War Against Lab Leak Grinds On, Beyond Laughable Now

Fifty-one percent of Americans favori lab leak origins of
SARS-CoV-2 virus, causing Coronavirus disease COVID-19,
Morning Consult

The explanation SARS-CoV-2 virus, (causing Coronavirus disease COVID-19), originated through accidental release from a research laboratory became the majority view of Americans in February 2023, according to polls in Morning Consult.

Democrats lead the nation in believing Covid 19 naturally occurred, instead of spilling over from a virology research laboratory — with only some 42 percent of Democrats favoring lab leak origins, 51 percent of all Americans favoring lab leak origins, and 72 percent of Republicans favoring lab leak origins. Morning Consult

Democrats have been obstinate in their refusal to publicly acknowledge the proposition an engineered lab leak that caused Coronavirus disease COVID-19 as an origins explanation is not only plausible, but now is clear and convincing and climbing.

However, as government leaks continue, it is becoming less politically palatable for Joe Biden and the Democrats to continue the Big Lie that Covid 19 must have not have come from a lab. [For a continuing dose of evidence, reason and facts on SARS-CoV-2 origins, see Alex Washburne @Ayjchan @JamieMetzl, Nicholas Wade, DRASTIC (Decentralized Radical Autonomous Search Team Investigating COVID-19), and especially all the folks at BiosafetyNow who are embarrassing the deluded and dishonest.

Virologists, clumsy at politics, to this day often sound like dead-enders in the origins debate. And not just virologists.

Writes Justin B. Kinney, Quantitative Biologist. Associate Professor, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Co-founder, Biosafety Now, http://biosafetynow.org, "Not just virologists—public health experts and biosecurity experts too. Really seems like many in this extended science/policy community reflexively circle the wagons at any mention of a 'lab leak.'"

A recent exchange on social media exemplifies some public pronouncements and an unsettling ideology of many virologists, (noone is sure how many).

Marburg virus of 1967

The exchange concerns the infamous Marburg virus of 1967, one of the most famous lab leak tragedies, in which a deadly virus causing hemorrhagic fever leaked from lab workers to families and caregivers, resulting in 31 deaths.

One Krutika Kuppalli, a reputable bio-health expert, using perverse reasoning, voices her personal view that because a virus can infect human beings from animals, zoonoses, this virus capability disconfirms  possibility that researchers in a lab were studying that virus and that the virus subsequently could have leaked from the laboratory through lab workers, such as what happened in Marburg, Germany.

Writes Kuppalli on March 24, "If we can believe that #Marburg and many other infectious diseases (e.g. Ebola, Plague, Mpox etc) is the result of zoonotic transmission why is it so hard for us to believe that it was the same with COVID-19."

In reply to Kuppalli, Justin B. Kinney, Quantitative Biologist. Associate Professor, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Co-founder, Biosafety Now (http://biosafetynow.org, @BiosafetyNow) in muted, apparent disgust, writes, "Fun fact: Marburg virus is named after Marburg, Germany—where the virus does not naturally occur—because the first documented outbreak was caused by a lab leak at the Behringwerke industrial plant there. @BiosafetyNow."

In reply to Kinney's simple and, what one would guess, is an uncontroversial narrative of a historical fact of a lab leak comes the following exchange:

This is absolutely false and why on earth would you make that up?

— Gigi Gronvall (@ggronvall) March 26, 2023

The following exchanges take place that ought merit Kinney be given a Nobel Peace Price for his patience in dealing with utter stupidity.

What I wrote is true. I thought you’d know this history.

— Justin B. Kinney (@jbkinney) March 26, 2023

I’m astounded by the disdainful reaction of public health and biosecurity experts to my *accurately* calling the 1967 outbreak of Marburg virus a “lab leak”. Their reaction makes me even less inclined to believe what they say about the origins of SARS-CoV-2. https://t.co/cfC1HdJCgu

— Justin B. Kinney (@jbkinney) March 26, 2023

Lesson going forward is: If an anti-lab leak stooge speaks, he or she is lying.

These state-sponsored propagandists are so transparent & vile.

— Dana Parish (@danaparish) March 26, 2023

Marburg was not a lab leak? It was lab workers infected by monkeys. That's a lab leak. In 2019, a US biolab was shut down because necropsies were performed on monkeys and the door to the room wasn't closed, exposing lab techs outside who weren't wearing respiratory protection.

— Laurence (Larry) Boorstein (@LarryBoorstein) March 26, 2023

It’s more than semantics/insults, the scientific community (of which I am a member) is by and large treating the public like they are stupid children that need to be punished for questioning their authority. I feel it’s the scientific community that needs to be held accountable

— Bryce Nickels (@Bryce_Nickels) March 26, 2023

>

It's troubling how many virologists seem more concerned about the potential for new rules and regulations on their own research than the possibility that the research of their respected colleagues might have sparked the COVID-19 pandemic. https://t.co/KhuBSYFAiq

— Justin B. Kinney (@jbkinney) March 25, 2023

Yes, it is troubling that virologists seem more concerned about the potential for new rules and regulations on their own research than the possibility that the research of their respected colleagues might have sparked the COVID-19 pandemic.

Even more troubling are the facts that the Democrat Party is not concerned that bio-research might have sparked the COVID-19 pandemic, and that Biden and the Democrats continue to block open investigations into the COVID-19 pandemic origins.

The attacks and lies will go on for a very long time.

It may seem subtle for people outside the field, but for anyone who's been paying attention throughout COVID, Dr. Gonsalves has been one of Dr. Fauci's attack dogs.

His attack on Dr. Redfield's far superior virological credentials is a transparently bad-faith defense of Fauci. https://t.co/WzdpWidaWk

— Alex Washburne (@WashburneAlex) March 26, 2023

Where, dolt, did Kinney suggest gain-of-function research was involved in the laboratory accidents with Marburg virus?

Why, dolt, do you limit the definition of "laboratory accident" to include only gain-of-function research?

— Richard H. Ebright (@R_H_Ebright) March 26, 2023

“In over 1,000 years of evolutionary time, we see no evidence of a furin cleavage site in any SARS CoV, except for the SARS-CoV that emerged in Wuhan 1.5 years after researchers proposed to insert a furin cleavage site in a SARS CoV in Wuhan.” Mmmm… https://t.co/rz4B1K2JHP

— Frank Visser (@ReusVisser) March 26, 2023

Unsurprisingly, virologists want the public to believe up is down, wet is dry, day is night, and that they care about lab safety. That journalists keep pretending AR and cohorts are experts in anything other than misinformation peddling is a joke. https://t.co/aXLV3Nw5Ar

— Bryce Nickels (@Bryce_Nickels) March 26, 2023

Kuppalli's statement, and similar statements over the last 24 hours by Eckerle, Gronvall, Rasmussen, and Pease are a public declaration of an inability to read, an inability to reason and/or a desire to deceive.

— Richard H. Ebright (@R_H_Ebright) March 26, 2023

I want everyone to observe how confidently "science journalist" @Laurie_Garrett states something as epidemiological fact, pointing to her book

And then read @R_H_Ebright, an actual scientist.

If you just read Garrett, your understanding of science would be wrong. https://t.co/4dqu1GfUzs pic.twitter.com/VCoG9RMVQc

— Alex Washburne (@WashburneAlex) March 27, 2023

Republicans Go Full-Crazy as Entire GOP Congressional Delegation Votes Against COVID-19 Relief

Not a single Republican has cast a vote for COVID relief in 2021
as the world enters the second year of the Coronavirus Pandemic.

Update: House passes American Rescue Plan with no Republican votes, March 10.
--
There is plenty of cause to feel betrayed by the Biden administration ranging from its rejection of student loan forgiveness, minimum wage surrender, to chopping promised survival checks.

But the entire Republican Party congressional delegation has just issued a resounding 'no' to every small business, American family and school suffering under the worst pandemic in modern history. 

News that the Republicans did not muster a single vote on Feb 27 for Joe Biden's $1.9-Trillion American Rescue Plan shows the Grand Ole Party pursuing not just crazy, destructive policy, but also suicidal politics (H. R. 1319 Roll Call).

Biden's bill also provides critical funding "to dramatically increase our country’s sequencing, surveillance, and outbreak analytics capacity at the levels demanded by the crisis," in a nod to virus mutations and evolution, both processes as real and predictable as the misery and devastation already inflicted (White House).

What Republicans are doing is madness unrivaled, and worthy of comparisons to crazed religious states the world-over.

"It is worth sitting and actually considering how completely insane it is the COVID relief package passed the House of Representatives without a single Republican vote," said Saagar Enjeti of The Hill. "You might think this is just Washington politics as usual. But it actually shows how completely out-of-step the GOP is today with the general population."

Enjeti notes that 76 percent of the American people support the American Rescue Plan, including 60 percent of Republicans and 70 percent of independents (Williams, Morning Consult Poll).

So why wouldn't Republicans want to help with this crisis?

Because, seriously, the GOP is a crazy party.

If this band of anti-social nutcases were around in 1955, they would have opposed the Polio Vaccine, and if this same gang were alive in 1796, they would have branded Edward Jenner and the Small Pox Vaccine as liars and lies.

Meanwhile, the Republicans continue even to advocate against wearing masks, much less federal help.

In Wisconsin, vulnerable neighbors are effectively asking neighbors not to kill them in advocacy for masks and personal hygienic practices, (WKOW-TV, Facebook). Receptions to pleas on local media and social media have been warm and sympathetic, with the exception of the Republican Party of Wisconsin.

This is crazy time right at the moment when we as a country can least afford it.

From The Hill:

Gov Tony Evers on Defensive Again as He Dithers on Mandatory Masks

A Facebook message speaks for many across Wisconsin.

Madison, Wisconsin — The push against Wisconsin Gov Tony Evers (D) for his refusal to issue executive orders mandating masks in public is mounting.

Tony 'Mush' Evers will hesitate, dither, wobble, anything but act.

This Evers' failure to act will cost lives.

Evers' tendency to hesitate played out in the run-up to the April 7 elections in which Evers ignored public health officials, local elections officials and the Wisconsin people until he finally bowed to the national ridicule to which the state was subjected.


Just out from The Capital Times:

Gov. Tony Evers has yet to issue a statewide mask order.

The governor says that, in the face of a surge in coronavirus cases, a statewide mask mandate is 'something we’re considering.' To our view, it is time for Evers to stop considering and start acting.

Evers cannot allow himself to be constrained by shortsighted partisans who oppose everything he does. Wisconsin is now the only state in the country with a Democratic governor that does not have a mask mandate. It is time for Evers to call the bluff of Republicans when it comes to matters of public health and safety. The governor has the power to take action to save lives and the economy, and Wisconsinites want him to use it.

Gov Tony Evers Sees End of Safer-at-Home Order; Would Follow Trump, Republicans' COIVD 19 Policy

Update II: Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, is warning Congress that if the country reopens too soon during the coronavirus pandemic, it will result in "needless suffering and death,"
(Madisoncom). Gov Evers' political gambit in issuing a new May 11 Emergency Order is his latest let's-hope tactic.
 
Update: See The GOP tests 2020 campaign theme: ‘Some of you will have to die.’ Tony Evers' message accepts this GOP premise, giving up major public health infrastructure built up over generations.

Madison, Wisconsin — Gov Tony Evers signaled a major course change in coronavirus COVID 19 policy in a statement last week, telling WBAY-TV his current Stay-at-Home order — now before the Wisconsin Supreme Court awaiting decision — should expire on May 26.

Evers (D) told WBAY's reporter, Cami Rapson, that he believes he can predict COVID 19's trajectory on May 26, divine relevant data points now, and infectious-disease experts' advice and conclusions, false statements that fly in the face of leading epidemiologists and the history of unpredictable and rapid progression of this coronavirus through the American population, (Roberts, New York Times).

Said Evers in a meandering interview with WBAY:

I think by [May] 26th we will be in a place where we don't have to do that, [extend Stay-at-home], unless something extraordinary happens. You know, the virus doesn't consult with me on that, but we are doing a great job with testing and tracing those results in a way that I feel confident we are headed in the right direction. ...

Whether we need to extend that, I frankly think we are going to meet our metrics that we laid out anyway. And so I'm doubtful. But if we have surges all across the state and things are going backwards, I suppose that's possible. But I think Safer at Home has worked, it's done its job, and we will continue to open up the state as we can thoughtfully and safely do it.

Evers is now rhetorically appeasing the Trump administration and Wisconsin Republicans, all of whom are working to end public health experts' pandemic policy at the expense and very lives of vulnerable members of our citizenry.

Tony Evers is privately derided by progressives and Democrats here for his dithering politics, exemplified by Evers' heavily criticized effort to hold Wisconsin's April 7 elections before reversing course on April 6 in the face of national ridicule. But Evers' comments last week garnered silence among Wisconsin Democrats.

Evers insists his public policy is informed by science.

As national media cite experts warning social-distancing efforts will not be sufficient to control the pandemic in the long term in the United States, Evers publicly musing ending social-distancing in some two weeks seems absurd.

Writes Siobhan Roberts in the New York Times:

By now we know — contrary to false predictions — that the novel corona virus will be with us for a rather long time.

'Exactly how long remains to be seen,' said Marc Lipsitch, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health. 'It’s going to be a matter of managing it over months to a couple of years. It’s not a matter of getting past the peak, as some people seem to believe.'

A single round of social distancing — closing schools and workplaces, limiting the sizes of gatherings, lockdowns of varying intensities and durations — will not be sufficient in the long term.

In the interest of managing our expectations and governing ourselves accordingly, it might be helpful, for our pandemic state of mind, to envision this predicament — existentially, at least — as a soliton wave: a wave that just keeps rolling and rolling, carrying on under its own power for a great distance.

Tony Evers seems an unappealing cross between Peter Pan and Neville Chamberlain as COVID 19's in-effect proponents wish to create a make-believe herd immunity among our citizen 'warriors,' a reality that is unachievable without a vaccine.

See the paper at the Center for Infectious Disease Research andPolicy (CIDRAP), University of Minnesota for three projected scaniros of COVID 19.

Wisconsin Republican Justices Put on Shit Show in Stay-at-Home Orals

Wisconsin Supreme Court entrance at state capitol

Update: "The court’s five Republican justices appeared to have no compunction about ending social distancing rules for the rest of the state’s citizens, even as they conducted their hearing remotely on Zoom," writes Mark Joseph Stern in Slate.

Madison, Wisconsin —The Wisconsin Supreme Court heard oral arguments this morning on the Republican-led legislature's petition to block Gov Tony Evers administration's safer-at-home Emergency Order, (Wisconsin Executive Orders), (Treleven, Wisconsin State Journal).

Most observers believe the Republican-led state court will rule in the Republican Party's favor, so partisan have Republican justices become.

The legal case is entitled Wisconsin Legislature v. Secretary-Designee Andrea Palm, Julie Willems Van Dijk and Nicole Safar, In Their Official Capacities As Executives of Wisconsin Department of Health Services Respondents. (Appeal Number 2020AP000765), (Case History).

The Legislature wants a Court order, (temporary restraining order), that would bar enforcement of the stay-at-home order issued April 16, 2020, (Wisconsin Executive Orders).

Oral arguments today featured rhetorical, contentions and seemingly outrageous comment by two Republican justices —Chief Justice Patience Drake Roggensack (R) and Justice Rebecca Grassl Bradley (R).

Justice Patience Roggensack second-guessed the administration's executive order and mused falsely that the coronavirus mostly impacted workers in meat-packing plants, and not what she termed "the regular folks."

Observes listening in online gasped at what appeared to be Roggensack's false observation implicitly disregarding the health and safety of Wisconsin citizens.

Justice Rebecca Bradley editorialized that the stay-at-home order is comparable to the infamous Japanese internment camps.

And Wisconsin's Republican chief justice just dismissed a coronavirus flare up because it only impacted people who work in meat packing plants and not "the regular folks."

— Ian Millhiser (@imillhiser) May 5, 2020

Justice Rebecca Bradley, a Republican, just compared Gov. Evers' stay-at-home order to the forced Japanese internment order upheld in Korematsu.

— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) May 5, 2020

Attorneys Ryan J. Walsh for Petitioner, and Colin T. Roth for Respondents, argued the case.

On May 1, the Court voted to accept jurisdiction over the case and agreed to hear argument on the following issues, which were set forth in the Legislature’s petition:

The questions before the Court concern alleged overreach by the Evers administration accused of running afoul of Wisconsin statutes through its rule-making processes in its Executive Orders, (Wisconsin Court Headlines).

Republican justices also accused the Evers administration of violating the Wisconsin and United States Constitutions, Executive Orders, (Wisconsin Court Headlines).

The Wisconsin Supreme Court bars in-person oral arguments, using video conferencing instead, due to "health concerns created by the COVID-19 pandemic," (Wisconsin Supreme Court).

The May 5 oral arguments are reproduced below in YouTube by Wisconsin Eye.

Wisconsin Gov and DoJ Brief: Toss Republican Suit Seeking End to Stay-at-Home Order

Madison, Wisconsin — The Wisconsin Dept of Justice filed a brief asking the Wisconsin Supreme Court to deny the Republican-led legislature's petition to block the Tony Evers administration's safer-at-home Emergency Order, (Wisconsin Executive Orders).

The legal case is entitled Wisconsin Legislature v. Secretary-Designee Andrea Palm, Julie Willems Van Dijk and Nicole Safar, In Their Official Capacities As Executives of Wisconsin Department of Health Services Respondents. (Appeal Number 2020AP000765), (Case History).

The Legislature wants a Court order, (temporary restraining order), that would bar enforcement of the stay-at-home order issued April 16, 2020, (Wisconsin Executive Orders).

In the response brief, the Evers administration asks the Court to deny the legislature's petition for an original action before the high state court, and the motion for a temporary injunction.

Observes believe the legal position of the administration is strong, but the Republican-led Wisconsin Supreme Court often acts an adjunct for the Republican Party in political cases.

The brief emphasizes the prominence of Wisconsin Statute § 252.02, the COMMUNICABLE DISEASES or Pandemic statutes.

States the brief:

Even if  this  Court  were  to  accept  jurisdiction, the claims should be dismissed as a matter of law.

A. The  language,  context, and history of Wis. Stat. § 252.02 make clear that DHS was authorized to issue Safer-at-Home.

It is well-accepted that statutes like Wis. Stat. § 252.02 provide  broad grants   of  authority  to  respond  to  a very  rare  and  narrow  type  of crisis—the  very  one  we  now  face  with  a  rapid  spread  of  a  novel  communicable  disease. These   kinds   of   provisions   appear in statutory   codes throughout  the  country. To  respondents’  knowledge,  every  state   operates   under   laws   vesting   these   duties   in   a   department of  health  or  similar  executive  agency,  and  the  petitioners  have  not  suggested  otherwise.  These  laws  are designed to  provide  an  executive  agency  the  tools  to  act  quickly  and  with  flexibility  based  on  circumstances  on  the  ground. Wisconsin’s version of these laws, in section 252.02, does  just  that.  It  gives  DHS  flexible  powers to  address  the specific  threat of a  rapidly  spreading  disease. That  makes  sense:  this  Court  has  long  acknowledged  the  commonsense  proposition that public health officials must be able to react swiftly and effectively in the face of an imminent or existing crisis.

As  it  pertains  to the pandemic  here,  the  statutes  contain  three  independent  powers  that  authorize  measures found  in  Safer-at  -Home: Section  252.02(6)  permits  DHS  to  “authorize and implement all emergency measures to control communicable diseases.” Section 252.02(4) allows the agency to  “issue  orders  .  .  .  for  the control  and  suppression  of  communicable diseases” that “may be made applicable to the whole  .  .  .  of  the  state[  ].”  And  Section  252.02(3)  authorizes  DHS  to  “close  schools  and  forbid  public  gatherings  .  .  .  to  control outbreaks and epidemics.”Petitioners’ approach  to these statues  is not only atextual, it also   would lead to absurd, and dangerous, results. This is exactly the  time  when  pandemic  statutes  should apply with their full force. [pp 22-23]

The Evers administration April 28 press release is linked here.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court currently bars in-person oral arguments, using video conferencing instead, due to "health concerns created by the COVID-19 pandemic," (Wisconsin Supreme Court).

Wisconsin Republicans Seek Court Action to Block Safer at Home Order

Madison, Wisconsin — Republicans asked the Wisconsin Supreme Court to block the Tony Evers administration's safer-at-home Emergency Order 28.

The Safer at Home order seeks to protect the public from the deadly COVID 19 disease during the state public health emergency, (Wisconsin Executive Orders; Wisconsin Examiner; Wisconsin State Journal; Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel).

The legal case is entitled Wisconsin Legislature v. Secretary-Designee Andrea Palm, Julie Willems Van Dijk and Nicole Safar, In Their Official Capacities As Executives of Wisconsin Department of Health Services Respondents. (Appeal Number 2020AP000765), (Case History).

The Republican-led Legislature seeks a Court order, (temporary restraining order), that would bar enforcement of the stay-at-home order that was issued April 16, 2020, (Wisconsin Executive Orders).

The state Supreme Court is often used as an instrument to advance Republican Party aims.

The legal petition is unusual in its use of political rhetoric.

The petition characterizes the Evers administration work on the Public Safety emergency as a "decree," and includes use of adverbs such as Incredibly, brazenly to describe executive orders issued during the health emergency.

The legal action follows objection from rightwing billionaires such as Charles Koch and Liz Uihlein. Uihlein urges her company employees in a recent email to oppose Gov Evers' work on COVID 19, (Bloomberg).

The Wisconsin Supreme Court majority is biased for Republican Party interests.

Five right-wing justices routinely rule for their partisan patrons. With the defeat of Justice Daniel Kelly in April, the Republican majority on the Court will be four rightwing justices to three when Kelly's term expires on July 31.

The petition urges the case be resolved without oral argument.

The petition states:

Although this case would warrant oral argument under ordinary circumstances, the Legislature respectfully requests that the Court resolve this urgent dispute without it. Emergency Order 28 takes effect on April 24, 2020, and prompt adjudication is necessary to avoid ongoing irreparable harm. For the same reason, immediate publication is unnecessary to the extent that it would delay a resolution of the emergency motion.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court currently bars in-person oral arguments, using video conferencing instead, due to "health concerns created by the COVID-19 pandemic," (Wisconsin Supreme Court).

Bernie Sanders on Covid 19 Crisis — A Time for Us

Bernie Sanders has convened round-tables and launched majer addresses offering a comprehensive, unprecedented response to this unprecedented crisis.

Small business, families and single Americans should count as the foundation that must be secured as we build up to protect our nation from this economic and health catastrophe,

Massive unemployment, unprecedented business failure, markets plummeting come with a wide expectation that this crisis will become much worse before it gets better.

This is an unprecedented moment and we have got to think in an unprecedented way. Join our livestream on the coronavirus response with @aoc, @IlhanMN, and @RashidaTlaib, featuring musical guests including @grandson. https://t.co/8Dec4SEd20

— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) March 22, 2020

Some of my Republican colleagues are calling for a $1,000, one-time check to Americans.

Really?

That'll last you two or three weeks. What happens after that?

We need to give every person in this country $2,000 a month for the duration of this crisis.

— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) March 23, 2020

Schumer, Pelosi and Trump — they're basically the same and Schumer and Pelosi are as hostile to Bernie's New Deal as they are of anything coming from the administration.

Never have we had a a people's activist front-and-center, ideally prepared for this moment in history.

Suspend the rules of capitalism. 30% unemployment isn't a situation you can bootstrap or free market your way out of. #rising Full here: https://t.co/QU27IRxuhy pic.twitter.com/Jhlr5jN1hJ

— Krystal Ball (@krystalball) March 23, 2020

Roubini: Work for a U-shaped Recovery, Embrace Universal Stimulus

Economic and Political Disaster in Offing

Update: Congressional Dems Are to the Right of the GOP. The party’s leadership is failing the test posed by the coronavirus.
---Madison, Wisconsin — Professional-service office buildings, malls, and many streets made this area look like a ghost town this morning as policy governing Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is implemented.

Folks are working from home, shopping malls are temporarily closed, in accordance with Gov. Evers' order prohibiting mass gatherings of 10 or more people, effective March 17​, 2020. [Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers, Executive Orders]

Much business is coming to a halt, and small business owners across the nation are looking to an uncertain future as the speed and scope of the economic crisis creates fear and uncertainty.

Proposed emergency paid sick leave, emergency Family and Medical Leave and payroll tax credits don't appear to approach even half-measures as the staggering unemployment claims nationwide signal economic catastrophe.

Famed economist Nouriel Roubini joins Bernie Sanders and the Trump administration in advocating that Congress give $1,000 to "every single U.S. resident" fast to stave off a depression, for a start, (Yahoo Finance).

The world will have a severe recession. What Congress does will determine how long this recession will last.

Why Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer are playing games is mystifying, but it does reveal how out-of-touch the Democratic Party is. What are these two waiting for?

Nothing, not even a global economic crisis, can induce neo-liberals to act in the national interest.

2 conditions 4 economy & markets 2 stop free falling & start a U-shape recovery (forget V delusions):1. Control radically pandemics contagion. 2. Massive fiscal stimulus that is monetized. EU & US woefully behind the curve on 1. & 2 is only talk 4 now! So expect more crash today!

— Nouriel Roubini (@Nouriel) March 18, 2020

Consider this: An U-shaped recession is an optimistic scenario.

See also Michael Brooks on Rising, below.

Sanders, Trump Are Pushing $1,000-plus Cash Payments to People; Biden, Pelosi, Schumer Are Opposed or Silent

Democratic Leadership Mired in Total Failure

Update: Congressional Dems Are to the Right of the GOP. The party’s leadership is failing the test posed by the coronavirus.
---
Want more evidence Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer do not give care about you?

Democratic leader Schumer criticizes Trump's call for $1,000 checks https://t.co/mVQvz85f69

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) March 19, 2020

I truly don't know how to describe how maddening it is that Republicans and Trump officials are to the left of Congressional Dem leadership on this issue. Absolutely fucking maddening. pic.twitter.com/qz55vvyzih

— jordan (@JordanUhl) March 18, 2020

Joe Biden is asleep at the switch, finding a Joe Biden quote, any position, on the Trump and Sanders-proposed $1,000-plus payments to Americans is impossible.

Nothing.

From Saagar Enjeti and Krystal Ball at Rising:



Reports the Los Angeles Times: "On Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin said the federal government was looking into 'sending checks to Americans immediately' as part of a $1-trillion stimulus proposal from the Trump administration to combat the negative impact of the coronavirus outbreak on the economy."

And it's the Democratic Party establishment that are holding up relief during this crisis.

From CommonDreams:

'Nancy Pelosi is officially to the right of Tom Cotton on economic support for American families,' HuffPost reporter Zach Carter tweeted on Sunday. 'This is a total failure of Democratic Party leadership.'

Pelosi's deputy chief of staff Drew Hammill on Twitter Tuesday emphasized that any aid 'MUST be targeted' for the Speaker to approve it, drawing further anger from the left. 'Why?' asked New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie. 'If we agree that the crisis is stark and immediate, and we know that precise targeting takes time and administrative effort, why make that a requirement when you can simply disburse the funds *now* and collect from high-income recipients *later*?'

New Consensus president Saikat Chakrabarti was flabbergasted at Pelosi's resistance to payments for all Americans.

'This crazy obsession in Dem leadership with looking 'reasonable' by not 'doing too much' is about as impractical and insane as you can get in the face of a pandemic,' Chakrabarti tweeted.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a candidate for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, has proposed a $2 trillion package including direct payments to Americans.

Journalist Walker Bragman on Wednesday noted the absurdity of Trump being closer to Sanders on relief than Democratic leadership. 

Democrats do not care about you, and never have. How can we doubt it now?

"We must provide direct, emergency $2,000 cash payments to every person in America every month for the duration of the crisis. We are likely already in a recession. Workers are losing income while their bills pile up. We must begin issuing cash payments of $2,000 a month for every person in America to provide households with the assistance they need to pay their bills and take care of their families," writes Bernie Sanders today in an email.

Emergency $2,000 cash payments to every person?

No, says the Democratic Party.

Sanders and Trump Admin Call for Cash Payments Amid Biden Silence and Primary Wins

VIX fear-volatility remains near record-high.

Updated - Madison, Wisconsin — Following Joe Biden's sweep of last night's primary elections, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Sen. Bernie Sanders are issuing urgent calls for direct cash payments for Americans.

"We need to provide a direct emergency $2,000 cash payment to every household in America every month for the duration of the crisis to provide them with the assistance they need to pay their bills and take care of their families," Sanders said, (Newsweek).

Mnuchin and Bernie Sanders are singing the same song on a massive federal governmental response to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and the unofficial U.S. recession, both of which are unpredictable in their severity and duration.

Joe Biden's views on the stimulus are unclear to this point.

We are likely already in a recession.

Workers are losing income while their bills pile up.

We need to provide direct, emergency $2,000 cash payments to every person in America every month for the duration of the crisis.

— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) March 18, 2020

Yet, Biden is racking up win after win on the campaign trail.

Personally, I would not trust anything Joe Biden has to say on the global economic crisis anymore than I trusted Biden on the secret weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the moral imperative for mass incarceration and marijuana criminalization, cutting Social Security and the moral primacy of banks over people.

On the campaign front, the presidential race is shaping up as Bernie Sanders and the Trump administration v. Joe Biden and the neo-libs whose 40-year project brought us this outcome.

And on policy, the Trump administration and Bernie Sanders are leading the fight for working families.

Meanwhile, the markets are in for another volatile session today.

So, Biden has been running on parables and lies, not-on-point.

VIX

The VIX index measures fear and expected volatility of investors, offering an educated guess on the next 30-day period of the CBOE Futures Exchange (CFE) and S and P 500 Index.

The VIX functions as a red flag revealing market psychology and pathology.

The higher the VIX, the more the volatility and fear.

The VIX is at trading at $75.91 on March 18, 2020, 10:10 Eastern Time.
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On October 24, 2008, the nightmare of 2008, the VIX reached a day-high record of 89.53.

Wisconsin's Pioneering Public Health and Zoonotic Disease Research Position World for Coronavirus Pandemic

 Dr. Christopher Olsen chats about Wisconsin's public
health surveillance system, Zoonotic disease
research and interdisciplinary approach to addressing
pandemics developed at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison, in a public address
in 2009.

Zoonotic, animal-to-human diseases like the Coronavirus disease 2019, and public health were focus of pioneering research at University Madison, Wisconsin labs

Madison, Wisconsin — Gov. Tony Evers declared a public health emergency in response to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic this week.

As the world contends with this novel (new) Coronavirus, health surveillance programs alerting medical professionals and policymakers to disease threats are working as envisioned here 70 years ago, (Centers for Disease Control Control and Prevention, World Heath Organization, UW–Madison Current Zoonatic Disease Experts).

Wisconsin has the best statewide health surveillance, and it's no accident.

The state's public research and public health investments made over generations at UW-Madison laid the ground to establish a sophisticated public health system, notes Dr. Christopher Olsen, Department of Pathobiological Sciences, at a lecture in Madison in April 2009.

Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)

As authorities are notified of health information and guidance today, the public can be confident scientists and public health professionals work in a high-minded, effective system built on the commitment to public research for the public that flowered here.

This state of affairs is an achievement of which Wisconsinites are proud.

UW-Madison Public Research

Scientists here also discovered that "genetic mixing" of viruses causes Zoonotic Diseases - "diseases caused by infectious agents that can be transmitted between (or are shared by) animals and humans," (Dr. Christopher Olsen) - a process in which animals act as intermediate host of viruses that can be transmitted to human beings.

These virus-mixing hosts provide a "phenomenally powerful way of generating genetic diversity," mutations that sometimes can lead to the creation of viruses that are destructive to human beings, said Dr. Olsen.

The emergence of new disease occurs as ecological, sociological  and environmental conditions change, notes Dr. Olsen, pointing to the insight and work of Robert Paul Hanson, an eminent UW-Madison research scientist, (1949-1987).

Write Thomas M Yuill and B. C. Easterday, cited by Olsen

Bob Hanson insisted that we should expect to see the emergence of new diseases as ecological and environmental conditions and host populations change. He operated on the basic premise that infectious agents must be viewed and attacked holistically because they are components of the ecosystems in which their hosts live. He recognized that no one person had all the expertise required to understand the natural history of diseases, and he was a champion of interdisciplinary team approaches. The problems on which he focused were always real ones that originated in nature, (Page 140, Robert Paul Hanson. National Academy of Sciences. 1996. Biographical Memoirs: V.70. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.)

Thanks to the work of UW-Madison and scientists like Dr. Hanson, Olsen and many other generous minds in Wisconsin history, the world is more prepared for the outbreak of emerging disease like Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) than at any point in human history.

Below is video of lecture at University Place by Dr. Chris Olsen held at the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus on April 17, 2009. Lecture is titled, "Influenza: A Disease at the Interface of Animals and Human Beings."