Trump VS COVID-19 Threat

[crazyfingers]

Trump Told Governors to Buy Own Virus Supplies, Then Outbid Them

How pathetically low is that? Kind of like telling someone "pick yourself up by the bootstraps" then go buy all the bootstraps out from under them.

Pick yourself up by your bootstraps was always meant ironically, because it is impossible to actually pick yourself up by your bootstraps.

Fitting, that the right wing takes it as serious advice.

https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2020/03/20/charlie-baker-donald-trump-coronavirus-supplies

Donald Trump wants states to buy more COVID-19 supplies. {Gov} .Charlie Baker told him they tried and ‘lost to the feds.’

As states have called for more federal help in the response to the coronavirus outbreak, President Donald Trump put the responsibility this week on governors to obtain the medical equipment necessary to treat the increasing number of patients hospitalized with the disease.

“The federal government is not supposed to be out there buying vast amounts of items and then shipping,” Trump said during a press briefing Thursday. “You know, we’re not a shipping clerk.”

Defending his decision to not yet utilize an emergency law allowing the federal government to tell private companies to ramp up production, the Republican president said it was on the states to begin buying in-demand medical supplies, like masks and ventilators.

Later in the day, Gov. Charlie Baker said that his state had tried. But they ran into a problem: the federal government.

“I’m not quite sure what to do with this, so I’m just going to throw it out there for you,” Baker told Trump during a coronavirus teleconference with governors Thursday afternoon.

“We took very seriously the push that you made previously on one of these calls that we should not just rely on the stockpile and that we should go out and buy stuff and put in orders and try to create pressure on manufacturers and distributors,” the Massachusetts Republican continued. “And I got to tell you, on three big orders, we lost to the feds.”

 

[hurtinbuckaroo]

Trump probably read about it on Twitter. Some folks here were posting about this drug, as well. It seems to have gone viral as a potential miracle cure, so Donald Trump naturally fell for it. He thinks that his Twitter feed is more reliable than his own medical experts, whom he did not bother to consult before telling them and everyone else to make the malaria drug available to the public. It is hard to imagine that someone this idiotic is still loved and supported by a minimum of 2 out of 5 American voters.

It doesn't look crackpot. There are multiple studies over the last month.

Source? Dr. Fauci said that there was one study, which he termed "anecdotal". There may currently be studies underway, but Fauci said that we are months away from a definitive answer.

[YOUTUBE]EIIgIKMgUIQ[/YOUTUBE]

You can choose to listen to Fauci, or a bunch of people on the Internet. It's not hard.

 

[lpetrich]

Kelly McCurdy on Twitter: "We need to prioritize bailing out regular people before corporations. Groceries, Healthcare and Housing come first. https://t.co/phngWhhJgN" / Twitter
noting
Doyle Canning for Congress OR-04 on Twitter: "My opponent Pete Defazio receives more campaign cash from the airline industry than any other member of Congress.
He took a private call with the airline CEOs “at their request”.
#Airlinebailout #NoBailouts #BailOutThePeople https://t.co/vLKaTYJeX1" / Twitter
noting
Ilhan Omar on Twitter: "The same airlines who spent $45 billion in stock buybacks for their wealthy shareholders are now demanding a $50 billion bailout.
This is unacceptable.
We should be bailing out *workers*, not airlines, casinos, or oil executives." / Twitter

Peter DeFazio (D-OR-04)? I live in his district, in its biggest town, Eugene. It has an airport, though not a very big one one. Nevertheless, it's the biggest one in his district. So the airline industry doesn't have a big presence here in OR-04.

Looks like I'll be voting for Doyle Canning in the Oregon Congressional primary.

 

[ZiprHead]

 

[lpetrich]

Sara Nelson: Our Airline Relief Bill Is a Template for Rescuing Workers Instead of Bailing Out Execs

Sara Nelson is the head of the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA-CWA) and is widely considered to be a candidate for the next leader of the AFL-CIO. She gained prominence when she called for consideration of a general strike to end the government shutdown of 2019. Now, with the entire economy cratering in the midst of the coronavirus crisis, Nelson is working overtime to help craft a relief package for the teetering airline industry that keeps all employees on the payroll—a model she says can be “a template” for a national bill to give relief to all workers.

She also appeared in AOC's Green New Deal Town Hall spring last year - she was in the "extras" video.

What are those requirements?

Nelson: No stock buybacks. No executive bonuses. No dividends. No breaking contracts in bankruptcies. No spending money on busting unions [The AFA-CWA says Delta has continued to send out anti-union messages during the coronavirus crisis, prompting a response from the union]. And worker representation on boards.

Toward the end,

Is America going to like socialism more after this?

Nelson: Every executive in America sounds like a socialist right now!

 

[lpetrich]

Haley Stevens on Twitter: "UPDATE: Spoke to hospital exec.
They have lost $39M in a month.
Some in their group have 1-2 months before they will close doors.
We shouldn’t get to the point of hospital shutdowns to compel fed govt to secure the medical & fiscal solvency of this nation." / Twitter
then
Haley Stevens on Twitter: "Why is this happening? Because we are in state of emergency and all non-elective surgeries are canceled so revenue has plummeted overnight. Insurance companies still raking it in.
We need to bring all parties to the table to rise to this challenge and avoid a health catastrophe." / Twitter
Something looks like a typo here, and someone else noticed it:

Vladimir Reshetnikov on Twitter: "@HaleyLive Did you mean "all elective surgeries are canceled"?" / Twitter

-

Katie Porter on Twitter: "On July 15, 2019, your board of directors authorized $3B in buybacks. Please sit down. https://t.co/6s9BTw8ZZh" / Twitter
noting
CNBC Now on Twitter: "BREAKING: United Airlines CEO threatens big job cuts if company doesn't receive "sufficient government support by the end of March" https://t.co/uAqJuiXyQb" / Twitter

John Thornton on Twitter: "@CNBCnow BREAKING: United Airlines CEO holds employees hostage in taxpayer extortion scheme.
Fixed that for ya', CNBC!" / Twitter

 

[bilby]

 

[lpetrich]

AOC is a voice of reason here.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "It’s important we realize how this virus hasn’t just created new problems; but poured gasoline on the crises we’ve long had.
It’s okay if you didn’t see the extreme urgency of our healthcare, housing, wage, carceral, FPol,etc crises before. But I hope you don’t unsee them later." / Twitter

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "If price gouging COVID treatment shld be criminal, shouldn’t it be for insulin too?
If mayors can suspend arrests on low-priority, low-level offenses, why didn’t they before?
If mass evictions are a crisis now, why wasn’t the highest homelessness % since the Depression one too?" / Twitter


Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "One enormous, major lesson that I hope people realize in this moment:
Resistance to revolutionary policy was never really about a lack of money, or capacity, or logistics.
It was always about power and a lack of political will." / Twitter
noting
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Let’s take this lesson and move it forward to push for a better world.
We CAN guarantee healthcare.
We CAN treat housing as a right.
We CAN pursue decarceral policy.
We CAN prioritize humanitarian foreign policy.
We can. We can. We can." / Twitter

 

[lpetrich]

Deconstructed: How to Save the U.S. Economy, With AOC and economist Stephanie Kelton - podcast with a transcript.

Here's a Twitter thread with some of the contents:
Mehdi Hasan on Twitter: ""How To Save The U.S. Economy, with @AOC and @StephanieKelton"" / Twitter

Mehdi Hasan on Twitter: ""How To Save The U.S. Economy, with @AOC and @StephanieKelton" - a special episode of my podcast #Deconstructed has just dropped. Have a listen and share - an important discussion about what needs to be done now in terms of radical actions:

"Katie Porter is absolutely right," @AOC tells me on today s #Deconstructed, referring to @RepKatiePorter's argument in the Atlantic yesterday that @SpeakerPelosi's focus on refundable tax cuts over cutting checks is too slow a response to this crisis:

"there's a lot of like this 90s wonkery going on where if we do a backdoor tax credit, 'Oh that's clever way of helping people.' But it doesn't address the core issue which is that people are experiencing a shock right now. We need to get checks into people's hands." - @AOC to me

"We need to get checks into people's hands. If you're concerned about it being means-based, tax it on the other end." Spot on from @AOC on #Deconstructed today:

"We cannot respond to this with a Band-Aid. It cannot be a bailout package and we keep on going the way that we did before. We need to respond to this with permanent systems and structures so that we dd not find ourselves in this fragile of a position again." - @AOC to me today

"Right now we need to stop the bleeding and what that means is getting checks in the hands of working families and making sure those checks aren't going straight out the door... for long-term debts like mortgage and student loan payments." - @AOC to me:

On #Deconstructed, @AOC tells me that the GOP plan to give poorer families smaller checks is "abhorrent" and says the right has "always been socialist" for the rich. "The hypocrisy, all of it, is laid open."

"This isn't a spectator sport. We shouldn't sitting around looking at Congress and saying, 'I hope Democratic leadership does the right thing.' We need to be blowing up their phones right now and telling them what we need." - @AOC to me on #Deconstructed

"I'm not here trying to pray to any person. I'm here to make that sure we put on the heat and the pressure, to get demands, and make sure that we take care of people." - strong stuff from @AOC on today's #Deconstructed. Also the brilliant @StephanieKelton:

I like her point about avoiding means testing. It means avoiding a lot of bureaucracy. I think that she's right that progressive taxation is a good alternative to complicated and bureaucratic means testing.

 

[lpetrich]

Coronavirus Capitalism — and How to Beat It by Naomi Klein

The Trump administration and other governments around the world are busily exploiting the crisis to push for no-strings-attached corporate bailouts and regulatory rollbacks. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is moving to repeal financial regulations that were introduced after the last major financial meltdown, as part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act. China, for its part, is indicating that it will relax environmental standards to stimulate its economy, which would wipe out the one major benefit the crisis has produced so far: a marked drop in that country’s lethal air pollution.

But this is not the whole story. In the United States, we have also seen organizing at the city and state levels win important victories to suspend evictions during the pandemic. Ireland has announced six weeks of emergency unemployment payments for all workers who suddenly find themselves out of work, including self-employed workers. And despite U.S. presidential candidate Joe Biden’s claims during the recent debate that the pandemic has nothing to do with Medicare for All, many Americans are suddenly realizing that the absence of a functioning safety net exacerbates vulnerabilities to the virus on many fronts.

NK has written on "The Shock Doctrine", using crises as excuses for pampering big businesses and the like. Like in the 2008 financial crisis, where big banks got bailed out but ordinary people didn't.

But she points out that another path is possible. The New Deal of the 1930's. So if we push hard enough, we could have a sort of New Deal II. Like a Green New Deal.

 

[lpetrich]

Pod Save America on Twitter: "There it is. Trump admits he has NOT used the Defense Production Act to get companies to produce the amount of protective equipment American health workers desperately need. This is a complete failure of leadership. Period .#coronavirus #GetMePPE https://t.co/10KiOxR43U" / Twitter
But what will it take to make him stop congratulating himself about what a super genius he is?

Pod Save America on Twitter: "REPORTER: I'm going to read you doctors on the frontlines are saying.
TRUMP: "You mean the ones who are saying good things or bad things?"
REPORTER: [Reads doctors' pleas for protective equipment.]
TRUMP: "...Many doctors, they can't believe the great job we're doing." https://t.co/iPGLf8s481" / Twitter

Then
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "The major need that hospitals across the country are echoing: PPE supplies and equipment.
COVID is set to spike. There aren’t enough masks, gloves, ventilators, beds, etc to treat people.
Trump needed to order mass production over a week ago to save lives.
He didn’t. https://t.co/9ZXJPpjYxs" / Twitter

PhillyTom/TRUMP2020/RhodyChef on Twitter: "@AOC There’s an eerie silence from our tycoon class: Gates, Bloomberg, Buffett, Bezos, Zuckerberg. Why are they standing on the sidelines? I doubt Carnegie and Vanderbilt would be. Is it because, as Democrats, they want all help to come from the government?" / Twitter
Republican oligarchs have also not been very prominent. Like Charles Koch (David Koch died last year), Sheldon Adelson, Robert and Rebekah Mercer, ...

 

[lpetrich]

Daniel Dale on Twitter: "A reporter reads quotes from doctors who can't get protective masks. Trump touts progress on masks, blames other administrations, and says, "Many doctors -- and I've read many, many doctors -- can't believe the great job that we've done."" / Twitter
then
Ida Bae Wells on Twitter: "At some point we in the media need to really consider why we are running these press conferences live. If they are providing more disinformation than accurate information, what purpose are we serving? https://t.co/LV1RfgQjNf" / Twitter

Coronavirus cases in New York State now top 10,000

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said Saturday morning that the number of coronavirus cases in the state has increased by more than 3,000 and now tops 10,000.

The state has conducted 45,437 tests, he said, and now has a total of 10,356 coronavirus cases.

"The more tests you take, the more positives you find," he said, adding that New York is now conducting more tests per capita than China or South Korea.

New York coronavirus: Andrew Cuomo orders all nonessential workers to stay home - CNNPolitics

De Blasio's senior staff in near revolt over COVID-19 plan

There’s also growing frustration from senior aides, who fault the mayor for dithering instead of making decisions, micromanaging instead of leading, and insisting he knows best instead of listening to others, three sources said.

‘Thank god for Cuomo,’ is a common refrain among the mayor’s staff, made only partly in jest, sources said.

New Jersey cancels all non-approved gatherings amid coronavirus outbreak | TheHill

The New Jersey government said the two executive orders, signed Saturday morning, cancel gatherings including parties, celebrations or other social events “unless explicitly authorized.” Non-essential retail businesses also “must close storefront and/or brick-and-mortar premises,” while “all recreational and entertainment businesses must close to the public.”

Bars and restaurants in the Garden State must close on-site service and may provide take-out and delivery service only.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy issues stay-at-home order for nearly all of state's 9M residents

The governor of New Jersey on Saturday issued a stay-at-home order for nearly all of the state's 9 million residents in the fight against the spread of the coronavirus.

Similar sweeping mandates have been made in California, Illinois, New York and Pennsylvania.

“We must flatten the curve and ensure residents are practicing social distancing," New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said in announcing the new restrictions. But, he added, “Even with this order in effect … life in New Jersey does not have to come to a complete standstill.”

 

[crazyfingers]

OK so I'll readily admit I'm no expert but I've read all the reputable news I know on how people can get C19 and for I life of me I don't see what the purpose would be spraying the floor at a subway station. I've seen other photos of spraying the streets and such.

Spraying handrails, door handles, elevator buttons and such, yes. Things people put their hands on. But floors and streets?

https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news...0-intl-hnk/h_5749efe403dae8d2b7a9916b34db3e6e

 

[lpetrich]

ABC News Politics on Twitter: "JUST IN: 55% of Americans approve of Pres. Trump's management of the coronavirus crisis, compared to 43% who disapprove, according to new @ABC News/Ipsos poll. [url]https://t.co/oNg6ZipDN2 https://t.co/yVcGO0CpbD" / Twitter[/url]
then
Melanie D'Arrigo for Congress on Twitter: "Counterpoint
res. Trump purposely mismanaged the #CoronavirusPandemic in an effort to keep the number of confirmed cases artificially low in order to help his reelection campaign. He put his own narcissism over the lives and safety of Americans. [url]https://t.co/c1lOVL50Wt https://t.co/xk6K9d6z55" / Twitter[/url]

With a graph that notes a big partisan split on how trustworthy people consider Trump on the virus:

• Overall: 16% 21% 24% 36%
• Democrats: 2% 6% 27% 64%
• Republicans: 35% 39% 14% 7%
• Independents: 13% 21% 30% 32%

 

[crazyfingers]

Mindboggling that 55% can approve of his handling of this. He' s been a lying incompetent sac-o-shit.

 

[Copernicus]

Mindboggling that 55% can approve of his handling of this. He' s been a lying incompetent sac-o-shit.

Your sources of information and the folks you hang out with (e.g. us) are largely different from the majority of Americans. If you use social media, the internet, and confirmation bias diligently, you can fend off just about any attack on your mental defenses, no matter how reality-based. Nowadays, its like going to a political church 24-7 in order to shore up one's faith in an ideology.

 

[lpetrich]

For Obama, No Opportunity Too Big To Blow | The Nation by Naomi Klein, 2009 Dec 21

Blown Opportunity Number 1: The Stimulus Package When Obama came to office he had a free hand and a blank check to design a spending package to stimulate the economy. He could have used that power to fashion what many were calling a “Green New Deal” — to build the best public transit systems and smart grids in the world. Instead, he experimented disastrously with reaching across the aisle to Republicans, low-balling the size of the stimulus and blowing much of it on tax cuts. Sure, he spent some money on weatherization, but public transit was inexplicably short changed while highways that perpetuate car culture won big.

A "Green New Deal" - so that label has been around for several years. When NK wrote this article, AOC was a college student at Boston University.

Blown Opportunity Number 2: The Auto Bailouts Speaking of the car culture, when Obama took office he also found himself in charge of two of the big three automakers, and all of the emissions for which they are responsible. A visionary leader committed to the fight against climate chaos would obviously have used that power to dramatically reengineer the failing industry so that its factories could build the infrastructure of the green economy the world desperately needs. Instead Obama saw his role as uninspiring down-sizer in chief, leaving the fundamentals of the industry unchanged.

That would have required a major R&D effort, it must be

Blown Opportunity Number 3: The Bank Bailouts Obama, it’s worth remembering, also came to office with the big banks on their knees — it took real effort not to nationalize them. Once again, if Obama had dared to use the power that was handed to him by history, he could have mandated the banks to provide the loans for factories to be retrofitted and new green infrastructure to be built. Instead he declared that the government shouldn’t tell the failed banks how to run their businesses. Green businesses report that it’s harder than ever to get a loan.

It would have been harder to justify by pure economics back then. But wind and solar energy are nowadays economically competitive with fossil fuels and storage technologies are getting there. The missing piece of the puzzle is synthetic fuels, but I'm starting to see a buzz about synfuels also.

For AOC, NK, and others, the COVID-19 pandemic shows some big weaknesses in the US economy. Like how US medical insurance works - it's an awkward patchwork system that lets a lot of people fall through its cracks.

 

[lpetrich]

America's extreme neoliberal healthcare system is putting the country at risk | Adam Gaffney | Opinion | The Guardian

How we finance medical care, however, is also critical. On the most basic level, containing the coronavirus will require those infected to seek medical care, so that they can be diagnosed and isolated. Fear of devastating ER or hospital bills, however, could keep some home – or at work. As a Taiwan government spokeswoman, lauding her country’s single-payer system for its successful containment of Covid-19, told NBC News, “Taiwan’s health insurance lets everyone not be afraid to go to the hospital. If you suspect you have coronavirus, you won’t have to worry that you can’t afford the hospital visit to get tested.”

... In recent weeks, you may have heard that the US, despite our high healthcare spending, has fewer hospital beds per capita than many other wealthy nations. You may have also heard in recent years about an epidemic of hospital closures in poorly served rural areas, or the 2019 closure of a major academic safety-net hospital in Philadelphia. These hospitals closed not because they are unneeded, but because they are unprofitable. For the American hospital landscape is shaped by market forces, which largely determine where hospitals grow and where they wane.

 

[lpetrich]

Another aspect of the coronavirus crisis is that it undermines the notion of American exceptionalism, that the US is the best at everything. South Korea is easily outdoing the US in controlling the virus.

Coronavirus cases have dropped sharply in South Korea. What’s the secret to its success? | Science | AAAS

Behind its success so far has been the most expansive and well-organized testing program in the world, combined with extensive efforts to isolate infected people and trace and quarantine their contacts. South Korea has tested more than 270,000 people, which amounts to more than 5200 tests per million inhabitants—more than any other country except tiny Bahrain, according to the Worldometer website. The United States has so far carried out 74 tests per 1 million inhabitants, data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show.

South Korea’s experience shows that “diagnostic capacity at scale is key to epidemic control,” says Raina MacIntyre, an emerging infectious disease scholar at the University of New South Wales, Sydney. “Contact tracing is also very influential in epidemic control, as is case isolation,” she says.

Coronavirus Update (Live): 308,592 Cases and 13,069 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Outbreak - Worldometer

Alarm and scepticism over N Korea claim of being coronavirus free | North Korea News | Al Jazeera

"I've spoken directly with people in North Korea and have heard that North Korea declared a state of emergency," Seo said.

"I heard that the first case in North Korea was confirmed on January 27, and that the People's Army locked down roads and railways in provincial cities, and that people were not even able to walk in the streets."

...
"Last week, we also ran a story about a military report that stated that around almost 200 soldiers had died from symptoms that appeared to be coronavirus. But in all these cases, the numbers we put out are not necessarily 100 percent from coronavirus. The sources we have suggest that there has been an outbreak and that people are dying."

 

[lpetrich]

Fox News host accuses Lindsey Graham of ‘working to reward the Chinese’ amid coronavirus pandemic – Raw Story

Fox News host Sean Hannity confronted Graham about a Politico article, which reported that Graham had supported giving more green cards to wealthy foreign investors — most of them from China — through the upcoming legislation. Hannity asked Graham if he was “using the coronavirus recovery bills specifically to dramatically expand what is known as an EB-5 green card that would allow wealthy Chinese [to more easily obtain a green card] if they lend money or purchase or invest in the U.S.”

Graham adamantly denied the accusation.

“Absolutely not. I haven’t talked to anybody on the planet, much less the Trump administration, about putting EB-5 in the coronavirus bill,” Graham told Hannity. “This is not the time or the place. The president supports the program. I do, too. We’re not going to put a damn thing on this bill that doesn’t protect you and your family from the virus and doesn’t give you money that you desperately need.”

noting
Trump considers increasing visas for foreign investors - POLITICO

The Trump administration is considering a controversial proposal to boost the number of visas offered to wealthy immigrants who invest money in the United States as it tries to boost a faltering economy amid the escalating coronavirus outbreak, according to four people familiar with the situation.

The proposal, which could be included in one of the Senate’s coronavirus rescue bills, would significantly boost the number of visas offered annually from 10,000 to 75,000 while halving the investment required to earn legal residence from $900,000 to $450,000, they say.

There’s a massive leadership gap at the top on coronavirus — and that absence is already deadly – Raw Story

So far, everything about the coronavirus pandemic is playing out as predicted. If the United States only follows the limited guidance given by the Trump administration, then the current trajectory will likely lead to over 9 million people infected and nearly 1 million deaths. Traditionally public health has been left to individual states, but the fight against COVID-19 is a global crisis that calls for a coordinated effort. Instead, it’s the clearest case yet that the federal government, under President Trump’s addled leadership, is tragically leading from behind.

In the absence of decisive national leadership, governors and mayors suddenly find themselves stepping into the void.

“I wish,” San Francisco Mayor London Breed said on Friday, “the country had acted sooner.”

... By week’s end, more than 75 million Americans will be living under an order to remain indoors except for exercise or grocery shopping.

“We are not getting what we need,” Breed said about assistance from the federal government in an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, “and so we have to take action ourselves to save lives.”