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Attention

Best of the Web: Bolsonaro questions need for COVID-19 lockdown, says deaths exaggerated for political purposes - UPDATE: Twitter CENSORS Brazilian president


Comment: Update 30 March 2020

Twitter, like the good hive mind app that it is, has begun deleting Bolsonaro's efforts to break the Corony spell his country has been put under.
In an unprecedented move, Twitter has yanked two posts by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, in which he took aim at coronavirus lockdowns as part of his controversial campaign to avoid a shutdown of the economy.

Bolsonaro has become the first ever head of state to have his tweets censored by the platform under recently-updated guidelines, requiring users to remove content that defies "global or local health authorities recommendations" aimed at halting the spread of the deadly disease that has already taken hold in the Latin American country.

The Brazilian leader, who has been adamant that economic damage from lockdowns is a price too high to pay for lowering health risks, made a trip to a street market on Sunday, mingling with crowds and chatting with street vendors.

The videos, posted by Bolsonaro in the wake of the visit, apparently ran afoul of the Twitter guidelines. In one of them, Bolsonaro assures a street seller that he was "not going to die" due to the measures to combat the pandemic.

"What I have been hearing from people is that they want to work," the president, dubbed the "Trump of the Tropics," reportedly said.

bolsonaro covid-19
Bolsonaro: 'This is BS'
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has waved off the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, insisting that life goes on. He suggested the death toll in his own country has been overstated for political purposes.

The Brazilian leader has been locking horns with many of the country's governors, who have imposed bans on non-essential commerce and continue to accuse Bolsonaro of prioritizing the economy over the lives of his citizens.

"I'm sorry, some people will die, they will die, that's life," Bolsonaro said in an televised interview on Friday. "You can't stop a car factory because of traffic deaths."

He remarked that in the state of Sao Paulo the reported fallout from Covid-19 - 1,223 cases and 68 deaths - seemed "too large."

"We need to look at what is happening there, this cannot be a numbers game to favor political interests," Bolsonaro said.

Comment: Multiply that figure by 10, at least. Which means this is basically a nothing-burger.

Politically, this is unsustainable. World leaders are going to break ranks as people begin to really suffer from shortages, depression, and death from neglect of normal medical treatment.


Bullseye

'Not a time for political war': Rouhani slams US anti-Iranian sanctions amid coronavirus pandemic

rouhani
© REUTERS / Handout
On Thursday, the Trump administration added five organizations, as well as fifteen people, to its sanction lists over their alleged ties with Iran's Revolutionary Guards Quds Force at a time when Tehran is calling for the sanctions on its economy to be lifted amid the fast-spreading coronavirus pandemic hitting the nation and the world.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Sunday during a cabinet meeting denounced new US sanctions on Tehran, even as the country, along with the rest of the world, is fighting the outbreak of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, according to Iranian news outlet Press TV.

The leader said that the deadly pandemic has united the Iranian people and created mutual trust between them and the government, despite the suffering caused by the disease. Rouhani hailed the country's "acceptable" handling of the outbreak, saying that the situation in Iran "is good" in comparison to "Europe and the West", even though the country is under heavy US economic and trade sanctions.

Dominoes

The post-coronavirus world will be far worse than the pre-coronavirus world

coronavirus
© REUTERS/Caitlin Ochs
Signs, especially in the United States, are that the post-coronavirus-plagued world will have even more inequality of wealth, within each nation, than existed prior to the plague. Billionaires are demanding to be included in the bailouts by their governments; and, because billionaires financed the careers of the successful politicians who won seats in their country's legislature, those demands are almost certain to be complied with. Only the least-corrupt nations will be able to recover fully from the current plague.

Bullseye

Why Trump will probably win re-election

trump
© Shealah Craighead
Throughout this election-season in the United States, there have been many indications that the stupid voters who chose Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders in 2016 are doing it yet again and chose Joe Biden over Sanders, and thus they handed Trump the victory in 2016 and are repeating that in 2020. A new poll shows it clearly.

Just like happened in 2016 when Democratic Party voters who were predominantly Blacks and/or seniors swallowed the propaganda-line from the billionaire-controlled 'news'-media against the electability of Sanders, those voters have done it yet again and thus are re-electing Trump by having passed over the only candidate who could have beaten him: Sanders. (A 22 June 2016 Bloomberg News report right after Hillary had won the nomination headlined "Nearly Half of Sanders Supporters Won't Support Clinton". Of course, that was being reported too late for the voters to be able to do anything about it; and this is how the billionaires work.)

Rocket

North Korea says it used 'super-large multiple rocket launcher' in latest missile firing

Kim Jong Un
© Reuters
Pyongyang has confirmed it conducted yet another test of a new "super-large multiple rocket launcher" a day after Seoul reported North Korea fired two short-range missiles towards the Sea of Japan amid ongoing drills.

The launch, carried out early Sunday morning, went without a hitch, North Korean state media reported, saying that it was conducted to "verify strategic and technical characteristics" of the novel launcher, which has featured in a series of recent tests by the reclusive country.

It's unclear if North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attended the drill to oversee the launch in person.

USA

ONE MUST PAY: Trump promises Harry & Meghan no free ride in US

Trump and Prince Harry
© Reuters / Jonathan Ernst and Henry Nicholls
President Donald Trump has assured Britain's Prince Harry and wife Meghan Markle that the US taxpayer won't be footing their security bill, after the absconding royals left Canada to settle in Los Angeles.

"I am a great friend and admirer of the Queen & the United Kingdom," Trump tweeted on Sunday. "It was reported that Harry and Meghan, who left the Kingdom, would reside permanently in Canada. Now they have left Canada for the US however, the US will not pay for their security protection. They must pay!"

Snakes in Suits

Macron warns EU leaders pandemic is risking "survival of European project"


Comment: Yep, and YOU will have been responsible for breaking it!


macron
© REUTERS / POOL
Speaking to the leaders of the 26 European Union states, French President Emmanuel Macron, during a Thursday video-conference on the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, warned that the bloc's fundamental projects, including the no-border zone, could be imperiled if the nations fail to show solidarity during the crisis, according to Reuters.

"What's at stake is the survival of the European project," Macron told the leaders in the conference call, according to Reuters, citing a French diplomat. "The risk we are facing is the death of Schengen".


Comment: It's already dead. The borders are closed, and they'll only reopen on a bilateral basis. They're still legally wide open to capital of course, but even those pathways have seized up because this utter fiasco has broken supply chains and inter-bank lending.


Comment: The bloc's economy, like that in the US, was in dire need of fixing well before the phantom Corony virus came along. But now it's a matter of ensuring things don't devolve into warfare over limited resources.


Footprints

Will the coronavirus result in martial law? 'Americans have a tipping point!'

martial law guys
© Zeferli/iStock
I believe strongly in being prudent and also being peaceful. But I have questions - tough questions - and my purpose is to keep and embolden a strong and civil America.

COVID-19 cases are growing faster and faster by the day, and so are the numbers of those who are dying from it. As a result, a growing number of states in the U.S., like California, New York, Pennsylvania and Illinois, are asking most businesses to shut down and every citizen to "lockdown" or "shelter in place," except for very limited "essentials" like running out for groceries, medicine, etc. Interestingly, or maybe not, increasing at the same time as the above, are what will be more and more law enforcement crackdowns on city-wide curfews and other citizen restrictions.

The questions I have are these:

If the need for citizen confinement grows, and the restrictions increase, where does it end? And what excessive burden are we then placing upon law enforcement to corral even half of Americans (150 million)? And if even the smallest transgression of confinement restrictions ends up being a misdemeanor, how will officials handle tens of millions of them? And do we not think cops, who have to enforce confinement rules, will not come in closer proximity with those infected with the coronavirus and contract it themselves? And if those numbers continue to grow, won't we end up with the same shortage of law enforcement as we will hospital personnel? And wouldn't it follow that our courts become overloaded and burdened with misdemeanor cases just as our medical facilities are with COVID-19 cases?

And most critical of all, as I'm sure it is being pondered in the rooms of the White House as well as the corridors of Congress: How long can we allow Americans, who are a freedom-loving people and patriots, to be under "lockdown" in their own homes without working? Many scientists and specialists are even now calling the federal government to a five-week national lockdown? Do we expect the majority to simply comply? Will they have the resources and wherewithal to go the distance without resistance?

Comment: Good questions we all should be asking! Brings to mind the warning: 'Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.' -Lord Acton, British historian. Are Americans willing to submit to authoritarian dictates without protest or reaction? Our 200 year+ history says otherwise, our recent history - not so much. But that could change on a dime.


X

IRGC chief's warning to US: Do not 'test the power' of Iran anymore

IRGC
© AP/Vahid SalemiIslamic Revolutionary Guards Corps
Tensions between Tehran and Washington further deteriorated in early January, when top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani was assassinated in a US drone strike on his car in Baghdad.

Major General Hossein Salami, Chief Commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), has urged the US to use its military for domestic purposes instead of sending it abroad. Salami pointed out on Saturday:
"When the Americans are in the region, they will both harm themselves and the nations [in the region], and their existence results in nothing but the deterioration of their own power and damage to these nations."
He referred to an IRGC missile attack on a US airbase in January, saying that some US officials announced after the strike that they "wanted to carry out limited operations against the Iranians, which was no more than a political bluff".

Salami noted that after Washington "tested the power" of the Islamic Republic, the US "knows very well how Iran will react to any efforts to undermine it".

Target

US DoD orders to prep 'destruction' campaign against 'Iranian-backed groups' in Iraq

Soldier/Plane
© Reuters/Thaier Al-SudaniHandover of US-led coalition forces to Iraq at Qayyayah Air Field, March 26, 2020.
Amid the coronavirus pandemic, it was reported earlier that the US army may suspend military training and impose 'restrictions of the highest level' on overseas missions.

The Pentagon has ordered military commanders to plan for an escalation of American combat resources in Iraq, The New York Times reported on Friday, citing unnamed officials claiming to be familiar with the directive:
According to the report, last week, the US Department of Defence issued a secretive directive to "prepare a campaign to destroy an Iranian-backed militia group that has threatened more attacks against American troops".
Kataib Hezbollah and "Iranian paramilitary forces - members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps" are named possible targets of planned escalation. US President Donald Trump, when reportedly made aware of the initiative during a 19 March meeting in the Oval Office, did not immediately greenlight the campaign, but did allow planning to continue.

The United States' top commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Robert P. White, has expressed doubt regarding the feasibility of the Pentagon plans, according to The New York Times.