Ratings Soar For Cable News Stations Amid Hysterical Coverage Of Coronavirus

Every day, the cable news stations — occasionally accompanied by the main networks — are doing hour after hour of coverage of the virus. In almost every instance, the coverage is hysterical, with anchors hyping up fear and trembling among Americans (ecept for Fox News, of course).

CNN has nearly tripling its primetime audience, but not enough to catch Fox.

“From March 16-20, Fox News saw its ratings climb 89 percent over the same time last year, to 881,000 primetime viewers per day ages 25-54, while CNN was up 193 percent to 790,000 and MSNBC climbed 56 percent to 570,000, according to Nielsen Media Research,” Newsweek reported. “For viewers of all ages in primetime, Fox News saw a 60 percent increase to 4.4 million as CNN spiked 119 percent to 2.2 million and MSNBC gained 37 percent to 2.9 million.”

During the week, Fox News had nine of the Top 10 programs on cable news, No. 1 being Hannity, with 4.6 million viewers. Nielsen Media Research also says Fox News delivered its highest rated Monday-Friday of the year last week. Conservative host Sean Hannity in particular has been on a roll during the coronavirus emergency, two weeks ago having notched his second-highest rated week in his show’s 12-year history.

ABC’s “World News Tonight” and the “NBC Nightly News” “had an average of about 12 million viewers for each of their newscasts last week, among the biggest totals for all network shows, according to Nielsen. Those figures are roughly the same as an average ‘Monday Night Football’ game. The audience for ‘World News Tonight’ was on track to be its largest since 2000, and the number of viewers watching ‘NBC Nightly News’ was the most the show had drawn since 2005,” Dnyuz.com reported.

In all, an average of 32.2 million people watched the evening newscasts last week, a 42 percent increase compared with a year ago. Younger people have tuned in, too: There was a 67 percent rise among adults between the ages of 25 and 54, according to Nielsen.

The network newscasts have not attracted that kind of audience in years. While the Trump presidency has been a boon for the cable news networks — which have consistently set ratings records since 2017 — it has given no such lift to the evening newscasts.

But the liberal networks still hate President Trump.

“Six television networks began showing President Donald Trump’s briefing on the coronavirus outbreak late Monday, but only Fox News Channel stuck it out to the end nearly two hours later,” the Associated Press reported. “It was a notable turning point in coverage of the president’s now-daily briefings. Networks had been starting to hear criticism of how much time they have been showing the president answering questions live, reminiscent of a similar debate in the past about showing Trump’s campaign rallies.”

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/03/ratings-soar-for-cable-news-stations-amid-hysterical-coverage-of-coronavirus/

Record Numbers Are Frontrunning The Fed's Purchases Of Corporate Bonds

As part of the Fed's ongoing nationalization bailout of the entire market, yesterday we pointed out that in a dramatic reversal away from years in which the Fed would not intervene in the corporate market, the US central bank would now buy Investment Grade corporate bonds, and would even intervene in equities, by purchasing the LQD investment grade debt ETF.

Commenting on this stunning departure, this morning Nomura's Charlie McElligott said that "we actually see the Fed in the game of not simply suppressing the risk-free rate, and thus term-premium, as they did last time—but now buying spread-product (beyond MBS alone) with risk-assets outright / through the new SPV—it is reasonable to believe that investors will “reverse engineer” the Jay Powell playbook noted above, and go with their muscle-memory from this Fed “short volatility positioning” prior conditioning."

Judging by the market's surge today, the answer is yes. But even before that, savvy investors realized that the most bang for the risk-free buck comes by purchasing the one ETF that the Fed is now explicitly backstopping, and as Bloomberg notes, "the rush into investment-grade bonds picked up after the Federal Reserve said it will step into the market, with the world’s largest credit ETF seeing the second-biggest inflows in its 18-year history."

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/record-numbers-are-frontrunning-feds-purchases-corporate-bonds

Democrat Rep. Clyburn Says Coronavirus “Is a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision”

In accordance with the democrat doctrine of never letting a good crisis go to waste, Majority Whip James Clyburn let the cat slip out of the bag during a democrat caucus conference call. Apparently the latest crisis presents a yuge opportunity for the democrats to restructure things for themselves.

The Hill reports:

On a Thursday conference call featuring more than 200 members of the House Democratic caucus, lawmakers one by one laid out a sweeping wish list of provisions they want to see included in the nascent package, including a boost in infrastructure spending, an expansion of Social Security benefits and funding for states to set up an all-mail voting system in the event the pandemic extends into November’s elections.

“This is a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision,” Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) told lawmakers, according to a source on the call.

And while not all of the Democratic proposals are likely to emerge in the final House package — legislation that is being crafted by party leaders and various committee heads — they foreshadow a showdown with McConnell and the White House over the size and direction of the latest relief bill, the third to be considered this month as policymakers scramble to prevent the spread of the virus.

On the call, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said she had spoken to numerous governors, who had told her they were seeing barriers to their constituents being able to access unemployment insurance. She suggested declaring a disaster, which could remove some of those obstacles and bureaucratic red tape.

“Let’s not worry about the cost. It’s an investment in the health of the economy,” Pelosi told Democratic lawmakers.

Rep. Jim Langevin (D-R.I.) said he backed sweeping infrastructure legislation by House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), and proposed tying it to the coronavirus package.

Meanwhile, Clyburn, the No. 3 Democratic leader, suggested the deadly outbreak — which has confined millions of children and adults to their homes — has illuminated a need to secure 100 percent broadband coverage, including for schools and rural communities. That funding is especially crucial, Democrats argued, considering the mass closure of schools and the attempt at mobile learning that has followed.

That’s right, the democrats refer to the pandemic and lost jobs not as emergencies or tragedies, but as “opportunities” to implement their vision.

And what exactly does that mean? If it’s anything like their past “opportunities” it will mean more taxes, more laws, more regulation, more erosion of rights, more power for the government, more control of our lives, and less privacy for us.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/03/democrat-rep-clyburn-says-coronavirus-is-a-tremendous-opportunity-to-restructure-things-to-fit-our-vision/

Exclusive–The Endgame: HHS Secretary Alex Azar Lays Out How Trump Will Defeat Coronavirus ‘Invisible Enemy,’ Reopen America

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar told Breitbart News exclusively that President Donald Trump in the coming days will work with his medical and scientific advisers to make a determination on how and when to reopen the country after wide-scale closure in the effort to stop the spread of the Chinese coronavirus.

Azar is one of Trump’s closest advisers and a top member of Vice President Mike Pence’s Coronavirus Task Force to lead the American response to this crisis. He said that the president will consult with White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Dr. Robert Redfield, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Dr. Stephen Hahn, among others, about the so-called “curve” of the disease and how effective the extraordinary measures to stop its spread taken by Americans nationwide have been.

“The president will look at the data with his top medical advisers, people like Dr. Debbie Birx, Tony Fauci, Robert Redfield, Steve Hahn at FDA, as well as I’m sure outside advisers, and will make a decision in the next week whether to continue the 15 days or whether there are appropriate modifications he would make to the rest of the country,” Azar told Breitbart News in a phone interview on Tuesday afternoon. “For instance, whether it’s to look, as Dr. Birx I believe said yesterday in the press conference, to look at maybe focusing in localized areas instead of common national recommendations.”

“But that will be from what his advisers are seeing in the data, where the hotspots are, and whether we’re seeing communities that have taken these types of efforts and actually lived up to them, if you’re seeing a bending of the curve from an epidemiological perspective,” he explained. “That might be difficult because with epidemiological data there’s always a lag in terms of what you’re seeing, so some of this, in terms of the advice from his top scientific advisers, will be based on their experience and expertise, and I’m sure the president will have to balance against that the very valid concerns about the impact on the economy and the social fabric in the United States against those restrictions.”

The data that the president and his team of doctors and scientists will consider as they make their decision on reopening America, Azar said, is most importantly mortality rates of the disease—but also infection rates and other data.

“Dr. Birx said yesterday at the press conference the most important data point you look at that is essentially irrefutable is mortality data,” Azar said. “How many people are dying from Covid-19? That will be your firmest bit of data in assessing the situation. You will also look at infection rates and new cases, but the problem there is you never can test everybody. So the testing gives you an indicator and gives you a trend, but it is certainly less secure information than mortality data that you would look at.”

Trump, later on Tuesday after Azar’s interview with Breitbart News, said during a Fox News town hall that he hopes to reopen much of the United States by Easter Sunday, April 12. Trump, with Dr. Birx standing alongside him on Monday evening in the White House briefing room, began signaling the reopening of the country. He seems to have an ally in New York’s Democrat Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who has also voiced support for reopening the country.

President Trump has called this fight against the virus a “war” against an “invisible enemy” and has noted how people are calling him a “wartime president” in responding to the crisis. If that’s the case, that Trump is leading an American war again the virus, then that means Azar is one of the president’s generals in this war. In that vein, asked how President Trump is approaching this from a wartime perspective, Azar explained that Trump has rallied the whole country against the coronavirus in much the same way President Woodrow Wilson did in World War I or President Franklin Delano Roosevelt did in World War II.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/03/24/exclusive-hhs-secretary-alex-azar-lays-out-how-trump-will-defeat-coronavirus-invisible-enemy-reopen-america/

Bipartisan Effort Underway To Hold Chinese Government Financially Accountable For Coronavirus Outbreak

A bipartisan effort is underway outside of Congress to hold China accountable for what could be trillions of dollars worth of damage caused by their mishandling of the global coronavirus pandemic.

The Berman Law Group, a Miami-based law firm advised by the younger brother of former Vice President Joe Biden, filed a class-action lawsuit against the government of China on March 13.

On Monday, Berman partnered with a lobbying and public affairs firm that has deep connections to President Donald Trump in a move to forge a unified response against China’s government.

“We believe that this is not a Democratic issue or a Republican issue. This is an American issue,” Berman senior litigation strategist Jeremy Alters told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

A law firm advised by the younger brother of former Vice President Joe Biden has partnered with a lobbying shop with deep connections to President Donald Trump to push a federal class-action lawsuit seeking to hold the government of China accountable for the economic carnage caused by their mishandling of the coronavirus crisis.

The lawsuit, filed in early March by a Miami-based law firm advised by Francis Biden, accuses the government of China of deliberately covering up the outbreak at its onset for their own economic self-interest.

And on Monday, in a deliberate effort to forge a bipartisan front to bring attention its lawsuit, the Berman Law Group entered into a partnership with Lucas | Compton, a lobbying and public affairs firm which includes in its ranks former Trump Organization vice president George Sorial, who has worked closely with Trump since 2002.

“We believe that this is not a Democratic issue or a Republican issue. This is an American issue,” Berman’s senior litigation strategist Jeremy Alters, a prominent Democratic fundraiser, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “The best way to do this is with a bipartisan effort to hold China accountable.”

“Anyone who is willing to participate and help, we plan to work with to help move this lawsuit forward to collect for the citizens of the United States for this terrible tragedy that’s happened,”Alters said. “But there’s no one better to help us show a strong unified bipartisan effort in this lawsuit than Lucas | Compton.”

Lucas | Compton managing partner Travis Lucas echoed Alters’s sentiment, saying he hopes the bipartisan partnership forged by the two groups serves as a “paradigm” for what Congress should be doing to take China to task for the coronavirus outbreak.

“We should be unified in our response and our strategy about how we manage and navigate the situation with the government of China,” Lucas said. “The government of China needs to be held accountable, not only to its people but also the rest of the world.”

The class-action lawsuit highlights the measures taken by the Chinese government to conceal the coronavirus outbreak at its onset, including the censuring of the doctors in Wuhan who first blew the whistle on the virus and China’s 17-day delay in notifying the world about the ease of human to human transmission.

The government of China, “acting from their own economic self-interest and looking to protect their place as a super-power, failed to report the outbreak as quickly as they could have,” the lawsuit states.

https://dailycaller.com/2020/03/24/china-coronavirus-class-action-lawsuit/

Porn Industry Halted 'Until Further Notice' Over Coronavirus Fears

Pornography sets across North America have been asked to voluntarily halt production by an industry body - the Free Speech Coalition (FSC) - which advised the suspension to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

In an announcement released by the FSC earlier this month, the industry trade association said: “The voluntary shutdown of all adult entertainment productions in the United States and Canada will remain in effect until further notice.” The FSC has asked all adult entertainment productions in the US and Canada to halt until March 31.

“Over the past few days, FSC has received multiple reports of performers who have been quarantined at home with presumptive cases of coronavirus. Due to the widespread lack of testing, this is the standard procedure for most people presumed to have coronavirus,” the statement adds, also noting that “no one should be shooting or creating content with partners who are not a part of their household.”

Sex workers were already expecting a production halt, with the FSC suggesting earlier this month that adult performers begin “stocking up on backlog content to release if such a production stop were called,” Vice reported.

In a statement to Vice this month, FSC Communications Director Mike Stabile noted that the production halts are being recommended even though porn sets are cleaner than other places.

"Because transmission risk rises with the number of people interacted with, adult sets are less of risk than more pedestrian interactions, like going to the airport," Stabile noted.

However, sexual contact could increase the risk of spreading the coronavirus.

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the virus is spread mainly between people who are in close contact with each other - within around 6 feet - or through respiratory droplets released when an infected person coughs or sneezes. Such droplets can make their way to the mouths or noses or nearby people.

In addition to washing your hands often and avoiding touching your face, the CDC recommends that people put distance between themselves and others to prevent the spread of the deadly disease. This is especially important if there is an outbreak in your community, the CDC warns.

https://sputniknews.com/society/202003241078698428-porn-industry-halted-until-further-notice-over-coronavirus-fears/

Pelosi Slips Amnesty for DACA Illegal Aliens into Latest Coronavirus Plan

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has slipped into her coronavirus plan a quasi-amnesty for hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens enrolled in former President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

On Tuesday, Pelosi released another revised version of House Democrats’ plan in the midst of the coronavirus crisis, which includes:

A nationwide mandate for ballot harvesting

$300 million for foreign refugees abroad

An automatic visa extension for all foreign workers

An expansion of foreign-language ballots

Same-day voter registration for the 2020 presidential election

Slipped into the plan is an amnesty for the nearly 700,000 to 800,000 DACA illegal aliens who currently reside in the United States, many of which take blue-collar and entry-level jobs that would otherwise be filled by America’s working class.

Pelosi’s plan notes:

In recognition that several government offices have closed in response to the coronavirus that are responsible for reviewing and adjudicating work authorization requests or that impact American citizens, intending immigrants, and workers’ ability to live and work in the United States, to include those with a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals status or Temporary Protected Status, a provision is included to automatically extend their current status or work authorization. [Emphasis added]

The provision means that all enrolled DACA illegal aliens would have their status immediately renewed and extended even as the nation’s unemployment rate could skyrocket to 20 percent.

Likewise, Pelosi’s plan would immediately extend status for the more than 300,000 foreign nationals in the U.S. on Temporary Protected Status (TPS) — ensuring that American workers are forced to compete for jobs amid an employment crisis against an amnestied population of foreign workers.

Annually, about 1.2 million legal immigrants are added to the U.S. population, a majority of which compete against America’s working and middle class for jobs. These legal immigrant admissions are in addition to the hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens who successfully cross through the southern border every year.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/03/24/pelosi-coronavirus-plan-daca-amnesty/

Multiple Explosions Erupt at Iraq's Camp Taji Military Base - Reports

According to local reports, at least three explosions were heard at the Camp Taji military base north of Baghdad late Tuesday. The base houses both Iraqi and US forces.

A reporter with Sky News Arabic said on Tuesday night that three explosions had been heard at Camp Taji, an Iraqi military installation that also houses a large number of US troops.

US forces at Taji have come under attack repeatedly this month, resulting in the deaths of several members of the US-led coalition in Iraq. While Washington maintains the attacks were carried out by Kataib Hezbollah, a Shiite militia in Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), at the direction of Iran, Tehran has denied the accusations.

However, following a previous attack on Camp Taji, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said in a television address that “the Americans assassinated our great commander. We have responded to that terrorist act and will respond to it,” referring to the January assassination of Iranian Quds Force commander Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani by a US airstrike near Baghdad International Airport.

After that attack, which also killed Kataib Hezbollah founder and PMF deputy commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, Iraq's parliament asked US forces to leave the country. When Washington refused, mass protests erupted, including one demonstration hailed as a "million man march" in Baghdad on January 24, which was joined by protests in hundreds of cities around the globe.

https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/202003241078697753-multiple-explosions-erupt-at-iraqs-camp-taji-military-base—reports/

India to go into COMPLETE lockdown from midnight – PM Modi

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced that the country will go into complete lockdown for a period of 21 days beginning on Wednesday after midnight.

“If we are not able to manage the upcoming 21 days, we will be pushed back 21 years,” Modi said.

There will be a total ban on venturing out of your homes.

The country had been in a partial lockdown for several days, with the so-called ‘janta curfew’ imposed throughout the country to restrict the freedom of movement in the hopes of stemming the tide of infection, but Modi announced the decision to extend both the scale and length of the lockdown in a televised address on Tuesday.

Modi's government also shut down all air and train travel, in addition to closing the majority of businesses and all schools and academic institutions.

At present, India has recorded over 519 cases of coronavirus infection with some 10 deaths so far.

Modi described the Covid-19 pandemic as a “major disaster” while praising Indians for their adherence to the pre-existing self-curfew.

He also highlighted the alarming increase in the rate of infection across the world and the need for “extreme measures” to tackle the crisis head on – even at the cost of significant damage to the Indian economy.

“Certainly, the country will have to bear the economic cost of this lockdown. But [the] government's priority is to save the life of every Indian at this time,” Modi said.

https://www.rt.com/news/483965-modi-india-complete-lockdown-coronavirus/