Tuesday
Mar242020
The Commentariat -- March 25, 2020
Late Morning/Afternoon Update:
The New York Times' live updates for Wednesday for coronavirus developments are here. "... in New York City..., the 1.8-million-square-foot Jacob K. Javits Convention Center -- which was scheduled to hold an expo for exotic flowers this week -- looked more like a front-line military depot as workers rushed t transform the complex to handle an imminent surge of patients. Governor Cuomo said that with cases doubling every three days in New York City alone, as many as 140,000 people might need urgent care in the next few weeks.... And the state was still in dire need of critical equipment.... When asked how he came up with April 12 as a target date [to ease social-distancing restrictions], Mr. Trump did not cite any scientific evidence. 'I just thought it was a beautiful time,' he said[.]" ~~~
NEW. "A last-minute dispute over jobless aid was delaying a final Senate vote expected on Wednesday to approve sweeping legislation to deliver $2 trillion in government relief for an economy battered by the coronavirus pandemic. Four Republican senators said they believed the bill, which would provide a substantial expansion of unemployment insurance, could lead to layoffs and incentivize workers to collect unemployment payments rather than take a job."
~~~ The Washington Post's live updates for Wednesday are here. "... with the virus racing through the country, cancer doctors and patients are taking sometimes drastic steps to try to deal with the crisis. The changes range from the simple to the complex. At NYU Langone Medical Center, for example, cancer patients are directed to separate elevators to reduce their chance of being infected by the coronavirus. Nationwide, oncologists are delaying some surgeries and paring back treatments to reduce patients' hospital time and risk of infection. Cancer-fighting pills taken at home are being substituted for IV therapies administered at hospitals and clinics. With blood donations falling sharply, doctors are switching to regimens that require fewer transfusions.... The Italian government announced Wednesday that it would suspend its daily briefing on the novel coronavirus because emergency chief Angelo Borrelli has a low-grade fever."
Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha. The Never-Trump Provision. John Wagner & David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post: "Businesses controlled by President Trump and his children would be prohibited from receiving loans or investments from Treasury Department programs included in a $2 trillion stimulus plan agreed to early Wednesday by White House and Senate leaders in response to the coronavirus crisis. The provision, which was touted by Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) in an early-morning letter to colleagues, would also apply to Vice President Pence, members of Congress and heads of federal departments, as well as their children, spouses and in-laws. During a television interview Wednesday morning, Schumer stressed that the provision applies not only to Trump but to 'any major figure in government.'... On Sunday, Trump was asked whether his business would abstain from any federal bailout. He did not give a clear answer. 'Everything's changing, just so you understand; it's all changing,' he said. 'But I have no idea.'"
Erica Werner, et al., of the Washington Post: "The Senate plans to vote Wednesday afternoon on a $2 trillion stimulus package that is designed to flood the U.S. economy with money in an effort to stabilize households and businesses that have been floored by the coronavirus outbreak." This is an update of a story linked earlier & yesterday; the article is free to nonsubscribers. ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: This is the biggest "deal" of Trump's (or any) presidency, and Donald Trump had nothing to do with it. He left all the negotiating to Steve Mnuchin and others. Mnuchin -- a former shady banker, hedge-fund manager & movie mogul -- is certainly experienced at making deals. Still, its amazing -- and good for Americans -- that Trump ceded his vaunted but fake deal-making skills to the Treasury Secretary. The White House aides who manipulated Trump into butting out did the country at least one good deed. (Supposedly Trump eschewed the task because he couldn't stand to be in a room with Nancy Pelosi; I suspect there's more to it than that.)
"Trump to New York: Drop Dead." Jennifer Senior of the New York Times: "President Trump is treating each of our 50 states as individual contestants on 'The Apprentice' -- pitting them against one another for scarce resources, daring them to duke it out -- rather than mobilizing a unified national response to a pandemic.... Untold thousands will likely die absent federal intervention. And it needs to happen this instant -- not just for the good of [New York City], but for the nation. The president needs to set a precedent in his hometown.... The governor has already said that the state is 30,000 ventilators short. The only way to acquire the volume we need -- delivered at the speed we need -- is through federal intervention, which means sending us the bulk of the ventilators from the strategic national stockpile, which has roughly 20,000, and deploying the Defense Production Act to force private manufacturers to make more. But that's not what the president is doing. He refuses to use the Defense Production Act, fearing it'll put an undue burden on business, and he's keeping his federal stash under tight lock and key.... [New York has] 10 times the number of cases as Washington and eight times that of California." New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has said he would ship the ventilators to other areas as needs move elsewhere. ~~~
~~~ Trump Plays Politics with Blue-State Lives. Asawin Suebsaeng, et al., of the Daily Beast: "The latest evidence of the delicate, sometimes impossible line that [Democratic] governors have been forced to walk [to mollify Donald Trump] came Tuesday, when the president took swipes at New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo during a televised town-hall-style program on Fox News. 'I watched Gov. Cuomo [today] and he was very nice,' the president said of the man steering the state hardest hit by the virus. Cuomo had, moments earlier, conducted a press conference in which he scoffed at how insufficient the administration's help in procuring ventilators had been. 'He had a choice... He refused to order 15,000 ventilators,' Trump said, referencing a recent column by Betsy McCaughey, a hardened Trump supporter and longtime health-care policy crusader on the right. 'It says that he didn't buy the ventilators in 2015 for a pandemic, established death panels and lotteries instead.'.... 'It's a two-way street,' Trump said of having the feds help states with a coronavirus response policy. 'They have to treat us well, too.'... Trump's comment resonated not only for how callous it seemed but also for how manufactured the evidence was that he was citing.... President Trump 'obviously didn't read the document he’s citing -- this was a five-year-old advisory task-force report, which never recommended the state procure ventilators -- it merely referenced that New York wouldn't be equipped with enough ventilators for a 1918 flu pandemic,' said Dani Lever, director of communications for Cuomo." ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: A big part of Trump's problem with New York, of course, is that Gov. Cuomo is getting high marks & a lot of publicity for his daring, proactive response to the coronavirus, even as Trump is justifiably excoriated in stories appearing in nearly all major media outlets. For instance ~~~
~~~ Jesse McKinley & Shane Goldmacher of the New York Times: New York Gov. Andrew "Cuomo was once considered a bit player on the national stage, an abrasive presence who made his share of enemies among his Democratic Party peers. He was too much of a pragmatist for his party's progressive wing, too self-focused for party leaders and too brusque for nearly everyone. But now, he is emerging as the party's most prominent voice in a time of crisis. His briefings -- articulate, consistent and often tinged with empathy -- have become must-see television. On Tuesday, his address was carried live on all four networks in New York and a raft of cable news stations, including CNN, MSNBC and even Fox News.... Mr. Cuomo's handling of the crisis has fostered a nationwide following.... Mr. Cuomo's daily addresses have stood in stark contrast to the sometimes contradictory pronouncements coming from Washington. Mr. Cuomo's briefings have been filled with facts, directives and sobering trends...."
My mother's not expendable. We're not going to accept a premise that human life is disposable. And we're not going to put a dollar figure on human life. -- Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY), responding to Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick's (R) suggestion that old folks sacrifice their lives for the economy ~~~
~~~ Media Matters: "Fox's Brit Hume says it's an 'entirely reasonable viewpoint' to expect that grandparents would be willing to die to protect the economy[.]" Mrs. McC: Hume is 76 years old. ~~~
~~~ Dahlia Lithwick of Slate: "Republicans who once decried the Affordable Care Act as a harbinger of 'death panels' are now toying with cutting out the middleman and sentencing the country's oldest to death without bothering with any panels at all.... The poster boy of such stupidity is currently Dan Patrick, Texas' Republican lieutenant governor, who told Tucker Carlson on Monday night that he and America's other grandparents would be willing to risk their own lives if it meant America getting 'back to work' before the pandemic was contained adequately.... Patrick ... seems incapable of understanding that we can't conclude anything about the virus without widespread testing, which remains unavailable.... The problem with Trump and Patrick and [Jerry] Falwell [Jr. -- story linked below --] and all those who continue to believe that young Americans or Christian Americans or Americans in red states are somehow not susceptible to the same risks as the rest of us isn't just that it continues the sordid trend of pitting people against others that has been so politically disastrous for the nation. It also stands as a substitute for actually doing the many, many things that need doing right now, things that needed doing weeks ago, when they could have saved more lives."
Noah Weiland & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "The White House is preparing to use software provided by the technology giant Oracle to promote unproven coronavirus treatments, including a pair of malaria drugs publicized by President Trump, potentially before the government approves their use for the outbreak, according to five senior administration officials and others familiar with the plans.... Mr. Trump has tried to reassure Americans that what he has called a 'game changer' treatment is imminent, but his language has alarmed senior health officials and public health experts, who say that the Oracle program would amount to a sprawling, crowdsourced clinical trial without the usual controls of the F.D.A.... [Two] drugs are still being studied by the F.D.A. for their effectiveness in treating the virus.... Jared Kushner, as well as agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services such as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the F.D.A., are involved in the Oracle efforts, according to two senior administration officials.... On Tuesday afternoon, Dr. [Anthony] Fauci met with Drs. Deborah L. Birx, the White House's coronavirus coordinator, Robert R. Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Stephen M. Hahn, the F.D.A. commissioner, to go over their concerns with the Oracle project and review new Chinese data that indicated the drugs have no meaningful effect.... [A week ago,] to the surprise of top officials at the F.D.A., Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter that he would be holding a news conference 'to discuss very important news from the F.D.A. concerning the Chinese Virus!' Pleading with the White House, officials at the F.D.A. were able to hold it off..., forcing Mr. Trump to take his message to the next day's coronavirus task force news briefing, where he told reporters that chloroquine would be distributed to 'large groups of people' even before the government had concluded studying its safety and effectiveness."
When we went to war, we didn't say, any company out there want to build a battleship? Who wants to build a battleship? -- Gov. Andrew Cuomo, on Trump's refusal to implement the Defense Production Act ~~~
Jeanne Whelen, et al., of the Washington Post: "A mad scramble for masks, gowns and ventilators is pitting states against each other and driving up prices. Some hard-hit parts of the country are receiving fresh supplies of N95 masks, but others are still out of stock. Hospitals are requesting donations of masks and gloves from construction companies, nail salons and tattoo parlors, and considering using ventilators designed for large animals because they cannot find the kind made for people. The market for medical supplies has descended into chaos, according to state officials and health-care leaders. They are begging the federal government to use a wartime law to bring order and ensure the United States has the gear it needs to battle the coronavirus. So far, the Trump administration has declined."
Elisha Fieldstadt of NBC News: "Health experts say it's no surprise that New Orleans is the center of the coronavirus crisis in hard-hit Louisiana after over a million people flocked to the city to celebrate Carnival for more than a month, culminating in Mardi Gras at the end of February. Gov. John Bel Edwards [D] requested a Major Disaster Declaration for the state Tuesday as the number of cases rose to 1,388 in 43 of Louisiana's 64 parishes, according to the state's Health Department. At least 46 people have died.... But New Orleans, with 567 of the state's cases -- 20 that led to death -- is by far the center of the pandemic in the state."
Raphael Minder & Elian Peltier of the New York Times: "Across Western Europe..., the coronavirus ... has left some hospitals on the brink of collapse.... Out of Spain's 40,000 confirmed coronavirus cases, 5,400 -- nearly 14 percent -- are medical professionals, the health ministry said on Tuesday.... In Brescia province, the center of Italy's outbreak, 10 to 15 percent of doctors and nurses have been infected and put out of commission, according to a doctor there.... And infected workers and their hospitals are increasingly being recognized as vectors for the spread of the virus." Mrs. McC: MEANWHILE, the Trump administration has failed to supply U.S. hospitals with protective equipment, criminally-negligent Donald Trump has repeatedly refused to trigger the Defense Production Act, keeps lying about supplies & deflecting responsibility to the states & suggests he'll soon order an end to social distancing recommendations, while the majority of the American people say he's doing a good job.
Mark Landler of the New York Times: "Prince Charles..., the heir to the British throne, has contracted the coronavirus, Buckingham Palace said on Wednesday, adding that he had been suffering from mild symptoms since last weekend."
Jesse Eisenger & James Bandler of ProPublica: "For almost two years [beginning in 2016, federal prosecutors had] investigat[ed] the opioid dispensing practices of Walmart, the largest company in the world. They had amassed what they viewed as highly damning evidence only to face a major obstacle: top Trump appointees at the Department of Justice.... The prosecutors' push to persuade [then-deputy attorney general, Rod] Rosenstein to revive the criminal case had failed.... [W]hen the prosecutors sought to indict a mid-level Walmart manager, the Trump officials blocked that, too.... That left potential civil claims. After the meeting with Rosenstein, Brian Benczkowski, the head of the criminal division, had told [prosecutors], 'You have a whopper of a civil case,' according to four people familiar with the investigation. But the civil case, too, was stymied by Trump appointees in the DOJ who continued to side with Walmart.... In its dealings with the DOJ, Walmart ... relied on Jones Day, an influential law firm that has salted officials throughout the Trump administration." --s
Jillian Ambrose of the Guardian: "The world's wind power capacity grew by almost a fifth in 2019 after a year of record growth for offshore windfarms and a boom in onshore projects in the US and China. The Global Wind Energy Council found that wind power capacity grew by 60.4 gigawatts, or 19%, compared with 2018, in one of the strongest years on record for the global wind power industry." --s
Graham Readfearn & Adam Morton of the Guardian: "The Great Barrier Reef has experienced a third mass coral bleaching event in five years, according to the scientist carrying out aerial surveys over hundreds of individual reefs.... It follows the worst outbreaks of mass bleaching on record killing about half the shallow water corals on the world's biggest reef system in 2016 and 2017." --s
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"Ill Be the Oversight." Erica Werner, et al., of the Washington Post: "The White House has agreed to allow enhanced scrutiny over a massive loan program that is a centerpiece of the Senate's $2 trillion coronavirus economic package, two people briefed on the discussions said, taking steps to address a major Democratic concern and potentially pave the way for a vote by Tuesday night.... Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) also struck a positive tone in remarks on the Senate floor, in a marked shift from days of bitter partisan wrangling...." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ ** New Lede: "Senate leaders and the Trump administration reached agreement early Wednesday on a $2 trillion stimulus package to rescue the economy from the coronavirus assault, potentially setting the stage for swift passage of the massive legislation through both chambers of Congress. 'Ladies and gentlemen, we are done. We have a deal,' White House legislative affairs director Eric Ueland told reporters around 1 a.m." The story is free to nonsubscribers.
Cross of Gold. Quint Forgey, et al., of Politico: "Top Trump administration officials on Tuesday signaled that they were already laying the groundwork to reopen the U.S. economy amid the coronavirus pandemic -- a task that ... Donald Trump revealed he would like to accomplish by mid-April. 'I'd love to have it open by Easter, OK? I would love to have it open by Easter...,' Trump said from the White House Rose Garden, where he and members of the administration's coronavirus task force participated in a virtual town hall on Fox News. 'It's such an important day for other reasons, but I'll make it an important day for this, too,' he added. 'I would love to have the country opened up and just raring to go by Easter.' [April 12] Trump's comments came hours after Vice President Mike Pence told conservative leaders on a private call that White House aides were discussing ways to encourage businesses to reopen and healthy Americans to return to work at the end of the current 15-day period, during which administration officials have asked Americans to avoid social gatherings with more than 10 people and stay home as much as possible." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: I saw a videoclip on the teevee where Trump was telling viewers that he wanted to see churches "packed" on Easter Sunday. ~~~
~~~ William Wan, et al., of the Washington Post: "Health experts point to overwhelming evidence from around the world that closing businesses and schools and minimizing social contact are crucial to avoid exponentially mounting infections. Ending the shutdown now in America would be disastrous, many say, because the country has barely given those restrictions time to work, and because U.S. leaders have not pursued alternative strategies used in other countries to avert the potential deaths of hundreds of thousands.... 'To be a week into these restrictions and already be talking about abandoning them is irresponsible and dangerous,' said Tom Inglesby, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. Removing restrictions now would allow the virus, he said, to 'spread widely, rapidly, terribly, and could kill potentially millions in the year ahead with huge social and economic impact.'... To ease current restrictions even slightly without a massive increase in the U.S. death toll, some epidemiological models show, the country must first put in place other strategies -- like the large-scale contact tracing of infections being done in South Korea, which local health departments simply do not have the capacity to do." Access to this story is free to nonsubscribers. ~~~
~~~ First, Kill All the Old Folks. Greg Sargent of the Washington Post: "Everyone is talking about Dan Patrick's on-air death plea. Patrick, the lieutenant governor of Texas, touched off an outpouring of anger when he declared to Tucker Carlson that people like him -- grandparents in their twilight years -- should risk death so people can stop social distancing to avert economic calamity.... Patrick's plea to Carlson was inspired by Trump himself. As Patrick noted, his 'heart is lifted' by Trump's suggestion that it might be time to go back to work.... It captures something essential about President Trump.... Right now, Trump is actively considering relaxing federal recommendations on social distancing. As Trump put it, 'we cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself.' Health experts are screaming warnings.... Trump may have adopted the idea that 'the cure is worse than the disease' almost verbatim from a segment on Fox News, which has pushed this line relentlessly.... Trump would not put it quite [the] way [Patrick does]. But this, at bottom, is what he's asking us to accept." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Sorry, Greg, I see no indication Fat Old Grandpa Donald is willing to sacrifice himself for the kids & the economy.
~~~ Eric Levitz of New York: "The animating absurdity of Mitchell and Webb's 'Kill the Poor' sketch lies in the boss character's obsession with discerning the technocratic viability of a homicidal policy that he himself regards as morally unthinkable. The American right's budding consensus on coronavirus policy is absurd in a ... more sociopathic ... respect: Trumpists are eagerly endorsing the moral permissibility of reviving the economy through mass manslaughter, even as they evince little interest in the question of whether such a policy would even work.... An unconstrained COVID-19 outbreak wouldn't just kill seniors by ravaging their lungs...; it would also kill them by overwhelming hospital capacity, thus forcing health professionals to leave some treatable elderly COVID-19 patients to die. The chances that a Texas hospital would deny Dan Patrick a ventilator ... are nil.... The life he is volunteering to jeopardize is not his own.... Trump did not acquiesce to the recommendations of public health officials this month because he realized the health of the old and infirm was more important than that of the S&P 500.... He belatedly recognized that prioritizing public health was a precondition for restoring economic growth." Read on. ~~~
~~~ Robert Schlesinger in an NBC News opinion piece: Explicitly cutting against health experts' advice, Trump is embracing the chic new philosophy of the economic right: Death happens, live with it.... This might be Trump's greatest pivot yet: turning the self-anointed pro-life party into one of death-tolerance. It's true that all public policy involves some level of cost-benefit analysis, but few people really think Trump is capable of such nuance. Even if he were, how could we really analyze those costs? We haven't taken the infection curve's measure, let alone started to bend it.... The Donald Trump who [briefly] pivoted and took coronavirus seriously was never long for this world. He remains saddled with the problems that made him dangerously insufficient to the challenges in the first place, including a lack of credibility that compounds at the geometric rate of the virus itself, a baseless and bottomless self-certainty and a child-like impatience.... The now-daily news conferences that seem to be the main result of his turn as a 'wartime president' have only spun up the pace of his bunkum...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Schlesinger believes the only hope is that Trump still has a week to "pivot back" to taking a responsible position. I suspect the only way that will happen is if Trump himself gets at least a mild case of Covid-19. I don't wish anyone ill health, but this would be a good time for Trump to get a hacking cough that nearly takes his breath away. ~~~
~~~ Frank Bruni's column isn't particularly illuminating, but the headline on his NYT column is chilling: "We are relying on Trump to care about our lives." ~~~
~~~ Just as Chilling. Jeffrey Jones of Gallup: "... Donald Trump may be enjoying a small rally in public support as the nation faces the COVID-19 pandemic. Forty-nine percent of U.S. adults, up from 44% earlier this month, approve of the job Trump is doing as president. Trump also had 49% job approval ratings -- the best of his presidency -- in late January and early February around the time of the Senate impeachment trial that resulted in his acquittal."
Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "President Trump has praised Dr. Anthony S. Fauci as a 'major television star.' He has tried to demonstrate that the administration is giving him free rein to speak. And he has deferred to Dr. Fauci's opinion several times at the coronavirus task force's televised briefings. But Dr. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984, has grown bolder in correcting the president's falsehoods and overly rosy statements about the spread of the coronavirus in the past two weeks -- and he has become a hero to the president's critics because of it. And now, Mr. Trump's patience has started to wear thin." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Actually, the first sign that Trump's patience with Fauci has worn thin was when Trump called Fauci a "major television star." Trump squirms when his underlings appear to outshine him or get "too much" public attention. Trump fired Steve Bannon not long after Bannon starred on the cover of Time.
David Sanger, et al., of the New York Times: "For the first time, it is now possible to quantify the cost of the lost weeks [of coronavirus preparations], as President Trump was claiming as recently as February that in a 'couple of days' the number of cases in the United States 'is going to be down to close to zero.' Ford's timeline [-- they cannot produce the first ventilators until early June --] suggested that if the administration had reacted to the acute shortage of ventilators in February, the joint effort between Ford and General Electric might have produced lifesaving equipment sometime in mid- to late April.... The gap between the production timelines and the need for immediate supplies led to a scathing assessment from Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York.... 'You want a pat on the back for sending 400 ventilators?' Mr. Cuomo said. 'What are we going to do with 400 ventilators when we need 30,000 ventilators?'... For the past two weeks, the administration has usually avoided indicating the number of ventilators, masks or personal protective equipment that it has distributed. That changed on Monday, when Rear Adm. John P. Polowczyk, a senior [Pentagon] logistics officer..., began specifying delivery quantities. So far those figures have not compared the number of deliveries to the number of equipment needed. And that gap seems huge." ~~~
~~~ Nick Turse of the Intercept: "... Donald Trump has repeatedly defended his administration against the suggestion that the government is failing to secure enough ventilators.... 'We have tremendous numbers of ventilators, but there’s never been an instance like this where no matter what you have, it's not enough,' Trump said on March 18. 'It sounds like a lot, but this is a very unforeseen thing. Nobody ever thought of these numbers.' A day later, he doubled down, noting that 'nobody in their wildest dreams would have ever thought that we'd need tens of thousands of ventilators.'... Almost every federal agency you can imagine has, in fact, warned about shortages -- and some have offered specific and sobering estimates of need -- for the better part of two decades." Turse runs down a long list of government reports that outlined the federal glaring shortage of ventilators & other supplies that would be needed for respiratory pandemics.
Wowza! Fred Imbert & Thomas Franck of CNBC: "The Dow Jones Industrial Average soared on Tuesday, logging its best day in 87 years as investors bet U.S. lawmakers would deliver soon a stimulus bill to rescue the economy from the damage caused by the coronavirus and shutdowns designed to stop its spread. It was a historic bounce coming amid a historic sell-off. The 30-stock average closed 2,112.98 points higher -- or more than 11% -- at 20,704.91, notching its biggest one-day percentage gain since 1933. The S&P 500 rallied 9.4% to 2,447.33 for its best day since October 2008. The Nasdaq Composite surged 8.1% to 7,417.86, its best day since March 13. Both the Dow and S&P 500 rebound off their lowest levels since late 2016." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
New York: "'For anyone in the New York metropolitan area who has traveled, our task force is encouraging you to monitor your temperature, be sensitive to symptoms,' explained Vice President Pence in a Tuesday afternoon press conference, 'And we are asking anyone who has traveled out of the New York City metropolitan area to anywhere else in the country to self isolate for 14 days.' The recommendation, which was endorsed by both National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Anthony Fauci and coronavirus task force coordinator Deborah Birx, came in light of the tens of thousands of COVID-19 cases which have been discovered in and around the city in recent weeks."
Matt Dixon of Politico: "While New York, California and other states shutter their economies to keep the coronavirus at bay, Gov. Ron DeSantis [R] ... [has taken a] cure-can't-be-worse-than-the-disease approach ... as cases of the virus in Florida surge past 1,400.... On Tuesday, state Senate Democrats began papering the governor's office with letters urging him to issue a shelter-in-place order. 'That is the dumbest s--- I have heard in a long time,' said state Sen. Oscar Braynon (D-Miami Gardens).... DeSantis has grown only more defiant. On Monday, instead of buckling to political pressure to issue a shelter-in-place order, he said he would restrict visitors coming into the state from coronavirus hot spots including New York.... On Monday he announced that anyone flying from New York, New Jersey or Connecticut to Florida would have to undergo a 14 day self-quarantine...."
Nick Judin of the Jackson (Mississippi) Free Press: [Mississippi] "Gov. Tate Reeves [R] rejected calls today for a statewide shelter-at-home order, a measure of caution against the spread of COVID-19 being rapidly deployed next door in Louisiana, elsewhere in the United States and across the globe. 'It is my goal to make sure we make good, solid decisions based on experts,' the governor said in an afternoon Facebook Live address, where he took questions from Mississippi residents.... One Mississippian asked the governor why the state was not emulating China, the first country to detect COVID-19 and the first to control the spread of the virus. 'Mississippi's never going to be China. Mississippi's never going to be North Korea,' Reeves responded."
What Would Jerry Do? Richard Chumney of the Richmond Times-Dispatch: "As the coronavirus threatens to spread across the Lynchburg region, Liberty University officials are preparing to welcome back up to 5,000 students from spring break this week. Defying a national trend of campus closures, President Jerry Falwell Jr. has invited students to return to residence halls and has directed faculty members to continue to report to campus even as most classes move online.... Falwell..., who has publicly downplayed the threat of the virus in recent weeks..., said somewhere between several hundred to more than 5,000 students are expected to live in campus dorms, where they will continue coursework online rather than in classrooms. Meanwhile, hundreds of professors and instructors without a valid health exemption will come to campus to hold office hours.... The university has taken some steps to help slow the spread of the virus. Gatherings in campus buildings, including a handful of classes still holding in-person meetings, are capped at 10 people in accordance with an order by Gov. Ralph Northam." ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McC: My guess: A big part of Liberty's profits come from dorm charges.
The spring-breaker dude who said, "If I get corona, I get corona," has apologized. Aimee Ortiz of the New York Times: "'I wasn't aware of the severity of my actions and comments,' the man, Brady Sluder, said on Instagram on Sunday. "I'd like to take this time to own up to the mistakes i've made and apologize to the people I've offended.'" Mrs. McC: The tragedy is that a Wayne's World kind of guy is now behaving far more responsibly than the POTUS*.
"If Coronavirus Does Not Kill Us, Hunger Will." Jeffrey Gettleman & Kai Schwartz of the New York Times: "India's prime minister ordered all 1.3 billion people in the country to stay inside their homes for three weeks starting Wednesday -- the biggest and most severe action undertaken anywhere to stop the spread of the coronavirus. 'There will be a total ban of coming out of your homes,' the prime minister, Narendra Modi, announced on television Tuesday night, giving Indians less than four hours' notice before the order took effect at 12:01 a.m. 'Every state, every district, every lane, every village will be under lockdown,' Mr. Modi said.... But Mr. Modi did not make clear how people would get food, water and other necessities during the lockdown, or how they would maintain a safe distance from one another in the cramped spaces where many now live.... The breadth and depth of such a challenge is staggering in a country where hundreds of millions of citizens are destitute and countless millions live in packed urban areas with poor sanitation and weak public health care.... 'The police beat us if we try to step out,' [a New Delhi tenement-dweller] said. 'We dare not step out even to buy vegetables whose prices have skyrocketed. The future looks very dark,' she added. 'If coronavirus does not kill us, hunger will.'"
Some Rare Good News. Matt Steib of New York: "As the World Health Organization launches trials for potential treatmnts for COVID-19, scientists studying the coronavirus are encouraged that its low mutation rate could mean that a single vaccine is possible. According to researchers who spoke with the Washington Post, there are only around four to ten genetic differences between the coronavirus strains that have infected Americans and those of the original virus in Wuhan. 'That's a relatively small number of mutations for having passed through a large number of people,' Peter Thielen, a Johns Hopkins molecular geneticist, told the Post. 'At this point, the mutation rate of the virus would suggest that the vaccine developed for SARS-CoV-2 would be a single vaccine, rather than a new vaccine every year like the flu vaccine.' Rather, a potential coronavirus vaccine would act more like those for the measles or chickenpox, in which one shot grants immunity for a substantial amount of time."
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Reader Comments (35)
Re: << Trump squirms when his underlings appear to outshine him or get "too much" public attention >>
Bea -
Indeed. And I additionally wonder if, by calling Fauci a “major television star”, Trump is aiming to highlight “celebrity” in order to minimize (eradicate) medical expertise, leaving room for his own perilous prescription of business-as-usual.
Gotta love how Dr. Fatty slipped in a special message to his whitey-whites by designating Easter (and the packing of churches, not mosques or synagogues or non-affiliated locales) as the right time for America (and authentic Americans) to Return to Normalcy.
Such a dumb little drumpf, I can’t be certain if his schemes involve actual thought, or if their bits are merely vomited into the atmosphere and randomly land as “policy”.
I see that McTurtle, that malevolent, mustache-twirling Iago motherfucker, is pleased with the Trump Virus economic bailout package. Makes me think there’s some truly bad shit hidden in there. Once a scheming Constitution-shredding malignant tumor like McTurtle gets his stiletto-blade claws around two trillion smackers, there’s no telling what kind of slimy skullduggery is buried in the fine print.
When this asshole is flashing that mirthless, Dracula rictus of his, you know some nefarious shit is in the offing.
If Mitch is happy, we should all be worried.
The holy rollers in many states are outraged that emergency closures include churches (which Dr. Fatty wants to pack with millions of potential Trump Virus cases) but not liquor stores. Must be a sop to alky Democrats.
The problem is one of prevention. Estimates from the NIH put the number of serious alcoholics in the US at about 6% of the adult population. That’s millions of people. Forcing all of them to go cold turkey, at the same time, is sure to put a further strain on an already overburdened heath system, to say nothing of the problems that might be incurred by families shuttered up with dry drunks teetering on the edge. Uncle Bob might be bad when he’s drinking (while watching Fox and wearing his MAGA hat), but he could be a lot worse without his “medicine”.
Back in the 80’s, officials in the Soviet Union, trying to curtail the frightening rate of alcoholism, decided to cut liquor store openings down to two hours a day. Pretty soon there were long lines of shoppers waiting for the chance to restock the vodka. Not average Russians though. Who would wait in long lines at a place open only for two hours a day?
Alcoholics would. And they did.
But everything is viewed as a conspiracy against Jesus by some people.
and while all the worshipers are packed into the pews on Easter Sunday Trump will be attending services at the local Church of Golf. No mingling with the masses for him!
Michigan.gov has a daily coronavirus listing by county. Number of
infections and number of deaths. It started a week ago with 1 death
and has about doubled every day.
Would anyone even consider ending our shutdown early except the
medically deficient president* because it's costing someone profit?
Who needs profit if you're sitting around waiting for what's to come.
We're seeing New York and other hot spot license plates in the area.
Hope they're paying attention and doing self quarantine but I doubt
it. People seem to think it's safer out in the boonies.
I'd be surprised if Fatty wasn't getting tested every single day. Couldn't the doctor just lie to him and tell him that today's test came back positive? Therefore, he'd have to stay quarantined in his presidential* suite for the next two weeks, minimum (without his phone, I hope.) That would then require implementation of the 25th Amendment. Who knows, halfpence might even step up to the plate
with Fatty being locked up. I'd at least give him a try.
Failing that, could we just pay Melanie to inoculate him?
Don't watch daytime soaps (are they still broadcast?). Haven't since 1963-1964 when I was confined to bed in a body cast and tuned in to "General Hospital." Got kinda caught up in it as I remember, there for a while.
Guess I haven't been that desperate for entertainment since, but it worries me that with my one scheduled obligation for today cancelled and more rain in the forecast, the thought of soaps entered my head at all.
Don't know if the mere thought rises to the level of temptation but have decided to deflect the possibility by attending to the unfolding drama in the Senate today.
Will they really pass that monster or not? What provisions does it actually contain? Are there subsidies for those windmills that kill birds and ruin real estate? Will the Post Office get a lifeline? Planned Parenthood? What of other devilish details?
Will the ink on the last minute drafts still be wet when the Senate votes? Will the House have to physically reconvene?
Will the Pretender, who said he'd never sign a bill that supports windmills, have to back down--again?
With much at stake, so much fine drama to watch and follow, garnished with light moments like the following, I think I'll be content with another soapless (though I will be washing my hands) day:
I see Joe Manchin has added his own creation to one of my long-time favorites, "with au jus," when in "The Hill" article on last night's Senate deal he was quoted as saying you just can't give those corporations "free carte blanche."
Just wondering why confederates are always whining about how we can’t possibly afford one more nickel to feed poor kids—in fact, we should make food stamps less and less available until those mooching poors grow up and learn to be real Americans, self-sufficient, and all that shit—but if the airline industry doesn’t make its usual 2000% profit, we better shovel tens of billions at them.
While the Party of Fiscal Responsibility (*gag*) and their rotund rector of self-righteous rapacity lose not a millisecond lecturing us that the government cannot possibly be expected to spend time and money on poor people in dire need, they will work tirelessly as long as necessary to prop up already obscenely wealthy corporations, many of which pay not a penny in income tax.
And now, Dr. Fatty and the other doyens of dangerous douchebaggery are ordering that old people kill themselves so corporations don’t have a bad day and so that the Dear Leader not have to look like he cares about people more than money.
Just wondering if there’s a priority problem here.
As the Great Divide deepens among fair-minded Americans and conservative cultists, I'm reminded again of the thought experiment @Marie mentioned back in the day about how things might've been different had the Union negotiated the end of the Civil War with the Confederacy allowing them to take a chunk of territory in exchange for putting the guns down. At the time, I thought it unthinkable. While the thought experiment encounters quite a few moral travesties (allowing slavery to continue right on our southern border), it provokes even wilder scenarios in today's volatile world.
The Confederate States of America would DEFINITELY have a super Trumpy president*, that needs little imagination to confirm. And while the rest of the world takes drastic measures to protect their populations, the mass of Southern Anglo-Saxons would all be beating their chests and bragging about their strong genes while they fill their mega churches and drink piss beer together while shooting their rifles into the air while they fall dead like flies left and right, dying a happy death that they fought to preserve their dignity of work and, overall, their freeeedom to infect themselves and each other.
Ken,
“Free carte blanche”? Love it.
Safari,
Your idea about a self-defenestrating South would never happen. Confederate moochers rely on money from northern, blue states in order to stay at home on “workman’s comp” and suck up other government handouts which allow them to pay for their ammo and piss beer. When whitey-white Trump voters and corporations get billions in handouts, it’s the Lord’s Will. Doncha know? Anyone else? It’s satanic soshulism.
Ken -
A full body cast??? You poor thing! Glad that was long ago and far away. Oh, yeah: gotta get me some of that “free carte blanche”. And make sure it’s *blanche*! None of that noir, bruni or jaune imported from them shit-holes.
Hatti,
The price of Friday Night Lights homecoming football heroism, in retrospect more than repaid by 4-F draft status when my student deferment ran out (that's another story with at least two chapters set at the Oakland induction center), and great kindness granted by a university admission committee who overlooked a low SAT score on the math section, when I fell asleep taking it there in my home in a hospital bed. They probably thought I'd have done better had I been awake.
Fooled them.
Yes, so long ago but still very live in memory.
@Hattie: Well, Trump couldn't cite Passover because there are several days during Passover when Jews are forbidden to work!
It was quite an informing peek into Trumps thought process that he reluctantly agreed to the shutdown because otherwise he would have been "unbelievably criticized."
Re: “Trump to New York: Drop Dead” and diminishing Gov Cuomo as ‘very nice’ -
From this New Yorker to Fatty, quoting Rooney Mara’s Lisbeth Salander (dragon tattoo)’s teeshirt:
FUCK YOU
YOU FUCKING
FUCK
Trust me: my hometown is an apocalyptic nightmare, fully awake.
Safari,
Edsell provides some trenchant numbers on The Great Divide, that parallel the tenor and content of letters to the editor in our local paper that support the Pretender.
White grievance enfolded in religion's comforting blanket.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/25/opinion/religion-democrats-republicans.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
Looking at the geographic and demographic distribution of fundamentalism in this country, I'm thinking today's religious upheaval and the South's one time acceptance of slavery must be somehow connected in ways that go beyond my sense that--as I've said before--religion offers a handy shortcut to superiority.
@Hattie wrote, "Gotta love how Dr. Fatty slipped in a special message to his whitey-whites by designating Easter (and the packing of churches, not mosques or synagogues or non-affiliated locales) as the right time for America (and authentic Americans) to Return to Normalcy."
Also too, Trump is a master marketer. He is turning his upcoming go-back-to-work-you-lazy-slackers-and-save-my-presidency* order into a Christians-vs.-the-liberal-heathens message. Those who push back against the order don't "trust God" to save them from the "invisible enemy." Public health experts, hospital personnel, governors, mayors, and ordinary people pushing to instigate & maintain reasonable cautionary measures will become the godless "visible enemies." It's springtime for
HitlerTrump.Economic thoughts from the way left:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/03/23/a-debt-jubilee-is-the-only-way-to-avoid-a-depression/
The maladministration's plan to just let all of the olds and poors die fits hand-in-glove with the GOP's plan to get rid of the social safety net. If the olds and poors no longer exist, then there's no need to spend all that money on them. If there's no need to keep making the monthly payments, then there's no need for the programs or it's associated bureaucracy. Done deal!
Ken: one of my favorites is "First Year Anniversary--" I adore "with au jus" also... And going to the Italian-- Paninis...
As a proofreader, I often see "Free Gift" and this phrase: save up to $100 or more--"
I heard this morning our governor is quietly reopening gun shops-- as he was advised by two PA supreme court judges... There has already been one lawsuit which was dismissed-- Second amendment rights, ya know-- I guess the unwritten rule is that, not only can you own an unlimited amount of firearms, but if you don't have enough, why, you just go to the small business gun shop which WAS closed but is now open, and you buy even more. Somehow I don't remember that part in the amendment, but golly, it must be there...
Despicable toads--there is no shortage of them.
Ken Re:
<< White grievance enfolded in religion's comforting blanket >>
You’ve managed to define an odious reality with pure poetry.
Bea Re:
<>
Precisely. And (bonus!) they can pray-away The Virus along with The Gay.
<< It's springtime for Hitler Trump. >>
Thanks for the giggle. (Well, sort of.)
unwashed Re:
<< The maladministration's plan to just let all of the olds and poors die fits hand-in-glove with the GOP's plan to get rid of the social safety net. >>
Exactly! Such a stable-genius-of-a-businessman.
Jeanne -
How handy - and reassuring - that weapons are again available at arms’ (unexpected pun) length, eh? (If any such vendors covertly believed in the *non*-fictional Covid-19, I’d envision them sporting dark intimidating ski masks.)
@ Ken regarding debt jubilees:
You might want to listen to this talk by American economist and professor Michael Hudson. He reviews debt cancellation, debtor revolts, and the demise of the debt reformers in early Greek and Roman history.
https://digitalfinanceanalytics.com/blog/debt-and-power-with-michael-hudson/
The legacy of Roman law regarding debt cancellation is still predominant in western societies, but curiously, debt cancellation is also seen as a call for democracy. Not to put too much emphasis on what appears in the rear view mirror; what lies ahead could be completely different.
Periscope,
Thanks.
David Graeber, whom I've referenced here before, also has much to say on the subject. If you are interested, his book, "Debt," is worth a look.
Here’s a Wikipedia link to the first edition. I understand it’s been updated..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt:_The_First_5000_Years
An old joke, neatly updated for present circumstances, sent to me by a
Seattle friend who--what else?--is sheltering in place. May it lighten your day.
Plane with five passengers on board; Donald Trump, Pope Francis, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Oprah Winfrey, and teenager Greta Thunberg. The plane is about to crash. There are only four parachutes.
Dr. Fauci says, "I need one. I have to help develop a cure for the global health crisis that is COVID19!" He takes one and jumps.
The pope says, "I need one. I have to help spiritually guide people through the global health crisis that is COVID19!" He takes one and jumps.
Trump says, "I need one. I AM the smartest man in the world!" He takes one and jumps.
Oprah says to Greta, "You take the last one. I've lived my life. Yours is just starting and you may be the planets best hope."
Greta says, "Don't worry. There are two parachutes left. The smartest man in the world took my school bag."
@Ken, I like it.
Just in from Public Citizen's Robert Weissman.
Don't know if the claim is accurate, but it sounded likely, so I emailed my two senators posthaste. There's a lot of room in 1000 pages to hide perfidy...
"The Senate is very close to finalizing its coronavirus stimulus plan.
But we just caught the Republicans trying to pull a fast one.
One section of the 1,000-page plan contains good language that would prevent companies from using bailout money to buy back their own stock, increase dividends or raise CEO compensation.
But the very next section gives Donald Trump’s sycophantic Treasury Secretary, Steve Mnuchin, the power to ignore the previous section and let Big Business do whatever it wants with our money!
Are we going to let them get away with something so sneaky and corrupt?
Tell your senators to strip the Mnuchin Maneuver from the stimulus plan.
Email your senators right now, before they finalize the plan."
@Ken -
Tee-Hee.
Love it & will pass it along.
I'm likin' Cardi B more and more.
It appears that I'm not the only one concerned about wealthy NYCer's escaping to the hinterlands. (Thanks Hattie for sheltering in-place.)
Ok, one last one, a la Queen, Coronavirus Rhapsody.
@unwashed -
You are very sweet and I thank you. But please, there is no need to thank me.
I can’t think of anyone that I know or know of - and I know a buncha folk who know a buncha folk in New York City & The Boroughs - who is *not* sheltering-in. Except for the unfortunate many who do not have the *luxury* of being able to do so. One Example:
The father of my godchildren is the Superintendent of 2 buildings with a 24/7 low-paying work schedule. His responsibilities place him in harms way *all* of the time. And, in turn, his family. This is someone who, by his very nature, is mega clean/germ conscious (my place should be half as pristine as the beautiful home he’s created for his wife and children). Yet even while protecting himself *and* being ultra-protective of others, he is most susceptible to getting sick and he’s a young man. Speaking of, another of my dearest friends just texted to say that his doctor is quite certain (via telemedicine “visit”) that he has the virus. He is in his 50s. And worries further that his husband-to-be may have been exposed to this.
Noo Yawk is all about public transportation. I’ve considered myself lucky to never have needed a car. We are big on walking. Taking subways. And buses. That’s how we get around. So when ya’ll see vids of crowded subway cars and stations on the teevee, I can assure you that each one of those travelers is terrified of infection and does not wish to be there. They’ve gotta pay rent or risk eviction.
I’ve not yet read the article you’ve enclosed about our wealthy escapees. Do NOT understand why those folk would even consider traveling elsewhere since everything in NYC is at their fingertips. Anything can be delivered. And lived fully within their spacious apartments (or duplexes or triplexes or townhouses). If there is a mass exiting, with the potential of spreading disease, a pox on their skylights and roof gardens.
(To self: Far too much typing! Drag out yer mat, foam roller and elastic bands!)
It’s amazing that republicans dare to hold up the whole bill because they insinuate that the poors will cheat somehow, when there are billions going to corporations who will definitely cheat.
And what makes republicans think that the job picture, post pandemic, will even have any place for the formerly employed?
unwashed -
Ok, one last one from me:
LOVED Rhapsody!
Although I did shiver when the lyrics went something like “maybe I shouldn’t have gone outside that one time” (to get some air).
Well, some of this morning's questions are answered.
From "Bloomberg Green:"
"Democrats scored a win by nixing $3 billion in oil purchases for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
Republicans struck back by stripping out clean energy provisions Democrats had insisted were necessary to offset the spending on fossil fuels, such as a provision tying $33 billion in bailout money for airlines to a 50% reduction in emissions. A House provision for $100 million for alternative fuels research for airlines also was cut. Air travel accounts for about 2.5% of total carbon dioxide emissions globally."
The Repugs also put wind and solar in a tighter bind while they had the chance.
I don't like the answers...