The Commentariat -- April 18, 2020

Afternoon Update:

Steven Mufson, et al., of the Washington Post: "With the number of the covid-19 tests hovering at an average of 146,000 a day, businesses leaders and state officials are warning the Trump administration that they cannot safely reopen the economy without radically increasing the number of available tests -- perhaps into the millions a day -- and that won't happen without a greater coordinating role by the federal government. Though the capacity of private business to produce those volumes remains unclear, state leaders and health experts say that the administration should move with a greater sense of urgency and could do several relatively easy things to speed the production and distribution of tests. On Friday, the American Association for Clinical Chemistry said there were still critical supply chain issues that stand in the way of ramping up testing, including a lack of protective equipment for technicians who run the tests, and a shortage of swabs and reagents -- chemical solutions required to run the tests.... This week the federal government took one step private industry has been seeking -- Medicare doubled reimbursements from $51 to $100 a test, making covid-19 testing profitable for labs."

Campbell Robertson & Robert Gebeloff of the New York Times: "One in three jobs held by women has been designated as essential, according to a New York Times analysis of census data crossed with the federal government's essential worker guidelines. Nonwhite women are more likely to be doing essential jobs than anyone else." This article is an expansion of an item that appears in Saturday's NYT coronavirus live updates.

Debbie Cenziper, et al., of the Washington Post: "Forty percent of more than 650 nursing homes nationwide with publicly reported cases of the coronavirus have been cited more than once by inspectors in recent years for violating federal standards meant to control the spread of infections, according to a Washington Post analysis. Since 2016, the nursing homes accrued hundreds of deficiencies for unsafe conditions that can trigger the spread of flu, pneumonia, urinary tract infections and skin diseases." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: So what is the point of "citing" these Petri dishes if you don't shut them down & sue their owners for their last shiny pennies?

David Fahrenthold & Joshua Partlow of the Washington Post: "Thousands of U.S. hotels have volunteered to help local authorities house doctors, nurses and other medical personnel at reduced rates -- or even free -- during the covid-19 pandemic. President Trump's White House has praised these efforts. But so far, none of Trump's own hotels are known to be participating. In five U.S. cities where President Trump's company operates large hotels -- New York, Chicago, Miami, Washington and Honolulu -- local authorities said the Trump hotel was not involved in their efforts to provide low-cost or no-cost rooms to those fighting the virus."

Slaughterhouse 50. Michael Corkery & David Yaffe-Bellany of the New York Times: "... meat plants, honed over decades for maximum efficiency and profit, have become major 'hot spots' for the coronavirus pandemic, with some reporting widespread illnesses among their workers. The health crisis has revealed how these plants are becoming the weakest link in the nation's food supply chain, posing a serious challenge to meat production. After decades of consolidation, there are about 800 federally inspected slaughterhouses in the United States, processing billions of pounds of meat for food stores each year. But a relatively small number of them account for the vast majority of production. In the cattle industry, a little more than 50 plants are responsible for as much as 98 percent of slaughtering and processing in the United States.... More than a dozen beef, pork and chicken processing plants have closed or are running at greatly reduced speeds because of the pandemic."

Mary McCord in a Washington Post op-ed: "President Trump incited insurrection Friday against the duly elected governors of the states of Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia. Just a day after issuing guidance for re-opening America that clearly deferred decision-making to state officials -- as it must under our Constitutional order -- the president undercut his own guidance by calling for criminal acts against the governors for not opening fast enough.... It's not at all unreasonable to consider Trump's tweets about' liberation' as at least tacit encouragement to citizens to take up arms against duly elected state officials of the party opposite his own, in response to sometimes unpopular but legally issued stay-at-home orders." McCord argues that when a president* does it, it isn't protected free speech since the power of his bully pulpit is likely to lead to lawless action.

Sally Jenkins of the Washington Post: "The sentiment has been mouthed by every fool from Dr. Oz to the Cheetos-dusted flimflam man in the Oval Office: Rather than damage the economy further, we must accept a certain number of coronavirus casualties so the rest of us can go back to restaurants and football games.... There is something deeply suspect about this rush toward sacrificial death for the sake of American dollars, this framing of margin calls as worth dying over.... It's a false moral equation and a false choice. And the people putting it forward smack of panic. How about we ... [take] common-sense measures to prevent the preventable. Such as, a ramped-up national testing and tracing system that would allow Americans to make legitimate personal-risk assessments and reduce the chance of new outbreaks.... It's called informed consent. And right now, we don't have it.... The crudity of the White House's response to the virus resembles nothing so much as [World War I] -- rudimentary, unskilled, disorganized waste with needless carnage, led by a vain martinet kaiser with extravagant hair who never set foot in a trench."

It's More Than November. Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times: "After years of single-minded devotion, the conservative movement is achingly close to dismantling the New Deal political order and turning the clock back to when capital could act without limits or restraints.... In which case, it makes all the sense in the world for Trump, the Republican Party and the conservative movement to push for the end of the lockdown, public health be damned.... And all of this is happening as one of the most progressive generations in history begins to take its place in our politics, its views informed by two decades of war and economic crisis."

~~~~~~~~~~

The New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments Saturday are here. "From the cashier to the emergency room nurse to the drugstore pharmacist to the home health aide taking the bus to check on her older client, the soldier on the front lines of the current national emergency is most likely a woman. One in three jobs held by women has been designated as essential, according to a New York Times analysis of census data crossed with the federal government's essential worker guidelines. Nonwhite women are more likely to be doing essential jobs than anyone else." ~~~

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

Christina Ng of ABC News & Dr. Mark Abdelmalek: "The first large-scale community test of 3,300 people in Santa Clara County[, California,] found that 2.5 to 4.2% of those tested [for coronavirus antibodies] were positive for antibodies -- a number suggesting a far higher past infection rate than the official count. Based on the initial data, researchers estimate that the range of people who may have had the virus to be between 48,000 and 81,000 in the county of 2 million -- as opposed to the approximately 1,000 in the county's official tally at the time the samples were taken. 'Our findings suggest that there is somewhere between 50- and 80-fold more infections in our county than what's known by the number of cases than are reported by our department of public health,' Dr. Eran Bendavid..., [of] Stanford University who led the study, said in an interview with ABC News' Diane Sawyer."

"Death Pits." Farah Stockman, et al., of the New York Times: "... a nationwide tally by The New York Times has found the number of people living in or connected to nursing homes who have died of the coronavirus to be at least 7,000, far higher than previously known.... Overall, about a fifth of deaths from the virus in the United States have been tied to nursing homes or other long-term care facilities, the Times review of cases shows. And more than 36,500 residents and employees across the nation have contracted it. In interviews with more than two dozen workers in long-term care facilities as well as family members of residents and health care experts, a portrait emerged of a system unequipped to handle the onslaught and disintegrating further amid the growing crisis.... The number of cases at these facilities ... is almost certainly still higher since many facilities, counties and states have not provided detailed information."

Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: I listened to part of the 5 pm Trump Show Friday, and the substantive part, IMO, was this: mike pence said all the states had all the tests they needed; Anthony Fauci followed him & explained why no states were getting all the tests they needed. (Fauci, as is his wont, expressed this in a roundabout way, so some people wouldn't figure out he was saying the veep was lying.) ~~~

~~~ Burgess Everett of Politico: "Senate Democrats exploded in frustration during a conference call with Vice President Mike Pence and Trump administration officials on Friday afternoon, with one normally laid-back senator [Angus King (I-Maine)] asserting it was the most maddening phone call he&'s ever taken part in, according to participants and people familiar with the call. The call between ... Donald Trump's coronavirus task force and Senate Democrats on Friday left the Senate minority 'livid,' according to one Democrat on the call, because of the lack of clear answers about national testing for the disease. Sen. Angus King ... called it a 'dereliction of duty,' said a second person on the call. King added: 'I have never been so mad about a phone call in my life.'"

Mrs. McCrabbie: Anderson Cooper spoke with a couple of doctors to talk about Trump's death-to-Americans plan, and it's as bad as you already guessed. The administration is not just leaving it up to governors to decide when to authorize reopening various facilities in their states; he also is leaving it up to states to conduct & manage their own testing: a prerequisite to deciding what can be reopened. Gov. Andrew Cuomo said New York didn't have the money to do the testing (much less the expertise, I'd guess), and you can be sure most other states are in the same position. Besides the costs of the test kits themselves, testing will take a lot of personnel to conduct the tests & analyze them. States can't run deficits the way the feds can. In addition, testing uniformity throughout the nation is essential to make the results meaningful. As one of the doctors said on CNN, right now testing regimens vary not just from state-to-state but even from hospital-to-hospital within the same county. I'm not saying mike pence would have been a great president, but left to his own devices, it's not possible he would have done a worse job than Trump. Every GOP senator except Mitt Romney is responsible for this disaster. On the cusp of the pandemic, they had a chance to get rid of the worst president* in American history, and they blew it.

Today in Trump Projection. Jesse Byrnes of the Hill: "President Trump went after Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in a tweet late Friday, attacking the Democratic leader as 'an incompetent political hack' and calling on her to return to Washington as lawmakers wrestle over another coronavirus relief bill. Trump shared a tweet criticizing Pelosi over her appearance on 'The Late Late Show' with James Corden earlier this week. In the clip, Pelosi shows off a stockpile of ice cream packed in her kitchen freezer in San Francisco...." Mrs. McC: Apparently Trump is unaware there is long-distance phone service between the coasts. Trump, of course, is an incompetent political hack who spends most of his waking time watching other people do stuff on the teevee.

... the question of the 2020 election, as Trump and his party attempt to frame it: Are you manly enough to sneer at death, like real men do in the movies (which are fake, of course, but never mind that), or are you one of those pusillanimous patsies who quivers under the bed sheets like some avocado toast-eating intellectual, whining that we have to listen to the experts?... Donald Trump and the Republicans are going to turn the election into a red vs. blue culture war battle.... -- Michael Tomasky of the Daily Beast @ 6:28 am ET Friday

LIBERATE MICHIGAN! -- Donald Trump tweet @11:22 am ET Friday

LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege! -- Donald Trump tweet at 11:22 am ET

LIBERATE MINNESOTA! -- Donald Trump tweet @11:28 am ET Friday ~~~

~~~ Michael Shear & Sarah Mervosh of the New York Times: "President Trump on Friday openly encouraged right-wing protests of social distancing restrictions in states with stay-at-home orders, a day after announcing guidelines for how the nation's governors should carry out an orderly reopening of their communities on their own timetables.... His stark departure from the more bipartisan tone of his announcement on Thursday night suggested Mr. Trump was ceding any semblance of national leadership on the pandemic, and choosing instead to divide the country by playing to his political base. Echoed across the internet and on cable television by conservative pundits and ultraright conspiracy theorists, his tweets were a remarkable example of a president egging on demonstrators and helping to stoke an angry fervor that in its anti-government rhetoric was eerily reminiscent of the birth of the Tea Party movement a decade ago." The story includes more on governors' reactions to Trump's guidelines & his stunningly bad behavior. ~~~

~~~ Aaron Rupar of Vox: "... Donald Trump can't help but sow division, even at a time when Americans are largely united in supporting stay-at-home orders and social distancing to slow the spread of the coronavirus.... These posts -- which are among the most dangerous of Trump's tenure -- appear to have been inspired by a segment he saw on Fox News minutes earlier.... Asked on Thursday if he thinks protesters in Michigan should listen to local officials like Whitmer, Trump said that such people listen to him instead. 'I think they're listening. I think they listen to me. They seem to be protesters that like me,' Trump said." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: AND, as Chuck Todd (of all people) pointed out, none of the Democratic-led states Trump targeted, even within the context of the limited testing available to them, has reached the point in the arc of infections & recoveries that Trump himself said yesterday evening must be met before they can be "liberated." Worth remembering, too: some of the protesters in Michigan were carrying confederate flags and sporting swastika tattoos. So yeah, they like Trump. ~~~

~~~ Update. David Smith of the Guardian: "At Friday's White House coronavirus taskforce briefing, Trump played down fears that by crowding together, the protesters themselves could spread the Covid-19 illness. 'These are people expressing their views,' he told reporters. "I see where they are and I see the way they're working. They seem to be very responsible people to me, but they've been treated a little bit rough.'... Some protesters have carried guns, waved Trump and Confederate flags and sought to frame the debate as a defence of constitutional freedoms.... On Friday, Trump also stood by his criticism of the Democratic governors, even though they are following his own federal guidelines." Emphasis added.

~~~ Ben Collins & Brandy Zadrozny of NBC News: "When ... Donald Trump tweeted 'LIBERATE MINNESOTA!' on Friday morning, some of his most fervent supporters in far-right communities -- including those who have agitated for violent insurrection -- heard a call to arms.... Trump's tweets ... pushed many online extremist communities to speculate whether the president was advocating for armed conflict, an event they've termed 'the boogaloo,' for which many far-right activists have been gearing up and advocating since last year. There were sharp increases on Twitter in terms associated with conspiracies such as QAnon and the 'boogaloo' term immediately following the president's tweets, according to the Network Contagion Research Institute, an independent nonprofit group ... that tracks and reports on misinformation and hate speech across social media.... 'The president is fomenting domestic rebellion and spreading lies - even while his own administration says the virus is real, it is deadly and we have a long way to go before restrictions can be lifted,' [Gov. Jay] Inslee [D-Wash.] wrote [on Twitter]."

This Seems Sensible. Lachlan Markay of the Daily Beast: "... Donald Trump unveiled a proposal this week to reopen America's gyms in spite of the coronavirus outbreak after a phone call that included [Bahram Akradi,] the head of the company that owns luxury fitness brands Equinox and SoulCycle, who also happens to be a high-profile Trump supporter. In a memo issued on Thursday titled 'Guidelines for Opening Up America Again,' the White House included gyms among the businesses that would reopen to the general public during 'phase one' of its plan to jump-start the American economy.... Though the document said gyms could open 'if they adhere to strict physical distancing and sanitation protocols,' their inclusion nevertheless struck public health experts as bizarre. 'Gyms are like a petri dish,' said Laurence Gostin ... [of] Georgetown University. 'People are close to one another, they're sweating, they're coughing and sneezing, they're touching multiple surfaces, they're sharing equipment, they're indoors. Literally all of the heightened risk factors for COVID transmission are all entwined together in a gym.'"

Patrick Wintour of the Guardian: "Donald Trump found himself isolated among western leaders at a virtual G7 summit, as they expressed strong support for the World Health Organization after the US's suspension of its funding. Health officials around the world have condemned the US president’s decision to stop his country's funding for the UN agency.... On Thursday, G7 leaders voiced their backing for the WHO and urged international co-operation. Immediately after the hour-long conference call, a spokesman for Angela Merkel said that the German chancellor had argued that 'the pandemic can only be overcome with a strong and co-ordinated international response'. The spokesman said Merkel 'expressed support for the WHO as well as a number of other partners'.... The White House insisted there was support for US criticism of the WHO in the G7 call, saying 'much of the conversation centred on the lack of transparency and chronic mismanagement of the pandemic by the WHO. The leaders called for a thorough review and reform process.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Dana Milbank of the Washington Post: This week, Donald Trump accused "the World Health Organization of 'covering up the spread of the coronavirus' and failing to 'share information in a timely and transparent fashion.'... The next day he called the WHO a 'tool of China' and floated the vile conspiracy theory that the WHO deliberately concealed the danger of the virus.... This is a damnable and murderous lie. As Trump surely knows..., 15 officials from his administration were embedded with the WHO in Geneva, working full time, hand-in-glove with the organization on the virus from the very first day China disclosed the outbreak to the world, Dec. 31.... In the weeks that followed, they and other U.S. government scientists engaged in all major deliberations and decisions at the WHO on the novel coronavirus, had access to all information, and contributed significantly to the world body's conclusions and recommendations. Everything that the WHO knew, the Trump administration knew -- in real time. As congressional investigators who requested WHO documents and communications are now learning, senior Trump administration officials ... consulted with the WHO throughout the crisis."

Michael Warren of CNN: "Just as cases are starting to plateau in some big cities and along the coasts, the coronavirus is catching fire in rural states across the American heartland, where there has been a small but significant spike this week in cases. Playing out amid these outbreaks is a clash between a frontier culture that values individual freedom and personal responsibility, and the onerous but necessary restrictions to contain a novel biological threat....The bump in coronavirus cases is most pronounced in states without stay at home orders. Oklahoma saw a 53% increase in cases over the past week, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Over same time, cases jumped 60% in Arkansas, 74% in Nebraska, and 82% in Iowa. South Dakota saw a whopping 205% spike. The remaining states, North Dakota, Utah and Wyoming each saw an increase in cases, but more in line with other places that have stay-at-home orders. And all of those numbers may very well undercount the total cases, given a persistent lack of testing across the US."

Isaac Stanley-Becker & others of the Washington Post report on what various governors are doing to lift restrictions and what the Trump administration is doing to help them (nothing).

From the New York Times' live updates. Friday: "Facing mounting economic damage and with encouragement from President Trump, governors of some states have started to announce plans for businesses to tiptoe back into operation on May 1, even as cases surge in some parts of the country.... Beaches in Duval County, Fla., where infections appear to be flattening, will reopen with restrictions at 5 p.m. on Friday.... Gov. Tony Evers of Wisconsin said on Thursday that golf courses could open with certain restrictions and that for-hire lawn care could be carried out if it was performed by one person. Stores selling materials to make face masks can open for curbside pickup, he said." (Also linked yesterday.)

California. Weird News. Jon Passantino of CNN: "... Gov. Gavin Newsom responded Thursday to Tesla CEO Elon Musk's claim that the company had delivered more than 1,000 ventilators to the state's hospitals treating a surge of coronavirus patients.... The governor's office told CNN the state's hospitals had not received ventilators promised last month by the Tesla CEO. Included in [a series of] tweets from Musk was a partial list of hospitals that he said had been sent ventilators.... He said the donations were 'based on direct requests from their ICU wards, with exact specifications of each unit provided before shipment.' 'I was not personally aware of that list,' Newsom said at a press conference. '... I look forward to learning more about where they went and am grateful for his support.' CNN contacted 10 California hospitals identified by Musk in the partial list of recipients he posted on Thursday. Of the four hospitals that responded, all said they had received bilevel positive airway pressure (biPAP) or continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machines -- devices that can aid breathing and be used for sleep apnea. None had received ventilators."

Florida. Common Dreams, republished in the Raw Story: "Less than 24 hours after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis relaxed restrictions on social distancing in the state, clearing the way for beaches and parks in some areas to reopen, the city of Jacksonville announced Friday its beaches would reopen at 5pm.... As Miami reporter Brian Entin noted on Twitter, confirmed coronavirus cases in Florida spiked on Thursday as DeSantis issued his order." --s ~~~

~~~ David Smiley of the Miami Herald: "When the Miami Herald sought information from the Miami-Dade Medical Examiner's Office last month about COVID-19 deaths in the epicenter of Florida's coronavirus outbreak, attorneys for the state health department moved to block the records from becoming public.... The Herald ... obtained the information Thursday after the county bucked Florida's Department of Health. But the episode is an example of how the administration of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis often has been unwilling or unable to provide crucial information about its coronavirus response -- and at times has actively tried to shield critical details about the depths of the crisis from becoming public.... In recent weeks, Florida's Agency for Health Care Administration has refused to name the nursing homes experiencing coronavirus outbreaks, even as the number of cases in longterm care facilities has passed 1,300. The Department of Corrections had until Wednesday declined to acknowledge two inmate COVID-19 deaths at a privately run prison. And the Department of Health has been unwilling to disclose the extent of an undefined backlog of unresolved coronavirus tests at private labs." (Also linked yesterday.)

Illinois. Flying Under the Radar. Frank Main of the Chicago Sun-Times (April 14): "Gov. J.B. Pritzker is planning to obtain millions of masks and gloves from China and bring those supplies back to Illinois on charter jets -- but he's keeping the details secret out of fear the Trump administration might seize the cargo for the federal stockpile, sources said Tuesday." ~~~

~~~ Chris Tye of CBS Chicago: "A massive shipment of supplies to help fight COVID-19 arrived at [Chicago's] O’Hare [Airport Thursday afternoon].... One state insider called this a wild west kind of mission. Another asked CBS 2 to keep quiet on the landing until it was completed, four minutes ahead of schedule. And now two dozens pallets of the most crucial supplies are headed to Illinois' front lines.... A second flight with similar cargo scheduled for next week. Dubbed by some as secret flights to keep Washington from muddying the pricey delivery. 'It is true that the federal government seems to be interrupting supplies that are being sent elsewhere in the nation,' [Gov. J.B.] Pritzker [D] said. 'And so I wanted to make sure we receive what we ordered.'" ~~~

~~~ One Reason Pritzker Had to Sneak in the Masks. Chris Boyette & Caroline Kelly of CNN (March 31): "Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Monday that the federal government sent the wrong type of medical masks in a shipment that his state recently received. Pritzker, a Democrat, said at a news conference that the White House told him the state would receive 300,000 N95 masks from the federal government. The N95 respirator mask is what doctors wear when treating individuals infected with a virus. Instead, what Illinois received were surgical masks, which are not considered respiratory protection by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and are not totally effective in preventing coronavirus transmission."

Michigan. Susan Demas of Michigan Advance writes an excellent column on the protest in Lansing, Michigan, against Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. (Also linked yesterday.)

New York. Anna Gronwold of Politico: "Gov. Andrew Cuomo embarked on a 20-minute stemwinder during his press briefing Friday, hitting back on a series of presidential tweets accusing him of overreacting to the coronavirus pandemic. Cuomo, who has for weeks said he doesn't want to fight ... Donald Trump, couldn't resist lobbing a few verbal grenades after Trump tweeted during Cuomo's Friday appearance that the governor 'should spend more time "doing" and less time "complaining."'" ~~~

Rachel Seigel & Thomas Heath of the Washington Post: "Stocks flashed green around the world as investors clung to early reports that an antiviral medicine appeared to successfully treat severe symptoms for coronavirus patients. The Dow Jones industrial average initially surged 600 points at Friday's open but was up 350 points, or 1.5 percent, within the hour. The Standard & Poor's 500 jumped 1.5 percent and Nasdaq composite climbed 0.85 percent. U.S. markets appeared headed toward their second straight week of gains, bouncing back from March lows that ended the 10-year bull market. The rally came a day after dismal economic numbers showed the United States had erased all job gains of the past decade due to the pandemic, which continues to force tens of millions of Americans to stay home and disrupt entire industries.... On Thursday, STAT news reported that severely ill coronavirus patients were responding well to remdesivir, a Gilead Sciences drug, at a Chicago hospital. The trial involved only 125 people and the preliminary results were not peer reviewed, but it was welcome news for investors looking for light at the end of the pandemic tunnel, and the economic recovery that will come with it. Gilead shares spiked nearly 8 percent after the open." A CNBC story is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Update. Mrs. McCrabbie: Elizabeth Cohen, CNN's medical correspondent was pretty unenthusiastic about the Gilead trial of remdesivir. She said what was reported was some doctors who were paid by Gilead speaking enthusiastically about the results. While it's possible the product will work well to curb symptoms, it's just as possible it won't. Remdesivir was initially designed to work to mitigate Ebola symptoms, and it didn't work.

The Majority of Americans Are Not as Dumb as Donald. Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "New polling from Pew Research Center suggests that Americans are more likely to side with the experts than with Trump. By a 2-to-1 margin, they are more concerned that distancing measures will be rescinded too quickly than too slowly. There's a partisan split on the question, but not as big as you might think. Among conservative Republicans, views are about split. Among moderate Republicans, a large majority is more worried about moving too quickly than too slowly.... Americans also generally give Trump low marks on his handling of the pandemic -- particularly in terms of his presentation of its risks. A majority think that Trump has made the coronavirus outbreak seem better than it is.... Two-thirds of Americans, according to Pew's polling, think that Trump was too slow to take major steps to address the pandemic." The Pew report is here. (Also linked yesterday.)

Also Not as Dumb as Dr. Phil. Katie Shepherd of the Washington Post: "After Anthony S. Fauci, the nation's leading infectious disease expert, explained the White House's new guidelines for states to slowly reopen their economies in a three-phase process, Fox News host Laura Ingraham ... turned to Phil McGraw, better known as Dr. Phil, television psychologist to the masses. He acknowledged that the novel coronavirus is killing Americans — more than 33,000 as of early Friday -- but also wondered why the economy would shut down over the pandemic but continues to function as people die from lung cancer, car crashes and pool drownings. (Unlike coronavirus, none of the causes of death listed by Dr. Phil are contagious.) The conflicting views, one from the most qualified source available on the topic and the other from a talk-show host with questionable credentials, highlighted again how expert advice on the novel coronavirus has frequently been undermined by celebrity doctors with little to no infectious disease experience." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: For those of you who thought Oprah Winfrey should run for president, let me remind you that she made Dr. Phil's career as a teevee personality.

Presidential Race (Sort of)

** The Money Launderer. S.V. Date of the Huffington Post: "President Donald Trump's campaign is secretly paying one Trump son's wife and another one's girlfriend $180,000 a year each through the campaign manager's private company.... Kimberly Guilfoyle, the girlfriend of eldest son Donald Trump Jr., and Lara Trump, wife of middle son Eric Trump, are each receiving $15,000 a month.... [The payments] ... are being made by campaign manager Bradley Parscale through his company rather than directly by either the campaign or the party in order to avoid public reporting requirements. 'I can pay them however I want to pay them,' Parscale told HuffPost on Friday, but then declined to comment any further....Stuart Stevens, a top aide to 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney's campaign, was ... blunt: 'That's why Parscale has the job. He's a money launderer, not a campaign manager.'... Trump campaign and the RNC have been getting around [FEC rules] by routing many of their payments through Pascale's private companies. In all, Parscale's firms ― Giles-Parscale and Parscale Strategy LLC ― have been paid $38.9 million by Trump's campaign, the RNC, joint fundraising committees and a pro-Trump super PAC between the day Trump took office through February 2020[.]" --s

News Lede

Hill: "Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill died early Saturday at his home in Pittsburgh at the age of 84, his family told The Wall Street Journal. O'Neill had been undergoing treatment for lung cancer, and his death was unrelated to the coronavirus. O'Neill, who also worked as Alcoa's chief executive, was known for an independent streak that at times led to clashes with former President George W. Bush, in whose Cabinet he served." ~~~

     ~~~ Update. O'Neill's New York Times obituary is here.

Comments

[Akhilleus]

Speaking of Oprah, another of her protégés, Dr. Oz, proves that he can be a quack, a hack, and a sack (of shit, that is), all rolled into one big ball of infected Fox pus.

I actually had to double check on this one because it sounded too Borowitz-y. Seems Oz was chatting with Vice President Hannity (accent on vice) the other day, and said it was time to reopen the schools and send the little tykes out into Trump Virus Land. So, Doc, what could we expect from that incredibly dodgy sounding plan, in your pa-feshunul opinion as, like, a doktor, that is.

“Oh well, no more 3% additional deaths. Piece of cake.”

Sure, because what’s a few thousand extra dead people who would all be alive if this idiot was bound and gagged? Reminds me of that scene in “Dr. Strangelove” where George C. Scott’s general urges the president to go all in and nuke the Soviet Union. “I’m not saying we wouldn’t get our hair mussed”, he adds, helpfully, referring to Soviet nukes flying to America in response “But no more than 10-20 million deaths. Tops.”

Dr. Oz wasn’t even assuring us that 3% would be “tops”. For all he knows, it could be 10 or 20% extra.

This is the kind of insanity that Fox is mainlining into the brains of Trumpbots every hour of every day. You see that picture of bug-eyed howling Trump banshees in Ohio protesting rules to keep them alive? Yeah, they’re the ones going “3% more deaths? Shit. That’s nothin’. Doktor Oz sez so.”

So thanks, Oprah.

New ring of hell for everyone, please, Signor Alighieri. Grazie.

[Marie Burns]

@Akhilleus: Yeah, there's quite a bit of difference between urging people to "hang on, it's going to be a bumpy ride" and "hey, have fun, odds are you'll be one of the lucky duckies who lives through this." It is impossible to exaggerate how irresponsible Trump & the Trumpettes are.

[citizen625]

Thank you for posting the Cuomo dissection of the Orange turd's policies thus far. Professional politicians who are not religion spouting goobers sure sound different, don't they?

While I'm talking about spouting goobers, Bea and AK reminded me where is that other medical guy, Ben Carson? Remember him? The brain surgeon who is good at everything? Maybe he knows enough to keep his head down.

[PD Pepe]

Sent to me via email: Above these remarks--see below–- by Oprah is a large picture of her looking mean as a rabid dog, hair all akimbo, and lordy, lordy if she ain't brandishing a shot gun.

"MONTECITO, CA—Sighing in remorse at the “monsters of my own creation” after viewing recent appearances on Fox News by Dr. Oz and Dr. Phil, media tycoon and longtime talk show host Oprah Winfrey reportedly muttered “You have served me well, but this has gone too far,” Friday while loading a shotgun. “Well, we had a good run, boys, but business is business,” said Winfrey, loading shells into a pump-action Mossberg 500 before calling to be picked up by her personal stealth helicopter. “I remember when I found them—a sleazy corporate lawyer, and a two-bit snake-oil salesman—perfect additions to my syndicate. We really had a good thing going for a while there, but you can’t be on Oprah’s Favorite Things list forever, now can you? Time for these ‘doctors’ to take their medicine.” At press time, Winfrey was reportedly found covered in blood making new selections for her book club."

One wishes this was true. Nevertheless Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz carry on undeterred because "there's a sucker born every minute" and all these born suckers are only too eager to suck up the jim-dandy piffle these two ditsy doctors shell out. Good for TV ratings so that's good for the network and that spells $$$$.

And @citizen asked about that other fine upstanding doctor who has managed to stay out of the limelight only, I think, because so much else is overshadowing how he is handling his job. The last time I saw him was in a hearing ( on housing problems) and Katie Porter, one of our very smart, extremely capable house reps, had to instruct old Ben on various financial housing terms since he apparently had no idea what they were. He didn't take kindly to Ms Porter's instruction; made a puss, made some nasty retorts and basically acted like–-if I can retrieve an old but perfect word–- a DORK.

[PD Pepe]

P.S. @Marie: Re: your symptoms: Since you don't have a fever it sounds as if they might be the usual seasonal allergy-like symptoms brought on by the spring buddings and green grass awakenings along with bunnies, and birds and whatnots running or flying about. I have what you have and have it every year along with a runny nose and lots of sneezing.

[Marie Burns]

@PD Pepe: Thank you. That's a reasonable diagnosis. I do also have a runny nose & lots of sneezing, but I have those in the winter, too, because I'm allergic to wood-burning fireplace smoke. I don't have a wood-burning fireplace, but the smoke from neighboring chimneys is enough. The other symptoms did come on about the time it started warming up here. (Tho "warming up" is not a good description today as it's been snowing at least since the sun came up. It's sticking only in a few places -- like on my vehicles. Snowed yesterday, too, but intermittently.)

[wto406]

I am becoming increasingly concerned about what is likely to happen on November 4, 2020 – the day after the upcoming presidential election. Was yesterday’s ‘deomonstration’ in Michigan and other venues a foretaste of events that will occur after Trump is lawfully denied a second term? Are we going to see gun-toting Trumpettes massed in Washington seeking to take the law into their own hands?

[Forrest Morris]

Another symptom is diarrhea and old ignoranus has that in spades, except in his case it's diarrhea of the mouth!

[PD Pepe]

An excellent piece in the New Yorker from Steve Coll:

WOODROW WILSON'S CASE OF THE FLU AND HOW PANDEMICS CHANGE HISTORY:
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/woodrow-wilsons-case-of-the-flu-and-how-pandemics-change-history

"For now, it seems hard to judge which presents the greatest record of presidential failure during a pandemic: Wilson's silence or Trump's bombast, self-contradictions, and self promotion. It may be partly just bad luck that the two worst pandemics to strike the U.S. in the past hundred years coincide with the terms of two presidents so plainly unprepared for their responsibilities."

I'll drink to that!

[Marie Burns]

@wto406: I wouldn't be surprised. D.C. has a national guard, but guess who's in charge of that: the POTUS*. So no help there. We could be headed for an unprecedented mess. It's not nuts to think we'd have to wait till noon on January 20, 2021, when the new prez is sworn in at an undisclosed location and could order the national guard to put down the rebels & remove the dictator from the White House. Meanwhile, who knows what sort of stunts Bill Barr & the Supremes would get up to?

[Akhilleus]

The anti-democracy schemes tested out by confederates and their judicial hacks in Wisconsin was a dry run for November. It didn’t work out all that well for the fascists in the Badger State, but that doesn’t mean the badger-like mentality of keeping the crazy coming will be relaxed with so much on the line. A loss by their Glorious Leader could mean a much despised return of things like the rule of law, common sense, ethics, and basic decency, all anathema to the screaming Trumpbots.

The Party of Traitors has worked too hard for too long to lose now. They’ve been extraordinarily successful at ratfucking American elections and they won’t stop because some citizens believe in something as 20th century as a right to vote.

David Daley has been keeping a close watch on the authoritarian, anti-American, democracy-hating traitors. In an interview on Vox, he raises some very scary points. Here’s something we should all never forget about how assiduous the Party of Traitors has been at locking up power while Democrats slept and the media looked on in dimwitted silence.

“There are 59 million Americans right now that live in a state in which one or both chambers of the state legislature are controlled by the party that won fewer votes in 2018. Fifty-nine million of those people live in a state where Democrats won more votes and Republicans won more seats. That’s the end result of [ratfucking and gerrymandering], and these maps have held that strong in all of these state legislatures. So there’s no question that Democrats haven’t recovered from this, and it’s hard to appreciate how much this distorted our politics.”

When you see states run by traitors who got millions fewer votes but still have complete command of the legislature and the courts, we will continue to see polling places closed so that largely Democratic districts that used to have over 100 voting locations will be reduced to four or five, forcing any Americans who wish to exercise their franchise wait for up to half a day in the cold.

Meanwhile, new opportunities for R’s to vote are being created all the time.

If, by some miracle of tenacity and outrage, we rid ourselves (at least technically) of the Orange Menace, look for the kind of attacks on the legitimacy of the election that will make the hanging chads debacle that put the Decider on the throne look like a rigged kindergarten vote for class favorites. And in due course, should the whole thing get to the traitors on the Supreme Court, well, they’ve been working hard for many years as well to ensure the dominance of their anti-American party. They have more than demonstrated where their loyalties lie.

If Generalissimo Fatty doesn’t lose by a huge percentage, and I’m talking double digits, look for him to send out the really talented psychos into the streets with guns and MAGA flags. Then, it’s martial law, necessitated, of course, by Democrats, then the election will be nullified, an action held up by Little Johnny and the Dwarfs, and we’re Chile, circa 1973. Golden epaulettes for everyone, even Jared.

No one should be the least surprised. They’ve been hoping for years that they could just ratfuck their way to permanent power but they’ll take it outright if they have to.

This fat traitor must lose by 10% at least.

https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/policy-and-politics/2020/4/17/21219034/coronavirus-wisconsin-voting-rights-november-election

[Ken Winkes]

A pretty good summary of the same old Pretender playbook applied domestically.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/04/trump-coronavirus-ukraine-governors.html

If depression is anger turned inward, this explains why the Pretender's anger, according to the more recent polls, is currently depressing most of the country.

[Whyte Owen]

Some integral calculus to bear in mind: Unless an effective and scalable vaccine, or other equivalent therapy, emerges much earlier than likely, the lockdown will have no effect on morbidity and mortality. The lockdown is essential to preempt overloading our already pathetic medical care system to the point that drives mortality, but flattening the curve merely attenuates the infection rate. The integral will be the same irrespective of the growth curve. In other words, almost every susceptible individual will eventually get it. The problem every governor faces is that there is no validated predictive model to offer clear guidance.

[Marie Burns]

@Whyte Owen: That's true of course, but it presumes that every American will leave home unprotected (or not protected "enough") before a vaccine is available. About 36 million Americans live alone and about 50 million are retired. Assuming there is a great deal of overlap there, that still means that maybe 20 percent of Americans could protect themselves (within reason) from contracting the virus.

So, boring as it may be, it seems to me that those of us who have the option to protect ourselves should continue to lock down "for as long as it takes."

[Akhilleus]

Question one: how many Americans will Trump and his red state sycophants murder by dispensing with public safety protocols in order to help him steal another election?

Answer: thousands, perhaps tens of thousands.

Question two: will they care?

Answer: absolutely not.

Question three: What would they do if a Democratic President, say, a black man, caused the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans to get re-elected?

Answer: assassination.

And this isn’t even a hypothetical.

[unwashed]

I'm convinced that TrumpVirus is going to kill my liver before it hits my lungs.

[Marie Burns]

@unwashed: Ha ha. He's killing my character. I used to be a sort of nice person who never wished anyone ill fortune, even people I deeply disliked. Now, every time I'm away from the news for a few hours -- which is several times a day -- I think optimistically before I click on my first news source, "Maybe something terrible has happened to Donald Trump." This is a character flaw of which I'm ashamed, but I seem to have little control over it.

Haven't looked at the news for a couple of hours, so ....