Author: tristero

Of course. Seriously, did you really think Trump would keep his tiny filthy hands off of 500 billion bucks in free money?

When President Trump signed the $2 trillion economic stabilization package on Friday to respond to the coronavirus pandemic, he undercut a crucial safeguard that Democrats insisted upon as a condition of agreeing to include a $500 billion corporate bailout fund.

In a signing statement released hours after Mr. Trump signed the bill in a televised ceremony in the Oval Office, the president suggested he had the power to decide what information a newly created inspector general intended to monitor the fund could share with Congress.

Under the law, the inspector general, when auditing loans and investments made through the fund, has the power to demand information from the Treasury Department and other executive branch agencies. The law requires reporting to Congress “without delay” if any agency balks and its refusal is unreasonable “in the judgment of the special inspector general.”

Democrats blocked a final agreement on the package this week as they insisted on stronger oversight provisions to ensure that the president and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin could not abuse the bailout fund. They feared that Mr. Trump, who has previously stonewalled congressional oversight, would do the same when it came to the corporate aid program.

But in his statement, which the White House made public about two hours after the president signed the bill, Mr. Trump suggested that under his own understanding of his constitutional powers as president, he can gag the special inspector general for pandemic recovery, known by the acronym S.I.G.P.R., and keep information from Congress.

The only question is whether he and his pals will limit themselves to half. Or get greedy.

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?

David Von Drehle, writing from Kansas City:

The first symptom was fever. I figured I had the flu. No such luck. The mild to moderate symptoms of this coronavirus make garden-variety flu seem like a tea party. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) described the relentless, soul-sapping fever as being hit by “a ton of bricks…”

My image is more particular. Seven days into the waves of fever, I was drifting half in and half out of sleep. I was wearing a down jacket with the hood cinched around my head. I was buried under the covers, teeth chattering. A week like that is a very long time. (Nine days, and counting, is still longer.)

In my weird dream, I was on the high-winter prairie. I was on horseback. The ground was black mud, and where the animals stepped, the impressions of their shoes froze almost immediately. Meanwhile, a hard, freezing rain was falling, filling the ruts with ice water. I fell from the horse into the mud. The horse kept walking over me. I couldn’t stand up.

Those are my mild to moderate symptoms. And I’m thankful for them. Because I don’t have certain other symptoms — not yet. My headaches have been few. For many covid-19 sufferers, the headaches are excruciating. My lungs are working well, which means I don’t have to enter the hospital.

It’s going to be a race now to see whether I can finish this column before I pass out.

And here’s the ending:

The idea that we’re on the brink of a return to normalcy is flatly insane. We’re barely saying hello to covid-19 in its mild and moderate mercies. That phrase itself reflects the blithe taxonomy of pandemic triage — whatever doesn’t kill you must be mild or moderate. It only makes sense in the context of a far deadlier version of the virus that, if allowed to run wild, will shatter public confidence in our leaders for years to come.

I am thankful for my mild to moderate symptoms. I’m not sure I could survive anything worse.

I truly don’t know what is wrong with these people.:

Up to 5,000 students will be allowed to return to Liberty University’s campus after school officials confirmed the conservative Christian school based in Lynchburg, Virginia, will reopen this week.

Liberty’s president, Jerry Falwell Jr, defied nationwide calls for mandatory school closures, inviting students to return amid a worsening coronavirus pandemic. Falwell is a major and vocal backer of Donald Trump and evangelicals are a core part of the president’s support base.

Trump has in recent days appeared to balk at a growing US shutdown in the face of the virus and claimed the US would reopen soon – alarming many health professionals.

At Liberty residence halls will reopen, and despite most classes moving online, faculty members were directed to report to campus.

“I think we, in a way, are protecting the students by having them on campus together,” Falwell said. Falwell then invoked a since disproven theory that young people “don’t have conditions that put them at risk”.

Adding: Some of you know the illustration above and may be offended: Opening up a university in the middle of a pandemic is far more blasphemous.

That’s right. Trump has decided that it’s far better for millions to die than for the country to go broke. This is the Trump doctrine, what has defined his entire career: better to be morally bankrupt than broke.

What he fails to understand is that if he actually does what he says, if people go back to work in the next few weeks, the country will go broke anyway. And millions will needlessly die.

Donald Trump has become completely unhinged and needs to step down immediately.

From The Guardian:

Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, is facing an intensifying public backlash after his muddled reaction to the coronavirus crisis sparked five successive nights of protests and predictions that his political authority had sustained a potentially fatal blow.

Brazil has recorded 1,128 coronavirus cases and 18 deaths, with the country’s health minister last week saying the public health system was likely to collapse by the end of April.

But Bolsonaro has continued to downplay the pandemic, despite more than 20 members of a delegation he recently led to the US becoming infected with Covid-19…

A growing number of Brazil’s 209 million citizens appear to disagree.

Since last Tuesday, cities across the country have witnessed nightly panelaço (pan-banging) protests where dissenters express their dissatisfaction with Bolsonaro by pummelling saucepans from windows and balconies.

Much of the fury has focused on Bolsonaro’s decision to pose for triumphant photographs and mingle with supporters outside the presidential palace last Sunday despite receiving medical advice to self-quarantine because of his possible exposure to the virus during a trip to meet Donald Trump in the US.

Since then, Bolsonaro has come under heavy fire from Brazilian media and political opponents for what they call his reckless and inept behaviour.

The sooner Bolsonaro is removed from power, the more Brazilian lives will be saved.

And the sooner Trump leaves office, the more American lives will be saved.

On her show last night, Rachel Maddow basically urged her colleagues not to live- broadcast Trump’s latest rallies, aka his press conferences on coronavirus. You know why — the lies, the personal attacks, the racism, the dangerous misinformation and the delusional happy talk. If the networks don’t broadcast Trump live, they can then edit out Trump’s nonsense and provide the public with actual information. This will save lives.

Far more sensible than quarantining Trump’s dangerous posturing would be to remove him and his entire administration from office immediately. Every day he’s in office, more people are at risk of dying due to his incompetence and disorganization.

But failing that , the least the media can do is to not provide Trump a forum to lie, foment hate, and propagate dangerous, even fatal, misinformation.

We square johns will remember the year 2020 as one of the most traumatic periods in our lives. But Trump and his party will fondly recall this time as The Golden Era of Grifting.

Case in point: Senator Richard Burr, an example of modern Republicanism at its purest:

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.), who had expressed confidence in the country’s preparedness for the coronavirusoutbreak, sold a significant share of his stocks last month, according to public disclosures.

The sales included stocks in some of the industries that have been hardest hit by the global pandemic, including hotels and restaurants, shipping, drug manufacturing, and health care, records show.

Until about a week ago, President Trump and GOP leaders had projected optimism in the country’s ability to manage the global outbreak of the coronavirus.

Surprised? You shouldn’t be. And this was just the beginning. Think of it this way:

The square johns are frightened. And the square johns are grateful that finally the US is setting up a trillion dollar relief program.

But that’s why square johns are such little people. Because if you’re a Republican, you don’t think like a square john, you don’t think like a little person. You think:

A trillion fucking dollars! If I could get me like even the tiniest taste… Yeah, baby, yeah!!

BTW, Burr’s not the only Senator who get what’s really happening and seized the day by its golden horns :

Burr’s sales were among those of several senators to come to light late Thursday, raising questions about whether they were influenced by private briefings on the outbreak that in subsequent weeks caused U.S. equity markets to plunge.

Also under scrutiny were sales by Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) and her husband, Jeffrey Sprecher, the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, as well as Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.).

Naturally, in a culturally healthy country, all of them would have been run out of office before midnight last night. But here we are, where we just record their lame excuses and non-sequiturs and move on to the next atrocity (seriously, Dianne, seriously?).

What a time.

Update: David Leonhardt has a round up of comments and info. Some excerpts:

Molly Knight: “Richard Burr should not hold government office by Monday. He needs to resign today.”

David French, The Dispatch: “The potential insider trading is dreadful and possibly criminal, but what could elevate this to a historic scandal is the idea that senators may have known enough to be alarmed for themselves yet still projected rosy scenarios to the public AND failed to make sure we were ready.”

David Frum of The Atlantic wants to know who else may have sold stock: “What did the Trump family sell, and when did they sell it?”

In 2012, Robert Reich notes, Burr was one of only a small number of members to vote against a law that barred them for trading on inside information.

Amanda Marcotte is exactly right. Trump’s “Chinese virus” comment is a deliberate troll (as well as red meat for his deplorable racist base). Its purpose is to get us talking about his racism instead of his incompetence. That way, he (and his enablers) can turn the conversation to a discussion of when a racist comment is not a racist comment and exactly how it’s not racist. The conversation then just drops far, far down the rabbit hole and the real issue — Trump’s total incompetence — is lost.

The appropriate response is to (1) forcefully denounce the racism but (2) ignore efforts by the right to make racism the topic, and then (3) go back immediately to the topic of Trump’s thorough unfitness for office.

In short, acknowledge his racism, but don’t take the bait. The real subject is that Trump has absolutely no business being president. His racism is central to that, of course, but the point is to get him out of there as soon as possible.