RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.theepochtimes.com/congress-reaches-deal-on-2-trillion-relief-package-for-covid-19_3284826.html

The White House and U.S. congressional leaders in the Senate reached an agreement on a $2 trillion relief package amid the COVID-19 pandemic, White House official Eric Ueland said shortly after midnight on Wednesday.

Congress earlier passed an $8.3 billion emergency spending package (pdf) over the CCP virus in early March that Trump signed into law on March 6. The legislation enables funding to develop a vaccine for COVID-19 and other prevention measures.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we are done. We have a deal,” he said.

The text of the deal was not expected to be available until later on Wednesday.

The package would give direct payments of up to $3,000 to most U.S. families, and provide some $367 billion to a program for small-business loans to help them keep making payroll as workers are forced to stay home due to “stay at home” orders in several states across the country.

The package also includes a $500 billion fund for guaranteed, subsidized loans to help larger industries, $250 billion for expanded unemployment aid, and $75 billion for hospitals.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-pelosi-schumer-contagion-11585006077

What a spectacle. Much of America is quarantined at home, the public is so panicked there’s a run on toilet paper, the country desperately wants reassurance, and Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer decide to take a bipartisan rescue bill as a political hostage.

That’s the display of Democratic leadership in a crisis the nation received on Monday as Senate Democrats blocked a $1.8 trillion bill that has urgent money for workers, hospitals, small business and, yes, even larger companies threatened by the forcible shutdown of the U.S. economy. When America most needs bipartisan cooperation, Democrats add to the economic uncertainty by putting their partisan interests above the needs of the country.

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Democrats are lucky the Federal Reserve chose Monday to deploy its biggest financial guns so far, or the markets might have taken an even bigger fall amid Washington’s dysfunction. Equities still fell by 3% or so, but investors took some comfort in the Fed’s offer to buy as many mortgage securities and Treasurys as needed to calm the panic. The mortgage-securities market has been strained as sellers who need cash struggle to find willing buyers.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2020/03/24/we-still-have-to-be-vigilant-er-doctor-and-

““Americans should know that the vast majority … of the people who get COVID-19 are going to be fine,” says Rep. Mark Green.”

Mark Edward Green is an American politician, physician, and retired U.S. Army Major who currently represents Tennessee’s 7th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives.

Besides being a congressman, Rep. Mark Green, R-Tenn., is an emergency room physician and Amy special operations veteran. He joins me today on The Daily Signal Podcast to discuss his perspective on the coronavirus pandemic, what the Senate’s relief package gets right and wrong, and why the U.S. shouldn’t be dependent on China for pharmaceuticals and medical supplies. Read the lightly edited transcript, pasted below, or listen on the podcast:

Rachel del Guidice: I’m joined today on The Daily Signal Podcast by Congressman Mark Green of Tennessee. Congressman, it’s great to have you back on The Daily Signal Podcast.

Rep. Mark Green: Hey, thanks for having me.

Del Guidice: Given your background in medicine as an emergency room physician, and what’s on the minds and hearts of all Americans right now is the whole coronavirus pandemic, what is your perspective overall on everything that’s going on?

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/list-74-actions-taken-by-trump-to-fight-virus-bolster-economy

In less than a week, the Trump administration has greatly expanded the actions it’s taken to fight the coronavirus and boost the economy, according to its latest tally of “response efforts.”

Last week, when Secrets first ran the list, it totaled 43. By Monday, it was at 74, with many more planned this week as the White House effort shifts to focus more on the economy and treatment of those infected.

While he continues to receive fire from some governors who want more, President Trump said he hopes for a win in the battle soon.

“For those worried and afraid, please know: As long as I am your president, you can feel confident that you have a leader who will always fight for you, and I will not stop until we win. This will be a great victory,” he said Sunday, adding, “This is going to be a victory. And it’s going to be a victory that, in my opinion, will happen much sooner than originally expected.”

Over the weekend, for example, he listed the supplies being sent to the hardest-hit states, put in place special rules at Veterans Administration hospitals, and dispatched two military hospital ships. He also told FEMA to get mobile hospitals to New York and California.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/dems-on-a-death-trip-as-they-play-politics-in-a-pandemic_3282995.html

The Democrats are as addicted to politics, their version anyway, as a junkie in a homeless camp is to crack or meth.

It’s as if they mainlined Rahm Emanuel’s neo-Leninist apothegm—“You never let a serious crisis go to waste”—straight to their Vena Cavas and can’t get enough of it.

Now, that includes in a pandemic! What next? Nuclear war? Think of the possibilities! You could ask for almost anything—assuming there’s anybody left to ask.

But Rahm’s watchwords (echoed recently by Rep. James Clyburn), it’s safe to predict, will prove to be a curse to himself and his party rather than anything to live (or die) by.

When America’s most famously measured moderate—Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine—is angrily calling you out, you should know you’re in serious trouble!

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/coronavirus-relief-tom-cotton-slams-democrats-for-delaying-vote-on-coronavirus-relief-package/

Senator Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) on Monday afternoon slammed Democrats for delaying a vote on a massive coronavirus-relief package, accusing them of holding up the bill in an attempt to check of items on their “ideological wish-list.”

“There is a good bill, a bill that was negotiated in good faith over the weekend with many Democrats . . . that they are now blocking, that they will not even start debate on because of ideological wish-list items,” Cotton said on the Senate floor. “It is disgraceful, and it is dangerous to the lives of our people and their economic well-being.”

The competing bill promoted by House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) includes measures to cap carbon emissions for airlines, mandate “diversity” initiatives for corporate boards, and forgive student-loan debt.

“Democrats want to impose quotas for race and sex on corporate boards,” Cotton said. “Is that going to stop anyone from getting sick from coronavirus?”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/03/dems-drag-out-senate-coronavirus-response-lloyd-billingsley/

“America will soon be open for business,” president Trump said in his Monday press conference. The nation was not going to “let the cure be worse than the problem,” so Congress needed to “stop playing games,” and pass the coronavirus response bill now in the Senate.

On Saturday, the president said it could be a done deal. On Sunday, Senate minority leader Charles Schumer announced that Democrats wanted to move forward with bipartisan agreement, but as it turned out they didn’t.

Schumer called the package “a large corporate bailout provision with no protections for workers and virtually no oversight.” Failed presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, still in the Senate despite decades of fraudulently claiming to be Cherokee, explained, “this is not a bipartisan proposal. This is a Republican proposal.” 

Also on Sunday House Speaker Nancy Pelosi warned that she may not support the stimulus bill, which has grown to approximately $2 trillion. Pelosi said there was no agreement and the House would introduce its own bill.

Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell noted that Pelosi was “the speaker of the House, not the speaker of the Senate,” and until her intervention the process was moving forward. The vote came in 47-47, 13 short of the 60 votes Republicans needed.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/03/with_shortages_plaguing_medical_treatment_will_american_ingenuity_save_the_day.html

An American hallmark is that Americans take the initiative, creating for themselves whatever is necessary to get the job done. Indeed, back in the late 19th century, when Thomas Alva Edison was a whirlwind of inventions, Americans began to view themselves as a nation of inventors. The inspiration for Rube Goldberg’s fantastic, crazy cartoon ideas was the fact that invention was in the air.

People from all 50 states and every educational and ethnic background flooded the newspapers and the patent office with their ideas. It was from that intellectual ferment that we got assembly lines, adding machines, shredded wheat, smoke detectors, Ferris wheels, rotary dials, bottle caps, zippers, modern mousetraps, medical gloves, mufflers, ice cream scoops, and no end of other clever and useful things that are still part of our world today.

American ingenuity may once again come to the fore with coronavirus. One of the biggest concerns about the virus is that hospitals are worried that they will not have enough ventilators for all the people who need them.

In Italy, ventilators make the difference between living and dying. An Israeli doctor who has been working in Italy said that the current triage is to deny the available ventilators to any patients over 60:

Israeli M.D. Gai Peleg, who is currently working to save lives in Parma, Italy, told Channel 12 that things are only getting worse as the number of patients keeps growing. 

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/03/senate_democrats_block_the_coronavirus_relief_package_that_they_helped_write.html

“You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.” – Rahm Emanuel (actual quotation)

“This is a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision.” – Rep. James Clyburn (actual quotation)

“Nice little country you’ve got here. It would be a shame if something happened to it.” – Congressional Democrats (fake but accurate quotation)

Over the past week, a bipartisan group of Senators hammered out the details of a phase-three coronavirus stimulus bill. On Sunday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that he’d had “two good meetings  . . . with Secretary Mnuchin . . . and I’m very optimistic that we can get something done.” He emphasized that it was important to “allow these businesses that are now closed to quickly re-establish themselves.” He boasted about “having good bipartisan agreements.”

And the bill was indeed a good enough bill, with straightforward help for people negatively affected by coronavirus:

Then, Nancy Pelosoi blew into D.C., cracked her whip, and everything changed. The narrative was no longer about saving American businesses to ensure that, after this panic is over, Americans will still have jobs. Nor was it about immediate financial relief for individuals who have already lost their livelihoods, cannot meet bills, or have rising medical costs.