(LINK)

[White House] Today, President Donald J. Trump spoke with President Emmanuel Macron of France. The two leaders discussed how France and the United States are working to combat COVID-19 as well as opportunities to work together to stop the pandemic. President Trump agreed to host a video-conference on the coronavirus with all of the G7 leaders early next week. President Trump and President Macron also discussed issues in the Middle East, including countering the Iranian regime’s dangerous behavior and the situation in northwest Syria. (link)

The G7 Assembly includes: U.S, Japan, Canada, Italy, Germany, U.K. and France; with the EU usually sticking their collective nose into the conversation.

Earlier today President Trump and the COVID-19 task force held a press conference to outline the latest mitigation steps.  [Transcript Below]

[Transcript] – THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much, everyone. Thank you. Thank you.

A beautiful day in the Rose Garden. Appreciate everybody being here. Today, I’d like to provide an update to the American people on several decisive new actions we’re taking in our very vigilant effort to combat and ultimately defeat the coronavirus.

We’ve been working very hard on this. We’ve made tremendous progress. When you compare what we’ve done to other areas of the world, it’s pretty incredible. A lot of that had to do with the early designation and the closing of the borders.

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The White House has announced that magnanimous big tech firm Google has ‘voluntarily’ joined the federal government (within the national state of emergency) to assist citizens with the effort to voluntarily ‘test’ for the coronavirus.

As announced the details are under rapid construction, but don’t worry during a crisis there’s no need for prudent pause.  Trust is a currency.

President Trump noted today that over 1,700 data collection engineers from ‘big tech’ Google have been assigned by tech executives to create the system.

Google is undertaking this effort as a ‘free service’ to the American public. Everything is free, including the test.

Soon you will be able to use your hand-held transponder to sign-up, register for testing, and find your local neighborhood testing (dna collection) site.

Also noted, in a partnership with big corporate multinationals like Wal-Mart, CVS and Walgreens, citizens will be able to drive up to their local parking lot and have coronavirus ‘testing’ done without ever leaving your vehicle.  There will likely be instructions to bring your transponder (phone) with you to facilitate a faster ‘check-out’ process.

As soon as the other big tech and social media companies recognize the proactive nature of the system it’s likely Apple, Facebook, Twitter and all social media platforms will create links to the Google HHS data-hub to assist with citizen registration and fulfillment.  Lots of that pesky red-tape eliminated under the necessary framework of a national emergency.

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Thankfully Florida elected Ron DeSantis as governor instead of this guy.

Florida authorities responding to a drug overdose located three men in a hotel room. One man was overdosed and needed paramedics.  There were bags of crystal meth found in the room and one of the men incapacitated was former Tallahassee Mayor, former Florida gubernatorial candidate, and current CNN contributor Andrew Gillum.

MIAMI – A police report about an apparent drug overdose in a Miami Beach hotel room overnight Thursday says that one of the three men present in the room was former Florida gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum.

Three small plastic bags containing suspected crystal meth were found in the room, the police report said.

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President Trump will hold a press conference on COVID-19 today at 3:00pm ET.  It is expected that President Trump will declare a national emergency.

UPDATE – Video Added

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The House Rules Committee previously released the text of proposed changes to FISA (full pdf).  The “deal” is intended to reauthorize the FISA “business records provision”, the “roving wiretap” provision, the “lone wolf” provision, and the more controversial bulk metadata provisions [Call Detail Records (CDR)], all parts of the Patriot Act.  However, key Senators and President Trump say not enough being done to change it.
The current FISA authorities expire on March 15th; it looks like they will lapse as Mitch McConnell tries to regroup for a possible vote next week.  McConnell was forced to delay consideration past the expiration date after Senators Mike Lee (R), Rand Paul (R) and  Ron Wyden  (D) said they would object.

WASHINGTON DC – President Trump told Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) on Thursday that he does not support a House-passed surveillance bill— raising fresh questions about the fate of the legislation.
A spokesman for Lee confirmed the conversation and that the president told the Utah Republican that he does not support the House legislation. Officials speaking for the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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The White House Coronavirus Task Force includes: Vice President Mike Pence; Ambassador Debbie Brix, White House Corona Virus Response Coordinator; Secretary Alex Azar, Department of Health and Human Services; Dr. Robert Redfield, Director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Dr. Anne Schuchat, Principal Deputy Director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Dr. Stephen Hahn, Commissioner of Food and Drugs, Food and Drug Administration; and Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Earlier today Dr. Anthony Fauci gives an update on coronavirus outbreak and how the White House is trying to combat the spread.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi is attempting to exploit the coronavirus issue to pass a litany of permanent laws inside what was supposed to be a temporary legislative bill to assist those economically impacted by the coronavirus mitigation efforts.

Two issues are stark: (1) permanent and mandatory paid sick leave; and (2) a massive and permanent increase in medicare spending to benefit health insurance companies.

(Via The Hill) […] “There’s a couple major problems with it. Here’s one glaring problem: Under [Speaker Nancy] Pelosi’s bill, the Social Security Administration will be set up to administer the paid sick leave program. Now this will take more than six months, so it won’t work in time. It will also hamper the administration from putting out Social Security for those who need it right now that are in harm’s way,” he added.

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Elania Plott is a CNN analyst who notes in her conversations with supporters of President Trump the disdain and distrust in media is worse than any time she can remember:

Perhaps this short recap video will help explain.  CNN is now claiming that anyone who uses the term “Wuhan Virus” or “Chinese Corona Virus” is being xenophobic and racist.  The Media Research Center looked into it and captured some rather stark hypocrisy: