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HE DID IT AGAIN! Trump Takes Out Top Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Commander in Iraq – General Siamand Mashhadani Killed in US Strike

Earlier this week Iranian backed militia killed two US soldiers and a female UK soldier at Taji military base in Iraq.

Last night the US responded killing at least 18 militia members in Iraq including Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander General Siamand Mashhadani.

The US launched strikes in Iraq against Iranian-backed militias after the militia’s attack earlier in the week killed two US and one UK soldier in Iraq.

According to Kurdistan News 24 US jets bombed the headquarters of the Popular Mobilization (hashd al-shaabi)in Jurf al-Sakhr (الصخر ), located about 60 kilometers southwest of #Baghdad. At least 18 Iranian-backed militia members were killed.

General Siamand Mashhadani, one of the top commanders in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards was killed in the attack.

The post HE DID IT AGAIN! Trump Takes Out Top Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Commander in Iraq – General Siamand Mashhadani Killed in US Strike appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

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Henry Olsen: Democrats Spent January on Impeachment, not Protecting America from Coronavirus

Democrats accusing President Donald Trump of mishandling the executive branch’s response to the coronavirus outbreak were focused on impeachment during the month of January instead of addressing the viral threat, said Henry Olsen, Washington Post columnist and author of The Working Class Republican: Ronald Reagan and the Return of Blue-Collar Conservatism.

Olsen offered his remarks while guest-hosting Thursday’s edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Tonight alongside Breitbart News Senior Editor-at-Large Rebecca Mansour.

“Why was no one on the Democratic side taking the leadership that they claim they want in order to educate the American people?” asked Olsen. “We spent the first month of this year dealing with impeachment 24-7-365. Do you think any of that time might have been better spent talking about what Americans could do to deal with this? Again, if it’s so blindingly obvious, whose fault is that?”
LISTEN:

Democrats’ impeachment push consumed governmental and public attention at the expense of responding to and informing Americans of the coronavirus outbreak, assessed Olsen.

Olsen continued, “It’s not President Trump who said, ‘Gee, I just would really like to be the first president impeached in 20 years.’ It’s the other side. So again, I think that there’s a lot of attempts to say, ‘Look at Trump! Look at Trump! Look at Trump!’ and I think Trump could have acted faster, and on the other hand, he had his mind on something that he didn’t want to be thinking about and it wasn’t something that was conducive to the life and health of Americans.”

“It seems like a million years ago, but we are five weeks away from when impeachment was finally resolved by the Senate, and we’re maybe four weeks away from people talking about [if] John Bolton [will] testify before the House,” recalled Olsen. “This is not anything that should be laid at the desk of President Trump. This is the priority of the other side that decided they would rather talk about this then talk about how to deal with the possibility of a pandemic, or to bring it up if they felt the president wasn’t paying attention to it, to bring it up in a rational way.”

Olsen noted Joe Biden’s criticisms of Trump regarding the coronavirus outbreak during a press conference held by the former vice president on Thursday.

“Joe Biden gave this speech today about presidential leadership,” Olsen stated, “Well, presidential leadership, if I listen to the experts, should have been done two months ago. Where was Joe Biden when his campaign was faltering in Iowa, was dying in the snows of New Hampshire? Maybe talking about a virus and a pandemic and how he was ahead of the curve and thinking about the lives and health of Americans, maybe that would have been a good thing to be talking about instead of talking about the things he’s been talking about.”

Olsen determined, “Either it wasn’t as blindingly obvious as we hear, or there’s a lot of bipartisan blame for overlooking the obvious. You can’t have it both ways. “

Olsen contrasted America’s situation with other parts of the world in the context of the coronavirus outbreak.

“Let’s look at Europe,” invited Olsen, “Everybody on the left wants us to be more like Europe. Is there single European country where they can say, ‘Gee, if only we had been more like the Germans, or only we had been more like the Swedes?’ No, there is nobody in the Western world [who handled this well]. There are Eastern semi-democracies like Singapore which did it well.

Olsen concluded, “We’ve got more collectivist democracies like South Korea that really shut down in a way that might have been pushed back on early, but certainly they didn’t catch it at the containment phase as early as has been recommended. There is nobody who did it, and if nobody did it right, maybe we shouldn’t spend a lot of time singling out one person for allegedly doing it wrong.”

Breitbart News Tonight broadcasts live on SiriusXM Patriot channel 125 weeknights from 9:00 p.m. to midnight Eastern or 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Pacific.

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Fact Check: No, Stephen King, Trump’s Coronavirus Team Is Not ‘All Male, All Old, and All White’

CLAIM: “Note that Trump’s coronavirus team is all male, all old, and all white.” – Stephen King, writer.

VERDICT: False.

Stephen King claimed Friday during President Donald Trump’s press conference in the Rose Garden at the White House that the administration’s coronavirus team was “all male, all old, and all white.”

Stephen King screenshot (Twitter)

Stephen King screenshot (Twitter)

King was immediately proven wrong by the presence, at the podium, of Dr. Deborah Birx, who is coordinating the White House coronavirus response; and Seema Verma, who is the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Critics pointed out his error:

Other celebrities also vented their rage at Trump as the stock market rallied, ending up nearly 2,000 points on the day.

The race and gender of Trump’s team has been something of an obsession for Hollywood and the media, rather than whether it was doing what was necessary, since the start of the coronavirus outbreak (and before most were taking it seriously outside the administration).

“Coronavirus task force another example of Trump administration’s lack of diversity,” CNN reported on Jan. 30, the day the World Health Organization declared a global health emergency, and the day before Trump banned travel with China — a decision that was criticized at the time but has since proved prescient.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He earned an A.B. in Social Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard College, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

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Coronavirus: Ventilator Manufacturers Not Ramping Up Production — Yet

American companies that manufacture ventilators are not yet ramping up production in anticipation of an influx of coronavirus patients — at least, not yet — but several told Breitbart News on Friday that they could do so quickly.

“There may be a surge in demand. It hasn’t happened yet,” said Eli Crawford, sales manager at Allied Health Care Products, Inc., in St. Louis.

Experts are worried that ventilators could be in short supply if patients start showing up in large numbers with respiratory problems. The Washington Post reported Friday that the country’s supply could be enough — or not:

In a report last month, the Center for Health Security at Johns Hopkins estimated the United States has a total of 160,000 ventilators available for patient care (with at least an additional 8,900 in the national stockpile).

A planning study run by the federal government in 2005 estimated that if the United States were struck with a moderate pandemic like the 1957 influenza, the country would need more than 64,000 ventilators. If we were struck with a severe pandemic like the 1918 Spanish flu, we would need more than 740,000 ventilators — many times more than are available.

There are relatively few companies that produce ventilators, but several are based in the U.S., and they can likely be produced locally if needed in an emergency.

Crawford noted that his company’s ventilators are manufactured in the U.S., with locally-sourced components, meaning the company is largely insulated from possible supply chain disruptions in China.

He also said that production could be ramped up quickly — provided employees were not under quarantine.

He added that there had been increased interest in the company’s products recently, but not new orders — yet.

A spokesperson for ResMed, another manufacturer, told Breitbart News: “We have seen a higher-than-average demand for ventilators in heavily affected areas such as China and South Korea. ResMed is confident it can meet current global demands.”

A GE Healthcare spokesperson said the company was preparing for anticipated demand: “GE has robust business continuity plans, and we are taking steps to increase our manufacturing capacity and output of equipment that is important in the diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19 patients, all while ensuring safe operations.”

Individuals cannot purchase ventilator devices directly without a prescription from a doctor.

“In the U.S., individuals can purchase them from home medical equipment (HME) providers or a ResMed hospital distributor partner once they have a doctor’s prescription,” the ResMed spokesperson said.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He earned an A.B. in Social Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard College, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

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‘Outrageous:’ Senate Dems Block Bill to Address Shortage of Respirators, Face Masks amid Coronavirus

Senate Democrats on Thursday obstructed the passage of bipartisan legislation that would save lives amid the novel coronavirus outbreak plaguing the U.S. by increasing access to “vitally-needed respirators,” Republicans said.

The bill would also “create certainty for mask manufacturers,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) noted via Twitter on Thursday. Stores across the United States are reportedly selling out of face masks and other personal care products.

Echoing comments made on Twitter in a statement issued Thursday, Sen. Deb Fischer (R-NE), one of the bill’s sponsors, declared:

The Senate had an opportunity to act quickly and pass my bipartisan bill to address the shortage of respirators facing our country during this coronavirus outbreak. As a result of the objection from Senate Democrats, the health and safety of our health care providers and first responders is at risk. I will continue to seek a way forward for this critical legislation.

The bill, introduced last week by Sens. Fischer and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), would amend the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act to address a shortage of respirators, the Nebraska Republican’s office explained.

“I’m on the floor now speaking on my bipartisan bill with [Sen. Sinema]. Our health care workers & first responders tell us they lack respirators. We must ensure they have access to the equipment they need to combat [coronavirus or COVID-19] cases,” Fischer wrote on Twitter on Thursday.

Democrats in the Senate, however, blocked the bipartisan legislation.

“[Fischer’s] bipartisan PREP Act would expand medical professionals’ access to vitally-needed respirators and create certainty for mask manufacturers,” McConnell wrote on Twitter Thursday. “It is not controversial. The Senate could have passed it today. But Senate Democrats refused to let it move forward.”

“Outrageous,” Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) wrote on Twitter Thursday in response to the Democrats move. “[Sen. Fischer’s] bill will save lives.”

After the Democrats blocker her bill, Fischer vowed to “continue looking for a way forward for this critical legislation to keep our people safe.”

Fischer’s office noted that the bipartisan bill would ensure that all respirators certified by the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) “are eligible for the same federal liability protections as other medical products, vaccines, and drugs,” adding:

Current law, via the PREP Act, allows the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to issue a declaration granting limited liability protection to manufacturers and distributors of certain countermeasures against diseases—which includes respirators—when the government calls up that equipment to be used in the event of an outbreak or epidemic. During these times, liability is taken on by the federal government. However, respirators which are overseen by NIOSH [National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health]—an office within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)—are not currently eligible for that protection.

Sens. Fischer and Sinema are members of the Senate Committee on Commerce, which has jurisdiction over the manufacturing of respirators and masks.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the novel coronavirus outbreak a global pandemic.

According to WHO, there were 125,048 confirmed cases and 4,613 fatalities worldwide as of early on Thursday.

In the U.S., the CDC said there were a total of 1,629 cases and 41 deaths across 46 states and Washington, DC, as of Thursday, with the vast majority (1,362) of cases still under investigation. The rest are travel-related (138) and the result of close-contact (129).

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Fights, Thefts, Arguments as Toilet Paper Mania Wipes Across Globe

Society is seemingly melting down all around us, and there’s a run on toilet paper. Seriously.

Why? Has toilet paper production been cut? No. Are we running out of trees? Nope.

Coronavirus is largely a respiratory ailment. But that hasn’t stopped a collective freakout over the bare necessity of having clean bottoms.

This morning, a man confronted an ABC 13 news crew outside an H-E-B store in Texas. Reporter Miya Shay was in the midst of a report when the man approached and shouted, “It’s your fault that people are freaking out here.”

“You all are the ones that are at fault,” he said.

“Uh, you’re the one here at 6 o’clock in the morning,” a member of the news crew responded.

After dropping several F-bombs, the man called the media crew “the scum of the earth.”

“I don’t even blame the Chinese. I don’t blame them at all. They did everything right. It’s you all that are hyping things up,” he said.

The man’s critique comes as store shelves all over the world are without toilet paper.

The sight is similar to many across America:

In Denmark, the pandemonium had the appearance of a Black Friday sale:

In Canada, a shopper told CTV he was grateful to get his hands on toilet paper and will potentially use it to barter for booze:

“I don’t know that we’re going to make it through this,” he said. “But now that I’ve got my stock of toilet paper, my family will be safe.

“When we go to the barter system, which will be very shortly, in my opinion, I think that my toilet paper is going to be able to be traded for alcohol, which I think is more important,” he added. He didn’t appear to be joking.

In Britain, women came to blows in a grocery store aisle:

“Get off me!” one shrieked. “I just want one package!”

Elsewhere in the U.K., shoppers stripped a pallet bare in just seconds, like piranhas on a cow’s carcass:

Two women argued over a package of toilet paper. Video shows an elderly woman attempted to slap the other:

In Australia, News.com.au posted a time-lapse video of a horde of shoppers descending on the toilet paper aisle:

In Hong Kong, “Knife-wielding thieves” stole 600 rolls from outside a supermarket:

7News reported the thievery came “amid shortages of basic necessities caused by the coronavirus outbreak.”

Perhaps this could all be avoided if we were to just take the advice of singer Sheryl Crow. The Guardian reported in 2007:

The singer made her declaration in an article for the Huffington Post to help promote her Stop Global Warming College Tour, an 11-date tour explaining the perils of global warming to Americans. Accompanied by Laurie David, activist and wife of comedian Larry David, the pair have been criss-crossing the country in a biodiesel-powered bus spreading the word on the bathroom hygiene of the future.

According to Crow’s new strictures, the average person should use “only one square per restroom visit, except, of course, on those pesky occasions where two to three could be required.” Further details were not offered as to the precise nature of these “pesky occasions,” though “we are an industrious enough people that we can make it work,” she insists.

Kyle Olson is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @KyleOlson4.

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Google-Funded Tech Lobbyist Resigns After Controversial Trump Death Tweet

Tech Freedom President Berin Szóka announced on Friday that he would step down as the organization’s president after wondering if it would be “poetic justice” if President Donald Trump were to die of the coronavirus.

Szoka will take an indefinite sabbatical to write a book on tech policy. Shane Tews, a member of TechFreedom’s board, will take over as president.

TechFeedom receives “substantial funding” from Google and is also a part of the search giant’s “Public Policy Fellowship” program, in which Google places interns at public policy organizations, including TechFreedom.

Szoka will step down after he reportedly suggested that it would be “poetic justice” if Trump were to die of the coronavirus.

He said, “Serious question: could there possibly [sic] any greater poetic justice in the universe than for Trump to die of the #CPACvirus?”

Szoka also said that Trump would “kill his own cult members first, just like Jonestown and Waco!”

Many lawmakers such as Reps. Doug Collins (R-GA), Matt Gaetz (R-FL), and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) went into self-quarantine after they were exposed to the coronavirus. The reports sparked fears that the president may have also been exposed to the coronavirus.

The remarks quickly drew controversy. Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) wondered how Google could “justify funding a political activist who cheers for the death of” President Trump.

Szoka later apologized, saying, “Earlier this week, I sent a thoughtless tweet making an inappropriate comment about the President that I deeply regret. I was wrong to tweet it and deleted it. Again, I apologize.”

Szoka notably spoke to New York Times editor Sarah Jeong in 2019 to combat the notion that social media companies are censoring conservative and alternative voices on the Internet.

In 2014, Jeong tweeted several anti-white statements. The former reporter likened “dumbass fucking white people” who share their opinions to “dogs pissing on fire hydrants.”

 Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) lambasted Jeong’s op-ed, charging that the New York Times editor sold out to big tech. Hawley noted that Szoka receives donations from Google.

“Don’t think the Left has sold out to Big Tech & their big money? Just read. @sarahjeong @nytopinion you might want to mention your key “expert” here is paid by Google. Big time,” Hawley wrote.

The senator also cited a recent NBC News investigation that found that many conservative and libertarian organizations, such as the R Street Institute, TechFreedom, the Cato Institute, and the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), receive donations from Google. Sen. Hawley has slammed these “supposedly libertarian” tech groups.

Hawley also contended that the left has come to “love” big corporations because many large corporations “agrees with the left” and advance the left’s progressive priorities.

Sean Moran is a congressional reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.

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DARPA’s Pandemic Prevention Platform Could Develop Therapeutic “Shield” To Fight Covid-19 By Summer

DARPA’s Pandemic Prevention Platform Could Develop Therapeutic "Shield" To Fight Covid-19 By Summer

The Pentagon’s most secretive military research department is developing a therapeutic "shield" that could provide a new way to boost American’s immunity to Covid-19, reported DefenseOne. 

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Pandemic Prevention Platform (PPP) is not in search of a vaccine against the fast-spreading virus that is now considered a pandemic, but rather is developing an advanced therapy that seeks to boost the immune system of people until an actual vaccine is developed. The result could prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed by sick people. 

DARPA scientists working on PPP have been sequencing the B cells of a Covid-19 patient who has recovered. B cells, also known as B lymphocytes, are a type of white blood cell that produces antibodies that aid the immune system in its fight to fend off an invading microorganism.

"We are able to take a patient that has recovered from this pathogen [Covid-19], for example, and we are able to sequence many of their B cells. So those cells that make those antibodies that help protect you against those pathogens? We are now able to sequence all of those because of next-generation sequencing approaches," Dr. Amy Jenkins, manager of PPP, told DefenseOne. 

If scientists can successfully sequence the B cells, they could create a new therapy with a "manufacturing timeline" in a little over three months, Jenkins said. It would buy some time, considering a proven vaccine is 12-18 months away. 


Tyler Durden

Fri, 03/13/2020 – 18:25

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Executive Order By Illinois Mayor Could Include Banning Sale Of Firearms, Ammunition And Alcohol

Exactly what does that have to do with fighting the virus?

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (WAND) – Champaign Mayor Deborah Frank Feinen has issued an executive order declaring an emergency in the city.

City officials said the emergency is related to the COVID-19, which is anticipated to cause an impact on the health of community members. Champaign Municipal Code allows the mayor to declare an emergency for a limited time.

Included in the executive order are ordinances that would give the city extraordinary powers to the Mayor.

Keep reading…

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