GOP’s Slimmed-Down Virus Bill Scuttled by Senate Democrats

Senate Democrats scuttled a scaled-back GOP coronavirus rescue package on Thursday, saying the measure shortchanged too many pressing needs as the pandemic continues its assault on the country.

The mostly party-line vote capped weeks of wrangling over a fifth relief bill that all sides say they want but are unable to deliver. The bipartisan spirit that powered earlier aid measures has given way to election-season political combat and name-calling. The 52-47 vote fell well short of what was needed to overcome a filibuster and seems likely to end hopes for coronavirus relief before the November election.

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Commentary: Environmentalists Destroyed California’s Forests

Millions of acres of California forest have been blackened by wildfires this summer, leading to the usual angry denunciations from the usual quarters about climate change. But in 1999, the Associated Press reported that forestry experts had long agreed that “clearing undergrowth would save trees,” and that “years of aggressive firefighting have allowed brush to flourish that would have been cleared away by wildfires.” But very little was done. And now fires of unprecedented size are raging across the Western United States.

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AG Barr Says There ‘Could Be’ More Charges in Durham Probe

Attorney General William Barr said Wednesday that more charges are possible in the investigation led by John Durham, the U.S. attorney investigating the origins of the Trump-Russia probe.

Barr was asked about the status of the probe during an interview with NBC News. He declined to say whether Durham, the U.S. attorney for Connecticut, is nearing the end of the probe, which began in April 2018.

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Meshawn Maddock Commentary: Don’t Let Joe Biden Give the Whole Country a Taste of Whitmer’s Bitter Authoritarian Medicine

Workers and business owners across the state are still waiting to learn what fate Governor Gretchen Whitmer has in store for them.

Of course, businesses that wield political clout and make significant contributions to Whitmer’s budget — say, a crowded Detroit casino — have no such uncertainty to worry about. They’re allowed to open.

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Positive COVID-19 Cases Drop in No-Lockdown Sweden, Marking the Lowest Rate Since the Pandemic Began

Sweden’s positive coronavirus cases dropped after the country carried out a record number of COVID-19 tests recently, Reuters reported Tuesday, citing Swedish health officials.
The country saw only 1,300 positive cases out of 120,000 tests last week, representing a 1.2% positive rate, Sweden’s health agency said Tuesday, according to the Reuters report. The low number of cases is the lowest Sweden has seen since the pandemic, which originated in China, first emerged in Europe, the report noted.

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John Fredericks Commentary: Fauci Debunks Woodward Hit on Trump

Here we go again. Another tell-all book trashing President Trump. What else is new?

The newest snooze-rag comes from longtime lefty WAPO-Bezos lackey Bob Woodward, of Watergate deep-throat fame. In what the mainstream legacy fake news media gushed over, Woodward says the President characterized the coronavirus as “deadly” and “dangerous” — while telling Americans it was nothing to be concerned about. Woodward writes that President Trump told him the Covid-19 virus was “more deadly than even your strenuous flus,” and that he repeatedly played it down publicly.

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Joe Biden Claims 6,000 Military Members Dead From COVID, but the Real Number Is Seven

Democratic 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden said Wednesday that more than 6,000 military members have died from coronavirus, Department of Defense (DOD) statistics show the real number is just seven deaths.

While speaking in Michigan on Wednesday, Biden significantly overstated both the number of COVID infections in the military, as well as the number of COVID deaths.

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United States Has Revoked Over 1,000 Visas for ‘Security Risks’ from China

Since June, over 1,000 Chinese nationals located in the United States have had their visas revoked after being labeled national security risks, as reported by CNN.
The State Department released a statement on Wednesday addressing the matter, revealing that the initiative had specifically targeted “graduate students and research scholars” at various American universities who had been determined to be “high-risk,” and were thus removed from the country.

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California Fire That Killed Three Threatens Thousands of Homes

A Northern California wildfire threatened thousands of homes Thursday after winds whipped it into a monster that incinerated houses in a small mountain community and killed at least three people.

Several other people have been critically burned and hundreds, if not thousands, of homes and other buildings are believed to have been damaged or destroyed by the fire in the foothills of the northern Sierra Nevada, authorities said.

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University of Michigan Resident Advisers, Cafeteria Workers Join Strike

The resident assistants at University of Michigan have joined protests over the school’s coronavirus regulations, announcing earlier this week that they would be striking.

More than 100 residential advisers voted to strike in demand of increased coronavirus protections, hazard pay and additional communication about coronavirus statistics at the school, according to reporting by The Michigan Daily, the student newspaper for the University of Michigan. The strike began Wednesday morning and mostly impacts mailroom operations and lock-out services. Participating resident assistants will also not perform duty shifts, although they will informally enforce COVID-19 safety regulations.

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