“You’re Full Of Shit!”: Biden Melts Down In ‘AR-14’ Tirade After Voter Confronts Over Plan To Take Guns

“You’re Full Of Shit!”: Biden Melts Down In ‘AR-14’ Tirade After Voter Confronts Over Plan To Take Guns

Democratic presidential frontrunner Joe Biden had a meltdown on Tuesday, telling a Detroit autoworker “You’re full of shit!” when he was accused of “actively trying to end our Second Amendment Right.”

“I support the Second Amendment,” said Biden, adding in an incoherent ramble: “The Second Amendment – just like right now, if you yell “fire,” that’s not free speech… From the very beginning, I have a shotgun, I have a 20-gauge, I have a 12-gauge, my sons hunt. Guess what, you’re not allowed to own any weapon.”

I’m not taking your gun away, at all,” Biden continued – to which the man interjects “You were on video saying you were going to take our guns away,” to which Biden replies “I did not say that.”

You did! It’s in a viral video!” the man claps back.

Then Biden says “Wait, wait, wait, wait, I’ll take your AR-14s” – a gun which doesn’t exist.

Watch:

Hilarious.

Meanwhile, Biden did threaten to take your guns.

And he wants to put Beto O’Rourke in charge of it.

Perhaps this explains why Joe received some unexpected pushback on his designs. 


Tyler Durden

Wed, 03/11/2020 – 04:35

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Double Whammy Of Shocks Plagues Companies Across World As Virus Spreads  

Double Whammy Of Shocks Plagues Companies Across World As Virus Spreads  

As Covid-19 grinds the world’s economy to a halt and supply-chains break, anxieties flourish among multinationals, AP news reports.

Millions of businesses are reeling from virus impacts as supply-chain disruptions have triggered one of the most massive economic shocks since the last financial crisis. 

Jay Foreman, CEO of the toy company Basic Fun in Boca Raton, Florida, told AP that his Chinese suppliers have dramatically reduced output because of the shutdowns, and this means his imports are significantly reduced. Foreman said he would layoff 10% of his 175-person global staff.

“I am getting vendors who are actually encouraging me to (make smaller) orders because they’re trying to spread out the capacity,” Foreman said. “I don’t want lower orders. I want higher orders.”

Sondra Mansfield, who owns Chalk of the Town in New York City, which makes T-shirts and tote bags, told AP that the “virus is going to go on, and it’s going to impact a lot of countries and economies.”

Mansfield stressed her access to foreign suppliers has come to a pause, and that could start affecting US operations.

“I think it will get worse before it gets better,” she warned.

Jacob Kirkegaard, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said the fast-spreading virus is now becoming a global issue.

The virus has now spread across South Korea, Japan, Iran, Italy, other countries in Europe, and the Americas, with the possibility of a “global pandemic” in the near term.

Last month Michael Every of Rabobank laid out his four scenarios for the virus’ economic and market impact: “The Bad,” “The Worse,” “The Ugly,” and “The Unthinkable.”

In an updated post on March 4, Every said, “It’s Getting ‘The Ugly,'” as this scenario foresees “the US, UK, and Europe were infected too. Naturally, this implied a deep global recession.” It appears the world is just one step away from “The Unthinkable,” Every describes this scenario as a global pandemic that has only been seen in Hollywood movies.

We’ve laid out four scenarios of how the virus impact could affect the global economy. At the moment it appears scenario four could be playing out, indicating a massive economic shock could tilt the world into recession. Global growth rates could be headed to zero on the year with a $2.7 trillion hit in global output.

Business travel across the world has crashed. Big tech firms, including Amazon, Google, Apple, Microsoft, and others, have restricted employees from traveling overseas. Many of these employees are being sent home for the next month. Similar restrictions are being seen with major US banks. As a result of reduced travel by corporate America and consumers as a whole, the travel industry is headed for a crash, which means airlines, hotels, restaurants, cruise ships, and casinos are going to see a sharp decline in traffic for the next several months. 

Executives of Salus Brands, an Arizona-based company, that sells swimming-pool accessories, said its Chinese shipments for the summer vacation season will likely be missed.

“If we can’t get the product in stores by Memorial Day week or shortly after, we lose our season,” said Salus Brands CEO Dave Balkaran.

Andrew Shoyer, a former US trade official who is a partner at the law firm Sidley Austin, said the “small and medium-sized enterprise will get hurt the most and the soonest.” He noted larger companies are more flexible with larger stockpiles of goods and can easily switch suppliers. 

We’ve noted on several occasions that West Coast port activity has plunged over the first quarter. Specifically, year over year volume at the Port of Los Angeles, the busiest seaport in the US – could see upwards of a 15% decline this quarter. 

And to make matters worse for companies already suffering from supply shocks, the next shock could be a demand one. The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, recommended all baby boomers on Sunday to avoid travel and large crowds in the US. This would effectively mean that one of the wealthiest generations could be removed from spending money in the economy as the virus outbreak worsens in the weeks ahead. 


Tyler Durden

Wed, 03/11/2020 – 05:45

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Watch: Greek Farmer On Tractor Uses Water Cannon To Repel Migrants

Watch: Greek Farmer On Tractor Uses Water Cannon To Repel Migrants

Authored bv Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

Video out of Greece shows a farmer on a tractor using a water cannon to repel migrants who are trying to break through the border.

Migrants are attempting to set fires under metal border fencing so they can weaken it.

However, as part of the wider people’s revolt against yet another incursion on the border, one Greek farmer fought back by dousing the migrants with water, driving the migrants away from the fence.

The water also wets the ground, making it harder for migrants to start fires.

Last month, President Erdogan announced that Turkey would be re-opening its border and encouraging millions of migrants to invade Europe.

Thanks to a strong response from Greek security forces and a massive revolt by the Greek people, there has been no repeat of 2015, when up to 2 million migrants eventually reached Europe.

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Tyler Durden

Wed, 03/11/2020 – 05:00

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Brickbat: A Failure to Communicate

Lucio Delgado was proud to have the chance to become a U.S. citizen. But his dreams were dashed when he flunked the reading portion of the naturalization test. Delgado is blind, but examiners refused to provide that portion of the exam in Braille. Delgado says he was told he would have to bring a doctor’s note saying he was blind, something he says he can’t afford.

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Italy Suspends Mortgage Payments, Businesses Dying As Panicked Residents Hoard Food

Italy Suspends Mortgage Payments, Businesses Dying As Panicked Residents Hoard Food

Italy has suspended payments on mortgages due to the coronavirus outbreak as more than 9,000 people have been infected and over 460 have died, the government announced on Tuesday.

When asked about halting mortgage payments on Radio Anch’io, deputy economic minister Laura Castelli said “Yes, that will be the case, for individuals and households,” according to The Independent.

Meanwhile, panicked residents crammed into supermarkets to stock up as the entire country entered a lockdown on Tuesday morning, while Italian streets were virtually empty after the government ordered people to avoid travel except for “urgent, verifiable work situations and emergencies or health reasons,” according to the Daily Mail.

Tourist favourites including Milan’s shopping galleries, Rome’s Spanish Steps and Vatican’s St Peter’s Square were all but deserted today after the drastic coronavirus measures were extended to the entire country last night.  

Panic-buyers were packing into supermarkets this morning with queues stretching outside because of a rule that demands a 3ft gap between shoppers – meaning only a limited number can go inside at once. 

In Naples, police were roaming the streets with a loudhailer last night to warn people to ‘stay indoors, avoid unnecessary outings and avoid crowded places’ because of the ‘coronavirus emergency’.  

Prime minister Giuseppe Conte declared last night that ‘everyone must give up something to protect the health of citizens.’ –Daily Mail

The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan – one of the city’s famous shopping galleries – is nearly deserted today with Italy beginning an unprecedented nationwide lockdown to tackle the coronavirus outbreak (via the Daily Mail)

Businesses are obviously suffering from the impact of the lockdown, as the empty streets of Rome have turned quiet. Bars and restaurants are only allowed to be open between 6am and 6pm, and must keep customers a minimum distance of 1 meter (3.2 feet) apart, according to SBS. Moreover, museums and cultural venues are closed, along with nightclubs, cinemas, theaters and casinos. Department stores must close on public holidays and the day before public holidays.

The flow-on effect has been immediate.

Raffaello Sasson’s family has owned a clothing shop in Rome since 1970 but he says conditions have never been so dire.

This is right now much worse than 11th of September and Chernobyl put together. This is the worst we have seen, right now.” –SBS

The last two weeks have been tragic, in the historic centre here, not even a single tourist. We have been here for 15 years and it’s never happened,” said restaurant owner Francesco Massotte, whose high-end eatery typically books people months in advance.

Outside Trevi Fountain, tourists saw signs warning of interactions with others.

“I was eating lunch today and in the restaurant, there was a sign saying ‘stay away from people, sit a metre away from other people’,” one man told SBS.

At least they won’t have to pay their mortgages for a while.


Tyler Durden

Wed, 03/11/2020 – 04:15

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Brickbat: A Failure to Communicate

Lucio Delgado was proud to have the chance to become a U.S. citizen. But his dreams were dashed when he flunked the reading portion of the naturalization test. Delgado is blind, but examiners refused to provide that portion of the exam in Braille. Delgado says he was told he would have to bring a doctor’s note saying he was blind, something he says he can’t afford.

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Is This How Europe Ends?

Is This How Europe Ends?

Authored by Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org,

“Fortress Europe is an illusion.”

So declares the Financial Times in the closing line of its Saturday editorial: “Europe Cannot Ignore Syrian Migrant Crisis.”

The FT undertakes to instruct the Old Continent on what its duty is and what its future holds:

“The EU will face flows of migrants and asylum seekers across the Mediterranean for decades to come.”

Can Europe not repel this unwanted home invasion from the Global South?

It is “delusional” to think so, says the FT. Europe must be realistic and set about “providing legal routes for migrants and asylum seekers.”

What occasioned the editorial was Greece’s rough resistance to Turkish President Erdogan’s funneling of thousands of Syrian refugees, who had fled into Turkey, right up to the border with Greece.

Erdogan is threatening to inundate southeastern Europe with Syrian refugees to extract more money from the EU in return for keeping the 3.5 million Syrians already in Turkey away from EU frontiers.

Another Erdogan objective is to coerce Europe into backing his military intervention in Syria to prevent President Bashar Assad from capturing all of Idlib province and emerging victorious in his civil war.

In the human rights hellhole that is Syria today, we may see the dimensions of the disaster wrought when Wilsonian crusaders set out to depose the dictator Assad and make Syria safe for democracy.

A brief history…

When the Arab Spring erupted and protesters arose to oust Assad, the U.S., Turkey and the Gulf Arabs aided and equipped Syrian rebels willing to take up arms. The “good rebels,” however, were routed and elements of al-Qaida soon assumed dominance of the resistance.

Facing defeat, Syria’s president put out a call to his allies — Russia, Iran, Hezbollah — to save his regime. They responded, and Assad, over four years, recaptured all of Syria west of the Euphrates, save Idlib.

There, the latest fighting has pushed 900,000 more refugees to Turkey’s southern border.

The 21st-century interventions and wars of the West in the Islamic world have not gone well.

George W. Bush was goaded into invading Iraq. Barack Obama was persuaded to overthrow Colonel Moammar Gadhafi in Libya and the Assad regime in Damascus. Obama ordered U.S. forces to assist Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in his war to crush Houthi rebels who had ousted Riyadh’s resident puppet in Yemen.

And what has the West reaped from our Mideast wars?

In Syria and Yemen, we have helped to create two of the world’s greatest human rights disasters.

In Libya, we have a new civil war.

In Iraq, we now battle Iran for influence inside a nation we “liberated” in 2003

In Afghanistan, we have concluded a deal with our enemy of two decades, the Taliban, that will enable us to pull our 12,000 troops out of the country in 14 months and let our Afghan allies work it out, or fight it out, with the Taliban. America is washing its hands of its longest war.

In five wars over 20 years, we lost 7,000 soldiers with some 40,000 wounded. We plunged the wealth of an empire into these wars.

And what did these wars produce for the peoples we went to aid and uplift, besides hundreds of thousands of dead Afghans and Arabs and millions of people uprooted from their homes and driven into exile?

Now, Europe is being admonished by the FT that, having done its duty by plunging into the Mideast, the continent has a new moral duty to take in the refugees the wars created, for decades to come.

But if the EU opens its doors to an endless stream of Africans and Arabs, where is the evidence that European nations will accept and assimilate them?

Will these migrants and asylum seekers become good Europeans? Or will they create in the great cities of Europe enclaves that replicate the conditions in the African and Middle East countries whence they came?

The history of the last half millennium tells the story of the rise and fall of a civilization.

In the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, Spain, Britain, France and Portugal, and then Belgium, Italy, Germany and America, all believing in the superiority of their civilization, went out into the world to create empires to uplift and rule what Rudyard Kipling derisively called “the lesser breeds without the law.”

After two world wars, the rulers of these empires embraced a liberalism that now proclaimed the equality of all peoples, races, creeds, cultures and civilizations. This egalitarian ideology mandated the dismantling of empires and colonies as the reactionary relics of a benighted time.

Now the peoples of the new nations, dissatisfied with what their liberated lands and rulers have produced, have decided to come to Europe to enjoy in the West what they cannot replicate at home. And liberalism, the ideology of Western suicide, dictates to Europe that it take them in — for decades to come.

The colonizers of yesterday are becoming the colonized of tomorrow. Is this how the West ends?


Tyler Durden

Wed, 03/11/2020 – 03:30

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Orders Plunge For Italy’s Luxury Suppliers Amid Nationwide Lockdown

Orders Plunge For Italy’s Luxury Suppliers Amid Nationwide Lockdown

Industry sources told Reuters on Tuesday that global luxury brands, including Louis Vuitton, Parada, and others, have significantly reduced orders with top Italian suppliers as Covid-19 disruptions are seen across the world.

Italy has imposed unprecedented travel restrictions on 60 million of its people to contain the fast-spreading virus, which has so far resulted in 9,172 confirmed cases, with 463 deaths.

Reuters spoke with high-end clothing suppliers in Veneto, an area nearby Tuscany and affected by the new travel restrictions. Suppliers said a perfect storm of factors has been building since late January, as demand for luxury goods from China crashed, and Italian suppliers are suspending operations or running at less than full capacity because of a nationwide lockdown to contain the virus.

“We were producing 800-1,000 handbags a month for Gucci. In February we made 450 and we have no orders for March,” said the operator of a small handbag supplier in Scandicci, an area outside Florence that is home to a major hub for leather goods production. “We don’t have orders for April or May either. The company has been brought to a standstill and we are having to put our workers on temporary redundancy schemes.”

The virus has severely damaged the global luxury goods industry, already dealing with waning demand that started with the Hong Kong riots in the second half of 2019. Then the virus outbreak in China at the start of the year delivered an even larger blow to the industry as the world’s largest consumer was forced into quarantine.

Flavio Cereda, an industry analyst at Jefferies, noted on Monday that he slashed his 2020 sales forecast for the global luxury goods market because of the virus outbreak in China, the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas.

Cereda expects luxury goods sales will decline 3% on the year, as opposed to his earlier forecast of 1% growth.

“Prolonged disruption of economic activity may well result in supply chain issues for most brands,” he said, adding, however, that he had no evidence of that happening yet.

The Scandicci manufacturing hub is an area home to top suppliers for LVMH, Kering, and Prada has had strict travel restrictions go into effect to start the week, which has forced some companies to operate at less than full capacity.

Massimiliano Guerrini is the owner of Almax, a Scandicci-based luxury goods supplier for top luxury brands, said orders noticeably decreased when China started shutting down in late January due to the virus outbreak.

“I thought things were not too bad given the circumstances, but now this new alarm in Italy risks making more casualties among businesses than among people and disrupting the supply chain for the orders that are still in the pipeline,” he said.

“We have 270 employees and have diversified our customers, so we managed to mitigate the impact so far. But some of the smaller suppliers are not going to make it.”

Reuters spoke with an operator of another supplier in Veneto, who reported a 30% slump in orders from Louis Vuitton.

Claudio Marenzi, President of Confindustria Moda, a trade organization in Italy, said the Italian textiles industry could see rapid consolidation this year as the virus crisis across the world is causing severe demand shocks that are also resulting in supply shocks as suppliers in Italy idle plants on a nationwide lockdown.

“Since the virus emerged in China we knew there was going to be a slowdown in the first quarter. But now the whole year risks going up in smoke for us,” Marenzi said.

Italy is Europe’s third-largest economy, and the lockdown across the country could result in a recession


Tyler Durden

Wed, 03/11/2020 – 02:45

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Merkel Expects 60-70% Of Germans To Be Infected With Coronavirus

Merkel Expects 60-70% Of Germans To Be Infected With Coronavirus

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

Angela Merkel says she expects around 60-70 per cent of Germans will be infected with the coronavirus, which equates to about 53 million people.

Reportedly, the German Parliament fell completely silent when Merkel stated the number.

News outlet Bild reported the German Chancellor’s comments, which echoed numbers forecast by Berlin virologist Christian Drosten, who added that such a total could take 2 years or longer to reach.

Given the fact that coronavirus has a mortality rate of around 1 per cent, this could equate to over half a million deaths, although new methods of fighting the virus could reduce this number.

The World Health Organization’s director general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus claimed that the death rate was higher at 3.4 per cent, although this has been disputed.

Germany, which has recorded 1,565 coronavirus cases and two deaths so far, has yet to impose the kind of quarantine measures seen in Italy, where the entire country has been placed on lockdown.

German health authorities have said that people should avoid attending concerts, clubs or football games to limit the spread of the illness.

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Tyler Durden

Wed, 03/11/2020 – 02:00

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The Law That Killed Freelance Work

Freelance jobs are “feudalism,” says Democratic California Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez.

She persuaded California’s legislature to pass a new law reclassifying freelance workers as employees. That means many people who hire them must now give them benefits like overtime, unemployment insurance, etc. Politicians said it would help freelancers a lot.

Of course, much of the media agreed. Vox called it “a victory for workers everywhere”!

Sigh. Young reporters just don’t understand that stifling economic freedom always creates nasty side effects.

Actually, more understand now, because they got a very personal lesson. Once the bill passed, Vox media cut hundreds of freelance writing jobs.

When Gonzalez was asked if she felt bad about that, she sneered, those weren’t “real jobs.”

The arrogance of politicians! People choose jobs. Freelancers like flexibility. Politicians have no right to say certain jobs aren’t good enough.

“You’re thinking you’re helping us, but you’re not,” says musician Ari Herstand in my new video. He says the anti gig-work law could “crash the California music economy.”

Why? Before the law passed, if he played a gig where he’d hire a drummer, bassist, and guitar player, “I just cut (each) a check for $200. Now, I have to take that drummer, put him on payroll, W2 him, get workers’ comp insurance, unemployment insurance. I have to pay payroll taxes. I also have to now hire a payroll company.”

All to hire musicians for one just night. The paperwork alone might cost more than the music.

The anti-gig-work law originally targeted rideshare companies like Uber and Lyft, because unions claimed the companies abuse drivers.

But now many rideshare drivers are upset because the law takes away their freedom.

“I liked being independent!” said one. “I don’t want a boss to tell me when or where to drive.”

Herstand says Uber and Lyft drivers would often tell him: “I’m a photographer and this is my fourth side gig. I want to do this when I want to do this, and if now I’m an employee, and I’m W2’d, they’re going to dictate my hours. I don’t want that. (The law is) preventing us from doing what we want to do.”

The law upset independent truck drivers, too. After some nosily drove big rigs in front of the legislature, they got an exemption from the law. Other politically connected professions, like lawyers and realtors, got exemptions as well.

Now Herstand’s working on getting an exemption for musicians, too.

“Why is that good law?” I asked him. “An exception for whoever is clever enough to get to the politicians?”

“It’s definitely not the solution,” laughed Herstand. “‘Write us out of this law and help us out? Here’s money for your next campaign.’ No, that doesn’t seem like that’s a way to legislate.”

But that’s how it’s often done. The more rules politicians pass, the more money they extract from people who are regulated.

Now other politicians want to copy California’s law. New York, New Jersey, and Illinois have their own versions of gig economy bills. The House of Representatives wants to nationalize the law. And, this week, Democratic front-runner Joe Biden cluelessly said such a law “will give workers the dignity they deserve.”

Democrats do what unions ask them to do. Politico points out that just a few years ago, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) called gig work “a great service for people, giving people jobs. I don’t think government should be in the business of trying to restrict job growth.” He even joked that Uber drivers might earn more than he does.

But now he wants to outlaw most gig work and calls it “exploitive, abusive!”

It’s no surprise that Gonzalez’s biggest political donors are unions. She talks a lot about “protecting our union jobs.” But now that her bill is killing jobs, she wouldn’t agree to an interview.

Neither would the California unions, or any of 75 law professors, political scientists, sociologists, etc., who published a letter in support of the law.

Yes, we contacted all 75.

Herstand says that’s because the law now embarrasses its supporters, but politicians won’t repeal it because “no politician ever wants to admit they did something wrong.”

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