The Commentariat -- May 5, 2020

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Nothing Remotely Suspicious or Untoward about This. Ben Tracy, et al., of CBS News: "Discussions are underway about winding down the work of the Coronavirus Task Force, Vice President Mike Pence told reporters Tuesday, even as the number of deaths and new cases continue to mount ... as states begin to reopen. The administration's work on testing and bolstering the national stockpile will continue, Pence said, with some of that work being moved back to agencies.... '... it really is all a reflection of the tremendous progress we've made as a country. The president stood up the White House Coronavirus Task Force to marshal -- in January -- to marshal a national response.'... The vice president's announcement apparently had not reached Dr. Anthony Fauci.... Fauci told CBS News only moments before Pence spoke that he had just been at a task force meeting, and no one had said anything to him about disbanding the task force."

** Yasmeen Abutaleb & Laurie McGinley of the Washington Post: Dr. Rick Bright, "a former top vaccine official removed from his post last month, alleged in a whistleblower complaint on Tuesday that he was reassigned to a less prestigious role because he tried to 'prioritize science and safety over political expediency' and raised health concerns over a drug repeatedly pushed by President Trump and other administration officials as a possible cure for coronavirus.... Bright portrays himself in the 89-page complaint as one of the administration's health officials trying to sound the alarm about the virus as early as January. He said he called for the rapid development of treatments and vaccines, as well as the stockpiling of additional N95 masks and ventilators, at a time when HHS political leadership, including Secretary Alex Azar, appeared to him to be underestimating the threat. He also notes that he clashed with his boss, assistant secretary for preparedness and response at HHS Robert Kadlec, for at least two years, according to the complaint. Bright alleged that Kadlec and others pressured him to buy drugs and medical products for the nation's stockpile of emergency medical equipment from companies that were linked politically to the administration and that he resisted such efforts." ~~~

     ~~~ A Politico story is here. Bright's complaint, via Bright's attorneys, is here. ~~~

~~~ Jon Swaine, et al., of the Washington Post: "After Robert Kadlec was confirmed as President Trump's top official for public health preparedness in 2017, he began pressing to increase government stocks of a smallpox vaccine. His office ultimately made a deal to buy up to $2.8 billion of the vaccine from a company that once paid Kadlec as a consultant, a connection he did not disclose on a Senate questionnaire when he was nominated.... The 10-year contract is part of an effort by Kadlec to bolster the nation's stockpile of defenses against biologica and chemical weapons, a focus he made a priority over preparing for a natural pandemic.... Kadlec scaled back a long-standing interagency process for spending billions of dollars on stockpile purchases, diminishing the role of government experts and restricting decision-making to himself and a small circle of advisers...." Thanks to Patrick for the link. See also his comments below.

No, This Is Not Normal. Kevin Liptak of CNN: "... Donald Trump said he was allowing Dr. Anthony Fauci to testify before the Republican-led Senate but not the Democrat-led House, calling it a 'set up.' 'The House is a bunch of Trump-haters,' Trump claimed as he was departing the White House for Arizona for a tour of a Honeywell plant. Trump's remarks amounted to an admission that he was looking to prevent Democrats from conducting their oversight duties when it comes to his administration's coronavirus response, even as he's willing to allow Republicans to proceed. Last week, the White House said its attempts to block Fauci from testifying were due to scheduling and time-management issues, which Trump did not mention on Tuesday." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Fauci works for the NIH, not the White House. I don't think Trump has the actual authority to tell him when & where he can testify. The political dynamic is, of course, different.

Yelling the Quiet Part. Brett Samuels: "President Trump rejected the idea of granting statehood to the District of Columbia, arguing in a new interview it would be too politically beneficial to Democrats. 'D.C. will never be a state,' Trump told The New York Post during an Oval Office interview on Monday. 'You mean District of Columbia, a state? Why? So we can have two more Democratic -- Democrat senators and five more congressmen? No thank you. That'll never happen.' The District has a population of roughly 700,000, which is more than that of Wyoming or Vermont. The District does not have any voting power in Congress, as it has no senators and one nonvoting delegate in the House.... Should it become a state, the District would receive one House member based on its current population." Mrs. McC: Trump either has no idea of how representatives are apportioned, or he feels he's surrounded by five times as many black people as he is.

Yasmeen Abutaleb & Ashley Parker of the Washington Post: "The coronavirus response being spearheaded by President Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has relied in part on volunteers from consulting and private equity firms with little expertise in the tasks they were assigned, exacerbating chronic problems in obtaining supplies for hospitals and other needs, according to numerous government officials and a volunteer involved in the effort.... Although some of the volunteers have relevant backgrounds and experience, many others were poorly matched with their assigned jobs, including those given the task of securing personal protective equipment (PPE) for hospitals nationwide, according to a complaint filed last month with the House Oversight Committee.... The document alleges that the team responsible for PPE had little success in helping the government secure such equipment, in part because none of the team members had significant experience in health care, procurement or supply-chain operations. In addition, none of the volunteers had relationships with manufacturers or a clear understanding of customs requirements or Food and Drug Administration rules, according to the complaint and two senior administration officials.... The team's problems underscore a broader pattern of missteps and missed opportunities that has plagued the Trump administration as it struggles to cope with the pandemic." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Uh, the "lack of expertise" starts at the top with the Boy Wonder & Daddy Dearest. But it is sort of perfect that Unqualified-for-Anything Jared would pick inexperienced "helpers" to manage a task essential to the nation. Since these guy were "consultants" and/or worked for private equity firms, they probably have elite general educations, which made Jared think they could do anything, just as he thinks he can. Update: Anderson Cooper described these volunteers as "friends & associates" of Kushner's, though the WashPo article does not.

Kaitlan Collins, et al., of CNN: "Attorney General William Barr made a last-minute push Monday to persuade the administration to modify its position in the Obamacare dispute that will be heard at the Supreme Court this fall, arguing that the administration should pull back from its insistence that the entire law be struck down. With a Wednesday deadline to make any alterations to its argument looming, Barr made his case in a room with Vice President Mike Pence, White House counsel Pat Cipollone, members of the Domestic Policy Council, press secretary Kayleigh McEnany and several other officials. The meeting ended without a decision and it was not immediately not clear if any shift in the Trump administration's position will emerge. Barr and other top advisers have argued against the hard-line position for some time, warning it could have major political implications if the comprehensive health care law appears in jeopardy as voters head to the polls in November." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Notice that Barr doesn't care a whit about many Americans' ability to get semi-affordable health insurance; instead, he wants to kid voters into thinking Trump won't kill Obamacare if he's re-elected.

Marina Villeneuve & Michael Hill of the AP: "New York state is reporting more than 1,700 previously undisclosed deaths at nursing homes and adult care facilities as the state faces scrutiny over how it's protected vulnerable residents during the coronavirus pandemic. At least 4,813 people have died from COVID-19 in the state's nursing homes since March 1, according to a tally released by Cuomo's administration late Monday that, for the first time, includes people believed to have been killed by the coronavirus before their diagnoses could be confirmed by a lab test." Mrs. McC: It's been widely reported that these facilities don't have enough professional nurses & other trained staff to care for residents. So why are they called "nursing homes" if they have few nurses and "care facilities" if they have few staff to care for residents?

The New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments Tuesday are here. "Coronavirus in the United States now looks like this: More than a month has passed since there was a day with fewer than 1,000 deaths from the virus. Almost every day, at least 25,000 new cases are identified, meaning that the total in the United States -- which has the highest number of known cases in the world with more than a million -- is expanding by 2 to 4 percent daily.... It is rampaging through nursing homes, meatpacking plants and prisons, killing the medically vulnerable and the poor, and new outbreaks keep emerging in grocery stores, supermarkets or factories, an ominous harbinger of what a full reopening of the economy could bring. 'If you include New York, it looks like a plateau moving down,' said Andrew Noymer, an associate professor of public health at the University of California, Irvine. 'If you exclude New York, it's a plateau slowly moving up.'" ~~~

~~~ There's also an item on the "surreal scene" at the Capitol where the Senate has returned to work. Best sentence: "Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, the sole senator to have tested positive for the virus, was among the only senators walking around without a mask." Mrs. McC: Won't be the first time Li'l Randy has spit on his colleagues. But it might be the most lethal. ~~~

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

New York Times: "More than 1,186,900 people in the United States have been infected with the coronavirus and at least 68,800 have died, according to a New York Times database. More than 1,000 additional deaths have been announced every day since April 2.... In recent weeks, more than 20,000 new cases have been announced across the United States each day, keeping the country on a stubborn plateau instead of the sharp downward curve scientists had hoped for." This is a comprehensive analysis that breaks down & highlights developments in various regions & particular localities throughout the country. It appears to be updated daily.

Toluse Olorunnipa, et al., of the Washington Post: "States across the country are moving swiftly to reopen their economies despite failing to achieve benchmarks laid out by the White House for when social distancing restrictions could be eased to ensure the public's safety during the coronavirus pandemic. These governors' biggest cheerleader is President Trump.... Trump and some of his aides have backed away from their own guidelines, opting instead to hail the broad economic reopening that health experts say has started too quickly. The dichotomy comes as the White House also tried to distance itself from a draft federal government report predicting an explosion of new coronavirus cases and 3,000 daily deaths by June 1.... While the president said on April 23, he was 'not happy' with Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) for the defying the guidelines, it took him only a week to deny his own remarks. 'I didn't say that,' Trump said Friday when his quote about Kemp was read back to him. 'I said I didn't like the particular place -- a spa, a tattoo parlor. No, no, I think it's wonderful.'"

Carolyn Johnson of the Washington Post: "Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer began testing multiple versions of an experimental coronavirus vaccine in healthy young people in the United States this week, a first step toward establishing the safety, dosage and most promising candidate to take into larger trials that will test effectiveness. In an unusual trial design that signals the pressing need to find a vaccine against covid-19, Pfizer is initially testing four versions of the vaccine, side by side. Typically, companies spend years on animal experiments and select a single promising candidate to put into human testing, but the drugmaker decided to create a flexible trial that could rapidly sift out the best option." An NPR story is here.

~~~~~~~~~~

** The New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments Monday are here. "As President Trump presses for states to reopen their economies, his administration is privately projecting a steady rise in the number of cases and deaths from the coronavirus over the next several weeks, reaching about 3,000 daily deaths on June 1, according to an internal document obtained by The New York Times, nearly double from the current level of about 1,750. The projections, based on government modeling pulled together in chart form by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, forecast about 200,000 new cases each day by the end of the month, up from about 25,000 cases now. The numbers underscore a sobering reality: While the United States has been hunkered down for the past seven weeks, not much has changed. And the reopening to the economy will make matters worse.... On Sunday, Mr. Trump said deaths in the United States could reach 100,000, twice as many as he had forecast just two weeks ago. But his new estimate still underestimates what his own administration is now predicting to be the total death toll by the end of May -- much less in the months that follow." Emphasis added. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: The lede there is conveying that Trump is encouraging policies which he knows will cause Americans to get sick & die. ~~~

~~~ Laurie McGinley, et al., of the Washington Post: "A draft government report projects covid-19 cases will surge to about 200,000 per day by June 1, a staggering jump that would be accompanied by more than 3,000 deaths each day.... The White House and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention disavowed the report, although the slides carry the CDC's logo. The creator of the model said the numbers are unfinished projections shown to the CDC as a work in progress.... It was not immediately clear whether the projections, which carry logos of the Departments of Health and Human Services and Homeland Security, are based on ramped up testing, the attempt to reopen some states, the time lag between a rise in cases and deaths or some combination of those factors. The forecast stops at June 1, but shows both daily cases and deaths on an upward trajectory at that point.... The White House issued a statement Monday that 'this is not a White House document, nor has it been presented to the Coronavirus Task Force or gone through interagency vetting. This data is not reflective of any of the modeling done by the task force, or data that the task force has analyzed....'... A senior White House official said the document would not change the White House planning on reopening." The story is free to nonsubscribers. (This story, linked yesterday, has been updated to reflect the "unfinished" nature of the government report.) ~~~

~~~ MEANWHILE. Alice Ollstein & Caitlin Oprysko of Politico: "A key model of the coronavirus pandemic favored by the White House nearly doubled its prediction Monday for how many people will die from the virus in the U.S. by August -- primarily because states are reopening too soon. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington's School of Medicine is now projecting 134,000 coronavirus-related fatalities, up from a previous prediction of 72,000. Factoring in the scientists' margin of error, the new prediction ranges from 95,000 to 243,000. Dr. Christopher Murray, the director of IHME, told reporters on a call Monday the primary reason for the increase is many states' 'premature relaxation of social distancing." ~~~

     ~~~ Rachel Maddow noted that the UW's IHME model has been prominently featured on the CDC's forecast page. Then, all of a sudden, when the UW institute upped its estimate, the CDC dropped all mention of its model. Maddow pointed out that the CDC is supposed to be science-y, not Trumpy.

Jay Rosen: "The plan is to have no plan, to let daily deaths between one and three thousand become a normal thing, and then to create massive confusion about who is responsible -- by telling the governors they're in charge without doing what only the federal government can do, by fighting with the press when it shows up to be briefed, by fixing blame for the virus on China or some other foreign element, and by 'flooding the zone with shit,' Steve Bannon's phrase for overwhelming the system with disinformation, distraction, and denial.... Everything will ride on the manufacture of confusion. The press won't be able to 'expose' the plot because it will all happen in stark daylight.... The manufacture of confusion is just the ruins of Trump's personality meeting the powers of the presidency. There is no genius there, only a damaged human being playing havoc with our lives."

Lesson Learned! Marina Pitofsky of the Hill: "President Trump claimed in a new wide-reaching interview that that the 'one thing' that the ongoing coronavirus pandemic 'has taught us is that I was right.' Trump told the New York Post that Americans are now focused on domestic manufacturing for a variety of products, including medicine currently produced in China. 'You know, I had people say, "No, no, it's good. You keep -- you do this and that."; Now those people are really agreeing with me. And that includes medicine and other things, you know,' he said.... And the president predicted that the U.S. will see a strong fourth quarter during the interview. 'We did the right thing and now we're bringing the country back...,' Trump said.... Trump also rejected a model from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention first reported by The New York Times suggesting that U.S. deaths will grow on a daily basis to 3,000 by the beginning of June. 'I know nothing about it. I don';t know anything about it. Nobody told me that. I think it's -- I think it's false, I think it's fake news.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Besides learning from his deadly mistakes that he was right, Trump remains as articulate as ever: "You know, I had people say, 'No, no, it's good. You keep -- you do this and that.'"

Rebecca Klar of the Hill: "President Trump in a series of late-night tweets criticized a group led by George Conway, a lawyer who is a frequent Trump critic and married to White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, calling its members 'all losers' after it released a video attacking the president's response to the coronavirus pandemic. Trump lashed out at the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group that is largely made up by GOP strategists and consultants. 'A group of RINO Republicans who failed badly 12 years ago, then again 8 years ago, and then got BADLY beaten by me, a political first timer, 4 years ago, have copied (no imagination) the concept of an ad from Ronald Reagan, "Morning in America", doing everything possible to ... get even for their many failures,' Trump tweeted.... 'I don't know what Kellyanne did to her deranged loser of a husband, Moonface, but it must have been really bad,' Trump tweeted." ~~~

     ~~~ Conway responded in a tweet, "I guess our next ad should be 'Moron in America.'" And Tim O'Brien, also in a tweet, noted in a Trump "Translation": "I don't understand the difference between 'morning' and 'mourning.'" Mrs. McC: President* Spelling B. Champion's confusion is clear in the tweet where he claims the Lincoln Project "copied (no imagination)" the Reagan ad. Puns & homophones are lost on people who can't spell. Cited by Klar. Also, Klar did a great job of explaining the term "RINO" to us morons: she wrote that it's an acronym for "Republican only in name." That would be "ROIN."

Trump Breaks Federal Law to Conduct Propaganda Show at Lincoln Memorial. Katie Rogers of the New York Times: "While Mr. Trump and many other presidents have hosted inauguration concerts and gatherings on the [Lincoln Memorial's] steps, any event meant to draw an audience inside the interior ... is prohibited. The area beginning with the marble staircase where the columns start constitutes a boundary protected by federal law. So on Sunday, when the president sat down with two Fox News anchors at Lincoln's marbled feet during a coronavirus-focused virtual 'town hall,' it was because a directive issued by David Bernhardt, the secretary of the interior, had allowed them to do so. Mr. Bernhardt, a former oil lobbyist whose Senate nomination was contested by Democrats who pointed to multiple accusations of conflicts of interest and ethical violations, ordered the memorial temporarily closed for the event, citing the coronavirus.... The directive surprised officials at the National Park Service.... Mr. Bernhardt's action enraged critics, who complained that Mr. Trump had essentially conducted a partisan open mic night." Read on. Mediaite has a summary report here. ~~~

     ~~~ A CNN story by Paul LeBlanc describes Bernhardt's order as "relaxing the rules," but it isn't "rules" Bernhardt relaxed; it was a law he broke, according to the NYT. That's different. LeBlanc does point out that Trump used the site to compare himself to Lincoln. ~~~

     (~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Should Trump ever get a monument on the Mall, I would suggest it be the manure shed for one of the several gardens on or adjacent to the Mall.)

~~~ Whom Did the Press Treat Worse -- Lincoln or Trump? (See yesterday's Commentariat for context.) ~~~

~~~ Gabriel Sherman of Vanity Fair: "Trump loves that many Fox hosts are his loudest cheerleaders -- but any deviation from Trumpian orthodoxy he views as betrayal.... Trump's view that Fox is insufficiently loyal has motivated him to look for a more reliable media partner.... According to sources, an investor group aligned with his son Don Jr. and the Dallas-based Hicks family has acquired a major stake in One America News Network.... As the deal has been moving forward, Trump has been promoting OANN by calling on OANN reporters at White House briefings and tweeting favorably about the network's coverage.... One source told me that if Trump loses, he could use OANN as his post-presidential television platform to host shows." --s

A World Without Us: ~~~

     ~~~ Another Shameful Moment for the U.S. William Booth, et al., of the Washington Post: "World leaders came together in a virtual summit Monday to pledge billions of dollars to quickly develop vaccines and drugs to fight the coronavirus. Missing from the roster was the Trump administration.... Russia and India also did not participate.... The online conference, led by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and a half-dozen countries, was set to raise $8.2 billion from governments, philanthropies and the private sector to fund research and mass-produce drugs, vaccines and testing kits to combat the virus, which has killed more than 250,000 people worldwide." An ABC News story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Alex Marquardt & Kylie Atwood of CNN: "Intelligence shared among Five Eyes nations indicates it is 'highly unlikely' that the coronavirus outbreak was spread as a result of an an accident in a laboratory but rather originated in a Chinese market, according to two Western officials who cited an intelligence assessment that appears to contradict claims by ... Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. 'We think it's highly unlikely it was an accident,' a Western diplomatic official with knowledge of the intelligence said. 'It is highly likely it was naturally occurring and that the human infection was from natural human and animal interaction.' The countries in the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing coalition are coalescing around this assessment, the official said, and a second official, from a Five Eyes country, concurred with it. The US has yet to make a formal assessment public....'I can tell you that there is a significant amount of evidence that this came from that laboratory in Wuhan,' Pompeo told ABC News on Sunday. The US intelligence community issued a statement on Thursday saying it is still working to 'determine whether the outbreak began through contact with infected animals or if it was the result of an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan.'" ~~~

~~~ Nsikan Akpan & Victoria Jaggard of the National Geographic: "Anthony 'Tony' Fauci ... says the best evidence shows the virus behind the pandemic was not made in a lab in China.... '... Everything about the stepwise evolution over time strongly indicates that [this virus] evolved in nature and then jumped species,' Faucisays. Based on the scientific evidence, he also doesn't entertain an alternate theory -- that someone found the coronavirus in the wild, brought it to a lab, and then it accidentally escaped." Mrs. McC: Fauci goes on to discuss the odds a vaccine can be developed & manufactured, possibly by January, so the article in worth reading. Unfortunately, I had to sign up to get NG emails in order to access the interview, so I suppose you will, too. In any event, you can see that Fauci's willingness to express fact-friendly views puts him is on the wrong side of President* von Clownstick.

Igor Derysh of Salon, via RawStory: "Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Monday urged the public to take road trips to 'explore America,' even as top health officials warned against non-essential travel." --s

Paging Ivanka. Emily Peck of Yahoo! News: "More than half the states in the U.S. are tentatively opening back up, easing restrictions on retail stores and other businesses shuttered to stop the spread of coronavirus. Most day cares and schools, however, are not reopening, and millions of Americans can't get back to business as usual. They have children at home.... Policymakers throughout this crisis have continually failed to grapple with the reality parents are facing. And as the pandemic drags on the consequences only get worse." --s

Clare Foran of CNN: "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Monday defended her decision along with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to decline an offer from the Trump administration to deploy rapid coronavirus testing capabilities to Capitol Hill and said that tests should go to Americans on the front lines of the crisis. Asked by CNN's Wolf Blitzer on 'The Situation Room' why she didn't accept the tests, Pelosi responded, 'Because they don't have them.... The testing organization said to us you're not next. We can bump you in line, push other people out of the way, but you're not next in terms of essential workers for this.'" ~~~

~~~ Meagan Vazquez & Jim Acosta of CNN: "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Monday slammed the Trump administration's move to restrict coronavirus task force members from testifying before Congress this month. 'I was hoping they would spend more time on the crisis instead of those daily shows that the President put on,' the California Democrat said. 'We will be very strictly insisting on the truth and they might be afraid of the truth,' she told CNN's Wolf Blitzer...."

"Sacrifice". Caroline Kelly of CNN: "Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Monday that the country needs to reopen, despite separate key coronavirus models forecasting that thousands may die daily in the United States from Covid-19 and that more than 100,000 may die in total. 'Of course, everybody wants to save every life they can -- but the question is, towards what end, ultimately?... Christie, asked Monday what his messaging would be to the American public if he sat in the Oval Office, said, 'The message is that the American people have gone through significant death before.' He pointed to the first and second World Wars as examples of how 'we've gone through it and we've survived it. We sacrificed those lives.'" --s ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Somebody should ask Christie which of his family members he wants to sacrifice. Not that he has a choice. Indeed, he might be the first to go.

A Few of Trump's "Good People": ~~~

     ~~~ Texas. Shawn Langlois of Market Watch: Brandon Hicks, "part of a group that was apparently illegally drinking and smoking around 5 p.m. [in an Austin, Texas, park], was charged with attempted assault on a public servant and jailed on Friday for shoving an Austin park ranger into the lake, the Austin American-Statesman reported. The ranger ... was reportedly just calmly asking everybody to social distance." ~~~

     ~~~ California. Ewan Palmer of Newsweek: "Officials have condemned a man in California who was pictured wearing a makeshift Ku Klux Klan hood while shopping at a supermarket. Pictures of the man wearing a white hood similar to one worn by the hate group at a Vons store in Santee, San Diego emerged on social media over the weekend. The incident occurred one day after San Diego imposed a new health order requiring everyone to cover their faces in public if they come within six feet of another person or whenever they enter a place of business from May 1 to help stop the spread of the coronavirus." A couple of tweets embedded in the report claim Santee is a white-supremacist center to the point others calls it "Klantee." Mrs. McC: Other than his headwear, photos suggest he's quite an attractive fellow & a spiffy dresser. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Colorado. Clayton Sandell of ABC News: "A Colorado man arrested after federal agents allegedly discovered pipe bombs in his home had also been helping organize an armed protest demanding the state lift its coronavirus restrictions, an official briefed on the case [said].... FBI and ATF agents served search warrants Friday morning at the Loveland, Colorado, home of Bradley Bunn, 53. Agents discovered four pipe bombs and potential pipe bomb components inside the house, according to a press release from the office of U.S. Attorney for Colorado Jason Dunn." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Michigan. Corey Williams & Mike Householder of the AP: "A woman, her adult son and husband have been charged in the fatal shooting of a security guard who refused to let her daughter enter a Family Dollar in Michigan because she wasn't wearing a face mask to protect against transmission of the coronavirus. Calvin Munerlyn was shot Friday at the store just north of downtown Flint a short time after telling Sharmel Teague's daughter she had to leave because she lacked a mask, according to Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton. Teague, 45, argued with Munerlyn, 43, before leaving. Two men later came to the store. Teague; her husband, Larry Teague, 44; and Ramonyea Bishop, 23; are charged with first-degree premeditated murder and gun charges." ~~~

     ~~~ Ohio. Brad Reed of the Raw Story: "Republican Ohio State Rep. Nino Vitale, who has been a vociferous critic of Republican Gov. Mike DeWine's stay-at-home orders during the COVID-19 pandemic, believes wearing a mask to slow the spread of the disease would violate his 'Judeo-Christian Principles.... One of those principles is that we are all created in the image and likeness of God. That image is seen the most by our face. I will not wear a mask.'" Mrs. McC: Yes, Vitale does raise serious theological questions. I'm wondering if God wears brassieres, fedoras & Speedo swimwear. Many Christian images of god picture her as a long-haired bearded man dressed in flowing robes. Is that what we all should wear?

John Kruzel of the Hill: "The Supreme Court on Monday broke with tradition and held oral arguments by conference call, a first for the famously tech-averse tribunal as the justices adapt to the global pandemic.... As arguments opened, the justices allowed counsel two minutes of speaking time before posing questions, which began with Chief Justice John Roberts and proceeded to the other justices in order of seniority. In another rarity, conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, who typically remains mum during arguments, posed a series of questions, the first time he has spoken this term. When Thomas spoke during arguments last year, he snapped a three-year silence." (Also linked yesterday.)

Jason Koebler of Vice: "Tim Bray, a well known senior engineer and Vice President at Amazon has 'quit in dismay' because Amazon has been 'firing whistleblowers who were making noise about warehouse employees frightened of Covid-19.' In an open letter on his website, Bray, who has worked at the company for nearly six years, called the company 'chickenshit' for firing and disparaging employees who have organized protests. He also said the firings are 'designed to create a climate of fear.' Amazon's strategy throughout the coronavirus crisis has been to fire dissenters and disparage them both in the press and behind closed doors. There have been dozens of confirmed coronavirus cases at warehouses around the country, and workers have repeatedly said the company isn't doing enough to protect them." (Also linked yesterday.) Mrs. McC: Look, Tim, at least Bezos is not literally defenestrating Amazon whistleblowers. ~~~

~~~ Russia. Christopher Miller of BuzzFeed News: "Alexander Shulepov, a doctor at an ambulance unit in Russia's western Voronezh region, complained in an April 22 post on social media about shortages of medical supplies and being forced to work despite testing positive for COVID-19. Ten days later, he fell from a hospital window under mysterious circumstances, local media reported, making him the third Russian doctor treating coronavirus patients to suffer a similar fate in just the past 10 days. Shulepov, 37, survived the fall from a second-floor window, but he suffered a fractured skull and is now in serious condition. The two other doctors are reported to have died. The falls are being viewed suspiciously by many in Russia, which has a history of targeting and eliminating critics, including several who have mysteriously fallen to their deaths in recent years."

Patrick Greenfield & Peter Muiruri of the Guardian: "[C]onservation work to protect some of the world's most important ecosystems is facing crisis following a collapse in ecotourism during the Covid-19pandemic.... But the economic consequences of the Covid-19 lockdown have raised fears of a surge in poaching, illegal fishing and deforestation in life-sustaining ecosystems, with tens of thousands of jobs in the ecotourism sector at risk around the world." --s

** All the Best People, Ctd., Looney Tunes Edition. Spencer Ackerman & Will Sommer of the Daily Beast: "For a nominee to helm the U.S. government's intelligence apparatus, Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas) draws on some unusual sources of information. Ratcliffe's official, verified campaign Twitter account follows several accounts on the political fringe, including a 9/11 truther account with just one follower besides himself and four promoting the outlandish QAnon conspiracy theory, which posits that the world is run by a cabal of Democratic pedophile-cannibals -- and has been ruled a potential source of domestic terrorism by the FBI. The conspiracy theorists followed by Ratcliffe, whose nomination for director of national intelligence goes before the Senate intelligence committee Tuesday morning, cover a bizarre range of beliefs. They posit that John F. Kennedy Jr. faked his death to help Trump to take down the Deep State. Others claim a Democratic sex dungeon exists in ... a Washington pizzeria. But Ratcliffe and the QAnon promoters he follows have one thing in common: utter loyalty to Trump." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Ratcliffe is batshit crazy. It's likely Republicans will confirm his nomination. ~~~

~~~ Mary Jalonick & Eric Tucker of the AP: "A Senate panel is considering Texas Rep. John Ratcliffe's nomination for director of national intelligence, holding the in-person hearing amid ... Donald Trump's shakeup of the intelligence community and under drastic new distancing rules to protect Capitol Hill from the coronavirus. Ratcliffe's confirmation hearing in the Senate intelligence committee on Tuesday comes nine months after Trump first submitted and then abruptly withdrew the three-term lawmaker's nomination. The August withdrawal came after bipartisan Senate criticism that Ratcliffe, one of the president's most ardent defenders during the Russia investigations and Trump's impeachment, was unqualified to oversee 17 U.S. spy agencies. Trump unexpectedly renominated Ratcliffe in February, and his chances at securing the job appear far better, though confirmation is still not guaranteed.... Last week [Susan Collins (R-Maine)] said that she had spoken with [Ratcliffe] and concluded that he does have the experience 'to meet the statutory standard' for the position."

Presidential Race

Asma Khalid of NPR: "The secretary of the Senate's office said on Monday that it cannot comply with former Vice President Joe Biden's request to search for and release any records of an alleged sexual harassment complaint from Tara Reade. On Friday..., [Biden] had formally written to Secretary of the Senate Julie Adams asking for help in determining whether Reade had filed a written complaint 27 years ago, as she says she did while working as a staff assistant in Biden's Senate office.... The secretary of the Senate's office says that under federal law, it has 'no discretion to disclose any such information as requested in Vice President Biden's letter of May 1.' The statute that lays out how records of the Office of Senate Fair Employment Practices, which would have likely handled such a complaint ... are governed[,] states that the records are 'strictly confidential.'" (A Hill report on the same subject was linked yesterday.) Thanks to Hattie for this link.

Kevin Robillard of the Huffington Post: "Field organizers for Vice President Joe Biden's presidential campaign ratified a union contract that will give them a $15-an-hour minimum wage, overtime pay and a grievance process. Biden's campaign had previously reached an agreement with its organizers in Iowa.... The new agreement covers all of the campaign's organizers throughout the country. The organizers will be members of the Cedar Rapids-based Teamsters Local 238. 'For the first time in history, the campaign staff for a presumptive nominee of a major political party will be covered under a union agreement,' said Jesse Case, the union's secretary-treasurer. 'We are pleased to announce that Biden for President field organizers, represented by Teamsters Local 238, have ratified a collective bargaining agreement effective May 1.'"

Brian Stelter of CNN: "A lawyer for CNN's parent company WarnerMedia has written a cease-and-desist letter to President Trump's re-election campaign over the misleading contents of a new campaign ad. WarnerMedia says the Trump ad is misusing CNN news coverage in a way that's 'false, misleading and deceptive.'... [According to the Warner Media lawyer's letter,] 'the advertisement purposely and deceptively edits the clip to imply that [Wolf] Blitzer and Dr. [Sanjay] Gupta were crediting the President's travel ban policy issued in January for saving millions of American lives, when in fact Mr. Blitzer and Dr. Gupta were discussing recently implemented social distancing guidelines and stay-at-home orders issued by state and local governments.' In response to a request for comment from CNN Business, the campaign claimed that the ad is accurate and attacked the network's editorial decisions."

Devin Nunes' Nuisance Suits Are Nuisance Suits. Kate Irby of the Fresno Bee: "The attorney representing Rep. Devin Nunes in six lawsuits has received two recent, rare warnings from judges that raise the prospect of courts sanctioning him. People and organizations that Nunes' attorney, Steven Biss, is suing have begun asking judges to punish him in several other instances. Three of the requests for sanctions -- from National Public Radio, Twitter and a government whistleblower advocate -- mark an escalation in their defense against defamation lawsuits Biss has filed. Nunes sued Fusion GPS last year and lost the case in February, when a federal judge dismissed it. The judge in tossing the case advised Biss that he'd need to file a more substantive complaint to avoid sanctions. Biss and Nunes resubmitted the case in early April with a complaint that largely resembles their original argument. Fusion GPS' lawyers last week called Nunes' new complaint 'absurd' and asked the judge to sanction Biss and Nunes.... In dismissing [a] case [Biss filed] for [a] Russian graduate student [-- Nunes is not a litigant here --] in February, Judge Leonie Brinkema of the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Virginia warned Biss against filing 'further inappropriate pleadings.'... Both of those rebukes are 'quite unusual,' according to Kevin Martingayle, a former Virginia State Bar president who has worked on ethics or disciplinary committees for over a decade." (Also linked yesterday.)

Fiona Harvey of the Guardian: "Green economy recovery packages for the coronavirus crisis will repair the global economy and put the world on track to tackle climate breakdown, but time is running out to implement the changes needed, new analysis has shown.... The Oxford study compared green stimulus projects with traditional stimulus, such as measures taken after the 2008 global financial crisis, and found green projects create more jobs, deliver higher short-term returns per pound spent by the government, and lead to increased long-term cost savings." --s

Beyond the Beltway

Indiana. Marc Tracy of the New York Times: "Rich Jackson, a 54-year-old journalist who worked as the top editor of The Herald-Times, a Gannett-owned newspaper in Bloomington, Ind., received the bad news [that the paper was laying him off] in the parking lot next to the paper's headquarters. He was also told he would have to vacate the apartment in the same building, where he had been living for 10 months. Unable to go to the newsroom, Mr. Jackson [moved to a Motel 6 and] started a blog. He called it The Homeless Editor.... The decision [to lay off Jackson, a spokesperson for Gannett] said, had to do with a merger last year between Gannett and the parent company of GateHouse Media, not the economic fallout from the coronavirus."

** Mississippi. Richard Fausset of the New York Times: "The state of Mississippi allowed tens of millions of dollars in federal anti-poverty funds to be used in ways that did little or nothing to help the poor, with two nonprofit groups instead using the money on lobbyists, football tickets, religious concerts and fitness programs for state lawmakers, according to a scathing audit released on Monday. According to the report, released by the state auditor's office, the money also enriched celebrities with Mississippi ties, among them Brett Favre, a former N.F.L. quarterback whose Favre Enterprises was paid $1.1 million by a nonprofit group that received the welfare funds. The payments were for speaking engagements that Mr. Favre did not attend, the auditors said. Other large sums went to a family of pro wrestlers whose flamboyant patriarch, Ted DiBiase, earned national fame performing as the 'Million Dollar Man.'... In 1996, the TANF program converted the old federal welfare system, in which cash benefits to poor families were deemed an entitlement, to a system of block grants issued to the states. The new program created work rules and time limits on aid -- and, notably, gave each state much more leeway on how to spend the money." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: This is a reminder of what a low-life political opportunist Bill Clinton is. Nathan Robinson of Current Affairs in Jacobin (2016): "When Clinton signed the bill, the New York Times reported that in a 'sweeping reversal of Federal policy, President Clinton today ended six decades of guaranteed help to the nation's poorest children' and thereby 'eliminated a pillar of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal social welfare program, delighting the Republican-controlled Congress in this election year and incensing many of his fellow Democrats.' Clinton's labor secretary, Robert Reich, said Clinton had outright 'ended the promise of help to the indigent and their children which Franklin D. Roosevelt had initiated more than sixty years before.'... Three senior officials in the Clinton administration resigned almost immediately.... Bill Clinton was open about the fact that his decision was at least in part motivated by political considerations (although George Stephanopoulos had told him that he was assured of reelection even if he did not sign the bill)."

Washington State. Omar Younis & Dan Whitcomb of Reuters: "Hundreds of Asian giant hornets, an invasive, predatory insect dubbed the 'murder hornet,' have turned up in Washington state near the Canadian border, where they pose a threat to humans and the beekeeping industry, state agriculture officials said on Monday." --s

Way Beyond

China. Reuters: "An internal Chinese report warns that Beijing faces a rising wave of hostility in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak that could tip relations with the United States into confrontation, people familiar with the paper told Reuters. The report, presented early last month by the Ministry of State Security to top Beijing leaders including President Xi Jinping, concluded that global anti-China sentiment is at its highest since the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, the sources said. As a result, Beijing faces a wave of anti-China sentiment led by the United States in the aftermath of the pandemic and needs to be prepared in a worst-case scenario for armed confrontation between the two global powers[.]" --s

The Commentariat -- May 4, 2020

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

** The New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments Monday are here. "As President Trump presses for states to reopen their economies, his administration is privately projecting a steady rise in the number of cases and deaths from the coronavirus over the next several weeks, reaching about 3,000 daily deaths on June 1, according to an internal document obtained by The New York Times, nearly double from the current level of about 1,750. The projections, based on government modeling pulled together in chart form by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, forecast about 200,000 new cases each day by the end of the month, up from about 25,000 cases now. The numbers underscore a sobering reality: While the United States has been hunkered down for the past seven weeks, not much has changed. And the reopening to the economy will make matters worse.... On Sunday, Mr. Trump said deaths in the United States could reach 100,000, twice as many as he had forecast just two weeks ago. But his new estimate still underestimates what his own administration is now predicting to be the total death toll by the end of May -- much less in the months that follow." Emphasis added. ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: The lede there is conveying that Trump is encouraging policies which he knows will cause Americans to get sick & die. ~~~

~~~ Laurie McGinley, et al., of the Washington Post: "It was not immediately clear whether the projections, which carry logos of the Departments of Health and Human Services and Homeland Security, are based on ramped up testing, the attempt to reopen some states, the time lag between a rise in cases and deaths or some combination of those factors. The forecast stops at June 1, but shows both daily cases and deaths on an upward trajectory at that point.... The White House issued a statement Monday that 'this is not a White House document, nor has it been presented to the Coronavirus Task Force or gone through interagency vetting. This data is not reflective of any of the modeling done by the task force, or data that the task force has analyzed....' A spokeswoman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the agency did not issue the projections, though the slides also carry CDC's logo. A senior White House official said the document would not change the White House planning on reopening." The story is free to nonsubscribers. Mrs. McC: IOW, Trump hasn't approved the government's dire projection, so it won't happen. Feel better now?

California. Ewan Palmer of Newsweek: "Officials have condemned a man in California who was pictured wearing a makeshift Ku Klux Klan hood while shopping at a supermarket. Pictures of the man wearing a white hood similar to one worn by the hate group at a Vons store in Santee, San Diego emerged on social media over the weekend. The incident occurred one day after San Diego imposed a new health order requiring everyone to cover their faces in public if they come within six feet of another person or whenever they enter a place of business...." A couple of tweets embedded in the report claim Santee is a white-supremacist center to the point others calls it "Klantee." Mrs. McC: Other than his headwear, photos suggest he's quite an attractive fellow & a spiffy dresser.

Colorado. Clayton Sandell of ABC News: "A Colorado man arrested after federal agents allegedly discovered pipe bombs in his home had also been helping organize an armed protest demanding the state lift its coronavirus restrictions, an official briefed on the case tells ABC News. FBI and ATF agents served search warrants Friday morning at the Loveland, Colorado, home of Bradley Bunn, 53. Agents discovered four pipe bombs and potential pipe bomb components inside the house, according to a press release from the office of U.S. Attorney for Colorado Jason Dunn." Mrs. McC: Nevertheless, Bunn and "a San Diego man" appear to fit within Trump's definition of "good people."

Alexander Bolton of the Hill: "The Secretary of the Senate has informed Vice President Joe Biden that it has 'no discretion to disclose' the existence of former aide Tara Reade's complaint of sexual harassment against the senator in 1993.... On Friday [Biden] wrote to the Secretary of the Senate Julie Adams asking 'that you take or direct whatever steps are necessary to establish the location of the records of this Office, and once they have been located, to direct a search for the alleged complaint and to make public the results of this search.' The office in a statement provided to NPR said the Senate Legal Counsel has advised the 'Secretary has no discretion to disclose any such information as requested in Vice President Biden's letter of May 1.'... The office determined that any complaint filed against Biden could not be made public 'based on the law's strict confidentiality requirements (Section 313) and the Senate's own direction that disclosure of Senate Records is not authorized if prohibited by law.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Bolton structures his lede in such as way as to suggest the complaint does exist; I don't think that's clear from the excerpts of the letter contained in the story. NPR, as far as I can tell, doesn't have a print story on its site.

John Kruzel of the Hill: "The Supreme Court on Monday broke with tradition and held oral arguments by conference call, a first for the famously tech-averse tribunal as the justices adapt to the global pandemic.... As arguments opened, the justices allowed counsel two minutes of speaking time before posing questions, which began with Chief Justice John Roberts and proceeded to the other justices in order of seniority. In another rarity, conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, who typically remains mum during arguments, posed a series o questions, the first time he has spoken this term. When Thomas spoke during arguments last year, he snapped a three-year silence."

Jason Koebler of Vice: "Tim Bray, a well known senior engineer and Vice President at Amazon has 'quit in dismay' because Amazon has been 'firing whistleblowers who were making noise about warehouse employees frightened of Covid-19.' In an open letter on his website, Bray, who has worked at the company for nearly six years, called the company 'chickenshit' for firing and disparaging employees who have organized protests. He also said the firings are 'designed to create a climate of fear.' Amazon's strategy throughout the coronavirus crisis has been to fire dissenters and disparage them both in the press and behind closed doors. There have been dozens of confirmed coronavirus cases at warehouses around the country, and workers have repeatedly said the company isn't doing enough to protect them."

Devin Nunes' Nuisance Suits Are Nuisance Suits. Kate Irby of the Fresno Bee: "The attorney representing Rep. Devin Nunes in six lawsuits has received two recent, rare warnings from judges that raise the prospect of courts sanctioning him. People and organizations that Nunes' attorney, Steven Biss, is suing have begun asking judges to punish him in several other instances. Three of the requests for sanctions -- from National Public Radio, Twitter and a government whistleblower advocate -- mark an escalation in their defense against defamation lawsuits Biss has filed. Nunes sued Fusion GPS last year and lost the case in February, when a federal judge dismissed it. The judge in tossing the case advised Biss that he'd need to file a more substantive complaint to avoid sanctions. Biss and Nunes resubmitted the case in early April with a complaint that largely resembles their original argument. Fusion GPS' lawyers last week called Nunes' new complaint 'absurd' and asked the judge to sanction Biss and Nunes.... In dismissing [a] case [Biss filed] for [a] Russian graduate student [-- Nunes is not a litigant here --] in February, Judge Leonie Brinkema of the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Virginia warned Biss against filing 'further inappropriate pleadings.'... Both of those rebukes are 'quite unusual,' according to Kevin Martingayle, a former Virginia State Bar president who has worked on ethics or disciplinary committees for over a decade."

~~~~~~~~~~

The New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments Sunday are here. The Washington Post's live updates Sunday are here. (Also linked yesterday.)

The Virologist Is In. Felicia Sonmez, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump on Sunday sought to reassure Americans that it is safe for states to reopen amid the coronavirus pandemic, offering support to protesters who have railed against the lockdowns across the country.... He noted that Americans have been wearing face masks and social distancing in recent weeks and said that 'you're going to have to do that for a while,' even as states reopen their economies..., during a Fox News Channel town hall at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington.... He scaled up the estimate he has used for the number of expected dead -- projecting that the U.S. toll may be as high as 100,000...." The article is free to nonsubscribers. ~~~

     ~~~ How's This for a Lede? Stephen Collinson of CNN: "After admitting US coronavirus deaths could hit 90,000..., Donald Trump is bemoaning his own plight -- complaining that he has been treated worse by the press than Abraham Lincoln." Collinson goes on: "'They always said nobody got treated worse than Lincoln. I believe I am treated worse.'... His statement was classic Trump, not just in his audacity of comparing himself to the man many historians rate as the greatest president, but in his tendency to make every issue -- even in the midst of a national tragedy in which tens of thousands of Americans have died -- about himself. It was also striking that the President who has consciously torn at the nation's political fault lines should make such a partisan argument under the marbled gaze of the man who warned 'a house divided against itself cannot stand.'"

It's not possible to convey what a petty, petulant peckerwood Trump is, but he's trying to let you know (Mrs. McC: I wrote this comment Sunday afternoon, but of course by Sunday evening -- see above -- Trump had topped his Sunday morning whine): ~~~

~~~ Justin Wise of the Hill: "President Trump on Sunday took aim at George W. Bush after the former Republican president issued a call to push partisanship aside amid the outbreak of the novel coronavirus. In a three-minute video shared on Twitter on Saturday, Bush urged Americans to remember 'how small our differences are in the face of this shared threat.'... In an early morning tweet on Sunday, Trump called out Bush for his failure to support him as he faced an impeachment trial earlier this year over his alleged dealings with Ukraine. He cited apparent comments from Fox News anchor Pete Hegseth, who asked why Bush didn't push for 'putting partisanship aside' amid the trial. 'He was nowhere to be found in speaking up against the greatest Hoax in American history,' Trump said." Thanks to Ken W. for the link. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Had the impeachment proceedings "put partisanship aside," we'd be complaining about President pence today.

Joe Biden & Elizabeth Warren in a Miami Herald/McClatchy op-ed: "Even the most ideological conservatives have been forced to acknowledge that government is an essential part of the COVID-19 solution. Government delivers best when its actions are fair, transparent and accountable. But ... Donald Trump's approach to this crisis doesn't reflect these values. Without change, more lives will be lost and more families will go broke.... As the price of their support for [relief legislation], Trump and the Republicans insisted on a $500 billion slush fund for big businesses with minimal conditions -- a fund Trump could use to reward his political friends and punish his political enemies. They also jammed in a tax cut that overwhelmingly benefits millionaires. This tax break will be particularly helpful to hedge funds and real estate investors like the president's friends and family -- on top of the $1 trillion in giveaways to the wealthy and big corporations Trump previously pushed through Congress.... The coronavirus rescue package imposed some oversight of these programs, but when he signed it, Trump saidhe'd ignore the law and prevent a new inspector general from communicating with Congress.... As we recover, we have the opportunity to create an economy that truly works for everyone. That begins with a government that is accountable to the people -- and that is what we will deliver." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Sarah Cammarata of Politico: "Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, said on Sunday she found it' devastatingly worrisome' that anti-quarantine protesters in Michigan had flocked in tight quarters to the state Capitol, defying social-distancing guidelines. Appearing on 'Fox News Sunday,' the doctor said the protesters at the rally were especially concerning because, 'if they go home and infect their grandmother or their grandfather who has a comorbid condition, and they have a serious or an unfortunate outcome, they will feel guilty for the rest of our lives.'" Mrs. McC: Gee, that's not what Donald said. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "Birx was asked about Trump's projections in recent weeks that there would be between 50,000 and 60,000 deaths, which he later increased to 60,000 to 70,000. We are at over 66,000 deaths, with little sign in recent weeks of any significant downturn. Birx told host Chris Wallace that 'our projections have always been between 100,000 and 240,000 American lives lost, and that's with full mitigatio and us learning from each other of how to social distance.'... The president hasn't just offered a more optimistic tone on the death toll; on April 20, he suggested 50,000 to 60,000 deaths had actually replaced the previous 100,000-to-240,000 goal that he had said would constitute a successful response.... In cautioning ... protesters about putting their own loved ones' lives at risk, Birx offered almost a diametrically opposed message [from Trump's repeated encouragement of the protesters]."

One Way mike pence Is Not Like Donald Trump. Rishika Dugyala of Politico: "Vice President Mike Pence on Sunday said that he should have worn a mask when visiting the Mayo Clinic, a reversal that came after a harsh backlash for not adhering to the hospital's policy during the coronavirus pandemic. 'I didn't think it was necessary, but I should have worn a mask at the Mayo Clinic and I wore it when I visited the ventilator plant in Indiana' two days later, Pence said at a Fox News virtual town hall on Sunday, nodding sheepishly."

I Was Right within the Context of My Ignorance & Lack of Foresight. Jacob Knutson of Axios: "White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow defended his claim on Feb. 25 that the U.S. had "contained" the coronavirus 'pretty close to airtight,' arguing on CNN's 'State of the Union' Sunday that his comments were 'based on the actual facts' at the time.... At the time of Kudlow's comments, the country had 15 known coronavirus cases, according to Johns Hopkins University data. That same day, however, Nancy Messonnier, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters a coronavirus outbreak in the country was inevitable." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Stephen Miller: Immigrants Have Cooties. Caitlin Dickerson & Michael Shear of the New York Times: "From the early days of the Trump administration, Stephen Miller, the president's chief adviser on immigration, has repeatedly tried to use an obscure law designed to protect the nation from diseases overseas as a way to tighten the borders.... Mr. Miller pushed for invoking the president's broad public health powers in 2019, when an outbreak of mumps spread through immigration detention facilities in six states. He tried again that year when Border Patrol stations were hit with the flu. When vast caravans of migrants surged toward the border in 2018, Mr. Miller looked for evidence that they carried illnesses.... Within days of the confirmation of the first [coronavirus] case in the United States, the White House shut American land borders to nonessential travel, closing the door to almost all migrants.... Other international travel restrictions were introduced, as well as a pause on green card processing at American consular offices, which Mr. Miller told conservative allies in a recent private phone call was only the first step in a broader plan to restrict legal immigration.... What has been billed by the White House as an urgent response to the coronavirus pandemic was in large part repurposed from old draft executive orders...."

Will Weissert of the AP: "U.S. officials believe China covered up the extent of the coronavirus outbreak -- and how contagious the disease is -- to stock up on medical supplies needed to respond to it, intelligence documents show. Chinese leaders 'intentionally concealed the severity' of the pandemic from the world in early January, according to a four-page Department of Homeland Security intelligence report dated May 1 and obtained by The Associated Press. The revelation comes as the Trump administration has intensified its criticism of China, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo saying Sunday that that country was responsible for the spread of disease and must be held accountable.... Not classified but marked 'for official use only,' the DHS analysis states that, while downplaying the severity of the coronavirus, China increased imports and decreased exports of medical supplies." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: The DHS report could be true, but how will be know? It's coming from Trump lackies, and we can't believe anything they say. ~~~

~~~ David Sanger of the New York Times:"Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday backed President Trump's assertion that the coronavirus originated in a research laboratory in Wuhan, China, though the nation's intelligence agencies say they have reached no conclusion on the issue. Speaking on the ABC program 'This Week,' Mr. Pompeo, the former C.I.A. chief and one of the senior administration officials who is most hawkish on dealing with China, said that 'there's enormous evidence' that the coronavirus came from the lab, though he agreed with the intelligence assessment that there was no indication that the virus was man-made or genetically modified."

Erica Werner & Tom Hamburger of the Washington Post: "Congressional leaders are girding for a huge fight over the reentry of millions of Americans to the workplace, with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) insisting that employers be shielded from liability if their workers contract the coronavirus. He appears to have the backing of top White House officials. Democratic leaders have declared they will oppose such blanket protections, putting Washington's power brokers on opposite sides of a major issue that could have sweeping implications for health care and the economy in the coming months. The battle has unleashed a frenzy of lobbying, with major industry groups, technology firms, insurers, manufacturers, labor unions, and plaintiffs lawyers all squaring off. The clash is a sharp departure from the past six weeks, when lawmakers from both parties came together to swiftly approve nearly $3 trillion in emergency funds as Americans hunkered down during the pandemic." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Northeast States. Jacob Knutson of Axios: "New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Sunday that New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Delaware are forming a regional consortium to reduce competition when purchasing personal protective equipment (PPE)." Mrs. McC: Wouldn't it be something if we had, say, a federal government that would eliminate competition among all the states?

Ohio. Sneeze on Me. Mike DeWine Falls in Line. Jack Arnholz of ABC News: "Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said Sunday that a statewide order mandating face masks be worn in stores went 'too far.' 'It became clear to me that that was just a bridge too far. People were not going to accept the government telling them what to do,' he said on ABC's 'This Week.'... 'Face masks are very important and our business group came back and said every employee, for example, should wear a face mask. So we're continuing that, whether it's retail or wholesale, whatever it is, manufacturing, every employee's going to have the face mask,' he said Sunday.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Virginia. Josh Gerstein of Politico: Gov. Ralph "Northam's [D] directives responding to the coronavirus pandemic have become a focus of a drive Attorney General William Barr announced last week to scrutinize the virus-related actions of state and local officials for unconstitutional intrusion on individual rights or federal prerogatives. On Sunday, Justice Department lawyers weighed in with a federal court in favor of a Chincoteague, Va., church that filed suit after its pastor received a criminal citation for holding a religious service last month with 16 people in attendance -- exceeding a 10-person limit set by Northam.... Justice's submission endorsed the arguments of the Lighthouse Fellowship Church that the impact on its congregation was unfair because other entities -- such as big-box retail stores, liquor stores and law offices -- are being permitted to operate with more than 10 people on their premises."

Rick Rojas of the New York Times: "... wearing a face mask -- or refusing to -- has become a flash point in a moment when civic rules are being rewritten, seemingly on the fly. The result has been dirty looks, angry words, raw emotions and, at times, confrontations that have escalated into violence. In Flint, Mich., a security guard at a Family Dollar store was fatally shot on Friday afternoon after an altercation that the guard's wife told The New York Times had occurred over a customer refusing to wear a face covering.... The decision not to wear a mask has, for some, become a rebellion against what they regard as an incursion on their personal liberties.... The choice can also be a reflection of vanity, or of not understanding when or where to wear one."

Lesley Stahl of 60 Minutes: "One of the rules of journalism is 'Don't become part of the story.' But instead of covering the pandemic, I was one of the more-than-one million Americans who did become part of it.... After two weeks at home in bed, weak, fighting pneumonia, and really scared, I went to the hospital. I found an overworked, nearly overwhelmed staff. Every one of them kind, sympathetic, gentle and caring from the moment I arrived until the moment days later when I was wheeled out through a gauntlet of cheering medical workers. In the face of so much death, they celebrate their triumphs." Includes video.

Presidential Race

John Hanna of the AP: "Joe Biden has overwhelmingly won a Democratic presidential primary in Kansas that the state party conducted exclusively by mail because of the coronavirus pandemic.... Biden took 77% of the vote. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders was still in the race when the Kansas party began mailing ballots at the end of March, but he suspended his campaign and endorsed Biden. Biden won 29 delegates and Sanders got 10, inching Biden closer to the number of delegates he needs to clinch the Democratic nomination. He has a total of 1,435 delegates and needs 1,991 to win the nomination on the first ballot at the party's national convention this summer, a threshold Biden is likely to reach in June...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Wisconsin. Amy Gardner, et al., of the Washington Post: "Early last month, voters in Wisconsin navigated a dizzying number of rule changes governing the state's spring elections as officials tussled over the risks of the novel coronavirus, prompting a backlog of absentee ballot requests and fears that many would not be able to participate. But in the end, tens of thousands of mail ballots that arrived after the April 7 presidential primaries and spring elections were counted by local officials, a review by The Washington Post has found -- the unexpected result of last-minute intervention by the U.S. Supreme Court.... The five conservative justices sided with the GOP, issuing an opinion ... that a blanket extension of the deadline would improperly allow voters to cast their ballots after April 7. Instead, they said ballots had to be postmarked by Election Day [rather than received] -- effectively imposing a new standard. In Milwaukee and Madison alone, the state's two largest cities, more than 10 percent of all votes counted, nearly 21,000 ballots, arrived by mail after April 7, according to data provided by local election officials.

If You'd Like to Listen to Supreme Court Arguments Today, You Can. Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "A few months ago, a coalition of news organizations asked the Supreme Court to allow live audio coverage of major arguments on gay rights and immigration. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. rejected the request within hours, in keeping with longstanding practice at an institution that almost never departs from tradition. But on Monday, the court will break with history twice: hearing the first of 10 cases that will be argued in a telephone conference call, and letting the public listen in. It is a momentous step for a cautious and secretive institution and yet another way in which the coronavirus pandemic has forced American society to adjust to a new reality." C-SPAN will carry the oral arguments live here.

The Commentariat -- May 3, 2020

Afternoon Update:

The New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments Sunday are here. The Washington Post's live updates Sunday are here.

It's not possible to convey what a petty, petulant peckerwood Trump is, but he's trying to let you know:

Justin Wise of the Hill: "President Trump on Sunday took aim at George W. Bush after the former Republican president issued a call to push partisanship aside amid the outbreak of the novel coronavirus. In a three-minute video shared on Twitter on Saturday, Bush urged Americans to remember 'how small our differences are in the face of this shared threat.'... In an early morning tweet on Sunday, Trump called out Bush for his failure to support him as he faced an impeachment trial earlier this year over his alleged dealings with Ukraine. He cited apparent comments from Fox News anchor Pete Hegseth, who asked why Bush didn't push for 'putting partisanship aside' amid the trial. 'He was nowhere to be found in speaking up against the greatest Hoax in American history,' Trump said." Thanks to Ken W. for the link. ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Had the impeachment proceedings "put partisanship aside," we'd be complaining about President pence today.

Sarah Cammarata of Politico: "Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, said on Sunday she found it' devastatingly worrisome' that anti-quarantine protesters in Michigan had flocked in tight quarters to the state Capitol, defying social-distancing guidelines. Appearing on 'Fox News Sunday,' the doctor said the protesters at the rally were especially concerning because, 'if they go home and infect their grandmother or their grandfather who has a comorbid condition, and they have a serious or an unfortunate outcome, they will feel guilty for the rest of our lives.'" Mrs. McC: Gee, that's not what Donald said.

I Was Right within the Context of My Ignorance & Lack of Foresight. Jacob Knutson of Axios: "White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow defended his claim on Feb. 25 that the U.S. had "contained" the coronavirus 'pretty close to airtight,' arguing on CNN's 'State of the Union' Sunday that his comments were 'based on the actual facts' at the time.... At the time of Kudlow's comments, the country had 15 known coronavirus cases, according to Johns Hopkins University data. That same day, however, Nancy Messonnier, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters a coronavirus outbreak in the country was inevitable."

Sneeze on Me. Mike DeWine Falls in Line. Jack Arnholz of ABC News: "Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said Sunday that a statewide order mandating face masks be worn in stores went 'too far.' 'It became clear to me that that was just a bridge too far. People were not going to accept the government telling them what to do,' he said on ABC's 'This Week.'... 'Face masks are very important and our business group came back and said every employee, for example, should wear a face mask. So we're continuing that, whether it's retail or wholesale, whatever it is, manufacturing, every employee's going to have the face mask,' he said Sunday.'"

Erica Werner & Tom Hamburger of the Washington Post: "Congressional leaders are girding for a huge fight over the reentry of millions of Americans to the workplace, with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) insisting that employers be shielded from liability if their workers contract the coronavirus. He appears to have the backing of top White House officials. Democratic leaders have declared they will oppose such blanket protections, putting Washington's power brokers on opposite sides of a major issue that could have sweeping implications for health care and the economy in the coming months. The battle has unleashed a frenzy of lobbying, with major industry groups, technology firms, insurers, manufacturers, labor unions, and plaintiffs lawyers all squaring off. The clash is a sharp departure from the past six weeks, when lawmakers from both parties came together to swiftly approve nearly $3 trillion in emergency funds as Americans hunkered down during the pandemic."

John Hanna of the AP: "Joe Biden has overwhelmingly won a Democratic presidential primary in Kansas that the state party conducted exclusively by mail because of the coronavirus pandemic.... Biden took 77% of the vote. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders was still in the race when the Kansas party began mailing ballots at the end of March, but he suspended his campaign and endorsed Biden. Biden won 29 delegates and Sanders got 10, inching Biden closer to the number of delegates he needs to clinch the Democratic nomination. He has a total of 1,435 delegates and needs 1,991 to win the nomination on the first ballot at the party's national convention this summer, a threshold Biden is likely to reach in June...."

Joe Biden & Elizabeth Warren in a Miami Herald/McClatchy op-ed: "Even the most ideological conservatives have been forced to acknowledge that government is an essential part of the COVID-19 solution. Government delivers best when its actions are fair, transparent and accountable. But ... Donald Trump's approach to this crisis doesn't reflect these values. Without change, more lives will be lost and more families will go broke.... As the price of their support for [relief legislation], Trump and the Republicans insisted on a $500 billion slush fund for big businesses with minimal conditions -- a fund Trump could use to reward his political friends and punish his political enemies. They also jammed in a tax cut that overwhelmingly benefits millionaires. This tax break will be particularly helpful to hedge funds and real estate investors like the president's friends and family -- on top of the $1 trillion in giveaways to the wealthy and big corporations Trump previously pushed through Congress.... The coronavirus rescue package imposed some oversight of these programs, but when he signed it, Trump saidhe'd ignore the law and prevent a new inspector general from communicating with Congress.... As we recover, we have the opportunity to create an economy that truly works for everyone. That begins with a government that is accountable to the people and that is what we will deliver."

~~~~~~~~~~

The New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments Saturday are here. The Washington Post's live updates Saturday are here. (Also linked yesterday.)

Oliver O'Connell of the U.K. Independent: "Donald Trump ... spent Saturday morning [at Camp David] tweeting about his poll numbers, Congress, presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden and Michael Flynn. The 'working weekend' in rural Maryland will also see the president meet with staff and conduct phone calls with other world leaders regarding the coronavirus pandemic, according to press secretary Kayleigh McEnany." Mrs. McC: Tweeting about yourself is not "working."

     ~~~ That's the late Harvey Korman playing the part of Donald Trump. ~~~

~~~ Philip Rucker, et al., of the Washington Post: Inside the White House, "A small team led by Kevin Hassett -- a former chairman of Trump's Council of Economic Advisers with no background in infectious diseases -- quietly built an econometric model to guide [coronavirus] response operations.... [Hassett's death-toll projection, much lower than other models predicted,] was embraced inside the West Wing by ... Jared Kushner and other powerful aides helping to oversee the government's pandemic response.... For Trump -- whose decision-making has been guided largely by his reelection prospects -- the analysis, coupled with Hassett's grim predictions of economic calamity, provided justification to pivot to where he preferred to be: cheering an economic revival rather than managing a catastrophic health crisis.... By the end of April ... it became clear that the Hassett model was too good to be true.... The president's course would not be changed, however. Trump and Kushner began to declare a great victory against the virus, while urging America to start reopening businesses and schools.... The span of 34 days between March 29 ... tells a story of desperation and dysfunction.... This story documenting Trump's month-long struggle to reopen America is based on interviews with 82 administration officials, outside advisers and experts with detailed knowledge of the White House's handling of the pandemic."

David Graham of the Atlantic: "Trump likes to say that one death is too many, but his seeming indifference to growing death tolls is reminiscent of the quip, sometimes attributed to Stalin, that one death is a tragedy and 1 million deaths is a statistic. For Trump, one death is a tragedy and 60,000 are a victory. As Steve Benen has chronicled, Trump has curiously kept touting the low death toll, but keeps having to adjust up the number as the count rises."

Ayesha Rascoe & Colin Dwyer of NPR: "President Trump twice received intelligence briefings on the coronavirus in January, according to a White House official. The official tells NPR the briefings occurred on Jan. 23 and Jan. 28. 'The president was told that the coronavirus was potentially going to "spread globally,'" the official said of the first briefing, which came two days after the first case of the virus was reported in the United States. 'But the "good news" was that it was not deadly for most people,' the official said the president was told. Five days after that initial briefing, the president was briefed again, according to the official. This time, he was told the virus 'was spreading outside of China, but that deaths from the disease were happening only in China,' the official said. 'He was also told that China was withholding data.'" Mrs. McC: This sounds fairly consistent with contemporaneous public information, but one would think intelligence agencies would know more.

Marianne Levine of Politico: "The Trump administration will send three rapid-results testing machines and 1,000 coronavirus tests to the Senate, according to Health and Human Services chief Alex Azar.... The new supply of machines and tests comes after the Capitol Hill physician informed top GOP officials Thursday that the Senate only had the capacity to test senators and staffers who were ill. The physician also said that test results would take two days or longer -- a contrast to the White House's testing capacity, where anyone who meets with ... Donald Trump or Vice President Mike Pence receives a rapid-results test." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) Levine's story has been updated to reflect Pelosi/McConnell's statement declining to accept the testing machines & tests. ~~~

     ~~~ Update. Respectfully, Fuck You, Your Highness. From Saturday's WashPo live updates, linked above: "In a rare joint statement, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Saturday they are' respectfully' declining the Trump administration's offer to deploy rapid coronavirus testing capabilities on Capitol Hill.... 'There is tremendous CoronaVirus testing capacity in Washington for the Senators returning to Capital (sic) Hill on Monday. Likewise the House, which should return but isn't because of Crazy Nancy P. The 5 minute Abbott Test will be used,' Trump tweeted.... 'Consistent with CDC guidelines, Congress will use the current testing protocols that the Office of the Attending Physician has put in place until these speedier technologies become more widely available,' Pelosi and McConnell's statement said."

What's Wrong with This Picture? William Feuer of CNBC: “The United States just had its deadliest day on record due to the coronavirus as states across the country begin to ease restrictions meant to curb the spread of the virus, according to data published by the World Health Organization. The U.S. saw 2,909 people die of Covid-19 in 24 hours, according to the data, which was collected as of 4 a.m. ET on Friday. That's the highest daily Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. yet, based on a CNBC analysis of the WHO's daily Covid-19 situation reports." Emphasis added. ~~~

David Wallace-Wells of New York: "Though the public narrative is that the country has turned the corner and gotten a handle on things, enough to begin slowly 'opening up,' the data tells a different story. A new daily peak means that even if deaths declined as rapidly now as they grew earlier this spring -- when in a month total deaths grew from 3,834 to 62,860 -- we would be due for at least as many more deaths as we've had to this point. In other words, another 60,000 people.... And even if we do assume that this week was the overall peak [which is not a given], there are many reasons to think the decline from that peak will be slower than the ascent -- meaning considerably more than 60,000 more deaths." However, that's an optimistic number because all of the models for the progress of the coronavirus have been created while most of the country was on lockdown. "... reopening is already starting, which means the conditions that have produced those elegant (and encouraging) curves are ending." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Obviously, the "reopenings" make things much harder for those of us who have tried to avoid exposure. They mean that more people will be walking virus vectors, so we will have more opportunities for exposure.

Emma Brown, et al., of the Washington Post: "The United States recorded an estimated 37,100 excess deaths as the novel coronavirus spread across the country in March and the first two weeks of April, nearly 13,500 more than are now attributed to covid-19 for that same period, according to an analysis of federal data conducted for The Washington Post by a research team led by the Yale School of Public Health. The Yale team's analysis suggests that the number of excess deaths accelerated as the pandemic took hold.... Though the team's estimate of the impact early in the outbreak already paints a picture of unusually high mortality, the number is certain to grow as more deaths are reported to the federal government on a rolling basis."

What's Wrong with This Picture? Minyvonne Burke of NBC News: "Crowds of people gathered at the National Mall in D.C. on Saturday to watch a Blue Angels and Thunderbirds flyover, with at least some at the scene appearing to ignore social distancing rules.... Many people were not wearing masks." The main photo accompanying the story is pretty disturbing. ~~~

~~~ There were more flyovers around the country honoring healthcare workers. Mrs. McC: If D.C. is any indication, the flyovers probably will mean more work for the medicos the gesture is supposed to recognize.

Alice Ollstein & Dan Goldberg of Politico: "States like Georgia, Texas and Colorado have begun lifting stay-at-home orders without a robust army of public health workers to quickly identify people who've come into contact with coronavirus patients, worrying health experts that the states could be at heightened risk for a new wave of infections. Members of ... Donald Trump's coronavirus task force have warned a reopening risks erasing weeks of progress in slowing the virus if states don't have an extensive system for identifying patients and tracing their contacts. The number of contact tracers states need depends on factors like infection rates, testing availability and population density. But those moving to relax restrictions have far fewer contact tracers per capita than many of those remaining locked down for at least a few more weeks."

Neil MacFarquhar of the New York Times: "America's extremists are attempting to turn the coronavirus pandemic into a potent recruiting tool both in the deep corners of the internet and on the streets of state capitals by twisting the public health crisis to bolster their white supremacist, anti-government agenda.... [This month] the coronavirus, and the disruption it wreaked on society..., became the extremists' battle cry. Embellishing Covid-19 developments to fit their usual agenda, extremists spread disinformation on the transmission of the virus and disparage stay-at-home orders as 'medical martial law' -- the long-anticipated advent of a totalitarian state.... The New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness said in March that white supremacists have encouraged followers to conduct attacks during the crisis to incite fear and target ethnic minorities and immigrants.... Last month, the Department of Homeland Security warned law enforcement officials throughout the United States of the mobilization of violent extremists in response to stay-at-home measures, according to a senior law enforcement official and a congressional staff member, who were not authorized to discuss the warning publicly." ~~~

~~~ Now let's find out what the President* of the United States thinks of these violent extremists: ~~~

Michigan. Kevin Liptak of CNN (May 1): "... Donald Trump sided with protesters -- some of whom were armed -- in Michigan on Friday, for their effort to reopen parts of the state after Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer extended her emergency declaration keeping some businesses shuttered amid the coronavirus pandemic.... 'The Governor of Michigan should give a little, and put out the fire,' Trump wrote on Friday. 'These are very good people, but they are angry. They want their lives back again, safely! See them, talk to them, make a deal.'" Emphasis added. ~~~

~~~ Jonathan Oosting in Bridge (May 1): "It happens at least once a year at the Michigan Capitol: Armed demonstrators openly carry firearms into the historic building and watch the Legislature from galleries overlooking the state House and Senate chambers. There are no metal detectors, no weapon checks and no policy to prohibit loaded weapons.... One reporter said she was 'slammed in the head' by a rifle while attempting to cover the chaos, and multiple lawmakers said armed demonstrators shouted at them from the Senate gallery as they worked below.... Visitors are, however, banned from bringing signs or posters inside...." Emphasis added. ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: I linked these stories, albeit a day late, because I heard a CNN guest point out the poster ban. It's embarrassing to live in this country, and not just because of Donald Trump.

Maryland. Tom Hamburger & Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post: "The state of Maryland on Saturday terminated a $12.5 million contract for personal protective equipment with a firm started this spring by two well-connected Republican operatives. State officials said the company, Blue Flame Medical, failed to deliver masks and ventilators as promised and that the matter has been referred to Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh (D) for review.... Blue Flame was started in late March by Michael Gula, a Republican fundraising and lobbying consultant in Washington, and John Thomas, a California political consultant.... Gula contacted a staffer he knew in the administration of Gov. Larry Hogan (R) to make a pitch for the sale...."

Mississippi. Christina Carrega of ABC News: "The governor of Mississippi took a step back with continuing to slowly reopen the state after health officials said there was the largest increase of coronavirus diagnosis and deaths. Gov. Tate Reeves was to proceed with his plan to get people back to work, but announced the change of plans on Friday as 397 new coronavirus cases were confirmed and 20 more people died. '... We have to stay flexible. Today, I was prepared to announce further reopenings...,' Reeves said. "... I have come to the conclusion that I must hold on for now.'"

Capitalism Is Awesome, Especially When Threatened with Criminal Charges. Jeanna Smialek of the New York Times: "One of the biggest beneficiaries of the government's small business lending program said on Saturday that its companies will return at least $70 million in loans received through the Paycheck Protection Program. Ashford Inc., which oversees a tightly interwoven group of hotel and resorts, had seen its subsidiaries apply for $126 million in loans and the firm had previously said it planned to keep the money it received. On Saturday, citing new guidelines from the Small Business Administration that restrict who can receive funding, the company said its firms will return the loans. The decision came after media outlets, including The New York Times, detailed how Ashford had benefited from a program intended to help small businesses struggling to keep workers on payroll amid the coronavirus pandemic.... Last week, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said companies had until May 7 to voluntarily return the funds and that firms could be held 'criminally liable' if they did not meet the program's criteria. He said the United States would audit any company that received more than $2 million in loans." ~~~

~~~ Tom LoBianco of Business Insider: "The hotel conglomerate run by a major campaign donor to President Donald Trump, Monty Bennett, announced Saturday it would return all the money it received through the Paycheck Protection Program.... Bennett's decision came two hours after ... Joe Biden blasted Bennett, tweeting, 'Monty Bennett should return the tens of millions of dollars he received, and we should give it to the small businesses that need it.'"

You're Doin' Fine, Oklahoma, O.K.! Kaelan Deese of the Hill: "Measures requiring people to wear face coverings inside stores and restaurants to prevent the spread of coronavirus in Stillwater, Okla., were lifted by officials Friday after employees from these businesses said that they experienced threats of violence. Independent Mayor Will Joyce walked back an emergency order put in place until May 31, requiring the public to wear masks. The measure was amended the same day it was activated on Friday night, according to a news release published by the city. As it stands, the changed proclamation requires employees in retail establishments to wear masks, but face coverings are optional for customers. However, the proclamation still strongly advises that people wear masks for their own protection and the protection of others against the coronavirus."

The Method to Their Madness. Tina Nguyen of Politico: "Over three weeks ago, hydroxychloroquine was all the rage in MAGA world, despite flawed and scattered evidence about whether the drug could help cure coronavirus. Now there is another drug, remdesivir, with positive early scientific data. Much of MAGA world wants little to do with it ... even as the president expresses optimism.... The unexpected reaction appears to stem from the differences in how the two drugs came into the public spotlight. Hydroxychloroquine bubbled up through the MAGA grassroots -- little-known investors promoted it online, got on Fox News and suddenly the president was talking about it from the White House. Remdesivir's progress came through a government-funded trial that had the blessing of Dr. Anthony Fauci, the bête noire of Trump hardliners who blame the government's top infectious disease expert for undermining the president and causing unnecessary economic damage with his social-distancing guidelines." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Australia. Sky News: "The government says a shift away from Chinese manufacturing is inevitable as Australia begins to recover from the coronavirus pandemic. Industry Minister Karen Andrews said the COVID-19 crisis has given Australia the chance to boost its manufacturing sector which will increase sovereign capabilities and help the economy recover. Australia could soon begin making high tech devices, medical supplies, pharmaceuticals and food products as the nation begins to shift away from Chinese supply chains." --s

Dell Cameron of Gizmodo: "A Manhattan federal judge has ruled the Federal Communications Commission must provide two reporters access to server logs that may provide new insight into the allegations of fraud stemming from [the] agency's 2017 net neutrality rollback. A pair of New York Times reporters -- Nicholas Confessore and Gabriel Dance -- sued the FCC under the Freedom of Information Act after it refused their request to view copies of the logs. The logs will show, among other details, the originating IP addresses behind the millions of public comments sent to the agency ahead of the December 2017 net neutrality vote." --s

Presidential Race

David Axelrod in a CNN opinion piece: A team of lawyers working for Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign fully vetted contenders for the vice-presidential nominee, including of course Joe Biden. "The comprehensive vet certainly would have turned up any formal complaints filed against Biden during his 36-year career in the Senate. It did not. The team would have investigated any salacious rumors of the sort that travel far and wide in Washington. There were none.... Through that entire process, the name Tara Reade never came up. No formal complaint. No informal chatter. Certainly, no intimation of sexual harassment or assault from her or anyone else. The team of investigators, expert in their work, would not have missed it.... It is striking that when an experienced vetting team put Biden under a microscope before he was chosen to be second-in-line for the presidency, neither her allegations, nor anything resembling them in Biden's history, showed up." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Ali Vitali, et al., of NBC News: "Tara Reade, a former staffer accusing former Vice President Joe Biden of sexual assault, specified Saturday that she's 'not sure' what wording she might have used in the paper complaint she says she filed with a Senate personnel office in 1993.... Reade has said that the complaint, if it's found, would not include the sexual assault allegation that she came forward with in March. She told the Associated Press in an interview Friday: 'the main word I used -- and I know I didn't use sexual harassment -- I used "uncomfortable." And I remember "retaliation."'" Mrs. McC: IOW, Joe called her bluff & she backtracked. ~~~

~~~ Maureen Dowd of the New York Times: "... #MeToo ripped away the curtain on the murky transgressions and diminishments that women had endured in the droit du seigneur era. But as with any revolution, there was some overcorrection.... It was a strange acid flashback, seeing Biden having to defend himself three decades after he was the one who shut down the Thomas-Hill hearing without allowing the appearance of the three women waiting to come forward as corroborating witnesses for [Anita] Hill.... In the end, these moments highlight the hypocrisy of both parties."

Safari links this ad, which is just the type the Biden campaign & Democrats should be running:

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: As nearly as I can tell, the ad was independently produced by an activist group called Meidas Touch, which appears to be the work of -- or sponsored by -- California attorney Ben Meiselas.

Adam Raymond of New York: "According to The Wall Street Journal, President Trump's reelection campaign has placed an order for 'red, Trump-branded face masks for supporters.' The paper says, 'Campaign officials have discussed giving away the masks at events or in return for donations.' The WSJ links the production of the masks to a broader attempt by the Trump campaign to win back waning support from seniors, a stronghold for the president that has begun to abandon him amid his shaky leadership during the coronavirus outbreak." The WSJ story is here.