Date: 2024-04-28 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00018614
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SARAH LAZARUS & CROOKED MEDIA
SARAH LAZARUS & CROOKED MEDIA ... Apr 3, 2020 ... The Trump Saga
Peter Burgess
Sarah (Crooked) whataday@crooked.com via gmail.mcsv.net Apr 3, 2020, 8:34 PM (19 hours ago) to me
Wednesday, April 3, 2020 BY SARAH LAZARUS & CROOKED MEDIA
-Gov. Gavin Newsom, on the usefulness of Devin Nunes
President Trump announced that the CDC now recommends that Americans wear non-medical masks when outside their homes, after the administration spent all week debating it. Trump then emphasized that this is optional, because he does not want to wear one. Anything that slows the rate of infection at all is a terrific idea, because the administration is still failing disastrously to get hospitals the supplies they need:
New York saw its biggest single-day increase in coronavirus deaths on Thursday, with 562 reported within 24 hours. Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) once again pleaded for help from the federal government, and said he would sign an executive order that will allow the state to redistribute PPE and ventilators to where they’re needed. The USNS Comfort, a 1,000 bed hospital ship that arrived in New York Harbor on Monday, had only 20 patients as of this morning: It was meant to relieve hospitals by taking in non-coronavirus patients, but because New Yorkers are home and not out getting hit by cars or bonking into skyscrapers, there aren’t many to offload. After coming under pressure, the Pentagon announced that the ship will accept “low acuity,” recovering COVID-19 patients.
The federal stockpile of PPE is nearly depleted, and states are left to compete both among themselves and against the Trump administration in a private market spinning out of control with price-gouging and profiteering. As the Trump administration places orders for supplies, those shipments are then thrown to private sector distributors rather than deployed directly to the states. That drives up the bidding frenzy, leaves the door wide open for profiteering, and may very well enrich Trump’s friends.
It didn’t have to be this way: The federal government had invested millions of dollars in two ventures to ramp up mask readiness, in preparation for this exact situation, and Trump just...abandoned them. In 2018, the Trump administration received detailed plans (which began under Obama) for a machine that could churn out millions of masks at a high speed during a pandemic. The Department of Health and Human Services did not build the machine. Similarly, an effort to develop a reusable mask went nowhere, even as medical experts had emphasized their importance for at least 14 years. Neither of those ventures produced a single mask, so here we are, with Alabama receiving 5,880 rotted, unusable ones from the federal stockpile.
In related news, we live in an Orwellian nightmare.
Jared Kushner, a man who earned his current position of power by his wits and hard work alone, argued at Thursday’s White House coronavirus briefing that the national stockpile’s reserves are meant for use by the federal government, not the states. The official government website for the Strategic National Stockpile directly contradicted that, until a few hours after Kushner spoke, when the language was changed to align with his remarks. Very, very cool!!!!!
Also, it turns out no one knows where the White House’s projected coronavirus death toll came from, including the experts whose research the administration used to arrive at it. Some of Trump’s top advisors have expressed doubt about the estimate, and White House officials have refused to explain how it was generated, or exactly what time period it supposedly captures. Here’s what you can know for sure: If the death toll matches the projections, Trump will lie and claim he saved millions of lives; if it falls below the projections, Trump will lie and say he did an even better job than experts thought was possible; if it exceeds the projections he will either a) lie and blame governors, b) lie and claim the numbers are Fake News, or c) both.
Trump has invoked the Defense Production Act to require 3M to redirect masks the company produce in other countries to the U.S., which 3M has warned will cause other countries to retaliate, and reduce the net total of available respirators here. Trump could have used that law weeks ago to ramp up mask production in the U.S., but instead he sat back and forced states into a bidding war. Somehow, the dazzling management prowess of Jared Kushner hasn’t fixed it.
On today's America Dissected: Coronavirus: Abdul El-Sayed dissects how hospitals are struggling under the surge of COVID patients, while writer Naomi Klein joins us to talk about the “shock doctrine” of disaster capitalism. We’ll find out what disaster capitalism means, how it’s affected past disasters and how human behavior perceives everything from toilet paper to corporate bailouts. Listen and subscribe →
Plus! Abdul will be live on our Instagram (@crookedmedia) tomorrow at 5pm ET. Got a question for him?
The Trump campaign has launched a multimillion dollar legal effort to block Democrats from making it easier to vote during the coronavirus crisis. In partnership with the RNC, Trump’s re-election campaign has mobilized in key battleground states to support litigation against Democratic efforts to alter voting laws, like new vote-by-mail measures. Trump advisors say they oppose measures like automatically sending every voter an absentee ballot, based on Trump’s treasured conspiracy theory that voter fraud is rampant. While Republicans in the Senate have blocked federal funding for a vote-by-mail system, Trump’s political machine is pouring money into state-level court battles to make it as hard as possible for you to vote in plague conditions.
The Trump administration has substantially scaled back paid-leave requirements for employers from those that Congress mandated in the coronavirus relief package. About 75 percent of American workers are employed at companies that are exempt from providing 12 weeks of paid family leave.
Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) sold $46,027 worth of stock in an online travel company days after she purchased it, and hours before Trump announced a ban on European travel to the U.S., but also just after she joined Trump on a visit to the CDC. Another gorgeous day for Loeffler to resign. Just beautiful resigning weather, out there.
Gov. Tony Evers (D-WI) has called on the state’s Republican legislature to delay next Tuesday’s primary. The legislature will convene on Saturday, and...probably not do that, if we had to put money on it.
The Department of Veteran Affairs is forcing high-risk veterans to show up for in-person compensation and pension exams, according to a lawsuit.
Sailors aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt cheered for Capt. Brett Crozier as he disembarked after he was fired for raising the alarm about a COVID-19 outbreak on the carrier. A group of Democratic Senators has called for an investigation of Crozier’s removal.
A leaked memo shows that Chris Smalls, the Amazon worker who was fired after initiating a warehouse strike, was the subject of a smear campaign by top executives who hoped to squash his credibility.
Holland America's Zaandam ship has docked in Florida after spending two weeks at sea with passengers who had contracted COVID-19.
The toilet-paper shortage doesn’t stem just from hoarding, but also from a stressed supply chain, and the two-pronged toilet paper market that’s divided between commercial and consumer TP. Don’t act like you don’t have time to learn about the intricacies of toilet-paper distribution today. Also Brian keeps saying he will take a few of those giant rolls of single-ply corporate shared-bathroom toilet paper as sweat pours down his brow.
Bill Withers, the singer-songwriter who wrote “Lean On Me” and “Ain’t No Sunshine,” has died from heart complications. He was 81.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is the last major world leader continuing to deny the severity of the coronavirus pandemic. Bolsonaro has called for all but elderly Brazilians to head back to work while visiting a busy commercial district in the capital, claimed that Brazilians are too tough for the pandemic to affect them, and insisted that antimalarial drugs would cure those with infections. Brazilian congressional leaders, editorial boards, and the head of the Supreme Court have begged citizens to ignore Bolsonaro, and a movement to impeach him is gaining steam. Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram have all deleted posts in which Bolsonaro questioned social-distancing measures, or touted unproven drugs. As of today, Brazil (which has limited testing) has over 9,000 confirmed cases.
Brooklyn landlord Mario Salerno has waived April rent for hundreds of tenants. (Who had 'landlords become source of hope' on their 2020 bingo cards?)
The REFORM alliance, whose co-founders include Jay-Z and Meek Mill, has donated 100,000 masks to prisons and jails across the country.
Scientists at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine say their potential COVID-19 vaccine looks promising.
Krogers has offered all frontline employees at the grocery chain a $2-per-hour “hero bonus.”
SoundCloud now allows artists to add a direct donation button to their profiles.
In the interest of supporting small business, here’s a list of food and beverage producers that will ship to you directly!
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