The Commentariat -- April 20, 2020

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Trump's Evil Plan. Jonathan Chait: "President Trump's current pandemic strategy -- emphasize current; like the cliché about the weather, if you don't like it, wait a few hours -- is a baffling knot of contradictions. He is hurling all responsibility to state governments, leaving it to them to devise effective tests and to decide when to relax social distancing. At the same time, he is starving them of the resources to handle the job. And even as Trump hides behind a policy of deference to governors, he is goading right-wing protesters to force their hand.... Yet there does appear to be a strategy here. The Wall Street Journal reported Friday afternoon that Trump has 'asked White House aides for economic response plans that would allow him to take credit for successes while offering enough flexibility to assign fault for any failures to others.' Trump's seemingly paradoxical stance is an attempt to hoard credit and shirk risk.... On the surface, he is deferring responsibility and blame to the governors. Just below the surface, he is coercing them to resume economic activity as fast as possible, regardless of what public-health officials say." Read on. ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Hating people is a waste of energy. I'm beginning to have trouble not wasting my energy on Trump.

The Washington Post's live updates of coronavirus developments Monday are here. Fauci Puts a Damper on the Trumpendrooler Protests. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation's top infectious-diseases expert, said Monday in response to protests of various states' stay-at-home orders that reopening the economy too early would backfire.... '... unless we get the virus under control, the real recovery economically is not going to happen.'... Fauci on Monday also cautioned against drawing too many conclusions from antibody tests, which determine whether a person was already infected with a virus. Many of the tests in circulation have not been validated or calibrated, he warned. Fauci added that although antibodies for other viruses generally confer immunity upon people who have them, experts have not proved that protection exists for the coronavirus and how long it lasts if it does exist."

Tom Boggioni of RawStory: "According to a report from the Daily Beast, Attorney General Bill Barr appears poised to take the lead and attempt to force governors to re-open their states during the coronavirus pandemic -- even at the risk of ramping up the spread of the virus when it appears to be slowing down. In the process, he could become the face of Donald Trump's failures to stem the COVID-19 health crisis." --s The Daily Beast story is firewalled.

Patrick Wintour, et al. of the Guardian: "US hostility to the World Health Organization scuppered the publication of a communique by G20 health ministers on Sunday that committed to strengthening the WHO's mandate in coordinating a response to the global coronavirus pandemic. In place of a lengthy statement with paragraphs of detail, the leaders instead issued a brief statement saying that gaps existed in the way the world handled pandemics." --s

Justin Wise of the Hill: "President Trump on Sunday lashed out at FBI leadership over the origins of the investigation into Russian election interference, calling investigators who led the probe 'human scum.' Trump made the remarks during a White House briefing after being asked about a pair of his former associates who were sentenced to prison following charges stemming from former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Asked whether he'd pardon Paul Manafort and Roger Stone so they wouldn't be exposed to the coronavirus while in prison, Trump said, 'You'll find out.'" Mrs. McC: If you sometimes think maybe Trump isn't mentally disturbed, he's so often ready to disabuse you of your generous musings.

Damian Carrington of the Guardian: "High levels of air pollution may be 'one of the most important contributors' to deaths from Covid-19, according to research. The analysis shows that of the coronavirus deaths across 66 administrative regions in Italy, Spain, France and Germany, 78% of them occurred in just five regions, and these were the most polluted. The research examined levels of nitrogen dioxide, a pollutant produced mostly by diesel vehicles, and weather conditions that can prevent dirty air from dispersing away from a city." --safari: Seems appropriate to remember that the EPA has stopped enforcing environmental regulations now.

~~~~~~~~~~

The New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments Sunday are here. "President Trump on Sunday said the administration was preparing to use the Defense Production Act to compel an unspecified U.S. facility to increase production of test swabs by over 20 million per month. The announcement came during his Sunday evening news conference, after he defended his response to the pandemic amid criticism from governors across the country claiming that there has been an insufficient amount of testing to justify reopening the economy any time soon. 'We are calling in the Defense Production Act,' Mr. Trump said. He added, 'You'll have so many swabs you won't know what to do with them.... We already have millions coming in.... In all fairness, governors could get them themselves. But we are going to do it. We'll work with the governors and if they can't do it we'll do it.' He provided no details about what company he was referring to, or when the administration would invoke the act." Mrs. McC: IOW, the usual B.S.

** "Incredible Political Sadism." David Wallace-Wells of New York: "Whenever you start to think that the federal government under Donald Trump has hit a moral bottom, it finds a new way to shock and horrify. Over the last few weeks, it has started to appear as though, in addition to abandoning the states to their own devices in a time of national emergency, the federal government has effectively erected a blockade -- like that which the Union used to choke off the supply chains of the Confederacy during the Civil War -- to prevent delivery of critical medical equipment to states desperately in need. At the very least, federal authorities have made governors and hospital executives all around the country operate in fear that shipments of necessary supplies will be seized along the way. In a time of pandemic, having evacuated federal responsibility, the White House is functionally waging a war against state leadership and the initiative of local hospitals to secure what they need to provide sufficient treatment.... We don't know where [the supplies [the federal government seizes] are going. We don't know on what grounds they are being seized, or threatened with seizure." Meanwhile, Trump has repeatedly told governors the states are on their own in securing PPE & other medical equipment.

Daddy Warlocks Hexes Pelosi, Wallace. Nervous Nancy is an inherently 'dumb' person. She wasted all of her time on the Impeachment Hoax. She will be overthrown, either by inside or out, just like her last time as 'Speaker'. Wallace & @FoxNews are on a bad path, watch! -- Donald Trump, in a tweet, reacting to Chris Wallace's interview of Nancy Pelosi ~~~

~~~ Edwin Rios of Mother Jones: "On Sunday, in her first appearance on Fox News since 2017, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi indicated that a new $400 billion relief bill could come 'soon but also slammed ... Donald Trump's 'weak' response to the coronavirus pandemic for failing to put forward science-based plans to address the pandemic. 'He doesn't take responsibility. He places blame -- blame on others,' Pelosi told Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday.... She also sharply criticized Trump's leadership when it comes to expanding testing for COVID-19, telling Wallace, 'We're way late on it, and that is a failure. The president gets an F -- a failure -- on the testing.'... Her comments came as Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin indicated on CNN that the Trump administration and congressional Democrats could reach an agreement on yet another aid package would include $300 billion to replenish funds for a federal small business loan program that ran out last week." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Hurtling from one position to another is consistent with Mr. Trump's approach to the presidency over the past three years. Even when external pressures and stresses appear to change the dynamics that the country is facing, Mr. Trump remains unbowed, altering his approach for a day or two, only to return to nursing grievances.... The president, who ran as an insurgent in 2016, is most comfortable raging against the machine of government, even when he is the one running the country. And while the coronavirus is in every state in the union, it is heavily affecting minority and low-income communities. So when Mr. Trump on Friday tweeted 'LIBERATE,' his all-capitalized exhortations against strict orders in specific states ... were in keeping with how he ran in 2016: saying things that seem contradictory, like pledging to work with governors and then urging people to 'liberate' their states, and leaving it to his audiences to hear what they want to hear in his words.... On Sunday, Mr. Trump again praised the protesters. 'I have never seen so many American flags,' he said." ~~~

~~~ Jim Fallows of the Atlantic republishes a note from Republican Mike Lofgren on what the Trump & Co. astroturf protests/street theater are really about. Here's part of Lofgren's note: "Trump's encouragement of the demonstrators is even more bizarre than commonly depicted.... This is a unique case: the head of the national government egging on residents of the states to illegally impede their state governors from carrying out their lawful, necessary, and proper functions to maintain public safety in a health emergency. So much for 'federalism' under the GOP.... Republican street theater, maybe even (or perhaps especially) when it threatens public safety or human decency, seems always to act like catnip to the mainstream media, who invariably trot out the well-worn tropes of 'economic anxiety.' The U.S. media have done an execrable job on this one." ~~~

~~~ Josh Marshall of TPM: "The protests we've seen in a handful of locations around the country have bamboozled a lot of the national press. Look closely and a lot of the turnout is heavily stocked with militia types and the kinds of groups who turned out for the Charlottesville protests a couple years ago. But the bigger thing is that for now they appear highly orchestrated.... These are basically Trump loyalists supporting Trump at his request and mobilized by key rightist groups. The key question ... is whether what starts here as orchestrated and largely inorganic takes on a life of its own and gains political traction. They now have Fox and an incumbent President cheering them on as a demonstration of political identity." --s ~~~

~~~ James Downie of the Washington Post: "Few on Team Trump are better at deploying up-is-down reasoning to spin news to Trump's benefit [than is mike pence]. But during the vice president's appearances on NBC's and Fox News's Sunday morning talk shows, it was clear that even Pence could not bootlick his way out of the lurch the president's actions leave the rest of us in.... Pence dodged [trying to explain Trump's "LIBERATE" tweets] because the president's actions were indefensible. But Pence can't say that, both because the protests are being cheered by Fox News and like-minded outlets and because Pence wants to stay in the good graces of a president who values loyalty to him above all else." ~~~

~~~ HOWEVER, Piers Morgan, the former CNN & current ITV host, who is so shallow he readily admits to being a friend of Donald Trump's, calls Trump's daily 5 pm propaganda shows "horrifying": ~~~

Hope Yen & Calvin Woodward of the AP: "... Donald Trump is falsely assigning blame to governors and the Obama administration for shortages in coronavirus testing. For much of the week, he was pretender to a throne that didn't exist as he claimed king-like powers over the pandemic response and Congress. But by the weekend, he was again saying governors called the shots and they are the ones to blame -- not the federal government, not him -- for any testing problems. He says governors aren't using all the testing capacity that the federal government has created. It's not true. Meanwhile, Trump denied praising China's openness in the pandemic, when he's on record doing so repeatedly, and declared victory over what he calls relatively low death rates in the U.S. But that's too soon to tell."

Rick Rojas of the New York Times: "Governors facing growing pressure to revive economies decimated by the coronavirus said on Sunday that a shortage of tests was among the most significant hurdles in the way of lifting restrictions in their states. 'We are fighting a biological war,' Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia said on 'State of the Union' on CNN. 'We have been asked as governors to fight that war without the supplies we need.' In interviews on Sunday morning talk shows, Mr. Northam was among the governors who said they needed the swabs and reagents required for the test, and urged federal officials to help them get those supplies. The governors bristled at claims from the Trump administration that the supply of tests was adequate. On NBC's 'Meet the Press,' Vice President Mike Pence said 'there is a sufficient capacity of testing across the country today for any state in America' to go to the first of three phases that the administration says are needed for the country to emerge from the coronavirus shutdown. Mr. Northam, a Democrat, called Mr. Pence's claim 'delusional.'... ​Gov. Larry Hogan​ of Maryland, a Republican, said that it was 'absolutely false' to claim that governors were not acting aggressively enough to pursue as much testing as possible."

Sarah Burris of the Raw Story: "... Donald Trump bragged about ... Abbott Labs for [producing] his 'Quick COVID-19 Test' as 'a whole new ballgame.'... He claimed the lab's test could deliver 'lightning-fast results in as little as five minutes.' This while many leaders are worried about a huge backlog in tests and the need for more testing to discover if social-distancing has stopped the spread or not. Trump's government bought hundreds of devices and sent them out to the states. [BUT] 'In recent days, state and hospital officials found in internal studies that the devices frequently produced inaccurate results, leading at least one hospital to return the devices, they said in interviews,' said the [Wall Street] Journal.... [In addition, according to the WSJ,] 'Most [of Abbott's tests] require a long list of components that come from different producers, including swabs, throwaway polystyrene parts, chemical reagents, glass pipettes, pipette tips and more, resulting in a complex supply chain that easily breaks down when there is a shortage of any particular element.'"

Steve Eder, et al., of the New York Times: "In recent weeks, the United States has seen the first rollout of blood tests for coronavirus antibodies, widely heralded as crucial tools to assess the reach of the pandemic in the United States.... But for all their promise, the tests -- intended to signal whether people may have built immunity to the virus -- are already raising alarms.... Criticized for a tragically slow and rigid oversight of those tests months ago, the federal government is now faulted by public health officials and scientists for greenlighting the antibody tests too quickly and without adequate scrutiny. The Food and Drug Administration has allowed about 90 companies, many based in China, to sell tests that have not gotten government vetting.... But the agency has since warned that some of those businesses are making false claims about their products; health officials, like their counterparts overseas, have found others deeply flawed.... Even as government agencies, companies and academic researchers scramble to validate existing tests and create better ones, there are doubts they can deliver as promised. Most tests now available mistakenly flag at least some people as having antibodies when they do not, which could foster a dangerously false belief that those people have immunity." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Karen DeYoung, et al., of the Washington Post: "More than a dozen U.S. researchers, physicians and public health experts, many of them from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, were working full time at the Geneva headquarters of the World Health Organization as the novel coronavirus emerged late last year and transmitted real-time information about its discovery and spread in China to the Trump administration, according to U.S. and international officials.... Senior Trump-appointed health officials ... consulted regularly at the highest levels with the WHO as the crisis unfolded, the officials said. The presence of so many U.S. officials undercuts President Trump's charge that the WHO's failure to communicate the extent of the threat, born of a desire to protect China, is largely responsible for the rapid spread of the virus in the United States." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Dana Milbank first revealed U.S. scientists' presence at the WHO in WashPo his column, also linked here yesterday. Putting the onus on the WHO for not informing the U.S. about what it knew about the spread of Covid-19 is another giant lie Trump has repeated multiple times. As U.S. residents began sickening & dying from Covid-19, Trump repeatedly lied about the mortal danger the virus presented to Americans. As Milbank pointed out, Trump has told 18,000 lies since becoming president*, but hiding the truth about the coronavirus is, as Milbank calls it, "a murderous lie." Impeachable? Yep.

Marilynn Marchione of the AP: "A flood of new research suggests that far more people have had the coronavirus without any symptoms, fueling hope that it will turn out to be much less lethal than originally feared. While that's clearly good news, it also means it's impossible to know who around you may be contagious. That complicates decisions about returning to work, school and normal life.... The head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says 25% of infected people might not have symptoms. The vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. John Hyten, thinks it may be as high as 60% to 70% among military personnel. None of these numbers can be fully trusted because they're based on flawed and inadequate testing, said Dr. Michael Mina of Harvard's School of Public Health. Collectively, though, they suggest 'we have just been off the mark by huge, huge numbers' for estimating total infections, he said."

Amy Goldstein of the Washington Post: "In a nation where most health coverage is hinged to employment, the economy's vanishing jobs are wiping out insurance in the midst of a pandemic." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Common Dreams via RawStory: "Days after the Trump administration threatened Central American countries with visa sanctions if they refuse to accept nationals who are deported from the U.S. during the coronavirus pandemic, the Guatemalan health minister said an estimated 75% of the people on one deportation flight from the U.S. later tested positive for the virus. Health Minister Hugo Monroy's claim raised fears that the U.S. is willfully sending sick people back to the countries they left, creating conditions for larger outbreaks in countries including Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras." --s

#FloridaMorons. Emily Shugerman of the Daily Beast: "The state of Florida passed two milestones in the coronavirus pandemic this week: its deadliest day yet, and the reopening of several public beaches.... Hundreds of people flocked to the beaches in Duval County Friday, some engaging group sports like volleyball or spikeball. Photos of the scene drew outcry on social media, spawning the hashtag #FloridaMorons, as well as disdain from officials elsewhere in the state.... Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, who contracted coronavirus himself, called the reopening in Jacksonville 'very concerning,' adding that Florida was 'not out of the woods yet' and the consequences of reopening too soon were 'very, very scary.'... [Gov. Ron] DeSantis [R-Dimwit] said that a task force would also begin meeting daily next week to work on reopening businesses."

Ohio. Patrick Cooley & Jim Woods of the Columbus Dispatch: "Coronavirus has overtaken a vast majority of the prison population at the Marion Correctional Institution, state officials said Sunday. The Ohio Department of Health reported more than 1,000 newly confirmed cases of the coronavirus across the state Sunday, bringing the total of confirmed and probable cases to 11,602. With 20 additional deaths, there have been 471 confirmed and probable deaths from COVID-19, state officials said. The number of hospitalizations rose to 2,565.... Much of the increase in cases has come from Ohio's prison system.... Overall, the state's prison system has recorded 2,426 positive results among inmates, the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction said. That number is 21% of the total confirmed cases in Ohio. The majority of those cases are at the Marion Correctional Institution, where 1,828 inmates -- 73% of the total -- have tested positive for the virus, state officials say. The remaining 667 prisoners now are in quarantine."

Mike Spector & Jessica DiNapoli of Reuters: "Neiman Marcus Group is preparing to seek bankruptcy protection as soon as this week, becoming the first major U.S. department store operator to succumb to the economic fallout from the coronavirus outbreak, people familiar with the matter said. The debt-laden Dallas-based company has been left with few options after the pandemic forced it to temporarily shut all 43 of its Neiman Marcus locations, roughly two dozen Last Call stores and its two Bergdorf Goodman stores in New York. Neiman Marcus is in the final stages of negotiating a loan with its creditors totaling hundreds of millions of dollars, which would sustain some of its operations during bankruptcy proceedings, according to the sources. It has also furloughed many of its roughly 14,000 employees." Mrs. McC: I guess rich people aren't buying up enough cashmere sweatsuits online to shelter-in-comfort.

Boris & Donald, Birdbrains of a Feather. Zachary Basu of Axios: "A 5,000-word exposé by the Sunday Times of London -- '38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster' -- finds that Prime Minister Boris Johnson, distracted by personal turmoil and his Brexit victory lap, skipped five early crisis briefings (Cobra meetings) on the coronavirus.... Warnings issued in January and repeated in February fell on 'deaf ears,' according to the Sunday Times, with the lost time potentially costing thousands of British lives.... The U.K. government held its first Cobra meeting on Jan. 24, sensing the looming threat as the virus had spread from China to at least six known countries. Health Secretary Matt Hancock told reporters that the risk to the British public was 'low,' while a spokesperson for Johnson -- who skipped the Cobra meeting -- said the U.K. was 'well prepared for any new diseases.' Johnson went on to skip four more Cobra meetings, distracted by mass flooding, the U.K.'s withdrawal from the European Union, a Cabinet shakeup and a countryside holiday with his fiancée, before finally attending one on March 2." The Sunday Times report is here.

Hyung-Jin Kim of AP: "North Korea on Sunday dismissed as 'ungrounded 'President Donald Trump's comment that he recently received 'a nice note' from the North's leader, Kim Jong Un.... North Korea's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that there was no letter addressed to Trump recently by 'the supreme leadership,' a reference to Kim." --s

Presidential Race

Felicia Sonmez & Dave Weigel of the Washington Post: "... Joe Biden has won the Wyoming Democratic primary, the latest nominating contest to be moved entirely to vote-by-mail amid the coronavirus pandemic. The Wyoming Democratic Party announced Sunday that Biden had won a little over 72 percent of the vote, with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) taking nearly 28 percent. This year marks the first time that Wyoming Democrats have used ranked-choice voting in their presidential nominating contest. The contest has traditionally been an in-person caucus, but because of the coronavirus, the state party switched to a vote-by-mail primary instead. The caucuses had originally been scheduled for April 4."

Washington Post: "A decade ago on April 20, the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig leased by BP was working a mile below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico when a surge in pressure and a blowout triggered a fire that killed 11 crew members and unleashed the largest oil spill in U.S. history.... Today ... attention has shifted to President Trump's efforts to undo safety steps taken by the Obama administration to prevent such a spill from happening again.... Since coming into office..., the Trump administration demonstrated it would roll back those rules by eliminating the need for independent inspectors. That followed the issuance of approximately 1,700 waivers to an industry the administration's Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE).... The United States and other countries remain heavily dependent on deepwater drilling, a daunting engineering challenge in seas so deep that even military submarines cannot venture there.... Despite the potential for another catastrophe, the public appetite for oil has encouraged the petroleum industry to treat those risks as acceptable.... There were 13,187 spills in the federal waters off the Gulf of Mexico from the time of the BP spill through March...."

News Lede

New York Times: "Peter Beard, a New York photographer, artist and naturalist to whom the word 'wild' was roundly applied, both for his death-defying photographs of African wildlife and for his own much-publicized days -- decades, really -- as an amorous, bibulous, pharmaceutically inclined man about town, was found dead in the woods on Sunday, almost three weeks after he disappeared from his home in Montauk on the East End of Long Island. He was 82."

Comments

[citizen625]

And from Bernie: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/19/opinion/coronavirus-inequality-bernie-sanders.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage. He has more zip in his message than the current president* ever had. Could two guys from New York be so strikingly different?

[Forrest Morris]

Holocaust Remembrance Day begins at sundown today. How many of you think the presidunce will wish everyone a "very happiest Holocaust Day." Don't answer that.

[Ken Winkes]

@citizen625

Was glad to see the Sanders column. As you say it, it had zip.

There were any number of reasons for that. It was coherent, consistent, and grounded in reality, suggesting solutions that actually fit the problems with our economy that Covid is making more obvious every day.

But, when I skimmed the comments last night I saw some readers were still squeezing their eyes tight shut, wholly unwilling to see anything that disturbed their view of the world, no matter how fantastical it was.

So....fired this off...and went to bed to the accompaniment of my own pleasant dreams.

@David

So instead of "theft by the majority," you're countenancing theft by the minority in the name of mythical "free markets?"

Please note that corporate "personhood" didn't even raise its legal head above the swamp in which it was hatched until the late 1800's, but long before that there was plenty of money in our politics making sure that "free market" myth never had a chance.

BTW, when did it?

England liked to call itself the "nation of shopkeepers," but the real money and power remained in the hands of the few who exploited the resources and peoples of their own country and those of their colonies.

Or are you thinking of our own South before the Civil War? A lot of freedom there.

Maybe American workers everywhere before they had any legal rights or unions, courtesy of big government, I might add?

The problem is not big government, but rather whose side it is on.

You are right about the money, though. This administration and its Republican Senate is wholly owned by monied interests.

In contrast, money owned only half of the Obama administration, but half was more than enough to earn the undying emnity of the money-loving R's.

[safari]

I'm no doctor, but it's seems like we hit 40,000+ Covid-19 deaths pretty fast, with no areas except maybe New York in clear 'post-peak'. If we let this virus slow burn throughout the population all summer, opening up vast areas as soon as next week, that death toll will keep rising steadily as we enter into the serious presidential campaign season. I agree with @Marie that any number of deaths below 2.2 million will have Agent Orange praising his super genius superiority, but with massive employment, a cratered economy and the numbers ticking up, this campaign season is going to be absolutely bonkers.

[Marie Burns]

@Forrest Morris: Okay, I won't answer that, but I will say that, as you suggest, "Happy Holocaust" would be the ideal bookend for "Happy Good Friday."

[Patrick]

The AP story linked above says DiJiT said he received a nice note from Kim, but Kim's people said "nevah hoppen GI."

The AP story also says "A senior Trump administration official confirmed that Trump sent a letter to Kim ..."

So in DiJiT's perception, it is not possible that a nice note from him was not reciprocated. Or he recalls that there was a note, but not who sent what to whom.

It used to be Swiss cheese up there, now it seems to have melted down to Liederkranz.

[unwashed]

@Safari, for a graphic view of the current and forecast NO2 conditions around the world, check out this at Windy. You'll see that Europe looks pretty clear without all the normal diesel traffic and industry. Wind direction also has an influence. China and the US don't look as good.

There's an option under the Air Quality menu to see CO, too. It looks like China is on fire. Fortunately, it also shows that wildfires have stopped burning in Australia.

If you turn on the webcam layer (click on the camera icon), you can see how much things have slowed down pretty much everywhere from prior weeks and months. It's pretty amazing, to me anyway.

[PD Pepe]

@ Forest: thanks for reminding us of the Holocaust Remembrance Day. Corey Robin, a professor of Politics, wrote about what people power looks like in a pandemic democracy and mentions Primo Levi:

"It would be foolish to understate the obstacles to democracy in America at the moment or to overstate these attempts to overcome those obstacles. The United States has seldom been an easy place to make change. It took the French an afternoon to storm the Bastille; it took American workers a hundred years to get a weekend. Yet it’s also true that solidarity, the connections that are created and sustain democracy, is often a story of surprise. Its most potent moments come, almost always, after a long and terrible night"

On one such night, Robin mentions is that of January 18, 1945, the Germans evacuated Auschwitz, leaving behind only those too sick and diseased to be forced to march. Primo Levi was one of them. On January 20, Levi and two men managed to lift themselves from their cots, go outside, and salvage a heating stove, fuel, and two sacks of potatoes. They took their treasure back to the hut that passed for an infirmary. The men in the hut decided to award Levi and his mates each a slice of bread.

"It was an unthinkable act of cooperation. The camps allowed no room for fellow feeling, much less sharing. According to Levi, “The law of the Lager said: ‘eat your own bread, and if you can, that of your neighbor.’” Politics begins the moment such laws, which have the force of nature, are suspended—and democracy, when they are suspended in egalitarian acknowledgment of the contribution of each to the social production of all. When that bread was shared, says Levi, he realized that a new and unexpected bond, born of gratitude, had been created among the prisoners. “It really meant that the Lager was dead.”

And reading today's news does not bring news of any kind of sharing of bread by this moribund administration and its head honcho- horror showman. They continue in all sorts of ways and means to make things worse by cutting regulations (bad air–-good for company–-makee merica bigly big time) and poor @Ken once again has to try and get through to those whose filters are smudged and made of heavy material––the kind that only certain particles can penetrate.

And it's only Monday.

[Akhilleus]

There’s always a reason*

Fatty’s latest hobby, encouraging the droolers to revolt against safety precautions put in place by duly elected officials to keep them all from contracting a deadly disease, has the primary benefit, to authoritarian goons like him and the junk yard dog he keeps chained up at Justice to make sure no one makes off with any of HIS justice (it belongs to him, you see), of keeping the whackos riled up. He’s been relying on same ol’ same ol’ for so long (kill the media, kill Hillary, kill Obama, kill Democrats) that even he must be getting bored.

Like a cheesy kid’s birthday party magician, the old coin behind the ear trick isn’t getting as much applause as it used to. So what to do? Hey, how ‘bout Kill the Governors? Yeah! And blame them for stealing our freeeedom! And while we’re at it, our economy, our jobs, and Our Guuuuunz! Brilliant!

Besides, blaming governors for killing the economy is the best way, in his view, to keep fingers from pointing at the real killer: himself.

Because keeping the psychos fired up is what he needs. First, the crazies praise him for it, Fox loves being able to direct their grenade launchers at Democratic governors for committing the mortal sin of using government for something positive (totally anathema to confederates, whose mantra is “What can we break today?”), and it (most importantly) it makes this simpering, whining, ignorant toddler feel like a Manly Man. “I’m the Donald, and I am IN CHARGE! Kill!!”

Plus it gives the junk yard dog something to gnaw on to please his deranged master.

Too much winning!

*Even if the reason is insane, illegal, and death inducing. As long as the Orange Menace makes out, who cares?

[Akhilleus]

The Fire Tony Fauci meter has clicked into high gear. How dare he (again) counter a Fatty le proclamation de nuts with common sense. Seriously, I see a picture of Fauci hung up on the prezudenshul dart board.

[Forrest Morris]

I read somewhere that lack of taste is one of the first signs of the Covid 19. Trump must have had the virus for a number of years.
Faux marble and gold leaf decor is quite tasteless to my way of thinking. And who else wears a red tie down to their crotch. He should be wearing an orange tie to match the hair and makeup.

[Ken Winkes]

PD,

Don't think of me as "poor." Had a career battering my thick skull against stone walls. It was called teaching. Frustrations? Sure, but most often I took pleasure in it, and it seems a habit I cannot and do not wish to break.

As I said my dreams were pleasant.

This morning I'm thinking about what "conservative" has come to mean in Trumpland. Will probably turn into a LTTE a bit later, but for now will say this.

Though American conservatism has had so many definitions it is akin to the kind of great art that we've heard we will know when we see it, two of its relatively constant themes have been a respect for traditional moral and republican values which rendered corruption in government and centralization of power anathema to its fundamental principles.

How do those beliefs and behaviors stack up against the current so-called conservatives, those on the streets, in the White House and in the Senate?

The answer is obvious. We have the most blatantly corrupt administration in our history and the Senate falls all over itself in its eagerness to give it a pass.

We have a Pretender president (the I alone can fix it guy--always liked that word "fix," seemed so appropriate ) who arrogates more power to himself every day--often awkwardly and ineffectively, but nonetheless we have to give the goofball credit for trying--and a compliant AG who with his unitary executive brief supports every move the Pretender makes.

So much for that other conservative principle, federalism, which truth be told has like so many other conservative tenets always been one of convenience. Let states dictate who can vote and who can't as long as they pick the right voters, but when it comes to the health and safety of the people, Barr happily sides with the Brown Shirts who want their freee-dumb regardless of the cost to others. Suddenly, in another conservative about-face, for this respecter of states' rights it's all top-down.

We've heard since the 1960's of the conservative revolution. Now we've got it, in a form elitiest William Buckley and his gang of naive fellow-travelers who yearned for a return to an ill-defined better time of yore would never recognize.

We have conservatism stood on its head.

[safari]

@ unwashed. Thanks for the windy website. Never seen it before, really fascinating info.

In other news, an entire barrel of oil now costs less than a 12 pack of decent beer. If I had a car I'd buy a few barrels and store 'em in the garage. Good thing Tang called up Vladdy and Bone Saw to negotiate a truce to the oil wars to protect the shale oil lobbyists.

What a world.

[safari]

Correction: A barrel of oil now costs the same as ONE quality beer. The price of oil is now hovering between $3 and $5 a barrel.

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/493688-oil-trades-below-8-a-barrel-hitting-30-year-low

[safari]

Correction Redux: Now you get crude oil barrels for free? Do you still have to pay for the oil drum?

"West Texas Intermediate crude for May delivery tanked more than 100% to turn negative for the first time in history. WTI traded at -$1.43 per barrel."

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/20/oil-markets-us-crude-futures-in-focus-as-coronavirus-dents-demand.html

[Ken Winkes]

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/19/politics/steven-mnuchin-trump-name-stimulus-checks-cnntv/index.html

Munchkin's idea? Yeah, right...

He says it's "symbolic." Sure is, and just in case people take it as what it is, a puerile political ploy, it's not the Pretender's fault.

Never seen such puling cowardice in the White House, which leads me to ask how can one be so supremely abrasive and not have an ounce of grit?

[Bobby Lee]

https://www.gocomics.com/mikeluckovich/2020/04/19

A friend remarked on seeing this. "No mail service, no way to do mail in ballots. Problem solved".

[Akhilleus]

Ken,

Bullies tend to be cowards. Braggarts tend to be losers. Both tend to have low self esteem. Fatty’s self esteem is off the charts, so we have a cowardly loser with narcissistic personality disorder. Oh, and add to that mendacity and cupidity like you read about, and an historic lack of decency thanks in no small part to a sociopathic makeup that puts him in the same percentile as torturers and murderers. What you have is a truly fucked up, toxic psychological soup which barely qualifies as human, the possessor of which has nonetheless has been raised to the pinnacle of power by the GOP.

He is the perfection of decades of their racial hatred, misogyny, lies, schemes and power grabs. And now, with their Glorious Leader encouraging his screaming mobs to spread disease across the land, they have surpassed their status as the Party of Traitors. They have become the Party of Death.

The elephant must needs be replaced by a death’s head and that symbol should replace the (R) after all their names.

[Akhilleus]

Mitch McConnell (💀)

[Bobby Lee]

One piece in the puzzle that is the upcoming financial crisis is that when Joe Sixpack loses his job at Muldoon Motors, not only does Joe lose his wages and the state lose it's taxes, but that SSI deduction isn't going to DC for Mr Mnuchin to deposit into the US Treasury. IOW, there's more than two levels of pain.

[Akhilleus]

Bobby Lee,

But Fatty, Javanka, Barr, Munchkin, DeVos, Turtle Man, and the entirety of the congressional members of the Party of Death, don’t give a semi-warm shit. Joe Sixpack, brainwashed since he was dreaming of shooting Big Bird with his Ronald Reagan autographed 30/06 Springfield, will happily go into bankruptcy for Fat Satan. It’s the least he can do to stick it to those evil libs who want him to live and guarantee a decent life for his kids. Those rat bastards. Fuck all of them. Fatty comes first.

As for the money, ask Grover Norquist how many times he’s viciously abraded his teensy dick-weed dreaming of totally defunding all parts of the guvmint that don’t take care of the ultra rich.

💀

[unwashed]

@safari, don't thank me. Thank Greta T. for turning me on to Windy.com. I can spend hours "watching" the weather.