Top Virginia health official warns state lockdown could be 'two-year affair'

Virginians hoping for a quick restart of normal life may be in for a rude awakening after the top health official in Virginia said the state could be in lockdown for the next two years. During a Friday afternoon briefing on the coronavirus response, Virginia Health Commissioner Norman Oliver said Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam's "Phase One" coronavirus response plan, which involves business closures and social distancing, could last for as long as two years. “I, personally, think Phase One will be a two-year affair,” Oliver said. “There are a lot of people working on this, and I hope they prove me wrong, but I don’t see it happening in less than two years.”

A Virginia Department of Health representative immediately attempted to walk back Oliver's comments, suggesting that Oliver meant the coronavirus will be with Virginians for two years and not that state-mandated lockdowns would continue that long. But a proposal of what the commonwealth will look like as health officials worry about a second wave of the virus in the fall is yet to be seen. Northam's "Phase One" plan requires "continued social distancing, continued teleworking [and] face coverings recommended in public."

As millions file for unemployment across the country, the demand for citizens to stay indoors has led to a number of mass protests from Michigan to the Virginia State Capitol in Richmond. Northam said the state is considering measures to track and quarantine individuals who are infected with the disease. “We will get back to work by greatly increasing our testing, then tracing the contacts of people who test positive and isolating these individuals, not everyone in Virginia,” Northam said. “That is the key to moving forward.” The Virginia Department of Health reported a spike in coronavirus cases in Virginia, with more than 700 new cases diagnosed on Friday alone.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/top-virginia-health-official-warns-state-lockdown-could-be-two-year-affair

Don Trump Jr. blasts New York Times 'puff piece' on Biden that does not mention Tara Reade sexual assault allegations

Donald Trump Jr. ripped into a New York Times piece detailing Joe Biden's quarantine lifestyle, which made no mention of sexual assault allegations from a former staffer. On Saturday morning, Trump shared a New York Times tweet that highlighted Biden's "lockdown lifestyle" but failed to address mounting calls for a response to allegations from former Biden staffer Tara Reade, who insists Biden sexually assaulted her in 1993. "Shockingly, the words 'Tara Reade' are nowhere to be found in this @nytimes puff piece on creepy @JoeBiden’s campaign," Trump tweeted. "But don’t worry guys, there’s a lot of tough reporting in here like Joe having dinner with his wife and going on bike rides!"

Reade has accused Biden of sexually assaulting her in a “semiprivate” location in the spring of 1993. Reade said Biden pushed her against a wall, kissed her without her consent, and then penetrated her with his fingers. Biden's campaign has denied the accusations. The New York Times's article was published only a day after a video was widely shared of Reade's mother discussing her sexual assault claims on Larry King Live in 1993. Reade said it was her mother on the phone call. On Tuesday, the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia confirmed it is "actively" investigating Reade's claims against Biden.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/don-trump-jr-blasts-new-york-times-puff-piece-on-biden-that-does-not-mention-tara-reade-sexual-assault-allegations

'Profound and disturbing echo': Schiff claims Trump coronavirus response reminiscent of Ukraine phone call

Former House impeachment manager Adam Schiff said President Trump’s coronavirus response reminded him of the phone call with the Ukrainian president that formed the basis of the president's impeachment. “I don’t think we would have ever anticipated that his brand of narcissism and his brand of incompetence, sometimes his brand of malevolence, would be so fatal to the American people,” the California Democrat said on MSNBC. "But probably, you know, the strongest echo of what we were talking about during the trial was when he was earlier talking about how he didn’t want to return the calls from governors, he didn’t want his vice president to return calls from governors, that weren’t saying nice things about him. That, really, weren’t saying things about him that he could then turn into campaign commercials, as indeed he has. That was such a profound and disturbing echo of what he tried to do with Ukraine.”

Schiff featured prominently in the attempt to remove Trump from office because of a phone call with the president of Ukraine. The Senate acquitted the president after he had been impeached by the House. Schiff has been a consistent critic of Trump during the coronavirus outbreak and has said he’s investigating the methodology behind the decision to provide federal relief to American citizens during the pandemic. “You had the president’s own people publicly talking about the danger and, even well after the virus was an established fact, that it was spreading and coming to the United States. You still had the president talking it down like it would be no worse than the flu,” Schiff told Mother Jones. Almost 53,000 people in the U.S. have died from the coronavirus, and roughly 930,000 have been infected nationwide.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/profound-and-disturbing-echo-schiff-claims-trump-coronavirus-response-reminiscent-of-ukraine-phone-call

Media Matters Founder Accused Of Illegally Profiting From Progressive Nonprofit Group

Media Matters for America founder David Brock reaped illegal profits through the transfer of millions from a nonprofit he founded to a for-profit entity under his control, according to an IRS complaint filed by a conservative watchdog group. The complaint detailed how Brock’s nonprofit group American Bridge Foundation (AB Foundation) transferred $2.7 million in tax-exempt assets to True Blue Media, a for-profit company owned by Brock that is the parent company of ShareBlue, a for-profit media company now known as The American Independent. The transfers violated IRS rules that prohibit nonprofit organizations from using their tax-exempt resources to pay personal or private expenses of any key figures connected to the nonprofit, the complaint stated. AB Foundation’s transfers to True Blue Media were disclosed in the nonprofit’s Form 990s filed to the IRS in 2017 and 2018.

AB Foundation’s sister super PAC, AB PAC, announced plans in March to spend $50 million on ads targeting President Donald Trump. AB PAC also reportedly brokered an alliance in March with another super PAC, Unite the Country, which supports former Vice President Joe Biden’s presidential bid. “David Brock, a leading leftwing political consultant, raises millions of dollars every year to influence the media, politics, and campaigns,” said Craig Robinson, the president of the Iowa-based Patriots Foundation that filed the complaint. “Behind the scenes, his network of organizations have engaged in very troubling behavior that warrants serious investigation.” AB Foundation president Bradley Beychok told The Daily Beast that the group’s “investment” in True Blue Media was determined by its board of directors to further its nonprofit mission and that in return AB Foundation received stock in Brock’s for-profit company. “To remove any potential conflict of interest, David Brock resigned as an officer and a member of the board of directors [of American Bridge] in 2016, before the first investment was made,” Beychok told The Beast. However, AB Foundation referred to Brock as its chairman as recently as 2018, after the group began disbursing tax-exempt funds to True Blue Media, The Beast noted.

The complaint also cited AB Foundation’s audited financial statements, which show that Brock’s nonprofit group has transferred over $10 million to its sister super PAC between 2015 and 2018 under a cost-sharing agreement that didn’t formally exist. The Daily Caller News Foundation previously reported that AB Foundation has pumped $17 million into AB PAC since 2010, according to Federal Election Commission records. Receipts for the transfers said they were to cover AB Foundation’s share of employee and office space expenditures, but no formal cost-sharing agreement exists between the two entities, according to AB Foundation’s audited financial statements for 2015, 2016 and 2017. The Patriots Foundation’s complaint against AB Foundation also highlighted how the nonprofit group made interest-free loans worth over $900,000 to an unnamed “individual” in an apparent violation of IRS rules that prohibit the use of tax-exempt resources for private benefit.

https://dailycaller.com/2020/04/24/media-matters-american-bridge-irs-complaint-david-brock/

https://cdn01.dailycaller.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/AB-Foundation-Complaint.pdf

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