Last Call For Trump Trades Blows, Con't

The GOP's increasingly bellicose rhetoric about COVID-19 being a Chinese bioweapon is really pissing Beijing off, to the point where they are starting to expel American journalists.

In a sharp escalation of tensions between the two superpowers, China announced on Tuesday that it would expel American journalists working for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. It also demanded that those outlets, as well as the Voice of America and Time magazine, provide the Chinese government with detailed information about their operations.

The announcement, made by China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, came weeks after the Trump administration limited to 100 the number of Chinese citizens who can work in the United States for five state-run Chinese news organizations that are widely considered propaganda outlets.

China instructed American journalists for the three news organizations whose press credentials are due to expire this year to “notify the Department of Information of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs within four calendar days starting from today and hand back their press cards within ten calendar days.” Almost all the China-based journalists for the three organizations have press cards that expire this year.

The announcement went on to say that the American journalists now working in mainland China “will not be allowed to continue working as journalists in the People’s Republic of China, including its Hong Kong and Macao Special Administrative Regions.” The two territories are semiautonomous and in theory have greater press freedoms than the mainland.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the decisions “are entirely necessary and reciprocal countermeasures that China is compelled to take in response to the unreasonable oppression the Chinese media organizations experience in the U.S.”

The statement also accused the United States of “exclusively targeting Chinese media organizations,” adding that it was “driven by a Cold War mentality.” The new limits imposed by the Trump administration effectively forced 60 Chinese employees of the state-run organizations to leave the country.

Reporters at foreign news outlets in China were among those who aggressively reported on the coronavirus epidemic in January and February, including in its earliest days, when it was a regionalized outbreak in central China and the Chinese government sought to play down its severity.

The news organizations have also reported in the past year on other issues deemed extremely sensitive by Chinese officials, including the mass internment of Muslims in the Xinjiang region and the shadowy business dealings of family members of leaders, including President Xi Jinping.

Dean Baquet, the executive editor of The Times, condemned the expulsion of U.S. reporters in a statement, calling it “especially irresponsible at a time when the world needs the free and open flow of credible information about the coronavirus pandemic.”

“It is critical that the governments of the United States and China move quickly to resolve this dispute and allow journalists to do the important work of informing the public,” he said. He noted that The Times has more journalists in China than anywhere else internationally.

So we'll see.  But right now it's just all raining down now, and there's no shelter.

Trump Goes Viral, Con't

In the White House in mid-January 2017, the outgoing Obama team met with Trump's incoming transition team and went over three major disaster scenarios: a Class 5 hurricane directly hitting a major US city, a cyber incident that knocked out multiple infrastructure systems and businesses, and a novel virus pandemic.

The Trump people essentially ignored the exercise as a complete waste of time, and the people who did pay attention are all long gone.

The briefing was intended to hammer home a new, terrifying reality facing the Trump administration, and the incoming president’s responsibility to protect Americans amid a crisis. But unlike the coronavirus pandemic currently ravaging the globe, this 2017 crisis didn’t really happen — it was among a handful of scenarios presented to Trump’s top aides as part of a legally required transition exercise with members of the outgoing administration of Barack Obama. 

And in the words of several attendees, the atmosphere was “weird” at best, chilly at worst. 

POLITICO obtained documents from the meeting and spoke with more than a dozen attendees to help provide the most detailed reconstruction of the closed-door session yet. It was perhaps the most concrete and visible transition exercise that dealt with the possibility of pandemics, and top officials from both sides — whether they wanted to be there or not — were forced to confront a whole-of-government response to a crisis. The Trump team was told it could face specific challenges, such as shortages of ventilators, anti-viral drugs and other medical essentials, and that having a coordinated, unified national response was “paramount” — warnings that seem eerily prescient given the ongoing coronavirus crisis. 

But roughly two-thirds of the Trump representatives in that room are no longer serving in the administration. That extraordinary turnover in the months and years that followed is likely one reason his administration has struggled to handle the very real pandemic it faces now, former Obama administration officials said. 

“The advantage we had under Obama was that during the first four years we had the same White House staff, the same Cabinet,” said former deputy labor secretary Chris Lu, who attended the gathering. “Just having the continuity makes all the difference in the world.” 

Sean Spicer, Trump’s first White House press secretary, was among those who participated in the meeting. He said he understood the reasons such exercises could be useful, but described the encounter as a massive transfer of information that ultimately felt very theoretical. In real life, things are never as simple as what’s presented in a table-top exercise, he said. 

“There’s no briefing that can prepare you for a worldwide pandemic,” added Spicer, who left the administration in mid-2017. 

The outgoing Obama aides and incoming Trump aides gathered for roughly three hours on the afternoon of Friday, Jan. 13, 2017, in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to the White House. 

At least 30 representatives of Trump’s team — many of them soon-to-be Cabinet members — were present, each sitting next to their closest Obama administration counterpart. Incoming Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross appeared to keep dozing off. Incoming Energy Secretary Rick Perry was getting along famously with Ernest Moniz, the man he was replacing, several fellow participants said. 

But it was clear some on the Trump team had barely, if ever, spoken with the people they were replacing. News had broken that same day about national security adviser Michael Flynn’s unusual contacts with Russia’s ambassador to the United States, so his presence in the meeting added to the surrealness. Some members of both groups kept going in and out of the room, but most paid quiet attention to the presentations, which were led by top Obama aides. 

Obama aides, in op-eds and essays ripping the Trump administration’s handling of the coronavirus, officially called COVID-19, have pointed to the Jan. 13, 2017, session as a key example of their effort to press the importance of pandemic preparedness to their successors.

It fell on deaf ears.  All of it.  The top Trump people didn't pay a single word of attention to any of it, and the people who did left the disaster area long before 2020.

The people who would have had a plan?  We were told they were no different from Trump, and the country elected a racist mobbed-up game show host, because fuck that Clinton bitch, right boys?

And now?

Now we're headed over the cliff and there's no coming back from this.

Meanwhile, Trump's people are concentrating on the important stuff during this time of crisis:  more ICE raids to make sure the people we're still keeping in internement camps get introduced to exciting new friends like COVID-19.

“We’re out here trying to protect the public by getting these criminal aliens off the street and out of our communities,” said David Marin, the director of Enforcement and Removal Operations for ICE in L.A. “Asking us to stop doing that basically gives those criminals another opportunity to maybe commit more crimes, to create more victims.”

In the parking lot, the group of agents stood in a loose circle — not quite six feet apart — as they reviewed the target list. That morning, they were searching for four people, including two registered sex offenders.

Among the gathered officers were two U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers — identifiable only by a patch on their vest with their agency’s name. They were among nine total CBP agents and officers deployed to the L.A. area in the last few weeks to assist ICE in making arrests.

They rattled off the height, weight and daily routines of the people they sought to arrest. Nearly all the targets lived within a one-mile radius. With many schools closed due to coronavirus and some people staying home from work, it was unclear how arrests would go that morning.

“We couldn’t factor this in, right? This COVID-19 and the precautions that everybody’s taking,” Marin said. “We just have to continue to go with the same game plan that we’ve been doing.”
All of the officers had been issued the protective masks over the past few weeks. In his car, Marin kept packets of hand sanitizer wipes, which he’d used that morning to wipe down his steering wheel, his keys and his hands after pumping gas.

Trump wants an $850 billion stimulus package, and Republicans think it's a great idea, unlike the same Senate Republicans who almost all voted down the same package 11 years ago, mainly because it's a payroll tax cut that would literally steal hundreds of billions from Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid.

Democrats have their own $750 billion plan, but it has no chance of getting past Mitch.  Hopefully negotiations are in order, but whatever happens it needs to happen this week.  Time is running out.

The problem is America is still full of partisan disinformation and distrust thanks to Trump.

Inside the Republican Party and the conservative movement that Trump commands, there is now a deep divide as the nation confronts the coronavirus. For weeks, many on the right, including Trump, minimized the virus, if they considered it at all. Even in recent days, as much of the world shuts down to try to stop its spread, some Republicans mocked what they saw as a media-generated frenzy.

Their reaction reflected how the American right has evolved under Trump, moving from a bloc of small-government advocates to a grievance coalition highly skeptical of government, science, the news and federal warnings.

Their conspiratorial unrest is particularly acute within right-wing media, where Fox Business removed a prime-time anchor for casting the coronavirus as “another attempt to impeach the president.” Other right-wing personalities continue to call the coronavirus a “hoax” or falsely blame George Soros, the billionaire investor and liberal donor, for causing it.

But conservatives and Republicans now face an undeniable reality as the pandemic’s death count here and abroad climbs — and the worldwide reach of the coronavirus defies the bounds of political debate.

“It’s damn clear that this is no hoax and should be taken seriously,” said Jason Miller, a former Trump campaign adviser who co-hosts a podcast with former White House chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon called “War Room: Pandemic,” which has documented the economic and health fallout of the coronavirus for weeks.

“The right underestimated this and thought the media was beating up on Trump again,” added GOP strategist Ed Rollins, who chairs a pro-Trump super PAC. “That was yesterday. Today is, ‘Life in America is changing before our eyes.’ ”

Trump has suddenly and markedly recalibrated his own approach, after weeks of blasé comments about the virus that spurred some of his allies to dismiss the danger of the pandemic.

When asked Monday about Nunes’s comment to Fox News, Trump did not echo him. Instead, Trump said he had not heard about the remarks, but would “disagree” with anyone calling on Americans to congregate in restaurants.

“I think it’s probably better that you don’t,” Trump told reporters.

Hours later, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) said, “I’m pleased that the president and the public-health officials seem to now be on the same page. I think there was a gap in the early days.”

Again, all this means is that Trump and the right will start blaming China and blue-state governors specifically instead of Democrats in general and the media, and then when Democrats and the media call them on it, then they will blame Democrats in general and the media again.

America is going to be a very, very different place three months from now.  Far different still six and nine months from now.  Believe me, I started ZVTS in August of 2008 because we were headed off a cliff then and November 2008 was different, and March 2009 different still.

I have the same feeling in my gut again, only it's much, much worse.

Russian To Judgment, Con't

Meanwhile, as the world heads towards a global recession and pandemic, the Justice Department is quietly dropping the charges against the Russian nationals indicted by the Mueller probe.

The Justice Department moved on Monday to drop charges against two Russian shell companies accused of financing schemes to interfere in the 2016 election, saying that they were exploiting the case to gain access to sensitive information that Russia could weaponize.

The companies, Concord Management and Concord Consulting, were charged in 2018 in an indictment secured by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, along with 13 Russians and another company, the Internet Research Agency. Prosecutors said they operated a sophisticated scheme to use social media to spread disinformation, exploit American social divisions and try to subvert the 2016 election.

Unlike the others under indictment, Concord fought the charges in court. But instead of trying to defend itself, Concord seized on the case to obtain confidential information from prosecutors, then mount a campaign of information warfare, a senior Justice Department official said.

At one point, prosecutors complained that a cache of documents that could potentially be shared with the defendants included details about the government’s sources and methods for investigation, among its most sensitive secrets. Prosecutors feared Concord might publish them online.

With the case set to go to trial next month, prosecutors recommended that the Justice Department drop the charges to preserve national security interests and prevent Russia from weaponizing sensitive American law enforcement information, according to the official. The prosecutors also weighed the benefits of securing a guilty verdict against the companies, which cannot be meaningfully punished in the United States, against the risk of exposing sensitive or classified information in order to win in court.

“Concord has been eager and aggressive in using the judicial system to gather information about how the United States detects and prevents foreign election interference,” prosecutors said in a motion filed in court on Monday. At the same time, the firm has tried to stymie the judicial process, including by concealing facts and documents and submitting a false affidavit.

Department officials denied that the decision to drop the charges was intended to dismantle Mr. Mueller’s work, noting that prosecutors are still pursuing charges against the 13 Russians and the Internet Research Agency.

It's almost like the prosecution here threw the case and was maneuvered into a position where they had to drop the charges in order to protect intelligence secrets, and that this was all done on purpose to make sure the case would never come to trial.

Expect more like this to happen with both the Internet Research Agency case and the Russian nationals, and that's even if prosecution happens because Moscow will never turn them over.

I fully expect every single bit of the Mueller probe to be undone before the end of the year, between all the pardons and the dropped charges.

StupidiNews!

• Amazon says it will hire 100,000 workers over the next few months in order to keep up with "unprecedented demand" of its delivery products due to COVID-19 concerns.
• A state judge has blocked Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine's plan to delay today's primary due to COVID-19, calling it a "terrible precedent" and ordered the primary to continue as planned.
• Canada has shut its borders to foreigners, excluding US citizens and permanent residents, and PM Justin Trudeau is urging people to limit social contact and to stay home.
• The airline industry is seeking $58 billion in federal loans to stay in business during the COVID-19 lockdown as airport screenings and testing of passengers delays flights by several hours.
• Tesla's Model Y is rolling off the production lines six months ahead of schedule, but drivers will have to wait months for the less-expensive Standard model for a mass market Tesla under $40,000.

Last Call For Table For Zero, Con't

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear is joining neighboring Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and is ordering dining areas of restaurants and bars closed until further notice as of tonight.

You won't be able to sit and dine in your favorite Northern Kentucky eatery due to novel coronavirus concerns.

Gov. Andy Beshear announced Monday morning that dine-in options at restaurants will cease after 5 p.m. But, since takeout and deliver is still an option, Northern Kentucky officials encouraged residents to grab a to-go order of their favorite sub or dish to support businesses.
Beshear is a Democrat, but - like his Ohio GOP counterpart Mike DeWine - he earned praise from both parties.

Kenton County Judge-Executive Kris Knochelmann, a Republican, told The Enquirer he planned to order the same amount of food from local restaurants as he did pre-pandemic to support the establishments.

“From all the experts’ opinions, it seems like (Gov. Beshear) is doing the right thing,” Knochelmann said. “He’s not overreacting.”

Boone County's Republican Judge-Executive Gary Moore also agreed with the governor’s decision, adding that “we do not want to look back and say we should have done more.”

For Gary Moore to praise Andy Beshear is about as deep into the Upside Down as you're going to get in local NKY politics, and a very good sign that all the local politicians realize that they won't be employed as politicians anymore if they don't get behind Beshear's efforts to flatten the curve.

I don't think it will keep hospitals in Kentucky from being overwhelmed in 2-4 weeks, the cuts in America's health care infrastructure over the last 40 years are just too deep, and the sheer number of untested and unconfirmed cases in Kentucky and other rural states is just too high.  People are infected now, they are sick now, but they don't think they have COVID-19.  The ones who do are going to be filling ERs and hospitals very soon.

The results of a busted virus curve scenario won't be limited to red states either. Some 90% of America was never equipped to handle a local epidemic, let alone a national or global pandemic.  Large cities like NYC and LA would be to an extent just from scale, but elsewhere it would have bitten into the already unethical profits of the health care and hospital chain industry. 

Medical supplies, hospital beds, and contingency plans for emergencies that don't get used don't make profits. Local, rural hospitals have been ravaged in just the last three years by Trump.  Even a cluster of a dozen cases that require hospitalization in some rural counties in Kentucky would be a nightmare that would cost lives.

What few resources that are going to available will be consumed by the end of the month in most places.  After that, it's the mobilization of the National Guard, FEMA, and the US Army in setting up temporary medical facilities and field hospitals to handle the triage in April and May.

A lot of people will recover from the illness, but will still be contagious and could possibly catch a different strain of COVID-19.  It will take several months for us to get to the herd immunity stage and several more for an effective vaccine.

In the meantime, it's going to be like wildfire containment.  Pockets are going to be burned down as containment measures are put into place.  Those people inside the pockets are going to have to deal with the spot shortages brought on by quarantine/lockdown/containment.

I don't know how bad it will be in Kentucky, but we're nowhere near starting from an optimal position.

Trump Goes Viral, Con't

There is a panic component, and a mistrust component to COVID-19, especially in the markets.  The Federal Reserve has dusted off the 2008 playbook, starting with cutting interest rates back to zero as Fed Chairman Jerome Powell puts on his Helicopter Ben Bernanke hat and is dropping $700 billion on the markets.

The Big Casino is open for business again, gang!

The Federal Reserve, saying “the coronavirus outbreak has harmed communities and disrupted economic activity in many countries, including the United States,” cut interest rates to essentially zero on Sunday and launched a massive $700 billion quantitative easing program to shelter the economy from the effects of the virus.

The new fed funds rate, used as a benchmark both for short-term lending for financial institutions and as a peg to many consume rates, will now be targeted at 0%-0.25% down from a target range of 1% to 1.25%.

Facing highly disrupted financial markets, the Fed also slashed the rate of emergency lending at the discount window for banks by 125 bps to 0.25%, and lengthened the term of loans to 90 days.

The markets said "Thanks, I hate it" and immediately went limit down on futures, because the Fed agreeing to blowing all of its ammo this early in the proceedings (when the economy was in record low unemployment/record high markets territory just 30 days ago) now has everyone truly scared.

Powell added that the Fed would be "patient" before raising interest rates again thanks to COVID-19's massive downward effects on the economy.

But nobody's buying it (quite literally, everyone is selling it off).  Trump's press conference yesterday was an absolute disaster.  Again. Nobody believes him anymore, and the markets absolutely tanked as a result.  The Dow was down 12% this morning, some 2,700 points, when trading resumed after the circuit breaker kicked in at the open.

Now the Trump regime is blaming the market losses on "foreign disinformation".

The Trump administration is alleging that a foreign disinformation campaign is underway aimed at spreading fear in the country amid the coronavirus pandemic, three U.S. officials said Monday.

On Sunday, federal officials began confronting what they said was a deliberate effort by a foreign entity to sow fears of a nationwide quarantine amid the virus outbreak. Agencies took coordinated action Sunday evening to deny that any such plans were put in place, as they tried to calm a nation already on edge by disruptions to daily life caused by the virus.

The three U.S. officials did not name the foreign entity they believe to be responsible. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.

“Text message rumors of a national #quarantine are FAKE,” tweeted the National Security Council Sunday night. “There is no national lockdown.” The NSC encouraged Americans to follow official government guidance.

The Trump regime is bound and determined to escape any responsibility for this, aren't they?

It won't work, though.  Trump spent the day telling the nation's governors that they were on their own and that they needed to "do more"  Trump especially singled out NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo to attack.

President Trump on Monday chided New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) following a call with governors across the country on the coronavirus, saying the New York governor "has to 'do more.'"

The president swiped at Cuomo in a tweet in which he declared that the teleconference "went very well."

Just had a very good tele-conference with Nations’s Governors. Went very well. Cuomo of New York has to “do more”.— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 16, 2020

Cuomo, who has at times been sharply critical of the administration's handling of the pandemic, quickly hit back, tweeting that Trump is the one who is "supposed to be the president."

As I said before, Trump is going to dump the blame for this on as many blue state governors as he can, and I'm convinced Fox News State TV will be calling on all of them to resign by the end of the month.

How bad are things? This bad.

Reported US coronavirus cases in March via @CNN:

3/1 - 89
3/2 - 105
3/3 - 125
3/4 - 159
3/5 - 227
3/6 - 331
3/7 - 444
3/8 - 564
3/9 - 728
3/10 - 1,000
3/11 - 1,267
3/12 - 1,645
3/13 - 2,204
3/14 - 2,826
Now - 3,485

— Ryan Struyk (@ryanstruyk) March 16, 2020

The math doesn't lie.  Add at least one zero, if not two, to those numbers for the true figure.

It's going to be bad within weeks, if not days, not months.

Trump's daily COVID-19 "task force" press conference held a few minutes ago in another effort to try to salvage the markets failed spectacularly as the Dow crashed by 3,000 points at closing. He dragged out the experts and finally let them speak, and they basically scared the crap out everyone.

It was needed.  But it came at a price, just like Trump's years of lies and attacking the media.

The grim reality is here.  We're now at a net loss in the markets for the Trump era.  Things are not going to improve soon.

Buckle up, and buckle in.

Russian To Judgment, Con't

Donald Trump could be about to pardon convicted former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn using the COVID-19 pandemic as political cover. 

President Trump said Sunday that he is considering pardoning former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI during its investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The tweet from Trump came as the country is in the midst of a national emergency as officials work to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus, with schools, businesses and other institutions shutting down.

“So now it is reported that, after destroying his life & the life of his wonderful family (and many others also), the FBI, working in conjunction with the Justice Department, has ‘lost’ the records of General Michael Flynn,” Trump said in a tweet. “How convenient. I am strongly considering a Full Pardon!”

It is unclear what records Trump was referencing when he alleged that the Justice Department had “lost” material related to the case.

Sidney Powell, Flynn’s attorney, has argued in court that prosecutors have failed to turn over certain documents to Flynn and his legal team that might be exculpatory, but her allegations have been disputed by prosecutors and rejected by the federal judge overseeing the case. In any case, there have been no new filings in the case in several weeks.

Flynn pleaded guilty in December 2017 to lying to the FBI about his contacts with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the presidential transition. But in a stunning reversal two months ago, Flynn asked a federal judge for permission to withdraw his plea, alleging that prosecutors breached his cooperation agreement by demanding false testimony.

The judge later canceled a sentencing hearing for Flynn that had been scheduled for late last month.

Trump pardoning Flynn would be about the most corrupt act of his regime so far, and that's absolutely saying something. Doing while using COVID-19 as cover would be jaw-droppingly evil, and yet there's every indication that Trump will do it and get away with it without a scratch.

Trump is ignorant and has no empathy, but he's not stupid and he's shamelessly crafty.  It would a another total win for him and he knows it.

StupidiNews!

• The global death toll from COVID-19 is now over 6,000 as there are some 3,500 cases and 65 deaths in the US so far.
• Lockdown protocols in Italy are now being implemented in Spain, France, and Germany as EU countries and the UK are moving to limit contact.
• Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden committed to selecting a woman VP in last night's debate with Bernie Sanders, Sanders said he "probably" would.
• The Saudi government has detained nearly 300 government employees in what Riyadh is calling a "corruption scandal" but critics say is Crown Prince Mohammed bin Sultan seizing more power.
• Commercial spaceflight company SpaceX has scrubbed its latest Falcon rocket launch mission Sunday for a fifth time as onboard computers malfunctioned, another attempt will be made today.

Last Call For Bye Bye Bibi...Maybe

The Netanyahu era in Israel looks like might be finally coming to a close. The key word remains might, however.

The leader of Israel's Blue and White party Benny Gantz has won recommendations from 61 members of the Knesset, paving the way for him to receive the mandate from President Reuven Rivlin to form a new government after Israel’s third elections.
Why it matters: The fact that Gantz managed to secure 61 recommendations means that Rivlin by law has to grant him the mandate. This will allow Gantz to take control of the Knesset, appoint the speaker from his party, control the main committees and start pushing legislation that could prevent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from forming a government due to his corruption indictments.

The big picture: The coronavirus crisis has further destabilized the Israeli political system.Netanyahu, who is heading an interim government, took several extreme measures due to the health crisis — including shutting down the courts and making it impossible for his trial to begin on Tuesday.The Jerusalem district court announced it would postpone the trial until May 24. 

In the last few days, Netanyahu has called on Gantz to join an emergency government or form a unity government in order to combat the coronavirus crisis. Netanyahu’s proposal included him staying on as prime minister for the next two years while his trial is underway. Gantz and his party claimed Netanyahu’s proposal was a nonstarter, deeming it a political trick intended to prevent Gantz from receiving the mandate from the president.

Between the lines: Gantz secured the mandate after the Arab Joint List recommended him to Rivlin. This was a historic move by the Arab Israeli party that many view as a sign that the Arab minority, which turned out to vote in high numbers in the last elections, wants to further integrate into society and have a stake in the government.

The problem is though that while Gantz will get his chance to form a government, there are at least two of the 61 Knesset members recommending Gantz who have said they will refuse to join a coalition that includes the Arab Joint List party, meaning Gantz will fail at forming a coalition.

If Gantz can't talk them into joining, then Netanyahu will remain in charge, and we'd be looking at a fourth round of elections later.  Who knows when they will be with COVID-19 as a legitimate concern?

At least Gantz isn't falling for Bibi's six-month emergency government trick, because he'll never surrender power in that case when the six months are up, I guarantee it.

We'll see what happens.

Trump Goes Viral, Con't

Trump's role as Liar-in-Chief and the viral disinformation he continues to spread about COVID-19 and the "White House response" that amounts to hoping corporate America will do Trump's job for him is now well past the point of being a national public health crisis.

In the small town of Jonesborough, Tenn., nestled in the Appalachian Mountains, the Parent Teacher Association group text chat normally lights up with news of school dances and car-pooling schedules. Its main focus now is a global pandemic.

Kerrie Aistrop, a 39-year-old mother of two, and her fellow moms exchange death-toll updates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, thought-provoking tweets and a bit of gallows humor. “After seeing how the public panics over coronavirus, I can see why the government would never tell us about Aliens,” reads one shared post.

As people in the group have taken an all-or-nothing approach to the virus, either stocking up on toilet paper or writing the epidemic off entirely, Ms. Aistrop, a Republican and pharmaceutical sales representative, has struggled to find a middle ground for news on the ongoing crisis. And so she is relying on her go-to trusted source: President Trump.

Unlike many in the G.O.P., Ms. Aistrop doesn’t wholly subscribe to the notion of the mainstream news media being out to antagonize the president. When her town’s state House G.O.P. representative, Micah Van Huss, filed a resolution in January to officially recognize CNN and The Washington Post as “fake news,” she was “embarrassed.”

But in this moment, even she doesn’t feel that she can trust the media to present the pandemic’s full picture.

“No matter what outlet you go to about this,” she said, “somebody is always taking a side.”
Much of Mr. Trump’s success has been fueled by his supporters’ distrust of career government officials. Yet as coronavirus cases multiply, many of those same supporters find themselves placing their faith in institutions like the C.D.C. — confident for perhaps the first time in Mr. Trump’s tenure that the experts on call aren’t out to sabotage the president.

In conversations over the course of the past week, as the news and administration action on the virus moved quickly, Mr. Trump’s supporters overwhelmingly have said they trust the president and they trust whom he trusts. They are not, in large part, completely dismissive of the virus, the way some right-wing media outlets have been. But they are comforted because they see the president as a bulwark against outright panic, working with business leaders and experts from within a bureaucracy that both the president and many Republicans still distrust.

“I feel like sometimes the decisions he makes are for his voters, and now it’s about what’s best for the American people,” Ms. Aistrop said. “I think he’s really looking to our government agencies to take the lead on this, he’s listening to them on what to do, and his No. 1 goal is to keep us safe.”

While polling indicates that most Democrats take a sharply negative view of the president and his handling of the virus, and that some Republicans share concerns about Mr. Trump’s performance as well, there are no signs at this point that the epidemic has cut deeply into the bedrock support that he enjoys among his base, even in places where infection rates are high and populations are most at risk.

More after the jump, a lot to cover again this weekend.

Sunday Long Read: A Table For Zero

Seattle's restaurant scene is in meltdown, with dozens of restaurants closing their doors as COVID-19 spreads, and nobody's really sure if any of them will open again.

Faced with the coronavirus pandemic and resultant restrictions against large gatherings, restaurant owners across the Seattle area are closing earlier or shutting down, laying off cooks and servers as they negotiate with landlords and vendors to delay payments while their dining rooms and bars sit empty.

Since Feb. 29, when a Washington resident became the first American to die from COVID-19, the novel coronavirus has spread through the Greater Seattle area and the fallout has been swift. Servers and managers say they were hustling during a lunch rush one afternoon then coming to work the next day to nearly empty dining rooms where, in some cases, staffers outnumbered diners. By The Seattle Times’ informal count, at least 50 restaurants and bars have closed their doors in the past two weeks, though many hope to reopen when the crisis passes.

Across the Seattle area, many bars and restaurants are facing a reality that eerily resembles the Great Recession, only on hyperdrive, with lunch crowds disappearing and a flood of dinner-reservation cancellations and catering events wiped off the books overnight, forcing many companies to slash staff and pivot to takeouts and deliveries to make up for lost revenue, several restaurant owners and investors said.

Breweries and corner pubs that are entrenched in neighborhoods appear to do better, still drawing patrons during happy hour and running close to their usual capacity. But many businesses around downtown, South Lake Union and Capitol Hill haven’t fared as well.

On Wednesday, Tom Douglas, the city’s most celebrated chef, closed a dozen restaurants for at least two months after his management team told him business was down by as much as 90%, informing Douglas that he could not afford to pay his employees beyond March 15. Also, management told Douglas, every single catering event they had booked had been canceled.

Douglas’ announcement underscored just how tough the climate is getting for many restaurant owners. Shawn O’Donnell Jr., who owns four namesake Irish pubs (Pioneer Square, Fremont, Everett and Spokane), has asked family members, from his wife to his 60-year-old dad, to help “tend bar and wash dishes.” 

One one side, supporting these small businesses is exactly what we should be doing.  On the other hand, these eateries and bars remaining open is exactly the wrong thing to do if there's any hope to flatten the curve of the virus spread, which increasingly is looking like won't happen.

Here's hoping Congress is able to come up with help for these businesses instead of funneling all the money to Trump's rich cronies.  It won't happen, of course.  Local small businesses will be wiped out, and the big chains will move in.  It happened in 2002, it happened again in 2008, it'll happen again in 2020.

Orange Meltdown, Con't

What could Trump do with the national emergency he just declared?  Essentially anything he wants to.

President Donald Trump has declared a national emergency to combat the coronavirus — but he could go much further if he wanted.

Federal law gives Trump vast emergency powers in times of pandemic. He could direct the quarantine of people arriving in the United States who exhibit certain symptoms or even if they’re just suspected of having the virus. He could have the federal government detain individuals if their illness might wind up crossing state lines.

And under regulations revised and reissued just before Trump entered office, the government can stop and seize any plane, train or automobile to stymie the spread of contagious disease. Some even interpret the statute as meaning a president could deploy the military to cordon off a city or state.

“The federal public health power is pretty awesome … awe-inspiring in its breadth,” said Wendy Parmet, a law professor at Northeastern University. “But there’s also obviously a lot of danger.”

Indeed, it’s an extraordinary palette of options for a president often mocked as enamored of dictatorial authority and who has claimed, “I have the right to do whatever I want, as president.” And many of these powers remain largely undefined, as they have rarely — if ever — been widely used. It’s a troubling concept for those who are pressing Trump to take more urgent action to combat the coronavirus as it infiltrates American cities, but are wary that he will go too far.

“We can’t divorce this from the context of a president who has shown a willingness to abuse emergency power,” said Elizabeth Goitein of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.
The conflict was on display Friday as Trump declared a national emergency to unlock funding and bypass regulations to accelerate the lagging development of coronavirus testing options. While even some of Trump’s most ardent opponents praised the move, they were anxious about what might come next.

“As other steps are considered, the president must not overstep his authority or indulge his autocratic tendencies for purposes not truly related to this public health crisis,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a statement.

Fresh discussion of Trump’s power to isolate regions of the U.S. was spurred Thursday by his comments in response to a question about whether he was considering travel restrictions to the states experiencing some of the most widespread infections, such as Washington and California.

“We haven’t discussed that yet. Is it a possibility? Yes. If somebody gets a little bit out of control, if an area gets too hot,” the president said during an Oval Office photo-op with the Irish prime minister.

As I've said multiple times, Trump will not relinquish these emergency powers until he is forced to do so.  The odds of that happening peacefully are about the same as me going to Mars on a rocketship I built myself.

We shouldn't be asking "Will Trump do this?" but "What do we do when he does do it?"

Last Call That Poll-Asked Look, Con't

Your political beliefs, like everything else in America in 2020, drives your beliefs involving COVID-19.

Two-thirds of Americans are concerned that they or someone they know will be infected with the novel coronavirus, but in a country with a growing partisan divide, political tribalism is having a large impact when it comes to anxiety over the disease, according to a new ABC News/Ipsos poll released Friday.

Although unease over the coronavirus is high, it also strongly breaks along partisan lines. Among Democrats, 83% are concerned about getting coronavirus, including 47% who are very concerned, and among Republicans, 56% are concerned, including only 15% who are very concerned. Only 17% of Democrats are not concerned while a larger 44% of Republicans are not concerned.

And here's why there's no hope in flattening the curve to prevent the virus from overwhelming hospital resources:

Partisanship appears to be the most decisive factor of Americans' concerns, even more than age. While 29% of 18-29-year-olds are very concerned about catching the illness, 25% of people over 65 years old said the same. 

Currently in the United States, there are at least 1,663 confirmed cases of coronavirus, according to the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering.

A majority of Americans, 54%, disapprove of the president's handling of the response to the coronavirus, while 43% approve. Still, partisanship continues to fuel attitudes towards the White House's response, with the same amount of Democrats disapproving of Trump's managing of the health crisis as Republicans approving, 86%. Only 14% of Democrats approve, and 11% of Republicans disapprove.

It gets much, much worse.

But overall, relatively few Americans have changed their behavior since the coronavirus has landed here.

Only 3% said they are now working from home due to the coronavirus. And while about one-quarter of Americans said their lives had been disrupted in some way, either by canceling going out to dinner, taking a vacation, or opting to not vote in person, among other options, 73% have not canceled or postponed activities or events in their daily lives.

The vast majority of Americans are going about their daily lives as if there is no virus.  They don't believe they will catch it.  They believe everything is a massive overreaction, especially if they are a GOP voter, and that they believe Trump is doing a great job.

There is no hope of flattening the curve at this point if this is even remotely true.  None.  A week from now everyone will be stir crazy and back at their favorite watering hole, restaurant, movie theater, club, VFW post, gym, whatever.

By the time people realize that we're screwed as a country, it will be far, far too late.

Trump Goes Viral, Con't

The actual leader of the United States has arrived with a real plan to help all Americans through COVID-19, and that leader is Nancy Goddamn Pelosi.

The House overwhelmingly passed an economic relief bill early Saturday for the coronavirus, dedicating tens of billions of dollars for paid sick leave, unemployment insurance, free testing and other measures to help Americans impacted by the crisis. 

The 363-40 vote — gaveled down just before 1 a.m. — capped two days of volatile negotiations between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin that threatened to fall apart entirely for hours Friday amid GOP misgivings. But even after President Trump criticized House Democrats at an afternoon news conference Pelosi and Mnuchin kept at it, speaking by phone 13 times in the course of the day Friday and finally clinching a deal. 

Not long thereafter Trump endorsed the legislation over Twitter, ensuring widespread GOP support.

“This Bill will follow my direction for free CoronaVirus tests, and paid sick leave for our impacted American workers,” Trump wrote, adding that he was directing Cabinet secretaries to issue regulations ensuring small businesses would not be hurt by mandates in the bill.

“I encourage all Republicans and Democrats to come together and VOTE YES! I will always put the health and well-being of American families FIRST,” the president wrote. “Look forward to signing the final Bill, ASAP!”

The House vote sends the legislation to the Senate, which is expected to pass it next week after Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) canceled a planned recess so senators could act on the issue. All of the “no” votes Saturday came from Republicans, while one lawmaker — Rep. Justin Amash (I-Mich.) — voted “present.”

The best part?

The deal was negotiated without Pelosi and Trump ever speaking, with Pelosi telling reporters Friday: “There was no need for that,” as she was working through details with Mnuchin.

The bill does provide both paid sick leave and unemployment benefits due to COVID-19 and requires companies to pay that sick leave to employees.  It also suspends state work requirements for SNAP eligibility, and does a number of other things.

...except that the sick leave isn't a guarantee, and that was the price for Republican cooperation.  The NY Times Editorial Board takes both parties to task on it, and for once, both sides did it actually applies.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi early Saturday celebrated passage of legislation she described as providing paid sick leave to American workers affected by the coronavirus.

She neglected to mention the fine print.

In fact, the bill guarantees sick leave only to about 20 percent of workers. Big employers like McDonald’s and Amazon are not required to provide any paid sick leave, while companies with fewer than 50 employees can seek hardship exemptions from the Trump administration.

“If you are sick, stay home,” Vice President Mike Pence said at a news conference on Saturday afternoon. “You’re not going to miss a pay check.”

But that’s simply not true. Sick workers should stay home, but there is no guarantee in the emergency legislation that most of them will get paid.

The White House and congressional Republicans, who insisted on the exemptions as the price of bipartisan support for the legislation, bear the primary responsibility for the indefensible decision to prioritize corporate profits in the midst of a public health emergency.

Instead of pressing executives to support a comprehensive sick leave law, President Trump held a Rose Garden pep rally for corporate America on Friday afternoon, showering praise on the chief executives of big employers including Walmart, Target and Walgreens.

But House Democrats also failed to act in the public interest. Paying sick workers to stay at home is both good policy and good politics. Why not pass a bill that required all employers to provide paid sick leave and then force Republicans to explain their objections to the public?
The bill does require some employers to provide full-time workers with up to 10 days of paid leave. But the requirement does not apply to the nation’s largest employers — companies with 500 or more workers, who together employ roughly 54 percent of all workers.

After a Waffle House employee tested positive for the coronavirus earlier this month, the company refused to promise it would pay other sick workers to stay home. Now, under the new bill, it would qualify for the big-company exemption. Would Ms. Pelosi please explain why the House decided not to require Waffle House to protect its workers and customers by paying for sick leave?

The legislation also provides some compensation for workers who need to take longer leaves under the Family and Medical Leave Act — but this too excludes workers at big companies.

And the bill allows the Labor Department to grant hardship exemptions to businesses with fewer than 50 employees. That category includes another 26 percent of the work force, meaning that fully 80 percent of workers may not be able to cash in on Ms. Pelosi’s rhetoric.

That sick leave for 20% of workers, at least.  It's something. It's better than nothing.

But man, it's...not optimal, you know?  It was the price demanded by the GOP, as the bill needed a two-thirds majority to pass thanks to arcane congressional appropriations rules.  Republicans took their pound of flesh from American workers and who knows if the Senate GOP will exact more.

It's going to be up to states and local governments to take charge on this.  Congressional Democrats have their hands tied and Republicans are going to do at little as possible.

Most of all though, I agree that the country's reaction to COVID-19 is a vicious and complete indictment of American disaster capitalism. 

You wanted government run like a business?

You got it, America.

I Want My FOX News State TV

The funny thing about the COVID-19 virus is that it's exactly the kind of thing FOX News State TV wants to cover, because it's a ratings gold mine for them, so the last couple of weeks where various FOX cable hosts have been blasting the media for "excessive coverage" of the global reaction to the pandemic as a "hoax" is not going over well with FOX execs, who have pulled the plug and have changed up the lineup.

Fox Business Network said it would scrap most of its primetime schedule by putting two of its programs on hiatus “until further notice” in order to staff coverage of the coronavirus crisis elsewhere within Fox News Media.

The network said in a statement that its 8 p.m. hour, “Trish Regan Primetime,” and 9 p.m. hour, “Kennedy,” would be replaced by long form programming.

“Due to the demands of the evolving pandemic crisis coverage, we are deploying all resources from both shows for staffing needs during critical market hours,” the network’s statement said.

Regan, who hosts a show that tends to focus on the political, has generated some criticism in recent days for hosting segments suggesting that liberals were overstating the effects of the spread of coronavirus to discredit President Donald Trump. A graphic that accompanied one segment that aired Monday read “Coronavirus Impeachment Scam.”
Regan launched her program in the fall of 2018, part of a bid by Fox News Media to add more live programming to the network, which also airs an early-evening program from host Lou Dobbs, and shows focused on business news during the day led by anchors such as Liz Claman, Maria Bartiromo, Stuart Varney and Neil Cavuto. Kennedy, the public name of Lisa Kennedy Montgomery, who first rose to fame as an MTV DJ, joined Fox Business as a contributor in 2012, and then began hosting a show called “The Independents.”

But Fox Media’s top executives made clear in a memo released Thursday that coronavirus coverage was going to take up more bandwidth. Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott and Fox News President Jay Wallace urged employees to “keep in mind that viewers rely on us to stay informed during a crisis of this magnitude and we are providing an important public service to our audience by functioning as a resource for all Americans.” The duo said that the network would make some programming change and recalibrate its newsgathering operation to accommodate the change in the news cycle.

FOX wants to amp up the coverage, especially since it's the prime demographic of FOX News State TV viewers -- aging Boomers -- who tune in.  Don't for a second think FOX is going to have actual news on, they're just going to stoke the racist flames of "Wuhan Flu" and blaming Biden and the Democrats and their Chicom Socialist allies for the disease.

It was a "hoax" before Trump declared an emergency.  Now it's fear, fear, fear 24/7, and fear and panic sells these days.

Of course FOX News State TV was going to become the very thing they've accused the rest of the media of being.