![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solarbirdUPDATED - If you did not see at least eleven articles, reload for updated post
Most of these are about how the Republicans are fighting efforts to fight COVID-19.
Yeah. That's a sentence I had to type.
Can the Pact just, you know, declare independence already before they take us down with them?
eta: I keep forgetting to say, saying that the Pact (and other such alliances) is "unconstitutional" is starting to be a thing in Trumpist circles. They don't actually care about that, but they may have a Constitutional hook to hang on and would be happy to put a noose for us on it. Just something to keep an eye on.
But now, the headlines:
----- 1 -----
Rep. Jim Jordan
twitter.com/Jim_Jordan
27 April 2020
[EDITOR: The focus is on "discrimination against religious institutions and religious believers," followed by "disfavored speech" and "undue interference with the national economy." That last one is a big red flag in terms of sabotaging state efforts to control the pandemic - as is the first, but it's the second where they're most likely to put the real effort. Eric Dreiband and Matthew Schneider are tapped as coordinators but all US attorneys are to "be on the lookout for state and local directives" that "overreach." Previous statements indicated joining the side of plaintiffs in lawsuits; this memo indicates the Justice Department intends to take action itself.]
https://twitter.com/Jim_Jordan/status/1254904177852997632/photo/1
Attorney General Barr’s Memo to U.S. Attorneys:
“The Constitution is not suspended in times of crisis.”
The Attorney General is right. We can’t forget freedom during the #coronavirus crisis.
----- 2 -----
Maui Business Leaders Push To Join Western States Pact, Ige Demurs
Five governors have now joined a coalition of Western U.S. states developing common standards for reopening their economies. Hawaii’s executive remains reluctant.
By Ryan Finnerty
28 April 2020
https://www.hawaiipublicradio.org/post/maui-business-leaders-push-join-western-states-pact-ige-demurs
The leaders of California, Oregon, and Washington State announced the Western States Pact two weeks ago. Yesterday, the governors of Colorado and Nevada announced their states will also join. The working group is meant to coordinate efforts regionally, as state authorities begin moving toward reopening their economies.
At a meeting of the state House of Representative’s COVID-19 response committee on Monday, Maui Chamber of Commerce President Pamela Tumpap told local officials that she would like Hawaii to join the pact as well.
“Health officials and governors are developing plans and setting reopening parameters, including interstate travel and tourism, so that people can do this with a high level of confidence after COVID-19,” Tumpap said.
----- 3 -----
Trump In Talks to Sideline Fauci, Birx During Coronavirus Briefings
The president reportedly wants to shift the focus from public health to economic “success stories,” a move that comes as even his Republican allies are frustrated by his rambling appearances.
By Eric Lutz
April 27, 2020
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/04/trump-in-talks-to-sideline-fauci-brix-during-coronavirus-briefings
ith the coronavirus crisis still spinning out of control in the United States, Donald Trump appears to be training the White House’s focus away from public health and toward reigniting the economy. According to Axios, Trump is expected to sideline public health officials Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx, shifting attention to business “success stories” and to governors and local leaders who heed the president’s calls to reopen their states. “[Fauci and Birx] will continue,” a White House official told the outlet, “but will take a back seat to the forward-looking, ‘what’s next’ message.”
Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany acknowledged Monday on Fox News that briefings later this week “may have a different look,” though declined to outline specific changes. Fauci and other public health experts have cautioned against attempting a premature return to normal, warning that social distancing guidelines cannot safely be lifted without increased testing that the Trump administration has so far failed to adequately provide. “You don’t make the timeline,” Fauci said late last month, as Trump first began floating plans to reopen the country. “The virus makes the timeline.” But the president, concerned the plunging economy and escalating unemployment due to the pandemic could stand in the way of his reelection, has insisted that the government has provided states with sufficient resources to combat the deadly virus and openly grown impatient with the social distancing measures that have only just begun to show promise in slowing its spread. “Remember,” Trump tweeted Saturday, “the Cure can’t be worse than the problem itself.”
Having wasted months downplaying the COVID threat, he has desperately grasped for a miracle cure that could make the problem go away without him needing to do any real work—first by promoting the unproven off-label use of an anti-malarial to treat the disease, then by ludicrously suggesting toxic cleaning products and/or “very powerful” light could be injected into the human body as a possible cure. Those bizarre remarks drew widespread mockery, condemnation, and disbelief, as well as warnings from supporters that his rambling performances at the daily coronavirus briefings are hurting him politically. “It’s not helping him,” one adviser said recently.
----- 4 -----
Trump Decides Now Would Be a Great Time to Cut Coronavirus Research Funding
The move comes as scientists have warned the virus is unlikely to be eradicated and instead become seasonal.
By Bess Levin
April 28, 2020
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/04/trump-coronavirus-funding-cuts
Something you may have picked up on over the last interminable three and a half years is that Donald Trump is not a smart man, despite robust claims on his part to the contrary. For example, this whole coronavirus thing. While another president might have taken it seriously, or at the very least read the briefings warning him to take it seriously, Trump decided instead to listen to his gut, which told him the virus would “miraculously” go away by April. Or take World Health Organization funding; although many have argued that the agency’s initial response to COVID-19 could have gone better, no one besides Trump thought, Hey, maybe the U.S. should vindictively cut the group’s funding in the middle of a pandemic. (In fact, the American Medical Association described it as “a dangerous step in the wrong direction that will not make defeating COVID-19 easier.”) And speaking of defeating COVID-19, thinking people agree that, among other things, robust research into how coronaviruses are transmitted is key to better protecting the world’s population now and in the future. While Trump…:
Last week, the NIH said its strategic plan for studying the novel coronavirus includes understanding its origin and how it is transmitted, a priority clearly in line with the EcoHealth alliance’s investigation. Unfortunately, such an initiative was apparently no match for Trump’s susceptibility to conspiracy theories, namely the one alleging that the coronavirus outbreak actually began in the Wuhan lab, a claim that U.S. intelligence agencies and scientists have not found a shred of evidence to support.
----- 5 -----
President’s intelligence briefing book repeatedly cited virus threat
By Greg Miller and Ellen Nakashima
April 27, 2020 at 2:22 p.m. PDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/presidents-intelligence-briefing-book-repeatedly-cited-virus-threat/2020/04/27/ca66949a-8885-11ea-ac8a-fe9b8088e101_story.html
U.S. intelligence agencies issued warnings about the novel coronavirus in more than a dozen classified briefings prepared for President Trump in January and February, months during which he continued to play down the threat, according to current and former U.S. officials.
The repeated warnings were conveyed in issues of the President’s Daily Brief, a sensitive report that is produced before dawn each day and designed to call the president’s attention to the most significant global developments and security threats.
For weeks, the PDB — as the report is known — traced the virus’s spread around the globe, made clear that China was suppressing information about the contagion’s transmissibility and lethal toll, and raised the prospect of dire political and economic consequences.
But the alarms appear to have failed to register with the president, who routinely skips reading the PDB and has at times shown little patience for even the oral summary he takes two or three times per week, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss classified material.
----- 6 -----
Trump is ‘somebody’ who could have helped stop covid-19
By Jennifer Rubin
Opinion writer
April 28, 2020 at 6:45 a.m. PDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/28/trump-is-somebody-who-could-have-stopped-covid-19/
“There has been so much unnecessary death in this country. It could have been stopped and it could have been stopped short, but somebody a long time ago, it seems, decided not to do it that way. And the whole world is suffering because of it.” President Trump uttered these words at a White House coronavirus response briefing on Monday, once more playing the role of spectator in his own presidency. It is not difficult to locate the person capable of stopping or at the very least minimizing the pandemic.
The Post reports:
This report adds one more indisputable layer that Trump was not tricked by the World Health Organization or China but rather chose to ignore advice of his own aides — some of which originated as far back as November. Trump reportedly chooses not get briefings every day (the notion that he works hard is belied by his schedule and TV watching habits) but, in this case, it is hard to imagine he was not repeatedly informed of the danger.
The frequency with which the novel coronavirus was mentioned “reflected a level of attention comparable to periods when analysts have been tracking active terrorism threats, overseas conflicts or other rapidly developing security issues.” This is indicative of Trump’s entire presidency — a mixture of laziness, denial, arrogance (he knows more than anyone), inattention and willful blindness. He plays president but he does not do the job.
In Trump’s narcissistic brain, he is never to blame for any error no matter how egregious or obvious. He declared on Monday that he bears no responsibility for the uptick in poisonings after he suggested disinfectant injected into the body might be a coronavirus cure. Asked whether he should be reelected as the number of covid-19 deaths approaches the number of Americans killed during the entire Vietnam War, Trump insisted he and his team had done a great job since some estimates had a projected death toll as high as 2 million. He congratulated himself (prematurely) for keeping the figure to 60,000 to 70,000 (he used to brag about a projection of 50-60,000) — a number we may blow past in the coming weeks (and which may not have captured all of the coronavirus-related deaths).
----- 7 -----
David Folkenflik
twitter.com/davidfolkenflik
28 April 2020
https://twitter.com/davidfolkenflik/status/1255099515029393409
“Kansas Health Secy Lee Norman said poison control officials in Kansas have marked a 40% increase in the ingestion of toxic chemicals...” — Topeka Capital-Journal
[LINKS TO:
https://www.cjonline.com/news/20200427/kansas-coronavirus-update-gov-laura-kelly-says-more-tests-needed-before-state-can-reopen
]
----- 8 -----
Leader of North Carolina Protests Against Stay-at-Home Tests Positive for Coronavirus
By Aila Slisco On 4/27/20
https://www.newsweek.com/leader-north-carolina-protests-against-stay-home-tests-positive-coronavirus-1500545
A leader of a Facebook group demanding that North Carolina allow businesses to reopen amid the Covid-19 pandemic has tested positive for coronavirus but is still insisting that Governor Roy Cooper's stay-at-home order be rescinded, saying it violates her right to freedom of religion.
Audrey Whitlock is one of the leaders of the ReOpen NC Facebook group, which has close to 70,000 online members and has organized weekly in-person rallies demanding that the state reopen. Whitlock described herself as an "asymptomatic Covid-19 patient" in a since-deleted post to the group on Sunday morning. Regardless of her potential to infect others, she said that abiding by the governor's orders meant her rights were being violated.
----- 9 -----
#JustWearScrubs: GOP chairwoman tells anti-lockdown protesters to impersonate health care workers
Dylan Stableford
Senior Writer, Yahoo News
April 27, 2020
https://news.yahoo.com/coronavirus-covid-19-kelli-ward-just-wear-scrubs-stay-at-home-protests-183731319.html
Last week, after images of health care workers in hospital gear facing down demonstrators protesting stay-at-home orders went viral, Dr. Kelli Ward, chairwoman of the Arizona Republican Party, urged demonstrators calling for businesses to reopen to dress in scrubs and masks to confuse reporters.
“Planning protest to #ReOpenAmerica?” Ward tweeted on Friday. “EVERYONE wear scrubs and masks — the media doesn’t care if you are really in healthcare or not — it’s the ‘message’ that matters!”
Ward added the hashtags #ProblemSolved, #WeAreAllHeroic, #1A, and #JustWearScrubs.
----- 10 -----
Pence flouts Mayo Clinic policy by touring coronavirus testing facility without a mask
Pence defended his actions afterward, saying he didn't need a mask because he is "tested for the coronavirus on a regular basis."
April 28, 2020, 12:45 PM PDT / Updated April 28, 2020, 2:11 PM PDT
By Dareh Gregorian
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/pence-flouts-mayo-clinic-policy-touring-facility-without-mask-n1194556
Vice President Mike Pence went on a tour of the Mayo Clinic's coronavirus testing labs Tuesday — and ignored the prestigious Minnesota hospital's rules that all occupants wear masks.
"Mayo Clinic had informedvp of the masking policy prior to his arrival today," the clinic tweeted while Pence was still inside meeting with doctors and patients.
The tweet was later deleted. Asked for comment, the clinic said only that it had "shared the masking policy with the VP's office."
----- 11 -----
Josh Marshall
twitter.com/joshtpm
28 April 2020
https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/1255234731467313154
Trump suggests any relief for states hit hard by COVID will require ending "sanctuary city" policies and turning residents over to ICE.
[EMBEDDED VIDEO]
Most of these are about how the Republicans are fighting efforts to fight COVID-19.
Yeah. That's a sentence I had to type.
Can the Pact just, you know, declare independence already before they take us down with them?
eta: I keep forgetting to say, saying that the Pact (and other such alliances) is "unconstitutional" is starting to be a thing in Trumpist circles. They don't actually care about that, but they may have a Constitutional hook to hang on and would be happy to put a noose for us on it. Just something to keep an eye on.
But now, the headlines:
- Attorney General Barr steps up plans for action against state measures to control COVID-19
- Maui Business Leaders Push To Join Western States Pact, Ige Demurs
- Trump In Talks to Sideline Fauci, Birx During Coronavirus Briefings
- Trump Decides Now Would Be a Great Time to Cut Coronavirus Research Funding
- President’s intelligence briefing book repeatedly cited virus threat
- Trump is ‘somebody’ who could have helped stop covid-19
- Poison control officials in Kansas have marked a 40% increase in the ingestion of toxic chemicals
- Leader of North Carolina Protests Against Stay-at-Home Tests Positive for Coronavirus [EDITOR: WORSE THAN IT LOOKS - she stated that she had tested positive and was an asymptomatic carrier while protesting, and continues to protest, and I don't know how you get more of a death cult without ritual murders.]
- #JustWearScrubs: GOP chairwoman tells anti-lockdown protesters to impersonate health care workers
- Pence flouts Mayo Clinic policy by touring coronavirus testing facility without a mask
- Trump suggests any relief for states hit hard by COVID will require ending "sanctuary city" policies and turning residents over to ICE.
----- 1 -----
Rep. Jim Jordan
twitter.com/Jim_Jordan
27 April 2020
[EDITOR: The focus is on "discrimination against religious institutions and religious believers," followed by "disfavored speech" and "undue interference with the national economy." That last one is a big red flag in terms of sabotaging state efforts to control the pandemic - as is the first, but it's the second where they're most likely to put the real effort. Eric Dreiband and Matthew Schneider are tapped as coordinators but all US attorneys are to "be on the lookout for state and local directives" that "overreach." Previous statements indicated joining the side of plaintiffs in lawsuits; this memo indicates the Justice Department intends to take action itself.]
https://twitter.com/Jim_Jordan/status/1254904177852997632/photo/1
Attorney General Barr’s Memo to U.S. Attorneys:
“The Constitution is not suspended in times of crisis.”
The Attorney General is right. We can’t forget freedom during the #coronavirus crisis.
----- 2 -----
Maui Business Leaders Push To Join Western States Pact, Ige Demurs
Five governors have now joined a coalition of Western U.S. states developing common standards for reopening their economies. Hawaii’s executive remains reluctant.
By Ryan Finnerty
28 April 2020
https://www.hawaiipublicradio.org/post/maui-business-leaders-push-join-western-states-pact-ige-demurs
The leaders of California, Oregon, and Washington State announced the Western States Pact two weeks ago. Yesterday, the governors of Colorado and Nevada announced their states will also join. The working group is meant to coordinate efforts regionally, as state authorities begin moving toward reopening their economies.
At a meeting of the state House of Representative’s COVID-19 response committee on Monday, Maui Chamber of Commerce President Pamela Tumpap told local officials that she would like Hawaii to join the pact as well.
“Health officials and governors are developing plans and setting reopening parameters, including interstate travel and tourism, so that people can do this with a high level of confidence after COVID-19,” Tumpap said.
----- 3 -----
Trump In Talks to Sideline Fauci, Birx During Coronavirus Briefings
The president reportedly wants to shift the focus from public health to economic “success stories,” a move that comes as even his Republican allies are frustrated by his rambling appearances.
By Eric Lutz
April 27, 2020
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/04/trump-in-talks-to-sideline-fauci-brix-during-coronavirus-briefings
ith the coronavirus crisis still spinning out of control in the United States, Donald Trump appears to be training the White House’s focus away from public health and toward reigniting the economy. According to Axios, Trump is expected to sideline public health officials Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx, shifting attention to business “success stories” and to governors and local leaders who heed the president’s calls to reopen their states. “[Fauci and Birx] will continue,” a White House official told the outlet, “but will take a back seat to the forward-looking, ‘what’s next’ message.”
Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany acknowledged Monday on Fox News that briefings later this week “may have a different look,” though declined to outline specific changes. Fauci and other public health experts have cautioned against attempting a premature return to normal, warning that social distancing guidelines cannot safely be lifted without increased testing that the Trump administration has so far failed to adequately provide. “You don’t make the timeline,” Fauci said late last month, as Trump first began floating plans to reopen the country. “The virus makes the timeline.” But the president, concerned the plunging economy and escalating unemployment due to the pandemic could stand in the way of his reelection, has insisted that the government has provided states with sufficient resources to combat the deadly virus and openly grown impatient with the social distancing measures that have only just begun to show promise in slowing its spread. “Remember,” Trump tweeted Saturday, “the Cure can’t be worse than the problem itself.”
Having wasted months downplaying the COVID threat, he has desperately grasped for a miracle cure that could make the problem go away without him needing to do any real work—first by promoting the unproven off-label use of an anti-malarial to treat the disease, then by ludicrously suggesting toxic cleaning products and/or “very powerful” light could be injected into the human body as a possible cure. Those bizarre remarks drew widespread mockery, condemnation, and disbelief, as well as warnings from supporters that his rambling performances at the daily coronavirus briefings are hurting him politically. “It’s not helping him,” one adviser said recently.
----- 4 -----
Trump Decides Now Would Be a Great Time to Cut Coronavirus Research Funding
The move comes as scientists have warned the virus is unlikely to be eradicated and instead become seasonal.
By Bess Levin
April 28, 2020
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/04/trump-coronavirus-funding-cuts
Something you may have picked up on over the last interminable three and a half years is that Donald Trump is not a smart man, despite robust claims on his part to the contrary. For example, this whole coronavirus thing. While another president might have taken it seriously, or at the very least read the briefings warning him to take it seriously, Trump decided instead to listen to his gut, which told him the virus would “miraculously” go away by April. Or take World Health Organization funding; although many have argued that the agency’s initial response to COVID-19 could have gone better, no one besides Trump thought, Hey, maybe the U.S. should vindictively cut the group’s funding in the middle of a pandemic. (In fact, the American Medical Association described it as “a dangerous step in the wrong direction that will not make defeating COVID-19 easier.”) And speaking of defeating COVID-19, thinking people agree that, among other things, robust research into how coronaviruses are transmitted is key to better protecting the world’s population now and in the future. While Trump…:
The Trump administration abruptly cut off funding for a project studying how coronaviruses spread from bats to people after reports linked the work to a lab in Wuhan, China, at the center of conspiracy theories about the COVID-19 pandemic’s origins. The National Institutes of Health on Friday told EcoHealth Alliance, the study’s sponsor for the past five years, that all future funding was cut. The agency also demanded that the New York-based research nonprofit stop spending the $369,819 remaining from its 2020 grant, according to emails obtained by Politico. “At this time, NIH does not believe that the current project outcomes align with the program goals and agency priorities,” Michael Lauer, the agency’s deputy director for extramural research, wrote in a letter to EcoHealth Alliance officials.
The group caught national attention a week ago after reports swirled that millions from its NIH grants had been sent to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a research facility in the city where the coronavirus pandemic originated. In an email last week to NIH officials, EcoHealth Alliance President Pete Daszak denied giving any money this year to the Wuhan lab, although researchers from the facility have collaborated with EcoHealth Alliance scientists on research supported by an earlier grant.
Last week, the NIH said its strategic plan for studying the novel coronavirus includes understanding its origin and how it is transmitted, a priority clearly in line with the EcoHealth alliance’s investigation. Unfortunately, such an initiative was apparently no match for Trump’s susceptibility to conspiracy theories, namely the one alleging that the coronavirus outbreak actually began in the Wuhan lab, a claim that U.S. intelligence agencies and scientists have not found a shred of evidence to support.
----- 5 -----
President’s intelligence briefing book repeatedly cited virus threat
By Greg Miller and Ellen Nakashima
April 27, 2020 at 2:22 p.m. PDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/presidents-intelligence-briefing-book-repeatedly-cited-virus-threat/2020/04/27/ca66949a-8885-11ea-ac8a-fe9b8088e101_story.html
U.S. intelligence agencies issued warnings about the novel coronavirus in more than a dozen classified briefings prepared for President Trump in January and February, months during which he continued to play down the threat, according to current and former U.S. officials.
The repeated warnings were conveyed in issues of the President’s Daily Brief, a sensitive report that is produced before dawn each day and designed to call the president’s attention to the most significant global developments and security threats.
For weeks, the PDB — as the report is known — traced the virus’s spread around the globe, made clear that China was suppressing information about the contagion’s transmissibility and lethal toll, and raised the prospect of dire political and economic consequences.
But the alarms appear to have failed to register with the president, who routinely skips reading the PDB and has at times shown little patience for even the oral summary he takes two or three times per week, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss classified material.
----- 6 -----
Trump is ‘somebody’ who could have helped stop covid-19
By Jennifer Rubin
Opinion writer
April 28, 2020 at 6:45 a.m. PDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/28/trump-is-somebody-who-could-have-stopped-covid-19/
“There has been so much unnecessary death in this country. It could have been stopped and it could have been stopped short, but somebody a long time ago, it seems, decided not to do it that way. And the whole world is suffering because of it.” President Trump uttered these words at a White House coronavirus response briefing on Monday, once more playing the role of spectator in his own presidency. It is not difficult to locate the person capable of stopping or at the very least minimizing the pandemic.
The Post reports:
U.S. intelligence agencies issued warnings about the novel coronavirus in more than a dozen classified briefings prepared for President Trump in January and February, months during which he continued to play down the threat, according to current and former U.S. officials.
The repeated warnings were conveyed in issues of the President’s Daily Brief, a sensitive report that is produced before dawn each day and designed to call the president’s attention to the most significant global developments and security threats.
This report adds one more indisputable layer that Trump was not tricked by the World Health Organization or China but rather chose to ignore advice of his own aides — some of which originated as far back as November. Trump reportedly chooses not get briefings every day (the notion that he works hard is belied by his schedule and TV watching habits) but, in this case, it is hard to imagine he was not repeatedly informed of the danger.
The frequency with which the novel coronavirus was mentioned “reflected a level of attention comparable to periods when analysts have been tracking active terrorism threats, overseas conflicts or other rapidly developing security issues.” This is indicative of Trump’s entire presidency — a mixture of laziness, denial, arrogance (he knows more than anyone), inattention and willful blindness. He plays president but he does not do the job.
In Trump’s narcissistic brain, he is never to blame for any error no matter how egregious or obvious. He declared on Monday that he bears no responsibility for the uptick in poisonings after he suggested disinfectant injected into the body might be a coronavirus cure. Asked whether he should be reelected as the number of covid-19 deaths approaches the number of Americans killed during the entire Vietnam War, Trump insisted he and his team had done a great job since some estimates had a projected death toll as high as 2 million. He congratulated himself (prematurely) for keeping the figure to 60,000 to 70,000 (he used to brag about a projection of 50-60,000) — a number we may blow past in the coming weeks (and which may not have captured all of the coronavirus-related deaths).
----- 7 -----
David Folkenflik
twitter.com/davidfolkenflik
28 April 2020
https://twitter.com/davidfolkenflik/status/1255099515029393409
“Kansas Health Secy Lee Norman said poison control officials in Kansas have marked a 40% increase in the ingestion of toxic chemicals...” — Topeka Capital-Journal
[LINKS TO:
https://www.cjonline.com/news/20200427/kansas-coronavirus-update-gov-laura-kelly-says-more-tests-needed-before-state-can-reopen
]
----- 8 -----
Leader of North Carolina Protests Against Stay-at-Home Tests Positive for Coronavirus
By Aila Slisco On 4/27/20
https://www.newsweek.com/leader-north-carolina-protests-against-stay-home-tests-positive-coronavirus-1500545
A leader of a Facebook group demanding that North Carolina allow businesses to reopen amid the Covid-19 pandemic has tested positive for coronavirus but is still insisting that Governor Roy Cooper's stay-at-home order be rescinded, saying it violates her right to freedom of religion.
Audrey Whitlock is one of the leaders of the ReOpen NC Facebook group, which has close to 70,000 online members and has organized weekly in-person rallies demanding that the state reopen. Whitlock described herself as an "asymptomatic Covid-19 patient" in a since-deleted post to the group on Sunday morning. Regardless of her potential to infect others, she said that abiding by the governor's orders meant her rights were being violated.
----- 9 -----
#JustWearScrubs: GOP chairwoman tells anti-lockdown protesters to impersonate health care workers
Dylan Stableford
Senior Writer, Yahoo News
April 27, 2020
https://news.yahoo.com/coronavirus-covid-19-kelli-ward-just-wear-scrubs-stay-at-home-protests-183731319.html
Last week, after images of health care workers in hospital gear facing down demonstrators protesting stay-at-home orders went viral, Dr. Kelli Ward, chairwoman of the Arizona Republican Party, urged demonstrators calling for businesses to reopen to dress in scrubs and masks to confuse reporters.
“Planning protest to #ReOpenAmerica?” Ward tweeted on Friday. “EVERYONE wear scrubs and masks — the media doesn’t care if you are really in healthcare or not — it’s the ‘message’ that matters!”
Ward added the hashtags #ProblemSolved, #WeAreAllHeroic, #1A, and #JustWearScrubs.
----- 10 -----
Pence flouts Mayo Clinic policy by touring coronavirus testing facility without a mask
Pence defended his actions afterward, saying he didn't need a mask because he is "tested for the coronavirus on a regular basis."
April 28, 2020, 12:45 PM PDT / Updated April 28, 2020, 2:11 PM PDT
By Dareh Gregorian
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/pence-flouts-mayo-clinic-policy-touring-facility-without-mask-n1194556
Vice President Mike Pence went on a tour of the Mayo Clinic's coronavirus testing labs Tuesday — and ignored the prestigious Minnesota hospital's rules that all occupants wear masks.
"Mayo Clinic had informed
vp of the masking policy prior to his arrival today," the clinic tweeted while Pence was still inside meeting with doctors and patients.The tweet was later deleted. Asked for comment, the clinic said only that it had "shared the masking policy with the VP's office."
----- 11 -----
Josh Marshall
twitter.com/joshtpm
28 April 2020
https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/1255234731467313154
Trump suggests any relief for states hit hard by COVID will require ending "sanctuary city" policies and turning residents over to ICE.
[EMBEDDED VIDEO]
