Month: April 2020

Boo, hoo, hoo:

Mark Meadows has officially been President Trump’s fourth White House chief of staff for less than three weeks.

In that time, he has shaken up the communications office, angering supporters of the press secretary he chose to replace. He has tried to put in place other speedy changes, hoping to succeed where his three predecessors failed. He has hunted aggressively for leaks.

But administration officials say he has been overwhelmed at times by a permanent culture at the White House that revolves around the president’s moods, his desire to present a veneer of strength and his need for a sense of control. It is why, no matter who serves as chief of staff, the lack of formal processes and the constant infighting are unavoidable facts of life for those working for Mr. Trump.

In the case of Mr. Meadows, it has not helped him with his White House colleagues that the former North Carolina congressman, who has a reputation for showing his emotions, cried while meeting with members of the White House staff on at least two occasions. One instance was in the presence of a young West Wing aide; another time was with the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

On both occasions, Mr. Meadows was discussing staffing changes, according to the people with knowledge of the events. A White House spokesman declined to comment on either meeting. A person close to Mr. Kushner said he denied that any such episode involving him ever took place.

Mr. Trump is said to have faith in Mr. Meadows and is sometimes responsive to his suggestions. Unlike the president’s history with his three previous chiefs of staff, the two had a personal relationship before Mr. Meadows resigned from Congress to take the job in the White House. But administration officials said that Mr. Trump sees emotion as a sign of weakness.

[…]

He was brought in by Mr. Trump as part of a staff shake-up just as the administration was overwhelmed by the fast spread of the coronavirus in the United States and struggling with equipment and testing shortages.

In the middle of the crisis, Mr. Meadows is trying to reorganize the White House staff. People close to him insisted Mr. Meadows’s nature was not to fire people willy-nilly, but they said that was what he was doing nevertheless.

He is also talking about other changes, two people familiar with the planning said, such as reorganizing the speech-writing team — currently a stand-alone office led by Stephen Miller — under the umbrella of the communications department. That discussion has met with some resistance, although one person with knowledge of the changes under consideration said the idea was to synthesize different departments that do not always work in tandem.

At the same time, his grip on the White House is hardly tight. Mr. Meadows was caught off guard when the press office on Tuesday night blasted out a lengthy list of people who had been selected to be part of one of the groups advising Mr. Trump on reopening the country, according to two people briefed on the matter. That had happened at the direction of Mr. Kushner, who has played a leading role in the White House’s response to the virus, according to the people with knowledge of what took place.

The list turned into something of a debacle on Wednesday, with one corporate executive after another telling reporters they had learned they were on it when their names were announced. Some said they had never agreed to be a part of the effort.

Even Mr. Meadows’s allies have described him as reeling from the reality that working for the president is different from being Mr. Trump’s phone confidant.

Awwwwww.

He went after Andrew Cuomo again this morning:

….testing that you should be doing. We have given New York far more money, help and equipment than any other state, by far, & these great men & women who did the job never hear you say thanks. Your numbers are not good. Less talk and more action!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 17, 2020

Trump taking anyone to task for complaining when he does more whining than any five-year-old I’ve ever met is really rich. And he doesn’t complain about anything except how unfaaaaair everyone is toward him personally. Over and over and over again.

And saying that someone else should get off TV when he has strong-armed all the public health experts and other task force members off the stage so he can hold his unhinged coronavirus rallies every day is beyond chutzpah. The amount of useful information in those TV events is nil.

He must have seen Cuomo’s approval ratings in the high 80s while his are back dow to the tepid lower 40s thes’ve been his entire term. Cuomo’s press conferences are much better received as well.

Cuomo is a New Yorker and he has theatrical flair just as Trump does. But he is also able to speak in coherent sentences, show empathy and convey useful information in a way that people expect of political leadership in a crisis.

Today he also decided to push back:

In extended fiery remarks, Gov. Andrew Cuomo responds to attack from Donald Trump: "First of all, If he's sitting home watching TV, maybe he should get up and go to work, right?"

Watch his full remarks: https://t.co/imu5k1sE1D pic.twitter.com/wG0OBN3ikb

— ABC News (@ABC) April 17, 2020

And it’s led by the president:

Almost no masks and no regard for social distancing guidelines outside of the Governor’s Residence. @MPRnews pic.twitter.com/8aMLHSHYzA

— Evan Frost (@efrostee) April 17, 2020

pic.twitter.com/CybpVUxxLH

— Evan Frost (@efrostee) April 17, 2020

There is plenty of evidence that this is being led by Astroturf groups, just as the tea party was. Salon’s Sophia Tesfaye reported:

So who is behind the sudden sprouting of right-wing resistance? Unlike with the Tea Party movement of the recent past, the mega-donors behind today’s right-wing rallies are making no effort to hide their involvement. 

FreedomWorks, the instrumental force behind the Tea Party, “is holding weekly virtual town halls with members of Congress, igniting an activist base of thousands of supporters across the nation to back up the effort” led by right-wing commentator Stephen Moore. the Associated Press reported. Other right-wing groups vocally opposing shutdowns include Americans for Prosperity, an organization funded by the Koch brothers, and the conservative Heritage Foundation.

There is even a connection to the family of Trump’s Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos. As Michigan’s governor noted, the DeVos family foundation helped fund Facebook ads for this week’s protest. While noting that the Education Secretary ended her political spending when she joined Trump’s Cabinet, a spokesperson for the family took a swipe at Whitmer. “They understand the frustration of fellow Michiganders, however, as elements of the governor’s top-down approach appear to go beyond public safety,” Nick Wasmiller told MLive, adding that “Michigan deserves competent governance.”

Trump’s acting director of national intelligence, Richard Grenell, posted an image to social media on Wednesday suggesting that stay-at-home orders were unconstitutional. That same day, Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, “We’ve gotta reopen, and when we do the coronavirus is gonna spread faster.” Rep. Trey Hollingsworth told an Indianapolis radio station on Wednesday that it was time for lawmakers to put on their “big-boy and big-girl pants” and prioritize “the American way of life” over the lives of actual Americans. “It is not zero evil, but it is the lesser of these two evils,” Hollingsworth said, “and we intend to move forward that direction.”

And, of course, there’s Trump TV:

Here's the Fox News segment that inspired Trump's unhinged "LIBERATE MINNESOTA" tweet (as @MattGertz notes it ran just two minutes before Trump's tweet was posted) pic.twitter.com/mHLxCcpoDP

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 17, 2020

I hope everyone is ready for this if Trump loses. The country will be overrun by angry right-wingers letting their freak flags fly just as they did after Obama won. There’s big money backing it and their media is completely insane. And Trump will be leading the charge.

This tells the tale:

Sweeping testing of the entire crew of the coronavirus-stricken U.S. aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt may have revealed a clue about the pandemic: The majority of the positive cases so far are among sailors who are asymptomatic, officials say.

The possibility that the coronavirus spreads in a mostly stealthy mode among a population of largely young, healthy people showing no symptoms could have major implications for U.S. policy-makers, who are considering how and when to reopen the economy.

It also renews questions about the extent to which U.S. testing of just the people suspected of being infected is actually capturing the spread of the virus in the United States and around the world.

The Navy’s testing of the entire 4,800-member crew of the aircraft carrier – which is about 94% complete – was an extraordinary move in a headline-grabbing case that has already led to the firing of the carrier’s captain and the resignation of the Navy’s top civilian official.

Roughly 60 percent of the over 600 sailors who tested positive so far have not shown symptoms of COVID-19, the potentially lethal respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus, the Navy says. The service did not speculate about how many might later develop symptoms or remain asymptomatic.

“With regard to COVID-19, we’re learning that stealth in the form of asymptomatic transmission is this adversary’s secret power,” said Rear Admiral Bruce Gillingham, surgeon general of the Navy.

If there are that many asymptomatic carriers among young healthy sailors, it’s scary. You can just imagine how many there are in the population unknowingly spreading the virus when there is

Again, peole need to be tested for the virus and there needs to be contact tracing and there needs to be follow-up to determine immunity among those who’ve tested positive. It’s a huge undertaking but it isn’t rocket science. It’s shoe leather, grunt work and money. And unless we are going to set up checkpoints on the national highway system to stop people from crossing borders it has to be a federally funded, national, plan.

There is no national plan. Therefore many more people will get sick in succesive waves and many more will die unnecessarily. And the economy will continue to be in depression.

All of that’s on Trump . ALL OF IT.

Radio talk show host Michael Savage is one of the worst people in the world. An absolute jackass in almost every way.

But when he’s right he’s right:

But for the past two months, listeners to Mr. Savage’s conservative radio show have heard him howl with unabated contempt about another menace: “The pimps” in the right-wing media “who tell you what you want to hear.” They are “intellectual dwarfs” and “science illiterates,” he says, who spent weeks downplaying the threat from the coronavirus epidemic and accusing President Trump’s opponents of exaggerating it to hurt him politically.

On Mr. Savage’s broadcast, which has one of the largest audiences in talk radio with 7.5 million listeners each week, the virus has never been a hoax or a bad case of the sniffles. He has lectured his fans on the research in detail: How it is transmitted; which treatments are proving effective; and the difference between morbidity and mortality rates.

With no small amount of self-satisfaction, Mr. Savage reminds people of his credentials — a Ph.D. and training in epidemiology — and of the fact that he was one of the few voices in conservative media who had warned them all along.

Much of the time, Mr. Savage still sounds like any other right-wing shock jock — making fun of Nancy Pelosi and doubting the validity of the #MeToo movement. But on the subject of the coronavirus, Mr. Savage has become one of the loudest voices of dissent on the right.

His views are a striking departure from the accepted version of events among Mr. Trump’s loyalists in the media, who have made a concerted effort to deny that they downplayed the epidemic. Mr. Savage has attacked the credibility of the conservative media, accused its biggest stars of being too rote and unthinking in their defense of the president, and demanded that they be held accountable for misleading millions of Americans.

“We’re living in a terrible time in America where truth has died,” Mr. Savage, who was one of the first conservative media stars to urge Mr. Trump to run for president, told his audience. “This is crazy,” he added, pointing to the way the president’s defenders always accuse the left of spreading “fake news.”

“How can we not let our side be called on the carpet when they lie to the people?”

Lying to the people is the right-wing media business model and nobody knows that better than he does. And he has been furiously fluffing Trump for years and called a Dr. Fauci a Nazi so his hands aren’t clean either.

But he is right about this. All the disgraceful nonsense from Dr. Oz is only the tip of the iceberg. Just last night we had these grotesque performances:

Dr. Phil thinks "We probably shouldn't have ever started" the coronavirus quarantine pic.twitter.com/coUBVwTEoS

— Jason S. Campbell (@JasonSCampbell) April 17, 2020

Dr Phil says national lockdowns will cause more death than the coronavirus, adding that we don't quarantine the country for cigarette-related deaths pic.twitter.com/EOLJSDArQd

— Jason S. Campbell (@JasonSCampbell) April 17, 2020

Hannity's plan to re-open Yankee Stadium is the funniest shit I've watched in a while pic.twitter.com/PuunNPYzRa

— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) April 17, 2020

I won’t even mention the hydroxychloroquine fetish.

They’ve killed people, I don’t think there’s any doubt about it.

If there’s one thing the Trump era has prepared us for it’s how to deal with stress. Ever since November 2016 we’ve been running at high speed, with everything feeling out of control on a daily basis. So this pandemic, horrible as it is, is probably being experienced differently than it would have been if we’d had a normal government all this time. This year alone began with the president being impeached and tried in the Senate for abusing his power, for heaven’s sake. We came this close to war with Iran due to the president’s provocative actions. Now, just three months later, the world is turned upside down as we deal with an unprecedented public health crisis and the possibility of another Great Depression, all greatly exacerbated by the administration’s ineptitude.

It’s certainly inappropriate to thank Donald Trump for building our national resilience in the face of utter chaos, but it’s possible that all this nonstop dysfunction has built our character enough to withstand the utter horror of his response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We’d better hope so, because it’s not getting any better.

On Thursday, the administration rolled out its Big Plan to “reopen the economy,” a prospect Trump has been touting almost since the day a month ago that he finally agreed to issue the social distancing guidelines recommending that people stay home and avoid contact with others in hopes of “flattening the curve.” Since his administration so grievously ignored the initial response to the threat and ended up bringing the country to its knees, you might have thought they’d have learned their lesson and at least worked to put in place a workable plan to raise it back up.

Needless to say, that did not happen. His lead-up to the big unveiling of his plan has been utter confusion. On Monday, Fox News announced that the “Council to Re-Open America” would be staffed by all the best experts in the nation:

Relax guys. We’re in good hands. This will be handled smoothly and wisely. pic.twitter.com/NlL3JMedlw

— Helen Kennedy (@HelenKennedy) April 13, 2020

That didn’t go over so well and it was soon reported that Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump would not be named to the council. So Trump took a different tack and decided to get the CEOs of all the big companies he could think of on the horn to join his “advisory council,” a set of awkwardly named “Great American Economic Revival Industry Groups.” That didn’t go so well either. The Washington Post reported earlier this week:

Some of the groups involved in the calls were notified in advance of Trump’s announcement, while others heard their names for the first time during the Rose Garden event Tuesday night. “We got a note about a conference call, like you’d get an invite to a Zoom thing, a few lines in an email, and that was it. Then our CEO heard his name in the Rose Garden? What the [expletive]?” said one prominent Washington lobbyist for a leading global corporation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter. “My company is furious. How do you go from ‘Join us on a call’ to, ‘Well, you’re on our team?'”

Trump claimed these people were all on board with his “plan” to reopen right away, but in fact they were all reluctant to promise anything like that without full-scale testing in place to reassure their employees and customers that they would be safe.

Trump likewise asked a hundred or so legislators to join this council, including 32 House members and 64 senators, a number that included all the Senate Republicans except Mitt Romney of Utah. (What would he possibly know about business or state government or health care?) Senators who spoke to the president also made it clear that reopening anything could not happen until a full-fledged testing regime was in place. Trump reportedly believes that’s not his problem.

The huge number of people involved means that this council is completely useless. It’s clear that Trump is not taking their advice anyway, so all of this is just another Trump pageant that bears no relationship to actual governing.

The “plan” Trump made public on Thursday wasn’t a plan. He opened by declaring victory over the virus, saying we have hit the peak. He then basically showed a series of posters that Mike Pence will be able to hold up, on the rare occasions he speaks these days, to replace the poster with the social distancing guidelines he’s been holding up for the last month. They outline three phases to be used to begin to resume normal business. There’s nothing especially wrong with them — except for the fact that none of it can happen as long as the virus is still in the population and there’s no way of knowing who has it now or who had it in the past.

He did say that he would “let the governors call the shots” on decisions to relax restrictions state by state. According to the Washington Post, that’s by design:

Trump’s the-buck-stops-with-the-states posture is largely designed to shield himself from blame should there be new outbreaks after states reopen or for other problems, according to several current and former senior administration officials involved in the response who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

At the briefing on Thursday, CDC director Robert Redfield emphasized the importance of “early diagnosis, isolation and contact tracing,” and Trump interrupted him saying there are “wide open plains, wide open spaces … where you’re not going to have to do that.” He said there are places where the virus has been completely eradicated and that he expects to see stadiums full there, all of which is simply not true. There are hotspots developing in less populated areas all over the country, including a horrific outbreak in one of his favored states, South Dakota, whose Republican governor continues to carry the Trump banner and pretend it isn’t happening.

Trump is still engaging in magical thinking, believing that if he vamps long enough, this crisis will go away. And his aides have obviously devised a strategy for him to blame others when it doesn’t. Since there is no national testing strategy, and no way to reopen successfully without one, the president of the United States is essentially washing his hands of the crisis.

At this point, I think that may be a blessing. Many of the governors are way ahead of him as far as putting together plans to reopen and have formed regional compacts to try to coordinate their processes. Maybe they can form their own “advisory council” and find a way to establish the kind of national testing and contact tracing that has to be done. We’d better hope so. The Trump administration has abdicated its responsibility and is nothing but an impediment to getting anything done properly at this point.

My Salon column reprinted with permission

Entitlements? I got yer entitlement right here, pal.

World War II lasted six years. Americans from coast to coast planted victory gardens; turned bacon grease into bombs; recycled paper, metal, and rubber; and sent mothers to work in defense factories. Six years. Half a million Americans dead. A lot of our flag-waviest Americans today can’t last six weeks, much less pull together.

I really should have seen Hamilton with the original cast. pic.twitter.com/4tKE5iQeGa

— Jason Roeder (@jasonroeder) April 15, 2020

Outside a feed store in rural Maryland on Wednesday, things got testy:

“Sir, you can’t enter the store without a mask,” a worker stationed outside the entrance said to an older man forging ahead past the fruit sapling and tomato plant display with nothing to hide the scowl on his face. “Sir.”

The man jutted his chin out and pulled his shoulders back.

“This is America,” he spat. “You can’t tell me what I gotta wear.”

A second, larger store employee joined the first guy, silently, and the huffing boomer swatted at the air and returned to his truck.

Yes, this is America, sir.

There were more expressions of discontent, of course, and more organized. The second wave of COVID-19 illness hasn’t hit yet, but the second generation of T-party protests arrived this week. In Ohio, North Carolina, and Michigan protesters arrived to demonstrate against stay-at-home orders imposed to contain the spread of a virus that has killed over 30,000 Americans since the end of February. More protests are planned.

A new (or renewed) culture war has erupted pitting rural America against cities more affected by the pandemic. (That situation is temporary.) Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) drew fire this week as much for her stay-at-home order as for rumors she is in contention for the vice president slot on the Democrats’ 2020 presidential ticket.

“You can temporarily take away my speedboat, but you can never take away my freedom,” the Washington Post’s Dave Weigel snarks:

“I feel that most of America feels the way that we do right now,” said Garrett Soldano, the founder of the Michiganders Against Excessive Quarantine Facebook group, on a Wednesday live stream for its 350,000 members. “Keeping healthy people at home is tyranny.” (According to polling, the vast majority of Americans remain nervous about reopening businesses if there is a threat of spreading infection.)

Resistance to the stay-at-home orders has grown fastest in Michigan, for two reasons: Whitmer has issued especially strict limits on movement and commerce, and she is increasingly being discussed as a running mate for Joe Biden. One week ago, the governor restricted in-person shopping at outdoor supply stores, the use of motorboats for recreation, and most recreational travel inside the state. The state had absorbed some of the highest infection numbers and the highest job-loss numbers; all of a sudden, it had the toughest regulations on how residents could behave.

T-party irregulars might want to use their time at home to broaden their news horizons.

The BBC reports that three months after reporting its first COVID-19 case, Japan is only testing “a tiny percentage” of its citizens, unlike South Korea. And while aggressive contact tracing and isolation worked at first, a second wave of infections is sweeping Japan. The country just declared a nationwide state of emergency until May 6.

Japan declares nationwide state of emergency as country’s coronavirus outbreak worsens https://t.co/EG7ZJPEjCp

— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) April 16, 2020

Unlike its Scandinavian neighbors, Sweden refused to issue lock-down orders. Citing Agence Frances-Press reports, the New York Post reports Sweden’s “softer” approach was a mistake:

Sweden’s controversial decision to refuse coronavirus lockdown measures is taking its toll — with the number of deaths up to 17 times higher than its Nordic neighbors, according to reports.

Fatalities in the Scandinavian nation topped 1,300 on Thursday — far worse than Denmark, Norway and Finland, which all implemented containment measures, according to the latest figures from Johns Hopkins University.

By comparison, Denmark has reported 321 COVID-19 deaths, Norway has reported 150 deaths and Finland has reported just 75, the data shows.

Lack of a coherent national response from the White House means, like Japan, the United States is still woefully lacking in testing. Labs may have the capacity, but coordination of production and distribution of tests, supplies, and personal protective equipment (PPE) remains incoherent. The acting president is flying blind, by gut instinct, as usual.

A glimmer

It is way too early to say anything for sure, but preliminary results from a clinical trial of Gilead Sciences’ antiviral medicine remdesivir are promising. A video discussion of preliminary findings was leaked to the medical news site STAT:

The University of Chicago Medicine recruited 125 people with Covid-19 into Gilead’s two Phase 3 clinical trials. Of those people, 113 had severe disease. All the patients have been treated with daily infusions of remdesivir.

“The best news is that most of our patients have already been discharged, which is great. We’ve only had two patients perish,” said Kathleen Mullane, the University of Chicago infectious disease specialist overseeing the remdesivir studies for the hospital.

If proved safe and effective, the drug could become the first treatment approved for treating the disease. But the Chicago patients were all volunteers who knew they were receiving remdesivir. There was no control group. So stay tuned. Mullane would make no further comment until official results of the trial are ready for release sometime this month.

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For The Win, 3rd Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV 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.

Today’s update:

A just-reported Chinese study compares the clinical outcomes of COVID-19 patients treated with hydroxychloroquine with those of patients receiving standard of care. The results, alas, are disappointing.

I summarized that study in my roundup yesterday of COVID-19 therapeutic research, pointing out that this randomized controlled trial of 150 patients “found no difference in the rate of viral load reduction or symptom alleviation between the group treated with hydroxychloroquine and the one that had not been.” Now the University of Vermont pulmonologist Josh Farkas has published his own analysis of the results, delving more deeply into the data.

The patients in both arms of the study were well-matched demographically and clinically, Farkas notes. Most suffered relatively mild cases of the disease, and treatment was initiated fairly late—about 16 to 17 days after disease onset. Twenty-eight days into the trial, the researchers found essentially no difference between the two cohorts with respect to the percent of patients in which the virus was undetectable.

Farkas adds:

This endpoint most directly addresses the question: does hydroxychloroquine exert anti-viral activity in vivo? The answer seems to be: nope. Even if the drug were administered too late to affect the clinical course of the infection, if it exerted any anti-viral activity then we might expect to see that effect here. If anything, there might be a trend towards delayed viral clearance in patients treated with hydroxychloroquine.

The study also found that fever and respiratory symptoms did not abate any faster in patients who had been treated with hydroxychloroquine.

Farkas acknowledges the study’s limits, including its small size and that the researchers were not blinded—that is, they knew which patients were being given the treatment. “Nonetheless,” he says, “this study currently represents the highest available quality of evidence regarding hydroxychloroquine.”

“For now, the best available evidence does not support the use of hydroxychloroquine in COVID-19,” Farkas concludes. “It seems prudent to restrict the use of hydroxychloroquine to randomized controlled studies for the time being.”

There is still some hope that earlier use of the drug will help some patients but considering the side-effects it would seem to be prudent at this point to wait to use it until all the studies are in.

Meanwhile, he has diverted millions of dollars worth of the drug to trials all over the place, sold it as a panacea and suggested for weeks that this was not only a treatment but a prophylactic, even saying that he might try it himself, because he has “a feeling” that it works. His medical advisers Dr. Oz and Dr. Ingraham told him so. He’s so desperate for an easy way out, even today.

He and his minions will all say the trial was rigged because it’s from China. But it’s not the only problem. That study in Brazil had to be halted because of all the heart complications. At this point somebody needs to shut Oz and Hannity up and tell them to wait for he results of all the trials. It’s beyond irresponsible.

If hydroxychloroquine turns out not to be effective, Trump will say he never said it would be, of course. I will be interested to see how his cult handles that.

John Amato at Crooks and Liars caught Dr. Oz on Hannity’s show last night. Hannity desperately wants to know when we can get back to work and fun:

See, Sean’s very bored.

Dr. Oz said, “First, we need our mojo back. let’s start with things that are really critical to the nation where we think might be able to open without getting in trouble.”

“Schools are a very appetizing opportunity. I just saw a nice piece in the Lancet arguing the opening of schools may only cost is two to 3% in terms of total mortality and that’s – any life is a life lost. But to get every child back into a school where they’re safely being educated, being fed and making the most out of their lives with the theoretical risk to the backside might be a trade-off some folks would consider.”

Which theoretical children is he talking about? They are living, breathing human beings, not numbers on a spreadsheet.

Roughly 56.6 million students will attend elementary, middle, and high schools across the United States (source).

So he wants roughly 1,680,000 students, teachers and staff to be wiped out all in the name of getting Trump re-elected?

This is a new one. Up until now they’ve mostly been agitating to sacrifice old people. Now we’re talking about kids. As Amato says, “why not just draw straws and have children sacrificed to The Wicker Man?”

And, of course, many teachers and administrators. I knew these wingnuts hated teachers but I didn’t think they hated them this much.

Trump talked about “American Carnage” in his grotesque inauguration speech. Here it is, in New Jersey:

The call for body bags came late Saturday.

By Monday, the police in a small New Jersey town had gotten an anonymous tip about a body being stored in a shed outside one of the state’s largest nursing homes.

When the police arrived, the corpse had been removed from the shed, but they discovered 17 bodies piled inside the nursing home in a small morgue intended to hold no more than four people.

“They were just overwhelmed by the amount of people who were expiring,” said Eric C. Danielson, the police chief in Andover, a small township in Sussex County, the state’s northernmost county.

The 17 were among 68 recent deaths linked to the long-term care facility, Andover Subacute and Rehabilitation Center I and II, including two nurses, officials said. Of those who died, 26 people had tested positive for the virus.

For the others, the cause of death is unknown.

Of the patients who remain at the homes, housed in two buildings, 76 have tested positive for the virus; 41 staff members, including an administrator, are sick with Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, according to county health records shared on Wednesday with a federal official.

We are the wealthiest country in the world. In fact, we are so wealthy that certain people who own country clubs in New Jersey are able to have a very different experience of this emergency:

Ivanka Trump, President Trump’s eldest daughter and a senior White House adviser, has positioned herself as one of the leaders of the administration’s economic relief efforts and one of its most vocal advocates of social distancing.

“Those lucky enough to be in a position to stay at home, please, please do so,” Ms. Trump said in a video she posted online, encouraging Americans to follow federal guidelines about social distancing, which suggests that people stay at least six feet apart. “Each and every one of us plays a role in slowing the spread.”

But Ms. Trump herself has not followed the federal guidelines advising against discretionary travel, leaving Washington for another one of her family’s homes, even as she has publicly thanked people for self-quarantining. And effective April 1, the city of Washington issued a stay-at-home order for all residents unless they are performing essential activities.

Ms. Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, who is also a senior White House adviser, traveled with their three children to the Trump National Golf Club Bedminster in New Jersey to celebrate the first night of Passover this month, according to two people with knowledge of their travel plans, even as seders across the country were canceled and families gathered remotely over apps like Zoom.

While all those bodies were being piled up in a small mogue and a shed, JSenioe White House advisers Javanka jetted in from DC to have a lovely seder at Bedminister country club just 30 minutes away.

This says it all as far as I’m concerned.