BOSTON GLOBE EDITORIAL

 A president unfit for a pandemic
Much of the suffering and death coming was preventable. The president has blood on his hands.
By The Editorial Board,Updated March 30, 2020

The president has made grave errors in addressing the coronavirus outbreak. Come November, there must be a reckoning for the lives lost and the suffering endured.

ALEX BRANDON/ASSOCIATED PRESS

“Things fall apart; the center cannot hold,” wrote W.B. Yeats in 1919. A century later, it’s clear: The epicenter cannot hold. Catastrophic decisions in the White House have doomed the world’s richest country to a season of untold suffering.

The United States, long a beacon of scientific progress and medical innovation with its world-class research institutions and hospitals, is now the hub of a global pandemic that has infected at least 745,000 people and already claimed more than 35,000 lives worldwide. Now that the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States — more than 140,000 — has surpassed that of any other nation, Americans are consigned for the coming weeks to watching the illness fell family members and friends, and to fearing for their own fate as they watch death tolls rise.

While the spread of the novel coronavirus has been aggressive around the world, much of the profound impact it will have here in the United States was preventable. As the American public braces itself for the worst of this crisis, it’s worth remembering that the reach of the virus here is not attributable to an act of God or a foreign invasion, but a colossal failure of leadership.

RELATED: The US now has more confirmed cases of coronavirus than any other country. Here’s how we got there

The outbreak that began in China demanded a White House that could act swiftly and competently to protect public health, informed by science and guided by compassion and public service. It required an administration that could quickly deploy reliable tests around the nation to isolate cases and trace and contain the virus’s spread, as South Korea effectively did, as well as to manufacture and distribute scarce medical supplies around the country. It begged for a president of the United States to deliver clear, consistent, scientifically sound messages on the state of the epidemic and its solutions, to reassure the public amid their fear, and to provide steady guidance to cities and states. And it demanded a leader who would put the country’s well-being first, above near-term stock market returns and his own reelection prospects, and who would work with other nations to stem the tide of COVID-19 cases around the world.

What we have instead is a president epically outmatched by a global pandemic. A president who in late January, when the first confirmed coronavirus case was announced in the United States, downplayed the risk and insisted all was under control. A president who, rather than aggressively test all those exposed to the virus, said he’d prefer not to bring ashore passengers on a contaminated cruise ship so as to keep national case numbers (artificially) low. A president who, consistent with his mistrust and undermining of scientific fact, has misled the public about unproven cures for COVID-19, and who baited-and-switched last week about whether the country ought to end social distancing to open up by Easter, and then, on Saturday, about whether he’d impose a quarantine on New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. A president who has pledged to oversee the doling out of the $500 billion in corporate bailout money in the latest stimulus package, some of which will go to the travel industry in which his family is invested. A president who spent a good chunk of a recent press conference complaining about how hard it is for a rich man to serve in the White House even as Americans had already begun to lose their jobs, their health care, and their lives. A president who has reinforced racial stigma by calling the contagion a “Chinese virus” and failed to collaborate adequately with other countries to contain their outbreaks and study the disease. A president who evades responsibility and refuses to acknowledge, let alone own, the bitter truth of National Institutes of Health scientist Dr. Anthony Fauci’s testimony: that the country’s testing rollout was “a failing.”

Timing is everything in pandemic response: It can make the difference between a contained local outbreak that endures a few weeks and an uncontrollable contagion that afflicts millions. The Trump administration has made critical errors over the past two months, choosing early on to develop its own diagnostic test, which failed, instead of adopting the World Health Organization’s test — a move that kneecapped the US coronavirus response and, by most public health experts’ estimation, will cost thousands if not hundreds of thousands of American lives. Rather than making the expected federal effort to mobilize rapidly to distribute needed gowns, masks, and ventilators to ill-equipped hospitals and to the doctors and nurses around the country who are left unprotected treating a burgeoning number of patients, the administration has instead been caught outbidding individual states (including Massachusetts) trying to purchase medical supplies. It has dragged its heels on invoking the Defense Production Act to get scarce, sorely needed ventilators and masks into production so that they can be distributed to hospitals nationwide as they hit their peaks in the cycle of the epidemic. It has left governors and mayors in the lurch, begging for help. The months the administration wasted with prevarication about the threat and its subsequent missteps will amount to exponentially more COVID-19 cases than were necessary. In other words, the president has blood on his hands.

It’s not too much for Americans to ask of their leaders that they be competent and informed when responding to a crisis of historic proportions. Instead, they have a White House marred by corruption and incompetence, whose mixed messages roil the markets and rock their sense of security. Instead of compassion and clarity, the president, in his near-daily addresses to the nation, embodies callousness, self-concern, and a lack of compass. Dangling unverified cures and possible quarantines in front of the public like reality TV cliffhangers, he unsettles rather than reassures. The pandemic reveals that the worst features of this presidency are not merely late-night comedy fodder; they come at the cost of lives, livelihoods, and our collective psyche.

Many pivotal decision points in this crisis are past us, but more are still to come. For our own sake, every American should be hoping for a miraculous turnaround — and that the too-little, too-late strategy of the White House task force will henceforth at least prevent contagion and economic ruin of the grandest scale. But come November, there must be a reckoning for the lives lost, and for the vast, avoidable suffering about to ensue under the president’s watch.

Editorials represent the views of the Boston Globe Editorial Board. Follow us on Twitter at @GlobeOpinion.

Trump blasted as ‘commander of confusion’ in Washington Post review of his coronavirus failures

April 2, 2020 By Bob Brigham

President Donald Trump’s response to the COVID-19 coronavirus was detailed in a new Washington Post story.

“In the three weeks since declaring the novel coronavirus outbreak a national emergency, President Trump has delivered a dizzying array of rhetorical contortions, sowed confusion and repeatedly sought to cast blame on others,” the newspaper reported.

The Fake News Media and their partner, the Democrat Party, is doing everything within its semi-considerable power (it used to be greater!) to inflame the CoronaVirus situation, far beyond what the facts would warrant. Surgeon General, “The risk is low to the average American.”

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 9, 2020

“History has never known a crisis response as strong as his own, Trump says — yet the self-described wartime president claims he is merely backup,” The Post reported. “America is winning its war with the coronavirus, the president says — yet the death toll rises still, and in the best-case scenario more Americans will die than in the wars in Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan and Iraq combined.”

The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA. We are in contact with everyone and all relevant countries. CDC & World Health have been working hard and very smart. Stock Market starting to look very good to me!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 24, 2020

“As Trump has sought to remake his public image from that of a skeptic of the pandemic’s danger to a savior forestalling catastrophe and protecting hundreds of thousands of people from a vicious contagion, he also has distorted the truth, making edits and creating illusions at many turns,” the newspaper noted. “Trump’s machinations have a dogged showman’s quality, using his omnipresence at daily White House news conferences — which sometimes stretch two hours or more and are broadcast to millions — to try to erase memories from his two months of playing down the crisis, sometimes scolding reporters who question his version of events.”

Our CoronaVirus Team has been doing a great job. Even Democrat governors have been VERY complimentary!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 10, 2020

“Message inconsistency has been a feature throughout Trump’s presidency, from his zigzagging positions on foreign and domestic policies to his up-and-down personal relationships and rivalries,” the newspaper noted. “It also is attributable to his lack of ideological conviction, which makes him susceptible to being persuaded by advisers both inside and outside the government, often on the basis of self-interest.”

So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!
Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 9, 2020

Conservative columnist stunned by Trump’s perpetual display of coronavirus ignorance

April 2, 2020 By Sarah K. Burris


Conservative Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin can’t understand why President Donald Trump is always the last one to know or understand something. With so many experts at his fingertips, one would assume that the president of the United States would be the most informed American on any issue facing the country. Yet, somehow Trump is always the last to know and the last to understand.

Rubin compared Trump to Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY), along with almost every other governor, “except the bumbling Ron DeSantis of Florida,” and arguably Govs. Brian Kemp (R-GA), Tate Reeves (R-MS) and Kevin Stitt (R-OK).

“At his or her daily news conference, you will see someone in command of the facts,” Rubin wrote of Cuomo, noting he knows the number of infections, patients, beds, ventilators and discharged people. She explained it’s clear he has a sense of his mission.

Meanwhile, Vanity Fair reported Wednesday that Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner claimed he knows more than the experts.

“‘I have all this data about ICU capacity. I’m doing my own projections, and I’ve gotten a lot smarter about this. New York doesn’t need all the ventilators,’ Kushner said, according to a person present.”

Even RealClearPolitics explained that as of March 18, one out of every four people with a confirmed cases of coronavirus has been hospitalized, and 44 percent of those people need a ventilator. It’s unclear why Kushner can’t do the math, but it translated into the president suggesting a conspiracy is afoot.

“In one way or another, governors are trying to expand the capacities of their health-care systems and use social distancing to slow the progress of infection,” Rubin explained. “Many are begging the feds to be the purchaser of scarce equipment so the 50 states and the Federal Emergency Management Agency aren’t bidding against one another.”

The contrast between the likes of Cuomo and Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) with Trump is stark, and it should “shock and appall us,” Rubin said.

This week, Trump said that his thinking had changed because of the severity of the issue.

“I think also in looking at the way that the contagion is so contagious, nobody’s ever seen anything like this where large groups of people all of a sudden have it just by being in the presence of somebody who has it. The flu has never been like that. . . . Also the violence of it if it hits the right person,” Trump told the press during Wednesday’s briefing.

“The contagion is so contagious. That’s the president of the United States,” Rubin mocked.

This isn’t the first time Trump is hearing this information. Feb. 16, Dr. Anthony Fauci was on “Face The Nation” explaining how contagious the disease was and calling it a pandemic before even the World Health Organization.

“He was warned by experts for weeks that this was highly contagious and that this was not the ordinary flu,” Rubin recalled. “Apparently, he was either not listening or did not understand that “just by being in the presence of somebody who has it” the contagion can, well, be contagious. The mind reels.”

Even Vice President Mike Pence is only slightly better.

"I think that's one of the greatest answers I've ever heard. Because Mike was able to speak for 5 minutes and not even touch your question" — Pence was so evasive in response to a question about health care for uninsured people that even Trump teased him about it pic.twitter.com/ckmoN6EMuX
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 1, 2020

During Wednesday’s press conference, Pence clearly didn’t know or understand that there are Americans without health insurance. As 6.6 million Americans file unemployment claims, those people also lost their health insurance, if they had it to begin with.

“You would think the president and vice president’s abject ignorance would be a source of embarrassment,” Rubin closed. “Nope. They are locked in the right-wing media disinformation bubble. They find out details under duress. Only when things go very badly and their experts are forced to confess bad news do they grudgingly move into the real world. The change in ‘tone’ that too many gullible reporters coo about is the point at which Trump’s lies, disinformation and self-delusion can no longer be sustained. No wonder he looks deflated.”

Read the full column at the Washington Post.

HIS PERSONAL GESTAPO
Leaked memo reveals Trump’s Border Patrol telling agents to simply ignore federal law during coronavirus crisis

April 2, 2020 By Pro Publica

LOOK A BUNCH OF WHITE SUPREMACISTS

HOW COULD THEY NOT BE
by Dara Lind

For the first time since the enactment of the Refugee Act in 1980, people who come to the U.S. saying they fear persecution in their home countries are being turned away by Border Patrol agents with no chance to make a legal case for asylum.

The shift, confirmed in internal Border Patrol guidance obtained by ProPublica, is the upshot of the Trump administration’s hasty emergency action to largely shut down the U.S.-Mexico border over coronavirus fears. It’s the biggest step the administration has taken to limit humanitarian protection for people entering the U.S. without papers.

The Trump administration has created numerous obstacles over recent years for migrants to claim asylum and stay in the United States. But it had not — until now — allowed Border Patrol agents to simply expel migrants with no process whatsoever for hearing their claims.

The administration gave the Border Patrol unchallengeable authority over migrants seeking asylum by invoking a little-known power given to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. public health agency, to ban the entry of people or things that might spread “infectious disease” in the U.S. The CDC on March 20 barred entry of people without proper documentation, on the logic that they could be unexamined carriers of the disease and out of concern about the effects if the novel coronavirus swept through Customs and Border Protection holding facilities.

U.S. immigration law requires the government to allow people expressing a “well-founded” fear of persecution or torture to be allowed to pursue legal status in the United States. The law also requires the government to grant status to anyone who shows they likely face persecution if returned to their homeland.

“The Trump administration’s new rule and CDC order do not trump U.S. laws passed by Congress and U.S. legal obligations under refugee and human rights treaties,” Eleanor Acer, of the legal advocacy group Human Rights First, told ProPublica. “But the Trump administration is wielding them as the ultimate tool to shut the border to people seeking refuge.”

Two weeks ago, the Trump administration hastily put in place a policy, which the internal guidance calls Operation Capio, to push the overwhelming majority of unauthorized migrants into Mexico within hours of their apprehension in the U.S.

The Trump administration has been publicly vague on what happens under the new policy to migrants expressing a fear of persecution or torture, the grounds for asylum. But the guidance provided to Border Patrol agents makes clear that asylum-seekers are being turned away unless they can persuade both a Border Patrol agent — as well as a higher-ranking Border Patrol official — that they will be tortured if sent home. There is no exception for those who seek protection on the basis of their identities, such as race or religion.

Over 7,000 people have been expelled to Mexico under the order, according to sources briefed by Customs and Border Protection officials.

The guidance, shared with ProPublica by a source within the Border Patrol, instructs agents that any migrant caught entering without documentation must be processed for “expulsion,” citing the CDC order. When possible, migrants are to be driven to the nearest official border crossing and “expelled” into Mexico or Canada. (The Mexican government has agreed to allow the U.S. to push back not only Mexican migrants, but also those from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador; the four countries account for about 85% of all unauthorized border crossings.)

Under the Refugee Convention, which the U.S. signed onto in 1968, countries are barred from sending someone back to a country in which they could be persecuted based on their identity (specifically, their race, nationality, religion, political opinion or membership in a “particular social group”).

The Trump administration has taken several steps to restrict the ability of migrants to seek asylum, a form of legal status that allows someone to eventually become a permanent U.S. resident. Until now, however, it has acknowledged that U.S. and international law prevents the U.S. from sending people back to a place where they will be harmed. And it has still allowed people who claim a fear of persecution to seek a less permanent form of legal status in the U.S. (In the last two weeks of February, 2,915 people were screened for humanitarian protection, according to the most recent statistics provided by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.)

The Border Patrol guidance provided to ProPublica shows that the U.S. is acting as if that obligation no longer applies.

Customs and Border Protection, the agency that oversees the Border Patrol, said it would not comment on the document provided to ProPublica. Asked whether any guidance had been provided regarding people who expressed a fear of persecution of torture, an agency spokesperson said in a statement, “The order does not apply where a CBP officer determines, based on consideration of significant law enforcement, officer and public safety, humanitarian, or public health interests, that the order should not be applied to a particular person.”

That language does not appear in the guidance ProPublica received. Instead, it specifies that any exception must be approved by the chief patrol agent of a given Border Patrol sector. One former senior CBP official, who reviewed the guidance at ProPublica’s request, said that because there are so many levels of hierarchy between a chief patrol agent and a line agent, agents would be unlikely to ask for an exemption to be made.

The guidance offers some details of exceptions that Border Patrol should make on public-safety grounds — people with felony convictions, for example, are to be held in detention rather than being sent back — but none on health grounds.

In fact, the guidance provides no instructions on medical screening or care for migrants, making it impossible to know how such an exception would be made. (One source briefed by CBP on the policy said the agency said migrants would not be expelled if they showed symptoms of illness or claimed a medical issue, but there is no mention of this in the guidance ProPublica received.)

The guidance makes a single humanitarian exception: If a migrant, before expulsion, tells the Border Patrol agent that they fear torture in their home country, they can be kept in the U.S. and referred to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which evaluates claims for humanitarian protection, to see if they qualify for protection under the Convention Against Torture. But agents are not instructed to ask; the migrant has to volunteer the information “spontaneously.” Then, the Border Patrol agent is instructed to analyze whether the claim is “reasonably believable” — something they haven’t been trained to do.

As recently as last fall, the Trump administration acknowledged in court filings that it’s bound both to protect victims of torture under the Convention Against Torture and to protect victims of persecution under the Refugee Convention.


Even as it has erected bars to asylum — most notably, preventing anyone who crosses through Mexico from receiving asylum in the U.S. — it has continued to allow anyone entering the U.S. to seek a lesser form of legal status called “withholding of removal,” which allows an immigrant to stay in the U.S. but does not allow them to become a permanent resident. (Since the passage of the 1980 Refugee Act, federal law requires the executive branch to grant this status to anyone who can show it’s more likely than not they’ll be persecuted.)

The Operation Capio guidance does not mention the possibility that someone could be eligible for lesser protections instead of expulsion. Two sources briefed on the new policy confirmed that neither asylum nor withholding of removal is available to anyone subject to the CDC order.

In that briefing, CBP officials claimed that a migrant expressing any sort of fear is referred for screening to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, but that migrants will only pass that screening if they claim torture. However, the guidance doesn’t instruct Border Patrol agents to refer other types of claims to USCIS (and instructs them only to refer torture claims when they are “reasonably believable”).

In lawsuits challenging the administration’s asylum policies, Department of Justice lawyers have described withholding of removal as a “mandatory” form of protection — something it’s required to provide — while asylum is “discretionary.” In a brief filed last fall with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the government wrote that “The United States has implemented its non-refoulement obligations” — the obligation not to send people back to danger — “by providing withholding of removal and CAT (Convention Against Torture) protection.”

Now, the U.S. is only providing one of the two — and only at the discretion of Border Patrol.

“If you read between the lines,” one congressional staff member briefed on the operation told ProPublica, “they’re saying that Title 42 (the chapter of the U.S. Code that includes the CDC’s quarantine power) supersedes Title 8 (which covers immigration law).” Title 42 doesn’t clearly state that the administration may suspend its obligations under immigration law, and the Trump administration hasn’t published any legal opinions or memos that make its case.

No legal challenges have yet been filed against the new policy. Lawyers told ProPublica that the secrecy of the policy has made it harder to compile a case against it.

The administration has argued that the risk of coronavirus spreading through Customs and Border Protection holding facilities — which aren’t equipped to deal with medical needs — justifies the mass-expulsion policy. Since putting the policy in place, the number of people crossing into the U.S. has dropped drastically, according to official CBP statistics circulated internally and provided to ProPublica, and there are only 330 people in CBP custody at last count, down from over 1,300 as of March 25.

The new guidance instructs agents to wear personal protective equipment at all times and not to use any Border Patrol vehicle to transport migrants that isn’t specifically designated for Operation Capio.

However, because the Operation Capio process doesn’t include medical screening, it will be impossible to know whether any migrants who are being expelled just in case they have the novel coronavirus are actually infected.

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‘A nuclear bomb dropped on the economy’: John Harwood shocked by new unemployment numbers  

April 2, 2020

CNN’s John Harwood on Thursday was shocked by the record number of jobless claims filed in the last week — and he said that the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has proven to be worse than expected.

During a CNN panel discussion, Harwood didn’t even try to sugarcoat the news about 6.6 million Americans filing for unemployment benefits last week, or double the 3.3 million Americans who had filed for benefits the week before.

“We have pulled the plug out from the American economy, and the result is an economic catastrophe,” he said. “How long is it going to last? That depends on the public health answer to this situation. You know, we talked about in the past, in the last few days, certainly when we had last week’s numbers that the federal — both in terms of the Federal Reserve and the fiscal response from Congress — is like relief efforts during hurricane. This is a nuclear bomb that has been dropped on the American economy.”

Harwood then predicted that these “shocking” jobless numbers would change the conversation and force Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to back off his opposition to further emergency relief measures.

Why ‘mind-blowing’ new unemployment numbers are worse than they look — and the Trump administration could bungle the recovery

April 2, 2020 By Cody Fenwick, AlterNet

Last week, the United States reported an unprecedented and chart-breaking 3.3 million new unemployment claims as a result of the expanding coronavirus crisis and requisite social distancing. Now, those numbers have jumped once again, as officials announced on Thursday that 6.6 million people filed for unemployment in the week ending on March 28.

These gargantuan levels of need outpace any other economic downturn on record in U.S. history, and horrifyingly, they understate the problem because of all the people out of work who aren’t applying for unemployment. Worse yet, while Congress has passed a massive 2.2 trillion package, known as the CARES Act, meant to soften the blow for families and businesses, it appears the Trump administration may not be up to the challenge of distributing these funds efficiently enough to avoid much of the coming financial pain.


To understand how significant the new unemployment claims are, you need only look at them plotted on graphs (the first shows over 50 years, while the second shows over the past year): 

This chart is a portrait of disaster. I have spent the last twenty years studying the labor market and have never seen anything like it. Unemployment insurance claims for the last two weeks are mind-blowing. 1/ pic.twitter.com/IoRYyraW0V

— Heidi Shierholz (@hshierholz) April 2, 2020

This chart shows initial unemployment insurance claims over the last year. The increase in the last two weeks boggles the mind. 3/ pic.twitter.com/z34xorSbTB
— Heidi Shierholz (@hshierholz) April 2, 2020

Note: these numbers are cumulative, meaning that counting over the past two weeks, 10 million Americans have newly applied for unemployment benefits. And we expect this number to grow still.

Shierholz, the director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute, noted that this metric doesn’t even cover the entire scale of the damage.

“Today’s UI claims, as extraordinary as they are, leave out many who are out of work due to the virus, including independent contractors, those who don’t have long enough work histories, those who had to quit work to care for a child whose school closed, and on and on,” she explained in a tweet.

Of course, shocking as these figures are, they haven’t exactly caught us off-guard. We knew this was coming and, to some extent, we did it to ourselves via social distancing measures (though these likely reduce the economic damage in the long run, since stopping the virus is key to saving the economy). And Congress passed three phases of coronavirus relief bills, including the 2.2 trillion package meant to stabilize (though not, as has often been misleadingly reported, stimulate) the economy.

But these laws were passed quite quickly. This was arguably justified given the impending nature of the crisis, but it has a cost. Many of the wrinkles and quirks of the legislation haven’t been uncovered or worked out. This problem is compounded by the astounding fact that Congress has gone on vacation until late April after passing the final bill, which will make it harder to pass quick fixes if needed.

And administering the provision of aid at this scale is no easy feat, even when we’re not staring down a world-historical crisis. Unfortunately, not only is the task inherently challenging, it must be handled by the Trump administration, which often fails at the most basic tasks of governance. There’s little reason for confidence in its ability to quickly stanch the economic fallout.

Initially, it looked like the U.S. Treasury Department was making a huge mistake by requiring Social Security beneficiaries who don’t usually file tax returns to submit paperwork in order to obtain the $1,200 check that most Americans will receive as part of the relief bills. Thankfully, it has reversed itself and will send out the money without placing further burdens on this group.

But there are still major apparent flaws in the administration’s plan to hand out the cash. According to a new NBC News report, Americans who get tax refunds from the IRS via direct deposit into their bank accounts can expect to get the $1,200 starting around April 13. But other Americans without their records on file could wait up to almost five months to get their checks in the mail, the report found — which may be long after the money was needed most.

Meanwhile, there’s another major stumbling block that could delay a key line of aid to the country. According to a new Politico report, the administration is not prepared to distribute the funds allocated for small businesses meant to keep employees on the payroll, even if all revenue dries up.

The report explained:

Banks are warning that a $350 billion lending program for struggling small businesses won’t be ready when it launches Friday because the Trump administration has failed to provide them with the necessary guidelines and has set requirements for the loans that are unworkable.

The lenders complain that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin boxed them in with an unrealistic deadline and that the ground rules they’ve been given for the program, which is intended to deliver rapid aid to a huge number of ailing businesses, could delay the assistance for weeks or longer.

The banks, which will be responsible for processing loan applications and doling out money, are expecting millions of applications from businesses. Some fear a disaster that could dwarf the failed kickoff of the Obamacare enrollment web site in 2013.

There is another key form of aid that hopefully should be able get out to people: unemployment insurance. Congress boosted the weekly allotment paid out by state’s uninsurance programs by $600 and it extended the period of time unemployed people will be eligible to receive benefits. The biggest stumbling block here is that states’ systems might become overwhelmed by applications for unemployment, which, as we’ve seen, are coming in at record-breaking rates.

“So, as I understand it, the two key disaster-relief provisions of the CARES Act — enhanced unemployment benefits and small-business loans — aren’t likely to be operational for weeks, due to lack of administrative capacity, even though we’ve already lost 10 million jobs,” said economist Paul Krugman on Twitter. “This cries out for a crash effort, led by experts, to clear up the bottlenecks — sort of like the effort that rescued healthcare.gov when Obamacare launched. But while I’d like to be proved wrong, hard to see Trump admin doing this.”

He added: “After all, even if it did create such a task force, Trump would surely put Jared Kushner in charge.”

Krugman also warned that, despite the fact that many are hoping the economy will bounce back once the coronavirus subsides, there’s good reason to be doubtful on this scenario. Most notable is the impact state budgets are facing without substantial support from the federal government.

“First, the checks sent out by the CARES Act are one-time only, and expanded unemployment benefits expire after four months,” he said. “Second, state and local governments are under severe financial strain. They’ll have to keep spending during the medical crisis, but will have to raise taxes and/or slash spending to make up that later unless they get a lot more federal aid.”

“So we’re going to be experiencing a major fiscal contraction just as the direct hit from the coronavirus diminishes. This could really slow the recovery,” he concluded.

BOOM GO CRASH
FIRST THE MARKET CRASHED LIKE 1987,1998, 2008 
IN MARCH
THEN IT CRASHED AND BOOMED LIKE IT WAS THE 1930'S
1933, 1938
TRUMP IS THE HOOVER OF HIS DAY 

THERE WILL BE AN INVESTIGATION

House Intelligence chairman calls for 9/11-style commission to investigate Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic

April 2, 2020 By Alex Henderson, AlterNet

Although President Donald Trump is finally acknowledging how deadly the coronavirus is, he continues to draw a great deal of criticism from Democrats for all the weeks he spend downplaying its severity and insisting that it didn’t pose a major threat to the United States. And House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, according to CNN reporters Manu Raju and Jeremy Herb, is now calling for a 9/11-style commission that would investigate Trump’s coronavirus response.

Schiff has said that he has started to work on legislation to establish such a commission. However, the California Democrat told Washington Post columnist David Ignatius that the investigation he has in mind would need to wait “until the crisis is abated to ensure that it does not interfere with the agencies that are leading the response.”

Schiff isn’t the only prominent Democrat who believes that Congress should investigate Trump’s coronavirus response at some point. Appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, March 29, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told host Jake Tapper, “I don’t know what the scientists said to him, when did this president know about this, and what did he know? What did he know and when did he know it? That’s for an after-action review.”

When Tapper asked Pelosi if she believed that Trump’s slow response to coronavirus had caused Americans to die unnecessarily, the House speaker responded, “Yes, I am. I’m saying that….. Because we weren’t prepared, we now have 2,000 deaths and 100,000 cases.”

The figure that Pelosi quoted came from John Hopkins University in Baltimore. According to Hopkins, the U.S. death toll from coronavirus had reached 2000 when Tapper interviewed Pelosi. But on late Thursday morning, April 2, that number had more than doubled — and CNN was reporting that according to Hopkins, at least 5148 people in the U.S. had died from coronavirus. Worldwide, Hopkins was reporting a staggering death toll of more than 49,100 the morning of April 2.

Pelosi also voiced concerns over the Trump Administration complying with the oversight requirements in the $2 trillion stimulus bill that the president recently signed into law.

“We will have our oversight in the Congress,” Pelosi told Tapper. “We have a panel that we’ve established.”

‘This is not the time for politics’: Trump whines about congressional investigations into his coronavirus failures
April 2, 2020 By Bob Brigham

President Donald Trump complained about congressional investigations during his Thursday Coronavirus Task Force briefing.

“I want to remind everyone here in our nation’s capital — especially in Congress — that this is not the time for politics,” Trump claimed.

“Endless partisan investigations — here we go again — have already done extraordinary damage to our country in recent years,” he continued.

Trump argued that Congress should not investigate the multiple failures of Trump’s response to the pandemic that have been the focus of shocking reporting in recent months.

“You see what happens, it is witch hunt after witch hunt, and in the end, the people doing the witch hunts have been losing,” he argued. “And they’ve been losing by a lot.”

"It’s not any time for witch hunts, it’s time to get this enemy defeated,” he said.

Trump argued that the investigations help him politically, but he does not want his poll numbers to rise.

“Conducting these partisan investigations in the middle of a pandemic is a really big waste of vital resources, time, attention and we want to fight for American lives, not waste time and build up my poll numbers — cause that’s all they’re doing, because everyone knows it’s ridiculous,” the argued.

The President goes on a rant about “partisan investigations” and “witch hunts” pic.twitter.com/2wObxo2UnF
— Acyn Torabi (@Acyn) April 2, 2020


Trump slammed for begging Congress to not investigate his coronavirus response failures

April 2, 2020 By Matthew Chapman

At Thursday’s coronavirus press briefing, President Donald Trump pre-emptively tried to complain about the upcoming congressional commission into the federal government’s handling of the pandemic, proclaiming that “this is not the time for politics” and demanding the “witch hunts” against him end.

Commenters on social media immediately slammed the president’s attempt to hide from responsibility:

Moments after saying "this is not the time for politics," Trump denounces "witch hunts" and says the perpetrators are only improving his poll numbers.
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) April 2, 2020

Trump earlier in the briefing: "This is not the time for politics." https://t.co/DurZjZBPTk
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) April 2, 2020
Trump: Now is not the time for politics

Proceeds to reference his own impeachment, condemning those who held him accountable. If you mention your opponents to criticize them, that IS political.
Classic spin. Our masks don't filter gaslighting.#TrumpPressBriefing
— Six feet away, not under (@pseuze) April 2, 2020


Trump [reading]: “I want to remind everyone that this is not the time for politics."
[3 seconds later] “It’s witch hunt after witch hunt after witch hunt. And the people doing the hunting have been losing. And losing by a lot.”
Jesus H. Christ (I try to say this sparingly.)
— James Fallows (@JamesFallows) April 2, 2020

Trump says it is not the time for politics. Then attacks Democrats. Can’t make this stuff up. Trump lies every time he tweets or opens his mouth. #TrumpPressConf #TrumpPressConference #COVID19 #COVID #CoronaVirusUpdates
— Ron Waxman

(@RonWaxman) April 2, 2020


*45 this morning: pic.twitter.com/w8w371X8jc

— D Villella (@dvillella) April 2, 2020


He is going to be so upset when he reads his own tweets
— Jaynie's Got a Bun (@FreeGirlNowNYC) April 2, 2020

Actually that one commercial that Trump is suing to have taken off the air says it all.
— George Thomas (@FordPrefect747) April 2, 2020

Trump would like to remind everyone that this is "not the time for politics, endless investigations" which seems convenient for someone who is unilaterally responsible for exacerbating the current pandemic, which will lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans.
— Brian Tyler Cohen (@briantylercohen) April 2, 2020

Officials in two states issue cease-and-desist letters after Hobby Lobby defies coronavirus lockdowns

April 2, 2020 Matthew Chapman


On Thursday, The New York Times reported that officials in two states have sent cease-and-desist orders to Hobby Lobby, the Oklahoma-based crafts store, accusing them of defying stay at home orders imposed to fight the spread of coronavirus.

“W. Eric Kuhn, the senior assistant state attorney general of Colorado, where there are 10 stores, sent a cease-and-desist letter to the company after it had reopened its stores in the state this week,” wrote Neil Vigdor. “The letter said the company’s actions violated a March 25 executive order signed by Gov. Jared Polis directing Coloradans to stay at home and requiring all businesses to close that were not designated by state health officials as critical.”

“Ohio’s attorney general, Dave Yost, wrote on Twitter on Wednesday that he had sent a similar cease-and-desist letter to Hobby Lobby and that the company had agreed to close stores in his state, where there are 10,” the report continued.

In addition to Colorado and Ohio, Hobby Lobby has also violated orders in at least two other states, with public health officials in Clark County, Indiana and West Allis, Wisconsin taking action to shut down stores that reopened.

Hobby Lobby, which has famously sued the federal government over laws guaranteeing contraceptive coverage to their employees, declined comment on the story.

Trump Labor Department accused of quietly ‘twisting the law’ to slash paid sick leave amid pandemic

April 2, 2020 By Jake Johnson, Common Dreams


“The Trump administration is robbing workers of the paid sick days and paid leave Congress passed into law for them. That is unconscionable.”

Two Democratic members of Congress on Thursday accused the Department of Labor of quietly “twisting the law” to limit the scope of already inadequate paid sick leave provisions contained in a coronavirus stimulus package that President Donald Trump signed into law last month.

Over the weekend, the Labor Department—headed by former corporate lawyer Eugene Scalia—published policy guidance on the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) that Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) said creates several “gratuitous loopholes” allowing corporations to limit the number of employees eligible for paid leave.
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“This simply can’t stand. This guidance needs to be rewritten so workers get the leave they are guaranteed under the law.”
—Sen. Patty Murray

“The Trump administration is twisting the law to allow employers to shirk their responsibility and is significantly narrowing which workers are eligible for paid leave,” Murray said in a statement. “This simply can’t stand. This guidance needs to be rewritten so workers get the leave they are guaranteed under the law.”

The FFCRA, which Trump signed into law on March 18, provides two weeks of paid sick leave to eligible workers who fall ill and 12 weeks of leave to workers caring for children whose schools have closed due to the COVID-19 outbreak. The bill excludes workers at companies with more than 500 employees.

In a detailed letter (pdf) to Scalia on Wednesday, Murray and DeLauro said the Labor Department’s guidance blatantly “contradict[s] the plain language of the FFCRA and violate congressional intent.”

One example Murray and DeLauro highlighted is the Labor Department’s definition of “unable to work.”

“You are unable to work if your employer has work for you and one of the COVID-19 qualifying reasons set forth in the FFCRA prevents you from being able to perform that work, either under normal circumstances at your normal worksite or by means of telework,” the Labor Department wrote in its guidance.

Murray and DeLauro said that definition would “allow all employers to evade the requirements of the Act at any point during this pandemic by informing employees that it does not have work for them to perform at the moment—thereby fully depriving them of a day, a week, or 12 weeks of paid leave.”

“Nothing in the text of the FFCRA indicates the employer must have work for an employee to perform on any particular day for that employee to be able to qualify for paid leave on that day—nor does it give employers the authority to refuse their employees their statutory right to paid leave by not assigning them work, furloughing them, or closing a particular worksite,” Murray and DeLauro wrote in their letter.

In a press release, Murray and DeLauro summarized their concerns with the Labor Department guidance, warning that it would:

Require certification in order for workers to qualify for paid leave. DOL states that employers can require certification for employees to qualify for paid leave, even though the FFCRA does not require for any such certification from employees.

Restrict what qualifies as being “unable to work.” DOL states that employees only qualify for paid sick or family leave if they are unable to work and their employer has work for them, allowing employers to cut off employees’ rights to paid sick or family leave by claiming they have nothing for the employee to do. This guidance is in direct contradiction with the FFCRA, which does not allow employers to use those tactics to prevent employees from receiving paid leave.

Restrict worker’s ability to take leave intermittently. DOL states that an employee may only take their leave intermittently “if your employer allows it.” This conclusion is found nowhere in the text and gives the employer, rather than the employee who has the need for leave, the ability to decide how to use the employee’s leave.

Exempt employees from paid leave. FFCRA exempts narrowly defined “health care providers” from the paid leave provisions due to the nature of the current crisis. But without authority, DOL redefined a “health care provider” to include nearly any employee who happens to work for an employer who also employs a health care provider, works at any type of quasi-medical facility, works as an employee contracted for non-healthcare services in a facility that houses a health care provider, or merely works in the medical supply chain.

Not guaranteeing paid leave during a “shelter in place” order. DOL does not clarify that a government directive to stay at home qualifies for paid leave. In fact, DOL even indicates that employees lose their right to paid leave if their employer closes the employee’s worksite in the event of a government directive. This clearly defies the FFCRA which grants paid leave to employees who are subject to quarantine or isolation orders from government officials.

“In the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Trump administration is robbing workers of the paid sick days and paid leave Congress passed into law for them. That is unconscionable,” DeLauro said in a statement. “People across the country are struggling to make ends meet, and essential workers who are still able to work need to know that if they or a loved one falls ill that they can take time off.”

“Keeping workers from getting other workers sick is good for employees, employers, and our broader public health,” said DeLauro. “Secretary Scalia needs to immediately rescind this guidance and put workers’ needs first.”

US Navy called a ‘disgrace’ for dismissing captain after letter begging for help for sick crew went publicPOLITICAL PURGE TO SAVE FACE FOR BONE-SPURS TRUMP
April 2, 2020 By Sarah K. Burris

The captain of the nuclear aircraft carrier the USS Theodore Roosevelt begged for help while the coronavirus quickly spread among his crew. While Capt. Brett Crozier may have been on track to be an Admiral, he’s now been relieved of command.

It prompted outrage online as people demanded he be reinstated. Many noted that the captain only received help after the letter was released to the public. Amid the chaos of the crisis, the White House, Pentagon and Trump government has been caught flat-footed as they scramble to make up for lost time.

The White House is pushing back against criticism saying that they founded the coronavirus task force at the end of January. It begs the question then why the task force didn’t work on the shortage of ventilators and personal protective equipment then or why they didn’t usher in a shutdown then.

Some noted that Capt. Crozier was trying to save lives, where Eddie Gallagher, who was convicted of war crimes, was pardoned by the president.

You can see the outrage about Capt. Crozier below:

Can’t have a Captain speaking truth. That doesn’t make the WH look good.

—

Rob Anderson for Louisiana (@RobAnderson2018) April 2, 2020

All of these things happening is on you Trumpsters, all of it! in your hands!
— ellie gamble (@GambleNini) April 2, 2020

Why, cause saving lives to prevent this serious outbreak from being swept under the rug is NOT how this admin works?
— Anne T. (@at_lv61) April 2, 2020


Sounds like some China shit
— chandler hart (@chan_man36) April 2, 2020



We have to take our country back from this tyrannical government who hates truth. This move by the @USNavy is disgusting.
— Dragon Fire (@dawnndragonfire) April 2, 2020


Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher was pardoned and reinstated by Trump despite being found guilty of war crimes by a jury of his peers. U.S. Navy Captain Brett Crozier was removed from his command for sounding the alarm on COVID danger to sailors under his authority. Trump's military.
— Lady Charlotte Clymer

(@cmclymer) April 2, 2020


This sounds like…China:
“The Navy is expected to announce it has fired the captain who sounded the alarm about an outbreak of COVID-19 aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt.” https://t.co/Y7bchQ9JwE
— Amy Siskind

(@Amy_Siskind) April 2, 2020


ABJECT STUPIDITY! @SECNAV @USNavyCNO @NavyMCPON. You had better drop your anchors on this one. This “sailors first” admiral may be Secretary of the Navy next Jan. He should be because he cares more about my beloved Navy than you do. https://t.co/13jk4AHfXI via @nbcnews
— Malcolm Nance (@MalcolmNance) April 2, 2020

This is an absolute disgrace.
This captain should be honored for saving lives and caring for our service people in ways @realDonaldTrump and the @GOP never will.#MAGA, indeed.https://t.co/U0Wyk9QHf0
— John Pavlovitz (@johnpavlovitz) April 2, 2020

The captain of an aircraft carrier warned that action was needed to keep sailors from dying. With actual lives at stake, the Navy acted swiftly to…dismiss the captain because his letter went public https://t.co/YeMKQmkbkc
— Mark Berman (@markberman) April 2, 2020


The Trump administration rewards war criminals like Eddie Gallagher & fires a Captain advocating for the health & welfare of his crew. #Navy #TrumptheWorstPresidentEVER
— JJ MendIovitz (@jaybirdsatx) April 2, 2020

Sad to hear that the Navy has fired the Captain of the USS Roosevelt because he informed them of sailors with the virus… #USSTheodoreRoosevelt
— coffee-talk (@coffeet90685829) April 2, 2020

Captain Brett Crozier pleaded for help as #coronavirus cases increased aboard USS Theodore Roosevelt. The Navy relieved him of command.
“Sailors do not need to die… We are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset — our sailors.” #COVID19https://t.co/k1897webuY pic.twitter.com/SbqNzg3JmW
— Bryan Dawson (@BryanDawsonUSA) April 2, 2020

Navy Captain Brett Crozier was removed from the USS Theodore Roosevelt I’m sure because he wrote a letter to his superiors imploring them for help. In my mind as a former Navy wife (husband USN/Ret) he’s a hero! #NavyHero
— DoodleMom (@SnowflakePeg) April 2, 2020


@JoeBiden Since I'm sure that you will be our next president (Thank God!), 1 of your 1st acts should be the restoring of Captain Brett Crozier as commander of the USS Theodore Roosevelt. Or how about Sec of the Navy? A captain who safeguards his sailors should't lose his command. pic.twitter.com/RhFh9r3eyj
— A Horse With No Name (@b111861) April 2, 2020

More than 100,000 Americans are expected to die after a slow initial government response to the coronavirus pandemic and the first person to be fired is … the aircraft carrier captain who pleaded for help for his stricken crew. ⁦@ckubeNBC⁩ https://t.co/guDOImfekb
— Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) April 2, 2020

If a single sailor dies, this will be Trump’s Benghazi. #USSTheodoreRoosevelt https://t.co/EfSocqhqi5
— j.jo. (@tickedoffJJ) April 2, 2020


@USNavyCNO God bless Capt. Brett Crozier who thought more of his crew than you & Donald Trump.

Capt Crozier did the right thing. His sailors, & the American people, thank him, salute him, & we’ll never forget him.#USSTheodoreRoosevelt #COVID19 #USNavy #KAG #TrumpVirusCoverup https://t.co/Tnvj8OUwoD
— Smiling_Lillie

 

(@lillie_randolph) April 2, 2020


So USS Navy Commander is scapegoat & been relieve of his duty because his letter got leak or release to the media – That's just BullShxt#Dems #BlueWave @TheDemocrats #USNavy #USSTheodoreRoosevelt #Navy
— Steph Banatte (@bana2166) April 2, 2020

This is reprehensible. If anything, an officer should be commended for trying to save the lives of those who serve with him. #USSTheodoreRoosevelt https://t.co/7UxXfsCgaj

—

Rosemary McLaughlin (@RosemaryMcL) April 2, 2020


.@EsperDoD you clearly don’t give rats ass abt soldiers/sailors/airmen under your command by letting @SECNAV relieve #CaptBrettCrozier of #USSTheodoreRoosevelt command. @realDonaldTrump Admin’s incompetence & lack of care for men/women under its command > its lack of decency.
— DM VOTE BLUE (@dceagle11) April 2, 2020

No one. Not one American should ever wonder how the Nazis intimidated, took over Germany, and murdered millions.
Trump and all his lackeys, including the spineless DODers, are trying to destroy our republic.
What are we prepared to do?#USSTheodoreRoosevelt #Crozier https://t.co/R2SscF01tn
— Rachel Cunningham (@RCHanoi) April 2, 2020

WATCH: Devastating supercut video blows up Pence’s defense of Trump’s handling of coronavirus

April 2, 2020 By Travis Gettys


Vice President Mike Pence insisted President Donald Trump had never “belittled the threat of the coronavirus,” but video evidence proves him wrong.

The vice president defended Trump during an interview Wednesday with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, but a devastating supercut posted online by a group supporting Joe Biden blows holes in Pence’s claim

The video compiled by the pro-Biden Unite the Country super PAC shows Trump repeatedly dismissing the coronavirus outbreak, which he predicted would simply disappear “like a miracle.”

Mike Pence today said Donald Trump has never belittled the threat of the #coronavirus.
Well, we have the receipts. pic.twitter.com/WAnC9ghzJC
— Unite the Country (@UniteCountryPAC) April 1, 2020

‘Nightmare scenario that everyone predicted’: As millions struggle to meet basic needs, Trump organization requests financial relief

April 2, 2020 By Common Dreams


“I’d be interested in knowing what help Trump and Jared are extending to their tenants as they ask for help themselves.”

While millions of Americans face uunemployment, the loss of health coverage, and difficulty affording necessities over the coming months as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, President Donald Trump’s business empire is reportedly seeking relief from outstanding debt and loans.

Trump signed a bill last week approving a one-time, means-tested $1,200 direct payment to some American workers amid the economic crisis that’s resulted from the national public health emergency that has seen more than 236,000 people in the U.S. sickened by the coronavirus. According to NBC News, those payments may not get to some households for up to five months from now, and the sum is only expected to support many recipients for about two weeks—once it arrives.

While millions of Americans struggle to pay rent and bills in the coming weeks and with little assistance being offered across-the-board by the federal government, an increasing number of U.S. residents fear they will be unable to make payments as they wait to return to work.

Meanwhile, according to the New York Times, the Trump Organization has asked its largest creditor, Deutsche Bank, if it can postpone the repayment of some of its loans. The company also requested relief from its monthly payments to Palm Beach County, Florida, for the land on which one of the president’s golf courses sits—citing the pandemic.

According to the Times, the president’s son, Eric Trump expressed hope that the county and the bank would work with the Trump Organization, which Eric—along with Donald Trump Jr.—has helped run since Trump took office.

“These days everybody is working together,” Eric Trump told the Times. “Tenants are working with landlords, landlords are working with banks. The whole world is working together as we fight through this pandemic.”

While the federal government passed a moratorium on evictions for select homeowners and renters as part of the CARES Act, relief has varied from state to state, even though residents of a majority of states have been ordered to stay at home to slow the spread of the virus.

“It’s not fair—everything is shut down, you can’t work. Our mayor says, ‘Stay home, don’t go outside,’ but we’re expected to pay the cost of subsidizing” landlords, Atlanta-based restaurant cook Casey James told the Washington Post Wednesday. “If we’re really in this disaster, everything should be frozen.”

Special treatment regarding Trump’s company’s payments while millions of Americans will be expected to fulfill their financial obligations in the coming weeks is “the nightmare scenario that everyone predicted when Trump refused to divest from his assets,” Mother Jones reporter Russ Choma tweeted

Podcast host Joe Lockhart wondered on Twitter whether Trump’s company would allow its own tenants to skip rent payments as a result of the pandemic.

I’d be interested in knowing what help Trump and Jared are extending to their tenants as they ask for help themselves. https://t.co/mCJxUoDr1m
— Joe Lockhart (@joelockhart) April 2, 2020

“We have to pay Donald Trump for the privilege of him getting to play golf during work hours at his own clubs, but he doesn’t have to pay his own bills,” wrote Crooked Media editor Brian Beutler.

We have to pay Donald Trump for the privilege of him getting to play golf during work hours at his own clubs, but he doesn't have to pay his own bills. https://t.co/89C8Kk9gvV
— subscribe to my newsletter (@brianbeutler) April 2, 2020

Trump’s tribe of wacko supporters have spiraled out of control — and now they’re a major threat to public health and safety

April 2, 2020 By Amanda Marcotte, Salon- Commentary


Scenes from an America that was widely infected with conspiracism even before people started getting infected with the new coronavirus:

On Tuesday afternoon, a train engineer named Eduardo Moreno, apparently with great deliberation, derailed the freight train he was manning in Southern California, nearly killing occupants of three nearby cars. His target? The USNS Mercy, a Navy medical ship that’s been assisting nearby hospitals with COVID-19 patients.

“I had to. People don’t know what’s going on here,” Moreno reportedly told the officer who arrested him. Apparently, Moreno believes in a conspiracy theory that the coronavirus crisis is a hoax being deployed to cover for a shadowy takeover of the government.
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Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has been a stabilizing presence during the crisis, quietly and calmly doing everything he can to correct the firehose of lies Donald Trump has been drenching the country with on a daily basis.

For his service, Fauci now requires a security detail, due in no small part to fanatical Trump fans who have embraced conspiracy theories that paint Fauci as part of a “deep state” conspiracy to unseat Trump by faking the threat of COVID-19.

While Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, refused until this week to face the threat posed by the coronavirus pandemic and dragged his feet about issuing a shelter-in-place order (saying that Trump hadn’t asked him to) the city of Tampa was actually taking action with strict bans on gatherings and movement. Rodney Howard-Browne, a Trump-loving preacher who has claimed coronavirus is a “phantom plague” invented to trick people into getting vaccines, was arrested for defying those orders and holding packed church services anyway.

DeSantis finally cracked and issued a statewide shelter-in-place order, but exempted church services — effectively overriding the local restrictions in Tampa and elsewhere.

“This order was clearly designed and worded to provide legal and political cover for Rev. Rodney Howard-Browne,” legal expert Jeff Schwartz told a local ABC affiliate.

Chanel Rion, a “reporter” from the far-right, conspiracy theory-obsessed One America News Network, was nailed for repeatedly violating the social distancing rules in the White House press briefing room, showing up in the throng on days when she wasn’t scheduled to attend. The fact that she was ever invited to the White House should be a scandal all by itself — Rion personally and her network routinely spread lies favorable to Trump — but it quickly became clear that she was getting favorable treatment even under the new, coronavirus-caused limits imposed on the briefing room.

Caught with their pants down, the White House reluctantly told Rion she had to follow the rules.

WHITE HOUSE PANDEMIC FUNDING BILL SIGNING MARCH 27,2020\

These four stories are just a snapshot of a growing threat that right-wing conspiracy theorists pose to public health and safety as the number of coronavirus cases grows. (And the rate of growth is now much faster outside New York City, by the way, than in that crowded metropolis.) The threat is twofold, as these stories indicate.

First, there’s the threat of the virus itself. Trump-loving conspiracy theorists are desperate to believe the coronavirus isn’t real — or at least isn’t as bad as the “deep state” is saying. So they’re risking their own health, and other people’s, by openly defying the public health measures put in place to slow the spread.

So far, at least one such prominent person — a Virginia pastor who publicly called the coronavirus a “mass hysteria” — has died after contracting the virus. Unfortunately, the Trump-inspired middle finger to social distancing rules isn’t just a threat to the conspiracy theorists. They’re also potentially turning themselves into vectors who can infect ordinary people who aren’t willing to put their lives on the line to defend Donald Trump.

Second, there’s clearly a threat of violence and mayhem at the hands of conspiracy theorists who, like that train engineer in California, decide to defend their beloved orange leader by taking the fight directly to the “deep state” they believe is faking or hyping this virus.

With 200,000 people infected and nearly 5,000 dead already — and the numbers rising every hour and every day — one might think that conspiracy theorists trying to deny or minimize this virus would be humbled and begin to back down.

Unfortunately, psychology tells us otherwise. When people are faced with evidence that they’re wrong and that their entire worldview is false — including the belief that Trump is a great leader — they tend to dig in deeper, spinning out ever more elaborate rationalizations meant to explain that they were right all along and that reality-based people who disagree have sinister motives.

To make it worse, these conspiracy theorists have been constantly empowered and enabled by Trump, who is a conspiracy theorist himself. With his daily tirade of lies, hunches, harebrained theories and baseless speculation, Trump has helped normalize and encourage his followers to just invent reality for themselves. Worse, the fact that he continues to get away with it helps bolster their view that there are no consequences for flouting reality so boldly.

After all, Trump literally attempted to blackmail a foreign leader, the president of Ukraine, in order to boost a conspiracy theory about Joe Biden. (I know that seems like a thousand years ago. It was less than eight months!) Yes, Trump was impeached by the House for those obvious crimes, but he paid no real political cost for it and was acquitted by Republican senators who largely acknowledged that he’d done something wrong and then lied about it. No wonder Trump’s followers have concluded they can promote wild, counterfactual conspiracy theories without fearing the consequences, even if people die.

In fact, the Trumpian conspiracy theorists are getting desperate. The “hoax” narrative is getting harder and harder to sell. Indeed, the president himself seems to have given up on that one, admitting that this pandemic is a serious problem. So his acolytes are only going to try harder, lie bigger and take more obnoxious and possibly violent actions, in hopes that going big will allow them to maintain the biggest lie of all — that Trump is a wise and brilliant leader who knows what he’s doing.



Add this one to the growing pile of reasons that Trump is to blame for this current crisis. He twiddled his thumbs and lied about the threat for months instead of doing something about it. He continues to screw this up by not doing enough to fight the virus, or to protect the public from the massive economic fallout, which now looks as if it will rival the Great Depression of the 1930s. By being a shameless liar and conspiracy theorist, he laid the groundwork for his followers to react in a way that’s presents a massive threat to public health. themselves and others. There is no telling how much worse they will get before this is all over.

The American South has resisted social distancing measures — and we’re all going to pay the price
April 2, 2020 By AlterNet


As you can see from the New York Times’ examination of travel patterns in the United States, there has been a wide and largely regional disparity across the country in terms of who was quick to self-isolate and who wasn’t. Most of New England, the Mid-Atlantic, the Upper Midwest, and the West Coast had issued stay-at-home orders by March 27. Other states that were proactive include New Mexico, Colorado, Idaho, and Louisiana. The urban areas in Texas tried to be proactive even as their state government opposed them. The South, as a whole, did not instruct people to stay at home and the result is that their travel patterns remained normal, or close to normal.

This is going to matter later.

The inconsistencies in policies—and in when they are imposed—may create new problems, even for places that set limits weeks ago.

“Let’s assume that we flatten the curve, that we push transmission down in the Bay Area and we walk away with 1 percent immunity,” said Dr. George Rutherford, a professor of epidemiology at the University of California, San Francisco. “Then, people visit from regions that have not sheltered in place, and we have another run of cases. This is going to happen.”


There’s a tradeoff to self-quarantining. People don’t get infected with COVID-19, so people don’t survive the infection and get immunity. The isolated communities are nearly as vulnerable to a new outbreak as they were before all this began. It’s worth doing anyway for a variety of reasons, including that it limits how many people are flooding our unprepared and undersupplied hospitals, and that it buys time for researchers to find effective treatments and develop a vaccine. Hopefully, getting COVID-19 in the fall or winter will be more survivable than getting it now.

But areas that were slow or still refuse to isolate and limit travel have spiked their own infection rates and spread the virus far and wide. They’ll have a higher level of immunity but that’s not going to be helpful to the rest of the country.

Looking at the charts, there seems to be more going on than just whether or not a given state government asked people to shelter in place. Outside of the South, people seem to have complied with this even in the absence of official guidance. Meanwhile, with the exception of parts of Louisiana and South Florida, the states of the former Confederacy all look the same regardless of what their governors set as policy. Something cultural explains why Southerners didn’t heed the advice they were hearing in the media, and it’s not just support for Trump. He has plenty of support in the prairies states and Mountain West, and they did significantly reduce their travel. The pattern is visible even in a blue state like Virginia and a purple one like North Carolina, both of which have Democratic governors.

Whether religiosity explains it, or a probably related skepticism toward scientific expert advice, or maybe something to do with their car culture, I don’t know. But their slowness to respond to this outbreak has undermined the effectiveness of the efforts of the areas that did respond. And, because of the nature of this disease, we’re all going to be paying for that for the foreseeable future.