https://hotair.com/archives/ja...ndor-just-went-dark/

Earlier this week we looked at the major snafu going on in Michigan, where Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s administration awarded a lucrative contract to one of her campaign’s vendors to trace coronavirus cases. The contract was given to Great Lakes Community Engagement, who was set to turn the work over to long-time Democratic consultant Mike Kolehouse.

After alarm bells started going off over the idea of such a liberal outfit collecting that amount of personal data about Michigan voters, the contract was canceled.

Whitmer is claiming that she has no idea how Kolehouse ended up with that sweet arrangement

Originally, we heard that Whitmer’s administration cooked up the idea. But Whitmer denied that and suggested that the decision to award the contract to Kolehouse’s outfit was made by the State Emergency Operations Center.

But they almost immediately denied the claim, saying they had never approved the vendor

Now the finger is pointing at the state Health Department, who doesn’t seem inclined to comment on it thus far.

Couldn’t we just clear all this up by asking Kolehouse himself? That’s going to be a lot harder than you might think at first because he’s basically deleted his entire online presence in a matter of 48 hours.

If you look for the website of his company (the one that was about to pocket nearly $200,000 from this deal) you’ll get a 404 error. The entire website is gone. He also wiped out his social media accounts and is not answering emails.

^^^ The people of Michigan need to run Whitmer out on a rail.

And not one word about it in the local news. I first heard about it from somebody that is out of state

quote:

Originally posted by Pipe Smoker:
If true, good news for me!

“French researchers are planning to trial whether nicotine patches will help prevent - or lessen the effects of - the deadly coronavirus.

Evidence is beginning to show the proportion of smokers infected with coronavirus is much lower than the rates in the general population.

Scientists are now questioning whether nicotine could stop the virus from infecting cells, or if it may prevent the immune system overreacting to the infection.”

https://mol.im/a/8246939

I'm taking extra precautions.

quote:

Originally posted by Rightwire:
And not one word about it in the local news. I first heard about it from somebody that is out of state

Tucker Carlson reported on it this week, though.

It's the greatest fleecing of America in History. $5,000,000,000,000 gone. What did it do? What did we get for it? Next week we'll have to print another $5 Trillion Dollars.

Millions Of Now-Unemployed Americans Are Making More Money Than They Did When Working

More than 26 million Americans have filed new claims for unemployment benefits in recent weeks, and a lot of them will now be bringing home much more money than they did while they were actually working. Needless to say, this is going to create a perverse incentive for people to stay unemployed for as long as possible. Just think about this for a moment. If you could earn more money sitting on your sofa gobbling down chips and watching Netflix, what possible motivation would you have to go back to work? Many low paid workers are going to want to ride this gravy train all the way to the end, and as you will see below, this is already causing big problems for businesses all across America.

So how did we get to this point?

Well, the Democrats pushed extremely hard to get a provision into the CARES Act that would give unemployed workers an additional $600 a week on top of any normal unemployment benefits. The following comes from USA Today…

The CARES Act includes a $600-a-week bonus until July 31 for those registered as unemployed. The $600 is issued in addition to the standard unemployment benefit, which varies by state and by individuals’ record of previous earnings.

This means that for the next several months, unemployed workers all over America will be bringing home at least the equivalent of $15 an hour based on a 40 hour work week, and some Republican members of Congress were very concerned about this…

Some Republican lawmakers warned about this unintended consequence of the relief bill when it was being drafted, noting that $600 a week amounts to $15 an hour, more than twice the federal minimum wage. That’s in addition to state unemployment benefits, which vary widely, from a maximum of $235 per week in Mississippi to $795 per week in Massachusetts.

Despite those concerns, the CARES Act easily sailed through both chambers of Congress, and now we are stuck with it.

If it was just a small percentage of workers that were being overpaid not to work, we could certainly live with that on a temporary basis.

But according to one study, more than 42 percent of all workers made less than $15 an hour in 2015…

According to a report by the Leadership Conference Fund and the Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality, 42.4% of people working in the United States in 2015 earned less than $15 an hour.

So how is the economy supposed to “get back to normal” if more than 40 percent of our workers would be better off unemployed?

https://www.zerohedge.com/pers...hey-did-when-working

And now the scientifically incompetent and overly politicized WHO is saying there is "no evidence" that Wuhan Fly antibodies make people immune to reinfection.

https://www.reuters.com/articl...ed-who-idUSKCN2270FB

Yeah, they aren't trying to string this out for political reasons...

There is no evidence that reinfection can occur, but there is evidence that China's and WHO's test kits are defective and wrong half of the time.

April 25, 2020
'The Pretense of Knowledge' has Cost America Dearly

Recently, Brit Hume, the sober and understated Fox News commentator, voiced the thoughts of millions when he said,

“I think its time to consider the possibility… that this lockdown, as opposed to the more moderate mitigation efforts… is a colossal public policy calamity.”

The financial extent of the calamity was quantified by economist Scott Grannis when he observed that “almost overnight, we have wiped out all the net job gains of the past 14 years.” He made that comment on April 12 and the losses aren’t over yet. Grannis bluntly concluded that, “The shutdown of the U.S. economy will prove to be the most expensive self-inflicted injury in the history of mankind.”

The loss of liberty incurred as a result of shutdown is not as easily quantifiable, but is no less significant.

Epidemiological “models” have provided the scientific basis for this large-scale abrogation of personal and economic liberty. Now that the models have been shown to be grossly inaccurate, some are demanding accountability.

In a recent op-ed, Georgia congressman Jody Hice wrote:

“Public health experts, scientists, and government officials all warned that millions would die unless strict measures were put in place… So, we willingly took unprecedented steps to save the most vulnerable among us, even at the cost of wreaking unparalleled economic damage. The experts said it was necessary, that the coronavirus was especially deadly, and our medical systems were in danger of being overwhelmed… Now, weeks into the pandemic, the dire outcomes foretold by experts have failed to come to pass. The models used to justify the closure of society have been shown to be wildly inaccurate… We need to examine why the models failed us, why their creators have been so far off the mark, and why these projections were used to justify policies that have resulted in unparalleled economic disruption.”

It is worth having that discussion. In retrospect, and despite their air of authority, the experts never had enough knowledge about this virus to make reliable calculations about the future.

But the real problem with the models weren’t that they proved to be false, but rather that they were promoted with false certitude.

“I confess that I prefer true but imperfect knowledge,” economist Friedrich Hayek once said, “to a pretense of exact knowledge that is likely to be false.”

Hayek’s remark, given as he was accepting the Nobel Prize in 1974, was that thinking of economics as a “science” might lead to “a pretense of knowledge,” the idea that any one person might know enough to engineer society successfully, unmindful of unintended consequences.

But Hayek went on to note that his reasoning applied to the physical sciences as well:

“There is danger in the exuberant feeling of ever growing power which the advance of the physical sciences has engendered and which tempts man to try, ‘dizzy with success’… to subject not only our natural but also our human environment to the control of a human will. The recognition of the insuperable limits to his knowledge ought indeed to teach the student of society a lesson of humility which should guard him against becoming an accomplice in men’s fatal striving to control society--a striving which makes him not only a tyrant over his fellows, but which may well make him the destroyer of a civilization which no brain has designed but which has grown from the free efforts of millions of individuals.”

These observations, made over 40 years ago, look prescient today.

How might we have acted if the models didn’t exist? Most likely, we would have chosen a more traditional approach to fighting the pandemic: quarantine and protect the sick and vulnerable, institute some sensible mitigation policies, and otherwise get on with life.

This is essentially the approach Sweden has chosen, and for which it has been pilloried in the American media. Yet, Sweden’s policies are based on thinking that is quintessentially American.

In an article in the UK Spectator, Fredrik Erixon, the director of the European Centre for International Political Economy in Brussels, explained that,

“We worry about Covid-19 a lot. Many people work from home. Restaurants are open, but not bustling. Keeping two metres apart at bus stops is something Swedes were pretty good at before the crisis: we don’t need much encouragement now. We’re careful. But our approach to fighting the pandemic starts from something more fundamental: in a liberal democracy you have to convince and not command people into action. If you lose that principle, you will lose your soul.”

So far, the Swedish strategy of allowing some exposure to the virus in order to build immunity among the general population while protecting high-risk groups like the elderly appears to be paying off. The country’s chief epidemiologist reported that “herd immunity” could be reached in the capital of Stockholm in a matter of weeks. Moreover, Sweden has achieved this while taking less of an economic hit than other countries in Europe.

Sweden’s approach was a mixture of epidemiology and principle. Erixon noted that the concept of a national lockdown is “deeply illiberal -- and, until now, untested.”

He allowed that Sweden may change if facts warrant. “But,” he wrote, “the vast majority, for now, want Sweden to keep its cool. We don’t want to remember 2020 as the time when we caused irreparable harm to our liberties -- or lost them entirely.”

Sweden instructing the U.S. on liberty. Who would have thought?

Read more: https://www.americanthinker.co...y.html#ixzz6Kdr53KZc

quote:

So how is the economy supposed to “get back to normal” if more than 40 percent of our workers would be better off unemployed?

Normal unemployment benefits are paid for a set length of time, so aren't these as well? Also there is a usual condition that one must be actively seeking a job but I can see how that part might be waived at the moment.

quote:

Originally posted by tleo205:
Normal unemployment benefits are paid for a set length of time, so aren't these as well?

From the article:

quote:

The CARES Act includes a $600-a-week bonus until July 31 for those registered as unemployed. The $600 is issued in addition to the standard unemployment benefit, which varies by state and by individuals’ record of previous earnings.

This means that for the next several months, unemployed workers all over America will be bringing home at least the equivalent of $15 an hour based on a 40 hour work week.

In Michigan a worker making 400.00 a week draws 185.00 in Workers Comp.Add the 600.00 and it gives them a double check every week.

It's an end around to $15 minimum wage.

$700/40hr =$17.50 per hour

If they normally only worked 32 hours = $21.88 per hour.

Who going to want to go back to work? The cashier I always talk to said her husband is loving it. He's making more than he did at work and has no intention of returning until he runs out of benefits.

Complete windfall for fast food workers, restaurant workers, and cashiers.

quote:

Originally posted by feersum dreadnaught:
We fought a revolution during a smallpox epidemic.

With a 30-40% rate of death for those of a European background and damn near 100% for the Native American population.

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:

Who going to want to go back to work? The cashier I always talk to said her husband is loving it. He's making more than he did at work and has no intention of returning until he runs out of benefits.

The dems way to make people happy to stay home.

I can speak to this personally since I filed for unemployment for the first time in my life 10 days ago, and received my award letter yesterday

I will receive $374 a week for 26 weeks.

At the bottom of the letter it informed me I will receive an additional $600 a week until July 25th.

I was laid off, with my son, by my wife, who owns our medical practice, along with 14 more of our employees, for a grand total of 16 of our 22 employees laid off either entirely or partially.

We applied for the PPP on the day it was first available, but PNC never submitted our application to the SBA. We applied for the EIDL on 3/21 and then again on 3/29 after the SBA informed us that they had lost our initial application in the data breach they had.

After the PPP ran out of money we decided to lay off/furlough everyone we could (including me).

Now that the PPP is being replenished we are hoping to receive relief in this round.

The terms of the PPP loan is that you maintain a certain percentage of your work force (of course, the whole point of it is to mitigate the employment crisis created by the response to Covid-19)

Several of the staff we had to lay off are actually now making more than they did when they were employed because of the additional $600/week.

Hopefully they will not choose to remain unemployed

Of course, that’s all putting the cart before the house. Until we actually get the PPP we are more concerned with staying out of chapter 11.

This is a weird time to own a business. It’s an even weirder time to own a medical practice. Like everyone, we’re just trying to get through it the best we can.

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:
It's an end around to $15 minimum wage.

$700/40hr =$17.50 per hour

If they normally only worked 32 hours = $21.88 per hour.

Who going to want to go back to work? The cashier I always talk to said her husband is loving it. He's making more than he did at work and has no intention of returning until he runs out of benefits.

Complete windfall for fast food workers, restaurant workers, and cashiers.

If you are called back to work and refuse unemployment stops

Kevbo,

I'm 0-3 on the stimulus stuff.

Job, didn't get PPP, they are trying for round 2.

VA Unemployment Insurance, turned down, no income in 2019. I filed an online appeal and submitted my W-2 for 2019. Who knows if I'll be approved for it. Tried for days to get through on phone and web chat. The one time I didn't get disconnected on the phone, I sat on hold for 4 hours, then got hung up on.

$1,200 government bucks, got paper check for 2018, not filed for 2019 yet. At first it said I didn't qualify. Tried today again, I'm now in the system, but it doesn't recognize my AGI or Refund numbers when I enter them. Tried for both me and my wife's SSN, no luck.

By the time any of this stuff actually goes through, I'll be back at work again.

confusing message from Virginia state govt

https://www.breitbart.com/poli...e-a-two-year-affair/

Gov. Ralph Northam (D) shared the “blueprint” to reopen Virginia on Friday, dubbed the “Forward Virginia Blueprint,” which outlines a phased approach to reopening the state — an approach embraced by a number of other states.

“We cannot and will not lift restrictions the way you turn on a light switch,” Northam (D) said. “We will do it responsibly and deliberately, and it has to be grounded in data.”

Phase One involves the reopening of certain businesses deemed “nonessential,” requiring them to comply with stringent safety guidelines. It would also continue to encourage face coverings in public, teleworking, and continued social distancing.

State Health Commissioner Norman Oliver claimed the first phase could span two years.

How long that phase will last is unclear, but State Health Commissioner Norman Oliver said he expected it to be in effect until “medical countermeasures” like a treatment or vaccine are rolled out broadly.

“I, personally, think Phase One will be a two year affair,” Oliver said. “There are a lot of people working on this, and I hope they prove me wrong, but I don’t see it happening in less than two years.”

However the Virginia Health Department attempted to clarify Oliver’s comments. A spokeswoman for the department told WRVA, “Dr. Oliver intended to say that the Commonwealth will likely be dealing with COVID-19 in some form until a vaccine is produced, not that Phase One itself would take two years.”

Northam said the state will use federal guidelines to gauge when it can safely enter the first phase of recovery, which requires a 14-day decline in positive cases and hospitalizations, a sustainable supply of personal protective equipment for hospitals, enough hospital beds, and sufficient intensive care capacity.

“We will get back to work by greatly increasing our testing, then tracing the contacts of people who test positive and isolating these individuals, not everyone in Virginia,” Northam said. “That is the key to moving forward.”

Hopefully the PPP comes through for us both, brother

Edit: the governor’s phased reopening, which he took credit for, is pretty much based on the President’s. The standards are a hard meet because they require cases to decrease while expanding testing which of course will cause the cases to skyrocket

My personal observations here in nova is a lot of people are government employees still getting paid that treat this more like a vacation than a pandemic.

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:
Kevbo,

I'm 0-3 on the stimulus stuff.

Job, didn't get PPP, they are trying for round 2.

VA Unemployment Insurance, turned down, no income in 2019. I filed an online appeal and submitted my W-2 for 2019. Who knows if I'll be approved for it. Tried for days to get through on phone and web chat. The one time I didn't get disconnected on the phone, I sat on hold for 4 hours, then got hung up on.

$1,200 government bucks, got paper check for 2018, not filed for 2019 yet. At first it said I didn't qualify. Tried today again, I'm now in the system, but it doesn't recognize my AGI or Refund numbers when I enter them. Tried for both me and my wife's SSN, no luck.

By the time any of this stuff actually goes through, I'll be back at work again.