Trump's Super-Spreader Event-- Bringing The Hate To Freeland, Michigan

RealClearPolitics' current Michigan polling average shows Trump down by 4.2%-- but the poll includes a made up poll by Republican Party disinformation group, Trafalgar (that has Trump up by 2 points, the only poll out of dozens this year showing Trump winning in Michigan. Even Rasmussen, also a Republican polling firm, showed Trump down by 8 points-- 51% to 43% on Thursday. Without cheating, Michigan is unlikely to be in Trump's column in November.

Detroit News poll this week

On Thursday, Michigan reported 983 new COVID cases, bringing the state's total to 120,846, which translates to 12,101 cases per million Michiganders, significantly below the national average of 19,904 cases per million residents. 6,894 Michiganders have died of COVID, 690 deaths per million residents. Trump's event Thursday is sure to result in hundreds of more cases in a state that has been successfully flattening the curve but not allowing events like the one Trump just hosted.

In Freeland, about 5,000 people came out to bask in the ugly divisiveness and hatred Trump employs at his rallies. No social distancing no masks. The super-low-IQ crowd seemed happy with Trump's excuses for the revelations in Woodward's book that he lied about the pandemics danger. Excuse #1: Bob Woodward is a "whack job." Trumpist goons tracked down local NY Times reporter Kathy Gray and kicked her out for reporting on Twitter that the crowd was basically maskless.

Reporting on Trump's latest super-spreader event for the Detroit News, Craig Mauger wrote that "Trump took credit for rescuing an already revived auto industry and told his supporters their votes 'will save America' as he roared back into Michigan for his first campaign rally in the state since the COVID-19 pandemic hit. 'After the last administration nearly killed the U.S. auto industry, I saved the U.S. auto industry,' said Trump, making a questionable claim as he took direct aim at Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden. After winning Michigan by 10,704 votes in 2016, the Republican president is hoping for a repeat on Nov. 3. Much of his speech Thursday night outside of an airport hangar in Freeland focused on what he considered his accomplishments related to the state and criticisms of Democratic leaders in office here... 'No president has done for Michigan what President Trump has done for Michigan,' said Trump at one point, before adding, 'I am going to remember Michigan.'"

Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, told CNN he was "pretty puzzled" and "rather disheartened" by Trump’s crowded campaign rally in Michigan-- at which few of the several thousand attendees could be seen wearing face masks and virtually none appeared to be practicing social distancing.

After Trump's rally, Fauci's boss, National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins told Sanji Gupta and Anderson Cooper: "How did we get here? Imagine you were an alien who landed on planet Earth, and you saw that our planet was afflicted by an infectious disease and that masks were an effective way to prevent the spread. And yet, when you went around, you saw some people not wearing them and some people wearing them. And you tried to figure out why, and it turned out it was their political party. And you would scratch your head and think, 'This is just not a planet that has much promise for the future, if something that is so straightforward can somehow get twisted into decision-making that really makes no sense.' As a scientist I'm pretty puzzled and rather disheartened."

I've been saying since April that it's going to take a million deaths before the Trump crowd-- personifications of the word "idiot"-- can be persuaded to take the pandemic seriously. It's a shame that it won't just be a million Trumpists who die, but normal people as well. I may have been wrong; it could take 2 million. Yesterday Time Magazine reported that "Among the world’s wealthy nations, only the U.S. has an outbreak that continues to spin out of control. Of the 10 worst-hit countries, the U.S. has the seventh-highest number of deaths per 100,000 population; the other nine countries in the top 10 have an average per capita GDP of $10,195, compared to $65,281 for the U.S. Some countries, like New Zealand, have even come close to eradicating COVID-19 entirely. Vietnam, where officials implemented particularly intense lockdown measures, didn’t record a single virus-related death until July 31."

At this point, we can start to see why the U.S. foundered: a failure of leadership at many levels and across parties; a distrust of scientists, the media and expertise in general; and deeply ingrained cultural attitudes about individuality and how we value human lives have all combined to result in a horrifically inadequate pandemic response. COVID-19 has weakened the U.S. and exposed the systemic fractures in the country, and the gulf between what this nation promises its citizens and what it actually delivers.

Although America’s problems were widespread, they start at the top. A complete catalog of President Donald Trump’s failures to address the pandemic will be fodder for history books. There were weeks wasted early on stubbornly clinging to a fantastical belief that the virus would simply “disappear”; testing and contact tracing programs were inadequate; states were encouraged to reopen ahead of his own Administration’s guidelines; and statistics were repeatedly cherry-picked to make the U.S. situation look far better than it was, while undermining scientists who said otherwise. “I wanted to always play it down,” Trump told the journalist Bob Woodward on March 19 in a newly revealed conversation. “I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic.”

Common-sense solutions like face masks were undercut or ignored. Research shows that wearing a facial covering significantly reduces the spread of COVID-19, and a pre-existing culture of mask wearing in East Asia is often cited as one reason countries in that region were able to control their outbreaks. In the U.S., Trump did not wear a mask in public until July 11, more than three months after the CDC recommended facial coverings, transforming what ought to have been a scientific issue into a partisan one. A Pew Research Center survey published on June 25 found that 63% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents said masks should always be worn in public, compared with 29% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents.

...Americans today tend to value the individual over the collective. A 2011 Pew survey found that 58% of Americans said “freedom to pursue life’s goals without interference from the state” is more important than the state guaranteeing “nobody is in need.” It’s easy to view that trait as a root cause of the country’s struggles with COVID-19; a pandemic requires people to make temporary sacrifices for the benefit of the group, whether it’s wearing a mask or skipping a visit to their local bar.

Americans have banded together in times of crisis before, but we need to be led there. “We take our cues from leaders,” says Dr. David Rosner, a professor at Columbia University. Trump and other leaders on the right, including Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and Gov. Tate Reeves of Mississippi, respectively, have disparaged public-health officials, criticizing their calls for shutting down businesses and other drastic but necessary measures. Many public-health experts, meanwhile, are concerned that the White House is pressuring agencies like the Food and Drug Administration to approve treatments such as convalescent plasma despite a lack of supportive data. Governors, left largely on their own, have been a mixed bag, and even those who’ve been praised, like New York’s Andrew Cuomo, could likely have taken more aggressive action to protect public health.

Absent adequate leadership, it’s been up to everyday Americans to band together in the fight against COVID-19. To some extent, that’s been happening-- doctors, nurses, bus drivers and other essential workers have been rightfully celebrated as heroes, and many have paid a price for their bravery. But at least some Americans still refuse to take such a simple step as wearing a mask.

Why? Because we’re also in the midst of an epistemic crisis. Republicans and Democrats today don’t just disagree on issues; they disagree on the basic truths that structure their respective realities. Half the country gets its news from places that parrot whatever the Administration says, true or not; half does not. This politicization manifests in myriad ways, but the most vital is this: in early June (at which point more than 100,000 Americans had already died of COVID-19), fewer than half of Republican voters polled said the outbreak was a major threat to the health of the U.S. population as a whole. Throughout July and August, the White House’s Coronavirus Task Force was sending private messages to states about the severity of the outbreak, while President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence publicly stated that everything was under control.

Some incredulity about the virus and public-health recommendations is understandable given the reality that scientific understanding of the newly emergent virus is evolving in real time. The ever shifting advice from health officials doesn’t instill public confidence, especially in those already primed to be skeptical of experts. “Because this is a new infectious disease, a new virus, we don’t have all the answers scientifically,” says Colleen Barry, chair of the department of health policy and management at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “I think that creates an environment that could potentially erode trust even further over time.” But the trust fractures on partisan lines. While 43% of Democrats told Pew in 2019 that they had a “great deal” of trust in scientists, only 27% of Republicans said the same.

Truly worrying are the numbers of Americans who already say they are hesitant to receive an eventual COVID-19 vaccination. Mass vaccination will work only with enough buy-in from the public; the damage the President and others are doing to Americans’ trust in science could have significant consequences for the country’s ability to get past this pandemic.

There’s another disturbing undercurrent to Americans’ attitude toward the pandemic thus far: a seeming willingness to accept mass death. As a nation we may have become dull to horrors that come our way as news, from gun violence to the seemingly never-ending incidents of police brutality to the water crises in Flint, Mich., and elsewhere. Americans seem to have already been inured to the idea that other Americans will die regularly, when they do not need to.

It is difficult to quantify apathy. But what else could explain that nearly half a year in, we still haven’t figured out how to equip the frontline workers who, in trying to save the lives of others, are putting their own lives at risk? What else could explain why 66% of Americans-- roughly 217.5 million people-- still aren’t always wearing masks in public?

Meanwhile, back in Freeland, some Democratic smart ass-- Republican dumb ass?-- played an old Credence Clearwater Revival anthem to rev up the maskless crowd of dummies, "Fortunate Song," a stinging condemnation of rich draft dodgers like Trump, written in 1969, when Trump was dodging the draft.

Some folks are born, made to wave the flag
Ooh, their red, white and blue
And when the band plays "Hail to the Chief"
Ooh, they point the cannon at you, Lord

It ain't me
It ain't me
I ain't no senator's son, son
It ain't me
It ain't me

I ain't no fortunate one, no
Some folks are born, silver spoon in hand
Lord, don't they help themselves, y'all
But when the taxman comes to the door
Lord, the house looks like a rummage sale, yeah

It ain't me
It ain't me
I ain't no millionaire's son, no, no
It ain't me
It ain't me
I ain't no fortunate one, no

Yeah, yeah
Some folks inherit star spangled eyes
Ooh, they send you down to war, Lord
And when you ask 'em, "How much…

Will The Pandemic Kill Trump's Catastrophic Political Career?

Americans are rapidly waking up to the fact that the Trump regime has done an abysmal job in responding to the pandemic. Even rural counties-- largely red, largely Trumpist-- are starting to see upticks in infection. "Many communities that watched the pandemic unfold in far-away places are now experiencing the crisis first hand. More than two-thirds of rural counties have confirmed at least one case." By late March, for example, Blaine County, Idaho "had the highest per capita infection rate in the nation, rural or urban."

Last night, in a Wall Street Journal podcast, Dr. Fauci talked about coming out of the pandemic. One of his suggestions was that we abandon the handshaking custom-- something I've personally been trying to avoid since the 1960s. Dr. F: "I don’t think we should ever shake hands ever again, to be honest with you. Not only would it be good to prevent coronavirus disease, it probably would decrease instances of influenza dramatically in this country."

"The town of Cynthiana in rural Harrison County appeared to be the epicenter of the crisis in Kentucky." 96% white, Harrison County is a typically Trumpist hellhole. In 2016 just 26.1% of the voters cast their ballots for Hillary Clinton. Last cycle, the blue wave didn't touch Harrison County. Thomas Massie's support in the county was recorded at R+33. "The coronavirus has officially reached more than two-thirds of the country’s rural counties, with one in 10 reporting at least one death. Doctors and elected officials are warning that a late-arriving wave of illness could overwhelm rural communities that are older, poorer and sicker than much of the country, and already dangerously short on medical help... In some places, the virus has rushed in so suddenly that even leaders are falling ill. In the tiny county of Early in southwest Georgia, five people have died. And the mayor and the police chief of the county seat, Blakely, are among the county’s 92 confirmed cases. It has been a shock for the rural county of fewer than 11,000 people." In 2016, Early County residents went for Trump for president and for Republican Johnny Isakson for the Senate. The county also missed the 2018 blue wave. It strongly backed Republican Brian Kemp over Democrat Stacey Abrams for Senate.

Magnum is the county seat of Greer County in southwest Oklahoma. Greer County has 1,546 registered Democrats and 890 registered Republicans. Bernie trounced Hillary in 2016-- 55.8% to 27.6% and got far more voters than Trump did that day-- 332 to Trump's 111. But in November Greer County was Trump country-- 78.2% to 17.0%. "In Mangum, Oklahoma, a town of 6,000 in the western part of the state, it all started with a visit. A pastor from Tulsa appeared at a local church, but got sick shortly thereafter and became the state’s first Covid-19 fatality. Then somebody at the local church started to feel unwell-- a person who eventually tested positive for coronavirus... Before realizing they were infected, several people who eventually tested positive for the virus had moved about widely through the city, including to the local nursing home, which now has a cluster of cases... Magnum now has an emergency shelter-in-place order and curfew-- just like larger towns and cities around the United States."

It is hard to imagine counties like Greer voting for Status Quo Joe against Trump. They would absolutely vote for Bernie against Trump though. A CNN national poll released yesterday, found that "A majority of Americans -- 55% -- now say the federal government has done a poor job preventing the spread of coronavirus in the United States, up eight points in about a week... A majority, 52%, say they disapprove of the way Trump is handling the coronavirus outbreak, and 45% approve. Both figures have risen since early March, when 41% approved, 48% disapproved and 11% weren't sure how they felt about the President's handling of the viral outbreak. Still, just 43% say the President is doing everything he could to fight the outbreak, while 55% say he could be doing more-- including 17% among those who approve of his handling of it so far and 18% of Republicans."

Not Alive-- But Smarter Than A Republican by Chip Proser

Daniel McGraw, writing for the conservative #NeverTrump website, The Bulwark took a look at how the response to the pandemic is impacting the politics of Nevada, Michigan and Georgia. He wrote that it's too early to know for sure if voters will see Trump as "an inept bungler who made a deadly crisis worse."

Nevada, which has an economy heavily dependent on travel and tourism, has had more than 170,000 new unemployment claims in the past three weeks, which is about one-third of the number of employees statewide in the hospitality industry. In Georgia, the number of new unemployment claims jumped from about 12,000 (for the week ending March 21) to about 134,000 (for the week ending March 28).

As for Michigan, the state now reports the third-highest number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in the country, chiefly because of Detroit, which is currently a hotspot. The state has seen close to 450,000 in new unemployment claims in the last three weeks, adding to its unemployment rolls at rates that far exceed even the hardest stretches of the Great Recession of a dozen years ago.

Plus, Michigan is still wedded to the automobile industry. Industry observers expect auto sales to drop a lot from “demand shock,” meaning sales of cars will be down because economic uncertainty will lead the public to delay large purchases. This will have a huge effect on the economy in a state that is home to some 1,600 automotive-related manufacturing companies.

According to a recent analysis from the Brookings Institution, jobs in the leisure and hospitality sector are among those most at risk during the coronavirus outbreak. Combined, the three large cities in these three states-- Las Vegas, Atlanta, and Detroit-- have about 1.1 million people employed in leisure and hospitality, making up fairly big percentages of the workforce in those cities: Las Vegas at 33.8 percent, Atlanta at 18.8 percent, and Detroit at 15.4 percent.

These cities will likely suffer greater economic downsizing than will most big cities in the rest of the country. The electoral consequences are not clear, however. Although economic downturns are generally not good for incumbents, no one knows whether the poorer individuals who lose their jobs will show up and vote in November. Nor can we guess how many of these individuals who lost their jobs will still be living in the same states come November.

The health research done by the University of Washington (reportedly used as a model for White House policy decisions) predicts that by then end of May, all three states will have several times as many deaths as they have now: Michigan is projected to have nearly 3,000 deaths, Georgia about 3,400, and Nevada about 900. The researchers also expect that all three states will experience shortages of hospital beds: Michigan is projected to be short about 910 ICU beds, Georgia about 740, and Nevada about 300. These figures are in flux, however, as just last week the predicted hospital bed shortages were much higher.

One more part of the COVID-19 crisis that might have an impact in the election: Recent data suggests that the coronavirus is disproportionately affecting African Americans in some places. For example, African Americans make up 14 percent of the population of Michigan but over 40 percent of the state’s COVID-19 deaths so far. This could affect the election-- not just in Michigan but also in Nevada and Georgia, other states with higher-than-the-national-average minority populations-- if it comes to be seen as a racial issue that drives urban-area voter turnout.

...Because the city’s convention center is being converted into a field hospital, the huge annual Detroit auto show has been canceled, and the more than 700,000 attendees won’t be dropping any coin in the Motor City in June.

Meanwhile, Trump has been playing an odd game with Michigan citizens. In late March, he attacked GM CEO Mary Barra over how the company will be making ventilators and surgical masks at its plants. GM said it was waiting on directions from FEMA, and Trump said the company was been dragging its feet.

“Why is the president only attacking us? What are other automakers doing? Who else has a plant ready to go? Strange he is attacking us,” said a GM insider quoted anonymously in the Detroit Free Press. “We are, by far, ahead of anyone else. [Trump] is a master of diverting blame to others. We are not dragging our feet. And we are not negotiating with the government.”

But Trump’s insults to Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer go beyond his usual craziness. When Whitmer, a Democrat who won the 2018 governor’s race by more than 400,000 votes, began asking the feds for more masks, ventilators, test kits, and other aid, Trump insulted her at press conferences and on Twitter:

This set off a firestorm in the state. Longtime Detroit columnist Mitch Albom closed his scathing March 29 Free Press column this way:

We don’t need presidential name-calling. We don’t need disrespect. We don’t need the most powerful person in the nation, whom we helped elect to his job, refusing to return our governor’s calls and acting like a pouting child waiting to be asked nicely before he shares his toys.

Now is not the time to be a child, Mr. President. Now is the time to put away childish things. To be a man. You can begin by respecting a woman. Her name is Gretchen Whitmer. She is our governor. And like her or not, she represents us to you. She counts. We count. Please, at least act like you understand that.

Trump’s behavior toward Michigan is strange enough that it makes you wonder whether he fully understands that he needs to win the state to secure a second term.

In 2016, Trump narrowly bested Hillary in Michigan-- 2,279,543 (47.50%) to 2,268,839 (47.27%). Two year later, former state Senator Gretchen Whitmer beat Republican Attorney General Bill Schuette 2,266,193 (53.3%) to 1,859,534 (43.8%). Even Trump should be able to figure out what had happened to the GOP brand since he took the White House. Schuette was endorsed by Trump and Pence, while Whitmer was backed by Obama, Bernie, Biden and Hillary. Whitmer raised just over $7 million and Schuette raised a bit over $6 million. Democrats swept the state and also managed to win Schuette's old job as Attorney General and win the Secretary of State open job. The Morning Consult Trump tracker shows that by the end of December-- so pre-pandemic-- Trump's approval rating in Michigan had decreased by 18 points. In December his jon approval was 43%-- and his disapproval was 53%. His dreadful pandemic response and his vicious and misogynistic attacks on Gov. Whitmer is not going to help raise those numbers.

UPDATE: No Confidence

A SurveyUSA poll released this morning, is even worse for Trump and his Republican enablers. In summation, the pollster wrote that "After 3 weeks of listening to America's cheerleader-in-chief rant and ramble, the number of Americans who strongly disapprove of the way in which President Donald J. Trump is handling the COVID-19 Coronavirus crisis has jumped from 25% on 03/20/20 to 38% today... 3 weeks ago, Trump's Net Virus Approval was Plus 11. Then it dropped 2 weeks ago to Plus 9. Today it drops into negative territory for the 1st time: Minus 2 (48% approve, 50% disapprove), the lowest net score since SurveyUSA began tracking 03/13/20. America's growing impatience with the President is in stark contrast to how the nation views straight-shooters such as Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Fauci's handling of the virus is today at Plus 59, up from Plus 51 2 weeks ago."

While Democratic governors Andrew Cuomo (+39) and Gavin Newsom (+36) are both also way into positive territory-- although the greasy Cuomo is beginning to slip-- Trump ally Ron DeSantis (FL) is underwater for his pandemic response (minus 5).

Extraordinarily in a time of crisis, Americans are split over whether to pay any attention to the so-called Leader of the Free World. 42% of Americans today say it's best to ignore Trump when he opens his mouth about the virus; another 42% say they listen when the President speaks. This is a 14-point turn for the worse over the past 2 weeks: then, 49% said it was better to listen, 35% said it was better to ignore. There is a 21-point gender gap on this question.

When all is said and done, 48% today say they have no confidence in President Trump's ability to lead the nation through these trying times; 43% say they do have confidence. This is another 14-point turn for the worse from 2 weeks ago, when 50% had confidence and 41% did not.

Trump Is Handling The Pandemic As Badly As Any Deranged Narcissist Would

During his coronavirus briefing today, Trump blamed hospitals-- where doctors and nurses are literally dying trying to save patients-- for selling ventilators and masks (which is, of course, exactly what he would do himself). "It’s a New York hospital, very-- it’s packed all the time. How do you go from 10 to 20 thousand masks per week to 300,000? Ten thousand to 20,000 masks, to 300,000-- even though this is different? Something is going on, and you ought to look into it as reporters. Are they going out the back door?" He's a monster. Writing for the Daily Beast this afternoon, Rick Wilson noted that "Trump’s handling of the Coronavirus has veered between tragicomic and insidious in the past weeks. Disturbingly-- and even now, it’s disturbing-- all while still leaving him seemingly unmoved by the brutal realities facing us in the coming months. He’s made a few pro-forma nods to the deaths to date and to come, but expressed no genuine human sympathy for either the dead or the army of heroic doctors, nurses, EMTs in viral war zones in almost every hospital in the nation. Nothing changes him. Nothing moves him unless it gives him adulation, money, or an erection." CNN caught him lying his ass off all through the briefing.

Yesterday, the Washington Post published a piece by their DC-based health reporter, Amy Goldstein, Desperate for medical equipment, states encounter a beleaguered national stockpile, about a previously unreported shouting match in the White House Situation Room between broke out between Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and an unnamed Office of Management and Budget official. "Azar," she reported, "had asked OMB that morning for $2 billion to buy respirator masks and other supplies for a depleted federal stockpile of emergency medical equipment, according to individuals familiar with the request, who spoke on the condition of anonymity about internal discussions. OMB was angry because they claimed that Azar had improperly trespassed on their turf by lobbying Congress for money for what he saw coming, namely the COVID-19 disaster.

The Trump regime peremptorily cut the $2 billion request to a completely inadequate $500 million when the White House eventually sent Congress a supplemental budget request weeks later.

The dispute over funding highlights tensions over a repository straining under demands from state officials. States desperate for materials from the stockpile are encountering a beleaguered system beset by years of underfunding, changing lines of authority, confusion over the allocation of supplies and a lack of transparency from the administration, according to interviews with state and federal officials and public health experts.

The stockpile holds masks, drugs, ventilators and other items in secret sites around the country. It has become a source of growing frustration for many state and hospital officials who are having trouble buying-- or even locating-- crucial equipment on their own to cope with the illness battering the nation.

...The federal cache has been overwhelmed by urgent requests for masks, respirators, goggles, gloves and gowns in the two months since the first U.S. case of covid-19 was confirmed. Many state officials say they do not understand the standards that determine how much they will receive.

Anecdotally, there are wide differences, and they do not appear to follow discernible political or geographic lines. Democratic-leaning Massachusetts, which has had a serious outbreak in Boston, has received 17 percent of the protective gear it requested, according to state leaders. Maine requested a half-million N95 specialized protective masks and received 25,558-- about 5 percent of what it sought. The shipment delivered to Colorado-- 49,000 N95 masks, 115,000 surgical masks and other supplies-- would be “enough for only one full day of statewide operations,” Rep. Scott R. Tipton (R-CO) told the White House in a letter several days ago.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency inherited control of the stockpile barely a week ago from HHS. Lizzie Litzow, a FEMA spokeswoman, acknowledged the agency maintains a spreadsheet tracking each state’s request and shipments. Litzow declined repeated requests to release the details, saying the numbers are in flux.

Florida has been an exception in its dealings with the stockpile: The state submitted a request on March 11 for 430,00 surgical masks, 180,000 N95 respirators, 82,000 face shields and 238,000 gloves, among other supplies-- and received a shipment with everything three days later, according to figures from the state’s Division of Emergency Management. It received an identical shipment on March 23, according to the division, and is awaiting a third.

“The governor has spoken to the president daily, and the entire congressional delegation has been working as one for the betterment of the state of Florida,” said Jared Moskowitz, the emergency management division’s director. “We are leaving no stone unturned.”

President Trump repeatedly has warned states not to complain about how much they are receiving, including Friday during a White House briefing, where he advised Vice President Pence not to call governors who are critical of the administration’s response. “I want them to be appreciative,” he said.

At briefings, Trump and Pence routinely say material is being purchased for the stockpile, supplies are being shipped out and manufacturers under federal contract are ramping up supplies. On Thursday, Pence said the stockpile had shipped 9 million N95 masks and 20 million surgical masks, as well as “millions” of gloves, gowns and face shields.

But Trump and Pence also urge states to buy supplies on their own. During the March 19 briefing, Trump said governors “are supposed to be doing a lot of this work... You know, we’re not a shipping clerk.”

State officials say the advice is unrealistic.

“Allowing the free market to determine availability and pricing is not the way we should be dealing with this national crisis at this time,” said Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D). “This is why we need a nationally led response.”

Leaders in the District, Maryland and Virginia say their requests for aid from the stockpile have come up short. They have been competing with their counterparts to try to buy gear on the open market.

“The federal government has the keys to the front door,” said Nirav Shah, Maine’s state health officer and director of its own Center for Disease Control and Prevention. He said the state has been scouring the country and overseas for companies that can supply protective masks. The stockpile, he said, is a critical “leg of the stool.”

Hospital industry executives agree.

“There is no [protective gear] to be bought on the private market through vendors,” said Kevin Donovan, president of Lakes Regional HealthCare, which has two hospitals in central New Hampshire. “We order but don’t have any money to pay for it,” because companies manufacturing masks and other emergency gear are demanding cash payments on delivery. Donovan said his hospitals, like others, are low on cash because they have canceled the elective procedures that are their moneymakers.

“Unless we start getting material from the national stockpile,” Donovan said, “I don’t know where we are going to get it.”

...HHS officials have sparred for more than a year with White House budget officials over money to buy more stockpile supplies.

In February 2019, the White House was planning for a presidential executive order on preparing for a potential flu pandemic. HHS requested a more than $11 billion investment over 10 years for ASPR, including $2.7 billion for “treatment and control,” according to a document read by a Washington Post reporter that said some of those funds would go toward “better protective devices, manufactured faster.”

But the executive order issued by Trump in September 2019 did not include that money.

In late January, Azar began telling OMB about the need for a supplemental budget request for stockpile supplies-- and was rebuffed at a time when the White House did not yet acknowledge any supplemental money would be needed, according to several individuals familiar with the situation who spoke anonymously to discuss internal conversations.

...In mid-March, Trump declared the coronavirus outbreak a national emergency. As a result, control of the stockpile shifted again-- from HHS to FEMA.

Since then, FEMA’s administrator, Peter Gaynor, has been asked frequently how many supplies have been shipped to states and how allocation decisions are being made.

To a question about masks from ABC News on March 22, Gaynor replied, “Well, I mean, there’s hundreds of, thousands of, millions of things that we’re shipping from the stockpile. I mean, I can’t give you the details about what every single state, of what every single city’s doing.”

State officials and federal lawmakers are demanding to know.

“We don’t know how the federal government is making those decisions,” said Casey Katims, the federal liaison for Washington state, the site of the nation’s first confirmed case on Jan. 21 and of an early deadly cluster at a nursing home.

Since the state made the first of several requests-- 233,000 respirators and 200,000 surgical masks-- the supplies have been arriving piecemeal and without any explanation of the numbers.

The state is now awaiting more, including a plea for 1,000 ventilators, and has been told 500 are en route, Katims said.

The Minnesota congressional delegation wrote on March 22 to Azar, also perplexed: “How is HHS determining which states receive certain medical supplies? When will Minnesota receive the full order of medical supplies that state officials have requested?"

The next day, the chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), sent a letter to HHS and the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA. The letter demanded to know the stockpile’s inventory of protective gear and ventilators, how much has been distributed, how the allocations are being made and how much is on order from manufacturers.

Explanations of the decision-making process have been inconsistent.

Gaynor told the homeland security committee during a conference call, according to Thompson’s letter, that states would be receiving protective gear based on each state’s population and that state needs would be factored in. The letter did not provide further detail.

While the stockpile still was under HHS as the virus began spreading in the United States, the department for the first time used a formula, according to individuals familiar with the system. Under that formula, 25 percent of a state’s requests were fulfilled based on its population and 25 percent on its number of covid-19 cases. The remaining supplies were held back so the stockpile would not be depleted.

These individuals said that, even before FEMA took over, the formula had changed again to put more emphasis on need.

Asked to explain the current process, a statement from FEMA on Wednesday said, “The allocation process of PPE (personal protective equipment) to states is now focused on meeting future demand models where patient levels are expected to strain state and local medical conditions in coming weeks.” Asked which models FEMA is relying on, Litzow said Thursday, “future modeling is mostly based off of data from HHS and CDC that is continually updated as more information about this emerging disease becomes available.”

For the coronavirus outbreak, California has asked for 20 million N95 respirators-- more than the stockpile’s entire inventory, estimated at about 12 million.

California has received 358,381 N95 masks and about 1 million surgical masks and face shields, according to the governor’s office. The state is now scouting the global market. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has noted that California is in a better position because its size gives it purchasing leverage.

California officials said they welcomed FEMA’s involvement because they already had a strong working relationship with the agency after months of fighting the state’s catastrophic wildfires.

Minnesota’s manager of public health emergency preparedness, Deborah Radi, said FEMA has been clearer about stockpile deliveries than HHS. She said her state’s first shipment from the stockpile had arrived one night at 1 a.m., when the state’s warehouse to receive it was closed. When FEMA handled a more recent delivery of protective gear, she said, it alerted the state about a delay and then again when the truck was one hour away.

States continue to press their cases with federal officials. They point out the severity of the outbreak in their state, or the vulnerability of their population. As of mid-March, West Virginia had not reported a confirmed case, but it has one of the nation’s oldest populations. It received an initial shipment of slightly more than 1 percent of its request for 160,000 masks-- 2,220 N95s.

Trump’s warnings for states not to complain have not subdued Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D), who has been particularly outspoken during the crisis. Illinois has received 10 percent of the N95s and surgical masks it has requested from the stockpile.

“I will continue to pound the table to get the federal government to acquire the supplies our states so critically need and allocate them accordingly,” Pritzker tweeted on Tuesday. “Lives depend upon it.”

Robert Mackey, reporting for The Intercept Friday, noted that in exchange for aid, Trump is demanding praise from governors he can use in campaign ads, a low even for him. "As he increasingly tries to shovel blame for the shortage of medical supplies onto the governors of states with densely populated areas that are suffering the most from the coronavirus pandemic, President Donald Trump was asked on Friday what more he wants them to do. It was, he said, 'very simple: I want them to be appreciative.' Trump singled out two Democratic governors in particular for criticism: Jay Inslee of Washington and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan. After mocking Inslee for failing to catch on as a presidential candidate, Trump faulted the governor battling one of the nation’s most deadly outbreaks for 'constantly chirping-- I guess complaining would be a nice way of saying it.'... The president also attacked Whitmer, for the second day running-- apparently still miffed that she told MSNBC ten days ago that 'the federal government did not take this seriously early enough, and now it is on us to do everything we can.' Michigan’s governor, Trump said, has no idea of what’s going on. He then launched into the sort of broad imitation of a female rival’s voice that was a staple of his act during the 2016 campaign. 'All she does is say, Oh, it’s the federal government’s fault,' the president said."

Trump spoke as the number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Michigan spiked on Friday, to more than 3,600, triple what it was on Monday. The day before, Dr. Deborah Birx, a retired Army Colonel advising the White House, had identified Michigan’s Wayne County, which includes Detroit, as a potential hot spot for new infections.

While Trump maintained that he was not expecting the governors to be appreciative of just his efforts, but those of the federal government he leads-- which, he claimed, “has done a hell of a job”-- his monologue eventually returned to his discontent with their lack of personal gratitude to him. “We have done a job the likes of which nobody’s seen,” Trump said. “I think they should be appreciative, because you know what, when they’re not appreciative to me, they’re not appreciative to the Army Corps, they’re not appreciative to FEMA, it’s not right.”

Trump contrasted those two Democratic governors, who have been blunt about the federal government’s failings, with two others who have appealed to the president’s vanity in an attempt to get his help. Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York, has been “appreciative,” Trump said. Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, had also spoken well of him, Trump noted. “I appreciate his nice words,” the president said. “I really appreciate it.”

Trump’s choice of those two governors was probably not coincidental. Earlier on Friday, his reelection campaign unveiled a schmaltzy new ad [with Gavin Newsom sucking his cock live on video]-- entitled, of all things, Hope-- that cast his response to the pandemic in heroic terms, and featured video of both governors praising him.





While Trump approved Newsom’s request to declare the coronavirus outbreak in California a major disaster within hours of the governor asking on Sunday, freeing federal funds, the president failed to respond to a similar request from Whitmer on Thursday. Instead, he belittled her in an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News Thursday night. “We’ve had a big problem with the young, a woman governor from-- you know who I’m talking about-- from Michigan,” Trump told Hannity. “She is a new governor and it’s not been pleasant.”

“She doesn’t get it done, and we send her a lot,” Trump complained. “Now she wants a declaration of emergency and, you know, we’ll have to make a decision on that,” Trump said.

Whitmer responded to Trump appearing to not even know her name with a Twitter plea for the personal protective equipment and other medical equipment the state desperately needs from the national strategic stockpile. “Hi, my name is Gretchen Whitmer, and that governor is me,” she wrote. “I’ve asked repeatedly and respectfully for help. We need it. No more political attacks, just PPEs, ventilators, N95 masks, test kits. You said you stand with Michigan-- prove it.”

The governor told WWJ-AM in Detroit on Friday morning that she had been trying to get on the phone with Trump at about the same time he was lambasting her in a call to Hannity. “I reached out to the White House last night, asked for a phone call with the president,” she said, but never heard back.

Earlier in the week, Whitmer told a local radio station that one hospital in her state had received a shipment from the federal government last week with just 747 masks, 204 gowns, 64 face shields and 40,467 gloves. “With the exception of the gloves, that allotment of PPE didn’t cover one shift,” she said.

On Friday, the governor told CNN that, after Trump had asked governors to procure their own medical supplies, her state had placed a large number of orders-- only to be told later by suppliers that they had been instructed to send the items to the federal government instead.

A short time later, Trump used the White House briefing on the public health emergency to vent more at Whitmer and Inslee. He concluded his rant by saying that he had advised Vice President Mike Pence, the head of his coronavirus task force, to not even bother speaking with them. “I say, ‘Mike, don’t call the governor of Washington, you’re wasting your time with him. Don’t call the woman in Michigan,” the president said.

“If they don’t treat you right, I don’t call,” Trump said of refusing to speak to the governors of two American states during a global pandemic.

Before calling it a day on Friday, Trump approved major disaster declarations for South Carolina and Puerto Rico, but not Michigan.

He then took out his iPhone and tried to escape blame for the outbreak in Michigan, which has already killed 92 people, by tweeting insults at the governor. “I love Michigan, one of the reasons we are doing such a GREAT job for them during this horrible Pandemic,” the president wrote. “Yet your Governor, Gretchen ‘Half’ Whitmer is way in over her head, she doesn’t have a clue. Likes blaming everyone for her own ineptitude!”

Trump’s apparent demand that the governors of U.S. states do him a political favor, though-- by praising his response to the crisis on television, in exchange for him unlocking federal aid-- strongly echoed the scheme he was impeached for last year. In that case, Trump withheld aid from Ukraine to coerce its president into agreeing to go on CNN and announce a sham investigation of Joe Biden, his likely rival in the November election.

In fact, the situation with Michigan’s governor is almost identical to a hypothetical the legal scholar Pamela Karlan asked members of the Judiciary Committee to consider during the impeachment hearings in December.

“Imagine living in a part of Louisiana or Texas that’s prone to devastating hurricanes and flooding,” Karlan said. “What would you think if you lived there, and your governor asked for a meeting with the president to discuss getting disaster aid that Congress has provided for-- what would you think, if that President said, ‘I would like you to do us a favor. I’ll meet with you, and I’ll send the disaster relief once you brand my opponent a criminal.”

“Wouldn’t you know in your gut that such a president had abused his office,” Karlan asked, “that he’d betrayed the national interest and that he was trying to corrupt the electoral process?”

Update: Saturday, March 28, 5:55 p.m. EDT

On Saturday afternoon, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer reported on Twitter that she had spoken with Vice President Mike Pence and thanked the White House for declaring a major disaster declaration for Michigan, freeing up federal assistance for the state, two days after it was requested. She also thanked the FEMA for a new shipment of 112,000 N95 masks to her state’s emergency operations center.

AND... ANOTHER UPDATE

This one is an update to a post from last Wednesday about how the scurrilous and deranged Jerry Falwell had opened the doors of Liberty University up again. I don't understand why the state of Virginia allowed him to get away with it but now some the future little fascists have tested positive and have been infecting other Liberty University students. Presumably Lynchburg, Virginia will soon be another COVID-19 hotspot. About half the students who returned have now fled, some, no doubt, bringing the disease with them back to Tennessee, Mississippi, Kansas and to other places full of evangelicals. Keep in mind that Falwell spent months derided the pandemic as an "overreaction" driven by liberal desires to damage Señor Trumpanzee.

“We think it’s irresponsible for so many universities to just say ‘closed, you can’t come back,’ push the problem off on other communities and sit there in their ivory towers,” Mr. Falwell said on Wednesday on a radio show hosted by a far-right conspiracy theorist, Todd Starnes.

“We’re conservative, we’re Christian, and therefore we’re being attacked,” he said.

...Mr. Falwell echoes Mr. Trump’s talking points on the coronavirus, which he often calls the “flu.”

“It’s just strange to me how many are overreacting” to the pandemic, Mr. Falwell said on Fox & Friends on March 10. “It makes you wonder if there is a political reason for that. Impeachment didn’t work and the Mueller report didn’t work and Article 25 didn’t work, and so maybe now this is their next attempt to get Trump.”

...Lynchburg is particularly ill-prepared to become a hot spot. Hospitals in the region have a total of 1,174 beds, only 55 of them intensive care, according to a recent analysis by the Harvard Global Health Institute. Those must serve 217,000 adults, nearly 50,000 of whom are 65 or older. Tests for the coronavirus remain in short supply.

Mr. Falwell has played down the dangers of his decision in interviews with the news media, where he has even suggested that the coronavirus is a North Korean bioweapon. On Fox News, he blithely asserted that the cure rate for Covid-19 “is 99.7 percent for people under 50,” adding that “We have talked to medical professionals, numerous medical professionals, before we made this decision.”

An archived version of Liberty’s website said those medical professionals included the school’s own public health faculty and campus health providers, as well as “Dr. Jeffrey Hyman of Northwell Health, New York’s largest health care provider.”

When contacted by the New York Times, Northwell Health denied that Dr. Hyman provided any formal guidance to Liberty, adding that he is not an infectious disease specialist. In a statement, the hospital system said that Dr. Hyman was a personal friend of the Falwell family, who told them in private conversation “that reconvening classes would be a ‘bad idea.’”