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solarbirdThe April 21 plan proceeds apace. Here's Trump saying people wear masks because they hate him, here's Republican governors sabotaging pandemic control efforts, here's economic war against states who are trying, here's state starting to run out of ICU beds again.
----- 1 -----
Trump says some Americans wear coronavirus masks 'to signal disapproval of him'
Berkeley Lovelace Jr.
18 June 2020
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/trump-says-some-americans-wear-coronavirus-masks-to-signal-disapproval-of-him/ar-BB15G26I
[EDITOR: I honestly don't know if this goes here or in Fascism. But I'm going with here, for now.]
President Donald Trump said some Americans might wear face masks not as a way to prevent the spread of coronavirus but as a way to "signal disapproval of him."
In a wide-ranging interview with the Wall Street Journal that published Thursday, Trump also said a big issue he has with masks is that people fidget with them.
"They put their finger on the mask, and they take them off, and then they start touching their eyes and touching their nose and their mouth," he told the Journal. "And then they don't know how they caught it?"
Trump has often been seen without a mask despite recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization that people wear them as a way to slow the spread of the virus. Scientists say the virus can spread through respiratory droplets that pass when an infected person coughs or sneezes. Studies suggest the masks may serve as a helpful barrier.
----- 2 -----
Airline passengers refuse to wear masks, mayhem ensues
Passenger tells seatmate to "Go back to China" in confrontation over masks
By Chris McGinnis and Tim Jue
Updated 1:00 pm PDT, Thursday, June 18, 2020
https://www.seattlepi.com/travel/article/Airline-passenger-refuses-mask-15349202.php
Two days after American Airlines announced it would strengthen its mandatory mask policy, a passenger was booted off one of the airline’s flights at New York’s LaGuardia Airport after refusing to wear a facial covering. At SFO, a woman refusing to wear a mask argued with a fellow passenger, telling him to "go back to China," in an encounter posted to YouTube.
We are only a few days into new airline policies requiring passengers to wear masks to help stem the spread of COVID-19, and controversy is erupting on airplanes and airports across the country.
In the first instance, passenger Brandon Straka documented the Wednesday encounter aboard American Airlines flight 1263 to Dallas-Fort Worth in a Twitter video.
How do you feel about airline mask rules? Take our poll at the bottom of this post.
“They told me that it was the law that I had to wear a mask,” he said in the video. “Then eventually they changed their story and said it was their policy and that you can’t fly with us if you don’t do it.”
Straka, a conservative pundit and self-described former liberal, said American Airlines staff intimidated him and said his refusal to wear a mask “was keeping people waiting.”
“This is not a thing,” Straka said in the video. “I don’t have to do this.”
Straka was likely unaware that he was seated next to a New York Times reporter, who is calling into question some of Straka's claims about the incident on Twitter, which only stokes the controversy even more.
----- 3 -----
Inslee: 'Draconian' cuts in Washington state services if Congress doesn't help
By Joel Connelly, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Published 4:35 pm PDT, Wednesday, June 17, 2020
https://www.seattlepi.com/local/politics/article/Inslee-Draconian-cuts-in-Washington-state-15347839.php
Washington faces an $8.7 billion pandemic-caused budget shortfall, which will require "draconian" cuts in state social services if Congress does not come through with another relief package, Gov. Jay Inslee warned on Wednesday afternoon.
The governor promised to "scrub the budget," noting his vetoes last month, and plans for a one-day-a-week furlough of 40,000 state workers, and canceling a 3% pay hike for some 5,600 state employees. Even with these cuts, and deployment of the state's rainy day fund, "We need Congress to step up to the plate," Inslee argued.
Inslee is a onetime high school athlete — the style has never left him — who found himself Wednesday afternoon playing on four courts.
----- 4 -----
Daniel Dale
twitter.com/ddale8
18 June 2020
https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1273716150287941632
Trump has, since late April, increased his estimate of the death toll from 50,000-60,000 to 150,000-200,000 -- all the while proclaiming in near-identical language how great a job he has done, since it could've been far worse.
[QUOTED TWEET]
Daniel Dale
twitter.com/ddale8
18 June 2020
https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1273715757009027072
Trump again increased his estimate of the final COVID death toll, telling WSJ "we could be heading to a number that’s, you know, higher than 150,000 to 200,000."
His previous highest prediction was 110K, on May 8. That was up from 50K-60K in April.
And 0ish in February.
----- 5 -----
NowThis
twitter.com/nowthisnews
18 June 2020
https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1273378134973440000
This Trump supporter compared face masks to slavery while railing against her city council
[EMBEDDED VIDEO AT LINK]
----- 6 -----
Variety
twitter.com/Variety
18 June 2020
https://twitter.com/Variety/status/1273763757592735746
AMC Theater CEO Adam Aron says their cinemas won't require masks upon reopening because they didn't "want to be drawn into a political controversy"
[LINKS TO:
https://variety.com/2020/film/news/amc-coronavirus-movie-theaters-covid-19-1234642047/
]
----- 7 -----
Multiple Florida Hospitals Run Out of ICU Beds as Coronavirus Cases Spike
By Emily Czachor On 6/18/20
https://www.newsweek.com/multiple-florida-hospitals-run-out-icu-beds-coronavirus-cases-spike-1511934
As Florida health officials report another record single-day increase in cases of the novel coronavirus, new data shows hospitals across the state have filled most or all available beds in their respective intensive care units.
Numerous Florida medical facilities reported dwindling ICU bed availability on Thursday, with several reporting no availability at all, according to the latest report published by Florida's Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA). Palm Beach County was among those statewide regions where the availability of beds was most scarce. An accompanying report from AHCA shows about 75 percent of available hospital beds statewide are currently occupied.
The AHCA's data showed two of Palm Beach County's 17 hospitals have already filled all ICU beds, while several other medical centers reported limited availability. One hospital in Miami-Dade County has also reached its ICU bed capacity as of Thursday, and the majority of hospitals have filled more than half of beds in intensive care units. Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties have reported two of Florida's most severe local virus outbreaks.
----- 8 -----
Ricketts tells local governments they won't get federal COVID-19 money if they require masks
By Paul Hammel World-Herald Bureau
Jun 18, 2020 Updated 8 hrs ago
https://www.omaha.com/news/state_and_regional/ricketts-tells-local-governments-they-wont-get-federal-covid-19-money-if-they-require-masks/article_d15459b9-26df-527e-9899-9f579a3d8597.html
LINCOLN — At his regular coronavirus press conferences, Gov. Pete Ricketts makes a point of urging Nebraskans to wear a mask when they go to a store.
But when it comes to the state’s 93 courthouses and other county offices, he doesn’t want local officials to require masks. In fact, he’s told counties that they won’t receive any of the $100 million in federal COVID-19 money if their “customers” are required to wear masks.
“The governor encourages people to wear a mask,” according to his spokesman Taylor Gage, “but does not believe that failure to wear a mask should be the basis for denying taxpayers’ services.”
The no-mask mandate has been poorly received in some corners of the state, with officials criticizing the loss of local control. It also runs counter to the advice of public health officials, who have stressed the importance of wearing masks.
In Lincoln, the state’s second-largest city, officials were preparing to require all visitors to wear masks when entering the City-County Building. But the draft rules were promptly dropped when officials were informed that Lancaster County wouldn’t receive CARES Act money if it instituted a mask requirement.
Deb Schorr, a longtime Lancaster County Board member and past president of the Nebraska Association of County Officials, said county officials “love local control” and are better informed about conditions in their county, particularly concerning COVID-19. The virus has hammered several parts of Nebraska, even as 18 rural counties have not recorded a single positive case.
But with millions of dollars at stake, local officials said they had little choice but to comply with the governor’s order. Otherwise, they’d have to find local options for replacing the federal money, such as higher property taxes.
- Trump says some Americans wear coronavirus masks 'to signal disapproval of him'
- Airline passengers refuse to wear masks, mayhem ensues
- Inslee: 'Draconian' cuts in Washington state services if Congress doesn't help
- Trump again increased his estimate of the final COVID death toll
- This Trump supporter compared face masks to slavery while railing against her city council
- AMC Theater CEO Adam Aron says their cinemas won't require masks upon reopening because they didn't "want to be drawn into a political controversy"
- Multiple Florida Hospitals Run Out of ICU Beds as Coronavirus Cases Spike
- Ricketts tells local governments they won't get federal COVID-19 money if they require masks
----- 1 -----
Trump says some Americans wear coronavirus masks 'to signal disapproval of him'
Berkeley Lovelace Jr.
18 June 2020
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/trump-says-some-americans-wear-coronavirus-masks-to-signal-disapproval-of-him/ar-BB15G26I
[EDITOR: I honestly don't know if this goes here or in Fascism. But I'm going with here, for now.]
President Donald Trump said some Americans might wear face masks not as a way to prevent the spread of coronavirus but as a way to "signal disapproval of him."
In a wide-ranging interview with the Wall Street Journal that published Thursday, Trump also said a big issue he has with masks is that people fidget with them.
"They put their finger on the mask, and they take them off, and then they start touching their eyes and touching their nose and their mouth," he told the Journal. "And then they don't know how they caught it?"
Trump has often been seen without a mask despite recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization that people wear them as a way to slow the spread of the virus. Scientists say the virus can spread through respiratory droplets that pass when an infected person coughs or sneezes. Studies suggest the masks may serve as a helpful barrier.
----- 2 -----
Airline passengers refuse to wear masks, mayhem ensues
Passenger tells seatmate to "Go back to China" in confrontation over masks
By Chris McGinnis and Tim Jue
Updated 1:00 pm PDT, Thursday, June 18, 2020
https://www.seattlepi.com/travel/article/Airline-passenger-refuses-mask-15349202.php
Two days after American Airlines announced it would strengthen its mandatory mask policy, a passenger was booted off one of the airline’s flights at New York’s LaGuardia Airport after refusing to wear a facial covering. At SFO, a woman refusing to wear a mask argued with a fellow passenger, telling him to "go back to China," in an encounter posted to YouTube.
We are only a few days into new airline policies requiring passengers to wear masks to help stem the spread of COVID-19, and controversy is erupting on airplanes and airports across the country.
In the first instance, passenger Brandon Straka documented the Wednesday encounter aboard American Airlines flight 1263 to Dallas-Fort Worth in a Twitter video.
How do you feel about airline mask rules? Take our poll at the bottom of this post.
“They told me that it was the law that I had to wear a mask,” he said in the video. “Then eventually they changed their story and said it was their policy and that you can’t fly with us if you don’t do it.”
Straka, a conservative pundit and self-described former liberal, said American Airlines staff intimidated him and said his refusal to wear a mask “was keeping people waiting.”
“This is not a thing,” Straka said in the video. “I don’t have to do this.”
Straka was likely unaware that he was seated next to a New York Times reporter, who is calling into question some of Straka's claims about the incident on Twitter, which only stokes the controversy even more.
----- 3 -----
Inslee: 'Draconian' cuts in Washington state services if Congress doesn't help
By Joel Connelly, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Published 4:35 pm PDT, Wednesday, June 17, 2020
https://www.seattlepi.com/local/politics/article/Inslee-Draconian-cuts-in-Washington-state-15347839.php
Washington faces an $8.7 billion pandemic-caused budget shortfall, which will require "draconian" cuts in state social services if Congress does not come through with another relief package, Gov. Jay Inslee warned on Wednesday afternoon.
The governor promised to "scrub the budget," noting his vetoes last month, and plans for a one-day-a-week furlough of 40,000 state workers, and canceling a 3% pay hike for some 5,600 state employees. Even with these cuts, and deployment of the state's rainy day fund, "We need Congress to step up to the plate," Inslee argued.
Inslee is a onetime high school athlete — the style has never left him — who found himself Wednesday afternoon playing on four courts.
----- 4 -----
Daniel Dale
twitter.com/ddale8
18 June 2020
https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1273716150287941632
Trump has, since late April, increased his estimate of the death toll from 50,000-60,000 to 150,000-200,000 -- all the while proclaiming in near-identical language how great a job he has done, since it could've been far worse.
[QUOTED TWEET]
Daniel Dale
twitter.com/ddale8
18 June 2020
https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1273715757009027072
Trump again increased his estimate of the final COVID death toll, telling WSJ "we could be heading to a number that’s, you know, higher than 150,000 to 200,000."
His previous highest prediction was 110K, on May 8. That was up from 50K-60K in April.
And 0ish in February.
----- 5 -----
NowThis
twitter.com/nowthisnews
18 June 2020
https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1273378134973440000
This Trump supporter compared face masks to slavery while railing against her city council
[EMBEDDED VIDEO AT LINK]
----- 6 -----
Variety
twitter.com/Variety
18 June 2020
https://twitter.com/Variety/status/1273763757592735746
AMC Theater CEO Adam Aron says their cinemas won't require masks upon reopening because they didn't "want to be drawn into a political controversy"
[LINKS TO:
https://variety.com/2020/film/news/amc-coronavirus-movie-theaters-covid-19-1234642047/
]
----- 7 -----
Multiple Florida Hospitals Run Out of ICU Beds as Coronavirus Cases Spike
By Emily Czachor On 6/18/20
https://www.newsweek.com/multiple-florida-hospitals-run-out-icu-beds-coronavirus-cases-spike-1511934
As Florida health officials report another record single-day increase in cases of the novel coronavirus, new data shows hospitals across the state have filled most or all available beds in their respective intensive care units.
Numerous Florida medical facilities reported dwindling ICU bed availability on Thursday, with several reporting no availability at all, according to the latest report published by Florida's Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA). Palm Beach County was among those statewide regions where the availability of beds was most scarce. An accompanying report from AHCA shows about 75 percent of available hospital beds statewide are currently occupied.
The AHCA's data showed two of Palm Beach County's 17 hospitals have already filled all ICU beds, while several other medical centers reported limited availability. One hospital in Miami-Dade County has also reached its ICU bed capacity as of Thursday, and the majority of hospitals have filled more than half of beds in intensive care units. Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties have reported two of Florida's most severe local virus outbreaks.
----- 8 -----
Ricketts tells local governments they won't get federal COVID-19 money if they require masks
By Paul Hammel World-Herald Bureau
Jun 18, 2020 Updated 8 hrs ago
https://www.omaha.com/news/state_and_regional/ricketts-tells-local-governments-they-wont-get-federal-covid-19-money-if-they-require-masks/article_d15459b9-26df-527e-9899-9f579a3d8597.html
LINCOLN — At his regular coronavirus press conferences, Gov. Pete Ricketts makes a point of urging Nebraskans to wear a mask when they go to a store.
But when it comes to the state’s 93 courthouses and other county offices, he doesn’t want local officials to require masks. In fact, he’s told counties that they won’t receive any of the $100 million in federal COVID-19 money if their “customers” are required to wear masks.
“The governor encourages people to wear a mask,” according to his spokesman Taylor Gage, “but does not believe that failure to wear a mask should be the basis for denying taxpayers’ services.”
The no-mask mandate has been poorly received in some corners of the state, with officials criticizing the loss of local control. It also runs counter to the advice of public health officials, who have stressed the importance of wearing masks.
In Lincoln, the state’s second-largest city, officials were preparing to require all visitors to wear masks when entering the City-County Building. But the draft rules were promptly dropped when officials were informed that Lancaster County wouldn’t receive CARES Act money if it instituted a mask requirement.
Deb Schorr, a longtime Lancaster County Board member and past president of the Nebraska Association of County Officials, said county officials “love local control” and are better informed about conditions in their county, particularly concerning COVID-19. The virus has hammered several parts of Nebraska, even as 18 rural counties have not recorded a single positive case.
But with millions of dollars at stake, local officials said they had little choice but to comply with the governor’s order. Otherwise, they’d have to find local options for replacing the federal money, such as higher property taxes.
