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solarbirdToday's news includes part of the GOP push to undermine and discredit COVID-19 containment efforts, particularly in the last article, by a website called the California Globe. It's run by an OAN-friendly journalist. She's a Trumpist Conservative who has written for various right-leaning and rightist newspapers including the Sacramento Bee and the Washington Examiner.
And she's calling the Western States Pact illegal, while promoting the "herd immunity" line, which is to say, let it kill everybody it's can until we get to 70%. In California, at current death rates, that would be somewhere around 70% of 39.5 million people, and since the hospitals would be overwhelmed we'd be looking at a heightened death rate.
What that means is a good question. If it's 5%, since that's easy math and in line with where that has already happened, it means kill 1.3 million Californians.
If things go extremely well, then it's more like 2%, and it's 550,000 Californians.
Or if exceedingly - really, impossibly - well, that's 1%, and 275,000 Californians.
This year.
Put in context with the other stories in the order presented, and you can watch the plan proceed apace.
Also, I don't know that the speculation below about this so-called "cubic" model the White House is using that shows new cases going to zero by May 15th? But the speculation looks all too likely.
----- 1 -----
BUSTED: Records reveal the Trump campaign has not returned illegal donation from foreign national
May 4, 2020
By Roger Sollenberger, Salon
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/05/busted-records-reveal-the-trump-campaign-has-not-returned-illegal-donation-from-foreign-national/
The Trump campaign has not returned an illegal donation it received from a foreign national in 2019, records from the Federal Election Commission (FEC) show. It is the campaign’s only known illegal foreign contribution.
Rabia Kazan, a Turkish writer and author living in the U.S. on a student visa, made a $2,800 campaign donation in exchange for access to a March 2019 event at Mar-a-Lago featuring the president. The contribution was first reported this February in BuzzFeed News.
But FEC records show that the campaign has not yet disgorged that money, as required by law.
----- 2 -----
Three Russian Doctors Treating The Coronavirus Have Fallen Out Of Windows In Just Over A Week
Dr. Alexander Shulepov is in serious condition after falling from a building. Two other doctors treating coronavirus patients have died in similar circumstances.
Christopher Miller
Posted on May 4, 2020
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/christopherm51/russia-doctors-coronavirus
Alexander Shulepov, a doctor at an ambulance unit in Russia’s western Voronezh region, complained in an April 22 post on social media about shortages of medical supplies and being forced to work despite testing positive for COVID-19.
Ten days later, he fell from a hospital window under mysterious circumstances, local media reported, making him the third Russian doctor treating coronavirus patients to suffer a similar fate in just the past 10 days.
Shulepov, 37, survived the fall from a second-floor window, but he suffered a fractured skull and is now in serious condition. The two other doctors are reported to have died.
The falls are being viewed suspiciously by many in Russia, which has a history of targeting and eliminating critics, including several who have mysteriously fallen to their deaths in recent years.
----- 3 -----
AWS engineer Tim Bray resigns from Amazon following worker firings
Brian Heater
May 4, 2020
https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/04/aws-engineer-tim-bray-resigns-from-amazon-following-worker-firings/
As many Amazon workers called out sick for a May Day Strike, Tim Bray was spending his final day at the company. The VP and distinguished Engineer at Amazon Web Services announced today that May 1 was his final day with the retail giant, citing Amazon’s firings of vocally critical employees.
Likely most notable for being a co-author of XML, Bray spent more than five years with the company, following stints with Google and Sun. In his post, he calls Amazon, “the best job I’ve ever had,” before noting a breaking point over the firings of organizers Emily Cunningham and Maren Costa.
While Costa and Cunningham have stated that the firings were directly linked to their opening criticisms of Amazon’s environmental record and treatment of employees during the COVID-19 crisis, the company has, naturally, denied the connection, stating: “We terminated these employees for repeatedly violating internal policies.”
----- 4 -----
Emily Rauhala
twitter.com/emilyrauhala
4 May 2020
https://twitter.com/emilyrauhala/status/1257455813720977408
Australian intelligence officials tell Sydney Morning Herald that U.S. briefings on Wuhan lab theory are mostly write-ups of news reports and "contained no material from intelligence gathering."
[LINKS TO: https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/australian-intelligence-knocks-back-us-government-s-wuhan-lab-virus-claim-20200504-p54pk3.html ]
----- 5 -----
Australian intelligence knocks back US government's Wuhan lab virus claim
For our free coronavirus pandemic coverage, learn more here.
By Anthony Galloway and Eryk Bagshaw
May 4, 2020 — 7.30pm
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/australian-intelligence-knocks-back-us-government-s-wuhan-lab-virus-claim-20200504-p54pk3.html
Australian intelligence agencies have questioned evidence trumpeted by United States officials supposedly linking the coronavirus to a Wuhan laboratory as concerns within the government grow that the push will derail efforts to eliminate dangerous wildlife wet markets.
Senior members of the Australian intelligence community told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age a research document shared in political circles under the Five Eyes intelligence arrangement was mostly based on news reports and contained no material from intelligence gathering.
----- 6 -----
Draft report predicts covid-19 cases will reach 200,000 a day by June 1
By William Wan, Lenny Bernstein, Laurie McGinley and Josh Dawsey
May 4, 2020 at 10:46 a.m. PDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/government-report-predicts-covid-19-cases-will-reach-200000-a-day-by-june-1/2020/05/04/02fe743e-8e27-11ea-a9c0-73b93422d691_story.html
A draft government report projects covid-19 cases will surge to about 200,000 per day by June 1, a staggering jump that would be accompanied by more than 3,000 deaths each day.
The document predicts a sharp increase in both cases and deaths beginning about May 14, according to a copy shared with The Washington Post. The forecast stops at June 1, but shows both daily cases and deaths on an upward trajectory at that point.
The White House and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention disavowed the report, although the slides carry the CDC’s logo. The creator of the model said the numbers are unfinished projections shown to the CDC as a work in progress.
The work contained a wide range of possibilities and modeling was not complete, according to Justin Lessler, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who created the model. He said he didn’t know how the update was turned into a slide deck by government officials and shared with news organizations. The data was first reported by the New York Times.
...
White House officials have been relying on other models to make decisions on reopening, including the IHME model and a “cubic model” prepared by Trump adviser and economist Kevin Hassett and the Council of Economic Advisers.
...
Even more optimistic than that, however, is the “cubic model” prepared by Trump adviser and economist Kevin Hassett. People with knowledge of that model say it shows deaths dropping precipitously in May — and essentially going to zero by May 15.
[EDITOR: See next story]
Despite the White House’s optimistic rhetoric, experts have warned that the country could be living with a sizable covid-19 case load for some time.
----- 7 -----
Matthew Yglesias
twitter.com/mattyglesias
4 May 2020
[THREAD]
[CONTEXT: There are reports that the White House is making decisions based on an unknown "cubic projection" model. See previous story. This is one guess about what that model might be.]
https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1257483264383758336
If you put the last 30 days’ worth of death data into Excel and then use the “add trendline” function, specify a third-order polynomial, and project forward 30 days into the future you get a sharp decline in deaths starting around May 15.
[EMBEDDED IMAGE]
Of course if you feed it *two* months worth of death data, you get this instead.
[EMBEDDED IMAGE]
On this second, more dire “model” the pandemic does end, and is even showing extremely rapid improvement on Election Day but many millions of people die in the interim.
[EMBEDDED IMAGE]
Now I’m not saying this dumb Excel hijinks is what they did in the White House (I’m not *not* saying it though) but I can’t see any theoretical or empirical reason to believe a cubic function would be appropriate for this purpose.
----- 8 -----
Pressure mounts on governors to ease restrictions
CNN Digital Rebranding 2014 Maeve Reston
By Maeve Reston, CNN
Updated 3:08 PM ET, Sun May 3, 2020
[EDITOR: It really pisses me off that this isn't being called out for the screamingly unpopular astroturf bullshit it is. Our media is just garbage.]
https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/03/politics/pressure-governors-restrictions/index.html
(CNN) As more than half of states are lifting aspects of their stay-at-home orders and Americans are eager to step outside in the warm spring weather, governors with more restrictive orders are under growing pressure to ease up as protests continue.
With much of the nation in deep economic pain from coronavirus closures, Maryland Republican Gov. Larry Hogan was contending in his state with a crowd of protesters known as "Reopen Maryland" who rallied in Frederick and Salisbury on Saturday, covering both sides of the state. At one of the rallies, Rep. Andy Harris, a Maryland Republican, compared the state's lockdown to "Communist China" and North Korea, arguing that he should be able to "go to the church of my choice" and "worship the way I choose."
"Sadly we had far more people die yesterday in Maryland than we had protesters," Hogan responded on CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday. Hogan said he was more alarmed by the huge crowds that gathered in neighboring Washington, DC.
"Look we're very anxious to get our state reopened in a safe way as soon as we possibly can, because people are getting frustrated, and they've been inside their homes," Hogan told CNN's Jake Tapper. Though Washington, DC, has a stay-at-home order in effect, he said he was concerned to see "thousands of people jammed into the National Mall in direct violation of that law."
----- 9 -----
Chris Christie pushes to reopen country despite dire Covid-19 projections: 'There are going to be deaths'
CNN Digital Expansion 2018, Caroline Kelly
By Caroline Kelly, CNN
Updated 8:19 PM ET, Mon May 4, 2020
https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/04/politics/chris-christie-coronavirus-deaths-reopening/index.html
(CNN) Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Monday that the country needs to reopen, despite separate key coronavirus models forecasting that thousands may die daily in the United States from Covid-19 and that more than 100,000 may die in total.
"Of course, everybody wants to save every life they can -- but the question is, towards what end, ultimately?" Christie, a Republican tapped to lead President Donald Trump's presidential transition team in 2016, told CNN's Dana Bash on The Daily DC Podcast. "Are there ways that we can... thread the middle here to allow that there are going to be deaths, and there are going to be deaths no matter what?"
Christie told Bash that "we've got to let some of these folks get back to work, because if we don't, we're going to destroy the American way of life in these families -- and it will be years and years before we can recover." His comments Monday echoed similar characterizations by other Republicans -- including President Donald Trump -- that the economic impact of coronavirus is just as devastating to the nation as the virus itself.
When Bash pressed Christie on whether people would be able to accept reopening in light of news of a Trump administration model projecting a rise up to about 3,000 daily US deaths from coronavirus by June 1, Christie responded, "They're gonna have to."
----- 10 -----
Gov. Newsom’s 5 Western State Pact Looks More Like Collusion Than Cooperation
Five Democrat governors speaking as one to keep residents in lockdown and businesses closed
By Katy Grimes, May 4, 2020 8:09 am
[EDITOR: I'm including this because it highlights a part of the GOP effort to undermine and discredit COVID-19 containment. This is a rightist California website, run by someone with experience in actual newspapers, including the Sacramento Bee. She's friendly towards One America News, as well.]
https://californiaglobe.com/section-2/gov-newsoms-5-western-state-pact-looks-more-like-collusion-than-cooperation/
Collusion is a secret agreement or cooperation especially for an illegal or deceitful purpose.
As Californians are starting to rebel following 7 weeks of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s lockdown order, it’s curious how and why he and four other Democrat governors entered a pact, ostensibly as a “collaborative approach to reopening” the states. However, not one of these governors is actually talking about reopening their states. And notably, Friday, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown signed an executive order to extend the state of emergency for another 60 days, keeping Oregonians in lockdown until July 6.
Last week Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Colorado Governor Jared Polis and Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak would be joining California, Oregon and Washington in Newsom’s Western States Pact – “a working group of Western state governors with a shared vision for modifying stay at home orders and fighting COVID-19.”
Above his press announcement, is this: “Western state Governors: Health outcomes and science – not politics – will guide decisions to modify stay at home orders.”
Nice, words except Newsom’s decisions have been all about politics and not public health as the numbers and data show. Rather than actually allowing herd immunity to take place in the western states, these Democrat governors are herding together in what appears to be collusion to keep their states closed, while they abuse their emergency powers.
And she's calling the Western States Pact illegal, while promoting the "herd immunity" line, which is to say, let it kill everybody it's can until we get to 70%. In California, at current death rates, that would be somewhere around 70% of 39.5 million people, and since the hospitals would be overwhelmed we'd be looking at a heightened death rate.
What that means is a good question. If it's 5%, since that's easy math and in line with where that has already happened, it means kill 1.3 million Californians.
If things go extremely well, then it's more like 2%, and it's 550,000 Californians.
Or if exceedingly - really, impossibly - well, that's 1%, and 275,000 Californians.
This year.
Put in context with the other stories in the order presented, and you can watch the plan proceed apace.
Also, I don't know that the speculation below about this so-called "cubic" model the White House is using that shows new cases going to zero by May 15th? But the speculation looks all too likely.
- BUSTED: Records reveal the Trump campaign has not returned illegal donation from foreign national
- Three Russian Doctors Treating The Coronavirus Have Fallen Out Of Windows In Just Over A Week
- AWS engineer Tim Bray resigns from Amazon following worker firings
- Australian intelligence officials tell Sydney Morning Herald that U.S. briefings on Wuhan lab theory are mostly write-ups of news reports and "contained no material from intelligence gathering."
- Australian intelligence knocks back US government's Wuhan lab virus claim
- Draft report predicts covid-19 cases will reach 200,000 a day by June 1
- If you put the last 30 days’ worth of death data into Excel and then use the “add trendline” function, specify a third-order polynomial, and project forward 30 days into the future you get a sharp decline in deaths starting around May 15.
- Pressure mounts on governors to ease restrictions
- Chris Christie pushes to reopen country despite dire Covid-19 projections: 'There are going to be deaths'
- Gov. Newsom’s 5 Western State Pact Looks More Like Collusion Than Cooperation [EDITOR: I'm including this because it highlights a part of the GOP effort to undermine and discredit COVID-19 containment. This is a rightist California website, run by someone with experience in actual newspapers, including the Sacramento Bee. She's friendly towards One America News, as well.]
----- 1 -----
BUSTED: Records reveal the Trump campaign has not returned illegal donation from foreign national
May 4, 2020
By Roger Sollenberger, Salon
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/05/busted-records-reveal-the-trump-campaign-has-not-returned-illegal-donation-from-foreign-national/
The Trump campaign has not returned an illegal donation it received from a foreign national in 2019, records from the Federal Election Commission (FEC) show. It is the campaign’s only known illegal foreign contribution.
Rabia Kazan, a Turkish writer and author living in the U.S. on a student visa, made a $2,800 campaign donation in exchange for access to a March 2019 event at Mar-a-Lago featuring the president. The contribution was first reported this February in BuzzFeed News.
But FEC records show that the campaign has not yet disgorged that money, as required by law.
----- 2 -----
Three Russian Doctors Treating The Coronavirus Have Fallen Out Of Windows In Just Over A Week
Dr. Alexander Shulepov is in serious condition after falling from a building. Two other doctors treating coronavirus patients have died in similar circumstances.
Christopher Miller
Posted on May 4, 2020
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/christopherm51/russia-doctors-coronavirus
Alexander Shulepov, a doctor at an ambulance unit in Russia’s western Voronezh region, complained in an April 22 post on social media about shortages of medical supplies and being forced to work despite testing positive for COVID-19.
Ten days later, he fell from a hospital window under mysterious circumstances, local media reported, making him the third Russian doctor treating coronavirus patients to suffer a similar fate in just the past 10 days.
Shulepov, 37, survived the fall from a second-floor window, but he suffered a fractured skull and is now in serious condition. The two other doctors are reported to have died.
The falls are being viewed suspiciously by many in Russia, which has a history of targeting and eliminating critics, including several who have mysteriously fallen to their deaths in recent years.
----- 3 -----
AWS engineer Tim Bray resigns from Amazon following worker firings
Brian Heater
May 4, 2020
https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/04/aws-engineer-tim-bray-resigns-from-amazon-following-worker-firings/
As many Amazon workers called out sick for a May Day Strike, Tim Bray was spending his final day at the company. The VP and distinguished Engineer at Amazon Web Services announced today that May 1 was his final day with the retail giant, citing Amazon’s firings of vocally critical employees.
Likely most notable for being a co-author of XML, Bray spent more than five years with the company, following stints with Google and Sun. In his post, he calls Amazon, “the best job I’ve ever had,” before noting a breaking point over the firings of organizers Emily Cunningham and Maren Costa.
While Costa and Cunningham have stated that the firings were directly linked to their opening criticisms of Amazon’s environmental record and treatment of employees during the COVID-19 crisis, the company has, naturally, denied the connection, stating: “We terminated these employees for repeatedly violating internal policies.”
----- 4 -----
Emily Rauhala
twitter.com/emilyrauhala
4 May 2020
https://twitter.com/emilyrauhala/status/1257455813720977408
Australian intelligence officials tell Sydney Morning Herald that U.S. briefings on Wuhan lab theory are mostly write-ups of news reports and "contained no material from intelligence gathering."
[LINKS TO: https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/australian-intelligence-knocks-back-us-government-s-wuhan-lab-virus-claim-20200504-p54pk3.html ]
----- 5 -----
Australian intelligence knocks back US government's Wuhan lab virus claim
For our free coronavirus pandemic coverage, learn more here.
By Anthony Galloway and Eryk Bagshaw
May 4, 2020 — 7.30pm
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/australian-intelligence-knocks-back-us-government-s-wuhan-lab-virus-claim-20200504-p54pk3.html
Australian intelligence agencies have questioned evidence trumpeted by United States officials supposedly linking the coronavirus to a Wuhan laboratory as concerns within the government grow that the push will derail efforts to eliminate dangerous wildlife wet markets.
Senior members of the Australian intelligence community told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age a research document shared in political circles under the Five Eyes intelligence arrangement was mostly based on news reports and contained no material from intelligence gathering.
----- 6 -----
Draft report predicts covid-19 cases will reach 200,000 a day by June 1
By William Wan, Lenny Bernstein, Laurie McGinley and Josh Dawsey
May 4, 2020 at 10:46 a.m. PDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/government-report-predicts-covid-19-cases-will-reach-200000-a-day-by-june-1/2020/05/04/02fe743e-8e27-11ea-a9c0-73b93422d691_story.html
A draft government report projects covid-19 cases will surge to about 200,000 per day by June 1, a staggering jump that would be accompanied by more than 3,000 deaths each day.
The document predicts a sharp increase in both cases and deaths beginning about May 14, according to a copy shared with The Washington Post. The forecast stops at June 1, but shows both daily cases and deaths on an upward trajectory at that point.
The White House and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention disavowed the report, although the slides carry the CDC’s logo. The creator of the model said the numbers are unfinished projections shown to the CDC as a work in progress.
The work contained a wide range of possibilities and modeling was not complete, according to Justin Lessler, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who created the model. He said he didn’t know how the update was turned into a slide deck by government officials and shared with news organizations. The data was first reported by the New York Times.
...
White House officials have been relying on other models to make decisions on reopening, including the IHME model and a “cubic model” prepared by Trump adviser and economist Kevin Hassett and the Council of Economic Advisers.
...
Even more optimistic than that, however, is the “cubic model” prepared by Trump adviser and economist Kevin Hassett. People with knowledge of that model say it shows deaths dropping precipitously in May — and essentially going to zero by May 15.
[EDITOR: See next story]
Despite the White House’s optimistic rhetoric, experts have warned that the country could be living with a sizable covid-19 case load for some time.
----- 7 -----
Matthew Yglesias
twitter.com/mattyglesias
4 May 2020
[THREAD]
[CONTEXT: There are reports that the White House is making decisions based on an unknown "cubic projection" model. See previous story. This is one guess about what that model might be.]
https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1257483264383758336
If you put the last 30 days’ worth of death data into Excel and then use the “add trendline” function, specify a third-order polynomial, and project forward 30 days into the future you get a sharp decline in deaths starting around May 15.
[EMBEDDED IMAGE]
Of course if you feed it *two* months worth of death data, you get this instead.
[EMBEDDED IMAGE]
On this second, more dire “model” the pandemic does end, and is even showing extremely rapid improvement on Election Day but many millions of people die in the interim.
[EMBEDDED IMAGE]
Now I’m not saying this dumb Excel hijinks is what they did in the White House (I’m not *not* saying it though) but I can’t see any theoretical or empirical reason to believe a cubic function would be appropriate for this purpose.
----- 8 -----
Pressure mounts on governors to ease restrictions
CNN Digital Rebranding 2014 Maeve Reston
By Maeve Reston, CNN
Updated 3:08 PM ET, Sun May 3, 2020
[EDITOR: It really pisses me off that this isn't being called out for the screamingly unpopular astroturf bullshit it is. Our media is just garbage.]
https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/03/politics/pressure-governors-restrictions/index.html
(CNN) As more than half of states are lifting aspects of their stay-at-home orders and Americans are eager to step outside in the warm spring weather, governors with more restrictive orders are under growing pressure to ease up as protests continue.
With much of the nation in deep economic pain from coronavirus closures, Maryland Republican Gov. Larry Hogan was contending in his state with a crowd of protesters known as "Reopen Maryland" who rallied in Frederick and Salisbury on Saturday, covering both sides of the state. At one of the rallies, Rep. Andy Harris, a Maryland Republican, compared the state's lockdown to "Communist China" and North Korea, arguing that he should be able to "go to the church of my choice" and "worship the way I choose."
"Sadly we had far more people die yesterday in Maryland than we had protesters," Hogan responded on CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday. Hogan said he was more alarmed by the huge crowds that gathered in neighboring Washington, DC.
"Look we're very anxious to get our state reopened in a safe way as soon as we possibly can, because people are getting frustrated, and they've been inside their homes," Hogan told CNN's Jake Tapper. Though Washington, DC, has a stay-at-home order in effect, he said he was concerned to see "thousands of people jammed into the National Mall in direct violation of that law."
----- 9 -----
Chris Christie pushes to reopen country despite dire Covid-19 projections: 'There are going to be deaths'
CNN Digital Expansion 2018, Caroline Kelly
By Caroline Kelly, CNN
Updated 8:19 PM ET, Mon May 4, 2020
https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/04/politics/chris-christie-coronavirus-deaths-reopening/index.html
(CNN) Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Monday that the country needs to reopen, despite separate key coronavirus models forecasting that thousands may die daily in the United States from Covid-19 and that more than 100,000 may die in total.
"Of course, everybody wants to save every life they can -- but the question is, towards what end, ultimately?" Christie, a Republican tapped to lead President Donald Trump's presidential transition team in 2016, told CNN's Dana Bash on The Daily DC Podcast. "Are there ways that we can... thread the middle here to allow that there are going to be deaths, and there are going to be deaths no matter what?"
Christie told Bash that "we've got to let some of these folks get back to work, because if we don't, we're going to destroy the American way of life in these families -- and it will be years and years before we can recover." His comments Monday echoed similar characterizations by other Republicans -- including President Donald Trump -- that the economic impact of coronavirus is just as devastating to the nation as the virus itself.
When Bash pressed Christie on whether people would be able to accept reopening in light of news of a Trump administration model projecting a rise up to about 3,000 daily US deaths from coronavirus by June 1, Christie responded, "They're gonna have to."
----- 10 -----
Gov. Newsom’s 5 Western State Pact Looks More Like Collusion Than Cooperation
Five Democrat governors speaking as one to keep residents in lockdown and businesses closed
By Katy Grimes, May 4, 2020 8:09 am
[EDITOR: I'm including this because it highlights a part of the GOP effort to undermine and discredit COVID-19 containment. This is a rightist California website, run by someone with experience in actual newspapers, including the Sacramento Bee. She's friendly towards One America News, as well.]
https://californiaglobe.com/section-2/gov-newsoms-5-western-state-pact-looks-more-like-collusion-than-cooperation/
Collusion is a secret agreement or cooperation especially for an illegal or deceitful purpose.
As Californians are starting to rebel following 7 weeks of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s lockdown order, it’s curious how and why he and four other Democrat governors entered a pact, ostensibly as a “collaborative approach to reopening” the states. However, not one of these governors is actually talking about reopening their states. And notably, Friday, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown signed an executive order to extend the state of emergency for another 60 days, keeping Oregonians in lockdown until July 6.
Last week Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Colorado Governor Jared Polis and Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak would be joining California, Oregon and Washington in Newsom’s Western States Pact – “a working group of Western state governors with a shared vision for modifying stay at home orders and fighting COVID-19.”
Above his press announcement, is this: “Western state Governors: Health outcomes and science – not politics – will guide decisions to modify stay at home orders.”
Nice, words except Newsom’s decisions have been all about politics and not public health as the numbers and data show. Rather than actually allowing herd immunity to take place in the western states, these Democrat governors are herding together in what appears to be collusion to keep their states closed, while they abuse their emergency powers.
no subject
Date: 2020-05-05 11:24 am (UTC)Why do I feel that Christie's "yeah, we accept 3000 deaths a day" line has an unspoken "but not me or my family, though - you and yours are up for grabs though" addition?
no subject
Date: 2020-05-05 12:01 pm (UTC)https://wwmt.com/news/coronavirus/michigan-has-the-nations-highest-covid-19-death-rate
Canadian Politicians of Like Mind
Date: 2020-05-05 01:32 pm (UTC)Re: Canadian Politicians of Like Mind
Date: 2020-05-05 01:43 pm (UTC)You'll probably find John "Saskboy" Klein much more to your liking, though.
https://saskboy.wordpress.com/2020/05/01/plague-update-death-for-dollars/
no subject
Date: 2020-05-05 02:23 pm (UTC)Re: François Legault in Particular
Date: 2020-05-05 05:41 pm (UTC)https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/legault-quebec-covid-19-reopen-business-1.5555326
no subject
Date: 2020-05-05 05:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-05-05 06:19 pm (UTC)It's not me. It's the little people. And who cares about that?
It's not me. It's the weak people. And who cares about that?
It's not me. It's the people of colour. And who cares about that?
Class, eugenics, race. Welcome to fascism 101.
no subject
Date: 2020-05-05 06:21 pm (UTC)In a true "let it run wild and kill everyone it can" scenario, you need to deal with all-cases rates, which is why I included 1% as a number. Estimates are running around 0.9%-1% in that scenario, but that includes a lot of modelling with large error bands, mostly upwards.
no subject
Date: 2020-05-05 06:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-05-05 06:23 pm (UTC)