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NYC Sets Up “Check Points” For Travelers; NJ Complains COVID-19 Positivity Rate Is “Too High”: Live Updates

NYC Sets Up "Check Points" For Travelers; NJ Complains COVID-19 Positivity Rate Is "Too High": Live Updates

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NYC Sets Up "Check Points" For Travelers; NJ Complains COVID-19 Positivity Rate Is "Too High": Live Updates Tyler Durden Wed, 08/05/2020 - 13:10

Summary:

  • NJ Gov says positivity rate is "too high"
  • Florida cases top 500k
  • NYC institutes "check points" for travelers
  • Chicago public schools to reopen online only this fall
  • UK invests $18mil in Scottish vax factory
  • JNJ strikes huge vax deal with White House
  • COVID deaths top 700k
  • US to send DHHS Secretary Alex Azar on historic visit to Taiwan
  • Czech Republic reports biggest jump in new cases since June
  • Poland suffers record deaths
  • WHO sends team of 43 to South Africa
  • Uganda is Africa's standout COVID success story
  • WHO says first "confirmed" North Korea COVID cases "inconclusive"
  • Queensland, Australia bars travelers from all Eastern states

* * *

Update (1255ET): New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy has been beating the "impending disaster" drum for a little over a week now as the positivity rate and New Jersey's "R" - a variable measuring the rate of spread/contraction - have crept higher. And during Wednesday's press briefing, he complained that the state's positivity rate is "too high".

New Jersey reported 378 new cases and 8 additional deaths on Wednesday, Murphy said.

The state's positivity rate is 2.57%, which is "too high because it’s over 2%," Murphy said.

New Jersey has a statewide total of 183,327 cases of COVID-19 and 13,989 deaths from the virus.

"Let’s keep up what we are doing to keep the virus down," Murphy said.

He shared the latest data in a series of tweets as well:

His remarks come after the state added Rhode Island (but removed Washington DC and Delaware) from its quarantine list.

* * *

Update (1110ET): In other big vaccine-related new from Wednesday, the UK agreed to invest $18 million in a Scottish vaccine-manufacturing plant early Wednesday.

Here's more on that from The Scotsman:

The UK Government and the drugs firm are investing in the Livingston plant, with 75 new jobs expected to be created. The Government had struck a deal for early access to Valneva's "promising" vaccine candidate.

If clinical trials are successful, the site could provide up to 100 million doses of the vaccine across the UK and internationally.

Business Secretary Alok Sharma will visit the factory this afternoon to hear about plans to scale-up production.

Valneva's vaccine, which is called VLA2001, is one of four potential vaccines which the UK Government has secured rights for.

Mr Sharma said: "I'm incredibly grateful to our highly-skilled scientists and technicians in Livingston who are supporting the global effort to research, develop and manufacture a safe and effective coronavirus vaccine.

"The multimillion-pound upfront investment we have agreed with Valneva today means that their vaccine can be manufactured in quantity right here in Scotland.

"If clinical trials are successful, millions of people in priority groups across the UK will be protected by their life-saving vaccine."

Speaking on the BBC's Good Morning Scotland radio programme ahead of his visit, Mr Sharma said the French company hoped to secure regulatory approval for its vaccine in the second half of next year.

Meanwhile, Moderna announced Wednesday that it has already booked $400 million in deposits from various governments for quantities of its vaccine, as the world waits to see if the US (via BARDA) will reward Moderna with even more money via vaccine preorders, after already pumping nearly $1 billion into the company for its vaccine (which is reportedly being priced at a premium, despite all the government aid).

In New York, Andrew Cuomo released the latest data from the city.

The more interesting news out of the city on Wednesday comes from the New York City Test and Trace Corps, (aka de Blasio's contact tracing army) which says that 1/5th of all new cases have been linked to travelers coming in from other states, according to Dr. Ted Long, the head of the service. In response, Mayor de Blasio said he will enforce travel "checkpoints" to monitor visitors from the 35 states and territories on the quarantine list. Travelers will need to complete a "travel disclosure form" before passing through these checkpoints back into the city.

Travelers will need to disclose their information, or face a $2,000 fine. Here's more from de Blasio:

“Travelers coming in from those states will be given information about the quarantine, they will be reminded that is required and not optional. They will be reminded that failure to quarantine is a violation of state law and it comes with serious penalties.” de Blasio said.

The checkpoints will be at major bridge and tunnel crossings, according to New York City Sheriff Joseph Fucito.

The announcement comes after Mayor de Blasio said that the New York City’s positivity rate has been below 3% since June 10.

"This is serious stuff and it’s time for everyone realizes it. If we are going to hold at this level at health and safety in this city and get better we have to deal with the fact that the quarantine must be applied consistently" de Blasio added.

The checkpoints will be set up Wednesday, de Blasio said.

Chicago Public Schools will start the upcoming school year with fully remote learning for all its students, the district announced Wednwsday during in a press briefing. The decision is expected to stave off a strike from the Chicago teacher's union. The school district will rely on 100% remote learning through the first quarter, which ends Nov. 9.

Florida reported 502,739 virus cases on Wednesday, up 1.1% from a day earlier, compared with an average 1.7% increase over the last week, making it the second state (after Cali) to surpass 500,000 cases.

Deaths among residents reached 7,627, an increase of 225, or 3%, according to the report, which includes data through Tuesday. The rate of people testing positive for the first time was steady at 10.9%, though the state reported a record 621 new hospitalizations, despite trends showing ICU and bed occupancy falling in most areas across the state. Arizona, meanwhile, reported another 1,698 new cases.

While ICU occupancy declined to 83%, the lowest level since late June.

* * *

Update (0910ET): JNJ shares are soaring in premarket trading after the company announced that it had struck a deal for 100 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, the latest in a string of blockbuster deals for vaccine candidates as governments, including the US, UK, EU and Japan, scramble to stockpile vaccine doses before they're even approved.

BARDA, the US agency in charge of these deals, is pledging $1 billion+ for this deal, at roughyl $10/dose, making JNJ's one of the cheaper vaccine candidates.

Here's more on that from Reuters:

Johnson & Johnson announced Wednesday that it will develop and deliver 100 million doses of its coronavirus vaccine for the U.S. in a deal totaling more than $1 billion.

The deal gives the U.S. the option to order an additional 200 million doses, the company said.

"We are scaling up production in the U.S. and worldwide to deliver a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine for emergency use," said Paul Stoffels, chief science officer at Johnson & Johnson, in a statement.

* * *

As new COVID-19 cases continued to slow in the US and Brazil on Tuesday, the number of confirmed deaths worldwide passed the 700,000 mark, while the number of confirmed cases hit, according to data from JHU and Bloomberg.

Perhaps the biggest news overnight comes out of the US, where Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said he plans to visit Taiwan to discuss the international response to the pandemic. The trip will happen in the coming days. It will almost certainly lead to a further deterioration in the relationship between the US and China, as Azar's visit will be the highest-level visit by an American Cabinet official since the break in formal diplomatic relations between Washington and Taipei in 1979.

The Czech Republic reported its biggest daily jump in cases since the end of June on Wednesday. The 290 new cases pushed its national total to 17,286, with 383 deaths. Roughly 1/4th of the new cases - 77 - were in the eastern region of Moravia-Silesia, bordering Poland, where many miners and their families have been infected. It comes as Poland reported several consecutive days of record case numbers. Poland, meanwhile, reported 18 new virus-linked deaths, the most in a day since June 30, raising the country's death toll to 1,756

North Korea’s suspected first coronavirus patient - a defector who recently snuck back in to the closed off country - has tested inconclusive for the virus, according to the WHO rep who works with North Korea (a reliable, independent, source of information, we're sure.

“The person was tested for Covid-19, but test results were inconclusive,” Dr Edwin Salvador, the WHO representative for North Korea, told Reuters on Wednesday.

As many as 64 first contacts and 3,571 secondary contacts of the suspected case have been identified and quarantined in government facilities for a period of 40 days, Salvador said. Kaesong remains under lockdown and household doctors continue to conduct surveillance in the city, he said.

Australia has tightened its lockdown in the troubled state of Victoria to resemble the restrictions that forced hundreds of millions of Europeans to remain indoors for months. While it could take weeks for these measures to have some impact, the state is already nearly 4 weeks in to a 'partial lockdown' imposed when the latest cluster in Melbourne first emerged.

The Associated Press described how Australia's streets "drained of life" this week as the state of Victoria imposed the country's toughest lockdown yet.

And despite all of this, Victoria premier Daniel Andrews announced 725 new cases in the state and 15 new deaths, making the last 24 hours the deadliest day yet for the Australian outbreak, and the second-worst day for new cases across the country (it was the worst day for Victoria). Though, to be sure, South Australia processed a record number of COVID-19 tests on Tuesday, and are expected to exceed that again today, as thousands flock to testing.

The outbreak in Victoria is creating more paranoia nationally as the state of Queensland on Wednesday announced that it would shut its state border with the rest of Australia's East Coast, after having already banned travelers from Victoria. Travelers from New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory won't be allowed to travel to Queensland starting Aug. 8. This despite the fact that the ACT currently has no active cases.

NSW also announced that all residents returning from Victoria will need to hotel quarantine for 14 days at their own expense.

As WHO plays down the outbreak in North Korea, its Africa arm is sending a team of 43 specialists to South Africa, a country that has quietly climbed the coronavirus rankings as Africa's most industrialized nation is also home to its largest outbreak - or, to put it more accurately, the continent's largest number of confirmed infections: As of Wednesday morning, the country had 521,318 cases, the fifth-highest number in the world, and more than half of all reported infections in Africa, which is now close to the 1 million milestone. South Africa's health minister on Wednesday heralded the country's decreasing infection rate, but warned that the people must stay vigilant to stave off "a renewed surge". SA has recorded 8,884 COVID-19 deaths, although studies of excess mortality rates indicate the actual toll could be higher.

Like in India and many other poor countries, the virus spread like wildfire through South Africa's overcrowded urban slums in Cape Town, Johannesburg and other cities. For weeks, it threatened to overwhelm public hospitals, but Health Minister Zwelini Mkhize told reporters Wednesday that the health care system in the country will be able to cope.

"Our hospitals have been battered but we have not breached our hospital capacity," he said. "Our wards are full and our ICU beds are full, but not to complete capacity. And the field hospitals that we constructed still have space." There have been adequate supplies of oxygen for severely affected patients, he said.

After reporting the latest updates from South Africa, Reuters on Wednesday published a lengthy story about Uganda, one of the largest countries in Africa, and how its experience with deadly viruses like Ebola and Marburg shaped its handling of coronavirus. Uganda - a nation of 42 million - has recorded just a handful of deaths due to the restrictive and sometimes brutally enforced lockdown imposed by the authoritarian government.

Despite crumbling public hospitals, doctors’ strikes and corruption scandals, the African nation has largely succeeded in containing the virus: It has recorded just 1,200 cases and five deaths since March. Per Reuters, Uganda’s experience "shows what can be accomplished when a government with a firm grip on power acts quickly and enforces a strict lockdown. But its success came at a cost, critics say.
Jobs were lost, and economic growth is set to plunge to as low as 0.4% in 2020, from 5.6% last year, according to the World Bank."

Meanwhile, Africa's 54 countries have recorded a total of roughly 975,000 cases and 21,000 deaths from the virus.

As a result of the lockdown, some pregnant women died in labor, unable to reach hospitals in time due to travel restrictions, while security forcesbeat and arrested some scofflaws who disobeyed the lockdown.

"A jobless person is better than a dead person,” state minister for health Robinah Nabbanja told Reuters. “The lockdown was completely justified.”

Not everyone agreed: "I go hungry sometimes and eat only once in a day," he said. "Coronavirus hasn’t killed us but the hell of going hungry is not that far from death."

Moving on to Asia, perhaps the biggest news overnight amounts to a disturbing echo of the initial coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan. Japanese Economy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura warned on Wednesday that Japan is facing a "second wave", and that Japanese citizens should exercise caution when traveling for the upcoming Obon Holiday that starts next week. He asked any Japanese with symptoms to please stay home. The holiday - like the Chinese New Year holiday that coincided with the initial phase of the outbreak - typically sees millions of Japanese return to their hometowns to visit family.

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United Airlines adds new flights to faraway destinations

The airline said that it has been working hard to "find hidden gem destinations."

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6 hours ago

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March 8, 2024

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Since countries started opening up after the pandemic in 2021 and 2022, airlines have been seeing demand soar not just for major global cities and popular routes but also for farther-away destinations.

Numerous reports, including a recent TripAdvisor survey of trending destinations, showed that there has been a rise in U.S. traveler interest in Asian countries such as Japan, South Korea and Vietnam as well as growing tourism traction in off-the-beaten-path European countries such as Slovenia, Estonia and Montenegro.

Related: 'No more flying for you': Travel agency sounds alarm over risk of 'carbon passports'

As a result, airlines have been looking at their networks to include more faraway destinations as well as smaller cities that are growing increasingly popular with tourists and may not be served by their competitors.

The Philippines has been popular among tourists in recent years.

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United brings back more routes, says it is committed to 'finding hidden gems'

This week, United Airlines  (UAL)  announced that it will be launching a new route from Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) to Morocco's Marrakesh. While it is only the country's fourth-largest city, Marrakesh is a particularly popular place for tourists to seek out the sights and experiences that many associate with the country — colorful souks, gardens with ornate architecture and mosques from the Moorish period.

More Travel:

"We have consistently been ahead of the curve in finding hidden gem destinations for our customers to explore and remain committed to providing the most unique slate of travel options for their adventures abroad," United's SVP of Global Network Planning Patrick Quayle, said in a press statement.

The new route will launch on Oct. 24 and take place three times a week on a Boeing 767-300ER  (BA)  plane that is equipped with 46 Polaris business class and 22 Premium Plus seats. The plane choice was a way to reach a luxury customer customer looking to start their holiday in Marrakesh in the plane.

Along with the new Morocco route, United is also launching a flight between Houston (IAH) and Colombia's Medellín on Oct. 27 as well as a route between Tokyo and Cebu in the Philippines on July 31 — the latter is known as a "fifth freedom" flight in which the airline flies to the larger hub from the mainland U.S. and then goes on to smaller Asian city popular with tourists after some travelers get off (and others get on) in Tokyo.

United's network expansion includes new 'fifth freedom' flight

In the fall of 2023, United became the first U.S. airline to fly to the Philippines with a new Manila-San Francisco flight. It has expanded its service to Asia from different U.S. cities earlier last year. Cebu has been on its radar amid growing tourist interest in the region known for marine parks, rainforests and Spanish-style architecture.

With the summer coming up, United also announced that it plans to run its current flights to Hong Kong, Seoul, and Portugal's Porto more frequently at different points of the week and reach four weekly flights between Los Angeles and Shanghai by August 29.

"This is your normal, exciting network planning team back in action," Quayle told travel website The Points Guy of the airline's plans for the new routes.

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Walmart launches clever answer to Target’s new membership program

The retail superstore is adding a new feature to its Walmart+ plan — and customers will be happy.

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6 hours ago

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March 8, 2024

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It's just been a few days since Target  (TGT)  launched its new Target Circle 360 paid membership plan. 

The plan offers free and fast shipping on many products to customers, initially for $49 a year and then $99 after the initial promotional signup period. It promises to be a success, since many Target customers are loyal to the brand and will go out of their way to shop at one instead of at its two larger peers, Walmart and Amazon.

Related: Walmart makes a major price cut that will delight customers

And stop us if this sounds familiar: Target will rely on its more than 2,000 stores to act as fulfillment hubs. 

This model is a proven winner; Walmart also uses its more than 4,600 stores as fulfillment and shipping locations to get orders to customers as soon as possible.

Sometimes, this means shipping goods from the nearest warehouse. But if a desired product is in-store and closer to a customer, it reduces miles on the road and delivery time. It's a kind of logistical magic that makes any efficiency lover's (or retail nerd's) heart go pitter patter. 

Walmart rolls out answer to Target's new membership tier

Walmart has certainly had more time than Target to develop and work out the kinks in Walmart+. It first launched the paid membership in 2020 during the height of the pandemic, when many shoppers sheltered at home but still required many staples they might ordinarily pick up at a Walmart, like cleaning supplies, personal-care products, pantry goods and, of course, toilet paper. 

It also undercut Amazon  (AMZN)  Prime, which costs customers $139 a year for free and fast shipping (plus several other benefits including access to its streaming service, Amazon Prime Video). 

Walmart+ costs $98 a year, which also gets you free and speedy delivery, plus access to a Paramount+ streaming subscription, fuel savings, and more. 

An employee at a Merida, Mexico, Walmart. (Photo by Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Jeff Greenberg/Getty Images

If that's not enough to tempt you, however, Walmart+ just added a new benefit to its membership program, ostensibly to compete directly with something Target now has: ultrafast delivery. 

Target Circle 360 particularly attracts customers with free same-day delivery for select orders over $35 and as little as one-hour delivery on select items. Target executes this through its Shipt subsidiary.

We've seen this lightning-fast delivery speed only in snippets from Amazon, the king of delivery efficiency. Who better to take on Target, though, than Walmart, which is using a similar store-as-fulfillment-center model? 

"Walmart is stepping up to save our customers even more time with our latest delivery offering: Express On-Demand Early Morning Delivery," Walmart said in a statement, just a day after Target Circle 360 launched. "Starting at 6 a.m., earlier than ever before, customers can enjoy the convenience of On-Demand delivery."

Walmart  (WMT)  clearly sees consumers' desire for near-instant delivery, which obviously saves time and trips to the store. Rather than waiting a day for your order to show up, it might be on your doorstep when you wake up. 

Consumers also tend to spend more money when they shop online, and they remain stickier as paying annual members. So, to a growing number of retail giants, almost instant gratification like this seems like something worth striving for.

Related: Veteran fund manager picks favorite stocks for 2024

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President Biden Delivers The “Darkest, Most Un-American Speech Given By A President”

President Biden Delivers The "Darkest, Most Un-American Speech Given By A President"

Having successfully raged, ranted, lied, and yelled through…

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March 8, 2024

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President Biden Delivers The "Darkest, Most Un-American Speech Given By A President"

Having successfully raged, ranted, lied, and yelled through the State of The Union, President Biden can go back to his crypt now.

Whatever 'they' gave Biden, every American man, woman, and the other should be allowed to take it - though it seems the cocktail brings out 'dark Brandon'?

Tl;dw: Biden's Speech tonight ...

  • Fund Ukraine.

  • Trump is threat to democracy and America itself.

  • Abortion is good.

  • American Economy is stronger than ever.

  • Inflation wasn't Biden's fault.

  • Illegals are Americans too.

  • Republicans are responsible for the border crisis.

  • Trump is bad.

  • Biden stands with trans-children.

  • J6 was the worst insurrection since the Civil War.

(h/t @TCDMS99)

Tucker Carlson's response sums it all up perfectly:

"that was possibly the darkest, most un-American speech given by an American president. It wasn't a speech, it was a rant..."

Carlson continued: "The true measure of a nation's greatness lies within its capacity to control borders, yet Bid refuses to do it."

"In a fair election, Joe Biden cannot win"

And concluded:

“There was not a meaningful word for the entire duration about the things that actually matter to people who live here.”

Victor Davis Hanson added some excellent color, but this was probably the best line on Biden:

"he doesn't care... he lives in an alternative reality."

*  *  *

Watch SOTU Live here...

*   *   *

Mises' Connor O'Keeffe, warns: "Be on the Lookout for These Lies in Biden's State of the Union Address." 

On Thursday evening, President Joe Biden is set to give his third State of the Union address. The political press has been buzzing with speculation over what the president will say. That speculation, however, is focused more on how Biden will perform, and which issues he will prioritize. Much of the speech is expected to be familiar.

The story Biden will tell about what he has done as president and where the country finds itself as a result will be the same dishonest story he's been telling since at least the summer.

He'll cite government statistics to say the economy is growing, unemployment is low, and inflation is down.

Something that has been frustrating Biden, his team, and his allies in the media is that the American people do not feel as economically well off as the official data says they are. Despite what the White House and establishment-friendly journalists say, the problem lies with the data, not the American people's ability to perceive their own well-being.

As I wrote back in January, the reason for the discrepancy is the lack of distinction made between private economic activity and government spending in the most frequently cited economic indicators. There is an important difference between the two:

  • Government, unlike any other entity in the economy, can simply take money and resources from others to spend on things and hire people. Whether or not the spending brings people value is irrelevant

  • It's the private sector that's responsible for producing goods and services that actually meet people's needs and wants. So, the private components of the economy have the most significant effect on people's economic well-being.

Recently, government spending and hiring has accounted for a larger than normal share of both economic activity and employment. This means the government is propping up these traditional measures, making the economy appear better than it actually is. Also, many of the jobs Biden and his allies take credit for creating will quickly go away once it becomes clear that consumers don't actually want whatever the government encouraged these companies to produce.

On top of all that, the administration is dealing with the consequences of their chosen inflation rhetoric.

Since its peak in the summer of 2022, the president's team has talked about inflation "coming back down," which can easily give the impression that it's prices that will eventually come back down.

But that's not what that phrase means. It would be more honest to say that price increases are slowing down.

Americans are finally waking up to the fact that the cost of living will not return to prepandemic levels, and they're not happy about it.

The president has made some clumsy attempts at damage control, such as a Super Bowl Sunday video attacking food companies for "shrinkflation"—selling smaller portions at the same price instead of simply raising prices.

In his speech Thursday, Biden is expected to play up his desire to crack down on the "corporate greed" he's blaming for high prices.

In the name of "bringing down costs for Americans," the administration wants to implement targeted price ceilings - something anyone who has taken even a single economics class could tell you does more harm than good. Biden would never place the blame for the dramatic price increases we've experienced during his term where it actually belongs—on all the government spending that he and President Donald Trump oversaw during the pandemic, funded by the creation of $6 trillion out of thin air - because that kind of spending is precisely what he hopes to kick back up in a second term.

If reelected, the president wants to "revive" parts of his so-called Build Back Better agenda, which he tried and failed to pass in his first year. That would bring a significant expansion of domestic spending. And Biden remains committed to the idea that Americans must be forced to continue funding the war in Ukraine. That's another topic Biden is expected to highlight in the State of the Union, likely accompanied by the lie that Ukraine spending is good for the American economy. It isn't.

It's not possible to predict all the ways President Biden will exaggerate, mislead, and outright lie in his speech on Thursday. But we can be sure of two things. The "state of the Union" is not as strong as Biden will say it is. And his policy ambitions risk making it much worse.

*  *  *

The American people will be tuning in on their smartphones, laptops, and televisions on Thursday evening to see if 'sloppy joe' 81-year-old President Joe Biden can coherently put together more than two sentences (even with a teleprompter) as he gives his third State of the Union in front of a divided Congress. 

President Biden will speak on various topics to convince voters why he shouldn't be sent to a retirement home.

According to CNN sources, here are some of the topics Biden will discuss tonight:

  • Economic issues: Biden and his team have been drafting a speech heavy on economic populism, aides said, with calls for higher taxes on corporations and the wealthy – an attempt to draw a sharp contrast with Republicans and their likely presidential nominee, Donald Trump.

  • Health care expenses: Biden will also push for lowering health care costs and discuss his efforts to go after drug manufacturers to lower the cost of prescription medications — all issues his advisers believe can help buoy what have been sagging economic approval ratings.

  • Israel's war with Hamas: Also looming large over Biden's primetime address is the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, which has consumed much of the president's time and attention over the past few months. The president's top national security advisers have been working around the clock to try to finalize a ceasefire-hostages release deal by Ramadan, the Muslim holy month that begins next week.

  • An argument for reelection: Aides view Thursday's speech as a critical opportunity for the president to tout his accomplishments in office and lay out his plans for another four years in the nation's top job. Even though viewership has declined over the years, the yearly speech reliably draws tens of millions of households.

Sources provided more color on Biden's SOTU address: 

The speech is expected to be heavy on economic populism. The president will talk about raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy. He'll highlight efforts to cut costs for the American people, including pushing Congress to help make prescription drugs more affordable.

Biden will talk about the need to preserve democracy and freedom, a cornerstone of his re-election bid. That includes protecting and bolstering reproductive rights, an issue Democrats believe will energize voters in November. Biden is also expected to promote his unity agenda, a key feature of each of his addresses to Congress while in office.

Biden is also expected to give remarks on border security while the invasion of illegals has become one of the most heated topics among American voters. A majority of voters are frustrated with radical progressives in the White House facilitating the illegal migrant invasion. 

It is probable that the president will attribute the failure of the Senate border bill to the Republicans, a claim many voters view as unfounded. This is because the White House has the option to issue an executive order to restore border security, yet opts not to do so

Maybe this is why? 

While Biden addresses the nation, the Biden administration will be armed with a social media team to pump propaganda to at least 100 million Americans. 

"The White House hosted about 70 creators, digital publishers, and influencers across three separate events" on Wednesday and Thursday, a White House official told CNN. 

Not a very capable social media team... 

The administration's move to ramp up social media operations comes as users on X are mostly free from government censorship with Elon Musk at the helm. This infuriates Democrats, who can no longer censor their political enemies on X. 

Meanwhile, Democratic lawmakers tell Axios that the president's SOTU performance will be critical as he tries to dispel voter concerns about his elderly age. The address reached as many as 27 million people in 2023. 

"We are all nervous," said one House Democrat, citing concerns about the president's "ability to speak without blowing things."

The SOTU address comes as Biden's polling data is in the dumps. 

BetOnline has created several money-making opportunities for gamblers tonight, such as betting on what word Biden mentions the most. 

As well as...

We will update you when Tucker Carlson's live feed of SOTU is published. 

Tyler Durden Fri, 03/08/2024 - 07:44

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