The Commentariat -- March 6, 2020
Late Morning Update:
Peter Baker of the New York Times: “President Trump signed an $8.3 billion emergency spending bill to confront the coronavirus outbreak on Friday morning and decided to visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, reversing his decision hours earlier to skip touring the nerve center of the government's response to the health crisis." Mrs. McC: The reason Trump's visit to the CDC was on-again/off-again was because of a suspected case of coronavirus at the Atlanta center. But then it turned out the person had tested negative for the virus. Everything is going very smoothly. A Politico story is here.
Guardian (from the liveblog @9:50 am ET): "Trump ... reiterated his lack of worry about the spread of [coronavirus] in the US. Perhaps problematic, though is that, to many, he's coming across as casually dismissive and posturing, not measured, and reassuringly presidential. 'You have to be calm,' he said, at the White House this morning before departing to tour the tornado damage in Tennessee and just after signing an $8.3 billion emergency spending bill to deal with the virus. 'It will go away,' he said. 'We have very low numbers [of confirmed cases] compared to many countries throughout the world, our numbers are lower than almost anyone ... deaths, is it 11?' It is. 'In terms of cases, it's very very few because we have been very strong at the borders.'"
Jonathan Chait enjoys ragging Donald Trump & Larry Kudlow for their wildly incorrect claims & prognostications on the coronavirus & its impact on the markets.
Misogynist-in-Chief Says Warren Is "Mean," Lacks Talent. Caitlin Oprysko of Politico: "... Donald Trump on Friday shot down questions about whether sexism grounded the presidential campaign of Elizabeth Warren.... 'I think lack of talent was her problem,' Trump told reporters at the White House when asked about the role sexism played in her demise. 'She had a tremendous lack of talent. She was a good debater. She destroyed Mike Bloomberg very quickly like it was nothing. That was easy for her but people don't like her.' But Trump then employed language likely to strike Warren's defenders as an example of the very gender-coded criticism her male opponents have not faced. 'She is a very mean person and people don't like her. People don't want that,' the president argued. Trump then claimed that 'people like a person like me, who is not mean.'"
Yun Li of CNBC @ 11 am ET: "Stocks fell on Friday, extending the deep rout in the previous session, as Wall Street edges closer to the end of a tumultuous trading week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 530 points, or 1.9%, cutting some of its morning losses. The 30-stock benchmark plunged 894 points at one point in the session. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite also pared losses slightly, last down 2.1% and 1.9%, respectively. Airline stocks rebounded sharply after chief economic advisor Larry Kudlow said the White House is considering 'targeted measures' to offset the negative impact on the industry from the coronavirus outbreak. American Airlines jumped 4%, while United Airlines surged more than 7%. Still, investors continued to seek safer assets amid fears that the coronavirus will disrupt global supply chains and tip the economy into a recession. On Friday, the benchmark 10-year Treasury yield tumbled below 0.7% for the first time ever. Another haven asset gold is on track for its best week since 2008."
Jordain Carney of the Hill: "Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) will vote to subpoena a former consultant linked to Burisma Holdings, as part of a GOP probe into Hunter Biden and the Ukraine gas company."
Bill & Hillary Decide This Is a Good Time to Remind Voters Democratic Men Treat Women Badly, Get Impeached, Too. Neil Vigdor has the New York Times' story. Dan Merica writes CNN's story. Thanks, Billary! Stay relevant! Whacha got planned for late October?
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** No Country for Women. Astead Herndon & Shane Goldmacher of the New York Times: "Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts told her staff she was dropping out of the presidential race on Thursday, ending a run defined by an avalanche of policy plans that aimed to pull the Democratic Party to the left and appealed to enough voters to make her briefly a front-runner last fall." The NBC News story is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Every time I get introduced as the most powerful woman, I almost cry, because I wish that were not true. I so wish that we had a woman president of the United States, and we came so close to doing that... I do think there's a certain element of misogyny. -- Speaker Nancy Pelosi, at her weekly press conference Thursday
This Is Going to Be Painful:
~~~ Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: If you think a debate between Joe Biden & Bernie Sanders is going to make Democrats look like the Party of the Future, you have another think coming. Also too, aren't these the two people in America most likely to get the coronavirus and get it bad?
Mara Gay of the New York Times on "why Southern Democrats saved Biden." ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Well, maybe. But the guy they saved, well, the last time he ran for president, Joe Biden called Barack Obama "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy." The guy they saved engineered the suppression of black women testifying against a sexual harasser who still sits on the Supreme Court because, he said, he had given his word to Southern Republican male senators to keep the women quiet. Southern Democrats "saved" perhaps the most paternalistic, "Southern"-type white man running on the Democratic ticket. It's bad enough this kind of thinking controls the Republican party. Now we know it controls both parties. This country, like its presidential candidates, is corrupt (Trump) and over the hill (Biden-Sanders).
Mistakes Were Made. Matt Yglesias of Vox, who is sympathetic to Bernie Sanders, assesses the Sanders campaign. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Bernie Suddenly Feels the Barack:
Anton Troianovski of the New York Times: "The mayor of Burlington, Vt., wrote to a Soviet counterpart in a provincial city that he wanted the United States and the Soviet Union to 'live together as friends.' Unbeknown to him, his desire for friendship meshed with the efforts of Soviet officials in Moscow to 'reveal American imperialism as the main source of the danger of war.'That mayor was Bernie Sanders, and the story of his 1988 trip to the Soviet Union has been told before. But many of the details of Mr. Sanders's Cold War diplomacy before and after that visit -- and the Soviet effort to exploit Mr. Sanders's antiwar agenda for their own propaganda purposes -- have largely remained out of sight. The New York Times examined 89 pages of letters, telegrams and internal Soviet government documents revealing in far greater detail the extent of Mr. Sanders's personal effort to establish ties between his city and a country many Americans then still considered an enemy despite the reforms being initiated at the time under Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet general secretary."
On the teevee, they're calling the Democratic primary "officially a two-man race." But Tulsi Gabbard!
Maya King of Politico: "Just 36 hours after suspending his campaign for president, Michael Bloomberg is out with a new digital advertisement.... On the heels of announcing plans to start a new organization to elect Democrats in battleground states, Bloomberg released a digital ad targeting Donald Trump. The ad ... teases the billionaire's future plans to throw his money behind an ad campaign aimed at defeating president in November."
Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "Mitt Romney ... could throw another wrench in President Trump's and the GOP's efforts to dig up dirt on the Bidens.... Romney indicated Thursday that he is skeptical about the need for the Senate Homeland Security Committee to issue a subpoena related to Hunter Biden's work for Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian energy company. 'I would prefer that investigations are done by an independent, nonpolitical body,' Romney told The Post's Mike DeBonis. 'There's no question the appearance is not good.' Romney also told reporters the effort 'appears political' and said, 'I think people are tired of these kind of political investigations.'... Republicans have a 8-to-6 majority [on the committee], meaning Romney's vote, when combined with the six Democrats on the committee, would deadlock it at 7-7 and prevent the subpoena from being issued. (Ohio GOP Sen. Rob Portman hasn't committed to voting for the subpoena yet, either.)" Politico's story is here.
>Craig Timberg & Tara Bahrampour of the Washington Post: "Facebook removed Trump campaign ads on Thursday for violating its policy against misleading references to the U.S. census amid criticism that it has given politicians too much leeway to misinform users on its platform. The Trump ads urged Facebook users to 'take the official 2020 Congressional District Census today,' but despite the look and language of the ad, they were not related to the once-a-decade national count of U.S. citizens happening this year. Instead, the ads linked to a survey on the 'Certified Website of President Donald J. Trump,' which collected information and requested a donation. Facebook initially said it would permit the ads, ruling that they were clearly not a part of the U.S. census.... House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) sharply criticized Facebook's decision [to allow the fake census ads] in a news conference Thursday.... Facebook reversed its position hours later, saying that the ads indeed violated its policy against 'misrepresentation of the dates, locations, times and methods for census participation.'" Politico's story is here.
New York Times: "The stock market has swung wildly in the past week as investors have struggled to get a bead on the economic damage the fast spreading coronavirus might cause, as the number of cases continues to rise and companies step up measures to contain them. That jarring volatility continued on Thursday, with the S&P 500 falling more than 3 percent. The index has now climbed or fallen more than 3 percent on six different days in the past two weeks.... Shares of airlines plunged and industrial, financial and energy stocks also fell sharply. Worry about long-term growth also pushed the yield on 10-year United States Treasury notes to a new low. Because of their relative safety, government bonds are in high demand during bouts of panic over the economy.... News about the coronavirus's spread has been relentless: A cruise ship being held off the coast of San Francisco has suspected links to two coronavirus cases, one of them fatal. The governor of California declared a state of emergency on Wednesday, and 18 states have infected patients. Around the world, more than 90,000 cases and 3,000 deaths have been reported." CNBC's report is here.
Jordain Carney of the Hill: "The Senate on Thursday easily passed more than $8 billion in funding to fight the coronavirus, sending the measure to President Trump, who is expected to sign it. Senators voted 96-1 on the bill, which was finalized and cleared the House the day before.... [Sen. Rand] Paul [R-Ky.] was the lone senator to vote against the final measure Thursday." Mrs. McC: Of course.
Kevin Liptak of CNN: "Vice President Mike Pence ... acknowledged Thursday there was a shortfall in the number of [coronavirus] testing kits required to meet demand.... It was the latest in a confusing string of statements from the administration about the availability of coronavirus tests. The issue has emerged as a key flaw in the Trump administration's response, which has frustrated doctors and state health officials who want to identify patients with coronavirus to isolate them and prevent the virus's spread."
U.S. Is Breeding Coronavirus on Cruise Ship. Reed Albergotti, et al., of the Washington Post: "Military helicopters delivered testing kits Thursday to a cruise ship being held off the coast of California, as officials in Washington faced angry questions about whether the vessel is set to become the latest breeding ground for the deadly novel coronavirus.... Public health officials ... were investigating a cluster of coronavirus cases among the roughly 2,500 people who had taken an earlier cruise on the same ship. One of those passengers, a 71-year-old man, has since died of covid-19.... At a hearing on Capitol Hill about the federal response to the novel coronavirus, Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) asked [Ken Cuccinelli, who testified at the hearing,] why the passengers on the Grand Princess were being held offshore in a closed environment, where the virus could spread.... Cuccinelli defended the decision, saying there is not enough capacity on land to quarantine large numbers of passengers."
Anne Flaherty of ABC News: "... Donald Trump is falsely blaming the Obama administration for the slow rollout of U.S. tests for the new coronavirus, ignoring his administration's own fumbles in responding to the health crisis and mischaracterizing Obama-era policies.... 'The Obama administration made a decision on testing that turned out to be very detrimental to what we're doing,' Trump said Wednesday. 'And we undid that decision a few days ago so that the testing can take place in a much more accurate and rapid fashion.' Under Obama, the Food and Drug Administration exercised only some oversight of large commercial test kits shipped across state lines. But there was little to no check done on single medical labs, former officials said.... Last Saturday, the FDA invoked a 2004 law -- passed well before Trump or Obama took office -- to specifically authorize coronavirus tests to be developed in private laboratories like hospitals and given to patients without prior federal approval.... This power was something Health Secretary Alex Azar and the FDA have had since coronavirus became a global health crisis in late January.... Standing next to Trump, Robert Redfield -- head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention -- backed up Trump's mischaracterization of Obama-era policy when it came to medical tests.... The Trump administration has faced sharp questions by state governors and Democratic lawmakers for the lack of tests available to doctors and hospitals." ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Assuming Joe Biden becomes the Democratic presidential nominee, we'll hear from Trump & Co. that Biden was directly responsible for preventing coronavirus testing.
Farah Stockman & Mike Baker of the New York Times: "Nurses in two states who are responding to the onslaught of novel coronavirus cases said in interviews this week that they lack protective equipment, training on how to use whatever equipment they have been given, and clear protocols to keep themselves and their patients safe. Some nurses in the two states, Washington State and California, said they have been asked to watch online videos -- rather than have in-person training -- about how to spot the virus and how to put on and take off hazmat suits. Others said they have had to beg for N95 masks, which are thicker and block out much smaller particles than surgical masks do. And still others said they have faced ridicule when expressing concerns about catching the highly contagious virus." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Dan Diamond, et al., of Politico: "There [was] a notable omission when Vice President Mike Pence visit[ed] Washington state Thursday as part of the Trump administration's coronavirus response: health Secretary Alex Azar. The White House on Wednesday also benched Azar from a coronavirus task force press briefing, the latest sign of diminished standing for an official who was the face of the U.S. response to the disease just a week ago. Four of Azar's deputies -- including Medicare chief Seema Verma and Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Steve Hahn, who were both added to the task force after Pence took over the federal response -- joined the vice president and other officials at the White House on Wednesday.... Pence asked Azar not to attend Wednesday's press conference, said two individuals with knowledge of events."
Kathleen Pender of the San Francisco Chronicle: "California on Thursday became the latest state to order insurance companies to waive out-of-pocket costs for coronavirus testing.... Washington's state insurance commissioner issued a similar order on Thursday, as did New York regulators on Monday." --s
Vera Bergengruen & W.J. Hennigan of Time: "Since January, epidemiologists, former U.S. public health officials and experts have been warning, publicly and privately, that the administration's insistence that containment was -- and should remain -- the primary way to confront an emerging infectious disease was a grave mistake.... Experts say the U.S. response is now likely weeks -- if not months -- behind schedule.... The problem, they say, is that once it was clear that the [corona]virus was within our borders officials did not pivot quickly enough to changing circumstances. And those new circumstances, experts told Time, were entirely predictable." --s
Donald Trump Is a Health Hazard. Toluse Olorunnipa of the Washington Post: "As leading public health experts from across the government have tried to provide clear and consistent information about the deadly coronavirus, they have found their messages undercut, drowned out and muddled by President Trump's push to downplay the outbreak with a mix of optimism, bombast and pseudoscience. Speaking almost daily to the public about an outbreak that has spread across states and rocked the markets, Trump has promoted his opinions and at times contradicted the public health experts tasked with keeping Americans safe. The president has repeatedly misstated the number of Americans who have tested positive for the virus and claimed it would 'miraculously' disappear in the spring. He has given a false timeline for the development of a vaccine, publicly questioned whether vaccinations for the flu could be used to treat the novel coronavirus and dismissed the World Health Organization's coronavirus death rate estimate, substituting a much lower figure and citing a 'hunch.'... The president's running commentary about the coronavirus, untethered to script or convention, indicates that the Trump administration's greatest obstacle to sending a clear message about the outbreak may be Trump himself."
Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times: "So far, Donald Trump's response to coronavirus combines the worst features of autocracy and of democracy, mixing opacity and propaganda with leaderless inefficiency. From the beginning, Trump minimized the scale of the crisis, portraying it as a purely foreign threat that could be addressed by closing borders.... Within the administration, there's strong pressure not to contradict Trump's line.... It seems as if in the midst of this burgeoning crisis, we're seeing a coordinated, whole-of-government campaign to protect the president from being contradicted.... But if this administration is incapable of the basic honesty one expects from officials in a democracy, it also can't pull off autocratic, top-down coordination.... Trump spent much of Thursday afternoon congratulating himself on Twitter for his coronavirus response."
Tony Romm of the Washington Post: "A top State Department official said Thursday that Russia is behind 'swarms of online, false personas' that sought to spread misinformation about coronavirus on social-media sites, stressing the 'entire ecosystem of Russian disinformation is at play.' The latest warning came from Lea Gabrielle, the coordinator of the government's Global Engagement Center, in testimony to Congress.... The Kremlin, in particular, 'seeks to weaken its adversaries by manipulating the information environment in nefarious ways, by polarizing political conversations, and attempting to destroy the public's faith in good governance, independent media, and democratic principles,' she said." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: As I was posting the link above, I was listening to an MSNBC report about Trump's spreading misinformation about coronavirus. In addition, Romm writes that the State Department has added to the confusion of who's behind the misinformation inasmuch as "the State Department report on coronavirus ... did not mention Russia." So I guess I'd put it down to Trump, Trump toadies & Russia. It's one of those conspiracies where the actors don't necessarily speak to each another but reinforce one another as they work toward the same end.
David Fahrenthold, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump's company charged the Secret Service $157,000 more than was previously known -- billing taxpayers for rooms at his clubs at rates far higher than his company has claimed, according to a new trove of receipts and billing documents released by the Secret Service. Many of the new receipts were obtained by the watchdog group Public Citizen, which spent three years battling the Secret Service over a public-records request from January 2017. When added to dozens of charges already reported by The Washington Post, the new documents show that Trump's company has charged the Secret Service more than $628,000 since he took office in 2017. The payments show Trump has an unprecedented -- and still partially hidden -- business relationship with his own government. The full scope of that relationship is still unknown because the publicly available records are largely from 2017 and 2018, leaving huge gaps in the data."
AP: "... Jared Kushner has sold his stake in a company investing in Opportunity Zone projects offering tax breaks he had pushed for in Washington, sparking criticism that he was benefiting from his White House role. A filing at the Office of Government Ethics released Monday shows that Kushner received permission to defer capital gains taxes on the sale of his stake in Cadre, a digital platform for smaller investors in commercial properties. Kushner's holding in the private Cadre was worth between $25 million and $50 million.... Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, pushed for the Opportunity Zone tax breaks to be included in Trump's 2017 tax overhaul.... Kushner also has stakes in more than a dozen properties in Opportunity Zones owned by his family firm, Kushner Cos. It is not clear if the company has taken advantage of the breaks." --s
Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "A federal judge on Thursday sharply criticized Attorney General William P. Barr's handling of the report by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, saying that Mr. Barr put forward a 'distorted' and 'misleading' account of its findings and lacked credibility on the topic. Judge Reggie B. Walton said Mr. Barr could not be trusted and cited 'inconsistencies' between his statements about the report when it was secret and its actual contents that turned out to be more damaging to President Trump. Judge Walton said Mr. Barr's 'lack of candor' called 'into question Attorney General Barr's credibility and, in turn, the department's' assurances to the court. The judge ordered the Justice Department to privately show him the portions of the report that were censored in the public version so he could independently verify the justifications. The ruling came in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking a full-text version of the report." Walton is a Bush II appointee. The Hill has a story here. ~~~
~~~ Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Judge Walton didn't say anything we don't already know, but it is astounding to hear a federal judge effectively call the attorney general a liar in a court proceeding. ~~~
~~~ Kevin Drum of Mother Jones: "How often does a conservative federal judge call a conservative attorney general a liar whose word can't be trusted? Not very often. But Barr is a special case."
Barr Aids Trump's Cruel Immigration Policies. Kim Bellware of the Washington Post: "Attorney General William P. Barr quietly intervened in an immigration asylum case last week when he issued a decision that narrowed the definition of torture for asylum seekers who invoke it as a grounds for staying in the United States. Barr used a process known as 'certification,' a historically little-used power of the attorney general that allows him to overrule decisions made by the Board of Immigration Appeals and set binding precedent. Immigration lawyers and judges say the Trump administration is using the power with greater frequency -- to the point of abuse -- as it seeks to severely limit the number of immigrants who can remain in the United States. The administration is also using it as a check on immigration judges whose decisions don't align with the administration's immigration agenda, experts say." Mrs. McC: IOW, Barr is going above & beyond -- even to the point of facilitating torture -- to help Trump punish asylum seekers. Bill Barr is a horrible human being.
Debbie Cenziper of the Washington Post: "Seventy-five years after the end of the war, a U.S. immigration judge in Memphis has ordered the deportation of a longtime Tennessee resident and German citizen who acknowledged having served as a guard at a concentration camp in Germany and is still receiving a pension for work that includes his wartime service. An index card found submerged in a sunken ship in the Baltic Sea helped federal prosecutors prove their case.... Officials at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum also supported the investigation.... According to the removal order, announced by the Justice Department and Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Thursday, Friedrich Karl Berger served at a subcamp of the Neuengamme concentration camp system, near Hamburg."
Tierney Sneed of TPM: "The apparent refusal of President Trump's Justice Department to engage in any meaningful, public enforcement of the Voting Rights Act has taken Republicans' general hostility to the law to a whole new level. The DOJ has not filed a single new Voting Rights Act case since the Trump administration took over -- setting it apart from the last several administrations, Republican and Democratic.... The current dry spell in DOJ voting rights enforcement is unprecedented, according to the DOJ's own public record and what former voting section officials told TPM.... The Supreme Court's 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder dramatically altered the legal landscape around the VRA in ways that make the current lack of DOJ enforcement even more striking...." --s
Carl Hulse of the New York Times: "Under fire from President Trump and Republican senators who accused him of threatening two conservative Supreme Court justices, Senator Chuck Schumer said on Thursday he 'should not have used the words' he did on Wednesday in a fiery speech warning of the consequences of their rulings. But Mr. Schumer, who chalked up his sharp tongue to his Brooklyn upbringing, refused to apologize for the spirit of his remarks, saying that Republicans would pay a political price if the court struck down abortion rights. 'They didn't come out the way I intended,' Mr. Schumer said of his remarks a day before that Justices Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh ... would 'pay the price' if a contentious Louisiana case the court was hearing ended up reducing access to abortion in the state and across the country.... Mr. Schumer ... said those remarks were not meant as a threat of bodily harm against the justices, but instead as a warning to Mr. Trump and the Republicans who supported his conservative nominees that they could suffer a political backlash for the decisions the justices made. 'And Republicans who are busy manufacturing outrage over these comments know that, too,' Mr. Schumer added." An NBC News story is here.
Jan Ransom of the New York Times: "Harvey Weinstein underwent a heart procedure at a New York City hospital on Wednesday evening and the next day was transferred to a jail on Rikers Island for inmates needing special protection, his spokesman said. Mr. Weinstein, the once powerful film producer, was convicted last week of rape and criminal sexual assault after a trial in Manhattan that many saw as a milestone in the #MeToo movement. A judge ordered him held in jail until his sentencing next week. But hours after the verdict, Mr. Weinstein, 67, experienced extremely high blood pressure and heart palpitations, his lawyers said. He was taken directly from State Supreme Court in Manhattan to Bellevue Hospital Center, where he was treated for 10 days in a ward for inmates. Mr. Weinstein had a stent implanted to alleviate a blockage, his spokesman, Juda Engelmayer, said."
Shannon Vavra of Cyberscoop: "U.S. government officials have warned that the Chinese technology firm [Huawei] could be used as a tool for government surveillance or other intelligence operations, specifically via backdoors in its mobile networks.... In order to answer to each and every accusation, Huawei sent two of its top cybersecurity officials -- Chief Security Officer Andy Purdy and Vice President of Risk Management and Partner Relations Tim Danks -- to the RSA Conference in San Francisco last week. In an interview with CyberScoop..., the executives indicated they don't really have visibility into how their technology is used." --s
Beyond the Beltway
Another Legal American Murder. Alabama. Kenya Evelyn of the Guardian: "Alabama has executed Nathaniel Woods, a prisoner convicted of capital murder for the 2004 killings of three police officers, despite a national outcry over his case. The execution by lethal injection came after the US supreme court issued a temporary stay to consider last-minute appeals and then denied the inmate's petitions. Alabama governor Kay Ivey denied a request for clemency.... The execution proceeded despite the co-defendant, Kerry Spencer, supporting Woods' innocence.... Woods' supporters also point to a joint investigation between The Appeal and the Alabama Media Group that uncovered several accusations of police misconduct involving Woods' case." The New York Times story is here.
Way Beyond
Azerbaijan/U.K. Edward Robinson, et al. of Bloomberg: "Jahangir Hajiyev..., then chairman of the International Bank of Azerbaijan, had used a chain of trusts and shell companies stretching from Cyprus to the Channel Islands to move tens of millions of dollars out of the state-owned lender, according to allegations in U.K. court filings.... Hajiyev [was] charged in Azerbaijan ... [and] was sentenced to 15 years in prison.... The U.K.'s National Crime Agency obtained court orders in 2018 freezing some of his assets.... The authorities have said they hope the case will be a blueprint for curbing the estimated 100 billion pounds ($128 billion) in dirty money that worms its way into Britain every year.... The trove of documents reviewed by Bloomberg provides a rare look at the inner workings of two dozen shell companies that moved Hajiyev's illicit wealth around the world." --s (Firewalled.)
News Lede
The New York Times' live updates of developments in the coronavirus epidemic are here. "... around the world, as the number of cases neared 100,000, governments have displayed signs of paralysis, obfuscation and a desire to protect their own interests, even as death tolls passed 3,200 and global capitals were so threatened by infection that politicians and health officials tested positive for the illness. In the United States, a survey of nurses found that only 29 percent had a plan to isolate potentially infected patients. Across the nation, as the number of new cases passed 200, public health labs anxiously awaited diagnostic kits, which will allow for a fuller sense of the scale of the crisis."
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Reader Comments (19)
@NiskyGuy wrote late yesterday:
I think we're losing some digits in our calculations.
If we say that Bloomberg spent $500,000,000 ($500 Million) and we divide that by 3,300,000 Americans, that's $151.52 per person.
If he were to give away his entire fortune, let's round his fortune up to $66 Billion for computational ease.
$66,000,000,000 / $3,300,000 = $20,000
That is lots of money, but not the mind-blowing figures, giving every American $1Million every year for 180 years stated above [in yesterday's Comments].
By NiskyGuy
@NiskyGuy: The claims was, "Bloomberg could have literally wired $1 million to EVERY American for less money than what he just infused into corporate media orgs. for basically a branding exercise."
On the face of it, that doesn't sound right, does it? Otherwise, why wouldn't Bloomberg have sent a majority of eligible primary voters in every state he was running $1MM in exchange for their votes? (This could be effected in most states by controlling the promisers' absentee ballots.) Millions would go for the millions.
But the claim was every American, not just eligible Democratic voters in most states.
So that's 3,330,000 x $1,000,000. Correct me if I'm wrong (and I may be): that's $3,330,000,000,000 or $3.33 trillion. Bloomberg doesn't have that much money.
I think when you add up what Bloomberg actually spent on his vanity candidacy, it probably comes closer to $1BB, including the costs of setting up his offices & staff. But that's a far cry from $3.33 trillion.
So you're right. (Not sure where you got the 180 years, but maybe I just missed it.)
Thanks, Nisky Guy (and Bea) for doing the math.
Too bad Brian Williams and Maya Gay didn't give the claim a second thought before presenting and discussing it tonight on "The Eleventh Hour," as if it made sense. Williams did correct it later in the broadcast when someone off camera must have done the math and passed him a note...
When I read it I didn't think the problem was decimals but words. The claim assumed not 500 million, but 500 million million.
But then I'm an English teacher who is more comfortabe with words than numbers and thinks tweets might have their place but the hurry the medium implies doesn't encourage much reflection or thought.
I acknowledge being the source that first spread the awful mathematics referred to above. I apologize and hereby cease and desist any further attempts at mathematical calculations, promise to attempt to engage my brain cells in a more rigorous manner heretofore, and above all not get mentally railroaded by the disease that is social media (Twitter, in this case) from where the said calculation was first encountered and spread.
A casual observation on the topic of the moment, if I may. Without going back to retrace the provenance of the possibility of significant largesse (large largesse?) on the part of the recently retired Mike Bloomberg, as per Safari’s confession, an honest mistake, certainly, one is struck by the insidious nature of sidelong “information” passed around on social media.
I doubt this one was much more than someone’s erratic calculation. But millions of not so erratic, but nonetheless equally squirrelly, and too often obscenely mendacious crapola gets sprayed around the planet in seconds, every day. Some Trumpbot picks up on a Russian, or Limbaugh or Trump-originated lie (same thing, really), and it’s Katy bar the door.
But not before Uncle Charlie gets a tweet in his in-box that “proves” that Joe Biden and his kid were in bed with Hillary Clinton, kidnapping sweet young Christian girls to be sent down the sex slave pipeline. But don’t worry. Uncle Charlie will make sure he corroborates this new “fact”. He checks it out on the Breibart comments page, where seventy other jabronis who read the same thing are all up in arms about it, sending this delectable morsel off to a couple hundred thousand other deplorables, who all do the same thing.
Maybe, just maybe, that Bloomberg money was meant to help kidnap MORE 12 year old virgins so they could be sent to Obama, who’d “try them out” before passing them along to his ‘Merica hating Mooslim buddies in Ubeki-beki-stan-stan.
Thanks, Safari!!
I must admit, it was my wife who snapped me back to reality with the immediate and concise text of: "Huh?"
Was it put out on social media to illustrate how easy it is to get people who want to believe something to believe truly false and far more destructive stuff? In the rear-view mirror, of course, it is clear that Bloomberg could only give 500 people $1 Million before he had spent $500 Million (or 1,000 people before he spent $1 Billion).
I understand that Bloomberg has an amount of money that I cannot fathom, but distributing 90% of that money will not put all of America into McMansions. Having said that, I of course think the wealthy in this country have more than enough to pay their employees and/or underlings in their investment entities enough to have health care and a living wage, so they can afford to not go to work when they are stricken with a communicable disease. Doesn't everyone want a healthy waiter?
NiskyGuy,
You mean you’d rather not have a nice cup of Covfefe-19 after your meal at the local eatery? According to the Orange Menace those mooching servers don’t deserve a living wage, and if they contract something horrible, they should be good little members of the Trumpen proletariat and crawl off to die somewhere so’s not to give anyone the idea that he has no clue what to do about a possible pandemic other than spread rumors, lies, and talk of miracle cures. Oh, but before they croak, they should go to that phony Trump census site and make a donation to him personally.
I’ll have another cup of covfefe, waiter, if you please. Just don’t breathe on me...
Am so glad you guys straightened out all those millions and billions and largesses ––just goes to show how we little people have trouble getting our heads around all that mammoth mana that flows freely from thems that have it.
I am deeply disappointed that Warren has left the contest. For my money–-there's that word again––she would have been one of our most capable presidents. Her policies would have helped many more people of slender means than Biden and yet...
Many other countries don't seem to have a problem with putting a woman in charge–-why do we? Perhaps we still retain that "father figure" mentality ( "God" has certainly had a long run)–-even now when we have Biden and Bernie, Biden LOOKS the part, and "looks" for some make a difference unfortunately.
From yesteryear:
Ezra Klein has observed that Elizabeth Warren, a politician very different from Hillary, has begun to receive the same gender based treatment that Hillary faced. He said:
"We routinely underestimate what it means that our political system has been constructed and interpreted by men, that our expectations for politicians have been shaped by generations of male politicians and shaped by generations of male pundits."
If in 2020 we have a woman brave enough to take the plunge let's hope by then we will have gotten a lot wiser and a lot less male-oriented politically. I keep having high hopes for this country despite–––I'm old enough to realize how far we have come even though now it seems everything is falling apart, the center is still holding––I think it's strong enough to see us through this.
January 28, 2018
As of this morning there are just over 328 million of us in the USA.
One million $ times 328 million comes to $328,000,000,000,000.00
or 328 trillion dollars.
You're welcome.
It's Medicare or Coronavirus for All: (Amy Goodwin & D. Moynihan)
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/its-medicare-or-coronavirus-for-all/
Something I am not clear about re: Bernie's Medicare for all policy: I have medicare but it doesn't cover everything so one has to get a supplement which one gets from a private insurance company, therefore unless Medicare would change it's payments, there would still be private insurance companies, right? If that would be the case why all the hoopla about socialistic medicine?
"Joe Biden is a Fraud" by Norman Soloman––fodder for Fatty and Bernie's to fustigate.
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/joe-biden-is-a-phony-plain-and-simple/
And thank you, Forrest.
Too many zeroes do overwhelm (I think when confronted by too long a string of them many if not most of us suffer from MEGO), which may be why I prefer words.
Here's a chart we can all carry in our pockets, along with those phone numbers and grocery lists and other reminders that used to be on the smartphone tweet machine we just tossed out.
_000. Thousand
_000,000 Million
_000,000,000 Billion
_000,000,000,000 Trillion
@PD Pepe: I suppose one could still buy "Cadillac plans" that covered services & procedures not covered by Medicare-for-All, but basically, you would not need supplemental health insurance any more. Under Sanders' plan, those currently on Medicare would transfer to the new Medicare-for-All plan (you have four years to do so) which has no co-pays or other fees, except for pharmaceuticals. Everybody else -- that is, people not currently on Medicare -- would be on the same, cost-free plan. (I use "cost-free" in the loosest sense, because most of us would be paying higher taxes for Bernie's plan.)
Medicare itself is of course "socialistic medicine," as you put it, although not entirely. Everyone over the age of 65 or otherwise eligible for Medicare currently pays for Medicare insurance on an ability-to-pay basis. The feds automatically take the insurance fee out of my Social Security benefits, and they probably do the same with yours. That is, wealthier people pay more than poorer people, who may not pay anything. Whether or not you carry supplemental insurance is currently your choice, but you wouldn't need it under Bernie's plan. So, yes, Medicare payments would change for everyone who pays anything into Medicare & for millions who don't but would be put on the Medicare-for-All plan.
This Vox article from last April explains the basics.
It seems to me that a big drawback for Warren's candidacy was her insistence on coming up with actual plans that worked and could withstand scrutiny. The lesson of the last presidential election was apparently lost on her. The "winner" (or at least the asshole who was helped by Russians to ratfuck the election), never wasted time with all that planning business. Plans, schmans.
He just made shit up.
Whatever he thought his rabid fans wanted to hear, he just invented it on the spot. Medical care a lot better and waaaay cheaper than the ACA? Sure. No problem. Got that right here. Save the coal industry? Hey, why not? Got a plan for that. Best ever. Bring back manufacturing? All taken care of. What? You wanna see my plans? Sorry, someone might steal my wonderful ideas. Just put me in the White House, you'll see. (His "peace plan" for Afghanistan, a "plan" that purportedly addresses the issues of the longest war in US history, takes up almost three pages. Three WHOLE pages. Most of which are probably written in 48 point type that says "Trump is the best!" QED.)
Warren, too pointy headed and honest to sink to such tawdry tactics, is just too honorable to be president after such a lying piece of shit.
But seriously, we owe her, and the other women who tossed their hats in the ring (yes, even Gabbard), a big "Thank you". They're helping to lay the groundwork for what will be a huge event. It's still amazing to me that we had a black president before a woman (even a white one), but women still have to fight misogynistic bullshit like I saw online a while back, where some idiot declared that he didn't like the idea of having a president who was unstable four or five days a month. Are you kidding, pal? I'd LOVE to have a president who was unstable ONLY four or five days a month.
Anyway, thanks, ladies.
Thanks all, I realize now that my numbers were off by a factor of 1.0x10^6. It's a good thing that I don't work for NASA.
Bea,
If you have access to the current New Yorker cover and copyright allows, it would look right nice here.
Forgot.
As I suspected, the Romney spine was temporary. Romney and a spine: a marriage of convenience, easily annulled.
@Ken: And he won't be able to sue the New Yorker because
they didn't make the face orange.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2020/03/05/pompeo-says-us-shield-troops-international-war-crimes-probe/4897766002/
What's the worry?
Can't the Pretender just pardon any American soldiers found guilty of war crimes?
He's done it before.