![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solarbirdJesus fuck, today. You saw the earlier post outlining the Republican plan. Here's a fleet of stories supporting it, as well as other COVID-19 related updates.
I need a drink.
- The White House Has Erected A Blockade Stopping States and Hospitals From Getting Coronavirus PPE
- DOJ Would Support Legal Action If Governors' Restrictions Go 'Too Far,' Barr Says
- Tennessee does not meet the federal health standards for phase 1 reopening [but is doing it anyway]
- "I really think these blue state governors... I think their goal is to destroy the economy"
- GOP Texas Lieutenant Governor Says We Need to Take Risk to Get Back to Work: 'There Are More Important Things Than Living'
- "Yesterday, the White House said we have enough testing to begin reopening. That is not true."
- ‘We’re risking death right now.’
- Barr Threatens Legal Action Against Governors Over Lockdown
- Man Who Called Ohio's Lockdown Order 'Bullshit' Has Succumbed To COVID-19
- Three nurses showed up to counter-protest the Arizona “liberate” rally.
- Some Southern states are reopening businesses; US death toll passes 42,000
- 'Everyone Was Screaming at Them.' The Story Behind Those Photos of the Counter-Protesting Health Care Workers
- Trump’s ability to just make up stuff as needed is a real talent
- the "everything is a hoax and everyone is out to get me" complex/strategy
- Another COVID-19 wave is imminent. It is tragic because our healthcare workers have been at battle for weeks and are mentally and physically exhausted.
- GOP Moving ‘Full Steam Ahead’ With Plans To Hold Convention Amid Outbreak
- Why Trump’s efforts to blame Obama for the coronavirus make absolutely no sense
- America doesn't want another Tea Party
- 'They're basically killing us'
- Scotland hit by 'England-only' supply decision
- Trump tells a damnable and murderous lie
- complete idiots. all of them.
- Federal documents: more than 300,000 likely to die if restrictions are lifted
- Beto O'Rourke on Trump plan to ban immigration
- People on hydroxychloroquinone died at *more than twice the rate* of people not on it.
- We Are Living in a Failed State
- In front of White House, nurses read names of colleagues killed by coronavirus
- Exclusive: As Washington DC Faces Coronavirus Spike, Secret Military Task Force Prepares to Secure the Capital
- CDC director warns second wave of coronavirus this winter will likely be worse
- New Report Notes Rise In Coronavirus-Linked Anti-Semitic Hate Speech
- Trump plans to suspend immigration to U.S. over coronavirus concerns
- An overlooked coronavirus crisis: A dire need for dialysis
- Federal government preparing workers to head back to the office
- Conservative activist family behind 'grassroots' anti-quarantine Facebook events
- This Is How A Group Linked To Betsy DeVos Is Organizing Protests To End Social Distancing, Now With Trump's Support
----- 1 -----
The White House Has Erected A Blockade Stopping States and Hospitals From Getting Coronavirus PPE
By David Wallace-Wells
19 April 2020
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/hospitals-face-a-white-house-blockade-for-coronavirus-ppe.html
Whenever you start to think that the federal government under Donald Trump has hit a moral bottom, it finds a new way to shock and horrify.
Over the last few weeks, it has started to appear as though, in addition to abandoning the states to their own devices in a time of national emergency, the federal government has effectively erected a blockade — like that which the Union used to choke off the supply chains of the Confederacy during the Civil War — to prevent delivery of critical medical equipment to states desperately in need. At the very least, federal authorities have made governors and hospital executives all around the country operate in fear that shipments of necessary supplies will be seized along the way. In a time of pandemic, having evacuated federal responsibility, the White House is functionally waging a war against state leadership and the initiative of local hospitals to secure what they need to provide sufficient treatment.
Yesterday, a letter published by the New England Journal of Medicine highlighted the extraordinary measures that had to be taken to secure the delivery into Massachusetts of equipment that had been bought and paid for. The NEJM, which featured the letter in its COVID-19 Notes series, is far from a platform of partisan alarm or hysteria — it is among the most sober and high-minded professional journals in the country. It’s worth reading the correspondence, written by an executive running a small health system, at some length:
...
You could call this piracy. You could call it sanctions. The federal government is choking supply chains to states like it chokes supply chains to Iran and North Korea. These blockades aren’t as complete as those surrounding sanctioned regimes, of course, and some amount of the disruption may be honest confusion in a time of crisis. But the disruption is being brought about by federal interference, and unlike the kind of disruptions you’d want to engineer against antagonistic states, the purpose seems completely unclear — indeed the policy is inexplicable and indefensible.
Which may be one reason why no explanation has been given. We don’t know where these supplies are going. We don’t know on what grounds they are being seized, or threatened with seizure. What business do the DHS and FEMA have with ventilators and PPE purchases by governors and local hospitals? “This is like a story out of the last days of the Soviet Union,” David Frum wrote on Twitter, of the NEJM letter. “This is what it means to be a failed state,” wrote the essayist Umair Haque, echoing him. In the absence of an explanation, it is hard to come to any conclusion other than that this is simply mafia government, exerting control for the sake of control, not in spite of but because of the crisis-led demand, and squeezing the American people, as they die in hospital beds and attend — with inadequate protection — to the sick and scared.
----- 2 -----
DOJ Would Support Legal Action If Governors' Restrictions Go 'Too Far,' Barr Says
April 21, 2020
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/21/840262570/barr-open-to-legal-action-if-governors-restrictions-go-too-far
Attorney General William Barr said the Justice Department would support legal action against states that continue to impose strict social distancing rules even after coronavirus cases begin to subside in their respective states.
In a Tuesday interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt, Barr called some current stay-at-home orders "burdens on civil liberties" and said that if they continued and lawsuits were brought, his department would side against the state.
...
Barr was asked what he would do with any governors who are "indifferent" to easing restrictions in their states. "We're looking carefully at a number of these rules that are being put into place," Barr said. "And if we think one goes too far, we initially try to jawbone the governors into rolling them back or adjusting them. And if they're not and people bring lawsuits, we file statement of interest and side with the plaintiffs."
----- 3 -----
Ted Lieu
twitter.com/tedlieu
US House candidate, CA-33
https://twitter.com/tedlieu/status/1252651107618185216
Dear twitter.com/GovBillLee: Tennessee does not meet the federal health standards for phase 1 reopening. Your state is not on a 14 day downward trajectory. Tennessee had more #COVID19 cases yesterday than two weeks ago.
Why are you violating the reopening standards set by twitter.com/realDonaldTrump?
[QUOTED TWEET]
Gov. Bill Lee
twiter.com/GovBillLee
https://twitter.com/GovBillLee/status/1252327538325626881
NEW: Tennessee Begins Phased Reopening Next Week
Our Economic Recovery Group is working with industry leaders around the clock so that some businesses can open as soon as April 27.
----- 4 -----
Right Wing Watch
twitter.com/RightWingWatch
https://twitter.com/RightWingWatch/status/1252689125548974085
Jerry Falwell Jr. is "a big supporter of states' rights" but thinks that Trump needs to "find a way to declare some sort of emergency" to force Democratic states to lift their coronavirus restrictions.
[EMBEDDED AUDIO]
"I really think these blue state governors - Virginia, Michigan, California, New York - I think their goal is to destroy the economy in hopes that somehow it will benefit them politically, and you know, I think, y'know I'm a big supporter of states rights but I think the president is gonna have to find a way to declare some sort of emergency and come in and say no, you gotta open up this, and that, and you gotta do this differently and that differently, and um, you know, I'm not sure how all that works, somebody smarter than me is gonna have to figure it out, but it's, it's, there comes a time where you have to bring sanity to chaos."
----- 5 -----
GOP Texas Lieutenant Governor Says We Need to Take Risk to Get Back to Work: 'There Are More Important Things Than Living'
By Brendan Cole On 4/21/20
https://www.newsweek.com/texas-lt-gov-dan-patrick-fox-news-tucker-carlson-1499106
The lieutenant governor of Texas, who was criticized last month for saying it was worth risking lives to return to work if that meant saving the economy, has doubled down on his comments.
Dan Patrick, who turned 70 this month, faced a social media backlash in March for telling Fox News that many of his generation were willing to "take a chance" and return to work because an economy that was shut down by the coronavirus would harm future generations.
As parts of Texas started to reopen this week following weeks of restrictions, Patrick defended his comments on Monday, telling anchor Tucker Carlson again that the recent economic hardship had left him "vindicated."
"When you start shutting down society and people start losing their paychecks and businesses can't open and governments aren't getting revenues...I'm sorry to say that I was right on this," he said.
"I'm thankful that we are now beginning to open up Texas and other states because it's been long overdue."
Questioning the shifting projected death toll over the last few weeks he believed that "we have the wrong numbers, the wrong science."
...
"I don't want to die, nobody wants to die but man we have got to take some risk and get back in the game and get this country back up and running," he told the Tucker Carlson Tonight host.
----- 6 -----
Governor Jay Inslee
twitter.com/GovInslee
21 April 2020
https://twitter.com/GovInslee/status/1252707085994692609
Yesterday, the White House said we have enough testing to begin reopening.
That is not true.
LINKS TO:
https://www.governor.wa.gov/news-media/inslee-letter-pence-calls-strong-national-testing-system
Inslee letter to Pence calls for strong national testing system
April 21, 2020
Gov. Jay Inslee sent a letter to Vice President Mike Pence today requesting federal assistance to develop a robust national testing system to enable a safe return to public life amid COVID-19.
"We share your goal of a safe return to normal social and economic activity over time. Individuals, families, businesses, and communities are counting on leaders at all levels to work together to ensure this process is carried out in a manner that keeps the public safe and minimizes the risk of viral resurgence. This recovery can only happen safely, however, with the assurance of a strong national testing system that does not exist today.
“On April 20, your Administration provided governors with a list of in-state laboratories in an attempt to illustrate states’ apparent existing capacity. But this does nothing to answer the repeated calls from governors to address the lack of swabs, viral transport media, reagents, and other supplies and personnel needed to take advantage of that lab capacity. … Just as a driver cannot travel their full distance on a quarter-tank of gas, we cannot unlock the full capacity of our labs without additional testing supplies and infrastructure from the federal government."
The letter requests the federal government take a number of steps to rapidly build a robust national testing system, including the establishment of an at-home testing program, additional surveillance testing and validation of serological tests, and usage of the Defense Production Act to ensure an adequate supply of swabs, viral transport media, reagents and other supplies.
----- 7 -----
‘We’re risking death right now.’
Sj Robson on Facebook
20 April 2020
https://www.facebook.com/sj.robson.9/posts/3162531777114050
— ‘We’re risking death right now.’ —
At an April 19 protest at the state Capitol in Olympia, Washington, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Tim Eyman fist-bumped a woman, posed with her for a photo and laughingly proclaimed something that is actually true in its most literal sense, "We're risking death right now." On April 19, Eyman, a 2020 candidate for Washington governor and serial initiative filer, posted a 3-hour Facebook live-streamed video of the protest against Washington state Governor Jay Inslee’s stay-home order that has been in effect since it was first issued on March 23, and extended for an additional month on April 2.
The video documented Eyman’s interactions with hundreds of protesters, often those interactions were in close proximity with people. There were reportedly around 2,000 to 2,500 people at the protest. The video also showed Eyman touching his face frequently, often right before touching person after person he spoke with, at one point leaning down to speak closely and directly in the face of an elderly woman dressed as Lady Liberty.
The bulk of the 3-hour video centered on Eyman. I watched large sections of the video, but not every single minute of the footage.
What I observed of the video was very concerning to me because there were very few people who wore masks/cloth facial coverings or practiced physical distancing of 6 feet, both of which are recommended by the CDC. Eyman did not wear a mask of any kind, but he did have on black nitrile or latex medical gloves. However, in watching the sections of the video I did, Eyman touched his own mouth, nose, and face countless times throughout the day in between the times that I saw him handling stickers, fist-bumping, shaking hands and putting his hands on people.
[MORE ON FACEBOOK]
----- 8 -----
Barr Threatens Legal Action Against Governors Over Lockdowns
By Chris Strohm
April 21, 2020
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-21/barr-says-doj-may-act-against-governors-with-strict-virus-limits
The Justice Department will consider taking legal action against governors who continue to impose stringent rules for dealing with the coronavirus that infringe on constitutional rights even after the crisis subsides in their states, Attorney General William Barr said.
...
“We have to give businesses more freedom to operate in a way that’s reasonably safe,” Barr said. “To the extent that governors don’t and impinge on either civil rights or on the national commerce -- our common market that we have here -- then we’ll have to address that.”
...
One way the Justice Department might act against state or local officials is by joining lawsuits brought by citizens or businesses over restrictions, Barr said. He acknowledged that state governments are at “a sensitive stage,” as they try to balance health and safety against pressure to reopen. But he said that “as lawsuits develop, as specific cases emerge in the states, we’ll take a look at them.”
“We’re looking carefully at a number of these rules that are being put into place,” Barr said. “And if we think one goes too far, we initially try to jawbone the governors into rolling them back or adjusting them. And if they’re not and people bring lawsuits, we file statement of interest and side with the plaintiffs.”
In a sign of the president’s contradictory messages on the issue, Trump tweeted last Friday that his supporters should “liberate” Minnesota, Michigan and Virginia -- three states with Democratic governors and strict stay-at-home orders. The move came just a day after Trump outlined the return-to-work guidelines that are contingent on states meeting specific benchmarks on testing and a decline in Covid-19 cases.
‘Off the Rails’
Washington Governor Jay Inslee, a Democrat, responded angrily to Trump’s tweets, accusing him of “fomenting rebellion” and “spewing dangerous, anti-democratic rhetoric.”
“The White House released a sensible plan,” Inslee said in a statement, and “less than 24 hours later the president is off the rails.”
Pressuring Barr
Conservative groups and activists have been ramping up pressure for the Trump administration -- and Barr in particular -- to act against governors taking a hard line.
Alleging “rampant abuses of constitutional rights and civil liberties,” a group led by former Attorney General Ed Meese wrote Barr this week urging him “to undertake immediate review of all the orders that have been issued by the states and local governments across the nation.”
----- 9 -----
Man Who Called Ohio's Lockdown Order 'Bullshit' Has Succumbed To COVID-19
John McDaniel railed on social media against Ohio's Gov. Mike DeWine's lockdown order . Weeks later he contracted the virus. A few days ago he died.
20 April 2020
By Ed Scarce
https://crooksandliars.com/2020/04/man-who-called-ohios-lockdown-order
In March, John McDaniel called Ohio's shutdown order of non-essential businesses "madness." A few days ago he died.
Now, we don't know the circumstances of how Mr. McDaniel contracted the virus, nor do we know if he took foolish and unnecessary risks. But we do know what he thought of the measures put in place to keep him and the rest of the public as safe as possible. And we all know people who have similar opinions to those that McDaniel expressed on social media. If there's any good to come from his death, let it be that people take those measures more seriously. They're there for a reason.
----- 10 -----
Joshua Potash
twitter.com/JoshuaPotash
20 April 2020
https://twitter.com/JoshuaPotash/status/1252390378746966017
Three nurses showed up to counter-protest the Arizona “liberate” rally.
They stood silently.
And the “liberate” crowd didn’t leave them alone. They stood in their faces and berated them.
These women are heroes, and deserve so much better.
[LINK TO EMBEDDED VIDEO]
----- 11 -----
Some Southern states are reopening businesses; US death toll passes 42,000
By Hollie Silverman, Eric Levenson and Theresa Waldrop, CNN
Updated 12:54 AM ET, Tue April 21, 2020
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/20/us/coronavirus-updates-monday/index.html
(CNN)Three Southern states are moving to reopen parts of their economies, even as health experts and government leaders debate whether there is sufficient coronavirus testing available to relax restrictions.
South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster allowed some stores to reopen Monday afternoon, only two weeks after ordering them closed.
Department stores, sporting goods stores and flea markets can now open there, along with stores selling furniture, books, music, flowers, clothing and accessories.
They will be allowed to open at 20% capacity, or 5 people per 1,000 square feet.
Beaches will reopen at noon Tuesday, McMaster said at a press conference.
In Georgia, certain businesses will be allowed to reopen as early as Friday, Gov. Brian Kemp said, including bowling alleys, gyms and fitness centers, hair salons and massage therapy businesses. Theaters and restaurants will be allowed to open in a week.
In Tennessee, Gov. Bill Lee said the state's stay-at-home order will expire April 30, and "the vast majority of businesses in 89 counties" will be allowed to open again May 1, according to a statement.
----- 12 -----
'Everyone Was Screaming at Them.' The Story Behind Those Photos of the Counter-Protesting Health Care Workers
By Maïa Booker
April 20, 2020
https://time.com/5824465/healthcare-workers-protest/
As small groups of demonstrators gathered in cities nationwide to protest the ongoing COVID-19 lockdowns, one set of images in particular have been widely shared online. Taken by Colorado-based photographer Alyson McClaran in Denver on April 19, they show what she believes to be healthcare workers blocking the path of the demonstrators, who want the state and country reopened despite public health officials’ warnings that doing so would invite more cases and more death.
TIME reached out to McClaran to learn more about the photographs and her experience at the Denver protest. Her answers have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
----- 13 -----
Robert E Kelly
twitter.com/Robert_E_Kelly
20 April 2020
https://twitter.com/Robert_E_Kelly/status/1252395215958073344
Trump’s ability to just make up stuff as needed - random, disconnected, bizarre, wildly inaccurate - is a real talent (if you could call it that). I guess after a career of scamming it just occurs naturally
[QUOTED TWEET]
Daniel Dale
twitter.com/ddale8
Apr 20 2020
https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1252303773076271105
Trump yesterday: "When I did the ban on China, they say a lot of the people that didn’t come in here went to Italy. You’ve heard that. That’s why Italy was hit so hard."
Italy's ban on flights from China took effect 3 days before Trump's non-ban restrictions on China travel.
----- 14 -----
Alexandra Erin
twitter.com/AlexandraErin
https://twitter.com/AlexandraErin/status/1252377142853173249
This is perhaps the most ludicrous and dangerous iteration of the "everything is a hoax and everyone is out to get me" complex/strategy of his.
[QUOTED TWEET]
Daniel Dale
twitter.com/ddale8
Apr 20
https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1252359167236423682
Trump is alleging people were talking about ventilators because they thought "there's no way he'll ever be able to catch this one," but since "we're now the KING of ventilators," they're saying, "We'll get him on testing."
Experts say testing is critical to ending the crisis.
----- 15 -----
Publius
twitter.com/ThePubliusUSA
19 April 2020
https://twitter.com/ThePubliusUSA/status/1251950528625508353
Another COVID-19 wave is imminent. It is tragic because our healthcare workers have been at battle for weeks and are mentally and physically exhausted.
[EMBEDDED VIDEO of Alex Jones at an astroturf pro-COVID-19 rally, with a fundamentalist on a bullhorn calling for Trump to fire Dr. Fauci.]
----- 16 -----
GOP Moving ‘Full Steam Ahead’ With Plans To Hold Convention Amid Outbreak
By Cristina Cabrera
April 20, 2020
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/gop-full-steam-ahead-regular-rnc-plans-decide-alternative-later
Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel said on Monday that the GOP is moving forward with its original plans for the Republican National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina amid the COVID-19 outbreak.
“We are full steam ahead planning a traditional convention,” McDaniel told reporters, according to CNN.
She said the party and convention leadership “do not think at this time” that there is a need to shift to a plan B, “but of course, we will monitor circumstances and adjust accordingly.”
Given that the convention is scheduled to begin on August 24, McDaniel said that the party still has until early July to decide if it’ll hold a regular convention or “something scaled back.”
Either way, the GOP leader said, the event will still be held in-person.
----- 17 -----
Why Trump’s efforts to blame Obama for the coronavirus make absolutely no sense
Trump is attacking Obama for not developing tests for a virus that didn’t exist when he was president. Seriously.
By Aaron Rupar
Apr 20, 2020
https://www.vox.com/2020/4/20/21227903/trump-blames-obama-coronavirus
Barack Obama left office in January 2017. The coronavirus didn’t arrive in the United States until three years later. Yet over the weekend, President Donald Trump repeatedly tried to pin blame on his predecessor for the testing failures and shortage of medical supplies that have marred his administration’s response to the pandemic.
“I started with an obsolete, broken system from a previous administration,” Trump claimed during his daily press briefing on Saturday, later adding: “Unfortunately, some partisan voices are attempting to politicize the issue of testing, which they shouldn’t be doing, because I inherited broken junk. Just as they did with ventilators where we had virtually none, and the hospitals were empty.”
...
This is totally nonsensical. The CDC couldn’t have bad tests left over from the Obama administration, because the coronavirus test didn’t exist until this year. And the stockpile was far from empty — its problem was that it was poorly maintained, an issue that rests on the Trump administration’s shoulders.
Of course, it’s not surprising that Trump is trying to blame Obama. His political rise was fueled by pushing racist conspiracy theories about America’s first black president, and a central theme of Trump’s political life is trying to erase Obama’s legacy across a spectrum of issues. But even by Trump’s standards, the brazenness involved in this particular effort to rewrite history is jarring.
So while it’s a sad commentary on our times that such an examination is even necessary, what follows is a look at why Obama is not, in fact, to blame for the coronavirus killing more people in America than in any other country.
----- 18 -----
America doesn’t want another Tea Party
Don’t let Fox News fool you. 81 percent of Americans do not share the views of anti-quarantine protesters.
By Laura McGann
Apr 20, 2020
https://www.vox.com/2020/4/20/21225016/protests-stay-at-home-orders-trump-conservative-group-michigan
Don’t be fooled by Fox News, Donald Trump, or the same type of groups that produced the Tea Party a decade ago: The protesters taking to the streets against social distancing are a small minority of Americans — and their attitudes represent a fraction of public opinion.
In fact, America has done something remarkable in this moment: It has united.
Last week, 81 percent of Americans told pollsters for a Politico/Morning Consult poll that the country “should continue to social distance for as long as is needed to curb the spread of coronavirus, even if it means continued damage to the economy.”
Let me repeat that: 81 percent of Americans agree. That’s an astounding figure.
...
But continued vigilance is required. Trump will keep trying to divide Americans ahead of the election this fall. Fox will continue to air images that make the anti-social-distancing movement look mainstream. Well-funded conservative groups will gin up more events.
----- 19 -----
The Associated Press
twitter.com/AP
https://twitter.com/AP/status/1251929831794708481
Black and Hispanic communities in Texas's oil hub say they're the front line of Trump administration rollbacks on industrial pollution. “They're basically killing us," the mother of a gasping 9-year-old boy says. "We don't even know what we're breathing."
[LINKS TO: https://apnews.com/9553e45fd2fc46940ce5b3ca4b4a0d04 ]
----- 20 -----
Scotland hit by 'England-only' supply decision
Mornings with Kaye Adams
BBC Radio Scotland
13 Apr 2020
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/uk-scotland-52203327
Supplies of protective equipment to carers in Scotland have been hit by the decision of the four largest manufacturers in the UK saying they will limit supplies to England, it has been revealed.
But Dr Donald Macaskill, chief executive of Scottish Care, tells BBC Radio Scotland that, although he remains concerned about supplies, he believes they are improving.
"We are facing an additional problem and that is that the care home sector and the care at home sector had traditionally ordered PPE from various sources, but the four largest companies in the UK last week said they were not sending to Scotland and their priority was going to be England - English NHS and then English social care providers.
"So, within two or three days, we've had a massive dry up of procurement into Scotland and that's had a really serious impact on our care homes and care organisations. Things have improved over the weekend. We are confident the stuff is there but just needs to be put out."
----- 21 -----
Trump tells a damnable and murderous lie
By Dana Milbank
April 17, 2020 at 12:48 p.m. PDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/17/trump-tells-damnable-murderous-lie/
“It would have been so easy to be truthful.”
Thus spake President Trump this week on the very day he surpassed the milestone of uttering 18,000 falsehoods during his presidency, as tallied by the Post’s Fact Checker.
But on this day, Trump was not admitting to losing his own struggle with the truth. He was accusing the World Health Organization of “covering up the spread of the coronavirus” and failing to “share information in a timely and transparent fashion.” He declared he was cutting off funding for the world’s public health body in the middle of a pandemic.
The next day he called the WHO a “tool of China” and floated the vile conspiracy theory that the WHO deliberately concealed the danger of the virus: “There’s something going on” at the WHO “that’s very bad,” and "I have a feeling they knew exactly what was going on.”
This is not merely a falsehood. This is a damnable and murderous lie.
As Trump surely knows, and as I have learned from people with knowledge of the situation who spoke to me on the condition of confidentiality, 15 officials from his administration were embedded with the WHO in Geneva, working full time, hand-in-glove with the organization on the virus from the very first day China disclosed the outbreak to the world, Dec. 31. At least six other U.S. officials at WHO headquarters dedicated most of their time to the virus, and two others worked remotely with the WHO on covid-19 full time. In the weeks that followed, they and other U.S. government scientists engaged in all major deliberations and decisions at the WHO on the novel coronavirus, had access to all information, and contributed significantly to the world body’s conclusions and recommendations.
----- 22 -----
Adam Parkhomenko
twitter.com/AdamParkhomenko
19 April 2020
https://twitter.com/AdamParkhomenko/status/1251860665691750402
complete idiots. all of them.
[EMBEDDED VIDEO FROM ASTROTURF PROTESTS]
----- 23 -----
Federal documents: more than 300,000 likely to die if restrictions are lifted
Documents show how much more harrowing the coronavirus pandemic could still be without careful mitigation — and even their view is too optimistic, some experts say.
Liz Essley Whyte
Reporter
21 April 2020
https://publicintegrity.org/health/coronavirus-and-inequality/federal-documents-more-than-300000-likely-to-die-if-restrictions-are-lifted/
This article was published in partnership with NPR.
Federal health officials estimated in early April that more than 300,000 Americans could die from COVID-19 if all social distancing measures are abandoned, and later estimates pushed the possible death toll even higher, according to documents obtained by the Center for Public Integrity. Some outside experts say even that grim outlook may be too optimistic.
The documents created by the Department of Health and Human Services spell out the data and analysis the agency is sharing with other federal agencies to help shape their responses to the coronavirus.
While the White House Coronavirus Task Force has cited other models created at academic institutions, the federal government has not made public its own modeling efforts. The documents paint the fullest picture yet of the assumptions underpinning the government’s response to the pandemic.
----- 24 -----
Beto O'Rourke
twitter.com/BetoORourke
21 April 2020
https://twitter.com/BetoORourke/status/1252635260216578050
[THREAD]
An attempt to distract us from his total mismanagement (43,000 of our fellow Americans have died so far - 20,000 more than next closest country AND we’ve tested little more than 1% of U.S.). But will still have terrible consequences for America. We should take it seriously.
[QUOTED TWEET:
Donald J. Trump
twitter.com/realDonaldTrump
20 April 2020
In light of the attack from the Invisible Enemy, as well as the need to protect the jobs of our GREAT American Citizens, I will be signing an Executive Order to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States!
]
So many of the doctors, nurses and cleaning staff in the hospitals that are literally saving this country — despite how badly bungled the President’s leadership has been — are immigrants. They came to this country for a better life and to make us a better America. And they have.
Who the fuck do you think is working on the farms and feed lots, in the packing houses and processing plants at a time where we are struggling to feed ourselves? Who is in the kitchen? Who is picking, preparing, serving the food we eat and cleaning up afterwards?
And what about the scientists and doctors who will come up with the cures and vaccines? You better believe many of them will be immigrants.
A stain on our country’s conscience if we let it happen. It will break up families, leave asylum seekers to suffer in what will become covid death camps on our southern border, and lead to more hate crimes against immigrants. This is illegal and immoral. Don’t let it happen.
----- 25 -----
N. K. Jemisin
twitter.com/nkjemisin
21 April 2020
https://twitter.com/nkjemisin/status/1252642158408065025
People on hydroxychloroquinone died at *more than twice the rate* of people not on it. Do NOT take this stuff, unless you have lupus, etc., and your doctor has prescribed it. President Orange Foolius is gonna get a whole lot of his cultists killed.
[QUOTED TWEET]
Zeke Miller
twitter.com/ZekeJMiller
21 April 2020
A malaria drug widely touted by Pres Trump for treating the new coronavirus showed no benefit in a large analysis of its use in US veterans hospitals. There were more deaths among those given hydroxychloroquine versus standard care, researchers reported.
https://apnews.com/a5077c7227b8eb8b0dc23423c0bbe2b2
----- 26 -----
We Are Living in a Failed State
The coronavirus didn’t break America. It revealed what was already broken.
Special Preview: June 2020 Issue
George Packer
Staff writer for The Atlantic
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/06/underlying-conditions/610261/
When the virus came here, it found a country with serious underlying conditions, and it exploited them ruthlessly. Chronic ills—a corrupt political class, a sclerotic bureaucracy, a heartless economy, a divided and distracted public—had gone untreated for years. We had learned to live, uncomfortably, with the symptoms. It took the scale and intimacy of a pandemic to expose their severity—to shock Americans with the recognition that we are in the high-risk category.
The crisis demanded a response that was swift, rational, and collective. The United States reacted instead like Pakistan or Belarus—like a country with shoddy infrastructure and a dysfunctional government whose leaders were too corrupt or stupid to head off mass suffering. The administration squandered two irretrievable months to prepare. From the president came willful blindness, scapegoating, boasts, and lies. From his mouthpieces, conspiracy theories and miracle cures. A few senators and corporate executives acted quickly—not to prevent the coming disaster, but to profit from it. When a government doctor tried to warn the public of the danger, the White House took the mic and politicized the message.
Every morning in the endless month of March, Americans woke up to find themselves citizens of a failed state. With no national plan—no coherent instructions at all—families, schools, and offices were left to decide on their own whether to shut down and take shelter. When test kits, masks, gowns, and ventilators were found to be in desperately short supply, governors pleaded for them from the White House, which stalled, then called on private enterprise, which couldn’t deliver. States and cities were forced into bidding wars that left them prey to price gouging and corporate profiteering. Civilians took out their sewing machines to try to keep ill-equipped hospital workers healthy and their patients alive. Russia, Taiwan, and the United Nations sent humanitarian aid to the world’s richest power—a beggar nation in utter chaos.
Donald Trump saw the crisis almost entirely in personal and political terms. Fearing for his reelection, he declared the coronavirus pandemic a war, and himself a wartime president. But the leader he brings to mind is Marshal Philippe Pétain, the French general who, in 1940, signed an armistice with Germany after its rout of French defenses, then formed the pro-Nazi Vichy regime. Like Pétain, Trump collaborated with the invader and abandoned his country to a prolonged disaster. And, like France in 1940, America in 2020 has stunned itself with a collapse that’s larger and deeper than one miserable leader. Some future autopsy of the pandemic might be called Strange Defeat, after the historian and Resistance fighter Marc Bloch’s contemporaneous study of the fall of France. Despite countless examples around the U.S. of individual courage and sacrifice, the failure is national. And it should force a question that most Americans have never had to ask: Do we trust our leaders and one another enough to summon a collective response to a mortal threat? Are we still capable of self-government?
----- 27 -----
Leah McElrath
twitter.com/leahmcelrath
21 April 2020
https://twitter.com/leahmcelrath/status/1252685410087600128
In front of White House, nurses read names of colleagues killed by coronavirus
[LINKS TO: Washington Post story]
----- 28 -----
Exclusive: As Washington DC Faces Coronavirus Spike, Secret Military Task Force Prepares to Secure the Capital
By William M. Arkin On 4/16/20
https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-washington-dc-faces-coronavirus-spike-secret-military-task-force-prepares-secure-1498276
District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser yesterday ordered a one-month extension of the state of emergency, as cases in the region grow at a rapid pace. Federal officials in the nation's capital expect a New York-like epidemic in the District, Maryland and Virginia, one that could potentially cripple the government.
"No one wants to talk evacuation, especially when there's nowhere to go," says a senior military officer working on continuity of government planning; he requested anonymity because he is not authorized to speak on the record.
But a little-known military task force charged with evacuating Washington has already been activated, a task force charged with the most sensitive government mission of "securing" Washington in the face of attackers, foreign and domestic—and if necessary, moving White House and other key government offices to alternate locations.
----- 29 -----
CDC director warns second wave of coronavirus this winter will likely be worse
By Lena H. Sun
April 21, 2020
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/04/21/coronavirus-secondwave-cdcdirector/
Even as states move ahead with plans to reopen their economies, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned Tuesday that a second wave of the novel coronavirus will be far more dire because it is likely to coincide with the start of flu season.
“There’s a possibility that the assault of the virus on our nation next winter will actually be even more difficult than the one we just went through,” CDC Director Robert Redfield said in an interview with The Washington Post. “And when I’ve said this to others, they kind of put their head back, they don’t understand what I mean.”
“We’re going to have the flu epidemic and the coronavirus epidemic at the same time,” he said. Having two simultaneous respiratory outbreaks would put unimaginable strain on the health-care system, he said. The first wave of covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, has already killed more than 42,000 people across the country. It has overwhelmed hospitals and revealed gaping shortages in test kits, ventilators and protective equipment for health-care workers.
In a wide-ranging interview, Redfield said federal and state officials need to use the coming months to prepare for what lies ahead. As stay-at-home orders are lifted, officials need to stress the continued importance of social distancing. Officials also need to massively scale up their ability to identify the infected through testing and find everyone they interact with through contact tracing. Doing so prevents new cases from becoming larger outbreaks.
Asked about the appropriateness of protests against stay-at-home orders and calls on states to be “liberated” from restrictions, Redfield said: “It’s not helpful.”
He said he, along with members of the White House coronavirus task force, have been clear about the importance of social distancing “and the enormous impact that it’s had on this outbreak in our nation.”
----- 30 -----
New Report Notes Rise In Coronavirus-Linked Anti-Semitic Hate Speech
21 April 2020
Daniel Estrin
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/21/839748857/new-report-notes-rise-in-coronavirus-linked-anti-semitic-hate-speech
Israeli researchers have tracked a global trend of anti-Semitic hate speech blaming Jews and Israelis for the coronavirus. But they stress that Jews are not the only target of virus-related conspiracy theories.
Coronavirus-related slurs against Jews are promoted mainly by "extreme rightists, ultra-conservative Christian circles, Islamists, and to a minor extent by the far-left," according to an annual report on global anti-Semitism by the Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry at Tel Aviv University. This year's report, which notes an 18% increase in anti-Semitic violence in 2019, was issued on Monday, ahead of Israel's annual commemoration of victims of the Holocaust.
"Since the beginning of March 2020, we have been receiving disturbing information on accusations of Jews, Zionists and Israelis, as individuals and as a collective, for causing and spreading the coronavirus," the report says. "Will the coronavirus crisis result in more accusations of the lowest kind against the Jewish people and its state, or will the understanding prevail that the fate of all mankind is intertwined, and that there is no way out of it but in cooperation and mutual support?"
The Israeli researchers cite claims by Florida pastor Rick Wiles, who said God was spreading the virus in Israeli synagogues as punishment for Jews opposing Jesus, and by former Klu Klux Klan leader David Duke, who tweeted that global Jewry and Zionism conspire to undermine world economic stability. It also mentions accusations in Turkey and Iran that Zionists and Americans created the virus as a weapon against the Iranian people and Muslims.
----- 31 -----
Trump plans to suspend immigration to U.S. over coronavirus concerns
20 April 2020
By Michael D. Shear
and Katie Rogers
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/trump-plans-to-suspend-immigration-to-u-s-over-coronavirus-concerns/
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Monday evening that he intended to close the United States to people trying to immigrate into the country to live and work, a drastic move that he said would protect American workers from foreign competition once the nation’s economy began to recover from the shutdown caused by the coronavirus outbreak.
“In light of the attack from the Invisible Enemy, as well as the need to protect the jobs of our GREAT American Citizens,” Trump wrote on Twitter, “I will be signing an Executive Order to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States!”
In recent weeks, the Trump administration has said health concerns justified moving swiftly to bar asylum-seekers and unauthorized immigrants from entering the country, alarming immigration advocates who have said that Trump and his advisers are using a global pandemic to further hard-line immigration policies.
But the president’s late-night announcement Monday signals his most wide-ranging attempt yet to seal the country off from the rest of the world. A formal order temporarily barring the provision of new green cards and work visas could come as early as the next few days, according to several people familiar with the plan.
----- 32 -----
An overlooked coronavirus crisis: A dire need for dialysis
April 18, 2020
By Sheri Fink, NICHOLAS KULISH, KATIE THOMAS and REED ABELSON
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/an-overlooked-coronavirus-crisis-a-dire-need-for-dialysis/
For weeks, U.S. government officials and hospital executives have warned of a looming shortage of ventilators as the coronavirus pandemic descended.
But now doctors are sounding an alarm about an unexpected and perhaps overlooked crisis: a surge in COVID-19 patients with kidney failure that is leading to shortages of machines, supplies and staff required for emergency dialysis.
In recent weeks, doctors on the front lines in intensive care units in New York and other hard-hit cities have learned that the coronavirus isn’t only a respiratory disease that has led to a crushing demand for ventilators.
The disease is also shutting down some patients’ kidneys, posing yet another series of life-or-death calculations for doctors who must ferry a limited supply of specialized dialysis machines from one patient in kidney failure to the next — all the while fearing they may not be able to hook up everyone in time to save them.
It is not yet known whether the kidneys are a major target of the virus or whether they’re just one more organ falling victim as a patient’s ravaged body surrenders. Dialysis fills the vital roles the kidneys play, cleaning the blood of toxins, balancing essential components including electrolytes, keeping blood pressure in check and removing excess fluids. It can be a temporary measure while the kidneys recover, or it can be used long-term if they do not. Another unknown is whether the kidney damage caused by the virus is permanent.
“The nephrologists in New York City are going slightly crazy making sure that everyone with kidney failure gets treatment,” said Dr. David Goldfarb, chief of nephrology at the New York campus of the New York Harbor VA Health Care System. “We don’t want people to die of inadequate dialysis.
“Nothing like this has ever been seen in terms of the number of people needing kidney replacement therapy,” he said.
----- 33 -----
Federal government preparing workers to head back to the office
Shannon Pettypiece
20 April 2020
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/live-blog/2020-04-20-coronavirus-news-n1187556/ncrd1188266
WASHINGTON — The federal government is preparing to bring employees back to the office as soon as state and local authorities permit, the Office of Management and Budget told government agencies on Monday.
Crediting the Trump administration’s “aggressive response” for saving lives, acting OMB director Russ Vought said in a memo to agencies posted Monday on the White House website that the "federal government is actively planning to ramp back up government operations to the maximum extent possible, as local conditions warrant, consistent with the National guidelines for Opening Up America Again.”
President Donald Trump last week that outlined a three-phase strategy for states to determine when to bring businesses and services back online. Eighty-five percent of the federal workforce is located outside the Washington, D.C., area, which means different agencies will encounter different scenarios and timelines.
“Given the diversity of Federal workforce missions, geographic locations and the needs of individuals within the workforce itself, this transition will require continued diligence and flexibility from Federal agencies and the Federal workforce,” Vought wrote.
----- 34 -----
Conservative activist family behind 'grassroots' anti-quarantine Facebook events
A family-run network of pro-gun groups is behind five of the largest Facebook groups dedicated to protesting shelter-in-place restrictions.
By Brandy Zadrozny and Ben Collins
20 April 2020
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/conservative-activist-family-behind-grassroots-anti-quarantine-facebook-events-n1188021
Protests against state stay-at-home orders have attracted a wide range of fringe activists and ardent Trump supporters. They have also attracted a family of political activists whom some Republican lawmakers have called "scam artists."
A family-run network of pro-gun groups is behind five of the largest Facebook groups dedicated to protesting the shelter-in-place restrictions, according to an NBC News analysis of Facebook groups and website registration information.
The groups were set up by four brothers — Chris, Ben, Aaron and Matthew Dorr — and have amassed more than 200,000 members collectively, including in states where they don't reside, according to an NBC News analysis based on public records searches and Facebook group registrations.
The Dorr brothers are known in conservative circles for running pro-gun and anti-abortion rights Facebook groups that bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars annually by antagonizing establishment conservative leaders and activists.
Their usual method is to attack established conservative groups from the right, including the National Rifle Association, and then make money by selling memberships in their groups or selling mailing lists of those who sign up, according to some conservative politicians and activists who have labeled the efforts as scams.
The Washington Post first reported on the Dorrs' role in the events.
The pages are just part of the more than 100 state-specific Facebook groups that have been created in the last two weeks to protest the stay-at-home orders, according to an unpublished analysis by First Draft, an organization that researches disinformation. The pages have organized at least 49 different events. Most of the groups are similarly named, and they have attracted more than 900,000 members in total.
----- 35 -----
This Is How A Group Linked To Betsy DeVos Is Organizing Protests To End Social Distancing, Now With Trump's Support
Thousands of demonstrators showed up in Michigan to protest the governor's stay-at-home order, and they're helping other groups organize across the country.
Salvador Hernandez BuzzFeed News Reporter
April 17, 2020
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/salvadorhernandez/coronavirus-quarantine-protests-facebook-groups
While thousands of demonstrators swarmed the Michigan State Capitol to protest the governor's stay-at-home order Wednesday — honking horns, waving flags, and bringing traffic to a halt — dozens of Facebook groups were already springing up to organize similar rallies across the country.
"Indiana Citizens Against Excessive Quarantine," "Operation Gridlock Tennessee," and other groups with similar names drew people calling an end to stay-at-home orders, measures that health officials say are essential to stopping the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
Protests against the guidelines are being planned across the country. The Michigan Conservative Coalition, the same organization that planned the Lansing protest against Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Wednesday, is helping organizers.
...
Seely said he was not surprised by the turnout on Wednesday's protest nor the number of groups that have reached out hoping to duplicate the demonstration in their own communities. He said he knew of at least a dozen groups that the Michigan Conservative Coalition had helped to organize protests similar to its own "Operation Gridlock."
Organized by the Michigan Conservative Coalition and the Michigan Freedom Fund, the protest has drawn criticism over its links to Betsy DeVos's family.
"I think it's really inappropriate for a sitting member of the United States president's cabinet to be waging political attacks on any governor," Whitmer said, referring to the education secretary.
The Michigan Freedom Fund was founded by Greg McNeilly, a political adviser to the DeVos family, who has provided financial support to the organization.
no subject
Date: 2020-04-22 01:28 am (UTC)Did you mean "resentment" or is this a different word?
Re: #25 on hydroxychloroquine in VA hospitals, while I wonder if that population was even more vulnerable than normal for the likely age group (although I know there are younger vets as well) and so skews the results, I have this oogy feeling they were basically using veterans as guinea pigs... :-/
no subject
Date: 2020-04-22 02:07 am (UTC)ressentiment ►
no subject
Date: 2020-04-22 02:08 am (UTC)