This editor has made no secret of his political crush on Hawaii rep Tulsi Gabbard. Today there’s more reason to crush on her. She posted a video laying out all the reasons she voted no on the so-called Covid relief bill.
“First of all, this bill was over 5,500 pages long,” she began. “We received the text of this bill at approximately 2:30 this afternoon, and we’re told we’d have to go and vote on it just a few hours later. There is no way that anybody in Congress had the opportunity or the time to go through and read this bill to know exactly what was in it. I’ve been here long enough to see how provisions are snuck into these bills literally in the dark of night, without any announcement, without telling anyone what is in it, and then rushed through in the manner that we have just seen tonight.”
She then goes into some of the items hidden in the text of the nearly $900 billion dollar bill. She said “the central part of this bill was supposed to be about providing direct COVID relief to the American people who are struggling and who need help the most.” But instead the bill “dished out hundreds of billions of dollars” to special interests, the military, and foreign countries while telling average Americans, “Here’s what’s left for you: You get 600 bucks.”
It’s really a shame my favorite democrat is retiring from Congress at the end of this term. We could use more like her.
14 members of the Miami Marlins travelling party have tested positive for the coronavirus. They tested positive after a series in Philadelphia. The team announced it was postponing it’s home opener, and the Yankees/Phillies matchup has been postponed for tonight as the Phillies decon the visitors clubhouse.
“The health of our players and staff has been and will continue to be our primary focus as we navigate through these unchartered waters,” Marlins CEO Derek Jeter said in a statement. “After a successful Spring 2.0, we have now experienced challenges once we went on the road and left Miami. Postponing tonight’s home opener was the correct decision to ensure we take a collective pause and try to properly grasp the totality of this situation. We have conducted another round of testing for our players and staff, and our team will all remain in Philadelphia pending the results of those tests, which we expect later today. We will provide additional information as soon as it becomes available.”
The news of the positive tests caused MLB to have an emergency meeting about the future of the season. As of this writing there has been no indication of a cancellation of the rest of the season.
Many of you know this editor is a huge baseball fan. The delay in the start of the MLB season had me watching Korean league baseball just to get my fix. While entertaining, it’s not MLB. Hopefully, the rest of the MLB season plays out.
A couple from Kentucky have been fitted with ankle monitors and placed under house arrest.
Elizabeth Linscott and her husband, Isaiah, got tested for Covid as a precaution because they were planning to visit her parents in Michigan. Their troubles began after the test came back positive.
After testing positive but without showing any symptoms, Linscott said the health department contacted her and requested she sign documents that will limit her traveling anywhere unless she calls the health department first. She said she chose to not sign.
“My part was if I have to go to the ER, if I have to go to the hospital, I’m not going to wait to get the approval to go,” she said.
A couple of days after she declined to sign the Self-isolation and Controlled Movement Agreed Order, Linscott said the Hardin County Sheriff’s Department arrived at her home without warning. Her husband, Isaiah, was home.
“I open up the door, and there’s like eight different people, five different cars,” he said. “I’m like, ‘What the heck’s going on?‘ This guy’s in a suit with a mask. It’s the health department guy, and he has three papers for us – for me, her and my daughter.” The couple was ordered to wear ankle monitors. If they travel more than 200 feet, law enforcement will be notified.
Elizabeth Linscott said that although she never refused to self-quarantine, “that’s exactly what the director of the public health department told the judge. . . I’m like, ‘that’s not the case at all. I never said that,” she said.
There’s an environmental disaster in the making off the coast of Yemen. A derelict 1180′ oil tanker, with 1.1 million barrels of crude oil aboard, has been left to decay since the start of the Yemeni civil war. The SFO Safer, moored off of Houthi rebel controlled land, hasn’t been maintained for over five years, causing damage to the pipelines and increasing the risk of sinking. Rust has covered parts of the tanker, and the inert gas that prevents the tanks from gathering inflammable gases has leaked out. The tanker is moored near one of the richest fishing grounds in the region. Any leaks could put that fishery at risk.
Staying in the Middle East, Iran is in the middle of an outbreak of unexplained fires and explosions. The latest is a fire at a shipyard in Bushehr, in southern Iran. Over the last several weeks, explosions at a nuclear enrichment complex, a missile production factory, and a gas pipeline in an apartment building in Tehran have raised eyebrows. These mysterious incidents occur as Iranians are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the theocratic regime in Tehran.
An Appeals Court has temporarily blocked enforcement of a lower courts ruling about the Dakota Access Pipeline. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg made the initial move to halt the DAPL, ordering the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in March to complete an Environmental Impact Statement on the pipeline, which could take upward of 13 months to complete. The order from Boasberg would have required Energy Transfer, the company behind the project, to completely drain the pipeline while the EIS was completed.
See also: Here’s what’s problematic. . .
Moderna, one of several companies working on a vaccine for the WuFlu, has reported better than expected results for the phase one trials of it’s candidate. The participants were split into three groups of 15 to test doses of 25 micrograms, 100 micrograms and 250 micrograms. They were given a second dose of the same amount 28 days later. After the first round, antibody levels were found to be higher with higher doses. After the second round, participants had higher levels of antibodies than most patients who have had Covid-19 and gone on to generate their own antibodies.
Dr. Ronny Jackson won a Republican primary run-off race Tuesday night. If that name sounds familiar it is because he is a former White House physician who served at the White House from 2006 to 2018. He served as the president’s physician from 2013 to 2018. He is a retired United States Navy rear admiral. Now he lives in Texas’ 13th District and very likely headed to serving as a member of the House of Representatives in the seat now occupied by retiring Rep. Mac Thornberry.
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U.S. Locks Down Bases in Okinawa After Coronavirus Outbreak
A total of 61 cases are reported among U.S. personnel on Japanese island
TOKYO—The U.S. military said Sunday it has ordered Marine personnel on the Japanese island of Okinawa to stay on base after a coronavirus outbreak involving dozens of cases drew criticism from the island’s governor.
The Marine Corps told Okinawa officials that a total of 61 new coronavirus infections were confirmed among U.S. service members and related personnel on Okinawa between July 7 and July 11, said Marine spokesman Maj. Ken Kunze.
The southern island plays host to more than half of the roughly 50,000 U.S. military personnel in Japan, and tensions are frequent between local people and the U.S. forces over noise, crime, military accidents and other issues.
Military’s COVID-19 cases growing at twice the nationwide rate
More than 4,100 service members have tested positive for coronavirus since the July 1, according to the Defense Department’s latest statistics, a rise of about 33 percent in the last 10 days. That is more than twice the rate of growth nationwide during the same period, 16 percent, as the U.S. more than once broke its daily records for new cases.
There were three new deaths, all of contractors or civilians, during this period as well.
Defense officials have attributed the recent rise in military cases both to increased testing and to the lifting of shelter-in-place orders in some force concentration areas, while expressing faith that local commanders are enforcing protective measures like social distancing and face covering for their troops.
“While we are seeing some upticks in the same places there are upticks in the civilian sector, again, that is not necessarily overly surprising, in that we have been doing more testing,” assistant defense secretary for health affairs Tom McCaffery told reporters July 1. “And we have been doing testing of those who are asymptomatic.”
The infection rate among service members is now 0.8 percent, compared to 0.9 nationwide. That is the closest the military’s infection rate has come to the general public’s in the U.S., and double what it was in mid-June.
These most recent calculations by Military Times reflect the period between July 1 and July 10, rather than the previous weekly calculations published every Friday. DoD did not post its updated numbers on July 3, despite its current Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule.
Officials have pointed to states with spiking infection rates as possible contributors to new cases.
“In general we are doing more testing, which can lead to more positive cases, which prompts more testing,” Air Force spokesman Lt. Col. Malinda Singleton told Military Times in late June. “Many of our installations are in current hotspots (Texas, Arizona, Florida), which is also leading to an increase in positive cases.”
