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My accountant called to tell me he was not going to file our taxes in April, as was planned. He is going to wait until the July deadline. Even if you are getting a refund you may want to do the same. If you file now, the calculation for your Corona Virus money will be based on the income on your 2020 tax filing (income for 2019). If you wait, it will be based on your 2019 filing (income for 2018). If your income went up, and over a specific threshold ( I believe it to be: $75K for singles,...

Up to 150 members of Saudi Arabia’s royal family have contracted the coronavirus, a person close to the family told the New York Times. Riyadh Governor Prince Faisal bin Bandar bin Abdulziz al Saud, a nephew of King Salman, was confirmed to have tested positive by two doctors, according to the Times. Many of the thousands of princes in the family are believed to have brought back the virus after traveling to Europe, the newspaper reported, citing doctors and people close to the family. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and many of his ministers are in isolation on the coast...

At long last, Joe Biden is now the presumptive Democratic nominee. Sen. Bernie Sanders suspended his campaign Wednesday, ending what has turned out to be one of the strangest and most unpredictable presidential primary contests in modern history—one that essentially ground to a halt in mid-March because of the coronavirus.Still, make no mistake: Sanders might have lost the battle for the Democratic nomination to Biden, but he won the war for the future of the Democratic Party. Since his insurgent challenge to Hillary Clinton in 2016, and especially over the past year of campaigning, Sanders and his allies on...

Jobless claims continue to surge as more than 6.6 million Americans filed new unemployment benefits last week, according to new data released from the U.S. Department of Labor on Thursday.That brings the three-week total of new unemployment claims to 16.8 million as the economic fallout over the Wuhan coronavirus continues to take its toll on the nation’s economy. About 6.6 million Americans had filed new claims the week before and 3.3 million new claims were filed in the week ending on March 28. The previous record for number of new filings in a single week was in 1982 when 695,000...

For three years, critics of President Donald Trump have claimed that he arrogantly refuses to listen to his experts and that his exaggerated sense of self prevents him from accepting his limitations. Applying that narrative to Trump's initial failure to appreciate the gravity of the coronavirus, NBC host Chuck Todd recently asked former Vice President Joe Biden, "Do you think there is blood on the president's hands, considering the slow response? Or is that too harsh of a criticism?" Even Biden called the criticism a "little too harsh." "A little too harsh?" Trump, neither a doctor nor a scientist, merely...

Hardly an hour goes by without someone sending me the latest “must see” video or article. This is the one, I am told, that explains it all. This is the one that connects the dots. This is the one that reveals the truth. With all respect to those sending me these links, I’m going to pass for now. It’s not that none of them could be true. Or that there is not some truth in many of them. It’s simply that: 1) there are far too many theories to investigate in any depth; 2) in many cases, from our vantage...

The United States may be headed for an unprecedented housing crisis -- the result of potentially millions of evictions and foreclosures.The Wall Street Journal found that only 69 percent of apartment dwellers paid rent in the first part of April. That compares to more than 80 percent who paid rent during that time the previous month. Researchers at the City University of New York found that 44 percent of New Yorkers will have difficulty meeting their rent in April. Congress and most states have passed temporary bans on evictions and foreclosures for many, but unless something is done, the...

“The sessions have become a boring show of President vs. the press.“

Dr. Mehmet Oz, host of the “Dr. Oz” show, told Fox News Channel’s “Hannity” on Tuesday that the French infectious disease specialist he spoke to said the complications from the use of the drugs hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin were “trivial like rashes.” Host Sean Hannity said that despite arguments to the contrary, Dr. Daniel Wallace, a board-certified rheumatologist practicing at Cedars-Sinai medical center in Los Angeles, wrote that “hydroxychloroquine is a very safe drug” and has been given to “tens of millions” of people around the world since it was approved 65 years ago “and as monotherapy has not been associated...

Pentagon blasts ABC: No, we didn’t warn White House of COVID-19 in November Ed MorrisseyPosted at 8:41 am on April 9, 2020Not only is it rare for intelligence agencies to issue public comments on its operation, it’s even rarer to have them do so to claim they missed a major issue. Yesterday, ABC News claimed that the DIA had warned the White House about the coronavirus outbreak in “late November.” The alleged report from the National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI), based on “wire and computer intercepts, focused on the threat to US forces in the Asia theater.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Thursday that he thought the United States could reopen the economy during the month of May. “I do,” Mnuchin told CNBC host Jim Cramer in a phone interview on Thursday morning in response to a direct question about whether the country could be “open for business” in the month of May. “I think as soon as the president feels comfortable with the medical issues, we are making everything necessary that Americans companies and American workers can be open for business and that they have the liquidity to operate their business in the interim,” Mnuchin continued....

The theologian and author C.S. Lewis identifies three enemies we face during crises such as ours and mental exercises to defend against each. In the autumn of 1939, as Nazi Germany invaded Poland and ignited the fuse of World War II, the great British theologian C. S. Lewis preached a sermon called “Learning in War-Time.” Although written 81 years ago, his advice is perhaps more relevant today than ever.Lewis identifies three enemies facing students during crises such as ours and mental exercises to defend against each. His thought are also helpful to those who are not students.The first enemy is...

ROME — Pope Francis said he believes the Chinese coronavirus pandemic is “certainly nature’s response” to humanity’s failure to address the “partial catastrophes” wrought by human-induced climate change.Asked by British journalist Austen Ivereigh whether the COVID-19 crisis is an opportunity for an “ecological conversion,” the pontiff reasserted his belief that humanity has provoked nature by not responding adequately to the climate crisis.“There is an expression in Spanish: ‘God always forgives, we forgive sometimes, but nature never forgives,’” Francis said in the interview published Wednesday. “We did not respond to the partial catastrophes. Who now speaks of the fires in Australia, or remembers...

NEWS RELEASE A clinical trial to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine for the treatment of adults hospitalized with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has begun, with the first participants now enrolled in Tennessee. The Outcomes Related to COVID-19 treated with hydroxychloroquine among In-patients with symptomatic Disease study, or ORCHID Study, is being conducted by the Prevention and Early Treatment of Acute Lung Injury (PETAL) Clinical Trials Network of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), part of the National Institutes of Health. The first participants have enrolled in the trial at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, one of...

During the Great Depression, in the Dust Bowl of Pampa, Texas, folk singer Woody Guthrie wrote the song "Dusty Old Dust," which became famous for the apocalyptic line "It's been good to know ya" in the chorus. It was a time of depression and end-of-the-world speculation, sort of like ours. Guthrie is most famous for his song "This Land is Your Land," which he wrote as a Marxist-leaning retort to Irving Berlin's "God Bless America" – which had become the de facto national anthem of the Depression era

The Muslim persecution of Christians that occurred in just one month. Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.   Reprinted from the Gatestone Institute. The following are some of the abuses Muslims inflicted on Christians, categorized by theme, throughout the month of January, 2020: The Slaughter of Christians in Nigeria During several separate incidents, militant Muslims—whether Fulani herdsmen, Boko Haram, or generic terrorists—continued to attack and massacre several Christians. As one example, on Friday, January 17, Muslim Fulani tribesmen on motorbikes raided a Christian village at a time they knew people were congregating at the village square...

The Federal Reserve on Thursday announced a bevy of new moves aimed at getting another $2.3 billion of financing into businesses and revenue-pinched governments. Among the Fed's measures were details regarding its Main Street business lending program and several other initiatives it is undertaking to backstop the reeling U.S. economy. The central bank also provided more detail on its market interventions, including plans to buy corporate bonds both at an investment-grade level as well as high-yield, or junk, bonds. Under provisions outlined for the first time, the loans would be geared toward businesses with up to 10,000 employees and less...

The entire world is suffering from the Chinese coronavirus.  No objective observer can deny with a straight face China's guilt in this matter despite the blizzard of propaganda being put out daily by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to contrary. This has prompted numerous suggestions — here, here, and here — that China should be forced to pay reparations for releasing this plague on the world. Aside from money, China critic Gordon Chang has another thought.  He wants Chinese leaders to be subjected to a Nuremberg-type trial for that country's crime against humanity.  As justified and satisfying as these ideas are, they will not come to fruition.  But that does not mean that the...

BERLIN — The preliminary findings of an antibody study by German virologists published on Thursday indicates a covid-19 fatality rate of 0.37 percent, information expected to inform government decision-making about lifting restrictions. The study by researchers at the University of Bonn involves testing 1,000 individuals in the hard-hit district of Heinsberg in northwestern Germany in an attempt to ascertain the number of people who have been infected without realizing it. The preliminary findings were based on results from 509 individuals, the researchers said in a news conference on Thursday. Some 14 percent of the sample had antibodies for the disease,...

ROME — Pope Francis said he believes the Chinese coronavirus pandemic is “certainly nature’s response” to humanity’s failure to address the “partial catastrophes” wrought by human-induced climate change. Asked by British journalist Austen Ivereigh whether the COVID-19 crisis is an opportunity for an “ecological conversion,” the pontiff reasserted his belief that humanity has provoked nature by not responding adequately to the climate crisis. “There is an expression in Spanish: ‘God always forgives, we forgive sometimes, but nature never forgives,’” Francis said in the interview published Wednesday. “We did not respond to the partial catastrophes. Who now speaks of the fires...