke was formed in 1965 and consisted of keyboard player/songwriter Michael Brown, drummer/singer George Cameron, bass guitarist/singer Tom Finn, singer Steve Martin (who also used the name Steve Martin Caro), and drummer Warren David-Schierhorst. Brown’s father, Harry Lookofsky, a well-known session violinist, ran a studio in New York and took an interest in the band’s music, acting as producer, manager and publisher.[5]After some initial recording sessions, David-Schierhorst was ousted, with Cameron switching to drums and Jeff Winfield on guitar. Brown’s song, “Walk Away Renee”, was sold to Smash Records, a subsidiary of Mercury Records, and became a huge hit in late 1966. The band’s second single, “Pretty Ballerina”, also written by Brown, charted in early 1967, and The Left Banke released an album entitled Walk Away Renee/Pretty Ballerina, by which time, Rick Brand had replaced Winfield on guitar.
Tension between Brown and the rest of the band soon began to surface. When “Walk Away Renee” belatedly became a hit, the original band had become inactive. Brown decided to capitalize on the single’s success by assembling a new version of The Left Banke for touring purposes, with Bert Sommer on lead vocals, original drummer Warren David, and (future member of Spinal Tap) Michael McKean on guitar. Brown also recorded a single, “Ivy, Ivy” b/w “And Suddenly” as The Left Banke, with Sommer and a group of session musicians.[6][7] The remaining members of the band hired attorneys to issue a cease and desist order and urged their fan club to boycott the record,[8] which led to confusion among radio stations over which “Left Banke” to support. Radio and Smash Records ultimately removed their support from the single, which subsequently failed to make the Billboard Hot 100. The “New” Left Banke never performed live. “And Suddenly” was eventually recorded by a group called The Cherry People and became a minor hit.[9] McKean would later find fame as an actor (Laverne & Shirley, This Is Spinal Tap, Better Call Saul).
In late 1967, the original group reunited and recorded more material, including the single “Desiree.” Brown left the group permanently shortly thereafter and was replaced for touring purposes by Emmett Lake. Cameron, Finn and Martin continued to record and tour, with Tom Feher replacing Lake on keyboards and writing half of the band’s new material. The songs recorded by various incarnations of the group in 1967 and 1968 were assembled into a second LP, The Left Banke Too, which was released in November 1968. This album featured backing vocals by a young Steven Tyler (who later became the lead singer of Aerosmith) on “Nice To See You”, “My Friend Today” and “Dark Is The Bark”. The band continued playing live in 1969, without Martin, but soon disbanded due to lack of success and financial problems. Later that same year, Brown and Martin reunited in the studio to record another single as The Left Banke, “Myrah” b/w “Pedestal”, which was their final single for Smash Records.
In 1971, Brown, Cameron, Finn and Martin reunited briefly to record two songs for the movie Hot Parts. The songs, “Love Songs in the Night” and “Two by Two”, were released as a Steve Martin solo single on Buddah Records, despite featuring contributions from four founding members of The Left Banke. In 1972, producer Les Fradkin offered to produce the group for a project on Bell Records. Although these sessions were not released at the time, one of the songs, “I Could Make It Last Forever”, composed by Fradkin and Diane Ellis, was released on Fradkin’s Goin’ Back solo CD in 2006. It was a rare recording since it featured Caro, Finn, Cameron and Brown, along with Brown’s father, violinist Harry Lookofsky. Fradkin sang and played 12-string guitar on the sessions. In 1978, Martin, Cameron and Finn reunited as The Left Banke to record an album’s worth of material which unfortunately was not released at the time. However, a single from these 1978 sessions, “Queen of Paradise” (b/w “And One Day”), was released in late 1978 with modest success. The album was eventually issued by Relix Records in 1986 under the title Strangers on a Train (Voices Calling in Europe). However, the album did little to restore the popularity of the group.
After leaving The Left Banke in 1967, Michael Brown helped form the band, Montage. Although Brown was never an official member of Montage, his presence is unmistakable in its music.[10] The band released one self-titled album in 1969, which included a re-recording of The Left Banke song “Desiree”, before Brown left. Brown’s next project was the band Stories, featuring singer Ian Lloyd. The band had a hit in 1973 with “Brother Louie“, which reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts.[5] However, Brown had left the group after their 2nd album “About Us”, but before the success of “Brother Louie”. Brown’s next project was with The Beckies, although the band achieved only modest success and Brown soon left.
In 1992, Mercury Records released a Left Banke compilation titled There’s Gonna Be a Storm: The Complete Recordings 1966–1969. It was intended to bring together the band’s entire recorded output from the years 1966 to 1969, although a 1969 outtake titled “Foggy Waterfall”, which had previously appeared on two earlier compilations, was not included.
In 1994, Michael Brown and his wife Yvonne Vitale produced and released an album titled On This Moment. Between 2001 and 2006, Brown hosted a series of recording sessions at his home studio with Ian Lloyd (vocals), Tom Finn (bass guitar/vocals), Jim McAllister (guitar), and Jon Ihle (drums).[11]
In 2005, Alice Cooper included a cover version of “Pretty Ballerina” on his album Dirty Diamonds. In 2006, ex-member of The Bangles Susanna Hoffs and Matthew Sweet, as Sid ‘n’ Susie, covered “She May Call You Up Tonight” for their first album Under the Covers, Vol. 1. In addition, Stuart Murdoch of the band Belle and Sebastian has cited The Left Banke as one of the early influences on the sound of the band.[12]
Former guitarist Jeff Winfield died of complications from pneumonia on June 13, 2009, at age 60.[3]
The previous touring version of The Left Banke featured one original member, George Cameron. Initially, Tom Finn and George Cameron reformed The Left Banke in March 2011, tapping New York City’s Mike Fornatale (already a veteran of numerous other 60s band reunions, including The Monks and Moby Grape) to sing lead vocals in Steve Martin Caro’s stead. The reunited group also featured new players: Paul Alves (lead guitar, backing vocals), Charly Cazalet (bass), Mickey Finn (keyboards), Rick Reil (drums, percussion, backing vocals) and second keyboardist/synth player Joe McGinty (replaced by John Spurney in 2012). They appeared live at Joe’s Pub in New York City on March 5, 2011, and March 6, 2011, to sold-out audiences. In April 2011, Tom Finn revealed in a Facebook posting that he had reformed the group,[13] with two shows planned for July in New York City.[14][15] Tom Finn only performed with the re-formed group in 2011, after which he left due to disagreements with Cameron and due to back trouble.
In early 2011, Sundazed released reissues of the two Smash vinyl albums on CD and LP, utilizing the original running order and artwork.
In February 2012, Tom Finn notified the YouTube community that the Left Banke was in the process of creating a new record featuring contributions from co-founder Michael Brown.
George Cameron (3rd from left) and Tom Finn (Center, 4th from left) with band during their 2012 reunion tour.
On April 29, 2012, Brown joined the reunited Left Banke on stage at B.B. King’s in New York City for a version of his “Pretty Ballerina.” His performance was greeted with a standing ovation. Rick Brand, guitarist with the band in 1966-67 was also in attendance. Tom Finn sang a newly written song called “City Life” which showed a heavier rock version of the Left Banke with baroque string section intact. No new recordings begun in 2012 were ever released, and Brown died in 2015.
At the beginning of their reunion dates, the group was joined onstage by a two or three-piece string section and even a guest oboe player for one or two shows. Both Michael Brown and George Cameron were in touch with Steve Martin Caro, who wanted to rejoin the group, but was unable to tour in 2012 due to previous commitments.
On March 18, 2015, the day before Mike Brown’s death, it was announced that original vocalist Steve Martin Caro officially rejoined the current touring version of The Left Banke. Photos on The Left Banke official Facebook and Twitter pages displayed Steve signing a contract. Two 2015 shows featured co-headliner Ian Lloyd of Stories and Sam Kogon as vocalist. The re-formed Cameron band played for the last time twice in 2015; once in Sellersville, PA and once in Natick, MA. No shows under any Left Banke configuration have been performed since 2015, and by 2020 the major players of 1966 were all deceased except for the disabled Tom Finn.
In January, 2018, it was announced on the official Facebook page operated by Steve Martin Caro and George Cameron that they were planning a tour. Several photos of Steve Martin Caro rehearsing with George Cameron and guitarist Sam Kogon were posted with a message which stated “it was Steve’s first time behind the microphone in over 15 years. We went through and workshopped much of the Left Banke catalog.” However, Cameron passed away five months later, before any performances could take place under this collaboration.
Michael Brown died from heart disease on March 19, 2015, at age 65. Brown had been writing new material and planned to participate in the 2015 reunion of The Left Banke with Steve Martin Caro and George Cameron. Brown’s funeral and memorial service was held on March 25, 2015 at Fort Lee Gospel Church in Fort Lee, New Jersey.[16]
Justo George Cameron (born October 16, 1947 in New York City) died of cancer at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan on June 24, 2018, at age 70.[17] Thomas Leo Feher died from heart failure on August 5, 2018.[18] Steve Martin Caro died from heart disease on January 14, 2020. He was 71.[19] This left Tom Finn (later a renowned disc jockey) as the only surviving member from the original “Walk Away Renée” lineup.
Current members
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Pronk Pops Show 1394 February 7, 2020
Pronk Pops Show 1393 February 6, 2020
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Pronk Pops Show 1380 January 17, 2020
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Pronk Pops Show 1377 January 14, 2020
Pronk Pops Show 1376 January 13, 2020
Pronk Pops Show 1375 December 13, 2019
Pronk Pops Show 1374 December 12, 2019
Pronk Pops Show 1373 December 11, 2019
Pronk Pops Show 1372 December 10, 2019
Pronk Pops Show 1371 December 9, 2019
Pronk Pops Show 1370 December 6, 2019
Pronk Pops Show 1369 December 5, 2019
Pronk Pops Show 1368 December 4, 2019
Pronk Pops Show 1367 December 3, 2019
Pronk Pops Show 1366 December 2, 2019
Pronk Pops Show 1365 November 22, 2019
Pronk Pops Show 1364 November 21, 2019
Pronk Pops Show 1363 November 20, 2019
Pronk Pops Show 1362 November 19, 2019
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The seasonally-adjusted SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate reflects current unemployment reporting methodology adjusted for SGS-estimated long-term discouraged workers, who were defined out of official existence in 1994. That estimate is added to the BLS estimate of U-6 unemployment, which includes short-term discouraged workers.
The U-3 unemployment rate is the monthly headline number. The U-6 unemployment rate is the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) broadest unemployment measure, including short-term discouraged and other marginally-attached workers as well as those forced to work part-time because they cannot find full-time employment.
Public Commentary on Unemployment
Unemployment Data Series 
(Subscription required.) View Download Excel CSV File Last Updated: February 7th, 2020
The ShadowStats Alternate Unemployment Rate for January 2020 is 21.0%.
http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-charts
]
President Donald Trump never misses an opportunity to plug the strong employment picture for which he takes credit, and today he earned more bragging rights:
The Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics said the economy created 225,000 in January, well above estimates. BLS says notable job gains occurred in construction, in health care, and in transportation and warehousing.
The number of employed Americans dipped in January to 158,714,000 — down 89,000 from December’s record high.
The unemployment rate ticked up a tenth of a point to 3.6 percent in January.
But the labor force participation rate reached a Trump-era high of 63.4 percent, up from 63.2 percent in December, because the civilian labor force increased by 574,000 in January, after accounting for annual adjustments to population controls, BLS said.*
In January, the civilian non-institutional population in the United States was 259,502,000. That included all people 16 and older who did not live in an institution (such as a prison, nursing home or long-term care facility).
Of that civilian non-institutional population, 164,606,000 were participating in the labor force, meaning that they either had a job or were actively seeking one during the last month. This resulted in a labor force participation rate of 63.4 percent, the highest it’s been since June 2013.
The number of Americans counted as not in the labor force — meaning they did not have a job and were not looking for one — dropped by 442,000 in January (after population control adjustments). This number hovers around 95,000,000, partly because of retiring baby boomers.
Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for adult men (3.3 percent), adult women (3.2 percent), teenagers (12.2 percent), Whites (3.1 percent), Blacks (6.0 percent), Asians (3.0 percent), and Hispanics (4.3 percent) showed little or no change over the month.
The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for November was revised up by 5,000 from +256,000 to +261,000, and the change for December was revised up by 2,000 from +145,000 to +147,000. With these revisions, employment gains in November and December combined were 7,000 higher than previously reported.
In January, average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls rose by 7 cents to $28.44. Over the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have increased by 3.1 percent.
The current economic expansion, now in its 11th year, became the longest in U.S. history on July 1, 2019, beating the previous record that lasted from March 1991 through March 2001.
President Trump bragged about the economy Tuesday night in his State of the Union speech:
In just over two years since the election, we have launched an unprecedented economic boom — a boom that has rarely been seen before. There’s been nothing like it. We have created 5.3 million new jobs and, importantly, added 600,000 new manufacturing jobs — something which almost everyone said was impossible to do. But the fact is, we are just getting started.
Wages are rising at the fastest pace in decades and growing for blue-collar workers, who I promised to fight for. They’re growing faster than anyone else thought possible. Nearly 5 million Americans have been lifted off food stamps. The U.S. economy is growing almost twice as fast today as when I took office. And we are considered, far and away, the hottest economy anywhere in the world. Not even close.
Unemployment has reached the lowest rate in over half a century. African American, Hispanic American, and Asian American unemployment have all reached their lowest levels ever recorded. Unemployment for Americans with disabilities has also reached an all-time low. More people are working now than at any time in the history of our country — 157 million people at work.
*(BLS explained that the January 2020 data includes updated population estimates developed by the Census Bureau’s household survey. “Each year,” BLS said, “the Census Bureau updates the estimates to reflect new information and assumptions about the growth of the population since the previous decennial census. The change in population reflected in the new estimates results from adjustments for net international migration, updated vital statistics, and estimation methodology improvements.”)
https://cnsnews.com/article/national/susan-jones/634-labor-force-participation-trump-era-high
Transmission of material in this news release is embargoed until USDL-20-0180 8:30 a.m. (EST) Friday, February 7, 2020 Technical information: Household data: (202) 691-6378 * cpsinfo@bls.gov * www.bls.gov/cps Establishment data: (202) 691-6555 * cesinfo@bls.gov * www.bls.gov/ces Media contact: (202) 691-5902 * PressOffice@bls.gov THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION -- JANUARY 2020 Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 225,000 in January, and the unemployment rate was little changed at 3.6 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Notable job gains occurred in construction, in health care, and in transportation and warehousing. This news release presents statistics from two monthly surveys. The household survey measures labor force status, including unemployment, by demographic characteristics. The establishment survey measures nonfarm employment, hours, and earnings by industry. For more information about the concepts and statistical methodology used in these two surveys, see the Technical Note. ___________________________________________________________________________________ | | | Changes to The Employment Situation Data | | | | Establishment survey data have been revised as a result of the annual | | benchmarking process and the updating of seasonal adjustment factors. In | | addition, several changes have been made to household survey data, including | | the annual update of population estimates. See the notes at the end of the | | news release for more information. | |___________________________________________________________________________________| Household Survey Data Both the unemployment rate, at 3.6 percent, and the number of unemployed persons, at 5.9 million, changed little in January. (See table A-1. For information about annual population adjustments to the household survey estimates, see the note at the end of the news release and tables B and C.) Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for adult men (3.3 percent), adult women (3.2 percent), teenagers (12.2 percent), Whites (3.1 percent), Blacks (6.0 percent), Asians (3.0 percent), and Hispanics (4.3 percent) showed little or no change over the month. (See tables A-1, A-2, and A-3.) Among the unemployed, the number of reentrants to the labor force increased by 183,000 in January to 1.8 million but was little changed over the year. (Reentrants are persons who previously worked but were not in the labor force prior to beginning their job search.) (See table A-11.) The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more), at 1.2 million, was unchanged in January. These individuals accounted for 19.9 percent of the unemployed. (See table A-12.) After accounting for the annual adjustments to the population controls, the civilian labor force rose by 574,000 in January, and the labor force participation rate edged up by 0.2 percentage point to 63.4 percent. The employment-population ratio, at 61.2 percent, changed little over the month but was up by 0.5 percentage point over the year. (See table A-1. For additional information about the effects of the population adjustments, see table C.) The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons, at 4.2 million, was essentially unchanged in January. These individuals, who would have preferred full-time employment, were working part time because their hours had been reduced or they were unable to find full-time jobs. (See table A-8.) The number of persons marginally attached to the labor force, at 1.3 million, changed little in January. These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey for a variety of reasons, such as belief that no jobs are available for them (referred to as discouraged workers), school attendance, or family responsibilities. Discouraged workers numbered 337,000 in January, little changed over the month. (See Summary table A.) Establishment Survey Data Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 225,000 in January, compared with an average monthly gain of 175,000 in 2019. Notable job gains occurred in construction, in health care, and in transportation and warehousing. (See table B-1. For information about the annual benchmark process, see the note at the end of the news release and table A.) In January, construction employment rose by 44,000. Most of the gain occurred in specialty trade contractors, with increases in both the residential (+18,000) and nonresidential (+17,000) components. Construction added an average of 12,000 jobs per month in 2019. Health care added 36,000 jobs in January, with gains in ambulatory health care services (+23,000) and hospitals (+10,000). Health care has added 361,000 jobs over the past 12 months. Employment in transportation and warehousing increased by 28,000 in January. Job gains occurred in couriers and messengers (+14,000) and in warehousing and storage (+6,000). Over the year, employment in transportation and warehousing has increased by 106,000. Employment in leisure and hospitality continued to trend up in January (+36,000). Over the past 6 months, the industry has added 288,000 jobs. Employment continued on an upward trend in professional and business services in January (+21,000), increasing by 390,000 over the past 12 months. Manufacturing employment changed little in January (-12,000) and has shown little movement, on net, over the past 12 months. Motor vehicles and parts lost 11,000 jobs over the month. Employment in other major industries, including mining, wholesale trade, retail trade, information, financial activities, and government, changed little over the month. In January, average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls rose by 7 cents to $28.44. Over the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have increased by 3.1 percent. Average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees were $23.87 in January, little changed over the month (+3 cents). (See tables B-3 and B-8.) The average workweek for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls was unchanged at 34.3 hours in January. In manufacturing, the average workweek remained at 40.4 hours, while overtime edged down 0.1 hour to 3.1 hours. The average workweek of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees edged up by 0.1 hour to 33.6 hours. (See tables B-2 and B-7.) The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for November was revised up by 5,000 from +256,000 to +261,000, and the change for December was revised up by 2,000 from +145,000 to +147,000. With these revisions, employment gains in November and December combined were 7,000 higher than previously reported. (Monthly revisions result from additional reports received from businesses and government agencies since the last published estimates and from the recalculation of seasonal factors. The annual benchmark process also contributed to the November and December revisions.) After revisions, job gains have averaged 211,000 over the last 3 months. _____________ The Employment Situation for February is scheduled to be released on Friday, March 6, 2020, at 8:30 a.m. (EST). ____________________________________________________________________________________ | | | Changes to Household Survey Data | | | | Effective with this news release, two not seasonally adjusted series previously | | displayed in Summary table A--persons marginally attached to the labor force and | | discouraged workers--have been replaced with new seasonally adjusted series. The | | new seasonally adjusted series are available in the BLS online database back to | | 1994. Not seasonally adjusted data for persons marginally attached to the labor | | force and for discouraged workers will continue to be published in table A-16. | | These series are also available in the BLS online database back to 1994. | | | | Persons marginally attached to the labor force and discouraged workers are | | inputs into three alternative measures of labor underutilization displayed in | | table A-15. Effective with this news release, data for U-4, U-5, and U-6 in | | table A-15 reflect the new seasonally adjusted series. Changes to historical | | data were negligible. Revised data back to 1994 are available in the BLS online | | database. Not seasonally adjusted series for the alternative measures are | | unaffected. | | | | Effective with data for January 2020, occupation estimates in table A-13 | | reflect the introduction of the 2018 Census occupation classification system | | into the household survey. This occupation classification system is derived | | from the 2018 Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) system. Historical | | data have not been revised. Beginning with data for January 2020, occupation | | estimates are not strictly comparable with earlier years. | | | | In addition, industry estimates in table A-14 reflect the introduction of the | | 2017 Census industry classification system, which is derived from the 2017 | | North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). The classification | | changes are minor and do not involve re-classification of industries between | | the broader industry sectors. | | | | Beginning with data for January 2020, marital status estimates are not strictly | | comparable with earlier years. Estimates of married persons now refer to those | | in opposite-sex and same-sex marriages. Prior to January 2020, these estimates | | referred only to those in opposite-sex marriages. Persons with a same-sex | | spouse were previously classified in other marital status categories, such as | | "women who maintain families." These changes affect marital status estimates in | | tables A-9 and A-10. (Note that not all marital status categories are presented | | in these tables. BLS has not separately tabulated estimates for persons with an | | opposite-sex spouse and persons with a same-sex spouse.) Historical data have | | not been revised. | |____________________________________________________________________________________| Revisions to Establishment Survey Data In accordance with annual practice, the establishment survey data released today have been benchmarked to reflect comprehensive counts of payroll jobs for March 2019. These counts are derived principally from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW), which counts jobs covered by the Unemployment Insurance (UI) tax system. The benchmark process results in revisions to not seasonally adjusted data from April 2018 forward. BLS revised seasonally adjusted data from January 2015 forward. In addition, both seasonally adjusted and unadjusted data for some series incorporate other revisions prior to 2015. The total nonfarm employment level for March 2019 was revised downward by 514,000 (-505,000 on a not seasonally adjusted basis), or -0.3 percent. The absolute average benchmark revision over the past 10 years is 0.2 percent. The over-the-year change in total nonfarm employment for 2019 was revised from +2,108,000 to +2,096,000 (seasonally adjusted). Table A presents revised total nonfarm employment data on a seasonally adjusted basis from January to December 2019. All revised historical establishment survey data are available on the BLS website at www.bls.gov/ces/data/home.htm. In addition, an article that discusses the benchmark and post-benchmark revisions and other technical issues is available at www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cesbmart.htm. Table A. Revisions to total nonfarm employment, January to December 2019, seasonally adjusted (Numbers in thousands) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | Level | Over-the-month change |--------------------------------------------------------------------- Year and month | | As | | | As | | As |previously | Difference| As |previously| Difference | revised |published | | revised |published | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | | | | 2019 | | | | | | | | | | | | January......... | 150,134 | 150,587 | -453 | 269 | 312 | -43 February........ | 150,135 | 150,643 | -508 | 1 | 56 | -55 March........... | 150,282 | 150,796 | -514 | 147 | 153 | -6 April........... | 150,492 | 151,012 | -520 | 210 | 216 | -6 May............. | 150,577 | 151,074 | -497 | 85 | 62 | 23 June............ | 150,759 | 151,252 | -493 | 182 | 178 | 4 July............ | 150,953 | 151,418 | -465 | 194 | 166 | 28 August.......... | 151,160 | 151,637 | -477 | 207 | 219 | -12 September....... | 151,368 | 151,830 | -462 | 208 | 193 | 15 October......... | 151,553 | 151,982 | -429 | 185 | 152 | 33 November........ | 151,814 | 152,238 | -424 | 261 | 256 | 5 December(p)..... | 151,961 | 152,383 | -422 | 147 | 145 | 2 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (p) = preliminary. Adjustments to Population Estimates for the Household Survey Effective with data for January 2020, updated population estimates were incorporated into the household survey. Population estimates for the household survey are developed by the U.S. Census Bureau. Each year, the Census Bureau updates the estimates to reflect new information and assumptions about the growth of the population since the previous decennial census. The change in population reflected in the new estimates results from adjustments for net international migration, updated vital statistics, and estimation methodology improvements. In accordance with usual practice, BLS will not revise the official household survey estimates for December 2019 and earlier months. To show the impact of the population adjustments, however, differences in selected December 2019 labor force series based on the old and new population estimates are shown in table B. The adjustments decreased the estimated size of the civilian noninstitutional population in December by 811,000, the civilian labor force by 524,000, employment by 507,000, and unemployment by 17,000. The number of persons not in the labor force was decreased by 287,000. The total unemployment rate, employment-population ratio, and labor force participation rate were unaffected. Data users are cautioned that these annual population adjustments can affect the comparability of household data series over time. Table C shows the effect of the introduction of new population estimates on the comparison of selected labor force measures between December 2019 and January 2020. Additional information on the population adjustments and their effect on national labor force estimates is available at www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cps-pop-control-adjustments.pdf. Population controls for veterans, which are derived from a Department of Veterans Affairs' population model and are updated periodically, have also been updated with the release of data for January 2020. Historical data have not been revised.
| Category | Total | Men | Women | White | Black or African Ameri- can |
Asian | Hispanic or Latino ethnicity |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Civilian noninstitutional population |
-811 | -403 | -408 | -461 | -59 | -273 | -323 |
|
Civilian labor force |
-524 | -289 | -235 | -297 | -41 | -171 | -219 |
|
Participation rate |
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -0.1 |
|
Employed |
-507 | -279 | -227 | -287 | -39 | -167 | -210 |
|
Employment-population ratio |
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
|
Unemployed |
-17 | -10 | -9 | -10 | -2 | -4 | -9 |
|
Unemployment rate |
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
|
Not in labor force |
-287 | -115 | -172 | -164 | -18 | -102 | -104 |
|
NOTE: Detail may not sum to totals because of rounding. Estimates for the above race groups (White, Black or African American, and Asian) do not sum to totals because data are not presented for all races. Persons whose ethnicity is identified as Hispanic or Latino may be of any race. |
|||||||
| Category | Dec.-Jan. change, as published |
2020 population control effect |
Dec.-Jan. change, after removing the population control effect(1) |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Civilian noninstitutional population |
-679 | -811 | 132 |
|
Civilian labor force |
50 | -524 | 574 |
|
Participation rate |
0.2 | 0 | 0.2 |
|
Employed |
-89 | -507 | 418 |
|
Employment-population ratio |
0.2 | 0 | 0.2 |
|
Unemployed |
139 | -17 | 156 |
|
Unemployment rate |
0.1 | 0 | 0.1 |
|
Not in labor force |
-729 | -287 | -442 |
|
(1) This Dec.-Jan. change is calculated by subtracting the population control effect from the over-the-month change in the published seasonally adjusted estimates. |
|||
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm
| Category | Jan. 2019 |
Nov. 2019 |
Dec. 2019 |
Jan. 2020 |
Change from: Dec. 2019- Jan. 2020 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Employment status |
|||||
|
Civilian noninstitutional population |
258,239 | 260,020 | 260,181 | 259,502 | – |
|
Civilian labor force |
163,142 | 164,347 | 164,556 | 164,606 | – |
|
Participation rate |
63.2 | 63.2 | 63.2 | 63.4 | – |
|
Employed |
156,627 | 158,536 | 158,803 | 158,714 | – |
|
Employment-population ratio |
60.7 | 61.0 | 61.0 | 61.2 | – |
|
Unemployed |
6,516 | 5,811 | 5,753 | 5,892 | – |
|
Unemployment rate |
4.0 | 3.5 | 3.5 | 3.6 | – |
|
Not in labor force |
95,097 | 95,673 | 95,625 | 94,896 | – |
|
Unemployment rates |
|||||
|
Total, 16 years and over |
4.0 | 3.5 | 3.5 | 3.6 | – |
|
Adult men (20 years and over) |
3.7 | 3.2 | 3.1 | 3.3 | – |
|
Adult women (20 years and over) |
3.6 | 3.2 | 3.2 | 3.2 | – |
|
Teenagers (16 to 19 years) |
12.9 | 12.0 | 12.6 | 12.2 | – |
|
White |
3.5 | 3.2 | 3.2 | 3.1 | – |
|
Black or African American |
6.8 | 5.6 | 5.9 | 6.0 | – |
|
Asian |
3.1 | 2.6 | 2.5 | 3.0 | – |
|
Hispanic or Latino ethnicity |
4.8 | 4.2 | 4.2 | 4.3 | – |
|
Total, 25 years and over |
3.2 | 2.9 | 2.8 | 2.9 | – |
|
Less than a high school diploma |
5.7 | 5.3 | 5.2 | 5.5 | – |
|
High school graduates, no college |
3.7 | 3.7 | 3.7 | 3.8 | – |
|
Some college or associate degree |
3.4 | 2.9 | 2.7 | 2.8 | – |
|
Bachelor’s degree and higher |
2.4 | 2.0 | 1.9 | 2.0 | – |
|
Reason for unemployment |
|||||
|
Job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs |
3,060 | 2,804 | 2,686 | 2,665 | – |
|
Job leavers |
816 | 776 | 829 | 836 | – |
|
Reentrants |
1,944 | 1,663 | 1,655 | 1,838 | – |
|
New entrants |
607 | 581 | 551 | 557 | – |
|
Duration of unemployment |
|||||
|
Less than 5 weeks |
2,319 | 2,026 | 2,065 | 2,059 | – |
|
5 to 14 weeks |
1,999 | 1,753 | 1,730 | 1,755 | – |
|
15 to 26 weeks |
898 | 865 | 812 | 887 | – |
|
27 weeks and over |
1,259 | 1,219 | 1,186 | 1,166 | – |
|
Employed persons at work part time |
|||||
|
Part time for economic reasons |
5,105 | 4,288 | 4,148 | 4,182 | – |
|
Slack work or business conditions |
3,402 | 2,634 | 2,657 | 2,655 | – |
|
Could only find part-time work |
1,413 | 1,259 | 1,215 | 1,294 | – |
|
Part time for noneconomic reasons |
20,984 | 21,532 | 21,586 | 22,154 | – |
|
Persons not in the labor force |
|||||
|
Marginally attached to the labor force |
1,498 | 1,244 | 1,230 | 1,342 | – |
|
Discouraged workers |
418 | 316 | 289 | 337 | – |
|
– December – January changes in household data are not shown due to the introduction of updated population controls.
|
|||||
| Category | Jan. 2019 |
Nov. 2019 |
Dec. 2019(P) |
Jan. 2020(P) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
EMPLOYMENT BY SELECTED INDUSTRY |
||||
|
Total nonfarm |
269 | 261 | 147 | 225 |
|
Total private |
258 | 247 | 142 | 206 |
|
Goods-producing |
75 | 45 | -5 | 32 |
|
Mining and logging |
5 | -11 | -11 | 0 |
|
Construction |
50 | -2 | 11 | 44 |
|
Manufacturing |
20 | 58 | -5 | -12 |
|
Durable goods(1) |
21 | 45 | -1 | -11 |
|
Motor vehicles and parts |
-0.3 | 40.5 | 1.3 | -10.6 |
|
Nondurable goods |
-1 | 13 | -4 | -1 |
|
Private service-providing |
183 | 202 | 147 | 174 |
|
Wholesale trade |
6.3 | 3.0 | 9.5 | 8.4 |
|
Retail trade |
-7.9 | -13.9 | 44.9 | -8.3 |
|
Transportation and warehousing |
46.8 | 22.6 | 3.9 | 28.3 |
|
Utilities |
0.1 | 1.0 | 0.7 | -1.4 |
|
Information |
-11 | 9 | 8 | 5 |
|
Financial activities |
11 | 12 | 5 | -1 |
|
Professional and business services(1) |
-2 | 37 | 14 | 21 |
|
Temporary help services |
-28.2 | 2.6 | 5.9 | -1.5 |
|
Education and health services(1) |
56 | 73 | 22 | 72 |
|
Health care and social assistance |
37.6 | 56.7 | 25.0 | 47.2 |
|
Leisure and hospitality |
81 | 43 | 36 | 36 |
|
Other services |
3 | 16 | 3 | 14 |
|
Government |
11 | 14 | 5 | 19 |
|
(3-month average change, in thousands) |
||||
|
Total nonfarm |
195 | 218 | 198 | 211 |
|
Total private |
188 | 211 | 193 | 198 |
|
WOMEN AND PRODUCTION AND NONSUPERVISORY EMPLOYEES |
||||
|
Total nonfarm women employees |
49.7 | 50.0 | 50.0 | 50.0 |
|
Total private women employees |
48.3 | 48.6 | 48.7 | 48.7 |
|
Total private production and nonsupervisory employees |
82.4 | 82.2 | 82.2 | 82.2 |
|
HOURS AND EARNINGS |
||||
|
Total private |
||||
|
Average weekly hours |
34.5 | 34.3 | 34.3 | 34.3 |
|
Average hourly earnings |
$27.58 | $28.34 | $28.37 | $28.44 |
|
Average weekly earnings |
$951.51 | $972.06 | $973.09 | $975.49 |
|
Index of aggregate weekly hours (2007=100)(3) |
110.5 | 111.2 | 111.3 | 111.5 |
|
Over-the-month percent change |
0.2 | -0.1 | 0.1 | 0.2 |
|
Index of aggregate weekly payrolls (2007=100)(4) |
145.8 | 150.7 | 151.0 | 151.6 |
|
Over-the-month percent change |
0.4 | 0.3 | 0.2 | 0.4 |
|
DIFFUSION INDEX |
||||
|
Total private (258 industries) |
62.2 | 63.4 | 55.6 | 59.7 |
|
Manufacturing (76 industries) |
59.2 | 61.8 | 46.1 | 46.7 |
|
Footnotes |
||||
|
NOTE: Data have been revised to reflect March 2019 benchmark levels and updated seasonal adjustment factors.
|
||||
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“I don’t like people who use their faith as justification for doing what they know is wrong. Nor do I like people who say ‘I pray for you’ when they know that that’s not so. So many people have been hurt and we can’t let that go on.”
The National Prayer Breakfast is a yearly event held in Washington, D.C., usually on the first Thursday in February. The founder of this event was Abraham Vereide.[1] The event—which is actually a series of meetings, luncheons, and dinners—has taken place since 1953 and has been held at least since the 1980s at the Washington Hilton on Connecticut Avenue NW. The National Prayer Breakfast, held in the Hilton’s International Ballroom, is typically attended by some 3,500 guests, including international invitees from over 100 countries. It is hosted by members of the United States Congress and is organized on their behalf by The Fellowship Foundation, a Christian organization. Initially called the Presidential Prayer Breakfast, the name was changed in 1970 to the National Prayer Breakfast. It is designed to be a forum for the political, social, and business elite to assemble and build relationships. Since the inception of the National Prayer Breakfast, several U.S. states and cities and other countries have established their own annual prayer breakfast events. Every U.S. president since Dwight D. Eisenhower has participated in the annual event.
Donald Trump slammed Nancy Pelosi and Mitt Romney for using their faith to justify their actions in the impeachment process during his remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast Thursday morning.
He did not mention the two by name but his meaning was clear.
‘I don’t like people who use their faith as justification for doing what they know is wrong. Nor do I like people who say I pray for you when they know that’s not so. So many people have been hurt, and we can’t let that go on. I will be discussing that a little bit later at the White House,’ he said.
Romney was the lone Republican to find Trump guilty on one article of impeachment: abuse of power. He said in his remarks on the Senate floor Wednesday that it was his faith – Romney is a devout Mormon – that led him to that decision.
The president admitted he was having trouble liking his political enemies now that his impeachment trial is over.
”We are grateful to the people of this room for the lovely show to religion, not one religion, but many religions. They are brave, they are brilliant, they are fighters, they like people and sometimes they hate people. I’m sorry. I apologize. I am trying to learn. Not easy. It’s not easy. When they impeach you for nothing, and you’re supposed to like them, it’s not easy, folks. I do my best,’ he said.
Trump was acquitted on both articles of impeachment by the Senate on Wednesday, bringing to a close the fourth month, contentious process that led to a new level of bitter relations between the White House and congressional Democrats.
Harvard professor Arthur Brooks, in his key note address at the breakfast, urged those present not to hold political enemies in contempt, but to do as Jesus preached and ‘love your enemies.’
‘I don’t know if I agree with you,’ Trump said to Brooks when it was his turn to speak. And then he proceeded to launch his attacks on Pelosi and Romney.
The president addressed the impeachment inquiry at the top of his remarks and, earlier, had triumphantly held up newspaper headlines announcing his acquittal. The audience cheered his move.
‘My family, our great country and your president has been put through a terrible ordeal by some very dishonest and corrupt people. They have done everything possible to destroy us and by so doing, very badly hurt our nation,’ Trump said.
‘They know what they are doing is wrong but they put themselves far ahead of our great country. Weeks ago and again yesterday, courageous Republican politicians and leaders had the wisdom, fortitude, and strength to do what everyone knows was right,’ he added.
The president and the speaker were meetingfor the first time since the impeachment verdict at the National Prayer Breakfast Thursday morning.
Trump walked to the head table to applause and held up the front pages of USA Today and The Washington Post with their oversized headlines proclaiming his acquittal by the Senate.
‘Acquitted’ read USA Today. ‘Trump Acquitted’ was the Washington Post’s headline.
Pelosi stood and clapped as President Trump entered the room. She simply looked on as he displayed the newspapers declaring him acquitted.
Speaker Pelosi led a prayer for the poor
Both the president and the speaker were seated at the head table but on opposite sides of the podium.
They did not interact.
Trump shook hands with his side of the head table when he entered the 68th Annual National Prayer Breakfast and did not walk over to the other side of the podium, where the vice president and the speaker were seated.
Pelosi spoke first, leading a prayer for the poor. The president head bowed during her prayer. He did not applaud when she was done.
Vice President Mike Pence, when he arrived ahead of the president, shook hands with the speaker and sat a few chairs down from her.
Several members of Congress and members of the president’s Cabinet attended the annual breakfast.
‘The lord works in mysterious ways. I do not think he could have picked a better day to bring us all together,’ House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy said in his prayer.
The president thanked McCarthy and the breakfast hosts in his opening remarks.
Mitt Romney cited his faith as the reason for his guilty vote on Trump
Trump went after Romney in the wake of the Wednesday’s impeachment vote. He tweeted a video accusing the Utah senator of being a ‘Democrat secret asset’ and criticized him for his failed 2008 presidential campaign.
‘Had failed presidential candidate @MittRomney devoted the same energy and anger to defeating a faltering Barack Obama as he sanctimoniously does to me, he could have won the election,’ the president tweeted.
Romney cited his faith as one of the reasons for his guilty vote. He voted to acquit the president on the second charge: obstruction of Congress.
‘The allegations made in the articles of impeachment are very serious. As a senator juror, I swore an oath before god to exercise impartial justice. I am profoundly religious. My faith is at the heart of who I am. I take an oath before god as enormously consequential. I knew from the outset that being tasked with judging the president, the leader of my own party would be the most difficult decision I have ever faced,’ Romney said.
And the Republican senator from Utah acknowledged he expected to feel the president’s wrath for his decision.
‘I’m aware that there are people in my party and in my state who will strenuously disapprove of my decision, and in some quarters I will be vehemently denounced. I’m sure to hear abuse from the president and his supporters. Does anyone seriously believe that I would consent to these consequences other than from an inescapable conviction that my oath before god demanded it of me?,’ he said.
It was also the first time Trump and Pelosi met since Tuesday’s State of the Union address when Trump refused to shake her hand at its beginning and she ripped up the text of his remarks at its conclusion.
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The Johnson Amendment is a provision in the U.S. tax code, since 1954, that prohibits all 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations from endorsing or opposing political candidates. Section 501(c)(3) organizations are the most common type of nonprofit organization in the United States, ranging from charitable foundations to universities and churches. The amendment is named for then-Senator Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas, who introduced it in a preliminary draft of the law in July 1954.
In the early 21st century, many politicians, including President Donald Trump, have sought to repeal the provision, arguing that it restricts the free speech rights of churches and other religious groups. These efforts have been criticized because churches have fewer reporting requirements than other non-profit organizations, and because it would effectively make political contributions tax-deductible.[1] On May 4, 2017, Trump signed an executive order “to defend the freedom of religion and speech” for the purpose of easing the Johnson Amendment’s restrictions.[2][3]
Page from the Congressional Record containing a transcript of the passage of the amendment
Paragraph (3) of subsection (c) within section 501 of Title 26 (Internal Revenue Code) of the U.S. Code (U.S.C.) describes organizations which may be exempt from U.S. Federal income tax. 501(c)(3) is written as follows:[4]
(3) Corporations, and any community chest, fund, or foundation, organized and operated exclusively for religious, charitable, scientific, testing for public safety, literary, or educational purposes, or to foster national or international amateur sports competition (but only if no part of its activities involve the provision of athletic facilities or equipment), or for the prevention of cruelty to children or animals, no part of the net earnings of which inures to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual, no substantial part of the activities of which is carrying on propaganda, or otherwise attempting, to influence legislation (except as otherwise provided in subsection (h)), and which does not participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office.[bolding added]
The Johnson Amendment is the emboldened portion of this provision beginning with the words “and which does not participate in, or intervene in ….”[5] The amendment affects nonprofit organizations with 501(c)(3) tax exemptions,[6]which are subject to absolute prohibitions on engaging in political activities and risk loss of tax-exempt status if violated.[7] Specifically, they are prohibited from conducting political campaign activities to intervene in elections to public office.[8][9] The Johnson Amendment applies to any 501(c)(3) organization, not just religious 501(c)(3) organizations.
The benefit of 501(c)(3) status is that, in addition to the organization itself being exempt from taxes, donors who itemize may also take a tax deduction for their contributions to the organization.
According to the Internal Revenue Service, contributions to political campaign funds, or public statements of position in favor of or in opposition to any candidate for public office, are disallowed. However, certain voter education activities (including presenting public forums and publishing voter education guides), voter registration, and get-out-the-vote drives, if conducted in a non-partisan manner, are not prohibited.[8]
Lyndon B. Johnson during his tenure as Senator from Texas and before becoming Vice President
The amendment was to a bill in the 83rd Congress, H.R. 8300, which was enacted into law as the Internal Revenue Code of 1954. The amendment was proposed by Senator Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas on July 2, 1954. The amendment was agreed to without any discussion or debate and was included in Internal Revenue Code of 1954 (Aug. 16, 1954, ch. 736).[10] The provision was considered uncontroversial at the time, and continued to be included when the 1954 Code was renamed as the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 during the Ronald Reagan administration.[11][unreliable source?]
In the 2010s, the Alliance Defending Freedom made attempts to challenge the Johnson Amendment through the Pulpit Freedom Initiative, which urges Protestant ministers to violate the statute in protest. The ADF contends that the amendment violates First Amendment rights.[12]
During his 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump called for the repeal of the amendment.[13] On February 2, 2017, after becoming President, Trump vowed at the National Prayer Breakfast to “totally destroy” the Johnson Amendment,[14] White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer announced to the press that Trump “committed to get rid of the Johnson Amendment”, “allowing our representatives of faith to speak freely and without retribution”,[15] and Republican lawmakers introduced legislation that would allow all 501(c)(3) organizations to support political candidates, as long as any associated spending was minimal.[16][17]
On May 4, 2017, Trump signed the “Presidential Executive Order Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty.”[18] The executive order does not (nor can it[19]) repeal the Johnson Amendment, nor does it allow ministers to endorse from the pulpit, but it does direct the Department of Treasury that “churches should not be found guilty of implied endorsements where secular organizations would not be.” Douglas Laycock, speaking to The Washington Post, indicated that he was not aware of any cases where such implied endorsements have caused problems in the past.[20] Walter B. Jones Jr. had been the principal congressional advocate for repealing the speech restriction altogether and had support from the Family Research Council in modifying religious speech language in the Kevin Brady sponsored tax re-write legislation styled, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.[21]
The final version of the major tax rewrite legislation passed in December 2017 does not include the House repeal of the Johnson Amendment because the Senate parliamentarian ruled that it violated the Byrd Rule for reconciliation legislation.[22][23][24]
Efforts to repeal the Johnson Amendment have been criticized for a number of reasons. One concern is that political campaign contributions funneled through 501(c)(3) organizations would be tax-deductible for donors, and that such contributions would not be disclosed, since churches are exempt from reporting requirements required of other 501(c)(3) organizations. Under this critique, repeal would have the potential of creating a mechanism where political contributions could be made without regard to other campaign financing laws.[25][26][27] This concern was validated by Congressional testimony from Thomas Barthold, Chief of Staff of Congress’ nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation, saying of a repeal provision later removed from the tax bill passed in late 2017 “it’s a diversion of some of the substantial growth in political contributions into a deductible form that is not deductible today.”[28]
Other concerns include the potential damage to public trust in nonprofit and religious organizations if they were to begin endorsing candidates. Polls have shown that majorities of both the general public and of clergy oppose churches endorsing political candidates[29][30]The National Council of Nonprofits, a network of more than 25,000 nonprofit organizations, released a statement opposing the proposed repeal legislation.[31] Independent Sector, a coalition of nonprofits, foundations, and corporations has also stated their opposition to the proposal to repeal the Johnson Amendment.[32] Numerous efforts to preserve the protections of the Johnson Amendment include a letter in support of nonprofit nonpartisanship signed by more than 5,500 organizations,[33] a Faith Voices letter signed by more than 4,300 religious leaders,[34] a letter that more than 100 denominations and major religious organizations signed,[35] and a letter from the National Association of State Charity Officials[36]
There has also been concerns from clergy and lay Christians about the potential that a total repeal would cause churches to transform into partisan super PACs.[citation needed]
The Catholic Church does not allow church funds to be spent on behalf of political candidates nor endorsements from the pulpit regardless of the legal permissibility.[37]
President Trump celebrated his Senate acquittal on Thursday with a freewheeling speech at the White House where he blasted the ‘vicious and mean’ Democrats, attacked ‘evil and dirty’ cops, thanked his ‘very good friends’ for their support and apologized to his family for what he put them through.
‘This is a day of celebration because we went through hell,’ he told a packed room of about 200 supporters in the East Room of the White House.
The president spoke – without the use of a teleprompter – for a little more than hour that veered back and forth between thanking his allies and blasting his enemies.
He began his remarks with his favorite hit term on the investigations into him and his presidency: ‘witch hunt.’
‘We’ve been going through this now for over three years. It was evil, it was corrupt, it was dirty cops. It was a leakers and lawyers. This should never happen to another president, ever. I don’t know that other presidents would have been able to take it,’ he said.
And he ended with an apology to his family, including young son Barron.
‘I want to apologize to my family for having them have to go through a phony, rotten deal by some very evil and sick people,’ he said. ‘And Ivanka is here, my sons, my whole family. And that includes Barron. He’s up there, he’s a young boy.’
Ivanka left her seat in the audience to come up to the podium and hug her father after his apology. First lady Melania Trump did the same.
‘I just want to thank my family for sticking through it. This was not part of the deal,’ the president said.
Trump also name-dropped those he blamed for impeaching him, re-upping his litany of attacks against the same people he has blamed since the first investigation of his presidency started.
Former FBI Director James Comey was the first opponent who came up.
‘Had I not fired James Comey – who was a disaster, by the way – it’s possible I may not have even been standing here right now,’ Trump said. ‘When I fired that sleazebag, all hell broke out,’ he later added.
He blamed the top FBI officials for his problems. ‘It was the top scum, and the FBI people don’t like the top scum,’ he said.
The president also had choice words for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff, Sen. Mitt Romney, Hunter Biden, former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe – and the FBI lovers, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.
SCROLL DOWN TO READ TRUMP’S FREEWHEELING SPEECH IN FULL
President Trump hugs his daughter Ivanka Trump at his victory speech in the White House’s East Room Thursday
First lady Melania Trump (left) kisses President Trump (right) at the end of his speech Thursday in the East Room
Comey’s May 2017 firing led to the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller who took over the Russian interference probe.
The president referred to the Russia probe as ‘all bulls***’ to the East Room crowd.
That investigation wasn’t directly related to why Trump was impeached – over a scheme to hold up around $400 million in military aid to Ukraine in order to pressure the president to announce investigations into Joe and Hunter Biden.
Trump attacked the former vice president’s son for his work on the board of a Ukrainian gas company and for a Chinese hedge fund. He also reiterated his argument his July 25 phone call with newly-elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was perfect.
‘He’s a new president, seems like a very nice person, by the way. His whole thing was corruption. He’s going to stop corruption. We have a treaty, a signed treaty that we will work together to root out corruption in Ukraine. I probably have a legal obligation … to report corruption. They don’t even think a corrupt way son who made no money, that got thrown out of the military, that had no money at all, is working for $3 million upfront, $83,000 a month. And that’s only Ukraine. Then goes to China, picks up $1.5 billion. Then goes to Romania, I hear, and many other countries. They think that’s okay. Because, if it is, Ivanka in the audience? Boy, my kids could make a fortune,’ he said.
The East Room was filled with the president’s Republican Congressional and political allies. Lawmakers like Doug Collins, Jim Jordan, Elise Stefanik and Matt Gaetz, who all vocally defended the president during the House impeachment investigation. GOP senators who voted to acquit him were there too, including Chuck Grassley, Mike Lee and, of course, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Trump had personalized shout outs for many of them:
The president’s impeachment legal team came in the room before Trump and was greeted with a standing ovation from the audience and shouts of ‘Bravo!’
Trump, too, was greeted by a crowd on its feet.
He held up a copy of the Washington Post in triumph as his supporters cheered him on.
‘It was the only good headline I’ve ever had in the Washington Post,’ Trump said, showing off a newspaper with the words ‘Trump acquitted’ in large typeface across the front. Trump said he might even frame it.
Rep. Matt Gaetz stands as he is acknowledged by President Trump during a speech that lasted longer than an hour
Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney is photographed in the East Room before the president delivered remarks
Attendees of President Trump’s East Room speech included (from left) second lady Karen Pence, Vice President Mike Pence, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Attorney General Bill Barr
He had nicer things to say about those in the room.
Lee, a Republican senator from Utah, got some attention from the president, in part because Lee’s counterpart, Sen. Mitt Romney, had voted alongside Democrats on voting in support of one article of impeachment.
Trump told Lee to deliver a message to the people of Utah: ‘Tell them I’m sorry about Mitt Romney.’
‘We can say, by far, Mike Lee is the most popular senator in the state,’ Trump said.
Rep. Louie Gohmert, a Republican member of the House Judiciary Committee who also loudly backed the president during impeachment hearings, was spotted wearing a ‘quit Mitt’ button to the White House event.
Trump complimented another Judiciary Committee member, Rep. John Ratcliffe, for being straight out of Central Casting.
‘If we’re doing a remake of Perry Mason,’ he said, nodding at Ratcliffe. ‘There’s nobody in Hollywood like this.’
The president also suggested that Rep. Steve Scalise became more attractive after recovering from a gun shot wound.
‘You weren’t that good looking,’ Trump said. ‘You look good now.’
The president also talked of Scalise’s wife’s devotion to the Louisiana Republican, as Trump had met her when her husband was in the emergency room.
‘A lot of wives wouldn’t give a damn,’ Trump remarked.
Trump also made colorful comments about Rep. Jim Jordan, another prominent defender.
‘When I first got to know Jim I said, heh, he never wears a jacket, he’s obviously very proud of his body,’ the president said.
Jordan was a collegiate wrestling champion and later a college-level coach.
The Ohio Republican did wear a jacket to Trump’s speech Thursday.
Trump also asked lawmakers to stand up if they had something to say.
That prompted retiring Rep. Mark Meadows, a North Carolina Republican, to briefly stand and say, ‘This reflection today is a small reflection of the support you have.’
‘We got your back,’ Meadows said.
White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham told a Fox News Channel audience Thursday what to expect from his remarks – that the president had previewed himself when he slammed Pelosi and Romney at the National Prayer Breakfast Thursday morning.
‘He is going to be honest,’ Grisham told Fox News, ‘going to speak with honesty and with humility and he and the family went through a lot. I think he’s also going to talk about just how horribly he was treated and, you know, that maybe people should pay for that.’
‘People should be held accountable,’ she added.
The president went after Pelosi and Romney for using their faith to justify their actions in the impeachment process during his remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast.
And, in his remarks later that day in the East Wing, he stood by what he said at the breakfast.
‘I had Nancy Pelosi sitting four seats away and I’m saying things that a lot of people wouldn’t have said, but I meant everything. I meant every word of it,’ he said.
At the breakfast, the president did not mention the two by name but his meaning was clear.
‘I don’t like people who use their faith as justification for doing what they know is wrong. Nor do I like people who say I pray for you when they know that’s not so. So many people have been hurt, and we can’t let that go on. I will be discussing that a little bit later at the White House,’ he said.
Romney was the lone Republican to find Trump guilty on one article of impeachment: abuse of power. He said in his remarks on the Senate floor Wednesday that it was his faith – Romney is a devout Mormon – that led him to that decision.
Pelosi, a devout Catholic, has repeatedly said she prays for the president. She was seated at the head table during Trump’s remarks and shook her head at one point during them. She pursed her lips a few times as he spoke. The speaker launched the impeachment inquiry into the president in September.
Back at the White House, Trump had no problem uttering Pelosi’s name. He called her a ‘vicious horrible person’ and said that Rep. Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and one of the Democrats’ House impeachment managers, was a ‘horrible person.’
‘She may pray, but she prays for the opposite,’ Trump said of the speaker.
At the prayer breakfast, the president admitted he was having trouble liking his political enemies now that his impeachment trial is over.
‘We are grateful to the people of this room for the lovely show to religion, not one religion, but many religions. They are brave, they are brilliant, they are fighters, they like people and sometimes they hate people. I’m sorry. I apologize. I am trying to learn. Not easy. It’s not easy. When they impeach you for nothing, and you’re supposed to like them, it’s not easy, folks. I do my best,’ he said.
Donald Trump slammed Nancy Pelosi and Mitt Romney for using their faith to justify their actions in the impeachment trial and inquiry
Speaker Nancy Pelosi sat on the opposite of the head table from President Trump
Speaker Pelosi sat grimed during President Trump’s remarks
Trump was acquitted on both articles of impeachment by the Senate on Wednesday, bringing to a close the fourth month, contentious process that led to a new level of bitter relations between the White House and congressional Democrats.
Harvard professor Arthur Brooks, in his key note address at the breakfast, urged those present not to hold political enemies in contempt, but to do as Jesus preached and ‘love your enemies.‘
‘I don’t know if I agree with you,’ Trump said to Brooks when it was his turn to speak. And then he proceeded to launch his attacks on Pelosi and Romney.
The president addressed the impeachment inquiry at the top of his remarks and, earlier, had triumphantly held up newspaper headlines announcing his acquittal. The audience cheered his move.
‘My family, our great country and your president has been put through a terrible ordeal by some very dishonest and corrupt people. They have done everything possible to destroy us and by so doing, very badly hurt our nation,’ Trump said.
‘They know what they are doing is wrong but they put themselves far ahead of our great country. Weeks ago and again yesterday, courageous Republican politicians and leaders had the wisdom, fortitude, and strength to do what everyone knows was right,’ he added.
The president and the speaker were meeting for the first time since the impeachment verdict at the National Prayer Breakfast Thursday morning.
Trump walked to the head table to applause and held up the front pages of USA Today and The Washington Post with their oversized headlines proclaiming his acquittal by the Senate.
‘Acquitted’ read USA Today. ‘Trump Acquitted’ was the Washington Post’s headline.
Pelosi stood and clapped as President Trump entered the room. She simply looked on as he displayed the newspapers declaring him acquitted.
President Trump waved around a USA Today headline proclaiming his acquittal on impeachment
Both the president and the speaker were seated at the head table but on opposite sides of the podium.
They did not interact.
Trump shook hands with his side of the head table when he entered the 68th Annual National Prayer Breakfast and did not walk over to the other side of the podium, where the vice president and the speaker were seated.
Pelosi spoke first, leading a prayer for the poor. The president head bowed during her prayer. He did not applaud when she was done.
Vice President Mike Pence, when he arrived ahead of the president, shook hands with the speaker and sat a few chairs down from her.
Several members of Congress and members of the president’s Cabinet attended the annual breakfast.
‘The lord works in mysterious ways. I do not think he could have picked a better day to bring us all together,’ House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy said in his prayer.
The president thanked McCarthy and the breakfast hosts in his opening remarks.
‘Had failed presidential candidate @MittRomney devoted the same energy and anger to defeating a faltering Barack Obama as he sanctimoniously does to me, he could have won the election,’ the president tweeted.
Romney cited his faith as one of the reasons for his guilty vote. He voted to acquit the president on the second charge: obstruction of Congress.
‘The allegations made in the articles of impeachment are very serious. As a senator juror, I swore an oath before god to exercise impartial justice. I am profoundly religious. My faith is at the heart of who I am. I take an oath before god as enormously consequential. I knew from the outset that being tasked with judging the president, the leader of my own party would be the most difficult decision I have ever faced,’ Romney said.
And the Republican senator from Utah acknowledged he expected to feel the president’s wrath for his decision.
‘I’m aware that there are people in my party and in my state who will strenuously disapprove of my decision, and in some quarters I will be vehemently denounced. I’m sure to hear abuse from the president and his supporters. Does anyone seriously believe that I would consent to these consequences other than from an inescapable conviction that my oath before god demanded it of me?,’ he said.
It was also the first time Trump and Pelosi met since Tuesday’s State of the Union address when Trump refused to shake her hand at its beginning and she ripped up the text of his remarks at its conclusion.
After the president finished giving his annual address Tuesday night, Pelosi stood up and ripped the pages in half, dropping them on her desk.
The extraordinary clash between the two started when with Trump snubbed Pelosi’s outstretched hand after he came into the House chamber.
Trump handed Pelosi a copy of his speech when he reached the speaker’s dais – the same place she presided over his impeachment vote two months ago – but simply turned away as the Speaker took her copy of his speech, then stood in front of a chamber which echoed with cries of ‘four more years’ from Republicans – and where Democrats sat stone-faced.
Pelosi was visibly taken aback after Trump turned away from her offer.
Earlier, Trump delivered an astonishing snub to Nancy Pelosi as he started his State of the Union speech Tuesday, ignoring her as she offered him a handshake
After the Senate acquitted the president on Wednesday, Pelosi said after the vote that the president remains a ‘threat’ that the House will continue to combat through its lawsuits against the administration and with the public.
‘Sadly, because of the Republican Senate’s betrayal of the Constitution, the President remains an ongoing threat to American democracy, with his insistence that he is above the law and that he can corrupt the elections if he wants to. The House will continue to protect and defend the checks and balances in the Constitution that safeguard our Republic, both in the courts of law and in the court of public opinion,’ she said in a statement.
Tom Perez, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, speaks on stage ahead of the fourth Democratic primary debate at Otterbein University in Westerville, Ohio, on Oct. 15, 2019. Saul Loeb / AFP via Getty Images file.Saul Loeb / AFP via Getty Images file
Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez is calling on Iowa Democratic officials to immediately recanvass Monday’s caucus vote after days of uncertainty and growing concerns about “inconsistencies” found in the data.
“Enough is enough,” Perez said in a tweet. “In light of the problems that have emerged in the implementation of the delegate selection plan and in order to assure public confidence in the results, I am calling on the Iowa Democratic Party to immediately begin a recanvass.”
A recanvass is essentially a double-checking of the vote. Iowa officials would have to hand -audit the caucus worksheets and reporting forms to ensure that they were correctly calculated and reported.
In a statement released later Thursday, Iowa Democratic Party Chair Troy Price did not address the request from Perez and instead said that the party would take on a recanvass if any of the presidential campaigns request it.
“We owe it to the thousands of Iowa Democratic volunteers and caucusgoers to remain focused on collecting and reviewing incoming results,” Price said, noting that officials “identified inconsistencies in the data and used our redundant paper records to promptly correct those errors. This is an ongoing process in close coordination with precinct chairs, and we are working diligently to report the final 54 precincts to get as close to final reporting as possible.”
FEB. 6, 2020 02:21
As of Thursday morning, former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg was clinging to the narrowest of leads in Iowa over Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., with 97 percent of the caucus vote released.
Buttigieg was at 26.2 percent and Sanders had 26 percent, with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., running behind the pair of leaders at 18.2 percent. Former Vice President Joe Biden had 15.8 percent, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., at 12.2 percent and other candidates were in low single digits.
Sanders told reporters Thursday that he is not concerned about the DNC’s call for a recanvassing.
“We won an 8-person election by some 6,000 votes,” Sanders said. “That is not going to change.”
Klobuchar told NBC News on Thursday that she supported the process.
“You have to make sure that every single vote was counted,” she said. “Sometimes in caucuses things can be close.”
Iowa Democratic caucus results are not actual votes cast. The percentages, based on partial returns of the estimated number of state convention delegates won by each candidate through the caucus process, are known as state delegate equivalents, or SDEs.
The totals were put out by the Iowa Democratic Party over the past two days after chaos over the caucuses Monday night. More data may be released Thursday.
NBC News has not called a winner in the first-in-the-nation contest.
In addition to the estimates of convention delegates, the Iowa Democratic Party also released two other numbers:
In voters’ initial candidate preference at the caucuses, Sanders had 24.7 percent, or 42,672 votes, and Buttigieg took 21.3 percent, or 36,718 votes.
In voters’ reallocated preference, Sanders had 26.5 percent, or 44,753 votes, and Buttigieg had 25 percent, or 42,235 votes. The reallocated preference is the raw tally taken after the caucus process known as realignment. If a caucusgoer’s initial candidate preference did not receive enough support to meet the precinct location’s viability threshold (15 percent in most caucus locations), the caucusgoer is allowed to shift his or her support — or realign — to another candidate who did attain viability.
Results from the contest were delayed by what organizers said was a problem with a smartphone app. Final tallies had been expected that evening, but instead, partial results were released Tuesday and the remainder Wednesday.
Nevada’s Democratic Party, which had planned to use the app for its Feb. 22 caucus, said a day after the fiasco in Iowa that it would not use the app after all. The state’s Democratic Party said Tuesday that it had previously developed backup plans for its reporting systems and was in the process of “evaluating the best path forward.”
Cybersecurity experts who examined a public version of the smartphone app told NBC News it contained technical and design flaws and appeared to have been rushed into use.
Caucusgoers gathered Monday at nearly 1,700 sites across Iowa to tally support for their preferred candidates. As the delay stretched on into Tuesday, candidates came out to give speeches that sounded a lot like declarations of victory despite no numbers to support or refute them.
The state has 41 pledged delegates up for grabs, and the high-stakes contest traditionally plays a major role in determining who is a legitimate contender in the race.
Even with only a little more than 90 percent reporting in Iowa, Buttigieg on Wednesday night continued to tout the caucus as a win, telling a New York fundraiser that “we remain in the lead.”
“There is just no question that Monday in Iowa represents an astonishing victory for our vision, for our candidacy and for this country,” the former South Bend, Indiana, mayor said according to a pool report.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Nine in 10 Americans are satisfied with the way things are going in their personal life, a new high in Gallup’s four-decade trend. The latest figure bests the previous high of 88% recorded in 2003.
These results are from Gallup’s Mood of the Nation poll, conducted Jan. 2-15, which also recorded a 20-year high in Americans’ confidence in the U.S. economy. The percentage of Americans who report being satisfied with their personal life is similar to the 86% who said in December that they were very or fairly happy — though the happiness figure, while high, is on the low end of what Gallup has measured historically for that question.
Despite some variation, solid majorities of Americans have reported being satisfied with their personal life over the past few decades, with an average of 83% satisfied since 1979. The historical low of 73% was recorded in July 1979, as the effects of that year’s oil crisis took a toll on U.S. motorists. During that poll’s fielding dates, then-President Jimmy Carter delivered his “malaise speech,” which was interpreted by some as placing blame on Americans themselves for the rough economic spot the country was in.
A 2019 survey on 10 aspects of Americans’ lives found that they are most satisfied with their family life, their education and the way they spend their leisure time — and least satisfied with the amount of leisure time they have, their household income and their job.
Gallup has asked a follow-up question since 2001 to measure the extent to which Americans are satisfied or dissatisfied with their personal life. The 65% of U.S. adults who are currently “very satisfied” marks a new high in the two-decade trend.
The more nuanced satisfaction ratings reveal that the relatively small four-percentage-point drop in personal satisfaction from 2007 to 2008 — as the global economic crisis unfolded — obscured greater movement (12 points) in the percentage “very” versus “somewhat” satisfied.
Household income, political party affiliation and marital status are associated with the largest subgroup differences in Americans’ satisfaction with their personal life.
Roughly 95% of Americans who live in high-income households, who identify as Republicans and who are married say they are satisfied with their personal life — and about three in four among each of these groups are very satisfied.
Meanwhile, adults in low-income households are the least likely to say they are satisfied with their life, followed by Democrats and unmarried adults. Among each of these groups, small majorities report being very satisfied. Low-income Americans hold the distinction of having the lowest percentage very satisfied.
Smaller differences in personal satisfaction are seen by race and gender. Whites are a bit more likely than nonwhites to say they are satisfied (92% vs. 86%, respectively) or very satisfied (67% vs. 59%) with their personal life. And men report slightly higher levels of satisfaction than do women.
| Satisfied | Very satisfied | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| % | % | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| $100,000+ | 96 | 76 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Republicans | 93 | 80 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Married | 93 | 74 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| College graduate only | 93 | 71 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Men | 92 | 67 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Postgraduate | 92 | 66 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Age 18-34 | 92 | 62 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| $40,000-<$100,000 | 92 | 66 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Whites | 92 | 67 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Age 55+ | 90 | 67 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Have children under 18 | 90 | 68 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Have no children under 18 | 89 | 64 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Some college | 89 | 63 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Independents | 89 | 60 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Age 35-54 | 87 | 63 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| High school or less | 87 | 62 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Women | 87 | 63 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Nonwhites | 86 | 59 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Unmarried | 86 | 56 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Democrats | 86 | 56 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| <$40,000 | 80 | 54 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| GALLUP, JAN. 2-15, 2020 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
It’s likely no coincidence that Americans’ heightened satisfaction with their personal life comes as confidence in the U.S. economy and their personal finances are also at long-term or record highs. That two in three Americans are very satisfied is reflective of this upbeat moment in time, and whether these sentiments carry through the coming decade will be something to watch.
The vast majority of Americans in all major demographic and political subgroups are content with the way their lives are going, but the additional question on how satisfied they are provides more insight. Some groups — wealthier households, Republicans, married people — report especially high levels of satisfaction, while lower-income Americans, Democrats and those who are unmarried report more tepid satisfaction.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/284285/new-high-americans-satisfied-personal-life.aspx
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Story 1: President Trumps Declares A National Emergency — Unleashes Full Power of United States Government — $50 Billion in New Funding To Deal With COVID-19 Pandemic — Videos
BREAKING: Donald Trump declares a national emergency
Trump declares National Emergency over coronavirus
Trump declares national emergency over coronavirus pandemic
Tucker: Regular life is all but suspended
Hannity: Major businesses working with Trump on coronavirus
Trump declares virus emergency; Pelosi announces aid deal
President Donald Trump on Friday declared the coronavirus pandemic a national emergency in order to free up more money and resources. But he denied any responsibility for delays in making testing available for the new virus, whose spread has roiled markets and disrupted the lives of everyday Americans.
Speaking from the Rose Garden, Trump said, “I am officially declaring a national emergency,” unleashing as much as $50 billion for state and local governments to respond to the outbreak.
Trump also announced a range of executive actions, including a new public-private partnership to expand coronavirus testing capabilities with drive-through locations, as his administration has come under fire for being too slow in making the test available.
Trump said, “I don’t take responsibility at all” for the slow rollout of testing.
Late Friday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced a deal with the Trump administration for an aid package from Congress that aims at direct relief to Americans — free testing, two weeks of sick pay for workers, enhanced unemployment benefits and bolstered food programs.
“We are proud to have reached an agreement with the Administration to resolve outstanding challenges, and now will soon pass the Families First Coronavirus Response Act,” Pelosi announced in a letter to colleagues. The House was poised to vote.
The crush of late-day activity capped a tumultuous week in Washington as the fast-moving virus shuttered the capital’s power centers, roiled financial markets and left ordinary Americans suddenly navigating through self-quarantines, school closures and a changed way of life.
The White House was under enormous pressure, dealing with the crisis on multiple fronts as it encroached ever closer on the president.
Trump has been known to flout public health advice — eagerly shaking hands during the more than hour-long afternoon event — but acknowledged he “most likely” will be tested now after having been in contact with several officials who have tested positive for the virus. “Fairly soon,” he said.
Still, Trump said officials don’t want people taking the test unless they have certain symptoms. “We don’t want people without symptoms to go and do that test,” Trump said, adding, “It’s totally unnecessary.”
Additionally, Trump took a number of other actions to bolster energy markets, ease the financial burden for Americans with student loans and give medical professionals additional “flexibility” in treating patients during the public health crisis.
“Through a very collective action and shared sacrifice, national determination, we will overcome the threat of the virus,” Trump said.
Central to the aid package from Congress, which builds on an emergency $8.3 billion measure approved last week, is the free testing and sick pay provisions.
Providing sick pay for workers is a crucial element of federal efforts to stop the rapid spread of the infection. Officials warn that the nation’s healthcare system could quickly become overwhelmed with gravely sick patients, as suddenly happened in Italy, one of the countries hardest hit by the virus.
The ability to ensure paychecks will keep flowing — for people who stay home as a preventative measure or because they’re feeling ill or caring for others — can help assure Americans they will not fall into financial hardship.
Hopes for swiftly passing the package seemed to be fading throughout the day as talks dragged on and Trump dismissed it during as “not doing enough.”
Ahead of Trump’s new conference, Pelosi delivered a statement from the speaker’s balcony at the Capitol imploring the Trump administration and congressional Republicans to “put families first” by backing the effort to provide Americans with relief.
“Our great nation has faced crisis before,” Pelosi said. “And every time, thanks to the courage and optimism of the American people, we have prevailed. Now, working together, we will once again prevail.”
Pelosi and Mnuchin engaged in days of around-the-clock negotiations with cross-town phone calls that continued even as Trump was speaking, both indicating earlier they were close to a deal.
They both promised a third coronavirus package will follow soon, with more aggressive steps to boost the U.S. economy, which economists fear has already slipped into recession.
The financial markets closed on an upswing after one of the worst nosedives since the 1987 downturn.
For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia.
The vast majority of people recover. According to the World Health Organization, people with mild illness recover in about two weeks, while those with more severe illness may take three to six weeks to be over it.
Trump said he was gratified that Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro tested negative for the virus, after the pair sat next to each other for an extended period of time last weekend at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club. A senior aide to Bolsonaro tested positive.
Trump’s daugher, Ivanka Trump, worked from home Friday after meeting with Australian Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton, now in isolation at a hospital after testing positive for the coronavirus. White House spokesman Judd Deere said she was evaluated by the White House Medical Unit and it was determined that because she was exhibiting no symptoms she does not need to self-quarantine.
Attorney General William Barr, who also met with the Australian official, was staying home Friday, though he “felt great and wasn’t showing any symptoms,” according to his spokeswoman Kerri Kupec.
Several lawmakers, including some close to Trump, have also been exposed to people who tested positive for the virus, and are self-isolating.
Among them are Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham and Rick Scott, who were at Trump’s club on the weekend. Graham announced Friday that he also met with the Australian official who has now tested positive. And GOP Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who had previously isolated himself after a potential exposure at a conservative conference in Washington, said Friday he met with a Spanish official and is now self-quarantining.
Hospitals welcomed Trump’s emergency declaration, which they and lawmakers in Congress had been requesting. It allows the Health and Human Services Department to temporarily waive certain federal rules that can make it harder for hospitals and other health care facilities to respond to an emergency.
The American Medical Association said the emergency declaration would help ensure America’s health care system has sufficient resources to properly respond to the ongoing outbreak.
Trump has struggled to show he’s on top of the crisis, after giving conflicting descriptions of what the U.S. is doing to combat the virus. On Wednesday he announced he would ban travel to the U.S. from Europe, and on Friday he suggested extending that to the U.K. because of a recent rise in cases.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, infectious disease chief at the National Institutes of Health, said more tests would be available over the next week, but warned, “We still have a long way to go.”
Fauci said Friday, “There will be many more cases. But we’ll take care of that, and ultimately, as the president said, this will end.”
___
Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani, Alan Fram, Lauran Neergaard, Martin Crutsinger, Laurie Kellman, Michael Balsamo and Kevin Freking in Washington and Bill Barrow in Atlanta contributed to this report.
https://apnews.com/83b0c8e168548fd453b0c177dd1f203a
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