Can You Guess Who The First Governor Is To Contract COVID-19?

Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt has COVID-19. I hope he recovers without getting any of the horrific side-effects and without passing it along to his family. I don't know a lot about Stitt's family, although I do remember when, on March 14, he tweeted a picture-- now deleted-- of the gang eating at a restaurant, as if he deserved an award for defying the coronavirus panic. "Eating with my kids and all my fellow Oklahomans at the @CollectiveOKC. It's packed tonight!" he enthusiastically shared.

Stitt, who has aggressively pushed to reopen Oklahoma businesses while flouting experts' health recommendations, is the first governor to come down with coronavirus. He is still totally opposed to a mask mandate. "I know that some businesses are mandating masks and that's great. But you can't pick and choose what freedoms you're going to give people," he said. "So if the businesses want to do it, if some local municipalities want to do it, that's fine. But again, we also respect people's rights to stay home if they want, to run their businesses, or to not wear a mask." He also said that he's not planning to roll back any of the state's reopening plans. Even Kay Ivey, governor of Alabama, did that yesterday as her state continued spoking out of control (1,710 new cases Tuesday, 1,812 new cases Wednesday, 2,021 new cases today).

Few politicians have been as stupid and destructive to their own states as he has. Oklahoma was one of the states that gave Trump one of his biggest wins in 2016-- 949,136 (65.3%) to 420,375 (28.9%). Since then, Trump's favorability has dropped in Oklahoma by 20 points but he still enjoys a 56-42% job approval rating, one of the strongest anywhere. When Trump says COVID-19 is a hoax, normal people know he's lying-- but not Oklahoma Republicans."

Oklahoma has already had 438 COVID-19 deaths-- not many, but with Trump having brought the plague into the state in a big way with an ill-advised rally, deaths will surely follow the big uptick in cases. Yesterday Oklahoma had it's worst one-day case report-- 1,075 (up from 993 Tuesday), bringing the state total to 22,813 (a rapidly increasing 5,765 cases per million Sooners). Today there were 628 more cases and a grand total of 23,441. Now even Arkansas' governor has mandated masks statewide.

Stitt once boasted that "We've got six children and we don't vaccinate." Brainwashed by Fox, Hate Talk radio and evangelical charlatans, Oklahomans chose Stitt (and Trump and a state Senate with 39 Republicans and just 9 Democrats and a state House with 76 Republicans and 25 Dems). What did they get for it? A full blown totally avoidable COVID pandemic.

That curve steepened dramatically after Trump brought the circus to Tulsa

Many People Hope Trump Gets COVID-19 And Dies, But Even If He Doesn't His Mishandling Of The Pandemic Will Kill His Reelection Bid

Killer by Nancy Ohanian

The pandemic is getting frighteningly worse in Africa. Although South Africa has been steadily climbing up the daily case reports ladder-- and is now generally in the number 4 slot after the U.S., Brazil and India-- I had never seen Cameroon or Ghana among the top 30 before this week. On Tuesday Cameroon reported 2,324 new cases and Ghana reported 891. Both countries are dangerously spiking, as is Egypt (1,057 new cases on Tuesday). On Wednesday South Africa was again #4 (with 8,810 new cases), Egypt and Ghana were holding steady with, respectively, 1,025 and 854 new cases, while Ethiopia reported 928 news cases and Cameroon... didn't report at all. On Thursday, South Africa reported 13,674 new cases, Egypt +950, Ghana +641 and Cameroon continued to avoid reporting.

Meanwhile in the U.S., it was all just going from bad to worse. There were 55,442 new cases on Tuesday, 61,848 new cases on Wednesday and 61,067 new cases yesterday. These were the on day new case reports among the 10 most dangerously spiking states on Thursday:

• Texas (8,312 cases per million Texans)
• California (7,677 cases per million Californians)
• Florida- 8,935 (10,835 cases per million Floridians)
• Arizona- 4,057 (15,480 cases per million Arizonans)
• Georgia- 2,837 (10,052 cases per million Georgians)
• North Carolina- 2,059 (7,596 cases per million North Carolinians)
• Alabama- 2,212 (10,029 cases per million Alabamans)
• Louisiana- 1,843 (15,487 cases per million Louisianans)
• South Carolina- 1,782 (9,845 cases per million South Carolinians)
• Tennessee- 1,605 (8,433 cases per million Tennesseeans)

Dr. Fauci-- no doubt angering Trump again-- announced that this mostly Trumpist states should shut down again. "What we are seeing," he told the Wall Street Journal is exponential growth. It went from an average of about 20,000 to 40,000 and 50,000. That’s doubling. If you continue doubling, two times 50 is 100… Any state that is having a serious problem, that state should seriously look at shutting down."

And if that wasn't enough to drive Trump crazy-- already flipping out over two Supreme Court rulings that went against him-- another Republican senator announced he doesn't feel safe going to the Trump convention in Jacksonville, this time Moscow Mitch. Oh, and a new poll of North Carolina voters show Biden beating Trump 50-46% and Democrat Cal Cunningham beating Republican incumbent Thom Tillis 47-39%.

On Wednesday both Trump and Pence ordered the CDC to change the guidelines for opening schools next month. Just hours later the director, Dr. Robert Redfield, went on Good Morning America to publicly refuse: "Our guidelines are our guidelines, but we are going to provide additional reference documents to aid basically communities that are trying to open K-through-12s. It’s not a revision of the guidelines; it’s just to provide additional information to help schools be able to use the guidance we put forward... Right now, we’re continuing to work with the local jurisdictions to how they want to take the portfolio of guidance that we’ve given to make them practical for their schools to reopen."

Louisiana was hit in the very first spike and New Orleans had a terrible time of it. But, thanks to a Democratic governor who stood up to the right-wing Death Cult neanderthals in the state legislature, they started getting it under control. Now Trumpist goons all over this very red state have decided to flaunt the rules and invited the plague back into their state. The plague has graciously accepted their invitation. Louisiana, which has a total of 71,994 cases, the 13th most in the country, is spiking terribly. On Wednesday they reported 1,888 new cases, bringing the number of cases per million residents to 15,090 (the 5th worst in the U.S.). On Thursday there were 1,843 new cases, which brought the cases per million up to 15,487. By the end of the week Louisiana will replace Massachusetts, another early hard hit state-- but one that is generally being careful about following medical protocols-- as the 4th hardest hit state. Gov. John Bel Edwards warned that the state has been "going in the wrong direction" for the last 3 weeks, losing all the gains they had made in flattening the curve since the pandemic peaked in April.

However, unlike that previous peak which had an epicenter in the New Orleans metro area, Edwards said Louisiana is facing a “statewide epidemic” in which no one region is driving case growth and hospitalizations.

The Louisiana Department of Health said the top five places for COVID-19 outbreaks in the state are bars, industrial settings, restaurants, food processing, and colleges and universities.

The governor said he joined a phone call Wednesday morning with 20 hospital CEOs and medical directors from around the state. He said “nearly every” one of the call participants reported sustained increases in COVID-19 hospitalizations.

As of Wednesday, Louisiana reported 70,151 total cases and 3,231 deaths since the virus’ outbreak was first discovered in early March. While black people accounted for more than half of those cases, Edwards said Wednesday that newer cases tended to trend whiter and male.

Total patients hospitalized with COVID-19 have rebounded, reaching 1022 Wednesday, the highest level since May 18.

Those hospital health leaders also said they were having issues with staffing, testing, and access to COVID-19 treatments like Remdesivir.

Edwards, along with Louisiana Office of Public Health Assistant Secretary Dr. Alexander Billioux, stressed that individuals who are exposed to the virus should be quarantined for a full 14 days, even if they receive a negative coronavirus test result in that time.

Of the 10 worst-off parishes (above), Trump won all but 3: Calcasieu (64.7%), Jefferson (55.3%), Lafayette (64.6%), Ouachita (61.4%), Rapides (64.8%), St Tammany (73.1%) and Tangipahoa (64.8%).

And then there's the news about Tulsa, where Trump brought the plague with his disgusting (and failed) rally. CNN: "The city of Tulsa is experiencing a surge in coronavirus cases, a little over 2 weeks after President Donald Trump held a campaign rally in an indoor arena there. Dr. Bruce Dart, Executive Director of the Tulsa Health Department, said in a press conference on Wednesday there are high numbers being reported this week, with nearly 500 new cases in two days and trends are showing that those numbers will increase. There had been a 20% decline in new Covid-19 cases the week of June 28 through July 4. The Tulsa Health Department reported 266 new cases on Wednesday, bringing the total number in the county to 4,571. There are 17,894 cases in Oklahoma and 452 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University's tally of cases in the United States. When asked if the cases in Tulsa are going up due to the rally on June 20, Dart said that there were several large events a little over two weeks ago. 'I guess we just connect the dots,' Dart said."

In a statement to CNN, Leanne Stephens of the Tulsa Health Department said, "Our epidemiologists and contact tracers are inundated with following up with Tulsa County residents who are confirmed positive as the numbers have been extremely high in recent days. Yesterday, we set a new single day case high and you can see on our website where the trends are moving."

This coronavirus has a lengthy incubation period -- the time between when someone gets infected to when they start showing symptoms (if they get symptoms at all).The incubation period is about three to 14 days, with symptoms typically appearing "within four or five days after exposure," according to Harvard Medical School.

Neither Oklahoma nor Tulsa has a mask mandate. Asked why, Mayor Byrnum, a Trumpist, said: "I think that the thing that citizens need to understand is that when we put that kind of mandate in place, we will be putting it there because we had no other choice but to do that to protect their ability to get medical care over the long term of this pandemic." On Wednesday, Oklahoma reported 673 new cases and on Thursday 603 new cases, which brought the number of cases per million Oklahomans to 4,674 and the total number of cases in the state to 18,496.

Even In Oklahoma Some Voters Realize Trump Sold Them A Bill Of Goods

Cone Of Shame by Nancy Ohanian

Oklahoma is a Republican hellhole. The Governor is a crackpot Republican as are both U.S. Senators. Of the 5 members of Congress, the only Democrat is Blue Dog Kendra Horn, who is so far right that there are, from time to time, mainstream House Republicans less extreme than she is. The state Senate has 9 Democrats-- and 39 Republicans and the state House has 76 Republicans and 25 Democrats. In 2016, Trump won every one of the state's 77 counties and beat Hillary 947,934 (65.3%) to 419,788 (28.9%).





And yet, long-suffering Oklahoma Democrats actually had reasons to be cheerful last Tuesday. I first noticed that something seemed amiss when I was checking the returns from Oklahoma City, where progressive Tom Guild had challenged aforementioned Blue Dog Kendra Horn. She won but what was unexpected was that, though the 4-way Republican primary to pick a nominee to try to beat her in November was red hot, just 61,822 people voted, while 70,182 Democrats voted. How the hell did that happen?

Oklahoma has had 14,539 coronavirus cases so far, 3,674 cases per million Oklahomans, not bad for the U.S., but nearly as many per million as Italy. But what makes it worse-- much worse-- is that Oklahoma has the second-highest uninsured rate (after Texas) and is one of just 14 states where the Republicans have succeeded in not expanding Medicare. It's one of the only places in America where you can be employed and still get sick and die, untrusted, in the street-- pure Republican ideology on display.

Obviously, the legislature and governor had no intention of expanding Medicare... so citizens decided to do it with a constitutional amendment via ballot initiative. Almost 314,000 people signed to get it on the ballot, an Oklahoma record. That's what happened Tuesday-- a measure that requires Oklahoma to expand Medicare, for about a quarter million people, by July 1, 2021. The measure also thwarts the GOP from going forward with their plan to cap Medicaid. It passed narrowly-- by just 6,488 votes, less than one percent-- but it passed. Reporting for The Atlantic yesterday, David Graham called the vote "a warning sign for Trump, because it shows how he’s at odds with even many conservative voters on health care. Last week, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court (again) to throw out the Affordable Care Act. Meanwhile, voters in a state so red that the president chose it for his big comeback rally have voted to adopt an expansion of coverage under the law-- the fifth time voters in a Republican-governed state have done so... It’s not entirely shocking that amid a pandemic and a massive unemployment crisis, voters would rather have more health coverage than less.

“Obamacare repeal” as a concept may still be popular with some core Republican voters, but it’s not as potent as it was before the pandemic-- and besides, the coverage itself is popular. Sooner State voters effectively circumvented the will of Republican Governor Kevin Stitt, who had sought a more limited expansion. That’s in keeping with a pattern: When voters in GOP-led states have gotten the chance to vote on Medicaid expansion, they’ve tended to favor it. In other cases, Republican governors and lawmakers have sensed the political wind and moved forward themselves.

Active Shooter by Nancy Ohanian

...In a sense, Trump has fallen into a trap of his own making. He grasped that entitlements were popular among Republican voters in his 2016 campaign, and while other GOP candidates trotted out the usual talking points about social spending, Trump promised to protect Social Security and Medicare. In office, however, he has waffled, proposing budgets that cut entitlements programs, though the budgets have not been enacted. Having tapped into the latent popularity of social spending among Republican voters, he now risks their anger if he reverses course.

Medicaid, which is aimed at the poor, has not always been as popular as Social Security and Medicare, both of which are aimed at older Americans. The latter two have been viewed as “earned” entitlements, while Medicaid has sometimes been viewed as a welfare program, with the same negative racial connotations that other welfare programs carry. So it’s notable that Oklahoma voters joined their fellow citizens in Idaho, Nebraska, and Utah (2018) and Maine (2017) in supporting a Medicaid expansion.

Oklahoma is not the final test this year. In August, Missouri voters will also vote on Medicaid expansion. There, too, Republican Governor Mike Parson opposes the expansion. In a sign of the way that Obamacare has gone from a salubrious wedge issue for Republicans to a pain point, Parsons moved the referendum from the November ballot to an August primary.

Even if Missouri votes down the expansion, the results in Oklahoma and elsewhere make the overall trend clear. As Donald Trump recognized in 2016, and as the 2018 election reinforced, entitlements are popular with voters. By flouting that popularity and trying to sink Obamacare a few months before the election, he risks a painful reminder of the lesson he once taught.

Have We Ever Been Forced To Pick Between Two Senile Old Men Before?

Oklahoma City isn't quite as red as the rest of the state. But the state is really red. The state PVI is R+20. Only one state, Wyoming, is worse. Every statewide position is filled by a hard-right Republican and 6 of the 7 members of the state's congressional delegation are Republicans and the 7th, freshman Blue Dog Kendra Horn is as right-wing as a typical Republican on most issues and will probably lose her seat in November if she survives a primary. The state's Senate consists of 9 Democrats and 39 Republicans while the House has 76 Republicans and 25 Democrats. The last time the state elected a freshman Democrat was in 1978 and in 2016 Trump beat Hillary 65.32% to 28.93%. Only Wyoming (21.63%), West Virginia (26.43%), North Dakota (27.23%) Utah (27.46) and Idaho (27.49) gave Hillary smaller proportions of their votes. So Trump felt the state would be a safe bet for a campaign kickoff. But, as you know by now, he left Tulsa Saturday night crestfallen and furious at his staff for the tiny turnout-- just 6,100 people in the 20,000 seat stadium. Within hours the Lincoln Project had an ad out laughing at his ideas of "big."

Monday morning by dawn he was up and tweeting out his desperation-- and his defining strategic penchant for projection. According to Wikipedia "Psychological projection is a defense mechanism in which the human ego defends itself against unconscious impulses or qualities (both positive and negative) by denying their existence in themselves while attributing them to others. For example, a bully may project their own feelings of vulnerability onto the target. It incorporates blame shifting and can manifest as shame dumping... [and] is more commonly found in personalities functioning at a primitive level as in narcissistic personality disorder." There is no photo of Trump next to the definition, but there certainly could be.

Two years ago Psychology Today dubbed him The Projector In Chief. "Too often," wrote Dr. Paul Siegel, "Trump sounds like he is turning things inside (of him) out, engaging in the unconscious defense mechanism that Freud called projection: the attribution of one’s own forbidden-- and typically malevolent-- motives, impulses, or emotions to others. When people project, what is true about oneself instead becomes true of others. As with other defense mechanisms, people are unaware that they are projecting aspects of themselves in the moment in which they do it."

Compulsive projections pave the road to unconscious guilt. The cut-throat businessman who believes that everyone is trying to cheat him is found guilty of illegal business practices. A religious leader becomes famous preaching about the immorality of homosexuality, only to be found cavorting with male prostitutes. A prosecutor builds a career convincing juries to send sexual abusers to jail-- until we discover that he is sexually abusive himself.

If Trump’s tweets are projections, it doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s guilty of colluding with the Russian government-- only that he’s guilty of acts that involve Russia in some way (e.g., financial crimes, sexual improprieties, even treason).  It also means that behind his fury about the Mueller investigation, it’s his knowledge of his own guilt that is actually keeping him up tweeting at night. Each keystroke is directed at himself as much as at his followers on Twitter.

...Psychologists regard projection as a maladaptive defense mechanism. Whereas more adaptive defense mechanisms distort only what a person believes about himself, projection distorts external reality, so people who do it run the risk of reality eventually catching up with them. The only way to prevent this from happening is to convince enough people that their projection is real. That may be what Trump is trying to do... to keep distressing truths about himself at bay.

One would be nuts to read Trump tweeting that "foreign countries and others" will print mail-in ballots and not suspect that Trump is planning to do exactly that. In fact, his top henchman/hatchetman, Bill Barr, a Fox News Sunday guest this week said "A foreign country could print up tens of thousands of counterfeit ballots. [It would) be very hard for us to detect which was the right and which was the wrong ballot. So, I think it can-- it can upset and undercut the confidence in the integrity of our elections. If anything, we should tighten them up right now."

Politico writer David Siders wrote how Trump has started his trench warfare reelection campaign. Trench warfare is a good description... but "a war of projection" would be too. "In Tulsa and in the days beforehand," wrote Siders, "Trump and his allies signaled the beginning of a scorched earth campaign. Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. has posted memes portraying Biden-- baselessly-- as a pedophile. [Trump is.] Trump’s campaign released an ad on Friday depicting Biden as aged and confused [as is Trump], calling him “clearly diminished” [as is Trump] and lacking “mental fortitude.” [as does Trump]. On Saturday, he continued to suggest without evidence that Biden has health issues [as does Trump], saying ‘There’s something wrong with Biden” [as is clearly the case with Trump]. The no-boundaries approach is in keeping with Trump’s smashmouth style. Yet it’s also a necessity for an unpopular president facing an electoral landscape that’s tilted against him. Amid a pandemic that has ravaged the economy and killed about [more than] 120,000 Americans, Trump has fallen behind Biden by nearly 9 percentage points in the RealClearPolitics national polling average, and he lags behind the presumptive Democratic nominee in most swing states. The electoral map has become so treacherous for Trump that his campaign is spending on advertising in states that once appeared safely in his camp, such as Iowa and Ohio."

Trump’s advisers have long believed he could recover if he could drag Biden’s favorability ratings down. Confronting an opponent who is viewed more favorably than Hillary Clinton was in 2016, Trump is laboring not only to depict Biden as mentally unfit-- but as an addled tool of the Democratic Party’s most extreme fringe.

The effort to yoke a centrist Democrat to an “unhinged left” was road-tested in Oklahoma, where Trump mocked Biden as “a helpless puppet of the radical left.” Among the lessons of Tulsa, which will inform countless rallies in the months ahead, was that invoking lightning rod progressives such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez draws a more fervent response than criticizing Biden in isolation-- and that linking Biden to that wing of the party is Trump’s lodestar.

“He believes that he has to push Biden to the left, and I think that's correct strategically,” Frank Luntz, the veteran Republican consultant and pollster, said in an email. “If Biden is seen as a centrist, he'll have an advantage among swing voters who don't want to support an extremist. But if he's seen as left-wing ideologically or overtly partisan, swing voters will have a problem with him.”

Luckily for the inept and ineffective Democrats, they won't need to paint Trump as an extremist. He does that himself, And most voters-- by a very large and growing margin-- see him as dishonest and untrustworthy. "[T]here is disagreement among Democrats," continued Siders, "about how frequently Biden should appear in public, given both public health officials’ concerns about crowds during a pandemic-- and Trump’s penchant for self-inflicted wounds." And Biden's senility and penchant for shitting his pants in public-- so far just figuratively-- is something his team is petrified of. He's merely a figurehead for The Democrats and a placeholder for whatever comes next. Still... not as bad as Trump.

“Every day that’s not about Joe Biden is a day that Joe Biden wins,” said Pete Giangreco, a Democratic strategist who has worked on nine presidential campaigns. “That’s my view. Because if this thing’s a referendum on Trump, he’s going to lose.”

But Republicans-- and Trump himself-- will continue to goad him to draw him out. Trump’s campaign has been taunting Biden to make more public appearances, a strategy Republicans view as a win-win. If Biden begins to appear in less controlled settings, they are hopeful the events will produce narrative-changing gaffes. If he refuses, they can portray him as fragile and afraid.

“Finally, he’s getting out of his pajamas and getting into his suits and starting talking,” said Bob Jack, chairman of the Tulsa County Republican Party. “I want Joe talking. I think that’s great. He can’t string five words together.”

In response to Trump’s taunts about Biden’s vigor, Andrew Bates, a Biden spokesman, wrote on Twitter on Sunday that “Trump just triumphantly announced on national TV that during a pandemic he's atrociously mismanaged, he ordered federal officials to slow testing to improve his personal optics at the expense of lives. So yes, let's please talk about mental acuity.”

What Campaign? by Nancy Ohanian

Do You Want To Catch The Coronavirus? No Guaranatees But You Could Probably Catch It In Tulsa On June 20

Tulsa is Oklahoma's second largest city with around 400,000 people and close to a million in the Tulsa metro area. It's the county seat of Tulsa County and extends into Osage, Rogers and Wagoner counties. If everything goes wrong for Trump-- as it appears to be now-- he's still going to win the 4 Confederate states Strom Thurmond won in 1948 + Wyoming, West Virginia, North Dakota and Oklahoma. Oklahoma was Trump's third best-performing state in the 2016 election-- 65.32%. The Tulsa area-- minus the city itself (which was plenty Trumpy)-- was even Trumpier than the rest of the state:

• Osage- 66.31%
• Rogers- 75.65%
• Tulsa- 58.39%
• Wagoner- 73.50%

By way of comparison, Trump's worst-performing county in the state was Oklahoma County, where he beat Hillary 141,569 (51.68%) to 112,813 (41.18%). In other words, the state is a red hellhole and the Tulsa area is redder than the state in general.

The coronavirus pandemic is expanding in Oklahoma-- and Tulsa is even worse off than Oklahoma City. The cases per 100,000 statewide is 204. It is 200 per 100,000 in Oklahoma County and 237 per 100,000 in Tulsa County. Tulsa County has the highest number of cases in the state, 1,525. Wagoner and Osage counties in the Tulsa metro also have more cases per 100,000 than the statewide average.

So, crackpot narcissist Trump picked Tulsa's Bank of Oklahoma Center (BOK Center) arena for these its of his first "post"-COVID mass rally. An indoor arena and home of the Tulsa Oilers (an ice hockey team), it has 19,199 seats. The last big shows before the shutdown were Chance the Rapper, KISS and Tool. Among the events cancelled were the Black Crowes, Bon Jovi, Justin Bieber, and Tame Impala. Currently on the arena's schedule are Joe Rogan (Sept. 12), Vampire Weekend (Sept. 30), Def Leppard & ZZ Top (Oct. 3) and... Señor Trumpanzee and the MAGA Rally, June 20.

He was probably lying, but Trumpanzee campaign manager Brad Pascale claimed on Twitter over the weekend that they've "passed 800,000 tickets." I hope they don't jam them all into the arena because there are only 37 public restrooms and even in the best of circumstances, there are long lines... and folks urinating in places they shouldn't be.

Why go to all the trouble? Trump's going to win Oklahoma's 7 electoral votes anyway (and landslide majorities in the Tulsa metro). Well... this rally is just to make him feel good after all the bad polling from normal states lately. AP reputed that "health experts question the decision, citing the danger of infection spreading among the crowd and sparking outbreaks when people return to their homes. The Trump campaign itself acknowledges the risk in a waiver attendees must agree to absolving them of any responsibility should people get sick... Scientists believe the virus spreads far more easily in crowded enclosed spaces than it does outdoors, where circulating air has a better chance of dispersing virus particles. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention outlines the highest risk events for transmission of the coronavirus this way: 'Large in-person gatherings where it is difficult for individuals to remain spaced at least 6 feet apart and attendees travel from outside the local area.' The CDC recommends cloth masks in places where people might shout or chant."

Citing the spike in cases, Bruce Dart, executive director of the Tulsa Health Department, said he wished the rally would postponed to a later date “when the virus isn’t as large a concern as it is today.”

“I think it’s an honor for Tulsa to have a sitting president want to come and visit our community, but not during a pandemic,” Dart said in an interview Saturday with the Tulsa World. “I’m concerned about our ability to protect anyone who attends a large, indoor event, and I’m also concerned about our ability to ensure the president stays safe as well.”

Dart said the risk of spreading the virus increases with higher numbers of people congregating for longer periods of time.

Oklahoma health authorities said that anyone who attends a large public event should get tested for COVID-19 shortly afterward.

Shelley Payne, director of the LaMontagne Center for Infectious Disease at the University of Texas at Austin, said the Trump rally meets every criteria for the riskiest type of event.

“I would certainly recommend that people wear masks and try to keep as much distance as possible,” Payne said.

Julie Fischer, an associate research professor of microbiology and immunology at Georgetown University, said the event could have wide repercussions for the country.

“With a little bad luck, that scenario could end in the seeding of community outbreaks of COVID-19 across the U.S.,” she said.

The Trump campaign has declined to respond to repeated questions about whether it will require attendees to wear masks, socially distance or take other measures to reduce the risk of virus transmission.

Trump has made clear that he believes empty seats are bad optics. “I can’t imagine a rally where you have every fourth seat full. Every-- every six seats are empty for every one that you have full. That wouldn’t look too good,” he said in April.

...Trump has been eager to resume the rallies that are the centerpiece of his campaign. The president revels in his large crowds. The events let him vent and gauge the kind of rhetoric that will appeal to his ardent political base. They also help his campaign expand its voter databases and will serve as a contrast to Democratic challenger Biden, who has suspended campaign events because of the virus and hasn’t attracted the same size of crowds.

But the decision to pull the trigger now was driven, in large part, by the mass anti-racism protests that have taken place across the country in the wake of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis. Campaign and White House officials say the protests-- and the limited public health outcry they generated-- gave them cover. If it was OK for tens of thousands of people to march through the streets, demanding racial justice, why can’t Trump rally his supporters, too?

Of course, the protests were held outside, with many participants wearing masks.

“Any large gathering, whether of protesters or ralliers, is dangerous,” Jha said. But infection is less likely at an outdoors moving march than at a crowded event in an enclosed space, he said, citing the air flow.

The Trump campaign, in recognition of the risk, has tried to protect itself from lawsuits with waiver language on its registration website.

“By clicking register below, you are acknowledging that an inherent risk of exposure to COVID-19 exists in any public place where people are present,” the campaign advised those signing up for the rally. “By attending the Rally, you and any guests voluntarily assume all risks related to exposure to COVID-19 and agree not to hold Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.” liable for illness or injury.

This morning, the biggest newspaper in eastern Oklahoma, the Tulsa World, published an editorial: This is the wrong time and Tulsa is the wrong place for the Trump rally. "Tulsa," wrong the editors, "is still dealing with the challenges created by a pandemic. The city and state have authorized reopening, but that doesn’t make a mass indoor gathering of people pressed closely together and cheering a good idea. There is no treatment for COVID-19 and no vaccine. It will be our health care system that will have to deal with whatever effects follow... There’s no reason to think a Trump appearance in Tulsa will have any effect on November’s election outcome in Tulsa or Oklahoma. It has already concentrated the world’s attention of the fact that Trump will be rallying in a city that 99 years ago was the site of a bloody race massacre. This is the wrong place for the rally. When the president of the United States visits your city, it should be exciting. We think a Trump visit will be, but for a lot of the wrong reasons, and we can’t welcome it."

Note to potential widows: if your husband goes and contracts COVID-19 and gives it to your children and parents and then he and they all die, you are not bound by the waver and you can sue Trump and the BOK Center. Also, if you go to the rally dressed like this, you will probably be safe. (On CNN's State of the Union yesterday, James Lankford confirmed he's attending the Tulsa Hate Fest but refused to confirm whether or not he'll be wearing a mask. Ever the leader-of-men, Lankford told Jake Tapper that "You see actually very few masks in Oklahoma now. There are still some that use masks. But we encourage people strongly if they’re high-risk individuals, if they’re older individuals, if they have other health issues not to get out even with a mask." Lankford was either consciously lying or incredibly stupid when he told Tapper how great Oklahoma is doing. It isn't. The How We Open Safely website ranks Oklahoma as one of the worst states, not one of the best nor even trending well. The increase in cases over the last two weeks was an astounding 128%, which practically makes Lankford's comments on CNN yesterday criminal! And as far as Intensive Care Unit availability Oklahoma's is dangerously low (35%) and the state is only testing 60% of the U.S. daily recommendation.

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

It doesn't get much more cynical than a white supremacist president holding a meeting with some prominent African-Americans and turning and winking to the camera when they can't see him. Clearly, it's just Trump saying to his supporters, "Don't worry, this is just a bullshit photo-op. I couldn't care less. I'm still your guy!"

Well, actually, it does get more cynical; and I don't mean the thing about having some mounted police plow through some peaceful protesters and clergy so he can walk with his White House cretins just to hold a bible upside down in front of a church. No, I mean that on Thursday, he went to Dallas for a meeting billed as a "Race and Policing" confab. except, you see, he didn't invite the city's African-American police chief Renee Hall, Dallas County' African-American Sheriff Marian Brown, or Dallas County's Arfican-American District Attorney John Creuzot. I guess he went over the guest list real thoroughly with the wonderful Stephen Miller.

But wait, there's more: The "Race and Policing" meeting ended up being in a Dallas Megachurch (Magachurch?) and, although policing was discussed, race wasn't except for some twisted, lying definitions of the meaning of "Defund The Police" given by both Trump and his privately-owned Attorney General, William "Kneepads" Barr. So, not only does Trump hold bibles upside down in front of churches, he goes and lies in the supposed house of God. Nice. Classy. If this were the Old Testament times, he and Barr would have been immediately struck with lightning bolts. Obviously, God has left the building.

Now, how can Trump top that? How indeed? How about quadrupling down on his racism? No, he didn't burn a cross in a church although I'm sure we'll see that one soon. Instead, Trump went just as vile by announcing the plans for the first of his 2020 campaign rallies, or, as I call them- Festivals Of Bigotry. He originally pointedly scheduled this particular day of bigotry for Friday, June 19th in Tulsa, Oklahoma. June 19th is also known as Juneteenth or Freedom Day, a day that African-Americans celebrate for obvious reasons. It's the anniversary of the date that the neighboring state of Texas announced the freeing of its slaves and those of the then Oklahoma Territory (June 19th,1865. a very bad day in the sick minds of modern Republicans) now that the Civil War had been over for more than two months. Why Tulsa? Because Tulsa is the location of the largest massacre of black Americans in our country's sordid history of race relations. Greenwood, the black section of Tulsa, was burned to the ground by a white mob. 300 black Americans were murdered and 10,000 black American citizens were left homeless. So, if you're Trump, what better day if you want to grind the heel of republican racism into the souls of African-Amerians? In addition, the burning and massacre in Tulsa occurred 99 years to the day of the tortuous murder of George Floyd; no coincidence there either. This is Trump's psychopathic mind at work. In his mind, he could not have picked a better date and location. Now that Trump has moved the date of his rally exactly one whole bigly damn day, he and the rest of the White House Goon Squad say he deserves some sort of credit for caring and sensitivity. Fuck you Trump. We heard you loud and clear the first time. Big fucking deal; you're moving your Bigot-Fest one whole day. Color me impressed. Now go chew on a 20,000 volt power line. It'll do wonders for your hair.

Yes, it's all yet another huge racist fuck you from our psychopathic White Supremacist president. Trump is holding this Tulsa rally, his first rally anywhere since March 2nd, for one reason only, to dance on the graves of the 300 black Americans who were murdered in the massacre while figuratively dancing on the necks of all black Americans, living and dead. This is how the Republican Party rolls in 2020 and has since the days of Nixon. You'll see them in the arena, wearing their red hats (no masks) and cheering their Grand Wizard of a president. It'll be a warm up for their national convention. Oh, don't worry, he'll have a few black faces strategically placed as if to say "See, I'm no racist. No, not I." If he can't find any, you know he'll have his press secretary Kayleigh McEnany appear in blackface saying she's doing it in tribute. Meanwhile, I can't wait to see what Trump has cooked up for Holocaust Remembrance Day next April if this country is dumb and bigoted enough to "reelect" him (Hint: They are).

The whole thing is intended as a message to all republicans that they should not only feel emboldened and free to express the racism that drives their party but act on it. It is Republican permissiveness. Trump could not have picked a more grossly significant site to hold one of his White Supremacist rallies. It'll work with Republicans, too, just like Reagan going to Philadelphia, Mississippi to start his 1980 campaign. Philadelphia, Mississippi was the location of the notorious "Mississippi Burning" murder of 3 civil rights workers, Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Mickey Schwerner by the Ku Klux Klan. Reagan spoke within walking distance of the earthen dam where the three men were buried. Republicans have worshiped Reagan ever since and obviously Trump is hoping for a repeat of this awful history.

At this point, I'm expecting Melania to have some cotton planted in the White House garden so she can force the few African-Americans in the White House to pick it while she aims a shotgun at them while wearing a Confederate flag dress and whistling Dixie. A video of it will be sent out in a Republican fundraising drive.

Republicans Oppose The Green New Deal-- But So Does My Blue Dog Opponent

by Tom Guild
Democratic candidate, OK-05

A report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says that humans can still prevent the worst effects of climate change, but that we have less time than previously thought to undertake a dramatic and speedy transformation of the global economy. Every day, there is more concerning news about rising sea levels and climate-fueled disasters. The task ahead of us is urgent. We must fight for the ecological well-being of the planet we call home. The climate change crisis is an existential threat to humans and to the animals and plants with which we share planet Earth. We must redouble our efforts to reduce greenhouse gasses and to institute sustainable energy practices.

My June 30 primary opponent Kendra Horn has refused to sign onto the Green New Deal proposal. There is scant evidence that she considers climate change important enough to take the steps needed to protect our environmental future. One of my goals when elected to the U.S. House is to support bold action to fight climate change. The principles of the GND will be a good guidepost to help us reverse the damage done by excessive use of and dependence on fossil fuels. We will create tens of millions of good paying green jobs as we transition to an environmentally friendly renewable energy policy. According to a consensus of the scientific community, time is running short to effectively deal with climate change. We must not fail to act and thereby help create an irreversible situation that leads to the destruction of our environment that scientists say may in the foreseeable future render planet earth unsustainable for human life.
   
Rep. Alan Lowenthal (D-CA) is a current Democratic member of Congress. He is fighting to make sure the Trump administration does not destroy our environment in the name of saving our health when it is primarily concerned with saving the investments of the top 1%. Lowenthal recently said, "The Trump Administration has spent years rolling back decades of hard-fought environmental progress. The White House has worked to undermine science, accelerate climate change, undo decades of work to protect our air, water, and health, and compromise the health of our planet." Lowenthal is doing the hard work it takes to protect the environment by working to stop Trump and protect the future of our planet--something Trump does not spend any time thinking about, while claiming the climate crisis is a "Chinese hoax."

The Paris Climate Accord was negotiated by representatives of 196 nations in Le Bourget, France, and adopted by consensus on December 12, 2015. The previous U.S. Administration of President Barack Obama took a leading role in pushing for the climate treaty. As of February 2020, 189 countries had become party to the agreement. The Paris Agreement's goal is to pursue efforts to limit and substantially reduce the risks and impacts of climate change. This is to be achieved by reducing emissions as soon as possible, to "achieve a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases" in the second half of the 21st century. The accord also aims to increase the ability of parties to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change and make "finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development."


 Under the Paris Agreement, each country must determine, plan, and regularly report on the contribution that it undertakes to mitigate climate change. No mechanism forces a country to set specific emissions targets by a specific date, but each target should go beyond previously set targets. In June 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump announced his intention to withdraw the United States from the agreement. Under the compact, the earliest effective date of withdrawal for the U.S. is November 2020, shortly before the end of President Trump's current presidential term. The American threat to withdraw from the treaty is a giant setback for the global effort to reduce climate change and to protect our planet.

We need to break down the corrupt corporate and establishment walls that are holding back progress on the environment and climate change. If you agree that we need bold action to effectively address the crisis, we invite you to join our campaign. If you would like to donate you can do that by clicking on the Blue America 2020 congressional thermometer on the right.

Be safe. Love Your Neighbor. Engage in Random Acts of Kindness. Peace.

Striving for A Future We Can All Believe In.

Free Case Of COVID-19 With Your Haircut or Manicure?

Bartlesville is a small city (population- 36,423, 80% white) in Oklahoma, near Tulsa. The county seat of Washington County, is probably best known for having been the longtime corporate headquarters of Phillips Petroleum. In 2016, Trump beat Hillary in Washington County by a landslide-- 15,810 (71.2%) to 5,047 (22.7%). In 2018, it wasn't touched by the so-called "blue wave." The open congressional seat was won by right-wing lunatic Kevin Hern and Washington County gave him an R+41 performance.

Oklahoma will have crossed the 6,000 case mark by Memorial Day. There were 111 more reported cases from Friday to Saturday. So far just 311 deaths in the state. Washington County has the 5th most cases-- 304 (and the 4th most deaths-- 32). On Tuesday, the day after Memorial Day, the Nailspot is due to reopen. Reopen again. The first time it reopened ended badly with the owners having to warn all their clients that an employee tested positive for COVID-19. The Washington County Health Department recommended that clients who visited the salon between May 5 (reopening day) and 7 (re-closing day) to quarantine for 14 days.

It's a hop, skip and a jump from Bartlesville to the Missouri border border and a drive from Bartlesville up the I-44 will get you to Springfield in less the three hours. They had a little grooming problem up there too. The Kansas City Star reported that a Great Clips hairstylist exposed dozens of clients to coronavirus while showing symptoms. Famous for lynchings and Wild Bill Hickok, Springfield-- "Queen City of the Ozarks"-- is a much bigger city than Bartlesville (168,000 people); it's by far the biggest town in Greene County, which is a comfortably red bastion. Trump beat Hillary there 77,387 (60.6%) to 42,400 (33.2%). It's the main county on the 7th congressional district, a red hellhole, where the Democrat running against Trumpist incumbent Billy Long in 2018 only garnered 30.1% of the vote.

With a reactionary Republican governor working in tandem with an even more reactionary Republican-controlled state legislature that is trying to kill as many people as they can, "the stylist at a salon franchise in Springfield served 84 clients and exposed seven coworkers, the Springfield-Greene County Health Department said Friday. The hairstylist also visited a Dairy Queen, Walmart and fitness center, officials said."

The announcement comes as barbers and salon operators and their customers across the U.S. fight to reopen during the COVID-19 pandemic. Missouri state leaders allowed these businesses to reopen May 4. 
“I’m very frustrated to be up here,” Springfield-Greene County Health Department Director Clay Goddard said. “And maybe more so, I’m disappointed.”

The hairstylist exhibited symptoms while working on eight days between May 12 and May 20, health officials said. The health department is providing testing to all people “directly exposed” to the hairstylist. The stylist and clients wore masks during the appointments, officials said.

Goddard said people not already contacted by the health department are considered to be “low risk.”

In a statement, the Great Clips franchise owners told McClatchy News the location is closed to undergo sanitizing and “deep cleaning” under guidelines provided by the county health department and CDC.

“The well-being of Great Clips customers and stylists in the salon is our top priority and proper sanitization has always been an important cosmetology industry practice for Great Clips salons,” the owners said.

Goddard commended Great Clips’ actions and deemed the location safe to customers during a news conference Friday.

“We are hopeful that their strictly-enforced policy of masking will prevent any future spread from this case. They also kept detailed records that have made contact tracing a speedy process,” Goddard said.

The health department director said the incident does not affect the community’s “recovery plan” but warned of similar scenarios as the reopening phases turn from mandates to personal responsibility.


“I’m going to be honest with you. We can’t have many more of these. We can’t make this a regular habit or our capability as a community will be strained and we will have to re-evaluate what things look like going forward,” Goddard said. “Each of us owns just how this will go forward in our community.”

About 10 days ago, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that Jessica Netzel, the owner of Kingdom Kuts in Appleton, Wisconsin, is suing Gov. Tony Evers over his stay at home order, claiming her constitutional right to idiocy was being violated. Actually what her lawsuit says is that "The orders violate her ability to practice her religion because she cannot attend in-person services or operate Kingdom Kuts, her Christian-based children’s hair salon."

Most Americans think this whole early opening thing is a complete mess-- and they blame Trump. NORC's new poll for the Associated Press found that "When restrictions are lifted... many are apprehensive about re-engaging in activities that draw a crowd, like attending movies, concerts, or sporting events, using public transportation, or even going out to bars and restaurants. People's post shutdown plans depend on what they did before the outbreak. Overall, 38% say they would attend religious services. But among people who attended services at least once a month before the coronavirus outbreak, 67% say they would return to their church, synagogue, or mosque if restrictions were lifted. Fifty-two percent of those who ate out at least once a month before the outbreak say they expect to head to a restaurant or bar. Still, even among those that regularly engaged in activities that draw a crowd, like sporting events, concerts and movies, or using public transportation, fewer than half plan to return to them in the short term once restrictions are lifted."

Don't Be Misled By People Pushing Identity Politics To Make A Quick Buck For Themselves

Tom Guild & Kendra Horn-- guess which one is better on women's issues

Yesterday the LGBTQ Victory Fund endorsed 25 new candidates around the country, including 5 for state legislative seats. Presumably they're all Democrats, but who knows? The Victory Fund doesn't mention what party their candidates are running on, let alone whether they are progressives or conservatives. The only thing they care about is that these candidates are gay. This is so bizarre to me, especially since Congress has so many gay-- albeit closeted-- members who are no friends of the LGBTQ community. Like Patrick McHenry (R-NC), Adrian Smith (R-NE), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Jason Smith (R-MO)...

And I don't mean to pick on the gays for this identity politics nonsense. Yesterday, a friend of mine sent me a link to an article in the Jewish Daily Forward highlighting 8 candidates for Congress. Some of the candidates are Democrats and some of them are Republicans. All of them, though, are Jewish. All of them are also relatively conservative. The Forward seemed to boast that "Studies have long shown that Jews are not only more likely to vote in elections, but are also overrepresented in political office." They make no value judgement about why a candidate should be backed-- or opposed-- just they're Jewish. Example:

Renee Unterman, Republican from Georgia

Unterman, a health insurance executive and former mayor, is the only Jewish member of the Georgia state senate, where she’s represented parts of the Atlanta suburbs since 2003. She’s an outspoken conservative-- she wrote an anti-abortion “heartbeat bill,” supports a border wall and has been endorsed by the National Rifle Association. But she’s also shown she’s not afraid to buck members of her own party-- in 2018, she called for an investigation into then-Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who was running for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, over questionable campaign donations he had received. After a Kemp spokesman called her “mentally unstable,” she opened up about her history of depression and her son’s death by suicide. “I feel like it’s unusual to be a Republican and Jewish,” she told the Atlanta Jewish Times later that year. “But because of my background, I can connect with certain social issues I may not have if I wasn’t Jewish.” The district is open due to the retirement of incumbent Republican Rep. Brad Goodall, who won the tightest congressional election in the country in 2018 by a margin of 419 votes; Cook rates the race a toss-up.

GA-07 is the most competitive congressional race in Georgia this year. As of December 31, three Democrats-- Carolyn Bourdeaux, Zahra Karinshak (the most conservative of the Dems in this race) and Nabilah Islam (the most progressive in the race)-- and 4 Republicans-- Unterman, Lynne Homrich, Richard McCormick and Lerah Lee-- had raised over half a million dollars each. It's worth noting though that 3 of the 4 Republicans are trying to buy the seat with their own wealth. Unterman's own $602,841 amounted to 63% of her contributions. Homrich's $338,410 was 37% of her contributions. And McCormick's $524,639 was 60% of his contributions. Only one of the Democrats-- Karinshak-- is a self-funder.

All of the Republicans are conservatives as are some of the Democrats. Presumably all that matters, though, is that one is sort of Jewish. (Unterman, who tries playing up her Jewishness, is a convert.)

Anyway, on and on it goes-- very profitable women's operations try to get voters to vote for women; very profitable black operations and latino operations want you to vote for blacks and latinos-- just like gays and Jews-- no matter if they're a Blue Dog like Kendra Horn (women), David Scott (black), Henry Cuellar (Latino), Charlie Crist (gay, albeit semi-closeted) or Josh Gottheimer (Jewish). Many of them are in or have been in primaries against progressives who aren't in the identity group but would be a far better representative of the identity group. Let's take Kendra Horn, one of the 5 most right-wing Blue Dogs in Congress. She's against everything remotely progressive-- virulently opposes the Green New Deal, a living wage and Medicare for All, as 3 painfully obvious examples-- and she's running against progressive educator and college professor Tom Guild in Oklahoma City. It is easy-peasy to make the case that although Horn is a biological woman and will be promoted by very profitable women's groups, Guild is, by far, a better candidate for women.

The national minimum wage is the minimum amount per hour employers can now pay most workers. It increases only if Congress passes a bill and the President signs the legislation into law. To the detriment of working people, it has risen slowly over the decades-- it was last raised in 2009, with 2020 marking a record 11-year gap in increases. An increase in the wage to $15 an hour passed the House in 2019, but shamefully Horn was one of a tiny handful of Democrats who voted against raising it. When adjusted for inflation, the minimum wage is 17% lower than it was in 2009, and 31% lower than it was at its peak in 1968. In 1968 the minimum wage put American workers in a position to pay their bills and survive solely on their paychecks. The slow deterioration of the wage now leaves many families unable to pay for their basic necessaries to survive. A living wage regularly adjusted for inflation will bring workers back to a comparable position they were in back in 1968 when they were able to cover their basic expenses every month. Who suffers most? Women and children, of course. On top of that poll after poll shows that it is women who overwhelming support Medicare-for-All and who support an end to endless wars. Horn has a voting record that is shockingly pro-war and anti-healthcare, Guild is anti-war and pro-healthcare... the exact opposite. I spoke to him this morning and we discussed these things and I hope I have his quotes correctly below. Please, if you like what he has to say, consider clicking on the Blue America thermometer and contributing what you can to his campaign.

Under no circumstances, should American troops fight in Iran without prior congressional approval. I’m deeply disappointed that Horn voted twice to give the current volatile and impulsive president or any president carte blanche to start another costly endless war in the Middle East. Enough is Enough! Women tend to be much more reluctant to engage in military adventurism.  Women are especially protective of their families, and do not want them to have their lives prematurely ended in another endless war. Many women consider health care to be the single most important issue affecting their health and welfare and that of their family members and friends. Horn’s refusal to support any particular plan to bring universal health coverage to the American people is disturbing. Her opposition to the one serious plan on the table is baffling and particularly harmful to the women she is charged with representing.

Horn has no serious plan for addressing climate change and the comprehensive and reasonable plan now on the table, with majority support among Americans, particularly women, Horn opposes. Although Horn took money from labor, she voted with Republicans against raising the minimum wage, and has no plan to make sure that all of the people in the fifth district make a living wage. Since American women make up the vast majority of low paid workers, Horn’s position hurts women and their families in their struggle for survival and dignity. Horn also opposed labor’s biggest agenda item this year by voting with the Republicans in the House in an attempt to defeat the Protecting the Power to Organize Act. Women are often greatly benefited by the representation of organized labor. With friends like her, labor and women do not need enemies.

What can we do to make people’s lives better, now and after the pandemic has run its course of destruction? We can provide clean water and air by seriously pursuing ambitious climate action. By pursuing a path of renewable energy, we can create millions of good paying jobs as we repair and restore our environment. We can provide paid family leave and childcare. Rising costs in this area were eating family budgets alive, even before the current health and economic crisis. We can ease the burden on hard working parents and help them care for their most important assets, their children. Seniors are overwhelmed by the skyrocketing price of prescription drugs. By lowering drug prices, we can ease the strain on their finances and improve their peace of mind.