Saturday, March 28, 2020

North Korea Launches More Missiles Into The Sea Of Japan

In this image released by Korea's Korean Central News Agency on March 22, a missile is fired from an unknown location in the country

Daily Mail/AFP: North Korea fires 'unidentified projectile' into sea off Japan's east coast a week after last missile launch ordered by Kim Jong Un

* South Korea's military chiefs said at least one missile fired toward Sea of Japan
* It was the fourth round of projectile launches this month from Pyongyang
* Comes as a prolonged hiatus in disarmament talks with the US drags on

North Korea on Sunday fired at least one 'unidentified projectile' into the sea off its east coast, the Yonhap news agency reported, citing the South's military joint chiefs of staff.

The projectile was fired towards the Sea of Japan, also known as the East Sea, the report said, adding that additional details were not immediately available from military officials.

It was the fourth round of such launches this month by Pyongyang, as the world struggles with the coronavirus pandemic -- and as a prolonged hiatus in disarmament talks with the United States drags on.

Read more ....

Update #1: North Korea launches apparent ballistic missiles into ocean (Reuters)
Update #2: North Korea fires missiles into sea, criticized by South (AP)

WNU Editor: This has been a busy month for North Korean missile launches .... N. Korea Has Record Month for Missile Launches, With Global Focus on Coronavirus (VOA).

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

President Grandpa took all their nuclear-armed missiles. He said so in a tweet.

Also, America is still cool and not a hyper obese banana republic run by lunatics.

Anonymous said...

Meanwhile Elected Democrats of high office are firing verbal missile that may yet lead to war.

"Trump backs off NY quarantine and asks CDC to issue 'strong travel advisory' instead after Gov. Cuomo declared the threat a 'federal declaration of war', as US death toll doubles in the space of two days to 2,164 with over 120,000 cases " - Daily Mail

I think they have it all wrong. Chris Cuomo is not the Fredo and Marion the smart one. They are both Fredo's.

If Trump had not suggested it, one of these Democrat governors would have chirped that he was wrong not to.

Trump merely suggested a course of action to see how it would go and the NY governor (D) decided to turn the clock to 15 seconds before midnight.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8163793/US-coronavirus-Cuomo-says-Trumps-quarantine-proposal-mean-war.html

Anonymous said...

Obese is the guy with the bad haircut from NK that 11:00 PM reports to.

RussInSoCal said...

Led Zeppelin - Bron-Y-Aur Stomp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oC-9aEf0Q-A

Anonymous said...

At a White House briefing on the coronavirus on March 20, President Trump called the State Department the “Deep State Department.” Behind him, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, dropped his head and rubbed his forehead.

Some thought Dr. Fauci was slighting the president, leading to a vitriolic online reaction. On Twitter and Facebook, a post that falsely claimed he was part of a secret cabal who opposed Mr. Trump was soon shared thousands of times, reaching roughly 1.5 million people.

A week later, Dr. Fauci — the administration’s most outspoken advocate of emergency measures to fight the coronavirus outbreak — has become the target of an online conspiracy theory that he is mobilizing to undermine the president.

That fanciful claim has spread across social media, fanned by a right-wing chorus of Mr. Trump’s supporters, even as Dr. Fauci has won a public following for his willingness to contradict the president and correct falsehoods and overly rosy pronouncements about containing the virus.

An analysis by The New York Times found over 70 accounts on Twitter that have promoted the hashtag #FauciFraud, with some tweeting as frequently as 795 times a day. The anti-Fauci sentiment is being reinforced by posts from Tom Fitton, the president of Judicial Watch, a conservative group; Bill Mitchell, host of the far-right online talk show “YourVoice America”; and other outspoken Trump supporters such as Shiva Ayyadurai, who has falsely claimed to be the inventor of email.

Many of the anti-Fauci posts, some of which pointed to a seven-year-old email that Dr. Fauci had sent praising Hillary Clinton when she was secretary of State, have been retweeted thousands of times. On YouTube, conspiracy-theory videos about Dr. Fauci have racked up hundreds of thousands of views in the past week. In private Facebook groups, posts disparaging him have also been shared hundreds of times and liked by thousands of people, according to the Times analysis.

One anti-Fauci tweet on Tuesday said, “Sorry liberals but we don’t trust Dr. Anthony Fauci.”

The torrent of falsehoods aimed at discrediting Dr. Fauci is another example of the hyperpartisan information flow that has driven a wedge into the way Americans think. For the past few years, far-right supporters of President Trump have regularly vilified those whom they see as opposing him. Even so, the campaign against Dr. Fauci stands out because he is one of the world’s leading infectious disease experts and a member of Mr. Trump’s virus task force, and it is unfolding as the government battles a pathogen that is rapidly spreading in the United States.

It is the latest twist in the ebb and flow of right-wing punditry that for weeks echoed Mr. Trump in minimizing the threat posed by the coronavirus and arguably undercut efforts to alert the public of its dangers. When the president took a more assertive posture against the outbreak, conservative outlets shifted, too — but now accuse Democrats and journalists of trying to use the pandemic to damage Mr. Trump politically.

Anonymous said...

Inside the White House during '15 Days to Slow the Spread'
19-24 minutes

President Donald Trump answers reporters' questions during a news conference with members of his Coronavirus Task Force in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on March 19, 2020. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

An eerie quiet crept over the White House.

Desks were empty. Office lights were turned off. Many staffers had been told to work from home. The bustling Navy Mess was closed, and the usual stream of visitors rushing in and out of the West Wing had slowed to a trickle. Left behind were President Donald Trump, his top aides, and a small group of staffers, hunkered down and making battle plans as the coronavirus marched across the country. Each person was acutely aware that their decisions in the coming days could define their legacy — not to mention whether they kept their jobs after 2020.

It was the beginning of the 15-day period during which the White House hoped it could slow the advancing virus and stem the economic bleeding left in its wake. For the next two weeks, the president’s coronavirus task force encouraged Americans to essentially self-isolate, while aides worked with anxious governors across the country and quarreling lawmakers negotiating over the largest economic recovery bill the country has ever seen.

Each day generated new challenges and controversies. The president oversold deals with companies to make medical equipment. He trumpeted potential cures that were still unproven. Aides fielded incessant questions about medical supply shortages. Everyone grappled with a rising death toll.

This account of the last two weeks inside the White House is based on over half a dozen interviews during that period with staffers and outside advisers, as well as prior POLITICO reporting. Collectively, staffers described a time of uncertainty and reassessment as the West Wing reoriented itself entirely around a singular mission. They witnessed historic moments from the center of power — the biggest one-day plunge ever in for the Dow Jones Industrial Average; followed by its biggest one-day gain since 1933. They wondered what it would all mean for the election — would there even be in-person voting in eight months? Is campaigning as we know it over?

Meanwhile, Americans everywhere grappled with their changing realities: Will the way we celebrate, congregate and pray change forever? Will we become a more isolated society, connected by video conferences rather than in-person gatherings?

“Should I even be here?” a White House official said squeamishly after multiple high-level staffers were exposed to the virus and forced to stay home.

On Tuesday, the White House’s “15 Days to Slow the Spread” initiative will come to an end. The country will look to Trump to tell people how much longer daily life will be paralyzed, how much longer they’ll be out of a job.

Anonymous said...

Four national retailers touted at a White House press conference earlier this month as future coronavirus testing sites still have not rolled out their drive-through test centers, according to reporting from the Washington Post.

At a Rose Garden press conference on March 13, the day he declared Covid-19 to be a national emergency, President Donald Trump appeared with leaders from CVS, Target, Walgreens, and Walmart and said those chains would provide space in their parking lots for drive-through testing to take place.

The “goal is for individuals to drive up and be swabbed without having to leave your car,” Trump said at the time.

But according to the Washington Post, there are only four drive-through testing sites as of last week among the 26,400 stores those retailers operate: two at Walmart locations near Chicago, one each at a CVS in central Massachusetts and a Walgreens in the Chicago area, and none at Target. Rite-Aid, which was not represented at the press conference, has also opened one drive-through site in Philadelphia.

As Vox’s Alex Ward has reported, drive-through testing is one critical component of the fight against novel coronavirus, because it maintains isolation for potentially infected people and expedites the process of collecting data about who is infected. Experts have pointed to the large-scale rollout of free drive-through testing in South Korea as contributing to that country’s decline in coronavirus cases.

Some local governments, including New Rochelle, a suburban community north of New York City, have implemented such testing regimens themselves. At least 19 states have some mobile testing sites, most outside of hospitals.

But “an array of logistical challenges, ranging from a shortage of testing supplies to funding” has stymied the promised public-private partnership with some of America’s largest retailers, write the Post’s Elizabeth Dwoskin, Abha Bhattarai, Juliet Eilperin, and Ashley Parker.

They report that a nationwide lack of testing kits led the White House to downgrade its plans, limiting tests at the retail sites to first responders and health workers. Testing is only available for those who meet specific criteria, so although the US just reached the grim milestone of having the most confirmed coronavirus cases in the world, that number is almost certainly an undercount.

The CVS site can administer about 200 tests a day, according to the Post, and Walmart can administer about 150 per day at each of its two sites. Target said it is waiting on local officials before it can open up its parking lots.

On March 13, Trump promised 500,000 testing kits would be available by the following week, and 5 million by April. To date, 672,449 tests have been administered nationwide, according to the Covid Tracking Project.

Mobile testing units around the country are primarily operated at health care sites, such as hospitals and clinics, because the FDA has only approved nostril swabs to be administered by professionals. However, Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary for Health Brett P. Giroir told the Post that the administration has supported the launch of about 30 mobile sites, and will support retail-driven testing sites going forward.

“We are working closely with these retailers now to explore the expansion of testing sites across the county, now further enabled by the nasal self-swabbing technique recently approved by the FDA,” said Giroir.
Trump says he wants to lift social distancing measures, but lack of testing undercounts US cases

Anonymous said...

Joe Manchin nails Mitch McConnell: You’re "more concerned about the health of Wall Street"
5-6 minutes
FILE - In this Feb. 1, 2017, file photo, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va. speaks during an Associated Press interview in his office on Capitol Hill in Washington. It's a rare and momentous decision, one by one, seated at desks centuries old, senators will stand and cast their votes for a Supreme Court nominee. It's a difficult political call in the modern era, especially for the 10 Democrats facing tough re-election next year in states that President Donald Trump won. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File) (AP)
Sen. Joe Manchin erupts into shouting match with McConnell over Senate Republicans' coronavirus bailouts

David Edwards
March 28, 2020 5:09PM (UTC)

This article originally appeared on Raw Story
rawlogo

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) called out Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Monday for being more concerned with propping up the economy than providing supplies to hospitals fighting the novel coronavirus.

"You can throw all the money at Wall Street you want to," Manchin said after McConnell blamed Democrats for a stalled stimulus bill. "People are afraid to leave their homes. They're afraid of the health care. I've got workers who don't have masks. I've got health care workers who don't have gowns."

"And it looks like we're worried more about the economy than we are the health care and the wellbeing of the people of America," the West Virginia senator complained.

Anonymous said...

North Korea being paid big money by China to increase the APPEARANCE of disorder in the World, all to blame on the orange man, by our brainless media who cannot see a plot even if it's written in marker pen in front of them :)
If you vote Democrat this year, you gotta get your brain checked.. just look no further what Pelosi did with the stimulus bill - just outrageous to put gender, race and all kinds of other things into a corona virus stimulus bill, or the airlines emission thing.. what the fuck does any of this have to do with helping people who are hurting now? The green deal sucked a year ago and sucks even worse now.. it's an embarrassment and Pelosi should step down this week, such a disgraceful person

Anonymous said...

Marc Caputo / Politico:
Trump camp targets Obama's Ebola czar Find
5 minutes ago
Steven Shepard / Politico:
Biden leads Trump in new polls despite coronavirus approval bounce Find
15 minutes ago
American Enterprise Institute - AEI:
National coronavirus response: A road map to reopening Find
30 minutes ago
Byron Tau / Wall Street Journal:
WSJ News Exclusive | Government Tracking How People Move Around in Coronavirus Pandemic Find
70 minutes ago
New York Times:
The U.S. Tried to Build a New Fleet of Ventilators. The Mission Failed. Find
75 minutes ago
Washington Post:
Live updates: Pence to bring recommendations to Trump on when to reopen the U.S. economy … Find
» Extend timeline

Anonymous said...

Well well we have @ 9:45 the always on topic squirrel. Always clever in his relentless search for relevancy.

Anonymous said...

Any other diseases is a co-morbidity factor for corona flu. 9:46 seems to have monomania.

Anonymous said...

First of all, she has a name. Gretchen Whitmer. She is not “the woman” or “all she does is sit there” or “you know who I’m talking about” — all phrases President Donald Trump has used besides saying the actual name of the person Michigan voters elected to govern us.

It’s “Gretchen Whitmer.” Show some respect. At a time when Americans must adjust to a world without hugs, kisses or handshakes, the least a president of the United States can do is call our governor by her name.

And stop complaining about her “complaining.” Gretchen Whitmer hasn’t done anything that every Michigander doesn’t want her to do — ask the federal government for masks, ventilators, test kits and other aid to fight the COVID-19 virus that is infecting and killing us.

She’s not speaking for herself. She’s speaking for the people.
Governor Whitmer provides an update on COVID-19 in Michigan during a press conference on March 26, 2020.

Anonymous said...

Anon @ 11:14
Blah blah blah. It's getting to you that no one has any "respect" for you guys anymore, that's tragic. It is getting to you.

Anonymous said...

World News
Half Full
Culture
U.S. News
Scouted
Travel

Trump’s Coronavirus Disinformation Campaign Isn’t Working: Poll
TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE

The president has presented an overly rosy picture about how the fight against the virus is going. A new poll suggests the public isn’t buying it.
Sam Stein

Politics Editor
Published Mar. 28, 2020 8:31PM ET
exclusive
Drew Angerer/Getty

A clear majority of the American public, including self-identified Republicans, do not believe the disinformation that President Donald Trump keeps pushing around the spread of coronavirus. And even members of the president’s own party are skeptical of his argument that getting the country back to work needs to be as prioritized as public safety measures.

A new survey conducted by Ipsos exclusively for The Daily Beast provides some of the clearest evidence to date that the president’s attempts to paint a rosy picture about the coronavirus’ spread throughout the country are not resonating beyond a small segment of the populace with a small exception for those who say they’re getting their information from Fox News.

A full 73 percent of respondents, including 75 percent of Republicans, said that it was not true that “anyone who wants to get tested [for the virus] can get tested.” Just 17 percent said it was true.
Only 20 percent of the public, and just 25 percent of Republicans, said that they believed a vaccine will be available soon. Forty-two percent said that was false and 38 percent said they did not know.
Fifty-one percent of respondents, including a plurality or Republicans (46 percent), said it was false that the virus would go away on its own in warm weather, while just 13 percent said that was true.
And 61 percent of respondents said that they believed COVID-19 was more deadly than the flu; with 22 percent saying it was about the same and 11 percent saying they believed it was less deadly.

The question that seemed to generate the most confusion was on whether the Federal Drug Administration had “approved anti-malaria drugs to treat the virus.”

But even then, 45 percent of respondents correctly identified that statement as false, 22 percent said it was true and 33 percent said they did not know.

Anonymous said...

11:45
It doesn't bother you at all to be wrong, impressive.

Anonymous said...

!2:55,

What do you expect? It has a formal education, but zero real skills.

G said...

Must nuclear bombs sooner north Korea fools

G said...

Attack now

Anonymous said...

As healthcare providers across the U.S. desperately attempt to treat a rapidly growing number of patients with the coronavirus, a pharmaceutical company with ties to the Trump administration has been granted exclusive status for a drug it is developing to treat the illness—a potential windfall for the company that could put the medication out of reach for many Americans.

As The Intercept reported Monday, the Food and Drug Administration granted Gilead Sciences "orphan" drug status for remdesivir, one of several drugs being tested as potential treatments for the coronavirus, officially known as COVID-19. The designation is generally reserved for drugs that treat rare illnesses affecting fewer than 200,000 Americans—but companies can be eligible if the designation, as in this case of a rapidly spreading virus, is made before a disease spreads beyond that limit.

About 40,000 Americans had contracted COVID-19 when the orphan status was granted to remdesivir Monday, and the disease is spreading faster in the U.S. than in other countries. By Tuesday afternoon, more than 51,000 Americans had confirmed cases.

Having secured orphan drug status, Gilead Sciences can now profit exclusively off the drug for seven years and could block manufacturers from developing generic versions of the drug which might be more accessible to many patients. The company can set price controls on the drug as well as benefiting from grants and tax credits.

As The Intercept reported, the designation was given to a company where Joe Grogan, a member of President Donald Trump's "coronavirus task force," worked as a lobbyist from 2011 to 2017, often working on issues regarding drug pricing.

"This is a massive scandal," tweeted Ryan Grim, Washington, D.C. bureau chief for The Intercept.

This is a massive scandal

Trump's FDA just granted a drug that is being used to treat coronavirus patients, developed previously by Gilead Sciences, "orphan" status, giving the company seven years of exclusivity. https://t.co/mFaXfMWzCx by @fastlerner, @lhfang
— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) March 24, 2020