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GOP Venality Open Thread: Hey, It’s National Doctors Day!

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And he doubled down today! Per ABC News:

As health care workers on the front lines of the coronavirus crisis warn about shortages of masks and other protective equipment, President Donald Trump insinuated over the weekend people might be taking masks from hospitals “out the back door,” suggesting they might be being sold on the black market.

He was reacting to an account by a mask company executive who said the demand had skyrocketed at one New York City hospital, which they did not name, from 10,000 to 20,000 a week to 200,000 to 300,000 masks a week.

The New York Greater Hospital Association and New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo have since pushed back on Trump’s claims…

Trump implied, without evidence, that there was a nefarious reason for the shortage in masks, which states have criticized the federal government for not providing. Meanwhile, nurses and doctors across the country have resorted to re-using protective equipment, accepting donations, buying their own PPE (personal protective equipment) and other workarounds to keep themselves safe.

“How do you go from 10 to 20 to 300,000? 10 to 20,000 masks to 300,000? Even though this is different, something’s going on. And you ought to look into it as reporters,” Trump said. “Where are the masks going? Are they going out the back door? How do you go from 10,000 to 300,000 — and we have that in a lot of different places,” he said, though he didn’t mention any other examples of hospitals that have reported stolen masks.

“I hope I didn’t get any of your clients in trouble, but it could be that they are in trouble,” Trump said, referring to hospitals as “clients” and speaking to the CEO of the mask-production company, who accompanied Trump at the briefing.

While there have been a handful of small-scale reports of people stealing masks, gloves and hand sanitizer from hospital waiting areas or other health centers across the country as anxieties over supply shortages rose, many quickly criticized Trump for seeming to put the blame on hospital workers…

At his daily coronavirus briefing in New York on Monday, Cuomo deflect questions about Trump’s comments, saying, “I don’t know what he’s trying to say.”

“In terms of a suggestion that the PPE equipment is not going to a correct place, I don’t know what that means. I don’t know what he’s trying to say. If he wants to make an accusation then let him make an accusation. But I don’t know what he’s trying to say by inference,” Cuomo said…

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top expert on infectious diseases and a key member of the White House coronavirus task force, said Monday morning that he wasn’t familiar with the issue but suggested that there could be more demand because “many more” patients need them.

“You know, I have not looked at that carefully, so I can’t really can’t comment. I mean, it could be that there are many more patients there that need them and they’re actually not walking out the door, they’re actually being utilized. I don’t know. I mean, that discussion came yesterday. I really didn’t know what was going on. I’d have to check that out later and find out what they were talking about,” Fauci said on CNN…

[Side note: Dr. Fauci’s not long for this administration, and is all too aware of that fact.]

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Late Night Open: This Is the Weirdest Timeline

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COVID-19 Coronavirus Update – Friday/Saturday, March 27/28 (Domestic Edition)

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Michigan Manslaughter in Progress

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He is exactly the person we thought he was:

After President Donald Trump issued scathing comments about Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, saying she’s “not stepping up,” and “doesn’t know what’s going on,” she told WWJ 950 the state is having trouble getting the equipment they need to fight the novel coronavirus.

“What I’ve gotten back is that vendors with whom we’ve procured contracts — They’re being told not to send stuff to Michigan,” Whitmer said live on air. “It’s really concerning, I reached out to the White House last night and asked for a phone call with the president, ironically at the time this stuff was going on.”

The other stuff was Trump speaking with Sean Hannity on FOX News about Whitmer, a Democrat who has said very pointed things about the federal government’s lack of coordinated response to the coronavirus crisis. Trump said of Whitmer, “She is a new governor, and it’s not been pleasant … “We’ve had a big problem with the young — a woman governor. You know who I’m talking about — from Michigan. We don’t like to see the complaints.” 

Michigan’s request for disaster assistance has not yet been approved by the White House, and Trump told Hannity he’s still weighing it.

Emphasis mine. People are going to die because of Trump’s gigantic ego, but their needless deaths won’t just be on Trump. They’ll be on every Senate Republican except Mitt Romney because the senators had a chance to remove this deranged bully from power before disaster struck, and they didn’t do their duty.

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COVID-19 Coronavirus Update – Thursday/Friday, March 26/27 (Domestic Edition)

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Required disclaimer: China is almost certainly lying about its stats, which in no way improves ours.

How many Americans have coronavirus? New Reuters poll might offer a hint:

… In the nationwide poll, 2.3% of Americans surveyed said they’ve been diagnosed with the coronavirus, a percentage that could translate to several million people.

Of course, it’s impossible to know if the answers are a result of misinformed self-diagnoses, untested professional diagnoses or test-confirmed infections. But Carnegie Mellon University professor Baruch Fischhoff, who studies risk perception and analysis, said that the poll results shouldn’t be viewed as merely a collective neurotic reaction to the pandemic.

Given the shortage of coronavirus test kits, it may well be a broadly accurate estimate of the extent of the infection across the United States, he said. “It may be the best available data,” he said.

A further 2.4% of those polled said they have been in close contact with someone who has tested positive. And in an illustration of the degrees of separation with the deadly virus, a further 2.6% said they knew someone who has been in close contact with a person who has tested positive.

The poll, which surveyed 4,428 adults between March 18 and 24, shows a dramatic increase in those saying they have tested positive for the virus from a similar poll conducted just a few days earlier. In the Reuters/Ipsos poll of 1,115 Americans conducted March 16 and 17, about 1% said they were infected.

The latest poll also suggests that Latinos are far more likely to come in contact with people who may be infected than whites; the same appears true for younger people compared to older Americans. The disease appears to be concentrated in the Northeast, according to the poll, but the survey also suggests it’s widespread throughout the country…

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Thursday Morning Open Thread: Situation Moving Fast

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… The sprawling legislation, which passed 96 to 0, would send checks to more than 150 million American households, set up enormous loan programs for businesses large and small, pump billions of dollars into unemployment insurance programs, greatly boost spending on hospitals, and much more.

The Senate’s most liberal and conservative members joined together to support the mammoth spending bill, illustrating how concerned policymakers have become about the health care strains and financial pain the country now faces.

The legislation’s goal is to flood the economy with money at a time of financial near-chaos, with entire states on lockdown, many businesses closed and the numbers of infections and deaths from the coronavirus quickly on the rise.

The Senate vote sends the bill to the House, where Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) announced a vote to approve it Friday morning. President Trump said he intends to sign it immediately…

The bill would extend $1,200 to most American adults and $500 for most children, create a $500 billion lending program for businesses, cities and states, and establish a $367 billion employee retention fund for small businesses. It would direct $130 billion to hospitals and provide four months of expanded unemployment insurance, among other things.

Lawmakers and the White House were bombarded with lobbyists and special-interest groups seeking assistance during the negotiations, and the price tag rose from $850 billion to $2.2 trillion in just a matter of days.

With confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States climbing swiftly to over 67,000 Wednesday with more than 900 deaths, lawmakers acknowledged that no amount of economic relief from Congress could stop the pain for the American public. In addition to layoffs, many workers are dealing with salary reductions or furloughs. And despite Trump’s push to restart much of the economy by April 12, there are growing signs that the drag on business could last well into the second half of the year….

The legislation ensures that taxpayer-backed loans cannot go to firms controlled by Trump, other White House officials or members of Congress. That would suggest that Trump-owned properties, including hotels that have been hurt by the downturn, cannot seek taxpayer assistance….

Much more at the link — which may have been updated by the time you read this!

Also of note (if they hold to it):

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Glass Egos and Glass Ceilings

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Governors in states that are hard hit by the pandemic (which will soon number 50 plus Puerto Rico and Guam) have to devote an intolerable amount of time to tip-toeing around Trump’s gigantic ego to get the help they need, according to articles in The Daily Beast and other outlets:

As the coronavirus pandemic has deepened, Democratic governors bearing the heaviest burdens are increasingly wary that if they complain too loudly about the federal response they will anger Donald Trump and risk losing critical support during a life-or-death crisis…

“I watched Gov. Cuomo [today] and he was very nice,” the president said of the man steering the state hardest hit by the virus. Cuomo had, moments earlier, conducted a press conference in which he scoffed at how insufficient the administration’s help in procuring ventilators had been.

“He had a choice… He refused to order 15,000 ventilators,” Trump said, referencing a recent column by Betsy McCaughey, a hardened Trump supporter and longtime health-care policy crusader on the right. “It says that he didn’t buy the ventilators in 2015 for a pandemic, established death panels and lotteries instead.”

Trump would go on to insist he was not blaming Cuomo. But the magnanimity was short lived. “It’s a two-way street,” Trump said of having the feds help states with a coronavirus response policy. “They have to treat us well, too.”

The thing about Cuomo not ordering the ventilators is 100% ass-covering bullshit. That can be assumed of anything that emanates from the piehole or keyboard of Betsy McCaughey, a liar and relentless shill for healthcare profiteers before she hitched her wagon to Trump’s pandemic management malpractice.

McCaughey and other operatives are likely digging through state records nationwide in search of deflection material for future Trump pandemic cock-ups. Excuses are all they’ve got. Besides breathtaking arrogance, a degree of petulance that would embarrass a toddler and mind-blowing chutzpah:

“If you’re good and respectful to [Trump], he will treat you the same—it’s that simple,” said one senior White House official. “The president has always said that he fights back when he needs to, and the situation with [Cuomo] is no different. If you keep that in mind, their sort of seesaw relationship during [coronavirus] doesn’t come as a surprise.”

Oh, fuck you, you fucking fuck. The “senior White House official” is right about one thing, though: it is unsurprising that Trump is allowing his extra-dainty feels to become a factor in delivering (or not) pandemic relief. If, after this revolting display of fragile narcissism, anyone dares to insinuate that women are too emotional to be good leaders in my presence, he’ll get punched right in the dick.

Open thread.

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Area Clown Dabbles in Medical Cosplay

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President Shit for Brains continues to be resistant to facts, evidence, reality, and sadly, the fucking virus itself:

President Trump said Tuesday that he wants the country “opened up” by Easter — April 12 — and continued to play down the dangers of the coronavirus pandemic even as experts warned of a worsening crisis.

A World Health Organization official said that the United States has the potential to become the new epicenter of the global crisis.

If, like me, you are wondering why Trump is apparently immune to the virus, the answer is that viruses CAN infect other viruses, it just isn’t that common. Regardless, opening up the country unless it is medically wise isn’t just insane, it’s fucking murderous. It’s gross negligence and more.

I’ve been investing in my retirement fund for thirty years, since I was 19. When I finished college, I lived in a shitty apartment that had fucking carpet on the walls from the 70’s because it was only $300 a month and every other apartment was $700+ and I drove a 1983 Chevy Celebrity until 2007 while my friends all drove new cars because I wanted to max out what I gave to my retirement and maybe be able to live when I could no longer earn. So I am invested in the stock market. It’s not much, but it is something. But if losing half of it or more saves the fucking life of just one kid’s mom or dad, it was worth every penny. This is not fucking rocket science.

And it doesn’t have to be an either/or. The way to avoid longterm economic effects are to endure the short term pain and get everybody healthy and not afraid to go out. You can open businesses all you want, no one but Darwin Award contestants are going to jam themselves in a fucking movie theater or stay for a week in a Trump Hotel if dying or killing grandma is a potential side effect, so the market is still going to be a hot mess.

Seriously, Larry Kudlow and those like him are going to kill us all, the Grima Wormtongue motherfuckers.

I’ll just end this little tirade with some sound reasoning from NFLTG Hillary:

Exactly.

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Repub Pathology Open Thread: The Attention-Junkie-in-Chief

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I turned on the evening news (yes, I’m an old) and was inadvertently exposed to the Oval Office Occupant doing a live prime-time broadcast. Man actually looks like an addict in need of a fix — sweating, snuffling, shifting from foot to foot. Hastily pulling away from the podium when ‘challenged’ by some halfway serious question from the attending reporters, then barging back to take the mic away from his minions as if seeing someone else draw the cameras caused him actual physical pain. Networks should really stop broadcasting these sh*tshowers, if only because they’re not good for innocent viewers’ morale…

… Now, as the coronavirus crisis threatens his presidency, and upends his campaign for reelection, Trump is rapidly losing patience with the medical professionals who have made the case day after day that the only way to prevent a catastrophic loss of life is to essentially shut down the country — to minimize transmission and “flatten the curve” so hospitals aren’t overwhelmed with critical patients.

The president also has been furious that his efforts to halt the harrowing drop in the stock market have so far proven ineffective. He has been calling friends and economists at all hours and berated aides and reporters who try to persuade him to recognize the severity of the outbreak.

Beyond the crisis, he has been agitated that he can’t run the campaign he wants against Democrat Joe Biden, and he has used daily, hour-long briefings as near proxies for his campaign rallies, guaranteed to attract attention and to maintain the backing of his fervent political case…

For Trump, that feeling is magnified by walling himself off during the crisis. Unable to travel and unsure of what to do, he’s been crashing West Wing meetings, often forcing staffers to hurriedly adjust agendas as the president frequently gets in the way of health professionals trying to chart a course of action.

While some around him have suggested that he should only appear when there is big news to announce, Trump has been missing the spotlight and has told people that he knows the nation is watching the briefings and doesn’t want to give up the stage.

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DKE-19 Strikes Over The Weekend!

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Over the weekend, compounding the epidemic of SARS-CoV-2, there was an outbreak of DKE-19. It even struck the New York Times, and I had to deal with a case of it on Twitter.

DKE-19 results in long and convoluted justifications of letting more people get sick and die so that (maybe) the markets will perk up.

It’s the argument that the British government was making last week until they suddenly turned around completely.

There was an article on Medium that was taken down, to continue a zombie existence on ZeroHedge, that reliable purveyor of Russian propaganda.* Tom Friedman and an op-ed writer at the New York Times took up the cause. There has been some of it elsewhere. I think it was the Friedman article that an IRL acquaintaince of mine caught it from and was badgering me on Twitter about, although he didn’t dare refer to it or its ideas directly. Just looking for more information, like an internet troll.

In case your loved ones have fallen prey to the DKE-19 plague, here is an antidote in a long thread:

Here’s the takedown of the Friedman article:

The basic argument is fairly dressed up and convoluted. You may look at Tom Friedman’s article for an example. (No, I won’t link!) It comes down to “Let’s let a lot more people get sick and die and get this over with fast.” There are a lot of assumptions in that, and more in the idea that this will improve business and the markets. Here’s one of the less coherent versions.

One of the big assumptions is that the author himself will not succumb to the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Unfortunately, early messaging that taking measures not to spread the virus fed into this assumption by implying that young people were less susceptible to it. This is probably true in a statistical sense, but young people still contract the virus and die from it. Cases are starting to show up in some of those young people who were on the Florida beaches. Anyone can get it.

Another big assumption is that, if given the chance, people will flock back to work and businesses that have closed will happily open. Many of the shutdowns were decided by the businesses themselves, and good luck persuading lots of people to start flying again. Nobody wants to get this virus.

Put more simply,

A compendium of experts from Jeff Jarvis.

There is one scenario in which something like this wish-fulfillment fantasy could take place: If there were enough testing, both for the virus itself (nucleic acid testing) and for immunity to it (serological testing). Then we could isolate the sick and allow the immune to start rebuilding the economy. But the FUBAR-in-Chief saw to it that testing would be delayed and diminished in the United States. We haven’t recovered from that yet. In any case, serological tests are just now being developed and brought to market in South Korea.

After the worst is over, the results will be cherrypicked, even by people I now agree with, to show that they were right. There will be plenty of data, and many arguments will be persuasive. My argument will be that we will never know for sure if we did too much, but if that is what we are worrying about, it wasn’t too much.

_____________________

* DKE-19 is probably not Russian propaganda, but its spread serves Russian objectives, making it attractive to ZeroHedge.

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Late Night Horrorshow Open Thread: All the BEST Experts…

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Since it’s late and a weekend, I’ll burn off this draft post for the lulz. Crowdsourcing, it’s what we do! No, SRSLY:

Jared Kushner has a lot on his plate. The White House senior adviser was tasked this week with conducting research into the coronavirus to help Trump decide whether to declare a national emergency. According to Politico, Kushner is talking to ‘relevant parties‘ and will ‘present his findings to the president’.

It appears that one of these ‘relevant parties’ is an emergency room doctor called Kurt Kloss, father of Jared’s sister-in-law Karlie. And Dr Kloss sought the advice of other medical professionals on Kushner’s behalf…in a Facebook group with almost 22,000 members.

‘If you were in charge of Federal response to the Pandemic what would your recommendation be,’ Kloss wrote in the private group Wednesday, according to screenshots passed to The Spectator. ‘Please only serious responses. I have direct channel to person now in charge at White House and have been asked for recommendations. I have already expressed concern for need for ventilators and more PPE (personal protective equipment) for frontline and test kits.’…

Many of the doctors in the group were forthcoming with suggestions — but some expressed skepticism. ‘For transparency I will provide some background about my unique circumstance. I have not shared this in a professional forum before,’ Dr Kloss clarifies. ‘Our daughter Karlie Kloss (one of the top models in the world, 45 Vogue covers and counting; proud dad commentary) is marred to Mr Joshua Kushner. His brother is Mr Jared Kushner son in law to the President and who is now directly involved with the response to this. I have been over the past two weeks expressing our concern through Josh about lack of PPE availability, the frustration of not being able to test and especially to ensure enough ventilators. Tonight I was asked by Jared through my son in-law for my recommendations, that’s when I turned to you guys my fellow BAFERD’s for help.’

BAFERD is an acronym for ‘Bad Ass Fucking Emergency Room Doctor‘….

And, since that was an eternity (over a week!) ago, here’s the cream of the “jest”: We’d be better off if the dumbfvcks had actually taken an actual doctor’s advice. (Apart, IMO, from an over-optimistic emphasis on top-down command & control, not to mention suspending the law that requires emergency rooms to treat everybody, regardless of their ability to pay.) But still, what a way to run(down) a country…

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Open Thread: Snark in A Time of Just-the-Flu

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Trump Press Conference – “I Don’t Take Responsibility At All”

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The previous thread is getting long. Here’s a new one.

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Rotating Cast of Scapegoats

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So, Trump is holding another press conference today (maybe sell now?), and also the spreading virus is foreigners’ fault and Trump appointee Jay Powell is to blame for the economy:

Rotating Scapegoats

Trump will find many people to blame this afternoon, and President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer will likely get name-checked. But Trump-adjacent entertainers and elected officials have been debuting other possible scapegoats this week:

There’s no internal logic there since a bioweapon is by definition a big fucking deal. But that’ll sail right over the Fox News audience’s heads. Sparkling pool enthusiast Falwell Jr. and the network’s sofa squatting assholes’ reckless blather is probably going to get more than just the stupid people killed.

The Bobble-Throated Slap-Dick from Arkansas* is also pushing the bioweapon conspiracy theory:

Rotating Cast of Scapegoats

I don’t think Trump has endorsed the conspiracy theory yet, but that could change this afternoon. Sure would put a crimp in trade negotiations! But these people don’t think long term. They don’t think at all.

The animating principle of the Trump administration is to pin the blame on someone else for the consequences of Trump’s towering incompetence. That applies to every result of each of the many incidences of Trump’s bungling. It’s just that the scale of this incident is so massive that it might take World War III to obscure it.

Open thread.

[H/T: Charles P. Pierce]

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