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Hole onto your hats, gonna get wild.

Wuhan Virus -
See FR threads on the virus for other issues. Below are the news items that grab my attention. We are entering uncharted waters as far as this pandemic goes. . . . . .

WHO announced global pandemic, causing markets to crash. President Trump announced financial support efforts and ban of travel from Europe (VP Pense notes the epicenter of the pandemic has shifted there). Overnight, the number of new cases increased by about 28%. Based on a daily reported cumulative number of new cases since the 100th case, the US has been following a 33% daily increase line. Analysts still noting that the US is about 13 - 16 days behind Italy’s trend line.

Health policy in many areas has shifted to mitigation from containment. Goal is to try to isolate the 60+ yr old group who are at highest risk of death from infection. Nursing facilities/rest homes are closing off visitations and interactions with the outside. BTW, I’ve gone to wearing gloves and mask on daily commute (light rail) as a precaution since I fall into the high risk category.

Economic issues dominate. Markets have fallen over 20% and some believe could lose as much as 30% in the days to come. Besides the markets, travel industry is being hammered. Between travel restrictions and fewer fliers, the number of flights have dropped by about 20%. Sports got hammered yesterday, with cancellation of the NBA season and the College March madness attendees restricted to family and very few other attendees. St Patrick’s day celebrations being cancelled all over (crying in the green beer). Panic buying now an epidemic of its own across the country, even in states with no reported infections. Businesses and governments looking to go to skeletal staffing and have employees telework as much as possible.

Black Swan -
Recommend keeping an eye on Deutsche Bank Stock. It is approaching 6.40 and some analysts indicate that there is no floor for it. This is the most vulnerable bank in Europe with trillions in bad debt. With the added economic pressures from the corono virus I have concerns that this bank could melt down, triggering a global melt down of the banking system.

US /Syria -
Wrap up of yesterday’s actions. On Wednesday (local) approximately 18 rockets hit Camp Taj, located 9 miles north of Baghdad. The source was a modified truck that had launching tubes and was abandoned. This has been the common practice in the past few attacks. Two Americans and one Brit were killed, 12 injured. The culprits are considered to be the Iranian backed PMU. Within hours, US aircraft struck Popular Mobilization camps in the al-Hassian area and the Imam Ali military base (Iranian built base). Reports of 25 killed in the air strike.

There are two aircraft carrier groups in the Middle east AO, USS Truman and the USS Eisenhower. These task forces have been in the area for several days and are not there in response to the recent attack on Camp Taj, but can add fire power if necessary.

Afghanistan -
Excellent background on the Taliban/Afghanistan scenario here:
https://www.strategypage.com/qnd/afghan/articles/20200312.aspx

CW2 -
SPLC and CAIR are working to pressure donor-advised funds (DAFs) to black list conservative and Christian organizations to “fight” hate and racism. They are tying this into the response they’ve gotten from big tech and some financial institutions to block/ban funding to these groups. In today’s realm of virtue signaling, these pressure tactics are becoming increasingly successful.

Big list of things on this Friday the 13th. . . .

Wuhan Virus -
See FR threads on the virus for other issues. Below are the news items that grab my attention. We are entering uncharted waters as far as this pandemic goes. . . . . .

Bubbling up yesterday are threats coming from China to the US that they may withhold medicines they produce. About 80% of the prescription drugs come from China. This could get ugly fast as China may see vulnerability as the US public starts panicking and the economy takes the biggest hits since 1997.

Rumors of the ‘elite’ heading off to their doomsday bunker/bug out locations. These ‘bunkers’ have been discussed over the past couple years within the prepper community. Some of the ‘elites’ haven’t been fast enough as many are now turning up positive for the virus.

Yesterday much of America essentially shut down from sporting events to Broadway to the magical kingdom. On top of this some of the first big runs on groceries began. In NYC, stores were cleared out in hours after the mayor declared a state of emergency. Rumors of rushes on grocery stores coming from the Atlanta area with folks going from the metro area into outlying smaller towns and buying them out as well. If you haven’t gotten your food supplies built up NOW is the time to get at least 2 weeks supply. Some health care experts yesterday estimated that between 70 - 150 million Americans could become infected before this pandemic plays out. At the low end, this could mean 700,000 fatalities at current mortality rates.

For good news, the first studies to examine the virus’ longevity in the summer climate suggests that summer will work against the virus, but likely have it show up again during the standard ‘flu’ season in the fall.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/03/temperature-and-the-coronavirus.php

WaPo reporting that Iran has mass grave sites visible from orbit. I saw this in twitter feeds yesterday but was skeptical and didn’t find any collaborative evidence. Now more info has come out and if this is true, the deaths from the virus are substantially higher than the Iranian regime has admitted.

Pelosi got called out yesterday for trying to include, among other things, what would essentially be a slush fund for abortions tucked into a corona virus funding bill. Along those same lines, house democrats withdrew from the calendar a vote on the President’s travel restrictions. CAIR and other groups are complaining loudly, but it was evident that the Presidential authority granted him the ability to respond with entry denials from China when the epidemic began to explode there. Public opinion is strong towards travel restrictions from impacted area overseas and the president’s correctness in applying restrictions.

Things got worse for Italy as their chief medical officer, Roberto Stella, succumbed to the virus yesterday. Some analysts see the number of new virus cases doubling on an average of every 3 days.

Monkeys ‘gangs’ are fighting for food in Thailand after tourist food stops due to travel restrictions from the corona virus pandemic.

Black Swan -
Recommend keeping an eye on Deutsche Bank Stock. It is Lehman brothers on steroids and red bull. DB was designated by the IMF as the “most systemically dangerous bank” in the world back in 2016. Given Europe’s to date poor response to the pandemic, economic repercussions will continue and could potentially cause DB to implode. Because it holds so much debt from European countries, if it goes it will drag the European banking system down with it and likely trigger a global banking crisis. Yesterday, DB tried assure employees and investors over its ability to weather the coronavirus as shares in the German lender hit a new low on Thursday amid a wider stock market sell-off.

US /Iraq -
The US launched a second series of airstrikes yesterday afternoon. The strike hit several bases used by Kata’eb Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militia that fired the 30-rocket attack on Wednesday at the Taji base. It targeted five weapons storage facilities. Videos of the attack posted on twitter showed abundant secondary explosions.

Turkey/Syria -
Buried in all the corona virus news is a summary of the results of Turkey’s offensive in Idlib. In addition to recapturing territory initially lost to pro-assad forces, they were successful in cutting off the strategic M5 highway that was captured early on by Syria. In the process, Syria lost a lot of military hardware. Spearheading the Turkish assault were UAVs and heavy artillery. This was the first time Turkey used UAVs against Syria and the tactic was effective. At the same time, Russian military activity dropped off, so much so that the pro-Iranian media was charging that they were being abandoned. Currently the ceasefire is holding in the region.