Spin off of a spin off

Not even the regime comedians of late-night TV are buying Joe Biden’s spin that the economy is in great shape. CBS’s The Late Late Show host James Corden recently paid a visit to the White House in what Biden administration officials no doubt thought would be a puff piece they could easily control. Instead, Corden switched briefly to rough-puff mode when he balked at being told to say that the state of the U.S. economy is “strong.” Corden was preparing to take questions from the White House press corps, conferring with former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki. Psaki gave Corden a list of word associations to help him deal with the press. “War with Russia: Bad,” “CDC: Good,” “Economy: Strong.” Corden replied incredulously: “Is it?” Watch below: Many economists and prominent business leaders are bracing for a deep recession as soaring inflation and out-of-control gas prices continue to crush U.S. families. As Breitbart New reported , a key measure of … [Read more...] about James Corden Mocks Biden’s ‘Strong Economy’ Spin in Extended White House Visit Segment

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said Wednesday that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is not the primary driver of inflation. In a Senate Banking Committee hearing Wednesday morning, Sen Bill Hagerty (R-TN) pointed out that inflation rose from 1.4 percent in January of 2021 to seven percent by the end of the year, months before Russia invaded Ukraine. It has since risen another 1.6 percentage points. “Given how inflation has escalated over the past 18 months, would you say the war in Ukraine is the primary driver of inflation?” Hagerty asked. “No,” Powell responded. “Inflation was high. Certainly, was high before the war in Ukraine broke out.” The Fed chair’s statement puts him at odds with President Joe Biden, who has repeatedly sought to blame the war for high prices. With the biggest single driver of inflation being Putin’s war against Ukraine, @POTUS has taken action to blunt the impact of Putin’s Price Hike for families. — The White House (@WhiteHouse) June 20, … [Read more...] about Fed Chair Jerome Powell Shoots Down Biden Administration’s ‘Putin’s Price Hikes’ Inflation Spin

The relentless evolution of the coronavirus, which has spawned new variants to fuel fresh surges of disease every four to six months, could in the not-distant future propel the virus to overtake measles as the most contagious of all known infections. Increasing infectiousness does not necessarily make the virus deadlier, but it could make it harder to control, and leave communities vulnerable to the repeated waves of illness that have defined the pandemic. The variants now dominating around the world may be five to 10 times more infectious than the original virus that sparked the pandemic in China in late 2019, health experts believe. Lately each variant has outpaced its parent — omicron, with its massive evolutionary jump, was about three times more infectious than delta. Its subvariants — BA.2 and BA.2.12.1, which are driving the latest surge in the Bay Area — are each more infectious still, by 20% to 30%. The basic reproduction value — a number meant to represent how many … [Read more...] about Almost as contagious as measles: COVID spins out worrisome new mutations

After the Unite The Right rally brought chaos and bloodshed to Charlottesville in 2017, white nationalist hate group Vanguard America, one of the infamous event's co-organizers, faced internal turmoil. Dallas native and then-Vanguard America member Thomas Rousseau capitalized on the group’s strife, recruiting from within its ranks to create a Texas-based spin-off group called Patriot Front in the fall of 2017, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Patriot Front, which the SPLC and the Anti-Defamation League both now identify as a hate group, made news again last weekend when 31 members packed into the back of a UHaul were arrested by local police in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. "They came to riot downtown," said Lee White,  Coeur d'Alene Police Chief, at a press conference . All 31 were charged with criminal conspiracy to riot , a misdemeanor, according to White, for allegedly planning to incite an uproar at an LGBTQ Pride event in Coeur d’Alene on Saturday, June … [Read more...] about Patriot Front arrests show shift in policing of extremists, FBI experts say

This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 5 MIAMI (AP) — The crash landing of a jetliner that caught fire on the runway at Miami International Airport with 126 people on board had passengers screaming and panicking, witnesses said. “People were very frightened,” RED Air Flight 203 passenger Mauricio Davis told the Miami Herald. “People were grabbing the seats to keep from spinning around." The fire started Tuesday after the MD-82 jetliner's landing gear collapsed on arrival from the Dominican Republic, Miami-Dade Aviation Department spokesman Greg Chin said. Three passengers were taken to a hospital with minor injuries, while the others were bussed to the terminal, Chin said. Passenger Paola Garcia said she thought she was going to die. “I started running and I jumped, and I thought it was going to explode,” she told WSVN. The plane came to a stop on the grass beside a runway, where it was doused with … [Read more...] about 3 injured when jetliner crash lands, catches fire in Miami

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina’s seven largest hospital systems reaped sizeable financial benefits last year, even as they received billions of dollars in federal assistance during the pandemic, according to a report released Wednesday from the State Treasurer’s Office. The state employee health insurance plan, which Treasurer Dale Folwell’s agency oversees, and the National Academy for State Health Policy reviewed audited financial reports of the hospital systems. They found that the systems -- Atrium Health, Cone Health, Duke Health, Novant Health, UNC Health, Vidant Health and WakeMed — reported $5.2 billion in combined net income in 2021. The seven nonprofit systems also saw cash and investments grow by a cumulative $7.1 billion from 2019 to 2021, the report said. The report, which was reviewed by a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said the prosperity came as the health plans accepted $1.5 billion in COVID-19 relief funds and $1.6 … [Read more...] about Report: NC hospitals that got COVID-19 relief reaped profits