March 4, 2020

The Rude Pundit: The Coronavirus Reveals the Need for a Strong Federal Government

https://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-coronavirus-reveals-need-for-strong.html


The Rude Pundit
Proudly lowering the level of political discourse
3/03/2020
The Coronavirus Reveals the Need for a Strong Federal Government

snip//

We don't know yet how bad it's gonna get with coronavirus. It might be fucking awful, with millions infected and tens of thousands (or more) dying. It might fade as more and more measures are put into place to deal with it. Or not. We don't fuckin' know. We know it kills more people than the regular flu. And, right now, we know that the Trump administration has fucked it up something awful.

For instance, we knew that the virus was spreading quickly in China in late January, and we knew that Americans had traveled there and returned, along with whatever visitors came to the United States from there. But the federal government didn't really kick into gear until a little over a week ago. Yep, we could have been doing shit to get ready for this for weeks before we did, but Trump didn't want anyone to think a virus would be able to get across the border while he's president or some fucking thing, so we waited and now we're scrambling to get to where South Korea and the EU are now. (By the way, the EU Centre for Disease Prevention and Control is an awesome resource.)

As the number of cases and the number of deaths rise, as Trump displays his brand of breathtakingly confident stupidity, the nation is getting a simple lesson: We need a fucking strong federal government precisely for shit like this instead of the toxic soup of incompetence, cruelty, and narcissism that's running things now.

And there's a related lesson: this is why you have health care freely available to everyone. Every-fucking-one. Otherwise, you have a bunch of sick people in your country who aren't getting treated because they can't afford it or are afraid some depraved fuck is going to have them deported. And a country might get away with that cruelty when it's just regular ol' flu. But when shit gets real and you don't have that infrastructure even close to in place? You might just get fucked by some new disease.

Now that they're scared, even some Republicans are saying, "Well, fuck me. Okay, fine, on this the government needs to step up and pay for shit or we're all fucked." Except guess who's been helping the president take a wrecking ball to the CDC and other agencies? Look in the mirror, fuckos.

Yes, back in 2009 and 2010, Democrats didn't get the job done on health care. But fuckin' Republicans stood as a bloc in the way. They are more to blame than just a couple of Democratic senators (although fuck them, too). The Republicans need to pay for an ideology that has actually led to more death and suffering in the United States, and if this virus gets really bad, that check is gonna be high.

March 4, 2020

Jeff Sessions Fails To Win GOP Nomination For His Old Senate Seat Outright

POLITICS 03/03/2020 11:10 pm ET Updated 1 hour ago
Jeff Sessions Fails To Win GOP Nomination For His Old Senate Seat Outright
The GOP primary will be heading to a March 31 runoff.
By Amanda Terkel


Jeff Sessions was once one of President Donald Trump’s closest allies — and became his attorney general — but they had a falling-out when Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation.

The battle to pick the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Alabama is headed to a March 31 runoff.

Jeff Sessions, President Donald Trump’s former attorney general who served as senator until 2017, will face former Auburn University football coach Tommy Tuberville.

Sessions should have been a shoo-in for his old seat. He represented the state in the Senate for 20 years before joining the Trump administration.

more...

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/alabama-senate-race-runoff_n_5e5e87bec5b67ed38b3946fc?ncid=engmodushpmg00000003&fbclid=IwAR2T1sq1JkxTwN353FBOEdl-7yzw7vXHxRf4pJJ-rNq3ohlNJ5_u066dTGg

March 4, 2020

Democrat Cunningham wins primary, will challenge Tillis in North Carolina

Democrat Cunningham wins primary, will challenge Tillis in North Carolina
Cunningham's victory sets up what is expected to be a tight race between GOP incumbent Thom Tillis
By Stephanie Akin and Griffin Connolly
Posted March 3, 2020 at 8:49pm


Army veteran and former state Sen. Cal Cunningham sailed through the North Carolina Senate primary Tuesday, setting up what is certain to be a closely watched race in November against vulnerable Republican incumbent Thom Tillis.

Cunningham, who led in fundraising and had the endorsement from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, was leading with 58 percent of the vote when The Associated Press called the race shortly after 8:30 p.m. with 4 percent of precincts reporting. Erica Smith, a state senator and former school board member who got an unwanted boost from national Republicans in the last weeks of the race, came in second.

more...

https://www.rollcall.com/2020/03/03/democrat-cunningham-wins-primary-will-challenge-tillis-in-north-carolina/

March 4, 2020

'Incompetence' of Trump's coronavirus response has 'exceeded what anyone would expect':...

‘Incompetence’ of Trump’s coronavirus response has ‘exceeded what anyone would expect’: Harvard epidemiologist
Written by Brad Reed / Raw Story March 3, 2020


The Trump administration’s bungling of the coronavirus outbreak has left many medical professionals fuming, including an emergency room doctor at New York-Presbyterian Hospital who on Monday called the federal government’s slow response a “national scandal.”

The New York Times has published a lengthy report about how the Centers for Disease Control completely flubbed making its own coronavirus testing procedure, which has left doctors and hospitals without fast and reliable methods for diagnosing patients who may have the disease.



Dr. Michael Mina, an epidemiologist at Harvard University, gave the Times an even harsher assessment about the Trump CDC’s performance so far.



more...

https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/incompetence-of-trumps-coronavirus-response-has-exceeded-what-anyone-would-expect-harvard-epidemiologist/?fbclid=IwAR2N1hCVhDNVKXziYzqnckqSYU2IzF1P2ytO1WLfAl0euAN3joo-xIdzIuE#.Xl6luRpmPGM.facebook

March 4, 2020

Trump's Interior Department Reportedly Changed Scientific Reports to Say Climate Change Is Good

Mar. 2, 2020
Trump’s Interior Department Reportedly Changed Scientific Reports to Say Climate Change Is Good
By Matt Stieb


The president’s habit of changing facts to fit his personal outlook appears to be trickling down within the administration: According to the New York Times, an official at the Interior Department has, in at least nine reports, edited the agency’s studies and impact statements to include misleading information — including the debunked claim that rising levels of carbon dioxide driving climate change are beneficial to the planet.

The official, Indur M. Goklany, was promoted in 2017 to the office of the deputy secretary responsible for reviewing climate policies. His practice of altering reports was so well known within the agency it had its own shorthand: “Goks uncertainty language.” Goklany, who is an electrical engineer and not a climate scientist, often pushed inaccurate analysis into reports, like the claims that global warming is positive for agriculture because it “may increase plant water use efficiency” and “lengthen the agricultural growing season.” Neither idea reflects the scientific consensus that climate change will cause significant disruptions to agriculture in the U.S. and abroad.

“Goks uncertainty language” also attempted to question the accuracy of climate modeling, which is quite reliable, according to a recent study by scientists at the University of California, Berkeley. As the Times notes, Goklany has a long history of inaccurate climate skepticism and was only recently empowered within the agency he has worked for since the 1980s:

Goklany’s misleading language made it into reports that impacted major watersheds in the West — including the agricultural powerhouse of the Klamath, California’s second-largest river by volume. According to environmental attorney Kristen Boyles, the ultimate goal of placing the information in the reports was to make it “part of the record.” She told the Times that having contradictory analysis in official scientific reports will allow climate skeptics in the agency to say, “We’re not going to consider climate change.”

more...

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/03/interior-edited-docs-to-say-climate-change-is-good-report.html

March 3, 2020

Coronavirus emergency bill held up over vaccine cost concerns

I shouldn't be surprised.


Coronavirus emergency bill held up over vaccine cost concerns
Democrats are insisting the spending package include significant funding to purchase large amounts of coronavirus diagnostics.
By SARAH OWERMOHLE, ANDREW DESIDERIO, SARAH FERRIS and SARAH KARLIN-SMITH
03/03/2020 04:34 PM EST
Updated: 03/03/2020 05:53 PM EST


An emergency funding bill to respond to coronavirus is being held up by a dispute about overpaying for tests, treatments and vaccines.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Tuesday said Republican lawmakers are resisting Democratic efforts to control costs of products that are developed in response to the outbreak.

“Our Republican friends don't want to see the kinds of limitations that we want to see," Schumer said after a briefing with members of the White House’s coronavirus task force, including Vice President Mike Pence and HHS Secretary Alex Azar.

The administration's top scientists have said any coronavirus vaccine could be at least a year away from reaching the market. Moderna Therapeutics is working with National Institutes of Health on a vaccine while Johnson & Johnson has received funding from HHS's Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority.

Democrats are insisting the spending package include significant funding to purchase large amounts of coronavirus diagnostics, treatments and vaccine, when it becomes available, which would then be made available to the public free of cost, according to a senior Democratic aide.

Republicans are trying to eliminate the “fair and reasonable price” federal procurement standard for the vaccines and treatments that will be developed and purchased with the emergency funds. “Fair and reasonable price” is a basic standard to prevent price gouging in federal contracts. Without the language, drugmakers could charge the government above-market rates, meaning fewer Americans will have access, according to the Democratic aide.

more...

https://www.politico.com/amp/news/2020/03/03/coronavirus-emergency-bill-119729?__twitter_impression=true

March 3, 2020

Burr, Warner ask DNI to declassify Khashoggi info

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/03/congress-ask-declassify-khashoggi-information-119458


Burr, Warner ask DNI to declassify Khashoggi info
The effort to pry details from the Trump administration underscores the ongoing tensions between Congress and the White House.
By ANDREW DESIDERIO
03/03/2020 11:18 AM EST


The bipartisan leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee are demanding that the Trump administration disclose information about the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

Sens. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.), the chairman and vice chairman of the panel, sent a letter to acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell on Monday asking him to declassify key details about Khashoggi’s brutal 2018 killing, according to a source familiar with the matter. Their letter follows a similar effort by House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who wrote to Grenell separately last week.

The Trump administration was required under a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act to reveal its formal determination of who was responsible for Khashoggi’s murder and dismemberment — which was carried out inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul — by late January. The intelligence community has yet to make a public declaration as required by law, only sending a classified report to Capitol Hill.

Lawmakers have been briefed multiple times on Khashoggi’s murder, but the Trump administration has yet to publicly acknowledge what senators from both parties said was clear to them from the briefings: that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the killing and was kept apprised of the government-led operation to murder and dismember Khashoggi, a Saudi citizen and legal U.S. resident who was highly critical of the regime.

The bipartisan effort to pry details from the Trump administration underscores the ongoing tensions between Congress and the White House over the U.S.’s posture toward Saudi Arabia. President Donald Trump has buttressed the Saudi crown prince’s denials of involvement in the murder, and the administration as a whole has resisted bipartisan pressure to sanction the Saudi government and cut off U.S. weapons sales to the kingdom.

The Post first reported on the joint letter from Burr and Warner.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.), who pushed for the Khashoggi provision in the defense bill, held a news conference on Tuesday to bring further attention to the issue. Meanwhile, the Trump administration continues to assert that it has delivered justice for Khashoggi’s murder, pointing to U.S. sanctions on more than a dozen Saudi citizens believed to have been involved in the killing.

March 3, 2020

Mika And Joe Poke Trump Over His Obvious Fear Of Facing Joe Biden

https://crooksandliars.com/2020/03/mika-and-joe-poke-trump-over-his-obvious

3/03/20 8:28am
Mika And Joe Poke Trump Over His Obvious Fear Of Facing Joe Biden
"Joe Biden was a man Donald Trump feared so much, he allowed himself to be impeached," Mika Brzezinski said.
By Susie Madrak
Video @ link~


Morning Joe poked fun at Trump's seeming panic over Joe Biden's rising primary success.

Trump was in Charlotte, North Carolina last night, one of the states that votes today.

March 3, 2020

Mayor Pete Was Good for the Left

Mayor Pete Was Good for the Left
He made moderates comfortable with progressivism.

By William Saletan
March 02, 202011:49 AM


snip//

Astonishingly, this minor league mayor raised a boatload of money. A lot of it came from high-dollar fundraisers, and that aroused suspicions. Some of my friends and colleagues bought the argument, made by Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, that Buttigieg was a tool of billionaires. It’s one of those arguments that makes you think you’re seeing beneath the surface of politics, but it’s actually shallow. Yes, it’s good to know who’s funding whom. But that’s no substitute for studying what the candidates have done and what they’re proposing. From education to health care to taxes, Buttigieg’s platform, like Sanders’ and Warren’s, was about helping ordinary people, not the rich.

Buttigieg wasn’t as aggressive as Sanders or Warren. He didn’t agree that a state monopoly on basic health insurance should be federally imposed. His alternative, “Medicare for all who want it,” reflected a different approach to governing. He believed that most people, after experiencing public health insurance and comparing it with private plans, would prefer the public option. But he refused to mandate that result. “If progressives like me are right that it’s the best plan, then everybody will choose it,” he reasoned. “But if we’re wrong, and for some people their other plan was better, we’re going to be really glad we didn’t kick them off of it.”

That’s a prudent way to introduce progressive ideas. It allows for the possibility that a program will turn out to be a disappointment or a mistake. It also respects freedom of choice. Buttigieg knows that well-intended policies can fail. And as a gay man from Indiana, he understands that sometimes you have to connect with people who don’t see things your way. In his withdrawal speech on Sunday night, he saluted, as he always does, the “future former Republicans” who supported him. They supported him because at every opportunity, he reached out to them. He spoke for a movement “defined not by who we push away, but by how many we can call to our side.”

Many critics on the left saw Buttigieg as a sellout who tugged the Democratic Party to the right. In reality, he did the opposite. By sending signals of inclusion to moderates and disaffected Republicans, he made us comfortable with a candidate whose ideas were often well to our left. I didn’t agree with him that the filibuster should be abolished or that justices should be added to the Supreme Court. But because those ideas were coming from him, I was willing to listen to them.

He also spoke bluntly about his Christianity. Many secularists don’t appreciate this, but it’s important. Democratic politicians tend to treat religion as an implicit threat. Buttigieg doesn’t. He defends Christianity as a progressive faith, and he attacks Trumpism as a perversion of it. In his remarks on Sunday night, he pointed out that Trump “cloaks in religious language an administration whose actions harm the least among us: the sick and the poor, the outcast and the stranger.”

more...

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/03/pete-buttigieg-2020-campaign-good-for-democrats.html

March 3, 2020

Next, Martial Law

https://prospect.org/blogs/tap/next-martial-law-trump-national-emergency-powers-coronavirus/


Next, Martial Law
by Robert Kuttner
March 2, 2020


I give Trump about a week to do a 180-degree pivot away from virus denial, and toward martial law. He’s always wanted to be a full-on dictator. The virus gives him his opening. As clueless as he is, this will soon dawn on him.

snip//

With Trump, you get the worst of both worlds—the dictatorial swagger without the competence. As incompetent as he is, he will take credit for the public-health bureaucracy he has savaged.

The epidemic is payback for cascading policy failures. Many sick people don’t seek medical help because they lack health insurance. The coronavirus is especially insidious in that respect because its early symptoms resemble cold or flu. And 40 percent of people in the service sector don’t have paid sick days, so they go to work sick.

America’s long-term failure of health policy is now compounded by Trump’s general incompetence and perverse attack on the public-health system. We will all pay the price.

One must hope that Trump pays a dear price in November. Unless Chief Justice John Roberts, who detests Trump, is more of a shill for Trump than he appears, even martial law won’t cancel the election.