There is so much going on in the world right now these past few weeks, that it feels like the headlines are coming at lightning pace. Frankly, it is difficult to keep up, because the major headlines just keep on coming. Just when you think that you have heard all of the most recent updates, and perhaps feel up to speed enough to try and write something in a blog such as this one, there are other huge screaming headlines that come up, rendering whatever update you made irrelevant, and feeling like old, outdated news.
That said, let me at least try to give an adequate update up to this point, on the morning of Monday, March 23, 2020: German Chancellor Angela Merkel has apparently tested positive for the coronavirus, and has placed herself under quarantine.
She is not the only major politician to test positive. Senator Rand Paul has also tested positive for the coronavirus. This bit of news came just one week after his father, former Senator Ron Paul said “People should ask themselves whether this coronavirus 'pandemic’ could be a big hoax."
Both Australia and Canada call for the upcoming Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo to be postponed. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe has conceded that postponement is not only a distinct possibility, but perhaps even inevitable. He suggested that it would not be fair if not everyone or everything was ready, given the time constraints that the Covid-19 epidemic has caused. He also set travel restrictions on the United States, so now anyone coming from the United States will be quarantined for 14 days.
Placido Domingo has tested positive, even though he is largely seen as disgraced due to his suspicious conduct revealed by the whole “Me too” movement. Similarly, disgraced former filmmaker Harvey Weinstein has also tested positive.
Measures are increasingly being taken here in the United States. Numerous states have taken serious, even in some cases drastic, measures to try and enforce a shutdown in order to contain the spread of the virus. Those states include California (the first such state), New York (which is now generally recognized as the epicenter, or “ground zero”) of the Covid-19 cases here in the United States, New Jersey, Illinois, Ohio, and Louisiana. And in Florida, finally, all public beaches have been closed to the general public, following the news stories about overcrowded beaches last week.
There are growing calls for White House briefings on the coronavirus pandemic not to be covered or televised, due to misinformation. Who knew that an unqualified scam artist with a very well established tradition of lying would mishandle a crisis like this so badly and prove to be more a part of the problem than a part of the solution, eh?
Meanwhile, Covid-19 cases in the United States continue to grow. There are over 23,000 cases nationwide, and over 300 people have died of it nationally to date. Of course, those numbers pale in comparison to some other countries, at least for now. Italy’s death toll just surpassed that of China, as the have now seen more than 3,400, and over 41,000 confirmed cases.
Overall, the death toll around the world due to the coronavirus has reached more than 10,000.
As with other huge news stories that almost defined whole era, such as the September 11th attacks or the Kennedy assassination, this whole coronavirus thing is also filled with conspiracy theories. Iran refused American assistance due to a conspiracy theory – believed by many in Iran – that this thing was created by the United States government. Similar beliefs are held in China, the country that many Americans (particularly Trump and his supporters) blame for the whole coronavirus pandemic, with some believing that this was some kind of a planned attack. The, of course, there are still people who believe that this whole thing is a hoax, of course.
Worse than these conspiracy theories, arguably, are stories that, when you connect the dots, reveal not so much an outright conspiracy, as much as gross negligence and abuse of power due to narrow self-interest and greed. The most famous examples are the senators here in the United States who sold their stocks just before financial markets plunged, all while misleading the public by downplaying the seriousness of the impending crisis. The most famous, and possibly egregious, such example is Senator Richard Burr, a Republican from North Carolina, who sold somewhere between $598,000 to $1.62 million in stocks in February.
Yet, he is only the most famous example of far too many. The names include Senator Kelly Loeffler, a Republican from Georgia, Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from California, and Senator James Inhofe, a Republican from Oklahoma (who has made a name for himself numerous times in the past for his absurd climate change denial). Feinstein sold somewhere between $1.5 million to $6 million in stocks, Loeffler sold somewhere between $1.7 million to $4.5 million in stocks, and Inhofe sold somewhere between $230,000 to $500,000 in stocks, all just in time before the Covid-19 crisis, and the economic collapse that it caused.
This prompted some reaction, such as this one, by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez:
"Burr knew how bad it would be. He told the truth to his wealthy donors, while assuring the public that we were fine," Ocasio-Cortez said in a tweet.
"THEN he sold off $1.6 million in stock before the fall."
"He needs to resign," she said.
Ocasio-Cortez added later after the report on Loeffler surfaced that she should also resign.
She later added another tweet about this:
It is stomach-churning that the first thoughts these Senators had to a dire & classified #COVID briefing was how to profit off this crisis.
They didn’t mobilize to help families, or prep response. They dumped stock.
Sen. Loeffler needs to resign, too.
9:40 PM · Mar 19, 2020·Twitter for iPhone
Indeed, like with any major crisis – and almost every major news story more generally – this whole thing has shown examples of both the best and the worst that humanity has to offer. There are good people who are helping the world over, and many of them, probably even the vast majority, are not making any kinds of headlines whatsoever. But the bad side of people always seems prominently on display, and it seems like it is human nature to kind of hone in on these kinds of behaviors. That is why this criminal conduct by the Senators is making such waves.
Yet, there are smaller versions of criminal conduct. There are inflated prices for toilet paper, and I heard of one woman who bought toilet paper from a supermarket, and then was selling rolls for $5 each. There are just so many vultures lacking scruples out there, that it is enough sometimes to almost lose hope in humanity.
Below are the links to the articles, and to one Twitter page, which I used in order to write this blog entry, as well as the specific statistics and quotes used above. I also got some of the information from CNN earlier this morning:
Worldwide COVID-19 Death Toll Tops 10,000 as Italian Nurses “Stop Counting the Dead” HEADLINE, MAR 20, 2020:
https://www.democracynow.org/2020/3/20/headlines/worldwide_covid_19_death_toll_tops_10_000_as_italian_nurses_stop_counting_the_dead
Senators sold off their stocks ahead of coronavirus economic crash by Jeanine Santucci, USA TODAY, March 19, 2020:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/03/19/reports-burr-loeffler-sold-stocks-ahead-coronavirus-marketcrash/2882006001/?fbclid=IwAR3joH4i7lMtz4uFwshst-WA_x2eTZh3F01VPP0QcVZmBOfZnfDArBBfY-o
Second tweet by Alexandria Ocasia-Cortez was from her Twitter site. Here's the link:
https://twitter.com/aoc/status/1240815356572205056
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