Monday, March 9, 2020

Dow sinks 2,000 points in worst day since 2008; S&P 500 drops more than 7%

 Image result for pictures of anguished stockbrokers
Article by Yun Li at CNBC Markets:

The Dow Jones Industrial Average sank more than 2,000 points on Monday, notching its worst day since 2008, as market angst over the spread of the new coronavirus and an oil price war sent investors scrambling for safety.

The Dow dropped 2,013.7 points — 7.79% — as Boeing, Apple, Goldman Sachs and Caterpillar cut the Dow by at least 100 points each; the 30-stock index ended the day at 23,851.02. The S&P 500 plunged 7.6% to 2,746.56 as investors punished financials and energy stocks.

The Nasdaq Composite fell 7.29% to end the day at 7,950.68. The massive sell-off triggered a key market circuit breaker minutes after the opening bell. Trading was halted for 15 minutes until reopening at 9:49 a.m. ET.

The sharp declines on Monday followed a roller-coaster week that saw the S&P 500 swing up or down more than 2.5% for four days straight.

Investors continued to seek safer assets amid additional fears that the coronavirus will disrupt global supply chains and tip the economy into a recession. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note dropped below 0.5% for the first time ever, while the 30-year rate breached 1%. At one point early Monday, the 10-year slid to 0.318%.

Saudi Arabia on Saturday slashed official crude selling prices for April, in a sudden U-turn from previous attempts to support the oil market as the coronavirus hammers global demand. The move came after OPEC talks collapsed Friday, prompting some strategists to see oil prices crater to $20 per barrel this year.

“Crude has become a bigger problem for markets than the coronavirus,” Adam Crisafulli, founder of Vital Knowledge, said Sunday. “It will be virtually impossible for the [S&P 500] to sustainably bounce if Brent continues to crater,” he added.

International benchmark Brent crude futures plummeted 29.07% to $32.11 per barrel after dropping 30% earlier. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures dropped 30.98% to $28.49 per barrel, on track for its worst day since 1991. The Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLE), which tracks the energy sector, tumbled 15%.

Bank stocks were smashed as lower yields put pressure on their margins, while an oil crash could cause energy companies to default on their obligations. JPMorgan, Citigroup and Bank of America all plunged more than 10%.

President Donald Trump blamed the media and the oil price war for the stock rout on Monday, arguing in a series of tweets that lower gasoline prices are “good for the consumer.”

Investors have already been on edge about the coronavirus outbreak that caused major stock averages to tumble into correction territory. As of Monday, global cases of the infection have climbed to more than 111,000 with at least 3,800 deaths around the world. The situation is also worsening in the U.S. with New York, California and Oregon all declaring states of emergency.

“The idea that lower gasoline prices is going to put more cash in workers’ pockets and give consumer spending and the economy a boost doesn’t seem to cushion the blow for stock market investors,” Chris Rupkey, MUFG Union Bank’s chief financial economist, said in a note. “They want out. Big time. The sky is falling. Get out, get out while you can. Wall Street’s woes have to eventually hit Main Street’s economy hard.”

Gold, another safe-haven asset, crossed $1,700 an ounce, hitting its highest level since December 2012. Copper prices hit a more than three-year low of $2.46. Copper is seen as a barometer of broad economic demand given its applications in electrical equipment and manufacturing.

More Fed rate cuts?

The Federal Reserve announced an emergency rate cut last week to combat the economic impact from the virus, its first such move since the financial crisis. President Donald Trump on Friday signed a sweeping spending bill of an $8.3 billion package to aid medical research.

The New York Fed said Monday it will increase the amount of money it is offering to banks for their short-term funding needs. To make sure the funding, or repo, markets are working properly, the central bank said it will up the amount it offers in overnight operations from $100 billion to $150 billion through Thursday.

Traders expect the central bank to slash rates by three-quarters of a percentage point at its March meeting next week. Chances for a full percentage point cut this month were at 29.2%, according to the CME FedWatch tracker.

“This is just the need for fiscal policy,” CNBC’s Jim Cramer said on  Monday. “Monetary policy is over.”

The iShares High Yield Corporate Bond ETF (HYG) fell 4.5%, on concerns that a oil price crash will cause many small energy companies to default, hitting the high-yield credit market that they’ve become so a large part of.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/08/dow-futures-drop-700-points-as-all-out-oil-price-war-adds-to-coronavirus-stress.html 

Coronavirus: Prisoners across Italy riot over new restrictions

Six inmates have died after riots broke out at 27 prisons in Italy over new restrictions aimed at controlling the spread of coronavirus, local media say.
In Milan, prisoners set fire to part of the San Vittore prison before protesting on the roof after they were told that visits had been suspended.
Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said the coronavirus outbreak was Italy's "darkest hour".
With 366 deaths now confirmed, Italy is the worst-hit country after China.
Italy's government has pledged to further increase spending in a "massive shock therapy" to offset the economic impact of the outbreak.

The country is struggling to adapt to the most restrictive measures since World War Two, introduced on Sunday.

Up to 16 million people in northern Italy now need permission to travel under quarantine rules.

What happened at the prisons?

The trouble began in the northern city of Modena, where three people were reported to have died at the Sant'Anna prison, while a further three died after being transferred from there.
It is thought that at least two of the dead lost their lives to drug overdoses after they raided a prison hospital for the heroin substitute methadone

At San Vittore prison in Milan, detainees set fire to a cell block on one of the facility's six wings, then climbed onto the roof through windows and started waving banners, officials said.
At a prison in the southern city of Foggia, about 20 inmates managed to break out of the building during protests. Many were quickly recaptured, Italy's Ansa news agency reported.
There were also riots at several other prisons in northern Italy and at facilities in Naples and the capital, Rome

Cases of the virus have been confirmed in all 20 Italian regions, with the total number of infections now at 6,387.
In an interview with La Repubblica newspaper on Monday, Mr Conte said: "These days, I have been thinking about the old speeches of [Winston] Churchill - it is our darkest hour but we will make it".
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51805727

Here’s Just How Ridiculously Biased the Media Have Been Covering Coronavirus



While coronavirus panic sets in across the country, it’s interesting to look back over the previous few weeks and see the reaction after the Trump administration took steps to stem the tide and stop infections from reaching our shores. The current narrative is that Trump has “bungled” the response (there’s no real evidence of that), thereby threatening his re-election, because that’s all this is really about to them.

But that wasn’t always the narrative. In fact, it wasn’t too long ago that the media were chastising Trump for doing too much to battle coronavirus in the United States. How biased are our media? The following thread illustrates it perfectly.








It’s just unbelievable. Trump took very early steps, before the first infection stateside, to stop the flow of the virus into the country. What did he get for his trouble? A myriad of op-eds proclaiming that containing the virus was actually hurting the containment of the virus. None of it made sense, but it wasn’t meant to make sense. It was simply a way to start an orange man bad narrative. Now that we have infections in the United States, they’ve flipped the narrative and claim Trump hasn’t done enough. There was never any winning for him in this situation. The media were simply not going to allow it.

The truth is, the government is not magic. I’m actually fairly disappointed with a lot of conservatives whining about the current response, as if the feds have secret factories ready to pump out supplies to meet any pandemic at a moments notice. No President has the ability to stop an infectious disease from spreading. It’s not possible to contain something like that. You can only manage it. One of the cornerstones of conservatism is realizing that the government kind of sucks. It can’t do things fast and efficiently and no amount of “leadership” will change that. The response to H1N1 was painfully slow under Obama. The response to Katrina was sloppy under Bush. It’s not because they were incompetent and “bungled” things, it’s because there’s only so much the federal government can actually do.

Trump has done everything in his power to this point. Things will get worse before they get better. Conservatives, of all people, should understand the limitations here instead of playing into them.

Hillary is Clearing the Decks, But What About Bill?


Biden as Placeholder



There is a new docuseries on Hulu entitled Hillary that is making some waves among the political class and has been much-discussed in the legacy media since its release on Friday. It is a puff-piece about Hillary Clinton’s life, with a lot of Bill thrown in for good measure – as if any of us want to relive the bad memories that that pair conjures up in our minds. The timing is just a coincidence, right? The fact that it was released right in the middle of the chaos that is the Democrat primary can’t have any deeper meaning, can it? Why would perhaps the most politically-motivated and vengeful woman in American history seek to detract the public’s attention from the ongoing primary battle between two white septuagenarians?

This “documentary” is of a piece with her not-so-stealth campaign to prepare the public for her anointment as the “savior of the Democrat Party” during the Democrat National Convention in Milwaukee in July. How that is being orchestrated was described previously in this article:
Option 4: … With Bernie bowing out, Biden has the nomination in sight but suddenly withdraws because he is “on medication” for dementia or has been diagnosed with first-stage Alzheimer’s disease or some other malady. The Democrat Establishment – having the goods on his family’s corruption and knowing where all the bones are buried – would force his withdrawal announcement, opening the way for the designated outsider to swoop in and “save” the Democrat Party. Biden would play on the sympathy vote and implore Democrats (and Americans in general) to back the consensus Democrat candidate drafted during the convention.

Guess who is angling to be the “designated hitter” at the convention? If she wasn’t interested in the nomination, she would surely have endorsed Joe Biden by now as the “Democrat Establishment’s candidate.” She has trashed Bernie several times in recent public statements, so it is highly unlikely that she would somehow endorse Bernie. Here is what she said about Bernie just before Super Tuesday:
Leading into the Super Tuesday election, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton trashed her 2016 rival Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) for running a campaign that is “just baloney.”
Speaking on ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Tuesday, Hillary Clinton expressed no regret for comments she made denouncing Sanders in a Hulu docuseries about her life. “That was my authentic opinion then; it’s my authentic opinion now,” Hillary Clinton said. “He was a career politician. It’s all just baloney and I feel so bad that people got sucked into it.”

The woman is transparent, and she uses words that mean the opposite of the meaning she seeks to convey, too. Take “authentic,” for example. She doesn’t have an authentic bone in her body; everything she has ever done on the public stage is contrived, poll-tested, and intended for maximum personal political benefit. That is how she has always rolled.

Publicly denouncing Bernie – including, not coincidentally, in her docuseries! – yet not endorsing Bernie’s only rival still standing in the Democrat primaries? Please. She wants the nomination by acclamation and still thinks it is owed to her for “services rendered” to the Democrat Party when she helped save her husband’s presidency back in 1998-9.

Which brings us to one of her biggest political stumbling blocks toward that end in the #MeToo age, and that of course is her husband the sexual predator. The antics of Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein that have been splattered all over the legacy media for the past year or so make it difficult for the Clintons to sweep Bill’s sordid history under the rug in 2020. So it is again no coincidence that the docuseries addresses the Monica Lewinsky affair, as noted here:
Bill and Hillary Clinton discussed the Lewinsky scandal in the new Hulu documentary series Hillary, which debuted on Friday. He claimed his two-year relationship with the intern, beginning in 1995, was a distraction to manage his “anxiety” in the White House.
“Here’s something that will take your mind off it for a while,” Clinton said. “Things I did to manage my anxieties for years. I’m a different, totally different person than I was.”

“Managing my anxieties.” That’s a new one on me! The reason this is in the news now is to put that prickly issue behind her before the convention in July. The Clintons have repeated a consistent political tactic over the years that entails denial, making and changing their excuses over time, dribbling out snippets of the truth only when forced to do so (but over an extended period of time), and then claiming that the particular unseemly issue is “yesterday’s news.” In fact, the Clintons are the progenitors of the “Move On” euphemism that started as a political effort to refocus the nation on “real issues” instead of Bill Clinton’s impeachment in 1998. Eventually, it morphed into a non-profit organization as the Democrats realized that the move-on concept could be used again and again to excuse past transgressions (and criminality) in the Democrats’ political interests of the “here and now” and the future.

The fact that Bill Clinton is out and about talking about his “personal anxiety” as his latest excuse for abusing power in order to take advantage of an intern in the White House is simply no coincidence. Watch his body language during his interview on CBS This Morning on Friday here. That guy remains a master liar and prevaricator!


There is only one reason for Bill Clinton coming out at this particular moment to discuss his latest poor excuse (and to once again avoid personal responsibility for his actions), and that is to take the issue off the radar screen so that Hillary can claim that it is old news and has been dealt with. It wouldn’t even surprise me to see her mangle her explanation when questioned about it, as well as to repeat the phrase, “It’s time to move on ….” But she’s not as slick in her delivery as is Bill, and that’s one of the reasons why she lost in 2016 because she always comes across as a disingenuous fake.

Bill’s tortured public appearances to discuss the Lewinsky affair are just the latest indications that Hillary wants the Democrat nomination to be handed to her in Milwaukee. There’s just no other reason for him to go public on this topic at this point in time.

Trump Needs to Stick It to China



Coronavirus may or may not prove as deadly as the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic. But the disease has clearly shown the need to end China’s dominant position in the global supply chain.

Last year, President Trump agreed to a “Phase One” trade deal with China. As a result of this tentative agreement, the president paused a “trade war” that had begun to harm American farmers. But China hawks believed (and still believe) that whatever damage America sustained in the near-term was worth the longer-term changes President Trump hoped to force China to make in its grotesquely unfair trade practices with the United States. 

Still, the agreement helped accomplish two things: first, it boosted the U.S. economy heading into an election year; second, it helped ailing farmers, who form a key constituency in President Trump’s eclectic electoral base. 

The harder hit this voting base was by the “trade war,” the greater difficulty President Trump would have in what already has proven to be a contentious election season. 
Yet, the limits of the deal are being exposed. 

The United States agreed to exempt Chinese high-tech firms, such as Huawei, from doing business in the United States. It also allowed for technology transfers between U.S. and Chinese tech companies. These transfers have proven to be devastating to American interests in the past, as Chinese state-owned companies use data from U.S. firms to advance their military technology. Co-opting advanced American technology also furthers China’s long-term strategic interests. 

Coronavirus also presents a strategic challenge. COVID-19 is a novel disease with a transmission rate even higher than that of influenza. The question is just how deadly the disease will prove to be to humans. It has already proven to be a grave threat to the logic of letting China remain the dominant player in the global supply chain.

China struggled to contain the virus at first. In fact, Beijing attempted to stage-manage news of the outbreak by pressuring the World Health Organization (WHO) and carefully controlling the medical data coming from Chinese hospitals. The Chinese spent nearly two months attempting to cover-up the outbreak, thereby allowing for thousands if not millions of people potentially infected with the disease to leave Wuhan and travel the world, spreading this disease to other countries.

Even when Chinese authorities began responding to the outbreak, their purportedly superior centrally planned system was unprepared. Chinese medical staff were poorly protected against the disease and became carriers of the disease rather than defenders against it.

Moreover, the coronavirus outbreak may not have been an entirely natural event. Whereas many in the scientific community take China’s word that the disease originated at a legendary outdoor Wuhan marketplace known for the sale of exotic meat (such as bats, snakes, dogs, cats, and other strange critters), Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ala.), the defense reporter Bill Gertz, and I have challenged these assumptions. Wuhan is home to China’s bioweapons program. In fact, it houses a Level 4 virology lab that specializes in research on novel coronaviruses. Reports have surfaced in recent weeks that researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology had been complaining about lax safety standards when dealing with bats infected with a coronavirus that sounds eerily similar to the COVID-19 strain currently rippling throughout the world. 

In any event, as the disease has spread, the world economy has suffered. Once the Chinese Communist Party began efforts to contain the virus’s spread, Beijing was forced to shut down most production and shipping within and from the country. Demand for oil plummeted, causing world oil prices to drop precipitously. Meanwhile, as the disease spread to neighboring countries, global demand for goods suffered as well. Even if COVID-19 isn’t as deadly as the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918, the legitimacy of globalization is looking pretty sick at the moment.

We may never know the true extent, nature, or origins of the coronavirus. Nevertheless, the West has taken a disturbingly blasé attitude toward China’s assurances about its containment efforts. In fact, Beijing has attempted to blame the United States for the disease while at the same time using what should be the greatest example of Chinese weakness as a case for creating an alternate World Health Organization-type institution run by China. 

Clearly, the coronavirus is not a case study of unity and cooperation, as so many utopians in the West would like to think. Beijing is looking at this as another example of furthering its bid to displace the United States as the world hegemon. 

The Trump Administration should recognize Chinese perfidy not only on the matter of its coronavirus response but on trade as well. Rather than continuing to press for more trade deals and a stabilization in U.S.-Chinese relations, the White House should more fully embrace the restrictive trade and immigration policies on which President Trump campaigned during the 2016 election. 

The president would do well to put a halt to all technology transfers between U.S. and Chinese companies. He also needs to make it more difficult to share sensitive data between American and Chinese institutions. Then, the White House needs to more completely decouple the world supply chain from China and return many of those capabilities to the United States and its allies. Only by weakening China now can we prevent its plan for global domination from being realized. Trump needs to stick it to China bigly, no matter the short-term costs. 

Tucker Carlson: To protect against coronavirus and other threats, US must become less dependent on China

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 Article by Tucker Carlson in "Fox News":

There comes a time in every presidential administration when the people in charge realize they're not really in control. Unforeseen events arise in an instant. Every assumption about the future changes.

Heads of state die, wars erupt, natural disasters descend, epidemics rage. None of it was in anybody's plan.

There's something about human nature that prevents us from preparing for this for abrupt and radical change. We pretend the unexpected will never happen. But there's something in nature itself that reminds us it inevitably will. It's always a terrifying realization.

The rise of the Chinese coronavirus is that kind of moment. The virus is quickly becoming a global pandemic. Ultimately, it could kill millions. At the very least, it will reorder the global economy and change our politics.

Could the disease help determine the outcome of our next presidential election eight months from now? Of course it could. In fact, it will.

Our leaders can't stop that. Like all matters of life and death, it is beyond human power to effect. But they can respond to the threat in a way that makes this country stronger, not weaker.

How can they do that? The first step is to take the virus seriously and to convince the public that you are.

In 1918, President Woodrow Wilson's White House downplayed the Spanish influenza and refused to take obvious precautions to slow its spread. Wilson had a pointless war in progress in Europe to fight. His generals couldn't be distracted from that goal.

So the government continued to ship men to overcrowded Army camps across the country and to pack them on ships to France. The virus spread exponentially in the end. About 53,000 Americans in our military were killed in combat in that war. At least 675,000 Americans died of the flu.

Could Wilson have prevented that disaster? Well, not entirely, but by early and decisive action, he could have improved America's odds.

So what does effective action look like now? Well, we ought to be screening people when they get off the planes from infected countries. That's not complicated. It's obvious. But at the same time, it is hardly a solution.

We should be honest about how much we can do to keep the Chinese coronavirus from coming here.

Some 100 years ago, the Spanish flu killed a significant percentage of the population in remote Aleutian Islands, and that was before air travel. Today, the entire world is connected by hourly international flights.

Global pandemics are inevitable. There's too much movement to keep viruses isolated. We should acknowledge that, yes, we can do our best to keep foreign diseases out of this country, but we ought to spend most of our time trying to figure out how to protect Americans.

Once the diseases get here. There's still a lot we don't know about the Chinese coronavirus, but two things do seem clear. It is highly communicable and the elderly and people with preexisting respiratory disease face the greatest threat from it.

That means for most Americans, the biggest risks will come not from the virus itself, but from its ancillary effects. People will panic. Travel will be disrupted. Markets will tumble. And most critically, hospitals will be overwhelmed.

We're about to learn the limits of our health care system. Conditions will be tough for the many thousands of Americans looking for beds to recover from the flu. In Seattle, they already are. But things will be even worse for anyone suffering from, say, pancreatitis or a burst appendix, not to mention countless other health emergencies.

People like this may not get care at all. Our system won't be able to accommodate them. There are many implications of this and some of them are political, for example.

Is this really the time to invite the rest of the world to join “Medicare-for-all?” Probably not. That idea was always stupid.

Now it's clearly dangerous.

On a practical level, saving American medicine from collapse must be our leaders’ top priority right now. We need to expand emergency hospital bed capacity. We need to make certain we have enough lifesaving drugs and medical equipment. The basics.

Unfortunately, that's not as simple as it sounds or as it should be. While the rest of us were arguing about sexism and transgendered bathrooms, China took control of our health care system.

China dominates the world market in pharmaceutical ingredients. Compounds used in virtually every essential medicine for high blood pressure, for cancer, for Alzheimer's disease, and many more come from China.

So do the key components in vital medical technology, including CT scanners, X-ray machines, ultrasound equipment.

As of now, more than 95 percent of all the antibiotics in America are manufactured in communist China. Yes, 95 percent.

Our chief global rival has a total monopoly on the most important medicine in the world. That should worry you more than anything the political candidates are currently talking about.

Imagine watching one of your children die from an infected cut. China has the power to make that happen. The Chinese government is acutely aware of this power. Last year, a prominent Chinese economist suggested cutting off the supply of antibiotics to the United States as leverage in the trade war.

That should have been the biggest story in America. The news media all but ignored it. Why? Because it implicated them and their political party in one of the greatest crimes of our time.

Nine years ago, famously brilliant former President Barack Obama did predict a connection between China and the next global pandemic. Unfortunately, Obama got it backward. He claimed China would help us.

Obama said: “I absolutely believe that China's peaceful rise is good for the world and it's good for America, to the extent that we have a partner in addressing issues like climate change or pandemic.”

Our foremost genius. The people in charge have no idea what they're doing. And to the extent they do, they're selling us out on purpose.

We should have seen this coming in recent weeks. You've heard a lot about disruption to our so-called supply chains. Think about what that means. It means that thanks to economic changes that made a small group of business moguls incredibly rich, we no longer make the things we need to survive and prosper as a nation.

People who hate us and who seek to displace us make those things. And it's not just medicines and X-ray machines. It's computers and phones and robotics and automotive components and machine tools and essential parts for aircraft engines, etc.

In fact, apart from fossil fuels, it's almost everything. And now you may have noticed many of our leaders are talking about shutting down our domestic energy sector. The last independent part of the American economy. This is sabotage.

We're about to learn how undermined we've been at some point. Our leaders should be held to account for this for now. We need to work as if our lives depended on it to fix this problem.

Global warming isn't the existential threat we face. Extortion from China is, in very real ways. The Chinese government controls us. There is no greater national security danger than the one it poses and it requires us to respond.

We need a modern Marshall Plan, one designed to rebuild American manufacturing. We should start tomorrow with medicine and technology to fight the coronavirus and then with antibiotics.

Some will oppose the idea because it poses a threat to arrangements they currently benefit from. But a majority of Americans will welcome it gladly, even in the Congress. Manufacturing lifts every congressional district. It shouldn't be hard to win bipartisan support.

No doubt the sages on television will denounce any acknowledgment of China's threat as racism or intolerance. Former Vice President Joe Biden has already done that. Ignore them.

The Chinese coronavirus really is Chinese. It arose in that country for the same reason American businesses have sent so many of our jobs there – lack of health and safety standards and endemic corruption.

China did this to the world and we should not pretend otherwise. That's not xenophobia. It's true.

The most bitter irony of all of this is that a few years from now, when every last victim of this virus has recovered or been buried, the Chinese government can easily grow stronger because of this disaster. And America can grow weaker.

China unleashes a pandemic and then overtakes the U.S. as a result. That's too horrible an outcome to contemplate and too dangerous for us. We ought to do everything we can to make certain it does not happen.

Let's start by actually describing what is happening. The Chinese coronavirus isn't some fluke of globalization. It is the inevitable byproduct of it. Exotic diseases and the mass destruction they cause are built-in costs of connectedness and they always will be.

The people who told us there was no downside to living in a borderless world were lying. Make them eat their words, strip them of their power. Never listen to them again.

In fact – and this is still the hardest thing for official Washington to accept – this pandemic vindicates Donald Trump's entire political thesis on the big things. Trump was right.

Trade, immigration, manufacturing, globalization. These are the issues a ruling class assiduously ignores and has ignored for decades in favor of silly, calculated distractions like gender warfare and race politics, things that divide us.

Trump, by contrast, ran on the issues that mattered, and he won precisely because the public was tired of being lied to. And he should remember that.

The White House reaction to the coronavirus so far has been uneven and limp, but it doesn't need to be the blueprint for an effective response.

The response is right there in the president's 2016 acceptance speech. At the last Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Trump said that Americanism, not globalism, should be our credo.

Trump said we're going to start building and making things again. All we need to do is start believing in ourselves and our country again.

He told us that it’s time to show the world that America is back bigger and better and stronger than ever before.

That's the governing agenda in the age of the Chinese coronavirus: abandon globalism, rebuild our country, make the things we need. A strong America is an independent America. There's no other way.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-to-protect-against-coronavirus-and-other-threats-us-must-become-less-dependent-on-china

Hillary Clinton: Bernie not strongest Democrat candidate against President Trump

OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 7:39 AM PT — Monday, March 9, 2020
Hillary Clinton is criticizing Bernie Sanders, yet again, amid his rising popularity across the U.S. In an interview with CNN Sunday, she said she doesn’t believe Sanders is the strongest Democrat candidate in this year’s race.
Clinton added that while she will not endorse any candidate at this time, she will “support” whoever wins the Democratic National Convention (DNC) nomination. She also said she believes Joe Biden is building a coalition of anti-Trump forces similar to the one she had back in 2016.
The former secretary of state went on to say she’s not sure if she would campaign for Bernie Sanders if he becomes the Democrat Party nominee.
 Clinton also accused President Trump of — what she called — “perfecting the art of smear campaign” against her and her fellow Democrats.
https://www.oann.com/hillary-clinton-bernie-not-strongest-democrat-candidate-against-president-trump/

Steve Hilton: We need to be practical and not panic on coronavirus. If not, the poorest Americans may suffer

 person washing hand on stainless steel faucet
 Article by Steve Hilton in "Fox News":

All this progress for American workers and families under President Trump, it's not just at risk in the November election. It's at risk right now, as we stand on the brink of a catastrophic overreaction to coronavirus.

Of course, no one should minimize it and we must do all we can to stop preventable deaths. But it seems to me that we've got a bunch of people in leadership positions in the media, in business, in Congress, who are running around maximizing coronavirus without a thought for the harm they may be causing.

With a virus like this, there's a policy choice -- containment or mitigation. You try and stop it from spreading or accept that it will spread and focus on reducing the harm.

In China, they went for containment with great success. They shut down whole cities, ruthlessly quarantined people for weeks, and it kind of worked. Doing that here would mean, right now, sealing off Seattle, probably California, too. Canceling domestic air travel, closing schools, separating families, canceling March Madness, putting the Democratic primary on hold -- all of that and much more -- deliberately and unconsciously tanking our economy and for what? For this.

Dr. Sonia Y. Angell, California Department of Public Health Director and State Health Officer: Coronaviruses are responsible for the common cold, so it's something that all of you may also be quite familiar with.

Because of the current outbreak that originated in China is a new member of this family, our experience to date, though, is that most people -- more than 85 percent -- will have mild or no symptoms.

Stop this wild reckless overreaction based on panic, not science.

"Most people will have mild or no symptoms."

By the way, that is an actual public health official. When Trump says literally the same thing, the idiots on ruling class state TV go nuts.

Look, I don't think that in a free society, there is any chance of actually pursuing a real containment strategy like China did. The virus is here. It's going to spread. The vast majority of people who get it won't even know.

As Dr. Fauci said on Sunday, we know who is at risk - the elderly and those with underlying conditions. So for God's sake, let's put all our effort into protecting them. Draconian restrictions, yes, but only for the elderly and vulnerable. Get hospital ICUs and ventilator capacity ready. Take extra steps to protect nursing homes.

As the administration announced last week, make sure no one is put off from getting seen by a doctor over fears of the cost. But stop this wild reckless overreaction based on panic, not science.

These people canceling South by Southwest [music and media festival], telling people to work from home and all the rest of it  -- they're not going to suffer. The people who will be really hurt are the workers in the hotels, the bars, the food trucks. Who's going to take care of them while the tech workers lounge around at home, ordering Uber Eats on their stupid iPhones?

This is yet another example of an arrogant ruling elite with no understanding of or empathy for how precarious the lives of the poorest Americans are. We need to have this discussion openly. We must debate the tradeoff between the potentially pointless effort of containment and the lasting pain that it would cause for the poorest Americans. That's what President Trump has been doing. That's what Larry Kudlow was doing and they're 100 percent right on coronavirus. We don't need panic. We need to be positive and practical. https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/steve-hilton-we-need-to-be-practical-and-not-panic-on-coronavirus

Bernie Sanders -vs- George Stephanopoulos and The Club – Topic Michigan



If you want to know what those inside the DNC Club are thinking watch one of the club insiders, George Stephanopoulos.   In this interview Stephanopoulos tries to blur the lines between Biden and Bernie by saying their policies are identical.  Nice trick.
Stephanopoulos asks Bernie when will he drop out; and if the senator will keep campaigning even after it becomes mathematically impossible to get to the convention with most delegates.

Michigan is a key state for the presidential primary contest between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. Michigan (125 delegates), Idaho (20), Mississippi (36), Missouri (68), North Dakota (14), and Washington State (89) all vote this upcoming Tuesday, March 10th.
Former Vice-President Joe Biden, an advocate for outsourcing U.S. jobs via corrupt trade deals, is hoping to leverage his phony pro-union bona-fides & crush Bernie Sanders in Michigan.
However, Bernie has a strong ground team in Michigan, understands the importance in delegate accumulation, and also knows it is critical to defeat the ‘unelectable‘ narrative the DNC Club has deployed against him.
Michigan is also critical for Bernie because his positions on Cuba have damaged his hopes in Florida (219 delegates) voting on March 17th.
If Bernie is going to mount a progressive charge against the power of the DNC apparatus he needs a strong outcome from working class voters in Michigan, Illinois (155) and Ohio (136 delegates).  The primary contests in Illinois and Ohio are held on March 17th along with Florida.
Team Bernie needs a win or split decision in Michigan (125 delegates) and Washington State (89 delegates)… because Idaho (20), North Dakota (14), Missouri (68), and Mississippi (36), are far less favorable.
The importance of Michigan on March 10th, and the alignment of the professionally-black caucus behind Biden, appears to be why Bernie is ceding Mississippi in the south and cancelling trips.
The positive for Sanders is the DNC rule-changes that make every state proportional in delegate distribution.  If Sanders can stay a close second in states he does not win and  simultaneously expand large margins in the states he does win, then he has a viable path against the machine.   However, this approach requires BIG wins in BIG delegate-rich states.
Essentially that’s Bernie’s delegate road-map to the convention:

(1) stay a close second place in the smaller states that he loses; and

(2) have big wins in the big states where he has larger networks.

The Club wants Bernie eliminated with extreme prejudice and they want it done now; much sooner than could organically be accomplished. The end goal as it currently appears is total capitulation by the Sanders campaign quickly; and all forces are being brought down upon the candidate to achieve that goal.
In many ways it makes sense for the Club to attempt this now as they will need the maximum amount of time available to heal wounds and herd the unwieldy Bernie coalition into the tent of Joe Biden. Capturing and controlling Sanders’ grassroots enthusiasm the Club needs to achieve their November objective is a very challenging task; and a DNC Convention battle against progressives is the worst case scenario. It simply cannot be allowed.
Everything is pointing to the Club’s intent to destroy Sanders between the Tuesday, March 10th primary races in Michigan (125 delegates), Idaho (20), Mississippi (36), Missouri (68), North Dakota (14), Washington State (89)…. and the March 17th primary races in Florida (219), Illinois (155) and Ohio (136 delegates).
The Club is pulling out all the stops -targeting the psychology of Bernie supporters- to get rid of Sanders via complete campaign capitulation between March 10th and March 17th.  That puts the debate on March 15th as a key inflection point.
Since Bernie’s bone-headed praise of Cuban communism his support in Florida has dropped to a tenuous 12% total.   That’s not a typo, that’s 12 percent total support for Bernie in Florida… and that is below the 15% threshold for any delegates.  Fidel Sanders might do slightly better with Warren out of the race, but that same poll has Joe biden with over 60 percent of the Florida Democrat vote.
Polling less than the minimum proportional threshold, with 219 delegates at stake, in a two person race, portends the possibility of a crushing defeat is possible on March 17th.
The Club wants Bernie gone now, this month, and the Club has the planets aligned to do just that… Getting rid of Bernie also has the dual benefit of putting freshman activist and professional moonbat, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), back into a containment box.

Stock trading halted for 15 minutes after the S&P 500 craters 7%


 NEW YORK, NY - NOVEMBER 12: Traders and financial professionals work at the closing bell on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), November 12, 2018 in New York City. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell over 600 points on Monday and shares of Apple were down 5 …
 Article by Yun Li and Eustance Huang in "CNBC Markets":

Stocks tumbled on Monday as investors braced for the economic fallout from the spreading coronavirus, while a shocking all-out oil price war added to the anxiety.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average tanked more than 1,800 points at the open. The S&P 500 dropped 7%. The massive sell-off triggered key market circuit breakers in morning trading. Trading was halted for 15 minutes at 9:35 a.m. ET.
The sharp declines followed a roller-coaster week that saw the S&P 500 swing up or down more than 2.5% for four days straight. While Monday’s drop is poised to be significant, it still wouldn’t crack the 20 worst days in the S&P 500.
CH 20200309_sp500_biggest_one_day_drops.pngInvestors continued to seek safer assets amid additional fears that the coronavirus will disrupt global supply chains and tip the economy into a recession. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note dropped below 0.5% for the first time ever, while the 30-year rate breached 1%.  
 
Saudi Arabia on Saturday slashed official crude selling prices for April, in a sudden U-turn from previous attempts to support the oil market as the coronavirus hammers global demand. The move came after OPEC talks collapsed Friday, prompting some strategists to see oil prices crater to $20 this year. 
 
“Crude has become a bigger problem for markets than the coronavirus,” Adam Crisafulli, founder of Vital Knowledge, said Sunday. “It will be virtually impossible for the [S&P 500] to sustainably bounce if Brent continues to crater,” he added. 
 
International benchmark Brent crude futures plummeted 29.07% to $32.11 per barrel after dropping 30% earlier. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures dropped 30.98% to $28.49 per barrel, on track for its worst day since 1991. The Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLE), which tracks the energy sector, tumbled 15%. 
 
Bank stocks are getting smashed as lower yields put pressure on their margins, while an oil crash could cause energy companies to default on their obligations. JPMorgan plunged more than 11%. 
 
Investors have already been on edge about the coronavirus outbreak that caused major stock averages to tumble into correction territory. As of Sunday, global cases of the infection have climbed to more than 109,000 with at least 3,801 deaths around the world. The situation is also worsening in the U.S. with New York, California and Oregon all declaring a state of emergency. 
 
“The idea that lower gasoline prices is going to put more cash in workers’ pockets and give consumer spending and the economy a boost doesn’t seem to cushion the blow for stock market investors,” Chris Rupkey, MUFG Union Bank’s chief financial economist, said in a note Sunday. “They want out. Big time. The sky is falling. Get out, get out while you can. Wall Street’s woes have to eventually hit Main Street’s economy hard.” 
 
Gold, another safe-haven asset, crossed $1,700 an ounce, hitting its highest level since Dec. 2012. Meanwhile, copper prices hit a more than three-year low of $2.46. Copper is seen as a barometer of broad economic demand given its applications in electrical equipment and manufacturing. 
 
The Federal Reserve announced an emergency rate cut last week to combat the economic impact from the virus, its first such move since the financial crisis. President Donald Trump on Friday signed a sweeping spending bill of an $8.3 billion package to aid medical research. 
 
The New York Fed said Monday it will increase the amount of money it is offering to banks for their short-term funding needs. To make sure the funding, or repo, markets are working properly, the central bank said it will up the amount it offers in overnight operations from $100 billion to $150 billion through Thursday.  
 
Traders expect the central bank to slash rates by three-quarters of a percentage point at its upcoming March meeting. Chances for a full percentage point cut this month were at 29.2%, according to the CME FedWatch tracker.The iShares High Yield Corporate Bond ETF (HYG) fell 4.5%, on concerns that a oil price crash will cause many small energy companies to default, hitting the high yield credit market that they’ve become so a large part of. 
 

Sketchy – 44 Dallas County Precincts Were NOT Included in Super Tuesday Results – Election Officials Request Recount



First, the background… On Super Tuesday the biggest shock was that Joe Biden won Texas in the Democrat presidential primary.

Specifically, it was the moment when results from Dallas County, Texas, were reported when the media narrative of a Biden win began to be broadcast. Go back to election night, re-watch the coverage, and you’ll see all media broadcasting pointing to Dallas County, Texas, as the Biden inflection point.

Now this:

Sketchy as heck. These are not Russians; these are U.S. election officials.

TEXAS – Dallas County Elections Administrator Toni Pippins-Poole discovered her office did not count about 10% of the ballots that voters cast on Super Tuesday.
She is now asking a court to let her conduct a manual recount of the votes, after she discovered 44 thumb drives containing ballots that were not included in the final results.
[…] “Of the 44 thumb drives, 16 were not received in a timely manner to the Elections Department and 28 were from voting machines not scheduled to be used but were used by volunteer election officials,” Pippins-Poole said in a statement Saturday evening addressing the blunder.
“We need to investigate this entirely, immediately. The time has absolutely come for Toni Pippins-Poole to step down as elections administrator,” Dallas County Commissioner J.J. Koch told WFAA. “I deeply regret that this is happening in Dallas County right now. There’s already enough questions about our ability to serve the people of Dallas County. This is tremendously damaging to our local democracy.”
Pippins-Poole filed the petition and affidavit in court late Friday, according to county officials.
In the affidavit accompanying the court petition, Pippins-Poole said she only made the discovery while reconciling the books and discovered she did not have enough ballots for everyone who showed up to vote.
She now wants to recount and re-tabulate votes in both the Democratic and Republican primary elections. (read more)