Very Light News

https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6
https://covidtracking.com/data/
https://www.ft.com/coronavirus-latest

Reminder: EPA Indefinitely Suspends Environmental Rules (Even Though The US Is Set To Re-Open Easter All Happy And All Healthy)
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/27/holy-crap-insane-citing-coronavirus-pandemic-epa-indefinitely-suspends-environmental

Nearly 90 percent of U.S. mayors who responded to a national survey on coronavirus preparedness said they lack sufficient tests kits, face masks and other protective equipment for their emergency responders and medical workers, while 85 percent said they do not have enough ventilators for their hospitals — critical shortages that could lead cities and towns to be quickly overwhelmed should the virus spread through their communities. The U.S. Conference of Mayors survey, published Friday, was conducted from March 20 to March 24 and includes data from 213 U.S. cities in 41 states and Puerto Rico, representing a combined population of 42 million. The shortages of essential items and equipment the cities are facing “has reached crisis proportions,” according to the report. “Despite their best efforts, most cities do not have and cannot obtain adequate equipment and supplies needed to protect their residents,” the report says. “This is a life-threatening crisis that will continue unless the federal government does everything in its power to help us safeguard our first responders and health care workers — our first line of defense — and the millions of other public servants in our cities whose work today puts them at risk.” | Taken together, the cities reported a need for 28.5 million face masks, 24.4 million items of personal protective equipment such as gowns and gloves, 7.9 million test kits and 139,000 ventilators.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/coronavirus-mayors-mask-equipment-shortage/2020/03/27/fc2a45a4-701f-11ea-96a0-df4c5d9284af_story.html
https://www.usmayors.org/issues/covid-19/equipment-survey/

The Pentagon has ordered military commanders to plan for an escalation of American combat in Iraq, issuing a directive last week to prepare a campaign to destroy an Iranian-backed militia group that has threatened more attacks against American troops. But the United States’ top commander in Iraq has warned that such a campaign could be bloody and counterproductive and risks war with Iran. In a blunt memo last week, the commander, Lt. Gen. Robert P. White, wrote that a new military campaign would also require thousands more American troops be sent to Iraq and divert resources from what has been the primary American military mission there: training Iraqi troops to combat the Islamic State.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/27/world/middleeast/pentagon-iran-iraq-militias-coronavirus.html

Amid a critical shortage, pandemic ventilator inventor makes his design open source | The London, Ont. man who came up with a potential low-cost solution to Ontario's critical shortage of ventilators is making his design for a pandemic ventilator freely available to anyone through an open source website. Retired respiratory therapist John Strupat said he made the decision after failing to get any kind of serious consideration to make the life-saving device from federal governments in Canada or the United States.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/pandemic-ventilator-design-covid19-1.5511412
https://open-source-covid-19-ventilator-canada.mn.co/

Marine species ‘fleeing towards earth’s poles to escape rising ocean temperatures’ - ‘Some marine species appear to benefit from climate change, meanwhile some marine life is not able to adapt fast enough to survive’
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/rising-ocean-temperatures-marine-animals-poles-global-warming-a9428526.html

Republican Louisiana pastor defies coronavirus order, draws over 1,000 Republicans to services: "The virus, we believe, is politically motivated"
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/louisiana-pastor-defies-coronavirus-order-draws-over-1-000-people-n1168501

South Africa — now the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in Africa — has ordered most of its 59 million people to stay at home for 3 weeks, the most restrictive action yet of any African nation yet in response to the pandemic
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/27/world/africa/south-africa-coronavirus.html

All Federal Student Loan Payments Will Be Suspended Through September 30
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/sarahmimms/coronavirus-bill-ends-student-loan-payments-interest-6

Trump said the U.S. is already getting "great data from China" on coronavirus. Yet China has been accused of suppressing case totals and refusing to test patients to preserve the narrative that they are past the worst of the coronavirus outbreak

Another Kentucky shitstain libertarian Republican
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Massie

Breaking news: Congressman Massie has tested positive for being an asshole. He must be quarantined to prevent the spread of his massive stupidity. He's given new meaning to the term #Masshole. (Finally, something the president and I can agree on!)
https://twitter.com/JohnKerry/status/1243552337429438464

Florida to set up checkpoints on I-10 to watch for travelers from Louisiana. But Florida is letting people from NY (and the rest of the planet) come through the airport with no controls.
https://twitter.com/CBS12/status/1243610245886287879

When De Blasio told a caller coming from Italy not to self-quarantine, 311 called her back and told her to do it. When New York Needed Him Most, Bill de Blasio Had His Worst Week As Mayor
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/03/bill-de-blasio-had-his-worst-week-as-new-york-city-mayor.html

One reason why it's really infuriating to see powerful people acting like the social distancing rules don't apply to them is that if they actually followed the rules it would set an example for everyone else: Trump joked that he shouldn't shake McConnell's hand but they are standing shoulder to shoulder in the Oval and handing out ceremonial pens at bill signing.
https://twitter.com/DavidNakamura/status/1243645428257763335

Toy Cannon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Wynn

Closed bookstores. Laid off booksellers. Publishers moving pub dates. Authors without book tours.  What can you do about this? Devote (at least some of) your weekend to reading...
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/27/books/publishing-industry-setbacks-virus.html

United Airlines secured grants in the covid-19 bill in exchange for promising they would not lay-off employees until Sept. 30, 2020. Today they announce they're laying off employees... right after Sept. 30, 2020. The timing also means their former employees wouldn't be eligible for expanded unemployment insurance payments (without an extension)
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/27/corovanirus-fallout-united-airlines-warns-aid-isnt-enough-to-avoid-workforce-cuts.html

Garrett Haake said it's not clear when Congress will come back to DC to start negotiating the next phase of relief: "The Senate has said they're not coming back until April 20th. The speaker said she expects it will be sooner than that."
https://twitter.com/MeetThePress/status/1243658611789832193

Schools were closed in Paradise after the Camp fire. The covid-19 has closed them again. “I’m hearing from the kids, ‘What’s next? What’s going to happen next year because we’re going on two years in a row now of school being majorly disrupted.'"
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-27/coronavirus-paradise-california-fire

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said in an interview Friday that her state is not getting the health and safety equipment needed to fight the spread of the novel coronavirus because contractors are sending their products to the federal government first. Whitmer, a Democrat, said in an interview on CNN's "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer" that her state's shipments of personal protective equipment are being "canceled" or "delayed." "Well, we've entered into a number of contracts, and as we get closer to the date when shipments are supposed to come in, they are getting canceled -- getting delayed," Whitmer told Blitzer. Whitmer said her state was notified that shipments of protective equipment such as face masks are going "first to the federal government" ahead of the states. "I know Michigan is not alone. I saw Gov. Charlie Baker, Republican from Massachusetts, essentially say the same thing. Same thing with Mayor Garcetti out in Los Angeles. This is an issue we are confronting as a nation, where we are bidding against one another, where we are struggling to grab every PPE (personal protective equipment) we can get our hands on," she added.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/27/politics/michigan-governor-medical-supplies-cnntv/index.html

When do the people who know something about science and public health get a chance to speak?

Trump says of Pence: "He calls all the governors. I say, 'Mike, Don't call the governor of Washington. You're wasting your time. Don't call the woman in Michigan.' ... If they don't treat you right, I don't call."

Trump won't call governors of Washington state or Michigan but spoke enthusiastically about his call with Xi Jinping:"Our relationship with China is very good." (China covered up initial reports of coronavirus, its foreign ministry blamed U.S. military for spreading virus.)

Reminder: The Trump Administration Canceled an Order for 80,000 Ventilators to Haggle Over the Price
https://www.theroot.com/the-trump-administration-just-canceled-an-order-for-80-1842526968

Bad press changed his mind: Trump orders General Motors to make ventilators under Defense Production Act | The order comes hours after GM announced plans to build critical-care ventilators with Ventec Life Systems at one of the automaker’s component plants in Indiana. The order does not change General Motors’ previously announced plans or schedule to produce the ventilators, according to GM spokesman Jim Cain. Earlier, the companies said they were expecting to begin shipping as early as next month.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/27/trump-orders-general-motors-to-make-ventilators-under-defense-production-act.html
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/27/gm-confirms-production-of-ventilators-following-trump-criticism.html

"Avoid groups of 10 or more and wash your hands and sanitize surfaces" he says to a room full of 50 people, many of whom are over the age of 60, 10 of which all touch the same podium while furiously fingering their faces. 

"Dr" Birx is a full sycophant. There's a reason Trump prefers her over Fauci. Trump is literally the opposite of what she said. How fucking brainwashed do you have to be to say something like that. It undermines her entire credibility. Anyone who would make such an obvious and dangerous lie should be considered someone of poor judgement or a liar who can’t be trusted. In this case, probably both. Just a reminder: Birx said just yesterday that the virus models were wrong and the media was overreacting. Today, American cleared the 100000 case threshold. Also, America has the most cases in the world. There are still 7 hours left in today

No need to watch, no one will learn anything new. These pressers are his campaign rallies.

4 weeks ago: 61 cases, 0 deaths
3 weeks ago: 265 cases, 14 deaths
2 weeks ago: 1,899 cases, 41 deaths
1 week ago: 15,905 cases, 208 deaths
Right now: 100,514 cases, 1,546 deaths

...and this is based on a really low number of patients being tested. The real number of cases higher.

- March 10, 2020: "Over a million tests have been distributed," Pence said, and "before the end of this week, another 4 million tests will be distributed.".
https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2020-03-10/millions-of-coronavirus-test-kits-available-soon-pence-says-as-us-cases-top-700

- March 27, 2020: 626,667 people have been tested
https://covidtracking.com/data/

Admitting on live TV he is punishing GM for past deeds. During a pandemic.

So I thought I would throw up a little history lesson for everyone on both sides of the political divide. I think it’s important that we understand the truth, especially come November when it’s time to vote. Forgive the length. But, hey we all have time on our hands to read, right? In December 2013, an 18-month-old boy in Guinea was bitten by a bat. Then there were five more fatal cases. When Ebola spread out of the Guinea borders into neighboring Liberia and Sierra Leone in July 2014, President Obama activated the Emergency Operations Center at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. The CDC immediately deployed CDC personnel to West Africa to coordinate a response that included vector tracing, testing, education, logistics and communication. Altogether, the CDC, under President Obama, trained 24,655 medical workers in West Africa, educating them on how to prevent and control the disease before a single case left Africa or reached the U.S. Working with the U.N. and the World Health Organization President Obama ordered the re-routing of travelers heading to the U.S. through certain specific airports equipped to handle mass testing. Back home in America, more than 6,500 people were trained through mock outbreaks and practice scenarios. That was done before a single case hit America. Three months after President Obama activated this unprecedented response, on September 30, 2014, we got our first case in the U.S.. That man had traveled from West Africa to Dallas, Texas and had somehow slipped through the testing protocol. He was immediately detected and isolated. He died a week later. Two nurses who tended to him contracted Ebola and later recovered. All the protocols had worked. It was contained. The Ebola epidemic could have easily become a pandemic. But thanks to the actions of our government under Obama, it never did. Those three cases were the ONLY cases of ebola in our country because Obama did what needed to be done three months before the first case. Ebola is even more contagious than Covid-19. If he Obama not done these things, millions of Americans would have died awful painful deaths like something out of a horror movie (if you’ve ever seen how Ebola kills, it’s horrific). It’s ironic that BECAUSE President Obama did these things - we forget that he did them, because the disease never reached our shores. Now the story of Covid 19 and Trump’s response that we know about so far: Before anyone even knew about the disease (even in China) Trump disbanded the pandemic response team that Obama had put in place. He cut funding to the CDC. And he cut our contribution to the World Health Organization (WHO). Trump fired Rear Admiral Timothy Ziemer, the person on the National Security Council in charge of stopping the spread of infectious diseases before they reach our country - a position created by the Obama administration. When the Outbreak started in China, Trump assumed it was China’s problem and sent no research, supplies or help of any kind. We were in a trade war, why should he help them? In January he received a briefing from our intelligence organizations that the outbreak was much worse than China was admitting and that it would definitely hit our country if something wasn’t done to prevent it. He ignored the report, not trusting our own intelligence. When the disease spread to Europe, the World Health Organization offered a boatload of tests to the United States. Trump turned them down, saying private companies here would make the tests “better” if we needed them. But he never ordered U.S. companies to make tests and they had no profit motive to do so on their own. According to scientists at Yale and several public university medical schools, when they asked for permission to start working on our own testing protocol and potential treatments or vaccines, they were denied by Trump’s FDA. When Trump knew about the first case in the United States he did nothing. It was just one case and the patient was isolated. When doctors and scientists started screaming in the media that this was a mistake, Trump claimed it was a “liberal hoax” conjured up to try to make him “look bad after impeachment failed.” The next time Trump spoke of Covid-19, we had 64 confirmed cases but Trump went before microphones and told the America public that we only had 15 cases “and pretty soon that number will be close to zero.” All while the disease was spreading. He took no action to get more tests. What Trump did do is stop flights from China from coming here. This was too late and accomplished nothing according to scientists and doctors. By then the disease was worldwide and was already spreading exponentially in the U.S. by Americans, not Chinese people as Trump would like you to believe. As of the moment I’m posting this, the morning of March 22, 2020, we have 15,220 CONFIRMED CASES in the U.S. The actual number is undoubtedly much higher. But we don’t know because we don’t have enough tests. Why don’t we have enough tests? Remember back when Trump turned down the tests from the W.H.O. and prevented our own universities from developing them? Remember back when Trump had cut the funding to the CDC? Every time Mr. Trump goes on camera and blames the previous administration for the mess we are now in, I scream at the reporters from FOX, CNN and MSNBC - “Why aren’t you reporting the actual historical facts?!” How dare Trump try to blame Covid-19 on Obama. He has no one to blame but himself. I hear Republican pundits try to put the blame on China. And they are correct - after all, the disease started there. And the Chinese government handled it poorly and dishonestly. So it’s fair to blame the government of China for the EXISTENCE of the Covid-19 virus. BUT THAT MISSES THE POINT. Obama didn’t blame Ebola on Guinea. He helped them stop it. Trump let the disease invade the U.S. And he is still not doing all he could to save lives. He keeps talking about invoking The Defense Production Act, but hasn’t actually done so. He’s making the same mistake twice - waiting until it’s too late to take action. Invoking that act would require factories with the right equipment and know-how to start producing life saving ventilators for our hospitals, protective masks and other gear for our front line health workers. And the plus is it would actually employ people to do so. UPDATE: he just invoked it, FINALLY, way late.

He didn't take over an empty box. he literally emptied the box. Got rid of pandemic team. Got rid of Chinese Health monitor. Shrunk budget of CDC. Did not replenish expired items in national stockpile. Refused WHO tests so private companies could develop a test. Refused for weeks/months to invoke DPA. Rrefuses to do national lockdown.

"I'm not sure anyone even really knows what it is!"

Fauci and Trump (and Fauci and Betsy DeVos) in the same room might be the greatest IQ differential in close proximity in recorded history.

Brent Spiner, we call him data

"Nobody talks about trade. We don't talk about trade. But we talk about trade."

Remember when Elizabeth Warren analogized the Ukraine quid pro quo to corruptly withholding aid from states? Little did we know he would just go ahead and do that next month.

News Flash: It doesn't fucking matter how a Governor speaks about you during a NATIONAL EMERGENCY. You're suppose to help all the states at a federal level EQUALLY.

Very: 57
Great/Greatest: 37
A lot: 33
Incredible: 26
Many: 20
Really: 18
Brilliant: 6
Strong/Strongly: 6
Tremendous: 5
Fantastic: 5
This was in a 60 minute time span.

Yep Donald Trump covid-19 bingo
https://myfreebingocards.com/p/cmaqeu_27/m

"We're not playing games" as he plays games with GM for things they did years ago

"Everybody should appreciate me more." --Trump, during a global pandemic

It’s kinda of crazy (ie, not crazy at all) how closely the attacks parallel what they did with Hillary.
Email Server :: Burisma
Secret Parkinson’s :: Secret Dementia
No press conferences :: Joe’s Hiding!
Bill is rapist :: Joe is a rapist

It’s almost like the attacks are coming from the same place......

It is pathetic this is happening again. The top post on reddit is a joke and any real person who wants to play the "let's just wait and look at the facts" is a moron. This woman's twitter posts and responses are completely biased and make no sense. She is a joke and the chapo and Bernie supporters are disgusting for letting Putin and right wing propaganda control them again.

Trump intends to ignore provisions in the newly passed $2 trillion coronavirus relief bill intended to shore up Congress' oversight of the massive rescue program. The legislation establishes a "special inspector general" to review and investigate loan decisions made by the treasury secretary as part of the coronavirus relief effort, an accountability measure that was a central part of Democrats' demands to shore up transparency in the bill. The provision requires the inspector general to notify Congress if he or she is "unreasonably refused or not provided" any information. But in a signing statement issued shortly after he approved the bill, Trump says he'll be the last word on whether this provision is followed. "I do not understand, and my Administration will not treat, this provision as permitting the [inspector general] to issue reports to the Congress without the presidential supervision required" by Article II of the Constitution, Trump said in the signing statement. Trump also indicated he would treat as optional a requirement in the bill that key congressional committees be consulted before Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of State or U.S. Agency for International Development spends or reallocates certain funds. "These provisions are impermissible forms of congressional aggrandizement with respect to the execution of the laws," Trump says in the statement.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/27/trump-congress-coronavirus-relief-oversight-152560

By the time this gets to the Supreme Court it won't even matter: Trump Axed Congressionally-Mandated Pandemic Recovery Oversight with Stimulus Bill Signing Statement
https://lawandcrime.com/covid-19-pandemic/trump-axed-congressionally-mandated-pandemic-recovery-oversight-with-stimulus-bill-signing-statement/

The take care clause forbids the President to/to order his staff to break the law. Trump interprets it to mean "I don't have to do shit that I think is unconstitutional", and he thinks, or says he thinks, that the powers of the IG are unconstitutional.

CEO of company partnering with GM to produce ventilators says they were already moving forward with plans to roll out the medical equipment before Trump decided to invoke the Defense Production Act.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ceo-ventilator-maker-speaks-out-trump-invokes-defense-production-act-n1170881?cid=sm_npd_nn_tw_np

President of the United States taking time out during a global pandemic to personally attack a reporter. Do your job and stop complaining.
https://twitter.com/TVietor08/status/1243706987348520960