This should be a strong warning about opening restaurants too soon and why buffets are a bad business model for the indefinite future

The Four Men Responsible For America’s COVID-19 Test Disaster

The White House’s inability to track the disease as it spread across the nation crippled the government’s response and led to the worst disaster this country has faced in nearly a century

Dr. Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control, flanked Donald Trump at the podium in the White House briefing room. It was February 29th, the day of the first reported U.S. death from the coronavirus, and the president fielded an urgent question: “How should Americans prepare for this virus?” a reporter asked. “Should they go on with their daily lives? Change their routine? What should they do?”

In that moment, America was flying blind into a pandemic; the virus was on the loose, and nobody quite knew where. The lives of tens of thousands hinged on the advice about to be delivered by the president and his top public-health advisers. Trump began: “Well, I hope they don’t change their routine,” before he trailed off, and, quite uncharacteristically, called on an expert to finish the response. “Bob?” he said. “Do you want to answer that?”

A tall man, with a tan, freckled head, and a snow-white chinstrap beard, Redfield stepped to the podium. “The risk at this time is low,” Redfield told the country. “The American public needs to go on with their normal lives.”

This reassurance came at precisely, and tragically, the wrong time. With a different answer, much of the human devastation that was about to unfold in the United States would have been avoidable. Academic research from Imperial College in London, modeling the U.S. response, estimates that up to 90 percent of COVID-19 deaths could have been prevented had the U.S. moved to shut down by March 2nd. Instead, administration leaders dragged their feet for another two weeks, as the virus continued a silent, exponential assault. By early May, more than 75,000 Americans were dead.

Rest of article at: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/covid-19-test-trump-admin-failed-disaster-995930/

These timeless songs, Son of Orange County and More Trouble Every Day, originally referred to Nixon but work well for Reagan and now Trump (1973 recording).

for tree planting, not a Pulaski.

A Pulaski is a fire tool with a pick on one side and a axe blade on the other.

A hoedad is like a very long bladed hoe (they come in different sizes) that is hit into the ground and rocked to make a hole for planting bare root or container seedlings.

Hoedad



Pulaski

The hard to believe insults by the Trump and GOP compound daily.

After Barr's most recent comments, I find it hard to believe that there will be a fair election and, even if the election is won, transition may be in question.

Not only is the pandemic mismanaged but CV19 is being used a cover to grift and seize more power.

Best I could come up with is mass demonstrations in automobiles (social distancing and also personal protection) shutting down the country in a demand that Trump, Barr, McConnel, et al resign.

Given CV19, the Fall 2020 election should be dependent on vote by mail.

Trump installing a crony as Post Master General in recent days puts that election very much at risk.

I do not think I am being overly dramatic nor paranoid.

I am less than confident we are up to what needs to be done as a society.

It looks to be only a matter of time until shooting at liberals becomes common.

Modern industrial countries have economies that are post-full employment. There is no sound reason for every able bodied person to work. This should be one benefit of our science and technology plus political and economic wisdom. The benefit should be shared in a healthy society rather than the perverse concentration of wealth and income, much from rents and speculation rather than production, concentrated at the top while most struggle for day to day existence.

Capitalism is a good thing for creativity, entrepreneurship, and freedom. The major goal of finance under capitalism is a social system to allocate capital investment in an efficient and beneficial manner. However, regulatory and enforcement side boards on unrestrained capitalism are required for the efficient and beneficial allocation of capital. What has happened under neo-liberalism, an economic not political doctrine, is a return to the laissez faire capitalism that once rewarded the robber barons of the 19th century, that brought about the Great Depression, and result in the current skewed economy. Side boards need to be re-instituted and modernized.

The strength of Wall Street over Main street is because the system is biased towards existing wealth; stimulus money or tax relief in stock buy back and program trading schemes that maintain share price and allow dividends but doesn't do most for most of us save perhaps in our shaky and ever weakening retirement programs. The large corporations and wealthy buy or use monopoly power to destroy small competitors and to buy assets of failed businesses at a discount. If government stimulation went to consumers who spent the money on what they want and need, the money will have both an economic multiplier effect and allocate profits / capital to the worthy corporations and independent businesses to better meet the efficient and beneficial use of capital.

Payments like what Pelosi suggests are what are required in a post full employment economy for capitalism to function and it would be wise and fair to make them permanent but adjustable.

There is a very different way to look at and organize capitalism that our current experience.

South Dakota is a haven for some financial shenanigans.

South Dakota a Favorite State for Credit Card Companies

Do you ever wonder why your Citibank credit card bill comes from South Dakota, and your payment goes there as well, when you know that Citibank is headquartered in New York? It is because of a combination of federal law and 50 different state laws that allow a bank in New York to use a South Dakota address to bill a customer in California.

Usury Laws

Many states have a usury law which limits the interest rate that a company may charge. Most of these laws capped interest rates at 18%. However, some states, such as South Dakota, do not have a usury law, allowing in-state businesses to charge as much interest as they want.

Congress has the power to regulate interstate commerce, which includes regulating nationally chartered banks which do business in more than one state. In the Supreme Court case Marquette v. First Omaha Service Corp. in 1978 the Court ruled that nationally chartered banks do not have to follow state law in which they do business, but only the law of the state in which the company is incorporated. Because state usury laws were not uniform this rendered all of them irrelevant as credit card companies picked up and moved to the states that allowed them to charge the highest interest rates.

After the 1978 ruling only national banks were exempt. If you banked with a bank which only did business in your state you were protected by your state's law. But a federal law now exempts state banks as well.

More at : https://resources.lawinfo.com/consumer-protection/credit-cards/south-dakota/

The Looming Crisis of Emergency Powers and Holding the 2020 Presidential Election

by Mark Medish and Joel McCleary
May 4, 2020

The future of electoral democracy in the United States is, without exaggeration, at risk. While a global pandemic and economic meltdown could provide a pretext for this threat, it does not come from abroad. Instead the threat comes from our own elected leader, the President of the United States—and those who know him best, know this to be true.

President Donald Trump has made a series of comments that convey casual disregard, if not outright contempt, for our constitutional order. Last year, he told a conservative group, “I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president.” On February 18 of this year, he boasted, “I’m actually, I guess, the chief law enforcement officer of the country,” which even if technically true no president would dare assert in defiance of the independence of the Justice Department. On March 12, in the same breath as mentioning the availability of “strong emergency powers,” Trump declared, “I have the right to do a lot of things that people do not know about.” A week later he asserted, “When somebody’s the president of the United States, the authority is total. And that’s the way it’s got to be.”

In the spirit of total authority, Trump has claimed the power to adjourn Congress during the Covid-19 crisis to give him, among other things, free rein to make recess appointments. Despite bipartisan opposition, he has dismissed inspectors general in several departments because they dared expose fraud, waste, and political abuse that implicated him. He has claimed the emergency authority to open or close the country. He has undermined the authority of governors by inciting civil disobedience, urging citizens to “liberate” their states from pandemic shutdowns and making supportive statements of armed agitators who do so. Trump has also threatened to put the U.S Postal Service, on which mail-in voting depends, out of business. This pattern of overstepping authority and undermining institutions is too consistent – and the subject matter too serious – to be dismissed as innocent frivolity or ignorance.

Former Vice President Joe Biden has stated his concern about Mr. Trump’s intentions in regard to the elections in November. The presumptive Democratic nominee said he believed that the president might “kick back the election somehow, come up for some rationale for why it can’t be held.” The White House rejected the charge, yet Biden’s concern is warranted. Indeed, the threat is broader still. It includes the possibility of Trump’s abusing emergency powers to suppress voting in general, using other means to interfere with opposition party organizing, or adopting extraordinary measures to contest an election that he loses.

Remainder of article at:

https://www.justsecurity.org/69996/the-looming-crisis-of-emergency-powers-and-holding-the-2020-presidential-election/

Timeline of the Coronavirus Pandemic and U.S. Response

Editor’s note: originally published on April 13, 2020, most recently updated on May 2, 2020

What follows is a comprehensive timeline of major U.S. policy events related to the novel coronavirus pandemic. We’ve focused on the U.S. government’s preparation for a pandemic, tracking warning signals of COVID-19, and public and internal responses when the outbreak hit inside the United States.

In our view, the timeline is clear: Like previous administrations, the Trump administration knew for years that a pandemic of this gravity was possible and imminently plausible. Several Trump administration officials raised strong concerns prior to the emergence of COVID-19 and raised alarms once the virus appeared within the United States. While some measures were put in place to prepare the United States for pandemic readiness, many more were dismantled since 2017.

In response to COVID-19, the United States was slow to act at a time when each day of inaction mattered most–in terms of both the eventual public health harms as well as the severe economic costs. The President and some of his closest senior officials also disseminated misinformation that left the public less safe and more vulnerable to discounting the severity of the pandemic. When it came time to minimize the loss of life and economic damage, the United States was unnecessarily underprepared, had sacrificed valuable time, and confronted the pandemic with a more mild response than public health experts recommended. These lapses meant that the United States was ultimately forced to make more drastic economic sacrifices to catch up to the severity of the pandemic than would have otherwise been necessary.

Readers can reach their own conclusions based on these publicly available facts. If we have missed any key information, please notify us by sending an email to lte@justsecurity.org.

TIMELINE

Friday, Jan. 13, 2017: The joint Obama-Trump transition teams run an exercise for pandemic preparedness.

For the full timeline go to:

https://www.justsecurity.org/69650/timeline-of-the-coronavirus-pandemic-and-u-s-response/

edited for cleaner link, thank you to crickets