The luckiest country: Australia goes a WEEK with zero coronavirus cases across the entire nation
Australia has gone a week without a single community transmission of Covid-19, as other nations across the world continue to buckle under the strain of the virus and its ever changing and increasingly dangerous mutations.
While a day without any local cases may seem impossible for other countries battling the virus, for Australia it is slowly becoming the new normal.
In Victoria, the state has gone an incredible 18 days without a single community transmission case following fears the Northern Beaches cluster would completely ruin their long standing streak after it spread across the border.
After enduring a hard three-day lockdown in Brisbane, Queensland also recorded zero new cases of Covid-19.
The rest of the country have continued to record no community transmission as the virus is once again under control.
In the meantime, beaches around the country were packed over the weekend with restrictions eased many weeks ago, in stark comparison to the strict lockdowns experienced across Europe.
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Justice Department considers NOT charging up to 800 MAGA rioters who caused havoc at the Capitol 'since most of them just trespassed and were not violent'
This is a very big admission: "most of them just trespassed and were not violent"
The FBI and prosecutors at the Justice Department are debating whether to decline to charge some of the MAGA rioters who stormed the United States Capitol on January 6 in an attempt to derail President Joe Biden's certification.
There is concern among DOJ officials that bringing charges against all of the estimated 800 rioters who ransacked the Capitol building could flood the local federal courthouse in Washington, DC, with cases.
There appears to be unanimous agreement among Justice Department officials to bring charges against alleged extremists who are suspected of coordinating and planning violent actions inside the Capitol.
Prosecutors have indicated that they intend to bring seditious conspiracy charges to anyone who has been found to plot violent actions against the government.
Among those who participated in the January 6 assault were members of the Oath Keepers, which often recruits current and former military, police or other first responders; the Proud Boys neo-fascist group; followers of QAnon, which spreads bizarre conspiracy theories; racists and anti-Semites; and others with nearly blind devotion to then-President Donald Trump.
Federal authorities on Tuesday presented new details about three self-described members of a paramilitary group who were the first to be charged with plotting the attack.
The FBI said a Virginia man, Thomas Edward Caldwell, appeared to be a leader of the effort. Caldwell and a man and woman from Ohio were all charged with conspiracy and other federal counts.
Details of the documents made public offer some insight to planning and coordination behind the extraordinary attack, which apparently took law enforcement by surprise despite various warnings online.
But there is serious question as to whether it is worth pursuing charges against a large majority of the people who were seen streaming into the Capitol.
Those individuals entered the grounds of the building and trespassed, but they were not involved in any serious crimes that would warrant stiff prison sentences.
There is also a fear among federal prosecutors that bringing trespassing charges against those who did not commit any other violent acts could lead to losses in trial.
'If an old man says all he did was walk in and no one tried to stop him, and he walked out and no one tried to stop him, and that's all we know about what he did, that's a case we may not win,' one official said.
DOJ officials told the Post that evidence is still being gathered and that those rioters who were initially thought to be relatively harmless could be charged if photos or videos show them committing serious crimes.
One option that federal prosecutors are weighing for non-violent Capitol offenders is to enter deferred plea agreements in which they agree to drop charges if they do not commit crimes over a certain period of time.
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74,216,722
That number keeps coming back to me.
74,216,722 votes for a president who was relentlessly vilified, maligned, lied about, and falsely accused of treason (not to mention high crimes and misdemeanors) every day of his presidency.
74,216,722 votes for a man who made unforced errors and harmed his own cause in innumerable ways but still managed to accomplish policy goals the polished, practiced, professional Republicans who came before him only gave lip service to but never really intended to lift a finger to accomplish.
74,216,722 voters who defied the overwhelming, multi-headed leviathan of academia, pop-culture, mainstream news media, Hollywood, Broadway, professional sports, and big tech by going out of their way in a pandemic to vote for the most demonized figure in modern American history.
74,216,722 voices who are now expected to just go away.
Well, we won't. We aren't going anywhere.
"Unity" seems to be the word of the hour. It's a lovely notion. I mean, who doesn't want unity? Things are so much easier when we are unified, aren't they?
But unity is a goal without any moral, principle, or value associated with it. To merely unify is a meaningless activity without examining what we are to unify around.
That important detail was glaringly absent from President Biden's inauguration address.
To unify a nation around a destructive, immoral, and even evil policy is no great accomplishment.
We are all for unity. We would have appreciated a little unity around "America First" or perhaps around "Enforce our immigration laws as written" or "The US Embassy in Israel belongs in the capital city of Jerusalem." These are all good ideas and would be worthy of unified support. Instead, all we got was The Resistance.
The calls for unity are really calls for no more debate. As Obama (the last great "Let's all unify" president) said as he dismissed Republicans who wanted some input into some of his more radical agenda items, "I won, you lost."
They want to shut you up. They want to shut me up.
They sort of succeeded in the final weeks of the presidential campaign.
The mainstream media and big tech oligarchs colluded with the Biden campaign to virtually erase a factual, truthful, and completely legitimate report concerning an open FBI criminal investigation involving Hunter Biden and his ties to America's foreign adversaries, millions of dollars, and an alleged pay-to-play scheme reaching all the way to the new president.
That story was virtually muted. Silenced. In other words, we had unity.
74,216,722.
They want all of us to shut the hell up. That's the only way they achieve unity.
We aren't going away. At least, not easily.
But, all of us have to be ready because the attempts to silence us and our ideas in the name of unity have already begun.
The attacks on social media freedom are now leading to an attack on conservative-leaning news outlets and will be followed by attacks on talk radio and eventually on right-leaning websites like this one.
The first thing all of us can do is to support all those outlets we need on a daily basis to stay informed and, even more importantly, stay united in our loyal opposition to the creeping socialism we are about to witness in Washington, DC.
To that end, please, if you haven't already, renew your VIP membership to Townhall and, more importantly, share the news of your membership with your friends and contacts on Facebook and other social media platforms so they can join too. If we stay strong and stay together, we have a chance to stay alive to fight another day.
Now is the time when we need to know who our friends are and plan for what's coming next.
74,216,722. That's not nothing. And it is the perfect start for the courageous growth we need to renew this country again.
We aren't going away. And we won't be quiet. Never.
https://townhall.com/columnists/larryoconnor/2021/01/21/74216722-n2583499
************************************Lockdowns cripple the poor and pamper the rich
A new poll from Morning Consult provides a stark illustration of the unequal impact of personal finances, mental health and physical health.
Those in the US earning under $50,000 per year were the most likely to report a decline in their personal finances in 2020, whereas those earning over $100,000 reported a net improvement. The job security, take-home pay, personal life and work-life balance of the poorest have deteriorated significantly, too.
More strikingly, lower earners also experienced the greatest deterioration in mental and physical health. Those with postgraduate degrees, on the other hand, reported improvements in their physical health – by a whopping 23 per cent.
As spiked has repeatedly highlighted since the lockdowns began last year, the consequences for the working class have been devastating, while the more affluent seem to have profited from the restrictions.
In the US, between 18 March and 10 April 2020, over 22million people lost their jobs. But in the same three weeks, the wealth of billionaires increased by $282billion, according to a report by the Institute for Policy Studies.
And in the UK, an Instititue for Fiscal Studies report found that between March and September last year, the average monthly savings of the poorest fifth of people fell by £170 compared to a normal year. Higher-income quintiles, on the other hand, enjoyed a rise in their savings.
All this gives the lie to the absurd claims that opposition to lockdown serves the interests of the wealthy. Supporters of the lockdown – particularly on the left – are quick to denounce any call to reopen society as an attempt to ‘save the billionaires’.
But the billionaires and the well-heeled have done brilliantly out of lockdown. It is the poor who have suffered most from the shutdown of society, as they are less likely to be able to work from home and more likely to be hard-hit by redundancy and declines in pay.
Lockdowns are crippling the poor and pampering the rich.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/01/21/lockdowns-cripple-the-poor-and-pamper-the-rich/
*************************************IN BRIEF
Making America energy dependent again: Joe Biden pauses federal drilling program (Reuters)
House to send Trump impeachment article on Monday (AP) | Trump hires attorney Butch Bowers to represent him at trial (Forbes)
Biden to keep Christopher Wray on as FBI director (NBC News)
Hunter inquiry looms large as Biden pledge prevents "improper interference" with DOJ investigations (Examiner)
Democrats slap Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley with ethics complaint over Capitol mob (Examiner)
Unity! Bernie Sanders dismisses meeting in "the middle" with Republicans (Newsweek)
House approves waiver for Lloyd Austin to serve as defense secretary (U.S. News & World Report)
Policing free speech but not actual crimes? Twitter faces lawsuit for refusal to remove child porn (Disrn)
Google threatens to pull out of Australia over plan to make it pay for news (Time)
U.S. sees five-fold increase in methamphetamine overdose deaths from 2011 to 2018 (UPI)
Policy: Raising the minimum wage won't stimulate the economy, but it will stimulate Democrat interest groups (City Journal)
Policy: Don't rush to failure on Iran nuclear negotiations (Daily Signal)
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http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://john-ray.blogspot.com (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC) Saturdays only
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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