"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."
-- Sinclair Lewis
Thursday, May 28, 2020
The Impact Of The Pandemic Will Be Worse Than Most People Think-- And Trump Is Making That Worse Every Time He Opens His Mouth
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Is the official U.S. government policy towards the pandemic reflected by the White House guidelines-- or by Trump's misleading, sociopathic twitter feed? They are often on opposite sides of the fence. And that's not even the stuff that Fauci says that contradicts Trump's ranting and raving. In fact yesterday, Fauci told CNN that he wears a mask in public not only to protect himself and others but also because he "want to make it be a symbol for people to see that that’s the kind of thing you should be doing." This while very low-IQ Trump Death Cultists, encouraged by their pathetic Führer, run around cursing at people people who wear masks, sometimes threatening them:
Yesterday, Fauci told a CNN audience definitively that Trump's favorite snake oil, hydroxychloroquine, is not an effective treatment for the coronavirus. "The scientific data is really quite evident now about the lack of efficacy." Several official government agencies felt compelled to urge Americans not to drink bleach and other commonly available poisons after Trump insinuated that they should. On Tuesday, Ohio's conservative Republican governor, Mike DeWine, went on TV to tell Republicans in his state what Democrats already know-- that wearing a mask to protect against coronavirus is "about loving your fellow human being." DeWine explained that he tells Ohioans to wear the face coverings even as they have become a political flashpoint amid the pandemic. "This is an instruction as old as the Bible. You are supposed to love your fellow man and woman, and that is what we are doing." He told Chris Cuomo "I think that's the message. You are not wearing it so much for yourself as you are wearing it for that person that you will come in contact with."
His comments come as President Donald Trump has sought to politicize the wearing of masks during the coronavirus crisis. While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended Americans wear masks in public, the President has not worn one during factory tours in recent weeks and even shared a tweet mocking former Vice President Joe Biden for wearing one at a Memorial Day ceremony. The White House continued Tuesday to stoke that political back-and-forth, sowing doubt about when and where Americans should be wearing masks and muddying recommendations from top health officials. DeWine said Tuesday that his push for people to wear masks is rooted in science showing "we have so many people we found who are walking around and have absolutely no symptoms." "They don't have a clue they have this, but they do in fact have it. That's why it is so important that we assume the person we are coming in contact with has it, and they should assume we have it," he said. "And if we both wear a mask, that gives us some added protection." The Republican governor was criticized earlier this month for ordering all residents to wear masks in public, a mandate he has since rescinded because "a significant number of Ohioans are offended by this (and) thought it was just government overreach." And, he said, he didn't want people to start tuning out his other requests and orders as the fight continues with coronavirus. "If we lose that willingness, then it will be disaster," DeWine said at the time. "We will lose many, many more lives and our business will not come back. We can't lose that sense."
"This is not about politics. This is not about whether you're liberal or conservative, left or right, Republican, Democrat," he said. "We wear the mask, and it's been very clear what the studies have shown; you wear the mask not to protect yourself so much as to protect others. And this is one time when we truly are all in this together. What we do directly impacts others."
Trump is singing from a very different playbook, one that appears to have been written by an enemy of the American people aiming to kill as many Americans as possible and to reap apart the fabric of our society. This is how bad its gotten with this sociopath in the White House: a new NORC poll for the Associated Press found that just under half of us say we would get a COVID-19 vaccine if the scientists working furiously to create one succeed. 20% of Americans say they would refuse, including 26% of all Republicans.
ANOMIE, Part II-- The Masked Men Are The Good Guys... And The Unmasked Are The Enemies Of Society
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Face To Face by Nancy Ohanian
Please think of this post as a continuation the 5AM piece on anomie. I had a few questions about what anomie is. And after I realized that not everyone was a sociology major-- I was-- I grabbed the Wikipedia description: "the condition in which society provides little moral guidance to individuals". Anomie may evolve from conflict of belief systems and causes breakdown of social bonds between an individual and the community (both economic and primary socialization). In a person this can progress into a dysfunction in ability to integrate within normative situations of their social world - e.g., an unruly personal scenario that results in fragmentation of social identity and rejection of values... commonly understood to mean normlessness... [arising] more generally from a mismatch between personal or group standards and wider social standards, or from the lack of a social ethic, which produces moral deregulation and an absence of legitimate aspirations." This relates to the COVID Civil War raging in America now between those who claim social distancing rules infringes on their liberty and freedom and those who claim that without the social cohesion required to encourage everyone to adopt those rules, the entire society is at risk from the pandemic. Tuesday, the L.A. Times published a report by Brady McCollough about the fight over masks. First a tiny bit of background: societies that were quick to adopt masks have largely contained the outbreak. Societies that scoffed at it, are suffering from big outbreaks now. Let me give you a couple of examples. Czechia, South Korea, Argentina, Taiwan and Japan were quick to adopt universal mask wearing. Their caseloads are low:
• Taiwan- 18 cases per million people •Argentina- 111 cases per million people • Japan- 121 cases per million people • South Korea- 211 cases per million people • Czechia- 738 cases per million people
On the other hand, the U.S., Britain, France, Sweden and Belgium have been grudging and slow to adopt mask wearing. The caseloads are horrific:
• Belgium- 4,382 per million • U.S.- 3,746 per million • U.K.- 2,872 per million • France- 2,613 per million • Sweden- 2,368 per million
Closer to home, let's look at California. 6 Bay area counties got together and ignored Governor Gavin Newsom's timid and inadequate response. The 6 counties shut down despite Newsom's unwillingness to do so statewide. Los Angeles County has, roughly, 10 million people and 27,815 cases. The six Bay Area counties have a combined population of about half that but just 8,319 cases, a rate of half the infections Los Angeles County has.
Back to McCollough's report in the L.A. Times. He wrote that "As more states reopen their economies, officials say fighting the coronavirus outbreak means wearing a face covering. But some are balking at restrictions." Although the city of Los Angeles (population is not 10 million but just 4 million), got a slow start, Mayor Garcetti ordered masks in all indoor establishments long before Newsom did it statewide. It has helped.
In the bustling college town of Stillwater, Oklahoma, residents are allowed to visit restaurants and retailers-- freedoms that most of the country does not currently enjoy in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet when the city issued an emergency proclamation Friday that required citizens to wear face coverings, store employees were “threatened with physical violence and showered with verbal abuse,” according to a statement released by the city. In response, Stillwater quickly amended its wording to only “encourage” use of masks. “This has occurred in three short hours and in the face of clear medical evidence that face coverings help contain the spread of COVID-19,” Stillwater City Manager Norman McNickle said in a statement. “Many of those with objections cite the mistaken belief the requirement is unconstitutional, and under their theory, one cannot be forced to wear a mask. No law or court supports this view.” About a dozen states have reopened more of their economies since Friday’s calendar turned to May, with several, including Florida, loosening more restrictions Monday. No matter where a state falls on the reopening spectrum, though, all Americans who choose to go outside are being met with a choice that isn’t going away anytime soon: to cover up or not? The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says "everyone should wear a cloth face cover when they have to go out in public" to help slow the spread of the coronavirus. The federal agency notes that masks are to protect others and that they are not a substitute for social distancing. In Ohio, Gov. Mike DeWine backtracked last week on an order to require masks be worn in stores as too many Ohioans found it “offensive.” “It became clear to me that was just a bridge too far. People were not going to accept the government telling them what to do,” DeWine said Sunday on ABC’s This Week.
On Monday, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, as part of a tour acknowledging the reopening of most of the state, visited a thrift store in Joplin that is operated by the Disabled American Veterans. The veteran workers wore masks, but Parson did not. "I chose not to," Parson said, when asked at his news briefing why he did not cover his face. "I think it's up to the individuals. I don't think that's government's role to mandate who wears a mask and who don't. I go back to what I've said all along: It's your personal responsibility." Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis allowed the reopening of most restaurants, retailers, museums and libraries at 25% capacity Monday. DeSantis-- who controversially referred to his state, with its large population of older residents, as "God's waiting room" last week-- is recommending that employees and customers wear masks, but he is not requiring it. DeSantis' phased opening plan kept populous South Florida counties Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach closed for most business. Miami reopened parks to the public last week, but only with the mandatory use of masks. By the end of the weekend, park rangers had handed out more than 7,000 warnings to people not wearing face covers, most of them in the popular South Pointe Park, police said. On Monday, the city closed up the park at the end of South Beach yet again. New Jersey opened its parks Saturday, and although Gov. Phil Murphy was pleased overall with the social distancing compliance shown by the population, he shared one major complaint Monday. “Not enough masks,” he said. Eighty percent to 90% "of the folks we're not wearing masks." New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued a mandatory mask order April 15 and said Monday that he believes local governments should have the right to enforce it. “Because you could literally kill someone,” Cuomo said. “How cruel and irresponsible would that be? … It's not that big of a deal. You don’t wear a mask to protect yourself. You wear a mask to protect me. And I wear a mask to protect you. “No one said wear a mask all the time. If you go for a walk in the woods, you don’t have to wear a mask. You can have the mask down when walking in the woods, but if you see someone coming the other way, you put the mask on. It’s the least we can do.”
The U.S. death toll from COVID-19 surpassed 68,600 on Monday, according to Johns Hopkins University. More than a third of American losses from the disease were in the state of New York, which has become the epicenter of the pandemic, with more than 24,900 deaths as of Monday afternoon. The global death total has surpassed 250,000. [The U.S. death toll surpassed 73,000 as I sat down to write this post with large case spikes in Florida, Georgia, Texas, Iowa, Utah, Mississippi, Colorado, Nebraska and both Dakotas, all states with limited compliance with social distancing rules.] New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio began his Monday morning news briefing by talking about how nice the weather had been in the city over the weekend-- and how that could lead to a false sense of normality. New York City on Monday reported 13,536 confirmed deaths from COVID-19 and 5,373 deaths in which the cause was listed as the disease but the victim was not tested. De Blasio said he did not have a problem with citizens returning to outside spaces and enjoying the weather as long as they wore a mask and kept social distancing requirements. He announced Monday that the city would be distributing 5 million three-ply nonmedical masks and 2.5 million cloth face coverings for free in the coming weeks. “Wherever you turn, you’re going to be offered a face covering,” De Blasio said. De Blasio and New York Police Commissioner Dermot Shea were peppered with questions stemming from a video of an officer pointing a Taser at bystanders in lower Manhattan during an arrest of people accused of not social distancing properly. The video shows the officer punching and slapping a man as he brings him to the ground. “This one incident is troubling, but there’s been tens of thousands of interactions between police officer and civilians that went very well,” De Blasio said. The officer has been placed on modified duty and the incident is being investigated, De Blasio said Sunday. On Monday he said more face covers could help prevent future violent scenarios from playing out with enforcement, but in this case, the plainclothes officer was also not wearing a mask. In Oklahoma, Stillwater City Manager McNickle said in a statement that one of the incidents involving the mask requirement included a threat with a firearm. In Michigan, where Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has ordered that masks be worn through May, state police investigators are looking into reports that a Flint dollar store security guard was fatally shot Friday after an argument with a customer who had refused to wear a mask in the store, according to the Detroit News. The man who died leaves behind a wife and eight kids. "My condolences go out to the family of the security guard," Whitmer said Monday. "It is incredible that people continue to show up to work to protect everyone else. We are mindful of how important it is that people keep a level head, that we do the right things. I ask that all Michiganders keep their wits about them and take actions to protect themselves and others in this incredibly stressful time."
I want to mention a little San Francisco history before we move on. Today San Franciscans are wearing their masks and flattening the city's curve nicely. A century ago, when the second wave of the Spanish flu hit and the people in the city were ordered to wear masks, "a band of San Franciscans, led by several prominent business leaders and physicians, staged a rebellion. The Anti-Mask League held a public meeting on Jan. 25, 1919, that was attended by several thousand jeering residents demanding a permanent end to the city mask ordinance."
The city health department was headed by William Hassler, who the Anti-Mask League wanted fired. "The centerpiece of Hassler’s plan," wrote Sydney Trent, "was a requirement that every resident wear a face mask, underscored by [Mayor James] Rolph, who declared, 'Whomever leaves his mask behind, dies.' The San Francisco Chronicle chimed in: 'The man who wears no mask will likely become isolated, suspected, and regarded as a slacker.'... The city was not without scofflaws, however, and soon the $5 fines mounted, and the jails grew crowded. Many who broke the new law merely couldn’t be bothered, but some were more militant. One downtown lawyer argued that the mask ordinance was 'absolutely unconstitutional,' and that police officers could be liable for enforcing it." 100 years later I have witnessed two aggressive non-mask-wearers on grocery store lines get beaten up for breaking social distancing rules.
Many Republican Senators Would Like To Distance Themselves From Trump-- But It's WAY Too Late For That
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Several states run by governors refusing the work on flattening the curve are seeing an increase in confirmed coronavirus cases already-- and it's going to get a lot worse in these states. On Monday, Texas saw new 535 confirmed new cases. Yesterday there were 655 new cases. Florida has 610 new cases Monday and 708 yesterday. Iowa had 392 new cases Monday and 508 Tuesday. Oklahoma had 27 Monday, 130 yesterday. South Dakota had 33 Monday, 68 Tuesday. Trump has been interfering to make it worse, primarily by encouraging his death cult base to "liberate" themselves from social distancing restrictions and by pressuring governors to discard them and open for business. Yesterday, though, he took a bigger step, announcing that he was ready to take aggressive action to force meat processing and packing plants to stay open, despite rampant contagion in the industry. He says he'll use the Defense Production Act to order the companies to stay open and also claims-- no one believes him-- that he'll provide additional protective gear for employees. He's aiming at processing plants supplying beef, chicken, eggs and pork.
Illnesses in the meat-processing industry and shifts in demand after restaurants closed have disrupted the supply chain. Dairy farmers are dumping milk that can’t be sold to processors, broiler operations have been breaking eggs to reduce supplies and some fruit and vegetables are rotting in fields amid labor and distribution disruptions. Many low-income Americans, meanwhile, have been waiting in long lines at food banks, which have reported shortages. Asked about the country’s food supply, Trump said: “There’s plenty of supply.” The Defense Production Act allows the government broad power to direct industrial production in crises. Trump has previously invoked the law-- or threatened to invoke it-- in order to increase the supply of medical gear including ventilators, masks and swabs to test for coronavirus infection. ...Trump acted one day after Iowa’s two U.S. senators and its governor urged the administration to invoke the DPA to keep meatpackers open and reopen closed facilities “as soon as it is possible to do so safely.” Iowa produces one-third of the nation’s pork supply, according to the state officials. Across the country, at least 6,500 meat processing employees have been impacted by the virus, meaning they either tested positive for the disease or had to go into self-quarantine, according to the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, the largest private-sector union. Twenty workers have died. At least 22 meat plants have closed within the past two months, reducing pork processing capacity by 25% and beef processing capacity by 10%, according to UFCW. Farmers have animals with nowhere to go as a result, and the situation is so dire that the U.S. Department of Agriculture is setting up a center to help growers with “depopulation and disposal methods” for animals.
Mike Siegel is the progressive candidate running in a central Texas congressional district represented by Michael McCaul one of the GOP clowns who refused to wear a mask on the floor of the House last week. Last week Mike told us that "every day, across Texas and this country, our workers are making a terrible choice: earn a paycheck or protect your health. You can’t do both. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government’s role in protecting worker safety was limited. As one steelworker told me, even when a facility like a chemical plant had a major accident or release of toxic chemicals, OSHA wasn’t likely to show up. If a worker filed an anonymous complaint, OSHA would send a fax to the company and ask for a remediation plan. The company would fax back its remediation plan. Case closed." Greg Abbott declaring that businesses are open and workers should be careful is far from "case closed." Mike also reminded us that "In response to COVID-19, OSHA has issued Guidelines on Preparing Workplaces, but takes pains to say how they are recommendations only. Here in Texas, the state has not developed its own occupational safety agency, so we are stuck with what the federal government offers. Cities and counties have code enforcement departments, and places like Austin have made efforts to respond to COVID-19 concerns at work places, but there is no agency that is equipped to make sure workers have the PPE they need, or the space necessary to avoid spreading the virus. For the last week, I’ve been working with unions to raise awareness of the lack of workplace safety, at the same time that Texas Governor Greg Abbott publicizes his plans to 're-open' the state. Building on the efforts of Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin and over 50 House Democrats, who filed a 'Reopen America Act of 2020' to ensure testing and PPE before the country attempts to return to normal, I joined with Texas unions, labor councils and regional federations to propose expanded OSHA compliance and investigative capacity to ensure safe workplaces in the COVID era."
Tony Corbo, an official of Food and Water Action told the media that" Trump’s plan to instruct slaughter plants to stay open despite causing major outbreaks of COVID-19 is even worse than his suggestion to use disinfectant to treat sick people. It’s deadly and foolish and will cause catastrophic harm. The consolidated and profit-driven agricultural industry has made our food system weak. It’s crucial the food industry protects workers by closing plants when necessary in order to keep the food system from collapsing entirely. Companies have proven they cannot be trusted to take the necessary measures to continue functioning safely amidst this pandemic. Even Tyson Foods admitted in their full-page ad in the New York Times that they are failing to meet safety standards in every single plant. In most plants, social distancing is impossible and fast line speeds make safety precautions impractical. Furthermore, most workers have not been supplied with proper personal protective equipment to work in these dangerous conditions. Thousands of food workers have tested positive for COVID-19, and at least 17 have died. One hundred of those workers are federal meat inspectors, two of whom have died. Even more workers have been exposed to the virus already, but a lack of testing is hiding the true scope of infection. The federal government should be stepping in to supplement food distribution networks to get our abundant frozen meat supplies to stores and food banks that need them. Instead, they’re currying favor with giant corporations that have continuously put their bottom line above worker workers’ health, food safety, and the vitality of our food supply chain. It’s simple: if unsafe food plants remain open, more food workers will die." Personally, I'd suggest Americans will be a lot healthier and the environment would be way better, if Americans consumed much less meat and much more fruits, grains, beans and vergatables. Can you imagine someone like Trump (or Biden) ever saying anything like that?
That's half a trillion-- with no strings attached
Can the Trumpist regime force reluctant workers back into dangerous situations? They've told unions that any worker who doesn't get back to work in any industry the government opens up will lose their unemployment benefits. The regime is certainly much kinder to corporate giants and their top executives than they are with workers. Jeff Stein and Peter Whoriskey, reporting for the Washington Post yesterday, wrote that "A Federal Reserve program expected to begin within weeks will provide hundreds of billions in emergency aid to large American corporations without requiring them to save jobs or limit payments to executives and shareholders... Unlike other portions of the relief for American businesses, however, this aid will be exempt from rules passed by Congress requiring recipients to limit dividends, executive compensation and stock buybacks and does not direct the companies to maintain certain employment levels. Critics say the program could allow large companies that take the federal help to reward shareholders and executives without saving any jobs. The program was set up jointly by the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin defended the corporate aid program, saying that the lack of restrictions on recipients had been discussed and agreed to by Congress. “This was highly discussed on a bipartisan basis. This was thought through carefully,” he said in an interview with the Washington Post. “What we agreed upon was direct loans would carry the restrictions, and the capital markets transactions would not carry the restrictions.” Democrats asked for restrictions on how companies can use the money from the central bank’s bond purchases but were rebuffed by the administration during negotiations about the Cares Act, said a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-NY). The spokesman said Democrats won meaningful concessions from the administration on reporting transparency in the final agreement. (Transparency requirements do not apply to the small-business loans, the biggest business aid program rolled out to date.) ...Bharat Ramamurti, an aide to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) who was appointed to the board overseeing the bailout, said in a statement: “Big corporations have shown time and again that they will put their shareholders and executives ahead of their workers if given the choice. That’s why I’m so concerned that the Treasury and the Fed have chosen to direct hundreds of billions of dollars to big companies with no strings attached.”
Speaking generally and not about this particular bamboozle by the regime, former Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ) told the Washington Post that "I don’t know anyone who thinks that this is the future of the party." Flake was driven out of the Senate by Trump so his comments aren't coming as a surprise to anyone. But other Republicans smell the rot and failure and are beginning to distance themselves from the source. In yesterday's NY Times Trip Gabriel noted that when Ohio's Republican governor, Mike DeWine, began social distancing himself from Trump, his popularity rose.
For 40 years, Mike DeWine rose steadily if blandly up the ladder of Ohio politics, finally landing his dream job as governor. He took office last year as a familiar figure in the state, not because of any indelible political identify, but because, at 72, he had been around forever. But the coronavirus crisis has made Mr. DeWine something that decades in elected offices never did: a household name. A Republican, he took early and bold actions to lock down his state, even as the head of his party, President Trump, dismissed the threat of the pandemic. Mr. DeWine’s decisiveness-- closing schools before any governor in the country, postponing the state’s March 17 primary election to protect voters-- sent his popularity soaring. The folksy governor, previously best known for an annual ice cream social at his rural home, became something of a cult figure on social media. Ohioans tuned into his five-day-a-week briefings to celebrate “Wine With DeWine,” a ritual whose motto is “It’s 2 o’clock somewhere.” Now, Mr. DeWine is charting a way out of the shutdown, taking cautious steps while facing pressure from business leaders, conservative activists and some Republican lawmakers who vociferously question the economic costs of a state in quarantine. Seven weeks into the crisis, Mr. DeWine is being guided by health experts while avoiding partisan fissures over stay-at-home orders that have been encouraged by Mr. Trump, who hopes a rebounding economy will carry him to re-election. The Ohio governor is the rare Republican official who does not automatically fall in step with Mr. Trump, an independence he shares with two other Republican governors, Larry Hogan of Maryland and Charlie Baker of Massachusetts, both of whom lead solidly Democratic states where bipartisanship is needed to survive. Unlike them, Mr. DeWine has gone his own way in a red-hued state. He also split decidedly with Mr. Trump by encouraging a nearly all-mail primary election on Tuesday. While the president has spread the false claim that voting by mail entails “a lot” of fraud, Mr. DeWine pushed universal absentee ballots for voters’ safety. Ohio’s secretary of state on Monday called the effort a success, with nearly 1.5 million mail ballots cast. ...In a poll of Ohio voters released on Monday, 35 percent of Republicans said they were worried that the United States would take too long to loosen restrictions and that the economy would spiral further downward, compared with 14 percent of Democrats. The poll, by Baldwin Wallace University, also showed overwhelming support for the governor. Eighty-five percent of respondents approved of his handling of the coronavirus, 89 percent said they trusted him as a source of information about the outbreak, and three out of four said he was doing a better job than Mr. Trump.
The poll also measured favorability among politicians. These were the favorable results among Ohio voters:
Related-- Alex Isenstadt reported in Politico that McConnell is telling Republican senators through the NRSC to stop defending Trump's coronavirus nonsense and just attack China instead. Trump flipped out so badly that his "political adviser Justin Clark told NRSC executive director Kevin McLaughlin that any Republican candidate who followed the memo’s advice shouldn’t expect the active support of the reelection campaign and risked losing the support of Republican voters." The NRSC backed down but Jonathan Swan pointed to another likely rift between Republican senators and Trump: infrastructure. On a conference call with his colleagues yesterday, McConnell "panned the idea of using a coronavirus stimulus bill to fund major infrastructure investment," something Trump sees as another way for him to loot the treasury.
On today's call, McConnell said he won't support infrastructure in a COVID-19 bill. "We need to keep the White House in the box," he told senators, according to two sources familiar with the call... This is not the first time McConnell has privately told his colleagues he's uncomfortable with the White House's attitude towards spending. One of the sources said that on a call with senators last week, "McConnell was essentially saying that, while the president will be willing to spend any amount of money between now and November, it was going to be up to Senate Republicans to act like Republicans and resist crazy spending." ...McConnell blocked additional money to state and local governments in the last coronavirus bill. And he said it's time to think about the national debt.
McConnell is going to use aid to states and local governments as a bargaining chip to get the Democrats to agree to limiting employer liabilities for dead and injured workers.
Remember, There Are Innocent People In Red States Who Do NOT Deserve To Die
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The extreme-right moron governors of Georgia and Florida finally-- way too late to save their citizens-- ordered statewide lockdowns Wednesday. Last time I looked there were still a dozen states where governors have refused to order lockdowns-- all red Trump states led by extremely cowardly politicians:
• Alabama-- Kay Ivey (R) • Arkansas-- Asa Hutchinson (R) • Iowa-- Kim Reynolds (R) • Missouri-- Mike Parson (R) • Nebraska-- Pete Ricketts (R) • North Dakota-- Doug Burgum (R) • Oklahoma-- Kevin Stitt (R) • South Carolina-- Henry McMaster (R) • South Dakota-- Kristi Noem (R) • Texas-- Greg Abbott (R) • Utah-- Gary Herbert (R) • Wyoming-- Mark Gordon (R)
The U.S. can't start counting the 8 weeks it takes to flatten the curve until all these dozen states are also in lockdown. These right-wing baboons are threatening all of our lives. Before you start wishing that all their citizens die, please remember that though they all voted for Trump and all still support Trump, there are several million people in these dozen states who voted against Trump. They don't deserve to die. Is there enough lamb's blood to save them all when the Angel of Death comes for a visit? Hillary voters by state:
The April Fool's Day issue of Politico magazine ranked the best and worst governors based on their pandemic leadership roles. I agree that both the best and worst were both Republicans--Ohio's Mike DeWine as most courageous and Trump Florida ass-licker Ron DeSantis as the one most deserving a prison sentence. Bill Scher wrote that with Señor Trumpanzee "unable or unwilling to play the part of a national unifier or to take decisive action to curb the spread of the coronavirus, the leadership we normally expect from the Oval Office has instead come from state executives throughout the nation-- or not." He framed the question he set out the answer: "Which governors have done a better job at meeting the moment, by acting decisively and boosting morale? And which have missed the moment, dragged their feet and succumbed to petty squabbling?" And, unlike any of the TV talking heads, he nailed it on TV-actor-playing-a hero Andrew Cuomo:
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has received the lion’s share of attention, as his informative and emotive press conferences have made him an overnight national political star, albeit halfway through his third term. But his record in responding to the crisis is more complicated than the sheen lets on: his coronavirus containment policies were not the most aggressive in the country, and did not prevent catastrophe. He hesitated to close all schools statewide even as other states began to do so, and resisted a statewide stay-at-home order for a few days before relenting.
Here's his list of the best. He's wrong about Newsom, who also dragged his feet except in the superficial areas Cuomo also looked good in. The 6 Bay Area counties did great while Newsom and Garcetti hid under their beds shivering that if they made the wrong move, they'd never be a presidential contenders. From most best to less best:
• Mike DeWine (R-OH)- "[N]o single governor has done more to put the nation on a war footing in the fight against coronavirus than DeWine, whose actions have contributed to Ohio’s relatively modest number of cases... On March 12, even though Ohio had yet to suffer a major outbreak of Covid-19, DeWine called for the statewide closure of public schools-- the first governor in the nation to do so, forcing most of his fellow governors to recognize they had to follow suit, and fast. • Gavin Newsom (D-CA) • Jay Inslee (D-WA) • Larry Hogan (R-MD)- another mistake by Scher-- he was needlessly slow and doesn't deserve to be on this list. • Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) • Wanda Vazquez (NPP-Puerto Rico)
And now the half dozen worst, although Scher left off some real doozies-- like for example, illegitimate Georgia Republican Brian Kemp who claimed stupidity for his weeks of inaction. "[H]e reversed course Wednesday as a growing number of other Republican governors, including the leaders of Florida, South Carolina and Texas, instituted broader limits on mobility and shuttered more businesses to try to counter the disease. He said his decision was triggered by "game-changing” new projections on the disease’s spread in Georgia. He also said he was informed of new data that this virus 'is now transmitting before people see signs. Those individuals could have been infecting people before they ever felt' symptoms, he said. 'We didn’t know that until the last 24 hours.'" Maybe he didn't, but everyone else on planet earth did. So here's Scher's list from worst to not as terrible:
• Ron DeSantis (R-FL)- "DeSantis is one of Trump’s favorite governors and a potential 2024 presidential prospect. But he has made a bad first impression on the rest of the country by failing to fully shut down Florida’s beaches before or after they were overrun with partiers on spring break, many of whom then traveled home to locations throughout the United States. He also resisted making a statewide stay-at-home order until finally relenting on Wednesday-- in the wake of intense pressure from Florida Democrats, and televised comments Wednesday morning by the surgeon general urging all governors to get their residents to stay at home. Before that point, his seemingly toughest measure was issuing a quarantine for travelers coming from the New York City tri-state area or Louisiana, but the focus on hot spots ignores all the community spread inside Florida and in other states. Florida already has nearly 7,000 confirmed cases, ranking it 17th among the states on a per capita basis. Earlier, DeSantis justified eschewing broader measures. 'We’re also in a situation where we have counties who have no community spread,' he said on March 19. 'We have some counties that don’t have a single positive test yet.' But everything we have experienced strongly suggests you don't want to wait until you have community spread before taking strong action. DeSantis may still be helped by Trump, who may be giving Florida preferential treatment. According to the Washington Post, other governors have had difficulty getting supplies from the Strategic National Stockpile, but not DeSantis. And Trump has been influenced by DeSantis’ argument that some social distancing measures are too harmful to the economy. The Post quoted an anonymous White House official, who explained, 'The president knows Florida is so important for his reelection, so when DeSantis says that, it means a lot. He pays close attention to what Florida wants.'" I would just like to add that DeSantis is still working actively to kill Florida seniors. He is absolutely the worst governor in America. • Tate Reeves (R-MS)- "Aside from its next-door neighbor Louisiana, Mississippi is the Southern state with the most confirmed Covid-19 cases on a per capita basis. Yet Reeves has made a hash out of the response. As Mississippi’s localities began issuing stay-at-home edicts, Reeves issued his own order on March 24, broadly defining what business and social activity is 'essential'-- including religious services-- and declared any order from any other 'governing body' which conflicts with the state order to be 'suspended and unenforceable.'" • Kevin Stitt (R-OK)- "On March 14, Stitt tweeted a picture of his family eating at a restaurant, as if he deserved an award for defying the coronavirus panic. 'It’s packed tonight!' he enthusiastically shared, but facing blowback, later deleted the post... Oklahoma’s rate of infection is intensifying, and testing is minimal. Stitt is not the only governor who has hesitated to implement stiff restrictions, but he may become a case study of the pitfalls of glib social media use in a time of crisis." • David Ige (D-HI)- "Ige tapped his Lieutenant Governor Josh Green to play a key role in the state’s response to coronavirus. Green is an emergency room doctor, so his calls for strict travel restrictions and quarantines on arrivals carried great weight. But once Green publicly pushed for strong measures, Ige cut him out of the loop, instructing Cabinet officials not to consult with Green, and keeping Green out of his press conferences." • Kay Ivey (R-AL)- "Ivey sounded a completely different note at a press conference, when she dismissed the idea of a statewide stay-at-home order. 'Y’all, we are not Louisiana, we are not New York state, we are not California,' she said. (Washington Post data journalist Philip Bump warned Ivey that Alabama’s caseload was growing faster than California’s.)" • Jim Justice (R-WV)- "His lack of experience in crisis management has been glaringly obvious from his discordant statements and actions. On March 16, he was preaching defiance. 'For crying out loud, go to the grocery stores,' Jutice said. 'If you want to go to Bob Evans and eat, go to Bob Evans and eat.' Then, the very next day, he shut down dine-in eating at the state’s restaurants."
Yesterday a 7-person team of NY Times reporters filed a report on the geography of the pandemic response in America. The maps showing citizens ignoring social distancing look eerily-- or predictably-- like the maps of the counties where Trump won in 2016. "Stay-at-home orders," they wrote, "have nearly halted travel for most Americans, but people in Florida, the Southeast and other places that waited to enact such orders have continued to travel widely, potentially exposing more people as the coronavirus outbreak accelerates." Most Americans "in wide swaths of the West, Northeast and Midwest have complied with orders from state and local officials to stay home. Disease experts who reviewed the results say those reductions in travel-- to less than a mile a day, on average, from about five miles-- may be enough to sharply curb the spread of the coronavirus in those regions, at least for now... In areas where public officials have resisted or delayed stay-at-home orders, people changed their habits far less. Though travel distances in those places have fallen drastically, last week they were still typically more than three times those in areas that had imposed lockdown orders, the analysis shows." They offered a list of big population counties across the country where people are spreading COVID-19 willy-nilly. I added the 2016 election results. From worst to less horrible:
• Greenville County, South Carolina- Trump 59.4% to Hillary 34.7% • Jefferson County, Alabama- Hillary 52.2% to Trump 45.0% • Duval County, Florida- Trump 49.0% to Hillary 47.5% • Guilford County, North Carolina- Hillary 58.7% to Trump 38.7% • Montgomery County, Texas- Trump 74.0% to Hillary 22.5% • Polk County, Florida- Trump 55.4% to Hillary 41.3% • Tulsa County, Oklahoma- Trump 58.4% to Hillary 35.6% • Volusia County, Florida- Trump 54.8% to Hillary 41.8% • Oklahoma County, Oklahoma- Trump 51.7% to Hillary 41.2% • Sedgwick County, Kansas- Trump 56.1% to Hillary 36.9% • Gwinnett County, Georgia- Hillary 51.0% to Trump 45.2% • Shelby County, Tennessee- Hillary 62.3% to Trump 34.6% • Brevard County, Florida- Trump 57.8% to Hillary 38.0% • Salt Lake County, Utah- Hillary 42.8% to Trump 32.6% • Fresno County, California- Hillary 49.4% to Trump 45.5% • Utah County, Utah- Trump 51.3% to Hillary 14.0% • Pasco County, Florida- Trump 58.9% to Hillary 37.4% • San Bernardino County, California- Hillary 52.2% to Trump 42.4% • Douglas County, Nebraska- Hillary 47.9% to Trump 46.5% • Hillsborough County, Florida- Hillary 51.5% to Trump 44.7%
Dr. Fauci has recommended that all 50 states do mandatory lockdowns-- something Trump and his goonish governors don't accept. Last night Trump lied again, this time that airplane and train passengers are being given "very strong tests" for coronavirus both before departure and after arrival. "They’re doing tests on airlines-- very strong tests-- for getting on, getting off. They’re doing tests on trains-- getting on, getting off." He's just flat-out lying-- and endangering the general public.
Who's Sad Trump Is Sparking A Devastating Civil War Among GOP Candidates?
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How loyal a Republican candidate is to Señor Trumpanzee is now being treated as a determining factor by many. Awesome-- for Democrats. At a time when Republicans who embrace Trump top strongly risk losing independent voters or risk losing Trumpists by shunning him, the party is further splintering. As the Washington Post reported a few days ago, Michigan's far right gubernatorial candidate, Attorney General Bill Schuette, is running the TV ad above that starts and ends with Trump's endorsement. (In between is nonsense about the policies of the last Democratic governor, Jennifer Granholm, who was replaced by Republican Rick Snyder in 2011.) Schuette's other ad on TV right now just flat-out attacks his Republican primary opponent, Lt. Gov. Brian Calley, claiming he "deserted Donald Trump, helping Hillary Clinton's campaign." Watch:
James Hohmann wrote that "Fealty to Trump has become more of a litmus test than ever for Republicans. Emboldened by private polling and focus groups that show the president is incredibly popular with the base, GOP candidates are stepping up attacks on their rivals over any daylight they’ve shown with Trump, even if it stemmed from his personal conduct toward women or apostasy on traditional conservative orthodoxy. It’s another illustration of the degree to which Trumpism has come to define the Republican Party. This is no longer the party of Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush. It’s the party of Donald J. Trump." The Trumpists are attacking... everywhere. The battle between Scalise (LA) and McCarthy (CA) to succeed Ryan is already seeing each claim-- quietly-- that he is Trumpier than the other.
Meanwhile, Ohio's Lt. Governor and gubernatorial candidate, Mary Taylor, is being sliced and diced by extremist Mike DeWine because she isn't Trumpy enough. His allies are attacking Kasich and Taylor. Though Kasich is far more popular among Ohio voters than Trump, a mailer from a DeWine cutout group, Ohio Conservatives For A Change, claims "We stopped John Kasich short of the White House. Now we must stop Mary Taylor short of the governor’s office." The primary is May 8. Taylor is being castigated for supporting Kasich over Trump in the 2016 Republican primary. It might be worth noting two things: DeWine also endorsed Kasich's presidential bid during the primary and that these were the results of that Republican primary:
Current polling shows Kasich with a 54% approval rating, compared with 41% for Trump. (Kasich's disapproval is just 31% while TRump's is 20 points higher-- 51%.) The problem, though, is that among Republicans only Kasich's approval is 55% (said as his approval among independents) while Trump's approval is 75% among Republicans (and just 39% among independents). That same poll shows DeWine eviscerating Taylor 50-18% one even among independents who plan to vote in the GOP primary, DeWine is ahead 43-33%.
No One Who Has Followed Mike DeWine's Career Can Be Surprised To Know He Was Lying About Planned Parenthood Landfills
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Like me, I bet you were sickened to read that Planned Parenthood was throwing aborted fetuses into landfills and-- like me-- I bet you knew it was another right-wing lie. It was. Ohio's right-wing Attorney General, Mike DeWine, wants to run for governor in 2018 and he's already trying to position himself with the Tea Party crowd. A two-term U.S. Senator, DeWine was defeated for reelection by Sherrod Brown in 2006 after nearly a million of his voters from 2000 decided he hadn't done a good enough job to meet their votes again. Sherrod beat him by a much bigger margin than anyone had anticipated, 2,257,369 (56.2%) to 1,761,037 (43.8%), although DeWine's shocking 38% approval rating-- the worst (after Rick Santorum, who also lost his seat the same day) of any incumbent senator that year-- should have alerted people what was coming. That DeWine's campaign was caught and exposed for running false ads against Brown, helped seal his fate. By the end of the campaign, the NRSC had given up on him and withdrew financial support, although DeWine still outspent Brown $15,542,673 to $10,752,665. Writing yesterday for the Cincinnati Enquirer, Cliff Schecter showed that the always deceitful DeWine was up to his old tricks again.
Mike DeWine’s fundamentalism, wrapped in his latest baseless, biased and ideological attack on Planned Parenthood, is just one in a string of abuses of this power by our oleaginous attorney general. But it’s by far the most strikingly political and troubling in its corruption of our legal process. DeWine-- Ohio’s top law enforcement officer, sworn to uphold justice for all-- is behaving in a manner that is simply unacceptable for an elected official in a democratic republic. And it must stop. Buried in DeWine’s press conference late on Dec. 11 was the finding that after the Attorney General Office’s five-month investigation “our office has found no indication that fetal tissue is being sold” by Ohio’s Planned Parenthood organizations. Let me restate this for the cheap seats and the comment section. DeWine’s “investigation” has produced nothing. Zilch. Nada. It has found evidence of wrongdoing in much the same way Donald Trump found New Jersey-based Muslims cheering on 9/11. DeWine’s only actual product from his ode to 1690s Salem, Massachusetts, has been enough hot air to take a zeppelin to the moon. While this is something most already knew to be true, truth is not on DeWine’s to-do list. He ensured the investigation and ensuing press conference clearing Planned Parenthood was overwhelmed by his inflammatory diatribe-- one full of misinformation about Ohio law and the methods used by Planned Parenthood’s contractors for medical materials disposal. What DeWine conveniently failed to mention during his rant was that medical facilities all over Ohio use contractors who employ the very same methods for fetal tissue. He also left out that the Ohio Department of Health has since 1975 accepted these methods as complying with Ohio law. Meanwhile, DeWine is certainly consistent in putting his own misplaced sense of morality before the rights of Ohio citizens. He spent $1.3 million of our tax money to try to destroy the dream of a dying Cincinnati man, John Arthur, to be legally married to the person he loved in Ohio (Obergfell v. Hodges). God only knows what he spent in staff hours and travel costs to ignore his job as Ohio’s AG and hopscotch around the country attacking women’s right to birth control through insurance in the Hobby Lobby case. Regarding DeWine’s current jihad, one might be inclined to ask, as was posed during another witch hunt in our history: At long last, have you left no sense of decency?
He never had any sense of decency. But two incredibly decent progressive women are thinking of running, Connie Pillich and Nina Turner. Ohio never elected a woman governor; it's time. (Yes, Nancy Hollister was "governor for 11 days in 1999 when George Voinovich resigned to take a Senate seat, but that doesn't count.)
