The Ledes

Friday, October 11, 2024

Washington Post: “Floridians began returning to damaged and waterlogged homes on Thursday after Hurricane Milton carved a path of destruction and grief across the state, the second massive storm to strike Florida in as many weeks. At least 14 storm-related deaths were attributed to the hurricane, which made landfall south of Sarasota at 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, officials said. Six of them were killed when two tornadoes touched down ahead of the storm in St. Lucie County on Florida’s central Atlantic coast. The deadly tornadoes, rising waters, torrential rain and punishing winds battered the state from coast to coast as Milton churned eastward before heading out to sea early Thursday.”

Washington Post: “Twelve people were rescued from an inactive Colorado gold mine after they were trapped 1,000 feet underground for about six hours following an elevator malfunction. One person was killed in the accident, which happened about 500 feet underground at the Mollie Kathleen Gold Mine near Cripple Creek, Colo., Teller County Sheriff Jason Mikesell said at a Thursday news conference. The site is a tourist attraction. Eleven other people aboard the elevator at the time, including two children, were rescued shortly after the mechanical malfunction, which Mikesell said 'created a severe danger for the participants.' He said four suffered minor injuries.... Twelve others in a separate group remained trapped in a mine shaft 1,000 feet underground for several hours after the incident, before they were rescued Thursday evening, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said.”

The Wires
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The Ledes

Thursday, October 10, 2024

CNBC: “The pace of price increases over the past year was higher than forecast in September while jobless claims posted an unexpected jump following Hurricane Helene and the Boeing strike, the Labor Department reported Thursday. The consumer price index, a broad gauge measuring the costs of goods and services across the U.S. economy, increased a seasonally adjusted 0.2% for the month, putting the annual inflation rate at 2.4%. Both readings were 0.1 percentage point above the Dow Jones consensus. The annual inflation rate was 0.1 percentage point lower than August and is the lowest since February 2021.”

The New York Times' live updates of Hurrucane Milton consequences Thursday are here: “Milton was still producing damaging hurricane-force winds and heavy rainfall to parts of East and Central Florida, forecasters said early Thursday, even as the powerful storm roared away from the Atlantic coast and left deaths and widespread damage across the state. Cities along Florida’s east coast are now facing flash flooding, damaging winds and storm surges. Some had already been battered by powerful tornadoes spun out by the storm before it made landfall on the Gulf Coast on Wednesday as a Category 3 hurricane. In [St. Lucie] county [Fort Pierce], several people in a retirement community were killed by a tornado, the police said.... More than three million customers were without power in Florida as of early Thursday.” ~~~

     ~~~ Here are the Weater Channel's live updates.

CNN: “The 2024 Nobel Prize in literature has been awarded to Han Kang, a South Korean author, for her 'intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.' Han, 53, began her career with a group of poems in a South Korean magazine, before making her prose debut in 1995 with a short story collection. She later began writing longer prose works, most notably 'The Vegetarian,' one of her first books to be translated into English. The novel, which won the Man Booker International Prize in 2016, charts a young woman’s attempt to live a more 'plant-like' existence after suffering macabre nightmares about human cruelty. Han is the first South Korean author to win the literature prize, and just the 18th woman out of the 117 prizes awarded since 1901.” The New York Times story is here.

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Public Service Announcement

Washington Post: "Americans can again order free rapid coronavirus tests by mail, the Biden administration announced Thursday. People can request four free at-home tests per household through covidtests.gov. They will begin shipping Monday. The move comes ahead of an expected winter wave of coronavirus cases. The September revival of the free testing program is in line with the Biden administration’s strategy to respond to the coronavirus as part of a broader public health campaign to protect Americans from respiratory viruses, including influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), that surge every fall and winter. But free tests were not mailed during the summer wave, which wastewater surveillance data shows is now receding."

Washington Post: “Comedy news outlet the Onion — reinvigorated by new ownership over this year — is bringing back its once-popular video parodies of cable news. But this time, there’s someone with real news anchor experience in the chair. When the first episodes appear online Monday, former WAMU and MSNBC host Joshua Johnson will be the face of the resurrected 'Onion News Network.' Playing an ONN anchor character named Dwight Richmond, Johnson says he’s bringing a real anchor’s sense of clarity — and self-importance — to the job. 'If ONN is anything, it’s a news organization that is so unaware of its own ridiculousness that it has the confidence of a serial killer,' says Johnson, 44.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'll be darned if I can figured out how to watch ONN. If anybody knows, do tell. Thanks.

Washington Post: “First came the surprising discovery that Earth’s atmosphere is leaking. But for roughly 60 years, the reason remained a mystery. Since the late 1960s, satellites over the poles detected an extremely fast flow of particles escaping into space — at speeds of 20 kilometers per second. Scientists suspected that gravity and the magnetic field alone could not fully explain the stream. There had to be another source creating this leaky faucet. It turns out the mysterious force is a previously undiscovered global electric field, a recent study found. The field is only about the strength of a watch battery — but it’s enough to thrust lighter ions from our atmosphere into space. It’s also generated unlike other electric fields on Earth. This newly discovered aspect of our planet provides clues about the evolution of our atmosphere, perhaps explaining why Earth is habitable. The electric field is 'an agent of chaos,' said Glyn Collinson, a NASA rocket scientist and lead author of the study. 'It undoes gravity.... Without it, Earth would be very different.'”

The New York Times lists Emmy winners. The AP has an overview story here.

New York Times: “Hvaldimir, a beluga whale who had captured the public’s imagination since 2019 after he was spotted wearing a harness seemingly designed for a camera, was found dead on Saturday in Norway, according to a nonprofit that worked to protect the whale.... [Hvaldimir] was wearing a harness that identified it as “equipment” from St. Petersburg. There also appeared to be a camera mount. Some wondered if the whale was on a Russian reconnaissance mission. Russia has never claimed ownership of the whale. If Hvaldimir was a spy, he was an exceptionally friendly one. The whale showed signs of domestication, and was comfortable around people. He remained in busier waters than are typical for belugas....” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Oh, Lord, do not let Bobby Kennedy, Jr., near that carcass. ~~~

     ~~~ AP Update: “There’s no evidence that a well-known beluga whale that lived off Norway’s coast and whose harness ignited speculation it was a Russian spy was shot to death last month as claimed by animal rights groups, Norwegian police said Monday.... Police said that the Norwegian Veterinary Institute conducted a preliminary autopsy on the animal, which was become known as 'Hvaldimir,' combining the Norwegian word for whale — hval — and the first name of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 'There are no findings from the autopsy that indicate that Hvaldimir has been shot,' police said in a statement.”

New York Times: Botswana's “President Mokgweetsi Masisi grinned as he lifted the diamond, a 2,492-carat stone that is the biggest diamond unearthed in more than a century and the second-largest ever found, according to the Vancouver-based mining operator Lucara, which owns the mine where it was found. This exceptional discovery could bring back the luster of the natural diamond mining industry, mining companies and experts say. The diamond was discovered in the same relatively small mine in northeastern Botswana that has produced several of the largest such stones in living memory. Such gemstones typically surface as a result of volcanic activity.... The diamond will likely sell in the range of tens of millions of dollars....”

Click on photo to enlarge.

~~~ Guardian: "On a distant reef 16,000km from Paris, surfer Gabriel Medina has given Olympic viewers one of the most memorable images of the Games yet, with an airborne celebration so well poised it looked too good to be true. The Brazilian took off a thundering wave at Teahupo’o in Tahiti on Monday, emerging from a barrelling section before soaring into the air and appearing to settle on a Pacific cloud, pointing to the sky with biblical serenity, his movements mirrored precisely by his surfboard. The shot was taken by Agence France-Presse photographer Jérôme Brouillet, who said “the conditions were perfect, the waves were taller than we expected”. He took the photo while aboard a boat nearby, capturing the surreal image with such accuracy that at first some suspected Photoshop or AI." 

Washington Post: “'Mary Cassatt at Work' is a large and mostly satisfying exhibition devoted to the career of the great American artist beloved for her sensitive and often sentimental views of family life. The 'at work' in the title of the Philadelphia Museum of Art show references the curators’ interest in Cassatt’s pioneering effort to establish herself as a professional artist within a male-dominated field. Throughout the show, which includes some 130 paintings, pastels, prints and drawings, the wall text and the art on view stresses Cassatt’s fixation on art as a career rather than a pastime.... Mary Cassatt at Work is on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through Sept. 8. philamuseum.org”

New York Times: “Bob Newhart, who died on Thursday at the age of 94, has been such a beloved giant of popular culture for so long that it’s easy to forget how unlikely it was that he became one of the founding fathers of stand-up comedy. Before basically inventing the hit stand-up special, with the 1960 Grammy-winning album 'The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart' — that doesn’t even count his pay-per-view event broadcast on Canadian television that some cite as the first filmed special — he was a soft-spoken accountant who had never done a set in a nightclub. That he made a classic with so little preparation is one of the great miracles in the history of comedy.... Bob Newhart holds up. In fact, it’s hard to think of a stand-up from that era who is a better argument against the commonplace idea that comedy does not age well.”

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Publisher & Editor: Marie Burns


Tuesday
May052020

The Commentariat -- May 6, 2020

Late Morning Update:

The New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments Wednesday are here. "President Trump, contradicting his comments from Tuesday, said the White House coronavirus task force would 'continue on indefinitely,' though perhaps with different members. His announcement, made on Twitter, came one day after Vice President Mike Pence, who has led the group for two months, said it would probably wrap up its work around the end of the May. 'We will have something in a different form,' Mr. Trump later told reporters on Tuesday during a trip to Arizona. But in a series of Wednesday morning tweets, Mr. Trump appeared to contradict that, and emphasized his desire to reopen the economy despite a continued rise in coronavirus cases and public health warnings that more commerce will mean more deaths.... 'We may add or subtract people to it, as appropriate' he said.... Mr. Trump frequently reacts to news coverage of his decisions, and reports on Tuesday that he might wind down the task force drew sharp criticism." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: I don't know why mean MSNBC host Chris Hayes keeps complaining that Trump has no plan. Could it be because the administration retracts major announcements within 24 hours? Anyhow, I don't think any of this stuff is up to Trump. I suspect that the federal government is being run by a 21-year-old college intern assigned to Jared Kushner's staff. When the intern starts to get the hang of things & makes a sensible decision or two, his term is up, and a new, green intern takes over. ~~~

~~~ The Washington Post's live updates Wednesday are here.

Jeff Cox of CNBC: "Private payrolls hemorrhaged more than 20 million jobs in April as companies sliced workers amid a coronavirus-induced shutdown that took most of the U.S. economy offline, according to a report Wednesday from ADP [Research Institute]. In all, the decline totaled 20,236,000 -- easily the worst loss in the survey's history going back to 2002 but not as bad as the 22 million that economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been expecting. The previous record was 834,665 in February 2009 amid the financial crisis and accompanying Great Recession."

Jonathan Chait: "Last night, ABC's David Muir asked Trump, 'What did you do when you became president to restock those cupboards that you say were bare?' Trump replied...: 'Well, I'll be honest. I have a lot of things going on. We had a lot of people that refused to allow the country to be successful. They wasted a lot of time on Russia, Russia, Russia. That turned out to be a total hoax. Then they did Ukraine, Ukraine, and that was a total hoax, then they impeached the president of the United States for absolutely no reason, and we even had 197-to-nothing vote by the Republicans.'... There remains the problem that Trump was fully vindicated of the Ukraine hoax by a unanimous vote of the Republican party -- which of course no longer includes Mitt Romney -- on February 5, yet he continued to dismiss and deny the coronavirus for weeks thereafter. The answer to this will probably come later, when Democrats investigate his incompetent handling of the pandemic, and Trump reveals that the Coronavirus Hoax prevented him from focusing on the coronavirus."

~~~~~~~~~~

Donnie Takes a Field Trip

Trump Shows off Face-Mask Plant by Not Wearing Face Mask. Natch. Kevin Liptak of CNN: "... Donald Trump emerged from his White House bubble Tuesday after weeks of sheltering-in-place, breaking a lengthy self-isolation for a cross-country trip to Arizona that he hoped would signal to the rest of the country a return to normal is imminent. 'The people of our country should think of themselves as warriors,' Trump said before boarding Air Force One for the first time since the end of March.... Even Trump appeared to acknowledge that a rise in cases or even deaths might accompany any reopening efforts. 'Will some people be affected? Yes. Will some people be affected badly? Yes. But we have to get our country open,' he said during a roundtable discussion inside the Phoenix plant.... The day trip to Arizona highlighted a Honeywell facility that manufactures N95 masks, though the state is also a critical battleground Trump hopes to win in November's general election. He began an address at the factory by recalling his 2016 election win. Even though Trump was touring a facility that produces the face coverings used by health care workers and others..., Trump himself did not wear a mask as he toured the factory floor or spoke with workers. A White House official said they were advised masks weren't necessary, though a sign at the facility instructed workers to wear them.... He was not scheduled to visit with coronavirus patients or families of those who have died from the disease. He said last week he's only spoken to a few Americans who have lost loved ones to the virus. Instead, Trump said he would 'pay my respects' to Honeywell, the multinational Fortune 100 conglomerate." ~~~

~~~ Trump did wear safety glasses! Of course, glasses protect Trump; masks protect others. ~~~

~~~ Jordyn Phelps & Ben Gittleson of ABC News: In an interview in Phoenix, ABC "World News" anchor David Muir asked Donald Trump, "'Do you believe that's the reality we're facing that -- that lives will be lost to reopen the country?' 'It's possible there will be some because you won't be locked into an apartment or a house or whatever it is,' Trump said. 'But at the same time, we're going to practice social distancing, we're going to be washing hands, we're going to be doing a lot of the things that we've learned to do over the last period of time.'" Mrs. McC: The reporters cavalierly describe Trump's bargain with the devil as a "cost-benefit analysis." ~~~

Althea LeGaspi of Rolling Stone: "As Trump toured the factory, which is producing N95 masks for the federal government, he and other officials wore safety glasses but did not wear masks.... At one point on the tour, workers blasted Guns N' Roses' cover of the James Bond theme song from Wings, 'Live and Let Die." Thanks to NiskyGuy for the heads-up. Mrs. McC: Rolling Stone & other news outlets that ran items on "Live & Let Die" emphasized its ironic symbolism related to Trump's refusal to wear a mask in a place where masks are required. But to me the sarcastic message the song conveys is that Trump more-or-less admitted while in Arizona that he plans to "live" himself and "let other people die." It appears Ian Fleming intended the title (and the novel) to have a meaning similar to what I've suggested. ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Trump made this "cost-benefit analysis" in Phoenix on the day Arizona had its highest single-day death count from Covid-19. ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: BTW, if you are one of the "costs" who is "affected badly" by the coronavirus pandemic, blame your governor. Trump is so done with your annoying health problems and all these phony public health handwringers. ~~~

~~~ In the Midst of Pandemic, Trump to Disband Response Team. Ben Tracy, et al., of CBS News: "Discussions are underway about winding down the work of the Coronavirus Task Force, Vice President Mike Pence told reporters Tuesday, even as the number of deaths and new cases continue to mount, generally plateauing but not declining, as states begin to reopen. The administration's work on testing and bolstering the national stockpile will continue, Pence said, with some of that work being moved back to agencies.... '... it really is all a reflection of the tremendous progress we've made as a country. The president stood up the White House Coronavirus Task Force to marshal -- in January -- to marshal a national response.'... The vice president's announcement apparently had not reached Dr. Anthony Fauci.... Fauci told CBS News only moments before Pence spoke that he had just been at a task force meeting, and no one had said anything to him about disbanding the task force." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Update. Jason Hoffman of CNN: "President Trump sidestepped a question from CNN today on whether it was the right time to wind down the coronavirus task force. Trump said that the country was looking towards 'other phases' and that the country is starting to open up. 'I think we're looking at phase two and we're looking at other phases. The country is starting to open up, the task force has done a phenomenal job,' Trump said. When pressed if Trump needed to continue to meet with the task force in order to get scientific expertise, Trump said that he thinks that there will be 'a different group' that is working towards 'safety and opening.'" ~~~

~~~ Trump Washes Hands of Downer Team, Turns the Page. Brett Samuels of the Hill: "The decision to disband the task force, which includes medical experts, public health officials and leaders from various government agencies, is the clearest indicator yet that the White House is ready to turn the page to focus on the economy, even as doing so could lead to a spike in infections.... 'It's like disbanding the war cabinet in the middle of a war,' said Lawrence Gostin, a professor of public health at Georgetown University.... Dissolving the coronavirus task force may further complicate the reopening process, as there will be no singular federal body to advise states on best practices or when to snap back into more rigorous distancing."

No, This Is Not Normal. Kevin Liptak of CNN: "... Donald Trump said he was allowing Dr. Anthony Fauci to testify before the Republican-led Senate but not the Democrat-led House, calling it a 'set up.' 'The House is a bunch of Trump-haters,' Trump claimed as he was departing the White House for Arizona for a tour of a Honeywell plant. Trump's remarks amounted to an admission that he was looking to prevent Democrats from conducting their oversight duties when it comes to his administration's coronavirus response, even as he's willing to allow Republicans to proceed. Last week, the White House said its attempts to block Fauci from testifying were due to scheduling and time-management issues, which Trump did not mention on Tuesday." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Fauci works for the NIH, not the White House. I don't think Trump has the actual authority to tell him when & where he can testify. The political dynamic is, of course, different.

Yasmeen Abutaleb & Ashley Parker of the Washington Post: "The coronavirus response being spearheaded by President Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has relied in part on volunteers from consulting and private equity firms with little expertise in the tasks they were assigned, exacerbating chronic problems in obtaining supplies for hospitals and other needs, according to numerous government officials and a volunteer involved in the effort.... Although some of the volunteers have relevant backgrounds and experience, many others were poorly matched with their assigned jobs, including those given the task of securing personal protective equipment (PPE) for hospitals nationwide, according to a complaint filed last month with the House Oversight Committee.... The document alleges that the team responsible for PPE had little success in helping the government secure such equipment, in part because none of the team members had significant experience in health care, procurement or supply-chain operations. In addition, none of the volunteers had relationships with manufacturers or a clear understanding of customs requirements or Food and Drug Administration rules, according to the complaint and two senior administration officials.... The team's problems underscore a broader pattern of missteps and missed opportunities that has plagued the Trump administration as it struggles to cope with the pandemic." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Jared's team did seem to do well at prioritizing PPE requests and tips from "conservative journalists friendly to the White House" like Jeanine Pirro & Brian Kilmeade of Fox "News." As we surmised when we first got wind of Jared's Junior G-Force, the operation was bent. It comes as no surprise that of the many projects Trump assigned to Jared, kleptocracy coordination is a top priority. ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Uh, the "lack of expertise" starts at the top with the Boy Wonder & Daddy Dearest. But it is sort of perfect that Unqualified-for-Anything Jared would pick inexperienced "helpers" to manage a task essential to the nation. Since these guy were "consultants" and/or worked for private equity firms, they probably have elite general educations, which made Jared think they could do anything, just as he thinks he can. Update: Anderson Cooper described these volunteers as "friends & associates" of Kushner's, though the WashPo article does not. ~~~

~~~ Update: Nicholas Confessore, et al., of the New York Times now have the story, too, of "... a team of roughly a dozen young volunteers, recruited by ... Jared Kushner, and overseen by a former assistant to ... Ivanka Trump.... Many of the volunteers were told to prioritize tips from political allies and associates of President Trump, tracked on a spreadsheet called 'V.I.P. Update,' according to documents and emails obtained by The New York Times.... [Ivanka's former aide] Rachael Baitel, a 2014 Princeton graduate..., told volunteers to prioritize leads from the politically connected.... Few of the leads, V.I.P. or otherwise, panned out, according to a whistle-blower memo written by one volunteer and sent to the House Oversight Committee.... The fumbling search for new supplies -- heralded by Mr. Trump and Mr. Kushner as a way to pipe private-sector hustle and accountability into the hidebound federal bureaucracy -- became a case study of Mr. Trump's style of governing, in which personal relationships and loyalty are often prized over governmental expertise, and private interests are granted extraordinary access and deference." A bit more on Jared & His Friends below. ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: My only regret is that, what with their prior legal difficulties not yet resolved, Lev & Igor probably have not been able to get in on the PPE scamopalooza, operando that fit their modus to a tee. On the other hand, while social distancing persists, ankle bracelets are no impediment. We may yet hear more of Frick & Frack.

Kaitlan Collins, et al., of CNN: "Attorney General William Barr made a last-minute push Monday to persuade the administration to modify its position in the Obamacare dispute that will be heard at the Supreme Court this fall, arguing that the administration should pull back from its insistence that the entire law be struck down. With a Wednesday deadline to make any alterations to its argument looming, Barr made his case in a room with Vice President Mike Pence, White House counsel Pat Cipollone, members of the Domestic Policy Council, press secretary Kayleigh McEnany and several other officials. The meeting ended without a decision and it was not immediately not clear if any shift in the Trump administration's position will emerge. Barr and other top advisers have argued against the hard-line position for some time, warning it could have major political implications if the comprehensive health care law appears in jeopardy as voters head to the polls in November." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Notice that Barr doesn't care a whit about many Americans' ability to get semi-affordable health insurance; instead, he wants to kid voters into thinking Trump won't kill Obamacare if he's re-elected.

** Yasmeen Abutaleb & Laurie McGinley of the Washington Post: Dr. Rick Bright, "a former top vaccine official removed from his post last month, alleged in a whistleblower complaint on Tuesday that he was reassigned to a less prestigious role because he tried to 'prioritize science and safety over political expediency' and raised health concerns over a drug repeatedly pushed by President Trump and other administration officials as a possible cure for coronavirus.... Bright portrays himself in the 89-page complaint as one of the administration's health officials trying to sound the alarm about the virus as early as January. He said he called for the rapid development of treatments and vaccines, as well as the stockpiling of additional N95 masks and ventilators, at a time when HHS political leadership, including Secretary Alex Azar, appeared to him to be underestimating the threat. He also notes that he clashed with his boss, assistant secretary for preparedness and response at HHS Robert Kadlec, for at least two years, according to the complaint. Bright alleged that Kadlec and others pressured him to buy drugs and medical products for the nation's stockpile of emergency medical equipment from companies that were linked politically to the administration and that he resisted such efforts." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

Time after time, I was pressured to ignore or dismiss expert scientific recommendations and instead to award lucrative contracts based on political connections. -- Dr. Rick Bright, in his whistleblower complaint ~~~

~~~ Cracking the Kleptocracy. Sheryl Stolberg of the New York Times: Dr. Rick Bright "said Tuesday that top administration officials repeatedly pressured him to steer millions of dollars in contracts to the clients of a well-connected consultant.... Bright ... said in a formal whistle-blower complaint that he had been protesting 'cronyism' and contract abuse since 2017.... Questionable contracts have gone to 'companies with political connections to the administration,' the complaint said, including a drug company tied to a friend of Jared Kushner's.... The complaint says top Department of Health and Human Services officials, including Dr. [Robert] Kadlec, who oversees the strategic national stockpile, overruled scientific experts while awarding contracts to firms represented by the consultant, John Clerici." Thanks to Ken W. for the link. ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: As with many of the Tales of Trump, the journalist's dilemma is to decide whether to lead with the incompetence or the corruption. Today, in both the Kushner & Bright fiascos, the Washington Post has chosen incompetence, while the Times has gone with corruption.

     ~~~ A Politico story is here. A Daily Beast story is here. Bright's complaint, via Bright's attorneys, is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Jon Swaine, et al., of the Washington Post: "After Robert Kadlec was confirmed as President Trump's top official for public health preparedness in 2017, he began pressing to increase government stocks of a smallpox vaccine. His office ultimately made a deal to buy up to $2.8 billion of the vaccine from a company that once paid Kadlec as a consultant, a connection he did not disclose on a Senate questionnaire when he was nominated.... The 10-year contract is part of an effort by Kadlec to bolster the nation's stockpile of defenses against biological and chemical weapons, a focus he made a priority over preparing for a natural pandemic.... Kadlec scaled back a long-standing interagency process for spending billions of dollars on stockpile purchases, diminishing the role of government experts and restricting decision-making to himself and a small circle of advisers...." Thanks to Patrick for the link. See also his comments yesterday. (Also linked yesterday.)

Luckily, we have Stephen Colbert to explain everything: ~~~

Seung Min Kim, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump's latest red line for the next phase of coronavirus legislation -- a payroll tax cut for workers — has few fans in Congress even among Republicans, further complicating the path toward a new rescue package as House Democrats rush to release their own plan as early as next week. As senators returned to Washington this week to an unusually sparse and eerie Capitol, resistance began to mount against Trump's favored form of putting more money into workers' pockets, with lawmakers noting that a payroll tax cut helps only those gainfully employed at a time when record numbers of Americans are filing jobless claims. The payroll tax funds the Social Security and Medicare programs." Politico has a story here. More from the story:

Rather than indulging Trump's insistence on a payroll tax cut, GOP senators have instead shifted their focus to liability protections for businesses, demanding that they be protected from what Republicans view are frivolous lawsuits as private employers try to reopen their doors in the coming weeks. Top Democrats have said they will oppose such sweeping protections, on which Republicans are insisting in exchange for another massive infusion of state and local aid. The standoff shows no immediate signs of abating, as House Democrats assemble a massive new rescue package expected to exceed $2 trillion that would include around a $1 trillion commitment for states, cities and municipalities.... The parties' diverging priorities threaten to make finding consensus much more difficult this time around. ~~~

~~~ Kevin Drum of Mother Jones: "This is totally normal. Republicans would typically be in favor of a tax cut, but a payroll tax cut wouldn't help the rich very much so they're against it. The only thing that's really on their agenda is protection for businesses from lawsuits. Meanwhile, Democrats are interested solely in measures that help ordinary people: state and local bailouts, housing, food, unemployment insurance, etc. This is exactly how Coronavirus 3.0 went. It's amazing how candid Republicans are about caring only for business bailouts and letting Democrats worry about regular people." ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Hard to say if Trump (1) is too dumb to figure out that a payroll tax cut doesn't help people with no pay, or if he (2) knows it and just doesn't give a damn. But there's an Option (3), and I'm betting on that: only half of the payroll tax is paid by employees. Employers pay the other half, so businesses that are still operating have to pay their half of the tax for workers still on the payroll. Some of Trump's properties have closed, but many are still open or partially open. So Trump has to pay the payroll tax.

The New York Times' coronavirus updates for Tuesday, linked next, include an item on the "surreal scene" at the Capitol where the Senate has returned to work. Best sentence: "Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, the sole senator to have tested positive for the virus, was among the only senators walking around without a mask." Mrs. McC: Won't be the first time Li'l Randy has spit on his colleagues. But it might be the most lethal. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

Berkeley Lovelace of CNBC: “The coronavirus that emerged in Wuhan, China, over four months ago has since mutated and the new, dominant strain spreading across the U.S. appears to be even more contagious, according to a new study. The new strain began spreading in Europe in early February before migrating to other parts of the world, including the United States and Canada, becoming the dominant form of the virus across the globe by the end of March, researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory wrote in a 33-page report published Thursday on BioRxiv. If the coronavirus doesn't subside in the summer like the seasonal flu, it could mutate further and potentially limit the effectiveness of the coronavirus vaccines being developed by scientists around the world, the researchers warned.... The study has yet to be peer-reviewed, but the researchers noted that news of the mutation was of 'urgent concern' considering the more than 100 vaccines in the process of being developed to prevent Covid-19." Mrs. McC: I am not a scientist, but this would seem to explain why the infection rate & death toll in the U.S. East Coast were higher than those on the West Coast, where at least the early cases came from the less-contageous Wuhan strain.

~~~ The New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments Tuesday are here. "Coronavirus in the United States now looks like this: More than a month has passed since there was a day with fewer than 1,000 deaths from the virus. Almost every day, at least 25,000 new cases are identified, meaning that the total in the United States -- which has the highest number of known cases in the world wit more than a million -- is expanding by 2 to 4 percent daily.... It is rampaging through nursing homes, meatpacking plants and prisons, killing the medically vulnerable and the poor, and new outbreaks keep emerging in grocery stores, supermarkets or factories, an ominous harbinger of what a full reopening of the economy could bring. 'If you include New York, it looks like a plateau moving down,' said Andrew Noymer, an associate professor of public health at the University of California, Irvine. 'If you exclude New York, it's a plateau slowly moving up.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ The Washington Post's live updates for Tuesday are here. (Also linked yesterday.)

New York Times: "More than 1,186,900 people in the United States have been infected with the coronavirus and at least 68,800 have died, according to a New York Times database. More than 1,000 additional deaths have been announced every day since April 2.... In recent weeks, more than 20,000 new cases have been announced across the United States each day, keeping the country on a stubborn plateau instead of the sharp downward curve scientists had hoped for." This analysis breaks down & highlights developments in various regions & particular localities throughout the country. It appears to be updated daily. (Also linked yesterday.)

Toluse Olorunnipa, et al., of the Washington Post: "States across the country are moving swiftly to reopen their economies despite failing to achieve benchmarks laid out by the White House for when social distancing restrictions could be eased to ensure the public's safety during the coronavirus pandemic. These governors' biggest cheerleader is President Trump.... Trump and some of his aides have backed away from their own guidelines, opting instead to hail the broad economic reopening that health experts say has started too quickly. The dichotomy comes as the White House also tried to distance itself from a draft federal government report predicting an explosion of new coronavirus cases and 3,000 daily deaths by June 1.... While the president said on April 23, he was 'not happy' with Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) for the defying the guidelines, it took him only a week to deny his own remarks. 'I didn't say that,' Trump said Friday when his quote about Kemp was read back to him. 'I said I didn't like the particular place -- a spa, a tattoo parlor. No, no, I think it's wonderful.'" (Also linked yesterday.)

Arizona. Best to Hide the Evidence of a Crime Against Humanity. Rachel Leingang of the Arizona Republic: "The Arizona Department of Health Services told a team of university experts working on COVID-19 modeling to 'pause' its work, an email from a department leader shows. The modeling team of about two dozen professors at Arizona State University and the University of Arizona was compiling the most robust public model in Arizona of COVID-19. The email, from DHS bureau chief of public health statistics S. Robert Bailey, came on Monday evening, after Gov. Doug Ducey [R] announced plans to begin easing social distancing in the coming days.... The universities' model had shown that reopening at the end of May was the only scenario that didn't dramatically increase cases."

New York. Marina Villeneuve & Michael Hill of the AP: "New York state is reporting more than 1,700 previously undisclosed deaths at nursing homes and adult care facilities as the state faces scrutiny over how it's protected vulnerable residents during the coronavirus pandemic. At least 4,813 people have died from COVID-19 in the state's nursing homes since March 1, according to a tally released by Cuomo's administration late Monday that, for the first time, includes people believed to have been killed by the coronavirus before their diagnoses could be confirmed by a lab test." Mrs. McC: It's been widely reported that these facilities don't have enough professional nurses & other trained staff to care for residents. So why are they called "nursing homes" if they have few nurses and "care facilities" if they have few staff to care for residents? (Also linked yesterday.)

Texas. Olivia Messer of the Daily Beast: "During a private call on Friday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott admitted that 'every scientific and medical report shows' state reopenings 'ipso facto' lead to an increase in novel coronavirus cases, even as he publicly announced plans that same week to end an executive stay-at-home order in the state.... 'The more that you have people out there, the greater the possibility is for transmission,' Abbott said on the call, which a spokesperson confirmed was authentic.... Abbott's public statements so far have largely only mentioned that Texas may see an increase in the numbers due to increased testing capacity, rather than increased contact." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: I suppose we might be generous & pretend that Abbott, Trump, Christie, Patrick, et al., are simply following the utilitarian philosophy that "it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong." (Akhilleus Patrick (per Ken W.) may have mentioned utilitarianism within the last few days.) But in fact, we know that Trump & most other proponents of the "great reopening" are thinking "it is the greatest happiness for me that is the measure of right and wrong." And the problem with this philosophy -- or what ABC reporters call a cost-benefit analysis -- is that that it doesn't recognize the rights of those whom the reopeners will sicken and kill to advance the good fortunes of the survivors. Rather, they take a Darwinian, animalistic approach: survival of the fittest. The whole of moral, religious & judicial history rejects and abhors the Trumpian, Darwinian view.

Carolyn Johnson of the Washington Post: "Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer began testing multiple versions of an experimental coronavirus vaccine in healthy young people in the United States this week, a first step toward establishing the safety, dosage and most promising candidate to take into larger trials that will test effectiveness. In an unusual trial design that signals the pressing need to find a vaccine against covid-19, Pfizer is initially testing four versions of the vaccine, side by side. Typically, companies spend years on animal experiments and select a single promising candidate to put into human testing, but the drugmaker decided to create a flexible trial that could rapidly sift out the best option." An NPR story is here. (Also linked yesterday.)

U.K. Sex in the Time of Coronavirus. Heather Stewart of the Guardian: "Prof Neil Ferguson, the epidemiologist whose modelling helped shape Britain's coronavirus lockdown strategy, has quit as a government adviser after flouting the rules by receiving visits from his lover at his home. Ferguson runs the group of scientists at Imperial College London whose projections helped persuade ministers of the need to impose stringent physical distancing rules, or risk the NHS being overwhelmed.... The Daily Telegraph revealed that Antonia Staats had crossed London from her family home to visit him on at least two occasions since lockdown measures were imposed, on 30 March and 8 April." According to the headline of the Telegraph story, which is firewalled, Staats is married and -- according to the small portion of the story available to nonsubscribers, "lives with her husband and their children in another house." Mrs. McC: Physical appearances are subjective, of course, but the photo of Staats atop the Telegraph article presents her as a very attractive, sexy woman, IMO. Ferguson, by my lights, looks like a geeky numbers cruncher, balding & bespectacled, so good on him, I guess.


Emma Loop of the BuzzFeed News: "The office of former president Barack Obama privately blasted a congressional investigation into former vice president Joe Biden and his son, as well as alleged Ukrainian election interference, calling it an effort 'to give credence to a Russian disinformation campaign,' according to a letter obtained by BuzzFeed News. In March, Obama's office told the National Archives and Records Administration -- which maintains presidential records -- that a request from two top Republican senators for Obama administration documents related to Ukraine was improper. 'It arises out of efforts by some, actively supported by Russia, to shift the blame for Russian interference in the 2016 election to Ukraine,' said the letter, dated March 13.'... The November request for records came from Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson.... The letter from Obama adds to Democratic criticism of the Senate probe as being a politically motivated effort to damage Biden's presidential campaign.... However, Obama ultimately agreed that the records could be released 'in the interest of countering the misinformation campaign underlying this request,' according to the letter, which was provided to BuzzFeed News by his office...." The article reproduces the letter, which was written on stationery of "The Office of Barack and Michelle Obama" & is signed by the "Records Representative to President Obama." ~~~

~~~ Presidential Race

New York. Thanks, Andrew Yang! Kendall Karson of ABC News: "... after bitter intraparty feuding and some legal wrangling, the second-most delegate rich state's presidential nominating contest is back on, for now. A federal judge in the Southern District of New York ordered election officials late Tuesday night to restore the presidential primary, set for June 23, and reinstate all the former candidates on the ballot who were previously removed as a result of suspending their campaigns. In late April, New York state election officials nixed the Democratic presidential primary, citing the threat of the coronavirus, a controversial move that inflamed supporters of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders ... and the progressive wing of the party. The decision to forgo the primary entirely immediately prompted a legal challenge from a former presidential candidate, Andrew Yang, among other plaintiffs, who were seeking to be Yang delegates at the convention."


Yelling the Quiet Part. Brett Samuels: "President Trump rejected the idea of granting statehood to the District of Columbia, arguing in a new interview it would be too politically beneficial to Democrats. 'D.C. will never be a state,' Trump told The New York Post during an Oval Office interview on Monday. 'You mean District of Columbia, a state? Why? So we can have two more Democratic -- Democrat senators and five more congressmen? No thank you. That'll never happen.' The District has a population of roughly 700,000, which is more than that of Wyoming or Vermont. The District does not have any voting power in Congress, as it has no senators and one nonvoting delegate in the House.... Should it become a state, the District would receive one House member based on its current population." Mrs. McC: Trump either has no idea of how representatives are apportioned, or he feels he's surrounded by five times as many black people as he is. (Also linked yesterday.)

Pete Williams & Dennis Romero of NBC News: "U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Tuesday was treated for a gallstone that was causing an infection, the court said in a statement. She underwent nonsurgical treatment for a benign gallbladder condition at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. The condition was detected Monday after the court's historic telephone session for oral argument. Tests confirmed that a gallstone migrated to her cystic duct, causing a blockage and infection. Ginsburg, 87, is 'resting comfortably' at the hospital and expects to remain there for a day or two the court said." Mrs. McC: Williams told Rachel Maddow that Ginsburg intends to join Wednesday's teleconferenced Court arguments from the hospital.

Way Beyond the Beltway

Amberin Zaman of Al-Monitor: "A star-studded team of global lawyers [including Alan Dershowitz] have taken on the case of Azeri-Turkish billionaire Mubariz Mansimov Gurbanoglu, saying they will investigate possible human rights abuses against the shipping magnate who has been held on terrorism charges in an Istanbul prison since March 17.... By retaining Dershowitz, Gurbanoglu may as a last resort be hoping to leverage his connections to Trump, who ostensibly would intervene with Erdogan on the businessman's behalf. Gurbanoglu attended Trump's inauguration and was the first customer when Trump Towers opened in Istanbul in 2009, snapping up eight apartments, according to The Black Sea." --s

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Monday
May042020

The Commentariat -- May 5, 2020

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Nothing Remotely Suspicious or Untoward about This. Ben Tracy, et al., of CBS News: "Discussions are underway about winding down the work of the Coronavirus Task Force, Vice President Mike Pence told reporters Tuesday, even as the number of deaths and new cases continue to mount ... as states begin to reopen. The administration's work on testing and bolstering the national stockpile will continue, Pence said, with some of that work being moved back to agencies.... '... it really is all a reflection of the tremendous progress we've made as a country. The president stood up the White House Coronavirus Task Force to marshal -- in January -- to marshal a national response.'... The vice president's announcement apparently had not reached Dr. Anthony Fauci.... Fauci told CBS News only moments before Pence spoke that he had just been at a task force meeting, and no one had said anything to him about disbanding the task force."

** Yasmeen Abutaleb & Laurie McGinley of the Washington Post: Dr. Rick Bright, "a former top vaccine official removed from his post last month, alleged in a whistleblower complaint on Tuesday that he was reassigned to a less prestigious role because he tried to 'prioritize science and safety over political expediency' and raised health concerns over a drug repeatedly pushed by President Trump and other administration officials as a possible cure for coronavirus.... Bright portrays himself in the 89-page complaint as one of the administration's health officials trying to sound the alarm about the virus as early as January. He said he called for the rapid development of treatments and vaccines, as well as the stockpiling of additional N95 masks and ventilators, at a time when HHS political leadership, including Secretary Alex Azar, appeared to him to be underestimating the threat. He also notes that he clashed with his boss, assistant secretary for preparedness and response at HHS Robert Kadlec, for at least two years, according to the complaint. Bright alleged that Kadlec and others pressured him to buy drugs and medical products for the nation's stockpile of emergency medical equipment from companies that were linked politically to the administration and that he resisted such efforts." ~~~

     ~~~ A Politico story is here. Bright's complaint, via Bright's attorneys, is here. ~~~

~~~ Jon Swaine, et al., of the Washington Post: "After Robert Kadlec was confirmed as President Trump's top official for public health preparedness in 2017, he began pressing to increase government stocks of a smallpox vaccine. His office ultimately made a deal to buy up to $2.8 billion of the vaccine from a company that once paid Kadlec as a consultant, a connection he did not disclose on a Senate questionnaire when he was nominated.... The 10-year contract is part of an effort by Kadlec to bolster the nation's stockpile of defenses against biologica and chemical weapons, a focus he made a priority over preparing for a natural pandemic.... Kadlec scaled back a long-standing interagency process for spending billions of dollars on stockpile purchases, diminishing the role of government experts and restricting decision-making to himself and a small circle of advisers...." Thanks to Patrick for the link. See also his comments below.

No, This Is Not Normal. Kevin Liptak of CNN: "... Donald Trump said he was allowing Dr. Anthony Fauci to testify before the Republican-led Senate but not the Democrat-led House, calling it a 'set up.' 'The House is a bunch of Trump-haters,' Trump claimed as he was departing the White House for Arizona for a tour of a Honeywell plant. Trump's remarks amounted to an admission that he was looking to prevent Democrats from conducting their oversight duties when it comes to his administration's coronavirus response, even as he's willing to allow Republicans to proceed. Last week, the White House said its attempts to block Fauci from testifying were due to scheduling and time-management issues, which Trump did not mention on Tuesday." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Fauci works for the NIH, not the White House. I don't think Trump has the actual authority to tell him when & where he can testify. The political dynamic is, of course, different.

Yelling the Quiet Part. Brett Samuels: "President Trump rejected the idea of granting statehood to the District of Columbia, arguing in a new interview it would be too politically beneficial to Democrats. 'D.C. will never be a state,' Trump told The New York Post during an Oval Office interview on Monday. 'You mean District of Columbia, a state? Why? So we can have two more Democratic -- Democrat senators and five more congressmen? No thank you. That'll never happen.' The District has a population of roughly 700,000, which is more than that of Wyoming or Vermont. The District does not have any voting power in Congress, as it has no senators and one nonvoting delegate in the House.... Should it become a state, the District would receive one House member based on its current population." Mrs. McC: Trump either has no idea of how representatives are apportioned, or he feels he's surrounded by five times as many black people as he is.

Yasmeen Abutaleb & Ashley Parker of the Washington Post: "The coronavirus response being spearheaded by President Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has relied in part on volunteers from consulting and private equity firms with little expertise in the tasks they were assigned, exacerbating chronic problems in obtaining supplies for hospitals and other needs, according to numerous government officials and a volunteer involved in the effort.... Although some of the volunteers have relevant backgrounds and experience, many others were poorly matched with their assigned jobs, including those given the task of securing personal protective equipment (PPE) for hospitals nationwide, according to a complaint filed last month with the House Oversight Committee.... The document alleges that the team responsible for PPE had little success in helping the government secure such equipment, in part because none of the team members had significant experience in health care, procurement or supply-chain operations. In addition, none of the volunteers had relationships with manufacturers or a clear understanding of customs requirements or Food and Drug Administration rules, according to the complaint and two senior administration officials.... The team's problems underscore a broader pattern of missteps and missed opportunities that has plagued the Trump administration as it struggles to cope with the pandemic." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Uh, the "lack of expertise" starts at the top with the Boy Wonder & Daddy Dearest. But it is sort of perfect that Unqualified-for-Anything Jared would pick inexperienced "helpers" to manage a task essential to the nation. Since these guy were "consultants" and/or worked for private equity firms, they probably have elite general educations, which made Jared think they could do anything, just as he thinks he can. Update: Anderson Cooper described these volunteers as "friends & associates" of Kushner's, though the WashPo article does not.

Kaitlan Collins, et al., of CNN: "Attorney General William Barr made a last-minute push Monday to persuade the administration to modify its position in the Obamacare dispute that will be heard at the Supreme Court this fall, arguing that the administration should pull back from its insistence that the entire law be struck down. With a Wednesday deadline to make any alterations to its argument looming, Barr made his case in a room with Vice President Mike Pence, White House counsel Pat Cipollone, members of the Domestic Policy Council, press secretary Kayleigh McEnany and several other officials. The meeting ended without a decision and it was not immediately not clear if any shift in the Trump administration's position will emerge. Barr and other top advisers have argued against the hard-line position for some time, warning it could have major political implications if the comprehensive health care law appears in jeopardy as voters head to the polls in November." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Notice that Barr doesn't care a whit about many Americans' ability to get semi-affordable health insurance; instead, he wants to kid voters into thinking Trump won't kill Obamacare if he's re-elected.

Marina Villeneuve & Michael Hill of the AP: "New York state is reporting more than 1,700 previously undisclosed deaths at nursing homes and adult care facilities as the state faces scrutiny over how it's protected vulnerable residents during the coronavirus pandemic. At least 4,813 people have died from COVID-19 in the state's nursing homes since March 1, according to a tally released by Cuomo's administration late Monday that, for the first time, includes people believed to have been killed by the coronavirus before their diagnoses could be confirmed by a lab test." Mrs. McC: It's been widely reported that these facilities don't have enough professional nurses & other trained staff to care for residents. So why are they called "nursing homes" if they have few nurses and "care facilities" if they have few staff to care for residents?

The New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments Tuesday are here. "Coronavirus in the United States now looks like this: More than a month has passed since there was a day with fewer than 1,000 deaths from the virus. Almost every day, at least 25,000 new cases are identified, meaning that the total in the United States -- which has the highest number of known cases in the world with more than a million -- is expanding by 2 to 4 percent daily.... It is rampaging through nursing homes, meatpacking plants and prisons, killing the medically vulnerable and the poor, and new outbreaks keep emerging in grocery stores, supermarkets or factories, an ominous harbinger of what a full reopening of the economy could bring. 'If you include New York, it looks like a plateau moving down,' said Andrew Noymer, an associate professor of public health at the University of California, Irvine. 'If you exclude New York, it's a plateau slowly moving up.'" ~~~

~~~ There's also an item on the "surreal scene" at the Capitol where the Senate has returned to work. Best sentence: "Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, the sole senator to have tested positive for the virus, was among the only senators walking around without a mask." Mrs. McC: Won't be the first time Li'l Randy has spit on his colleagues. But it might be the most lethal. ~~~

~~~ The Washington Post's live updates for Tuesday are here.

New York Times: "More than 1,186,900 people in the United States have been infected with the coronavirus and at least 68,800 have died, according to a New York Times database. More than 1,000 additional deaths have been announced every day since April 2.... In recent weeks, more than 20,000 new cases have been announced across the United States each day, keeping the country on a stubborn plateau instead of the sharp downward curve scientists had hoped for." This is a comprehensive analysis that breaks down & highlights developments in various regions & particular localities throughout the country. It appears to be updated daily.

Toluse Olorunnipa, et al., of the Washington Post: "States across the country are moving swiftly to reopen their economies despite failing to achieve benchmarks laid out by the White House for when social distancing restrictions could be eased to ensure the public's safety during the coronavirus pandemic. These governors' biggest cheerleader is President Trump.... Trump and some of his aides have backed away from their own guidelines, opting instead to hail the broad economic reopening that health experts say has started too quickly. The dichotomy comes as the White House also tried to distance itself from a draft federal government report predicting an explosion of new coronavirus cases and 3,000 daily deaths by June 1.... While the president said on April 23, he was 'not happy' with Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) for the defying the guidelines, it took him only a week to deny his own remarks. 'I didn't say that,' Trump said Friday when his quote about Kemp was read back to him. 'I said I didn't like the particular place -- a spa, a tattoo parlor. No, no, I think it's wonderful.'"

Carolyn Johnson of the Washington Post: "Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer began testing multiple versions of an experimental coronavirus vaccine in healthy young people in the United States this week, a first step toward establishing the safety, dosage and most promising candidate to take into larger trials that will test effectiveness. In an unusual trial design that signals the pressing need to find a vaccine against covid-19, Pfizer is initially testing four versions of the vaccine, side by side. Typically, companies spend years on animal experiments and select a single promising candidate to put into human testing, but the drugmaker decided to create a flexible trial that could rapidly sift out the best option." An NPR story is here.

~~~~~~~~~~

** The New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments Monday are here. "As President Trump presses for states to reopen their economies, his administration is privately projecting a steady rise in the number of cases and deaths from the coronavirus over the next several weeks, reaching about 3,000 daily deaths on June 1, according to an internal document obtained by The New York Times, nearly double from the current level of about 1,750. The projections, based on government modeling pulled together in chart form by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, forecast about 200,000 new cases each day by the end of the month, up from about 25,000 cases now. The numbers underscore a sobering reality: While the United States has been hunkered down for the past seven weeks, not much has changed. And the reopening to the economy will make matters worse.... On Sunday, Mr. Trump said deaths in the United States could reach 100,000, twice as many as he had forecast just two weeks ago. But his new estimate still underestimates what his own administration is now predicting to be the total death toll by the end of May -- much less in the months that follow." Emphasis added. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: The lede there is conveying that Trump is encouraging policies which he knows will cause Americans to get sick & die. ~~~

~~~ Laurie McGinley, et al., of the Washington Post: "A draft government report projects covid-19 cases will surge to about 200,000 per day by June 1, a staggering jump that would be accompanied by more than 3,000 deaths each day.... The White House and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention disavowed the report, although the slides carry the CDC's logo. The creator of the model said the numbers are unfinished projections shown to the CDC as a work in progress.... It was not immediately clear whether the projections, which carry logos of the Departments of Health and Human Services and Homeland Security, are based on ramped up testing, the attempt to reopen some states, the time lag between a rise in cases and deaths or some combination of those factors. The forecast stops at June 1, but shows both daily cases and deaths on an upward trajectory at that point.... The White House issued a statement Monday that 'this is not a White House document, nor has it been presented to the Coronavirus Task Force or gone through interagency vetting. This data is not reflective of any of the modeling done by the task force, or data that the task force has analyzed....'... A senior White House official said the document would not change the White House planning on reopening." The story is free to nonsubscribers. (This story, linked yesterday, has been updated to reflect the "unfinished" nature of the government report.) ~~~

~~~ MEANWHILE. Alice Ollstein & Caitlin Oprysko of Politico: "A key model of the coronavirus pandemic favored by the White House nearly doubled its prediction Monday for how many people will die from the virus in the U.S. by August -- primarily because states are reopening too soon. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington's School of Medicine is now projecting 134,000 coronavirus-related fatalities, up from a previous prediction of 72,000. Factoring in the scientists' margin of error, the new prediction ranges from 95,000 to 243,000. Dr. Christopher Murray, the director of IHME, told reporters on a call Monday the primary reason for the increase is many states' 'premature relaxation of social distancing." ~~~

     ~~~ Rachel Maddow noted that the UW's IHME model has been prominently featured on the CDC's forecast page. Then, all of a sudden, when the UW institute upped its estimate, the CDC dropped all mention of its model. Maddow pointed out that the CDC is supposed to be science-y, not Trumpy.

Jay Rosen: "The plan is to have no plan, to let daily deaths between one and three thousand become a normal thing, and then to create massive confusion about who is responsible -- by telling the governors they're in charge without doing what only the federal government can do, by fighting with the press when it shows up to be briefed, by fixing blame for the virus on China or some other foreign element, and by 'flooding the zone with shit,' Steve Bannon's phrase for overwhelming the system with disinformation, distraction, and denial.... Everything will ride on the manufacture of confusion. The press won't be able to 'expose' the plot because it will all happen in stark daylight.... The manufacture of confusion is just the ruins of Trump's personality meeting the powers of the presidency. There is no genius there, only a damaged human being playing havoc with our lives."

Lesson Learned! Marina Pitofsky of the Hill: "President Trump claimed in a new wide-reaching interview that that the 'one thing' that the ongoing coronavirus pandemic 'has taught us is that I was right.' Trump told the New York Post that Americans are now focused on domestic manufacturing for a variety of products, including medicine currently produced in China. 'You know, I had people say, "No, no, it's good. You keep -- you do this and that."; Now those people are really agreeing with me. And that includes medicine and other things, you know,' he said.... And the president predicted that the U.S. will see a strong fourth quarter during the interview. 'We did the right thing and now we're bringing the country back...,' Trump said.... Trump also rejected a model from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention first reported by The New York Times suggesting that U.S. deaths will grow on a daily basis to 3,000 by the beginning of June. 'I know nothing about it. I don';t know anything about it. Nobody told me that. I think it's -- I think it's false, I think it's fake news.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Besides learning from his deadly mistakes that he was right, Trump remains as articulate as ever: "You know, I had people say, 'No, no, it's good. You keep -- you do this and that.'"

Rebecca Klar of the Hill: "President Trump in a series of late-night tweets criticized a group led by George Conway, a lawyer who is a frequent Trump critic and married to White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, calling its members 'all losers' after it released a video attacking the president's response to the coronavirus pandemic. Trump lashed out at the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group that is largely made up by GOP strategists and consultants. 'A group of RINO Republicans who failed badly 12 years ago, then again 8 years ago, and then got BADLY beaten by me, a political first timer, 4 years ago, have copied (no imagination) the concept of an ad from Ronald Reagan, "Morning in America", doing everything possible to ... get even for their many failures,' Trump tweeted.... 'I don't know what Kellyanne did to her deranged loser of a husband, Moonface, but it must have been really bad,' Trump tweeted." ~~~

     ~~~ Conway responded in a tweet, "I guess our next ad should be 'Moron in America.'" And Tim O'Brien, also in a tweet, noted in a Trump "Translation": "I don't understand the difference between 'morning' and 'mourning.'" Mrs. McC: President* Spelling B. Champion's confusion is clear in the tweet where he claims the Lincoln Project "copied (no imagination)" the Reagan ad. Puns & homophones are lost on people who can't spell. Cited by Klar. Also, Klar did a great job of explaining the term "RINO" to us morons: she wrote that it's an acronym for "Republican only in name." That would be "ROIN."

Trump Breaks Federal Law to Conduct Propaganda Show at Lincoln Memorial. Katie Rogers of the New York Times: "While Mr. Trump and many other presidents have hosted inauguration concerts and gatherings on the [Lincoln Memorial's] steps, any event meant to draw an audience inside the interior ... is prohibited. The area beginning with the marble staircase where the columns start constitutes a boundary protected by federal law. So on Sunday, when the president sat down with two Fox News anchors at Lincoln's marbled feet during a coronavirus-focused virtual 'town hall,' it was because a directive issued by David Bernhardt, the secretary of the interior, had allowed them to do so. Mr. Bernhardt, a former oil lobbyist whose Senate nomination was contested by Democrats who pointed to multiple accusations of conflicts of interest and ethical violations, ordered the memorial temporarily closed for the event, citing the coronavirus.... The directive surprised officials at the National Park Service.... Mr. Bernhardt's action enraged critics, who complained that Mr. Trump had essentially conducted a partisan open mic night." Read on. Mediaite has a summary report here. ~~~

     ~~~ A CNN story by Paul LeBlanc describes Bernhardt's order as "relaxing the rules," but it isn't "rules" Bernhardt relaxed; it was a law he broke, according to the NYT. That's different. LeBlanc does point out that Trump used the site to compare himself to Lincoln. ~~~

     (~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Should Trump ever get a monument on the Mall, I would suggest it be the manure shed for one of the several gardens on or adjacent to the Mall.)

~~~ Whom Did the Press Treat Worse -- Lincoln or Trump? (See yesterday's Commentariat for context.) ~~~

~~~ Gabriel Sherman of Vanity Fair: "Trump loves that many Fox hosts are his loudest cheerleaders -- but any deviation from Trumpian orthodoxy he views as betrayal.... Trump's view that Fox is insufficiently loyal has motivated him to look for a more reliable media partner.... According to sources, an investor group aligned with his son Don Jr. and the Dallas-based Hicks family has acquired a major stake in One America News Network.... As the deal has been moving forward, Trump has been promoting OANN by calling on OANN reporters at White House briefings and tweeting favorably about the network's coverage.... One source told me that if Trump loses, he could use OANN as his post-presidential television platform to host shows." --s

A World Without Us: ~~~

     ~~~ Another Shameful Moment for the U.S. William Booth, et al., of the Washington Post: "World leaders came together in a virtual summit Monday to pledge billions of dollars to quickly develop vaccines and drugs to fight the coronavirus. Missing from the roster was the Trump administration.... Russia and India also did not participate.... The online conference, led by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and a half-dozen countries, was set to raise $8.2 billion from governments, philanthropies and the private sector to fund research and mass-produce drugs, vaccines and testing kits to combat the virus, which has killed more than 250,000 people worldwide." An ABC News story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Alex Marquardt & Kylie Atwood of CNN: "Intelligence shared among Five Eyes nations indicates it is 'highly unlikely' that the coronavirus outbreak was spread as a result of an an accident in a laboratory but rather originated in a Chinese market, according to two Western officials who cited an intelligence assessment that appears to contradict claims by ... Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. 'We think it's highly unlikely it was an accident,' a Western diplomatic official with knowledge of the intelligence said. 'It is highly likely it was naturally occurring and that the human infection was from natural human and animal interaction.' The countries in the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing coalition are coalescing around this assessment, the official said, and a second official, from a Five Eyes country, concurred with it. The US has yet to make a formal assessment public....'I can tell you that there is a significant amount of evidence that this came from that laboratory in Wuhan,' Pompeo told ABC News on Sunday. The US intelligence community issued a statement on Thursday saying it is still working to 'determine whether the outbreak began through contact with infected animals or if it was the result of an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan.'" ~~~

~~~ Nsikan Akpan & Victoria Jaggard of the National Geographic: "Anthony 'Tony' Fauci ... says the best evidence shows the virus behind the pandemic was not made in a lab in China.... '... Everything about the stepwise evolution over time strongly indicates that [this virus] evolved in nature and then jumped species,' Faucisays. Based on the scientific evidence, he also doesn't entertain an alternate theory -- that someone found the coronavirus in the wild, brought it to a lab, and then it accidentally escaped." Mrs. McC: Fauci goes on to discuss the odds a vaccine can be developed & manufactured, possibly by January, so the article in worth reading. Unfortunately, I had to sign up to get NG emails in order to access the interview, so I suppose you will, too. In any event, you can see that Fauci's willingness to express fact-friendly views puts him is on the wrong side of President* von Clownstick.

Igor Derysh of Salon, via RawStory: "Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Monday urged the public to take road trips to 'explore America,' even as top health officials warned against non-essential travel." --s

Paging Ivanka. Emily Peck of Yahoo! News: "More than half the states in the U.S. are tentatively opening back up, easing restrictions on retail stores and other businesses shuttered to stop the spread of coronavirus. Most day cares and schools, however, are not reopening, and millions of Americans can't get back to business as usual. They have children at home.... Policymakers throughout this crisis have continually failed to grapple with the reality parents are facing. And as the pandemic drags on the consequences only get worse." --s

Clare Foran of CNN: "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Monday defended her decision along with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to decline an offer from the Trump administration to deploy rapid coronavirus testing capabilities to Capitol Hill and said that tests should go to Americans on the front lines of the crisis. Asked by CNN's Wolf Blitzer on 'The Situation Room' why she didn't accept the tests, Pelosi responded, 'Because they don't have them.... The testing organization said to us you're not next. We can bump you in line, push other people out of the way, but you're not next in terms of essential workers for this.'" ~~~

~~~ Meagan Vazquez & Jim Acosta of CNN: "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Monday slammed the Trump administration's move to restrict coronavirus task force members from testifying before Congress this month. 'I was hoping they would spend more time on the crisis instead of those daily shows that the President put on,' the California Democrat said. 'We will be very strictly insisting on the truth and they might be afraid of the truth,' she told CNN's Wolf Blitzer...."

"Sacrifice". Caroline Kelly of CNN: "Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Monday that the country needs to reopen, despite separate key coronavirus models forecasting that thousands may die daily in the United States from Covid-19 and that more than 100,000 may die in total. 'Of course, everybody wants to save every life they can -- but the question is, towards what end, ultimately?... Christie, asked Monday what his messaging would be to the American public if he sat in the Oval Office, said, 'The message is that the American people have gone through significant death before.' He pointed to the first and second World Wars as examples of how 'we've gone through it and we've survived it. We sacrificed those lives.'" --s ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Somebody should ask Christie which of his family members he wants to sacrifice. Not that he has a choice. Indeed, he might be the first to go.

A Few of Trump's "Good People": ~~~

     ~~~ Texas. Shawn Langlois of Market Watch: Brandon Hicks, "part of a group that was apparently illegally drinking and smoking around 5 p.m. [in an Austin, Texas, park], was charged with attempted assault on a public servant and jailed on Friday for shoving an Austin park ranger into the lake, the Austin American-Statesman reported. The ranger ... was reportedly just calmly asking everybody to social distance." ~~~

     ~~~ California. Ewan Palmer of Newsweek: "Officials have condemned a man in California who was pictured wearing a makeshift Ku Klux Klan hood while shopping at a supermarket. Pictures of the man wearing a white hood similar to one worn by the hate group at a Vons store in Santee, San Diego emerged on social media over the weekend. The incident occurred one day after San Diego imposed a new health order requiring everyone to cover their faces in public if they come within six feet of another person or whenever they enter a place of business from May 1 to help stop the spread of the coronavirus." A couple of tweets embedded in the report claim Santee is a white-supremacist center to the point others calls it "Klantee." Mrs. McC: Other than his headwear, photos suggest he's quite an attractive fellow & a spiffy dresser. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Colorado. Clayton Sandell of ABC News: "A Colorado man arrested after federal agents allegedly discovered pipe bombs in his home had also been helping organize an armed protest demanding the state lift its coronavirus restrictions, an official briefed on the case [said].... FBI and ATF agents served search warrants Friday morning at the Loveland, Colorado, home of Bradley Bunn, 53. Agents discovered four pipe bombs and potential pipe bomb components inside the house, according to a press release from the office of U.S. Attorney for Colorado Jason Dunn." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Michigan. Corey Williams & Mike Householder of the AP: "A woman, her adult son and husband have been charged in the fatal shooting of a security guard who refused to let her daughter enter a Family Dollar in Michigan because she wasn't wearing a face mask to protect against transmission of the coronavirus. Calvin Munerlyn was shot Friday at the store just north of downtown Flint a short time after telling Sharmel Teague's daughter she had to leave because she lacked a mask, according to Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton. Teague, 45, argued with Munerlyn, 43, before leaving. Two men later came to the store. Teague; her husband, Larry Teague, 44; and Ramonyea Bishop, 23; are charged with first-degree premeditated murder and gun charges." ~~~

     ~~~ Ohio. Brad Reed of the Raw Story: "Republican Ohio State Rep. Nino Vitale, who has been a vociferous critic of Republican Gov. Mike DeWine's stay-at-home orders during the COVID-19 pandemic, believes wearing a mask to slow the spread of the disease would violate his 'Judeo-Christian Principles.... One of those principles is that we are all created in the image and likeness of God. That image is seen the most by our face. I will not wear a mask.'" Mrs. McC: Yes, Vitale does raise serious theological questions. I'm wondering if God wears brassieres, fedoras & Speedo swimwear. Many Christian images of god picture her as a long-haired bearded man dressed in flowing robes. Is that what we all should wear?

John Kruzel of the Hill: "The Supreme Court on Monday broke with tradition and held oral arguments by conference call, a first for the famously tech-averse tribunal as the justices adapt to the global pandemic.... As arguments opened, the justices allowed counsel two minutes of speaking time before posing questions, which began with Chief Justice John Roberts and proceeded to the other justices in order of seniority. In another rarity, conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, who typically remains mum during arguments, posed a series of questions, the first time he has spoken this term. When Thomas spoke during arguments last year, he snapped a three-year silence." (Also linked yesterday.)

Jason Koebler of Vice: "Tim Bray, a well known senior engineer and Vice President at Amazon has 'quit in dismay' because Amazon has been 'firing whistleblowers who were making noise about warehouse employees frightened of Covid-19.' In an open letter on his website, Bray, who has worked at the company for nearly six years, called the company 'chickenshit' for firing and disparaging employees who have organized protests. He also said the firings are 'designed to create a climate of fear.' Amazon's strategy throughout the coronavirus crisis has been to fire dissenters and disparage them both in the press and behind closed doors. There have been dozens of confirmed coronavirus cases at warehouses around the country, and workers have repeatedly said the company isn't doing enough to protect them." (Also linked yesterday.) Mrs. McC: Look, Tim, at least Bezos is not literally defenestrating Amazon whistleblowers. ~~~

~~~ Russia. Christopher Miller of BuzzFeed News: "Alexander Shulepov, a doctor at an ambulance unit in Russia's western Voronezh region, complained in an April 22 post on social media about shortages of medical supplies and being forced to work despite testing positive for COVID-19. Ten days later, he fell from a hospital window under mysterious circumstances, local media reported, making him the third Russian doctor treating coronavirus patients to suffer a similar fate in just the past 10 days. Shulepov, 37, survived the fall from a second-floor window, but he suffered a fractured skull and is now in serious condition. The two other doctors are reported to have died. The falls are being viewed suspiciously by many in Russia, which has a history of targeting and eliminating critics, including several who have mysteriously fallen to their deaths in recent years."

Patrick Greenfield & Peter Muiruri of the Guardian: "[C]onservation work to protect some of the world's most important ecosystems is facing crisis following a collapse in ecotourism during the Covid-19pandemic.... But the economic consequences of the Covid-19 lockdown have raised fears of a surge in poaching, illegal fishing and deforestation in life-sustaining ecosystems, with tens of thousands of jobs in the ecotourism sector at risk around the world." --s


** All the Best People, Ctd., Looney Tunes Edition. Spencer Ackerman & Will Sommer of the Daily Beast: "For a nominee to helm the U.S. government's intelligence apparatus, Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas) draws on some unusual sources of information. Ratcliffe's official, verified campaign Twitter account follows several accounts on the political fringe, including a 9/11 truther account with just one follower besides himself and four promoting the outlandish QAnon conspiracy theory, which posits that the world is run by a cabal of Democratic pedophile-cannibals -- and has been ruled a potential source of domestic terrorism by the FBI. The conspiracy theorists followed by Ratcliffe, whose nomination for director of national intelligence goes before the Senate intelligence committee Tuesday morning, cover a bizarre range of beliefs. They posit that John F. Kennedy Jr. faked his death to help Trump to take down the Deep State. Others claim a Democratic sex dungeon exists in ... a Washington pizzeria. But Ratcliffe and the QAnon promoters he follows have one thing in common: utter loyalty to Trump." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Ratcliffe is batshit crazy. It's likely Republicans will confirm his nomination. ~~~

~~~ Mary Jalonick & Eric Tucker of the AP: "A Senate panel is considering Texas Rep. John Ratcliffe's nomination for director of national intelligence, holding the in-person hearing amid ... Donald Trump's shakeup of the intelligence community and under drastic new distancing rules to protect Capitol Hill from the coronavirus. Ratcliffe's confirmation hearing in the Senate intelligence committee on Tuesday comes nine months after Trump first submitted and then abruptly withdrew the three-term lawmaker's nomination. The August withdrawal came after bipartisan Senate criticism that Ratcliffe, one of the president's most ardent defenders during the Russia investigations and Trump's impeachment, was unqualified to oversee 17 U.S. spy agencies. Trump unexpectedly renominated Ratcliffe in February, and his chances at securing the job appear far better, though confirmation is still not guaranteed.... Last week [Susan Collins (R-Maine)] said that she had spoken with [Ratcliffe] and concluded that he does have the experience 'to meet the statutory standard' for the position."

Presidential Race

Asma Khalid of NPR: "The secretary of the Senate's office said on Monday that it cannot comply with former Vice President Joe Biden's request to search for and release any records of an alleged sexual harassment complaint from Tara Reade. On Friday..., [Biden] had formally written to Secretary of the Senate Julie Adams asking for help in determining whether Reade had filed a written complaint 27 years ago, as she says she did while working as a staff assistant in Biden's Senate office.... The secretary of the Senate's office says that under federal law, it has 'no discretion to disclose any such information as requested in Vice President Biden's letter of May 1.' The statute that lays out how records of the Office of Senate Fair Employment Practices, which would have likely handled such a complaint ... are governed[,] states that the records are 'strictly confidential.'" (A Hill report on the same subject was linked yesterday.) Thanks to Hattie for this link.

Kevin Robillard of the Huffington Post: "Field organizers for Vice President Joe Biden's presidential campaign ratified a union contract that will give them a $15-an-hour minimum wage, overtime pay and a grievance process. Biden's campaign had previously reached an agreement with its organizers in Iowa.... The new agreement covers all of the campaign's organizers throughout the country. The organizers will be members of the Cedar Rapids-based Teamsters Local 238. 'For the first time in history, the campaign staff for a presumptive nominee of a major political party will be covered under a union agreement,' said Jesse Case, the union's secretary-treasurer. 'We are pleased to announce that Biden for President field organizers, represented by Teamsters Local 238, have ratified a collective bargaining agreement effective May 1.'"

Brian Stelter of CNN: "A lawyer for CNN's parent company WarnerMedia has written a cease-and-desist letter to President Trump's re-election campaign over the misleading contents of a new campaign ad. WarnerMedia says the Trump ad is misusing CNN news coverage in a way that's 'false, misleading and deceptive.'... [According to the Warner Media lawyer's letter,] 'the advertisement purposely and deceptively edits the clip to imply that [Wolf] Blitzer and Dr. [Sanjay] Gupta were crediting the President's travel ban policy issued in January for saving millions of American lives, when in fact Mr. Blitzer and Dr. Gupta were discussing recently implemented social distancing guidelines and stay-at-home orders issued by state and local governments.' In response to a request for comment from CNN Business, the campaign claimed that the ad is accurate and attacked the network's editorial decisions."


Devin Nunes' Nuisance Suits Are Nuisance Suits. Kate Irby of the Fresno Bee: "The attorney representing Rep. Devin Nunes in six lawsuits has received two recent, rare warnings from judges that raise the prospect of courts sanctioning him. People and organizations that Nunes' attorney, Steven Biss, is suing have begun asking judges to punish him in several other instances. Three of the requests for sanctions -- from National Public Radio, Twitter and a government whistleblower advocate -- mark an escalation in their defense against defamation lawsuits Biss has filed. Nunes sued Fusion GPS last year and lost the case in February, when a federal judge dismissed it. The judge in tossing the case advised Biss that he'd need to file a more substantive complaint to avoid sanctions. Biss and Nunes resubmitted the case in early April with a complaint that largely resembles their original argument. Fusion GPS' lawyers last week called Nunes' new complaint 'absurd' and asked the judge to sanction Biss and Nunes.... In dismissing [a] case [Biss filed] for [a] Russian graduate student [-- Nunes is not a litigant here --] in February, Judge Leonie Brinkema of the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Virginia warned Biss against filing 'further inappropriate pleadings.'... Both of those rebukes are 'quite unusual,' according to Kevin Martingayle, a former Virginia State Bar president who has worked on ethics or disciplinary committees for over a decade." (Also linked yesterday.)

Fiona Harvey of the Guardian: "Green economy recovery packages for the coronavirus crisis will repair the global economy and put the world on track to tackle climate breakdown, but time is running out to implement the changes needed, new analysis has shown.... The Oxford study compared green stimulus projects with traditional stimulus, such as measures taken after the 2008 global financial crisis, and found green projects create more jobs, deliver higher short-term returns per pound spent by the government, and lead to increased long-term cost savings." --s

Beyond the Beltway

Indiana. Marc Tracy of the New York Times: "Rich Jackson, a 54-year-old journalist who worked as the top editor of The Herald-Times, a Gannett-owned newspaper in Bloomington, Ind., received the bad news [that the paper was laying him off] in the parking lot next to the paper's headquarters. He was also told he would have to vacate the apartment in the same building, where he had been living for 10 months. Unable to go to the newsroom, Mr. Jackson [moved to a Motel 6 and] started a blog. He called it The Homeless Editor.... The decision [to lay off Jackson, a spokesperson for Gannett] said, had to do with a merger last year between Gannett and the parent company of GateHouse Media, not the economic fallout from the coronavirus."

** Mississippi. Richard Fausset of the New York Times: "The state of Mississippi allowed tens of millions of dollars in federal anti-poverty funds to be used in ways that did little or nothing to help the poor, with two nonprofit groups instead using the money on lobbyists, football tickets, religious concerts and fitness programs for state lawmakers, according to a scathing audit released on Monday. According to the report, released by the state auditor's office, the money also enriched celebrities with Mississippi ties, among them Brett Favre, a former N.F.L. quarterback whose Favre Enterprises was paid $1.1 million by a nonprofit group that received the welfare funds. The payments were for speaking engagements that Mr. Favre did not attend, the auditors said. Other large sums went to a family of pro wrestlers whose flamboyant patriarch, Ted DiBiase, earned national fame performing as the 'Million Dollar Man.'... In 1996, the TANF program converted the old federal welfare system, in which cash benefits to poor families were deemed an entitlement, to a system of block grants issued to the states. The new program created work rules and time limits on aid -- and, notably, gave each state much more leeway on how to spend the money." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: This is a reminder of what a low-life political opportunist Bill Clinton is. Nathan Robinson of Current Affairs in Jacobin (2016): "When Clinton signed the bill, the New York Times reported that in a 'sweeping reversal of Federal policy, President Clinton today ended six decades of guaranteed help to the nation's poorest children' and thereby 'eliminated a pillar of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal social welfare program, delighting the Republican-controlled Congress in this election year and incensing many of his fellow Democrats.' Clinton's labor secretary, Robert Reich, said Clinton had outright 'ended the promise of help to the indigent and their children which Franklin D. Roosevelt had initiated more than sixty years before.'... Three senior officials in the Clinton administration resigned almost immediately.... Bill Clinton was open about the fact that his decision was at least in part motivated by political considerations (although George Stephanopoulos had told him that he was assured of reelection even if he did not sign the bill)."

Washington State. Omar Younis & Dan Whitcomb of Reuters: "Hundreds of Asian giant hornets, an invasive, predatory insect dubbed the 'murder hornet,' have turned up in Washington state near the Canadian border, where they pose a threat to humans and the beekeeping industry, state agriculture officials said on Monday." --s

Way Beyond

China. Reuters: "An internal Chinese report warns that Beijing faces a rising wave of hostility in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak that could tip relations with the United States into confrontation, people familiar with the paper told Reuters. The report, presented early last month by the Ministry of State Security to top Beijing leaders including President Xi Jinping, concluded that global anti-China sentiment is at its highest since the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, the sources said. As a result, Beijing faces a wave of anti-China sentiment led by the United States in the aftermath of the pandemic and needs to be prepared in a worst-case scenario for armed confrontation between the two global powers[.]" --s

Comments Off
Monday
May042020

The Commentariat -- May 4, 2020

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

** The New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments Monday are here. "As President Trump presses for states to reopen their economies, his administration is privately projecting a steady rise in the number of cases and deaths from the coronavirus over the next several weeks, reaching about 3,000 daily deaths on June 1, according to an internal document obtained by The New York Times, nearly double from the current level of about 1,750. The projections, based on government modeling pulled together in chart form by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, forecast about 200,000 new cases each day by the end of the month, up from about 25,000 cases now. The numbers underscore a sobering reality: While the United States has been hunkered down for the past seven weeks, not much has changed. And the reopening to the economy will make matters worse.... On Sunday, Mr. Trump said deaths in the United States could reach 100,000, twice as many as he had forecast just two weeks ago. But his new estimate still underestimates what his own administration is now predicting to be the total death toll by the end of May -- much less in the months that follow." Emphasis added. ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: The lede there is conveying that Trump is encouraging policies which he knows will cause Americans to get sick & die. ~~~

~~~ Laurie McGinley, et al., of the Washington Post: "It was not immediately clear whether the projections, which carry logos of the Departments of Health and Human Services and Homeland Security, are based on ramped up testing, the attempt to reopen some states, the time lag between a rise in cases and deaths or some combination of those factors. The forecast stops at June 1, but shows both daily cases and deaths on an upward trajectory at that point.... The White House issued a statement Monday that 'this is not a White House document, nor has it been presented to the Coronavirus Task Force or gone through interagency vetting. This data is not reflective of any of the modeling done by the task force, or data that the task force has analyzed....' A spokeswoman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the agency did not issue the projections, though the slides also carry CDC's logo. A senior White House official said the document would not change the White House planning on reopening." The story is free to nonsubscribers. Mrs. McC: IOW, Trump hasn't approved the government's dire projection, so it won't happen. Feel better now?

California. Ewan Palmer of Newsweek: "Officials have condemned a man in California who was pictured wearing a makeshift Ku Klux Klan hood while shopping at a supermarket. Pictures of the man wearing a white hood similar to one worn by the hate group at a Vons store in Santee, San Diego emerged on social media over the weekend. The incident occurred one day after San Diego imposed a new health order requiring everyone to cover their faces in public if they come within six feet of another person or whenever they enter a place of business...." A couple of tweets embedded in the report claim Santee is a white-supremacist center to the point others calls it "Klantee." Mrs. McC: Other than his headwear, photos suggest he's quite an attractive fellow & a spiffy dresser.

Colorado. Clayton Sandell of ABC News: "A Colorado man arrested after federal agents allegedly discovered pipe bombs in his home had also been helping organize an armed protest demanding the state lift its coronavirus restrictions, an official briefed on the case tells ABC News. FBI and ATF agents served search warrants Friday morning at the Loveland, Colorado, home of Bradley Bunn, 53. Agents discovered four pipe bombs and potential pipe bomb components inside the house, according to a press release from the office of U.S. Attorney for Colorado Jason Dunn." Mrs. McC: Nevertheless, Bunn and "a San Diego man" appear to fit within Trump's definition of "good people."

Alexander Bolton of the Hill: "The Secretary of the Senate has informed Vice President Joe Biden that it has 'no discretion to disclose' the existence of former aide Tara Reade's complaint of sexual harassment against the senator in 1993.... On Friday [Biden] wrote to the Secretary of the Senate Julie Adams asking 'that you take or direct whatever steps are necessary to establish the location of the records of this Office, and once they have been located, to direct a search for the alleged complaint and to make public the results of this search.' The office in a statement provided to NPR said the Senate Legal Counsel has advised the 'Secretary has no discretion to disclose any such information as requested in Vice President Biden's letter of May 1.'... The office determined that any complaint filed against Biden could not be made public 'based on the law's strict confidentiality requirements (Section 313) and the Senate's own direction that disclosure of Senate Records is not authorized if prohibited by law.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Bolton structures his lede in such as way as to suggest the complaint does exist; I don't think that's clear from the excerpts of the letter contained in the story. NPR, as far as I can tell, doesn't have a print story on its site.

John Kruzel of the Hill: "The Supreme Court on Monday broke with tradition and held oral arguments by conference call, a first for the famously tech-averse tribunal as the justices adapt to the global pandemic.... As arguments opened, the justices allowed counsel two minutes of speaking time before posing questions, which began with Chief Justice John Roberts and proceeded to the other justices in order of seniority. In another rarity, conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, who typically remains mum during arguments, posed a series o questions, the first time he has spoken this term. When Thomas spoke during arguments last year, he snapped a three-year silence."

Jason Koebler of Vice: "Tim Bray, a well known senior engineer and Vice President at Amazon has 'quit in dismay' because Amazon has been 'firing whistleblowers who were making noise about warehouse employees frightened of Covid-19.' In an open letter on his website, Bray, who has worked at the company for nearly six years, called the company 'chickenshit' for firing and disparaging employees who have organized protests. He also said the firings are 'designed to create a climate of fear.' Amazon's strategy throughout the coronavirus crisis has been to fire dissenters and disparage them both in the press and behind closed doors. There have been dozens of confirmed coronavirus cases at warehouses around the country, and workers have repeatedly said the company isn't doing enough to protect them."

Devin Nunes' Nuisance Suits Are Nuisance Suits. Kate Irby of the Fresno Bee: "The attorney representing Rep. Devin Nunes in six lawsuits has received two recent, rare warnings from judges that raise the prospect of courts sanctioning him. People and organizations that Nunes' attorney, Steven Biss, is suing have begun asking judges to punish him in several other instances. Three of the requests for sanctions -- from National Public Radio, Twitter and a government whistleblower advocate -- mark an escalation in their defense against defamation lawsuits Biss has filed. Nunes sued Fusion GPS last year and lost the case in February, when a federal judge dismissed it. The judge in tossing the case advised Biss that he'd need to file a more substantive complaint to avoid sanctions. Biss and Nunes resubmitted the case in early April with a complaint that largely resembles their original argument. Fusion GPS' lawyers last week called Nunes' new complaint 'absurd' and asked the judge to sanction Biss and Nunes.... In dismissing [a] case [Biss filed] for [a] Russian graduate student [-- Nunes is not a litigant here --] in February, Judge Leonie Brinkema of the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Virginia warned Biss against filing 'further inappropriate pleadings.'... Both of those rebukes are 'quite unusual,' according to Kevin Martingayle, a former Virginia State Bar president who has worked on ethics or disciplinary committees for over a decade."

~~~~~~~~~~

The New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments Sunday are here. The Washington Post's live updates Sunday are here. (Also linked yesterday.)

The Virologist Is In. Felicia Sonmez, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump on Sunday sought to reassure Americans that it is safe for states to reopen amid the coronavirus pandemic, offering support to protesters who have railed against the lockdowns across the country.... He noted that Americans have been wearing face masks and social distancing in recent weeks and said that 'you're going to have to do that for a while,' even as states reopen their economies..., during a Fox News Channel town hall at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington.... He scaled up the estimate he has used for the number of expected dead -- projecting that the U.S. toll may be as high as 100,000...." The article is free to nonsubscribers. ~~~

     ~~~ How's This for a Lede? Stephen Collinson of CNN: "After admitting US coronavirus deaths could hit 90,000..., Donald Trump is bemoaning his own plight -- complaining that he has been treated worse by the press than Abraham Lincoln." Collinson goes on: "'They always said nobody got treated worse than Lincoln. I believe I am treated worse.'... His statement was classic Trump, not just in his audacity of comparing himself to the man many historians rate as the greatest president, but in his tendency to make every issue -- even in the midst of a national tragedy in which tens of thousands of Americans have died -- about himself. It was also striking that the President who has consciously torn at the nation's political fault lines should make such a partisan argument under the marbled gaze of the man who warned 'a house divided against itself cannot stand.'"

It's not possible to convey what a petty, petulant peckerwood Trump is, but he's trying to let you know (Mrs. McC: I wrote this comment Sunday afternoon, but of course by Sunday evening -- see above -- Trump had topped his Sunday morning whine): ~~~

~~~ Justin Wise of the Hill: "President Trump on Sunday took aim at George W. Bush after the former Republican president issued a call to push partisanship aside amid the outbreak of the novel coronavirus. In a three-minute video shared on Twitter on Saturday, Bush urged Americans to remember 'how small our differences are in the face of this shared threat.'... In an early morning tweet on Sunday, Trump called out Bush for his failure to support him as he faced an impeachment trial earlier this year over his alleged dealings with Ukraine. He cited apparent comments from Fox News anchor Pete Hegseth, who asked why Bush didn't push for 'putting partisanship aside' amid the trial. 'He was nowhere to be found in speaking up against the greatest Hoax in American history,' Trump said." Thanks to Ken W. for the link. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Had the impeachment proceedings "put partisanship aside," we'd be complaining about President pence today.

Joe Biden & Elizabeth Warren in a Miami Herald/McClatchy op-ed: "Even the most ideological conservatives have been forced to acknowledge that government is an essential part of the COVID-19 solution. Government delivers best when its actions are fair, transparent and accountable. But ... Donald Trump's approach to this crisis doesn't reflect these values. Without change, more lives will be lost and more families will go broke.... As the price of their support for [relief legislation], Trump and the Republicans insisted on a $500 billion slush fund for big businesses with minimal conditions -- a fund Trump could use to reward his political friends and punish his political enemies. They also jammed in a tax cut that overwhelmingly benefits millionaires. This tax break will be particularly helpful to hedge funds and real estate investors like the president's friends and family -- on top of the $1 trillion in giveaways to the wealthy and big corporations Trump previously pushed through Congress.... The coronavirus rescue package imposed some oversight of these programs, but when he signed it, Trump saidhe'd ignore the law and prevent a new inspector general from communicating with Congress.... As we recover, we have the opportunity to create an economy that truly works for everyone. That begins with a government that is accountable to the people -- and that is what we will deliver." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Sarah Cammarata of Politico: "Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, said on Sunday she found it' devastatingly worrisome' that anti-quarantine protesters in Michigan had flocked in tight quarters to the state Capitol, defying social-distancing guidelines. Appearing on 'Fox News Sunday,' the doctor said the protesters at the rally were especially concerning because, 'if they go home and infect their grandmother or their grandfather who has a comorbid condition, and they have a serious or an unfortunate outcome, they will feel guilty for the rest of our lives.'" Mrs. McC: Gee, that's not what Donald said. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "Birx was asked about Trump's projections in recent weeks that there would be between 50,000 and 60,000 deaths, which he later increased to 60,000 to 70,000. We are at over 66,000 deaths, with little sign in recent weeks of any significant downturn. Birx told host Chris Wallace that 'our projections have always been between 100,000 and 240,000 American lives lost, and that's with full mitigatio and us learning from each other of how to social distance.'... The president hasn't just offered a more optimistic tone on the death toll; on April 20, he suggested 50,000 to 60,000 deaths had actually replaced the previous 100,000-to-240,000 goal that he had said would constitute a successful response.... In cautioning ... protesters about putting their own loved ones' lives at risk, Birx offered almost a diametrically opposed message [from Trump's repeated encouragement of the protesters]."

One Way mike pence Is Not Like Donald Trump. Rishika Dugyala of Politico: "Vice President Mike Pence on Sunday said that he should have worn a mask when visiting the Mayo Clinic, a reversal that came after a harsh backlash for not adhering to the hospital's policy during the coronavirus pandemic. 'I didn't think it was necessary, but I should have worn a mask at the Mayo Clinic and I wore it when I visited the ventilator plant in Indiana' two days later, Pence said at a Fox News virtual town hall on Sunday, nodding sheepishly."

I Was Right within the Context of My Ignorance & Lack of Foresight. Jacob Knutson of Axios: "White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow defended his claim on Feb. 25 that the U.S. had "contained" the coronavirus 'pretty close to airtight,' arguing on CNN's 'State of the Union' Sunday that his comments were 'based on the actual facts' at the time.... At the time of Kudlow's comments, the country had 15 known coronavirus cases, according to Johns Hopkins University data. That same day, however, Nancy Messonnier, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters a coronavirus outbreak in the country was inevitable." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Stephen Miller: Immigrants Have Cooties. Caitlin Dickerson & Michael Shear of the New York Times: "From the early days of the Trump administration, Stephen Miller, the president's chief adviser on immigration, has repeatedly tried to use an obscure law designed to protect the nation from diseases overseas as a way to tighten the borders.... Mr. Miller pushed for invoking the president's broad public health powers in 2019, when an outbreak of mumps spread through immigration detention facilities in six states. He tried again that year when Border Patrol stations were hit with the flu. When vast caravans of migrants surged toward the border in 2018, Mr. Miller looked for evidence that they carried illnesses.... Within days of the confirmation of the first [coronavirus] case in the United States, the White House shut American land borders to nonessential travel, closing the door to almost all migrants.... Other international travel restrictions were introduced, as well as a pause on green card processing at American consular offices, which Mr. Miller told conservative allies in a recent private phone call was only the first step in a broader plan to restrict legal immigration.... What has been billed by the White House as an urgent response to the coronavirus pandemic was in large part repurposed from old draft executive orders...."

Will Weissert of the AP: "U.S. officials believe China covered up the extent of the coronavirus outbreak -- and how contagious the disease is -- to stock up on medical supplies needed to respond to it, intelligence documents show. Chinese leaders 'intentionally concealed the severity' of the pandemic from the world in early January, according to a four-page Department of Homeland Security intelligence report dated May 1 and obtained by The Associated Press. The revelation comes as the Trump administration has intensified its criticism of China, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo saying Sunday that that country was responsible for the spread of disease and must be held accountable.... Not classified but marked 'for official use only,' the DHS analysis states that, while downplaying the severity of the coronavirus, China increased imports and decreased exports of medical supplies." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: The DHS report could be true, but how will be know? It's coming from Trump lackies, and we can't believe anything they say. ~~~

~~~ David Sanger of the New York Times:"Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday backed President Trump's assertion that the coronavirus originated in a research laboratory in Wuhan, China, though the nation's intelligence agencies say they have reached no conclusion on the issue. Speaking on the ABC program 'This Week,' Mr. Pompeo, the former C.I.A. chief and one of the senior administration officials who is most hawkish on dealing with China, said that 'there's enormous evidence' that the coronavirus came from the lab, though he agreed with the intelligence assessment that there was no indication that the virus was man-made or genetically modified."

Erica Werner & Tom Hamburger of the Washington Post: "Congressional leaders are girding for a huge fight over the reentry of millions of Americans to the workplace, with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) insisting that employers be shielded from liability if their workers contract the coronavirus. He appears to have the backing of top White House officials. Democratic leaders have declared they will oppose such blanket protections, putting Washington's power brokers on opposite sides of a major issue that could have sweeping implications for health care and the economy in the coming months. The battle has unleashed a frenzy of lobbying, with major industry groups, technology firms, insurers, manufacturers, labor unions, and plaintiffs lawyers all squaring off. The clash is a sharp departure from the past six weeks, when lawmakers from both parties came together to swiftly approve nearly $3 trillion in emergency funds as Americans hunkered down during the pandemic." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Northeast States. Jacob Knutson of Axios: "New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Sunday that New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Delaware are forming a regional consortium to reduce competition when purchasing personal protective equipment (PPE)." Mrs. McC: Wouldn't it be something if we had, say, a federal government that would eliminate competition among all the states?

Ohio. Sneeze on Me. Mike DeWine Falls in Line. Jack Arnholz of ABC News: "Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said Sunday that a statewide order mandating face masks be worn in stores went 'too far.' 'It became clear to me that that was just a bridge too far. People were not going to accept the government telling them what to do,' he said on ABC's 'This Week.'... 'Face masks are very important and our business group came back and said every employee, for example, should wear a face mask. So we're continuing that, whether it's retail or wholesale, whatever it is, manufacturing, every employee's going to have the face mask,' he said Sunday.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Virginia. Josh Gerstein of Politico: Gov. Ralph "Northam's [D] directives responding to the coronavirus pandemic have become a focus of a drive Attorney General William Barr announced last week to scrutinize the virus-related actions of state and local officials for unconstitutional intrusion on individual rights or federal prerogatives. On Sunday, Justice Department lawyers weighed in with a federal court in favor of a Chincoteague, Va., church that filed suit after its pastor received a criminal citation for holding a religious service last month with 16 people in attendance -- exceeding a 10-person limit set by Northam.... Justice's submission endorsed the arguments of the Lighthouse Fellowship Church that the impact on its congregation was unfair because other entities -- such as big-box retail stores, liquor stores and law offices -- are being permitted to operate with more than 10 people on their premises."

Rick Rojas of the New York Times: "... wearing a face mask -- or refusing to -- has become a flash point in a moment when civic rules are being rewritten, seemingly on the fly. The result has been dirty looks, angry words, raw emotions and, at times, confrontations that have escalated into violence. In Flint, Mich., a security guard at a Family Dollar store was fatally shot on Friday afternoon after an altercation that the guard's wife told The New York Times had occurred over a customer refusing to wear a face covering.... The decision not to wear a mask has, for some, become a rebellion against what they regard as an incursion on their personal liberties.... The choice can also be a reflection of vanity, or of not understanding when or where to wear one."

Lesley Stahl of 60 Minutes: "One of the rules of journalism is 'Don't become part of the story.' But instead of covering the pandemic, I was one of the more-than-one million Americans who did become part of it.... After two weeks at home in bed, weak, fighting pneumonia, and really scared, I went to the hospital. I found an overworked, nearly overwhelmed staff. Every one of them kind, sympathetic, gentle and caring from the moment I arrived until the moment days later when I was wheeled out through a gauntlet of cheering medical workers. In the face of so much death, they celebrate their triumphs." Includes video.

Presidential Race

John Hanna of the AP: "Joe Biden has overwhelmingly won a Democratic presidential primary in Kansas that the state party conducted exclusively by mail because of the coronavirus pandemic.... Biden took 77% of the vote. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders was still in the race when the Kansas party began mailing ballots at the end of March, but he suspended his campaign and endorsed Biden. Biden won 29 delegates and Sanders got 10, inching Biden closer to the number of delegates he needs to clinch the Democratic nomination. He has a total of 1,435 delegates and needs 1,991 to win the nomination on the first ballot at the party's national convention this summer, a threshold Biden is likely to reach in June...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)


Wisconsin. Amy Gardner, et al., of the Washington Post: "Early last month, voters in Wisconsin navigated a dizzying number of rule changes governing the state's spring elections as officials tussled over the risks of the novel coronavirus, prompting a backlog of absentee ballot requests and fears that many would not be able to participate. But in the end, tens of thousands of mail ballots that arrived after the April 7 presidential primaries and spring elections were counted by local officials, a review by The Washington Post has found -- the unexpected result of last-minute intervention by the U.S. Supreme Court.... The five conservative justices sided with the GOP, issuing an opinion ... that a blanket extension of the deadline would improperly allow voters to cast their ballots after April 7. Instead, they said ballots had to be postmarked by Election Day [rather than received] -- effectively imposing a new standard. In Milwaukee and Madison alone, the state's two largest cities, more than 10 percent of all votes counted, nearly 21,000 ballots, arrived by mail after April 7, according to data provided by local election officials.

If You'd Like to Listen to Supreme Court Arguments Today, You Can. Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "A few months ago, a coalition of news organizations asked the Supreme Court to allow live audio coverage of major arguments on gay rights and immigration. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. rejected the request within hours, in keeping with longstanding practice at an institution that almost never departs from tradition. But on Monday, the court will break with history twice: hearing the first of 10 cases that will be argued in a telephone conference call, and letting the public listen in. It is a momentous step for a cautious and secretive institution and yet another way in which the coronavirus pandemic has forced American society to adjust to a new reality." C-SPAN will carry the oral arguments live here.

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