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babylonsister
babylonsister's Journal
babylonsister's Journal
April 13, 2020
Trump thinks disastrous coronavirus pandemic gives him bragging rights
Lauren Floyd
Daily Kos Staff
Sunday April 12, 2020 · 5:50 PM EDT
Lucky Americans. Even amid the deadly coronavirus pandemic, we have a president who still manages to regularly pat himself on the back. President Donald Trump tweeted Sunday: “For the first time in history there is a fully signed Presidential Disaster Declaration for all 50 States. We are winning, and will win, the war on the Invisible Enemy!”
Trump signed Wyoming’s declaration Saturday, the same day the United States’ coronavirus death toll surpassed Italy’s, making the United States the pandemic’s deadliest country, according to The Hill. Doesn’t it all just make you feel safe and protected?
The declaration makes federal funding that Democratic legislators and leaders have been advocating to get for weeks available to states and territories the Federal Emergency Management Agency covers. The United States has already reported at least 21,686 deaths and 546,874 coronavirus cases, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
In New York, the virus’ epicenter, more than 9,380 coronavirus patients had died by Sunday, The New York Times reported. D'neil Schmall, an ICU nurse in New York City, said weeping in an 8-minute video posted to her Facebook page Tuesday that there’s only so much anyone can take. “I’m tired of walking into rooms and your patient’s dead,” she said. “You just walk into a room, and there’s a dead body in there.” She said she feels “so much sadness” for fellow nurses and patients, “especially the ones that are hanging on by a thread.”
Video @ link~
snip//
The entertainer-in-chief instead, spent weeks in denial about the virus. When he made his first public remarks about COVID-19 in a TV interview Jan. 22, Trump responded to a question asking him if he had any worries about the virus with: “No. Not at all.” He added: “And we have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.” By late February, the president had repeatedly made false claims that the situation was getting better, The New York Times reported. "It’s going to disappear,” he said Feb. 27, 2020. “One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear.” Well, it hasn’t disappeared. People are still dying, but kudos to Trump for finding a silver lining to further inflate his ego.
Trump thinks disastrous coronavirus pandemic gives him bragging rights
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/4/12/1936653/-Trump-thinks-disastrous-coronavirus-pandemic-gives-him-bragging-rights#read-moreTrump thinks disastrous coronavirus pandemic gives him bragging rights
Lauren Floyd
Daily Kos Staff
Sunday April 12, 2020 · 5:50 PM EDT
Lucky Americans. Even amid the deadly coronavirus pandemic, we have a president who still manages to regularly pat himself on the back. President Donald Trump tweeted Sunday: “For the first time in history there is a fully signed Presidential Disaster Declaration for all 50 States. We are winning, and will win, the war on the Invisible Enemy!”
Trump signed Wyoming’s declaration Saturday, the same day the United States’ coronavirus death toll surpassed Italy’s, making the United States the pandemic’s deadliest country, according to The Hill. Doesn’t it all just make you feel safe and protected?
The declaration makes federal funding that Democratic legislators and leaders have been advocating to get for weeks available to states and territories the Federal Emergency Management Agency covers. The United States has already reported at least 21,686 deaths and 546,874 coronavirus cases, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
In New York, the virus’ epicenter, more than 9,380 coronavirus patients had died by Sunday, The New York Times reported. D'neil Schmall, an ICU nurse in New York City, said weeping in an 8-minute video posted to her Facebook page Tuesday that there’s only so much anyone can take. “I’m tired of walking into rooms and your patient’s dead,” she said. “You just walk into a room, and there’s a dead body in there.” She said she feels “so much sadness” for fellow nurses and patients, “especially the ones that are hanging on by a thread.”
Video @ link~
snip//
The entertainer-in-chief instead, spent weeks in denial about the virus. When he made his first public remarks about COVID-19 in a TV interview Jan. 22, Trump responded to a question asking him if he had any worries about the virus with: “No. Not at all.” He added: “And we have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.” By late February, the president had repeatedly made false claims that the situation was getting better, The New York Times reported. "It’s going to disappear,” he said Feb. 27, 2020. “One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear.” Well, it hasn’t disappeared. People are still dying, but kudos to Trump for finding a silver lining to further inflate his ego.
April 13, 2020
The Rude Pundit
Proudly lowering the level of political discourse
4/10/2020
Trump Stupidly Self-Owns on Pandemic Deaths
Ever since the first death from COVID-19, President Donald Trump has brayed like a howler monkey getting a tree branch stuck up its ass about how allegedly terrible President Obama handled the H1N1 outbreak in 2009-10. On a daily basis, we have heard about how the incompetent fuck-ups in the Obama administration personally went out and murdered, depending on the day, between 12,000 and 18,000 people with the swine flu. (The 12,000 is roughly the number the CDC came up with; the 18,000 is the upper estimate of U.S. deaths from H1N1.)
snip//
And fuckin' no one will hold him to account for his constant slanderous debasement of the Obama record. In a just world, Barack Obama would get to punch Trump in the dick every time the bloated tangerine of hate talked shit. But, no, no, we have to pretend to be dignified when dick-punching would be more appropriate.
This is the shit that Trump's been allowed to skate on. He repeats a lie so fucking often that it's the only thing even semi-rational people believe. Like the one that's gotten in my craw and plunged in its nails. Trump says over and over that he "shut down" travel from China early in the coronavirus outbreak. He says he "closed the border" and shit like that. Except he fucking well didn't. Read his own fuckin' proclamation on it. It applied to "all aliens who were physically present within the People’s Republic of China...during the 14-day period preceding their entry." And there were a shit-ton of exceptions, including Americans and people with green cards, spouses and children of Americans and people with green cards, and many other categories. It's like saying, "I've decided to be celibate. I'm not gonna do anal anymore, but blow jobs and firm handies are always welcome." And when those 40,000 or so exceptions to the ban came back into the U.S. from China, they faced almost no health checks.
On top of the general lie about the "ban," the date it started, which was on February 2 in the U.S., was two weeks after the first confirmed case in Washington state. The fucking virus was already here. So the sieve of a shutdown of Chinese travel had virtually no effect, despite Trump constantly saying that he himself saved "millions of lives." No, that was the social distancing and hospitalizations. Oh, and one more thing: Trump didn't issue the "ban" until the day after the WHO declared COVID-19 an international health emergency. That's right. Mr. Blame-the-WHO took his cues from the organization.
Look, this motherfucker, this loser of a president, this despicable, soul-free, degraded carcass of something that appears human, he's trying to spin shit every which way so that he escapes blame, again, for something that is his and solely his responsibility. He'll blame the WHO, Democrats and impeachment, governors, Obama, fuck, I'm sure Hillary will get in there at some point.
But it should never take away from the truth: He failed. He is failing. He is a failure. He will be a failure. He needs to wear his failure like a hair shirt for the rest of his miserable and hopefully imprisoned life. If Trump can slip away from any kind of comeuppance for this murderous ruin and wreckage, this country is even more fucked than it seems.
The Rude Pundit: Trump Stupidly Self-Owns on Pandemic Deaths
https://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2020/04/trump-stupidly-self-owns-on-pandemic.htmlThe Rude Pundit
Proudly lowering the level of political discourse
4/10/2020
Trump Stupidly Self-Owns on Pandemic Deaths
Ever since the first death from COVID-19, President Donald Trump has brayed like a howler monkey getting a tree branch stuck up its ass about how allegedly terrible President Obama handled the H1N1 outbreak in 2009-10. On a daily basis, we have heard about how the incompetent fuck-ups in the Obama administration personally went out and murdered, depending on the day, between 12,000 and 18,000 people with the swine flu. (The 12,000 is roughly the number the CDC came up with; the 18,000 is the upper estimate of U.S. deaths from H1N1.)
snip//
And fuckin' no one will hold him to account for his constant slanderous debasement of the Obama record. In a just world, Barack Obama would get to punch Trump in the dick every time the bloated tangerine of hate talked shit. But, no, no, we have to pretend to be dignified when dick-punching would be more appropriate.
This is the shit that Trump's been allowed to skate on. He repeats a lie so fucking often that it's the only thing even semi-rational people believe. Like the one that's gotten in my craw and plunged in its nails. Trump says over and over that he "shut down" travel from China early in the coronavirus outbreak. He says he "closed the border" and shit like that. Except he fucking well didn't. Read his own fuckin' proclamation on it. It applied to "all aliens who were physically present within the People’s Republic of China...during the 14-day period preceding their entry." And there were a shit-ton of exceptions, including Americans and people with green cards, spouses and children of Americans and people with green cards, and many other categories. It's like saying, "I've decided to be celibate. I'm not gonna do anal anymore, but blow jobs and firm handies are always welcome." And when those 40,000 or so exceptions to the ban came back into the U.S. from China, they faced almost no health checks.
On top of the general lie about the "ban," the date it started, which was on February 2 in the U.S., was two weeks after the first confirmed case in Washington state. The fucking virus was already here. So the sieve of a shutdown of Chinese travel had virtually no effect, despite Trump constantly saying that he himself saved "millions of lives." No, that was the social distancing and hospitalizations. Oh, and one more thing: Trump didn't issue the "ban" until the day after the WHO declared COVID-19 an international health emergency. That's right. Mr. Blame-the-WHO took his cues from the organization.
Look, this motherfucker, this loser of a president, this despicable, soul-free, degraded carcass of something that appears human, he's trying to spin shit every which way so that he escapes blame, again, for something that is his and solely his responsibility. He'll blame the WHO, Democrats and impeachment, governors, Obama, fuck, I'm sure Hillary will get in there at some point.
But it should never take away from the truth: He failed. He is failing. He is a failure. He will be a failure. He needs to wear his failure like a hair shirt for the rest of his miserable and hopefully imprisoned life. If Trump can slip away from any kind of comeuppance for this murderous ruin and wreckage, this country is even more fucked than it seems.
April 12, 2020
Billionaire Trump Donor, Personal Friend Dies Of COVID
April 12, 2020 Coronavirus, Donald Trump
Politico reports:
Chera had a reported net worth of $4 billion.
https://www.joemygod.com/2020/04/billionaire-trump-donor-personal-friend-dies-of-covid/?fbclid=IwAR0kyhZ10MRh16h3CV8eyunt4-T3ejDgIb_K3PtM08kBCp1it66fduty9_I&__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=1b204a4e7786c543020d7bd6beb08ce13198235f-1586728390-0-AabEusv-ftwyR-qe-ZLqHqCMjqT74ZeGV4LimQxHe21pGiEyU56EBaeHkRkaqKmdmHE10h0x9SCDtOFfILZEg9SZTX_3VeTbqsuNWWl-oEdvgoURhJGZOLqxGhgaKlQPH4x81UKyGsZhi5qM_48oQ_hSmRFESFipJe3ScQmKupmiywm7suOL0JkfOpyjuEFXBjlovIA08NEijnxD7q717UkprKAVw3gbkCYwwU95my7h8JVRLLQkTQdwHofadEmJO7egYFJqW3SgWASg15iirH21sQSWJusKSlAdPPbQY4w5JXH7VOrYk53grBqpaZTN-MIvHHFneibkyVN6g30Nlj_BqZ-jO9jW_IVCO9hCtZNw-qhwsA3oNhwnVBmvv6GdWMpvoZ67vLOILvcCBmUzMNXNpyFB9McEsAJS28eJ-6Z9VbSPd23QiU5I4ltWIfPdwg
Billionaire Trump Donor, Personal Friend Dies Of COVID
Billionaire Trump Donor, Personal Friend Dies Of COVID
April 12, 2020 Coronavirus, Donald Trump
Politico reports:
A friend and donor to President Donald Trump who the president had said was in a coma and seriously ill after becoming infected with the coronavirus has died. Stanley I. Chera’s death Saturday was reported by The Real Deal, which covers the New York real estate industry. The publication cited unidentified sources who have worked with Crown Acquisitions, the firm Chera founded and ran. Chera was in his late 70s.
Trump had spoken at recent White House briefings about a friend who had fallen ill with the virus, which has killed more than 20,600 Americans as of midday Sunday, according to Johns Hopkins University. “I had a friend who went to a hospital the other day. He’s a little older, and he’s heavy, but he’s tough person,” Trump said. “And he went to the hospital, and a day later, he’s in a coma, he’s not doing well.”
Trump had spoken at recent White House briefings about a friend who had fallen ill with the virus, which has killed more than 20,600 Americans as of midday Sunday, according to Johns Hopkins University. “I had a friend who went to a hospital the other day. He’s a little older, and he’s heavy, but he’s tough person,” Trump said. “And he went to the hospital, and a day later, he’s in a coma, he’s not doing well.”
Chera had a reported net worth of $4 billion.
https://www.joemygod.com/2020/04/billionaire-trump-donor-personal-friend-dies-of-covid/?fbclid=IwAR0kyhZ10MRh16h3CV8eyunt4-T3ejDgIb_K3PtM08kBCp1it66fduty9_I&__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=1b204a4e7786c543020d7bd6beb08ce13198235f-1586728390-0-AabEusv-ftwyR-qe-ZLqHqCMjqT74ZeGV4LimQxHe21pGiEyU56EBaeHkRkaqKmdmHE10h0x9SCDtOFfILZEg9SZTX_3VeTbqsuNWWl-oEdvgoURhJGZOLqxGhgaKlQPH4x81UKyGsZhi5qM_48oQ_hSmRFESFipJe3ScQmKupmiywm7suOL0JkfOpyjuEFXBjlovIA08NEijnxD7q717UkprKAVw3gbkCYwwU95my7h8JVRLLQkTQdwHofadEmJO7egYFJqW3SgWASg15iirH21sQSWJusKSlAdPPbQY4w5JXH7VOrYk53grBqpaZTN-MIvHHFneibkyVN6g30Nlj_BqZ-jO9jW_IVCO9hCtZNw-qhwsA3oNhwnVBmvv6GdWMpvoZ67vLOILvcCBmUzMNXNpyFB9McEsAJS28eJ-6Z9VbSPd23QiU5I4ltWIfPdwg
April 12, 2020
April 10, 2020
Lawmakers Worry Jared Kushner Is Working on a Privacy Destroying “Surveillance System”
AJ Vincens
As Jared Kushner has set himself a prominent role in the administration’s coronavirus response, there’s been a growing chorus of questions about what, exactly, he’s up to and how much the public will ever find out about it. Today, a trio of lawmakers are demanding answers from Jared Kushner about work his public-private taskforce has reportedly been doing with a “range of technology firms” to “establish a far-reaching public health surveillance system” in response to the pandemic.
Democratic senators Mark Warner of Virginia and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, along with Rep. Anna Eshoo of California, wrote a letter to Kushner on Friday asking about the issue three days after Politico reported that Kushner’s shadow task force had “reached out to a range of health technology companies about creating a national coronavirus surveillance system” that would give government “a near real-time view” of patients seeking treatment. Even though Politico cited interviews with “seven tech executives, government officials and other people familiar with its contours,” a White House spokesperson denied to the news outlet that Kushner had any knowledge of such plans.
The lawmakers’ concerns about transparency echo previous worries that Kushner’s taskforce is operating outside of normal government procedure, perhaps to the point of breaking the law. (Kushner has said that President Trump instructed him to “knock down every barrier needed” and “make sure that the government is doing things that the government doesn’t normally do, where we’re stretching, where [we] are acting very quickly.”)
On March 27, Noah Bookbinder, the executive director of the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, wrote a letter to White House Counsel Pat Cipollone asking him to ensure that Kushner’s working group “fully comply with all laws,” specifically citing provisions of the Presidential Records Act and and Federal Advisory Committee Act that bar or limit the use of private email accounts for government business.
On Friday, Anne Weismann, CREW’s chief FOIA counsel, told Mother Jones that the organization was still working to get its arms around the full scope of Kushner’s activities and had yet to receive a response to its letter. But with the federal government spending trillions in response to the coronavirus , she says Kushner’s secret work with a range of often unnamed private officials was especially troubling, especially if they are conducting business in a way that evades oversight.
Lawmakers Worry Jared Kushner Is Working on a Privacy Destroying "Surveillance System"
https://www.motherjones.com/coronavirus-updates/2020/04/jared-kushner-surveillance/April 10, 2020
Lawmakers Worry Jared Kushner Is Working on a Privacy Destroying “Surveillance System”
AJ Vincens
As Jared Kushner has set himself a prominent role in the administration’s coronavirus response, there’s been a growing chorus of questions about what, exactly, he’s up to and how much the public will ever find out about it. Today, a trio of lawmakers are demanding answers from Jared Kushner about work his public-private taskforce has reportedly been doing with a “range of technology firms” to “establish a far-reaching public health surveillance system” in response to the pandemic.
Democratic senators Mark Warner of Virginia and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, along with Rep. Anna Eshoo of California, wrote a letter to Kushner on Friday asking about the issue three days after Politico reported that Kushner’s shadow task force had “reached out to a range of health technology companies about creating a national coronavirus surveillance system” that would give government “a near real-time view” of patients seeking treatment. Even though Politico cited interviews with “seven tech executives, government officials and other people familiar with its contours,” a White House spokesperson denied to the news outlet that Kushner had any knowledge of such plans.
“Your office’s denial of the existence of this effort, despite ample corroborating reporting, only compounds concerns we have with lack of transparency,” the lawmakers wrote in the April 10 letter, which expressed fears that such a system “could undermine the confidentiality and security of our health information and become the new status quo.”
The lawmakers’ concerns about transparency echo previous worries that Kushner’s taskforce is operating outside of normal government procedure, perhaps to the point of breaking the law. (Kushner has said that President Trump instructed him to “knock down every barrier needed” and “make sure that the government is doing things that the government doesn’t normally do, where we’re stretching, where [we] are acting very quickly.”)
On March 27, Noah Bookbinder, the executive director of the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, wrote a letter to White House Counsel Pat Cipollone asking him to ensure that Kushner’s working group “fully comply with all laws,” specifically citing provisions of the Presidential Records Act and and Federal Advisory Committee Act that bar or limit the use of private email accounts for government business.
On Friday, Anne Weismann, CREW’s chief FOIA counsel, told Mother Jones that the organization was still working to get its arms around the full scope of Kushner’s activities and had yet to receive a response to its letter. But with the federal government spending trillions in response to the coronavirus , she says Kushner’s secret work with a range of often unnamed private officials was especially troubling, especially if they are conducting business in a way that evades oversight.
“Given the amount of money at stake, there is significant possibility that these people are also trying to leverage their position for their own personal profit, or profit for their companies,” she said. “We should have assurances that people who are given such enormous power and responsibility are acting in the interest of the nation.”
April 12, 2020
Crucial Quote: CNN's Jim Acosta asked about the shortages reported by some doctors, to which Trump said there weren't shortages of PPE and tests and that, "You shouldn't be asking that kind of a question."
Key Background: The U.S. leads the world in confirmed coronavirus cases with 486,490 out of the 1,677,256 globally. On Friday, global deaths rose past 100,000, with the U.S. reporting 18,022. The administration is now predicting around 60,000 Americans will die from the coronavirus.
Trump Says 'We're Not Getting Any Calls From Governors' About Shortages, Contrary To Reports
Oh, brother. Does ANYONE believe this? 
https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattperez/2020/04/10/trump-says-were-not-getting-any-calls-from-governors-about-shortages-contrary-to-reports/?fbclid=IwAR1SEsiNdAjgKdikJ0Yv_tGMT-giZhRgSeIPncFF5Ri-k4scBb0qsBkdQYI#29e3c9373974
Breaking|27,598 views|Apr 10, 2020,04:19pm EDT
Trump Says 'We're Not Getting Any Calls From Governors' About Shortages, Contrary To Reports
Matt Perez
WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 10:
Topline: President Trump during Friday's White House briefing said the administration isn't getting calls from governors for supply shortages, despite hospitals still reporting shortages of personal protective equipment and a new initiative from the Food and Drug Administration to increase recycling of masks and gowns.
"We're in great shape in every way," Trump said. "We're in great shape with ventilators, we're in great shape with protective clothing, we have additional plane loads coming in. But we're not getting any calls from governors at this moment."
The Department of Health and Human Services on Monday released a report that summarized interviews with 323 hospitals that confirmed continued shortages of PPE, and governors like New York's Andrew Cuomo have reported continued shortages, with Cuomo saying Sunday, "We are running short of supplies all across the board."
Stephen Hahn, commissioner of the FDA, says the agency is approving two companies to sterilize N95 masks for reuse up to 20 times and has revised guidelines on making cloth medical gowns along with the typical plastic gowns, as well as on how to launder gowns for reuse.
On April 1, the Department of Homeland Security reported that the emergency national stockpile was nearly empty, and without the Defense Production Act used to coordinate how supplies are distributed in the marketplace, governors have been forced to bid against one another.
After much delay, Trump has used the Defense Production Act to compel companies to ramp up production, including 3M which will make 55.5 million each month and Royal Philips which will produce 2,500 ventilators by the end of May.
On Friday, Cuomo further urged the federal government to use the Defense Production Act to get "millions of millions" of tests required and that the “private sector companies on their own, I don't believe, will be able to come to scale” (meanwhile, Trump repeated that there doesn't need to be widespread testing and that there are enough tests).
The Department of Health and Human Services on Monday released a report that summarized interviews with 323 hospitals that confirmed continued shortages of PPE, and governors like New York's Andrew Cuomo have reported continued shortages, with Cuomo saying Sunday, "We are running short of supplies all across the board."
Stephen Hahn, commissioner of the FDA, says the agency is approving two companies to sterilize N95 masks for reuse up to 20 times and has revised guidelines on making cloth medical gowns along with the typical plastic gowns, as well as on how to launder gowns for reuse.
On April 1, the Department of Homeland Security reported that the emergency national stockpile was nearly empty, and without the Defense Production Act used to coordinate how supplies are distributed in the marketplace, governors have been forced to bid against one another.
After much delay, Trump has used the Defense Production Act to compel companies to ramp up production, including 3M which will make 55.5 million each month and Royal Philips which will produce 2,500 ventilators by the end of May.
On Friday, Cuomo further urged the federal government to use the Defense Production Act to get "millions of millions" of tests required and that the “private sector companies on their own, I don't believe, will be able to come to scale” (meanwhile, Trump repeated that there doesn't need to be widespread testing and that there are enough tests).
Crucial Quote: CNN's Jim Acosta asked about the shortages reported by some doctors, to which Trump said there weren't shortages of PPE and tests and that, "You shouldn't be asking that kind of a question."
Key Background: The U.S. leads the world in confirmed coronavirus cases with 486,490 out of the 1,677,256 globally. On Friday, global deaths rose past 100,000, with the U.S. reporting 18,022. The administration is now predicting around 60,000 Americans will die from the coronavirus.
April 12, 2020
He Could Have Seen What Was Coming: Behind Trump's Failure on the Virus
He Could Have Seen What Was Coming: Behind Trump’s Failure on the Virus
An examination reveals the president was warned about the potential for a pandemic but that internal divisions, lack of planning and his faith in his own instincts led to a halting response.
By Eric Lipton, David E. Sanger, Maggie Haberman, Michael D. Shear, Mark Mazzetti and Julian E. Barnes
April 11, 2020
Updated 5:57 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON — “Any way you cut it, this is going to be bad,” a senior medical adviser at the Department of Veterans Affairs, Dr. Carter Mecher, wrote on the night of Jan. 28, in an email to a group of public health experts scattered around the government and universities. “The projected size of the outbreak already seems hard to believe.”
A week after the first coronavirus case had been identified in the United States, and six long weeks before President Trump finally took aggressive action to confront the danger the nation was facing — a pandemic that is now forecast to take tens of thousands of American lives — Dr. Mecher was urging the upper ranks of the nation’s public health bureaucracy to wake up and prepare for the possibility of far more drastic action.
“You guys made fun of me screaming to close the schools,” he wrote to the group, which called itself “Red Dawn,” an inside joke based on the 1984 movie about a band of Americans trying to save the country after a foreign invasion. “Now I’m screaming, close the colleges and universities.”
His was hardly a lone voice. Throughout January, as Mr. Trump repeatedly played down the seriousness of the virus and focused on other issues, an array of figures inside his government — from top White House advisers to experts deep in the cabinet departments and intelligence agencies — identified the threat, sounded alarms and made clear the need for aggressive action.
more...
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/us/politics/coronavirus-trump-response.html
April 11, 2020
more...
https://lithub.com/the-50-best-contemporary-novels-over-500-pages/
The 50 Best Contemporary Novels Over 500 Pages
Thought this might be of interest with a lot of time on our hands.
Literary Hub
The 50 Best Contemporary Novels Over 500 Pages
Long Books, Worth Your Time
By Emily Temple
April 9, 2020
Personally, I find solace in long novels. The good ones always seem to create space for the reader: space to sink and settle, and time to really learn what you’re dealing with, both in terms of character and in terms of author. You have to build something, reading a really long book. It’s almost a collaborative experience. So if you’re looking for a long-term relationship with a book right now, you couldn’t do much better than the books below.
For my sanity, I limited this list to contemporary novels, which here I am defining as being published in the last 50 years—I figure, you’ve already made your own decisions about whether to read Middlemarch and Ulysses and The Lord of the Rings, you know? You know.
Here are the rules: I only counted single volumes (it’s fine for them to be part of a series, but they have to meet the size requirements on their own), published in English since 1970. Writers only get one spot on the list. Page counts may vary over editions. And as ever, no list is definitive, “best” is an imaginary term, and I had to leave a lot of good books off, so feel free to add your own favorites in the comments section.
Richard Powers, The Overstory (512 pages)
Strap in for a 512-page book about trees. But of course it’s really about humanity—all literature is—and it’s weirdly engrossing. Though it lags a bit at the end when it succumbs to polemic, for the most part, Powers manages to entertain, inform, and inspire action in the most high profile work of climate fiction yet.
Strap in for a 512-page book about trees. But of course it’s really about humanity—all literature is—and it’s weirdly engrossing. Though it lags a bit at the end when it succumbs to polemic, for the most part, Powers manages to entertain, inform, and inspire action in the most high profile work of climate fiction yet.
more...
https://lithub.com/the-50-best-contemporary-novels-over-500-pages/
April 11, 2020
Lawsuit Charging Trump Family with Pyramid Scheme Will Be Publicly Litigated
Apr 10, 2020
Lawsuit Charging Trump Family with Pyramid Scheme Will Be Publicly Litigated
https://www.democracynow.org/2020/4/10/headlines/lawsuit_charging_trump_family_with_pyramid_scheme_will_be_publicly_litigated?fbclid=IwAR0vHNDNuCtsFvXS48m49gyk48BP2IqaDxpcmswkcoc9ZuvkufJEPka3juILawsuit Charging Trump Family with Pyramid Scheme Will Be Publicly Litigated
Apr 10, 2020
The Trump family has lost a massive legal fight in federal court that sought to keep details of a racketeering and conspiracy lawsuit against the family a secret. The claims against President Trump and his adult children will now likely be litigated publicly. The class action suit was originally filed in October 2018, alleging the Trump family and their family-owned business promoted and endorsed a multilevel marketing, or pyramid scheme, called ACN Opportunity, LLC. Plaintiffs describe the failed enterprise as a “get-rich-quick scheme” that forced victims to invest hundreds or thousands of dollars under the false promise of success.
April 11, 2020
Trump Signs Executive Order to Mine the Moon for Minerals
Jordan Davidson
Apr. 10, 2020 12:14PM EST
In the midst of a global pandemic, President Donald Trump found time earlier this week to sign an executive order for U.S. companies to mine the moon's mineral resources, according to Newsweek.
The executive order makes it clear that the administration does not view space and celestial bodies as global commons, allowing for mining operations without any international treaties, as The Guardian reported.
According to Mining Technology, the order states that commercial partners participate in an "innovative and sustainable program" headed by the U.S. to "lead the return of humans to the Moon for long-term exploration and utilization, followed by human missions to Mars and other destinations." The document adds that successful long-term exploration of space will require commercial entities to recover and use resources, including certain minerals, in outer space.
While the order specifically noted that a return to the moon would allow the country to explore and exploit lunar minerals, it implied a future commercialization of the solar system would apply to "the Moon, Mars, and other celestial bodies," as The Palm Springs Desert Sun reported.
The U.S. never signed the 1979 moon treaty, which states that non-scientific use of space resources must be governed by international regulations. Then in 2015, Congress passed a law to allow American companies and citizens to use resources from the moon and asteroids, as Newsweek reported.
As The Guardian points out, the willingness to plunder natural resources is part and parcel with the administration's policies on Earth. The Trump administration has opened up wide swaths of public land to mining and rolled back environmental regulations in an attempt to prop up the coal industry.
more...
https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-moon-mining-2645687877.html?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1
Trump Signs Executive Order to Mine the Moon for Minerals
Trump Signs Executive Order to Mine the Moon for Minerals
Jordan Davidson
Apr. 10, 2020 12:14PM EST
In the midst of a global pandemic, President Donald Trump found time earlier this week to sign an executive order for U.S. companies to mine the moon's mineral resources, according to Newsweek.
The executive order makes it clear that the administration does not view space and celestial bodies as global commons, allowing for mining operations without any international treaties, as The Guardian reported.
"Outer space is a legally and physically unique domain of human activity, and the United States does not view space as a global commons," the order, called Encouraging International Support for the Recovery and Use of Space Resources, states.
According to Mining Technology, the order states that commercial partners participate in an "innovative and sustainable program" headed by the U.S. to "lead the return of humans to the Moon for long-term exploration and utilization, followed by human missions to Mars and other destinations." The document adds that successful long-term exploration of space will require commercial entities to recover and use resources, including certain minerals, in outer space.
While the order specifically noted that a return to the moon would allow the country to explore and exploit lunar minerals, it implied a future commercialization of the solar system would apply to "the Moon, Mars, and other celestial bodies," as The Palm Springs Desert Sun reported.
The U.S. never signed the 1979 moon treaty, which states that non-scientific use of space resources must be governed by international regulations. Then in 2015, Congress passed a law to allow American companies and citizens to use resources from the moon and asteroids, as Newsweek reported.
As The Guardian points out, the willingness to plunder natural resources is part and parcel with the administration's policies on Earth. The Trump administration has opened up wide swaths of public land to mining and rolled back environmental regulations in an attempt to prop up the coal industry.
more...
https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-moon-mining-2645687877.html?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1
April 11, 2020
How freaking dumb are these people? Turn on the damned news, and leave Fauci alone! 
GOP lawmakers: Fauci may be doing more harm than good
By J. Edward Moreno - 04/11/20 03:31 PM EDT
Republican Reps. Andy Biggs (Ariz.) and Ken Buck (Colo.) criticized Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, for the impact of his social distancing recommendations, claiming that the stay-at-home policies informed by those recommendations have forced businesses, workers and corporations into economic turmoil.
Biggs and Buck, both members of the conservative Freedom Caucus and staunch allies of President Trump, join others on the right in criticizing public health officials on the administration’s coronavirus task force. On Tuesday, Tucker Carlson, a conservative commentator on Fox News, said that Fauci “shouldn’t be making economic decisions.”
The lawmakers' op-ed comes as the United States has seen record increases in unemployment. In the first week of April, more than 6 million people filed for unemployment, according to data released by the U.S. Labor Department. More than 10 million people applied for unemployment in the last two weeks of March as businesses shuttered due to fears of the pandemic's spread.
more...
https://thehill.com/homenews/coronavirus-report/492359-gop-lawmakers-fauci-may-be-doing-more-harm-than-good?fbclid=IwAR0CNKcgsKNWW3SWv21eRemU5E6qGBd_9ZiqICBmR7Bn_EMjUQEtBg-FGTo
GOP lawmakers: Fauci may be doing more harm than good
How freaking dumb are these people? Turn on the damned news, and leave Fauci alone!
GOP lawmakers: Fauci may be doing more harm than good
By J. Edward Moreno - 04/11/20 03:31 PM EDT
Republican Reps. Andy Biggs (Ariz.) and Ken Buck (Colo.) criticized Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, for the impact of his social distancing recommendations, claiming that the stay-at-home policies informed by those recommendations have forced businesses, workers and corporations into economic turmoil.
“For Fauci, is it merely a societal or economic inconvenience that about 17 million workers are unemployed because of the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, with many more to come in the weeks and months ahead? The economic calamity lies largely with the origination of policies resulting from Fauci's recommendations,” the lawmakers wrote in an op-ed in the Washington Examiner published Saturday.
Biggs and Buck, both members of the conservative Freedom Caucus and staunch allies of President Trump, join others on the right in criticizing public health officials on the administration’s coronavirus task force. On Tuesday, Tucker Carlson, a conservative commentator on Fox News, said that Fauci “shouldn’t be making economic decisions.”
The lawmakers' op-ed comes as the United States has seen record increases in unemployment. In the first week of April, more than 6 million people filed for unemployment, according to data released by the U.S. Labor Department. More than 10 million people applied for unemployment in the last two weeks of March as businesses shuttered due to fears of the pandemic's spread.
“The longer government-imposed lockdowns go on, the more people will lose their jobs — millions more,” the lawmakers wrote. “Thousands of businesses will close their doors. The physical and emotional toll from this self-imposed economic destruction will be worse than the doomsday prophets projected.”
more...
https://thehill.com/homenews/coronavirus-report/492359-gop-lawmakers-fauci-may-be-doing-more-harm-than-good?fbclid=IwAR0CNKcgsKNWW3SWv21eRemU5E6qGBd_9ZiqICBmR7Bn_EMjUQEtBg-FGTo
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