Trump Is Leaving Us The Worst Mess In American History-- Has Biden Got What It Takes To Clean It Up?

 

Cult of Ignorance-- Closed by Nancy Ohanian

North Dakota should get a medal... or at least a pat on the back. The state has the highest rate of COVID infection per capita-- 82,502 per million Dakotans. I think that means that by the time Trump is thrown out into the gutter in front of the White House, 1 out of 10 North Dakotans will have had or will have COVID. Today they reported 2,270 more cases, bring the state total to 62,872. They also reported 19 more deaths and since there is no more room in any of their hospitals, there is probably a lot of trouble ahead for this extremely Trumpist state, where they gave their fearless leader a 65.1% to 31.8% victory over Biden. The only county Biden won was Rolette (where 73.01% of the people are Native Americans).

But none of that is why I'm suggesting a medal or a pat on the head. Gov. Doug Burgum, who was reelected with an even bigger margin than Señor Trumpanzee (69.2%) last week, finally issued a statewide mask mandate Friday night. After adamantly resisting masks for 9 months, Burgum's statement suddenly admitted that "The most effective weapon against COVID-19 is wearing a mask. This is a simple tool, but one that’s critical in helping protect our loved ones and slow the spread." And anyone who doesn't like it... can go to South Dakota, where psychotic mass murderer Kristi Noem will happily give them refuge. (South Dakota has the second worst outbreak per capita in the country-- 72,550 per million-- with 1,855 more cases today and a total of 64,182. South Dakota also announced 53 more deaths today, an awful lot for a state with so few people. Noem seems to love every second of it.

California and our lame-ass governor is doing better than Noem and Burgum, of course, but California has 25,938 cases per million and that is starting to climb again, for two reasons:

1- Newsom is afraid to take stringent actions
2- Too many Californians ignore even the inadequate and weak, unenforced actions he has implemented.

Texas is the only state with more overall cases and the only state besides California with over a million cases (although Florida is probably going to catch up). Newsom was exposed as a hypocrite by the San Francisco Chronicle when he was caught at a super-fancy French Laundry dinner for Jason Kinney, a slimebag lobbyist (for, among other bad actors, Facebook) and one of Newsom's less than reputable cronies. There were 12 people at the dinner-- from more than 3 households-- so it violated Newsom's own guidelines. He apologized today and said he and the Kimberly Guilfoyle replacement shouldn't have gone. You think? Especially when he's telling Californians not to travel for Thanksgiving dinners.

This morning, L.A. Times reporters Maria L. La Ganga, Sonja Sharp, and Julia Barajas wrote about Californians' deteriorating mental health. "Pandemic Holiday Season 1.0 is taking its toll on psyches and pocketbooks," they wrote. "We’ve been cooped up for the better part of nine months, but instead of drawing up lists of guests and gifts, we’re cataloging the things we cannot do as temperatures drop and coronavirus cases soar across the country. Like visit far-flung family and friends. On Friday, the governors of the three West Coast states issued 'travel advisories,' recommending against nonessential travel and urging people entering California, Oregon and Washington to self-quarantine for two weeks to slow the virus’ spread. Or buy those loved ones holiday gifts. A second round of stimulus money to help hard-hit consumers is a distant dream because of a deadlocked Congress. And even if shoppers have money in their pockets, malls are what health experts warn against: closed-in spaces with the possibility of crowds. Or even, for the high school seniors among us, apply for college in any normal fashion. Campuses are largely on lockdown. Learning is remote. The extracurricular activities that burnish an application are on hold. And you can’t bump into your counselor in the hall for a little extra guidance."

Meanwhile, President-elect Biden implored Trump to confront the surging pandemic. Trump is angry and hurt he lost and would rather play gold while people die. Michael Shear reported that Biden called the "federal response 'woefully lacking,' even as Mr. Trump broke a 10-day silence on the pandemic to threaten to withhold a vaccine from New York."

In a blistering statement, Mr. Biden said that the recent surge, which is killing more than 1,000 Americans every day and has hospitalized about 70,000 in total, required a “robust and immediate federal response.”

“I will not be president until next year,” Mr. Biden said. “The crisis does not respect dates on the calendar, it is accelerating right now. Urgent action is needed today, now, by the current administration-- starting with an acknowledgment of how serious the current situation is.”

...A spokesman for Mr. Cuomo, Rich Azzopardi, responded on Twitter, saying that Mr. Trump “has failed with his pandemic response, lied to Americans about how bad it was when he knew otherwise & was fired by voters for his incompetence. @NYGovCuomo is fighting to ensure the communities hit hardest by Covid get the vaccine. Feds providing 0 resources.”

Biden has a terrible decision to make in a few weeks, one he's certainly not looking forward to and probably wishes Trump would do it instead. There's no chance of that so it will be up to Biden to take the tough steps-- extremely unpopular in half the country-- needed to get control of the pandemic. AP's Alexandra Jaffe reported that members of Biden's coronavirus advisory board are arguing among themselves about whether or not a national lockdown is needed-- or feasible.

That’s a sign of the tough dynamic Biden will face when he is inaugurated in January. He campaigned as a more responsible steward of America’s public health than President Donald Trump is and has been blunt about the challenges that lie ahead for the country, warning of a “dark winter” as cases spike.

But talk of lockdowns are especially sensitive. For one, they’re nearly impossible for a president to enact on his own, requiring bipartisan support from state and local officials. But more broadly, they’re a political flashpoint that could undermine Biden’s efforts to unify a deeply divided country.

“It would create a backlash,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security who added that such a move could make the situation worse if people don’t comply with restrictions. “Lockdowns can have consequences that diminish the value of such an approach.”

During his first public appearance since losing the election, Trump noted on Friday that he wouldn’t support a lockdown. The president, who has yet to publicly acknowledge Biden’s victory, would likely reinforce that message to his loyal supporters once he’s left office.

...Even if a nationwide lockdown made sense, polling shows that Americans’ appetite for a closure waning. Gallup found that only 49% of Americans said they’d be “very likely” to comply with a monthlong stay-at-home order because of an outbreak of the virus. A full third said they’d be very or somewhat unlikely to comply with such an order.

Kathleen Sebelius, who was the health and human services secretary during the Obama administration, said Biden would be wise to keep his options open for now, especially as Trump criticizes lockdowns.

“It’s a very dicey topic” politically, she said. “I think wisely, the president-elect doesn’t want to get into a debate with the sitting president about some kind of mandate that he has no authority to implement.”

Because of Trump the U.S. reported 162,229 new cases on Thursday, 187,896 new cases on Friday and 157,081 new cases today, bringing the U.S. total to a horrific 11,226,038. With the exceptions of Vermont, Maine, NewHampshire, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington and West Virginia, every state is in pandemic out-of-control territory. The half dozen states with the worst outbreaks per capital are all states were large numbers of people are willing to put themselves and their families in harm's way by listening to a deranged Trump rather than to public health officials and experts:

• North Dakota- 82,502 cases per million residents
• South Dakota- 72,550 cases per million residents
• Iowa- 57,479 cases per million residents
• Wisconsin- 52,609 cases per million residents
• Nebraska- 49,070 cases per million residents
• Utah- 47,144 cases per million residents

This, plus an incipient depression, is what Trump is leaving Biden-- and America.

Everybody Wants To Know Who Gavin Newsom Will Appoint To Fill Kamala's Senate Seat

 

I've been saying that Newsom's first choice is Secretary of State Alex Padilla... but I now hear from a reliable source that I've been wrong. The people around Newsom favor Padilla, but Newsom has a mind of his own. The Governor wants a Hispanic senator as part of his legacy-- and part of his own run for Dianne Feinstein's soon-to-be-former seat when she dies, retires or gets shipped off to a home for the criminally insane. But a Latino isn't what Gavin is looking for; a Latina is.

Inside Newsom world-- where there's a tendency to do whatever crooked consultant Ace Smith says-- everyone knows Smith is pushing Padilla, one of his clients (as is Newsom). But when Newsom runs for the Senate, he doesn't want anyone to point out that he would be the second male representing California in the Senate. Scott Wilson at the Washington Post got it wrong this afternoon... well half wrong.

The obvious choice would have been former Congresswoman/former Secretary of Labor and current Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda Solis, a perfect choice. But there are persistent rumors that she prefers to stay in L.A. than go back to DC and that she is planning on running for mayor. There's another Latina who is also perfect for the job though-- Inland Empire Assemblywoman Eloise Reyes, who was just reelected with 70% of the vote.

She originally took on a corrupt conservative Democrat, Cheryl Brown, and beat her by ten points with a big boost from organized labor. She has a stellar record in the state legislature, is a proponent of both Medicare-for-All and the Green New Deal, and chairs the Human Services Committee. She has been a vocal and successful proponent of environmental and job safety reform, passed legislation on police violence, prisoner re-entry, a victims of crimes bill, and corporate governance. And her enemies... two of the most corrupt power blocs in the state, hated by one and all: the charter school industry and Big Oil. Good enemies to have in California.

This morning, the California Democratic Voter Guide predicted that the finalists Newsom is considering are Barbara Lee, Karen Bass, Alex Padilla, Xavier Becerra and... Eloise Reyes.

Something like 39,937,500 people live in California. The biggest ethnic group is Latino (39%), followed by White (37%), Asians (15%), Black (6%), mixed race (3%), Native American and Pacific Islander (less than 1%). There has never been a California senator of Hispanic heritage.

The End Of Civics Classes = The End Of American Democracy?

 

Yesterday, the Washington Post reported that the Justice Department is preparing for civil unrest and violence at polling states in November. I don't think that ever happened before-- at least not since I was born. And you wouldn't be off base if you pointed out that that's a uniquely Trumpian thing.

How Trump got into the White House, though, is something different. That's on the voters, our neighbors and fellow countrymen. Whenever I hear someone-- like Jordan Klepper-- interviewing Trump supporters at one of his rallies, I mourn the loss of civics classes in public schools. Watch this (random) one for example:





A couple of years ago Brookings attempted to answer the question "How well l are schools preparing students to be effective citizens, voters, and members of their communities?" They put together a report delving into what constitutes a high quality civics education. They came up with 10 recommendations:

1 Classroom instruction in civics, government, history, law, economics, and geography
2 Discussion of current events
3 Service learning
4 Extracurricular activities
5 Student participation in school governance
6 Simulations of democratic processes and procedures
7 News media literacy
8 Action civics
9 Social-emotional learning (SEL)
10 School climate reform

Mother Jones published a piece, Why Teaching Civics in America’s Classrooms Must Be a Trump-Era Priority, premised on how "the testing craze and resegregation stripped schools of a key mission: creating engaged citizens." Most politicians don't seem to care. Kristina Rizga wrote that "In 2011, all federal funding for civics and social studies was eliminated. Some state and local funding dropped, too, forcing many cash-strapped districts to prioritize math and English-- the subjects most prominently featured in standardized tests. A study by George Washington University’s Center on Education Policy found that between 2001 and 2007, 36 percent of districts decreased elementary classroom time spent on social studies, including civics-- a drop that most affected underfunded schools serving working-class, poor, rural, and inner-city kids."

And why is this coming into focus now, since Trump and his anti-democratic Regime occupied the White House, more than it has in recent decades? Rizga: "Extreme views can be socially contagious, especially among young people, who are more susceptible than adults to being influenced by their peers. As a journalist, I report on schools, and teachers have been telling me that violent rhetoric is more common, and that they’re struggling to find the right approaches to root it out. But some educators are also part of the problem. In a 2015 survey, 1 in 5 Muslim students in California said they experienced discrimination by a school staff member. According to a complaint filed by the American Civil Liberties Union last year, when a Muslim sixth-grader from Somalia raised his hand to answer a question, a teacher at a school in Phoenix snapped, 'I can’t wait until Trump is elected. He’s going to deport all you Muslims…You’re going to be the next terrorist, I bet.'"





Think about that! I'm not a big fan of California Governor Gavin Newsom. He's a big poseur and a quintessential neoliberal corporate shill who will always do the wrong thing if he thinks he can get away with it. (He also has no backbone whatsoever.) Reporting for the L.A. Times yesterday, Nina Agrawal wrote about how he vetoed a high school ethnic studies requirement the legislature had passed.

Under the bill vetoed late Wednesday, written by Assembly Member Jose Medina (D-Riverside), all public high school students in California would have had to take at least one semester of ethnic studies in order to graduate, beginning with the class of 2029-2030. A separate bill, written by former Assembly Member Luis Alejo (D-Salinas) and signed into law in 2016, requires the state to create and adopt a model curriculum for ethnic studies courses by March 31, 2021.

In his veto message, Newsom said he values the role of ethnic studies in helping students understand the experiences of marginalized communities and that he supports schools and districts offering such courses. But, he said, there was too much uncertainty about the content of the model curriculum and he wanted to be sure it “achieves balance, fairness and is inclusive of all communities.”

Since its founding half a century ago, ethnic studies has been defined as focusing on the experiences, histories and contributions of four racial/ethnic groups that have historically been marginalized and oppressed in the United States: African Americans, Latino Americans, Native Americans and Indigenous peoples, and Asian Americans. Coursework emphasizes “auto-ethnography,” encourages students to “tell their own stories,” and engage in social justice, according to descriptions from curricula and teachers.

Theresa Montaño, a professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies at Cal State Northridge and a member of the advisory committee that helped develop the first draft of the ethnic studies model curriculum, said Thursday that Newsom’s veto message was “painful.”

“White people in this society can still with the stroke of a pen say to children of color in this state that your history doesn’t matter and that the only way your history will be told is if we get to sanitize it, scrutinize it and approve it before it gets to you. That I think is to me the most painful,” she said.

Medina, the bill’s sponsor, said Thursday that his bill’s intent to make ethnic studies a standard component of high school education got confused with the debate over how inclusive an ethnic studies curriculum should be.

Under his bill, courses developed off the model curriculum would have met the requirement, but so would other ethnic studies courses.

“Some of the discussion that I saw that took place this time made a lot of reference to where the curriculum was a year ago. And that is certainly very different from where the curriculum is now,” he said.

In the summer of 2019, state education officials released a first draft of the model curriculum to intense controversy, particularly from Jewish groups, including the California Legislative Jewish Caucus, whose members objected to their lack of inclusion and a perception that the curriculum and sample lesson plans were anti-Semitic. After a lengthy public comment and revision process, officials issued a new draft in July, which the caucus said “addresses the most critical concerns raised by our community last year.”

But when it later became clear that the curriculum would include a sample lesson on Arab Americans, many Jewish and other ethnic groups once again mobilized.

Sarah Levin, executive director of Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa, said her group supports “high-quality, rigorous ethnic studies” but wants to see the curriculum include “balance in its portrayal” of Middle Eastern communities and “equitable representation” for other groups, such as Iranian Americans, Kurdish Americans, and Mizrahi Jews. She said also that the curriculum should include a lesson plan on anti-Semitism.

“Let’s continue improving this and getting this to the right place where we’re all content and where we all feel like we’re meaningfully included,” she said.

Daniel Thigpen, a spokesman for the California Dept. of Education, said it had received at least 9,000 letters from the public on the latest curriculum draft.

At the crux of the challenge, Thigpen said, is how to balance that feedback and demands for inclusion with fidelity to the definition of ethnic studies.

“The position of the department right now and how we’re navigating that is by listening,” he said.

The department is currently synthesizing the public comments, reviewing additional materials and sample lesson plans, and working to produce another revision of the curriculum ahead of the next meeting of the Instructional Quality Commission in November. The commission can then either adopt that version or modify it further before opening it up for another 45-day public comment period and forwarding it to the State Board of Education.

Medina said he plans to reintroduce his bill as soon as he returns to the Legislature in December.

“California is the most diverse state in the United States. We should have it within our ability to teach students differently from what we’ve done for the last 50 years,” he said. “I am very hopeful that we get there next year.”

I guess John Oliver's show is like a national civics class (with serial f-bombs).

Ted Lieu For Senate

Ted Lieu by Nancy Ohanian

There are a multitude of reasons why the up-and-coming Congressman representing California’s 33rd Congressional District would make an excellent choice to serve as the next junior Senator from California when Kamala Harris is elected vice president in November. Ted Lieu has an amazing life story, is insanely smart and hardworking, and understands the true meaning of public service. And most importantly, Ted is a leader who knows how to get things done.

Ted is a man of conscience and compassion and he has never lost touch with where he came from. His story begins much like your story, or your parents’ story, or your grandparents’ story. It is the quintessential American story. Ted is an immigrant whose family moved to the United States looking to achieve the American dream-- and by every measure they succeeded. Ted’s family went from being poor and not speaking English well to opening several gift stores where Ted and his brother would help with the family’s small business. Ted attended Stanford University, where he earned undergraduate degrees in Computer Science and Political Science, and then Georgetown University, where he received his law degree magna cum laude after serving as Editor-in-Chief of the law review. Ted decided to give back to the amazing country that had given him and his family so many opportunities by joining the United States Air Force. After serving on active duty for four years in the JAG Corps, Ted wanted to continue to serve his country and joined the Reserves, where he still serves as a Colonel.

Ted has served in public office at the city, state, and now national level. He knows how to get things done in government. Prior to being elected to Congress in 2014, Ted served in the California State Assembly and Senate. He authored landmark legislation regulating the subprime mortgage industry; a first-in-the-nation ban on gay conversion therapy for children; and a first-in-the-nation ban on the use of tanning beds for minors. Ted also co-authored California’s landmark Global Warming Solutions Act.

In Congress, Ted has been a leader on a wide range of issues from the major challenges of our day like climate change and healthcare to lesser covered (but still important) topics like cyber security and nuclear weapons policy. The first bill Ted introduced after coming to Congress was the Climate Solutions Act, which aims to make California’s ground-breaking renewable energy goals and climate emissions reduction targets a national model. As one of only four computer science majors currently serving in Congress, Ted is frequently sought out for his insight on technology and innovation matters including cybersecurity, cloud computing and innovation as well as the sharing and creative economy. He has also introduced legislation to prioritize consumer safety in technologically-advanced cars as well as legislation that would ensure law enforcement and tech companies protect consumer privacy. Ted has also been a leader in Congress against ethnic and racial profiling, as well as discrimination against the LGBT community. His bill to ban so-called conversion therapy is modeled off of his successful legislation in California. On foreign policy and national security, Ted believes we are stronger when we use all elements of national power. Ted worked with Ed Markey in the Senate to introduce legislation to limit the President’s (any president’s) power to unilaterally use nuclear weapons. And has been speaking out against the US military support for the conflict in Yemen for years, even when it was harder to do during the Obama Administration.

But Ted Lieu is so much more than just the list of his accomplishments. He possesses those intangible qualities that make him a pragmatic and effective leader. When looking at Ted’s political career the adage attributed to Thomas Jefferson comes to mind: "In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock." Ted knows how to work with his colleagues from across the political spectrum to deliver results when possible. Since coming to Congress, at least 15 pieces of legislation sponsored by Ted have been signed into law-- despite either serving in the minority or during a Republican Administration. He knows how to swim with the current when it can get things done. He also knows how to stand like a rock when the moment calls for that. Ted is not afraid to stand up to bullies like Trump-- and he has the Twitter followers to prove it. He has fought to hold the Trump Administration accountable at every turn over the past three plus years. As a Member of the House Judiciary Committee, Ted was a leader during the impeachment process, pointing out the obvious abuse of power committed by the President.





Throughout his three terms in the House of Representatives, Ted has earned the respect of his colleagues. In his first term, Ted was chosen by his classmates to serve as the President of their Freshman class. Last Congress he was an incredibly engaged and effective Vice Chair at the DCCC, doing his part to help support the 2018 Democratic wave. And this term he was elected by his Democratic Colleagues to serve as a Co-Chair of the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, making him one of about a dozen House Democrats to serve in Leadership. (Fun fact: Only Speaker Pelosi received more votes than Ted during the caucus elections, and she ran unopposed!) He has used this position to help hone the Democratic message heading into 2020.

Ted is also the last person who will talk about his qualifications to be the next Senator from California. When I asked him if he would be interested in the possible Senate vacancy, he said there is too much work to be done to spend time thinking about that. He then went on to list half a dozen things he’s working on right now for our nation and his district: ensuring adequate national testing for COVID-19, saving the US Postal Service, preventing voter suppression, passing the next economic recovery package being negotiated in Congress, working to elect Democrats to the House and Senate, and of course making sure Donald Trump is a one term president. Washington is full of politicians projecting false humility. It is downright refreshing to talk to one who is a genuinely humble public servant. We should-- Gavin Newsom should-- send him to the Senate to continue his service.

Good News: California Gets A New Senator

Yeah, Biden picked Kamala Harris as his running mate. It was probably the smart political move-- certainly better than Susan Rice, who he really wanted. Everyone seems to like the idea. Obama, who probably had a lot of influence on this choice, said "Joe Biden nailed this decision." David Axelrod coined a new word: "Kamalat." I can't imagine there is one Democratic Party careerist who isn't saying something positive, effusive, supportive. I'm not a Democratic Party careerist so let me just say I never voted for her when she ran for anything here in California and I'll be happy to keep that record going in November. Oh, yeah, she's absolutely better than Biden. I wonder if she'll try to talk him into keeping her pal Mnuchin in place after they win. In any case... I'm way more interested in who Gavin Newsom picks to replace her in the Senate, where she actually does have a stellar voting record, significantly to the left of where Newsom stands on most things.

The most reasonable-- relatively speaking-- right out of the box public comment I saw from any official group came from PDA executive director Alan Minsky:

As we saw during her own presidential campaign, Kamala Harris is a political weather vane. First she was for Medicare for All, then she wasn't. She failed for years to hold police accountable for gross misconduct in California, then touted her commitment to police accountability in the wake of George Floyd's murder. While her penchant for taking positions broadly palatable to the corporate donor class raises concerns about her dedication to progressive principles, her habit of aligning her stance with the prevailing political winds gives us some hope. We will fight every day to hold Vice President Harris to the higher ideals she often espouses, and make sure those winds blow decisively in the direction of a Green New Deal, Medicare for All, and a level playing field for working families everywhere.  

Someone knocked on my door the other day. I wasn't expecting anyone. A door knock is strange these days. It was a young lady, appropriately masked, holding a clip board. She asked me to sign a petition for a recall of our bungling corporate Democratic governor. I was happy to. A friend of mine, from the upper echelon of the Democratic Party, called me 2 minutes after Biden announced that he had chosen Kamala as his running mate. My friend told me she hopes Newsom appoints himself to the Senate seat-- "At least we'd get him out of the state."

I don't think this Senate seat is going to a white male, not even one named Newsom. Cross front-runner Adam Schiff off the list, as well as desperate hopefuls Eric Swalwell and John Garamendi. I doubt Newsom will sell it to Tom Steyer. And, I know the whole genealogy thing, but-- like it or not-- Eric Garcetti is viewed as a white man.

My guess is that Newsom's going to pick a proven, well-qualified person with a minority background. There was an on-line rumble for Katie Porter but a freshman congresswoman (also white) is probably not what Newsom has in mind. I also think he's looking for someone from Southern California, which leaves out two other social media heroes-- Barbara Lee and Ro Khanna.

That leaves six people I think he's going to look at-- well, five, because he's not really going to look at Kevin De Leon because he hates him and, Kevin is probably going to run for mayor of L.A. anyway. My list is of all southern Californians, all accomplished members of minority communities and all probably popular choices. Congressmembers Karen Bass and Ted Lieu have a ton of relevant experience-- she was Speaker of the Assembly and he wrote and passed the best legislation out of Sacramento in decades. She's an African-American and he's an Asian-American. He's also a veteran, not a bad thing in the state with the most vets; and he's wildly popular for his outspoken criticism of Trump. If I was making the choice, I can't see how I would pick anyone but Ted. But I'm not; Newsom is and I imagine he's most likely going to chose a Latino.

So... Hilda Solis is very progressive, a former congresswoman who Obama picked to be his Secretary of Labor. She's currently an L.A. County Supervisor. I'd love to see her get the job and I think she'd be a great senator Californians would love.

Xavier Becerra is also a former member of Congress, currently serving as Attorney General, having taken that position when Harris left it to become a senator. He was once thought of as potentially "the next Speaker of the House" and he's been good at the jobs he's had and would also be a relatively popular choice.

I hear, though, that Newsom likes Alex Padilla, the Secretary of State, more. Presumably, a lot will be riding on how smooth the November elections in California go since that's Padilla's biggest job. (The new voting machines in L.A. sure suck bad and thanks to Brad Friedman I now don't know for certain if that's Padilla's fault or not.)

The Chris Wallace Interview-- Fox Viewers Finally See What A Lying, Incompetent Boob They Support

Trump lied repeatedly during his interview with Chris Wallace on Fox yesterday. It amazed me that Wallace let him get away with his oft repeated distortion of how the U.S. tests more people than any other country in the world. Forget for a moment that Trump opposes testing and that it is done by states and that Trump is trying to defund those state programs. Instead let's just look at the number of tests that have been done per million residents:

• Iceland- 327,387 tests per million Vikings
• Denmark- 225,564 tests per million Danes
• U.K.- 193,109 tests per million Brits
• Russia- 169,092 tests per million Russians
• Israel- 153,507 tests per million Israelis
• U.S.- 143,759 tests per million Americans

It's important to note that many of the states with the worst upticks in new cases are the states with the least testing. These states are all having dangerous one day case increases and none of their testing rises to the level of that being done in most developed countries with case increases:

• Ohio- 97,039 tests per million Buckeyes
• Missouri- 98,386 tests per million Missourans
• Wyoming- 108,152 tests per million Trumpist fanatics
• Texas- 108,761 tests per million Texans
• South Dakota- 109,927 tests per million Dakotans
• Alabama- 116,953 tests per million Alabamans
• South Carolina- 118,560 tests per million South Carolinians
• Oklahoma- 121,190 tests per million Oklahomans

Talking Points Memo chose their 5 worst moments to focus on-- and they all were doozies! No doubt this will result in Trump going on the attack against Wallace and against Fox for "making him look bad."

Doubling down on his claim of coronavirus “disappearing” someday

When Wallace confronted Trump regarding his predictions about the coronavirus “disappearing” someday, Trump replied that he’ll be “right eventually.”

When asked about his administration’s recent efforts to discredit Dr. Anthony Fauci-- which include an unnamed White House official sending a memo to news outlets last week criticizing Fauci’s past comments on the coronavirus that later turned out to be inaccurate-- Trump first replied that “we’re not” before repeating his line that although the nation’s top infectious disease expert has “made some mistakes,” he has a “very good relationship” with Fauci.

After Trump went on to call Fauci “a little bit of an alarmist,” the President argued that he will be “right eventually” about his previous claim that the coronavirus will “disappear.”

Defending the Confederate flag

Pressed on whether the Confederate flag is offensive,” Trump said “it depends.”

“It depends on who you’re talking about, when you’re talking about,” Trump said. “When people proudly have their Confederate flags, they’re not talking about racism. They love their flag, it represents the South, they like the South. People right now like the South. I’d say it’s freedom of, of, of many things, but it’s freedom of speech.”

Wallace then asked if he’s offended by the Confederate flag.

“Well, I’m not offended either by Black Lives Matter,” Trump said. “That’s freedom of speech.”

Piling on more attacks against Biden

Upon being shown a Fox News poll that indicates Biden leading him by eight points, Trump denied that he’s losing because “those are fake polls.”

“They were fake in 2016 and now they’re even more fake,” Trump said. “The polls were much worse in 2016.”

The President then claimed, without evidence, that he has “other polls” showing that he’s leading, before going on to slamming Biden because he “can’t put two sentences together.”

‘They wheeled him out, he goes up, he repeats, they ask him questions, he reads the teleprompter and then he goes back into his basement,” Trump said. “You tell me the American people want to have that in an age where we are in trouble with other nations that are looking to do numbers on us.”

Griping about his inability to hold rallies amid the COVID-19 pandemic

After railing against Democrats for “purposely keeping their schools closed,” Trump displayed his dissatisfaction over being unable to hold rallies in states led by Democratic governors.

“I called Michigan. I want to have a big rally in Michigan. You know we are not allowed to have a rally in Michigan?” Trump said. “Do you know we are not allowed to have a rally in Minnesota? Do you know we’re not allowed to have a rally in Nevada? We’re not allowed to have rallies in these Democrat-run states.”

Refusing to guarantee he will accept the results of the November election

After Trump doubled down on his baseless claim that mail-in voting will “rig the election,” Wallace asked if he’s suggesting that he might not accept the election in November.

“I have to see,” Trump said, before repeating his assertion when pressed on the question again.

The NY Times also published an article on 5 take-aways, although not in regard to the Fox interview-- Inside the Failure: 5 Takeaways on Trump’s Effort to Shift Responsibility. Believe me, it's related. Michael Shear reported that Señor Trumpanzee and his cronies "decided to shift primary responsibility for the coronavirus response to the states during a critical period of weeks in mid-April, eagerly seizing on overly optimistic predictions that the pandemic was fading so the president could reopen the economy and focus on his re-election... [C]ritical decisions about the handling of the virus during that crucial period were made not by the better known coronavirus task force, but by a small group of White House aides who convened each morning in the office of Mark Meadows, the president’s chief of staff. One of their goals: to justify declaring victory in the fight against the virus. In that effort they frequently sought validation from Dr. Deborah L. Birx, a highly regarded infectious disease expert, who was the chief evangelist in the West Wing for the idea that infections had peaked and the virus was fading quickly."

Shear reminds his readers that "despite warnings from state officials and other public health experts," the murderous Orange Menace "stuck to a deliberate strategy by pushing responsibility onto the states almost immediately after introducing reopening guidelines. Then he quickly undermined the guidelines by urging Democratic governors to 'liberate' their states from those very restrictions." Here are two of the take-aways Shear included:

Trump’s handoff of responsibility had consequences

The president’s bizarre public statements, his refusal to wear a mask and his pressure on states to get their economies going again left governors and state officials scrambling to address a leadership vacuum that complicated their efforts to deal with the virus.

In one case, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California was told that if he wanted the federal government to help obtain the swabs needed to test for the virus, he would have to ask Mr. Trump himself-- and thank him.

After offering to help acquire 350,000 testing swabs during an early morning conversation with one of Mr. Newsom’s advisers, Mr. Kushner made it clear that the federal help would hinge on the governor doing him a favor.

“The governor of California, Gavin Newsom, had to call Donald Trump, and ask him for the swabs,” recalled the adviser, Bob Kocher, an Obama-era White House health care official.

Mayor Francis X. Suarez of Miami, a Republican, said that the White House approach had only one focus: reopening businesses, instead of anticipating how cities and states should respond if cases surged again.

“It was all predicated on reduction, open, reduction, open more, reduction, open,” he said. “There was never what happens if there is an increase after you reopen?

The White House was slow to recognize it had been wrong

Not until early June did White House officials even begin to recognize that their assumptions about the course of the pandemic had proved wrong.

In task force meetings, officials discussed whether the spike in cases across the South was related to crowded protests over the killing of George Floyd or perhaps a fleeting side effect of Memorial Day gatherings.

Digging into new data from Dr. Birx, they soon concluded that the virus was in fact spreading with invisible ferocity during the weeks in May when states were opening up with Mr. Trump’s encouragement and many were all but declaring victory.

Even now, there are internal divisions over how far to go in having officials publicly acknowledge the reality of the situation.

Un-Re-Opening... California Takes The Step

"Die For Him Grandpa" by Nancy Ohanian

California is a COVID-mess, particularly the southern part of the state, where all the counties followed Gov. Gavin Newsom into a wait-and-see approach (while the Bay Area counties ignored Newsom's cowardice and shut down fast and managed to stave off the worst of the pandemic that is devastating southern California. Even though Newsom is making it next to impossible to get tested in L.A. County any more, on Sunday the state reported 7,702 confirmed new cases-- bringing the state total to second in the nation and 8,293 cases for every million Californians. California will be number one in the country in August. Yesterday the state reported another 8,350 new cases, bringing the state total to 336,037 and 8,505 cases per million Californians. L.A., Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside counties are all out of control.

L.A. Unified, America's second largest school district (730,00 students) and the San Diego Unified (135,000 students), the two largest districts in the state, announced yesterday what was inevitable-- the autumn will be all on-line classes. In case anyone was having any second thoughts about that, the teachers unions-- with 83% backing from the rank and file-- said teachers would not be showing up for scheduled classes on August 18.

The NY Times noted that the "joint announcement came as Education Secretary Betsy DeVos continued to press the Trump administration’s case to quickly reopen public schools, not only for students’ social and emotional development, but also to allow parents to return to work fully. In television appearances over the weekend, she downplayed both the virus and the school reopening guidelines issued by the administration’s own public health officials. 'I think the go-to needs to be kids in school, in person, in the classroom, because we know for most kids, that’s the best environment for them,' Ms. DeVos said on CNN’s State of the Union. She also reiterated the administration’s stance that guidelines issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention deeming in-person classes the 'highest risk' option were not mandatory. President Trump threatened last week to cut off federal funding to schools that did not reopen their campuses."

Los Angeles school superintendent Austin Beutner, seeming to answer DeVos, said, "There’s a public health imperative to keep schools from becoming a petri dish." He added that schools "can’t just tap our heels together" like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz and "pretend it’s appropriate to bring people back" despite "skyrocketing" rates of new infections.

Reopening by Nancy Ohanian

No reputable public health experts agree with Trump and DeVos that reopening in locales undergoing massive spikes is OK. "The recommendations from the president and Ms. DeVos," wrote The Times reporters, "have been disputed by many public health officials and teachers. On Friday, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Federation of Teachers, the National Education Association and AASA, the School Superintendents Association issued a statement saying that reopening recommendations should be 'based on evidence, not politics.' The groups added that 'we should leave it to health experts to tell us when the time is best to open up school buildings, and listen to educators and administrators to shape how we do it.'"

School districts in San Jose, Oakland and San Bernardino are following suit and sticking to remote teaching only.

The decision also comes as districts throughout the state are confronting resistance from California’s politically powerful teachers’ unions. Like many districts, both Los Angeles and San Diego have been engaged in tense negotiations over pandemic working conditions.

The Los Angeles teachers’ union called last week for campuses to remain closed and for learning to be fully remote when the district resumes classes on Aug. 18, saying Mr. Trump’s reopening push was part of a “dangerous, anti-science agenda.” In an informal survey released Friday of 18,000 United Teachers Los Angeles members, 83 percent agreed that campuses should not physically reopen.

And the state’s largest teachers’ union wrote a sharply worded letter last week to Gov. Gavin Newsom-- a Democrat elected with their support-- expressing concern “that politics are being played with the lives of children and the educators who serve them.”

“It is clear that communities and school districts have not come close to meeting the threshold for a safe return to in-person learning, even under a hybrid model,” the 310,000-member California Teachers Association wrote.

Some $13.5 billion went to K-12 education from the federal relief package passed in March by Congress. But education groups and school districts estimate that schools will need much more money to safely reopen, and with the economic impact of the pandemic having depleted many local and state budgets, it is unclear where it will come from.

As recently as late last week, leaders in San Diego Unified were promoting their plan to reopen five days a week, in person, for all students whose families chose that option. But the district had also warned that the health, sanitation and educational costs of reopening physical classrooms safely were so steep-- a minimum of $90 million for the coming school year-- that they would not be able to do so without a significant infusion of federal dollars.

So, that's the schools. What about the rest? It's widely believed that Newsom, pushed by his corporate donors and generally a real coward with the spine of a jellyfish, opened the state up too soon. So now he's trying to institute another lockdown-- ordering restaurants, bars, gyms, movie theaters and other businesses that serve customers indoors, and he ordered bars to close. USA Today reporter Nicole Hayden went into the fine-points of an order than goes into effect immediately.

She wrote that the order indicates that "all counties are required to close indoor operations of restaurants, wineries, tasting rooms, movie theaters, family entertainment centers, zoos, museums, card rooms and all bars. The 30 counties that are on the state’s targeted engagement list are ordered to close additional businesses. The targeted counties, which account for 80% of the state’s population, are also required to close indoor operations of fitness centers, places of worship, offices for non-critical sectors, personal hair services, and indoor malls. The state's engagement list details counties that are struggling to contain the spread of the virus. A week ago, just 23 counties were on this list. Placer, Sonoma, Sutter and Yuba counties were added to the list today."

As intensive care bed usage continues to surge across the state-- ICU capacity in Riverside County hit 100% on Friday-- Newsom says his actions will become more aggressive.

About 36% of the states total ICU beds remain available. In Placer, Lake and Butte counties, less than 20% of ICU beds are available, Newsom says.

"This continues to be a deadly disease," he said on Monday. "This continues to be a disease that puts people in our ICUs, in our hospitals and is currently putting a strain on our hospital system ... We're starting to see in some rural parts of the state an increase in ICU use that is generating some concern."

Across the state, COVID-19 hospitalizations increased 28% over a two-week period, which is better than the 50% increase presented about a week ago. However, officials expect to see another surge in cases and hospitalizations in the coming weeks because of the July 4 holiday.

"When you start to see ... constraint in terms of ICU beds an additional increase in use and utilization in ventilators it then draws our attention. The data then bears a consequence. The consequence being the data driving the decision to utilize that dimmer switch," Newsom said.

This "dimming" of the economy, as Newsom refers to the closures, comes after his administration allowed counties to reopen before they were prepared.

Of the 49 counties that were allowed to follow a quicker path in mid-May, 49% failed to meet at least one of the reopening criteria mandated by the state, according to an analysis by the Palm Springs Desert Sun.

At that time, nearly a third of the counties that received the green light didn’t have enough contact tracers, and more than 20% were failing to conduct enough coronavirus tests on a daily basis.

Newsom on Monday acknowledged that testing in California is currently "inadequate" to meet the needs of the state. He said it is "unacceptable" that the state is not able to do more widespread testing. Just last week, San Bernardino County canceled 11,000 coronavirus tests due to a supply shortage.

Counties began to show signs of struggle in June, as cases began increasing as a result of the reopening. Newsom said if counties didn't shape up, the state would step in, and gave a two-week deadline from the date they were initially placed on the targeted engagement list.

However, eight counties-- home to 35% of the state’s population-- were allowed to blow past that deadline, according to a Desert Sun analysis, and the state took no concrete action.

It wasn't until early July that the state took action, threatening to withhold funding from counties and closing bars ahead of the Fourth of July weekend in counties on the watch list.

Now, Newsom says he plans to use the "dimmer switch ... a little bit more forcefully."

The governor acknowledged that the state was able to control the spread of the virus following the initial sweeping stay-at-home orders.

"We were able to suppress the spread of this virus, we were able to knock down the growth of this in the beginning. We are going to do that again, there is no doubt in my mind," he said.  

Oregon is taking a similar path, banning indoor social gatherings of more than 10 people and requiring all people to wear face coverings outdoors when they cannot maintain a 6-foot distance from people outside their households. California and Oregon... 48 to go.

You Think Only Republican Governors Are Bad At Pandemics? Meet Gavin Newsom (Coward-CA)

I can't say Gavin Newsom's mishandling of the pandemic has changed my mind about him. I recognized him as a soulless political ghoul the first time I met him in 2010. He called the L.A. politics bloggers together for a getting-to-know-me session at a sleek Hollywood hotel when he first ran for governor against Jerry Brown. He was well-prepared and smart and everyone in the room loved him but one-- me. I saw a political animal who wanted to be loved by everyone and would say whatever he thought the room wanted to hear. He clearly was aiming higher than for the governorship too. He gave me the creeps; still does.

Like Cuomo, he hesitated when California and New York needed bold leaders to confront the pandemic. Both must have been busy polling and asking focus groups what would be most useful (for their ugly ambitions) while the coronavirus took hold. Now that California is spiking out of control-- except in the Bay Area where the mayors and county executives were smart enough to ignore Newsom and institute their own shelter-in-place orders despite him-- Newsom is trying again.

Tuesday, California now has the second worse number if cases in the country, after New York-- 230,891. There were 7,906 confirmed new cases and 105 one day death reports (worst in the country). There were 5,844 cases per million, which isn't terrible for America, although it's worse than hard hit countries like the U.K. (4,618 per million), Russia (4,484 per million) or Italy (3,962 per million). All the out-of-control counties were the ones that listened to Newsom's go-slow approach. Tuesday's new cases:

• Los Angeles +2,757
• Riverside +835
• San Bernardino +753
• Orange +630
• San Joaquin +565
• San Diego +317

The Bay Area counties where the acted fast and strong while Newsom dithered? San Francisco- 42 new cases, Santa Clara- 105 new cases, San Mateo- 91 new cases, Alameda- 202 new cases, Marin- no new cases. Wednesday, California had 6,389 new cases and the cases per million went up to 6,031.

So... aside from "mandates" that are unenforced and therefor just advisory, what is Newsom doing? There have been no tests available in L.A. this week... very Trump-like but he and Garcetti are smart enough not to tweet and blab about it.

The spoon fed fake reporters at the Washington Post pretended to know what they're talking about: "California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday announced he was reviving parts of the state’s sweeping lockdown, ordering bars to close and a range of other service-sector businesses in 19 counties to cease indoor operations amid a spike in coronavirus cases." Note to pretend reporters: If there's no enforcement, there's no mandate. So he told 19 counties-- Los Angeles, Sacramento, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Santa Barbara, Contra Costa, Fresno, Glenn, Kern, Kings, Merced, San Joaquin, Solano, Stanislaus, Tulare, Imperial, Santa Clara and Ventura-- to shut down in-restaurant dining and close movie theaters, bowling alleys, arcades, casinos and card rooms, indoor wineries and bars.

A glimmer of hope? He said his Office of Emergency Services launched strike teams to help enforce the order, targeting businesses that aren’t complying. I'll believe it when I see it. This is more like Newsom: "Just because someone’s not going to tap you and issue a citation, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do the right thing. Wearing a face covering is a sign of toughness. It’s a sign of resolve. It’s a sign of someone who wants to give a damn." Yeah, but that hasn't worked. I see people in L.A. walking around without masks every day, knowing full well that there is no enforcement whatsoever. In other counties violators get a steep fine the first time they violate the rules and get thrown into jail the second time.


Two weeks ago he issued a statewide order that people wear masks when in the presence of others, both indoors and outdoors. No enforcement so no compliance. In fact some Angelenos are acting as though they're redneck MAGA supporters from Oklahoma and Alabama.

Fans are lining up in solidarity behind Hugo’s Tacos, the Los Angeles Mexican restaurant with locations in the San Fernando Valley and Atwater Village, after the company announced that it would be temporarily closing both of its locations because workers were being bullied by people who refused to abide by safety protocols. “Staff have been harassed, called names, and had objects and liquids thrown at them,” Hugo’s ownership said in a public statement, mostly for asking customers to wear their state-mandated face masks while ordering amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Weekend reactions on Twitter varied from “thank you for standing up for your staff” to “LA get it together, this behavior is unacceptable.” A GoFundMe for employees has also been launched, and currently sits at over $22,000. Co-owner Bill Kohne told the LA Times that he expects the restaurant to be closed for at least the next week.

This morning, Politico reported that "Disease experts, public health officials and even state leaders themselves say they had too much faith that residents would continue social distancing in bars, restaurants and backyards. Epidemiologists are now wondering if California [a nice way to say Newsom] was too eager to reopen its economy in a state with the nation's largest, most diverse population of nearly 40 million people... [and] cooped-up residents flocking to beaches, restaurants and bars overrun by young people; and a high incidence of infection among essential workers, often living in congregant housing. State and health officials underestimated how much reopening 'became the starting bell for a lot of people beginning to ignore the kinds of public health maneuvers that they had followed earlier,' said Bob Wachter, chair of the medicine department at the University of California, San Francisco medical school. 'If you dodge the bullet the first time through, the virus is just sitting there waiting for you to get cocky,' he added."

Newsom initially laid out a slow, phased-in reopening process that started in May with retail pick-up, offices and manufacturing, all with social distancing. He then allowed restaurant dining and in-store retail to resume later that month. Facing litigation and pressure from the White House, Newsom allowed church services to start with limitations.

By June, however, Newsom opened the floodgates to other sectors. In the next stage came hair salons and barber shops. Then bars and gyms, followed by nail salons and tattoo parlors. Simultaneously, protesters were hitting the streets throughout California-- though officials have insisted that demonstrations did not lead to outbreaks-- while residents were increasingly tired of quarantining without seeing friends and family.

“Once the reopening process starts, there’s enormous political pressure to accelerate it to include everything,” said Tom Inglesby, director of the Center for Health Security at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

The governor has insisted that he did not allow California to reopen on a broad scale, putting that responsibility-- and blame, perhaps-- on officials in the state's 58 counties. He says he only told counties "how" they could open, not "when." Still, by issuing guidelines for each sector, his administration gave a tacit green light to counties where residents had been clamoring for a return to normalcy.

...Despite having more cases, Southern California was among the loudest in the reopening chorus. San Diego officials implored Newsom to loosen restrictions. Orange County cities threatened legal action against Newsom when he shut down their beaches in late April. Riverside County supervisors overrode their health officer's desire to move slower.

The state’s agriculturally rich Central Valley has also emerged as a hot spot, with outbreaks at nursing homes and in the fields as well as at meat-packing and other food-processing facilities. Most inland counties considered their early coronavirus efforts a success and reopened sectors in conjunction with the state's timeline.

In contrast, the San Francisco Bay Area took a more conservative [meaning progressive] tack from the start. Santa Clara County was the first in the nation to shut down large gatherings-- including professional sports-- and was soon joined by San Francisco. Then, six Bay Area counties imposed the nation's strictest rules days before Newsom imposed the nation's first statewide stay-at-home order.

Their approach proved successful-- and they have likewise been more conservative than other counties in reopening their economy. As the state's problems grew more severe, San Francisco delayed opening museums, zoos, hair salons and bars last week, while Contra Costa, Alameda and Marin have also slowed their reopening plans.

A handful of critics thought Newsom was reopening too soon-- chief among them Sara Cody, the Santa Clara public health officer credited with initiating the early coronavirus shutdown. In late May, as the governor allowed church services and haircuts to resume, Cody told her county supervisors that the pace was "concerning."

“The state modifications are being made without a real understanding of the consequences of what the last move has been, and with the possible serious effects for health and possible serious risks or an exponential growth in cases," she said.

...Even if Newsom ratchets down social activity, behavioral change may remain elusive. "I've thought he's done a pretty good job and he's stayed pretty close to the data," said Steven Goodman, an epidemiologist at Stanford University. "What he says and how people behave are not exactly the same thing."

Goodman also pointed to the influence of President Donald Trump's refusal to take the pandemic seriously. "There's no way to get the collective body of society to do things it doesn't want to do if you don't have consistent and persistent messaging from the top," he said. "California is not a country, and it exists in the United States where there are all sorts of other signals from the top that the actions we want people to take are just suggestions, they're just not mandatory."

To much of the nation, California's emergence on the list of problem states is surprising not just because of its early success, but also because the recent surge has largely been framed as a red state issue. Nearly all of the current hard-hit states have Republican governors who prioritized economic concerns and were criticized for not taking the disease as seriously as other leaders.

The divide between Republicans and Democrats when it comes to social distancing and mask wearing plays a role, but doesn't explain everything, said Matthew Gentzkow, a Stanford University economics professor leading a group of researchers in tracking partisanship in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The idea that political differences would somehow protect California because we have all these Democrats staying home and being careful, I don’t think that can be drawn from the research,” Gentzkow said. “The behavior of Democrats and Republicans haven’t been so different that it would insulate California.”

Through mid-June, Newsom defended the state's reopening as viable because of the precautions in place and the state's large hospital capacity. He noted that California's early actions bought time for the state to stock up on personal protective equipment, such as 150 million N95 masks the state is purchasing from a just-certified manufacturer, BYD. He also took comfort in the state's positive test rate remaining stable around 4.5 percent.

But within the past two weeks, the governor has shifted course. As a first step, he issued a statewide mask order for most public settings on June 18, stressing that wearing face coverings was essential if Californians wanted to keep the economy open and control the virus spread.

No enforcement = no mandate, just the worst kind of creepy, terminally-ambitious and gutless politician covering his ass.

Gavin Newsom Closed Too Slowly And Is Opening Too Fast-- History Will Not Be Kind To California's Weak, Narcissistic Governor

I don't understand exactly why, but there was a time when I was looking at the daily COVID statistics and watching Califiornia with so much lower numbers than New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and other early states, and I felt some kind of primitive, tribal pride in my state (although I was born and raised in New York and lived for a time in New Jersey and in Massachusetts). Anyway, that's been over for a while. Lately, California has the most new cases of COVID of any state. From Wednesday to Thursday California confirmed 2,242 new cases-- with Texas second at 1,669 new cases. California was #1 again yesterday with 2,947 confirmed new cases.

Yesterday, 2,290 of those new California cases were in Los Angeles County and most of the rest of the one-day increases were also in Southern California:

• Orange- 145
• San Bernardino- 199
• San Diego- 307
• Riverside- 331
• Imperial- 26

The 6 San Francisco Bay Area counties that ignored Governor Newsom's go-slow approach to shutting down and took aggressive action immediately and against his wishes, continue to far far better than anyone would have imagined. San Francisco had 41 new cases and Santa Clara (basically San Jose, the 3rd biggest city in the state) just 141 new cases. Compared to Trump, Newsom looks mighty good. Compared to what someone might expect from a Golden State governor, Newsom continues to look... a lot less than what his p.r. team makes him out to be.

Yesterday, California had 106,744 confirmed cases and 4,137 confirmed deaths, including 2,947 new cases and 98 new deaths. The state has 2,702 cases per million, a figure that has been ticking up alarmingly everyday. (Thursday it was 2,627 per million people.) In fact, that metric is especially alarming as our made-for-TV governor bends to pressure from his corporate allies-- and from the loud lunatic fringe-- and recklessly opens up the state way too early, while eschewing any kind of enforcement in the regulations he put in place to protect the state. (Exhibit 1: his billionaire buddy Elon Musk, not to mention the increasing number of morons parading around without masks.)

Newsom is a brainy, wonky guy-- but a weak governor obsessed with how every move will effect a future run for president. He makes me sick-- and, in fact, he will be making hundreds of thousands of Californians sick with COVID. "The California health official who issued the country's first shelter-in-place order has expressed concern over a possible surge in coronavirus cases there and says the state may be reopening too quickly. Speaking to the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, Dr. Sara Cody, health officer for Santa Clara County, said she was troubled by the state now allowing gatherings of 100 people for various purposes and noted that the pace at which the state is reopening at large is 'concerning... This announcement to authorize county health officers to allow religious, cultural, and political gatherings of 100 people poses a very serious risk of the spread of COVID-19,' Cody told the board on Tuesday."

Her remarks came after the California Department of Public Health earlier this week announced the statewide reopening of places of worship for religious services as well as in-store retail shopping-- albeit under certain guidelines.

On Tuesday, state health officials also announced that counties “that have attested to meeting the criteria for accelerated reopening” can begin to reopen hair salons and barbershops under certain restrictions as well, including the mandatory use of face masks.

But the broader easing of restrictions raises a red flag for Cody, who has been credited with creating the nation’s first shelter-in-place order. San Francisco Bay Area’s regional shelter-in-place order affected nearly 7 million people across six counties, according to the newspaper. The broader state of California quickly followed the model, as did other hard-hit states like New York.

“The state has shifted away from the stay-at-home model and has made significant modifications with increasing frequency,” since the beginning of May, Cody said.

“The pace at which the state has made these modifications is concerning to me,” she added, noting California could possibly see a surge in cases linked to the fast-paced reopenings. (Experts speaking to the San Francisco Chronicle, for instance, said a recent spike in cases in the Bay Area may be linked to the loosening of restrictions there.)

Speaking to the various counties across the state entering Phase 2 of reopening, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, whose reopening strategy has also faced criticism from some lawmakers, said the state is "not looking back."

"We’re making progress, we’re moving forward. We’re not looking back, but we are walking into the unknown, the untested... and we have to be guided by the data that brought us back to this place," Newsom said during a Tuesday briefing.

  The news comes as California this week became the fourth state to surpass 100,000 coronavirus cases, with the Golden State reporting 2,908 cases on Tuesday-- reportedly it’s highest daily total to date.

Making matters worse, is that neither Newsom nor Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti want to do any serious enforcement, so that all their precautions are disregarded and flouted by an idiot minority-- increasingly emboldened by weak state and city leadership-- putting the rest of the state at risk. This is going to end very badly.

Tony Bizjak and Phillip Reese, reporting this week for the Sacramento Bee wrote that "Just days after the governor green-lit most of the state’s counties for yet another round of business reopenings, remote Lassen County announced it was closing businesses back up after four residents tested positive for COVID-19. Until the announcement, Lassen was the only county in California without a single reported case of the new coronavirus. Is Lassen an anomaly or an omen? The question is a frightening one. Faced with historic unemployment and mounting pressure, Newsom has moved in the past week to allow counties to reopen their economies even further. Forty-eight of the state’s 58 counties are reopening hair salons, barbers, restaurants, stores, and churches, all with some restrictions."

Restrictions than are increasingly ignored by people who know there is no price to pay.

Some infectious disease experts and epidemiologists say that’s too much too soon, and could trigger a resurgence of infections worse than the first round, which has now taken 3,900 lives in California.

A McClatchy data review of the first 22 counties that were allowed to reopen restaurants and stores on May 12, 13 or 14 show worrisome early signs. The number of new cases and deaths in those counties grew faster in the two weeks after businesses were cleared to reopening than they had in the preceding two weeks.

• In the two weeks before the reopenings, there were 82 new cases and no new deaths.
• In the two weeks after the reopenings, there were 147 new cases and four new deaths.

Another potentially worrisome data point: Hospitalizations, considered a more-useful measuring stick than infections, grew by more than 60 percent in those counties. The beginning and ending numbers, though, were small: 13 hospitalizations at the start, 21 hospitalizations two weeks later.

...[T]he counties in question are all largely rural and lightly population, and were among the least affected by the virus from the start. Bigger, denser areas such as hard-hit Los Angeles County have not yet reopened many businesses.

That uncertainty has some critics, including Santa Clara Public Health Officer Sara Cody, sounding the alarm after Newsom’s announcement that in-person church services can resume, and that barbershops and hair salons can open.

“The pace at which the state has made these modifications is concerning to me,” she told her county’s leaders. Santa Clara is one of 11 California counties that have refrained from reopening businesses.

Cody is among those who advise allowing more time-- up to 21 days-- to see how each new reopening phase settles in before moving forward. “The state modifications are being made without a real understanding of the consequences of what the last move has been.”


The McClatchy data review suggests, if anything, that a spike can occur any place and at any time.

Del Norte County went from 3 cases to 20, and county health officials said their health tracing team had found a few case clusters.

Cases in Glenn County rose from 6 to 12. Mendocino suffered a spike related to a small church gathering. Butte County saw cases grow from 19 to 37.

Yesterday, several of the red California counties that re-opened without Newsom's approval or, later, with his hapless "approval," reported more confirmed new cases:

• Kern- 69
• Tulare- 9
• Yolo- 3
• Placer- 3
• Madera- 6
• El Dorado- 6
• Del Norte- 1
• Shasta- 1
• Yuba- 1
• Glenn- 1

Once an area opens up, it isn't easy to close down again and that's exactly what Newsom is stumbling into. Thursday, as you saw, tiny, rural Lassen County announced it was re-closing after re-opening, while Republican politicians screamed like stuck pigs... causing the county to backpedal and re-open again. Get used to it. This is part of the pandemic blueprint for a Trump America and a Newsom California-- mangers who should have never benign leadership positions to begin with. California doesn't meet any of the benchmarks required to reopen. I sure hope someone is preparing a primary challenge to Newsom. If not, this very blue state could wind up with another damn Republican governor in 2022 (which is going to be a miserable year for Dems anyway).