Month: July 2020

The reopening schools issue reminds me of how in many states school boards had to decide about arming teachers.

No national or state mask mandate means that decisions are pushed down to cities, counties and school boards. When there is no law and no funding city councils and school boards can be swayed by the powerful & organized people in their community.

In the past the “guns everywhere” people were better organized, had better lobbyists and catchier messages. So they won.

Lately the Parkland activists, MDA and other groups fought back at the state and local level. But they didn’t always win.

I watched a LOT of those meetings. Allowing those boards to make life or death medical decisions is crazy.

Part of the blame goes to medical professionals and scientists who say, “Just look at the data!” Elected officials can be craven cowards. They don’t make decisions based on reason alone.

The data alone isn’t going to make elected officials act the way we want, so we must use other pressures.

In Florida I watched school boards decide about arming teachers. The Governor said, “You have to do something from the options we decided on.”

The choices were cops in schools, armed security guards, or teachers/admin with guns. The school districts wanted to comply with the state law so they went with those options–even though cops in schools were proved ineffective at stopping mass shootings.

The state also used funding to get their way.

This is the same kind of pressure that cities (and by extension school boards) are getting now on opening schools in states with no mask laws.

1000’s of people die every month from gun violence and the national elected officials said “We won’t pass laws stopping guns.” State officials said, “We won’t pass state laws banning guns AND we won’t allow cities to ban guns.”

In this environment school districts had to figure out how to save student lives while their city and state elected officials passed laws that led to their communities swimming in guns.

The state said “We will give you money  for School Resource Officers. We did this because they have a great slogan, “Only good guys with guns can stop bad guys with guns!”

The data shows that SROs don‘t prevent students from being killed 99.99 percent of the time they are present during a school shooting. The gun lobby had the best slogan and their views influenced our elected officials better than the views of the groups against it.

The attitude in America up to Parkland was, “We can’t stop the proliferation on guns outside the schools, it’s too hard. We voted to let the numbers grow and grow and now we all just need to live with a certain level of gun deaths every month.” That attitude on guns still prevails, while some of us are working on mitigation gun deaths others are still pushing for more guns.

Masks for all would help prevent COVID-19 infections inside the schools, but even better would be NO COVID-19 outside of schools. Sadly we have to deal with higher Covid rates OUTSIDE of schools because we weren’t willing to learn from other countries. Now some states aren’t willing to learn from other states!  We also have an incompetent corrupt leaders at the national and state level.

But just like the way the elected didn’t pass national and state gun laws–meaning there’s a high percent of guns floating around in the state–the elected won’t pass mask laws, meaning more COVID-19 is floating around the state.

More guns in cities and states increases the odds of more school shootings and deaths. More COVID-19 in cities and states increases the odds of more school infections & deaths.

The lobbyists who want guns everywhere do it so they can make money. Yes, they will talk about “freedom” but it’s about making more money. Until recently they were a more powerful lobby than the people who didn’t want guns everywhere.

Why won’t states pass mandated mask laws? Because the lobby that says, “The economy!” and “Trump’s reelection!” is powerful now.

Here is the Mayor of Oklahoma City explaining how they will listen to experts, but also the opinions of the citizens. That’s fine. But as I have seen in Riverside & Orange counties in California, elected officials don’t always listen to public health experts on life or death medical decisions. (County With 2nd Most COVID Deaths In CA Rescinds Pandemic Orders) And that’s a big problem for the life and death of the people in those communities.

Ultimately, there are nine elected officials and in our form of government, I am just one of those nine votes. If you have opinions regarding a mask ordinance or other mitigation responses, I encourage you to reach out to your City Councilmember before Thursday’s meeting.

— Mayor David Holt (@davidfholt) July 10, 2020

Parents will have to go to cities, counties and school boards to fight and explain that the lives of teachers and children are more important than “The Economy!”

The parents will be up against people who will will use lies, bribes, threats and slogans to win. They will talk about “Freedom” from mask wearing but it’s really people making money in “The 1% economy” and supporting what Trump decides.

The Trump admin have given up preventing the proliferation of COVID-19 just like many Americans have given up on gun proliferation saying “it’s too hard to stop.” Guns are  everywhere because of people’s previous actions. Actions can be taken to change that.

Elected officials saw that we would accept a certain level of deaths from gun violence every month even thought they could be preventing by passing certain laws at the national and state level.

Now some elected officials are preventing certain laws at the national and state level from being passed that could prevent deaths from COVID-19. They expect us to accept a certain level of COVID-19 deaths every month just like we accepted the gun deaths.  We have the data to show how mandated  mask laws will save lives, but the data alone isn’t going to make elected officials do the right thing to protect lives.

When our national and state leaders fail us we need to use all our skills, and pressures to keep our students & teachers alive.

Did you expect something different? I mean …

Imagine how many lives would have been saved if he’d modeled even slightly responsible behavior during this crisis. They will do whatever he says.

Finding campaigning workarounds adapted to the coronavirus pandemic has occupied me for months. Outdoor festivals and campaign rallies normally ramp up in late August and early September. July and August heat normally tamp down campaign events at this time in the cycle. But nothing like a global pandemic has.

National-level consultants seem to have shifted not to outside-the-box approaches but to familiar, contactless voter-engagement tactics. Can’t knock doors? Make more phone calls. Can’t hold rallies? Do more text-messaging. And, naturally, more digital ads.

This remote activism and socially distanced preparation for the fall leaves voter registration numbers tanking. Voter registration is normally a haphazard, face-to-face, person-to-person activity. In the summer of COVID-19, there are no voter registration volunteers with clipboards registering voters at outdoor events that are cancelled, nor on downtown street corners on the weekends.

The pandemic may be affecting potential voters across the political spectrum, but Politico reports Republicans have an edge. A report from Democratic data firm TargetSmart found people who are registering are older, whiter, and less Democratic:

The report seemed to confirm what state elections officials and voter registration groups had been seeing in the field for weeks: Neither Democrats nor Republicans had been registering many voters during the pandemic. But Democrats were suffering disproportionately from the slowdown.

Last month in Iowa, where the race between Trump and Joe Biden is surprisingly close, Republicans nosed back ahead of Democrats in active registrations after ceding the lead to Democrats for the first time in years.

“In some states, before the pandemic, you were seeing a net edge for Democrats,” said Page Gardner, founder and president of the Voter Participation Center, which works to register young people, people of color and unmarried women.

Now, she said, “in some states … the advantage has shrunk substantially.”

Gardner calls the pandemic closures and stay-at-home orders a “perfect, horrible storm in terms of undercutting registration efforts, and undercutting people’s ability to get registered.”

TargetSmart finds Republican registrations edging Democrats’ in Florida, Colorado, Maine, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. All of which adds a measure of uncertainty to an election cycle already rife with uncertainties.

For the first time this year, North Carolina is allowing eligible citizens with DMV-issued IDs to register to vote online. As of January, 39 states plus the District of Columbia already allowed online registration. The catch is that people not already registered are not that politically engaged. Because they are not registered, they have no voter histories and don’t appear in voter lists used by parties to contact likely voters. Even if they can register to vote from the comfort of their own homes with a cell phone or computer, who is going to tell them?

The Wisconsin Elections Commission in late June mailed out 200,000 postcards to citizens identified as eligible to vote but unregistered. They explained in a June 25 press release:

The WEC sends these postcards because of Wisconsin’s membership in the Electronic Registration Information Center (https://ericstates.org), which helps states improve the accuracy of America’s voter rolls and increase access to voter registration for all eligible citizens.  Wisconsin sent similar postcard mailings to 1.28 million eligible but unregistered residents in 2016 and 384,000 residents in 2018.

ERIC helps the Wisconsin Elections Commission develop the mailing lists of eligible but unregistered residents.  ERIC starts with a list of people who have been issued a driver license or a state ID card by the Wisconsin Department of Transportation since the previous mailing.  ERIC compares that list to Wisconsin’s statewide voter registration system to find eligible but unregistered residents.  Names of people currently serving a felony sentence were removed from the mailing list, as were people who have asked to be removed from the active voter list.  Also taken off the mailing list are people who recently moved without providing the USPS with a forwarding address. 

ERIC also filters out deceased DMV customers by cross-checking the last four digits of Social Security numbers against the Social Security Death Master (SSDM) list. If this is a new feature, improved algorithms may avoid past confusion when dead people and those already registered received postcards in 2016.

North Carolina is not an ERIC member. But thirty other states plus the District of Columbia have access to the service, even Texas. Washington, New Mexico, and West Virginia have sent such postcards in the past. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, how many ERIC member states are inviting the unregistered to participate in 2020?

If I had the facility and funding to do this myself, my mailings would be more targeted, naturally. But as former Colorado Senate Majority Leader Ken Gordon once observed, “the more people who vote, the more legitimate the elected officials are, and [the better] they represent the actual values of the electorate.”

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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, perhaps I can issue a COVID-19 supplement.

Since we’re halfway through 2020 (already?) I thought I’d apprise you of some of the latest and most noteworthy Blu-ray reissues I’ve picked up so far this year. Any reviews based on Region “B” editions (which require a multi-region Blu-ray player) are noted as such; the good news is that multi-region players are now more affordable. I’ll have some more next week!

All Night Long (Kino-Lorber) – This quirky, underrated romantic comedy from Belgian director Jean-Claude Tramont has been a personal favorite of mine since I first stumbled across it on late-night TV back in the mid-80s (with a million commercials).

Reminiscent of Michael Winner’s 1967 social satire I’ll Never Forget What’s ‘is Name, the film opens with a disenchanted executive (Gene Hackman) telling his boss to shove it, which sets the tone for the mid-life crisis that ensues. Along the way, Hackman accepts a demotion offered by upper management in lieu of termination (night manager at one of the company’s drug stores), has an affair with his neighbor’s eccentric wife (an uncharacteristically low-key Barbra Streisand) who has been fooling around with his teenage son (Dennis Quaid), says yes to a divorce from his wife (Dianne Ladd) and decides to become an inventor (I told you it was quirky).

Marred slightly by some incongruous slapstick, but well-salvaged by W.D. Richter’s drolly amusing screenplay. Hackman is wonderful as always, and I think the scene where Streisand sings a song horrendously off-key (while accompanying herself on the organ) is the funniest thing she’s ever done in a film. Despite Hackman and Streisand’s star power, the movie was curiously ignored when it was initially released. Maybe this reissue will help it find new fans.

Even though the film does not necessarily appear to have been restored, the 1080p presentation is sharp, with decent color saturation. The sole extra is a new interview with screenwriter Richter, who (to my surprise) is cantankerous about how the film turned out!

Britannia Hospital – (Indicator Limited Edition; Region “B” locked) – This 1982 satire (a wild mashup of The Hospital, The Rocky Horror Picture Show and The Magic Christian) was the final third of iconoclastic UK writer-director Lindsay Anderson’s loosely-linked “Mick Travis” trilogy. Malcolm McDowell reprises his role as Travis, the protagonist of If…. (1968) and O Lucky Man! (1973).

Anderson’s satirical targets are less defined than in the previous two films, resulting in a broad take-down of everything from the U.K.’s National Health system to corporate culture, royalty, classism and ineffectual politicos. Still, it succeeds as a two-fingered salute to Thatcherism (considering the year it came out). Huge cast; many returning from the previous films. Weirdest casting: Mark Hamill!

Indicator’s Blu-ray is a limited edition (3,000 copies) and Region “B” locked (requires a region-free player). The high-definition remastering is pristine. I have not had a chance to plow through all the extras yet, but they are plentiful. There are newly produced interviews with several participants in the production, as well as a 117-minute 1991 interview with the late director (audio only) produced as part of The British History Project.

Criss-Cross (Eureka Masters of Cinema; Region “B” locked) – Film noir aficionados are sure to rejoice once they see this gorgeous 4K digital restoration of the 1949 classic from revered genre director Robert Siodmak (Phantom Lady, The Suspect, The Killers, The Cry of the City, et.al.).

Burt Lancaster stars as an underpaid and over-worked armored car driver who still has the hots for his troublesome ex-wife (Yvonne De Carlo). Chagrined over her new marriage to a local mobster (veteran noir heavy Dan Duryea), he makes an ill-advised decision to ingratiate himself back into her life, leading to his half-hearted involvement in an armored car heist as the “inside man”. Great script by Daniel Fuchs (adapted from Don Tracy’s novel; Steven Soderbergh adapted his 1995 thriller The Underneath from the same). Artful, highly atmospheric cinematography by Franz Planer.

The 1080p transfer of the 4K restoration is luminous; one of the best I have seen in a while for a classic period film noir. There are two audio commentary tracks; I have only listened to the one by film scholar Adrian Martin, who is quite enlightening. Among the extras: 31-page collector’s booklet and the Screen Director’s radio adaptation from 1949.

Mystery of the Wax Museum (Warner Archive Collection) – “Images of wax that throbbed with human passion!” Get your mind out of the gutter…I’m merely quoting the purple prose that graced the original posters for this 1933 horror thriller, directed by the eclectic Michael Curtiz (Adventures of Robin Hood, The Sea Hawk, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Casablanca, Mildred Pierce, King Creole, et.al.).

Beautiful (and busy) Fay Wray (who starred in King Kong the same year) captures the eye of a disturbed wax sculptor (a hammy Lionel Atwill) for reasons that are ah…more “professional” than personal. Wray is great eye candy, but it is her co-star Glenda Farrell who steals the show as a wisecracking reporter (are there any other kind of reporters in 30s films?). Farrell’s comedy chops add just the right amount of levity to this genuinely creepy tale. A classic.

The film was considered “lost” until a lone, worn out print was discovered around 1970. It was originally filmed in the long-defunct Two-Color Technicolor process, adding to the challenge of an accurate restoration. Thank the gods for the UCLA Film and Television Archive and the Film Foundation, who tackled the project with their usual aplomb (with a little sugar from the George Lucas Family Foundation). The result is a glorious print that will make buffs wax poetic (sorry). Extras include the documentary Remembering Fay Wray.

Salesman (Criterion Collection) – Anyone can aim a camera ,”capture” a moment, and move on…but there is an art to capturing the truth of that moment; not only knowing when to take the shot, but knowing precisely how long to hold it lest you begin to impose enough to undermine the objectivity. For my money, there are very few documentary filmmakers of the “direct cinema” school who approach the artistry of David Maysles, Albert Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin. Collectively (if not collaboratively in every case) the trio’s resume includes Monterey Pop, Gimme Shelter, The Grey Gardens, When We Were Kings, and Thelonius Monk: Straight, No Chaser.

In their 1969 documentary Salesman, Zwerin and the brothers Maysles tag along with four door-to-door Bible salesmen as they slog their way up and down the eastern seaboard, from snowy Boston to sunny Florida. It is much more involving than you might surmise from a synopsis. One of the most trenchant, moving portraits of shattered dreams and quiet desperation ever put on film; a Willy Loman tale infused with real-life characters who bring more pathos to the screen than any actor could.

Criterion has done their usual bang-up job here, starting with a new restored 4K digital transfer. There is a commentary track by Albert Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin (from 2001). Extras include an archival 1968 TV interview with both Maysles brothers (sadly, all three directors are no longer with us). The inclusion of “Globesman”, a spot-on 2016 parody of Salesman from the “mockumentary” IFC series Documentary Now! was a nice surprise (there’s also a short appreciation of Salesman by Documentary Now! co-creator Bill Hader).

More Blu-ray and DVD reviews at Den of Cinema

— Dennis Hartley

….Absentee Ballots are fine because you have to go through a precise process to get your voting privilege. Not so with Mail-Ins. Rigged Election!!! 20% fraudulent ballots?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 10, 2020

Facts First: Trump is inventing a distinction where none exists, and also peddling baseless claims of rigged elections and fraudulent ballots. Different states use different terms, but “absentee ballots” are “mail-in ballots,” and vice versa. Regardless, there are strict measures in place across the country to verify the authenticity of all ballots cast in the mail. These measures are very successful — more than 99.9% of votes in US elections are legitimate.

“No-excuse mail voting or absentee voting — whatever you call it — is essentially the same thing,” said David Becker, founder of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research. “You request a ballot, you get a ballot, you vote, you send it in, and there are protections in place. It doesn’t matter whether you call it mail voting or absentee voting. It’s the same thing.”

CNN and other outlets have previously reported that Trump and many administration officials have utilized vote-by-mail options in the past. This includes Vice President Mike Pence, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany and White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, as well as members of Trump’s family who tried to vote absentee but sent the ballots in too late.In addition to conflating absentee voting and mail-in voting, Trump raised the possibility that the election would be “rigged” and that 20% of the votes would be “fraudulent ballots.”

Based on turnout in past presidential elections, 20% of the vote would amount to at least 20 million votes. Fraud of that scale would be near-impossible to pull off and is not a serious threat, experts say.

When Trump touts the “precise process to get your (absentee) voting privilege,” he’s likely talking about things like voter registration, providing proof of identity, and signature-matching. These safeguards are in place for all postal voting, regardless of whether someone has voted absentee for many election cycles or is requesting an absentee ballot for the first time this year.

In the 2016 election, about 24% of all ballots were cast in the mail, according to federal data. Experts expect that will significantly increase this November, as states expand postal voting to keep people away from polling places during the Covid-19 pandemic. Officials from both parties implemented these sweeping changes — despite Trump’s public pleas to restrict postal voting.

In some states, an excuse is required to vote absentee. But to make it easier this year, states have loosened the rules on what counts as a valid excuse, like fear of getting the coronavirus at the polls. Some states have taken the step of pro-actively sending absentee ballot requests to all registered voters. Other states are going farther and will send a ballot to all registered voters.

Several reporters debunked Trump’s claims within minutes of his Twitter post Friday morning. CNN has repeatedly fact-checked Trump’s wildly untrue claims about voting-by-mail, allegations of fraudulent elections, and his far-fetched theories about foreign countries printing ballots.

The irony is that Republicans have spent decades trying to get more vote by mail because it helps their own turnout. Now a lot of his voters are rejecting it because he’s against it. Oops.

But hey, this is a guy who is actively promoting the killing of older people who form the largest part of his base so I don’t think he’s thought any of this through.

*I should say that if I thought there was a strategy in all this, which I don’t, I would think they are hoping their voters would all vote in person on election day and everyone else would vote by mail — which might mean that he looks like a winner on election night but loses after all the votes are counted. I think you can imagine what they’d do with that. It’s something to think about.

It’s clear what Roger Stone did. It’s not just benign electoral hijinx. Dirty tricks in concert with a foreign government goes much further than that and that’s what Roger Stone did. Now the man Stone’s betrayal benefitted has commuted his sentence and it’s pretty much assured that he will be pardoned after the election regardless of the outcome.

This piece by David Frum says it all:

Stone is the central figure in the greatest scandals in U.S. history. Ames, Hanssen, the Rosenbergs, Alger Hiss—none of them worked with a foreign intelligence service to help a candidate for president of the United States. Stone did. And now he will receive a commutation of his sentence from the president he served.

The amazing thing about the Trump-Stone story is how much of it happened in the full light of day. A (very) partial timeline:

Stone told listeners to a paid conference call that Julian Assange would continue to release information “that is going to roil this race.”  

On August 8, he told a Republican group that he had been in contact with Assange, and more drops were coming.

On August 14, Stone began Twitter direct messaging with the Russian unit that hacked the emails, and then soon after posted the messages on his website, Stone Cold Truth.

On August 21, he tweeted: “Trust me, it will soon [be] Podesta’s time in the barrel,” evidently referencing the then-forthcoming cache of emails phished by Russian intelligence from John Podesta, the chair of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

On October 2, a Sunday, he tweeted that the next WikiLeaks dump would come on Wednesday.

When Wednesday came and went with no dump, Stone tweeted, “Libs thinking Assange will stand down are wishful thinking. Payload coming #Lockthemup.” Stone reaffirmed his prediction on Thursday. The dump came Friday, October 7.

Stone was simultaneously in communication with the Trump campaign and the candidate Donald Trump. The former Trump deputy campaign chair Rick Gates testified at Stone’s trial in November 2019 that he witnessed Trump take a call from Stone after the first WikiLeaks release in July. Less than a minute after the call ended, Trump told Gates that another release would follow later in the campaign.

Trump declared in writing to the Mueller investigation that he did not recall discussing WikiLeaks with Stone. On page 77 of Volume II of the report, Mueller expressed disbelief in Trump’s sworn evidence: “Witnesses said that Trump was aware that Roger Stone was pursuing information about hacked documents from WikiLeaks at a time when public reports stated that Russian intelligence officials were behind the hacks, and that Trump privately sought information about future WikiLeaks releases.” On page 17 of Volume II, the report cites the former Trump attorney Michael Cohen as one of those witnesses, along with Gates.

It is not illegal for a U.S. citizen to act or attempt to act as a go-between between a presidential campaign and a foreign intelligence agency, and Stone was not charged with any crime in conjunction with his Trump-WikiLeaks communications. But it’s a different story for the campaign itself. At a minimum, the Trump campaign was vulnerable to charges of violating election laws against receiving things of value from non-U.S. persons. Conceivably, the campaign could have found itself at risk as some kind of accessory to the Russian hacks—hacking being a very serious crime indeed. So it was crucial to the Trump campaign that Stone keep silent and not implicate Trump in any way.

Which is what Stone did. Stone was accused of—and convicted of—lying to Congress about his role in the WikiLeaks matter. Since Stone himself would have been in no legal jeopardy had he told the truth, the strong inference is that he lied to protect somebody else.

Just today, this very day, Stone told the journalist Howard Fineman why he lied and whom he was protecting. “He knows I was under enormous pressure to turn on him. It would have eased my situation considerably. But I didn’t.”

You read that, and you blink. As the prominent Trump critic George Conway tweeted: “I mean, even Tony Soprano would have used only a pay phone or burner phone to say something like this.” Stone said it on the record to one of the best-known reporters in Washington. In so many words, he seemed to imply: I could have hurt the president if I’d rolled over on him. I kept my mouth shut. He owes me.

And sure enough, Trump did owe him. Trump commuted Stone’s 40-month sentence. Roger Stone will not go to prison. Stone’s former business partner Paul Manafort is likewise keeping silent. And so the American public will likely never know what use the Russians made of the Trump polling information that Manafort shared with them. Manafort has extra reason to keep quiet, for he must feel new confidence that his pardon is coming.

But how much more do we need to know? At every step in this story, the formula I’ve mentioned in previous essays continues to hold: “Many secrets. No mysteries.”

Although crucial details remain concealed, the core narrative has been visible from the start. An American private citizen worked with foreign spies to damage one presidential candidate and help the other. That president accepted the help. When caught, the private citizen lied. When the private citizen was punished, the president commuted his sentence.

It’s all there: as bold as the spats on Roger Stone’s shoes, as ugly as the 130,000 Americans dead, and daily rising, because of the malign incompetence of the president assisted into the Oval Office by Stone, Manafort, and the Russian spy services.

The entire Republican establishment thinks this is fine. In fact, they are, as we speak, trying to punish the law enforcement and intelligence officials who found it out. They are as corrupt as Trump and Stone. And when Trump is gone and Stone goes back to his clown show, they will hold power. It’s not just Trump.

It would be really helpful if our political leaders spoke with one voice on this, but I suspect there would be a lot of people like this anyway. A certain number of Americans just cannot understand risk or the basic science underlying this virus and how it spreads. The president is one of them.

I doubt that very many people are quite this reckless. But there are many who are simply ignoring the risk and are carrying on as usual. They figure the odds are with them. They probably are. But they aren’t really that great. And there’s the fact that they can kill someone else even if they don’t kill themselves.

A patient in their 30s died from the coronavirus after attending what’s being called a “COVID party,” according to a San Antonio health official.

Chief Medical Officer of Methodist Healthcare Dr. Jane Appleby said the idea of these parties is to see if the virus is real.

“This is a party held by somebody diagnosed by the COVID virus and the thought is to see if the virus is real and to see if anyone gets infected,” Dr. Appleby said.

According to Appleby, the patient became critically ill and had a heartbreaking statement moments before death.

“Just before the patient died, they looked at their nurse and said ‘I think I made a mistake, I thought this was a hoax, but it’s not,'” Appleby said.

Appleby made this case public as the spike in cases for Bexar County continues. She wants everyone, especially those in the younger demographic, to realize they are not invincible.

“It doesn’t discriminate and none of us are invincible,” Appleby said. “I don’t want to be an alarmist, and we’re just trying to share some real-world examples to help our community realize that this virus is very serious and can spread easily.”

In fact, she said the positivity rate has jumped to 22 percent.

And if people really want to get life back to normal, they will make the small sacrifice to stay home as much as possible for the time being. If they don’t this thing will go on and on and on.

There are 3.2 million cases in the US right now, the highest of any place in the world. Closing in on 135,000 dead. But some people think the whole thing is a hoax.

By the way, Florida is teeming with “irrepressible” partiers:

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Pulsing parties in swanky South Beach mansions. Raging raves in Miami warehouses. Backyard bashes in Palm Beach manors where teenagers drink late into the night.

South Florida is a world epicenter of coronavirus infections, but some irrepressible revelers insist on trying to live out the subtropical promise of fun, sin and sun — COVID-19 or not.

Experts say the pandemic parties could cost them their life.

A review of police records, social media accounts, and interviews with professional event planners who refuse to let COVID-19 kill the music shows that South Florida’s world-famous party culture is alive and well.

Revelers often showed up to a $6 million waterfront mansion for festivities, drawing Miami Beach code enforcers 43 times and the police 18 times. Then gunfire at a party there Sunday wounded two people, sending them to the hospital, according to a city spokesman. One man was arrested, accused of violating city code by having the party, but the shooter vanished.

The Miami Police Department has responded to 11 “pandemic parties” in recent months, including five in June. But the organizers of one July Fourth bash say they pulled off their warehouse rager without police interference, and some 250 attended.

A large party delighted 50 teens in Royal Palm Beach, with officers finding them drinking at a home one late night in May. The man who opened the door refused to let the cops in, so they arrested him on the charge of resisting an officer. The cops shut the party down.

There were parties aplenty across South Florida around the Fourth of July weekend. Broward dispatchers received more than 170 calls about parties and gatherings that were too large or loud, from July 1 to July 6. The city of Miami shut down seven venues and parties over the holiday weekend for not following social-distancing ordinances.

Eric Knott, a pulmonary and ICU medicine trainee on the front lines of treating coronavirus patients, likens pandemic partying to drunken driving. “It’s like hopping into a car drunk without a seat belt and airbag, and assuming you won’t get hit,” Knott said.

Those who’ve attended such parties bring up the uncertainty of how long the pandemic will last — while there’s a need to get out. “We have no idea how long this is going to last and that seemed like a good way to let loose with the measures they were offering,” says Ashley Davis, a Miami resident who attended the July Fourth warehouse bash. The event’s organizers allayed partygoers’ concerns with a disinfection machine that experts say is ineffective.

The median age of those infected by the virus in Florida has plummeted in recent months, going from 65 at the beginning of March to 39 this Wednesday, according to the Florida Department of Health. But younger, healthier people who stand a better chance of fighting it off can still easily transmit it to older, more vulnerable members of their households.

Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez has singled out partygoers for accelerating the spread. “We saw a rapid rise in young people … being positive to COVID-19 around mid-June,” he told CBS’ “Face The Nation.” “I think that that had a lot to do with probably socializing, young kids going to parties, maybe graduation parties at homes, because it’s been pretty locked down here for some time.”

Knott says that the intensive-care units at his hospital are getting full, and that the lack of medical resources could greatly increase the chances of death, even to young people who would normally be able to fight it off.

“Young people think they’re invincible, that the virus won’t kill them, because the mortality for them is super low,” he says. “But that’s assuming we have the resources. As soon as the numbers get high enough where we can’t give the 25-year-old oxygen, the mortality rate for that group goes up. So as soon as we’re full, that mortality rate argument goes out the window.”

The pandemic parties have taken place all across South Florida.

The Broward Sheriff’s Office responded to 13 calls about large, loud, parties or gatherings on July Fourth. Police records show officers responded to complaints about pool parties with more than 20 people, “large” parties where DJs set off fireworks, and large gatherings of 10 to 15 people setting off fireworks in the street. No one was arrested. Records for the other 157 complaints made between July 1 and July 6 were not immediately available.

On July 4, officers from the Fort Lauderdale Police Department responded to a noise complaint in a neighborhood. Police records show that cops found a group of 15 people gathered in the backyard. The police report notes that the house was a “Home Away vacation rental,” and that the renter of the residence was visiting from Massachusetts. Officers later returned to the scene to tell the party house to turn it down again. No arrests were made.

Broward County issued an order that took effect Friday, restricting the occupancy of vacation rental properties solely to the people who rented them. The order was passed, because the rentals are being used to host parties.

Pandemic parties have also been broken up in Palm Beach County.

According to police reports, when officers first arrived at a large house in village of Royal Palm Beach on May 22 and knocked on the door, they were met by a drunken, belligerent man who claimed to be of legal age. Inside the house, the reports state, officers could see some 10 teens drinking. After backup arrived and the man who answered the door was arrested, officers allowed the 40 to 50 teenagers who had been in the backyard — “consuming what appeared to be alcoholic beverages and yelling at each other” — to leave.

But some of the largest and most violent parties have occurred in Miami-Dade County.

Authorities in Miami Beach arrested the man accused of throwing the July 5 party that ended in a double shooting. Court records show that Anthony Shnayderman, the organizer of the festivities, was charged with using a residential property as a commercial venue and with a misdemeanor violation of the county’s emergency health ordinance. He was released on a $500 bond.

The shooting remains an open investigation, and details why violence erupted are unclear, but WSVN-Ch. 7 showed footage of partygoers fleeing the house in panic as shot after shot rang out.

In response, Miami Beach officials pulled the house’s occupancy permit, disconnected its utilities, and barred entry to the premises without a court order. The number of people present at the house when the shooting occurred is unclear.

Shnayderman couldn’t be reached for comment.

At least one big bash over the holiday weekend escaped the scrutiny of authorities.

The organizers of one July 4 event say some 250 people attended their Miami warehouse party like it was still 2019. Video from the party shows about a hundred revelers dancing and carousing in close proximity without any masks on.

The organizers say the party went off without a hitch, while city officials and the Miami Police Department say they were unaware that the festivities even had taken place until the day after.

After learning of the party, Stephanie Severino, spokeswoman for the mayor of Miami, said “everybody needs to start doing their part.”

The party’s organizer said his company has been hired to put on several events during the pandemic, and it has done its part to keep revelers safe from the virus.

“Everybody wants to party, it’s Miami. Everybody is looking for the next party,” says Salomon Hilu, owner of MIA Entertainment Co, the outfit that organized the pandemic party, of his company’s approach.

Hilu declined to say who hired his company to throw the party, or the event’s exact location. He gave no specifics about prior events.

Hilu says partygoers were screened at the door by a “state-of-the-art” disinfection machine that checked temperatures, captured facial recognition data, and cleansed partygoers with a disinfecting spray. He said symptomatic individuals were turned away at the door, though it is unclear how many were denied entry, and that a list of all attendees was kept in order to inform everyone, should anyone later test positive.

Masks were not required indoors at the event.

Dr. Aileen Marty, a professor of infectious diseases at Florida International University, finds the company’s safety strategy lacking.

https://twitter.com/BettyBowers/status/1280912173598990336?s=20

And let’s not forget that the causes are just a tiny bit different. One was about the concept of life, liberty and equal justice under the law and the other was about licking Donald Trump’s boots. We know what Ted Cruz cares about.

H/t