;)
The Commentariat -- April 6, 2020
Afternoon Update:
Stupid AND Irresponsible. Molly Beck & Patrick Marley of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "The Wisconsin Supreme Court reinstated Tuesday's election Monday, five hours after Democratic Gov. Tony Evers called it off because of the widening coronavirus pandemic. In a brief 4-2 ruling, the court undid an emergency order that Evers issued that would have closed the polls. Their decision came in response to a lawsuit filed by Republican lawmakers. Monday's on-again, off-again election triggered chaos across the state as election officials told clerks to continue preparing for an election because they did not know whether the polls would open. Before the court acted, at least two local government leaders as of Monday afternoon issued their own orders to block in-person voting.... Four conservatives -- Chief Justice Patience Roggensack and Justices Rebecca Bradley, Brian Hagedorn and Annette Ziegler -- were in the majority. Liberal Justices Ann Walsh Bradley and Rebecca Dallet were in dissent."
Morgan Chalfant of the Hill: "President Trump said Monday that he had a 'friendly' and 'warm' conversation with former Vice President Joe Biden, the 2020 Democratic frontrunner, regarding the novel coronavirus outbreak. 'We had a really wonderful, warm conversation,' Trump told reporters at a regular White House briefing Monday evening on COVID-19.... 'He gave me his point of view and I fully understood that. We just had a very friendly conversation,' Trump said, adding that the call lasted roughly 15 minutes. 'It was really good, really nice,' Trump continued. 'I appreciate his calling.'... 'We agreed that we weren’t going to talk about what we said,' Trump said. 'He had suggestions. It doesn’t mean that I agree with those suggestions.'"
BBC News: "Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been moved to intensive care in hospital after his coronavirus symptoms 'worsened', Downing Street has said. Mr Johnson has asked Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab to deputise 'where necessary', a spokesman added. The prime minister, 55, was admitted to St Thomas' Hospital in London with 'persistent symptoms' on Sunday." ~~~
~~~ New York Times live updates: "Earlier Monday, British officials had given assurances that [Johnson] was healthy enough to run the country, but some unease arose over a lack of information on his condition. Mr. Johnson wrote Monday on Twitter from a hospital in London that he was 'in good spirits,' and Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, who is standing in for him, said Mr. Johnson was working from his bed and remained 'in charge' of the government. But Mr. Raab admitted that he had not spoken to the prime minister since Saturday, and some commentators expressed concern about the persistence of virus symptoms about 10 days after the prime minister’s case was diagnosed.... Mr. Johnson was initially criticized for his slow response to the outbreak, but later moved to place Britain under a virtual lockdown, closing all nonessential shops, banning meetings of more than two people, and requiring people to stay in their homes, except for trips for food or medicine."
** "When a Narcissist Runs a Crisis." Jennifer Senior of the New York Times: "Narcissistic personalities like Trump harbor skyscraping delusions about their own capabilities.... The grandiosity of narcissistic personalities belies an extreme fragility.... They're too thin skinned to be told they're wrong.... Narcissistic leaders never have, as Trump likes to say, the best people. They have galleries of sycophants.... Trump could have assembled a first-rate company of disaster preparedness experts. Instead he gave the job to his son-in-law, a man-child of breathtaking vapidity. Faced with a historic economic crisis, Trump could have assembled a team of Nobel-prize winning economists or previous treasury secretaries. Instead he talks to Larry Kudlow, a former CNBC host.... Narcissistic personalities love nothing more than engineering conflict and sowing division.... Trump is pitting state against state for precious resources, rather than coordinating a national response.... Every aspect of Trump's crisis management has been annexed by his psychopathology. As Americans die, he boasts about his television ratings. As Americans die, he crows that he's No. 1 on Facebook, which isn't close to true." Read the whole column.
When Orange Trees Grow in Siberia. Jonathan Chait: "... [Trump's promotion of hydroxychloroquine] augurs more broadly about [his] disdain for public-health expertise.... Over the last two days, Trump has visibly balked at social-distancing guidelines and renewed his impatience to reopen the economy soon. His demand to produce a silver-bullet wonder drug right away seems both to grow out of his dissatisfaction with public-health authorities and is feeding into his skepticism of them.... Whether [Rudy] Giuliani and [Peter] Navarro are even qualified to advise the president in their stated areas of expertise -- law and economics, respectively -- is a matter of serious dispute. For both to emerge as self-styled medical authorities during a pandemic is beyond unnerving." (Related stories linked below.) ~~~
~~~ Chandelis Duster of CNN: "White House trade adviser Peter Navarro on Monday said he was qualified to engage and disagree with Dr. Anthony Fauci on the use of an anti-malarial drug as a coronavirus treatment -- which is not yet proven as effective.... 'Doctors disagree about things all the time. My qualifications in terms of looking at the science is that I'm a social scientist,' he told CNN's John Berman on 'New Day.' 'I have a Ph.D. And I understand how to read statistical studies, whether it's in medicine, the law, economics or whatever.'" Mrs. McC: I don't think you do. ... Navarro reminds me of this car reservations clerk. (I'll be Jerry): ~~~
Barbara Starr, et al., of CNN: "The Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly blasted the now ousted commander of the USS Theodore Roosevelt as 'stupid' in an address to the ship's crew Monday morning, in remarks obtained by CNN. Modly told the crew that their former commander, Capt. Brett Crozier, was either 'too naive or too stupid' to be in command or that he intentionally leaked to the media a memo in which he warned about coronavirus spreading aboard the aircraft carrier and urged action to save his sailors. The acting secretary accused Crozier of committing a 'betrayal' and creating a 'big controversy' in Washington by disseminating the warning so widely....Modly's use of the word 'betrayal' is a loaded because saying an officer has betrayed the Navy is a court martial offense. A defense official familiar with Modly's remarks offered his opinion of Modly's address, saying the acting secretary 'should be fired. I don't know how he survives this day.'" Mrs. McC: Modly of course made his remarks before more-or-less the same crew that cheered Crozier as he left the ship.
~~~~~~~~~~
The New York Times' live updates for coronavirus developments Monday are here. The Washington Post's live updates for Monday are here.
The New York Times' live updates for coronavirus developments Sunday are here. "Washington State, once the center of the outbreak in the United States, said on Sunday that it had decided to return more than 400 ventilators to the Strategic National Stockpile after determining that the machines could be better used in states facing more dire conditions. The state had 7,498 known cases on Sunday, with 319 deaths. Referring to the return of the ventilators, to be deployed to states hardest hit, Gov. Jay Inslee said: 'I've said many times over the last few weeks: We are in this together.'... Mr. Inslee said ... mitigation strategies, including a statewide stay-at-home order, woul have to continue to keep Washington's outbreak from resurging." ~~~
~~~ The Washington Post's live updates for Sunday are here. "Apple has sourced more than 20 million protective masks through its supply chain around the world and has also developed 'face shields for medical workers,' chief executive Tim Cook announced Sunday evening on Twitter. The first batch of face shields was shipped last week to Kaiser hospitals in Santa Clara Valley, Calif., Cook said, and the feedback from doctors was positive. He said the company plans to ship 1 million by the end of this week and 1 million per week after that."
Sarah Kliff & Julie Bosman of the New York Times: "Across the United States, even as coronavirus deaths are being recorded in terrifying numbers -- many hundreds each day -- the true death toll is likely much higher.... The undercount is a result of inconsistent protocols, limited resources and a patchwork of decision-making from one state or county to the next.... With no uniform system for reporting coronavirus-related deaths in the United States, and a continued shortage of tests, some states and counties have improvised, obfuscated and, at times, backtracked in counting the dead." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) A Washington Post story is here.
** Michael Biesecker of the AP: "As the first alarms sounded in early January that an outbreak of a novel coronavirus in China might ignite a global pandemic, the Trump administration squandered nearly two months that could have been used to bolster the federal stockpile of critically needed medical supplies and equipment. A review of federal purchasing contracts by The Associated Press shows federal agencies largely waited until mid-March to begin placing bulk orders of N95 respirator masks, mechanical ventilators and other equipment needed by front-line health care workers. By that time, hospitals in several states were treating thousands of infected patients without adequate equipment and were pleading for shipments from the Strategic National Stockpile.... Now, three months into the crisis, that stockpile is nearly drained just as the numbers of patients needing critical care is surging. Some state and local officials report receiving broken ventilators and decade-old dry-rotted masks.... Trump and his appointees have urged state and local governments, and hospitals, to buy their own masks and breathing machines, saying requests to the dwindling national stockpile should be a last resort.... Experts in emergency preparedness and response have expressed dismay at such statements.... 'States do not have the purchasing power of the federal government. They do not have the ability to run a deficit like the federal government. They do not have the logistical power of the federal government,' said [former HHS Secretary Kathleen] Sebelius, who served as governor of Kansas before serving as the nation's top health care official." ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Trump and Kushner -- who know a lot about spending money they don't have & running up a huge federal deficit -- seems completely unaware that states can't run deficits both because of state laws & because they can't "print money" as the federal government does. ~~~
~~~ Wajahat Ali in the Atlantic: "The federal government's stockpile of medical supplies, gloves, and masks is nearly exhausted..., Donald Trump admitted at a White House briefing on Wednesday. Meanwhile, individual states are scrambling, bidding against one another for the equipment they need. 'The coronavirus pandemic is a damning indictment of this country's health-care system,' Joseph Kantor, the assistant state health office for the Louisiana Department of Health, told me. 'The richest country in the world is scrounging around for ventilators' and personal protective equipment. Kantor is one of a dozen health professionals across the country with whom I spoke this week. Taken together, those conversations reveal a federal government that has failed to protect, supply, and prepare the country and its cities." ~~~
~~~ Alice Ollstein & Nolan McCaskill of Politico: "The federal government's top public health spokesman invoked World War II as the U.S. heads into a new, deadlier phase of the coronavirus pandemic, warning in interviews Sunday that this is a 'Pearl Harbor moment.' Surgeon General Jerome Adams also told states that are still pleading for medical equipment and aid that they have to 'be Rosie The Riveter' ... and 'do your part.'... Republican and Democratic governors alike pushed back, saying the Trump administration has failed to mount the kind of national coordinated response needed to address the crisis and that shortages of tests, ventilators and protective equipment for physicians persist. 'This is ludicrous,' said Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat. 'The surgeon general referred to Pearl Harbor. Can you imagine if Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, "We'll be right behind you, Connecticut. Good luck building those battleships?"'... Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker blasted Trump in an interview on CNN's 'State of the Union,' telling host Jake Tapper that Trump 'does not understand the word "federal."'" ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: I've got news for Dr. Adams: there are hundreds of thousands of "Rosie the Riveters" out there right now; they're called doctors, nurses, EMTs, policemen, firemen, grocery clerks, pharmacists, etc. And millions of citizens are doing their part, too in ways large & small. Adams is saying what he's told to say, but he should know better & STFU. ~~~
~~~ Yay! The Feds Win Again. Oh. Wait. Ryan Van Velzer of WFPL Louisville: "Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear [D] says his administration is doing everything it can to prepare hospitals to be inundated with cases of COVID-19, but nearly every time the state has placed an order for medical protective gear, the federal government has prevented its transfer.... 'Our biggest problem is that just about every single order that we have out there for PPE, we get a call right when it's supposed to be shipped and it's typically the federal government has bought it,' Beshear said during a Saturday press conference. 'It's very hard to buy things when the federal government is there and anytime they want to buy it, they get it first.'" Mrs. McC: Uh, where's Mitch? And how's Li'l Randy doing? ~~~
~~~ "Corruption AND Profiteering." Josh Marshall of TPM: At Sunday's White House press briefing the subject arose of the U.S.'s "airbridge" of flights from abroad carrying critical medical supplies. "... in answer to a question from Weijia Jiang of CBS News, the Admiral in charge of this effort explained that those supplies mainly are not going to FEMA or the states. They're going to private sector distributors. And that seems to be one of the big reasons why states are having to fight amongst themselves over them, bidding up the price along the way." So the supplies are not being distributed according to need AND states are bidding up the prices. Thanks to Monoloco for the link. See also his commentary below.
Everything Is Going Very Smoothly. Jeff Stein of the Washington Post: "The Trump administration has stumbled in its initial push to implement the $2 trillion coronavirus aid package, with confusion and fear mounting among small businesses, workers and the newly unemployed since the bill was signed into law late last month. Small-business owners have reported delays in getting approved for loans without which they will close their doors, while others say they have been denied altogether by their lenders and do not understand why. The law's provision to boost unemployment benefits has become tangled in dated and overwhelmed state bureaucracies, as an unprecedented avalanche of jobless Americans seeks aid. Officials at the Internal Revenue Service have warned that $1,200 relief checks may not reach many Americans until August or September if they haven't already given their direct-deposit information to the government. Taxpayers in need of answers from the IRS amid a rapidly changing job market are encountering dysfunctional government websites and unresponsive call centers that have become understaffed as federal workers stay home."
Max Boot of the Washington Post: "With his catastrophic mishandling of the coronavirus, Trump has established himself as the worst president in U.S. history.... We already have more confirmed coronavirus cases than any other country. Trump claimed on Feb. 26 that the outbreak would soon be 'down to close to zero.' Now he argues that if the death toll is 100,000 to 200,000 -- higher than the U.S. fatalities in all of our wars combined since 1945 -- it will be proof that he's done 'a very good job.' No, it will be a sign that he's a miserable failure, because the coronavirus is the most foreseeable catastrophe in U.S. history."
Katherine Eban of Reuters: "In defending his strategy against the deadly coronavirus..., Donald Trump repeatedly has said he slowed its spread into the United States by acting decisively to bar travelers from China on Jan. 31.... But Reuters has found that the administration took a month from the time it learned of the outbreak in late December to impose the initial travel restrictions amid furious infighting.... The National Security Council staff ... ultimately proposed aggressive travel restrictions to high-level administration officials - but it took at least a week more for the president to adopt them, one of the government officials said. In meetings, Matthew Pottinger, deputy national security adviser and a China expert, met opposition from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and National Economic Council director Larry Kudlow.... Each day that the administration debated the travel measures, roughly 14,000 travelers arrived in the United States from China.... Among them was a traveler who came from Wuhan to Seattle in mid-January, who turned out to be the first confirmed case in the United States."
Well, Not a Doctor, But He Has "Common Sense." Brett Samuels of the Hill: "President Trump on Sunday forcefully touted the use of hydroxychloroquine as a potential means to combat or even prevent the onset of symptoms from the coronavirus, wading further into a medical debate that has put him at odds with some of his top health experts. Trump said the government has stockpiled 29 million pills of the drug, which is also used to treat lupus. For a second consecutive day, he suggested even those without coronavirus symptoms might consider taking the drug despite limited evidence about its efficacy in treating the virus. 'What do you have to lose?' he said. 'I'm not looking at it one way or another. But we want to get out of this. If it does work, it would be a shame if we didn't do it early.' 'What do I know? I'm not a doctor,' he added. 'But I have common sense.'... The administration's aggressive promotion of the drug has also led to a shortage of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, the Food and Drug Administration said last week, raising concerns for those who take the drugs for conditions such as lupus." ~~~
~~~ The New York Times story, by Michael Crowley & others, is here. "Mr. Trump's recommendation of hydroxychloroquine, for the second day in a row at a White House briefing, was a striking example of his brazen willingness to distort and outright defy expert opinion and scientific evidence when it does not suit his agenda.... Mr. Trump said that 'there are some very strong, powerful signs' of [the drug's] potential.... When a reporter at Sunday's briefing asked Dr. Anthony S. Fauci ... to weigh in on the subject, Mr. Trump stopped him from answering. As the reporter noted that Dr. Fauci ... was the president's medical expert, Mr. Trump made it clear he did not want the doctor to answer. 'You know how many times he's answered that question? Maybe 15 times,' the president said, stepping toward the lectern where Dr. Fauci was standing.... The drug can cause a heart arrhythmia that can lead to cardiac arrest. Dr. Megan L. Ranney, an emergency physician at Brown University in Rhode Island, said ... she had never seen an elected official advertise a miracle cure the way Mr. Trump has. 'There are side effects to hydroxychloroquine.... It causes psychiatric symptoms, cardiac problems and a host of other bad side effects.... 'There may be a role for it for some people,' she said, 'but to tell Americans "you don't have anything to lose," that's not true. People certainly have something to lose by taking it indiscriminately." ~~~
~~~ Mr.s McCrabbie: Trump either has a financial interest in promoting this drug cocktail, or he is so afraid that Covid-19 is going to kill his presidential bid that he's willing to go wa-a-a-y out on a limb to make guinea pigs of sick Americans in the hopes a miracle drug will save him. Or both.
~~~ Marisa Taylor & Aram Roston of Reuters: "In mid-March..., Donald Trump personally pressed federal health officials to make malaria drugs available to treat the novel coronavirus, though they had been untested for COVID-19, two sources told Reuters. Shortly afterward, the federal government published highly unusual guidance informing doctors they had the option to prescribe the drugs, with key dosing information based on unattributed anecdotes rather than peer-reviewed science.... The episode reveals how the president's efforts could change the nature of drug oversight, a field long governed by strict rules of science and testing.... 'The president is short-circuiting the process with his gut feelings,' said Jeffrey Flier, a former dean of Harvard Medical School." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Yeah But, Trump pushed the drugs because he was receiving expert advice from his "personal science advisor": ~~~
~~~ Rosalind Helderman, et al., of the Washington Post: "Rudolph W. Giuliani ... has cast himself in a new role: as personal science adviser to a president eager to find ways to short circuit the coronavirus epidemic. In one-on-one phone calls with Trump, Giuliani said, he has been touting the use of an anti-malarial drug cocktail that has shown some early promise in treating covid-19, but whose effectiveness has not yet been proved. He said he now spends his days on the phone with doctors, coronavirus patients and hospital executives promoting the treatment, which Trump has also publicly lauded.... Giuliani's advice to Trump echoes comments the former New York mayor has made on his popular Twitter feed and a podcast that he records in a makeshift radio studio installed at his New York City apartment, where he has repeatedly pushed the drug combination, as well as a stem cell therapy that involves the extraction of what Giuliani termed placenta 'killer cells.'... Giuliani's controversial comments have helped him regain a bit of the prominence he had during impeachment -- last week, he was back in the spotlight when Twitter briefly locked his account for promoting misinformation about covid-19." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) Mrs. McC: Giuliani's involvement suggests a financial motivation. ~~~
~~~ AND He's a Horse's Ass. Jonathan Swan of Axios: "The White House coronavirus task force had its biggest fight yet on Saturday, pitting economic adviser Peter Navarro against ... Anthony Fauci. At issue: How enthusiastically should the White House tout the prospects of an antimalarial drug to fight COVID-19?... Toward the end of the meeting [in the Situation Room, FDA Commissioner Stephen] Hahn began a discussion of the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine.... Then Navarro ... [dropped] a stack of folders ... on the table.... 'And the first words out of his mouth are that the studies that he's seen, I believe they're mostly overseas, show 'clear therapeutic efficacy,'" said a source familiar with the conversation.... Fauci pushed back against Navarro, saying that there was only anecdotal evidence that hydroxychloroquine works against the coronavirus.... Navarro pointed to the pile of folders on the desk, which included printouts of studies on hydroxychloroquine from around the world. Navarro said to Fauci, 'That's science, not anecdote,'...." And so forth. ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Apparently Navarro thinks if some pages with words on them look like they comprise a scientific paper, then whatever the preliminary conclusions -- if they agree with Navarro -- must be true. (I'm guessing that since many of the reports on hydroxychloroquine as a Covid-19 treatment came out of Europe, some of the words on those pages Navarro plopped on the table were not English words.) There's nothing wrong with writing a report about some anecdotal evidence you've obtained that does not meet the standards of a controlled study. But there's plenty wrong with insisting that a report that asserts, say, that 100 Covid-19 patients said they felt better after taking a medication, is scientific proof that the medication "works." No, those are 100 "anecdotes."
John Ismay of the New York Times Magazine: "Capt. Brett E. Crozier, the Navy captain who was removed from command of the coronavirus-stricken aircraft carrier U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt, has tested positive for Covid-19, according to two Naval Academy classmates of Crozier's who are close to him and his family." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ David Ignatius of the Washington Post: "Acting Navy secretary Thomas Modly, in an extensive interview about the firing of the commander of a disease-threatened aircraft carrier, said he acted because he believed the captain was 'panicking' under pressure -- and wanted to make the move himself, before President Trump ordered the captain's dismissal.... Modly explained that his predecessor, Navy Secretary Richard Spencer, 'lost his job because the Navy Department got crossways with the president' in the Gallagher case. 'I didn't want that to happen again.'" Mrs. McC: Uh, who was "panicking"? Modly was so fearful of Trump's wrath that he fired Crozier before he was certain Trump was angry. Sounds panicky to me.
~~~ Lindsay Cohn, et al., in the Washington Post: "Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden condemned the Navy leadership in a tweet. Retired rear admiral and former Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby called the firing 'reckless and foolish.' And retired Adm. Mike Mullen, the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said relieving Crozier of command 'was a really bad decision.' President Trump ... [said] Saturday [that] .. Crozier's letter was 'not appropriate' and insinuating Crozier was responsible for exposing his sailors to the virus by making a stop in Vietnam -- a stop that was pre-scheduled by the regional command.... Complicating the optics of the situation is the involvement of [acting Navy Secretary Thomas] Modly himself. Last summer, Trump intervened in the Navy's handling of a personnel action involving Chief Petty Officer Eddie Gallagher, ultimately resulting in the November 2019 removal of then-Secretary of the Navy Richard V. Spencer and the installation of Modly.... Many questioned the appropriateness of civilian political intervention into internal professional processes.... The fact it was a political appointee associated with another highly politicized case who relieved Crozier ... may contribute to a perception that this is more about political embarrassment than a breach of security.&" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Tracy Jan of the Washington Post: "The collapse of the U.S. economy brought about by the coronavirus pandemic has exposed the extreme vulnerabilities of millions of undocumented workers..., who are disproportionately employed in industries undergoing mass layoffs as well as high-risk jobs that keep society running while many Americans self-isolate at home. Many of the undocumented, working in construction, restaurants and other service sectors, have already lost their jobs. Others, in industries like agriculture and health care that have been declared essential, work in jobs that typically require close quarters or interacting with the public, putting them at higher risk of getting sick. Unlike many American workers, undocumented immigrants can't count on the social safety net if they lose their jobs or get sick. Most do not have health insurance or access to paid sick leave -- putting them and the people they encounter at risk. Most aren't eligible for unemployment insurance or the cash payments included in the $2 trillion relief package Congress passed last month -- even if they pay taxes or their children are U.S. citizens."
Mike Isaac of the New York Times:"As health workers on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic plead for personal protective equipment, volunteer efforts to create hand-sewn masks and deliver them to medical professionals have quickly sprung up across the internet. But those efforts were hampered by Facebook's automated content moderation systems over the past week.... Facebook's systems threatened to ban the organizers of hand-sewn masks from posting or commenting, they said, landing them in what is colloquially known as 'Facebook Jail.' They said it also threatened to delete the groups.... 'The automated systems we set up to prevent the sale of medical masks needed by health workers have inadvertently blocked some efforts to donate supplies,' Facebook said in a statement. 'We apologize for this error and are working to update our systems to avoid mistakes like this going forward. We don't want to put obstacles in the way of people doing a good thing.'"
Wildlife Conservation Society: "Nadia, a 4-year-old female Malayan tiger at the Bronx Zoo, has tested positive for COVID-19. She, her sister Azul, two Amur tigers, and three African lions had developed a dry cough and all are expected to recover. This positive COVID-19 test for the tiger was confirmed by USDA's National Veterinary Services Laboratory, based in Ames, Iowa." Via the WashPo's live updates. According to the Post, Nadia "is believed to be the first animal in the United States to contract covid-19."
Mary Spicuzza of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "Assembly Republicans are calling on Gov. Tony Evers to allow in-person services for Easter and Passover amid the deadly coronavirus pandemic.... Evers declined the request. The [request] came one day before Republicans in the Assembly and Senate stalled Evers' move to push back Tuesday's election due to the coronavirus pandemic...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Aleem Maqbool of BBC News: "Pastor Landon Spradlin wasn't worried about coronavirus when we went to New Orleans to preach during Mardi Gras. A month later he was dead.... A little over a month ago, Pastor Spradlin, who was 66, drove with his wife Jean the 900 miles (1500 km) from their home in Virginia to Louisiana for Mardi Gras.... Pastor Spradlin was one of those who became ill, but tested negative for Covid-19. Even as he was sick, he posted on social media about 'hysteria' surrounding the virus. On the 13th of March Pastor Spradlin shared on Facebook a misleading post comparing swine flu and coronavirus deaths. It suggested that Barack Obama and Donald Trump respectively had been treated very differently by the media and that it was a politically motivated ploy to harm President Trump. Earlier the very same day, the president himself had insinuated something very similar at a news conference.... Pastor Spradlin was taken to hospital in North Carolina where they discovered he had developed pneumonia in both lungs and he now also tested positive for the coronavirus."
Rowena Mason & Peter Walker of the Guardian: British PM "Boris Johnson has been admitted to hospital with coronavirus after suffering persistent symptoms for 10 days. Downing Street insisted it was just a precautionary measure but Johnson's admission on a Sunday evening comes after days of rumours that his condition has been worsening.... It is understood Johnson remains in charge of the government, although Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary and first secretary of state, is poised to take charge if he should worsen." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Mark Landler of the New York Times: "Prime Minister Boris Johnson was hospitalized on Sunday evening after 10 days of battling the coronavirus, unnerving a country that had gathered to watch Queen Elizabeth II rally fellow Britons to confront the pandemic and reassure them that when the crisis finally ebbed, 'we will meet again.'... The uncertainty generated by his persistent illness underscored the sense of crisis that led the queen to address the country in a rare televised speech that evoked the darkest days of World War II." ~~~
Kyle Cheney of Politico: "The intelligence community watchdog removed abruptly late Friday by ... Donald Trump says he believes Trump ousted him because of his evenhanded handling of a whistleblower complaint that ultimately led to the president's impeachment. 'It is hard not to think that the President's loss of confidence in me derives from my having faithfully discharged my legal obligations as an independent and impartial Inspector General,' Michael Atkinson, the intelligence community inspector general said in a statement Sunday, 'and from my commitment to continue to do so.... As an Inspector General, I was legally obligated to ensure that whistleblowers had an effective and authorized means to disclose urgent matters involving classified information to the congressional intelligence committees, and that when they did blow the whistle in an authorized manner, their identities would be protected as a guard against reprisals,' Atkinson said in his statement."
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Reader Comments (16)
This is my response to a comment at the end of yesterday's thread:
@Procopius wrote, "A German official claimed that 'American government agents' seized a shipment of 3M FFP2 and FFP3 masks, coming from their Singapore plant, at a Bangkok airport." (Procopius' comment was considerably longer than this one sentence I extracted.)
I read somewhere -- maybe in a Washington live update -- that the official had retracted his accusation. That particular item didn't pop up in the Googles, but this from the Berlin Spectator did:
"Some German media quoted U.S. government officials on Saturday who said the allegations were all wrong. For the Berlin Senate, a spokesman corrected one aspect: The masks had actually been ordered through a German vendor. The information about the 'confiscation' of 200,000 masks had come from that company. It was not known which manufacturer had made the masks. Before, ‘3M’ had been mentioned in German-language media. Now the Berlin Senate is trying to get to the bottom of the issue. So far, no allegations have been retracted."
So I think this story is still sitting out there as an allegation that hasn't been proved one way or the other, but the particulars may change if anyone ever gets to the bottom of it.
Maybe because I wasn't born until 1946 and didn't see it happen, but I also don't remember reading about the individual states sending their own troops to Europe, Africa and the Pacific to fight WWII.
Just a small hole in the Pretend Commander-in-Chief's analogy...
Queen Elizabeth honors the NHS workers, people working to make the country run, and those staying home to stop the spread of the disease. That’s leadership.
This one says again and very well what we already know about the moral vacuity and the empty head of the Pretender.
It also coincidentally memorized Dr. Marvin Schwalb, who died one year ago next week and who on this site taught me so much about what narcissism looks like and how it acts.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/05/opinion/trump-coronavirus.html
Commented on the column thusly, with Marvin firmly in mind:
"No ideology motivates this president, only his personality disorder, which was evident long before the 2016 election.
Unfortunately that disorder, call it narcissism or me-me-me, is also at the heart of contemporary Republicanism, the Greedy Old Party. Think of its tax policies, its constant war on the safety net, its disdain for regulation, its dismissal of the environment or worker safety. It's an autocratic I-want-it-and-you-can't-have-it-party.
Toss in its active voter suppression and its rascist tendencies, which Trump plays like a fiddle, and you have both his electoral victory and the lurching ride the nation has endured this last three awful years.
Trump, damaged as he is, as much as he occasionally embarrasses the more gentile of the party faithful, is exactly what they want, a mean, racist demagogue who believes in nothing and cares only about himself."
Republican fundraiser looks to cash in on coronavirus
"A longtime campaign operative informed clients that he was leaving politics behind for a new line of work: selling critical medical supplies."
The new company's website says it sells testing kits, respirator masks, PPEs -- “hard to find medical supplies to beat the outbreak.”
"Asked how he’d managed to procure such equipment when there are shortages in hospitals across the country, Gula said, `I have relationships with a lot of people.'”
Picking up on this news, Josh Marshall wonders if the new business is somehow related to the airbridge of flights the US has established to bring in scarce medical supplies from abroad. The Admiral in charge of the airbridge states that the supplies are being distributed as private sector transactions. “That’s normally how things work, right? I’m not here to disrupt a [commercial] supply chain.”
Marshall concludes that "it at least hints at the kind of corruption and profiteering that is possible in such a crisis."
Wait. When did Crazy Rudy get his degree in medicine? He’s Fatty’s science advisor now? And who is helping him with his research? The Fraud, Inc. guys? And Peter Navarro. When did he get his medical degree? Where are the years of experience in epidemiological research and pharmacology that allow him to tell Anthony Fauci to fuck off with his pain in the ass science?
This is the same sort of confederate bullshit that believes a snow storm in March is proof that global warming is a hoax. But hey, if a failed real estate huckster and con man like Young Jared, who had to buy his way into Harvard, can run a pandemic task force, and make life and death decisions for 300 million people based on the opinion of some jamokes he gets insider trading secrets from, I guess anything is possible.
I broke some ribs a few years back. Can I be head of orthopedics at Johns Hopkins? I got an A in Ec 10 in college. That should make me at least as qualified as a Fox TV hack like Larry Kudlow to determine national economic policy. Obama’s Secretary of Energy was a Nobel Prize winning physicist. Fatty’s pick isn’t even sure how to spell Nobel.
What is wrong with these fucking people?
Oh, wait. They work for Trump. If you watched “Apollo 13” a couple of times, are happy licking his tiny balls and denying science considered inconvenient by the wingnuts,, you too can run NASA.
Too much winning. Does keeping the death toll under a million constitute winning? Then by all means, get the fucking pom-poms ready.
Trump may be promoting the malaria drugs for a C19 Cure, but I'll bet my last beer if one of the first family tests positive it's off to Walter Reed and not Rudy's emporium.
Face Masks.
So I have been dillydallying on my mask-making task, mostly because I was certain that sometime in the past six months I'd seen a couple of different kinds of elastic in a container. So I've kept looking in less and less likely places. I did find some substitutes: hair bands, shoe laces, short sections of elasticized cord. I also found some great nose guards: springy, pliable aluminum corner thingies designed to hold a stretched canvas in a frame. And I found two N-95 masks in the basement and a couple of less fancy paint masks.
So the last place I looked in the wee hours this morning for the elastic was a leather suitcase that I keep travel supplies in: a European iron, converters for various European plugs, travel toothbrushes, and whatever. Among the whatever: quite a few sleep shades they give you on planes. The merit to these shades was that they have elastic bands. I was planning to cut the elastic off this morning when it dawned on me to try donning an eye cover over my nose and mouth. It's perfect! It doesn't even look that stupid, I can speak through it, and it stays on when I speak. Also too, the eye shades are washable.
So this in reverse.
Anyhow, at least for now, I'm not making any face masks. If you happen to have some of those eye shades lying around, try them on for size.
" ~~~ Mr.s McCrabbie: Trump either has a financial interest in promoting this drug cocktail, or he is so afraid that Covid-19 is going to kill his presidential bid that he's willing to go wa-a-a-y out on a limb to make guinea pigs of sick Americans in the hopes a miracle drug will save him. Or both."
I'd go with the latter ––if word got out that he actually had a financial interest in––oh, wait! One of his pals might and you know how well he takes care of his pals who make sure they care of them.
Maybe you and I were searching–-searching ( I hear Judy Garland's voice in "A Star Was Born")–– for something that covers our mouths and noses at the same time. The find of those eye shades ––innovative and very clever, I must say. I can't find my eye shades (taken on long plane trips) but I did find those shoulder pads that were the fad some years ago to make us gals look like we could weather anything that comes our way––I had cut them out of a silk jacket and for some odd reason saved them ( reminds me of that box of "string too short to be saved")––they have a tiny velcro lining that holds a dandy elastic string––it covers your mouth and nose–-black with polka dots–-so very chic. But since my family prohibits me from venturing forth among human beings––"Mom! if you catch that virus, you'll die!"–-I don't think I'll have a chance to sport my new found find.
And Navarro has proven to be a most trustworthy advisor, hasn't he?
https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/16/politics/peter-navarro-ron-vara-trump-china-intl-hnk/index.html
Just like the Pretender he makes stuff up.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52186185
So, like the Chinese virus, white supremacy is now also "foreign."
How do we know? The Pretender said so.
Link for Jennifer Senior piece:
https://nyti.ms/2xWe4VN
@NiskyGuy: Oops! Thanks.
BTW, is there an easy way to get those abbreviated hyperlinks? I used to use bitly sometimes, but it was a pain.
I clicked on the "share" circle (circle with up-curved arrow) at the top of the article. The little link was there along with Share on FB, Twitter, Reddit links.
I only did that after first right-clicking in the browser address and getting a long string of stuff.
Have used the top technique on YouTube in the past. Of course, now that I think I understand it, they will change everything.
@NiskyGuy: Thanks. I'll use that on the Times & see if other major outlets prefab their own shortened URLs.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-election-wisconsin/wisconsins-supreme-court-orders-primary-to-proceed-as-planned-on-tuesday-idUSKBN21O2JN?
And the cry rang out: Death to the Dems!
Charming folks...those red robes.