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.

Trump's Opposition To Social Distancing Will Cause Deaths Wherever He Goes

Killer by Nancy Ohanian

It's too soon to know how much damage Trump's pointless rally in Tulsa brought the city, the county, the state and the region. In their report for the Washington Post yesterday, Josh Dawson and Joshua Partlow noted that "Since the rally, coronavirus cases in Tulsa County hit a new high of 259 new confirmed cases on June 23. I would called that not just meaningless, but gratuitous. They know-- everyone with two brain cells to rub together knows-- that Tulsa is going to have an upsurge in cases, as will Oklahoma and Kansas, Missouri and Arkansas, all of which are near enough to Tulsa to have had residents traveling to the event and coming back home infected.

The Tulsa region is already the worst hit area of Oklahoma. On Friday the state had 12,343 confirmed cases (3,119 cases per million Oklahomans). Saturday that had jumped another 299 cases to 12,642-- and 3,195 cases per million and today Oklahoma reported another 302 cases-- 3,271 cases per million. I doubt any of the 3,162 Oklahomans with active cases got them from the Trump rally. We'll need another week or 10 days to start seeing that. And I have no doubt that we will. In their report, Dawson and Partlow explained that immediately before the rally, Trump campaign staffers "directed the removal of thousands of 'Do Not Sit Here, Please!' stickers from seats in the arena that were intended to establish social distance between rallygoers. The removal contradicted instructions from the management of the BOK Center, the 19,000-seat arena in downtown Tulsa where Trump held his rally on June 20. At the time, coronavirus cases were rising sharply in Tulsa County, and Trump faced intense criticism for convening a large crowd for an indoor political rally, his first such event since the start of the pandemic."

As part of its safety plan, arena management had purchased 12,000 do-not-sit stickers for Trump’s rally, intended to keep people apart by leaving open seats between attendees. On the day of the rally, event staff had already affixed them on nearly every other seat in the arena when Trump’s campaign told event management to stop and then began removing the stickers, hours before the president’s arrival, according to a person familiar with the event who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters.

...The actions by Trump’s campaign were first reported Friday by Billboard Magazine. As rally preparations were underway, Trump’s campaign staff intervened with the venue manager, ASM Global, and told them to stop labeling seats in this way, Doug Thornton, executive vice president of ASM Global, told the magazine.

“They also told us that they didn’t want any signs posted saying we should social distance in the venue,” Thornton said. “The campaign went through and removed the stickers.”

...Trump held his Tulsa rally despite opposition by Oklahoma health authorities and residents who feared that convening a large crowd indoors could accelerate the spread of the coronavirus. The number of coronavirus cases in Tulsa County was spiking in the days leading up to the rally and has continued to increase since.

The director of the Tulsa Health Department, Bruce Dart, had recommended that the event be postponed until it was safer. A number of city residents and business owners brought a lawsuit against the venue manager, ASM Global, seeking to require all attendees wear masks and adhere to social distancing guidelines from health authorities.

The Oklahoma Supreme Court rejected that suit.

...Two days before the rally, the managers of the BOK Center had asked the Trump campaign to provide a detailed written plan outlining the “health and safety” measures it intended to use to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

...As the crowd entered the day of the rally, the Trump campaign handed out masks and small bottles of “Make America Great Again 2020” branded hand sanitizer.

The BOK Center also put down floor decals in front of concession areas and put up plexiglass to protect vendors.

At 1:47 p.m. that day, Fox 23 News posted on its Facebook page a photo from inside the BOK Center showing two members of the event staff putting stickers on seats. “Stickers are going on every other seat in the BOK Center saying ‘Do Not Sit Here’ to try to spread the crowd out for President Trump’s rally tonight,” the post read.

After the majority of the stickers were in place, a member of Trump’s campaign radioed staff in the event war room where arena management was monitoring preparations and told them to stop, according to the person familiar with the event. Event staff was told to continue applying the stickers. Later, the campaign began pulling them off, the person said.

In video footage of Trump’s rally, there appeared to be no effort to keep an empty seat between attendees.

Attendance turned out to be less than Trump expected-- he had said some 1 million people wanted tickets-- and the arena was not full, particularly in the upper level.

Trump had wanted every seat packed, and he told advisers coming in on Air Force One and at the arena he was displeased that the crowd was not larger, said two Trump advisers, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to relay private conversations.

“He was quite angry,” said one person who interacted with him.

...At least six members of the Trump campaign advance staff have tested positive for the coronavirus, including two Secret Service employees. Dozens of Secret Service officers and agents who attended the Tulsa rally were ordered to self-quarantine.

Brad Parscale, Trump's campaign manager, is also reported to be self-quarantined. The Washington Post reported yesterday that Pence is "postponing" campaign events in Florida and Arizona-- two must-win states that he and Trump are currently losing-- because of the pandemic going into out-of-control mode.

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

Remember that time President Chimp On Crack compared himself to Elvis Presley? It was back in the fall of 2018 down in Tupelo, Mississippi, a town best known as the birthplace of Mr. Presley. Trump remarked that "people are saying" that he looks a lot like Elvis. Sure, Mr. President. Go snort some more of whatever you're snorting. It just goes to prove that self-delusion is a sad and terrible attribute, especially in politicians. Too many of us just see what we want to see when we look in the mirror. Elvis and Donnie. Donnie and Elvis. Can you imagine Donnie Trump gyrating and shaking his hips while playing "You Ain't Nothin' But A Hound Dog" or any other Elvis tunes? Yeah, I know Pence, Lindsey, and Moscow Mitch can but if I think of Donnie and Elvis, the only comparison I want to see would involve Donnie lying dead on the floor next to his gold toilet, with his little twitter machine in his even littler hand and an empty bottle of Adderall nearby.

I shouldn't say this, you'll say I'm very conceited, because I'm not, but other than the blonde hair, when I was growing up, they said I looked like Elvis. Can you believe it?

Well, no, Donnie. Only in your dreams. I can't believe it at all but what sane person would believe anything you say about anything? Of course, your crowd cheered you. They always do.

That brings us to the depiction in tonight's meme. It's a spoof on Presley's first greatest hits album "50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can't Be Wrong." Obviously, it refers to the 6200 fools this delusional "Fat Elvis" imitator drew to that arena in Tulsa a week ago, but, it could just as well refer to the 62,000,000 gullible fools who voted to install him in the White House in 2016, not to mention the dumbasses who have kept him there since.

The real Elvis made a bunch of movies; some good, some bad. Looking at Fake Blonde Elvis on this parody album cover makes me think of a script idea of my own. Since the featured photo on the cover is from President Chimp On Crack's dejected walk from Marine One to the White House as he returned from Tulsa, how about this for a movie idea? Here's my plot summary:

A totally deranged fake 'billionaire' becomes president when Wall Street and America's corporate news networks get behind him and present him as presidential by putting him on TV night after night after fucking night as he runs for president. Miracle of sick miracles, the deranged fake 'billionaire' gets elected on an archaic technicality and mayhem ensues. 62,000,000 voters remain convinced that they made the right decision in the voting booth because they slavishly watch a hypno TV white supremacy network and eagerly eat nothing but bad, chemically-laced food that has rotted their brains. The bad, mind-altering food is pushed by the same kinds of corporate entities that marketed the aforementioned deranged fake 'billionaire' man as presidential. One night, a rally out west goes horribly wrong and the president completely flips out during the long plane ride home on Air Force One. A major fight starts when the crazed president tries to break into the pilot's cabin shouting 'I know more about flying a plane than my pilots do!' Punches are thrown. Screams are heard. Kicks are made. A sedation syringe is plunged into the neck of the president, his little hands are tied with his red tie and his red hat is forced into his mouth to serve as a gag. Eventually the plane lands in Washington and the president, looking very dejected and clearly roughed up from head to toe is seen walking across the White House lawn in the dark of that night. All of those aboard the plane live to tell the tale of what happened on the plane but none of them do. It's all hush-hush. A few months later, the president, now sedated all the time, is reelected by most of the 62,000,000 with the additional help of North Korea's finest computer hackers. The country dies. The End.

Yeah, I know. The plot is too implausible. Who can imagine that ever happening? I'd be thrown out of the pitch meeting on my ass but I know in my heart that my movie, I call it "The President's Brain Is Missing," makes all the bad movies the real Elvis made look like Oscar material, in the Documentary category.

Trump's Ostrich Strategy

Death Of A Salesman by Nancy Ohanian

Coke freak, and on-again, off-again alcoholic, as well as Trump's bumbling chair of the National Economic Council, Larry Kudlow is no doctor... but he's had plenty of experience with doctors. In 1994 Kudlow was fired from Bear Stearns for an out-of-control cocaine problem and eventually (1995) entered a twelve-step program to deal with his addictions to both cocaine and alcohol but eventually decided to (not) deal with his illness by converting to Catholicism. He seems to have buried in the collective memory hole an incident at CNBC, where he was an anchor, of being "suspended" for more drug abuse.

Anyway, on Monday morning the man who has been wrong about virtually everything in his entire career went on CNBC to push back against predictions of a second spike-- let alone a second wave-- of coronavirus, which is standard Trump Regime palaver. "There is no second wave coming. It’s just hot spots. They send in CDC teams, we’ve got the testing procedures, we’ve got the diagnostics, we’ve got the PPE. And so I really think it’s a pretty good situation." The man may not be high, but he's out of his gourd. The U.S. daily rate of new cases is higher than ever-- over 30,000 a day now-- and the U.S. leads the world in new cases and in deaths. With the exception of a terribly governed California, many of the second spike states are the ones with Trumpist governors who agree with him that burying your head in the sand will make the pandemic disappear. States getting worse-- by new cases on Saturday and ---> Sunday and ---> today:

• California +3,589 ---> +5,523 ---> 6,503
• Florida +3,494 ---> +2,926 ---> 3,286
• Texas +3,125 ---> +5,112 ---> 5,370
• Arizona +2,592 ---> +2,196 ---> 3,593
• North Carolina +1,321 ---> +802 ---> 835
• South Carolina +907 ---> +1,008 ---> 912
• Georgia +892 ---> +1,227 ---> 1,750

There are also dangerous and growing daily upticks in Tennessee, Alabama, Oklahoma, Iowa, Arkansas, Missouri and Utah. I guess the Trump Regime is celebrating the news by scaling back its temperature checks of journalists and other visitors to the White House. On the other hand, CNN reported that Trump, badly burned by his failed rally in Tulsa, may be putting the brakes on more rallies for now. Kevin Liptak noted that "Swaths of empty blue seats and a vacant overflow venue in Oklahoma have led President Donald Trump's aides to begin debating what his signature campaign rallies will look like going forward, people familiar with the matter say. Ahead of the President's visit on Saturday to Tulsa, there had been tentative plans to announce another rally for the near future, perhaps as early as the next two weeks. Now, it remains unclear when-- and how-- Trump will move forward with his flagship political events. Some advisers suggested it could be weeks or even months before Trump attempts another rally, though as of Monday morning no decisions had been made on how to proceed."

Once viewed as a way to spring Trump's campaign into a new phase-- and improve the mood of a mostly homebound President-- the Tulsa event instead devolved into what many of Trump's aides acknowledge was an unfortunate mistake that distilled the President's political woes five months before the general election.

Pictures of a half-full arena bore no resemblance to the sea of people Trump had been expecting and publicly predicting-- a mistake, aides later said, because it raised expectations unrealistically.

Instead of delivering the fresh new rebuke on his rival Joe Biden that his campaign advisers were hoping for, Trump delivered a disjointed speech that seemed designed to entertain rather than drive votes to an audience that appeared sparse and subdued from his vantage point.

Instead of departing Tulsa with a boost, Trump appeared deflated as he returned to the White House with his tie hanging loose around his neck.

As coverage of the event focused on its shortcomings on Sunday, Trump only grew more upset. He was seething and spent the day lashing out at staff, several sources said. Trump's campaign manager Brad Parscale, who was well aware Trump would be upset by the turnout, hasn't been the only target of Trump's ire. Instead, sources predicted anyone-- White House officials included-- could be fired over what happened.

The ultimate outcome, multiple people close to the President predicted, depends on how long the story of the rally's sparse attendance stays in the headlines.

By Monday morning, a debate had commenced over how to proceed-- and whether the massive rallies that are the President's political stock-in-trade are feasible or wise as he seeks to turn around a flagging reelection effort.

Trump's campaign has blamed the lackluster turnout on protesters who scared away supporters or blocked them from entering, though CNN teams on the ground in Tulsa did not witness blocked entrances and reported heavy law enforcement presence in the secure area surrounding the Bank of Oklahoma Center.

Ultimately, just fewer than 6,200 people attended the rally, according to the Tulsa Fire Department. Plans for an overflow speech were canceled as fewer than 25 people gathered in the area it was meant to occur. Trump once predicted 20,000 people in the area with an additional 40,000 outside.

...[O]fficials acknowledged that Tulsa was a sign even Trump's supporters remain wary of large crowds as coronavirus continues to spread, a reality that may force his campaign to book smaller venues for greatly reduced audiences.

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

Tulsa: Donald J. Trump is no longer the hottest ticket in town. He came. He saw. He conquered nothing.

The best moment of the night was when Donnie Jackass walked out on the stage and gazed is stupid gaze out to a two-thirds empty arena. He wanted 20,000 props for his reelection bid and got 6200. He thought there'd be an overflow crowd watching screens outside the arena. You could see the anger in his eyes as his limited syphilis-inflicted brain tried to comprehend the scene. Surly, he had been told what to expect but seeing the rejection right in front of him drove it home. Oh, dear Donnie, maybe next time you can pay a few thousand extras $130,000 each to pretend to like you. Or, how about some life size cardboard stand-ups? How about an audience of 100,000 dressed up blow-up sex dolls made up to resemble Ivanka? Meanwhile, Donnie, you'll just have to convince yourself that the 6200 people that attended were really 62,000. I know your mind can do that trick, Donnie. You did it on Inauguration Day. Just call up Sean Spicer and have him handle the whole thing. Hell, make him your campaign manager. Period.

Donnie's speech? What did you expect? He spoke his insanity for an hour and forty minutes. There were lots of lowlights. No room here for all of them but even with all of that time, he never once mentioned the massacre that had happened less than a mile from where he wobbly stood. Instead, he called the people who protest racism thugs. He did an endless desperate riff on his desire to keep Confederate statues up and in place. He talked about not letting the celebration of "our heritage" of slavery and repression be taken away. His audience cheered and cheered. Of course, they would. If Donnie ever had mentioned the massacre, it would have come in the form of a call for a reenactment, and those 6200 devoted followers would have gladly rushed to participate. That's who they are. Donnie attracts the best people.

Donnie even managed to up his racist campaign against our Chinese citizens by using a racist slur to decribe COVID-19. Bigly cheers from his bigoted audience for that one. I'm just guessing, though, that they didn't rush home to toss out anything in their homes that happened to have been made in China. He also managed to admit, again, that he hates the ideal of virus testing. Of course, that's only because he worries that the resulting numbers make him look bad. They point to his dropping of the ball. To hell with anyone else, right, Donnie?

When you do testing to that extent, you're gonna find more people. You're gonna find more cases, so I said to my people, slow the testing down, please. They test and test.

The weirdest segment of the evening, though, had to be the full 10 minutes that Little Donnie did on his West Point ramp walk. 10 minutes! The whole original scene at West Point took all of 2 minutes max as he attempted to navigate his way down the offstage ramp, yet he not only called attention to the pathetic scene, he expanded upon it and advertised it by blabbing for 10 minutes about it, even claiming, falsely of course, that he ran the last several feet (bone spurs and all, I guess). Anyway, the film shows otherwise. Maybe he thinks his ramp walking will, one day, become as famous as Michael Jackson's moonwalk.

Oh, and his audience cheered when he proved that he could drink from a glass of water with just one hand. Apparently, all that winning he talked about in 2016 just requires a severe lowering of expectations. That's America in 2020 folks. We've gone from "a chicken in every pot" to "Hey, look! I can drink with one hand." That's one small hand for a man, one bigly, tremendous cheer for a narcissistic psycho.

So now the 14 day countdown has begun. How many of the 6200 are now infected with COVID 19 to go along with their Trump disease. As I said a couple of days ago, I'm not so worried about them. What I worry about is all the sensible, decent people they may take with them.

Democrats Want Trump To Do Rallies Like Tulsa Every Night 'Til November

Even Tulsa Republicans are smarter than Trump gave them credit for 

Trump-- still stealing Tom Petty's music after his death-- was served with a cease and desist order after he used I Won't Back Down at the poorly attended Tulsa hate rally last night. This is the anti-racism tweet from Tom's wife and 3 children during the rally:

The big takeaways from the botched rally, though, was not about Petty's music nor even about how K-Pop fans and TikTok teens faked out Brad Parscale and Trump by registering in the hundreds of thousands for tickets as a prank-- a prank Parscale fell for, hook, line and sinker. Maggie Haberman explained why that was meaningful-- aside from all the empty seats:

So the big take away wasn't that the fire marshal told the media that "there were only about 6,100 people in the arena" for Trump’s standup comedy routine, even though the space can hold 19,000. The reviews of the event were savage. "By the time Trump took the stage in Tulsa, there were thousands of empty seats in the arena. The overflow area was scrapped. And aides were left trying to explain why a president who has placed enormous value on his crowd sizes was addressing a smaller-than-expected audience." And "Trump’s attempt to revive his re-election campaign sputtered badly on Saturday night as he traveled to Tulsa for his first mass rally in months and found a far smaller crowd than his aides had promised him, then delivered a disjointed speech that did not address the multiple crises facing the nation or scandals battering him in Washington."

Having watched Trump's routine while eating dinner Saturday night (a citrus and avocado salad, gnocchi and a mixed fruit and berry pie I whipped up) what a saw was a pathetic old man unable to articulate a vision for a country's whose grip on the term "the greatest country on earth" is becoming shakier by the day, who instead shared a disjointed and sadly obsessive list of the most petty of personal grievances with a small crowd of people too stupid and too ignorant to understand what a pandemic is and how they were putting themselves and their intimates in harm's way for... a night of cheap entertainment.

That was one big takeaway... maybe too abstract? How about that Trump admitted, publicly, that "he told officials to administer fewer coronavirus tests to keep case numbers down." He doesn't understand that testing helps save peoples' lives. Malignant sociopaths and narcissist s like Trump have no empathy and no ability to understand the world outside of their own ego-centric bubble. It's all about Trump, not the 2,332,023 people-- as of this writing-- who have contracted COVID-19 in the U.S., nor the 122,019 Americans who died while Trump fretted that the testing numbers may have made him look bad.

Death Of A Salesman by Nancy Ohanian

On Saturday those numbers of new cases were spiraling out of control, many of them in "Trump states," like Texas (4,250 new cases on Saturday), Florida (4,049 new cases on Saturday), Arizona (3,109 new cases on Saturday), Georgia (1,800 new cases on Saturday), Louisiana (1,231 new cases on Saturday), South Carolina (1,155 new cases on Saturday), as well as big big spikes in Arkansas, Utah, Alabama, Missouri and, of course, Oklahoma. The U.S. average over the last couple of months has been around 20,000 a day. Now that Trump and his pet governors have forced unsafe, willy-nilly reopenings, the daily national averages are over 30,000 new cases.

After claiming the United States has tested 25 million people, Trump said: “When you do testing to that extent, you’re going to find more people, you’re going to find more cases. So I said to my people, ‘Slow the testing down, please!’ ” A White House official later told The Washington Post that Trump was joking.

Eight states on Saturday reported their highest single-day case counts since the pandemic began, and daily new infections nationwide exceeded 30,000 on both Friday and Saturday. The country has not seen daily totals that high in more than seven weeks.

It isn't as though Trump doesn't worry about people getting COVID. The NY Times reported that last night he flipped out when it was reported that 6 of his White House staffers who were working on the Tulsa rally had tested positive for COVID-19. Again, in his sick, warped mind, it made him look bad. 

Why Can't The U.S. Handle The Pandemic? Trump And His Enablers Couldn't Do A Worse Job If They Wanted To!

Before whistles started blowing, and back when Florida Governor Ron DeSantis could still get away with reporting insanely low numbers of COVID cases in his state, he issued a foolish executive order mandating visitors to Florida from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut self-isolate for 14 days before enjoying all that a Florida spring has to offer. Now the tri-state area is healing, while Florida is becoming one of the worst-hit states in the country. On Thursday, New York reported 803 new cases, New Jersey 430 and Connecticut just 81. Meanwhile, Florida reported a record-breaking 3,207 new cases (4,001 cases per million-- worse than Italy's 3,939!). Yesterday, Florida reported another record-breaking day: 3,822 new cases, bring their cases per million to 4,179. Texas' Greg Abbott did the same thing-- a 14 day quarantine for New York traveller to Texas. And now Texas is another state where the pandemic is ravaging the population-- 3,357 new cases Thursday and a rapidly increasing cases per million number, 3,541 on Thursday.

In fact, Florida and Texas are such messes that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, almost as much an asshole as DeSantis and Abbott, mused that he's considering quarantining people coming from Florida and other states where the pandemic is out of control.

"If you went to Florida, you had to quarantine for two weeks because they were afraid that New Yorkers were bringing the virus to their state. Fast forward a 100 days, now we’re afraid they’re bringing the virus to our state," said Cuomo. "The number of people who are getting infected and getting sick and walking into a hospital is going up in these states. Undeniably. And you can go state by state. It’s Arizona. It’s Texas. It’s Florida... It’s 20 states on the increase." Cuomo's a dickhead who was largely responsible for New York's catastrophe by moving too slow as it began ramping up. In the mass media, he loves to play the hero but a look at the New York States timeline shows Cuomo as a villain in every way except in comparison to Trump and his ideologue governors and the low bar they've set.

Meanwhile, leaders of countries around the world are looking at America's spiking new cases and shuddering. The cases per day in the U.S. have been rising. Wednesday it was 26,228 new cases and 6,756 cases per million. Thursday it was +27,924 and 6,840 cases per million, as the U.S. regained the number one slot in new cases from Brazil. Yesterday, Washington Post reporter Rick Noack wrote that the rest of the world is dumbfound by the disastrous American response to the pandemic. "As coronavirus cases surge in states across the South and West of the United States," he wrote, "health experts in countries with falling case numbers are watching with a growing sense of alarm and disbelief, with many wondering why virus-stricken U.S. states continue to reopen and why the advice of scientists is often ignored."

China’s actions over the past week stand in stark contrast to those of the United States. In the wake of a new cluster of more than 150 new cases that emerged in Beijing, authorities sealed off neighborhoods, launched a mass testing campaign and imposed travel restrictions.

Meanwhile, President Trump maintains that the United States will not shut down a second time, although a surge in cases has convinced governors in some states, including Arizona, to walk back their opposition to mandatory face coverings in public.

Commentators and experts in Europe, where cases have continued to decline, voiced concerns over the state of the U.S. response. A headline on the website of Germany’s public broadcaster read: “Has the U.S. given up its fight against coronavirus?” Switzerland’s conservative Neue Zürcher Zeitung newspaper concluded, “U.S. increasingly accepts rising covid-19 numbers.”

And this isn't just about states with backwards Republican governors like Texas, Arizona, Florida, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota, Georgia and Iowa. California Governor Gavin Newsom-- a junior version of Cuomo-- is doing miserable job as well and California's pandemic is now spinning out of control and badly as Texas' and Florida's. I see it in my own neighborhood, where mandates about wearing masks are not enforced at all and where half the people don't bother. California had the most new cases on Thursday (3,787) and the cases per million shot up to 4,227 per million.

Bay Area counties still benefit from early closings before Newsom understood or developed the backbone to take action and while San Francisco (+38) Santa Clara (+75), Alameda (+105), San Mateo (+25), Contra Costa (+40) and Marin (+18) are all working diligently and successfully to keep the pandemic under control, the Southland is increasingly a disaster-zone. Los Angeles County reported 1,038 new cases Thursday, Riverside 516, San Diego 238 and San Bernardino 238. Noack wrote that Thomas Gerlinger, a professor of health sciences at the University of Bielefeld in Germany explained that "Many scientists appeared to have reached an adequate assessment of the situation early on [in the United States], but this didn’t translate into a political action plan." It took the U.S. much longer than other countries to ramp up testing capacity. Ostrich-like, Trump and Pence are extremely hostile to testing and blame it on America's "bad ratings." The U.S. is far behind other countries in testing, even though Trump deceitfully claims he's built the greatest testing apparatus in the universe. Leaving out postage-stamp-sized countries here are the tests per million:

• Denmark- 151,314
• Russia- 111,846
• U.K.- 109,513
• Spain- 103,232
• Portugal-102,682
• Belgium- 93,836
• Israel- 87,495
• Belarus- 86,978
• U.S.- 80,799
• Italy- 79,908

He noted that "Whereas the U.S. response to the crisis has at times appeared disconnected from American scientists’ publicly available findings, U.S. researchers’ conclusions informed the actions of foreign governments. 'A large portion of [Germany’s] measures that proved effective was based on studies by leading U.S. research institutes,' said Karl Lauterbach, a Harvard-educated epidemiologist who is a member of the German parliament for the Social Democrats, who are part of the coalition government. Lauterbach advised the German parliament and the government during the pandemic. Despite its far older population, Germany has confirmed fewer than 9,000 coronavirus-linked deaths, compared to almost 120,000 in the United States. (Germany has about one-fourth of the United States’ population.)... Regarding the effectiveness of face masks, Lauterbach added, “we almost entirely relied on U.S. studies.” Germany was among the first major European countries to make face masks mandatory on public transport and in supermarkets."

After consulting U.S. research and German studies, for instance, German leaders agreed to make reopening dependent on case numbers, meaning restrictions snap back or reopening gets put on hold if the case numbers in a given region exceed a certain threshold.

Meanwhile, several U.S. states have reopened despite rising case numbers.

“I don’t understand that logic,” said Reinhard Busse, a health management professor a the Technical University of Berlin.

...[W]hile most Germans disapproved of Trump before the pandemic, even his staunchest critics in Germany were surprised by how even respected U.S. institutions including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) struggled to respond to the crisis.

The CDC, for instance, initially botched the rollout of test kits in the early stages of the outbreak.

“Like many other aspects of our country, the CDC’s ability to function well is being severely handicapped by the interference coming from the White House,” said Harvard epidemiologist Lipsitch. “All of us in public health very much hope that this is not a permanent condition of the CDC.”

Some observers fear the damage will be difficult to reverse. “I’ve always thought of the CDC as a reliable and trusted source of information, said Wiles, the New Zealand specialist. “Not anymore.”

Separately, a team of Post reporters wrote that "Fears of a new wave of coronavirus infections are spurring officials in many states, such as California, to require that people wear face coverings outside the home. But mandatory mask-wearing continues to be controversial, particularly among conservatives. The sheriff of Orange County, California, says he won’t enforce the statewide mandate, while Nebraska’s Republican governor has threatened to withhold funding from any communities that require masks to be worn in official buildings. Several studies this month support wearing masks to curb coronavirus transmission, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends their use as a protective measure."

And Trump's Death Cult Rally tonight is expected to be a catastrophe for Oklahoma, even though early data is showing no uptick in COVID transmission from the Black Lives Matters protests. "'“Bad idea' doesn’t begin to capture how reckless and vicious it is to pack an arena on a steamy night with thousands of rambunctious hotheads in the midst of a coronavirus outbreak," wrote Virginia Heffernan for the L.A. Times. "The disease, which has killed some 120,000 Americans so far, rips through populations fastest when people are crowded indoors and shouting for extended periods. Check, check, check, check. The Tulsa rally has it all. Except masks and social distancing. This week, a Tulsa lawsuit sought to make safety measures mandatory at the rally. 'If ASM Global'-- which runs the rally arena-- 'moves forward with the event without adequate review, planning, training, protective equipment, and safeguards, cases of COVID-19-- and the unavoidable attendant deaths — will rise,' the lawsuit said. A Tulsa judge denied the request; it’s now at the state Supreme Court. Meanwhile, the campaign has required ticketholders to swear they won’t sue if they do get sick. And rallygoers will be issued hand sanitizer and masks, but nothing is mandatory. Given that Trump is still shaking hands and refusing to mask up, even health-conscious attendees are likely to pack themselves in and go mask-free, if only as a sign of respect for their devil-may-care hero. This rally is really shaping up to be a teeming petri dish inside a wrecking ball inside a juggernaut."

On Thursday, Oklahoma confirmed 450 new cases and 2,364 cases per million.

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

Well, tomorrow is the big day in Tulsa. Come for the racism! Stay for the plague! Or is it the other way 'round? I'm not so concerned about the red-hatted Bigot-Fest attendees getting COVID-19, but I am concerned about how many decent folks they may infect in the coming days. As I said yesterday, the virus, unlike republicans, does not discriminate. Meanwhile, tonight's meme may not actually depict the reality of the Tulsa kick-off to Trumpanzee's "I Wanna Be Jefferson Davis" 2020 campaign. I'm sure there will be some of the usual strategically placed faces of color, some even hired for the occasion, but Trumpanzee has shown us that tonight's meme sure depicts his dreams. It could be a preview of his White House portrait.

Masques

The Situation Room by Nancy Ohanian

Yesterday Bruce Springsteen blasted the so-called leaders who refuse to wear masks in public, particularly Señor Trumpanzee. He used his Sirius XM radio show, From My Home to Yours, to make it clear what he think of calculating politicians who refuse to wear masks. Strumming a guitar, he said "With 100,000-plus Americans dying over the last few months and the empty, shamed response from our leaders, I'm simply pissed off. Those lives deserve better than just being inconvenient statistics for our president's re-election efforts. It's a national disgrace... We will be contemplating on our current circumstances with the coronavirus and the cost that it has drawn from our nation. We will be calculating what we've lost, sending prayers for the deceased and the families they've left behind... I'm going to start out with sending one to the man sitting behind the Resolute Desk. With all respect, sir, show some consideration for your countrymen and your country. Put on a fucking mask." He then played Trump Bob Dylan's "The Disease of Conceit."





Also yesterday Trump Regime press secretary Kayleigh McEnany announced that from here on masks, though recommended, are no long required for White House staff, a big mistake according to the results of a study in Health Affairs. In their abstract, they noted that "there is now substantial evidence of asymptomatic transmission of COVID-19" and that "mask wearing by infected individuals can reduce transmission risk, and because of the high proportion of asymptomatic infected individuals and transmissions, there appears to be a strong case for the effectiveness of widespread use of face masks in reducing the spread of COVID-19."

In the US, public health authorities did not recommend widespread facial mask use in public at the start of the pandemic. The initially limited evidence on asymptomatic transmission and concern about mask shortages for health care workforce and individuals caring for patients contributed to that initial decision. On April 3, 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued new guidance advising all individuals to wear cloth facial covers in public areas where close contact with others is unavoidable, citing new evidence on virus transmission from asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic individuals. Guidelines differ between countries, and some including Germany, France, Italy, Spain, China, and South Korea have mandated use of face masks in public.

This study adds complementary evidence to the literature on impacts of widespread community use of face masks on COVID-19 spread from a natural experiment based on whether states in the US have mandated the use of face masks in public for COVID-19 mitigation or not. Specifically, we identify the effects of mandating face mask use in public on daily COVID-19 growth rates based on differences in the timing and issuance of state mandates.

In the US, 15 states plus DC have issued mandates for face mask use in public between April 8 and May 15. We examine the effects of state mandates for use of face masks in public on the daily COVID-19 growth rate using an event study that examines the effects over different periods. We also consider the impact of mandates for mask use targeted only to employees in some work settings, as opposed to community-wide mandates. This evidence is critical as states and countries worldwide begin to shift to “reopening” their economies and as foot traffic increases. Mandating public use of masks has become a socially and politically contentious issue, with multiple protests and even acts of violence directed against masked employees and those asking customers to wear face masks. Face cover recommendations and mandates are part of the current set of measures, following earlier social distancing measures such as school and non-essential business closures, bans on large gatherings, and shelter-in-place orders being considered by states and local governments, especially as regions of the country reopen. For example, most recently, Virginia started its phase one reopening on May 22, 2020 and required everyone in the state to wear face masks in public where people congregate. Therefore, it is critical to provide direct evidence on this question not only for public health authorities and governments but also for educating the public.

...There is a significant decline in daily COVID-19 growth rate after mandating facial covers in public, with the effect increasing over time after signing the order... The study provides direct evidence on the effectiveness of widespread community use of face masks from a natural experiment that evaluates effects of state government mandates in the US for face mask use in public on COVID-19 spread... Using an event study that examines daily changes in county-level COVID-19 growth rates, the study finds that mandating public use of face masks is associated with a reduction in the COVID-19 daily growth rate.

...These estimates are not small and represent nearly 16–19% of the effects of other social distancing measures (school closures, bans on large gatherings, shelter-in-place orders, and closures of restaurants, bars, and entertainment venues) after similar periods from their enactment. The estimates suggest increasing effectiveness and benefits from these mandates over time. By May 22, the estimates suggest that as many as 230,000–450,000 COVID-19 cases may have been averted based on when states passed these mandates. Again, the estimates of averted cases should be viewed cautiously as these are sensitive to assumptions and different approaches for transforming the changes in the daily growth rate estimates to cases.

Their conclusion is clear, though I doubt anyone could explain it to Trump. "The study provides evidence that states in the US mandating use of face masks in public had a greater decline in daily COVID-19 growth rates after issuing these mandates compared to states that did not issue mandates. These effects are observed conditional on other existing social distancing measures and are independent of the CDC recommendation to wear facial covers issued on April 3. As countries worldwide and states begin to relax social distancing restrictions and considering the high likelihood of a second COVID-19 wave in the fall/winter, requiring use of face masks in public might help in reducing COVID-19 spread."

Earlier today, the Wall Street Journal published an interview with Señor T by Michael Bender in which, among other assorted nonsense, the worst president in American history claimed many people wear masks as a sign they disapprove of him, rather than to stay healthy or keep people around them healthy. This literally defines what a narcissistic sociopath is.

Still no mask on the damn sociopath

Earlier in the week far right sociopath Tom Rice (R-SC) announced that he, his wife and their son have the "Wuhan Flu," the xenophobic, racist term neo-fascists and fascists use to describe COVID-19. Rice has refused to wear a mask on the House floor and has probably spread it to other Republican members who eschew masks. He represents the very red 7th district of eastern South Carolina, which includes Myrtle Beach and 8 counties. South Carolina-- where social distancing hasn't been taken seriously, is spiking badly now.

The counties in Rice's district haven't fared well. The state reports 388 cases per 100,000 people. As of yesterday, 6 of the 8 counties in Rice's district were faring worse than that average:

• Marlboro- 874
• Dillon- 654
• Chesterfield- 637
• Florence- 601
• Darlington- 531
• Horry- 404 (with the 3rd most infections of any county in the state)

Rice isn't the only House Republican refusing to wear a mask on the floor and endangering the other members and congressional employees. And Pelosi is now trying to force them to-- at least in committee meetings-- asking all the committee chairs to "enforce mask-wearing in all hearings." Republicans, of course, see this as tyranny rather than an attempt to save lives. They're also going berserk that she authorized the sergeant at arms to refuse entry to anyone who is not wearing a mask. (All the Democrats and most of the Republicans members where masks; it's just a handful of extremist Trumpian lunatics like Rice, Clay Higgins, Ted Yoho and Jim Jordan who refuse.)

The Associated Press reported that "The tightening mask rules came as the House Judiciary panel conducted a drafting session Wednesday on a policing bill, the first such meeting held under new rules permitting remote attendance. At a hearing last week, several GOP lawmakers, including Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California, declined to wear masks, which are considered an easy, effective way to combat the spread of the virus. An advisory by Attending Physician Brian Monahan said that for House members 'in a limited enclosed space, such as a committee hearing room, for greater than 15 minutes, face coverings are REQUIRED.' It said face coverings will be provided for those who arrive without face covers. The Capitol physician’s guidance 'cites new studies that speak to the broad scientific consensus on the effectiveness of mask-wearing to prevent the spread of COVID-19,' the Democratic aide said in an accompanying statement, adding that the Sergeant of Arms will deny entry to lawmakers who don’t wear masks and committee chairs can refuse to recognize them."

With new coronavirus caseloads spiking in Oklahoma just before Trump's Death Cult Rally on Saturday, his campaign's "precautions" go no further than forcing attendees to sign a waiver saying if they contact the disease they cannot sue the campaign or the venue.

Trump’s campaign advisers believe his first rally in three months on Saturday night at an indoor arena will rejuvenate his base at a time when a string of national and state opinion polls have shown the president falling behind Democratic rival Joe Biden.

“Ultimately, the president doesn’t ask for permission before he” goes to places, said Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt during a briefing on Wednesday. “So we found out that president was coming, so we are going to make sure it’s the best and as safe as possible.”

Oklahoma health officials are urging anyone attending the rally to get tested for the coronavirus before arriving and then to self-isolate following the event and get tested again. The health commissioner urged those over 65 or at higher risk of coronavirus-related complications to stay home.

...In most of the states where cases are spiking, COVID-19 hospitalizations are also rising or at record highs. Unlike spikes reported in new infections, rising hospitalizations cannot simply be attributed to increased testing.

"Die For Me" by Nancy Ohanian

This morning, John Pavlovitz warned the country that a mask is a stupid hill to die on. Lots of people seem to think that not wearing a mask will Make America Great Again. Pavlovitz wrote that "Despite how many people have died, despite how decimated our economy is, despite the near complete shutdown of life (that you’ve been moaning like a dirty-diapered infant for months about)-- this minuscule task is too much to ask? A mask is the small, selfish, ignorant hill you’re choosing to die (and kill) on? The multitudinous non-maskers aren’t a monolith, of course, but most can be loosely organized into two groups:

1) Self-centered narcissists, who simply refuse to make the smallest sacrifice for the health and well-being of others, because they’ve been so weaned on individualism and have so little appreciation for interdependent community-- that anything less than completely unfettered freedom feels restrictive.

2) People with such a cultic adoration of this president that they refuse to wear a mask, because to do so would mean that he was wrong all along and that they were lied to and that we are in grave danger-- so in an oxymoronic attempt at self-preservation, they swallow a toxic cocktail of tearful nationalism, Fox News fakery, macho flexing, and willful ignorance-- and kill people to own the Libs.  

He continued to remind the non-mask wears that "this isn’t about your personal freedom... [or] about physical toughness... If you refuse to wear a mask in a pandemic, you’re not making America great. You’re abusing your freedom, you’re intentionally placing fellow citizens in harm’s way, you’re damaging the economy, and you’re dooming us to far longer restrictions than if you simply put a piece of cloth over your mouth. If you refuse to wear a mask in a pandemic, you’re also not pro-life. You are showing a reckless disregard for yourself and for loved ones and for strangers; the supposedly sacred lives you preach to treasure in the womb, but in practice really aren’t all that concerned with outside of it. And if you refuse to wear a mask in a pandemic-- you’re just not a very good person. We’re in an unprecedented health crisis that has literally shut down the world, and you won’t do literally the simplest thing you’re being asked to, in order to prevent other people from getting sick and dying. Congratulations. You’re failing the 'human' test. Enjoy your hill. It will look great with a headstone."