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Month: March 2020

“You have to ask me nicely”

Published by digby on March 28, 2020

I’m sure you remember this scene from “A Few Good Men”

Remind you of anything?

THE PRESIDENT: We’ve had great success over the last month.  We’ve — as you know, the millions and millions of pieces of equipment have been delivered successfully by us — purchased and delivered.  And we’ve made it available to the states.  And the governors have been very gracious for the most part, I would say.  There are a couple that aren’t appreciative of the incredible job.  They have to do a better job themselves; that’s part of the problem.

Q    But you also — you also said that some of the governors are not appreciative of what the federal government has done.  And you’ve suggested that some of these governors are not doing everything they need to do, like that these governors are at fault.  Can you be specific?  What more, in this time of a national emergency, should these governors be doing?

THE PRESIDENT:  Well, I think we’ve done a great job for the state of Washington.  And I think the governor, who’s a failed presidential candidate, as you know — he — he leveled out at zero in the polls.  He’s constantly chirping and — I guess “complaining” would be a nice way of saying it.  We’re building hospitals.  We’ve done a great job for the state of Washington.

Michigan, all she does is — she has no idea what’s going on.  And all she does is say, “Oh, it’s the federal government’s fault.”  And we’ve taken such great care of Michigan.  You know the care we’ve taken of New Jersey.  I think if you ask, Governor Murphy of New Jersey, “How are we doing?”  I think he’d say, “Great.”  I think.  He’s a Democrat.

Governor Cuomo has really said we’re really doing a great job.  And I saw the news conference where he was thanking the people from FEMA, the people from Army Corps of Engineers this morning.  I mean, they built a hospital like in three and a half days and it’s a big hospital in the Javits Center, and they’re building medical facilities in different parts of New York.  And Governor Cuomo has been appreciative.

But, you know, a couple of people aren’t.  We have done a hell of a job; the federal government has really stepped up.

Q    So what I’m asking is: What more, specifically, do you want the governor of Washington and the governor of Michigan to be doing?

THE PRESIDENT:  All I want them to do — very simple — I want them to be appreciative.  I don’t want them to say things that aren’t true.  I want them to be appreciative.  We’ve done a great job.  And I’m not talking about me.  I’m talking about Mike Pence, the task force; I’m talking about FEMA, the Army Corps of Engineers.

 [T]he media has been pretty good and the governors have been really good, except for a couple.  And with them, it’s just political: “How’s Trump doing?”  “Oh well, I don’t know, you know.  Let’s blame…”

Q    But it’s the words they’re saying.  It’s not —

THE PRESIDENT:  Because we have done — we have done a job, the likes of which nobody has seen.

Q    So it’s the words they’re saying that you’re concerned about?  It’s not that they’re —

THE PRESIDENT:  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.  These people are incredible.  They’re working 24 hours a day.  Mike Pence — I mean, Mike Pence, I don’t think he sleeps anymore.  These — these are people that should be appreciated.

He calls all the governors.  I tell him — I mean, I’m a different type of person — I say, “Mike, don’t call the governor of Washington.  You’re wasting your time with him.  Don’t call the woman in Michigan.”  All — it doesn’t make any difference what happens —

Q    You don’t want him to call the governor of Washington?

THE PRESIDENT:  No, no.  You know what I say?  If they don’t treat you right, I don’t call.  He’s a different type of person.  He’ll call quietly anyway.  Okay?  But he’s done a great job.  He should be appreciated for the job he’s done.

This is the president of the United States in the middle of an unprecedented crisis demanding that Governors kiss his ass publicly and say he’s doing a great job or he will allow their constituents to die.

Here he is last night after the press conference:

That’s who we’re dealing with. A juvenile sociopath who first called the Governor of Michigan “that young woman” and is now calling her “Half” Whitmer. In the middle of a life and death emergency.

However, I would just remind everyone that he’s not exactly the first to do this sort of thing, he’s just more crude and sophomoric about it. During Katrina, the Bush administration blamed the Governor of Louisiana and the Mayor of New Orleans for their own inept response. It didn’t work for them. I hope it doesn’t work for Trump but he has a true cult of personality and I’m not sure it won’t.

But that doesn’t make it any less depraved. The behavior he engages in every day is so much more destructive at a time like this. He’s playing politics on a schoolyard level, selling snake oil and false hope and his chaotic, incompetent administration is making everything so much worse. We are the country that is handling this crisis the worst of all first world countries, by far.

Now you tell us

Published by Tom Sullivan on March 28, 2020
Brad Pitt. Still image from World War Z (2013), an epidemic film used by the CDC to teach emergency preparedness.

Theater director Joel Berkowitz tweets, “My 12 year-old while out on a walk: ‘At least with all the schools closed, there won’t be any school shootings for awhile.'” Enough time makes that comedy.

COVID-19 is a world changing bug. Only yesterday did Abbott Labs announce it would have a portable test for the virus available April 1. Results in as little as 5 minutes. Abbott claims they will be able to perform 50,000 test per day. Perhaps it will help slow the death rate if not end the plague. Between the fear, death, and cabin fever, this is the darkest period most of us have experienced. It will get darker. But the mass shootings have stopped.

Abbott’s announcement reminds us we are still in Act 1 of this epidemic movie. Our hero (Brad Pitt, Dustin Hoffman, whoever) is still trying to get a grip on how this beastie transmits and replicates itself so it can do its nasty work. We haven’t yet arrived at the plot point at which she/he goes from dodging the bug to finding a way to fight it. The world is still back on its heels trying to grasp the extent of the risk and the spread.

After weeks of hearing masks are not effective for avoiding contagion, the New York Times suggests it ain’t nec-es-sar-i-ly so:

When researchers conducted systematic review of a variety of interventions used during the SARS outbreak in 2003, they found that washing hands more than 10 times daily was 55 percent effective in stopping virus transmission, while wearing a mask was actually more effective — at about 68 percent. Wearing gloves offered about the same amount of protection as frequent hand-washing, and combining all measures — hand-washing, masks, gloves and a protective gown — increased the intervention effectiveness to 91 percent.

https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1243846689590595584

The behavior of other viruses suggests that once infected and cured, a person has immunity to reinfection. That assumption led Chinese doctors last week to hope the absence of new infections through domestic transmission meant China’s epidemic had been contained:

But some Wuhan residents who had tested positive earlier and then recovered from the disease are testing positive for the virus a second time. Based on data from several quarantine facilities in the city, which house patients for further observation after their discharge from hospitals, about 5%-10% of patients pronounced “recovered” have tested positive again.

Some of those who retested positive appear to be asymptomatic carriers — those who carry the virus and are possibly infectious but do not exhibit any of the illness’s associated symptoms — suggesting that the outbreak in Wuhan is not close to being over.

The time from cure to retest ranged from days to weeks. False negatives at release? False positives on retest? Potentially. Even so:

“In terms of those who retested positive, the official party line is that they have not been proven to be infectious. That is not the same as saying they are not infectious,” one of the Wuhan doctors who tested positive twice told NPR. He is now isolated and under medical observation. “If they really are not infectious,” the doctor said, “then there would be no need to take them back to the hospitals again.”

So, on to Act 2.

We will see the virus outstrip hospitals’ capacity to treat victims. Exhausted medical personnel face desperate choices and attempt to save as many as possible as scientists race against time to develop a vaccine. Refrigerated morgue trucks line up outside hospitals.

Meanwhile, a dithering, feckless president lacks the emotional and intellectual capacity to lead. He bloviates and blames others for the lack of coherent, national strategy. His colleagues in the provinces become desperate:

Michigan now has the fifth-largest coronavirus outbreak of any state, with nearly 3,000 confirmed cases and over 60 deaths. These numbers could mount dramatically.

By the way, Republicans in Michigan are sounding this alarm, too. In a bipartisan letter from the state’s congressional delegation to Vice President Pence that was reported by the Michigan Advance, lawmakers lamented that recent federal shipments of personal protective equipment are “inadequate.”

“Your assistance and engagement are urgently needed,” read the letter.

Still image from The Andromeda Strain (1971).

We’ll cut away in Act 2 to follow the stories of individual victims, under-treated, struggling to breathe. “Will I ever hug my daughter again?” one asks.

But American grit finds a way. A light bulb comes on. A new resolve rises in our heroes. They find a path to defeating the scourge. Corrupt bureaucrats, disgraced, are swept aside. Good triumphs, hope returns, the music swells, and theater-goers walk up out of darkness back into the light. Or so it goes in Hollywood.

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

For The Win, 3rd Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide election mechanics guide at ForTheWin.us. This is what winning looks like.
Note: The pandemic will upend standard field tactics in 2020. If enough promising “improvisations” come my way by June, perhaps I can issue a COVID-19 supplement.

Friday Night Soother

Published by digby on March 27, 2020

In recent days, Emma Smith and her family have been hunkering down at home to help curb the spread of the coronavirus. But while quarantine isn’t many people’s idea of a good time, there is one person in her family who feels differently.

Smith’s adorable dog Rolo is thrilled about having everyone at home full-time.

Perhaps a little too thrilled, in fact.

Emma Smith took to Twitter the other day to share something unusual that happened after the family started spending all day at home — Rolo’s tail suddenly stopped working, and they weren’t sure why.

Concerned, Smith and her family brought Rolo to the vet.

The diagnosis? “[Rolo] has been so happy that everyone is home for quarantine […] he had sprained his tail from excessively wagging it,” Smith wrote.

Rolo had hit excitement overload — and his sweet little tail needed a rest.

As you’ll see, Rolo is happy and his tail still sways, but not with the vigor it did before:

Fortunately, as Smith notes, the dog’s condition isn’t so dire. After a week of pain relief medicine and rest, Rolo should be back to his old tail-wagging self again.

But in the meantime, he’s still getting plenty of affection from his doting family:

https://twitter.com/Emmasmith77xx/status/1241304043651248130?s=20

Trump got his taste of the stimulus

Published by digby on March 27, 2020

I guess we know now why he didn’t put up a fuss about not getting a bailout…

The federal government’s planned $2 trillion economic rescue package includes financial aid for individuals and industries that are struggling to survive the coronavirus pandemic.

It also includes a potential bonanza for America’s richest real estate investors.

Senate Republicans inserted an easy-to-overlook provision on page 203 of the 880-page bill that would permit wealthy investors to use losses generated by real estate to minimize their taxes on profits from things like investments in the stock market. The estimated cost of the change over 10 years is $170 billion.

Under the existing tax code, when real estate investors generate losses from gradually writing down the value of their properties, a process known as depreciation, they can use some of those losses to offset other taxes. The result is that people can enjoy big tax breaks stemming from only-on-paper losses, even if they enjoy big cash profits in the real world.

But the use of those losses was limited by the 2017 tax-cut package. The losses could be used only to shelter the first $500,000 of a married couple’s nonbusiness income, such as capital gains from investments. Any leftover losses got rolled over to future years.

The new stimulus bill lifts that restriction for three years — this year, and two retroactive years — a boon for couples with more than $500,000 in annual capital gains or income from sources other than their business. That group comprises the top 1 percent of taxpayers, according to Internal Revenue Service data.

A draft congressional analysis this week found that the change is the second-biggest tax giveaway in the $2 trillion stimulus package. That cost analysis also includes the impact of some smaller technical changes to the law. Other industries, like oil and gas and commodities trading, also stand to benefit from the change.

“It’s a pretty big deal,” said Peter Buell, who runs tax services for the real estate practice of the accounting firm Marcum. A separate provision in the stimulus bill, which removes restrictions on losses that people can carry over from previous years, would make the tax break even more lucrative.

A spokesman for the Real Estate Roundtable, a lobbying group, played down the importance of the provision. He said that under the 2017 law, some real estate developers simply spread their losses over multiple years, potentially avoiding the $500,000 ceiling.

Among the possible beneficiaries of the change are real estate investors in President Trump’s inner circle.

In 2018, The New York Times reported that Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and adviser, likely didn’t pay federal income taxes for several years because of paper losses generated by depreciating his companies’ properties, despite his significant wealth and earnings from other sources, according to confidential financial documents.

Mr. Trump has also reported significant losses on his tax return. Portions of a 1995 tax return published by The Times showed nearly $916 million in losses, which could have permitted him to avoid paying any federal income taxes for almost two decades.

The 2017 law restricted both men’s abilities to reap tax savings through only-on-paper losses; now, with those limits likely to be lifted, Mr. Trump and Mr. Kushner, as well as other wealthy real estate developers, have the potential to score big tax savings.

Did you think he and Jared wouldn’t dip their beaks? Haha…

They were warned

Published by digby on March 27, 2020

Bill Gates has been spending boatloads of money to fight disease here and around the world and he’s become an expert on pandemics.

Gates was on CNN last night. And he made it very clear that this outbreak can only be properly mitigated if the whole country shuts down for a period of 6 to 10 weeks, which will be the only way the economy recovers soonest possible as well as the health of the nation as a whole .

The “county” or “quadrant” plan Trump is pimping is self-evidently stupid. Gates explains why. If you missed it, it’s worthwhile to watch it. He comes at this from a slightly different angle than most of the experts because he has a different background so it’s a little bit more accessible:

*By the way, Gates was on SKYPE and it looked like he was in a normal TV studio and there was no sound delay. It stands to reason that he’d have the very best in internet technology but some important media figures and politicians who need to appear on TV from home should get on the horn with his techs and figure out how they can optimize their home studios.

Modeling to accommodate a pathological liar

Published by digby on March 27, 2020

The president is out there giving false information every single day. Between him and the right-wing news media feedback loop, it’s bad enough that the epidemiologists have had to add his disinformation and propaganda into their models:

[B]asic questions leaders are struggling to answer: When can we safely lift these quarantines? How many people could die if we do it too early? Just how dangerous will this pandemic turn out to be? And what exactly should be our next step?

This is why epidemiology exists. Its practitioners use math and scientific principles to understand disease, project its consequences, and figure out ways to survive and overcome it. Their models are not meant to be crystal balls predicting exact numbers or dates. They forecast how diseases will spread under different conditions. And their models allow policymakers to foresee challenges, understand trend lines and make the best decisions for the public good.

But one factor many modelers failed to predict was how politicized their work would become in the era of President Trump, and how that in turn could affect their models.

In recent days, a growing contingent of Trump supporters have pushed the narrative that health experts are part of a deep-state plot to hurt Trump’s reelection efforts by damaging the economy and keeping the United States shut down as long as possible. Trump himself pushed this idea in the early days of the outbreak, calling warnings on coronavirus a kind of “hoax” meant to undermine him.

The notion is deeply troubling, say leading health experts, because what the country does next and how many people die depend largely on what evidence U.S. leaders and the public use to inform their decisions. Epidemiologists worry their research — intended to avert massive deaths in situations exactly like this pandemic — will be dismissed by federal leaders when it is needed most.

There is no doubt that Fox News is selling snake oil and happy talk, based upon the president’s daily Coronavirus Rally. All you have to do is watch it for a couple of hours to see how pernicious they really are.

And it isn’t just Fox and the president:

Those are just a few of the headlines circulating in the right-wing fever swamps. Trump voters are not getting accurate information and they are very likely to be spreading the virus all over the place. It would be one thing if they just infected those who choose to believe the president over common sense. But they are undoubtedly going to be infecting health care workers, other first responders and regular people who happen to be in their orbit.

It’s criminal…

Going after the Governors

Published by digby on March 27, 2020

We knew this was where he was headed, right? This thing has already hurtled out of control and Trump is setting up the blame game, as usual.

His henchmen went first:

Trump called in to Hannity to bring it home:


One Governor caught this smear and responded:

The list of everyone they will blame is familiar: the “liberal media,” the Democrats, China, the “deep state,” and now, the Governors and other state and local level officials, mostly in Blue States. A lot of people are dying and Trump’s eic response failure is going to have to be laid on a lot of others.

His cult will happily drink Dear Leader’s kool-aid. The question is whether the rest of the people will believe it.

We Have to Save Those Ventilators For Where They’re Really Needed

Published by tristero on March 27, 2020
European countries search for ventilators as virus cases surge ...

Of course:

President Donald Trump rejected calls from New York’s governor that the state needed tens of thousands of new ventilators to treat a mass of patients infected with the novel coronavirus, saying he didn’t believe those numbers were accurate.

Trump has to save them for places where they’ll be really needed, like Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin:

Just like 2016 and 2018, next year’s election is likely to come down not just to the proverbial swing states themselves but the voting blocs that define them and — importantly — whether they show up at the polls.

Those include working class voters outside Detroit and Pittsburgh. Suburban women outside Milwaukee and Philadelphia. Rural voters in northern Florida, or Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin. Hispanic and black voters in South Florida and southeastern Michigan. They all played pivotal roles in the last two elections, one way or another.

And they will do so again in 2020.

“It would be very hard for Trump to win reelection if he loses two of those states,” said J. Miles Coleman, associated editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a political handicapping and analysis website at the University of Virginia Center for Politics. “You can’t take any of them for granted.”

Let’s put it this way: During this catastrophe, Trump and his utterly remorseless henchmen have their priorities straight and are, on many fronts, acting with single-minded, implacable focus.

Do we? Are we?