Unlike the Phase 3 of the fiscal stimulus, which represented $2.2 trillion in bailout aid for America’s small and medium business, and which passed through Congress without a glitch if with some delays, the next – Phase 4 – stimulus sought by Republicans may face far greater hurdles.

According to Reuters, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Wednesday that $250 billion in coronavirus relief for small businesses desired by Republicans would not pass the House of Representatives on its own under current procedures, which require a unanimous vote of those present while most of Congress is out of town.

The reason why the aid would not get unanimous Democratic support is because Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer are demanding that more aid for hospitals, local governments and food assistance be added to the small business aid proposal that the Trump administration and Republicans want passed this week.

Pelosi was speaking in an interview with National Public Radio. Asked if there are limits on spending for coronavirus relief, she said "No, we have to spend what we need."

Which leaves republicans with two options: delay the passage of the next stimulus indefinitely, even though according to many the current $350 billion allocated to the PPP small business rescue program will be insufficient, or concede to Democrats and add far more pork to the bill.

Considering that according to Goldman, the US deficit will soar to 18% of GDP in 2020…

… and public US debt will hit 99% by the end of FY2020 and to 108% of GDP by 2023 from the current level of 79%…

… one can ask "what difference does it make?" After all, going forward the Fed will likely have to monetize all debt in perpetuity or risk losing control of long-term rates. In fact, one can probably also ask: why should anyone pay taxes ever again?

Via Mass Private I,

Historically speaking, it is hard for Americans to see how their liberties have been taken away. With the COVID-19 pandemic spreading across the country, hopefully that will no longer be the case.

In Crowley, Louisiana police are using “Purge” sirens to warn people to stay indoors during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In an effort to alert residents to the parish-wide curfew in Acadia Parish, Crowley Police rode around town broadcasting an alarm signal at 9:00 last night, but it’s not what anyone expected. In a video provided to KATC, the audible alarm from Crowley Police is actually the alarm sound from the successful film franchise The Purge.

Crowley Police will ticket people for going outside without documentation.

“After several days of this, the police department says they will begin giving out citations to violators. If you are headed to work or leaving work, you must have documentation from your employer.”

In Louisville, Kentucky a judge has ordered that people who ignore stay-at-home orders to wear GPS ankle bracelets.

“A judge has ordered one resident to stay at home after refusing to self-quarantine. CNN affiliate WDRB reports that the person, identified as D.L. in the court order, is living with someone who has tested positive for the illness and another person who is a presumptive case, according to an affidavit from Dr. Sarah Moyer, director of the health department.”

In Vermont, the Attorney General’s Office ordered police to stop setting up checkpoints and roadblocks to detain motorists who do not comply with stay-at-home orders. In Maine, a Franklin County Sheriff said they will not arrest motorists who do not comply with stay-at-home orders, “this is not Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia where you are asked for your papers.”

In Massachusetts and Alabama the government is giving law enforcement the names of anyone suspected of having COVID-19.

In Rhode Island, the state police are stopping people with New York state license plates and the National Guard is going door-to-door looking for New York state residents. In New York City the mayor has authorized the NYPD to fine people $500.00 for not observing social distancing.

In New Jersey, the Bergen County DA’s Office ordered police to stop requiring suspected COVID-19 patients to post signs on their homes. Police in Pennsylvania fined a woman $200.00 for taking a drive, and in Baltimore, Maryland the National Guard is being used to enforce COVID-19 curfews.

In Florida, Delaware, and Texas police are authorized to stop and question out-of state motorists. In Chicago, the mayor has threatened to arrest people for violating stay-at-home orders. Police in Rio Grande Valley are setting up roadblocks and 24/7 patrols to fine people for ignoring stay-at-home orders, while police in Detroit use video surveillance planes to fine people $1,000 and up to six months in jail for not observing social distancing. (To find out about Baltimore police surveillance airplanes, click here.)

In Brighton, Colorado a father was arrested for playing T-ball in a park with his 6-year-old daughter and wife because he did not observe social-distancing.

She’s like, ‘Daddy, I don’t want you to get arrested.’ At this point I’m thinking, ‘There’s no way they’re going to arrest me, this is insane.’ I’m telling her, ‘Don’t worry, Daddy’s not going to get arrested. I’ve done nothing wrong. Don’t worry about it,’ and then they arrest me.

As AP News warned, governors are using COVID-19 to further their political ambitions and help them win re-election.

“Now governors have been finding a way to introduce themselves, both politically and personally. Society won’t be the same for a long time after this, and that includes our politics,” Republican strategist John Weaver said. “I think you’ll see a rise of governors at the top of everyone’s mind when we get to that point in four years, there’s no doubt about it.”

If ever there was a reason to question political motives during COVID-19, I give you Sleepy Hollow.  The same village made famous for people being afraid of a headless horseman are now petrified of leaf blowers.

The Village of Sleepy Hollow is temporarily banning the use of leaf blowers to make sure residents are safe during the coronavirus pandemic. Village officials say since the virus is a respiratory condition, having things blown into the air could create a hazmat situation.

Talking about absurd COVID-19 responses,  the U.S. Department of Justice wants to give U.S. law enforcement the power to detain people indefinitely during an emergency.

The Justice Department has quietly asked Congress for the ability to ask chief judges to detain people indefinitely without trial during emergencies — part of a push for new powers that comes as the novel coronavirus spreads throughout the United States.

The Executive Director of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) is “terrified” that police could hold people indefinitely for ignoring stay-at-home orders.

“So that means you could be arrested and never brought before a judge until they decide that the emergency or the civil disobedience is over. I find it absolutely terrifying. Especially in a time of emergency, we should be very careful about granting new powers to the government,” Norman L. Reimer, executive director of the NACDL said.

As Megan Fox from PJ Media said,

Someone has to stand up to the unconstitutional directives that are being handed down daily by government officials and it will fall on the sheriffs to uphold what they know to be their legal and lawful duties, none of which involve trampling the rights of citizens.

We must remain vigilant and demand that the measures taken to stop COVID-19 are only temporary or we risk living in a country that suspends our Constitutional rights whenever they deem it necessary.

Submitted by Mark Jeftovic, founder of EasyDNS

We’ve covered Zoom in these pages before.  Back in #AxisOfEasy 104 it turned out that the Zoom installer was installing mini-web servers on your computer, and it wasn’t even taking them off when you uninstalled Zoom, leaving your device open to all manner of vulnerability.  It took Apple acting on its own to push out an unscheduled update to fix Zoom’s problem before they got to it.

Last week we outlined how Zoom was sending telemetry data about you to Facebook, even if you don’t have a Facebook account.

In the intervening week, all sorts of data points and news items came out about the (lack of) privacy issues with Zoom:

• On April 1st, a (former NSA) hacker released two new Zoom 0-days that enable a hacker with local access to a Zoom session to take over the software to install malware.

• The next day Krebs on Security reported on the fast spreading "Zoom Bombing" phenomenon where pranksters and miscreants were war dialing Zoom rooms, looking for ones without password protections and crashing the meetings, hurling insults and profanities at the participants.

• It gets worse, turns out Zoom Bombing is a thing now, so the perpetrators are recording videos of their antics and releasing them on Tik Tok and who knows where else.

• On the very next day (the cat came back….) it emerged that because of the naming scheme Zoom uses to create the files of video recordings participants make of their sessions, those records were easy to find and access on the web.  

• Toronto’s Citizen Lab reverse engineered the Zoom client and found that they had "rolled their own encryption scheme" and that it’s pretty lousy encryption. Their report is here.

• Arvind Narayanan, a professor of Computer Science at Princeton distilled it down thusly, "Let’s make this simple: Zoom is Malware"

All of which has culminated in at least two US states Attorney Generals (so far) launching investigations into Zoom’s privacy protections (or lack thereof).

Read: https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/3/21207134/zoom-recordings-exposed-thousands-identical-naming-search

Here at easyDNS we are working to facilitate video conferencing and remote collaboration tools for you and your teams and families.  We’re relying on open source tools like Matrix and Jitsi that use peer reviewed, publicly accepted encryption techniques and will seek to put the data under your control and nobody else’s.  Watch this space.

Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

As we previously warned, this pandemic will bankrupt and kill more people from suicide than the virus will. When you sacrifice people’s livelihoods, you create a difficult situation of desperation for many who will see no other way out.

We are about to have a mental health crisis during an economic depression that will be tough to live through.  The virus is no longer the problem.  The government’s reaction has been the problem and even some politicians have figured it out. Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs revealed in a weekly update that our solution to this pandemic has not been a good one. 

“Thus far, our reaction to COVID-19 has been to sacrifice the global economy,” said Jacobs.

“The truth is: a sick economy produces sick people.”

Most people don’t want to hear the truth, unfortunately, and the longer state governments insist on businesses being closed and an economy shut down to combat what’s looking like a fairly insignificant virus for most of the population, the aftermath will worsen.  Each day that drags on will make the next few years more difficult.

“Last year, our medical examiner performed autopsies for 199 confirmed or suspected suicides from across the region, with 83 of those coming from Knox County. Over the past 48 hours, that office has now examined nine suspected suicides, eight of which are from Knox County alone. For Knox County, that’s almost ten percent of last year’s total number in the past two days alone,” Jacobs added.

We’ve said it before and it needs to be said again, we should no longer be preparing for a pandemic, but social unrest, violence, and economic depression. The longer the economy is shut down, the more horrific the future social unrest will be. Jacobs is questioning the tyrannical measures and authoritarian power grabs by politicians.

Jacobs called the suicide numbers “utterly shocking” and said he is questioning if the government is taking the right approach in responding to COVID-19. “Is what we are doing now really the best approach? How can we respond to COVID-19 in a way that keeps our economy intact, keeps people employed, and empowers our people with a feeling of hope and optimism, not desperation and despair?” he said.

“That’s startling and disturbing and really, really challenging to think about how some of the things we have to do as a community right now could be contributing to these things,” she said. 

“The more important message today that I want to deliver is that now more than ever we need to be kinder and gentler with ourselves and with each other. If there’s anybody out there who’s struggling, I encourage you to reach out.”

We want to thank Jacobs for standing up against all the other tyrants out there using this virus as an excuse to commit economic suicide and impoverish millions of people. Now let’s face reality: it’s time to reopen the economy and salvage what’s left if we can.  The longer this drags on, the direr our situation becomes.

*  *  *

GOOGLE Is Doing Whatever It Can To De-Monetize SHTFplan And Shadow-Ban us. During these TOUGH financial times, we ASPIRE to stay completely independent and pay our full staff, so we can continue to deliver VALUE to you. It is possible for you to HELP us, by supporting our COVID-19 expert survival report HERE!  Thank You, ShtfPlan.com Staff