It seems odd to issue a “travel advisory” against travel to the New York area considering that everyone is supposed to be following ‘stay-at-home’ and social distance guidelines.

President Trump tweets the following message:

The CDC sends additional guidelines via a Domestic Travel Advisory:

Due to extensive community transmission of COVID -19 in the area, CDC urges residents of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut to refrain from non-essential domestic travel for 14 days effective immediately.

This Domestic Travel Advisory does not apply to employees of critical infrastructure industries, including but not limited to trucking, public health professionals, financial services, and food supply. These employees of critical infrastructure, as defined by the Department of Homeland Security, have a special responsibility to maintain normal work schedules.

The Governors of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut will have full discretion to implement this Domestic Travel Advisory. (link)

A month ago CTH pointed out the short-sighted approach when federal, state and local government dictates began enforcing restaurant closings.  By shutting down 50% of the total food supply output, the retail food supply chain was simply overwhelmed.

Since then some state governors recognized the issue their decisions made within the total U.S. food supply network; and subsequently modified their state rules permitting restaurants to sell their bulk food ingredients to retail consumers.  This was a smart move by some state and local officials.  Here’s one example of how it is working:

Miami – […] Unlike many restaurants, which are trying to stay afloat delivering and offering take out after governments ordered dining rooms closed to stem the spread of the coronavirus, Threefold Cafe is busier than ever.

(more…)

Many people suspected this would eventually happen, including us.  Follow the sequencing here; watch the natural progression of the authoritarian state. This is important.

First LA Mayor Eric Garcetti released 1,700 inmates.  Then the LA Sheriff tried to shut down all gun stores. Next, Garcetti appointed neighborhood monitors and threatened to shut down electricity and water services to non-compliant citizens.  In his most recent action, the mayor admits to using Big Tech to monitor the location of residents and track their coronavirus compliance.

During an interview with Chris Cuomo [segment @14:19 to 14:28] Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti discussing the ‘stay-at-home’ order says (emphasis mine):

…”but this has been marvelously embraced by 99.9 percent of people; we see it in the traffic data, we see it in the cell phone data; but we’re going to hunt down that last point-one percent and say: ‘you’ve gotta get inside, you gotta cut it out, and you gotta distance”…

Notice how flippant and easily the totalitarian language rolls from the tongue?

Comrade citizens, we have been warning everyone about the use of their hand-held transponder (cell phone) during national and local emergencies.  As the state attempts to enforce its dictates, the totalitarians will increasingly use their allies in Big Tech to enforce the rules.  Here’s the video:

(more…)

Oh, this is almost too much winning.  Almost…  President Trump has appointed White House Manufacturing Advisor Peter Navarro to lead all U.S. coordination of the Defense Production Act.   Just like that… presto… Navarro becomes a bazillion times more powerful than CoC President Tom Donohue.   Delicious.

WASHNGTON – President Trump announced Friday he is appointing his trade adviser Peter Navarro to serve as his national Defense Production Act policy coordinator after using the act to force General Motors to begin making ventilators to treat coronavirus patients.

“He’s a tremendous guy and he will do a fantastic job,” the president said during a press briefing with his coronavirus taskforce at the White House. He said Navarro will serve as the national Defense Production Act coordinator for the federal government. (link)

Peter Navarro has been a long-term China hawk warning about the risk of U.S. multinationals doing critical supply-chain manufacturing overseas.  Navarro, working closely with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, has been the tip of the spear in the execution of America First policy and jobs.

This appointment, and these additional responsibilities, is a recognition for his efforts.

(more…)

Earlier today President Trump signed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) in the oval office.  [Video and Transcript Below]

.

[Transcript] – THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you all very much. This is a very important day. I’ll sign the single-biggest economic relief package in American history and, I must say, or any other package, by the way. It’s twice as large as any relief ever signed. It’s $2.2 billion, but it actually goes up to 6.2 — potentially — billion dollars — trillion dollars. So you’re talking about 6.2 trillion-dollar bill. Nothing like that. And this will deliver urgently needed relief to our nation’s families, workers, and businesses. And that’s what this is all about.

And it got a 96 to nothing. And, I don’t know, what was the number in Congress?

(more…)

President Trump called-in to Fox News host Sean Hannity for an extensive interview on the latest coronavirus developments.  Full interview below:

.

(more…)

Apparently democrat governors are discovering that border security might be important after all…. at least when it comes to quarantining pesky undesirables.  Hypocrisy, thy name is:

(source)

Yes America, Democrat governors are now placing their national guard troops at the borders to question travelers about their origination… “papers please.”

[Rhode Island] – Governor Gina Raimondo announced. Starting immediately, anyone coming into the state from New York state will be mandated to self-quarantine for 14 days, the governor said.

“No matter how you come to Rhode Island – bus, car, train, plane – you are ordered to quarantine for 14 days,” Raimondo said. “In my judgement this is the most prudent form of action in light of the crisis.”

(more…)

President Donald Trump sent the following letter [pdf here] to our nations’ governors in response to the national COVID-19 crisis:

(more…)

• Phase One was retail. • Phase two was distribution. • Phase three was the space between manufacturing and distribution. • Phase four is raw material supply to manufacturing. U.S. food processing, and manufacturing is now operating at full capacity.

By now the majority of protein manufacturing has caught up. Beef and pork should be solid at your local market; however, chicken, while available, will lag to full replenishment capacity in the protein sector. The reason is: “chicken” is an ingredient component in many shelf stable items (soup etc.), that are still short as the manufacturing sector runs at capacity.

We enter a phase where grain commodities are now arriving at manufacturing.

♦ Between the Appalachian mountain range and the Colorado mountain range there is a massive amount of grain, meal, and derivative (farming) product generated. Thin component inventories, now exhausted at processing, are the cause of the current manufacturing supply chain stress… This lag will take a little longer.

There are train-loads of grain products heading both East and West daily; but there is a process of background prioritization taking place within the grain (total), flour, meal, rice and dried beans sector. The downstream ingredient system has a long-term and short-term priority schedule.

Example: total flour is prioritized to industrial bakeries for the production of bread. Nationally retail or consumer flour shortages are caused by prioritization in this part of the supply-chain.

(more…)

You knew it was going to happen… The U.S. Chamber of Commerce (President Tom Donohue) begins having apoplectic fits at the thought of even stronger Trump administration policies that might undercut their Chinese manufacturing investments.

The U.S. CoC is the biggest stakeholder of U.S. multinational companies doing business in China.  The Trump administration has been warning them for years to put America First in their business plans; and now with the Chinese Pandemic showing just how dangerous it is for critical manufacturing to be made in the U.S.A, chamber President Tom Donohue is pleading to keep the U.S. dependent on China.

Keep in mind, this is the EXACT SAME group who said the steel and aluminum tariffs were going to cause massive inflation driving up the price of all consumer goods and cars by thousands of dollars… It never happened; because the CoC are manipulative liars.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – White House plans to expand “Buy America” mandates to the medical equipment and pharmaceutical sectors could worsen shortages of urgently needed medicines and delay discovery of a vaccine for the new coronavirus, over 80 business groups warned.

(more…)