![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solarbirdThe third item is worse than it looks - it's literally and explicitly a demand that they cover Donkeyballs Donald's psudo-rally "briefings" live and in full (without cutting away to fact check) or they get no more health officials on their network ever. It's straight up a demand for unlimited free airtime for Donkeyballs and his stream of lies.
I'm imagining that their current practice of cutting away to do fact check has pissed off the administration no end. And they're going to do their damnedest to put a stop to it.
Fortunately, they backed down later in the day. The link goes to an updated story.
Item four is a straight up dictatorship play, and indicative of what they'll do if they get real power. I checked. "Liberty University PD" is an actual recognised law enforcement agency - real cops - which means these arrest warrants are real arrest warrants.
The next few items are all about trying to stop us from voting. Five states vote entirely by mail, including mine. Four are Democratic bastions. The Republicans are trying to shut down the entire fucking postal service, and part of that is, I'm getting pretty convinced, is to keep us from voting at all.
What Gavon Newsom is doing is basically what Washington State and Oregon have been doing, just with less fanfare. Cascadia Now, I guess.
Oh, and Donkeyballs Donald is going off about his ratings again while mass burials proceed in NYC. Pretty easy to get good ratings when you're on every news channel, you know?
----- 1 -----
Trump is pushing a false argument on vote-by-mail fraud. Here are the facts.
By Stephanie Saul and Reid J. Epstein
The New York Times
April 8, 2020
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation-politics/trump-is-pushing-a-false-argument-on-vote-by-mail-fraud-here-are-the-facts/
With concerns mounting over how the country can conduct elections during a pandemic and Democrats pressing for alternatives to in-person voting, President Donald Trump has begun pushing a false argument that has circulated among conservatives for years — that voting by mail is a recipe for fraud.
“Mail ballots, they cheat,” Trump said at the White House on Tuesday afternoon. “Mail ballots are very dangerous for this country because of cheaters. They go collect them. They are fraudulent in many cases. They have to vote. They should have voter ID, by the way.”
The president spoke as Wisconsin voters, many wearing protective masks, were going to the polls on a fraught Election Day, after the Republican-led legislature refused Democratic demands to delay the election and allow for expanded mail-in voting. On Wednesday, Trump claimed again that there was “tremendous potential for voter fraud.”
Here’s a look at the facts on the matter.
----- 2 -----
As Trump’s failures mount, one governor sounds an ominous warning
By Greg Sargent
April 9, 2020
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/09/trumps-failures-mount-one-governor-sounds-an-ominous-warning/
With coronavirus deaths in the U.S. rapidly approaching 15,000, we are now learning that the federal government’s national stockpile of medical supplies is almost depleted. Meanwhile, the failure to ramp up testing to the needed degree remains a “signature failure,” as the New York Times puts it.
One person who is well positioned to shed light on what all this means is Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington state. His state was an initial epicenter, but there are signs the curve is flattening, which means Inslee both has extensive experience of how federal failures hampered the response and is already contemplating what comes next.
In an interview, Inslee, a Democrat, shared fresh details on how President Trump’s lack of “urgency” is directly contributing to equipment shortages hobbling response efforts — and hinted at an alarming scenario ahead.
“We could use a stronger voice out of the White House to mobilize this nation,” Inslee told me. “We need a giant leap for mankind now, not just small steps.”
Inslee discussed difficulties in procuring equipment that are inexplicable and infuriating. As dogged reporting has shown, the federal government’s handling of medical supply chains has left states and health-care providers scrambling in a state of confusion and without badly needed supplies.
As many experts have noted — and as Inslee reiterated — this is in part a direct outgrowth of Trump’s failure to fully deploy the Defense Production Act to marshal private sector resources.
The inability to procure needed supplies for testing remains a major problem for Washington state, Inslee noted, but the specifics of why this is the case are notable.
One major problem is that the federal government’s haphazard approach has created a vast mismatch in availability among disparate parts needed to make testing possible.
For instance, Inslee noted, the state has unused testing capacity right now in large part because it lacks one thing: the swabs needed to take samples.
“It seems ridiculous that the United States can’t produce enough swabs to solve this problem,” Inslee told me. “I have 50 or 60 long-term care facilities that have infections in them that we literally have not been able to do the testing we want of remaining residents and staff.”
Inslee said his state might have finally found a supplier to meet this need — for now — but he added that the shortage of another part (such as vials) will surely become a problem in the very near term.
The overarching issue, Inslee told me, is “an inadequate supply chain” that’s “grossly inadequate to the demand.”
A month of lost time
Inslee said this problem is directly traceable to “at least a month” of lost time, because “the president was downplaying this problem and had not engaged the full force of the federal government.”
“We should have been a month ahead on the supply chain compared to where we are,” Inslee said.
In another unsettling example, Inslee noted that he recently asked the CEO of a private company that is manufacturing the transport medium for tests if it could ramp up production with double shifts.
“She said, ‘Well, maybe — we have to find a way to finance that,’” Inslee told me. This surprised him, because it seems like something the federal government should already be communicating with such manufacturers about.
“I would have thought the federal government would have talked to every single manufacturer in the nation who either makes this, or could make this, by this point, and said, ‘Look, we’re going to finance a double shift,’” Inslee told me. “That hasn’t happened.”
These problems appear to flow directly from a kind of schizophrenic approach adopted by the federal government. Trump initially told states they were mostly on their own, which led to a bidding war among states seeking supplies from a range of manufacturers and suppliers. Now the feds have sought to exert control over distribution, but it appears piecemeal and partial.
In Inslee’s telling, this has resulted in a double whammy: a shortage of supplies and a lack of coordination of availability of parts. This could be mitigated by a much more robust and coordinated response via the Defense Production Act.
“We still haven’t had the federal government use all its resources to really mobilize the full force of the manufacturing base of the United States,” Inslee told me.
An ominous warning
Along these lines, Inslee warned of another looming problem.
As coronavirus cases recede in the coming months, if anything, more testing will be required. That’s because when people reassemble, it will be urgent to jump on cases in which people again show symptoms, and test them, to avoid a second wave.
“As we want to reopen our schools, as we want to reopen our industries, the amount of testing we need will actually increase,” Inslee said. “In the second wave, we have to have testing, a resource base, and a contact-tracing base that is so much more scaled up than right now. It’s an enormous challenge.”
Inslee stressed that many federal government officials are working very hard and that in many cases, needed equipment has been delivered, for which he is thankful. But he reiterated his call for Trump to exercise “urgency to really mobilize this whole industrial supply chain.”
“What we need now, what won World War II, was a quartermaster,” Inslee said. “That’s how you win wars. That’s what we need — a quartermaster.”
Recently, Trump was directly confronted with glaring evidence of this. His own administration released a report documenting urgent shortages faced by hospital administrators around the country, who offered constructive suggestions on how the federal government can help save American lives.
In response, Trump lashed out in a rage, and pretended those problems are simply nonexistent.
Needless to say, that’s not the quartermaster we need.
----- 3 -----
Pence's office blocks public health officials from appearing on CNN
By Oliver Darcy, CNN Business
April 9, 2020
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/09/media/pence-office-tv-bookings-coronavirus/index.html
[ETA: After prepping this version to post, the White House backed down and is allowing public health officials to appear on CNN, apparently without their demands being met. CNN held the line. Transcript here reflects the original version of the story, not the revised.]
New York (CNN Business)Vice President Mike Pence's office has declined to allow the nation's top health officials to appear on CNN in recent days and discuss the coronavirus pandemic killing thousands of Americans, in an attempt to pressure the network into carrying the White House's lengthy daily briefings in full.
Pence's office, which is responsible for booking the officials on networks during the pandemic, said it will only allow experts such as Dr. Deborah Birx or Dr. Anthony Fauci to appear on CNN if the network televises the portion of the White House briefings that includes the vice president and other coronavirus task force members.
CNN often only broadcasts President Donald Trump's question and answer session, which sometimes includes the health care officials, live on-air.
After Trump leaves the podium, CNN frequently cuts out of the White House briefing to discuss and fact-check what the President had said. A CNN executive said that the network usually returns to such programming because of the extensive length of the full briefing that includes Pence, which can run in excess of two hours.
CNN did, however, air the vice president's portion of the briefing Wednesday night.
Regardless, Pence's office has declined to make the nation's top health care officials available to CNN for the last seven days.
"When you guys cover the briefings with the health officials then you can expect them back on your air," a Pence spokesperson told CNN.
----- 4 -----
Liberty University police issue arrest warrants for NYT, ProPublica reporters
By Joe Concha
04/09/20
[EDITOR'S NOTE: According to Wikipedia, this is an actual law-enforcement agency in Virginia, making these actual arrest warrants.]
https://thehill.com/homenews/media/492015-liberty-university-police-issue-arrest-warrants-for-nyt-propublica-reporters
Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. on Wednesday said that arrest warrants had been issued for reporters from The New York Times and ProPublica after both publications wrote stories criticizing his decision last month to partially reopen his Virginia-based college.
Photos of the arrest warrants for New York Times freelance photographer Julia Rendleman and ProPublica reporter Alec MacGillis were published on the website of conservative radio host Todd Starnes. The warrant alleges each committed misdemeanor trespassing on campus while gathering information for their respective stories.
...
"The arrest warrants are issued by a magistrate based on information derived from an investigation conducted by Liberty University Police Department, the police agency with primary jurisdiction, based on reports of criminal trespassing on posted property made by Liberty University," the university told The Hill in an email.
The New York Times and ProPublica have each stood by their reporting.
"Our freelance photographer was engaged in the most routine form of news gathering: taking a picture of a person who was interviewed for a news story," said a Times spokesperson in an email to The Hill. "We are disappointed that Liberty University would decide to make that into a criminal case and go after a freelance journalist because its officials were unhappy with press coverage of the university's decision to convene classes in the midst of the pandemic.”
----- 5 -----
Rep. Gerry Connolly
twitter.com/GerryConnolly
9 April 2020
https://twitter.com/GerryConnolly/status/1248334335658336256
I spoke with the Postmaster General again today. She could not have been more clear:
The Postal Service will collapse without urgent intervention, and it will happen soon.
We’ve pleaded with the White House to help. twitter.com/realDonaldTrump personally directed his staff not to do so.
[QUOTED TWEET]
Nicholas Fandos
twitter.com/npfandos
9 April 2020
https://twitter.com/npfandos/status/1248314375406080000
NEW w/@jimtankersley: The coronavirus pandemic is ravaging the United States Postal Service.
Mail vol down 30% this week, compared to same time last year. Could be down 50% by end of June
USPS told Congress today it needs a cash infusion and fast.
https://nytimes.com/2020/04/09/us/
----- 6 -----
Most Americans, unlike Trump, want mail-in ballots for November if coronavirus threatens: Reuters/Ipsos poll
Chris Kahn
Tue Apr 7, 2020 / 7:09 PM EDT
https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN21P3G0
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Most Americans, including a majority of Republicans, want the government to require mail-in ballots for the Nov. 3 presidential election if the coronavirus outbreak still threatens the public this autumn, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found.
President Donald Trump, who is seeking re-election this year, has been trying with other Republicans to discourage efforts to expand voting by mail, saying it would increase the chance of voter fraud.
But the poll conducted on Monday and Tuesday found that 72% of all U.S. adults, including 79% of Democrats and 65% of Republicans, supported a requirement for mail-in ballots as a way to protect voters in case of a continued spread of the respiratory disease later this year.
The United States leads the world in coronavirus cases, with more than 385,000 infections. More than 11,900 people in the country have died. Public health measures to curb the pandemic have hammered the U.S. economy, with many businesses closing or scaling back while unemployment soars.
----- 7 -----
Oversight erased, Supreme Court hijacked: Trump turns the presidency into a dictatorship
Trump has stripped away the levers of independent oversight until there's nothing left. Our democracy is in the midst of a three-alarm fire.
Kurt Bardella
Opinion columnist
9 April 2020
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/04/09/trump-removes-inspectors-general-blatant-corruption-column/2973535001/
When former Vice President Joe Biden entered the Democratic presidential race a year ago, he introduced the now familiar theme that the “soul of this nation” was at stake in the 2020 election. Judging by what we’ve seen from President Donald Trump over the past few days, Biden is right.
It began Friday night, when Trump informed Congress that he was firing MIchael Atkinson, the Intelligence Community’s inspector general. This was nothing more than a vile act of political retribution that had been months in the making. Atkinson fulfilled his legal responsibilities by informing Congress about a whistleblower complaint that exposed Trump’s impeachable crimes. What everyone else recognizes as following the letter of the law, the president views as cause for termination.
On Monday, Trump turned his attention to the inspector general who oversees the Department of Health and Human Services, who had just released a report revealing the extent to which hospitals were struggling to meet the health care demands associated with treating COVID-19 patients. The thorough review included interviews from 323 hospitals across 46 states and stood in stark contrast with the rhetoric coming from the president. Naturally, Trump labeled the report a “Fake Dossier” and suggested “politics” influenced it.
Irony is alive, oversight is dead
On Tuesday, the president removed Pentagon Inspector General Glenn Fine. He had just been designated to oversee the newly created Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, a watchdog panel authorized by Congress to conduct oversight of the $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief bill. The same day, Trump said he had seven IGs in his sights — prompting Sen. Chris Murphy to announce he would draft a bill to “give all Inspectors General protected 7 year terms.”
The irony here is that Republicans once cautioned about this exact thing before Trump infected them and they abandoned every principle they once proclaimed to stand for. There was a time when oversight over massive government spending was the centerpiece of the Republican oversight agenda. My former boss and House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa actually declared that “This money, at the American people’s expense, going through the hands of political leaders, in in fact corrupting the process.” He literally called the Obama administration “the most corrupt government in history.” Where are those Republicans now?
----- 8 -----
Trump is terrified that voting in November might be too easy
By Paul Waldman
Opinion writer
April 9, 2020 at 9:42 a.m. PDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/09/trump-is-terrified-that-voting-november-might-be-too-easy/
President Trump’s reelection is in danger, but he has found a ray of hope: If the voting in November can be as difficult and chaotic as possible, he just might pull out a victory.
All he has to do is stop states from allowing everyone to vote by mail.
So on Twitter and in his daily campaign appearances disguised as coronavirus briefings, Trump has begun a an effort to convince everyone — or at least Republicans — that any election conducted mostly with mail ballots would be inherently illegitimate and must not be allowed:
----- 9 -----
Staggering Surge Of NYers Dying In Their Homes Suggests City Is Undercounting Coronavirus Fatalities
By Gwynne Hogan, WNYC
April 7, 2020
https://gothamist.com/news/surge-number-new-yorkers-dying-home-officials-suspect-undercount-covid-19-related-deaths
If you die at home from the coronavirus, there’s a good chance you won’t be included in the official death toll, because of a discrepancy in New York City’s reporting process. Update: After WNYC/Gothamist's reporting, the city has reversed its position and will count probable COVID-19 deaths that occur at home.
The problem means the city’s official death count is likely far lower than the real toll taken by the virus, according to public health officials.
It also means that victims without access to testing are not being counted, and even epidemiologists are left without a full understanding of the pandemic.
As of Monday afternoon, 2,738 New York City residents have died from ‘confirmed’ cases of COVID-19, according to the city Department of Health. That’s an average of 245 a day since the previous Monday.
But another 200 city residents are now dying at home each day, compared to 20 to 25 such deaths before the pandemic, said Aja Worthy-Davis, a spokeswoman for the medical examiner’s office. And an untold number of them are unconfirmed.
----- 10 -----
Gavin Newsom Declares California a ‘Nation-State’
The state is at odds with the federal government over coronavirus plans and much else.
By Francis Wilkinson
April 9, 2020
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-04-09/california-declares-independence-from-trump-s-coronavirus-plans
California this week declared its independence from the federal government’s feeble efforts to fight Covid-19 — and perhaps from a bit more. The consequences for the fight against the pandemic are almost certainly positive. The implications for the brewing civil war between Trumpism and America’s budding 21st-century majority, embodied by California’s multiracial liberal electorate, are less clear.
Speaking on MSNBC, Governor Gavin Newsom said that he would use the bulk purchasing power of California “as a nation-state” to acquire the hospital supplies that the federal government has failed to provide. If all goes according to plan, Newsom said, California might even “export some of those supplies to states in need.”
“Nation-state.” “Export.”
Newsom is accomplishing a few things here, with what can only be a deliberate lack of subtlety. First and foremost, he is trying to relieve the shortage of personal protective equipment — a crisis the White House has proved incapable of remedying. Details are a little fuzzy, but Newsom, according to news reports, has organized multiple suppliers to deliver roughly 200 million masks monthly.
Second, Newsom is kicking sand in the face of President Donald Trump after Newsom’s previous flattery — the coin of the White House realm — failed to produce results. If Trump can’t manage to deliver supplies, there’s no point in Newsom continuing the charade.
Third, and this may be the most enduring effect, Newsom is sending a powerful message to both political parties. So far, the Republican Party’s war on democratic values, institutions and laws has been a largely one-sided affair, with the GOP assaulting and the Democratic Party defending. The lethal ruling this week by the U.S. Supreme Court’s Republican bloc, which required Wisconsin residents to vote in person during a pandemic that shut down polling stations, is a preview of the fall campaign. The GOP intends to restrict vote-by-mail and other legitimate enfranchisement to suppress turnout amid fear, uncertainty and disease.
At some point this civil war by other means, with the goal of enshrining GOP minority rule, will provoke a Democratic counteroffensive. Newsom, leader of the nation’s largest state, is perhaps accelerating that response, shaking Democrats out of denial and putting Republicans on notice. California, an economic behemoth whose taxpayers account for 15% of individual contributions to the U.S. Treasury, is now toning up at muscle beach.
----- 11 -----
Courtney Milan
twitter.com/courtneymilan
4:09 PM · Apr 9, 2020
[THREAD, this is the start, go read it]
https://twitter.com/courtneymilan/status/1248387658306351107
The thing I want everyone to understand about CoVid is that there *is* no trade off between the economy and health. There is none. Anyone telling you otherwise is not grappling with the facts of the illness.
[THREAD go read it]
----- 12 -----
Coronavirus May ‘Reactivate’ in Cured Patients, Korean CDC Says
By Kyunghee Park
April 8, 2020
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-09/coronavirus-may-reactivate-in-cured-patients-korean-cdc-says
The coronavirus may be “reactivating” in people who have been cured of the illness, according to Korea’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
About 51 patients classed as having been cured in South Korea have tested positive again, the CDC said in a briefing on Monday. Rather than being infected again, the virus may have been reactivated in these people, given they tested positive again shortly after being released from quarantine, said Jeong Eun-kyeong, director-general of the Korean CDC.
“While we are putting more weight on reactivation as the possible cause, we are conducting a comprehensive study on this,” Jeong said. “There have been many cases when a patient during treatment will test negative one day and positive another.”
A patient is deemed fully recovered when two tests conducted with a 24-hour interval show negative results.
The Korean CDC will conduct an epidemiological probe into the cases, Jeong said.
----- 13 -----
Kushner Cos. Gets $800 Million Federally Backed Apartment Loan
By David Kocieniewski and Caleb Melby
May 23, 2019, 3:58 PM PDT
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-23/kushner-cos-gets-800-million-federally-backed-apartment-loan
Kushner Cos., the real estate firm owned by the family of President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, has received about $800 million in federally backed debt to buy apartments in Maryland and Virginia -- the company’s biggest purchase in a decade.
The loan was issued by Berkadia, a lender co-owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and Jefferies Financial Group Inc., in a deal that’s backed by government-owned Freddie Mac, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be named discussing the private transaction.
The arrangement increases the government’s exposure to Kushner Cos. at the same time that its former chief executive officer is one of the most powerful people in the White House. Jared Kushner divested ownership in many of the company’s assets to close family members when he joined the government. Kushner Cos. had more than $500 million in loans from Fannie and Freddie at that time.
Spokespeople for Kushner Cos., Berkadia and Freddie Mac didn’t respond to requests for comment. Peter Mirijanian, a spokesman for Jared Kushner’s attorney Abbe Lowell, has frequently said that Kushner has no involvement in the company’s management.
“As part of an ethics agreement he has and has followed, Mr. Kushner has had no role in the Kushner Companies or its activities since joining the government over two years ago,” Mirijanian said in a February email when Bloomberg first reported on the government’s potential involvement. “He is walled off from any business or investment decisions and has no idea or knowledge of these activities."
Bloomberg reported in February that Kushner was purchasing 6,030 apartments across 16 properties in the two states from private equity firm Lone Star Funds in a $1.15 billion deal. The Real Deal reported earlier Thursday on the closing of the transaction.
----- 14 -----
Amy stays home & washes her hands, over and over.
twitter.com/AmyKotas
9 April 2020
https://twitter.com/AmyKotas/status/1248450141234827264
People from NY are being buried in mass graves and this psychopath is talking about ratings. #TrumpBurialPits
[QUOTED TWEET]
Donald J. Trump
twitter.com/realDonaldTrump
9 April 2020
The Wall Street Journal always “forgets” to mention that the ratings for the White House Press Briefings are “through the roof” (Monday Night Football, Bachelor Finale, according tonytimes) & is only way for me to escape the Fake News & get my views across. WSJ is Fake News!
----- 15 -----
NowThis
twitter.com/nowthisnews
9 April 2020
[NOTE: TO BE CLEAR, this is standard practice, LONG predating this outbreak. But there's still a lot more of it now.]
https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1248374630399672321
This drone footage captures NYC workers burying bodies in a mass grave on Hart Island, just off the coast of the Bronx. For over a century, the island has served as a potter’s field for deceased with no known next of kin or families unable to pay for funerals.
[EMBEDDED VIDEO]
I'm imagining that their current practice of cutting away to do fact check has pissed off the administration no end. And they're going to do their damnedest to put a stop to it.
Fortunately, they backed down later in the day. The link goes to an updated story.
Item four is a straight up dictatorship play, and indicative of what they'll do if they get real power. I checked. "Liberty University PD" is an actual recognised law enforcement agency - real cops - which means these arrest warrants are real arrest warrants.
The next few items are all about trying to stop us from voting. Five states vote entirely by mail, including mine. Four are Democratic bastions. The Republicans are trying to shut down the entire fucking postal service, and part of that is, I'm getting pretty convinced, is to keep us from voting at all.
What Gavon Newsom is doing is basically what Washington State and Oregon have been doing, just with less fanfare. Cascadia Now, I guess.
Oh, and Donkeyballs Donald is going off about his ratings again while mass burials proceed in NYC. Pretty easy to get good ratings when you're on every news channel, you know?
- Trump is pushing a false argument on vote-by-mail fraud. Here are the facts.
- As Trump’s failures mount, one governor sounds an ominous warning
- Pence's office blocks public health officials from appearing on CNN
- Liberty University police issue arrest warrants for NYT, ProPublica reporters
- The Postal Service will collapse without urgent intervention, and it will happen soon.
- Most Americans, unlike Trump, want mail-in ballots for November if coronavirus threatens: Reuters/Ipsos poll
- Oversight erased, Supreme Court hijacked: Trump turns the presidency into a dictatorship
- Trump is terrified that voting in November might be too easy
- Staggering Surge Of NYers Dying In Their Homes Suggests City Is Undercounting Coronavirus Fatalities
- Gavin Newsom Declares California a ‘Nation-State’
- There *is* no trade off between the economy and health.
- Coronavirus May ‘Reactivate’ in Cured Patients, Korean CDC Says
- Kushner Cos. Gets $800 Million Federally Backed Apartment Loan
- This drone footage captures NYC workers burying bodies in a mass grave on Hart Island
----- 1 -----
Trump is pushing a false argument on vote-by-mail fraud. Here are the facts.
By Stephanie Saul and Reid J. Epstein
The New York Times
April 8, 2020
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation-politics/trump-is-pushing-a-false-argument-on-vote-by-mail-fraud-here-are-the-facts/
With concerns mounting over how the country can conduct elections during a pandemic and Democrats pressing for alternatives to in-person voting, President Donald Trump has begun pushing a false argument that has circulated among conservatives for years — that voting by mail is a recipe for fraud.
“Mail ballots, they cheat,” Trump said at the White House on Tuesday afternoon. “Mail ballots are very dangerous for this country because of cheaters. They go collect them. They are fraudulent in many cases. They have to vote. They should have voter ID, by the way.”
The president spoke as Wisconsin voters, many wearing protective masks, were going to the polls on a fraught Election Day, after the Republican-led legislature refused Democratic demands to delay the election and allow for expanded mail-in voting. On Wednesday, Trump claimed again that there was “tremendous potential for voter fraud.”
Here’s a look at the facts on the matter.
----- 2 -----
As Trump’s failures mount, one governor sounds an ominous warning
By Greg Sargent
April 9, 2020
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/09/trumps-failures-mount-one-governor-sounds-an-ominous-warning/
With coronavirus deaths in the U.S. rapidly approaching 15,000, we are now learning that the federal government’s national stockpile of medical supplies is almost depleted. Meanwhile, the failure to ramp up testing to the needed degree remains a “signature failure,” as the New York Times puts it.
One person who is well positioned to shed light on what all this means is Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington state. His state was an initial epicenter, but there are signs the curve is flattening, which means Inslee both has extensive experience of how federal failures hampered the response and is already contemplating what comes next.
In an interview, Inslee, a Democrat, shared fresh details on how President Trump’s lack of “urgency” is directly contributing to equipment shortages hobbling response efforts — and hinted at an alarming scenario ahead.
“We could use a stronger voice out of the White House to mobilize this nation,” Inslee told me. “We need a giant leap for mankind now, not just small steps.”
Inslee discussed difficulties in procuring equipment that are inexplicable and infuriating. As dogged reporting has shown, the federal government’s handling of medical supply chains has left states and health-care providers scrambling in a state of confusion and without badly needed supplies.
As many experts have noted — and as Inslee reiterated — this is in part a direct outgrowth of Trump’s failure to fully deploy the Defense Production Act to marshal private sector resources.
The inability to procure needed supplies for testing remains a major problem for Washington state, Inslee noted, but the specifics of why this is the case are notable.
One major problem is that the federal government’s haphazard approach has created a vast mismatch in availability among disparate parts needed to make testing possible.
For instance, Inslee noted, the state has unused testing capacity right now in large part because it lacks one thing: the swabs needed to take samples.
“It seems ridiculous that the United States can’t produce enough swabs to solve this problem,” Inslee told me. “I have 50 or 60 long-term care facilities that have infections in them that we literally have not been able to do the testing we want of remaining residents and staff.”
Inslee said his state might have finally found a supplier to meet this need — for now — but he added that the shortage of another part (such as vials) will surely become a problem in the very near term.
The overarching issue, Inslee told me, is “an inadequate supply chain” that’s “grossly inadequate to the demand.”
A month of lost time
Inslee said this problem is directly traceable to “at least a month” of lost time, because “the president was downplaying this problem and had not engaged the full force of the federal government.”
“We should have been a month ahead on the supply chain compared to where we are,” Inslee said.
In another unsettling example, Inslee noted that he recently asked the CEO of a private company that is manufacturing the transport medium for tests if it could ramp up production with double shifts.
“She said, ‘Well, maybe — we have to find a way to finance that,’” Inslee told me. This surprised him, because it seems like something the federal government should already be communicating with such manufacturers about.
“I would have thought the federal government would have talked to every single manufacturer in the nation who either makes this, or could make this, by this point, and said, ‘Look, we’re going to finance a double shift,’” Inslee told me. “That hasn’t happened.”
These problems appear to flow directly from a kind of schizophrenic approach adopted by the federal government. Trump initially told states they were mostly on their own, which led to a bidding war among states seeking supplies from a range of manufacturers and suppliers. Now the feds have sought to exert control over distribution, but it appears piecemeal and partial.
In Inslee’s telling, this has resulted in a double whammy: a shortage of supplies and a lack of coordination of availability of parts. This could be mitigated by a much more robust and coordinated response via the Defense Production Act.
“We still haven’t had the federal government use all its resources to really mobilize the full force of the manufacturing base of the United States,” Inslee told me.
An ominous warning
Along these lines, Inslee warned of another looming problem.
As coronavirus cases recede in the coming months, if anything, more testing will be required. That’s because when people reassemble, it will be urgent to jump on cases in which people again show symptoms, and test them, to avoid a second wave.
“As we want to reopen our schools, as we want to reopen our industries, the amount of testing we need will actually increase,” Inslee said. “In the second wave, we have to have testing, a resource base, and a contact-tracing base that is so much more scaled up than right now. It’s an enormous challenge.”
Inslee stressed that many federal government officials are working very hard and that in many cases, needed equipment has been delivered, for which he is thankful. But he reiterated his call for Trump to exercise “urgency to really mobilize this whole industrial supply chain.”
“What we need now, what won World War II, was a quartermaster,” Inslee said. “That’s how you win wars. That’s what we need — a quartermaster.”
Recently, Trump was directly confronted with glaring evidence of this. His own administration released a report documenting urgent shortages faced by hospital administrators around the country, who offered constructive suggestions on how the federal government can help save American lives.
In response, Trump lashed out in a rage, and pretended those problems are simply nonexistent.
Needless to say, that’s not the quartermaster we need.
----- 3 -----
Pence's office blocks public health officials from appearing on CNN
By Oliver Darcy, CNN Business
April 9, 2020
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/09/media/pence-office-tv-bookings-coronavirus/index.html
[ETA: After prepping this version to post, the White House backed down and is allowing public health officials to appear on CNN, apparently without their demands being met. CNN held the line. Transcript here reflects the original version of the story, not the revised.]
New York (CNN Business)Vice President Mike Pence's office has declined to allow the nation's top health officials to appear on CNN in recent days and discuss the coronavirus pandemic killing thousands of Americans, in an attempt to pressure the network into carrying the White House's lengthy daily briefings in full.
Pence's office, which is responsible for booking the officials on networks during the pandemic, said it will only allow experts such as Dr. Deborah Birx or Dr. Anthony Fauci to appear on CNN if the network televises the portion of the White House briefings that includes the vice president and other coronavirus task force members.
CNN often only broadcasts President Donald Trump's question and answer session, which sometimes includes the health care officials, live on-air.
After Trump leaves the podium, CNN frequently cuts out of the White House briefing to discuss and fact-check what the President had said. A CNN executive said that the network usually returns to such programming because of the extensive length of the full briefing that includes Pence, which can run in excess of two hours.
CNN did, however, air the vice president's portion of the briefing Wednesday night.
Regardless, Pence's office has declined to make the nation's top health care officials available to CNN for the last seven days.
"When you guys cover the briefings with the health officials then you can expect them back on your air," a Pence spokesperson told CNN.
----- 4 -----
Liberty University police issue arrest warrants for NYT, ProPublica reporters
By Joe Concha
04/09/20
[EDITOR'S NOTE: According to Wikipedia, this is an actual law-enforcement agency in Virginia, making these actual arrest warrants.]
https://thehill.com/homenews/media/492015-liberty-university-police-issue-arrest-warrants-for-nyt-propublica-reporters
Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. on Wednesday said that arrest warrants had been issued for reporters from The New York Times and ProPublica after both publications wrote stories criticizing his decision last month to partially reopen his Virginia-based college.
Photos of the arrest warrants for New York Times freelance photographer Julia Rendleman and ProPublica reporter Alec MacGillis were published on the website of conservative radio host Todd Starnes. The warrant alleges each committed misdemeanor trespassing on campus while gathering information for their respective stories.
...
"The arrest warrants are issued by a magistrate based on information derived from an investigation conducted by Liberty University Police Department, the police agency with primary jurisdiction, based on reports of criminal trespassing on posted property made by Liberty University," the university told The Hill in an email.
The New York Times and ProPublica have each stood by their reporting.
"Our freelance photographer was engaged in the most routine form of news gathering: taking a picture of a person who was interviewed for a news story," said a Times spokesperson in an email to The Hill. "We are disappointed that Liberty University would decide to make that into a criminal case and go after a freelance journalist because its officials were unhappy with press coverage of the university's decision to convene classes in the midst of the pandemic.”
----- 5 -----
Rep. Gerry Connolly
twitter.com/GerryConnolly
9 April 2020
https://twitter.com/GerryConnolly/status/1248334335658336256
I spoke with the Postmaster General again today. She could not have been more clear:
The Postal Service will collapse without urgent intervention, and it will happen soon.
We’ve pleaded with the White House to help. twitter.com/realDonaldTrump personally directed his staff not to do so.
[QUOTED TWEET]
Nicholas Fandos
twitter.com/npfandos
9 April 2020
https://twitter.com/npfandos/status/1248314375406080000
NEW w/@jimtankersley: The coronavirus pandemic is ravaging the United States Postal Service.
Mail vol down 30% this week, compared to same time last year. Could be down 50% by end of June
USPS told Congress today it needs a cash infusion and fast.
https://nytimes.com/2020/04/09/us/
----- 6 -----
Most Americans, unlike Trump, want mail-in ballots for November if coronavirus threatens: Reuters/Ipsos poll
Chris Kahn
Tue Apr 7, 2020 / 7:09 PM EDT
https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN21P3G0
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Most Americans, including a majority of Republicans, want the government to require mail-in ballots for the Nov. 3 presidential election if the coronavirus outbreak still threatens the public this autumn, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found.
President Donald Trump, who is seeking re-election this year, has been trying with other Republicans to discourage efforts to expand voting by mail, saying it would increase the chance of voter fraud.
But the poll conducted on Monday and Tuesday found that 72% of all U.S. adults, including 79% of Democrats and 65% of Republicans, supported a requirement for mail-in ballots as a way to protect voters in case of a continued spread of the respiratory disease later this year.
The United States leads the world in coronavirus cases, with more than 385,000 infections. More than 11,900 people in the country have died. Public health measures to curb the pandemic have hammered the U.S. economy, with many businesses closing or scaling back while unemployment soars.
----- 7 -----
Oversight erased, Supreme Court hijacked: Trump turns the presidency into a dictatorship
Trump has stripped away the levers of independent oversight until there's nothing left. Our democracy is in the midst of a three-alarm fire.
Kurt Bardella
Opinion columnist
9 April 2020
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/04/09/trump-removes-inspectors-general-blatant-corruption-column/2973535001/
When former Vice President Joe Biden entered the Democratic presidential race a year ago, he introduced the now familiar theme that the “soul of this nation” was at stake in the 2020 election. Judging by what we’ve seen from President Donald Trump over the past few days, Biden is right.
It began Friday night, when Trump informed Congress that he was firing MIchael Atkinson, the Intelligence Community’s inspector general. This was nothing more than a vile act of political retribution that had been months in the making. Atkinson fulfilled his legal responsibilities by informing Congress about a whistleblower complaint that exposed Trump’s impeachable crimes. What everyone else recognizes as following the letter of the law, the president views as cause for termination.
On Monday, Trump turned his attention to the inspector general who oversees the Department of Health and Human Services, who had just released a report revealing the extent to which hospitals were struggling to meet the health care demands associated with treating COVID-19 patients. The thorough review included interviews from 323 hospitals across 46 states and stood in stark contrast with the rhetoric coming from the president. Naturally, Trump labeled the report a “Fake Dossier” and suggested “politics” influenced it.
Irony is alive, oversight is dead
On Tuesday, the president removed Pentagon Inspector General Glenn Fine. He had just been designated to oversee the newly created Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, a watchdog panel authorized by Congress to conduct oversight of the $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief bill. The same day, Trump said he had seven IGs in his sights — prompting Sen. Chris Murphy to announce he would draft a bill to “give all Inspectors General protected 7 year terms.”
The irony here is that Republicans once cautioned about this exact thing before Trump infected them and they abandoned every principle they once proclaimed to stand for. There was a time when oversight over massive government spending was the centerpiece of the Republican oversight agenda. My former boss and House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa actually declared that “This money, at the American people’s expense, going through the hands of political leaders, in in fact corrupting the process.” He literally called the Obama administration “the most corrupt government in history.” Where are those Republicans now?
----- 8 -----
Trump is terrified that voting in November might be too easy
By Paul Waldman
Opinion writer
April 9, 2020 at 9:42 a.m. PDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/09/trump-is-terrified-that-voting-november-might-be-too-easy/
President Trump’s reelection is in danger, but he has found a ray of hope: If the voting in November can be as difficult and chaotic as possible, he just might pull out a victory.
All he has to do is stop states from allowing everyone to vote by mail.
So on Twitter and in his daily campaign appearances disguised as coronavirus briefings, Trump has begun a an effort to convince everyone — or at least Republicans — that any election conducted mostly with mail ballots would be inherently illegitimate and must not be allowed:
----- 9 -----
Staggering Surge Of NYers Dying In Their Homes Suggests City Is Undercounting Coronavirus Fatalities
By Gwynne Hogan, WNYC
April 7, 2020
https://gothamist.com/news/surge-number-new-yorkers-dying-home-officials-suspect-undercount-covid-19-related-deaths
If you die at home from the coronavirus, there’s a good chance you won’t be included in the official death toll, because of a discrepancy in New York City’s reporting process. Update: After WNYC/Gothamist's reporting, the city has reversed its position and will count probable COVID-19 deaths that occur at home.
The problem means the city’s official death count is likely far lower than the real toll taken by the virus, according to public health officials.
It also means that victims without access to testing are not being counted, and even epidemiologists are left without a full understanding of the pandemic.
As of Monday afternoon, 2,738 New York City residents have died from ‘confirmed’ cases of COVID-19, according to the city Department of Health. That’s an average of 245 a day since the previous Monday.
But another 200 city residents are now dying at home each day, compared to 20 to 25 such deaths before the pandemic, said Aja Worthy-Davis, a spokeswoman for the medical examiner’s office. And an untold number of them are unconfirmed.
----- 10 -----
Gavin Newsom Declares California a ‘Nation-State’
The state is at odds with the federal government over coronavirus plans and much else.
By Francis Wilkinson
April 9, 2020
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-04-09/california-declares-independence-from-trump-s-coronavirus-plans
California this week declared its independence from the federal government’s feeble efforts to fight Covid-19 — and perhaps from a bit more. The consequences for the fight against the pandemic are almost certainly positive. The implications for the brewing civil war between Trumpism and America’s budding 21st-century majority, embodied by California’s multiracial liberal electorate, are less clear.
Speaking on MSNBC, Governor Gavin Newsom said that he would use the bulk purchasing power of California “as a nation-state” to acquire the hospital supplies that the federal government has failed to provide. If all goes according to plan, Newsom said, California might even “export some of those supplies to states in need.”
“Nation-state.” “Export.”
Newsom is accomplishing a few things here, with what can only be a deliberate lack of subtlety. First and foremost, he is trying to relieve the shortage of personal protective equipment — a crisis the White House has proved incapable of remedying. Details are a little fuzzy, but Newsom, according to news reports, has organized multiple suppliers to deliver roughly 200 million masks monthly.
Second, Newsom is kicking sand in the face of President Donald Trump after Newsom’s previous flattery — the coin of the White House realm — failed to produce results. If Trump can’t manage to deliver supplies, there’s no point in Newsom continuing the charade.
Third, and this may be the most enduring effect, Newsom is sending a powerful message to both political parties. So far, the Republican Party’s war on democratic values, institutions and laws has been a largely one-sided affair, with the GOP assaulting and the Democratic Party defending. The lethal ruling this week by the U.S. Supreme Court’s Republican bloc, which required Wisconsin residents to vote in person during a pandemic that shut down polling stations, is a preview of the fall campaign. The GOP intends to restrict vote-by-mail and other legitimate enfranchisement to suppress turnout amid fear, uncertainty and disease.
At some point this civil war by other means, with the goal of enshrining GOP minority rule, will provoke a Democratic counteroffensive. Newsom, leader of the nation’s largest state, is perhaps accelerating that response, shaking Democrats out of denial and putting Republicans on notice. California, an economic behemoth whose taxpayers account for 15% of individual contributions to the U.S. Treasury, is now toning up at muscle beach.
----- 11 -----
Courtney Milan
twitter.com/courtneymilan
4:09 PM · Apr 9, 2020
[THREAD, this is the start, go read it]
https://twitter.com/courtneymilan/status/1248387658306351107
The thing I want everyone to understand about CoVid is that there *is* no trade off between the economy and health. There is none. Anyone telling you otherwise is not grappling with the facts of the illness.
[THREAD go read it]
----- 12 -----
Coronavirus May ‘Reactivate’ in Cured Patients, Korean CDC Says
By Kyunghee Park
April 8, 2020
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-09/coronavirus-may-reactivate-in-cured-patients-korean-cdc-says
The coronavirus may be “reactivating” in people who have been cured of the illness, according to Korea’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
About 51 patients classed as having been cured in South Korea have tested positive again, the CDC said in a briefing on Monday. Rather than being infected again, the virus may have been reactivated in these people, given they tested positive again shortly after being released from quarantine, said Jeong Eun-kyeong, director-general of the Korean CDC.
“While we are putting more weight on reactivation as the possible cause, we are conducting a comprehensive study on this,” Jeong said. “There have been many cases when a patient during treatment will test negative one day and positive another.”
A patient is deemed fully recovered when two tests conducted with a 24-hour interval show negative results.
The Korean CDC will conduct an epidemiological probe into the cases, Jeong said.
----- 13 -----
Kushner Cos. Gets $800 Million Federally Backed Apartment Loan
By David Kocieniewski and Caleb Melby
May 23, 2019, 3:58 PM PDT
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-23/kushner-cos-gets-800-million-federally-backed-apartment-loan
Kushner Cos., the real estate firm owned by the family of President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, has received about $800 million in federally backed debt to buy apartments in Maryland and Virginia -- the company’s biggest purchase in a decade.
The loan was issued by Berkadia, a lender co-owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and Jefferies Financial Group Inc., in a deal that’s backed by government-owned Freddie Mac, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be named discussing the private transaction.
The arrangement increases the government’s exposure to Kushner Cos. at the same time that its former chief executive officer is one of the most powerful people in the White House. Jared Kushner divested ownership in many of the company’s assets to close family members when he joined the government. Kushner Cos. had more than $500 million in loans from Fannie and Freddie at that time.
Spokespeople for Kushner Cos., Berkadia and Freddie Mac didn’t respond to requests for comment. Peter Mirijanian, a spokesman for Jared Kushner’s attorney Abbe Lowell, has frequently said that Kushner has no involvement in the company’s management.
“As part of an ethics agreement he has and has followed, Mr. Kushner has had no role in the Kushner Companies or its activities since joining the government over two years ago,” Mirijanian said in a February email when Bloomberg first reported on the government’s potential involvement. “He is walled off from any business or investment decisions and has no idea or knowledge of these activities."
Bloomberg reported in February that Kushner was purchasing 6,030 apartments across 16 properties in the two states from private equity firm Lone Star Funds in a $1.15 billion deal. The Real Deal reported earlier Thursday on the closing of the transaction.
----- 14 -----
Amy stays home & washes her hands, over and over.
twitter.com/AmyKotas
9 April 2020
https://twitter.com/AmyKotas/status/1248450141234827264
People from NY are being buried in mass graves and this psychopath is talking about ratings. #TrumpBurialPits
[QUOTED TWEET]
Donald J. Trump
twitter.com/realDonaldTrump
9 April 2020
The Wall Street Journal always “forgets” to mention that the ratings for the White House Press Briefings are “through the roof” (Monday Night Football, Bachelor Finale, according to
nytimes) & is only way for me to escape the Fake News & get my views across. WSJ is Fake News!----- 15 -----
NowThis
twitter.com/nowthisnews
9 April 2020
[NOTE: TO BE CLEAR, this is standard practice, LONG predating this outbreak. But there's still a lot more of it now.]
https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1248374630399672321
This drone footage captures NYC workers burying bodies in a mass grave on Hart Island, just off the coast of the Bronx. For over a century, the island has served as a potter’s field for deceased with no known next of kin or families unable to pay for funerals.
[EMBEDDED VIDEO]
no subject
Date: 2020-04-10 07:06 am (UTC)I'm kinda uncomfortable with the "we're a nation-state" thing, the text on the flag "California Republic" notwithstanding. I think he's just trying to make a statement about the size of our population and that therefore we have a lot of clout as being bigger than many nations, but... eh.
no subject
Date: 2020-04-10 12:48 pm (UTC)About that CNN report re: Pence vs. the Press Gallery?
Date: 2020-04-10 02:26 pm (UTC)"White House reverses position after blocking health officials from appearing on CNN"
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/09/media/pence-office-tv-bookings-coronavirus/index.html
no subject
Date: 2020-04-11 08:39 am (UTC)