national

You can always count on the government to take advantage of a crisis, legitimate or manufactured.
This coronavirus pandemic is no exception.
Not only are the federal and state governments unraveling the constitutional fabric of the nation with lockdown mandates that are sending the economy into a tailspin and wreaking havoc with our liberties, but they are also rendering the citizenry fully dependent on the government for financial handouts, medical intervention, protection and sustenance.

One month ago, MintPress News reported that, in the case of a particularly bad COVID-19 (coronavirus) epidemic in New York City, authorities had drawn up contingency plans to dump the bodies in mass graves on Hart Island, a small island just off the Bronx in the Long Island Sound. The plans had been drawn up by former New York Mayor Micheal Bloomberg during his time in office.

It’s a medical school like no other: the largest of its kind in the world. The Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM) in Havana, Cuba hosts students from well over 100 countries and every year, dozens of American students are paid to go there to train as doctors. Paid, that is, by the Cuban government on the proviso that they return to the U.S. and serve underprivileged communities. Generally, students come from underprivileged backgrounds themselves and would not have been able to attend medical school in the U.S.

After closely conversing with senior foreign policy experts on Joe Biden’s team, Thomas Wright, Director of the Center on the United States and Europe for the influential think-tank the Brookings Institute, penned an unintentionally hair-raising article on what a Biden presidency would look like for the rest of the world.

The phrase “military-industrial complex” is thrown around a lot. But the fact remains that the United States spends almost as much on war as the rest of the world combined. American troops are stationed in around 150 countries in around foreign 800 military bases; nobody seems to know the precise figure. Depending on the definition used, the United States has been at war for up to 227 of its 244-year history.

Something every American takes for granted has made the coronavirus outbreak much worse. That thing sits ingrained in our minds since we could barely take two steps without a face full of carpet. But before I get to that, let’s set the scene.

It doesn’t look like much. In fact, it looks like garbage: a cheap plastic hose inserted into a metal box. But Dr. Rhys Thomas’ invention is worth its weight in gold – and it’s already saving lives. Dr. Thomas, a senior consultant at Glangwili Hospital in Wales, has designed, prototyped and constructed a working ventilator in just three days – a machine of critical importance in fighting COVID–19. Ventilators help patients breathe, a crucial machine in the fight against the respiratory illness that has infected at least 438,000 people worldwide.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, the world’s first centibillionaire, a man who vies with Bill Gates for the title of the planet’s richest individual, is asking the public for donations to provide basic support to his 800,000 employees who are suffering in poverty in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Bezos announced:

WASHINGTON DC (The Last American Vagabond) — Last week, Newsweek published a report entitled “Inside The Military’s Top Secret Plans If Coronavirus Cripples the Government,” which offers vague descriptions of different military plans that could be put into effect if the civilian government were to be largely incapacitated, with a focus on the potential of the current novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic

Beirut, Lebanon (Mideast Discourse) — Amer Fakhoury escaped from Beirut, Lebanon on a US military helicopter on March 19.