Trump Administration Approves Largest Solar Farm in U.S., Expected to Power 260,000 Homes

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The Trump administration approved a proposal Monday to construct and operate the largest solar power project in U.S. history, issuing a final permit for a massive facility just north of Las Vegas.

The $1 billion Gemini project would be the eighth-largest solar facility in the world, the Interior Department said, generating 690-megawatts of power, enough electricity for 260,000 homes in the Las Vegas area and potential markets in Southern California.

Nevada utility NV Energy, a subsidiary of billionaire Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, is providing financial backing to the project, which will be completed as early as 2022. It will generate more than $3 million annually in federal revenues, the Interior Department said.

The Trump administration cast the decision as representative of its “all of the above” approach to increasing U.S. energy production on public lands, which critics say has been mostly focused on fossil fuels. President Trump has frequently criticized renewable power, questioning its reliability. The administration also touted the project as a job-creator for an area hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic.

The Interior Department said construction of the facility, spanning some 7,100 acres of federal land, would create 500 to 700 temporary jobs, along with 1,100 support jobs during that time. (Read more from “Trump Administration Approves Largest Solar Farm in U.S., Expected to Power 260,000 Homes” HERE)

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Trump Adviser Peter Navarro Continues to Urge Bringing Supply Chain Home

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Peter Navarro, the director of President Donald Trump’s Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, has been repeatedly pushing for the U.S. to bring more of its supply chain home as concerns about dependence on China have mounted amid the ongoing novel coronavirus pandemic.

As the U.S. has dealt with the public health and economic fall out of the global outbreak of COVID-19, Trump administration officials and some top Republicans have been increasingly critical of China, the country where the novel virus first arose. Chinese officials initially covered up the outbreak in Wuhan, and China has faced mounting international criticism for lacking transparency amid the pandemic. Meanwhile, the U.S. has struggled to build up essential medical supplies, with much of the supply chain relying on products manufactured in China or elsewhere.

“If we don’t learn from this crisis that the only way this great country is going to prosper is by making the stuff we need as much as possible then we will have learned nothing and we will sink into the abyss,” Navarro said Monday in an interview with CNBC’s Squawk Box. . .

“The structural pillars going forward are going to be [to] buy American–and that is bringing our supply chains and production home, deregulation to make that possible, and innovation to stay ahead of the competition,” he said. Navrro noted that Trump has been meeting with business leaders to discuss how the supply chain could be brought back to the U.S. (Read more from “Trump Adviser Peter Navarro Continues to Urge Bringing Supply Chain Home” HERE)

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What the Newest Polls Say About a Joe Biden vs. Donald Trump Matchup; Biden Campaign Reaches out to ‘Disaffected Republicans,’ Who Reach Right Back

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By Newsweek. . .Recent polling results have Biden ahead of Trump by a range of 3 to 9 points. A survey published last week by Monmouth University in which possible Libertarian candidate Representative Justin Amash of Michigan was added to the mix also showed that the former vice president was still ahead of Trump by 7 points.

“Not only is he up 6 points over the last month or so, but the average of polls since the beginning of the year has him ahead by 6 points. Moreover, all the polls taken since the beginning of 2019 have him up 6 points,” an analysis by CNN’s Harry Enten published on Sunday explained. . .

A YouGov poll conducted from May 3 to 5 showed Biden ahead of Trump by 4 points, or 46 percent to the president’s 42 percent. Similarly, a CNBC survey carried out from May 1 to 3 showed the former vice president ahead by 3 points, backed by 47 percent of respondents compared with Trump’s 44 percent. (Read more from “What the Newest Polls Say About a Joe Biden vs. Donald Trump Matchup” HERE)

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Biden Campaign Reaches out to ‘Disaffected Republicans,’ Who Reach Right Back

By Fox News. As Joe Biden works to unify the left flank of the Democratic Party, the former vice president’s also looking right, in an effort to woo Republicans dissatisfied with President Trump. . .

Biden’s camp on Monday confirmed that outreach to “disaffected Republicans” was underway.

While there are wide policy differences between Biden and these Republicans – they share a common goal – defeating the president in November.

“As would be natural in any campaign, those organizations that have a shared goal are certainly having conversations about how to achieve that goal,” a leading anti-Trump member of the GOP told Fox News. (Read more from “Biden Campaign Reaches out to ‘Disaffected Republicans,’ Who Reach Right Back” HERE)

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Bombshell Report: Dr. Birx Believes the CDC Is Inflating Death Numbers by as Much as 25%

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Why is it that long past the peak of the virus, the number of deaths continues to skyrocket beyond what the revised government models predicted?

On Saturday, the Washington Post reported that Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House Coronavirus Task Force response administrator, is accusing the CDC of using an antiquated model to track coronavirus deaths that could be responsible for inflating the death numbers by as much as 25 percent. The Post cites four unnamed sources who reported a dispute between Birx and Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, last Wednesday over the modeling.

“There is nothing from the CDC that I can trust,” Birx reportedly said, according to two of the Post’s sources.

If the 25% inflation number is true, that would place the total deaths closer to the 66,000 death figure that the government predicted in April.

We need not rely on an off-the-record citation from the Washington Post to know that where there is smoke, there is fire. Birx already publicly admitted last month that CDC is telling states to code any death of an individual who tests positive for COVID-19 as a coronavirus death, even if it is not proven that the death was caused by COVID-19. The problem is now that we know the virus is so much more widespread than previously thought, and therefore so much less deadly, how can we assume that anyone who merely tests positive for the virus died because of the virus? This is especially true now that we know that the majority of those who test positive for coronavirus in areas where everyone is tested (ships, meatpacking plants, and prisons, for example) are asymptomatic?

This was always the vexing question concerning the death count, but it has become even more troubling now that deaths continue to surge long past the peak of the virus and with hospitalizations way down. We got the answer to this question last week when it became apparent that the overwhelming majority of deaths in recent days have been in nursing homes. In some states, more than 100% of reported deaths on a given day are in nursing homes, because they are now retroactively adding previously undeclared deaths as nursing home deaths.

The fact that states are just backfilling so many deaths of nursing home patients makes the numbers even more suspicious. There certainly is a terrible tragedy unfolding in senior facilities, partiality due to states demanding that these facilities take in coronavirus patients. It wasn’t until yesterday that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo rescinded the order forcing nursing homes into this suicidal policy.

Undoubtedly, many people have died from the virus in these facilities. The official count from 39 states that have reported data broken down by long-term senior care facility shows that 52% of all deaths nationwide have been in nursing homes, according to a spreadsheet prepared by Phil Kerpen.

We now know that states either mandated the return of hospitalized COVID-19 patients into nursing homes or gave no guidance to nursing homes on what to do with those who tested positive. As the Washington Post reports, while “Lockdown Larry” Hogan was locking down an entire state, “there was no process in place to ensure that the facility [in La Plata, Maryland, with the most COVID-19 deaths] received test results for residents, the regulators found, exacerbating the spread of the virus throughout the month of April.” Now more than 60% of the state’s deaths have been in these facilities, over 80% in some counties.

However, we must not forget that as dangerous as COVID-19 is to nursing home residents, it does not have a 100% fatality rate. According to Colorado Public Radio, the state has tested “nearly 1,900 asymptomatic staff and residents at six large elder-care facilities since April 19.”

Yet at the same time, we know that 65% of nursing home residents die every year within a year of admission and 52% within six months. Overall, roughly one-quarter of the approximately 2.8 million annual fatalities in this country occur in a senior care facility. That’s nearly 13,500 a week. We also know that once COVID-19 gets into a nursing home, it’s likely that a majority, if not nearly all of the residents, will test positive. It’s therefore inconceivable that those coding the deaths are not liberally adding in those who died from a stroke, heart attack, or Alzheimer’s (“old age”) simply because they tested positive.

Remember, included in the state’s senior care facility death numbers (colloquially referred to as “nursing home deaths”) are also hospices. The Illinois health director admitted that “if you were in hospice and had already been given a few weeks to live and then you also were found to have COVID, that would be counted as a COVID death.”

As I reported last week, the number of New York long-term care facility deaths that are listed as “presumed” are greater than the number of “confirmed” deaths, yet the presumed numbers are all included in the national tally you see on the news every day.

Also, remember, the presumed numbers are for those who did not test positive. However, there is less focus on those who did test positive, contracted an asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic illness, and sadly, like so many in hospices or nursing homes, passed away from a myriad of other causes. Every one of those people is being listed as a confirmed COVID-19 death!

Thus, at this point, according to the state data, we can say with certainty that at least 40,000 of the 80,000 reported national COVID-19 deaths were recorded among nursing home patients and that a certain number of overall deaths have been inflated, potentially dramatically so in nursing homes. If you take New York City and its surrounding environs plus nursing homes out of the equation, most of the rest of the country experienced a plague less devastating than the 2018 flu season, which killed 60,000. And the overwhelming majority of the remaining casualties had multiple co-morbidities.

The reason our government is not putting out more precise and accurate data is because if it did, it would be a national scandal that we destroyed an entire country for a crisis largely confined to nursing homes. The people would know that the same politicians who spent months locking down every playground for people and in places where there is near-zero threat of death forgot to put the fire out where it was actually raging. (For more from the author of “Bombshell Report: Dr. Birx Believes the CDC Is Inflating Death Numbers by as Much as 25%” please click HERE)

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Trump Must Veto Bailouts for States That Suspend Our Liberty

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We already know that both parties will continue bankrupting us and trillions will turn into quadrillions. But with Republicans in charge of the veto pen and the Senate, when they inevitably throw endless cash at the states, they must enforce the Constitution through that funding and prohibit the infringement of our constitutional rights.

Trump should pre-emptively draw a line in the sand by threatening to veto any state funding bill that does not contain the following provisions:

Ban on coronavirus fascism: While states have the latitude to engage in dumb policies of closing public beaches and parks, they do not have the power to infringe upon individual rights, such as freedom of movement and freedom to open a business. Any bailout funding must condition the funding on the permanent suspension of any ill-gotten powers of governors and county officials to categorically shut down businesses and churches without due process and restrict movement of individuals driving or walking. These are core liberties protected by the Bill of Rights and enforced against the states by Congress under Section 5 of the 14th

Ban on contact tracing outside nursing homes: We don’t need a police state to contact-trace every American after this virus has already spread to millions of people. Condition any funding to the prohibition of contact tracing outside of nursing home settings.

Ban the use of drones to spy on people: No funding shall be used by state or local law enforcement to use spy drones to enforce coronavirus fascism. If there is a “right to privacy” to kill one’s baby, as the Supreme Court ruled, then there is a right to privacy to live in your home or walk the street without being spied on by government.

No bailouts, only reparations: Under the first round of bailout funding, the federal government threw so much money at the states that they don’t even know what to do with it. They are not limiting the expenditures to those who were forcibly shut down. In my county of Baltimore, even middle- and upper-income families are getting three meals a day free for their children. This is ridiculous and is inducing a worse form of dependency than what Republicans decried under the Obama stimulus. Remember, Larry Hogan, as chairman of the National Governors’ Association, is the one demanding $500 billion for the states and spending it on free food and failing to secure nursing homes. Funding should be narrowly tailored just to those businesses and individuals who lost their livelihood thanks to government decisions. This should be a reparations bill under the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment, not a welfare bill. The remainder of the funding should go toward testing and resources for nursing homes where the crisis has hit hardest.

No release of criminals: No state receiving funding can release criminals from prison under the guise of coronavirus. It has now been proven that to the extent there are outbreaks in prisons, they have already spread far and wide. The good news is that nearly all of them have been asymptomatic and the death rate is remarkably low in this predominantly young population. As such, there is no excuse for endangering public safety by prisoner release. In fact, it is a greater epidemiological concern to release people who are younger and already largely immune into the broader population where they could infect a more vulnerable population. Yes, states have full power over state criminal justice decisions, but they are not entitled to federal funding.

Ban judges from releasing illegal aliens: This does not pertain to state governments but must be addressed in the next coronavirus legislation. Federal judges have used similarly faulty science that states are using with domestic criminals to release foreign criminals in ICE’s custody. So far, 192 illegal aliens have been released, most of whom have been convicted of other crimes, including murder, rape, and child molestation. Trump must demand a provision reiterating current law, which removed the jurisdiction of courts to hear these cases and ordering the removal of all those in ICE’s custody back to their home countries. Again, just one individual of 30,000 in custody has possibly died of the virus, and he was very sick.

No funding for illegal aliens: States like California are now handing out checks to illegal aliens as part of the coronavirus “stimulus.” Trump must make it clear that no federal funds can be used for illegal aliens and that sanctuary cities cannot get funding.

Nancy Pelosi is already drafting a $750 billion bailout for the states. Until now, Trump and Senate Republicans have gone along with nearly every radical piece of legislation proposed by Nancy Pelosi. On the most consequential and overarching issue of our time, there is barely a difference between the parties. It’s time for Trump to finally stand up for our liberty, and the clamor of states for more federal funding is the perfect opportunity. (For more from the author of “Trump Must Veto Bailouts for States That Suspend Our Liberty” please click HERE)

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Judge: Biological Males in Women’s Sports Cannot Be Called ‘Males’ in Court, Must Be Called ‘Transgender Females’

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Three female high school track athletes are suing the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference (CIAC) over unfair rules that allow biological males who identify as female to compete in women’s sports. Last month, a district court judge barred the girls’ lawyers from referring to the biological males as “males,” insisting that the lawyers call them “transgender females.” He threatened to retaliate if they refuse to do so. This effective gag order may undermine their case, and it certainly shows bias against their underlying argument. Therefore, the lawyers moved for the judge to recuse himself.

“The Court has now reprimanded Plaintiffs’ counsel and prohibited Plaintiffs from referring to those individuals as ‘male athletes’ because—in the Court’s view— alluding to an individual of the male sex as male is contrary to science, ‘bullying,’ and violates ‘human decency’ if that individual claims a female gender identity,” attorneys Roger Brooks, Kristen Waggoner, and Howard M. Wood III wrote in a motion filed Friday and provided to PJ Media. “A disinterested observer would reasonably believe that the Court’s order and comments have destroyed the appearance of impartiality in this proceeding. That requires recusal.”

They asked District Court Judge Robert Chatigny to recuse himself from the case, arguing that his order “and comments during the hearing would leave an impartial observer gravely concerned that the Court has prejudged the matter, rejected core aspects of Plaintiffs’ case before hearing the evidence and legal arguments, and assumed the role of advocate for the defendants, all to the detriment of Selina Soule, Chelsea Mitchell, Alanna Smith, and Ashley Nicoletti.” (Read more from “Judge: Biological Males in Women’s Sports Cannot Be Called ‘Males’ in Court, Must Be Called ‘Transgender Females'” HERE)

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China: “Prepare for Armed Confrontation Between the Two Global Powers”

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Amid the deepest economic contraction in nearly a century, President Xi Jinping had already made it very clear, last month, that China should be ready for unprecedented, relentless foreign challenges.

He was not referring only to the possible decoupling of global supply chains and the non-stop demonization of every project related to the New Silk Roads, or Belt and Road Initiative.

An allegedly leaked internal document, secret and invisible inside China, but nonetheless obtained by some obscure Western-connected source, even stated, essentially, that the blame game against China over the virus is like the backlash over Tiananmen all over again.

According to the secret, invisible document, China would have to “prepare for armed confrontation between the two global powers” – a reference to the US. It’s as if this was an aggressive strategy deployed by the Chinese state in the first place, and not in response to the massive escalation of hybrid warfare 2.0 by the United States government. . .

What Beijing used to define as a “period of strategic opportunity” is over. There were rumblings in intel circles that the CCP leadership believed this strategic window of opportunity would last unimpeded until the key date, 2049 – when “national rejuvenation” should have been fully accomplished. (Read more from “China: “Prepare for Armed Confrontation Between the Two Global Powers” HERE)

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Obama Pardoned a Former General Who Lied to the FBI

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In a leaked phone conversation recording with former members of his administration released last week, Barack Obama claimed that the “rule of law is at risk” because of the “unprecedented” move by the Justice Department to drop charges against Michael Flynn, who was the victim of a perjury trap set up by officials in the FBI. Flynn was coerced into pleading guilty to lying to FBI officials.

“The news over the last 24 hours I think has been somewhat downplayed — about the Justice Department dropping charges against Michael Flynn,” Obama said. “And the fact that there is no precedent that anybody can find for someone who has been charged with perjury just getting off scot-free. That’s the kind of stuff where you begin to get worried that basic — not just institutional norms — but our basic understanding of rule of law is at risk. And when you start moving in those directions, it can accelerate pretty quickly as we’ve seen in other places.”

But, in 2017, just days before leaving office, Barack Obama pardoned retired Marine Corps general James E. Cartwright, who pleaded guilty to charges of lying to the FBI.

Cartwright served as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Obama, and was “a key member of Mr. Obama’s national security team in his first term and earned a reputation as the president’s favorite general,” according to the New York Times. Cartwright had leaked classified information regarding Iran’s nuclear program to the media and lied to FBI officials investigating those leaks. He faced up to two years in prison before Obama pardoned him. (Read more from “Obama Pardoned a Former General Who Lied to the FBI” HERE)

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Elon Musk Restarts Tesla Plant in Defiance of Lockdown, Says He’ll ‘Be on the Line With Everyone Else’

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Billionaire Elon Musk announced Monday that Tesla would resume production in Alameda County, California, in defiance of local orders dictating a continued lockdown on manufacturing over coronavirus concerns.

The entrepreneur, who has been in a feud with officials for trying to keep Tesla shut down, said he would be joining the production line himself and told authorities, “If anyone is arrested, I ask that it only be me.” . . .

Last week, Gov. Gavin Newsom lifted some restrictions of his statewide lockdown to allow for retail and manufacturing to resume on Friday. But Alameda County, where Tesla’s headquarters is located, continued its lockdown and its health officer reportedly told Tesla it could not reopen on Friday as Musk had planned. . .

Musk noted that the state had already given the green light for manufacturing to resume, “but an unelected official illegally overrode.” He added, “All other auto companies in US are approved to resume. Only Tesla has been singled out. This is super messed up!”

(Read more from “Elon Musk Restarts Tesla Plant in Defiance of Lockdown, Says He’ll ‘Be on the Line With Everyone Else'” HERE)

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Michigan Judge Sides With Barber, Rejects Governor’s Demand to Close Shop; Sheriff Won’t Enforce Stay-At-Home Order

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By Breitbart. A Michigan judge has denied a motion made by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration that an Owosso barber close up shop during the coronavirus outbreak.

Great Lakes News was outside Karl Manke’s Barber & Beauty Shop on Monday when the ruling came down.

Reporter Katie Heid said the judge denied the state’s claim that the 77-year-old Manke to close his shop because he was allegedly in violation of Whitmer’s stay-at-home order.

“This is not only a big victory for Mr. Manke, but also for other small businesses,” she said. (Read more from “Michigan Judge Sides With Barber, Rejects Governor’s Demand to Close Shop” HERE)

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Michigan Sheriff Says He Won’t Enforce Whitmer’s Stay-At-Home Order

By The Hill. A county sheriff in Michigan said Monday that his office will not enforce Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s (D) stay-at-home order intended to stop the spread of the coronavirus, which data shows has resulted in more than 47,000 cases in the state and more than 4,500 deaths.

Shiawassee County Sheriff Brian BeGole said in a written statement that he decided to share his office’s position on the governor’s executive orders after receiving “many calls” from local residents and businesses on the matter and “especially since the Michigan Legislature did not extend the state of emergency beyond April 30 as required by law.”

“The legality of that is a judicial branch determination,” BeGole said, noting his office’s “responsibility to serve and protect the citizens of Shiawassee County and to ensure their rights as described in both state and federal Constitution.”

“With limited resources, staffing and facilities, our priority focus will be on enforcing duly passed laws for the protection of Shiawassee County citizens,” he added. “I have decided, within my authority, that our office cannot and will not divert our primary resources and efforts towards enforcement of the Governor Whitmer’s executive orders.” (Read more from “Michigan Sheriff Says He Won’t Enforce Whitmer’s Stay-At-Home Order” HERE)

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