Gavin Newsom Rose To The Occasion-- While Trump Is Looking For Ways To Use The Cover Of The Pandemic Emergency To Push The Country Further Right

I'm not a big Gavin Newsom fan-- to put it mildly-- but he finally did what every governor needs to do and what that dumbass, predator in the White House needs to do, to begin the process that will flatten the curve enough to actually confront the pandemic in the U.S Newsom issued the statewide stay-at-home order that could save millions of lives. It took guts, guts other governors-- not to mention the cowardly Trump-- have not exhibited. Half steps won't do it. As Singapore and Taiwan showed (and perhaps China), total societal shutdowns work; half steps, like in Italy and Spain, just let the virus run wild and infect everyone.

So, while Señor Trumpanzee is still all about his deadly Don't Test/Don't Tell agenda-- like asking states to abstain from releasing surging unemployment-claims figures, Newsom took the steps needed and that Trump will have to take eventually-- unless he dies first.

So what stays open in California?

• Gas stations
• Pharmacies
• Food: Grocery stores, farmers markets, food banks, convenience stores, take-out and delivery restaurants
• Banks
• Laundromats/laundry services

Everything else is closed. Brain-dead GOP minority leader and congressman from Bakersfield, Kevin McCarthy, already attacked the order on Fox News. Newsom: "There is a social contract here. People, I think, recognize the need to do more and to meet this moment. People will self regulate their behavior. They’ll begin to adjust and adapt as they have been quite significantly. We will have social pressure, and that will encourage to do the right thing, and just, to nod and look, and say, 'Hey, maybe you should reconsider being out there on the beach, or 22-strong at a park.'" He also said that he projects that "roughly 56 percent of our population-- 25.5 million people-- will be infected with the virus over an eight week period." (Worst case scenario.)

So what was Trump doing while Newsom was making the correct decision for California and showing the guts to do it? The NY Times reported that Under the Virus’s Cloak, Trump Pursues Long-Sought Policies. Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Annie Karni wrote that "from border controls to anti-union efforts, the Trump administration is using the coronavirus to seek policies that the president wanted before the pandemic." And that includes "the stonewalling of congressional oversight."

And across the government, departments have been citing the “whole of government” response to the pandemic as they push through the same policies they sought before the crisis. Just this week during a coronavirus briefing, Mr. Trump said his administration would use authority granted to the surgeon general to immediately turn away those who crossed the border illegally.

At the Agriculture Department, officials said they were teaming up with companies like PepsiCo to quickly deliver food boxes to students in rural areas, although Congress has repeatedly rejected the Trump administration’s push for such meals, arguing that they contained low-quality food without healthy alternatives.

Administration officials insist that such long-sought policies are necessary to stem the outbreak. But opportunism is clearly in play.

...[T]he Federal Labor Relations Authority published a little-noticed rule that would make it easier for federal workers to stop the withholding of their union dues, saying it would increase wages at a time of economic crisis. Everett Kelley, the national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, called the proposed rule “just another in a series of activist steps the F.L.R.A. has taken to advance this administration’s goal of busting unions.”

Mr. Kelley said it was “disgraceful” that the administration would push forward with the rule “in the midst of a pandemic” that depended on federal employees like caregivers at the Veterans Affairs Department, airport screeners and food inspectors, all of whom are performing their jobs under hazardous conditions.

...Some lawmakers said the crisis was presenting the administration with a mixed bag of policies that furthered its agenda, and ones that ran counter to it.

“They’re exploiting it for their ideological purposes, but they’re also having to simply acquiesce on traditional Democratic and progressive values as well,” said Representative Gerald E. Connolly, Democrat of Virginia. He noted that Republicans and Mr. Trump had been forced to support paid family leave, as well as the largest stimulus bill in history in a rush, “signing into law things they have historically opposed.”