The Commentariat -- April 26, 2020
The New York Times' live updates for coronavirus developments Saturday are here. The Washington Post's live updates are here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Dr. "Anthony Fauci" explains what Trump really meant, in an opening monologue that surely will make Trump livid: ~~~
~~~ Ethan Alter of Yahoo! Entertainment: Actor Brad Pitt "fulfilled the wishes of the real Dr. Fauci, who told CNN earlier this month that Pitt would be his first choice to play him on SNL. It’s also appropriate casting considering the widely-circulated Change.org petition nominating Fauci as People Magazine's Sexiest Man Alive -- a title that Pitt has held twice in the past 35 years."
Lauren Aratani of the Guardian: "After more than a month of near-daily White House coronavirus press briefings, Donald Trump stayed behind closed doors on Saturday after advisers reportedly warned the president that his appearances were hurting his campaign. Trump himself referenced his absence when he wrote on Twitter ... Saturday evening..., 'What is the purpose of having White House News Conferences when the Lamestream Media asks nothing but hostile questions, & then refuses to report the truth or facts accurately,' he wrote. 'They get record ratings, & the American people get nothing but Fake News. Not worth the time & effort!'" ~~~
~~~ Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: While I'll grant Trump made the briefings take up a lot of time, they apparently did not require him to make much effort. According to a New York Times report, also linked here last week: "Mr. Trump rarely attends the task force meetings that precede the briefings, and he typically does not prepare before he steps in front of the cameras. He is often seeing the final version of the day's main talking points that aides have prepared for him for the first time although aides said he makes tweaks with a Sharpie just before he reads them live. He hastily plows through them, usually in a monotone, in order to get to the question-and-answer bullying session with reporters that he relishes."
John Hudson, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump and his top aides are working behind the scenes to sideline the World Health Organization on several new fronts as they seek to shift blame for the coronavirus pandemic to the world body, according to U.S. and foreign officials involved in the discussions. Last week, the president announced a 60-day hold on U.S. money to the WHO, but other steps by his top officials go beyond a temporary funding freeze, raising concerns about the permanent weakening of the organization amid a rapidly spreading crisis. At the State Department, officials are stripping references to the WHO from coronavirus fact sheets, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has instructed his employees to 'cut out the middle man' when it comes to public health initiatives the United States previously supported through the WHO.... At the United Nations Security Council, the Trump administration has delayed a resolution responding to the health crisis, which the French have been trying to advance for weeks, because it disagrees with draft language that expresses support for the WHO, European officials said."
Maybe Trump was upset by that tweet (embedded here yesterday) -- which went viral -- highlighting Dr. Deborah Birx' horrified reactions to his outlandish remarks. So ~~~
Was just informed that the Fake News from the Thursday White House Press Conference had me speaking & asking questions of Dr. Deborah Birx. Wrong, I was speaking to our Laboratory expert, not Deborah, about sunlight etc. & the CoronaVirus. The Lamestream Media is corrupt & sick! -- Donald Trump in a tweet Saturday afternoon
Although not the only time Trump spoke to Birx during that briefing, here's a significant one, from the transcript:
You know what. Deborah, have you ever heard of that? The heat and the light relative to certain viruses, yes, but relative to this virus? -- Donald Trump, Thursday's Trump Show
Mrs. McCrabbie: As far as I know, Birx was the only "Deborah" on the dais. In any event, she was the "Deborah" who responded -- in the negative but oh, so diplomatically -- to Trump's idiotic question. Who's "corrupt & sick"?
Thanks to Elizabeth & Hattie for the links & to Randy for the laughs:
~~~ As Randy says, "Do not actually drink cleaning fluids."
Charles Pierce of Esquire: "Of all the coverage of Camp Runamuck that has emerged since the pandemic began, The New York Times had a story this week that was particularly unnerving. Evidently, the president* now exists in the White House in an zone of isolation that registers as somewhere between an episode of The Twilight Zone and a performance of The Emperor Jones.... It is sheer lunacy to have the country led by an angry shut-in at a time of plague and economic depression.... It is precisely this situation for which the 25th was designed. The 25th doesn't say anything about physical illness or mental instability. It simply refers to a president who is 'unable to discharge the duties of his office.'"
Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times: "... the bill for a president with a tyrant's contempt for truth and competence has come due. This week brought a barrage of new evidence of how Trump's assault on nonpartisan expertise has undermined America's fight against coronavirus. On Wednesday, The Times broke a story about Dr. Rick Bright, the official who led the federal agency working toward a coronavirus vaccine. Bright claims he was reassigned because he 'resisted efforts to fund potentially dangerous drugs promoted by those with political connections.'... Also on Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump wanted to fire Dr. Nancy Messonnier, a C.D.C. expert on respiratory diseases, when she warned, on Feb. 25, that community spread of the coronavirus was likely in the U.S. and that everyday life could be severely disrupted. Reuters reported that Alex Azar, the health and human services secretary, assigned his department's day-to-day responsibility for coronavirus to an aide with little public health experience whose previous job was running a Labradoodle-breeding business. Today our country, with a little more than 4 percent of the world's population, has almost 32 percent of the world's coronavirus cases.... A country that could be brought to its knees this quickly was sick well before the virus arrived." ~~~
~~~ What to do when Trump screws up again? Change the subject. Fire somebody: ~~~
~~~ Adam Cancryn, et al., of Politico: "White House officials are weighing a plan to replace Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, according to four people familiar with the discussions. Among the names on the short list to replace Azar are White House coronavirus coordinator Deborah Birx, Medicare chief Seema Verma and deputy HHS Secretary Eric Hargan, said the four people familiar with the talks. Senior officials' long-standing frustrations with the health chief have mounted..., with White House aides angry this week about Azar's handling of the ouster of vaccine expert Rick Bright. At a recent task force meeting, Azar assured Vice President Mike Pence that Bright's move to the National Institutes of Health was a promotion -- only for Bright and his lawyers to release a statement that he would soon file a whistleblower complaint against HHS leadership." Mrs. McC: But what will happen to the Labradoodle breeder?
Lara Seligman of Politico: "The nation's top military officer wants a broader investigation into the events leading up to the firing of an aircraft carrier captain, after top Navy leaders recommended Capt. Brett Crozier be reinstated as commander of the virus-stricken USS Theodore Roosevelt, two senior defense officials tell Politico. The push by Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to open a 'full-blown investigation' into the incident would delay a final decision on reinstating Crozier after the Navy completed an 'extensive' preliminary inquiry, according to one of the officials.... Pentagon leaders are now at an impasse about how to move forward."
Ellen Gabler & Michael Keller of the New York Times: "Prescriptions for two antimalarial drugs jumped by 46 times the average when the president promoted them on TV. There's no proof they work against Covid-19.... And the nearly 32,000 prescriptions came from across the spectrum -- rheumatologists, cardiologists, dermatologists, psychiatrists and even podiatrists, the data shows.... Carmen Catizone, executive director of the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy, said the surge created shortages that 'put patients at risk who depend on these medications' to treat other illnesses.... The extraordinary change in prescribing patterns reflects, at least in part, the outsize reach of the Trump megaphone, even when his pronouncements distort scientific evidence or run counter to the recommendations of experts in his own administration. It also offers the clearest evidence yet of the perils of a president willing to push unproven and potentially dangerous remedies to a public desperate for relief from the pandemic." ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Looks as if a lot of doctors missed that class on "first, do no harm." They're worse than Trump.
Rosalind Helderman, et al., of the Washington Post: "... scores of [cruise] ships ... continued voyages even after early outbreaks on other vessels, carrying thousands of international passengers to far-flung ports and helping seed the virus around the globe, health officials say. A Post review of cruise line statements, government announcements and media reports found that the coronavirus infected passengers and crew on at least 55 ships that sailed in the waters off nearly every continent, about a fifth of the total global fleet. The industry's decision to keep sailing for weeks after the coronavirus was first detected in early February on a cruise ship off the coast of Japan, despite the efforts by top U.S. health officials to curtail voyages, was among a number of decisions that health experts and passengers say contributed to the mounting toll. At least 65 people who traveled or worked on the ships have since died, according to The Post tally, although the full scope of deaths is unknown." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Sheryl Stolberg, et al., of the New York Times: "As governors decide about opening their economies, they continue to be hampered by a shortage of testing capacity, leaving them without the information that public health experts say is needed to track outbreaks and contain them. And while the United States has made strides over the past month in expanding testing, its capacity is nowhere near the level Mr. Trump suggests it is.... On top of [shortages of components of the tests, protective gear for workers & employees to analyze the tests], the administration has resisted a full-scale national mobilization, instead intervening to allocate scarce equipment on an ad hoc basis and leaving production bottlenecks and shortages largely to market forces.
Michigan. Uh, A Teaching Moment. Angie Jackson of the Detroit Free Press: "A Michigan [state] senator has apologized for wearing a face mask that appeared to depict the Confederate flag during a Senate vote at the state Capitol on Friday. Sen. Dale Zorn, R-Ida, previously denied that the face covering -- a red mask with blue stripes and white stars -- was the Confederate flag, telling WLNS-TV 6 that his wife made the face covering.... 'It was not a Confederate flag,' he said. 'I think even if it was a Confederate flag, you know, we should be talking about teaching our national history in schools. And that's part of our national history, and it's something we can't just throw away because it is part of our history. And if we want to make sure that the atrocities that happened during that time doesn't happen again, we should be teaching it. Our kids should know what that flag stands for.' When asked by a reporter what the flag stands for, Zorn replied, 'the Confederacy.'"; And a shoutout to Mrs. Zorn. Don't know what her first name is, but we'll call her "Scarlett." Fiddle-dee-dee.
Wisconsin. Republicans Make People Sick. Teran Powell of WUWM Radio (NPR): "Forty people in Milwaukee County may have become infected with the coronavirus as a result of participating in Wisconsin elections on April 7. Milwaukee Health Commissioner Jeanette Kowalik says data is still being analyzed to show the connection between more people that may have contracted COVID-19 due to election activities, like being a poll worker or voting in person, earlier this month. Kowalik hopes the data will be finalized by May 1." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Trump and Putin, Together Again. Edward Moreno of the Hill: "President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a joint statement on Saturday commemorating the 75th anniversary of a World War II meeting of U.S. and Soviet troops at the Elbe river in 1945.... According to the [Wall Street Journal], the decision to issue the statement was controversial among Trump administration officials at the Pentagon and State Department.... The officials pointed to Russia's intervention in Ukraine and its aid to Syrian President Bashar Assad for his offensive in the country's Idlib province. The U.S. officials also claim that Russia has spread disinformation about the coronavirus pandemic and interfered in U.S. campaigns." Mrs. McC: That is, State & the Pentagon opposed the joint statement; Trump overruled them.
Presidential Race. Zach Carter of the Huffington Post: "On Thursday, Bloomberg News reported what had been rumored for weeks: [Larry] Summers has been advising [Joe] Biden on economic recovery strategies for the ongoing coronavirus collapse." Carter goes into a list of reasons Biden should stay away from Summers. Mrs. McC: The one I didn't know: Summers was a long-time friend of Jeffrey Epstein, a friendship Summers maintained even after Epstein's first arrest in 2006 & subsequent prosecution for soliciting an underaged prostitute. I'll bet Joe Biden knew this, though. If the many problems Biden has, a prominent one is his indifference to the personal behavior of men he calls "friends." That's why he continued to pal around with Southern racist senators and back their preferences before those of, say, Anita Hill's. Biden is a good ole boy through and through. And the presidency won't make him wiser or more discerning. It's up to the press to embarrass Biden out of his many dumb decisions to come.
Way Beyond the Beltway
Simon Denyer, et al., of the Washington Post: "Evidence that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is still alive and in the coastal resort of Wonsan is mounting, as satellite images showed his train apparently traveled there in the past few days, and U.S. and South Korean officials said they did not believe he had died. Rumors of the portly leader's possible demise have been swirling since he skipped celebrations for his grandfather's birthday on April 15, and after a South Korea media report said he had undergone a cardiovascular procedure on April 12 and was recuperating. But U.S. and South Korean intelligence services remain skeptical of reports that Kim is dead or gravely ill, according to three government officials familiar with the matter." Mrs. McC: Maybe this whole hoohah was merely Li'l Kim's taking a trip to the beach to develop resorts as Donald's suggested.
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Reader Comments (6)
If a vaccine is developed, is there a administration plan to distribute or is this going to be mess like tests ? Not disturbing "market forces" and having fifty states competing for vaccines will price the product out of reach and take a decade to reach a majority of Americans.
I bet those ninnyhammers will create another cluster f--k. and blame Obama.
" ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Looks as if a lot of doctors missed that class on "first, do no harm." They're worse than Trump."
I'm frankly shocked at the number of doctors who prescribed these antimalarial drugs–-what were they thinking???? I recall our own doctor who told us, when we asked how many of his patients asked for drugs they had seen advertised on T.V., his answer was, "You wouldn't believe how many." He then told us about a bloke that went around to various doctors trying to get opioids. Yale has a network they can check on this practice so said bloke got nothin.
We finally got to see "Bombshell" last night. My take-away was mixed. As much as I cheered Gretchen Carlson's moxy––she sued Alles–-I was left with the fact that the essential misogynistic playbook at Fox is still presenting the same story. It's like getting rid of some bad apples but the root of the rottenness is in the tree itself.
And Brad Pitt done do a bang-up job––sometimes SNL just hits that old nail on the head! Oh, and how I hope Fatty has a chance to watch it if he's not too busy figuring out how he's going to muffle that nice Birx lady with the scarves.
@PD Pepe: I assume Trump will strangle her with her own scarf.
I think Deborah is quite cavalier in continually tempting Trump by daily flaunting the weapon by which he will murder her. She is giving him not only the means but also the excuse, one I'm sure he's used before when he's violated women: "She asked for it."
Her last words before he tightens the scarf around her neck, "Social distancing, Mr Presi.... aaaaagh!"
"What's the purpose" of the press lengthies, the Pretender asks, now holed up safe in his white cave?
There was a purpose. It was to display his awesomeness to the wider public.
Didn't work out the way he'd planned. He wasn't so awesome after all, and the public is so tired of all the nonsense he spewed they're turning him off.
Now instead of awesome, we get sulk, but I wonder how long he can be convinced to stay out of the limelight that highlights all his wrinkles and warts.
Very sad.
Today 11 states below 1.0, but with some having that magic number trending up.
https://rt.live/#learn-more
With Trump declaring the daily C-19 briefings "aren't worth the time and effort" someone should reply loudly enough he can hear it: "and especially when you hog the mike and give the briefing"