Today's News (2020/4/23): Rolling back that plan a bit? Or just resetting the timeline?

[solarbird]

After starting to roll out the plan I outlined - and seeing, possibly, how extremely badly every step was polling, specifically amongst Republicans - they may be reconsidering. Or it's a dodge and delay, hard to tell. But the way Donkeyballs Donald did a 180 backstab on Georgia's Governor Kemp - absolutely relying on his zero-attention-span following to forget what he said literally 24 hours previously, of course - well. That was pretty remarkable.

Given how he's still opposing greater testing, though - the more ignorance about the problem, the better, from the GOP point of view - I'm pretty sure this is just a pause. We'll see.

1. GOP gubernatorial candidate Joshua Freed sues Inslee over coronavirus ban on religious gatherings
2. Snohomish County sheriff says he won’t enforce Washington state’s stay-home order
3. Las Vegas Mayor offers city as "control group" to see how many people die without social distancing
4. A mysterious blood-clotting complication is killing coronavirus patients
5. New HHS spokesman made racist comments about Chinese people in now-deleted tweets
6. As Trump says calls for more testing are a "media trap" designed to damage him... here's what Fauci told Time magazine today.
7. McConnell: Let’s Use COVID-19 to Crush Public Sector Unions
8. The House's doctor advises members to wear masks to prevent them from spreading infection to others. Reps. Michael Burgess and Jim Jordan are among those ignoring that advice.
9. Special Report: Former Labradoodle breeder was tapped to lead U.S. pandemic task force
10. Trump reverses course, says it's 'too soon' for Georgia Gov. Kemp to reopen state

----- 1 -----
GOP gubernatorial candidate Joshua Freed sues Inslee over coronavirus ban on religious gatherings
By Jim Brunner
Seattle Times staff reporter
April 22, 2020

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/gop-gubernatorial-candidate-joshua-freed-sues-inslee-over-coronavirus-ban-on-religious-gatherings/

Republican gubernatorial candidate Joshua Freed sued Gov. Jay Inslee in federal court on Wednesday, challenging the state’s ban on religious gatherings issued as part of the governor’s stay-at-home order to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

The 12-page complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, contends the ban violates the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment guarantees of religious freedom, assembly and free speech.

Freed’s lawsuit says Inslee’s order prohibiting in-person spiritual meetings overstepped his authority, and ignored less burdensome alternative restrictions.

“Prohibiting or punishing Plaintiff’s religious speech does not serve any legitimate, rational, substantial, or compelling governmental interest,” the lawsuit states.

Freed, a former Bothell mayor and real-estate developer, is a Christian and says the ban has interfered with his right to host a regular Bible study at his home. His lawsuit seeks a preliminary injunction voiding Inslee’s order and a judgment that the restrictions violate the Constitution.


----- 2 -----
Snohomish County sheriff says he won’t enforce Washington state’s stay-home order
By Christine Clarridge
Seattle Times staff reporter
April 22, 2020

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/snohomish-county-sheriff-says-he-wont-enforce-inslees-stay-home-order/

Snohomish County Sheriff Adam Fortney said he believes Gov. Jay Inslee’s stay-home order is unconstitutional and he won’t enforce it.

In a post on his Facebook page Tuesday night, Fortney said he was worried about the economy and residents’ ability to make a living.

“I believe that preventing business owners to operate their businesses and provide for their families intrudes on our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” he wrote, paraphrasing the Declaration of Independence. “As your elected Sheriff I will always put your constitutional rights above politics or popular opinion.”

Fortney argued that the stay-home order, which aims to slow the spread of the coronavirus by barring people from gathering, violates Washingtonians’ First Amendment rights to religious exercise and peaceable assembly.

The post, Fortney wrote, was prompted by a Tuesday evening news conference in which Inslee laid out a road map for reopening Washington’s economy that could soon allow the return of some elective surgeries, outdoor recreation and construction projects. The governor stressed that the timing of that reopening will depend on the state’s progress on key public-health indicators.


----- 3 -----
Josh Marshall
twitter.com/joshtpm
22 April 2020

https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/1253041723510587394

Las Vegas Mayor offers city as "control group", "we offer to be a control group" to see how many people die without social distancing.

[EMBEDDED VIDEO AT LINK]


----- 4 -----
A mysterious blood-clotting complication is killing coronavirus patients
April 22, 2020
By Ariana Eunjung Cha

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/a-mysterious-blood-clotting-complication-is-killing-coronavirus-patients

Craig Coopersmith was up early that morning as usual and typed his daily inquiry into his phone. “Good morning, Team Covid,” he wrote, asking for updates from the ICU team leaders working across 10 hospitals in the Emory University health system in Atlanta.

One doctor replied that one of his patients had a strange blood problem. Despite being put on anticoagulants, the patient was still developing clots. A second said she’d seen something similar. And a third. Soon, every person on the text chat had reported the same thing.

“That’s when we knew we had a huge problem,” said Coopersmith, a critical-care surgeon. As he checked with his counterparts at other medical centers, he became increasingly alarmed: “It was in as many as 20, 30 or 40% of their patients.”


----- 5 -----
New HHS spokesman made racist comments about Chinese people in now-deleted tweets
By Andrew Kaczynski, Nathan McDermott and Em Steck, CNN
Thu April 23, 2020

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/23/politics/michael-caputo-tweets/index.html

WARNING: This story contains graphic language.

(CNN) The new spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services in a series of now-deleted tweets made racist and derogatory comments about Chinese people, said Democrats wanted the coronavirus to kill millions of people and accused the media of intentionally creating panic around the pandemic to hurt President Donald Trump.

Michael Caputo, a longtime New York Republican political operative who worked on Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, was appointed last week as Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at HHS, a prominent communications role at the department which serves a central role in the federal government's response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Caputo, a prolific user who often tweeted insults and profanity, recently erased nearly his entire Twitter history from before April 12. CNN's KFile used the Internet Archive's Way Back Machine to review more than 1300 deleted tweets and retweets from late February to early April many of which were regarding the rapidly spreading coronavirus.

...

In a series of tweets on March 12, Caputo responded to a baseless conspiracy theory that the United States brought the coronavirus to Wuhan, China, by tweeting that "millions of Chinese suck the blood out of rabid bats as an appetizer and eat the ass out of anteaters."

...

On March 8, he said a Democrat may try to inflict hundreds of thousands of American deaths from the coronavirus, creating a hypothetical scenario comparable to James Hodgkinson, the anti-Trump man who shot House Majority Whip Rep. Steve Scalise and four others during a Republican congressional baseball game practice in 2017.

"Coronavirus is the Democrats' new Russia, their new Ukraine. And nobody will believe them except their zombies. But know this: The Dems' strategy to defeat realdonaldtrump requires 100s of thousands of American deaths. Will one of their nutjobs make it happen, a la Hodgkinson?"

That same day, Caputo retweeted conservative actor Nick Searcy saying, "Democrats are pulling for the virus to kill a lot of people."

In other tweets from March, Caputo claimed the media created "intentional" panic created around the outbreak, saying it was "orchestrated by soulless Trump critics who seize every crisis as an opportunity to stop him."


----- 6 -----
Daniel Dale
twitter.com/ddale8
23 April 2020

https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1253393730113081345

As Trump says calls for more testing are a "media trap" designed to damage him, that we're doing more testing than any governors "even want," and that swabs and reagents are "so easy to get," here's what Fauci told Time magazine today.

[EMBEDDED IMAGE transcription as per source]

“We need to significantly ramp up not only the number of tests, but the capacity to perform them, so that you don’t have a situation where you have a test but it can’t be done because there isn’t a swab, or because there isn’t extraction media, or not the right vial,” says Fauci. “I am not overly confident right now at all that we have what it takes to do that. We are doing better, and I think we are going to get there, but we are not there yet.”

[LINK TO]
https://time.com/5826161/anthony-fauci-covid-19-testing-capabilities/


----- 7 -----
McConnell: Let’s Use COVID-19 to Crush Public Sector Unions
Kevin Drum
23 April 2020

https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2020/04/mcconnell-lets-use-covid-19-to-crush-public-sector-unions/

You’ve probably heard that Mitch McConnell wants states to declare bankruptcy instead of getting rescue funds from the federal government. However, this is not due to some kind of generalized fear of running up the deficit. It’s because, like most Republicans, he hates public sector unions:

McConnell pressed his idea during an interview on Hugh Hewitt’s syndicated radio show, arguing that much of the financial strain faced by some states is the result of runaway pension obligations — and that several U.S. cities have used bankruptcy protections to restructure their finances.

Republicans have been targeting the pensions of state workers forever. For the most part, these pensions are protected because they’re part of union contracts, but that just makes them even more attractive targets: If you can gut pensions, then not only will you reduce state spending, but you can crush the unions at the same time. Legally, though, the only way to do this is as part of a bankruptcy restructuring.

So as far as McConnell is concerned, COVID-19 has an upside: by wrecking state finances, it will force them into bankruptcy. And that means Republicans can get their revenge on public sector unions, who are big supporters of Democrats. What’s not to like?


----- 8 -----
Michael McAuliff
twitter.com/mmcauliff
23 April 2020

https://twitter.com/mmcauliff/status/1253337622056890372

The House's doctor advises members to wear masks to prevent them from spreading infection to others. Reps. Michael Burgess and Jim Jordan are among those ignoring that advice. So watch Jordan over Burgess's shoulder here.

[EMBEDDED VIDEO]

[EDITOR: Jordan coughs repeatedly and sloppily into his elbow]


----- 9 -----
Special Report: Former Labradoodle breeder was tapped to lead U.S. pandemic task force
Aram Roston, Marisa Taylor
22 April 2020

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-hhschief-speci-idUSKCN2243CE

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - On January 21, the day the first U.S. case of coronavirus was reported, the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services appeared on Fox News to report the latest on the disease as it ravaged China. Alex Azar, a 52-year-old lawyer and former drug industry executive, assured Americans the U.S. government was prepared.

“We developed a diagnostic test at the CDC, so we can confirm if somebody has this,” Azar said. “We will be spreading that diagnostic around the country so that we are able to do rapid testing on site.”

While coronavirus in Wuhan, China, was “potentially serious,” Azar assured viewers in America, it “was one for which we have a playbook.”

Azar’s initial comments misfired on two fronts. Like many U.S. officials, from President Donald Trump on down, he underestimated the pandemic’s severity. He also overestimated his agency’s preparedness.

As is now widely known, two agencies Azar oversaw as HHS secretary, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration, wouldn’t come up with viable tests for five and half weeks, even as other countries and the World Health Organization had already prepared their own.

Shortly after his televised comments, Azar tapped a trusted aide with minimal public health experience to lead the agency’s day-to-day response to COVID-19. The aide, Brian Harrison, had joined the department after running a dog-breeding business for six years. Five sources say some officials in the White House derisively called him “the dog breeder.”

Azar’s optimistic public pronouncement and choice of an inexperienced manager are emblematic of his agency’s oft-troubled response to the crisis. His HHS is a behemoth department, overseeing almost every federal public health agency in the country, with a $1.3 trillion budget that exceeds the gross national product of most countries.


----- 10 -----
Trump reverses course, says it's 'too soon' for Georgia Gov. Kemp to reopen state
The president said he told Gov. Brian Kemp "I disagree strongly" with his decision to reopen nail salons and tattoo parlors — but he won't stop him.
22 April 200
By Dareh Gregorian

[EDITOR: One, it polled badly. Really badly. Two, it's an object lesson in not following Trump's lead, because he has _no_ loyalty and will _completely_ shaft you.]

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-reverses-course-says-too-soon-georgia-reopen-n1190061

President Donald Trump said Wednesday he "strongly disagrees" with Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp's decision to allow businesses like barbershops and nail salons to reopen, a day after he praised him during the White House briefing.

"I told the governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, that I disagree strongly with his decision to open certain facilities," Trump said at his daily coronavirus briefing Wednesday. "But at the same time, he must do what he thinks is right. I want him to do what he thinks is right. But I disagree with him on what he's doing."

Kemp tweeted after the president's remarks that he appreciated Trump's "bold leadership and insight during these difficult times," but he didn't back down. "Our next measured step is driven by data and guided by state public health officials. We will continue with this approach to protect the lives - and livelihoods - of all Georgians," Kemp wrote.

Trump said of Kemp's plan: "I think spas, beauty salons and tattoo parlors and barbershops ... it's just too soon."

"I love those people who use all those things," Trump said, "but they can wait a little bit longer."

"Safety has to predominate," he added.

Asked about the same plan Tuesday, Trump praised Kemp as "a capable man who knows what he's doing."

Comments

[kevin_standlee]

I do hope that the federal courts won't overturn all precedent and practice and declare that the government's police powers don't apply to Democratic governors.

If they do upload all past rulings regarding quarantine and the use of the state police power, I wonder what that sheriff will do. Get sick and die quickly, I hope.

[dewline]

Defeating your hopes - and those of millions more saner Americans - seems to be the point of McConnell wanting federal courts "stacked" as quickly as possible.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/one-in-every-four-circuit-court-judges-is-now-a-trump-appointee/2019/12/21/d6fa1e98-2336-11ea-bed5-880264cc91a9_story.html