The Commentariat -- March 18, 2020

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Jordain Carney of the Hill: "The Senate passed the House's coronavirus aid package on Wednesday, sending it to President Trump, who is expected to sign it. Senators voted 90-8 on the bill that passed the House in a middle-of-the-night Saturday vote but needed dozens of pages of corrections and changes, which cleared the chamber on Monday. The measure, which the Joint Committee on Taxation estimates will cost $104 billion, is the second package that Congress has passed amid growing concerns about the widespread coronavirus outbreak.... Senators are already working on 'phase three,' with Senate Republicans wanting to pass that next week. The bill approved Wednesday bolsters unemployment insurance and guarantees free diagnostic testing for the coronavirus. It also provides up to 10 days of paid sick leave for some workers. It caps that at companies with 500 employees and would allow for those with fewer than 50 to apply for a waiver."

Jessie Hellmann of the Hill: "President Trump announced Wednesday he will invoke the Defense Production Act, which would allow the administration to force American industry to ramp up production of medical supplies that are in short supply in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic. Hospitals and states have pleaded with the administration for more supplies to protect doctors and nurses on the frontlines of the pandemic.... Democrats in Congress, hearing about shortages of supplies from hospitals in their states and districts, have urged Trump to invoke the DPA to direct the domestic production of necessary medical equipment. 'This would ensure we have the materials we need at the ready, rather than wait for disruptions in the global supply chain to subside,' 57 House Democrats wrote in a letter to Trump last week." ~~~

~~~ Jonathan Chait: "A reporter asked Trump [Tuesday] if he had [invoked the Defense Production Act]. Here was his reply: 'Well, we're able to do that if we have to. Right now, we haven't had to, but it's certainly ready. If I want it, we can do it very quickly. We've studied it very closely over two weeks ago, actually. We'll make that decision pretty quickly if we need it. We hope we don't need it. It's a big step.'... They are days away from having potentially thousands of Americans dying, and Trump still hasn't decided if he's ready to take the step to ramp up the machines that will be needed to keep them alive.... We might have clung to the wan hope that his abdication was merely a surface display of incompetence, and that below his level, the government was still functioning. The evidence before us suggests the government actually followed his lead, following the complacent signals he sent -- or, at least, has simply floundered for lack of any direction from the top. The closer you look at the inner workings of Trump's coronavirus response, the worse it gets." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: I suspect quite a few government decision-makers are exhausted from having to ping-pong between the real world -- where emergency actions have been indicated for weeks & months -- and Trump Delusion World. These people, both career & political appointees, have been tasked with doing diametrically opposed actions, and many just gave up, while others decided it was in their short-term best interest to follow the Dear Leader. As for making the Defense Production Act operational, I'm not sure how quickly this can be done, much less how quickly & wisely it will be done. There is a timeline between (1) the moment Trump signs a piece of paper & holds it up to the cameras, and (2) the moment the first hospital gets the first ventilator manufactured by the first company ordered to ramp up production.

I would like to begin by announcing some important developments in our war against the Chinese virus. -- Donald Trump, beginning today's press briefing with a bellicose, racist remark (more on Trump's remarks at the linked ABC News page)

I always treated the Chinese Virus very seriously, and have done a very good job from the beginning, including my very early decision to close the 'borders' from China - against the wishes of almost all. Many lives were saved. The Fake News new narrative is disgraceful & false! -- Donald Trump, in a tweet this morning, insulting the Chinese people, everyone aware of Trump's previous remarks, the mainstream media & the truth

It just gets worse. Trump is pressed about a White House official reportedly using the term 'Kung-flu' and if language like 'Chinese virus' puts Asian Americans at risk. 'No, not at all,' he says. 'I think they probably would agree with it a 100%. It comes from China.' -- MJ Lee of CNN, in a tweet (related opinion piece by Kurt Bardella linked below)

The New York Times' live market updates are here. "Stocks tumbled on Wednesday as the coronavirus continued its relentless spread, governments ramped up efforts to contain it and investors continued to wait for lawmakers in Washington to take action on proposals to bolster the American economy. The S&P 500 fell more than 5 percent. Major European markets were also sharply lower, following a late-day slump in Asian shares. Those significant drops represented another swing in sentiment on Wall Street. Stocks jumped on Tuesday as the White House called for urgent action to pump $1 trillion into the economy. But the calls so far haven't been met with tangible action in the Senate. [The House is on a week's hiatus.]... The renewed selling showed how fragile any gains have become as long as the virus continues to spread and the number of cases continues to grow at a staggering rate." Update: "The S&P 500 fell more than 7 percent, a drop that triggers so-called circuit breaker and results a 15-minute pause in trading."

The New York Times' live updates for coronavirus developments today is here. It is free to nonsubscribers. Some highlights:

The White House is asking Congress to allocate $500 billion for two separate waves of direct payments to American taxpayers in the coming weeks and another $300 billion to help small businesses continue to meet payroll, according to a Treasury Department proposal circulating on Capitol Hill and among lobbyists. The outline, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, calls for a total of $1 trillion in spending for those programs, which would also include $50 billion for secured loans for the airline industry, and another $150 billion for secured loans or loan guarantees for other parts of the economy hard hit by the unfolding financial crisis.... But the details remained far from complete.

Mr. Trump announced on Wednesday that [by mutual consent] the border with Canada was being closed to all but essential traffic.... The move on Wednesday would allow trade to continue, but would restrict flights and border crossings for things like vacations.

Melanie Zanona & Marianne Levine of Politico: "Republicans suddenly find a bailout they can back.... Such a massive rescue package would seem to mean an agonizing vote for the GOP -- the last major bailout in 2008 helped launch the conservative tea party movement and many senior lawmakers still boast about their opposition to it. But Republicans say the coronavirus is an entirely different animal: the hospitality and airline industries didn't cause the global pandemic.... Republicans are mostly brushing aside long-held cost concerns in order to salvage the economy -- and perhaps Trump's reelection, as well as their own."

Matt Novak of Gizmodo: "Hospital workers in Washington state have started to make their own face masks from supplies they've purchased at craft stores, according to a new report from Seattle's KOMO TV station. The DIY face masks are just the latest example of health workers around the world getting creative as they struggle with shortages of vital medical supplies during the covid-19 pandemic. Staff at Providence St. Joseph Health hospital volunteered and spent much of Tuesday constructing personal protective equipment (PPE), like face shields and surgical masks, from supplies bought at craft stores in the Seattle area." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: CNN interviewed a Georgia (U.S.) hospital administrator this morning who said his hospital also was sewing its own masks. In the meantime, he has been able to source masks from a Mexican company who said they had a stock of a million masks & will sell them for $7 each, masks the hospitals normally pays 58 cents apiece for. He said the hospital would probably buy some of the $7 masks. Also, apparently hospitals are finally getting their test kits, but it appears they aren't getting the results back. The administrator said his hospital had received only a few results & have a backlog of 400 tests which a lab has not analyzed yet. He says his hospital is now performing about 100 tests a day, so the backlog is only going to grow.

Kurt Bardella in an NBC News opinion piece: "CBS White House correspondent Weijia Jiang tweeted Tuesday that 'this morning a White House official referred to the #Coronavirus as the "Kung-Flu" to my face. Makes me wonder what they're calling it behind my back.'... On Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday, Trump took to Twitter to sound off about COVID-19. But rather than refer to it by its scientific name, he instead insisted on labeling it the 'Chinese Virus.'"

S.V. Date of the Huffington Post: "Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, the state's top legal officer, contracted with ... Donald Trump's Miami golf resort to host a crime prevention conference, despite the U.S. Constitution's prohibition against his accepting money from a state. The conference, set for late May, has been indefinitely postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic before any payments 'were made or due,' said Lauren Cassedy, a spokesperson in Moody's office. Cassedy, though, would not explain why Moody, a Republican who was elected to the statewide job in 2018 after receiving Trump's endorsement, chose to award the contract to Trump's resort in the first place. Under its terms, some $70,000 of Florida taxpayer money likely would have gone to Trump National Doral. Nonprofit groups, local governments and others attending the event that had been set for late May likely would have spent an additional $600,000.... The U.S. Constitution states in Article II: 'The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a Compensation which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the Period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that Period any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Don't worry. Trump is arranging to give himself a generous bailout for the illegal business he lost when Moody cancelled.

Oh, AND Happy Birthday, Kimberly. Ken Vogel, et al., of the New York Times: "It was a lavish birthday party for Donald Trump Jr.'s girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle. The setting was Mar-a-Lago, President Trump';s private club in Palm Beach, Fla. The guest list included dozens of Trump family members and friends. But when it came to picking up the tab, hands went out to other attendees. Among them were at least four whose families are financial supporters of the president's re-election campaign, for which Ms. Guilfoyle helps lead the fund-raising. They ended up pitching in tens of thousands of dollars, passed along to Mar-a-Lago, to help pay for what two people familiar with the planning said was a $50,000 celebration of Ms. Guilfoyle's 51st birthday.... At least one attendee [at the March 7 party] -- a Brazilian government official who stopped by the party briefly -- has tested positive for the [corona]virus, while another -- Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida -- self-quarantined, though he later announced he had tested negative for the virus."

Sydney Ember, et al., of the New York Times: "Faiz Shakir, [Bernie] Sanders's campaign manager, said the Vermont senator was considering his options after he was soundly beaten in Florida, Illinois and Arizona on Tuesday by Joseph R. Biden Jr., but also suggested a decision on how to proceed was not imminent. 'The next primary contest is at least three weeks away,' Mr. Shakir said in a statement. 'Senator Sanders is going to be having conversations with supporters to assess his campaign. In the immediate term, however, he is focused on the government response to the coronavirus outbreak and ensuring that we take care of working people and the most vulnerable.'... It is possible Mr. Sanders could stay in the race to collect delegates in order to accumulate leverage and bolster progressive power in party reform -- while running what effectively amounts to an inactive campaign as he focuses on his legislative agenda around the coronavirus."

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The Latest Imaginary Donald. This is a pandemic. I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic. -- Donald Trump, Tuesday briefing

This is the rhetorical equivalent of standing on Fifth Avenue, smoking gun in hand, a dead body at his feet, and saying, "Of course I didn't do it." -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie ~~~

~~~ Katie Rogers of the New York Times: "On Tuesday, Mr. Trump spent much of a lengthy news conference praising his administration's response to the pandemic, saying the only mistake his administration made had been a mismanagement of relationships with the news media.... When asked why he had suddenly adopted a somber and realistic tone about the virus on Tuesday, the president denied that he had changed his mind at all. 'No, I've always viewed it as very serious,' Mr. Trump said. 'There was no difference yesterday from days before. I feel the tone is similar, but some people said it wasn't.'" ~~~

~~~ Nolan McCaskill of Politico: "Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Tuesday that the Trump administration was considering offsetting the economic burden of the coronavirus pandemic by 'immediately' cutting checks to Americans. Mnuchin, speaking at a White House press conference, did not say how much money Americans could potentially expect to receive, and indicated that the administration could seek to exclude those who are well-off from receiving payments.... Mnuchin indicated that the president's preference for a payroll tax holiday -- a six- to eight-month process -- would take too long to put money into Americans' pockets." ~~~

~~~ Heather Long of the Washington Post: "Americans could get a check for $1,000 or more in the coming weeks, as political leaders coalesce around a dramatic plan to try to prevent a worse recession and protect people from going bankrupt. The idea took off Monday when Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) called for every American adult to receive a $1,000 check 'immediately' to help tide people over until other government aid can arrive. By Tuesday, there was bipartisan support for the idea, including from President Trump. The White House even suggested the amount could be over $1,000, an acknowledgment of how big the economic crisis is becoming.... The United States has done this twice before. During the Great Recession, the federal government sent about every adult a $300 to $600 check (plus $300 per child). The same thing happened in 2001, when the majority of Americans received a $300 check.... Many studies have shown that bumping up food stamps, welfare and unemployment insurance during downturns provides an even larger economic boost for the same reason: These Americans are the most cash-strapped, and they tend to spend the money quickly." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Although nothing is solidified, I heard on the news that people who have earned more than $85,000/year will not likely get checks.

Nancy Cook & Ben White of Politico: "The government's economic stimulus is ballooning into trillion-dollar territory -- the largest rescue in modern American history -- as major industries flood the Trump administration and Capitol Hill for aid while huge swaths of the economy stall from the coronavirus crisis. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin met with Senate Republicans behind closed doors Tuesday to present options for aid to airlines, hotels, casinos and small-to-medium-sized businesses.... Mnuchin warned senators that if they didn't reach a deal quickly, unemployment could be as high as 20 percent.... Democrats are pushing their own package of provisions that don't overlap entirely with the GOP pitch. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and other Democrats are >pitching a package of 'at least' $750 billion that is expected to include more emergency aid for hospitals, expanded unemployment insurance, more funds for small business, help with child care, and food assistance for seniors.... [The administration's plan] was also expected to include an idea ... Donald Trump has latched onto -- a temporary cut or suspension of the payroll tax cut ... which would benefit both companies and workers. One version of the payroll tax holiday would cost $950 billion alone through the end of the year." Emphasis added.

From the New York Times' live updates on coronavirus developments for Tuesday: "As the coronavirus pandemic ground large swaths of the economy to a halt, cost an increasing number of people their jobs and sent the markets reeling, the White House, Congress and the Federal Reserve began taking steps to get aid to people and businesses. In a briefing on Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the administration is talking to Congress about sending cash payments to Americans over the next two weeks to cushion the economic blow from coronavirus. 'The president has instructed me we have to do this now,' he said. Mr. Mnuchin said that this Trump administration currently prefers making direct payments to Americans to get cash into their hands now rather than pushing for a payroll tax cut that would take months to reach people. He also said that President Trump instructed him to allow for the deferment of tax payments, interest free and penalty free for 90 days. People can defer up to a $1 million and corporations can defer up to $10 million in payments. The Treasury secretary said that this would inject $300 billion into the economy.... Mr. Trump said that his administration was also working to expand testing and preparing to ask Congress to infuse about $850 billion in additional stimulus to prop up the economy." (Also linked yesterday.)

Trump Proposes Yu-u-ge Package to Raise Deficit & Help the Rich, Corporations. Erica Werner & Jeff Stein of the Washington Post: "The Trump administration is asking Congress to approve a massive economic stimulus package of around $850 billion to stanch the economic free fall caused by the coronavirus, four officials familiar with the planning said Tuesday. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will present details to Senate Republicans later Tuesday. The package would be mostly devoted to flooding the economy with cash, through a payroll tax cut or other mechanism, two of the officials said, with some $50 billion directed specifically to helping the airline industry. White House officials also want to include more assistance for small businesses and their employees in the legislation, the officials said.... The $850 billion package would come in addition to another roughly $100 billion package that aims to provide paid sick leave for impacted workers, though the details of that legislation remain very fluid as it moves through Congress.... Democrats have said their proposals are focused more on helping workers, health care providers, schools, and senior citizens.... Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D., N.Y.) is expected to outline his $750 billion proposal and contrast it with the White House's approach. Schumer's offering would expand unemployment insurance, provide money for schools, public transportation, expand Medicaid funding, expand more investments in health care, provide loan assistance, and halt evictions and foreclosures, among other things." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Franklin Foer of the Atlantic: "The coming bailout is a familiar moral catastrophe. During the financial crisis, the government saved the banking industry's bacon, while asking exceedingly little of the culprits. When the government spends billions of dollars to save industries, it has enormous leverage. This is the moment when Congress can shape an economy. It should demand, for instance, that the airlines keep their workers in their jobs; it should place hard caps on executive pay and prohibit stock buybacks; it can demand that airlines take steps to reduce their Sasquatch-size carbon footprint.... If the industry wants the public's money, it will have to deal with it." (Also linked yesterday.)

** Eric Lipton, et al., of the New York Times: "... despite [Trump's] promises of a 'whole of government' effort, key agencies -- like the Army Corps of Engineers, other parts of the Defense Department, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Veterans Affairs -- had not been asked to play much of a role.... 'We are starting the process,' Mr. Trump said during a news conference Tuesday afternoon, referring to New York's request to enlist the Army Corps of Engineers.... Even after Mr. Trump committed to supporting the states on Tuesday, the Army Corps of Engineers said it still had not received direction from the administration.... Hospital ships are at port. The Department of Veterans Affairs, legally designated as the backup health care system in national emergencies, awaits requests for help. The veterans department has a surplus of beds in many of its 172 hospital centers and a robust number of special rooms for patients with breathing disorders. The sprawling system of emergency doctors and nurses ready to be deployed by the Department of Health and Human Services -- known as the National Disaster Medical System -- is also still waiting for orders, other than to staff locations where passengers offloaded from cruise ships are being quarantined. And the Defense Department, home to 1.3 million active-duty troops and a civilian and military infrastructure that has made planning for national emergencies almost an art form, has yet to be deployed to its fullest capabilities." Oregon & New York City asked the feds for masks; they got delayed responses & a fraction of the number of masks they asked for -- and all of the masked ";were well past the expiration date." ~~~

~~~ Margo Sanger-Katz, et al., of the New York Times: "A new Harvard analysis shows that many parts of the United States will have far too few hospital beds if the new coronavirus continues to spread widely and if nothing is done to expand capacity. In 40 percent of markets around the country, hospitals would not be able to make enough room for all the patients who became ill with Covid-19, even if they could empty their beds of other patients. That statistic assumes that 40 percent of adults become infected with the virus over 12 months, a scenario described as 'moderate' by the team behind the calculations. These numbers are not exact predictions. In many ways, they reflect a worst-case scenario...." The story has one interactive map, showing the "moderate scenario. ProPublica has the story here. It includes a feature that IDs hospital bed availability in your region (apparently based on your IP address) & allows you to check other regions.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs, et al., of the New York Times: "The Trump administration plans to immediately turn back all asylum seekers and other foreigners trying to cross the southwestern border illegally, saying they cannot risk allowing the coronavirus to spread through detention facilities and among Border Patrol agents, four administration officials said on Tuesday. The officials said the ports of entry would remain open to American citizens, green card holders and some foreigners with proper documentation. Some foreigners would be blocked, including Europeans currently subject to earlier travel restrictions enacted by the administration. The entryways will also be open to commercial traffic."

Myah Ward of Politico: "Trump referred to Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer [D] as the 'failing Michigan governor' on Monday and lashed out at New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo [D] after his calls for stepped up federal assistance. Minutes later, he heaped praise on his own administration for 'working very well with the Governors and State officials.'... 'Cuomo wants "all states to be treated the same." But all states aren't the same. Some are being hit hard by the Chinese Virus, some are being hit practically not at all,' Trump tweeted.... 'New York is a very big "hotspot", West Virginia has, thus far, zero cases. Andrew, keep politics out of it.'" ~~~

~~~ Jonathan Martin & Alexander Burns of the New York Times: "One day after President Trump told the nation's governors on a conference call that he had been 'watching a lot of you on television' dealing with the coronavirus, he proved it Tuesday morning by angrily tweeting at Michigan's governor for saying on MSNBC that 'the federal government did not take this seriously early enough.'... 'Ironically, he made my point that they're not taking this as seriously as they need to,' [Gov. Gretchen] Whitmer [D-Mich.] said in an interview Tuesday afternoon, noting that the president had been 'watching TV.' The back-and-forth illustrated the enormous gap between the president's response to the colossal public health crisis and that of many chief executives in the states. Since the coronavirus began spreading, the governors have taken a lead role in issuing strict guidelines and stern warnings, asserting themselves in ways that only highlighted the initial inaction and lack of seriousness from the White House.... This year, not a single Democratic governor became a major contender for the presidency. And in the 2016 primary campaign, a long roster of current and former Republican governors were trampled by Mr. Trump. But figures like [Governors Mike DeWine [R-Ohio], [Jay] Inslee [D-Washington] and ... Andrew M. Cuomo [D] of New York, each of whom have decades of government experience, may be some of the few leaders who emerge politically stronger from this crisis."

Maggie Haberman & Noah Weiland of the New York Times (March 16): "The culture that President Trump has fostered and abided by for more than three years in the White House has shaped his administration's response to a deadly pandemic.... It explains how Mr. Trump could announce he was dismissing his acting chief of staff as the crisis grew more severe, creating even less clarity in an already fractured chain of command. And it was a major factor in the president's reluctance to even acknowledge a looming crisis, for fear of rattling the financial markets that serve as his political weather vane.... Crises are treated as day-to-day public relations problems by Mr. Trump, who thinks ahead in short increments of time and early on in his presidency told aides to consider each day as an episode in a television show. The type of long-term planning required for an unpredictable crisis like a pandemic has brought into stark relief the difficulties that Mr. Trump was bound to face in a real crisis. Mr. Trump has refused repeated warnings to rely on experts, or to neutralize some of the power held by his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, in favor of a traditional staff structure. He has rarely fully empowered people in the jobs they hold." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

Greg Sargent of the Washington Post: "It isn't easy to find any bright spots amid our ongoing slide into failed-state status, but here's one: Far more Americans trust the news media than trust President Trump to tell them the truth about our coronavirus crisis. A new poll from NPR, PBS News Hour and Marist finds that only 37 percent of Americans have a good deal of trust in the information Trump tells them about coronavirus. By contrast, 60 percent have little to no trust. Meanwhile, the poll also finds that 50 percent have a good deal of trust in the news media's information about the disease, versus 47 percent who lack trust.... Our national response to a crisis with extraordinarily far-reaching destructive potential is more or less under the control of a megalomaniac who, with the eager backing of his media allies, vastly prioritizes protecting his reelection chances over protecting the country.... In addition to the threat it poses to the country, coronavirus also poses an existential threat to Trump's presidency. This Trump-protection project will only grow more urgent...." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ MEANWHILE. Elizabeth Williamson of the New York Times: "When Deborah Frank Feinen, the mayor of Champaign, Ill., drafted an emergency powers declaration last Thursday to confront the coronavirus pandemic, she was proud of her city's early preparation. But by the time she got to work the next morning, the National Rifle Association had blared a 'national alert' saying 'anti-gun extremists' were moving 'to undermine our firearms freedom.' The city government was soon under siege.... Keen to defend President Trump from criticism and portray virus-related warnings as politically motivated fear-mongering, conservative organizations, media and Trump loyalists are undermining state and local government efforts to convey accurate information and protect their constituents.... On Sunday..., the Rev. Rodney Howard-Browne, an evangelical pastor and conspiracy theorist who has prayed with Mr. Trump in the White House, encouraged his tightly packed congregation to shake hands, to prove they were not 'pansies.'... He added, 'There's going to be forced vaccines' to 'kill off many people.' The president has not rebuked his allies...." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ "The Perils of the Pinocchio Presidency." Dana Milbank of the Washington Post: "For three years, President Trump told his supporters that the federal government perpetrates hoaxes and frauds, that the media produces fake news and that nothing is on the level except for his tweets. He did the same with the novel coronavirus, portraying it as an ordinary flu that would 'disappear' and accusing Democrats of a hoax and the media of exaggerating.... But Trump's late conversion to reality has left behind one group of Americans that will be difficult to convince: his own supporters. Their alternative-facts diet has left them intolerant of anything the government and the media feed them. An alarming new poll from NPR, PBS NewsHour and Marist shows that the number of Republicans who believe the virus is a real threat has actually fallen over the past month, from 72 percent in February to just 40 percent now.... At Tuesday's briefing...,[Trump] spoke to those inclined toward vacation travel: 'I would recommend that they just enjoy their living room.' And he admonished those not following social-distancing guidelines: 'I'm not happy with those people.'... 'Those people' are Fox-News viewing Trump supporters who, until this week, had been encouraged to believe Trump's claims that the virus was well under control."

Thanks to safari for embedding this video, featuring governors, media personalities & ordinary people doing a far better job of attacking the coronavirus than is Donald Trump:

Hans Van der Burchard of Politico: "German pharmaceutical company CureVac insists it did not receive any offer from ... Donald Trump to secure exclusive rights to a potential coronavirus vaccine, despite the German government and the company's main investor saying it did. CureVac deputy CEO Franz-Werner Haas said on Tuesday 'there was and is no offer' from Trump 'or any governmental organizations' to take over the company or 'to have manufacturing slots reserved' for exclusive vaccine production for the U.S. market. The Tübingen-based company on Sunday and Monday rejected reports that Trump had attempted to snatch up exclusive rights to the firm's coronavirus vaccine, which is currently being developed in cooperation with a taxpayer-funded German institute. But Haas, in a one-hour news conference carried out by telephone, failed to explain why senior German ministers had confirmed -- and strongly condemned -- such a bid, and why even the company's main investor, Dietmar Hopp, said Monday that he had been informed about a U.S. offer which he then rejected."

Thomas Fuller, et al., of the New York Times: "The most ambitious experiment in America to stop the spread of the coronavirus -- shelter-in-place orders for almost every resident -- was underway for seven million people living around the San Francisco Bay on Tuesday.... Seven counties on Monday ordered that people stay inside -- and leave their homes only to 'obtain or perform vital services.'... As other parts of the country contemplate similar measures, the shelter-in-place order in the Bay Area is testing the willingness of a go-it-alone society to curb personal behavior for the greater good of the community.... It was left up to the counties and cities to decide what was essential and in a modern society, it turns out, that can be a lot.... Late on Tuesday, [San Francisco] City Hall reversed an earlier decision by declaring that marijuana dispensaries were considered essential and could remain open." ~~~

~~~ Get Used to It. Brian Resnick of Vox: "... public health experts believe social distancing is the best way to prevent a truly horrific crisis: perhaps hundreds of thousands or more if our health care system is overwhelmed with severe Covid-19 cases.... Adam Kucharski, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine..., says, 'The main message that isn't getting across to a lot of people is just how long we might be in this for.... This virus is going to be circulating, potentially for a year or two, so we need to be thinking on those time scales. There are no good options here.'... The reason we may be in for an extended period of disruption, Kucharski says, is that the main thing that seems to be working right now to fight this pandemic is severe social distancing policies. Drop those measures -- allow people to congregate in big groups again -- while the virus is still out there, and it can start new outbreaks that gravely threaten public health.... We'll need something to stop the virus to truly end the threat. That's either a vaccine ... or herd immunity. This is when enough people have contracted the virus, and have become immune to it, to slow its spread. Herd immunity is not guaranteed."

The Latest Virus-Breeding Sites: Unemployment Offices. Rebecca Rainey of Politico: "Employers are slashing jobs at a furious pace across the nation due to mass shutdowns over the coronavirus, slamming state unemployment offices with a crush of filers facing sudden crises. Long before official government data is expected to reveal the depths of the economic shock inflicted by the coronavirus, reports from state officials and businesses around the country indicate the gathering of a massive wave of unemployment on a scale unseen since the Great Recession. In New Jersey, 15,000 people applied for unemployment benefits on Monday, a twelvefold increase over normal levels. In Connecticut, nearly 8,000 applications arrived over the weekend, an eightfold increase over the norm.... According to an NPR/Marist poll conducted Thursday and Friday, 18 percent of households already reported someone being laid off or having hours reduced because of the coronavirus outbreak, with women hit harder (21 percent) than men (16 percent), and people who earn less than $50,000 hit harder (25 percent) than those earning $50,000 or more (14 percent)."

Julie Tsirkin & Dareh Gregorian of NBC News: "Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the Senate would move at 'warp speed' to pass coronavirus legislation Tuesday, but Sen. Rand Paul, his fellow Kentucky Republican, put a damper on those plans, two leadership sources told NBC News. Senators were heading toward a vote Tuesday on the package -- which would include provisions for free coronavirus testing, secure paid emergency leave, enhance unemployment insurance, strengthen food security initiatives and increase federal Medicaid funding to states -- but they had to slam on the brakes because of an amendment Paul proposed.... His amendment ... would 'require a social security number for purposes of the child tax credit, and to provide the President the authority to transfer funds as necessary, and to terminate United States military operations and reconstruction activities in Afghanistan.' McConnell agreed to take up the amendment Wednesday, delaying the vote on the larger bill, the sources said. The Paul amendment is not expected to pass. McConnell ... said earlier Tuesday that a number of his members think that the package the House passed Saturday has 'considerable shortcomings' but that it is still necessary and urgent. 'My counsel to them is to gag and vote for it,' he said."

Stephen Colbert & Jon Batiste practice social distancing:

Max & Mel Brooks, too. (Sorry about the sottotitoli; this was the only good video I found):

Anne Gearan & David Nakamura of the Washington Post: "China's expulsion of American reporters from three major news organizations on Tuesday marked a major escalation of a proxy war between the world's two largest economies over the origin and global spread of the novel coronavirus that President Trump has called the 'Chinese virus.' Chinese authorities announced Tuesday that U.S. journalists from The Washington Post, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal must hand over press credentials, effectively meaning they must leave the country. The move is in retaliation for recent restrictions on U.S.-based Chinese state media put in place by the Trump administration, but the newly hostile public posturing also comes as the health, economic and social costs of the virus are skyrocketing in the United States and have already taken a toll on China. At a time when public health experts say the world needs clear communication and cooperation to contain the pandemic, two of the globe's leading powers are butting heads as part of a nationalistic tit-for-tat over the coronavirus -- accusing each other of mishandling the outbreak and misrepresenting one another's roles in its rise." An NPR story is here.

Take This Job & Shove It. Daniel Lippman of Politico: "Dale Cabaniss, the director of the government's Office of Personnel Management, resigned abruptly on Tuesday, effective immediately. Cabaniss stepped down because of, what two people familiar with the matter said, was poor treatment from the 29-year-old head of the Presidential Personnel Office, John McEntee, and a powerful appointee at OPM, Paul Dans, the new White House liaison and senior adviser to the director of OPM. OPM Deputy Director Michael Rigas is now acting director of OPM.... Cabaniss had been at the agency only since September. The departure casts a cloud of uncertainty over the federal workforce as it struggles to decide how to handle the coronavirus outbreak.... OPM is the human resources management policy shop for the federal government's civil service.... McEntee's return to the White House has roiled the administration with some officials criticizing the former Trump campaign staffer for what they see as an effort to stock the administration with his friends, including at least three college seniors.... Dans has 'clearly come with some kind of agenda,' said a person familiar with his hiring, who noted Dans doesn't appear to have much of a background in Title V of the U.S. code...." ~~~

~~~ Lisa Rein of the Washington Post: "... Dale Cabaniss resigned in frustration following months of tension with the White House budget office and more recently with its newly configured staffing office and a political appointee the office installed at OPM in the last month, according to three people familiar with her decision. Cabaniss thought that she was being micromanaged and that her authority was not respected, the people said.... Cabaniss, 58, has deep experience with federal personnel issues and was respected by her staff and by Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill, where she served for two decades as a top Senate aide overseeing civil service issues." Mrs. McC: Donald Trump is the best example ever of the old saying, "A fish rots from the head down."

John Vidal of the Guardian: "Only a decade or two ago it was widely thought that tropical forests and intact natural environments teeming with exotic wildlife threatened humans by harbouring the viruses and pathogens that lead to new diseases in humans such as Ebola, HIV and dengue. But a number of researchers today think that it is actually humanity's destruction of biodiversity that creates the conditions for new viruses and diseases such as Covid-19.... David Quammen, author of Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Pandemic, recently wrote in the New York Times, 'We cut the trees; we kill the animals or cage them and send them to markets. We disrupt ecosystems, and we shake viruses loose from their natural hosts. When that happens, they need a new host. Often, we are it.'" --s

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Thanks to safari for linking the video. This would be hilarious if these charlatans weren't such dangerous liars: ~~~

Alexander Burns & Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "Joseph R. Biden Jr. easily defeated Senator Bernie Sanders in three major primaries on Tuesday, all but extinguishing Mr. Sanders's chances for a comeback, as anxious Americans turned out to vote amid a series of cascading disruptions from the coronavirus pandemic. Mr. Biden ... won by wide margins in Florida and Illinois and also carried Arizona, sweeping the night and achieving a nearly insurmountable delegate lead. The emphatic outcome could greatly intensify pressure on Mr. Sanders to end his campaign and allow Democrats to unify behind Mr. Biden as their presumptive nominee. The routs in Florida and Illinois, two of the biggest prizes on the national map, represented both a vote of confidence in Mr. Biden from most Democrats, and a blunt rejection of Mr. Sanders's candidacy by the kind of large, diverse states he would have needed to capture to broaden his appeal beyond the ideological left.... The turmoil caused by the coronavirus upended plans for a primary election in Ohio, where state officials postponed voting scheduled for Tuesday, in an abrupt maneuver that barely survived last-minute legal scrutiny. Four other states have also taken steps to delay their primary elections until late this spring, with Maryland on Tuesday becoming the latest to push back voting.... In a gesture to the gravity of the moment, Mr. Biden used much of his brief victory address -- via a balky live stream from his home in Wilmington, Del. -- to discuss the virus and to reassure the country." The Guardian's story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Dear Bernie: I voted for you in 2016. Now is the time to drop out of the 2020 race. Not just because you can't win, but because it could save lives. Love, Your Friend & Admirer, Mrs. Bea McCrabbie ~~~

~~~ Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: "As Bernie Sanders's decisive primary defeats Tuesday put him almost hopelessly behind in the race for the Democratic nomination, he began facing growing calls to withdraw from Democrats who want the party to unite and focus its energy on defeating President Trump.... Sanders and his wife, Jane, are expected to reach a decision together about the future of the campaign, people in frequent contact with them said, taking input from advisers but making the call on their own. Many Democrats are waiting anxiously to see what Sanders says on Wednesday about the future of the race, if anything." The Guardian's story is here.

House Race. Sheryl Stolberg of the New York Times: "Representative Dan Lipinski, a conservative Democrat from Illinois whose opposition to abortion rights and the Affordable Care Act made him a pariah in his party, lost a hard-fought primary race on Tuesday night to his progressive challenger, Marie Newman. Ms. Newman, a business consultant and founder of an anti-bullying program, edged out Mr. Lipinski by two percentage points, with 493 of 500 precincts reporting early Wednesday. She had the backing of the progressive group Justice Democrats and its standard-bearer, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, as well as Emily's List, the powerful group that backs Democrats who support abortion rights. Mr. Lipinski narrowly beat Ms. Newman in 2018. Tuesday's results were a major upset for the congressman, whose family has represented Illinois' third district, in the Chicago suburbs, for nearly four decades. Mr. Lipinski's father, Bill Lipinski, first won the seat in 1982 and held it until 2005, when Mr. Lipinski succeeded him." A BuzzFeed News story is here.

Matt Zapotosky of the Washington Post: "Former U.S. congressman Duncan D. Hunter -- the California Republican who won reelection while under federal ­indictment, only to later admit wrongdoing in the case and resign -- was sentenced Tuesday to 11 months in federal prison, authorities said. The penalty brings to a close a dramatic case that saw prosecutors air publicly how the congressman used hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign funds to pay for family vacations, theater tickets and even to facilitate extramarital affairs, while Hunter countered that he was being unfairly targeted by a politicized Justice Department.... He was one of the first congressman to support Donald Trump as the Republican nominee for president, and after he was charged, he took a Trump-like approach to the case, attacking the prosecutors as politically motivated."

Sam Biddle et al., of The Intercept: "The makers of TikTok, the Chinese video-sharing app with hundreds of millions of users around the world, instructed moderators to suppress posts created by users deemed too ugly, poor, or disabled for the platform, according to internal documents obtained by The Intercept. These same documents show moderators were also told to censor political speech in TikTok livestreams.... TikTok controls content on its platform to achieve rapid growth in the mold of a Silicon Valley startup while simultaneously discouraging political dissent with the sort of heavy hand regularly seen in its home country of China." --s ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: I've decided to self-select as being too ugly, poor and disabled.

The Commentariat -- March 17, 2020

It's primary election day in three states: Florida, Illinois & Arizona. Ohio's primary was cancelled in the middle of the night by a state supreme court ruling; see link to Columbus Dispatch story under "Presidential Race" below.

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

From the New York Times' live updates on coronavirus developments: "As the coronavirus pandemic ground large swaths of the economy to a halt, cost an increasing number of people their jobs and sent the markets reeling, the White House, Congress and the Federal Reserve began taking steps to get aid to people and businesses. In a briefing on Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the administration is talking to Congress about sending cash payments to Americans over the next two weeks to cushion the economic blow from coronavirus. 'The president has instructed me we have to do this now,' he said. Mr. Mnuchin said that this Trump administration currently prefers making direct payments to Americans to get cash into their hands now rather than pushing for a payroll tax cut that would take months to reach people. He also said that President Trump instructed him to allow for the deferment of tax payments, interest free and penalty free for 90 days. People can defer up to a $1 million and corporations can defer up to $10 million in payments. The Treasury secretary said that this would inject $300 billion into the economy.... Mr. Trump said that his administration was also working to expand testing and preparing to ask Congress to infuse about $850 billion in additional stimulus to prop up the economy."

Trump Proposes Hu-u-ge Package to Raise Deficit & Help the Rich, Corporations. Erica Werner & Jeff Stein of the Washington Post: "The Trump administration is asking Congress to approve a massive economic stimulus package of around $850 billion to stanch the economic free fall caused by the coronavirus, four officials familiar with the planning said Tuesday. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will present details to Senate Republicans later Tuesday. The package would be mostly devoted to flooding the economy with cash, through a payroll tax cut or other mechanism, two of the officials said, with some $50 billion directed specifically to helping the airline industry. White House officials also want to include more assistance for small businesses and their employees in the legislation, the officials said.... The $850 billion package would come in addition to another roughly $100 billion package that aims to provide paid sick leave for impacted workers, though the details of that legislation remain very fluid as it moves through Congress.... Democrats have said their proposals are focused more on helping workers, health care providers, schools, and senior citizens.... Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D., N.Y.) is expected to outline his $750 billion proposal and contrast it with the White House's approach. Schumer's offering would expand unemployment insurance, provide money for schools, public transportation, expand Medicaid funding, expand more investments in health care, provide loan assistance, and halt evictions and foreclosures, among other things." ~~~

~~~ Franklin Foer of the Atlantic: "The coming bailout is a familiar moral catastrophe. During the financial crisis, the government saved the banking industry's bacon, while asking exceedingly little of the culprits. When the government spends billions of dollars to save industries, it has enormous leverage. This is the moment when Congress can shape an economy. It should demand, for instance, that the airlines keep their workers in their jobs; it should place hard caps on executive pay and prohibit stock buybacks; it can demand that airlines take steps to reduce their Sasquatch-size carbon footprint.... If the industry wants the public's money, it will have to deal with it."

Maggie Haberman & Noah Weiland of the New York Times (March 16): "The culture that President Trump has fostered and abided by for more than three years in the White House has shaped his administration's response to a deadly pandemic.... It explains how Mr. Trump could announce he was dismissing his acting chief of staff as the crisis grew more severe, creating even less clarity in an already fractured chain of command. And it was a major factor in the president's reluctance to even acknowledge a looming crisis, for fear of rattling the financial markets that serve as his political weather vane.... Crises are treated as day-to-day public relations problems by Mr. Trump, who thinks ahead in short increments of time and early on in his presidency told aides to consider each day as an episode in a television show. The type of long-term planning required for an unpredictable crisis like a pandemic has brought into stark relief the difficulties that Mr. Trump was bound to face in a real crisis. Mr. Trump has refused repeated warnings to rely on experts, or to neutralize some of the power held by his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, in favor of a traditional staff structure. He has rarely fully empowered people in the jobs they hold." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Sorry, I thought I had linked this story earlier, but I see I did not. There's not much in it you don't know, but it does give a good picture of how unsuited Trump is to hold any administrative post, much less president*.

Greg Sargent of the Washington Post: "It isn't easy to find any bright spots amid our ongoing slide into failed-state status, but here's one: Far more Americans trust the news media than trust President Trump to tell them the truth about our coronavirus crisis. A new poll from NPR, PBS News Hour and Marist finds that only 37 percent of Americans have a good deal of trust in the information Trump tells them about coronavirus. By contrast, 60 percent have little to no trust. Meanwhile, the poll also finds that 50 percent have a good deal of trust in the news media's information about the disease, versus 47 percent who lack trust.... Our national response to a crisis with extraordinarily far-reaching destructive potential is more or less under the control of a megalomaniac who, with the eager backing of his media allies, vastly prioritizes protecting his reelection chances over protecting the country.... In addition to the threat it poses to the country, coronavirus also poses an existential threat to Trump's presidency. This Trump-protection project will only grow more urgent...." ~~~

~~~ MEANWHILE. Elizabeth Williamson of the New York Times: "When Deborah Frank Feinen, the mayor of Champaign, Ill., drafted an emergency powers declaration last Thursday to confront the coronavirus pandemic, she was proud of her city's early preparation. But by the time she got to work the next morning, the National Rifle Association had blared a 'national alert' saying 'anti-gun extremists' were moving 'to undermine our firearms freedom.' The city government was soon under siege.... Keen to defend President Trump from criticism and portray virus-related warnings as politically motivated fear-mongering, conservative organizations, media and Trump loyalists are undermining state and local government efforts to convey accurate information and protect their constituents.... On Sunday..., the Rev. Rodney Howard-Browne, an evangelical pastor and conspiracy theorist who has prayed with Mr. Trump in the White House, encouraged his tightly packed congregation to shake hands, to prove they were not 'pansies.'... He added, 'There's going to be forced vaccines' to 'kill off many people.' The president has not rebuked his allies for their denialism."

~~~~~~~~~~

Benedict Carey of the New York Times: "Scientists tracking the spread of the coronavirus reported on Monday that, for every confirmed case, there are most likely another five to 10 people in the community with undetected infections. These often-milder cases are, on average, about half as infectious as confirmed ones, but are responsible for nearly 80 percent of new cases, according to the report, which was based on data from China."

Trump Faces Some Facts (At Least for Now). Nolan McCaskill & Joanne Kenen of Politico: "... Donald Trump on Monday acknowledged the gravity of the coronavirus pandemic, releasing strict new guidelines to limit people's interactions in an increasingly urgent bid to slow the virus in the next two weeks before U.S. hospitals are overwhelmed. 'It's bad. It's bad,' the president said at a news conference after releasing guidelines that called for people to avoid gathering in groups of more than 10 people and to steer clear of eating and drinking at bars, restaurants and food courts. The guidelines -- including a strict recommendation that anyone with even minor symptoms stay home -- are not mandatory. But they were issued with a sense of alarm and a frankness that Trump has not previously displayed.... No country, including the United States, has it under control, he said." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Just yesterday Trump said the coronavirus was something "we have tremendous control of." He also said he would give himself a "10" on a scale of one-to-ten for his response to the virus, which he claimed no one saw coming a month ago. So, ya know, he hasn't totally faced reality. Trump said, too, that he was tested "very strongly" for the virus, & the test was negative. What does that mean? Did he get a super-test? Did the technician stab him really hard? I just hope if I'm tested, it won't be done "very weakly." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Jonathan Chait: "President Trump's Monday coronavirus press conference was his best since the beginning of the crisis. That is, of course, a relative measure.... His most remarkable utterance -- one that would have set off an uproar if a normal president had said it -- came when he claimed the coronavirus had snuck up on everybody. 'We have a problem that, a month ago, nobody thought about,' he proclaimed. Uh, well, no. In January, two former Trump administration officials wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed pleading with Trump to take the coronavirus seriously. Almost two months ago, Joe Biden wrote an op-ed demanding a more forceful response. Trump spent this entire period relentlessly denying the United States faced any danger at all." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Chait is in Trumpspeak denial here. When Trump says, "nobody knew," of course he means, "I didn't know" or "I just learned." The form of the statement is just like the one he made to GOP officials three years ago: "Most people don't even know [Abraham Lincoln] was a Republican. Does anyone know? Lot of people don't know that." Of course the Stable Genius can't acknowledge his own ignorance, so he must attribute that ignorance to "most people" or "everybody."

~~~ If You Beat Trump Over the Head with a Baseball Bat Enough Times, He Might Just Sorta Get It. Meredith McGraw, et al., of Politico: "Before markets started spiraling like 1987's 'Black Monday' crash, and even before ... Donald Trump heard from state governors and G-7 leaders trying to stave off deaths at home, the president received a series of fresh warnings about the scale of the calamity poised to wash over America. His coronavirus task force presented new information based on overseas models showing how quickly the virus could spread without swift action. And new data he was shown from China overnight highlighted that country's economic collapse -- plunging factory activity and soaring unemployment -- despite its draconian measures to combat the coronavirus crisis. Faced with a reality that the nation he oversees needs to take dramatic action or follow in the footsteps of deeply troubled nations abroad, the president took on a newly somber tone about a virus outbreak he spent months downplaying.... In just 24 hours, the president went from telling people filling up their pantries to just 'relax,' to acknowledging the economy might be careening toward a recession and warning the public they have a narrow window of 15 days to stop the spread of a lethal disease." ~~~

~~~ Ben White of Politico: "The early signals from the coronavirus crisis point to a scale of damage unseen in the modern U.S. economy: the potential for millions of jobs lost in a single month, a historic and sudden plunge in economic activity across the nation and a pace of sharp market swings not seen since the Great Depression. The S&P is now only around 300 points away from wiping out all its gains since Donald Trump won the White House in November 2016. President Trump himself, one of the grandest boasters of the strength and resilience of markets and the American economy, appeared to capitulate on Monday with a more somber tone reflecting the immense magnitude of the challenge facing the nation.... The hope on the part of White House officials is not to avoid a sharp economic slowdown -- they all know it is coming -- but that the short-term pain from extreme measures will lead to a flattening in the curve of the virus spread."

Paul Krugman: "At every stage, Donald Trump minimized the threat and blocked helpful action because he wanted to look good for the next news cycle or two, ignoring and intimidating anyone who tried to give him good advice. But here';s the thing: Even if he weren't so irresponsibly self-centered, he has denuded the government of people who could be giving good advice in the first place.... As far as I can tell, the Trump team is utterly incapable of formulating a coherent response to the gathering economic crisis.... At this point, in other words, it's pretty much up to Jay Powell, the Fed chairman, and Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House; the question is whether Trump and Senate Republicans will let them save the economy.... In another time, under another president, the White House would have played a crucial role in shaping crisis legislation. But last week..., it was almost entirely a Democratic effort.... True, Steve Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, negotiated with Pelosi, basically to make the bill a bit worse.... The Senate probably will eventually pass Pelosi's bill. But with all signs pointing to a steep economic dive, we need a much bigger stimulus package -- perhaps along the lines being developed by Chuck Schumer...."

Fred Imbert of CNBC: "Stocks fell sharply Monday -- with the Dow suffering its worst day since the 'Black Monday' market crash in 1987 and its third-worst day ever -- even after the Federal Reserve embarked on a massive monetary stimulus campaign to curb slower economic growth amid the coronavirus outbreak. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 2,997.10 points lower, or 12.9%, at 20,188.52. The 30-stock Dow was briefly down more than 3,000 points in the final minutes of trading. The S&P 500 dropped 12% to 2,386.13 -- hitting its lowest level since December 2018 -- while the Nasdaq Composite closed 12.3% lower at 6,904.59 in its worst day ever. The major averages fell to their lows into the close after ... Donald Trump said the worst of the outbreak could last until August. He also told reporters the U.S. 'may be' heading into a recession." This is an update of a story linked previously. ~~~

~~~ New York Times live market updates: "The S&P 500 fell 12 percent, its biggest drop since the coronavirus outbreak began to roil markets in the United States last month -- and its worst daily decline since October 1987.... Financial markets cratered on Monday, as investors were confronted with evidence that a steep decline in the world's largest economies may have already begun. The sell-off began after the Federal Reserve took extraordinary steps on Sunday afternoon to bolster the American economy, signaling that it saw an economic crisis unfolding as businesses shut down and borders are closed to contain the coronavirus. The financial downdraft was global.... Then came news that factory activity in China -- one of the world's largest economies -- fell 13.5 percent last month compared with February of last year. Investment in China fell by roughly 25 percent. And one of the first bits of data for American economic activity in March, a gauge of manufacturing activity in New York State, showed a record one-month plunge in the measure, which fell to its lowest level since 2009." ~~~

~~~ Matt Egan & Rob McLean of CNN: "America's eight biggest biggest banks are slamming the brakes on their aggressive share buyback programs as they promise to preserve capital to get through the coronavirus crisis. The financial institutions announced the buyback decision simultaneously Sunday evening just after the Federal Reserve took emergency actions aimed at staving off a deep economic recession.... The decision reflects a realization that it would look bad for banks to reward shareholders with massive buybacks while simultaneously taking unpopular steps such as foreclosures, pulling credit lines, freezing hiring and laying off workers." --s ~~~

~~~ Al Lewis of CNBC: "Goldman Sachs' economists declared the U.S. economy all but recession-proof at the dawning of 2020, but now it appears a coronavirus-induced recession may have begun just a few months later. The analysis didn't account for a 'Black Swan,' a term for an improbable and unforeseen event.... 'We are going into a global recession,' warns chief economic advisor at Allianz Mohamed El-Erian, who correctly called the bear market as it approached. 'The economic damage is going to last.'" --s (Also linked yesterday.)

Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "President Trump told a group of governors on Monday morning that they should not wait for the federal government to fill the growing demand for respirators needed to treat people with coronavirus. "'Respirators, ventilators, all of the equipment -- try getting it yourselves,' Mr. Trump told the governors during the conference call, a recording of which was shared with The New York Times. 'We will be backing you, but try getting it yourselves. Point of sales, much better, much more direct if you can get it yourself.' The suggestion surprised some of the governors, who have been scrambling to contain the outbreak and are increasingly looking to the federal government for help with equipment, personnel and financial aid. Last Wednesday, Mr. Trump directed his labor secretary to increase the availability of respirators, and he has generally played down fears of shortages." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ William Baldwin of Forbes (March 14): "The German government just placed an order for 10,000 mechanical ventilators. What's the U.S. government doing about a potential shortage here? Not much, it seems.... 'We could increase production five-fold in a 90- to 120-day period,' says Chris Kiple, chief executive of Ventec Life Systems, a Bothell, Wash. firm that makes ventilators used in hospitals, homes and ambulances.... The ventilator industry is getting a burst of desperate orders from China and Italy. The U.S. hasn't seen that yet, although manufacturers are bracing for it. 'The time for action by the government is now,' says Kiple." --s

Tom Boggioni of RawStory: "As part of his duties overseeing the task force in charges of dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, Vice President Mike Pence has been holding secret meetings with prominent right-wing 'influencers' on how to spin Donald Trump's administration's efforts to contain the growing health crisis." --s

Nahal Toosi, et al., of Politico: "Seven days before Donald Trump took office, his aides faced a major test: the rapid, global spread of a dangerous virus in cities like London and Seoul, one serious enough that some countries were imposing travel bans. In a sober briefing, Trump's incoming team learned that the disease was an emerging pandemic ... and that health systems were crashing in Asia, overwhelmed by the demand.... But ... this 2017 crisis didn't really happen -- it was among a handful of scenarios presented to Trump's top aides as part of a legally required transition exercise with members of the outgoing administration of Barack Obama.... But roughly two-thirds of the Trump representatives in that room are no longer serving in the administration. That extraordinary turnover in the months and years that followed is likely one reason his administration has struggled to handle the very real pandemic it faces now, former Obama administration officials said.... 'The problem is that they came in very arrogant and convinced that they knew more than the outgoing administration -- full swagger,' one former Obama administration official who attended said. 'There were people who were there who said, "This is really stupid and why do we need to be here,"' added another senior Obama administration official...."

MEANWHILE, on Trump TV. Paul Farhi & Sarah Ellison of the Washington Post: "For weeks, some of Fox News's most popular hosts downplayed the threat of the coronavirus, characterizing it as a conspiracy by media organizations and Democrats to undermine President Trump. Fox News personalities such as Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham accused the news media of whipping up 'mass hysteria' and being 'panic pushers.' Fox Business host Trish Regan called the alleged media-Democratic alliance 'yet another attempt to impeach the president.' But that was then. With Trump's declaration on Friday that the virus constitutes a national emergency, the tone on Fox News has quickly shifted. On his program on Friday, Hannity -- the most watched figure on cable news -- lauded the president's handling of what the host is now, belatedly, referring to as a 'crisis.'... Trump, meanwhile, has long looked to Fox News and its personalities for guidance and approval, a dynamic that may have been pivotal this week after host Tucker Carlson reportedly visited with the president in person to urge him to take the coronavirus seriously."

Ryan Lucas of NPR: "Federal courthouses across the United States are taking steps large and small -- including postponing trials and moving courtroom hearings to video conferences -- as officials scramble to curtail public gatherings and limit the spread of the coronavirus.... The most dramatic effect so far on the federal judiciary was the Supreme Court's decision Monday to postpone oral arguments scheduled through April 1.... But there is no blanket decision that covers all district and circuit courts. Instead, each is crafting its own response in coordination with state and local health officials." (Also linked yesterday.)

Amy Goodman of Democracy Now, via RawStory: "A teenager's website tracking coronavirus has become one of the most vital resources for people seeking accurate and updated numbers on the pandemic. The URL is nCoV2019.live. We speak with 17-year-old Avi Schiffmann, a high school junior from Mercer Island outside Seattle, who started the site in late December, when coronavirus had not yet been detected outside of China. Now the site has been visited by tens of millions from every country on Earth." --s (Also linked yesterday.)

Mariel Padilla & Zach Montague of the New York Times: "Representative Devin Nunes, a California Republican, on Sunday encouraged healthy people to dine out at restaurants, contradicting public health advisories that strongly encouraged social distancing and discouraged Americans from attending mass gatherings.... 'There's a lot of concerns with the economy here because people are scared to go out,' he said. 'But I will just say, one of the things you can do is, if you're healthy, you and your family, it's a great time to just go out, go to a local restaurant. Likely you can get in easily. Let's not hurt the working people in this country that are relying on wages and tips to keep their small business going.'" (Also linked yesterday.)

Jared Holt of Right Wing Watch: "Former Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke melted down in a profanity-laced Twitter rant on Sunday in which he encouraged the public to defy the government' precautionary warnings meant to curb the spread of the coronavirus disease, alleging that liberal billionaire George Soros was somehow involved in the 'FLU panic.' 'GO INTO THE STREETS FOLKS. Visit bars, restaurants, shopping malls, CHURCHES and demand that your schools re-open. NOW! If government doesn't stop this foolishness...STAY IN THE STREETS. END GOVERNEMNT CONTROL OVER OUR LIVES. IF NOT NOW, WHEN? THIS IS AN EXPLOITATION OF A CRISIS,' Clarke posted on his Twitter account, where he has nearly one million followers. In another tweet, Clarke called the United States' response to the COVID-19 coronavirus the byproduct of 'several decades of liberal wussification.'... In one since-removed tweet, Clarke claimed that the ordered closures of bars and restaurants were part of 'orchestrated attempt to destroy CAPITALISM.' Clarke urged businesses to 'defy the order.'" Ginni Thomas (Clarence's wife) previously recommended that the White House hire Clarke for 'a homeland security ​role.​​'" (Also linked yesterday.)

Jonathan Chait on Trump's attempt "to pay a German biopharmaceutical company to develop a coronavirus vaccine in the United States, with the proviso that the product would be 'only for the United States.'... First, it shows his inability to grasp positive sum outcomes, especially between countries. A vaccine is a reductio ad absurdum of his dog-eat-dog worldview. While production capacity is somewhat finite, a vaccine is not a scarce good. Successful vaccines are always shared around the world because the entire world has a shared interest in eradicating diseases. Trump is the only world leader who is trying a beggar-thy-neighbor strategy for pandemic response. Second, it reveals his cynical assumption that everybody else shares his own amorality.... And third, we have Trump's inability to grasp the larger picture.... Would other countries be happy about this, or angry? Would they react in ways that might harm us when we might need their cooperation?" (Also linked yesterday.)

Peter Whoriskey & Neena Satija of the Washington Post on how U.S. testing failed: "As the coronavirus continues to spread across the United States, causing more than 80 deaths and over 4,000 confirmed cases, the struggles that overwhelmed the nation's testing are becoming clearer. First, the CDC moved too slowly to tap into the expertise of academia and private companies..., experts said.... The government effort was nevertheless marred by a widespread manufacturing problem that stalled U.S. testing for most of February.... Critics say government officials should have moved much more quickly to bring on expertise from outside the CDC." The story goes on to illuminate how the CDC rejected assistance from both the private sector & some state labs. Experts are urging the government to find out why.

Mitt Gets Real. Clare Foran of CNN: "Republican Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah on Monday outlined a list of proposals to address the coronavirus outbreak, including giving all American adults $1,000 in response to fallout from the spread of the disease. Romney's office framed the proposals as a way to ensure economic stability for working Americans.... The proposal comes after businessman Andrew Yang drew attention as a candidate in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary by advocating a universal basic income of $1,000 per month for every American adult to address economic inequality. Yang, who dropped out of the presidential race in February and is now a CNN political commentator, tweeted about the Romney proposal on Monday, saying, 'Mitt understands this crisis' potential impact on the economy and what is at stake.'" Thanks to Ken W. for the link.

Josh Marshall of TPM: "As we've moved into the shocking events of March one of my central experiences has been what I would call time dilation.... What's unthinkable Thursday is quaint by Sunday. Such rapid shifts in our perceptions of the world and reality we're living in are profoundly disorienting. I suspect more disorienting than many of us yet understand simply because there's no respite from the rush of events. With all this I thought it would be helpful to review some of the recent timeline of events, both to get some temporal footing but also to start thinking about the range of possibilities of what might happen and how long this might last." --s

Ben Collins of NBC News: "The various false text messages forwarded to many Americans on Sunday and Monday all started a little differently before making the same debunked claim: Martial law is coming. Martial law is not coming.... With social media networks like Facebook and Twitter cracking down on the spread of dangerous misinformation in the face of the pandemic, misleading information and false claims have moved to what experts are calling a literal 'game of telephone' in text-messaging apps. Some users, even those who have no intention of spreading wrong information, are forwarding along viral rumors and urban legends to push vital information that is frequently untrue.... The supposed 'source' of the martial law rumors differs from recipient to recipient. Different versions of the texts seen by NBC News attribute the rumor to 'high-ranking military officials,' a 'close friend ... with incredibly reliable information' and 'a source that works for Homeland Security.'"

Alex Wickham of BuzzFeed News: "The UK only realised 'in the last few days' that attempts to 'mitigate' the impact of the coronavirus pandemic would not work, and that it needed to shift to a strategy to 'suppress' the outbreak, according to a report by a team of experts who have been advising the government. The report, published by the Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team on Monday night, found that the strategy previously being pursued by the government -- dubbed 'mitigation' and involving home isolation of suspect cases and their family members but not including restrictions on wider society -- would 'likely result in hundreds of thousands of deaths and health systems (most notably intensive care units) being overwhelmed many times over'... 'Our most significant conclusion is that mitigation is unlikely to be feasible without emergency surge capacity limits of the UK and US healthcare systems being exceeded many times over,' perhaps by as much as eight times, the report said. In this scenario, the Imperial College team predicted as many as 250,000 deaths in Britain."

The Grifters. Jordan Libowitz of CREW: "On March 7, less than two weeks after President Trump returned from an official visit to India, the business he still owns and profits from made an announcement: it would now ship Trump-branded products to India. This appears to be a clear violation of the Trump family's pledge of no new foreign business during the Trump presidency, and an invitation for corruption. This decision will allow foreign nationals to funnel money into President Trump's pocket in a way that is unfortunately both secret and legal. India is joined on the announcement by Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Scotland (which we must note is still technically part of the United Kingdom) and Germany." --s (Also linked yesterday.)

Swamp. Mike Spies & Jake Pearson of ProPublica: "The Republican National Committee has paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to contractors closely connected to the organization's chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel. One contract went to her husband's insurance company. Two others went to businesses whose executives recently donated to Ronna for Chair, a largely inactive political action committee that McDaniel controls.... The companies won the contracts soon after McDaniel became the party's top official. She was picked for the position by President Donald Trump after the 2016 election." --s (Also linked yesterday.)

Phillip Bailey of the Louisville Courier Journal: "Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is quietly making phone calls to senior federal judges and urging them to step aside ahead of the 2020 election. A source familiar with the Kentucky leader's thinking described Monday how McConnell is personally reaching out to judges appointed by past Republican presidents.... The effort underscores how the GOP leader might be concerned about Republicans losing their Senate majority in the fall or ... Donald Trump failing to be reelected."

Robert Faturechi of ProPublica (March 10): "House members and staffers of both parties are increasingly dodging ethics investigators. The last decade showed a sharp drop in cooperation starting in mid-2016. Before that, in 74% of distinct cases subjects cooperated fully..., according to a ProPublica review of every case in which OCE found a potential violation. Since then, full cooperation has plummeted to just 33% of cases. Today, it's common for lawmakers from both parties to refuse not just some requests for interviews and documents from OCE, but all of them. In the last four years, subjects in 11 of 18 distinct cases refused any cooperation whatsoever. In the six years before that, there were just three such cases out of 43." --s (Also linked yesterday.)

Michael Balsamo & Eric Tucker of the AP: "The Justice Department is moving to drop charges against two Russian companies that were accused of funding a social media campaign to sway American public opinion during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Prosecutors said they concluded that a trial, against a corporate defendant with no presence in the United States and no prospect of meaningful punishment even if convicted, would likely expose sensitive law enforcement tools and techniques, 'potentially undermining their effectiveness.' Concord Management and Consulting LLC and Concord Catering were among three companies and 13 individuals charged in 2018 by special counsel Robert Mueller in a conspiracy to spread disinformation on social media during the 2016 presidential race. The effort was aimed at dividing American public opinion and sowing discord in the electorate, officials said. The case was one of the signature indictments from Mueller's two-year Russia investigation.... Concord was the sole defendant in the case to enter an appearance in Washington's federal court and contest the allegations. The case had been set for trial next month, making the government's filing all the more abrupt. Concord is controlled by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a wealthy businessman known as 'Putin's chef' for his ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin." ~~~

~~~ Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post: "The Justice Department's retreat comes after several controversies over Attorney General William P. Barr and top aides' handling of Mueller-related cases." The Hill has a story here. Mrs. McC: I smell a rat. Or two. Or three.

Presidential Race

John Wagner & Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: "Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) said that no in-person voting will take place in the state's primary Tuesday, noting that proceeding as usual would not be in accordance with the CDC guidelines against gatherings of 50 people or more.... He said a lawsuit will be filed to enact the change.... Election officials in the three other states voting Tuesday -- Arizona, Florida and Illinois -- have said they will proceed with their primaries, though Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) questioned the wisdom of that ... Sunday." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Update. As of 8 pm ET Monday, it wasn't clear if Ohio polls would be open or closed tomorrow. Gov. DeWine, according MSNBC, asked a court to close the polls, and the court declined his request. DeWine is appealing. ~~~

     ~~~ ** Update 2. Rick Rouan & John Futty of the Columbus Dispatch: "For real this time: There is no Ohio primary Tuesday. Early Tuesday, the Ohio Supreme Court denied a legal challenge to the state delaying the primary. A candidate in Wood County filed the action alleging the delay of the primary violated election laws. Only four justices participated in the ruling, which was issued without an opinion. The ruling capped a chaotic 12 hours in which it appeared the election was off, back on, and then off again.... Lawsuits are expected Tuesday seeking to allow additional days for absentee balloting and to perhaps move the election to a date other than June 2." ~~~

~~~ ** Nick Corasaniti & Stephanie Saul of the New York Times: "The other three states scheduled to vote on Tuesday [today] -- Arizona, Florida and Illinois -- have indicated that they intend to hold their elections as planned.... Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana and Ohio have postponed their presidential primary elections.... Wyoming is suspending in-person caucuses and asking voters to mail or drop off their ballots. Other states are weighing similar options or adding extra precautions for voters." The story has more information on voting in the three states voting today, but if you vote in those states, you'll probably have to consult local papers or other news outlets for clarification.

Senate Race. Kentucky. Daniel Desroches of the Lexington Herald-Leader: "U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's campaign called on a potential Democratic opponent -- former Marine Corps pilot Amy McGrath -- to stop running political advertisements during the COVID-19 pandemic. 'Amy McGrath's decision to blanket the airwaves with deceitful ads during the coronavirus outbreak is tasteless and shameful,' said McConnell campaign manager Kevin Golden.... The Kentucky primaries were slated for May 19, but Gov. Andy Beshear delayed the primary by 35 days to June 23." Mrs. McC: Seems to me like a good time to run ads about how Mitch is holding up passage of a bill for coronavirus relief & mitigation funding.

The Commentariat -- March 16, 2020

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Trump Faces the Facts (At Least for Now). Nolan McCaskill & Joanne Kenen of Politico: "... Donald Trump on Monday acknowledged the gravity of the coronavirus pandemic, releasing strict new guidelines to limit people's interactions in an increasingly urgent bid to slow the virus in the next two weeks before U.S. hospitals are overwhelmed. 'It's bad. It's bad,' the president said at a news conference after releasing guidelines that called for people to avoid gathering in groups of more than 10 people and to steer clear of eating and drinking at bars, restaurants and food courts. The guidelines -- including a strict recommendation that anyone with even minor symptoms stay home -- are not mandatory. But they were issued with a sense of alarm and a frankness that Trump has not previously displayed.... No country, including the United States, has it under control, he said." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Just yesterday Trump said the coronavirus was something "we have tremendous control of." He also said he would give himself a "10" on a scale of one-to-ten for his response to the virus, which he claimed no one saw coming a month ago. So, ya know, not he hasn't totally faced reality. Trump said, too, that he was tested "very strongly" for the virus & the test was negative. What does that mean? Did he get a super-test? Did the technician stab him really hard? I just hope if I'm tested, it won't be done "very weakly."

Fred Imbert of CNBC: "Stocks fell sharply Monday -- with the Dow suffering its worst day since the 'Black Monday' market crash in 1987 and its third-worst day ever -- even after the Federal Reserve embarked on a massive monetary stimulus campaign to curb slower economic growth amid the coronavirus outbreak. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 2,997.10 points lower, or 12.9%, at 20,188.52. The 30-stock Dow was briefly down more than 3,000 points in the final minutes of trading. The S&P 500 dropped 12% to 2,386.13 -- hitting its lowest level since December 2018 -- while the Nasdaq Composite closed 12.3% lower at 6,904.59 in its worst day ever. The major averages fell to their lows into the close after ... Donald Trump said the worst of the outbreak could last until August. He also told reporters the U.S. 'may be' heading into a recession." This is an update of a story linked previously.

John Wagner & Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: "Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) said that no in-person voting will take place in the state's primary Tuesday, noting that proceeding as usual would not be in accordance with the CDC guidelines against gatherings of 50 people or more.... He said a lawsuit will be filed to enact the change.... Election officials in the three other states voting Tuesday -- Arizona, Florida and Illinois -- have said they will proceed with their primaries, though Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) questioned the wisdom of that during a post-debate interview Sunday."

Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "President Trump told a group of governors on Monday morning that they should not wait for the federal government to fill the growing demand for respirators needed to treat people with coronavirus. '"Respirators, ventilators, all of the equipment -- try getting it yourselves,' Mr. Trump told the governors during the conference call, a recording of which was shared with The New York Times. 'We will be backing you, but try getting it yourselves. Point of sales, much better, much more direct if you can get it yourself.' The suggestion surprised some of the governors, who have been scrambling to contain the outbreak and are increasingly looking to the federal government for help with equipment, personnel and financial aid. Last Wednesday, Mr. Trump directed his labor secretary to increase the availability of respirators, and he has generally played down fears of shortages."

Ryan Lucas of NPR: "Federal courthouses across the United States are taking steps large and small -- including postponing trials and moving courtroom hearings to video conferences -- as officials scramble to curtail public gatherings and limit the spread of the coronavirus.... The most dramatic effect so far on the federal judiciary was the Supreme Court's decision Monday to postpone oral arguments scheduled through April 1.... But there is no blanket decision that covers all district and circuit courts. Instead, each is crafting its own response in coordination with state and local health officials."

Jared Holt of Right Wing Watch: "Former Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke melted down in a profanity-laced Twitter rant on Sunday in which he encouraged the public to defy the government's precautionary warnings meant to curb the spread of the coronavirus disease, alleging that liberal billionaire George Soros was somehow involved in the 'FLU panic.' 'GO INTO THE STREETS FOLKS. Visit bars, restaurants, shopping malls, CHURCHES and demand that your schools re-open. NOW! If government doesn't stop this foolishness ... STAY IN THE STREETS. END GOVERNEMNT CONTROL OVER OUR LIVES. IF NOT NOW, WHEN? THIS IS AN EXPLOITATION OF A CRISIS,' Clarke posted on his Twitter account, where he has nearly one million followers. In another tweet, Clarke called the United States' response to the COVID-19 coronavirus the byproduct of 'several decades of liberal wussification.'... In one since-removed tweet, Clarke claimed that the ordered closures of bars and restaurants were part of 'orchestrated attempt to destroy CAPITALISM.' Clarke urged businesses to 'defy the order.'" Ginni Thomas (Clarence's wife) previously recommended that the White House hire Clarke for ​"a ​homeland security role.​​"

Mariel Padilla> & Zach Montague of the New York Times: "Representative Devin Nunes, a California Republican, on Sunday encouraged healthy people to dine out at restaurants, contradicting public health advisories that strongly encouraged social distancing and discouraged Americans from attending mass gatherings.... 'There's a lot of concerns with the economy here because people are scared to go out,' he said. 'But I will just say, one of the things you can do is, if you're healthy, you and your family, it's a great time to just go out, go to a local restaurant. Likely you can get in easily. Let's not hurt the working people in this country that are relying on wages and tips to keep their small business going.'"

Al Lewis of CNBC: "Goldman Sachs' economists declared the U.S. economy all but recession-proof at the dawning of 2020, but now it appears a coronavirus-induced recession may have begun just a few months later. The analysis didn't account for a 'Black Swan,' a term for an improbable and unforeseen event.... 'We are going into a global recession,' warns chief economic advisor at Allianz Mohamed El-Erian, who correctly called the bear market as it approached. 'The economic damage is going to last.'" --s

Swamp. Mike Spies & Jake Pearson of ProPublica: "The Republican National Committee has paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to contractors closely connected to the organization's chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel. One contract went to her husband's insurance company. Two others went to businesses whose executives recently donated to Ronna for Chair, a largely inactive political action committee that McDaniel controls.... The companies won the contracts soon after McDaniel became the party's top official. She was picked for the position by President Donald Trump after the 2016 election." --s

The Grifters. Jordan Libowitz of CREW: "On March 7, less than two weeks after President Trump returned from an official visit to India, the business he still owns and profits from made an announcement: it would now ship Trump-branded products to India. This appears to be a clear violation of the Trump family's pledge of no new foreign business during the Trump presidency, and an invitation for corruption. This decision will allow foreign nationals to funnel money into President Trump's pocket in a way that is unfortunately both secret and legal. India is joined on the announcement by Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Scotland (which we must note is still technically part of the United Kingdom) and Germany." --s

Amy Goodman of Democracy Now, via RawStory: "A teenager's website tracking coronavirus has become one of the most vital resources for people seeking accurate and updated numbers on the pandemic. The URL is nCoV2019.live. We speak with 17-year-old Avi Schiffmann, a high school junior from Mercer Island outside Seattle, who started the site in late December, when coronavirus had not yet been detected outside of China. Now the site has been visited by tens of millions from every country on Earth." --s

Robert Faturechi of ProPublica (March 10): "House members and staffers of both parties are increasingly dodging ethics investigators. The last decade showed a sharp drop in cooperation starting in mid-2016. Before that, in 74% of distinct cases subjects cooperated fully, providing interviews and documents as requested, according to a ProPublica review of every case in which OCE found a potential violation. Since then, full cooperation has plummeted to just 33% of cases. Today, it's common for lawmakers from both parties to refuse not just some requests for interviews and documents from OCE, but all of them. In the last four years, subjects in 11 of 18 distinct cases refused any cooperation whatsoever. In the six years before that, there were just three such cases out of 43." --s

Jonathan Chait on Trump's attempt "to pay a German biopharmaceutical company to develop a coronavirus vaccine in the United States, with the proviso that the product would be 'only for the United States.'... First, it shows his inability to grasp positive sum outcomes, especially between countries. A vaccine is a reductio ad absurdum of his dog-eat-dog worldview. While production capacity is somewhat finite, a vaccine is not a scarce good. Successful vaccines are always shared around the world because the entire world has a shared interest in eradicating diseases. Trump is the only world leader who is trying a beggar-thy-neighbor strategy for pandemic response. Second, it reveals his cynical assumption that everybody else shares his own amorality.... And third, we have Trump's inability to grasp the larger picture.... Would other countries be happy about this, or angry? Would they react in ways that might harm us when we might need their cooperation?"

~~~~~~~~~~

The New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments is here. "Countries closed borders, cities from New York and Los Angeles to Paris and Madrid closed bars and restaurants, schools closed more classrooms and hundreds of millions of people closed their doors on one another as the authorities took ever more drastic steps to slow the spread of the new coronavirus. The consequences of China's harsh measures to halt the virus -- restricting the movement of about 700 million people at one point -- became apparent on Monday when the government released economic data showing industrial output falling to its lowest level in decades and unemployment rising at its highest rate ever in February.... There is a scramble across the [European] Continent to step up production of ventilators, with leaders calling for the kind of effort seen in wartime to produce munitions." The Washington Post's live updates are here. Both papers' coronavirus updates are free for nonsubscribers.

Zachary Basu of Axios: "Several state governments -- Michigan, Illinois, Massachusetts, California & Washington -- on Sunday called for the closure of bars and restaurants, a drastic step to enforce 'social distancing' that follows similar measures in Europe, where the coronavirus outbreak has put tremendous strain on health resources.... Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government's top infectious disease expert, made a plea on the Sunday morning talk shows for young people to stop flooding bars and restaurants."

Heather Long of the Washington Post: "The Federal Reserve announced on Sunday it would drop interest rates to zero and buy at least $700 billion in government and mortgage-related bonds as part of a wide-ranging emergency action to protect the economy from the impact of the coronavirus outbreak. The moves, the most dramatic by the U.S. central bank since the 2008 financial crisis, are aimed at keeping financial markets stable and making borrowing costs as low as possible as businesses around the country close and the U.S. economy hurtles toward recession. The Fed, led by Chair Jerome H. Powell, effectively cut its benchmark by a full percentage point to zero. The benchmark U.S. interest rate is now in a range of 0 to 0.25 percent, down from a range of 1 to 1.25 percent. In addition to rate cuts, the Fed announced it is restarting the crisis-era program of bond purchases known as 'quantitative easing,' in which the central bank buys hundreds of billions of dollars in bonds to further push down rates and keep markets flowing freely. The Fed is also giving more-generous loans to banks around the country so they can turn around and offer loans to small businesses and families in need of lifeline." Politico's story is here. ~~~

~~~ Fred Imbert of CNBC: "Stocks fell sharply on Monday even after the Federal Reserve embarked on a massive monetary stimulus campaign to curb slower economic growth amid the coronavirus outbreak. The S&P 500 dropped 11.4% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 2,700 points, or 11.7%. The Nasdaq Composite traded 11.2% lower. Before the open, futures contracts tied to the major averages hit their 'limit down' levels, meaning they could not trade below that threshold. Those limits are imposed by the CME Group to maintain orderly market behavior." This is an update of a story linked earlier this morning.

Mrs. McCrabbie: I don't know what to make of this, but there it is in a real newspaper, and apparently confirmed by a German minister: ~~~

~~~ Philip Oltermann of the Guardian: "The Trump administration has offered a German medical company 'large sums of money' for exclusive access to a Covid-19 vaccine, German media have reported. The German government is trying to fight off what it sees as an aggressive takeover bid by the US, the broadsheet Die Welt reports, citing German government circles. The US president had offered the Tübingen-based biopharmaceutical company CureVac 'large sums of money' to gain exclusive access to their work, wrote Die Welt. According to an anonymous source quoted in the newspaper, Trump was doing everything to secure a vaccine against the coronavirus for the US, 'but for the US only'. The German government was reportedly offering its own financial incentives for the vaccine to stay in the country. The German health minister Jens Spahn said that a takeover of the CureVac company by the Trump administration was 'off the table'. CureVac would only develop vaccine 'for the whole world', Spahn said, 'not for individual countries'." Thanks to Ken W. for the link. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ This US News report is more detailed & less sensational. It seems to back up the essence of the story, but it isn't clear from this report that Trump's aim was to secure the CureVac vaccine "for the U.S. only." Mrs. McC: If that is Trump's plan, it's analogous to a war crime. (Also linked yesterday.) A Reuters story, which I think was the first-published English-language report, is here. ~~~

~~~ Zeke Miller of the AP: "The first participant in a clinical trial for a vaccine to protect against the new coronavirus will receive an experimental dose on Monday, according to a government official. The National Institutes of Health is funding the trial, which is taking place at the Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in Seattle.... Public health officials say it will take a year to 18 months to fully validate any potential vaccine. Testing will begin with 45 young, healthy volunteers with different doses of shots co-developed by NIH and Moderna Inc. There's no chance participants could get infected from the shots, because they don't contain the virus itself. The goal is purely to check that the vaccines show no worrisome side effects, setting the stage for larger tests. Dozens of research groups around the world are racing to create a vaccine as COVID-19 cases continue to grow."

Some highlights from Sunday's NYT coronavirus updates: "New York's mayor announced on Sunday night that he would order all bars and restaurants to close. Restaurants would be limited to takeout and food delivery, officials said.... The [CDC] recommended Sunday that no gatherings with 50 people or more -- including weddings, festivals, parades, concerts, sporting events or conferences -- be held in the United States for the next eight weeks in one of the federal government's most sweeping efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus.... California called for all people 65 and older to shelter in their homes. Massachusetts moved to ban dining in bars and restaurants beginning Tuesday, effectively closing Boston's bars for St. Patrick's Day. And Puerto Rico set some of the strictest measures in the United States, imposing a 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew and closing nonessential businesses.... By Sunday morning, known cases of coronavirus in the United States exceeded 2,700, spread across 49 states, prompting the mass cancellation of events and the reordering of American public life. Just one week ago, fewer than 500 cases of the illness had been diagnosed in the country..... Two American emergency-room doctors -- one in Washington State and one in New Jersey -- were in critical condition with Covid-19." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ See also in yesterday's Comments, Anonymous's account of a very early Sunday morning grocery-shopping outing.

The Travel Ban Fiasco

Matt Stieb of New York: "In an error-laden speech on Wednesday night, President Trump surprised the airline industry by announcing a travel ban on citizens from 26 European countries in an attempt to quell the spread of the coronavirus. On Saturday, the first day that the restrictions and 'enhanced entry screenings' were put into effect, Customs lines at major U.S. airports were inundated with passengers, resulting in reported waits of up to seven hours. Like many Trump administration responses to the pandemic, the implementation of the rules may have increased the likelihood of COVID-19 transmission, rather than their intended effect.... With the travel ban extending to Ireland and the United Kingdom on Monday at midnight, it's unlikely that the chaos at the airports, and the increased potential for COVID-19 exposure caused by the lines, will subside -- and all for a containment effort that public-health experts are confident will not work. University College London epidemiologist Francois Balloux told NPR that 'From a public-health perspective, it's completely pointless.'"

Derek Hawkins, et al., of the Washington Post: "Airports around the country were thrown into chaos Saturday night as workers scrambled to roll out the Trump administration's hastily arranged health screenings for travelers returning from Europe. Scores of anxious passengers said they encountered jam-packed terminals, long lines and hours of delays as they waited to be questioned by health authorities at some of the busiest travel hubs in the United States." Mrs. McC: The accompanying photo of the U.S. Customs waiting area at Dallas-Fort Worth International is not exactly a picture of "social distancing," even though many of the people in the photo are coming from areas with high coronavirus incidences. It's a "What's Wrong with This Picture?" moment. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Cheryl Benard in a Washington Post op-ed: "Arriving at Dulles International Airport via London, I encountered a case study in how to spread a pandemic.... Dulles had been identified by the [Trump] administration as one of the handful of U.S. airports equipped to test arriving passengers and admit or quarantine them accordingly.... Upon landing, I spent three hours in a jammed immigration hall trying to decide which analogy fit better: the ignorant Middle Ages during the plague years or the most chaotic airport in the least developed country.... There was no attempt to enable social distancing; we were packed closely together. Two giant queues of people -- one for U.S. citizens and green-card holders and one for foreign nationals -- wound their way through the cavernous hall. I counted and came up with approximately 450 people in each section, for a total of just under a thousand. Many were coughing, sneezing and looking unwell." Read on. It gets worse.

Jacob Rosenberg of Mother Jones: "On Saturday night, as images of huge crowds stuck at customs at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport went viral, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker [D] tweeted his frustration -- tagging ... Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. 'These crowds are waiting to get through customs,' he said, 'which is under federal jurisdiction....you need to do something NOW.' Pritzker's message was clear: 'The federal government needs to get its s@#t together.'... On Sunday morning, Pritzker said on Meet the Press that he did hear from the White House late Saturday night. Except it wasn't to offer support or help at one of the nation's biggest airports -- rather, it was to yell at him for tweeting about it in the first place."

Taylor Dolven of the Miami Herald: "Despite the positive test for COVID-19 from a passenger who had disembarked days earlier, thousands of people were allowed to leave a cruise ship in Miami on Sunday without undergoing medical screening. The former passenger got off the MSC Meraviglia in Miami on March 8 after an eight-day Caribbean cruise, leaving 103 passengers and the ship's crew aboard for the next voyage. Four days later, after the ship had sailed with thousands of additional new passengers aboard, the Public Health Agency of Canada informed Broward-based MSC Cruises that the former passenger had tested positive. Once it received the result, the company said it isolated in individual cabins seven crew members who had been in close contact with the passenger. But instead of holding the ship off the Florida coast and testing people on board for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, MSC said U.S. health authorities cleared it to dock Sunday and disembark passengers as normal."

** Ariana Cha of the Washington Post: "In the Chinese city of Wuhan..., doctors made life-or-death decisions last month when 1,000 people needed ventilators to support their breathing, but only 600 were available. In Iran, where numerous high-level officials have been infected, doctors sought unsuccessfully to get the international community to lift sanctions so they could purchase more lifesaving machines. And in northern Italy, doctors took the painful step last week of issuing guidelines for rationing ventilators and other essential medical equipment, prioritizing treatment for the young and others with the best chance of survival. Such tough choices could well be ahead for the United States, a nation with limited hospital capacity and grim epidemiological projections estimating that as many as 40 to 60 percent of the country's population of 327 million could eventually become infected." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. MCrabbie: If you're looking for reassurances from the Dear Leader, here's what you get: "We're in the process, and in some cases have already done it, ordered a large number of respirators just in case. We hope we don't need them but we've ordered a large number." (March 14) WTF does that even mean? Trump of course will get whatever medical equipment he needs; as he struggles for breath, his doctor isn't going to tell him a procurement clerk in the process of ordering a new respirator for him, but nobody knows if the paperwork has gone through, and if even the manufacturer gets the order, gets around to filling & sending it, what government storehouse it might go to & how & when it might be routed to Walter Reed. And his doctor won't have a momentary twinge of conscience and say, "But I'm lying about all this, Sir. There are no respirators on order, much less ventilators. You're going to die, Sir. Right quick."

Quack, Quack. Sarah Jones of New York: "... for some people, a pandemic is a business opportunity.... In response to the pandemic, some consumers are turning to homeopathy, essential oils, and other forms of alternative medicine and home cures to either prevent COVID-19, or to treat it. Others are raking in profit off the anxieties of the public. The problem has become so significant that the World Health Organization now addresses a few choice urban legends on its official website for COVID-19.... Even without the looming threat of pandemic, pseudoscientific cures can pose a real threat to the public. No scientific evidence supports the claim that homeopathy has curative properties, for example, and relying on unproven treatments without the assistance of conventional medicine can put a person's health at risk." Jones names a number of famous-ish people selling snake oil, including televangelist Jim Bakker & actor Gwyneth Paltrow.

Summer Concepcion of TPM: "President Trump attempted to quell the panic that has ensued amid the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. during a White House press briefing Sunday afternoon. After shouting out to his meeting with executives from Target, Campbell's and Costco, Trump advised against panic-buying in response to the outbreak. 'You don't have to buy so much,' Trump said. 'Take it easy, just relax. People are going in and buying more. I remember -- I guess during the conversation Doug of Walmart said -- that they're buying more than they buy at Christmas. Relax. We're doing great. It all will pass.' Trump later added that the executives he met with earlier Sunday 'have asked me to say, "Could you buy a little bit less please?"' which he thought he 'would never hear that from a retailer.'" More on Trump's Sunday press briefing in the story by the NYT's Karni & Goldman linked below.~~~

~~~ I Really Don't Care. Do U? David Leonhardt of the New York Times: "I've reviewed all of [Trump's] public statements and actions on coronavirus over the last two months, and they show a president who put almost no priority on public health. Trump's priorities were different: Making the virus sound like a minor nuisance. Exaggerating his administration's response. Blaming foreigners and, anachronistically, the Obama administration. Claiming incorrectly that the situation was improving. Trying to cheer up stock market investors.... Now that the severity of the virus is undeniable, Trump is already trying to present an alternate history of the last two months. Below are the facts -- a timeline of what the president was saying, alongside statements from public-health experts as well as data on the virus."

Charles Blow of the New York Times: "The virus was never a hoax or a media creation or a flash in the pan that would affect few and miraculously vanish. But Trump, the supposed leader of the country, wasted precious time -- weeks and weeks -- telling the American public just that, while not taking the drastic measures that the government is now, belatedly, taking. That puts lives in danger, and surely, in the end, will have cost lives.... Even when cooler heads and bigger brains prevailed, and Trump stopped trying to wish the virus away and started the work of driving it away, he was hapless, dishonest and dissembling."

Justine Coleman of the Hill: "President Trump said Sunday that he is 'strongly considering' a full pardon for his former national security adviser Michael Flynn. 'So now it is reported that, after destroying his life & the life of his wonderful family (and many others also), the FBI, working in conjunction with the Justice Department, has "lost" the records of General Michael Flynn,' he tweeted. 'How convenient. I am strongly considering a Full Pardon!' he added." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ "It Is Reported"?? Martin Pengelly & Oliver Laughland of the Guardian: "Although Trump did not cite specific reports, [Flynn's lawyer Sidney] Powell had tweeted hours earlier an unsubstantiated claim that '#FBI still hiding evidence of #Flynn's innocence'." Mrs. McC: Oh. The "reports" are in the right-wing fantasy loop. So (1) make up a story about some miscarriage of justice; (2) pardon the guy based on the invented story. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Annie Karni & Adam Goldman of the New York Times: "Mr. Trump, who appeared to spend the day stewing at the White House, also lashed out at a familiar group of perceived Democratic enemies: Hillary Clinton, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York. The president brought up Mrs. Clinton's use of a private email server, accused Mr. Schumer of threatening his two appointees to the Supreme Court and falsely blamed the Obama administration of responding slowly to the swine flu outbreak in 2009. In the evening, Mr. Trump made an appearance in the White House briefing room.... He left Vice President Mike Pence to address the escalating anxiety across the country and the availability of testing.... During the news conference, Mr. Trump again attacked the news media, after he falsely claimed last week that Google had 1,700 engineers at work on a coronavirus website that would help people evaluate their symptoms and locate a drive-by testing site. 'The Fake and Corrupt News never called Google,' Mr. Trump tweeted earlier in the day, inaccurately, in his latest attempt to sow mistrust of the news media. 'Even in times such as these, they are not truthful. Watch for their apology, it won't happen.'"

Presidential Race

America, go to the YouTube right now. -- Bernie Sanders, Sunday debate, on Joe Biden's claim that he didn't make repeated attempts to cut Social Security ~~~

~~~ First Runner-up in the Democratic Prezstakes Will Be a Woman. Alexander Burns & Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Senator Bernie Sanders called for vastly more aggressive government action to battle the coronavirus but split over some of the details along familiar ideological lines on Sunday night.... In their first one-on-one encounter of the primary race, Mr. Sanders ... demanded sweeping economic reform and the creation of a single-payer health care system to address crises like the virus. Mr. Biden said he would call up the military to help and enact 'a multi-multi-billion dollar program' of disease containment and economic rescue, and said that there were more issues at hand that could not wait on reinventing the health care system. Mr. Biden also used the debate to explicitly pledge to name a woman as his running mate, a vow that prompted Mr. Sanders to say he would 'in all likelihood' do the same. The specter of the disease pervaded their encounter from their first moments onstage: Mr. Biden and Mr. Sanders declined to shake hands at the start and stood six feet apart from each other at a television studio in Washington, following the guidelines for social distancing prescribed by public health authorities.... The debate took place without a live audience." ~~~

~~~ Christopher Cadelago & Elena Schneider of Politico describe "key moments" in the debate. NBC News reporters list some key exchanges here. ~~~

~~~ Joe Biden knows the way to the Situation Room.

Superfluous "News": Karen Heller of the Washington Post believes she has compiled "The Definitive Guide to Bernie Sanders' Hand Gestures." (Also linked yesterday.)

Beyond the Beltway

Florida. Patricia Mazzei of the New York Times: "Andrew Gillum, the former Tallahassee mayor who was the Democratic nominee for governor of Florida in 2018, announced on Sunday night that he is going into rehab. Mr. Gillum, who narrowly lost the governor's race and went on to become a prominent television commentator, said in a statement that he would seek treatment for alcoholism. Mr. Gillum was found in a Miami Beach hotel room last week when paramedics were called in to help another man who was suffering from a possible drug overdose."

Way Beyond

Israel. Uh, Wow? David Halbfinger of the New York Times: "Benny Gantz, the centrist former army chief battling to depose Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, on Sunday won the endorsements of a narrow majority of lawmakers, earning him a fresh chance to form a government and break Israel's yearlong political deadlock. The surprise majority for Mr. Gantz, 60, who earned the backing both of Arab lawmakers often accused of sympathizing with terrorists and from ultranationalist lawmakers often called rabidly anti-Arab, puts him in a stronger-than-expected position to try to pry loose Mr. Netanyahu's 11-year grip on power. Israel' president, Reuven Rivlin, said he would formally assign Mr. Gantz, of the Blue and White party, the mandate to form a government at midday on Monday."