• Nearly $1 trillion for cash-strapped state and local governments
• A second round of $1,200 direct payments to individuals, with up to $6,000 per household
• $200 billion for hazard pay for essential workers
• $75 billion for Covid-19 testing efforts
• An extension of the $600 per week federal unemployment insurance benefit through January (it is currently set to go through July)
• $175 billion in rent, mortgage and utility assistance
• A 15% increase in the maximum Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefit
• Repeal of the $10,000 cap on state and local tax deductions for two years, which would help certain states' budget crunch but benefit higher-income taxpayers most
• Expanded mail-in ballot access, which Republicans oppose
• Relief funds for the U.S. Postal Service
• $10 billion in emergency small business disaster assistance grants
• Subsidies and a special Affordable Care Act enrollment period for people who lose employer-sponsored health coverage

Newt Gingrich weighed in claiming Pelosi's crazy $3T coronavirus spending bill may have a secret purpose and not to underestimate her. His first reaction:

"It would be dead on arrival in the Senate and the move made no sense. As we learned about the nuttier parts of the bill after it was introduced, it struck me almost as a joke. How do you explain a House Democratic Party so crazy that their new $3 trillion proposal has 68 references to Cannabis and only 52 references to jobs? Maybe Speaker Pelosi of San Francisco believes 'California Dreamin' could become the new national anthem."

There are a remarkable number of impossible-to-explain provisions in the bill. Some of them would:

• Provide money to people in the country illegally.
• Allow illegal immigrants to work when more than 30 million Americans are out of work.
• Provide taxpayer funding for abortion, even though Americans oppose taxpayer funding for abortions by 55 percent to 29 percent.
• Block voter identification laws - even though 80 percent of Americans favor such laws.
• Give state and local governments, which already collect your tax dollars, $1 trillion more of your tax dollars.
• Give a tax cut to the richest Americans in blue states.
• Impose a host of other liberal fantasies on Americans.

Republicans will hate the bill. Independents and moderates will find large parts of the bill totally unacceptable. There will be an entire series of issues in which 75 percent or 85 percent of the country will be deeply opposed to the Pelosi bill. It would probably guarantee a Republican landslide this fall.

After spending days trying to figure out why she would lead her party into such an exposed position, let me offer this three-part proposition:

From Pelosi's perspective, mobilizing the cannabis users and liberal investors is a useful move, too. They are as much part of the Democratic base as traditional small business owners are part of the Republican base.

Arousing the hardcore, pro-abortion activists helps Pelosi with turnout and donations. Disciplined repetition of the word "diversity" appeals to her ideological activists and - to a lesser extent - minority communities.

Appealing to the illegal immigrant community is a useful thing for Pelosi. And Democrats are working to make it possible for illegal immigrants to vote in a number of states.

Giving a tax cut to the richest people in the bluest states is a direct favor to her donor base and helps the public employee unions in those states by making state and local taxes more bearable.

Pouring extra cash into the worst-run blue states with the biggest pension debt (think Illinois and New Jersey) directly helps Pelosi's public employee union allies and the Democratic politicians in those states.

Pelosi's base will be fired up to elect former Vice President Joe Biden and Democratic majorities in the House and Senate so they can get the ideological and financial goodies she has woven into this bill.

• 'No excuse for this': House Dems' 1,815-page bill would bail out corporate lobbyists and the wealthy as first priorities

A number of Trump's critics emerged from the woodwork to suggest that fellow #Resisters crowdfund the ransom themselves, hoping to leak the information - apparently not grasping that the hackers vowed to do precisely that with no payment at all.

Some were more skeptical arguing the whole operation is a "brilliant" ruse to persuade gullible "liberals" to shell out millions in order to "get the goods on Trump."

Are the liberals desperate enough to 'buy in?'

The White House has made no comment, however with Trump consistently under intense criticism from his political rivals for more than three years straight - including accusations of high treason and cavorting with prostitutes - it's unclear what 'dirt' would compel him to pay up. If any at all.

"Experts want to know why coronavirus hasn't killed more Russians," Bloomberg mused on Thursday, shocking more than a few people with its headline's air of disappointment. The article's title was subsequently revised to "Experts question why coronavirus hasn't killed more Russians," which is...so much better.

The outlet hinted that a "recalculation" was in the works that would beef up Russia's death rate significantly, according to Melita Vujnovic, the lead World Health Organization representative in the country. But Vujnovic only said a "recalculation" might occur - and she clarified on Russian TV on Tuesday that "there are no facts indicating deliberate understating" of the death rate.

The concern-trolling outbreak focused on Russia's body count struck other outlets, including the New York Times and Financial Times. The former claimed on Monday that Covid-19 death totals in Russia were 70 percent higher than reported, citing "independent demographer" Aleksei Raksha, whom they praised for "spotting" data "buried in an obscure government statistics website." The irony of using an "independent demographer" (read: non-expert) to manipulate official statistics in order to accuse Moscow of manipulating statistics appeared to be lost on the Times, especially when the same article admitted "the death toll will be updated...by the end of this month" - meaning the numbers they took issue with weren't even final.

While the Russian Embassy to the US has asked for a retraction from the New York Times, and the Russian Embassy to the UK - from the Financial Times, they're probably not holding their breath.
Noting that NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg had accused Russia and China of "spreading a lot of disinformation during the Covid-19 pandemic, trying to change the world order," Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova drily observed that a 'world order' in which it's considered acceptable to lament why a virus didn't kill more Russian people could probably use a change.

And this from Russia's FM Lavrov: "I am generally opposed to holding a show trial of journalists, but journalists should be held responsible for what they publish." He added the issues with the accuracy of reported information deserve "special attention" from the regulating authorities and expressed his disdain for those who are using the extreme and devastating situation of a global pandemic to "smear their political opponents."

The Russian embassy in the United States has asked the New York Times for a retraction, while the Russian Embassy to the UK has asked the same from the Financial Times. Roskomnadzor, Russia's media regulator, has launched a formal investigation into the conduct of these publications.