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The Coronavirus - a virus from eating bats, an accident or something sinister gone wrong?


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China hints at denying Americans life-saving coronavirus drugs: https://www.foxnews.com/world/chinese-deny-americans-coronavirus-drugs

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Now that the number of new people infected with the coronavirus in China is slowing down, the country's Communist Party is ratcheting up threats against the West, with a particularly nasty warning about access to life-saving drugs aimed at the United States.

In an article in Xinhua, the state-run media agency that's largely considered the mouthpiece of the party, Beijing bragged about its handling of COVID-19, a virus that originated in the city of Wuhan and has spread quickly around the world, killing nearly 5,000 people and infecting thousands more. The article also claimed that China could impose pharmaceutical export controls which would plunge America into "the mighty sea of coronavirus."

The disturbing threats made during a global pandemic as well as the scary consequences if that threat becomes real highlight just how tight China's grip is on the global supply chain. Already, the Food and Drug Administration has announced the first drug shortage related to the coronavirus. Though it did not disclose which drug was in short supply, the FDA did say it could not access enough raw components needed because they are made in China.

That doesn't come as a surprise to Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla, who told Fox News on Thursday that America is "dangerously reliant" on China for the production of critical goods, including parts for technologies needed to fight COVID-19.

....

lol. Now that is has been proven that Russia had nothing to do with the manipulating the 2016 elections the MSM, particularly Fox News,  has to find another boogeyman/enemy to scare the American public.  China is now on the block.

 

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COVID-19 Is Not a Good Reason to Enact a Permanent Federal Paid-Leave Entitlement: https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/03/covid-19-is-not-a-good-reason-to-enact-a-permanent-federal-paid-leave-entitlement/

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Many progressives and conservatives have long supported a federal paid-leave policy. And the intense concern brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic may make it harder for an already-too-tempted Trump administration to resist the large number of calls for this new entitlement — at least as it would apply to workers who may become sick or must stay home to care for family members. As a Washington Post reporter recently worried, the absence of such a policy “could make a widespread coronavirus outbreak here worse than it would be in a comparable country that takes sick leave seriously.”

 

It’s one thing to support temporary provision of sick leave paid for by the government when we face a public-health crisis. During emergencies, taxpayers, workers, employers, and Americans in general may be willing to bear a short-term burden that would be unacceptable during normal times. (This explains why even private companies such as Uber are temporarily offering paid leave to their drivers.) But it would be deeply misguided to use COVID-19 as an excuse for a permanent policy change.

Panic is no friend to sound policymaking. If Congress rushes through a universal paid-leave plan, it could fail to target those people who actually lack such a benefit from their employers — a smaller number of workers than many paid-leave advocates acknowledge — and overwhelmingly benefit those companies that already provide paid leave. And if it permanently adopts such a measure, many employers will reduce their privately supplied coverage in response. Such crowding-out is what has already happened in states where paid-family-leave programs were adopted, with many companies that once voluntarily provided paid leave as part of their workers’ employment packages now requiring employees to first tap all the available taxpayer-provided benefits, which in turn has produced larger-than-expected budgetary costs for state governments.

Of more immediate concern, several features of the various current proposals out there make them poorly suited to help control the spread of the coronavirus. For instance, the Healthy Families Act (HFA) proposed by Senator Patty Murray (D., Wash.) and Representative Rosa DeLauro (D., Conn.) would require “all employers to allow workers to accrue seven days of paid sick leave and to provide an additional 14 days available immediately in the event of any public health emergency, including the current coronavirus crisis.” That sounds good in theory, but symptoms manifest themselves between two days and two weeks after contraction of the virus, a period of time during which asymptomatic carriers will not take leave and may unknowingly spread the disease. This is particularly important in the absence of widely available testing for those who fear they may have been infected.

Of course, it’s true that when workers without paid leave don’t work, they aren’t paid, so they may be reluctant to stay home even if they start to exhibit symptoms. It’s also true that if more workers had paid sick leave, fewer sick workers would show up to work and fewer people would become infected. Considered in isolation, this outcome is, of course, good. But it cannot be considered in isolation.

Obliging companies to permanently provide paid sick leave to workers who don’t currently have it would impose eventual reductions on their take-home pay. The provision of such benefits isn’t costless. We can be sure that in the long run — after the coronavirus fades from the headlines — mandated paid leave would inflict a pricey and permanent toll on workers who would prefer to receive more of their compensation as take-home pay and less as paid leave. Such workers, being disproportionately low-income, would be the least able to bear even marginal reductions in take-home pay.

This negative effect would exist even if leave benefits were paid for through the government and financed with a payroll tax split between employers and employees, as they would be in the Family and Medical Insurance Leave (FAMILY) Act also proposed by DeLauro and Murray (and in other such proposals). Payroll taxes are highly regressive, and existing ones already impose a heavy burden on a majority of Americans. Unfortunately, the requirement that part of the tax be paid by employers is a legalistic formality: Economics dictates that the cost of this part of the tax, too, will over time fall on workers in the form of lower wages.

Yet many support the FAMILY Act, probably because, like the HFA, it’s been around as a proposal for years. As currently designed, it would provide payments for up to three months at a time to eligible people who, among other things, take leave from work because they have serious health conditions or need to care for immediate-family members who are seriously ill. But it would do little to encourage coronavirus-related leave.

Why? For one thing, it does not include a requirement that all employers extend paid leave. For another, it does not provide job protection to workers who don’t already qualify for the similarly titled Family Medical Leave Act of 1993 (and who must work mostly full-time for firms with over 50 employees). That means it wouldn’t cover many workers who currently don’t have paid leave. For a third, it would almost certainly take a weeks-long or months-long application process before benefits could start being paid out. That is what’s happening in Washington state, where, only a few weeks into the adoption of a new paid-leave program, the huge volume of applications has led to wait times of at least a month to process claims — a month during which workers without enough savings are unlikely to forgo work and the vital income it provides.

The spread of coronavirus is a serious problem, and it requires a serious policy response. We must not further enfeeble American workers by using it as an excuse to enact permanent government mandates and entitlements that risk unleashing unintended negative consequences.

Agreed. Fear frequently results in bad long-term decisions.

 

 

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On 3/12/2020 at 12:38 PM, Impartial_Observer said:

Corona in cans is my go to at the beach, should be a win/win!

image.png.f11175972dc44f11900fb4e356faca64.png

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I’m in Clearwater Beach, just left Publix, plenty of water, plenty of TP. I didn’t see any hand sanitizer but I didn’t really look. We walked around last night, while there were certainly people out and about, it was far from packed like you would expect. Friend of mine got tickets to Clearwater/St Pete for 21.40 yesterday on Spirit I believe out of Indy, bag was only 30 bucks. The sun is hot, the water is fine, why not take advantage. I think we’re going to plan a long weekend down here again next month.

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America Doesn't Have Enough Hospital Beds To Fight the Coronavirus. Protectionist Health Care Regulations Are One Reason Why.: https://reason.com/2020/03/13/america-doesnt-have-enough-hospital-beds-to-fight-the-coronavirus-certificate-of-need-laws-are-one-reason-why/

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By now, it's fairly obvious that federal bureaucrats slowed America's response to the new coronavirus outbreak. As university researchers and private-sector labs tried to develop tests that might have given health care providers a jump start on containing the virus, they were repeatedly stymied by the Centers for Disease Control and Food and Drug Administration.

As the focus shifts from testing to treating, yet more red tape is poised to cause yet more problems.

The most acute of those problems: America simply doesn't have enough hospital beds to handle the expected influx of patients suffering from COVID-19. In many places, that shortage of beds is the result of state-level regulations—known as "certificate of need" laws, or CON laws—that artificially limit the supply of medical equipment. Those laws help politically powerful hospital chains limit regional competition and inflate health care costs, but they also create shortages of medical equipment that could prove disastrous during a pandemic.

Certificate of need laws are on the books in 35 states, but they differ from place to place. Their stated purpose is to keep hospitals from overspending, and thus from having to charge higher prices to make up for unnecessary outlays of capital costs. But in practice, they mean hospitals must get a state agency's permission before offering new services or installing a new medical technology. Depending on the state, everything from the number of hospital beds to the installation of a new MRI machine could be subject to CON review.

"There have been artificially imposed restrictions on the number of beds, ventilators, and facilities in general that can exist. Some states might find themselves having a real problem," says Jeffrey Singer, a medical doctor and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. (Singer is also a contributor to Reason Foundation, which publishes this website.)

In 28 states, hospitals must get state regulators' permission before adding beds, according to data collected by researchers at the Mercatus Center, a think tank at George Mason University. Bed space in nursing homes and long-term care facilities are subject to CON regulations in 34 states. CON laws limit long-term acute care services—the sort of thing that many coronavirus victims may need as they recover—in 30 states. Specific medical equipment, such as ventilators, could be subject to CON laws covering the purchases of new devices.

Those laws are one reason why America has fewer hospital beds than most other developed countries.

The United States has only 2.8 hospital beds per 1,000 people, according to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. That's even less than the 3.2 hospital beds per 1,000 people in Italy, where the COVID-19 outbreak has been particularly devastating. In China, the figure is 4.3 beds per thousand people, and South Korea (whose response to the virus seems to have been the most effective so far) has a whopping 12.3 beds for every thousand people.

After the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China, a new hospital with 1,000 beds was built in less than two weeks. It would be nearly impossible to duplicate that feat in America, says Singer—not because America lacks China's top-down authoritarian structure, but because regulations (including CON laws) routinely prioritize protectionism over health. In recent years, a CON board in Virginia has blocked a hospital from building a needed neonatal intensive care unit because a nearby hospital complained about unwanted competition. A similar board in Michigan tried to restrict cancer treatments for reasons that had nothing to do with medical efficacy or patient safety.

Even when there isn't a dangerous virus on the loose, CON laws are bad for patients. In 2016, researchers at the Mercatus Center found that hospitals in states with CON laws have higher mortality rates than hospitals in non-CON states. The average 30-day mortality rate for patients with pneumonia, heart failure, and heart attacks in states with CON laws is 2.5 to 5 percent higher even after demographic factors are taken out of the equation.

Singer says governors and state lawmakers should suspend any CON laws that might limit hospitals' ability to respond to the COVID-19 outbreak. It's likely too late to quickly expand the number of hospital beds available in the United States, but removing these impediments to expanding medical facilities should be a no-brainer.

After the coronavirus crisis has passed, those suspensions should be made permanent, so the market can adequately prepare for future pandemics without running up against protectionist rules.

"Let's learn from this," Singer says, "and not make this mistake again."

Common sense.  Too bad we the people have given all levels of government so much power that corruption/cronyism/protectionism like this is rampant.

 

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Pretty long article, but broken up into several components that can be individually digested ... https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca.   Probably take with a grain of salt as the piece is not specifically a news article and the author is an engineer, not a medical professional; however, I find the non-medical aspects, tracking the numbers and the data elements, to be of interest.  Fairly informative items that are typically not reported in most places as they are more of a behind-the-scenes kinds of things that planners/logicians might find of interest.

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5 hours ago, foxbat said:

Pretty long article, but broken up into several components that can be individually digested ... https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca.   Probably take with a grain of salt as the piece is not specifically a news article and the author is an engineer, not a medical professional; however, I find the non-medical aspects, tracking the numbers and the data elements, to be of interest.  Fairly informative items that are typically not reported in most places as they are more of a behind-the-scenes kinds of things that planners/logicians might find of interest.

The difficulty in tracking this is that due to lack of testing kits/supplies, only really sick people will be tested. So, a number of cases, because of mild symptoms, will go untested. There will also be some that will still not be tested and will suffer significantly. The reaction to this outbreak will forever be labeled as a HUGE over reaction; and I am afraid the reality is that we did not act soon enough; primarily when it comes to being ready to test people, but also being ready to treat a large number of cases. 

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5 minutes ago, Irishman said:

The difficulty in tracking this is that due to lack of testing kits/supplies, only really sick people will be tested. So, a number of cases, because of mild symptoms, will go untested. There will also be some that will still not be tested and will suffer significantly. The reaction to this outbreak will forever be labeled as a HUGE over reaction; and I am afraid the reality is that we did not act soon enough; primarily when it comes to being ready to test people, but also being ready to treat a large number of cases. 

I agree.  I watched a couple of special reports last night including one with Richard Engle who usually does war/fighting reporting right in harm's way.  Also saw another report earlier in the week where someone was talking about testing issues and mentioned that, at that time, South Korea was testing about 10,000 people daily whereas, at that point, the US has only tested about 10,000 total.  That number now is almost up to 20,000 daily and, South Korea even has this "perfected" down to doing it as "drive through" testing.  The South Korea COVID progression looks different than, for example, Spain and Italy, and unfortunately the NYC charting and some suggestion seems to be tied to the testing.  In a couple of special reports that I watched, there was focus on the issue of, without the testing, it makes it harder to figure out various responses and thus, like you mentioned, there may well be an over-reaction at this point.  However, in the absence of broader understanding/testing, direct options are a bit more limited.  Here are a couple of articles highlighting South Korea's testing approach.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-51836898'

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/13/815441078/south-koreas-drive-through-testing-for-coronavirus-is-fast-and-free

https://www.propublica.org/article/how-south-korea-scaled-coronavirus-testing-while-the-us-fell-dangerously-behind 

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10 minutes ago, foxbat said:

I agree.  I watched a couple of special reports last night including one with Richard Engle who usually does war/fighting reporting right in harm's way.  Also saw another report earlier in the week where someone was talking about testing issues and mentioned that, at that time, South Korea was testing about 10,000 people daily whereas, at that point, the US has only tested about 10,000 total.  That number now is almost up to 20,000 daily and, South Korea even has this "perfected" down to doing it as "drive through" testing.  The South Korea COVID progression looks different than, for example, Spain and Italy, and unfortunately the NYC charting and some suggestion seems to be tied to the testing.  In a couple of special reports that I watched, there was focus on the issue of, without the testing, it makes it harder to figure out various responses and thus, like you mentioned, there may well be an over-reaction at this point.  However, in the absence of broader understanding/testing, direct options are a bit more limited.  Here are a couple of articles highlighting South Korea's testing approach.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-51836898'

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/13/815441078/south-koreas-drive-through-testing-for-coronavirus-is-fast-and-free

https://www.propublica.org/article/how-south-korea-scaled-coronavirus-testing-while-the-us-fell-dangerously-behind 

I saw a quote from a doctor on facebook, who was critical of people who only felt minor symptoms coming in to look at testing. I thought, ummmmmmm, isn't that what we want to have happen? I know with a few health issues that have come up, I want to know all details beyond a shadow of a doubt. Besides that, the more people we test, the better idea we have of what we are dealing with. 

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Trump Gets What He Wants as Federal Reserve Interest Rate Target Drops to Zero: https://reason.com/2020/03/15/trump-gets-what-he-wants-as-federal-reserve-interest-rate-target-drops-to-zero/

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The Federal Reserve announced Sunday afternoon that it will shift its target interest rate to the zero to 0.25 range, as well as launching a new shades-of-2008 phase of "quantitative easing"—injecting $700 billion of new money into the economy via buying financial assets.

The idea, along with their announcement earlier this week of over a trillion of rotating repo loans to financial institutions with a wide variety of bonds for collateral, is intended to keep the financial end of the economy rolling as other sectors are brought to a halt by COVID-19 safety measures.

A wide variety of financial instruments are being accepted at the discount window for such loans from the Fed, including everything from Treasury bonds to state and city obligations to commercial, industrial, and agricultural loans to corporate bonds to commercial real estate and consumer loans.

In addition, as CNBC reports:

The Fed also cut reserve requirement ratios for thousands of banks to zero [and] said the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, the European Central Bank, the Federal Reserve, and the Swiss National Bank took action to enhance dollar liquidity around the world through existing dollar swap arrangements…The actions by the Fed appeared to be the largest single day set of moves the bank had ever taken…The quantitative easing will take the form of $500 billion of Treasurys and $200 billion of agency-backed mortgage securities. The Fed said the purchases will begin Monday with a $40 billion installment.

Yahoo! Finance gives some context, noting that:

the Fed said the financial institutions should feel comfortable tapping into the discount window as a tool for addressing "potential funding pressures." In the past, banks have been hesitant to tap into the direct lines of funding because of the stigma associated with relying on the Fed for emergency funds….The Fed also said firms could use their capital and liquidity buffers to lend, and reduced reserve requirement ratios to zero percent effective on March 26.

President Donald Trump had been jawboning and hectoring Fed chief Jerome Powell to make this drastic interest rate move for a long time to boost "his" economy in an election year.

But under current conditions, the move has a high risk of merely extending unnatural bubbles in certain asset values that will eventually crash, leaving monetary policy powerless to help. It has the additional risk of seeding high overall short-term price inflation of the sort we haven't seen in America in over three decades. The last time we've seen an annual price inflation rate over 5 percent, for example, was 1990.

The Fed says it will likely keep to these policies until it feels the economy is on the other end of the COVID-19 crisis.

Keep buying Gold.  And seeds.

 

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11 minutes ago, Muda69 said:

Mitigating short term uncertainty and hardship for almost future economic disaster.  And of course it will affect our children and grandchildren more than us.  'Tis the American Way.

Proud to do my part in upholding the American Way. Traditions are important.

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https://www.indystar.com/story/news/health/2020/03/16/indiana-coronavirus-updates-covid-19-news/5024713002/

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Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb announced on Monday that all restaurants, bars and nightclubs must close to in-person customers, and may only offer take-out and delivery through the end of the month. Indiana residents will also need to adhere to CDC standards and limit gatherings to 50 people or fewer.

....

Nice way to put some small establishments out of business.  

Slabby's Food & Freedom, we hardly knew ya..........................

 

Edited by Muda69
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3 hours ago, Bobref said:

Under the current circumstances, I’m for anything that will stave off a recession.

Market response doesn't seem to be too cheery.  Maybe the implementation will be better?  In any case, there will be some who will come out of a fed rate drop in good shape ... a few of them live or have jobs in DC.  I'm just not sure that it will be the ones who actually need it.

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UK's sewage system in danger of gridlock from toilet paper substitutes: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/16/uks-sewage-system-in-danger-of-gridlock-from-toilet-paper-substitutes-coronavirus

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Consumers have been warned of the dangers of substituting kitchen roll and wet wipes for toilet paper which – if flushed down the loo – could overwhelm the UK’s sewers.

Innocent consumer substitutions due to shortages caused by fears about the spread of coronovirus could create serious consequences which are critical to society and life, according to leading supply chain academic Prof Richard Wilding.

The warning comes amid panic buying sweeping UK supermarkets, which has resulted in some people trying to make a massive profit by selling toilet roll and hand sanitiser online.

....

During the widespread panic buying of toilet paper and other tissue products it is unlikely that consumers are considering the consequences of using alternative products for tasks they were not designed for, says Wilding.

The UK’s largest water and wastewater service, Thames Water, is already warning customers not to “feed” so-called fatbergs – formed from a build-up of fat and non-biodegradable matter – by using kitchen towel and wet wipes as a substitute for toilet paper and flushing them down the loo. It says the only things that should be flushed are the 3Ps: poo, pee and (toilet) paper.

Wilding, a professor of supply chain strategy at Cranfield School of Management, said: “We are seeing shortages of toilet paper but worryingly also shortages of paper kitchen towels and industrial paper towel used, for example, in garages and workshops and other wipe products.

“If kitchen towels, baby wipes or industrial papers are used as a replacement for toilet paper, our sewage systems could readily become blocked with the resulting chaos and increased health risks associated with this. Ultimately, water companies may not have the infrastructure and equipment to unblock the sewer system.”

...

Thames Water clears about 75,000 blockages from its network of sewers each year, at a cost of £18m. The bulk is caused by cooking fats and oils, which congeal in the sewers forming a thick layer around the pipe. This prevents sewage from flowing and can cause it to back up, especially when products containing plastic mix with the fat and set hard, forming fatbergs.

A Thames Water spokesperson said: “Fatbergs are a vivid reminder to us all that out of sight is not gone for ever. They are like monsters from the deep, lurking and slowly growing under our feet. Our advice is always to bin your fat and wipes, and don’t feed the fatberg.”

 

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From Pocket ...

https://blog.getpocket.com/2020/03/corona-virus-collection/

FTBlog:

Looking for reliable facts and context on coronavirus? Stay informed with this curated guide to the global outbreak. Updated 3/15/20

For the latest news and data from affected countries, the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security offers daily recaps with case counts, travel restrictions, and more. The World Health Organization has useful guides on protecting yourself and how to tell fact from myth.

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The Cronyism Buried in the Latest Coronavirus Relief Bill: https://reason.com/2020/03/16/coronavirus-cronyism/

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A much-discussed coronavirus aid package hung in limbo today as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D–Calif.) and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin tried to reach a bipartisan consensus on measures that are meant to provide relief amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Although the House passed the bill on Saturday morning, Pelosi and Mnuchin returned to hammer out a series of technical corrections.

Its current iteration includes free coronavirus testing, additional funding for food security initiatives, bolstered unemployment insurance, and a temporary paid leave program. Under the latter provision, those who have coronavirus, who are acting as caretakers for one or more family members with coronavirus, who are quarantined, or whose schedules have been scrambled by widespread school closures are entitled to two weeks of full paid sick leave and three months of paid medical leave, where workers would collect no less than two-thirds of their wages. The government would reimburse the cost with new tax credits.

But there's a catch: The text currently exempts businesses with more than 500 employees from having to comply—a possible example of corporate cronyism, likely introduced by Mnuchin.

In these cases, readers might typically expect to see an exemption laid out for small businesses, who are more likely to crumble under the weight of a staff reduction. While the legislation allows the Labor Department to exempt companies with less than 50 employees if paid leave "would jeopardize the viability of the business as a going concern," it is not a guarantee.

So if the government's priority is curbing the pandemic, why are large companies—which employ millions of Americans and have more personnel to weather temporary absences—allowed to pass?

When Vice President Mike Pence was asked that question, he declined to answer. One potential explanation: The Trump administration is granting a favor to suffering mega-industries, for which Mnuchin has also floated giving a bailout.

Democrats are no strangers to inserting incongruous measures of their own. Just last week, an earlier version of Pelosi's coronavirus appropriations bill contained a permanent paid family leave program, including for victims of stalking. One can't be sure what that has to do with combating coronavirus.

Typical big government.

 

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