Light News

Pastor Who Defied Social Distancing Dies After Contracting Covid-19 | A Virginia pastor who defied warnings about the danger of religious gatherings during the pandemic and vowed to keep preaching “unless I’m in jail or the hospital” died over the weekend after contracting Covid-19, his church said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/14/us/bishop-gerald-glenn-coronavirus.html

Court blocks Trump administration rollback of some school nutrition standards
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/492650-court-vacates-trump-administration-rollback-of-some-school-nutrition

Tax change in coronavirus package overwhelmingly benefits millionaires, congressional body finds | The provision, included by Senate Republicans approximately $90 billion in 2020 | More than 80 percent of the benefits of a tax change tucked into the coronavirus relief package Congress passed last month will go to those who earn more than $1 million annually, according to a report by a nonpartisan congressional body expected to be released Tuesday. The provision, inserted into the legislation by Senate Republicans, temporarily suspends a limitation on how much owners of businesses formed as “pass-through” entities can deduct against their nonbusiness income, such as capital gains, to reduce their tax liability. The limitation was created as part of the 2017 Republican tax law to offset other tax cuts to firms in that legislation. Suspending the limitation will cost taxpayers about $90 billion in 2020 alone, part of a set of tax changes that will add close to $170 billion to the national deficit over the next 10 years, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT), the nonpartisan congressional body. | An analysis by the JCT found suspending the limit overwhelmingly benefits higher earners. About 82 percent of the benefits of the policy go to about 43,000 taxpayers who earn more than $1 million annually. Less than 3 percent of the benefits go to Americans earning less than $100,000 a year, the analysis found. The analysis included the impact of another tax change in the coronavirus relief legislation that allows firms to write off 100 percent rather than 80 percent of their losses, reversing another change in the 2017 tax law. Hedge-fund investors and owners of real estate businesses are “far and away” the two prime beneficiaries of the change, said Steve Rosenthal, a tax expert at the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan think tank.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/04/14/coronavirus-law-congress-tax-change/

Hedge Fund Managers Are Claiming Bailouts as Small Businesses
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-14/hedge-fund-managers-are-claiming-bailouts-as-small-businesses

Important reminder that Wisconsin's electoral politics aren't over for the spring yet. The 7th district has a special election next month (unless the Republicans decide it doesn't serve them to have this one after today's results). One of the candidates, Tom Tiffany, is currently a Republican State Senator, a member of the body and party that chose to do nothing and force Wisconsinites to risk their lives to exercise their rights. He must be made to pay.  Here's a link to the website of his opponent, Democrat Tricia Zunker, if anyone wants to donate to someone who doesn't force people to risk their lives to vote during a pandemic. She is also a Native American (H-Chunk) and her primary win was a first. No one of Native American ancestry has ever been elected to Congress in Wisconsin, she could be the first.
https://triciaforwisconsin.com/
https://ballotpedia.org/Wisconsin%27s_7th_Congressional_District_special_election,_2020
https://ballotpedia.org/Tricia_Zunker
https://www.wpr.org/wausaus-tricia-zunker-aims-be-wisconsins-first-native-american-congresswoman
https://www.aclu-wi.org/en/biographies/tricia-zunker

Virginia becomes the first state in the South to target 100% clean power. The state’s Democratic majority is doing what Democratic majorities do
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2020/3/12/21172836/virginia-renewable-energy-100-percent-clean

I’m proud to endorse my friend @JoeBiden for President of the United States. Let's go:
https://twitter.com/BarackObama/status/1250088269502709762
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-s3ANu4eMs

Assuming campaign events happen at all, seeing Biden and Obama together again on the campaign trail is going to be a powerful, undeniable image for a lot of people.

A mammoth star explosion known as SN2016aps, which occurred in a galaxy about 3.6 billion light-years from Earth, is the brightest supernova ever seen, a new study reports. | "In a typical supernova, the radiation is less than 1% of the total energy," Nicholl added. "But in SN2016aps, we found the radiation was five times the explosion energy of a normal-sized supernova. This is the most light we have ever seen emitted by a supernova." | SN2016aps is so odd and so extreme that Nicholl and his colleagues think it may be a "pulsational pair-instability" supernova, in which two big stars merge before the whole system goes boom. Such events are hypothesized, but astronomers have never confirmed their existence observationally. | In addition, the researchers calculated that the supernova system harbored between 50 and 100 times the mass of the sun. And it may indeed have been a system, not just a single star. "The gas we detected was mostly hydrogen — but such a massive star would usually have lost all of its hydrogen via stellar winds long before it started pulsating," Nicholl said. "One explanation is that two slightly less massive stars of around, say 60 solar masses, had merged before the explosion. The lower-mass stars hold onto their hydrogen for longer, while their combined mass is high enough to trigger the pair instability."
https://www.livescience.com/brightest-supernova-ever-discovered-sn2016aps.html
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-020-1066-7

Amazon Fores Deforestation Has increased up to 51%, as coronavirus pandemic allowed to oversight from illegal loggers.
https://earther.gizmodo.com/deforestation-spikes-in-the-amazon-amid-coronavirus-cri-1842844704

More than 1% of New York residents have tested positive for coronavirus, according to data from Johns Hopkins University and the U.S. Census Bureau.

The death toll in NYC is shocking. If this city was a country, we'd have the sixth largest death toll in the world. About one in every 800 New Yorkers has died of the coronavirus.

Trump said hospitals were just fine. Then his own White House guest said family died after being turned away. | Whitsett said in a White House roundtable Tuesday that she was grateful for the treatment she received. But she also said certain members of her family haven’t been so lucky. “I’ve lost several family members to covid[-19] — all in one household,” she said. “My cousin, Cheryl Fowler, was in [intensive care]. She lost her husband. He was turned away from numerous hospitals, as was she — over four times. And within six hours, she lost her father-in-law, who was turned away numerous times.” The idea that people are being turned away from hospitals is something that both Trump and Pence had rejected — including less than 24 hours before.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/04/14/whitsett-trump-pence-hospitals/
https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2020/04/08/karen-whitsett-testing-coronavirus-dead-relatives-hydroxychloroquine/2969452001/

"Based on the astronomical level of inflammation in his body ... the doctors came to believe that it was not the disease itself killing him but his own immune system. It had gone haywire and began to attack itself — a syndrome known as a “cytokine storm.'" | Dr. Ryan Padgett, a Seattle emergency room physician, contracted COVID-19 and was saved by doctors who used an experimental treatment.
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-04-13/coworkers-save-coronavirus-doctor

Multiple Trump administration health agencies have refused to release records detailing the decisions to test — or not test — for coronavirus back in February and March. So last week, we went to court to make those records public:
https://www.americanoversight.org/american-oversight-sues-for-coronavirus-related-records

Just yesterday, Trump's own CDC director, Dr. Robert Redfield, said that WHO "has been a very important public health partner with the CDC, and continues to be."

Trump says he is cutting off US funding for the World Health Organization in the midst of the biggest global pandemic in years while he reviews the agency. Everything he accused WHO of, Trump himself and Team Trump actually did (covered up and mismanaged covid-19). There’s a word that comes to mind here. #scapegoating

Trump is trying to blame the WHO for its early coronavirus response and basically "taking China's word" - here was rump in *January*: China has been working very hard to contain the Coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well. In particular, on behalf of the American People, I want to thank President Xi!
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1220818115354923009

Bernie Sanders said Tuesday that it would be “irresponsible” for his loyalists not to support Joe Biden, warning that progressives who “sit on their hands” in the months ahead would simply enable President Donald Trump’s reelection. | He seemed to distance himself from his campaign’s former national press secretary, Briahna Joy Gray, when asked about her recent statement on social media refusing to endorse Biden. “She is my former press secretary — not on the payroll,” Sanders noted. A spokesman later clarified that all campaign staffers were no longer on the payroll as of Tuesday, though they will get a severance check in May. Sanders said his supporters have a simple choice now that Biden has emerged as the presumptive nominee: “Do we be as active as we can in electing Joe Biden and doing everything we can to move Joe and his campaign in a more progressive direction? Or do we choose to sit it out and allow the most dangerous president in modern American history to get reelected?” He continued: “I believe that it’s irresponsible for anybody to say, ‘Well, I disagree with Joe Biden -- I disagree with Joe Biden! -- and therefore I’m not going to be involved.’” Sanders said he would not actively campaign or spend money on advertising in the primary contests that are still on the calendar in the coming months. But he still encouraged Democrats in those states to vote for him, hoping to amass as many delegates as possible for leverage to shape the party platform and the direction of Biden’s campaign. He also vowed to continue fighting for progressive priorities such as his signature “Medicare for All” as a senator, even though Biden has refused to embrace the government-backed single-payer health care system. | “I will do everything I can to help elect Joe,” Sanders continued. “We had a contentious campaign. We disagree on issues. But my job now is to not only rally my supporters, but to do everything I can to bring the party together to see that (Trump) is not elected president.”
https://apnews.com/a1bfb62e37fe34e09ff123a58a1329fa

Sigh....Federal prosecutors and defense attorneys have asked the judge to delay the trial of several of Rudy Giuliani’s associates because of COVID-19; a delay which includes holding off on a superseding indictment. They're seeking a February 2021 trial date instead of October 5th
https://twitter.com/Tom_Winter/status/1250190806155169792

Yep....: 2 months later, March 27, Trump was still praising China. "Just finished a very good conversation with President Xi of China....China has been through much & has developed a strong understanding of the Virus. We are working closely together. Much respect!"
https://twitter.com/tamarakeithNPR/status/1250190961453522944
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1220818115354923009

Other scapegoats blamed by Trump: China, Democratic governers, the Obama administration, Democratic members of the Congress, the news media

Reminder: Trump administration ended pandemic early-warning program to detect coronaviruses | Two months before the novel coronavirus is thought to have begun its deadly advance in Wuhan, China, the Trump administration ended a $200-million pandemic early-warning program aimed at training scientists in China and other countries to detect and respond to such a threat. The project, launched by the U.S. Agency for International Development in 2009, identified 1,200 different viruses that had the potential to erupt into pandemics, including more than 160 novel coronaviruses. The initiative, called PREDICT, also trained and supported staff in 60 foreign laboratories — including the Wuhan lab that identified SARS-CoV-2, the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2020-04-02/coronavirus-trump-pandemic-program-viruses-detection

Reminder: A CNN KFile review of Trump's public statements identified at least 12 occasions in which the President praised or projected confidence about China's response to coronavirus.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/25/politics/trump-coronavirus-china/index.html
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/21/politics/trump-china-told-us-coronavirus/index.html
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1220818115354923009
https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-interview-peter-doocy-fox-january-30-2020
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1225728755248828416
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-north-carolina-opportunity-now-summit-charlotte-nc/
https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-interview-trish-regan-fox-business-february-10-2020
https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-interview-geraldo-rivera-february-13-2020
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-national-border-patrol-council-members/
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-air-force-one-departure-joint-base-andrews-md-2/
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-marine-one-departure-83/
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-business-roundtable-new-delhi-india/
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-vice-president-pence-members-coronavirus-task-force-press-conference/
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-vice-president-pence-members-coronavirus-task-force-press-conference-2/

Trump is boasting about how many ventilators he says are being produced, "anywhere from 150,000 to 200,000 ventilators." He claims he used the Defense Production Act "so powerfully," as a "hammer" in negotiations with companies, that he didn't really have to actually invoke it.

Trump's reopening plan is to let each governor devise his own reopening plan.Trump says he will be authorizing each governor to re-open individual states when it's appropriate. Reminder: Governors do not need Trump's authorization to do that

The WHO urged the world to prepare for a pandemic, and declared an international public health emergency in January.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/09/who-cited-human-transmission-risk-in-january-despite-trump-claims

The WHO provided the entire world, including us, with an excellent test that worked at scale, and we rejected it, resulting in the catastrophic "lost month" of February in which we blinded ourselves as the virus spread to every corner of our nation.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/28/us/testing-coronavirus-pandemic.html

We diagnosed our first case on the same day as South Korea. Today 26,000 Americans now lie dead against only 222 South Koreans. They took testing seriously. We did not. Because after 3 years our executive branch is now designed entirely to insulate our head of state from news he does not want to hear, paralyzing decision making in a crisis. The problem isn't the WHO. The problem is Trump and Republicans and all their supporters.

It would be a dangerous blunder for those who oppose Trump, and I am proudly in their number, to disregard China's malign behavior here just because Trump also criticizes China.

POTUS may think using the Covid 19 briefing to read a long list of names of private sector people who are helping in the disease fight is interesting. It’s not.
https://twitter.com/brithume/status/1250196077887840257

Isn’t in the interest in the entire country to make sure states have all the tests they need to ensure that we aren’t sending people out to be infected or reignite the pandemic?
https://twitter.com/davidaxelrod/status/1250206301935681536

As long as we're suddenly worried about holding people who failed in their duties accountable... why stop with the WHO? Trump's intelligence community, funded by our taxpayer dollars, was warning Trump about the dangers this novel coronavirus posed to the United States as far back as November (I'd love to see Congress exercise oversight to request these reports, and if they argue that the Intelligence Community WASN'T warning Trump then this is a HUGE intelligence failure and someone needs to be held accountable).
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/intelligence-report-warned-coronavirus-crisis-early-november-sources/story?id=70031273

Trump originally dismissed covid-19 as a hoax (despite classified reports that he knew about the situation before the general public began paying attention to it) created by Democrats to make him look bad and wreck his perfect economy, then claimed Democrats and media were overblowing the issue and it was under control, and now claims it's out of control and states don't have what they need and it's the fault of WHO.

Don't forget how he also claims has absolute authority but deserves no blame for anything that goes wrong.

And he gets away with being an infantile idiot while heading up the most powerful nation on earth.

Kentucky Republican lawmakers override veto of voter ID measure
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/kentucky-lawmakers-override-veto-of-voter-id-measure

13 states, green groups sue Trump administration over energy efficiency rollback
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/492795-13-states-green-groups-sue-trump-administration-over-energy