Tuesday Morning Breakfast For The Brain

Good morning Deplorables, as the prince of darkness Rahm Emanuel famously put it, never let a good crisis go to waste and the communists are taking his advice.

Coronavirus Even Closed the Waffle House

Via American Greatness

Chambersburg, Pennsylvania—It is early Sunday morning along one of the few congested stretches of the Lincoln Highway when an empty parking lot below the familiar cheery yellow sign for the local Waffle House catches the eye.

The 24-hour diner chain, born in the Atlanta suburbs 65 years ago and now spreading across 25 states with nearly 2,000 locations, is primarily known for its ability to serve as a touchstone in every community it serves. It feeds a cultlike following among foodies and road warriors.

But it is also known for another remarkable distinction: It closes for no disaster.

Yet at store No. 1673, the doors are now locked. It is one of 418 diners the chain has closed, an announcement made through social media last Wednesday with the hashtag #WaffleHouseIndexRed. The reference is to the Waffle House Index, an informal metric created by the Federal Emergency Management Agency as a measure of the effect a natural disaster is having on a community. A green index means full menu service. Yellow means services have been limited. Red indicates closures—a major disaster. A whole bunch of Waffle Houses including this one hit red on Sunday due to the novel coronavirus.

The shuttered doors along the first coast-to-coast U.S. highway tells you everything about the state of things. The coronavirus’ spread is likely to get worse in the coming weeks before it gets better—before we get better.

No matter where in this country you walk into a Waffle House, whether in the diner’s home state of Georgia, here in Chambersburg or in Clark Summit, Pennsylvania, without fail you can expect a cheerful hello at the door, a jukebox at your table, no-frills seating and the nostalgic scent of frying oil for the hot irons. The waitstaff will definitely call you “honey,” and, of course, you’ll hear orders shouted to the kitchen in the diner’s distinct hash brown lingo.

When your waitress shouts, “Scattered!” that is someone’s hash brown order, meaning they are all spread out on the grill so they get nice and crispy. “Smothered!” means someone ordered theirs covered in onions. “Peppered!” is a nice dousing of jalapenos. “Covered!” means melted American cheese on top. And “Country!” of course, means it’s doused in sausage gravy.

Waffle House was founded in 1955 by partners Joe Rogers and Tom Forkner. Both men died in their late 90s in 2017, just more than a month apart. The privately held company is now headed by Joe Rogers Jr.

The Waffle House is a lot of things to a lot of people: It is where the regular guys or gals go after a long Saturday night on the town, and where they go back to on Sunday morning after seeking redemption for Saturday night at church.

It is a night out for a family of four; the beacon on the highway for the hungry long-distance driver; the place where you and your friends went after the prom; and maybe where you or your child had his or her first job.

You are never alone at the Waffle House, even if you spend your time contemplating life, staring at the white subway tiles trimmed with black diamonds on a yellow background. In normal times, the odds are good that you’ll walk out with three new friends and hope for the future. But not now.

Read the entire article HERE.

Woman Who Ingested Fish Tank Cleaner Is Prolific Donor to Democratic Causes

Via The Washington Free Beacon

The Arizona woman who said that she and her 68-year-old husband ingested a substance used to clean fish tanks after hearing President Donald Trump tout chloroquine as a cure for the coronavirus has given thousands of dollars to Democratic groups and candidates over the last two years.

The woman’s most recent donations, in late February, were to a Democratic PAC, the 314 Action Fund, that bills itself as the “pro-science resistance” and has vocally criticized the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic and held up her case to slam the White House.

Although local and national media outlets withheld the couple’s names, the Washington Free Beacon established their identities through descriptions in local news reports, where the pair were identified by their first names and ages: Gary, 68, and Wanda, 61. The Free Beacon is withholding their identities at Wanda’s request.

Federal Election Commission records show that Wanda has donated thousands of dollars to Democratic electoral groups and candidates over the past two years, including Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and EMILY’s List, a group that aims to elect pro-choice female candidates.

Wanda told the Free Beacon that she and her husband were both Democrats, not Trump supporters. They heard about the potential benefits of chloroquine, an antimalarial drug, in news reports. She decided at the “spur of the moment” to try taking it, but reached for a fish tank cleaner in her pantry that contains chloroquine phosphate, a different and deadly form of the chemical. The Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency authorization for the use of chloroquine to treat coronavirus on Sunday.

“We weren’t big supporters of [Trump], but we did see that they were using it in China and stuff,” Wanda told the Free Beacon. “And we just made a horrible, tragic mistake,” she said. “It was stupid, and it was horrible, and we should have never done it. But it’s done and now I’ve lost my husband. And my whole life was my husband.”

“We didn’t think it would kill us,” she added. “We thought if anything it would help us ‘cus that’s what we’ve been hearing on the news.”

Read the entire article HERE.

Soros and the Coronavirus pandemic

Via The American Thinker

Billionaire George Soros uses his political-philanthropic private foundations’ global network to induce chaos to change the capitalistic democratic systems that prevailed since the end of WWII. Soros aims to reshape the world according to his purported wily Open Society philosophy, which evolved after the collapse of the Soviet Communist system. He tested his ideas in Eastern Europe before moving to the rest of the world, and on to his major target, the United States of America.

Soros’s open-borders agenda and his efforts to create a global ‘open society’ have suffered a setback due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, but his ambition of changing America from within, and meddling in the domestic affairs of nation-states where his OSF operates did not ebb. Rest assured that Soros, who thrives on chaos, takes advantage of the distraction caused by the pandemic to advance his political goals in the U.S. and elsewhere.

Over the last three decades, Soros used the massive spending of his private International Non-Governmental Organization (INGO), to spur political activism in progressive Left-leaning/radical organizations, academic institutions, and media outlets, along with large campaign contributions. He combined this formula with his market manipulations to produce fundamental disruptions and changes in the political landscape of many countries, including the U.S., affecting domestic and international markets, policies, and even the presidency.

When Steve Kroft interviewed Soros on “60 Minutes” in December 1998, he asked the famous speculator whether he felt any complicity in the financial collapses in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan, or Russia. Smiling, Soros responded: “I don’t feel guilty because I am engaged in an amoral activity which is not meant to have anything to do with guilt.” His amoral behavior is not limited to finance. “I cannot and do not look at the social consequences of what I do,” he replied arrogantly.

Professing to be an “amoral” financial speculator has earned Soros the image of a maverick. His generous handouts did wonders to blind the political, media, academic and social elites, and afforded him the respectability and credibility he needed to advance his sociopolitical disruptive agenda, remodeling countries, especially the U.S., to whatever he deems as an “open society.”

To increase the spread of and maximize the influence of his disruptive ideas, Soros has been using his charities to fund progressive socialist/globalist groups. He endowed his flagship charity, the Open Society Foundations (OSF), which operates as an INGO, with more than $19.5 billion and an operating budget of $1.2 billion for 2020. It is the “world’s largest private grant-making” political entity, which according to its website operates in more “than 120 countries,” distributing “thousands of grants every year” to local NGOs and individuals who claim to be independent and sometimes even non-partisan, to “promote” the OSF’s “values.”

As of this writing, there are 197 countries in the world and 10 million NGOs worldwide (!) Many of them operate in collaboration with tens of thousands of INGOs. (Last available data from 2013 stated there were more than 40,000 INGOs.)

It is important to note that “INGOs are not elected bodies, are not founded on the principle of representation, and are not accountable to the public,”

Read the entire article HERE.

DC mayor threatens 90 days in jail for leaving home during coronavirus

Via The New York Post

Mayor Muriel Bowser is threatening residents of Washington, DC, with 90 days in jail and a $5,000 fine if they leave their homes during the coronavirus outbreak.

The threat of jail is alarming residents and civil libertarians who point out that at least five inmates tested positive for COVID-19 in the city’s 1,700-inmate jail near Capitol Hill.

“Our message remains the same: stay home,” Bowser, a Democrat, said in a statement Monday. The stay-home order has exceptions for grocery shopping and work deemed essential. Outdoor recreation such as running is allowed, but cannot involve people outside of a household.

The order is similar to dictates in neighboring Maryland and Virginia, but shocked residents of Washington, where there are just 401 of the nation’s 160,000 confirmed cases.

“This is insane. Criminal penalties?” tweeted Mercedes Schlapp, President Trump’s former White House director of strategic communications and an adviser to his reelection campaign.

Monica Hopkins, executive director of the ACLU of the District of Columbia, told The Post “we would be deeply concerned” if anyone actually was arrested for violating the order.

Read the entire article HERE.

Florida Sheriff Issues Arrest Warrant For Pastor Who Refused To Cancel Services

Via The Daily Caller

A Florida sheriff obtained an arrest warrant for a pastor who defied coronavirus social-distancing orders and held church services Sunday.

Florida Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister issued a Monday warrant for megachurch pastor Rodney Howard-Browne after the pastor held two Sunday religious services at the River at Tampa Bay Church in Florida, the Tampa Bay Times reported.  A live stream of the service showed that it was widely attended.

“Because of the reckless disregard of public safety and after repeated requests and warnings, I worked with our state attorney, Andrew Warren, to obtain a warrant for unlawful assembly and violation of public health emergency rules, both of which are second degree misdemeanors,” Chronister said at a news conference, the publication reports.

“Our goal here is not to stop anyone from worshiping, but the safety and well-being of our community must always come first.

Chronister said at a news conference that the Sheriff’s Office had warned Howard-Browne and church attorneys at The River at Tampa Bay Church not to endanger worshipers by holding church services. There have been 5,000 cases of coronavirus and 60 deaths from the virus in Florida, Axios reports as of Monday morning.

“In a time of national crisis, we expect certain institutions to be open and certain people to be on duty,” the River at Tampa Bay Church said in a statement.

Read the entire article HERE.

Execs Scramble To Buy Spyware To Keep Tabs On ‘Locked-Down’ Employees

Via Zero Hedge

Tens of millions of Americans have transitioned from their corporate desks to living room sofas in the last month as “shelter in place” government health orders have forced many to work at home amid the COVID-19 outbreak. Corporate executives, who once had unlimited control over employees, have lost much of it, and that is why they’re now panic buying spy software to monitor employees who work from home, reported Bloomberg.

Axos Financial Inc. told employees who are working from home that they’re monitoring every keystroke, logging every website, and taking screenshots of their desktops, in a bid to keep tabs on how productive they’re. In an internal email to employees, the company wrote that “disciplinary action” or “termination” is possible if slacking was seen.

“We have seen individuals taking unfair advantage of flexible work arrangements,” Axos Financial CEO wrote in an internal email reviewed by Bloomberg. If daily tasks aren’t completed, workers “will be subject to disciplinary action, up to and including termination.”

It’s not just corporations that are ushering in digital surveillance tools to monitor employees, but also we’ve noted that governments are utilizing mass surveillance to monitor social distancing and the health care system.

“Of course, digital surveillance has been used for years on office desktops, yet it seems a violation of privacy to a lot of workers when they’re required to have software on their computers that tracks their every move in their own homes.

Employers justify going full Orwell by saying that monitoring curbs security breaches, which can be expensive and helps keep the wheels of commerce turning.

With so many people working remotely because of the coronavirus, surveillance software is flying off the virtual shelves.” – Bloomberg.

Brad Miller, CEO of surveillance-software maker InterGuard, said businesses are “scrambling” to purchase software that monitors the productivity of employees who are working from home.

Axos spokesman Gregory Frost released a statement to Bloomberg that said, “the enhanced monitoring of at-home employees we implemented will ensure that those members of our workforce who work from home will continue” to be productive during these challenging times.

Along with InterGuard, software makers include Time Doctor, Teramind, VeriClock, innerActiv, ActivTrak, and Hubstaf have developed monitoring tools for corporations.

Read the entire article HERE.

Pittsburgh Area Residents Queue Two Miles for Drive Through Food Bank Distribution….

Via The Conservative Treehouse

As more essential service outlets start to become overwhelmed at the stress upon their food delivery operations; and with more food store employees necessarily absent due to the coronavirus spread; regionally, the food supply chain will becoming more dependent on food bank distribution.

If the virus spread continues at current pace, some regional supermarkets with multiple locations will likely begin targeted shut-downs by retreating and disbursing available healthy (non-infected) employees on a store-by-store basis. The potential for this issue is most likely to first originate within urban communities; and then outflow.

This reality is starting to become more evident in localized communities, and a distribution center in the greater Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, area gives a great example of what could become increasingly common across the nation.

Approximately 1,500 cars line up to receive essential food products from the Greater Pittsburgh Community Center. The capacity was anticipated around 1,700 at the beginning of the three hour event. 1,500 cars were in line before it began.

Read the entire article HERE.

Rent strike idea gaining steam during coronavirus crisis

Via AP

With millions of people suddenly out of work and rent due at the first of the month, some tenants are vowing to go on a rent strike until the coronavirus pandemic subsides.

New York, Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco and St. Louis are among many cities that have temporarily banned evictions, but advocates for the strike are demanding that rent payments be waived, not delayed, for those in need during the crisis. The rent strike idea has taken root in parts of North America and as far away as London.

White sheets are being hung in apartment windows to show solidarity with the movement that is gaining steam on Twitter, Instagram and other social media sites. Fliers urging people to participate are being posted in several cities, including bus stops in St. Louis, where 27-year-old Kyle Kofron still has his job at an ice cream factory, but his three roommates have suddenly found themselves unemployed. Their property manager so far hasn’t agreed to a payment plan, Kofron said.

“For me personally, with everyone losing their jobs and unable to pay, it’s really the only thing we can do,” Kofron said of the strike. “It’s just like we the people have to do something. We just can’t stand idly by while the system takes us for a ride.”

Read the entire article HERE.

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