Remember, There Are Innocent People In Red States Who Do NOT Deserve To Die

The extreme-right moron governors of Georgia and Florida finally-- way too late to save their citizens-- ordered statewide lockdowns Wednesday. Last time I looked there were still a dozen states where governors have refused to order lockdowns-- all red Trump states led by extremely cowardly politicians:

• Alabama-- Kay Ivey (R)
• Arkansas-- Asa Hutchinson (R)
• Iowa-- Kim Reynolds (R)
• Missouri-- Mike Parson (R)
• Nebraska-- Pete Ricketts (R)
• North Dakota-- Doug Burgum (R)
• Oklahoma-- Kevin Stitt (R)
• South Carolina-- Henry McMaster (R)
• South Dakota-- Kristi Noem (R)
• Texas-- Greg Abbott (R)
• Utah-- Gary Herbert (R)
• Wyoming-- Mark Gordon (R)

The U.S. can't start counting the 8 weeks it takes to flatten the curve until all these dozen states are also in lockdown. These right-wing baboons are threatening all of our lives. Before you start wishing that all their citizens die, please remember that though they all voted for Trump and all still support Trump, there are several million people in these dozen states who voted against Trump. They don't deserve to die. Is there enough lamb's blood to save them all when the Angel of Death comes for a visit? Hillary voters by state:

• Alabama-- 729,547 (34.36%)
• Arkansas-- 380,494 (33.65%)
• Iowa-- 653,669 (41.74%)
• Missouri-- 1,071,068 (38.14%)
• Nebraska-- 284,494 (33.70%)
• North Dakota-- 93,758 (27.23%)
• Oklahoma-- 420,375 (28.93%)
• South Carolina-- 855,373 (40.67%)
• South Dakota-- 117,458 (31.74%)
• Texas-- 3,877,868 (43.24%)
• Utah-- 310,676 (27.46%) + 243,690 (21.54%) for Evan McMullin)
• Wyoming-- 55,973 (21.63%)

The April Fool's Day issue of Politico magazine ranked the best and worst governors based on their pandemic leadership roles. I agree that both the best and worst were both Republicans--Ohio's Mike DeWine as most courageous and Trump Florida ass-licker Ron DeSantis as the one most deserving a prison sentence. Bill Scher wrote that with Señor Trumpanzee "unable or unwilling to play the part of a national unifier or to take decisive action to curb the spread of the coronavirus, the leadership we normally expect from the Oval Office has instead come from state executives throughout the nation-- or not." He framed the question he set out the answer: "Which governors have done a better job at meeting the moment, by acting decisively and boosting morale? And which have missed the moment, dragged their feet and succumbed to petty squabbling?" And, unlike any of the TV talking heads, he nailed it on TV-actor-playing-a hero Andrew Cuomo:

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has received the lion’s share of attention, as his informative and emotive press conferences have made him an overnight national political star, albeit halfway through his third term. But his record in responding to the crisis is more complicated than the sheen lets on: his coronavirus containment policies were not the most aggressive in the country, and did not prevent catastrophe. He hesitated to close all schools statewide even as other states began to do so, and resisted a statewide stay-at-home order for a few days before relenting.

Here's his list of the best. He's wrong about Newsom, who also dragged his feet except in the superficial areas Cuomo also looked good in. The 6 Bay Area counties did great while Newsom and Garcetti hid under their beds shivering that if they made the wrong move, they'd never be a presidential contenders. From most best to less best:

• Mike DeWine (R-OH)- "[N]o single governor has done more to put the nation on a war footing in the fight against coronavirus than DeWine, whose actions have contributed to Ohio’s relatively modest number of cases... On March 12, even though Ohio had yet to suffer a major outbreak of Covid-19, DeWine called for the statewide closure of public schools-- the first governor in the nation to do so, forcing most of his fellow governors to recognize they had to follow suit, and fast.
• Gavin Newsom (D-CA)
• Jay Inslee (D-WA)
• Larry Hogan (R-MD)- another mistake by Scher-- he was needlessly slow and doesn't deserve to be on this list.
• Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI)
• Wanda Vazquez (NPP-Puerto Rico)

And now the half dozen worst, although Scher left off some real doozies-- like for example, illegitimate Georgia Republican Brian Kemp who claimed stupidity for his weeks of inaction. "[H]e reversed course Wednesday as a growing number of other Republican governors, including the leaders of Florida, South Carolina and Texas, instituted broader limits on mobility and shuttered more businesses to try to counter the disease. He said his decision was triggered by "game-changing” new projections on the disease’s spread in Georgia. He also said he was informed of new data that this virus 'is now transmitting before people see signs. Those individuals could have been infecting people before they ever felt' symptoms, he said. 'We didn’t know that until the last 24 hours.'" Maybe he didn't, but everyone else on planet earth did. So here's Scher's list from worst to not as terrible:

• Ron DeSantis (R-FL)- "DeSantis is one of Trump’s favorite governors and a potential 2024 presidential prospect. But he has made a bad first impression on the rest of the country by failing to fully shut down Florida’s beaches before or after they were overrun with partiers on spring break, many of whom then traveled home to locations throughout the United States. He also resisted making a statewide stay-at-home order until finally relenting on Wednesday-- in the wake of intense pressure from Florida Democrats, and televised comments Wednesday morning by the surgeon general urging all governors to get their residents to stay at home. Before that point, his seemingly toughest measure was issuing a quarantine for travelers coming from the New York City tri-state area or Louisiana, but the focus on hot spots ignores all the community spread inside Florida and in other states. Florida already has nearly 7,000 confirmed cases, ranking it 17th among the states on a per capita basis. Earlier, DeSantis justified eschewing broader measures. 'We’re also in a situation where we have counties who have no community spread,' he said on March 19. 'We have some counties that don’t have a single positive test yet.' But everything we have experienced strongly suggests you don't want to wait until you have community spread before taking strong action. DeSantis may still be helped by Trump, who may be giving Florida preferential treatment. According to the Washington Post, other governors have had difficulty getting supplies from the Strategic National Stockpile, but not DeSantis. And Trump has been influenced by DeSantis’ argument that some social distancing measures are too harmful to the economy. The Post quoted an anonymous White House official, who explained, 'The president knows Florida is so important for his reelection, so when DeSantis says that, it means a lot. He pays close attention to what Florida wants.'" I would just like to add that DeSantis is still working actively to kill Florida seniors. He is absolutely the worst governor in America.

• Tate Reeves (R-MS)- "Aside from its next-door neighbor Louisiana, Mississippi is the Southern state with the most confirmed Covid-19 cases on a per capita basis. Yet Reeves has made a hash out of the response. As Mississippi’s localities began issuing stay-at-home edicts, Reeves issued his own order on March 24, broadly defining what business and social activity is 'essential'-- including religious services-- and declared any order from any other 'governing body' which conflicts with the state order to be 'suspended and unenforceable.'"





• Kevin Stitt (R-OK)- "On March 14, Stitt tweeted a picture of his family eating at a restaurant, as if he deserved an award for defying the coronavirus panic. 'It’s packed tonight!' he enthusiastically shared, but facing blowback, later deleted the post... Oklahoma’s rate of infection is intensifying, and testing is minimal. Stitt is not the only governor who has hesitated to implement stiff restrictions, but he may become a case study of the pitfalls of glib social media use in a time of crisis."

• David Ige (D-HI)- "Ige tapped his Lieutenant Governor Josh Green to play a key role in the state’s response to coronavirus. Green is an emergency room doctor, so his calls for strict travel restrictions and quarantines on arrivals carried great weight. But once Green publicly pushed for strong measures, Ige cut him out of the loop, instructing Cabinet officials not to consult with Green, and keeping Green out of his press conferences."

• Kay Ivey (R-AL)- "Ivey sounded a completely different note at a press conference, when she dismissed the idea of a statewide stay-at-home order. 'Y’all, we are not Louisiana, we are not New York state, we are not California,' she said. (Washington Post data journalist Philip Bump warned Ivey that Alabama’s caseload was growing faster than California’s.)"

• Jim Justice (R-WV)- "His lack of experience in crisis management has been glaringly obvious from his discordant statements and actions. On March 16, he was preaching defiance. 'For crying out loud, go to the grocery stores,' Jutice said. 'If you want to go to Bob Evans and eat, go to Bob Evans and eat.' Then, the very next day, he shut down dine-in eating at the state’s restaurants."

Yesterday a 7-person team of NY Times reporters filed a report on the geography of the pandemic response in America. The maps showing citizens ignoring social distancing look eerily-- or predictably-- like the maps of the counties where Trump won in 2016. "Stay-at-home orders," they wrote, "have nearly halted travel for most Americans, but people in Florida, the Southeast and other places that waited to enact such orders have continued to travel widely, potentially exposing more people as the coronavirus outbreak accelerates." Most Americans "in wide swaths of the West, Northeast and Midwest have complied with orders from state and local officials to stay home. Disease experts who reviewed the results say those reductions in travel-- to less than a mile a day, on average, from about five miles-- may be enough to sharply curb the spread of the coronavirus in those regions, at least for now... In areas where public officials have resisted or delayed stay-at-home orders, people changed their habits far less. Though travel distances in those places have fallen drastically, last week they were still typically more than three times those in areas that had imposed lockdown orders, the analysis shows." They offered a list of big population counties across the country where people are spreading COVID-19 willy-nilly. I added the 2016 election results. From worst to less horrible:

• Greenville County, South Carolina- Trump 59.4% to Hillary 34.7%
• Jefferson County, Alabama- Hillary 52.2% to Trump 45.0%
• Duval County, Florida- Trump 49.0% to Hillary 47.5%
• Guilford County, North Carolina- Hillary 58.7% to Trump 38.7%
• Montgomery County, Texas- Trump 74.0% to Hillary 22.5%
• Polk County, Florida- Trump 55.4% to Hillary 41.3%
• Tulsa County, Oklahoma- Trump 58.4% to Hillary 35.6%
• Volusia County, Florida- Trump 54.8% to Hillary 41.8%
• Oklahoma County, Oklahoma- Trump 51.7% to Hillary 41.2%
• Sedgwick County, Kansas- Trump 56.1% to Hillary 36.9%
• Gwinnett County, Georgia- Hillary 51.0% to Trump 45.2%
• Shelby County, Tennessee- Hillary 62.3% to Trump 34.6%
• Brevard County, Florida- Trump 57.8% to Hillary 38.0%
• Salt Lake County, Utah- Hillary 42.8% to Trump 32.6%
• Fresno County, California- Hillary 49.4% to Trump 45.5%
• Utah County, Utah- Trump 51.3% to Hillary 14.0%
• Pasco County, Florida- Trump 58.9% to Hillary 37.4%
• San Bernardino County, California- Hillary 52.2% to Trump 42.4%
• Douglas County, Nebraska- Hillary 47.9% to Trump 46.5%
• Hillsborough County, Florida- Hillary 51.5% to Trump 44.7%

Dr. Fauci has recommended that all 50 states do mandatory lockdowns-- something Trump and his goonish governors don't accept. Last night Trump lied again, this time that airplane and train passengers are being given "very strong tests" for coronavirus both before departure and after arrival. "They’re doing tests on airlines-- very strong tests-- for getting on, getting off. They’re doing tests on trains-- getting on, getting off." He's just flat-out lying-- and endangering the general public.