tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38693088436238188422024-03-06T00:07:35.476-08:00Truth and BeautyMusic, writing, film, photography, politics, and California loveDan Benbowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02258556216655283390noreply@blogger.comBlogger155125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3869308843623818842.post-56396550230698862462024-01-14T08:51:00.000-08:002024-01-14T09:06:35.749-08:00The complete, updated January 6 timeline<p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #222222;">It was evident that Donald Trump was likely to lose 20
minutes after polls closed in C</span></span>alifornia. </span></span></div><p></p><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp6pH-tkAtQqUTHYP8ppmi1ABqcgTk2gwqk_QAZIw0MgORV12Cs-YMBf-QM1VnT2Gn0okwSy_YvLMSn9Ki4WRDGT0cd6zQRz9ib3CjPua3DBS08ggphuCQPqogGQOWRHAAUFkDiQCU8ilsAg8LnjoctQErWaAsMKTUeD_pirYvHkFKmH9cL0HlNO7puE0/s920/tRump.webp" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="613" data-original-width="920" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp6pH-tkAtQqUTHYP8ppmi1ABqcgTk2gwqk_QAZIw0MgORV12Cs-YMBf-QM1VnT2Gn0okwSy_YvLMSn9Ki4WRDGT0cd6zQRz9ib3CjPua3DBS08ggphuCQPqogGQOWRHAAUFkDiQCU8ilsAg8LnjoctQErWaAsMKTUeD_pirYvHkFKmH9cL0HlNO7puE0/s320/tRump.webp" width="320" /></a></span></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">At 11:20 p.m. EST, the Fox News Decision Desk called Arizona
for Joe Biden. The Copper </span><span style="background: white;">State </span></span><span style="background: white; font-family: georgia;">had gone Democratic just </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_elections_in_Arizona" style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">once</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: georgia;"> since 1948, when Bill Clinton won by two points in his 1996
landslide.</span><p></p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Without Arizona, Trump would have to win three of the five undecided
swing states (Georgia, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania) to stay in
power. </span><span style="background: white;">The Blue Wall states (WI,
MI, PA) had supported Democratic candidates in every presidential election but
one since 1992. Nevada had gone Democratic for the last three presidential
cycles.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Sensing that they might have been
dealt a death blow, the Trump campaign had </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/04/us/politics/trump-fox-news-arizona.html?auth=login-google1tap&login=google1tap"><span style="background: white;">conniption
fits</span></a><span style="background: white;"> when Arizona was called
by their network of choice. A call was put in to Fox chairman Rupert Murdoch.
Murdoch later “</span><a href="http://www.npr.org/2023/02/28/1159819849/fox-news-dominion-voting-rupert-murdoch-2020-election-fraud"><span style="background: white;">testified</span></a><span style="background: white;"> that </span>he could hear Trump shouting in the
background as the then-president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, told him the
situation was ‘terrible.’”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Murdoch reportedly said,
“‘Well, the numbers are the numbers.’”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Two-and-a-half hours later, Biden </span><a href="https://www.ketv.com/article/election-day-2020-nebraskans-get-an-early-start-lining-up-at-the-polls/34561160"><span style="background: white;">won</span></a><span style="background: white;"> Nebraska’s 2<sup>nd</sup> district,
a right-leaning swing district that had gone Democratic </span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-joe-biden-donald-trump-lincoln-omaha-93fdcb5a05fc62878b4fe70c2f7f6e5a"><span style="background: white;">just
one other time</span></a><span style="background: white;">.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-color: white;">Arizona and the 2</span><sup>nd</sup><span style="background-color: white;">
district gave Biden 238 electoral college votes. To get to the magic number of
270, he just needed to win Wisconsin (10 electoral votes), Michigan (16), and
Nevada (6), Georgia (16), or Pennsylvania (20).</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">With so many routes to 270, Biden’s likelihood
of winning shot up to 80% at electionbettingodds.com by the morning of November
4.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; color: black;">That afternoon-into-evening, p</span>re-2016
patterns reappeared when Wisconsin and Michigan were <a href="https://blog.ap.org/behind-the-news/calling-the-2020-presidential-race-state-by-state">called</a>
for Biden, the latter by over 150,000 votes. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump’s
campaign team made noise about challenging Biden’s 20,000-ballot Wisconsin
victory, but as former Wisconsin governor and Trump ally Scott Walker pointed
out at the time, a recount was <a href="https://twitter.com/scottwalker/status/1324002777597677569">highly
unlikely</a> to change the result.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">With Wisconsin
and Michigan in Biden’s column, Democrats needed just six more electoral
college votes to retake the White House, exactly the number in Nevada. Biden’s<span style="color: black;"> chances of losing Nevada were low, and Pennsylvania<b> </b>appeared
to be </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/04/upshot/pennsylvania-election-results-ballots.html?auth=-google1tap">a really good bet</a><span style="color: black;">, based on
Trump’s narrowing margin and the proportion of votes which remained to be
counted in heavily-Democratic precincts. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Joe Biden was officially
<a href="https://twitter.com/AP/status/1325112826072084480">declared</a> the winner of
Pennsylvania and president-elect of the United States at 11:26 a.m. EST on
Saturday, November 7, 2020.<b> <o:p></o:p></b></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Biden went on
to win Nevada and Georgia, giving him 306 electoral college votes—well above
the necessary threshold of 270—to go with a commanding seven million-ballot
popular vote win. <span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">If anything,
it was <span style="color: black;">surprising that the race was close, given that
Biden came into election day with an </span><a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/">8.4% national lead</a><span style="color: black;">, according
to 538.com. </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Among the
possible<span style="color: black;"> causes for the polling errors were </span><a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voter-suppression-2020">aggressive GOP voter
suppression</a><span style="color: black;"> in some swing states, the </span><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-19/-shy-trump-voters-re-emerge-as-explanation-for-pollsters-miss">reluctance</a><span style="color: black;"> </span>of some Trump supporters
to talk to pollsters, and Trump’s momentum at the end of the race, which was helped
along by an <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/politics/ct-viz-presidential-campaign-trail-tracker-20200917-edspdit2incbfnopchjaelp3uu-htmlstory.html">endless tour</a> of crowded, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/31/coronavirus-trump-campaign-rallies-led-to-30000-cases-stanford-researchers-say.html">virus-spreading</a> rallies at the height of
Covid-19 (something the Biden campaign didn’t risk). <span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">Sifting
through the election results, it was apparent that </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/20/party-polarization-hit-high-under-trump-can-biden-reel-it-back/">record levels of culture
war polarization</a><span style="color: black;"> enflamed by Donald Trump turned right-leaning, non-degreed whites
out in droves. Iowa and Ohio (which were </span><a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/">forecast</a><span style="color: black;"> to be close)
were Republican blowouts, and Biden’s Wisconsin win was </span><a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/wisconsin/">narrower</a><span style="color: black;"> than
pollsters thought it would be. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At the same
time, racial <span style="color: black;">divisiveness backfired among many young
voters, suburbanites, and most people of color, driving Georgia and Arizona to
Joe Biden. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">Given
voter turnout demographics, the results of the 2020 presidential election were relatively
orderly and predictable. Biden’s victory was </span>more conclusive than <span style="color: black;">Trump’s 2016 victory, either of </span><a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-master-of-low-expectations-666.html">W. Bush</a><span style="color: black;">’s wins, and his
popular-vote margin exceeded Obama’s 2012 re-election. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In
a functional democracy, the Pennsylvania call would have triggered a graceful
concession and set the presidential transition in motion. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">But
America had the </span>distinction
of being governed by Donald J. Trump, a deeply-wounded narcissist with no
regard for the rule of law. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">***</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump’s
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/31/us/politics/trump-tweet-democracy.html">disinformation campaign</a> began long
before the election with constant repetition of the false claim that <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2020/05/26/trump-says-the-election-will-be-rigged-by-mail-in-voting-despite-research/?sh=3b338bc41a7d">mail balloting</a> was
inherently corrupt
and that the 2020 election would be “<a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-tweet-us-2020-election-mail-in-ballots-twitter-today-a9578951.html">rigged</a>” against him.
<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Mail balloting
was targeted because Trump knew Democrats would use it in higher proportions
than Republicans, since they were more concerned about getting <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2021/05/trumpfailed.html">Covid-19</a> at crowded polling
stations. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">This
false narrative was also a way to pre-emptively delegitimize a potential loss at the
polls. Trump repeated this <a href="https://news.columbia.edu/in-mail-absentee-ballots-secure-vote-election">lie</a> so often that many Republican
voters took it at face value, prepping his followers to believe the blizzard of
lies to come. <span style="color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">There were hints
that Trump might refuse to concede before November 2020.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In July, well
behind Joe Biden in the polls, Trump was rebuffed by his own party when he used
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/31/us/politics/trump-tweet-democracy.html">false pretenses</a> to propose that the
presidential election be delayed (which hadn’t even happened during the Civil
War).<span style="color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In August, it
was <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/21/technology/facebook-trump-election.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article">reported</a> that Facebook executives
were gaming out post-election scenarios in which Trump refused to admit defeat.
<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In September,
Trump publicly suggested that the election could be <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/09/23/916221894/trump-says-he-expect-election-results-to-end-up-at-supreme-court">decided</a> by unelected judges on
the federal Supreme Court—rather than the voters—and <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/09/29/trump-debate-white-supremacists-stand-back-stand-by/3583339001/">ordered</a> the extreme right Proud
Boys to “stand back and stand by” in the first presidential debate.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As the
election drew near, Trump failed to close the polling gap with Biden due to
mass job losses and his <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2021/05/trumpfailed.html">poor handling</a> of the worsening Covid-19
pandemic. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Outside
of the right-wing echo chamber, it was common knowledge that Republican-leaning,
in-person votes would be counted first in a lot of competitive states, creating
a “<a href="https://hwkfsh.medium.com/how-red-mirage-shaped-the-2020-election-narrative-81e404d2a58b">red mirage</a>” (the false impression
that Trump was going to win), after which there would be a “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/01/why-itll-be-normal-if-results-shift-in-the-days-after-the-election">blue shift</a>” as more
Democratic votes—mail votes in particular—were counted. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Three
days before the 2020 election, Tom Fitton of the right-wing group Judicial Watch <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-J6-DOC-CTRL0000085313/pdf/GPO-J6-DOC-CTRL0000085313.pdf">emailed</a> Trump an election night
speech to exploit his base’s programmed ignorance of the red mirage/blue shift:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">“The voters have spoken. The ballots
counted by the Election Day deadline show the American people have bestowed on
me the great honor of reelection to President of the United States. Federal law
establishes November 3 as Election Day – the deadline by which voters in states
across the country must choose a president. Some partisans will try to overturn
today’s lawful election results by shamelessly counting ballots that arrive
after Election Day for days and weeks. This is lawless, invites massive voter
fraud, undermines our democracy, and could dishonestly cancel the votes of tens
of millions of Americans who ensured their votes would arrive to be counted on
Election Day. I am prepared to go to court to make sure this election is not
stolen and am directing the Justice Department to defend federal election law
accordingly. We had an election today – and I won. Some believe Election Day
deadlines don’t matter and would attack democracy through fraud and judicial
activism. Counting ballots that arrive after Election Day is unfair and shows
contempt for the will of the people. I will defend, to the full extent of the
law, free and fair elections and our constitutional republic from any electoral
coup. Thank you and God bless America.”</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That same day,
Trump strategist Steve Bannon <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/07/leaked-audio-steve-bannon-trump-2020-election-declare-victory/">told</a> “a group of associates” about
this plan to stage a big announcement not long after
polls closed, while the red mirage was at its peak:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“What Trump’s gonna do is just declare victory. Right? He’s
gonna declare victory. But that doesn’t mean he’s a winner….He’s just gonna <i>say</i>
he’s a winner.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Jonathan Swan of <i>Axios</i> </span><a href="https://www.axios.com/2020/11/01/trump-claim-election-victory-ballots"><span style="background: white;">broke a
story</span></a><span style="background: white;"> about this strategy on November 1, two days
before the election. According to Swan, “</span>President Trump has told confidants he'll declare
victory on Tuesday night if it looks like he's ‘ahead,’ according to three
sources familiar with his private comments. That's even if the Electoral
College outcome still hinges on large numbers of uncounted votes in key states
like Pennsylvania.” Swan would later <a href="https://www.axios.com/2021/01/16/trump-election-premeditated-lie">report</a> that this plan had been
in the works since “the second week of October.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump ally
Roger Stone was <a href="https://twitter.com/rgoodlaw/status/1574540379008880640?lang=en">filmed</a> saying much the same in
conversation with other Trump supporters: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“I really do
suspect it’ll still be up in the air. When that happens, the key thing to do is
to claim victory. Possession is nine tenths of the law. ‘No, we won. Fuck you,
Sorry. Over. We won. You’re wrong. Fuck you.’”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Right on
script, Trump held a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9d6j2uO6MI">press conference</a> at 2:20 a.m.
EST on the morning after election day. He read off his election day numbers in
swing states and claimed that his shrinking leads resulted from duplicity:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“This
is a fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment to our country. We
were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 12pt 0in;">
</p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">After
the applause died down, he added, “So our goal now is to ensure the integrity
for the good of this nation.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">***</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The unveiling
of <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/big-lie-trump-stolen-election-inside-creation">The Big Lie</a> was a trumpet call to right-wing
extremists. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The theory was
tailor-made for the big portion of Trump’s base motivated by <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/06/politics/supreme-court-vacancy-white-grievance/index.html">white grievance
narratives</a>.
Only too happy to exploit this sense of victimhood in the name of raw power were
Trump’s allies in <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/13/republican-legislatures-trump-conspiracy-458507"><span style="color: #0070c0;">state
legislatures</span></a>,<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/01/republicans-own-insurrection/617583/"><span style="color: black;"> </span><span style="color: #0070c0;">Congress</span></a>, the <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/republican-ags-group-sent-robocalls-urging-march-capitol-n1253581">Republican Attorneys
General Association</a>, right-wing <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/13/trump-and-fox-news-told-the-big-lie-for-profit/">television media</a>, and <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-hosted-surge-of-misinformation-and-insurrection-threats-in-months-leading-up-to-jan-6-attack-records-show?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=majorinvestigations&utm_content=feature">social media</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">While <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/05/donald-trump-supporters-dunning-kruger-effect-213904/">gullible</a> and crestfallen
Republican voters were being conned with a bullshit cover story in public, Trump
allies worked behind the scenes to keep Joe Biden out of the White House. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The day after the election, <b>November 4, 2020, </b>the Trump campaign <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2024/01/02/trump-lies-voter-fraud-2020-impact-2024-election/72057016007/">contracted</a> with
Simpatico Software Systems in hopes of finding evidence of voter fraud which
could be used in courtrooms and in the court of public opinion. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The
GOP also <a href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/prosecutors-accuse-trump-of-wide-ranging-efforts-pre-and-post-2020-to-encourage-violence-and-lies">sent “protesters”</a> to a
vote-counting center in Detroit—which is <a href="https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/detroitcitymichigan,MI/PST045222">78% Black</a>—to whip up
Republican indignation and
stir public doubt. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">While America’s
eyes were distracted by shiny objects, the shadow
campaign to steal the White House kicked into high gear. Central to this
effort was Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows, who would
be “<a href="https://www.rawstory.com/mark-meadows-georgia-grand-jury/">directing traffic</a>” among
conspirators (including <a href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/feature/mark-meadows-exchanged-texts-with-34-members-of-congress-about-plans-to-overturn-the-2020-election">34 members of Congress.) That<span style="color: #ff0066;"> </span>day, </a>Meadows
received a <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/12/17/most-damning-mark-meadows-text-was-sent-from-rick-perrys-phone-report_partner/">text</a> from Energy
Secretary Rick Perry suggesting an “aggressive strategy” to keep Trump in
office. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The plan was
to convince at least three Republican-controlled legislatures (in swing states
Trump had lost) to shatter long-standing legal precedent by overriding the will
of their voters and declaring electors for Trump. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Shorting Biden
of three of these six swing states—Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Wisconsin,
Georgia, Arizona—would throw the election to the House of Representatives,
where Republicans had a majority of delegations in more states than Democrats, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2021/nov/12/gerrymander-redistricting-map-republicans-democrats-visual">thanks to gerrymandering</a>. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As
<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/08/politics/donald-trump-jr-meadows-text/index.html">reported</a> at CNN.com,
on <b>November 5 </b>Mark Meadows received a text from Donald Trump, Jr. which
discussed “filing
lawsuits and advocating recounts to prevent certain swing states from
certifying their results, as well as having a handful of Republican state
houses put forward slates of fake ‘Trump electors.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“If all that failed, according to the Trump, Jr.
text, GOP lawmakers in Congress could simply vote to reinstall Trump as
President on January 6.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The will of the American people was irrelevant,
according to Trump, Jr.: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“It’s very simple….We have multiple paths. We control
them all.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump ally Roger Stone was in sync with Donald Jr. Dictating
to an aide <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/trump/msnbc-airs-exclusive-and-incriminating-video-of-roger-stone-plotting-to-overturn-the-2020-election/">on camera</a>, Stone said, “<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Although state officials in all 50 states must ultimately certify the
results of the voting in their state…the final decision as to who the state
legislatures authorize be sent to the Electoral College is a decision made
solely by the legislature….Any legislative body may decide on the basis of
overwhelming evidence of fraud, to send electors to the Electoral College who
accurately reflect the president’s legitimate victory in their state, which was
illegally denied him through fraud.”</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Meanwhile, Trump sent a <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/87435/an-overlooked-january-6-charge-the-stop-the-count-scheme/">series of tweets</a> encouraging supporters to disrupt vote counts in the
minority-majority swing state cities of Detroit, Philadelphia, and Atlanta. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Meadows
received another
fake electors proposal on <b>November 6</b> from Andy Biggs, a House representative from Arizona, to
which he texted back, “<a href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/january-6-committee-advance-contempt-proceedings-meadows"><span style="color: #0070c0;">I love it</span></a>!” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Also on the 6<sup>th</sup>,
Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona (who
would later be <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/exclusive-jan-6-organizers-met-congress-white-house-1245289/">tied</a> to the January 6 “Save
America” rally) sent out widely-shared tweets implying that his states’ tally was fraudulent due to vote-flipping
on Dominion voting machines. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">This would be Trump
supporters’ main voting fraud talking point up through January 6. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">While
Republicans publicly implied that fraud had taken place in America’s black and
brown Democratic cities, Trump spokesman Jason Miller <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/25/politics/mark-meadows-texts-2319/index.html">texted</a> Mark Meadows
and a host
of other top officials that the narrative was demonstrably false in
Pennsylvania, which was about to be declared for
Biden:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">“One other key data
point: In 2016, POTUS received 15.5% of the vote in Philadelphia County. Today
he is currently at 18.3%. So he increased from his performance in 2016. In
2016, Philadelphia County made up 11.3% of the total vote in the state. As it
currently stands, Philadelphia County only makes up 10.2% of the statewide vote
tally. So POTUS performed better in a smaller share. Sen. (Rick) Santorum was
just making this point on CNN - cuts hard against the urban vote stealing
narrative.” (<i>Philadelphia’s Republican city commissioner Al Schmidt would </i></span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/11/politics/philadelphia-city-commissioner-2020-election-cnntv/index.html"><i><span style="color: #0070c0; line-height: 107%;">say</span></i></a><i><span style="line-height: 107%;"> much
the same thing to CNN a few days later</span></i><span style="line-height: 107%;">.)
<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">On the day Joe Biden
was declared president-elect, </span><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">November 7, </span></b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Trump
</span><a href="https://www.axios.com/2021/01/17/trump-lawyers-biden-election-victory"><span style="line-height: 107%;">met</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
with conservative activist David Bossie and top campaign staff Bill Stepien,
Jason Miller, and Justin Clark in the White House. Deputy campaign manager
Clark said Trump’s only hope of reversing his loss lay in squeaking out
victories in Georgia and Arizona, which were still counting votes, and getting
thousands of Wisconsin votes disqualified </span><a href="https://www.politifact.com/article/2021/mar/10/was-democracy-park-illegal/"><span style="line-height: 107%;">over
technicalities</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">. Clark said this had a “5 to 10
percent chance” of succeeding.<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">With the chances of legal victory so slim, Trump started
looking for outside-the-box thinking. That day, Utah senator Mike Lee hinted at
what was to come when he </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/15/politics/mike-lee-chip-roy-text-messages-jan-6-mark-meadows-overturn-election/index.html"><span style="line-height: 107%;">texted</span></a><span style="color: #262626; line-height: 107%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 107%;">Mark Meadows with a suggestion that
Trump meet with Republican lawyer Sidney Powell, who “[had] a strategy to keep
things alive and put several states back in play.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Key to Powell’s strategy would be a sustained PR attack on
Dominion Voting Systems, which were used in multiple swing states. By claiming
that Dominion had rigged those states for Biden, Trump’s people would imply
that state legislatures should be allowed to override “fraudulent” official
vote counts. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Fox executives considered the theories so outlandish that
they </span><a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2023-02-18/crazy-nuts-six-wild-revelations-from-the-fox-news-defamation-case-dominion-voter-fraud"><span style="line-height: 107%;">cancelled</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
that night’s Jeanine Pirro’s show (in which she planned to target Dominion). <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">But the caution would be short-lived. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The following day, <b>November 8</b>, Fox chairman Rupert
Murdoch </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2023/02/17/fox-news-dominion-ratings-fear/"><span style="line-height: 107%;">texted</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
Fox CEO Suzanne Scott that his network was “Getting creamed by CNN!” Apparently,
many of his partisan viewers didn’t have the heart to watch infotainment about
a one-term president who had lost his re-election battle.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">That day, Fox attempted to </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2023/02/17/fox-news-dominion-ratings-fear/"><span style="line-height: 107%;">juice
their ratings</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> by having Sidney Powell on the Maria
Bartiromo show, </span><a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/05/01/fox-news-dominion-lawsuit-history?stream=top"><span style="line-height: 107%;">the
first of several appearances</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> Powell, Giuliani, and other conspiracy-peddling
Trump allies would make on the network. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>November
9</b>, Trump’s <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/01/20/william-barr-trumps-sword-and-shield">exceptionally loyal</a> attorney
general, William Barr, sent a directive to federal prosecutors to ramp up voter
fraud charges <i>before</i> state elections were certified, a change in Justice
Department policy which prompted <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/13/politics/federal-prosecutors-william-barr-election-fraud/index.html">the resignation</a> of Richard
Pilger, who headed the department’s election crimes division. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In addition, Trump
fired Defense Secretary Mark Esper for not being “<a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/77681/mark-meadows-timeline-the-chief-of-staff-and-schemes-to-overturn-2020-election/">sufficiently loyal</a><span class="MsoHyperlink">.</span>” Esper had
fallen out of favor for <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/11/trump-johnny-mcentee-january-6-betrayal/620646/">refusing</a> to deploy
troops to American cities during the summer protests, supporting diversity,
barring Confederate flags on military bases, and keeping an eye on Russia. He
was replaced with the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/acting-defense-secretary-chris-miller/2020/11/09/43a4296e-22d0-11eb-8599-406466ad1b8e_story.html">underqualified</a> Christopher
Miller, who brought <a href="https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-army-christopher-miller-mark-esper-james-anderson-95f848b7cdaba116b7c09787edb4c839">three Trump loyalists</a> with him, including
<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/04/16/kash-patel-trump-intelligence-community/">Kash Patel</a>, a lawyer
with no military experience. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">This
was an oddly
consequential move for an outgoing administration to
make. Suspicions were further aroused when two administration officials <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/09/us/politics/esper-defense-secretary.html">told</a> reporters
from the<i> New York Times</i> that Trump was considering firing FBI chief
Christopher Wray and CIA head Gina Haspel. Haspel <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/we-are-way-right-wing-coup-cia-director-privately-warned-1647538">reportedly told</a> General Mark
Milley (chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff), “We are on the way to a
right-wing coup.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Haspel
was on to something. On <b>November 10</b>, two Texas businessmen linked to
Energy Secretary Rick Perry <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/two-texas-businessmen-pitched-trump-on-plan-to-overturn-2020-election-jan-6-report-reveals/?utm_source=123456&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=12497&recip_id=24770&list_id=1">met with Donald Trump</a> in the Oval Office, where they discussed
the plan to have Republican-controlled swing state legislatures ignore the will
of their voters and unilaterally pick the electors
for their states. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/07/i-alone-can-fix-it-mark-milley-likened-trump-to-hitler.html">According to</a> <i>I Alone
Can Fix It</i> by <i>Washington Post</i> reporters Carol Leonnig and Phillip
Rucker, when hearing of the fake elector plans circulating, Mark Milley responded
that, “They may try, but they’re not going to fucking succeed” because “You
can’t do this without the military. You can’t do this without the CIA and the
FBI. We’re the guys with the guns.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Speaking
at a military installation in Virginia on <b>November 11 </b>(Veteran’s Day), Milley
<a href="https://www.newsweek.com/top-general-military-oath-individual-pentagon-shakeup-1547167">told</a> the assembled crowd, “We
do not take an oath to a king or queen, or tyrant or dictator, we do not take
an oath to an individual….We take an oath to the Constitution, and every
soldier that is represented in this museum—every sailor, airman, marine,
coastguard—each of us protects and defends that document, regardless of
personal price.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Over at Fox,
panic continued about ratings. Senior VP Raj Shah, who on other occasions had referred
to Sidney Powell’s election claims as “MIND NUMBINGLY NUTS” and “totally
insane,” <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2023/03/07/fox-news-dominion-tucker-carlson-texts/">said</a> the network was “under
heavy fire from our customer base.” Shah suggested they get feedback from
viewers to see “if they have been somehow betrayed by the network” and
concluded that “<span style="color: #2a2a2a;">bold, </span>clear and decisive
action is needed for us to begin to regain the trust that we’re losing with our
core audience.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Attempts to
regain the core audience’s trust were undermined by Fox reporter Jacqui
Heinrich, who <a href="https://twitter.com/justinbaragona/status/1626395571471654912">fact-checked</a> a Trump tweet
referencing Dominion lies told on Lou Dobbs’ and Sean Hannity’s shows. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A <b>November
12</b> <a href="https://www.salon.com/2023/02/17/fox-news-reporter-blindsided-after-filing-reveals-carlson-and-hannity-tried-to-get-her-fired/">group text</a> among Fox stars Sean
Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and Tucker Carlson revealed that Hannity had
complained about Heinrich’s fact-check to CEO Suzanne Scott, who had kicked the
complaint up to Jay Wallace and Irena Briganti, Fox’s head of PR. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In the <a href="https://twitter.com/justinbaragona/status/1626395571471654912">text</a>, Carlson wrote, <span style="background: white; color: #222222;">“Please get her fired. Seriously…what
the fuck? I'm actually shocked...It needs to stop immediately, like tonight.
It's measurably hurting the company. The stock price is down. Not a joke.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">In a separate text that day, Hannity </span><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/media/see-fox-news-tried-redact-dominion-defamation-case-rcna77481"><span style="background: white;">told Fox
producers</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"> “we </span><span style="background: white;">need to own the dominion story.”</span><span style="background: white; color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">While anchors worried about ratings,
Tommy </span><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Firth—one of the producers of Laura Ingraham’s
show—bemoaned the network’s embrace of the Dominion narrative. In a </span><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/2020-election-lawsuits/laura-ingrahams-producer-dominion-shit-going-give-me-fucking-aneurysm"><span style="background: white;">text</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"> to Ron Mitchell (a Fox executive involved in the show), Firth said, </span>“This dominion shit is
going to give me a fucking aneurysm—as many times as I’ve told Laura it’s bs,
she sees shit posters and Trump tweeting about it…” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Mitchell
replied that “This is the Bill Gates/microchip angle to voter fraud.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Experts
agreed. A <a href="https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/news/joint-statement-elections-infrastructure-government-coordinating-council-election">statement</a> from the Cybersecurity
and Infrastructure Security Agency (an arm of the Department of Homeland
Security <a href="https://newrepublic.com/post/174776/top-trump-advisor-warned-conspiracy-shit-beamed-mothership">created under Trump</a> which closely monitors
elections) said that “<span style="background: white;">The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history.” The
statement went on to say that <b>“<strong>There is no evidence that any voting system
deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.” </strong></b></span><span style="color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump ally
Senator Lindsey Graham actively sought to delete votes on <b>November 13</b>. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">While Georgia
was engaged in a recount that Donald Trump was almost certain to lose, Graham <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/87435/an-overlooked-january-6-charge-the-stop-the-count-scheme/">called</a> Republican Secretary of
State Brad Raffensperger. According to Raffensperger, Graham asked pointed
questions about signature matching for votes cast. Raffensberger told CNN <span style="background: white;">“Well, it’s just
an implication that look hard and see how many ballots you could throw out.” </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Later, when appearing before the
bipartisan House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6<sup>th</sup>
Attack on the United States Capitol (<b>hereafter referred to as <a name="_Hlk155096353">the ‘January 6 House Select Committee’</a></b>), Raffensperger said “My concern
was, would you be disenfranchising voters when the ballots have already been
accepted by the county process.”</span><span style="background: white; color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">The ballots had been accepted
because they were valid. </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">A</span>s Fox Information Specialist Leonard Balducci <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/internal-fox-news-email-shows-network-knew-it-was-spreading-falsehoods-in-2020-election/">emailed</a> producers that day, <span style="background: white;">“There’s no
evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election, or of major problems with
Dominion’s systems. Election officials from both political parties have stated
publicly that the election went well and international observers confirmed
there were no serious irregularities.”</span><span style="background: white; color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Nonetheless, eager to appease the
outgoing president, White House </span>deputy director of communications Zach Parkinson <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/21/us/politics/trump-dominion-voting.html">asked</a> Trump staff to look into
conspiracy theories about Dominion voting machines.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Staff gave
Parkinson a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/09/21/us/trump-campaign-memo.html">memo</a> on <b>November 14</b> which
showed that many of the claims were false, including the claim—made that night
by Sidney Powell on <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/02/18/1157972219/fox-news-election-fraud-claims-vs-what-they-knew">Jeannine Pirro’s Fox show</a>—that <span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">“It is one huge, huge criminal conspiracy that should be investigated by
military intelligence.”</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Fox maintained
a focus on ratings. On <b>November 16</b>, Rupert Murdoch told CEO Suzanne
Scott via email that they needed to keep an eye on Newsmax, who was getting a <a href="https://apnews.com/article/newsmax-sudden-competitor-fox-news-bddb5f123fe8d187570129a8425c7303">surge</a> of far-right viewers due
to its willingness to hype phantasmal voter fraud (Fox president Jay Fox had <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/02/17/fox-news-dominion-lawsuit-takeaways/">called</a> Newsmax’ coverage “an
alternative universe”). Murdoch’s email <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/02/17/fox-news-dominion-lawsuit-takeaways/">said</a>, “<span style="color: #2a2a2a;">These people should be watched, if skeptically….We don’t
want to antagonize Trump further, but Giuliani taken with a large grain of
salt. Everything at stake here.”</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A <b>November
17</b> <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/media/see-fox-news-tried-redact-dominion-defamation-case-rcna77481">text</a> (which Fox would later
try to have redacted from a defamation trial) revealed Tucker Carlson’s true
feelings about the Dominion story. Of Sidney Powell, he said, “She’s a
psychopath. She’s getting Trump all spun up and has zero evidence.” He added,
“Same with Rudy [Giuliani]. [National Security Council] Cyber did a through
[sic] analysis. There’s nothing to see.”<span style="color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Though Carlson
considered Powell a psychopath, Arizona GOP chair Kelli Ward <a href="https://www.12news.com/article/news/politics/stop-the-counting-records-show-trump-and-allies-pressured-top-maricopa-county-officials-over-election-results/75-61a93e63-36c4-4137-b65e-d3f8bde846a7">recommended</a> her services to Clint
Hickman, forwarding Powell’s number and asking that he “call her.” Hickman, a
Republican who had supported Trump, was chairman of the Maricopa County Board,
which was still counting votes.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Around the
same time, Trump <a href="https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2023/12/21/donald-trump-recorded-pressuring-wayne-canvassers-not-to-certify-2020-vote-michigan/72004514007/">called</a> two Republicans on the
Wayne County Board of Canvassers (covering Detroit,
which is <a href="https://worldpopulationreview.com/us-cities/detroit-mi-population">78% Black</a>) and pressured them <i>not</i>
to certify the results because “<span style="background: white;">We've got to fight for our country….We can't let these people
take our country away from us.” On the call with Trump was GOP national
chairwoman Ronna McDaniel. McDaniel told the canvassers, “If you can go home
tonight, do not sign [the certification]….We will get you attorneys.”</span><span style="background: white; color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The two
election officials’ efforts to placate Trump came too late to be legally
binding and only delayed the obvious, given Biden’s <a href="https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/results/state/michigan/president">154,000-vote margin of
victory</a> in Michigan. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Though Joe
Biden had been officially declared president-elect and was presumably going to
take office, the Trump administration made another significant personnel move
on <b>November 18</b>. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Republican
Chris Krebs, the Trump-appointed head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, was <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/17/politics/chris-krebs-fired-by-trump/index.html">fired</a> by tweet
because he had publicly fact-checked election fraud claims and gotten off-message with the
statement that 2020 was “the most secure election in American history.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a;">Rupert
Murdoch’s <i>Wall Street Journal</i> </span><a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/crazy-nuts-six-wild-revelations-from-the-fox-news-defamation-case/ar-AA17Ecwy">echoed Krebs’ findings</a><span style="color: #2a2a2a;">, saying
there was no substance to the Dominion claims, as did Fox host Laura
Ingraham—in private. In a text to Tucker Carlson, Ingraham </span>wrote that “Sidney
[Powell] is a complete nut. No one will work with her. Ditto with Rudy.”<span style="color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">But The Big
Lie was all Trump had left, so the deception continued. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That day, Republicans
Jim Jordan and James Comer made a Twitter announcement
that they would “<a href="https://twitter.com/JudiciaryGOP/status/1329249071996039173">investigate” the 2020
election</a> to
keep the Republican base on boil while GOP lawyers got to work. <span style="color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Enter Kenneth
Chesebro.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Chesebro, a
former Democrat and future felon, <a href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/feature/exclusive-trump-lawyer-kenneth-chesebro-talks-about-his-role-in-the-runup-to-jan-6">sent</a> Jim Troupis
(a Republican lawyer in Wisconsin) a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/02/02/us/trump-electors-memo-november.html">memo</a> detailing a
plan to get Wisconsin’s legitimate pro-Biden electors replaced with fake
(pro-Trump) electors. This <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/02/us/politics/trump-jan-6-memos.html">would be</a> “among the
earliest known efforts to put on paper proposals for preparing alternate
electors” and one of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/15/us/trump-emails-eastman-chesebro-jan-6.html">several</a> such memos
Chesebro would
send to GOP operatives in swing states Trump had lost. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/02/us/politics/trump-jan-6-memos.html">According to</a> reporters for <i>the New
York Times</i>, <span style="background: white;">“The memos show how just over two weeks after Election Day, Mr. Trump’s
campaign was seeking to buy itself more time to undo the results. At the heart
of the strategy was the idea that their real deadline was not Dec. 14, when
official electors would be chosen to reflect the outcome in each state, but
Jan. 6, when Congress would meet to certify the results.”</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>November
19</b>, Trump’s outside attorneys Rudy Giuliani, Sydney Powell, and Jenna Ellis
had a surreal <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/11/rudy-giuliani-hair-dye-press-conference">hair dye-dripping</a> press
conference in which they served up several <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/19/politics/giuliani-trump-legal-team-press-briefing-fact-check/index.html">false claims</a> to try to
pressure the Justice Department to open “a full-scale criminal investigation”
of the election. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">These
lawyers were part of “Team Kraken,” second-string attorneys who stepped up to push
claims Trump’s official White House lawyers wouldn’t touch. One GOP operative <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/11/gop-insiders-on-trump-rudy-giulianis-losing-election-fight.html">told</a> a reporter
for <i>New York</i> magazine, “Any time Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and Jenna
Ellis are leading your legal battle, you are not in a good place….I wouldn’t let those
lawyers represent me for a parking ticket.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Two members of
Congress in <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/15/politics/mike-lee-chip-roy-text-messages-jan-6-mark-meadows-overturn-election/index.html">regular text contact</a> with Mark Meadows—senator
Mike Lee of Utah and representative Chip Roy of Texas—were critical of the
press conference. Roy told Meadows, “Hey brother—we need substance or people
are going to break.” Lee said, “The potential defamation liability for the president
is significant here….Unless Powell can back up everything she said, which I
kind of doubt she can.” Meadows wrote Lee back that he agreed and was “very
concerned” about the press conference. <i><o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Privately, Fox
chairman Rupert Murdoch <a href="http://www.rawstory.com/unsealed-docs-reveal-rupert-murdochs-stunned-reaction-to-giulianis-infamous-press-conference/">referred</a> to the press conference as
"Really crazy stuff. And damaging." <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">But Fox CEO
Suzanne Scott threw a fit when Fox News White House correspondent Kristin
Fisher fact-checked claims made at the presser. In an <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/fox-news-execs-fact-check-fraud-claims-1234693164/">email</a> to Fox president Jay
Wallace, Scott said that <span style="background: white;">“I can’t
keep defending these reporters who don’t understand our viewers and how to
handle stories….We need to manage this […] The audience feels like we crapped
on [them] and we have damaged their trust and belief in us.”</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>November
20</b>, Trump continued the campaign to flip states
he’d lost when he <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/20/politics/michigan-house-speaker-will-meet-trump/index.html">invited</a> Republican
representatives from Michigan’s state legislature to the White House. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.rawstory.com/trump-j6-indictment/">At one point</a>, Trump “<span style="background: white;">raised his false claim, among others, of an
illegitimate vote dump in Detroit. In response, the Michigan Senate Majority
Leader [Mike Shirkey] told [Trump] that he had lost Michigan not because of
fraud, but because the Defendant had underperformed with certain voter
populations in the state.”</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">After the
meeting, the Michigan representatives made a joint statement to the press in
which they <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-trump-michigan-idINKBN2802CE">said</a>, “<span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">We have not yet
been made aware of any information that would change the outcome of the
election in Michigan and as legislative leaders, we will follow the law and
follow the normal process regarding Michigan's electors, just as we have said
throughout this election.” </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Trump was at it again on <b>November
21</b>, </span><a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1330319748660416513"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">tweeting</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> “</span><span style="background: white; color: #0f1419;">Why is Joe Biden
so quickly forming a Cabinet when my investigators have found hundreds of
thousands of fraudulent votes, enough to ‘flip’ at least four States, which in
turn is more than enough to win the Election? Hopefully the Courts and/or
Legislatures will </span><span style="background: white;">have....the COURAGE to
do what has to be done to maintain the integrity of our Elections, and the
United States of America itself. THE WORLD IS WATCHING!!!”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">While publicly showing sympathy for
Trump’s outrage, Tucker Carlson </span><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/media/see-fox-news-tried-redact-dominion-defamation-case-rcna77481"><span style="background: white;">texted</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #0f1419;"> Trump Kraken attorney Jenna Ellis that “Circumstantial [evidence] won’t
work with this story. If there’s any Dominion documents or copies of the
software show them to me. And as you know there isn’t.”</span><span style="background: white; color: red;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; color: #0f1419;">On <b>November 22</b>, Trump and Rudy Giuliani </span><a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-pressured-arizona-gov-doug-ducey-to-overturn-2020-election/ar-AA1dhVHu"><span style="background: white;">called</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #0f1419;"> Rusty Bowers, the conservative Republican speaker of the Arizona house
who had endorsed Trump. </span><a href="https://www.jfklibrary.org/events-and-awards/profile-in-courage-award/award-recipients/defending-democracy-2022/russell-rusty-bowers"><span style="background: white;">Bowers</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #0f1419;"> was asked to have show </span><span style="background: white;">trials
positing that </span><span style="background: white; color: #0f1419;">fraudulent votes among the deceased and
undocumented immigrants may have been the difference in Biden’s Arizona win. He
refused.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; color: #0f1419;">On <b>November 23</b>, Trump appointee Emily Murphy of the
General Services Administration finally </span><a href="https://twitter.com/jeremyherb/status/1331011115149627393"><span style="background: white;">released</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #0f1419;"> money for the Biden Administration’s transition. This unprecedented
delay jeopardized national security (since Biden was not yet receiving
intelligence briefings) and the containment of Covid-19, which was at peak
numbers due to Trump’s </span><a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2021/05/trumpfailed.html"><span style="background: white;">failure</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #0f1419;"> to address the pandemic.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">The president had more pressing
matters than working with public health officials to counteract a virus that
was killing 1,500 of his constituents/day. </span>On <b>November 25</b>, Trump <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/11/25/donald-trump-still-believes-us-election-was">conferenced in</a> from the
White House to a hearing/publicity stunt in Gettysburg, where Trump’s lawyer
Rudy Giuliani issued—and Trump backed—false claims about voter fraud in that
state. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump
later <a href="https://apnews.com/article/doug-mastriano-positive-virus-trump-70354ddc031781fb7ee476809a6b67db">invited</a> Pennsylvania
legislators to the White House. Joining Trump was Phil Waldron, a retired Army colonel who <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/phil-waldron-mark-meadows-powerpoint/2021/12/11/4ea67938-59df-11ec-9a18-a506cf3aa31d_story.html">would circulate</a> a PowerPoint presentation chockfull
of outlandish conspiracy theories to Republican members of Congress and Mark
Meadows. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">False claims
continued on <b>November 29</b>,<b> </b>when Trump spewed <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/29/media/bartiromo-trump-interview/index.html">election lies</a> and whined
about the FBI and the Justice Department in an interview with Fox News’ Maria
Bartiromo, who would later be <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/04/business/media/smartmatic-fox-news-lawsuit.html?auth=link-dismiss-google1tap">sued</a> for
promulgating disinformation about the presidential election. <span style="color: red;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>November
30</b>, Arizona was certified for Joe Biden. While <a href="https://twitter.com/brahmresnik/status/1333535859153440769">publicly signing</a> the
paperwork, Republican governor/Trump supporter Doug Ducey silenced a phone call
from the White House. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Ducey
later called Trump back and was subjected to conspiracies about dead and
undocumented voters. <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-pressured-arizona-gov-doug-ducey-to-overturn-2020-election/ar-AA1dhVHu">According to</a> reporters for <i>the
Washington Post</i>, following this call, “<span style="background: white;">Trump directed Pence, a former governor who had
known Ducey for years, to frequently check in with the governor for any
progress on uncovering claims of voting improprieties, according to two people
with knowledge of the effort.</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">“In each of the
calls, Ducey reiterated that officials in the state had searched for alleged
widespread illegal activity and followed up on every lead but had not discovered
anything that would have changed the outcome of the election results, according
to Ducey’s recounting to the donor.”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Lack of
evidence to the contrary, Fox continued to nurse their viewership’s grievances.
That day, Sean Hannity <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/02/18/1157972219/fox-news-election-fraud-claims-vs-what-they-knew">hosted</a> Sidney
Powell, whom he had previously
referred to as an “<a href="https://newrepublic.com/post/170652/fox-news-hosts-secretly-mocked-donald-trump-election-conspiracy-theories">f’ing lunatic</a>.”<span style="color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Up-’til-then <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/14/politics/bill-barr-donald-trump-january-6-hearing-analysis/index.html">Trump toady</a> William Barr felt the
same way about Powell’s claims. Shockingly, he said so publicly. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>December 1<i>,</i></b><i> </i>Barr <a href="https://www.thebulwark.com/how-trump-repeatedly-duped-the-gop-elites/">told</a> the AP, <span style="background: white;">“we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have
effected a different outcome of the election.” According to reporter Jonathan
Karl, Barr felt that Trump’s fraud allegations were “all </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/27/politics/william-barr-trump-election-claims-break/index.html"><span style="background: white;">bullshit</span></a><span style="background: white;">,” but he’d agreed to the investigations to “appease his boss.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">In a fit of rage at the breaking AP story, Trump allegedly </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFYZkkPaM5A"><span style="background: white;">heaved</span></a><span style="background: white;"> a porcelain plate of food through the air, leaving servants (and Mark
Meadows aide Cassidy Hutchinson) to wipe up the ketchup which dripped down a wall
of the White House dining room. </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Another Republican who refused to
parrot </span><a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/big-lie-trump-stolen-election-inside-creation"><span style="background: white;">Trump’s
Big Lie</span></a><span style="background: white;"> was Gabriel Sterling.
Sterling, who worked for Georgia’s </span><a href="https://justfacts.votesmart.org/candidate/evaluations/142732/brad-raffensperger"><span style="background: white;">conservative
Republican</span></a><span style="background: white;"> secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, held a
press conference to </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/01/georgia-election-official-condemns-trump-441879"><span style="background: white;">denounce</span></a><span style="background: white;"> the violent threats Georgia elections officials were receiving as a
result of Trump’s endless disinformation about voting machines in the state: <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Mr. President, it looks like you likely lost the state of
Georgia….Stop inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence. Someone is
going to get hurt, someone is going to get shot, someone is going to get killed.
And it’s not right.” <i><o:p></o:p></i></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">On <b>December 2</b>, Fox CEO Suzanne Scott </span><a href="https://www.mediaite.com/news/this-has-to-stop-now-new-bombshell-emails-show-fox-news-ceo-warning-fact-checking-trump-is-bad-business/"><span style="background: white;">emailed</span></a><span style="background: white;"> Meade Cooper (Executive VP of Primetime Programming) that fact checks
of Trump’s false claims “[Have] to Stop Now. The Audience is Furious.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Trump continued to pour gasoline on
the fire. In a speech that day, he </span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/capitol-riot-trump-election-lies-explainer-816a43ed964e6d35f03b0930e6e56c82"><span style="background: white;">said</span></a><span style="background: white;"> that “In one Michigan county, as an example, that used Dominion
systems, they found that nearly 6,000 votes had been wrongly switched from
Trump to Biden, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.” The claim was </span><a href="https://www.factcheck.org/2020/12/audit-in-michigan-county-refutes-dominion-conspiracy-theory/"><span style="background: white;">false</span></a><span style="background: white;"> and even if true wouldn’t have mattered, since Trump
had lost Michigan by 154,000 votes. </span><span style="background: white; color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Trump sent Rudy Giuliani on the road
<b>December 3. </b>In Georgia,<b> </b>Giuliani made “</span><a href="https://www.gpb.org/news/2020/12/04/fact-checking-rudy-giulianis-grandiose-georgia-election-fraud-claim"><span style="background: white;">fantastical
claims</span></a><span style="background: white;">” for seven hours before
the Republican-controlled </span><span style="color: #000300;">Senate Judiciary Subcommittee. Giuliani also took
the carnival to Michigan</span>,
where he <a href="https://michiganadvance.com/2020/12/03/giuliani-takes-over-house-committee-hearing-to-boost-election-conspiracies/">refused to be sworn in</a><span style="color: #000300;">. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #000300;">That
same day, Trump’s communication director </span><span style="background: white;">Alyssa Farah Griffin
went to see Mark Meadows. </span><a href="https://www.rawstory.com/mark-meadows-confirmed-trump-not-leaving/"><span style="background: white;">According
to</span></a><span style="background: white;"> Griffin, “I'd gone into his office to say that I
was going to resign. I didn't agree with what we were saying about the election
result of the election being stolen. And he said, ‘Wait, what if I can tell you
that we're not leaving office?’”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Key to Trump staying in office was Republican lawyer John
Eastman.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/06/17/1105600072/who-is-john-eastman-the-trump-lawyer-at-the-center-of-the-jan-6-investigation"><span style="background: white;">Eastman</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white;">,</span></span><span style="background: white;"> working in concert with Kenneth
Chesebro, was one of the central architects of Trump’s extralegal efforts to
overcome democracy. On <b>December 4</b>, he </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/10/eastman-emails-pennsylvania-legislators-biden-00031668"><span style="background: white;">emailed</span></a><span style="background: white;"> Russ Diamond, a far-right member of Pennsylvania’s House of
Representatives. Eastman proposed that Pennsylvania Republicans challenge and
disqualify enough absentee ballots in the state to “provide some cover” for the
GOP-controlled legislature to declare the election invalid and appoint fake electors
for Trump. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Pennsylvania Republicans didn’t go this far, but they did </span><a href="https://www.inquirer.com/news/pennsylvania-election-results-trump-general-assembly-supreme-court-mike-kelly-20201204.html"><span style="background: white;">sign</span></a><span style="background: white;"> a public letter asking Congress to block their state’s electoral votes
on January 6—“just hours after” PA </span>Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff and
<span style="background: white;">House </span>Speaker Bryan Cutler “had
unequivocally stated — in a memo cosigned by Senate Majority Leader Kim Ward
(R., Westmoreland) and President Pro Tempore Jake Corman (R., Centre) — that
state legislators had no authority to ignore certified election results and
appoint Pennsylvania’s delegates to the Electoral College themselves, despite
repeated calls from the president and some within their own party to do so.”<span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">The fake elector strategy continued
on <b>December 5</b>, as Trump </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/05/politics/trump-georgia-brian-kemp-phone-call/index.html">tried to</a> muscle
Republican governor Brian Kemp into throwing out Georgia’s electors. Kemp, a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGhrW_qbfQU">self-proclaimed</a> “politically-incorrect
conservative” (who had endorsed Trump) refused.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Convincing
Republicans in at least three swing states to reject Biden’s legitimate
electors was still Trump’s only chance at holding onto the White House, barring
a Supreme Court decision to toss out Biden’s wins in several swing states. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">To this end, on
<b>December 6</b>, Kenneth Chesebro sent a memo suggesting <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/08/09/ken-chesebro-memos-trump-coconspirator-00110458">a “bold, controversial
strategy”</a>
to have fake electors vote on December 14—the day the electoral college would
meet—in the six key swing states. This move would give Mike Pence an
“alternative” (fake/pro-Trump) set of electors to choose from on January 6, the
day electoral college votes would officially be counted in Congress. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Jim Troupis (see
November 18) <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/26/us/politics/trump-fake-electors-emails.html">explained the logistics</a> in a <b>December 7</b>
communication to Trump advisor Boris Epshteyn:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">“The second slate [of fake electors] just shows up at noon on
Monday [December 14] and votes and then transmits the results….It is up to
Pence on Jan 6 to open them. Our strategy, which we believe is replicable in
all 6 contested states, is for the electors to meet and vote so that an interim
decision by a Court to certify Trump the winner can be executed on by the Court
ordering the Governor to issue whatever is required to name the electors. The
key nationally would be for all six states to do it so the election remains in
doubt until January.”</span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">One of those
six states was Pennsylvania. Trump’s maneuvering to overcome an 81,000-vote
loss in that state was set back on <b>December 8</b>, when the U.S. Supreme
Court <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/12/08/944230517/supreme-court-rejects-gop-bid-to-reverse-pennsylvania-election-results">rejected</a> a lawsuit claiming a measure
to expand mail voting (passed by Pennsylvania’s <i>Republican</i> legislature)
had been unconstitutional. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In an email
that day, Trump advisor Jason Miller <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/08/the-craziest-details-from-the-trump-january-6-indictment.html">explained</a> why they kept losing in
court: “When our research and campaign legal team
can’t back up any of the claims made by our Elite Strike Force Legal Team, you
can see why we’re <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-courts-election/fact-check-courts-have-dismissed-multiple-lawsuits-of-alleged-electoral-fraud-presented-by-trump-campaign-idUSKBN2AF1G1"><span style="color: black;">0-32</span></a> on our case.
I’ll obviously hustle to help on all fronts, but it’s tough to own any of this
when it’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.”<span style="color: red;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Legal setbacks
notwithstanding, the plot continued. Arizona lawyer Jack Wilenchik <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/26/us/politics/trump-fake-electors-emails.html">emailed</a> Trump
advisor Boris Epshteyn
about the means by which fraudulent electors could be used on January 6: <span style="background: white;">“We would just be
sending in ‘fake’ electoral votes to [Mike] Pence so that ‘someone’ in Congress
can make an objection when they start counting votes, and start arguing that
the ‘fake’ votes should be counted.” </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Wilenchik further wrote that the
plan should be “[kept] under wraps until Congress counts the vote Jan. 6<sup>th</sup>
(so we can try to ‘surprise’ the Dems and media with it).” <i>(Wilenchik, who
admitted in the same email that “the votes aren’t legal under federal law,” later
</i></span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/26/us/politics/trump-fake-electors-emails.html"><i><span style="background: white;">corrected</span></i></a><i><span style="background: white;"> himself, typing in the same thread that
“‘alternative’ votes is probably a better term than ‘fake’ votes,” to which he
attached a smiley face emoji.)</span></i><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">These efforts were coordinated
through outside lawyer Rudy Giuliani, the head of “Team Kraken”; Trump’s
official White House lawyers saw the moves as illegal. </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">By
the end of <b>December 9</b>, the District of Columbia and all 50 states had <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/09/politics/2020-election-results-certified/index.html">certified</a> their vote
totals, and Joe Biden’s win. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Republican
representative (and future House speaker) Mike Johnson of Louisiana <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/mike-johnson-played-a-central-role-in-trying-to-overturn-the-2020-vote/ar-AA1iQZIj">sent</a> a
solicitation email to fellow Republicans asking them to join a legal brief
filed by the attorney general of Texas. The aim of the lawsuit was to invalidate
votes in states won by Biden. <span style="color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">While
Republicans tried to invalidate legitimate electors, Kenneth Chesebro <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/08/09/ken-chesebro-memos-trump-coconspirator-00110458">emailed</a> Jim Troupis
about how to “operationalize” the casting of fake electors in the six swing states, based
on state-by-state election regulations. <span style="color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Two days
later, the outgoing Trump Administration considered another major 11<sup>th</sup>-hour
personnel change. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>December 11. </b>Trump <a href="https://www.axios.com/kash-patel-cia-gina-haspel-757b92c0-82a5-457b-bde8-d0d683ee222e.html">planned</a> to fire CIA
director Gina Haspel’s deputy director and replace him with the woefully-underqualified
<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/truth-social/how-devin-nunes-and-kash-patel-appealed-qanon-extremists-build-truth-socials-user-base">Kash Patel</a> (see November 9) in order to install a loyalist near the top of the CIA. As
with the post-election <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/09/mark-esper-fired-defence-pentagon-donald-trump">firing</a> of Defense
Secretary Mike Esper and (Cybersecurity and Infrastructure
Security Agency leader) Christopher Krebs, this would be a consequential move for
a lame duck administration to make. <span style="color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In response, Haspel
told Trump she would resign if her deputy was let go.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;">
</p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Afterward,
Trump met with Mike Pence and other senior aides, who recommended keeping
Haspel happy. Trump left Haspel’s deputy in place.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">***</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">With the
December 14 deadline approaching, fake elector and <span style="background: white; color: #4d5156;">Nevada State Republican National Committee </span><span style="color: #2b2c30;">member Jim DeGraffenreid </span><a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/4323472-fake-elector-probes-2020-swing-states-spell-trouble-for-trump/">emailed</a><span style="color: #2b2c30;"> Kenneth Chesebro with the subject “URGENT-Trump-Pence campaign
asked me to contact you to coordinate Dec. 14 voting by Nevada electors.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #2b2c30;">Planning to use an alternate slate of electors in Nevada had
begun as early as four days before the 2020 election, when DeGraffenreid </span><a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/4323472-fake-elector-probes-2020-swing-states-spell-trouble-for-trump/">told</a><span style="color: #2b2c30;"> other state party officials in a text that Nevada’s </span>Republican
Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske “might do a lot of things, but sending a
slate of Republican electors without them being clearly the winners of the
popular vote is not one of them.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The fake
elector scheme took a hit that day when the U.S.
Supreme Court <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/11/us/politics/supreme-court-election-texas.html">tossed</a> a lawsuit by
the state of Texas challenging results in four <i>other </i>states, saying
Texas did not
have “<span style="background: white;">a judicially
cognizable interest in the manner in which another state conducts its
elections.”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Outraged by the decision, Trump
supporters held </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/12/us/4-stabbed-and-one-shot-as-trump-supporters-and-opponents-clash.html"><span style="background: white;">protests</span></a><span style="background: white;"> across the country on <b>December 12</b>.<b> <o:p></o:p></b></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">The </span><a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/12/12/945825924/trump-supporters-arrive-in-washington-once-again-for-a-million-maga-march"><span style="background: white;">D.C.
rally</span></a><span style="background: white;">, which featured future January 6 paramilitary
operators the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, and the </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/03/us/politics/first-amendment-praetorian-trump-jan-6.html"><span style="background: white;">1<sup>st</sup>
Amendment Praetorian</span></a><span style="background: white;">, turned violent when counter-protesters showed
up, leading to four stabbings and 33 arrests. </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">One protester </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/12/us/4-stabbed-and-one-shot-as-trump-supporters-and-opponents-clash.html"><span style="background: white;">told</span></a><span style="background: white;"> a reporter for <i>the New York Times</i>, “They
don’t want to deal with this…It’s going to have to go nuclear, using the
Insurrection Act and bringing out the military.” This comment referenced the
possibility that Donald Trump would use the chaos of street violence (even
street violence provoked by his own supporters) as a false pretext to declare a
national emergency, deploy troops domestically, and extend his stay in the
White House. </span><span style="background: white; color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Concerns about the legality of the
fake elector strategy lingered. <span style="letter-spacing: 0.3pt;">Christina
Bobb (an anchor for the </span></span><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/one-america-news-network"><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.3pt;">far-right</span></a><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.3pt;"> One America News) that day </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/26/us/politics/trump-fake-electors-emails.html"><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.3pt;">sent</span></a><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.3pt;"> an </span>email
about Douglas Mastriano, Trump’s point person for Pennsylvania’s fake electors:
<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Mastriano
needs a call from [Rudy Giuliani]. This needs to be done. <i>Talk to him about
legalities of what they are doing,….Electors want to be reassured that the
process is * legal *</i> essential for greater strategy.” [emphasis mine]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On the call,
Giuliani <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/fake-elector-plot-raised-concerns-over-legal-peril-indictment-shows/ar-AA1eUwog">claimed</a> that Pennsylvania
Republicans, who would be meeting in two days to pledge their fraudulent
electoral votes for Trump, were meeting on a contingency basis only. Their fake
elector certificates included verbiage to the effect that the certificates
would be valid only if lawsuits went Trump’s way; the certificates were not
intended as absolute substitutes for the legitimate PA electors. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The
conditional language to limit legal liability was used in only one of the six
main swing states; all other fake certificates<span style="color: #ff0066;"> </span>were
posed as genuine. Kenneth Chesebro <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/28/politics/recordings-trump-team-fake-elector-ballots/index.html">suggested</a> to Trump campaign
staffer Michael Roman that the conditional language be used for all of the
certificates, but Roman texted back “Fuck these guys.” <span style="color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">On <b>December 13</b>, Kenneth Chesebro </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/15/us/trump-emails-eastman-chesebro-jan-6.html"><span style="background: white;">emailed</span></a><span style="background: white;"> Giuliani about the campaign’s “</span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/15/jan-6-house-committee-third-hearing-preview?utm_term=62ab143c6052700b23b523bfd73f530b&utm_campaign=GuardianTodayUS&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&CMP=GTUS_email"><span style="background: white;">President
of the Senate” strategy</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white;">.</span></span><span style="background: white;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">The idea was to have Republican
allies in Congress hold hearings questioning the Electoral Count Act precedent,
under which the vice president’s role was purely ceremonial. The hope was that
the hearings could convince Mike Pence to “firmly take the position that he,
and he alone, is charged with the constitutional responsibility not just to
open the votes, but to count them — including making judgments about what to do
if there are conflicting votes.”</span><span style="background: white; color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Alternately, the hearings could jog
Pence’s doubt about his involvement in counting the electoral college votes. If
Pence recused himself, </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/09/07/what-we-know-about-grassley-pence-jan-6/"><span style="background: white;">Trump
ally Charles Grassley</span></a><span style="background: white;"> would preside over the
process, giving <i>him</i> the option to reject legitimate electoral
certificates and accept fraudulent ones.</span><span style="background: white; color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">One leg of this strategy involved flipping
Georgia, where Trump operative Robert Sinners </span><a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/fake-pro-trump-electors-in-georgia-were-told-to-operate-in-complete-secrecy-after-biden-victory-email-shows"><span style="background: white;">instructed</span></a><span style="background: white;"> state </span>Republicans to appoint alternate electors in
“complete secrecy” so that the media wouldn’t know what they were doing: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“I must ask
for your complete discretion in this process….Your duties are imperative to
ensure the end result – a win in Georgia for President Trump – but will be
hampered unless we have complete secrecy and discretion.”<span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.3pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Emails from
Christina Bobb to Trump lawyers and swing state operatives<span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.3pt;"> </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/21/top-trump-lawyers-briefed-on-granular-details-of-alternate-elector-plot-00047107"><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.3pt;">revealed</span></a><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.3pt;"> </span>that
state Republicans also had false electors ready in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Wisconsin,
and Pennsylvania.<span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.3pt;"> </span><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.3pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.3pt;">On the final day
before certification, the Trump team added fake electors in New Mexico, which
Biden had </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/results/state/new-mexico/president"><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.3pt;">won</span></a><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.3pt;"> by
double digits. To give this tactic a patina of legitimacy, they filed a lawsuit
challenging Biden’s win </span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-jan-6-investigation-fake-electors-608932d4771f6e2e3c5efb3fdcd8fcce"><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.3pt;">six minutes</span></a><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.3pt;"> before the filing deadline was up. </span><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.3pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">In a </span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-jan-6-investigation-fake-electors-608932d4771f6e2e3c5efb3fdcd8fcce"><span style="background: white;">group
chat</span></a><span style="background: white;"> that day, Trump
campaign officials—who wouldn’t back the plan in a signed statement—referred to
it as “a crazy play” that would be “certifying illegal votes.”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">On<b> December 14, </b></span>the Electoral
College met and certified Joe Biden’s victory. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">According
to Biden, seven Republican senators called to congratulate him. Trump allies
Mitch McConnell, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Vladimir Putin publicly <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/12/15/mitch-mcconnell-putin-acknowledge-biden-victory-thwart-trump-effort/3898813001/">congratulated</a> the
president-elect. <span style="background: white;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">In Michigan, Republican state Senate leader Mike
Shirkey and House Speaker Lee Chatfield </span><a href="https://www.rawstory.com/trump-j6-indictment/"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">announced</span></a><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> that they would not get in the way of their voters. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Shirkey said, </span>“[W]e have not received evidence of
fraud on a scale that would change the outcome of the election in Michigan.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Chatfield said, “We’ve diligently examined these reports of fraud
to the best of our ability. I fought hard for President Trump. Nobody wanted
him to win more than me. I think he’s done an incredible job….But I love our
republic, too. I can’t fathom risking our norms, traditions and institutions to
pass a resolution retroactively changing the electors for Trump, simply because
some think there may have been enough widespread fraud to give him the win.
That’s unprecedented for good reason.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“And that’s why there is not enough support in the House to cast a
new slate of electors. I fear we’d lose our country forever. This truly would
bring mutually assured destruction for every future election in regards to the
Electoral College. And I can’t stand for that. I won’t.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">While Shirkey, Chatfield, and the civilized world recognized
Biden’s victory, 84</span><b><span style="background: white; color: #ff3399;"> </span></b><span style="background: white;">state-level Republican officials in seven states (including </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/07/politics/kfile-meshawn-maddock-fake-elector-planning-trump-attorneys/index.html"><span style="background: white;">Michigan</span></a><span style="background: white;">) </span><a href="https://michiganadvance.com/2022/06/29/trumps-fake-electors-heres-the-full-list/"><span style="background: white;">signed
fake elector certificates</span></a><span style="background: white;"> in
hopes that Vice President Mike Pence would reject the legitimate electors on
January 6. </span><span style="background: white; color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">With the fake electors secured, Trump’s
focus returned to pursuing thus-far elusive evidence of voter fraud.</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;">
</p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/15/politics/trump-allies-emails-justice-department-2020-election/index.html">reported</a> by CNN, <span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">“Trump's
assistant sent [deputy attorney general Jeff] Rosen and [Justice Department official]
Richard Donoghue a document claiming to show voter fraud in Antrim County,
Michigan. An aide to Donoghue forwarded the document to the US Attorneys for
the Eastern and Western Districts in Michigan. Less than an hour later, Trump
tweeted that [Attorney General William] Barr would be leaving the Justice Department
just before Christmas, elevating both Rosen and Donoghue to the top spots at [the
Justice Department].” </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">***</span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">The day after the electoral
college certified Joe Biden’s win, </span><b><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">December 15</span></b><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">, Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell </span><a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/12/15/mitch-mcconnell-putin-acknowledge-biden-victory-thwart-trump-effort/3898813001/"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">spoke
publicly</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> on the Senate floor, congratulating Biden
and referring to him as the “president-elect.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">This was significant because McConnell—who had voted with
Trump </span><a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-trump-score/mitch-mcconnell/"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">91% of
the time</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> and </span><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/final-push-judges-mcconnell-will-cement-lasting-legacy-trump-n1250950"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">shepherded
his judges</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> through the Senate—was publicly signaling
that he thought Trump’s election challenges no longer had merit.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">Rebecca Green of William and Mary Law School told <i>USA
Today</i>, “</span><span style="background: white;">The legal avenues for
pursuing a change in the outcome of the 2020 election have closed….It's not for
lack of trying. There's just a lack of evidence of irregularities in this
election.”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">McConnell had moved on, but Donald
Trump hadn’t. </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">After McConnell’s speech, Trump
tweeted, “This Fake Election can no longer stand” and invited Jeff Rosen to the
White House. At the Oval </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">Office, Trump pressured his next attorney
general to put Justice Department backing behind election lawsuits, </span><a href="https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/politics/elections/2021/01/06/trumps-failed-efforts-overturn-election-numbers/4130307001/"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">61 of
62</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> of which would be rejected </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">by Democratic <i>and</i> Republican judges—including
Trump appointees—often with </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/25/us/elections/trump-campaign-lawsuits.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">uncharacteristically
scathing</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> judicial rulings. </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">On <b>December 16</b>, </span>Senator Mike Lee told
Mark Meadows, via text, that weeks of failures to turn up concrete evidence of
fraud was weakening party resolve. Referring to senators objecting to the
electoral vote certification, Lee<span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/15/politics/read-mark-meadows-texts-mike-lee-chip-roy/index.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">said</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">, </span>“I think we’re now passed [sic] the point where
we can expect anyone will do it without some direction and a strong evidentiary
argument.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump’s former
chief of staff Reince Priebus agreed. In a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/13/politics/trump-2020-oval-office-fake-electors-recordings/index.html">meeting</a> with Trump at the Oval
Office that day, Priebus planned to let Trump down easy, to make it clear that he’d
fought the good fight but it was time to prepare to leave the White House. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/11/13/trump-georgia-case-videos-overturn-2020-election/">In attendance</a> were Priebus, Jim
Troupis, Kenneth Chesebro, Mark Meadows, and lawyers who had worked on the
Wisconsin <a href="https://apnews.com/article/wisonsin-supreme-court-trump-lawsuit-e6b3aa222b4141c0844d541c4b041964">state Supreme Court case</a> Trump had recently lost.
<span style="color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">To Priebus’
dismay, Chesebro went off script, mentioning that Trump could still win with
fake electors. The key date was no longer December 14, when the electoral
college had elected Joe Biden, but January 6, when Congress would certify the
electoral college certificates. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Bulling ahead,
someone in the Trump orbit drew up a<span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000017e-920d-d65f-a77e-fbad182f0000"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">draft
executive order</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> to have the military seize
voting machines in Georgia. </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/01/21/read-the-never-issued-trump-order-that-would-have-seized-voting-machines-527572"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">According
to</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> Betsy Woodruff Swan
of <i>Politico</i>, “</span><span style="background: white;">The order empowers the defense secretary to
‘seize, collect, retain and analyze all machines, equipment, electronically
stored information, and material records required for retention under’ a U.S.
law that relates to preservation of election records.” The order also “would
have given the defense secretary 60 days to write an assessment of the 2020
election. That suggests it could have been a gambit to keep Trump in power
until at least mid-February of 2021.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Variations on this plan </span><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-asked-if-dhs-could-take-control-of-voting-machines-2022-2?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Sentences%202-1-22&utm_term=Sentences"><span style="background: white;">included</span></a><span style="background: white;"> Rudy Giuliani asking the Department of Homeland Security to seize
machines, Trump asking his attorney general, and Trump asking Republican
legislators in Pennsylvania and Michigan to summon local law enforcement. Memos
were drawn up for </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/21/politics/trump-executive-order/index.html"><span style="background: white;">both</span></a><span style="background: white;"> the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon to seize voting
machines. The requests were not acted on. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">A document
covering similar ground (dated <b>December 17) </b>was<b> </b>referenced in </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626; line-height: 107%;">a </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000017e-1335-dee4-a5ff-ff3d3f310000"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">privilege log</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626; line-height: 107%;">
</span><span style="line-height: 107%;">provided
to <span style="background: white;">the
January 6 House Select Committee b</span>y the attorney for Bernard Kerik (see
January 4). The withheld document was titled, “DRAFT LETTER FROM POTUS TO SEIZE
EVIDENCE IN THE INTEREST OF NATIONAL SECURITY FOR THE 2020 ELECTIONS.” <span style="color: #ff3399;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>December
18</b>, a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/dec-18-2020-memo/af2cc1eb-730b-4171-bcc8-50bbe07e0ff9/?itid=lk_inline_manual_4">memo</a> emerged which advocated for
the Department of Defense (DOD) to appoint a team who would review data (collected
by the National Security Agency) in search of foreign interference in the 2020
election. The memo <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/592627-memo-argued-trump-linked-officials-should-seize-nsa-data-to-effort-to/">concluded</a> that the Trump
Administration could take the law into their own hands, depending on the
findings: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; color: #2b2c30;">“If evidence of foreign interference is found, the team would
generate a classified DOD legal finding to support next steps to defend the
Constitution in a manner superior to current civilian-only </span><span style="background: white;">judicial remedies (which should still be pursued
in parallel).”</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">The content of the December 16-18 documents
happened to dovetail with a contentious six-hour meeting at the White House that
evening. </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">The meeting began when Trump
received “</span><a href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/live-blog/michigan-judge-holds-sanctions-hearing-on-2020-election-conspiracy-mongers"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Team
Kraken</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">” (Rudy Giuliani,
Sidney Powell, Michael Flynn, and Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne), outsiders
unaffiliated with Trump’s official White House legal team who were happy to entertain—and
act on—the president’s conspiracy theories. </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: red;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Upon finding out who was with the president,
Trump’s lawyer Pat Cipollone “</span><a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-taped-testimony-paints-picture-of-unhinged-white-house-meeting-as-trump-tried-to-fight-election-results"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">rushed</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">” to the White House, purportedly out of fear
that Trump might receive advice which could put him at risk of breaking the
law. </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">According
to </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVIAYhjz4Gk&t=20s"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">witness testimony</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;"> before</span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"> the January 6 House Select Committee</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">, a screaming match ensued
between those who supported the rule of law and those who did not. </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">In the latter category were Rudy
Giuliani and Trump’s former national security advisor, </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/07/opinion/michael-flynn-charges-dropped.html">convicted felon</a> Michael
Flynn, who had <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/michael-flynn-trump-military-martial-law-overturn-election-2020-12">recently said</a> that Trump should
declare martial law, seize voting machines, and force a new election. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On
the side of historical precedent and the rule of law were White House staff
secretary Derek Lyons and White House lawyers Pat Cipollone and Eric Herschmann.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="MsoHyperlink">Among
the ideas Cipollone and Herschmann </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/01/us/jan-6-panel-trump-voting-machines.html">heard</a><span class="MsoHyperlink">
were Flynn’s claim that foreign countries had rigged America’s election with </span><a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/06/jan-6-roe-gas-prices-congress-skewed-priorities.html">Nest-brand thermostats</a><span class="MsoHyperlink">
and </span>suggestions that Trump <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/19/politics/trump-oval-office-meeting-special-counsel-martial-law/index.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">declare
a national emergency</span></a> (which
could be used as a justification for martial law), sign an executive order to have
the National Guard seize voting machines and/or oversee re-votes in the six
states Trump was contesting, and <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/19/sidney-powell-trump-special-counsel-448694">name</a> Sidney
Powell Special
Counsel to investigate voting machines. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">When Cipollone
and Herschmann asked for evidence to support the fraud claims, nothing
substantial was offered. Unhappy with this line of questioning, Trump griped
about the White House lawyers not offering “<a href="https://www.vox.com/23205660/trump-unhinged-giuliani-flynn-powell-january-6">solutions</a>.” Giuliani <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/07/giuliani-called-trump-lawyers-pussies-for-rejecting-1-6-plot.html">accused</a> them of being “pussies.”
<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In an <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcBVxLJFlPE">interview</a> with Rachel Maddow, <i>Politico</i>
reporter <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/31/kerik-documents-jan-6-committee-526297">Nicholas Wu</a> said of the overlap between
the potential “<a href="https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/trump-january-6-letter-insurrection-act-20220103.html">smoking gun</a>” December 17 document (referenced
in a <a href="https://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000017e-1335-dee4-a5ff-ff3d3f310000">privilege log</a><span style="color: red;"> </span>provided by Bernie
Kerik’s lawyer) and the controversial topics discussed on December 18, “It’s
unclear exactly if these two things are linked, but…that’s quite a
coincidence.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">With lawyerly
options to overthrow the election narrowing, Trump escalated his tactics. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At 1:42 a.m.
on <b>December 19</b>, just a few hours after the White House showdown, <span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Trump </span><a href="https://www.thetrumparchive.com/?results=1&searchbox=%22+%E2%80%9CA+great+report+by+Peter.+Statistically+impossible+to+have+lost+the+2020+Election.+Big+protest+in+D.C.+on+January+6th.+Be+there%2C+will+be+wild%21%E2%80%9D%22"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">tweeted</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> “</span><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Statistically
impossible to have lost the 2020 Election. Big protest in D.C. on January 6th.
Be there, will be wild!” </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in; tab-stops: 303.5pt;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump’s announcement set far-right militants
into motion. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/29/us/politics/trump-tweet-jan-6.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article"><span style="background: white;">According
to</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"> </span><i><span style="background: white;">New York Times</span></i><span style="background: white;"> reporters </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/alan-feuer"><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0in;">Alan Feuer</span></a><span class="css-1baulvz"><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0in;">, </span></span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/michael-s-schmidt"><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0in;">Michael S. Schmidt</span></a><span style="background: white;"> and </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/luke-broadwater"><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0in;">Luke Broadwater</span></a><span class="css-1baulvz"><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0in;">, extremists </span></span><span style="background: white;">“began to set up encrypted communications
channels, acquire protective gear and, in one case, prepare heavily armed
‘quick reaction forces’ to be staged outside Washington.</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">“They also began to whip up their
members with a drumbeat of bellicose language, with their private messaging
channels increasingly characterized by what one called an ‘apocalyptic tone.’
Directly after Mr. Trump’s tweet was posted, the Capitol Police began to see a
spike in right-wing threats against members of Congress.”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">A
Twitter employee who monitored traffic on the site told the January 6 House
Select Committee:</span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">“It felt as if a mob was being
organized and they were gathering together their weaponry and their logic and
their reasoning behind why they were prepared to fight prior to December 19….Very
clear that individuals were ready willing and able to take up arms. After this
Tweet on December 19, again it became clear not only were these individuals
ready and willing, but the leader of their cause was asking them to join him.” </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/08/politics/oath-keepers-explosives-death-list-january-6/index.html?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email"><span style="background: white;">CNN
reported</span></a><span style="background: white;"> that “a Justice
Department court filing revealed that the Oath Keepers had extensive plans for
violence in the days surrounding January 6. Prosecutors say that at least three
chapters of the gang held military training camps focusing on ‘military-style
basic’ training, ‘unconventional warfare,’ and ‘hasty ambushes.’ At least one
of the Oath Keepers brought explosives, including grenades, to the </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/10/12/oath-keeper-weapons-firearms-jan-6-hotel-00061449"><span style="background: white;">quick
reaction force</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a;"> (QRF) site outside Washington, D.C.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">The
forces of insurrection—</span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000008392796/rile-up-the-normies-how-proud-boys-breached-the-capitol.html"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">the Proud Boys</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">, the Oath Keepers, the Three Percenters, Bikers for Trump,
Vets for Trump, members of QAnon, and others—were banding together. The head of
homeland security for the District of Columbia, Donell Harvin, </span><a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/07/trump-jan-six-hearing-knew-violence.html"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">told</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"> the January 6 House Select Committee:</span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.2in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“We got derogatory information from [open-source
intelligence] suggesting that some very, very violent individuals were
organizing to come to D.C. But not only were they organizing to come to D.C.—these
non-aligned groups were aligning….When you have armed militia collaborating
with white supremacy groups collaborating with conspiracy theory groups online
all towards a common goal, you start seeing what we call in terrorism a blended
ideology and that’s a very, very bad sign.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.2in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Terrorist groups shared a might-makes-right psychology
with Donald Trump. <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/boss-leave-proffer-videos-show-trump-lawyers-telling/story?id=104831939">According to</a><span class="MsoHyperlink">
</span>Trump campaign consultant Jenna Ellis, while
at a White House Christmas party that day, Trump aide Dan Scavino told her “The boss is not going to leave under any circumstances. We are just
going to stay in power.” <span style="color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.2in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">When Ellis said, “Well, it doesn’t quite work that
way,” Scavino replied “We don’t care.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #2b2c30; line-height: 107%;">On</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;"> <b>December 21</b>, Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, and Mark
Meadows met with congressional allies at the White House. </span><a href="https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/3466785-new-details-emerge-on-extent-of-gop-effort-to-unwind-trumps-loss/"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">According to</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;"> Meadows’ aide Cassidy Hutchinson—one of the </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/28/politics/cassidy-hutchinson-who-is/index.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">central witnesses</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;"> before </span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">the January 6 House Select Committee—</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">this group included
Republicans Paul Gosar, Jody Hice, Scott Perry, Andy Harris, Brian Babin, Louie
Gohmert, </span><a href="https://www.ajc.com/politics/former-white-house-aide-says-marjorie-greene-requested-pardon-after-jan-6/2JFLJ72H6VD7VCJ7QZSHXQN4RA/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">Marjorie Taylor Greene</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">, Matt Gaetz, Andy Biggs, Mo
Brooks, and Jim Jordan.</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #ff0066; line-height: 107%;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">The House members had come in
response to an </span><a href="https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/july-12-2022"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">email
invite</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> from Mo Brooks (who
would speak at the January 6 rally) with a subject line of “White House meeting
December 21 regarding January 6.” The topic, once again, was how to get
illegitimate electors accepted or get legitimate electors tossed, which would
allow House Republicans—rather than America’s voters—to pick the president.</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">To sustain the cover story for
these illegal actions, Trump continued to bray about fraud. That day’s PR
offensive included the </span><a href="https://factba.se/trump/search#%22we%2Bneed%2Bbacking%2Bfrom%22">tweet</a> that he’d “won in a landslide” and
“[needed] backing from the Justice Department.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.ft.com/content/caf4d412-06d8-4dda-a748-b0a0fb55f296">Loyal</a> vice president Mike Pence disagreed, but
only in private. <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/pence-told-jan-6-special-counsel-harrowing-details/story?id=105183391">As reported by</a> ABC News, in an Oval Office meeting with
just the two of them that day, Trump asked Pence what they could do now that
the campaign’s lawsuits were uniformly being rejected. According to Pence, he
said that if the remaining legal challenges didn’t go in their favor, Trump “<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">should simply accept the results,’ ‘you should take a bow,’ travel the
country to thank supporters, ‘and then run again if you want.’”</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump’s
most fervent supporters weren’t ready to say farewell. A Capitol police
intelligence report received that day revealed a pro-Trump group’s plans for January
6, as revealed on Reddit. Among the lines <a href="https://www.thebulwark.com/why-the-january-6th-mob-wasnt-stopped-in-time/">cited</a>
in the report were:<span style="color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in 0in 0.5in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l6 level1 lfo10; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: georgia;">·<span style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->“Get into Capitol Building, stand outside
congress. Be in the room next to them. They won’t have time [to] run if they
play dumb.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in 0in 0.5in; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in 0in 0.5in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l6 level1 lfo10; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: georgia;">·<span style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->“Deploy Capitol Police to restrict
movement. Anyone going armed needs to be mentally prepared to draw down on
LEOs. Let them shoot first, but make sure they know what happens if they do.”</span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in 0in 0.5in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l6 level1 lfo10; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in 0in 0.5in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l6 level1 lfo10; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: georgia; line-height: 107%; text-indent: -0.25in;">·<span style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: georgia; line-height: 107%; text-indent: -0.25in;">“If they don’t show up, we enter the Capitol as
the Third Continental Congress and certify the Trump Electors.”</span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in 0in 0.5in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l6 level1 lfo10; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: georgia;">·<span style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->“Surround every building with a tunnel
entrance/exit. They better dig a tunnel all the way to China if they want to escape.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in 0in 0.5in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l6 level1 lfo10; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: georgia;">·<span style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->“If a million patriots who [show] up
bristling with AR’s, just how brave do you think they’ll be when it comes to
enforcing their unconstitutional laws? Don’t cuck out. This is do or die. Bring
your guns.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The mass brainwashing of aggrieved
Republicans continued on <b>December 22</b>, <span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">when Trump </span><a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-vlog-contesting-election-results-december-22-2020"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">tweeted</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> a video with the claim that “</span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">The rigging of the 2020
election was only the final step in the Democrats’ and the media’s yearslong
effort to </span><a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-vlog-contesting-election-results-december-22-2020"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">overthrow
the will of the American people</span></a>.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In hopes of overthrowing the will of the
American people, House Republican Scott Perry, one of <a href="https://www.penncapital-star.com/campaigns-elections/a-timeline-of-pa-rep-scott-perrys-texts-following-the-2020-election-analysis/">the main collaborators</a>, “<a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/06/trump-effin-a-hole-jeff-clark-attorney-general.html"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">arranged</span></a><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #222222;"> for [Jeffrey] Clark to meet Trump behind the
back of senior Department </span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">of Justice officials—and contrary to long-standing
department regulations—in the Oval Office.” </span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">While Jeffrey Clark was
on the way to becoming one of the main players in Donald Trump’s attempted <i>coup</i>,
</span>Mark Meadows flew to
Georgia, where he hoped to crash signature-matching done by elections officials.
<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Per established protocols, Meadows was
not allowed to observe the process. As a consolation prize, he wangled the
phone number of Frances Watson, an elections investigator at the site. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Donald Trump <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/you-ll-be-praised-audio-trump-call-georgia-elections-investigator-n1261159">called</a> Watson the following day, <b>December 23.
</b>He flattered her, trotted out grievances about voter fraud, and said, “<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">When the right answer comes out, you'll be
praised….People will say ‘great,’ because that's what it's about, the ability
to check and to make it right, because everyone knows it's wrong.” </span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #ff3399;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Also that day, John
Eastman </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/08/09/ken-chesebro-memos-trump-coconspirator-00110458"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">emailed</span></a><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> a strategy memo to Trump
aide </span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/boris-epshteyn-scottsdale-nightclub-arrest-2021-trump-0798a2f24bb9c3ed373c7cbf3cf7578f"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Boris
Epshteyn</span></a><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">, cc’ing Chesebro. He said that they should forego the congressional
hearings suggested by Chesebro on December 13 because hearings might “</span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">invite counter views that we do not believe should constrain Pence (or
Grassley).” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">That day, a Grassley aide James Rice </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/09/07/what-we-know-about-grassley-pence-jan-6/"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">emailed</span></a><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> Pence staff </span>“Is there any reason to believe that
your boss will not preside over the electoral college vote count….leaving my
boss in the spot as [president pro tem]?” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Paul Teller, an aide to Pence, replied “it’s not a zero percent
chance of that happening.”<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">The big news that
Wednesday was the </span><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/14/attorney-general-william-barr-resigns-effective-dec-23.html"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">resignation</span></a><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> of Attorney General
William Barr. </span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">With Barr out of the way,
</span>Trump <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/06/trump-effin-a-hole-jeff-clark-attorney-general.html">called</a> new attorney general Jeffrey Rosen on <b>December
24</b> to see if he could convince him to issue fake findings of vote fraud. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">During the conversation, Trump asked
Rosen if he knew Jeffrey Clark. <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Clark was a
largely unknown lawyer for the Environment and Natural Resources Division (and
head of the United States Department of Justice Civil Division) with no legal
purview over White House affairs. </span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Rosen later told the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">January 6 House Select Committee, “</span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">When I hung up I was quizzical as to
how does the president even knew Mr. Clark….I was not aware that they had ever
met or that the president had been involved in any of the issues in the civil
division.”</span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">While Trump worked on Rosen, outside
attorney John Eastman </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/15/us/trump-emails-eastman-chesebro-jan-6.html"><span style="background: white;">commented</span></a><span style="background: white;"> (in an email to Kenneth Chesebro and “Trump
campaign officials”) that there was a “heated fight” on the Supreme Court about
Trump’s lawsuit to overturn the election. </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Chesebro responded that the </span>“odds of action before
Jan. 6 will become more favorable if the justices start to fear that there will
be ‘wild’ chaos on Jan. 6 unless they rule by then, either way.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The email
hinted that Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas’ wife Ginni—a board member of
the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/22/magazine/clarence-thomas-ginni-thomas.html">far-right Council for
National Policy</a>—may
have given insider information to Eastman about the status of Trump’s case
before the Supreme Court. Ginni Thomas sent <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/15/politics/ginni-thomas-john-eastman-emails-january-6-committee/index.html">multiple texts</a> to Eastman, who had
previously <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/former-clerks-clarence-thomas-who-helped-prop-up-trump-2022-7#patrick-strawbridge-10">clerked </a>for her husband. Swaying
Justice Thomas was seen as <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/02/trump-lawyers-saw-justice-thomas-as-only-chance-to-stop-2020-election-certification-00064592">the linchpin</a> to blocking electors in
Georgia, as Thomas oversaw the courts in that district.<span style="color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">When Vice
President Pence called Trump on <b>December 25</b> to wish him a merry
Christmas, Trump shifted the discussion to his desire to have Pence reject
valid electors—and 231 years of democracy—on January 6. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Pence <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/08/the-craziest-details-from-the-trump-january-6-indictment.html">replied</a> that, “You know I don’t think I have the authority to change the
outcome.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump also spoke <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/16/us/politics/trump-olson-lindell-election.html?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">on the
phone</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> with William J.
Olson, a Republican lawyer who would go on to represent Trump ally/vote fraud
conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell, CEO of MyPillow. </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Olson advocated declaring martial
law and replacing Jeffrey Rosen with an attorney general willing to revive the
Texas Attorney General’s </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_v._Pennsylvania#:~:text=The%20suit%20was%20filed%20by,the%20spread%20of%20COVID%2D19."><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">lawsuit</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> to nullify electoral college votes in <i>other</i>
states (which had been rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court on December 11). </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">To this end, Pennsylvania congressman Scott
Perry </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/06/enablers-line-straddlers-and-quiet-resistors-how-gop-lawmakers-contributed-to-jan-6-00076581"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">texted</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> Mark Meadows to see if he had gotten in touch
with Jeffrey Clark.</span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">On <b>December 26</b>, Trump </span><a href="https://media-cdn.factba.se/realdonaldtrump-twitter/1342974375008600070.jpg"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">tweeted</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> more lies about the election (calling it “the biggest SCAM in our
nation’s history”), attacked the FBI, the Justice Department, and the courts for
following the rule of law, and </span><a href="https://media-cdn.factba.se/realdonaldtrump-twitter/1342821189077622792.jpg"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">referenced</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> his </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">January 6 “Save
America” rally. </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">The rally and its aftermath were
top of mind for Trump’s militant supporters. That day, the Secret Service </span><a href="https://twitter.com/January6thCmte/status/1580630699966550017?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1580630699966550017%7Ctwgr%5Ea4dcabf40a7cfe90510b35fba4246a807070e41b%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.motherjones.com%2Fpolitics%2F2022%2F10%2Fdonald-trump-january-6-committee-final-hearing-story-subversion-democracy%2F"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">received
intelligence</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> that the Proud Boys
“think they will have a large enough group to march into DC armed and will
outnumber the police so they can’t be stopped….Their plan is to literally kill
people.”</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: red;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">That same day, Trump ally Scott </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">Perry </span><a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/06/trump-effin-a-hole-jeff-clark-attorney-general.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">texted</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> Mark </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Meadows, suggesting
that the administration elevate Jeffrey Clark to attorney general if they hoped
to stay in power. This was one of at least </span><a href="https://www.rawstory.com/timeline-of-text-messages-reveals-rep-scott-perrys-outsized-role-in-efforts-to-overturn-2020-election/?utm_source=123456&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=12403&recip_id=24770&list_id=1"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">62
texts</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> with Meadows after
the election (in addition to </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/12/16/trump-jan-6-perry-00074379"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">dozens</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> of contacts with Trump’s outside lawyers). </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: red;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Clark was mentioned because
Trump’s attorney general of less than a week, Jeffrey Rosen, insisted on
following the rule of law. On <b>December 27</b></span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">, Trump </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/30/politics/trump-election-justice/index.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">pressured</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> Rosen to review “election fraud” in Pennsylvania and Arizona that former
attorney general William Barr had found to be inconsequential. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">Rosen reportedly </span><a href="https://www.wsiltv.com/news/senate-judiciary-committee-issues-sweeping-report-detailing-how-trump-and-a-top-doj-lawyer-attempted/article_173f9a88-5efb-50ce-bed8-1acc7db34280.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">told</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> Trump that the Department of Justice “can’t, and won’t, just flip a
switch and change the election.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In response, Trump told Rosen to “just say that the
election was corrupt” and “leave the rest to me and the [Republican]
congressmen.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">Trump’s allies were in on a “</span><a href="https://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000017e-132a-dca7-a1ff-b33b8afd0000"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Strategic
Communications Plan</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">,” </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">a document detailing an aggressive disinformation campaign filled with
talking points about fraud in swing states, messaging channels, and target
audiences—even though </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">Trump was </span><a href="https://www.greenwichtime.com/news/article/New-evidence-shows-Trump-was-told-many-times-16975783.php"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">told</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> that the fraud talking points were false by “at least 11 aides and
close confidants.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">Trump also tried to get Rosen to sign on to a lawsuit
(which had already been rejected by the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal
Counsel) asking the Supreme Court to toss out electoral college votes in six
states Biden had won and </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/08/10/trump-asked-ag-overturn-election-503341"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">order
a “special election</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">Trump wasn’t the only one badgering Rosen. Jeffrey Clark </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/07/us/politics/jeffrey-rosen-trump-election.html?searchResultPosition=2"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">made
five cracks</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> at the new attorney general, trying to get
him </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">to challenge election </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">results in key states lost by Trump. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">Rosen’s second-in-command also felt the heat. Coaxed by
Trump, Pennsylvania representative Scott Perry </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/10/07/senate-judiciary-trumps-2020-pa-house-republican-515549"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">called</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> Richard Donoghue, the Deputy Attorney General, to try to get the Justice
Department to review debunked voter fraud claims in Pennsylvania. Perry also tried
to convince Donoghue to grant more power to </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Trump loyalist Jeffrey Clark, who wanted to scour election results for
any data which could be exploited for GOP messaging. </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">On <b>December 28</b>, Clark </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/06/politics/doj-clark-trump-election/index.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">peddled
conspiracy theories</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">around the Justice Department and </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/04/politics/draft-doj-georgia-letter-election-reversal/index.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #0070c0;">sent</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: red;"> </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">a
message to Jeff Rosen and Richard Donoghue requesting their sign-off on a </span><a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/January-6-Clearinghouse-Jeffrey-Clark-emails-and-rejected-draft-letter-to-stop-Georgia-certification-december-28-2020.pdf"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">letter</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> (conveniently typed on official Department of
Justice letterhead) which asked Georgia’s Republican legislature to call a
special session to investigate election “irregularities” and choose a slate of illegitimate
electors for Trump. </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">In the </span><a href="https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/june-23-2022"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">words</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> </span>of historian Heather Cox Richardson, “Clearly,
there was no time to actually conduct another investigation into the election
before January 6; the letter was designed simply to justify counting out
Biden’s ballots or, failing that, to create popular fury that might delay the
January 6 count.”<span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Donoghue responded via email that
signing such a letter was “not even in the realm of possibility.”</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626; line-height: 107%;">Without the backing of Justice
Department leadership, Clark </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">worked with </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626; line-height: 107%;">aide
Ken Klukowski (who had started at the DOJ on </span><a href="https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Donoghue%20Transcript.pdf"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">December 15</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626; line-height: 107%;">)
to gather witnesses to provide “testimony” o</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">f voter fraud. T</span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">he January 6 House Select Committee </span><a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/06/trump-effin-a-hole-jeff-clark-attorney-general.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">revealed</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626; line-height: 107%;">
that </span><a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/analysis/Ken_Blackwell.pdf"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">voter suppression expert</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;"> </span></span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626; line-height: 107%;">Ken Blackwell emailed Mike Pence’s office to ask him to meet with
Klukowski and John Eastman. </span><a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/06/trump-effin-a-hole-jeff-clark-attorney-general.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">According to</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626; line-height: 107%;">
Jeremy Stahl of <i>Slate</i>, “</span><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 107%;">this email was the first piece
of public evidence linking Eastman directly to the efforts to use the
[Department of Justice] to change the outcome of the election.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #222222;">Another
effort to change the outcome of the election came from William Olson, the
lawyer Trump had spoken to on Christmas. Warning that “time is about to run
out” for their plans, Olson sent a </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/07/16/us/politics/olson-memo-trump-election.html?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email">letter</a><span style="color: #222222;"> to Trump
saying that the Office of White House Counsel and Attorney General Rosen were
failing the president. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #222222;">Olson
suggested the White House replace Rosen within 24 hours and re-file a case
along the lines of </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_v._Pennsylvania"><i>Texas v. Pennsylvania</i></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><i>,
</i></span>which
would nullify<span style="color: #222222;"> the electoral college votes of
Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.</span> If the Supreme Court didn’t
rule in Trump’s favor, the president could act unilaterally, since “that body
was never intended to be the final authority on matters of this sort.”<span style="color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Rupert
Murdoch’s <i>New York Post</i> disagreed. The day prior, the right-wing
newspaper ran an <a href="https://nypost.com/2020/12/27/give-it-up-mr-president-for-your-sake-and-the-nations/">editorial</a> telling Trump “Give it
up, Mr. President—for your sake and the nation’s.” The editorial opened with
“Mr. President, it’s time to end this dark charade,” mentioned that the electoral
college vote count on January 6 was merely <i>pro forma</i>, and called Trump
to account for “cheering for an undemocratic coup.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Even as Fox
continued to placate viewers by feeding doubt about 2020, <i>Post</i> owner
Murdoch congratulated the editor-in-chief (Col Allen) on a “great” editorial
and added that it might convince Trump to throw in the towel—“If he doesn’t tweet it’ll mean he’s read it and stopped to think.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">If Trump did pause to collect his thoughts, it was brief. In
a <b>December 29</b> conversation with Mike Pence, Trump<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/08/01/trump-indictment-takeaways-00109309">
claimed</a> the Department of
Justice had found “major infractions” of election law, which wasn’t true.<span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Mark Meadows did his part for The
Big Lie that day when he urged Attorney General Rosen and Deputy Attorney
General Richard Donoghue to consider the </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/factsfirst/politics/factcheck_7270e357-5d21-465c-bd69-9c8913cff4c0"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">right-wing
myth</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> that the number of
votes cast in Pennsylvania was larger than the number of registered voters in
the state and to take a look at “Italygate” (a </span><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-fact-check-debunking-italy-gate/fact-check-evidence-disproves-claims-of-italian-conspiracy-to-meddle-in-u-s-election-idUSKBN29K2N8"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #0070c0;">theory</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> that Biden supporters
in Italy had used satellites to change a decisive number of votes in swing
states from Trump to Biden).</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Rosen also heard from Trump’s
personal assistant Molly Michael. Michael </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2021/trump-justice-department-2020-election/"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">emailed</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> Rosen, Donoghue, and Solicitor General Jeffrey
Wall a legal complaint claiming that the six swing states Trump had lost by the
narrowest margins (Nevada, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, Arizona)
had violated the Electors Clause of the Constitution, along with a request to
file a case before the U.S. Supreme Court.</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">The pressure on Rosen continued on
<b>December 30</b>. Outside attorney Kurt Olsen </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/05/politics/january-6-timeline-trump-coup/index.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">called</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> Jeff Rosen and said that Trump expected him to file Michael’s Supreme
Court lawsuit by noon that day. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Rosen didn’t budge. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Meanwhile, Trump strategist Steve </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">Bannon </span><a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/bob-woodward-finds-seven-conspiratorial-actions-by-trump-and-bannon"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">called</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> the president and suggested he lure Mike Pence back to Washington
(from a skiing vacation) in order to pressure him into refusing to accept Biden
electors during the January 6 certification. The goal was to convince Pence to “kill
the Biden presidency in the crib.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">As Trump worked on Pence, </span><a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/biden-transition-updates/2020/12/30/951430323/gop-sen-hawley-will-object-to-electoral-college-certification"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">presidential
aspirant</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">became the first senator to announce his intent
to object to electors for Joe Biden on January 6. </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">While Hawley made a savvy play for
future Republican primary voters, Trump’s minions continued to pressure the Justice
Department </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">(DOJ). In </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/05/us/politics/mark-meadows-justice-department-election.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">two of
five known emails</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> Mark </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Meadows sent asking the DOJ to review tinfoil-hat conspiracy theories,
Trump’s chief of staff that day sent Justice officials disinformation</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> about alleged voter fraud in Fulton County, Georgia</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">. (</span><i>Meadows also forwarded </i><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/02/politics/mark-meadows-election-fraud-liaison/index.html"><i>debunked conspiracy theories</i></a><i> to “</i><i><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">the FBI, Pentagon, National Security Council, and Office </span></i><i><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">of the Director of National Intelligence.”)</span></i><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Late that night, Republican Scott
Perry of Pennsylvania texted Jeffrey Clark. Among the key lines in </span><a href="http://www.politico.com/news/2023/11/29/scott-perry-texts-unsealed-00129195"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">the exchange</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> were:</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Perry: </span><span style="background: white;">“[Trump] seems very happy with your response. I read it just as you
dictated.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Clark: </span><span style="background: white;">“I’m praying. This makes me quite nervous. And wonder if I’m worthy or
ready.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Perry: “You are the man. I have confirmed it. God does what
he does for a reason.”</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">God decreed that Ken Chesebro </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/08/09/ken-chesebro-memos-trump-coconspirator-00110458"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">email</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> John Eastman and other <i>coup</i> legal staff
on <b>December 31</b>. Chesebro asked Eastman’s opinion about getting Clarence
Thomas (who </span><a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/about/circuitassignments.aspx"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">oversees</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> the circuit courts in Georgia) to issue a stay
of the Georgia results, thereby gaining legal (and PR) legitimacy for the idea
that other swing state results were potentially fraudulent, and thus ripe to be
overturned by state legislatures. </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Among those states was Arizona. The
White House </span><a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-pressured-arizona-gov-doug-ducey-to-overturn-2020-election/ar-AA1dhVHu"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">left a
message</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> that day for Clint
Hickman, the Republican head of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors,
asking for a call back. This was one of numerous Republican attempts to get
Hickman to issue arbitrary rulings in Trump’s favor in order to flip a state
Trump had lost by more than 10,000 votes. </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Mindful of election laws and legal
liability, Hickman didn’t return this call (or the one the White House placed </span><a href="http://www.12news.com/article/news/politics/stop-the-counting-records-show-trump-and-allies-pressured-top-maricopa-county-officials-over-election-results/75-61a93e63-36c4-4137-b65e-d3f8bde846a7"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">three
days later</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">).</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">The main event on the final day of
2020 involved the Department of Justice. Frustrated that he couldn’t get the
new attorney general to break the law, Trump invited Rosen and Donoghue to the
White House. </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">At the meeting, Trump reportedly </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/05/politics/january-6-timeline-trump-coup/index.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">said</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> that </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">he was considering
replacing Rosen with Jeffrey Clark because Rosen hadn’t been aggressive enough
in investigating voter fraud. Trump wanted voting machines seized by the
Justice Department, but was told by Rosen that the DOJ had “no legal authority”
to do so. If any such authority existed, it was </span><a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/06/trump-january-six-hearings-crimes-trial-jury-ouch.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">held</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">After the meeting, “</span><span style="color: #2a2a2a;">Trump then </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/06/23/jan6-doj-clark-rosen-donoghue-testimony/">called</a><span style="color: #2a2a2a;"> Ken
Cuccinelli, </span>the
DHS acting deputy secretary, and falsely told him that the acting attorney
general had just said that it was Cuccinelli’s job to seize voting machines
‘and you’re not doing your job.’”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As Trump tried
to cling to power, Chip Roy,<span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> a supporter of Trump’s election challenges a few weeks
earlier,</span> <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/15/politics/mike-lee-chip-roy-text-messages-jan-6-mark-meadows-overturn-election/index.html">texted</a><span style="color: #2a2a2a;"> </span>Mark Meadows that it was
time to give up:<span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The president should
call everyone off. It’s the only path. If we substitute the will of states
through electors with a vote by congress every 4 years…we have destroyed the
electoral college.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;">
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Proud Boy leader
Enrique Tarrio had no such concern about constitutional niceties. In an
end-of-year text to fellow right-wing activists, he </span><a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2023/01/31/proud-boys-trial-parler-messages-path-jan-6/11153687002/"><span style="line-height: 107%;">wrote</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> “</span><span style="background: white; color: #303030; line-height: 107%;">Let’s
bring this new year in with one word in mind: revolt.”</span><span style="color: #ff0066; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; color: #303030; line-height: 107%;"> ***</span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">On <b>January 1, 2021</b>, Jeff Rosen
</span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/18/mark-meadows-center-6-january-donald-trump"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">received</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> a 13-minute YouTube video about “Italygate” from
Mark Meadows (which Meadows had gotten the day prior </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/06/23/jan6-doj-clark-rosen-donoghue-testimony/"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">from</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> Scott Perry). Meadows also asked Rosen to send Jeffrey
Clark to Georgia, presumably so that Clark could find something, anything which
could be construed as “voter fraud.”</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Pressure on Pence continued. Trump
loyalist and director of presidential personnel Johnny McEntee </span><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/11/trump-johnny-mcentee-january-6-betrayal/620646/"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">texted</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> a memo to Greg Jacob (Pence’s chief of staff),
headlined with the words “Jefferson Used His Position as VP to Win,” a fanciful
interpretation of the 1800 presidential election. </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: red;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">McEntee’s memo took a hit when
three Republican judges (including a Trump-appointed judge) in Texas </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/01/louie-gohmert-lawsuit-pence-453387"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">rejected</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> Arizona representative Louie Gohmert’s lawsuit
claiming Mike Pence could unilaterally pick and choose which electors to accept
on January 6. </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Following the ruling, Trump </span><a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/08/the-craziest-details-from-the-trump-january-6-indictment.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">called
Pence</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">. The president was
upset that Pence had sided with the Department of Justice, who had opposed
Gohmert’s lawsuit. Pence told Trump that he was bound by the Constitution to
follow the will of the voters. </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Trump reportedly told him, “You’re
too honest.” </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Kenneth Chesebro was more to
Trump’s liking. In a message to John Eastman and Boris Epshteyn, Chesebro
listed 14 talking points for congressional Republicans </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/08/09/ken-chesebro-memos-trump-coconspirator-00110458"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">to
ignore the spirit of the Electoral Count Act</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> on January 6. Key among these ideas was the suggestion
that Republican Josh Hawley break 133 years of precedent and oppose the rule
that each member of Congress who objected to certifying a state’s electoral
votes had no more than five minutes to state their case. </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Breaking the precedent would allow
endless objections, buying Trump more time for a miracle court decision, for Pence
to give in and pick the electors himself, or for Pence to step down and let Republican
senator Chuck Grassley take over and do Trump’s bidding.</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>January 2, 2021</b> was a busy day in the
annals of failed election theft. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Eleven
Republican senators, including former and likely future presidential candidate
Ted Cruz, made a joint statement in which they <a href="https://www.cruz.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/joint-statement-from-senators-cruz-johnson-lankford-daines-kennedy-blackburn-braun-senators-elect-lummis-marshall-hagerty-tuberville">referred to<span style="color: #4472c4;"> ill-defined </span>fraud</a> and advocated “<em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0in;">an emergency 10-day audit of the election returns in the
disputed states.” </span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-style: normal; padding: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></span></em></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0in;">The senators’ public pretense was that the audit
was necessary in order to assuage millions of Americans who had doubts about
the legitimacy of the 2020 election. Polls cited showed that one-third of
independents, two-thirds of Republicans, and 39% of all voters held the </span></em><a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/exhaustive-fact-check-finds-little-evidence-of-voter-fraud-but-2020s-big-lie-lives-on"><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0in;">baseless
belief</span></a><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: red; padding: 0in;"> </span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0in;">that the
election had been “rigged.”</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-style: normal; padding: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></span></em></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0in;">In plain English, the senators were contending
that since four out of every 10 Americans were gullible enough to believe ludicrous
and self-serving Republican lies about an election they clearly lost, a 10-day
“audit” giving Republicans more time to peddle ludicrous and self-serving lies
about an election they clearly lost was necessary to “restore faith in American
Democracy.”</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-style: normal; padding: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></span></em></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">While his congressional
sycophants performed Kabuki theater, Trump made another attempt to flip
Georgia. After <a href="https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/june-21-2022">18 requests</a> from Mark Meadows, Georgia
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger consented to a call with Trump. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">During an <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AW_Bdf_jGaA">infamous 67-minute conference call</a>, Raffensperger debunked
Trump’s conspiracy theories and pointed out that multiple recounts hadn’t come
close to reversing Trump’s Georgia loss. Unbowed by the facts, Trump tried to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump%E2%80%93Raffensperger_phone_call"><span color="windowtext" style="text-decoration-line: none;">bully</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span color="windowtext"> the </span></span>Republican Secretary of
State into “[finding] 11,780 votes” for him—just
enough to give Trump Georgia’s 16 electoral college votes. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The Justice
Department wouldn’t bend to Trump’s will either. <span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Jeff Rosen wrote </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">Jeffrey Clark back and </span><a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/doj-officials-rejected-colleagues-request-intervene-georgias-election/story?id=79243198"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">said</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> (as his second-in-command Richard Donoghue had already done on
December 28) that he was “not </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">prepared
to sign” a letter asking Georgia’s Republican legislature to “investigate”
trumped-up allegations of fraud. </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Evidence or no evidence, plans continued
for January 6. </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump
<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/willard-trump-eastman-giuliani-bannon/2021/10/23/c45bd2d4-3281-11ec-9241-aad8e48f01ff_story.html"><span style="color: #1155cc;">called</span></a> 300
Republican state legislators, telling them they could overrule the will of the
voters in their states and put forward fake electors.<span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Republican congressman Jim Jordan
of Ohio took part in a conference call with Rudy Giuliani and other Trump
allies </span><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2023/10/17/politics/jim-jordan-2020-election-what-matters/index.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">to
discuss</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> “</span><span style="background: white;">strategies for delaying the January 6th joint
session” and ways to coax Trump supporters to D.C. through social media.</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/28/january-6-hearings-cassidy-hutchinson-key-moments-video-analysis-00042914"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">According
to</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> Mark Meadows aide Cassidy H</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">utchinson, “the terms ‘Proud Boys’ and ‘Oath
Keepers’” came up “when [Rudy] Giuliani was around.” After a January 2 meeting between
Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, and other White House officials, Giuliani told Hutchinson,
“We’re going to the Capitol! It’s going to be great!” </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Hutchinson asked Meadows for
clarification. </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Meadows told her </span><span style="background: white;">“There’s a lot going on…things might get real,
real bad on January 6.”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Department of Homeland Security
employees </span><a href="https://rollcall.com/2023/06/27/senate-report-dings-fbi-dhs-for-not-heeding-warnings-about-jan-6/"><span style="background: white;">felt the
same way</span></a><span style="background: white;">, “[noting] </span>that people were sharing
a map of the Capitol building online. Those employees messaged each other,
saying they ‘feel like people are actually going to try and hurt politicians.
Jan 6th is gonna be crazy.’”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">One politician
who may have been targeted was current senator and <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2012/10/romney-ryans-road-to-perdition.html">former Republican
presidential candidate</a> Mitt Romney, who received a call that day from independent
senator Angus King. <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/morning-joe-today-2665384775/">King warned</a> Romney about violence at
the Capitol—and potentially violence directed <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/mitt-romney-biography-juicy-revelations.html">toward him</a>. Romney texted Senate
majority leader Mitch McConnell: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">“In case you have not heard this, I
just got a call from Angus King, who said that he had spoken with a senior
official at the Pentagon who reports that they are seeing very disturbing
social media traffic regarding the protests planned on the 6th. There are calls
to burn down your home, Mitch; to smuggle guns into DC, and to storm the
Capitol. I hope that sufficient security plans are in place, but I am concerned
that the instigator—the President—is the one who commands the reinforcements
the DC and Capitol police might require.”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Romney said that McConnell did not
reply. </span><span style="background: white; color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">On <b>January 3, 2021</b>, Mark Meadows
</span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/14/politics/january-6-committee-text-messages/index.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">received
a text</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> which said, “I heard Jeff Clark is [going to
</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">replace Jeff Rosen] on Monday
[January 4]. That's amazing. It will make a lot of patriots happy, and I'm
personally so proud that you are at the tip of the spear, and I could call you
a friend.”</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">As </span><a href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/jeff-clarks-insurrection-act-remark-was-even-worse-than-it-sounds"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">reported</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> at Talking Points Memo, “</span><span style="background: white;">Clark planned to send
letters to state legislatures saying that the DOJ had found evidence suggesting
that the election results were in doubt, while advising state lawmakers to
consider tossing out Biden’s electors and replacing them with the fake electors
slates that the Trump campaign had created.”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">That afternoon, deputy White House
counsel Patrick Philbin, who believed Trump should follow the rule of law, told
Clark that the fraud allegations were baseless and that a fake elector <i>coup</i>
would cause </span><span style="background: white;">“riots in every major city in the United States.”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Reportedly,
Clark </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/11/07/trump-power-grab-00125767"><span style="background: white;">replied</span></a><span style="background: white;">, </span><span style="background: white; color: #333333;">“Well…that’s why there’s an Insurrection Act.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">Call
logs </span><a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/stunning-details-missed-thursdays-jan-hearing-trumps-pressure/story?id=85607045"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">revealed</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;"> by </span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">the January 6 House Select Committee </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">showed that Clark called the White House </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/06/23/jan6-doj-clark-rosen-donoghue-testimony/"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">four times</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;"> that day. By the fourth call—at 4:19 p.m.—Clark was officially
referred to in the logs as the “acting Attorney General.”</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">In </span><a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/06/trump-effin-a-hole-jeff-clark-attorney-general.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">testimony</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> before the committee, Jeff Rosen said that
Clark “</span><span style="background: white;">told me that the
timeline had moved up and that the president had offered him the job and that
he was accepting it.” Rosen “wasn’t going to accept being fired by [a]
subordinate,” so he arranged a meeting at the White House. </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Rosen
<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/07/politics/senate-judiciary-committee-investigation-trump-2020-election/index.html">told</a>
congressional investigators that Trump began the meeting by saying, “One thing we know is you,
Rosen, aren't going to do anything to overturn the election,” and implied that
he could keep his job if he agreed to send Jeffrey Clark’s letter (<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/06/23/jan6-doj-clark-rosen-donoghue-testimony/">written</a> by Ken Klukowski, see
December 28) to Georgia legislators. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">For
two-and-a-half hours, Clark tried to convince Trump that he should become
attorney general while Richard Donoghue, Pat Cipollone, Jeff Rosen, and
Assistant Attorney General for the </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Legal_Counsel" title="Office of Legal Counsel"><span style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%; text-decoration-line: none;">Office of Legal Counsel</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"> Steven Engel
argued against the elevation of Clark. </span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">Engel
told the January 6 House Select Committee:</span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“I said, ‘Mr. President you’re talking
about putting a man in that seat who has never tried a criminal case, who has
never conducted a criminal investigation, and he’s telling you that he’s going
to take charge of the department’s 115,000 employees, including the entire FBI,
and turn the place on a dime and conduct nationwide criminal investigations
that will produce results in a matter of days. It’s impossible, it’s absurd, it
is not going to happen, and it is going to fail.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“He has never been in front of a trial
jury, a grand jury, he’s never even been to [FBI Director] Chris Wray’s office.
I said at one point, ‘If you walked into Chris Wray’s office, one, would you
know how to get there, and two, if you got there, would he even know who you
are? And do you really think that the FBI is going to suddenly start following
your orders?’ It’s not going to happen. He’s not competent.”<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump
backed off of his threat to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trump-justice-department-overturn-election/2021/01/22/b7f0b9fa-5d1c-11eb-a976-bad6431e03e2_story.html">replace</a> Rosen <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/07/politics/senate-judiciary-committee-investigation-trump-2020-election/index.html">after</a> <span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">“Donoghue and Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal
Counsel Steve Engel made clear that there would be mass resignations at [the
Department of Justice] if Trump moved forward with replacing Rosen with Clark.”
</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Though
he left Rosen in place, Trump <a href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/4-days-in-january-the-story-of-trumps-ouster-of-atlantas-top-federal-prosecutor">fired</a> the U.S.
attorney who covered the Atlanta area, Bjay Pak. Trump said Pak hadn’t done
enough to uncover fraud in his district. Pak’s replacement, Trump loyalist
Bobby Christine, later concluded that “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/us-attorney-georgia-fraud/2021/01/12/45a527c6-5526-11eb-a817-e5e7f8a406d6_story.html">There’s just nothing to</a>” Trump’s claims of voter fraud in
Fulton County, where Biden amassed a huge share of his Georgia votes.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">While
manipulating the electoral college certification was Trump’s main focus, many
political insiders had concerns that the president might fall back on the
Insurrection Act—especially if pro-Trump protesters clashed with left-leaning forces
on January 6. Earlier that day, all ten living defense secretaries penned <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/10-former-defense-secretaries-military-peaceful-transfer-of-power/2021/01/03/2a23d52e-4c4d-11eb-a9f4-0e668b9772ba_story.html">an op-ed</a> in <i>the Washington
Post </i>aimed at top decision makers on the Trump administration’s national
security team. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The
signatories said that acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller and those
working under him “are each bound by oath, law and precedent to facilitate the
entry into office of the incoming administration, and to do so wholeheartedly.
They must also refrain from any political actions that undermine the results of
the election or hinder the success of the new team.” <span style="color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump and his
collaborators weren’t yet accepting that there would be a “new team” on January
20. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>January
4, 2021</b>, Republican senators were given a <a href="https://lawandcrime.com/2020-election/kraken-attorneys-behind-outlandish-2020-election-lawsuits-urge-federal-appeals-court-to-overturn-sanctions-that-included-bar-referrals/">Team Kraken</a> pitch to <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/2020-election-republican-meeting-revealed/?e=benbosity@gmail.com&utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=9775&recip_id=24770&list_id=1">seize voting machines</a> and delay the official
January 6 certification.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Kevin Cramer,
a conservative Republican senator who had <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-trump-score/">voted with Trump</a> 94% of the time, said
that the presenters wheeled out “some of the most fantastical claims” about interference
from Venezuela or China as a justification for this extraordinary step. Attending
via Zoom was Wisconsin senator Ron Johnson, who would try to <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/ron-johnson-fake-elector-scheme/">pass off fake electors</a> for Wisconsin and
Michigan on January 6.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Another
Wisconsin Republican who was in on the plot was Mark Jefferson, executive
director of the state party. With the fake Wisconsin electoral certificates <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/28/politics/recordings-trump-team-fake-elector-ballots/index.html">hung up</a> in the mail, Trump’s
lawyers were becoming desperate. In a text to a colleague, Jefferson <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/trump-team-orchestrated-fake-electors-try-overturn-election-jan-6-comm-rcna34605">said</a>, “Freaking Trump idiots
want someone to fly original elector papers to the senate President….They’re
going to call one of us to tell us just what the hell is going on.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">While Republicans
played chicken with democracy, security concerns grew. As revealed during<span style="background: white;"> the January 6
House Select Committee hearings, </span>here<a href="https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/june-28-2022"> summarized</a> by historian
Heather Cox Richardson: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">“On January 4, National Security
Advisor Robert O’Brien called [Mark] Meadows to warn of violence on January 6.
The Secret Service and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Anthony Ornato, who
was in charge of security protocol to protect anyone covered by presidential
protection, also warned of coming violence.”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Despite
these warnings, </span>General Mark Milley was
turned down when he <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/79623/crisis-of-command-the-pentagon-the-president-and-january-6/">suggested</a> to Trump cabinet members that permits for a January 6 protest at
the Capitol building be revoked due to the possibility of violence. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Still hoping to avoid a
messy, violent<i> coup</i> in favor of a bloodless, lawyerly <i>coup</i>, Trump’s
outside attorney John Eastman presented Mike Pence with <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/21/politics/read-eastman-memo/index.html">a
six-step plan</a> to toss the electoral
college votes from seven states Trump lost. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">If Pence carried out the plan, neither candidate
would have 270 electoral college votes, which would throw the election to the House
of Representatives, allowing Republicans to override the will of American voters.
<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Eastman’s plan was in clear violation of the
Electoral Count Act passed in the late 19<sup>th</sup> Century; Pence’s counsel
Mark Jacob would later <a href="https://apnews.com/article/capitol-siege-biden-elections-government-and-politics-presidential-42911f613bee85913dcbcbaeed096b2c">say</a> that Eastman’s reading of 133 years of election precedent was
“essentially entirely made up.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A second option was to have Pence adjourn the
counting, allowing time for states Trump had lost to submit fake electors.
Eastman had <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/11/trump-coup-blueprint/">advocated</a> for this scheme on a Steve Bannon podcast two days earlier and sketched
out its details in a <a href="https://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2021/images/09/20/eastman.memo.pdf">two-page
memo</a> to Republican senators
Lyndsey Graham and Mike Lee, both of whom would later conclude that Trump’s fraud
claims were <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/09/20/peril-woodward-costa-graham-lee-fraud/">baseless</a>. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Speaking
to Jim Acosta on CNN, famous Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/trump-coup-press-investigate-bernstein/?cx_testId=4&cx_testVariant=cx_1&cx_artPos=4#cxrecs_s">said of the Eastman memo</a>, “<span style="background: white;">I think what we are seeing in these memos particularly
are blueprints for a coup<i>…</i>.The actual blueprints in document form in
which the president of the United States, through his chief of staff, is
sending to Mike Pence’s, the vice president’s, staff a blueprint to overturn an
election, a blueprint for a conspiracy led by a president of the United States
to result in an authoritarian coup in which the election is stolen.”</span> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The nerve
center of the authoritarian <i>coup</i> attempt was a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/willard-trump-eastman-giuliani-bannon/2021/10/23/c45bd2d4-3281-11ec-9241-aad8e48f01ff_story.html"><span style="color: #0070c0;">war room</span></a> at the Willard Hotel,
one block from the White House. In the weeks before January 6, Trump’s lawyer Rudy
Giuliani led a team of conspirators who attempted to overturn Biden’s election victory.
Interlocking strategies included injecting disinformation about voter fraud
into the right-wing media bloodstream, encouraging swing state Trump supporters
to pressure their state legislators to block certification of Biden’s win, pushing
state legislators directly to block certification of Biden’s victory, and
trying to convince Mike Pence that he had the power to deny state-certified electoral
college votes. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At various
times Giuliani was joined by Steve Bannon, John
Eastman, <a href="https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/trump-january-6-letter-insurrection-act-20220103.html">Bernard Kerik</a>, Phil
Waldron, and
Roger Stone, who <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/596850-new-evidence-details-roger-stones-efforts-against-2020-electionwapo/">had</a> Oath Keepers as
bodyguards along with<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/20/us/politics/roger-stone-jan-6.html"> connections</a> to both Stewart Rhodes
(leader of the Oath Keepers) and Enrique Tarrio (leader of the Proud Boys). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Details of the Willard team’s agenda were revealed in a</span><a href="https://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000017e-132a-dca7-a1ff-b33b8afd0000"><span style="line-height: 107%; text-decoration-line: none;"> </span><span style="line-height: 107%;">document</span></a><span style="color: red; line-height: 107%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 107%;">given to <span style="background: white;">the January 6 House Select Committee </span>by Bernard
Kerik’s attorney. (See December 17)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">While
Trump and his war room cabal brainstormed ways to manipulate Mike Pence, other Republicans
gave the vice president sound interpretations of constitutional law. Conservative judge J. Michael Luttig <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/willard-trump-eastman-giuliani-bannon/2021/10/23/c45bd2d4-3281-11ec-9241-aad8e48f01ff_story.html">told</a> Pence’s
staff that there was no legal basis for him to reject electoral college votes, advice also passed on by conservatives <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/12/us/politics/mike-pence-trump.html?referringSource=articleShare">John Yoo</a> and <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/09/dan-quayle-convinced-mike-pence-to-reject-trumps-coup.html">former vice president Dan
Quayle</a>. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The day before
the official counting of electoral ballots, <b>January 5, 2021</b>, <span style="background: white;">Mike Pence’s
attorney, Greg Jacob, </span><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">released
a </span><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/22058340-greg-jacob-jan-5-memo"><span style="background: white;">three-page
memo</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"> which pointed out that the rejection of Joe </span><span style="background: white;">Biden’s electors would be a flagrant violation </span><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">of the 1887 Electoral College Act. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Pence’s chief
of staff, Marc Short, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/03/us/politics/trump-pence-safety-jan-6.html">called</a> a meeting with Timothy
Giebels, the head of the vice president’s security detail. Giebels was told
that due to Pence’s reluctance to meddle with the electoral count, Donald Trump
<span style="background: white;">“was going
to turn publicly against the vice president, and there could be a security risk
to Mr. Pence because of it.”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Meanwhile, even some of Trump’s most
loyal staff were getting skittish about Trump’s proposed power grab. Trump
Communications Director Jason Miller, tasked with putting out an official White
House statement about the fake electors, </span><a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/fake-elector-plot-raised-concerns-over-legal-peril-indictment-shows/ar-AA1eUwog"><span style="background: white;">asked</span></a><span style="background: white;"> other communications staff via text “</span>How
best [to] proceed tomorrow so we don’t look like a donkey show, particularly on
the comms/media front?” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Justin Clark, deputy campaign manager, responded that “<span style="color: #2b2b2b;">Here’s the thing the way this has morphed it’s a crazy
play so I don’t know who wants to put their name on it.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #2b2b2b;">Pennsylvania’s fake electors were having the same reluctance. As
</span><a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/fake-elector-plot-raised-concerns-over-legal-peril-indictment-shows/ar-AA1eUwog">reported</a><span style="color: #2b2b2b;"> in <i>the Washington Post</i>, general counsel for the PA GOP
Thomas W. King III emailed a Trump campaign official “</span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #2b2b2b;">saying
he understood that the Trump electors in Pennsylvania had been told they would
receive ‘indemnification by the campaign if someone gets sued or worse.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span><span style="color: #2b2b2b; font-family: georgia;">“They
were also to receive ‘a legal opinion by a national firm and certified to be
accurate by a Pa. lawyer,’ King wrote. Instead, he wrote, they got a memo from Kenneth
Chesebro…[who] described the plan in Pennsylvania as ‘dicey’ because state law
calls for the governor, who at the time was a Democrat, to approve any elector
substitutions.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #2b2b2b; font-family: georgia;">“King
made changes to the electors’ paperwork to make clear that the Republican
electoral votes were valid only with the finding of a court order that could
not be appealed.” (King would later tell <i>the Post</i>, “No one ever offered
indemnification….</span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: georgia;">Any document that any
lawyer looks at needs to be accurate.”)</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Oddly enough, while
fake electors tried to cover their asses, <a href="https://iowacapitaldispatch.com/2021/01/05/grassley-suggests-he-may-preside-over-senate-debate-on-electoral-college-votes/">an article</a> appeared that day about
Republican senator/Trump ally Chuck Grassley overseeing the electoral college
vote if Pence somehow failed to show up. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Grassley’s
exact words <a href="https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/2022/10/28/chuck-grassley-comments-jan-6-us-capitol-attack-riot/69595522007/">were</a> <span style="background: white;">“If the vice president isn’t there,
and we don’t expect him to be there, I will be presiding over the Senate and
obviously listening to the debate without saying anything.” (Grassley’s office
later </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/09/07/what-we-know-about-grassley-pence-jan-6/"><span style="background: white;">said</span></a><span style="background: white;"> the statement was misinterpreted by the media). </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">The
Capitol was supposed to </span><span style="background: white; color: #0f0f0f; line-height: 107%;">be </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/15/politics/barry-loudermilk-tour-january-6/index.html"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">closed</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #0f0f0f; line-height: 107%;"> to the
public that Tuesday due to Covid-19, but Republican House member Barry
Loudermilk of Georgia </span><a href="https://www.rawstory.com/capitol-reconnaissance-tours/"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">gave</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #0f0f0f; line-height: 107%;"> a tour. </span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">The January 6 House
Select Committee would later </span><a href="https://twitter.com/January6thCmte/status/1537075019918065666"><span style="background: white; color: #0070c0; line-height: 107%;">tweet</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"> that “Individuals on the tour photographed/recorded areas
not typically of interest to tourists: hallways, staircases and security
checkpoints.” </span><span style="background: white; color: #0f0f0f; line-height: 107%;">One of the people on the tour
marched to the Capitol the following day while </span><a href="https://rollcall.com/2022/06/15/jan-6-panel-shows-man-from-loudermilk-tour-threatening-lawmakers-near-capitol-on-day-of-riot/"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">threatening violence</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #0f0f0f; line-height: 107%;">
against Democratic members of </span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">Congress. </span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">Democrats
weren’t the only ones under threat. </span><span style="line-height: 107%;">Republican representative Debbie
Lesko was </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/12/politics/january-6-hearing-day-7-takeaways/index.html"><span style="line-height: 107%;">caught
on tape</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 107%;">asking congressional leadership to “come up
with a safety plan for members” because “I’m actually very concerned about
this, because we have who knows how many hundreds of thousands of people coming
here. We have Antifa. We also have, quite honestly, Trump supporters, who
actually believe that we are going to overturn the election. And when that
doesn’t happen – most likely will not happen – they are going to go nuts.”<span style="color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Aware of the
potential for violence, Washington D.C. mayor Muriel
Bowser requested National Guard backup, but Donald Trump’s Defense Department
handcuffed the Guard’s mission. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trump-protests-washington-guard-military/2021/01/07/c5299b56-510e-11eb-b2e8-3339e73d9da2_story.html"><span style="color: #2e74b5;">According to</span></a> Paul Sonne, Peter Hermann, and Missy
Ryan of <i>the Washington Post</i>, “the Pentagon prohibited the District’s
guardsmen from receiving ammunition or riot gear, interacting with protesters
unless necessary for self-defense, sharing equipment with local law
enforcement, or using Guard surveillance and air assets without the defense
secretary’s explicit sign-off.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In addition,
“The D.C. Guard was also told it would be allowed to
deploy a quick-reaction force only as a measure of last resort,” which forced
local D.C. officials to get approval from Trump’s Defense Department for rapid
deployment, a bureaucratic hurdle which hadn’t existed previously. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">While
the Secret Service “<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/08/25/secret-service-warned-capitol-police-violent-threats-january-riot-506806">warned the U.S. Capitol
Police</a>
that their officers could face violence at the hands of supporters of former
President Donald Trump,” Mark Meadows <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/12/meadows-jan-6-national-guard-trump-524133">sent</a> out an email
demanding that the National Guard <span style="background: white;">“protect
pro-Trump people.” A </span><a href="https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/statement-press-secretary-010521/"><span style="background: white;">statement</span></a><span style="background: white;"> from the White House Office of the Press Secretary hyped the threat of
left-leaning protesters, saying “President Trump will not allow Antifa, or any
terrorist organization, to destroy our great country.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Trump mirrored this with </span><a href="https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/tweets-january-5-2021"><span style="background: white;">a tweet</span></a><span style="background: white;"> threatening members of antifa who showed up in D.C. on January 6. There
was </span><a href="https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/12/17/trumps-jan-6-coup-how-it-worked-how-close-it-came-and-why-it-failed"><span style="background: white;">speculation</span></a><span style="background: white;"> later on that this messaging could have been put in place to give Trump
cover to declare a national emergency on January 6, if anti-Trump protesters
showed up to fight pro-Trump protesters. A national emergency could have
allowed Trump to seize voting machines according to Phil Waldron’s 38-page </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/10/trump-powerpoint-mark-meadows-capitol-attack"><span style="background: white;">PowerPoint</span></a><span style="background: white;"> titled “Election Fraud, Foreign Interference & Options for January
6” (see November 25, January 4).<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As
D.C. girded for trouble, Trump riled his supporters up with <a href="https://twitter.com/billkristol/status/1359167496062980097">a 5 p.m. tweet</a> which read,
“<span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Washington is being inundated with people who don’t want to
see an election victory stolen by emboldened Ra</span><span style="background: white;">dical Left Democrats….Our Country has had enough, they won’t
take it anymore!”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="story-textparagraph"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">This call out to the
troops coincided with a pro-Trump event at Freedom Plaza that night. Speaking
at the rally were Trump allies who were considered too extreme to speak at the
main event on January 6—Alex Jones, Ali Alexander, Michael Flynn, and Roger
Stone. </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="story-textparagraph"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Stone </span><a href="https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/july-12-2022?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share"><span style="background: white;">told</span></a><span style="background: white;"> those in attendance they were in an “epic
struggle for the future of this country between dark and light, between the
godly and the godless, between good and evil. And we will win this fight or
America will step off into a thousand years of darkness.”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/07/12/1111123258/jan-6-committee-hearing-transcript"><span style="background: white;">According
to</span></a><span style="background: white;"> deputy press secretary
Sarah Matthews, during an Oval Office meeting which took place </span><a href="https://twitter.com/manhattanmadam/status/1346784951258255360"><span style="background: white;">while
music was booming</span></a><span style="background: white;"> at Freedom Plaza (just half
a mile from the White House), “[Trump] was in a very good mood. And I say that
because he had not been in a good mood for weeks leading up to that, and then
it seemed like he was in a fantastic mood that evening.” </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Deputy Press Secretary Judd Deere </span><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/live-blog/-january-6-hearings-committee-live-updates-day-7-rcna36734?icid=ed_npd_nn_nn_np_liveblog#rcrd3649"><span style="background: white;">concurred</span></a><span style="background: white;">, saying Trump was “animated” and “excited about
the next day. He was excited to do a rally with his supporters.”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">At the meeting, Trump discussed the
march to the Capitol which would follow his speech at the Ellipse on January 6.
Though it was </span><a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/07/12/trump-march-to-capitol-jan6-panel"><span style="background: white;">known</span></a><span style="background: white;"> to pro-Trump activists and administration figures,
the march to the Capitol </span><a href="https://www.gregpalast.com/insider-white-house-warned-march-was-illegal/"><span style="background: white;">wasn’t
public knowledge</span></a><span style="background: white;">. As January 6 committee
member Stephanie Murphy would later say, “the evidence confirms that this was
not a spontaneous call to action, but rather was a deliberate strategy decided
upon in advance by the president.”</span><span style="background: white; color: red;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Late that evening, </span>Trump <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/30/donald-trump-called-top-aides-capitol-riot-biden">called his allies</a> at the Willard Hotel and
strategized about how they could delay the vote count long enough to get three
swing states to reject Biden’s electoral votes and send false electoral votes
to the Capitol. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">One of the key
strategists at the Willard was Steve Bannon. Liz Cheney, future vice chair of the
<span style="background: white;">January 6
House Select Committee</span>, would later <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/house/577673-bannon-eyed-as-key-link-between-white-house-jan-6-riot">say</a>, “<span style="background: white;">Based on the
committee’s investigation, it appears that Mr. Bannon had substantial advance
knowledge of the plans for January 6th and likely had an important role in
formulating those plans.” </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On his podcast
the night of January 5, Steve Bannon <a href="https://docs.house.gov/meetings/IJ/IJ00/20211019/114156/HRPT-117-NA.pdf">concluded ominously<span style="text-decoration-line: none;">:</span></a> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal">
</p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“It’s not going to happen
like you think it’s going to happen. OK, it’s going to be quite extraordinarily
different. All I can say is, strap in….You made this happen and tomorrow it’s
game day. So strap in. Let’s get ready.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">***</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Prior to <b>January 6, 2021</b>, the electoral college vote count
and certification had been </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/01/04/pence-1887-electoral-vote-count-act-trump-biden/"><span style="background: white;">purely
ceremonial</span></a><span style="background: white;">. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">But since none of Trump’s tactics to overthrow the election
had worked, the president’s </span>fundraiser <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-campaign-fundraiser-ellipse-rally">Caroline Wren</a>, campaign
operative <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/exclusive-jan-6-organizers-met-congress-white-house-1245289/">Katrina Pierson</a>, chief of
staff <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/exclusive-jan-6-organizers-met-congress-white-house-1245289/">Mark Meadows</a>, Republican
members of Congress, and <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/j6-white-house-rally-organizers-trump-cooperate-1260849/">right-wing activists</a> planned <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/exclusive-jan-6-organizers-met-congress-white-house-1245289/">one final, grand charade</a>: a “Save
America”<span style="color: #0070c0;"> </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/06/us/politics/capitol-mob-trump-supporters.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20210110&instance_id=25857&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=48890&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74"><span style="color: #4472c4;">rally</span></a> followed by a stealth march to the Capitol. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Activists
involved in the planning <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/jan-6-rally-organizers-trump-white-house-1262122/">bought burner phones</a> with cash to
secretly communicate with members of the White House, including chief of staff <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/exclusive-jan-6-organizers-met-congress-white-house-1245289/">Mark Meadows</a>. It would
later <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2021/10/details-of-the-money-behind-jan-6-protests-continue-to-emerge/">come out</a> that “<span style="background: white; color: #0f0f0f;">Trump’s </span><span style="background: white; color: #0f0f0f;"></span><span style="background: white; color: #0f0f0f;">political operation reported paying more than
$4.3 million to people and firms that organized the Jan. 6 rally since the
start of the 2020 election.</span><span style="background: white; color: #0f0f0f;">”</span><span style="background: white; color: #0f0f0f;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/exclusive-jan-6-organizers-met-congress-white-house-1245289/"><span style="background: white;">According
to</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #0f0f0f;"> Hunter Walker of <i>Rolling Stone</i>, event
planners also collaborated with fringe-right members of Congress such as </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/02/technology/marjorie-taylor-greene-twitter.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur"><span style="background: white;">Marjorie
Taylor Greene</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #0f0f0f;">, Louie Gohmert, Paul Gosar (later to become
one of the </span><a href="https://www.theuprising.info/p/congressman-paul-gosars-stunning"><span style="background: white;">biggest
defenders</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #0f0f0f;"> of the insurrectionists), </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/03/madison-cawthorn-republican-party-gerrymandering"><span style="background: white;">Madison
Cawthorn</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #0f0f0f;"> (who spoke at the January 6 rally), </span><a href="https://www.azcentral.com/restricted/?return=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.azcentral.com%2Fstory%2Fnews%2Fpolitics%2Farizona%2F2021%2F02%2F19%2Frep-andy-biggs-has-long-history-conservatisms-fringes%2F6740694002%2F"><span style="background: white;">Andy
Biggs</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #0f0f0f;">, and </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9nIqIUT46o"><span style="background: white;">Lauren Boebert</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #0f0f0f;">. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; color: #0f0f0f;">Two of </span><span style="background: white;">Walker’s sources (both
event planners) said that Gosar—who allegedly made phone calls to the sources
on January 6—promised that </span><span style="background: white; color: #0f0f0f;">Trump would grant them pardons
if they incurred any legal trouble as a result of the rally. Right-wing
activist </span><a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/stop-the-steal-organizer-in-hiding-after-denying-blame-for-riot"><span style="background: white;">Ali
Alexander</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #0f0f0f;">, one of the organizers of the “</span><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210101004652if_/https:/wildprotest.com/#about"><span style="background: white;">Wild
Protest</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #0f0f0f;">,” had also </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/01/13/ali-alexander-capitol-biggs-gosar/"><span style="background: white;">mentioned</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #0f0f0f;"> collaborating with Gosar and Biggs in a video which was later deleted. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The
rally and the march were a prelude to the formal challenge by 13 Republican
senators and 140 House members to Joe Biden’s electoral college victory. The
challenge would consist of regurgitated fraud claims which had been rejected
for lack of merit in more than<a href="https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/jan/08/joe-biden/joe-biden-right-more-60-trumps-election-lawsuits-l/"><span style="color: #0070c0;"> 60
judicial cases</span></a>, by judges of all ideological stripes. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump
trade adviser Peter Navarro would later <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-advisor-peter-navarro-lays-out-how-he-and-steve-bannon-planned-to-overturn-bidens-electoral-win">brag</a> about his role in
recruiting members of Congress. He and Steve Bannon came up with a plan called
“the Green Bay sweep.” The aim was to get challengers to delay the electoral
vote certification as long as possible in hopes that several hours of televised
hearings (full of Republican claims about a “rigged election”) would pressure
Mike Pence to reject electors from Biden states and end 231 years of American
democracy. <span style="color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">While the
suits conspired, Trump’s ground troops stood by. Alongside the Oath Keepers,
who “<a href="https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/june-9-2022">were expecting</a> Trump to invoke the
Insurrection Act” so that he would have a false pretense to call up the U.S.
military and <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/insurrection-act-explained">maintain control</a> of the government by
force, 250-300 Proud Boys had <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/14/us/politics/enrique-tarrio-jan-6-document.html">plans</a> to pre-empt the
certification by <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/proud-boys-enrique-tarrio-occupy-congress-supreme-court-january-6-2021/">seizing</a> government offices and
making demands on behalf of the losing presidential candidate. The leaders of
the two groups had <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/09/us/nick-quested-filmmaker-jan-6-testimony.html">met</a> in a D.C. underground
parking lot the day prior. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">According to Mark Meadows’ aide
Cassidy Hutchinson, </span><a href="https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/june-28-2022"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">as of
8:00 a.m.</span></a><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">, “intelligence
reports were already coming in that some of the people near the Ellipse, where
Trump was to speak, were dressed in body armor and armed with Glock-style
pistols, shotguns, and AR-15s, along with other weapons.” </span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">When
deputy chief of staff Anthony Ornato </span><a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2022-06-28/jan-6-bombshell-takeaways-surprise-hearing-cassidy-hutchinson"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">told</span></a><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> Meadows about weapons confiscated
by law enforcement, “</span>Meadows appeared uninterested and didn't
look up from his phone…saying: ‘All right, anything else?’”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At 8:24 a.m., Eric Waldow, a deputy chief in the
Capitol Police Force <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/04/30/capitol-police-trump-insurrection-485138"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">who was</span></a> “<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">responsible for directing officers’ movements,” sent a message over
Capitol Police Radio for his fellow officers to “watch out for anti-Trump
protesters in the massive pro-Trump crowd.” </span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">There
was concern of violence between Trump’s white supremacist followers and
left-wing activists, but this would turn out to be an empty threat. Prodded to
stay home with </span><a href="https://twitter.com/patriottakes/status/1346087224140394496"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">hashtags</span></a><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> #Jan6TrumpTrap and
#DontTakeTheBait, the left’s presence at the rally </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/01/us/politics/antifa-conspiracy-capitol-riot.html"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">was minimal
to nonexistent</span></a><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">.</span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">With just over four hours to go
before the certification was to start, Trump allies continued their attempts to
overturn the will of the American people. </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">The speaker of the Arizona House,
Rusty Bowers, </span><a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/07/everything-we-learned-january-sixth.html"><span style="background: white;">received</span></a><span style="background: white;"> a call from House of Representatives member Andy
Biggs asking him to reject</span><span style="background: white; color: #ff0066;"> </span><span style="background: white;">Biden’s legitimate electors for the state of Arizona.
This was one of many requests from conspirators to Bowers (including a call
from Rudy Giuliani, who had earlier </span><a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/house/3531342-rusty-bowers-says-giuliani-told-him-weve-got-lots-of-theories-we-just-dont-have-the-evidence/#:~:text=House-,Rusty%20Bowers%20says%20Giuliani%20told%20him%3A%20'We've%20got,don't%20have%20the%20evidence'&text=Arizona%20House%20Speaker%20Rusty%20Bowers,Giuliani%20failed%20to%20produce%20any."><span style="background: white;">admitted</span></a><span style="background: white;"> to Bowers that “we have lots of theories, we just
don’t have the evidence”). </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Bowers refused to buckle, even as his
family had been </span><a href="https://azcapitoltimes.com/news/2020/12/10/gop-divide-spurs-call-to-arms-doxing/"><span style="background: white;">doxxed</span></a><span style="background: white;">, with Trump supporters shouting epithets </span><a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/arizona-rusty-bowers-trump-kacey-rae-b2106779.html"><span style="background: white;">outside of
his home</span></a><span style="background: white;"> while his daughter was inside
dying of cancer. </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/77852/timeline-rep-jim-jordan-a-systematic-disinformation-campaign-and-january-6/"><span style="background: white;">One of
the main conspirators</span></a><span style="background: white;"> was Representative Jim
Jordan. Jordan and Trump </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/04/politics/jim-jordan-trump-january-6/"><span style="background: white;">spoke</span></a><span style="background: white;"> for ten minutes that morning. Jordan would later gum
up the works during the certification, after the Capitol was cleared.</span><i><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Trump also received a call around
11:04 a.m. from Republican senator David Perdue.</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">It was the </span><a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-donald-trumps-missing-call-logs-could-become-his-richard-nixon-tapes?ref=home"><span style="background: white;">last
call</span></a><span style="background: white;"> recorded in the
official White House logs until 6:54 p.m. that evening. </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">The most consequential conversation
Trump had was with vice president Mike Pence, whom Trump had already </span><a href="https://news.yahoo.com/trump-pressure-pence-deadly-riot-093000494.html"><span style="background: white;">pressured</span></a><span style="background: white;"> twice that day, with tweets at 1:00 a.m. and 8:17
a.m. </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Around 11:20 a.m., Trump called
Pence from the Oval Office. Several witnesses were present. Marc Short, Pence’s
chief of staff, estimated that the call lasted 15-20 minutes.</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/20/jan-6-committee-trump-pence-call-00026597"><span style="background: white;">According
to</span></a><span style="background: white;"> reporters Kyle Cheney
and Betsy Woodruff Swan, “</span>Multiple people familiar with the testimony given
to the [January 6] committee about the call offered a consistent account. One
of those people — granted anonymity to speak candidly — said witnesses
described the conversation as beginning relatively pleasantly, with Trump
embracing the legal advice he was given about Pence’s ability to send the
election back to the states.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="story-textparagraph"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Although people in the Oval Office couldn’t hear him, Pence had
clearly rejected Trump’s entreaties, the person indicated. Witnesses have said
listeners in the room were surprised because it was the first time they
recalled Pence saying no to Trump. The call deteriorated and Trump grew
frustrated.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="story-textparagraph"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/12/us/politics/mike-pence-trump.html">told</a> Pence <span style="background: white;">“You can either go down in history as a patriot…or you
can go down in history as a pussy.”</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Pence chose to go down in history as a patriot. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Just before the count began, he</span><a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/read-pences-full-letter-saying-he-cant-claim-unilateral-authority-to-reject-electoral-votes"><span style="background: white; color: black;"> </span><span style="color: #0070c0;">released a public letter confirming</span></a> that he
lacked the constitutional authority to unilaterally decide which electoral college votes
to accept.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/08/the-craziest-details-from-the-trump-january-6-indictment.html">responded to this pushback</a> from his previously subservient #2 by “reinserting language [into
his rally speech] that he had personally drafted earlier that morning—falsely
claiming that the Vice President had authority to send electoral votes to the
states—but that advisors had previously successfully advocated be removed.”<span style="color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">This change in
emphasis increased the threat risk for Vice President Pence. As <a href="https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/june-28-2022">reported</a> by historian Heather Cox
Richardson, the “Save America” rally that day was simmering with latent
violence:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“<span style="background: white;">Text messages
between [Cassidy] Hutchinson and [Deputy Chief of Staff Anthony] Ornato show
that Trump was ‘furious’ before the Ellipse rally because he wanted photos to
show the space full of people and it was not full because law enforcement was
screening people for weapons before they could go in. Trump wanted the
screening machines, called magnetometers, to be taken down.”</span><u><o:p></o:p></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">According
to </span><span style="line-height: 107%;">Hutchinson’s
</span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1g8rmptg40&t=91s"><span style="line-height: 107%;">testimony</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> before <span style="background: white;">the January 6
House Select Committee, </span>“I overheard the president say something to the
effect of, you know, ‘I don’t even care that they have weapons. They’re not
here to hurt me. Take the f-ing mags away. Let my people in. They can march to
the Capitol from here. Let the people in. Take the f-ing mags away.’”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The speeches included
several<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/07/briefing/white-house-capitol-donald-trump-jon-ossoff.html"><span style="color: #0070c0;"> incitements
to violence</span></a>. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Lead-off
speaker Mo Brooks, <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/07/mo-brooks-body-armor-jan-6-rally.html">clad in body armor</a>, said, <span style="background: white;">“Today is the day American patriots start taking down
names and kicking ass!”</span> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Addressing
congressional Republicans
who intended to honor the will of American voters, Donald Trump, Jr. said, “<span style="background: white;">We’re coming for
you, and we’re going to have a good time doing it.” If they didn’t change their
minds and oppose Biden’s certification, “</span><a href="https://www.vox.com/22220746/trump-speech-incite-capitol-riot?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Sentences%201821&utm_content=Sentences%201821+CID_5cdd5fe59652d724914f30c48ed58541&utm_source=cm_email&utm_term=How%20Trumps%20speech%20led%20to%20the%20Capitol%20riot"><span style="background: white; color: #0070c0;">I’m gonna be in your backyard in a couple of months</span></a><span style="background: white;">.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Rudy Giuliani said, “Let’s have trial by combat,” which was </span>“<a href="https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Backup-was-denied-Capitol-Police-chief-says-15860394.php"><span style="color: #0070c0;">an eerie
reference to battles to the death in the series ‘Game of Thrones</span></a>.’”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Donald Trump headlined at noon.
Talking tough from behind bulletproof glass, he unleashed a torrent </span>of self-serving lies about
the election, “<a href="https://www.vox.com/22220746/trump-speech-incite-capitol-riot?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Sentences%201821&utm_content=Sentences%201821+CID_5cdd5fe59652d724914f30c48ed58541&utm_source=cm_email&utm_term=How%20Trumps%20speech%20led%20to%20the%20Capitol%20riot"><span style="background: white; color: #0070c0;">used</span></a><span style="background: white;"> the words ‘fight’ or ‘fighting’</span><a href="https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-trump-speech-save-america-rally-transcript-january-6"><span style="background: white; color: black;"> </span><span style="background: white; color: #0070c0;">at least 20 times</span></a><span style="background: white;">,” and said “You’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have
to show strength. You have to be strong.”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Over at the Capitol, with the clock
running down, Republicans were still scheming to get illegitimate electors to
Mike Pence. </span><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/trump-team-orchestrated-fake-electors-try-overturn-election-jan-6-comm-rcna34605"><span style="background: white;">At 12:37</span></a><span style="background: white;">, an aide to Republican senator Ron Johnson texted a Pence aide about
“alternate” electors for Wisconsin and Michigan that Johnson wanted to pass
off. In response, the Pence aide said, “Do not give that to [Pence].”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">By 12:54 p.m.—six
minutes before House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was scheduled to bring Congress to
order—Trump supporters had <a href="https://twitter.com/January6thCmte/status/1535082372030414861">busted</a> through barrier fences
around the U.S. Capitol. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Five-ten minutes after the formal
count had begun, Trump finished his speech with a call to action:</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“We
will never give up; we will never concede….We will stop the steal. We’re going
to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue, and we’re going to the Capitol…We’re going to
try and give our Republicans, the weak ones…the kind of pride and boldness that
they need to take back our country.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The<span style="color: #ff0066;"> </span>march had been hidden—by
design—from the general public. In a January 4 communication, conservative organizer Kylie Jane Kramer had <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/12/why-evidence-that-trump-planned-capitol-march-is-important/">texted</a> MyPillow CEO
Mike Lindell that “It
can also not get out about the march because I will be in trouble with the
national park service and all the agencies but POTUS is going to just call for
it ‘unexpectedly.’” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump’s
advisors had<span style="color: #ff0066;"> </span><a href="https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a40591694/january-6-trump-mob-march-capitol-unexpectedly/">composed a tweet</a><span style="color: #ff0066;"> </span>which mentioned the march.
Trump read the tweet, but didn’t send it, leaving Capitol security in the dark
about what they were about to face. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">In the presidential limousine,<b> </b>the Secret Service
refused to take Trump to the Capitol. Cassidy Hutchinson told <span style="background: white;">the January 6
House Select Committee </span>that the outgoing president </span><a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/07/19/1112177450/14-key-moments-from-the-jan-6-committee-hearings-so-far"><span style="line-height: 107%;">threw a
fit</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="line-height: 107%;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 107%;">as he “attempted
to grab the steering wheel and then lunged at the agent driving” the vehicle.
Trump’s demand (“I am the fucking president, take me up to the Capitol now”)
went unheeded. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At 1:14 p.m.,
vice president-elect Kamala Harris was <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/01/06/harris-was-inside-dnc-on-jan-6-when-pipe-bomb-was-discovered-outside-526695">evacuated</a> from Democratic National
Committee headquarters, where a pipe bomb was found. Another pipe bomb, placed
by <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/contact-us/field-offices/washingtondc/news/press-releases/fbi-washington-field-office-releases-video-and-additional-information-regarding-the-pipe-bomb-investigation-090821">the same suspect</a> the night prior, would
be found at the Republican National Committee headquarters. The motive remains
unknown, but it could have been to draw law enforcement attention away from the
Capitol. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Donald Trump
was <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2022-07-21/jan-6-hearing-president-trump-white-house-dining-room">in the White House dining
room</a> by
1:25, where he was soon notified about the “<span style="background: white;">violence at the Capitol.” </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Doing nothing to stop the
insurrection, President Trump got cozy in front of Fox News. He “</span>asked aides
for a list of senators to call as he continued to pursue paths to overturn his
defeat,” <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/21/jan-6-panel-trump-attack-00047130">according to</a> White House
press secretary Kayleigh McEnany. <span style="background: white; color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Around the
same time, Trump’s ally, Paul Gosar (who had collaborated with the “Save
America” organizers), began the GOP stalling tactics, objecting to electors
from Arizona. The two houses of Congress separated to “debate” Gosar’s
objection. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At 1:30 p.m.,
insurrectionists overtook police at the back of the Capitol, forcing them inside
the building. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Unaware of the
threat, Congress continued the proceedings. Senate Majority leader Mitch
McConnell said, “<span style="background: white;">Voters, the courts, and the states have all spoken — they've all
spoken….If we overrule them, it would damage our republic forever.” </span><span style="background: white; color: #333333;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; color: #333333;">As McConnell spoke, </span>a crowd of 8,000 <a href="https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Backup-was-denied-Capitol-Police-chief-says-15860394.php"><span style="color: #0070c0;">equipped
with</span></a> “<span style="background: white;">riot helmets, gas masks, shields,
pepper spray, fireworks, climbing gear...</span><a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/07/09/oath-keeper-explosives-jan-6-riot-doj"><span style="background: white;">explosives</span></a><span style="background: white;">, metal pipes, [and] baseball bats” surrounded the front of the Capitol.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">At 1:39 p.m., Trump </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/january-6-hearings-july-21/h_d4820bb18a7df875eb3010d9e0dc5f09"><span style="background: white;">had</span></a><span style="background: white;"> a four-minute call with Rudy Giuliani, who would call several senators
that day to try to derail the certification. They spoke again a half hour
later. </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a name="_Hlk120782477">Because
local officials’ authority to order backup had been
taken away by the Trump administration </a><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/03/politics/us-capitol-riot-hearing-dhs-fbi-pentagon/index.html"><span style="color: #0070c0;">one day before the certification</span></a>, Capitol police chief Steven Sund had to beg
Trump allies in the Department of Defense for National Guard reinforcements. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump’s military officials
stonewalled Sund, who <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/03/03/973292523/dod-took-hours-to-approve-national-guard-request-during-capitol-riot-commander-s">first called for help at 1:49 p.m.</a> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">According to testimony before <span style="background: white;">the January 6 House Select
Committee, </span>here </span><a href="https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/june-28-2022"><span style="line-height: 107%;">referenced</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> by
Professor Heather Cox Richardson, “[Cassidy] <span style="background: white;">Hutchinson went into [Mark] Meadows’s
[White House] office between 2:00 and 2:05 to ask if he was watching the scene
unfold on his television. Scrolling through his phone, he answered that he was.
She asked if he had talked to Trump. He said, ‘Yeah. He wants to be alone right
now.’ [White House Counsel Pat] Cipollone burst into the office and said to go
get the president. Meadows repeated that Trump didn't want to do anything.
Cipollone very clearly said this to Mark—something to the effect of, ‘Mark,
something needs to be done or people are going to die and the blood’s going to
be on your f-ing hands. This is getting out of control.”’</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.2in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 107%;">Back at the Capitol, as officer Caroline Edwards later </span><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/-was-slipping-peoples-blood-police-officer-describes-battling-rioters-rcna32903"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 107%;">described</span></a><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 107%;"> it to the January 6
committee, “</span><span style="line-height: 107%;">What I saw was just a war scene….There were
officers on the ground. They were bleeding. They were throwing up. I saw
friends with blood all over their faces. I was slipping in people’s blood. I
was catching people as they fell. It was carnage. It was chaos.”</span><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">At </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2021/what-happened-trump-jan-6-insurrection/"><span style="background: white;">2:11
p.m.</span></a><span style="background: white;">, </span>Trump supporters—<a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/several-well-known-hate-groups-identified-at-capitol-riot?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=majorinvestigations&utm_content=feature"><span style="color: #0070c0;">heavily
represented by right-wing hate groups</span></a><span style="color: #0070c0;">, </span>including many <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/01/capitol-riots-new-details-plans.html"><span style="color: #0070c0;">former
members of law enforcement and the military</span></a><span style="background: white;">—b</span>urst through
a police line to<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/06/pence-rushed-out-of-senate-capitol-455483"><span style="color: black;"> </span><span style="color: #0070c0;">storm the
Capitol</span></a>, the first hostile takeover of America’s seat of government since
1814. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">By
2:13, they were <a href="https://twitter.com/January6thCmte/status/1535082372030414861">inside</a> the
building. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Once inside,
insurrectionists <a href="https://www.the-sun.com/news/2109105/bleeding-capitol-cop-screams-help-maga-mob-mask/"><span style="color: #0070c0;">assaulted
Capitol police officers</span></a>,<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/07/us/politics/capitol-lockdown.html"><span style="color: black;"> </span><span style="color: #0070c0;">attacked
journalists</span></a>,<a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/02/capitol-riot-january-6-trauma-terror-attack.html"><span style="color: #0070c0;"> </span>and <span style="color: #0070c0;">traumatized</span></a><span style="color: #0070c0;"> </span>members of
Congress and<a href="https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Pelosi-says-staff-hid-under-a-table-for-hours-as-15860759.php"><span style="color: black;"> </span><span style="color: #0070c0;">congressional
aides</span></a>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Under the
surface appearance of random chaos were a number of determined seditionists
with concrete goals. Some targeted the offices of
specific members of Congress<a href="https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-ap-top-news-michael-pence-nancy-pelosi-capitol-siege-14c73ee280c256ab4ec193ac0f49ad54"><span style="color: #0070c0;"> in hopes
of kidnapping them</span></a>, or<a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/01/justice-department-arizona-filing-qanon-shaman-capture-and-assassinate-lawmakers.html"><span style="color: black;"> </span><span style="color: #0070c0;">worse</span></a>. Others ransacked
the Senate parliamentarian’s office in an apparent attempt to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2021/11/16/jonathan-karl-abc-news-chief-washington-correspondent-author-betrayal-final-act-trump-show/">intercept</a> electoral
college ballots. There were allegations that plotters<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/13/politics/capitol-insurrection-insider-help/index.html"><span style="color: #0070c0;"> may have
had help</span></a> from<a href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/fivepoints/capitol-insurrection-january-6-house-hearing-police"><span style="color: black;"> </span><span style="color: #0070c0;">members of
the Capitol police force</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"> and/or </span>Republican representatives
(including
Barry Loudermilk, who had <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/15/loudermilk-tour-group-photos-00039804">conducted a tour</a> of the Capitol on
January 5, and <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/oath-keepers-ronny-jackson-january-6-messages/">Ronny Jackson</a>). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At
2:15 p.m., Pat Cipollone <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/tv/this-is-a-shtshow-cnns-john-king-summarizes-texts-sent-to-mark-meadows-begging-trump-to-call-off-jan-6-rioters/">texted</a> Mark Meadows that “we need to do something more. They’re literally calling
for the vice president to be f’ing hung.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Meadows
responded that “You heard [President Trump], Pat. He thinks Mike deserves that.
He doesn’t think they’re doing anything wrong.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Four minutes
later, Hogan Gidley (the national press secretary for Trump’s 2020 campaign) <a href="https://twitter.com/gregpinelo/status/1604970851576717312">texted</a> Hope Hicks (counselor to
the president) with a suggestion that Trump put out a request to his followers
to be non-violent. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Hicks replied
that she had suggested as much “several times” on Monday and Tuesday—this was Wednesday—but
“I’m not there.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The Senate was
called into recess at 2:20 p.m.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The House soon
followed. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At 2:24 p.m., <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/01/25/among-the-insurrectionists"><span style="background: white; color: #0070c0;">while</span></a><span style="background: white;"> “America Firsters and other invaders fanned out
in search of lawmakers, breaking into offices and reveling in their own
astounding impunity,” Trump sent out what would become a notorious </span><a href="https://www.americanoversight.org/timeline/224-p-m"><span style="background: white;">tweet</span></a><span style="background: white;">:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have
been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance
to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones
which they were asked to previously certify….USA demands the truth!” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">As Trump’s deputy press
secretary Sarah Matthews would </span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/jan-6-hearing-takeaways-da9e850c8744a3d4395928cf19eaf36f"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">tell</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"> the January 6
House Select Committee, this was exactly what <i>wasn’t</i> needed in that
moment, as Trump was “giving the green light to [the insurrectionists]” who
“truly latch on to every word and every tweet.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">While lawmakers hid from rioters, Trump called Alabama
senator Tommy Tuberville to ask him to stall the electoral college vote
certification whenever (or<i> if</i>) it could safely resume. Trump reached
Tuberville around 2:26 p.m. and was </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2021/what-happened-trump-jan-6-insurrection/"><span style="background: white;">notified</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;"> </span><span style="background: white;">that Mike Pence, his wife, his brother, and his
daughter had just been whisked away from the Senate floor. Later reports showed
that seditionists missed Pence and his family by </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/pence-rioters-capitol-attack/2021/01/15/ab62e434-567c-11eb-a08b-f1381ef3d207_story.html"><span style="background: white;">one
minute</span></a><span style="background: white;"> (or “</span><a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/07/22/mike-pence-jan-6-hearing-insurrection"><span style="background: white;">five to
10 feet</span></a><span style="background: white;">” by another account). <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">An </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/07/15/jan-6-i-alone-can-fix-it-book-excerpt/"><span style="background: white;">excerpt</span></a><span style="background: white;"> from <i>I Alone Can Fix It</i> by reporters </span>Carol Leonnig and Philip
Rucker described the scene:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“At that moment, Pence
was still in his ceremonial office — protected by Secret Service agents, but vulnerable
because the second-floor office had windows that could be breached and the
intruding thugs had gained control of the building. Tim Giebels, the lead
special agent in charge of the vice president’s protective detail, twice asked
Pence to evacuate the Capitol, but Pence refused. ‘I’m not leaving the
Capitol,’ he told Giebels. The last thing the vice president wanted was the
people attacking the Capitol to see his 20-car motorcade fleeing. That would
only vindicate their insurrection.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“At 2:26, after a team
of agents scouted a safe path to ensure the Pences would not encounter trouble,
Giebels and the rest of Pence’s detail guided them down a staircase to a secure
subterranean area that rioters couldn’t reach, where the vice president’s
armored limousine awaited. Giebels asked Pence to get in one of the vehicles.
‘We can hold here,’ he said.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At 2:28, Mark
Meadows <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/tv/this-is-a-shtshow-cnns-john-king-summarizes-texts-sent-to-mark-meadows-begging-trump-to-call-off-jan-6-rioters/">received</a> a text from Republican
representative-elect Marjorie Taylor Greene (“Please tell the president to calm
people…This isn’t the way to solve anything”). Meadows would continue to field desperate
pleas from Trump allies to stop the violence over the next half hour.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Around 2:30, Capitol police chief Steven Sund <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/06/jan-6-generals-lied-ex-dc-guard-official-523777">asked</a> Lieutenant
Generals Walter Piatt and Charles Flynn (the brother of <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-should-declare-martial-law-michael-flynn-retweeted-his-now-banned-account-1654226">Martial Law advocate</a> Michael Flynn) for permission to deploy the National Guard.<b> <o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Accompanying
Sund were Major General William Walker (the commander of the D.C. National
Guard), Walker’s counsel (Colonel Earl Matthews), and D.C. chief of police
Robert Contee. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Walker
<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/03/dc-national-guard-chief-capitol-attack-473266">had buses of troops ready
to go</a>. <b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">According
to Colonel Matthews, Piatt told Sund he<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trump-protests-washington-guard-military/2021/01/07/c5299b56-510e-11eb-b2e8-3339e73d9da2_story.html"><span style="color: black;"> </span><span style="color: #0070c0;">didn’t like
“the optics</span></a>” of “having armed military personnel on the grounds of the
Capitol,” though the Defense Department had had no concern for “optics” the
previous June, when they had<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/07/us/police-response-black-lives-matter-protest-us-capitol/index.html"><span style="color: #0070c0;"> deployed
armed military personnel</span></a> at peaceful Black Lives Matter protests. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">After
police chief Contee threatened to ask D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser to have a press
conference exposing Piatt and Flynn’s suspicious delay, Piatt’s <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/06/jan-6-generals-lied-ex-dc-guard-official-523777">fallback suggestion</a> was to have <span style="background: white;">“Guardsmen take
over D.C. police officers’ traffic duties so those officers could head to the
Capitol.” </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">This too was baffling, as a hand-off
would take more time than sending the Guard directly to the Capitol. As </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/06/jan-6-generals-lied-ex-dc-guard-official-523777"><span style="background: white;">reported</span></a><span style="background: white;"> by <i>Politico</i>, Colonel Matthews’ </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/06/jan-6-generals-lied-ex-dc-guard-official-523777"><span style="background: white;">36-page
memo</span></a><span style="background: white;"> about January 6 said
that “Every D.C. Guard leader was desperate to get to the Capitol to help…then
stunned by the delay in deployment. Responding to civil unrest in Washington is
‘a foundational mission, a statutory mission of the D.C. National Guard.’”</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Army Secretary
Ryan McCarthy had been invited to the call but was “incommunicado or
unreachable for most of the afternoon,” according to Matthews. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As
Trump’s Defense Department officials let seditionists ravage the Capitol, Trump
allies—including former New Jersey governor <a href="https://www.axios.com/chris-christie-trump-january-6-feefb7e3-a3af-41ad-b442-93accdb02bd8.html">Chris Christie</a>, senator
Lindsey Graham, House minority leader Kevin McCarthy, and former advisor
Kellyanne Conway—called the White House to try to get Trump to act.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">But
the commander-in-chief wasn’t taking calls. He was wrapped up in watching the<a href="https://clinecenter.illinois.edu/coup-detat-project-cdp/statement_jan.27.2021"><span style="color: #0070c0;"> attempted <i>coup</i></span></a><span style="color: #0070c0;"> </span>he’d fomented
on Fox in the West Wing dining room. As one aide <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-mob-failure/2021/01/11/36a46e2e-542e-11eb-a817-e5e7f8a406d6_story.html">told</a> a reporter, “‘<span style="background: white;">He was hard to reach, and you know why? Because it was
live TV….If it’s TiVo, he just hits pause and takes the calls. If it’s live TV,
he watches it, and he was just watching it all unfold.’”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">According to White
House counsel Pat Cipollone, Trump was also <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/07/jan-6-committee-finale-trump-complicity.html">pressured</a> (in person) to ask the
rioters to go home by “<span style="background: white;">Fellow lawyers </span><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Pat Philbin and Eric Herschmann, Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner…Press
Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, [Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications] Dan
Scavino, [</span><span style="background: white;">Pence National Security Advisor] Gen. Keith Kellogg, and White House
Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.” </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Fulfilling the request would have required minimal effort. Trump’s
deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jul/22/january-6-panel-gripping-finale-trump-us-capitol-riot"><span style="line-height: 107%;">told</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> <span style="background: white;">the January 6
House Select Committee</span>, <span style="background: white; color: #121212;">“It
would take probably less than 60 seconds to get from the Oval Office dining
room to the press briefing room. There’s a camera that is on in there at all
times. If the president wanted to address people, he could have done so.”</span><span style="background: white; color: red;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">But Trump was unmoved,
even when his daughter Ivanka initially <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/02/politics/bennie-thompson-trump-capitol-insurrection/index.html">asked</a> him to stop
the violence, perhaps because he <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/12/the-chilling-lesson-of-mark-meadows-january-6-text-messages.html">felt</a> the rioters
kept his hopes alive by obstructing the certification. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Eventually, Trump took a call from Republican House minority
leader Kevin McCarthy, who was inside the Capitol. Republican representative
Jamie Herrera Beutler, who was with McCarthy, </span><a href="https://twitter.com/herrerabeutler/status/1360419828721401856?s=21"><span style="background: white;">tweeted</span></a><span style="background: white;"> that “When McCarthy finally reached the president on January 6 and
asked him to publicly and forcefully call off the riot, the president initially
repeated the falsehood that it was anti-fascists that had breached the
Capitol….McCarthy refuted that and told the president that these were Trump
supporters. That's when, according to McCarthy, the president said, ‘Well,
Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.’”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">This was of a piece with a comment from Republican senator
Ben Sasse that Trump was </span>“<a href="https://edition.cnn.com/politics/live-news/washington-dc-riots-trump-news-friday/h_3b3d237d139679d425ef2e0a54ddfca7"><span style="background: white; color: #0070c0;">confused about why other people on his team weren’t as excited as he was</span></a><span style="background: white;"> as you had rioters pushing against Capitol Police trying to get into
the building.” Sasse also mentioned that Trump was talking to the other people
in the room about “a path by which he was going to stay in office after January
20.” </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white;">Key to this path was a delay in the certification. As they
hid in </span></span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/03/21/couy-griffin-cowboys-trump-jan6/"><span style="background: white;">an
underground Senate loading dock</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white;">,</span></span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white; color: red;"> </span></span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white;">Trump’s deputy
chief of staff (in charge of the Secret Service) Tim Giebels </span></span><a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/secret-service-rush-to-evacuate-pence-from-besieged-capitol-becomes-coup-focus"><span style="background: white;">asked</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white;"> Mike Pence to get into one of the Secret Service-protected
vehicles. </span></span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/07/15/jan-6-i-alone-can-fix-it-book-excerpt/"><span style="background: white;">According
to</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white;"> reporting in <i>I Alone Can Fix It</i>,
Pence replied, “</span></span>I’m not getting in the car, Tim….I trust you, Tim, but you’re not
driving the car. If I get in that vehicle, you guys are taking off. I’m not
getting in the car.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/07/15/jan-6-i-alone-can-fix-it-book-excerpt/">Another excerpt</a> from <i>I Alone Can Fix
It</i> indicates that Pence had good reason to stay put. In the scene
described, Mike Pence’s national security advisor Keith Kellogg interacts with <span style="background: white;">White House
Deputy Chief of Staff/liaison to the Secret Service Anthony Ornato. The
exchange takes place shortly </span>after Pence’s refusal to get into the
Secret Service car. Ornato’s loyalties—to Donald Trump or democracy—are in
question, as Trump had brought Ornato to the White House from the Secret
Service, a <a href="https://www.salon.com/2022/06/30/reporter-acolyte-disputed-hutchinson-testimony-broke-every-secret-tradition_partner/">major break</a> with the non-partisan
code of the Secret Service:<span style="color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Kellogg
ran into Tony Ornato in the West Wing. Ornato, who oversaw Secret Service
movements, told him that Pence’s detail was planning to move the vice president
to Joint Base Andrews. ‘You can’t do that, Tony,’ Kellogg said. ‘Leave him
where he’s at. He’s got a job to do. I know you guys too well. You’ll fly him
to Alaska if you have a chance. Don’t do it.’”<span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">While Pence held firm, Ivanka Trump convinced her father to
make a half-hearted attempt to defuse the violence with a</span><a href="https://www.thetrumparchive.com/"><span style="line-height: 107%;"> tweet</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> at 2:38:
“Please support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement. They are truly on the
side of our Country. Stay peaceful!”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Donald Trump, Jr. </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/13/hes-got-to-condemn-this-shit-panel-releases-urgent-jan-6-texts-from-trump-jr-lawmakers-524188"><span style="line-height: 107%;">texted</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> Mark
Meadows in response: “He’s got to condemn this shit ASAP. The capitol police
tweet is not enough.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At 3:13 p.m., Trump sent another tweet:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“I am asking for everyone at the U.S. Capitol to remain
peaceful. No violence! Remember, WE are the Party of Law & Order – respect
the Law and our great men and women in Blue. Thank you!”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">But President Trump </span><a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/07/22/sarah-matthews-trump-tweets-jan-6-hearing"><span style="line-height: 107%;">wouldn’t</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> ask the
insurrectionists to leave the Capitol, </span><a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/10/13/footage-pelosi-schumer-mcconnel-jan6"><span style="line-height: 107%;">which
forced</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> Mike Pence and Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck
Schumer to call the governors of Virginia and Maryland, the secretary of
defense, the attorney general, anyone who could help. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">By 3:45, Trump spokesman Jason
Miller had come up with messaging which could end the insurrection and appease
the president (by shifting the blame). Miller </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/25/politics/mark-meadows-texts-2319/index.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">texted</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> Mark Meadows and (Trump aide) Dan Scavino two tweet suggestions:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in 12pt 0.5in; mso-list: l4 level1 lfo5; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #262626;">1)<span style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">“Bad apples, likely ANTIFA or other crazed
leftists, infiltrated today’s peaceful protest over the fraudulent vote count.
Violence is never acceptable! MAGA supporters embrace our police and the rule
of law and should leave the Capitol now!”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in 12pt 0.5in; mso-list: l4 level1 lfo5; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: georgia;">2)<span style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><!--[endif]--><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">“The fake news media who encouraged this summer’s violent and radical
riots are now trying to blame peaceful and innocent MAGA supporters for violent
actions. This isn't who we are! Our people should head home and let the
criminals suffer the consequences!”</span><span style="background: rgb(251, 254, 255);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">At 4:06 p.m., president-elect Joe Biden tweeted </span><a href="https://twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1MYGNmNwMRoKw?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1346926053462319114%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2F2022%2F01%2F05%2F1069977469%2Fa-timeline-of-how-the-jan-6-attack-unfolded-including-who-said-what-and-when"><span style="line-height: 107%;">a speech</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="line-height: 107%;">:<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“I call on President Trump to go on national television now,
to fulfill his oath and defend the Constitution and demand an end to this
siege. This is not a protest. It is an insurrection.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Since Trump’s tweets had had little discernible
impact on the insurrectionists, his advisors came up with </span><a href="https://deadline.com/2022/07/trump-january-sixth-speech-changes-raw-video-1235074800/"><span style="background: white;">a
neutral, yet unequivocal video statement</span></a><span style="background: white;">:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“I urge all of my supporters to do exactly what 99% of them have
already been doing — express their passions and opinions PEACEFULLY.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“My supporters have a right to make their voices heard, but make
no mistake — NO ONE should be using violence or threats of violence to express
themselves. Especially at the U.S. Capitol. Let’s respect our institutions.
Let’s all do better.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“I am asking you to leave the Capitol Hill region NOW and go home
in a peaceful way.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Trump agreed to ask his followers to
go home, but ad-libbed disinformation which fed the misplaced rage at the heart
of the insurrection. </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">His video plea was posted at 4:17
p.m., over two hours into the breach and over <i>three hours</i> after he
became aware of the violence outside the Capitol: </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“It was a landslide election. And everyone knows it.
Especially the other side. But you have to go home….There’s never been a time
like this when such a thing happened when they could take it away from all of
us. From me, from you, from our country. This was a fraudulent election….Go
home. We love you. You're very special.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">As </span><a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/79623/crisis-of-command-the-pentagon-the-president-and-january-6/"><span style="background: white;">reported</span></a><span style="background: white;"> by Ryan Goodman and Justin Hendrix, “According to the </span><a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Jan6-Clearinghouse-Department-of-Defense-Planning-and-Execution-Timeline.pdf"><span style="background: white; color: #2e74b5;">Department of Defense</span></a><span style="background: white;">’s and </span><a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/january-6-clearinghouse-Internal-Report-of-US-Army-Operations-on-January-6-2021-March-18-2021.pdf"><span style="background: white; color: #2e74b5;">U.S. Army</span></a><span style="background: white;">’s own timelines, it is only after President Trump
publicly released [his video statement] that [Defense Secretary Christopher] Miller
approved [Army Secretary Ryan] McCarthy’s plan for deploying the D.C. National
Guard to the Capitol and even later when McCarthy authorized [D.C. National
Guard commander William] Walker to deploy his forces to the Capitol.”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The
National Guard finally <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/03/03/973292523/dod-took-hours-to-approve-national-guard-request-during-capitol-riot-commander-s">arrived</a> at 5:20 p.m.<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The
Capitol<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/01/15/us/trump-capitol-riot-timeline.html"><span style="color: black;"> </span><span style="color: #0070c0;">was cleared</span></a> at 5:34 p.m.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At
6:01 p.m., Trump <a href="https://factba.se/topic/flagged-tweets#:~:text=These%20are%20the%20things%20and,Remember%20this%20day%20forever!">tweeted</a><span style="color: #5b9bd5;"> </span>“These are
the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is
so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have
been badly & unfairly treated for so long….Go home with love & in
peace. Remember this day forever!” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Around
7 p.m., with an hour to go before the vote count would resume, Rudy Giuliani <a href="https://thedispatch.com/article/giuliani-to-senator-try-to-just-slow/">called</a> what he thought was Alabama
senator Tommy Tuberville’s cellphone and left a voicemail. Giuliani mistakenly dialed the wrong senator, who gave <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=80&v=2EoLug0n0KM&feature=emb_title">the recording</a> to <i>The
Dispatch</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In the
message, Giuliani asked the senator to organize objections to ten states won by
Joe Biden in order to drag the certification out as long as possible,
preferably until the end of the following day. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Giuliani said
that the delay would give Republicans more time to present “evidence” of fraud
in key swing states. Another goal could have been to impede the certification in
order to allow more time for the resolution of a longshot election lawsuit that
was before the Supreme Court (who <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/supreme-court-trump-election-disputes/">would refuse to expedite</a><span style="color: red;"> </span>the claim on January 11).
This was one of <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/08/02/trump-indictment-lawmakers-jan-6-phone-calls">eight members</a> of Congress Giuliani
reached out to throughout January 6.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">After
Mike Pence re-started the official vote count, Trump’s lawyer John Eastman <a href="https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/21397551/031137348875.pdf">emailed</a> Pence’s
lawyer, Greg Jacob, claiming that Pence was breaking the Electoral Count Act
because debate was going “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2021/what-happened-trump-jan-6-insurrection/">past the allotted time</a>.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Pence
<a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/01/05/1069977469/a-timeline-of-how-the-jan-6-attack-unfolded-including-who-said-what-and-when">officially certified</a> Joe Biden’s victory
at 3:42 a.m. on <b>January 7, 2021</b>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Biden’s
win was
certified despite the objections of<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/01/more-dangerous-capitol-riot/617655/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=atlantic-daily-newsletter&utm_content=20210113&silverid-ref=NjY0NzQxMzgxNDkxS0"><span style="color: #0070c0;"> two-thirds
of House Republicans and eight Republican senators</span></a> who came out
of hiding to<span style="color: #ff0066;"> </span>spout<a href="https://www.factcheck.org/2020/12/nine-election-fraud-claims-none-credible/"><span style="color: #0070c0;"> election
fraud lies</span></a> which had jeopardized their safety just hours earlier.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.2in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Remarkably, dead-enders
continued to push Trump’s cause after the sun came up.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.2in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/06/john-eastman-hearing-criminal-defense-pardon.html">According to</a> White House counsel Eric Herschmann, he
received a call from John Eastman the day after the insurrection “asking <span style="color: #222222;">for legal work
‘preserving something potentially for appeal’ in the contested state of Georgia,”
where Trump lawyer Sidney Powell flew—</span><a href="https://www.ajc.com/politics/georgia-election-data-copied-under-direction-of-trump-attorney/XCPM33PXC5ABJN6UXG645EXLM4/">that same day</a><span style="color: #222222;">—to </span><a href="https://www.ajc.com/politics/georgia-election-data-copied-under-direction-of-trump-attorney/XCPM33PXC5ABJN6UXG645EXLM4/">gather confidential voter
data</a><span style="color: #222222;">. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.2in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #222222;">Herschmann
reportedly </span>told<span style="color: red;"> </span><span style="color: #222222;">Eastman,
“You’re out of your effin’ mind” and </span>“Now
I’m going to give you the best free legal advice you’re getting in your life:
Get a great effing criminal defense lawyer. You’re going to need it.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.2in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #222222;">Not
long after this conversation, Eastman </span><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/john-eastman-asked-for-a-presidential-pardon-after-january-6-hearing-2022-6">emailed</a><span style="color: #222222;"> Rudy
Giuliani to ask if he could be added to the growing list of pardon requests. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">While some administration
officials <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/07/politics/resignations-trump-white-house/index.html">resigned</a> and others pondered <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/lawmakers-call-trumps-impeachment-wake-capitol-hill-violence/story?id=75097032">using the 25<sup>th</sup>
amendment</a>
to force Donald Trump from office, Ivanka Trump patiently <a href="https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/1550313169729511426">fought off</a> temper tantrums as she tried
to coax her father to make a statement condemning the violence he had caused. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump <a href="https://headtopics.com/ca/i-can-t-say-that-outtakes-show-trump-having-difficulty-admitting-he-lost-the-election-28339077">couldn’t</a> admit he had lost. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">He <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-refused-say-january-6-rioters-prosecuted-fullest-extent-law-2022-7">cut out</a> language in a prepared speech
about the importance of law and order, one of his favorite themes during the
campaign, removing his advisors’ verbiage that <span style="background: white;">“I am directing the Department of
Justice to ensure all lawbreakers are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the
law. We must send a clear message—not with mercy but with JUSTICE. Legal
consequences must be swift and firm.” </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Trump removed a line that could have
insulted his fanbase: “I want to be very clear you do not represent me. You do
not represent our movement.” </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump’s
most feral supporters had done substantial damage. They had inflicted severe <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/04/magazine/jan-6-capitol-police-officers.html">trauma</a> on Capitol law
enforcement and members of Congress. They had <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/capitol-police-injuries-riot/">injured</a> more than 150 law
enforcement officers and contributed to the deaths of five (an Iraq War vet who was<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-police-officer/homicide-investigation-opened-into-death-of-capitol-police-officer-idUSKBN29D2LI"><span style="color: black;"> </span><span style="color: #0070c0;">bashed in
the head with a fire extinguisher</span></a> and four who later <a href="https://www.axios.com/four-police-officers-january-6-die-by-suicide-37e8cb88-9414-42b2-85a9-aebfb727ca2b.html">committed suicide</a>). Their rampage cost
America’s taxpayers <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-04/national-guard-s-post-riot-deployment-cost-at-least-480-million?sref=IYQ5mP1s"><span style="color: #0070c0;">$480
million</span></a> to secure the Capitol (with 25,000 National Guard members) before
Joe Biden’s inauguration. Taxpayers spent another <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/capitol-riot-defendants-pay-damages-restitution/2021/06/03/74691812-c3ec-11eb-93f5-ee9558eecf4b_story.html">$1.5 million dollars</a> to repair
the citadel of American democracy.
The damage done to America’s long-standing tradition of peaceful transfers of
power was (and still is) incalculable. <span style="color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">To
date, Donald Trump has expressed no contrition for inciting the January 6 insurrection.</span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In
a TV appearance in September of 2021, ABC reporter
Jonathan Karl, who interviewed Trump for his book <i>Betrayal: the Final Act of
the Trump Show</i>, <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/week-transcript-19-21-dr-anthony-fauci-adm/story?id=80098106">said</a>, “I was absolutely
dumbfounded at how fondly he looks back on January 6th. He thinks it was a
great day. He thinks it was one of the greatest days of his time in politics.” </span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">***</span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Four
years after Donald Trump’s failed <i>coup</i> attempt, big gaps remain in the
public’s understanding of January 6, 2021.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The <span style="background: white;">January 6 House Select Committee </span>was hobbled in their
mission by a long list of Trump allies who </span><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-20/jan-6-panel-s-trump-subpoena-battles-show-limits-to-congress-power"><span style="line-height: 107%;">refused
to appear</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> before the committee or </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/12/06/jeffrey-clark-john-eastman-join-some-rare-company-pleading-fifth-jan-6-committee/"><span style="line-height: 107%;">pleaded
the 5<sup>th</sup> Amendment</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> when they did. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/29/us/politics/jan-6-committee-trump-subpoena.html">Encrypted communications</a> among Republican
conspirators, insurrectionist organizers, and <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/jan-6-rally-organizers-trump-white-house-1262122/"><i>between</i> organizers and
Republican conspirators</a> have slipped into the ether. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Phone
communications on January 6 among members of key government agencies—the Secret
Service, the <a href="https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/crew-investigations/missing-jan-6th-texts-due-to-signal-personal-phone-use/#:~:text=The%20reason%20the%20government%20is,Cuccinnelli's%20use%20of%20a%20personal">Department of Homeland
Security</a>,
and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/02/pentagon-jan-6-phones-wiped/">the Defense Department</a>—<a href="https://twitter.com/BeschlossDC/status/1554566226524999687">have disappeared</a>. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">During
the <span style="background: white;">January
6 House Select Committee hearings</span>, <span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white;">Representative Jamie Raskin called Mike Pence’s
refusal to get into the Secret Service vehicle (“I’m not getting into that
car”) “the six most chilling words of this entire thing I’ve seen so far” and </span></span><a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/secret-service-rush-to-evacuate-pence-from-besieged-capitol-becomes-coup-focus"><span style="background: white;">asserted</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white;"> that the efforts to get Pence out of the Capitol were
motivated by a desire to delay the vote certification: “[Pence] knew exactly
what this inside coup they had planned for was to do.”</span></span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span color="windowtext" style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.rawstory.com/secret-service-january-6-texts/?utm_source=123456&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=10880&recip_id=24770&list_id=1"><span style="background: white;">The role
of Secret Service members</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white;"> in
Trump’s plot could be a critical piece of the puzzle, but Secret Service texts
from January 5 and January 6 </span></span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/30/politics/secret-service-timeline/index.html"><span style="background: white;">mysteriously
disappeared</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white;">. </span></span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span color="windowtext" style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white;">The texts vanished </span></span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/14/politics/secret-service-text-messages-erased/index.html"><i><span style="background: white;">after</span></i></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><i><span style="background: white;"> </span></i></span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white;">multiple<i>
</i>House committees requested all such records be preserved </span></span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jul/16/secret-service-deleted-text-messages-january-6?utm_term=62d3f2bb075d189ccdf58a77daf2888d&utm_campaign=GuardianTodayUS&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&CMP=GTUS_email"><span style="background: white;">on
January 16, 2021</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white;">. The
Trump-appointed Department of Homeland Security inspector general Joseph
Cuffari </span></span><a href="https://www.rawstory.com/olivia-troye-reveals-she-went-public-because-she-did-not-trust-dhs-inspector-general/?utm_source=123456&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=10923&recip_id=24770&list_id=1"><span style="background: white;">discovered</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white;"> that these texts had been deleted in May of 2021 but
didn’t notify Congress until July 14, 2022. Officials in the inspector
general’s office </span></span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/11/missing-secret-service-texts-congress-notified-april?utm_term=62f639ba68174f075b527328e4e7e5f4&utm_campaign=GuardianTodayUS&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&CMP=GTUS_email"><span style="background: white;">wrote a
memo</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white;"> notifying Congress of the
missing texts in April of 2022, but Cuffari didn’t forward the information. </span></span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span color="windowtext" style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white;">Not surprisingly, Joe Biden </span></span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/dec/31/joe-biden-secret-service-team-trump-loyalty?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email"><span style="background: white;">hired a
new Secret Service team</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white;"> on entering
office. </span></span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span color="windowtext" style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white;">An </span></span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/04/06/homeland-security-watchdog-secret-service-texts/"><span style="background: white;">investigation</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white;"> is ongoing.</span></span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span color="windowtext" style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white;">The biggest mystery is </span></span><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">why backup deployment to the
Capitol took so long. </span><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.25pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">This delay
happened despite the fact that chief of staff Mark Meadows, who was with Trump,
was in “<a href="https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2021/09/25/Joe-Biden-executive-privilege-Trump-records-January-6/5811632577831/"><span style="color: #0070c0;">non-stop</span></a>” communication all day
with Kash Patel, the chief of staff for Defense Secretary Christopher
Miller—whom Trump had installed after losing the 2020 election. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">One <a href="https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2022/12/1/2139214/-Did-Some-in-Our-Federal-Police-Conspire-to-Overthrow-America">line of thought</a> is that Trump’s
appointees <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Jan6-Clearinghouse-Acting-Secretary-of-Defense-Christopher-Miller-Memorandum-for-Secretary-of-Army-Employment-Guidance-for-the-DC-National-Guard-Jan-4-2021.pdf">handcuffed</a> D.C. police and conspired
to delay National Guard deployment to give the insurrectionists time to stop
the vote certification. Miller was perfectly aware of
how dire the situation was from early on and yet reportedly didn’t <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2021/what-happened-trump-jan-6-insurrection/">sign on</a><span style="color: red;"> </span>to<span style="color: red;"> </span>the emergency deployment until 4:32
p.m., two hours and 43 minutes after Capitol police chief Steven Sund
first asked for backup. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">And it’s hard to imagine <span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations General Charles Flynn (whose
brother Michael Flynn was in Trump’s inner circle of <i>coup</i> planners)
being disappointed if the certification didn’t happen. This could explain his
odd concern about “optics” when </span>Capitol
police chief Steven Sund asked for permission to deploy backup around 2:30 p.m.
Colonel Earl Matthews, a lawyer for the commanding general of the D.C. National
Guard, said that Flynn and his cohort Lieutenant General Walter Piatt were “</span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/06/jan-6-generals-lied-ex-dc-guard-official-523777"><span style="line-height: 107%;">absolute
and unmitigated liars</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">” when they spoke to <span style="background: white;">the January 6 House Select Committee.</span></span><b><span style="line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A second <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/79623/crisis-of-command-the-pentagon-the-president-and-january-6/">theory</a>, based on the testimony
of General Mark Milley (chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff) and <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/january-6-clearinghouse-house-oversight-hearing-chris-christopher-testimony-may-2021.pdf">Christopher Miller</a> before the January 6
committee, is that deployment was held off out of fear that the introduction of
troops could create the chaos Trump needed to invoke the Insurrection Act, just
as the Oath Keepers <a href="https://twitter.com/RightWingWatch/status/1337847629494018053">hoped he would</a>. The timing of
deployment—after Trump had asked his supporters to go home in the 4:17 p.m.
video—may support this theory. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Or maybe Miller
and/or Milley were covering their butts before the <span style="background: white;">House Select Committee. </span>Maybe
the deployment happened when it did because Mike Pence and congressional
leadership were pushing the Department of Defense to act and Miller/Milley felt
that Trump’s 4:17 p.m. video statement indicated that he no longer expected
their acquiescence. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">Hopefully more will
come out about key players’ actions and motivations in the </span><a href="https://www.jan-6.com/jack-smith-trump-investigation?gad_source=1"><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">Jack Smith</span></a><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.25pt;"> and </span><a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/read-the-full-georgia-indictment-against-trump-and-18-allies"><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">Fani Willis</span></a><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.25pt;"> investigations of Trump’s election interference. </span><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.25pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">What we know
with absolute certainty is that </span><a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/big-lie-trump-stolen-election-inside-creation">The Big Lie</a> which fueled Donald
Trump’s <i>coup</i> attempt looks even more preposterous now than it did in the
aftermath of the 2020 presidential election.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">When “Kraken” attorney
Sidney Powell was sued by Dominion, her lawyers defended their client by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/23/sidney-powell-trump-election-fraud-claims"><span style="color: #0070c0;">claiming</span></a> that “no reasonable
person” would have believed Powell’s attacks on
Dominion.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Big Lie
perpetrators, from <a href="http://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2023-12-15/jury-orders-giuliani-to-pay-georgia-election-workers">Rudy Giuliani</a> to <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/04/21/1171193932/mypillow-founder-mike-lindell-is-ordered-to-pay-5m-in-election-fraud-challenge">Mike Lindell</a> to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/05/media/dominion-exec-oan-lawsuit-settlement/index.html">One America News</a> to <a href="https://apnews.com/article/sidney-powell-plea-deal-georgia-election-indictment-ec7dc601ad78d756643aa2544028e9f5">Sidney Powell</a> to <a href="https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4272293-ellis-plea-hearing-deep-remorse-trump/">Jenna Ellis</a> to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/20/politics/kenneth-chesebro-georgia-election-subversion/index.html">Kenneth Chesebro</a> have flipped or lost/settled
court cases. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">For News <a href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/judge-deals-fox-defeat-in-dominion-case">settled</a> a $787 million
defamation lawsuit with Dominion. The presiding judge said, “The evidence
developed in this civil proceeding demonstrates that [it] is crystal clear that
none of the Statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The conspiracy
peddlers have lost court cases because the real-world data collected about the 2020
has been remarkably consistent and in line with previous studies showing voter
fraud to be <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/01/truth-about-election-fraud-its-rare/">very rare</a>. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In fact, two
studies the Trump campaign paid for in November and December of 2020 contradicted
their public messaging. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Berkeley
Research Group tested “at least a dozen hypotheses <span style="color: #2a2a2a;">that
Trump’s team wanted tested,” </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/02/11/trump-campaign-report-electoral-fraud/">according to</a><span style="color: #2a2a2a;"> Josh
Dawsey of <i>the Washington Post</i>. Dawsey’s source said, “</span>None of these were
significant enough [to impact the election result]….Just like any election,
there are always errors, omissions and irregularities. It was nowhere close
enough to what they wanted to prove, and it actually went in both directions.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Simpatico
Software Systems was <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2024/01/02/trump-lies-voter-fraud-2020-impact-2024-election/72057016007/">hired</a> by the Trump campaign on
the day after the election. Simpatico’s founder, Ken Block, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/04/27/trump-false-election-fraud-claims/">told</a> <i>the Post</i>, “No
substantive voter fraud was uncovered in my investigations looking for it, nor
was I able to confirm any of the outside claims of voter fraud that I was asked
to look at….Every fraud claim I was asked to investigate was false.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Thomas Windom,
a senior<span style="background: white;"> assistant special counsel
in Jack Smith’s insurrection investigation, </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/09/jack-smith-reveals-sweeping-scope-of-bid-to-debunk-trump-election-machine-claims-00130965"><span style="background: white;">told</span></a><span style="background: white;"> <i>Politico</i> “</span>that prosecutors asked Trump’s ‘former DNI, former acting
secretary of DHS, former acting deputy secretary of DHS, former CISA director,
former acting CISA director, former CISA senior cyber counsel, former national
security adviser, former deputy NSA, former chief of staff to the National
Security Council, former chairman of the Election Assistance Commission,
presidential intelligence briefer, former secretary of Defense and former DOJ
leadership’ for any evidence of that foreign or domestic actors flipped a
single vote from a voting machine in 2020.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="story-textparagraph"><span style="font-family: georgia;">They offered none, he says.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Recounts from the six states at the
heart of the 2020 presidential election further disproved Trump’s fraud claims.
And the consistency of swing state results from 2020 to 2022 suggest that the
former was no fluke. </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Georgia did <a href="https://www.11alive.com/article/news/politics/elections/georgia-election-recount-results-final-numbers/85-cbaacd70-f7e0-40ae-8dfa-3bf18f318645"><span style="color: #0070c0;">three
recounts</span></a>,
one by hand. All three verified a Biden margin of over 11,000 ballots. Biden’s <a href="https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/results/president">win</a> was within
.6% of the <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/">pre-election projections</a><span class="MsoHyperlink"> </span>at Nate
Silver’s 538.com. In 2022, Democratic Senate candidate Raphael Warnock <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2022-elections/georgia-senate-runoff-results">beat</a> Republican
Herschel Walker by almost 100,000 votes in the Peach State, despite <a href="https://publicintegrity.org/politics/elections/who-counts/voting-rights-under-attack-in-georgia-as-state-turns-purple/">aggressive voter
suppression legislation</a> passed by Republicans in 2021. <span style="color: red;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The
final 2020 tally in Arizona was within <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/az/arizona_trump_vs_biden-6807.html">.6%</a> of the
RealClearPolitics polling projection. A thorough <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/02/22/arizona-election-fraud-claims-mark-brnovich/">study</a> conducted by
Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich (which involved 60 staff and 10,000
person hours) found “no
evidence of election fraud, manipulation of the election process, or any
instances of organized/coordinated fraud was provided by any of the complaining
parties.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">An
independent audit of Arizona’s largest county, Maricopa, found <a href="https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/elections/2021/02/23/maricopa-countys-election-audits-show-2020-votes-counted-correctly/4550644001/">no change</a> in Biden’s
margin of victory. Arizona’s Republican legislature didn’t like this finding,
so they hired Cyber Ninjas, a <a href="https://slate.com/technology/2021/05/arizona-recount-cyber-ninjas-doug-logan-explained.html">Trump-supporting </a> (and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/27/trump-secretly-donated-1m-arizona-election-audit?CMP=GTUS_email">Trump-supported</a>) security
company, on the taxpayer dime. The Cyber Ninjas’ audit <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/24/us/arizona-election-review-trump-biden.html?referringSource=articleShare">increased</a> Biden’s
Maricopa margin by 360 votes. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In
2022, Democrats won the two most hotly-contested races in Arizona—for governor
and U.S. Senate—despite party-line Republican voter suppression legislation <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/arizona-epicenter-fight-voting-rights-today">passed</a> after the
2020 election. Incumbent Democratic senator Mark Kelly won by almost six
points. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A
recount of Wisconsin’s two biggest Democratic counties requested by Republicans
<a href="https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-joe-biden-donald-trump-madison-wisconsin-7aef88488e4a801545a13cf4319591b0">padded</a> Biden’s
20,000+-vote margin by another 87 ballots. A 2021 <a href="https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-wisconsin-presidential-elections-state-elections-madison-9a2f172dd8074668ded26bd5b0b41fbb">nonpartisan audit</a> <span style="background: white;">showed that 2020 was “largely safe and secure” in the
words of the Republican co-chair of the committee that commissioned the report.</span>
A 14-month partisan audit done by Republicans to placate Donald Trump found “<a href="https://wisconsinexaminer.com/brief/dane-co-judge-says-election-review-has-found-absolutely-no-evidence-of-fraud/">absolutely no evidence</a>” of fraud
before it was disbanded. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In
2022, African-American Democrat Mandela Barnes narrowly lost to incumbent U.S. Senator
Ron Johnson (after being <a href="https://www.wizmnews.com/2022/11/07/sen-ron-johnson-losing-in-direct-donations-but-dominating-outside-spending-over-challenger-lt-gov-barnes/">swamped</a> by outside
money and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/nov/04/wisconsin-republicans-racist-attack-ads-democrat-mandela-barnes">racist appeals</a>), but
Democrats won four out of the other five statewide offices. Democratic governor
Tony Evers, the <a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-wisconsin-us-elections-balance-20220908-nngeyywg5vftfonwi4si2qkxlm-story.html">bulwark</a> against a
complete Republican takeover of the state’s election system, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/09/tony-evers-tim-michels-wisconsin-governor-race-results-2022-00064761">won</a> by a comfortable 90,000 votes despite race-based <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/wisconsin-republicans/">GOP voter suppression measures</a> on the
books. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">One
month ago, as part of a settlement, Wisconsin’s fake electors put out the
following statement: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">“We hereby
reaffirm that Joseph R. Biden, Jr. won the 2020 presidential election and that
we were not the duly elected presidential electors for the State of Wisconsin
for the 2020 presidential election….We oppose any attempt to undermine the
public’s faith in the ultimate results of the 2020 presidential election.”</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Michigan’s
recount <a href="https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/local/2021/02/12/michigan-election-audit-hand-recount-matches-machine-recount-within-1/">validated</a> Biden’s
154,000-vote margin. An audit conducted by a bipartisan panel of Michigan state
senators in 2021 found “<a href="https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-joe-biden-election-2020-elections-government-and-politics-4b6643aa699480dc63cbce8555aac946">no widespread or systemic
fraud</a>.” A report released in lieu of the investigation said, <span style="background: white;">“The committee strongly recommends citizens use a
critical eye and ear toward those who have pushed demonstrably false theories
for their own personal gain.”</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Biden’s
win was small next to Democrats’ Michigan victories in 2022, in which
Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer won by 11 points and Democrats <a href="https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-government/huge-wins-democrats-theyre-poised-retake-michigan-legislature">regained control</a> of the state
legislature. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Like
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, Biden <a href="https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/results/president">won</a> Nevada by a
big enough margin—2.4 points in Biden’s case—to negate the need for
a recount. This margin was within <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/nv/nevada_trump_vs_biden-6867.html?utm_source=ballotpedia.org&utm_medium=ballotpedia_dem_pres_iowa&utm_campaign=rcp_syndicated_widgets">.3%</a> of the
RealClearPolitics’ pre-election projection. Nevada’s <i>Republican</i> Secretary
of State put out a <a href="https://www.nvsos.gov/sos/home/showdocument?id=9191">point-by-point refutation</a> of
right-wing conspiracies. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A <a href="https://www.vote.pa.gov/About-Elections/Pages/Post-Election-Audits.aspx">sample audit</a> of 63
counties in Pennsylvania after the 2020 election found results which were
within “a fraction of a percentage point” of the official tabulation. Biden’s
margin of victory—1.2%—was the <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/Pennsylvania.html">exact same margin</a> predicted by
RealClearPolitics.com. Democrats easily won the two big races in 2022: John
Fetterman clinched the U.S. Senate seat by <a href="https://www.politico.com/2022-election/results/pennsylvania/senate/">five points</a>; Josh
Shapiro <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Pennsylvania_gubernatorial_election">won</a> the
governor’s mansion by almost 15 points. Democrats also <a href="https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/democrats-set-to-win-control-of-pa-house-20221116.html">won control</a> of the state
House of Representatives for the first time in 12 years. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A <a href="https://apnews.com/article/voter-fraud-election-2020-joe-biden-donald-trump-7fcb6f134e528fee8237c7601db3328f">thorough AP study</a> of the six closest swing
states in 2020 found a<i> total</i> of less than 475 potentially fraudulent
votes. Not all of the ballots were necessarily fraudulent (thus the word
“potentially”), not all of the ballots were necessarily counted, and the
ballots came from Democrats, Republicans, and independents. Joe Biden won each
of these states by <i>more than 10,000 </i>votes. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2103619118">peer-reviewed study</a> published by the
National Academy of Sciences concluded the following: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“After the 2020 US
presidential election Donald Trump refused to concede, alleging widespread and
unparalleled voter fraud. Trump’s supporters deployed several statistical
arguments in an attempt to cast doubt on the result. Reviewing the most
prominent of these statistical claims, we conclude that none of them is even
remotely convincing. The common logic behind these claims is that, if the
election were fairly conducted, some feature of the observed 2020 election
result would be unlikely or impossible. In each case, we find that the
purportedly anomalous fact is either not a fact or not anomalous.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Lost, Not
Stolen,” a paper <a href="https://www.cato.org/blog/lost-not-stolen-prominent-conservatives-refute-2020-election-myths">published</a> by “<span style="background: white; color: #1a1714; letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">a </span><a href="https://lostnotstolen.org/"><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">group</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #1a1714; letter-spacing: 0.1pt;"> of prominent conservative legal and political
figures,” concluded that </span><span style="background: white; color: #333333;">“there is absolutely no evidence of </span><span style="background: white;">fraud in the 2020 Presidential Election on the
magnitude necessary to shift the result in any state, let alone the nation
as a whole. In fact, there was no fraud that changed the outcome in even a
single precinct.”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">The most important takeaway from all
of the evidence to emerge over the past three years is that Donald Trump did nothing
to clear the Capitol for over three hours. </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">In the </span><a href="https://january6th.house.gov/news/press-releases/thompson-cheney-luria-kinzinger-opening-statements-select-committee-hearing#:~:text=%E2%80%9CFor%20187%20minutes%20on%20January,those%20facing%20down%20the%20riot."><span style="line-height: 107%;">words</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> of <span style="background: white;">the January 6
House Select Committee co-</span>chair Bennie Thompson, <span style="background: white;">“For 187 minutes on January
6th, this man of unbridled destructive energy could not be moved—not by his aides,
not by his allies.…or the desperate pleas of those facing down the rioters….He
ignored and disregarded the desperate pleas of his own family, including Ivanka
and Don Jr., even though he was the only person in the world who could call off
the mob. He could not be moved to rise from the dining room table….and carry
his message to the violent mob.” </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Thompson’s counterpart on the
committee, Liz Cheney, was a conservative Republican who</span> endorsed
Trump in 2016 and 2020, donated to and raised money for his 2020 campaign as a <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/16/kimberly-guilfoyle-liz-cheney-jan-6-00039997">co-captain</a> of the Trump
Victory Finance Committee, and <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-trump-score/house/"><span style="color: #0070c0;">voted <i>with</i>
Trump 93% of the time</span></a> during his single term in office. In <a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/07/22/liz-cheney-jan-6-hearing-trump">closing remarks</a> made in a
January 6 committee
hearing in July of 2022, she said, “In our hearing tonight, you saw an American
president faced with a stark and unmistakable choice between right and wrong.
There was no ambiguity, no nuance. Donald Trump made a purposeful choice to
violate his oath of office.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Looking to this year’s presidential race,
Cheney posed the question every American with a conscience should ask
themselves:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;">
</p><p style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Can a president who is willing to make
the choices Donald Trump made during the violence of Jan. 6 ever be trusted
with any position of authority in our great nation again?”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="background: white; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">***</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Despite
overwhelming evidence that Joe Biden won fairly and that Donald Trump incited
an insurrection and refused to stop it, Trump’s support around the country has
remained relatively steady. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In large part,
this is because tens of millions of Americans are <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/gop-against-epa/">gullible enough</a> to <i>still</i> buy The Big Lie and the
concomitant belief that the Capitol protest was justifiable. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Credulousness
is particularly pronounced among the GOP base, whose <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/177796/polls-republicans-trump-maga-fascism">authoritarian leanings</a> and sense of victimhood
have been expertly manipulated by a steady diet of <a href="https://kansasreflector.com/2023/01/11/how-venomous-voices-from-right-wing-radio-radicalized-kansas-and-the-rest-of-america/">hate radio</a>, <a href="https://news.yale.edu/2023/03/31/study-links-hard-right-social-media-incidents-civil-unrest">far-right social media</a>, <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/177560/biden-fox-news-formidable-opponent-2024">Fox</a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span color="windowtext">,</span></span> and three years of <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/big-lie-trump-stolen-election-inside-creation">well-funded</a> disinformation about The
Big Lie.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A recent <i>Washington
Post</i> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/01/02/jan-6-poll-post-trump/">poll</a> showed that only 31% of
Republicans grasp/accept that Biden’s 2020 win was legitimate. By a 72-24% margin
Republicans believe “too much is being made of the storming of the United
States Capitol” as opposed to “January 6, 2021 was an attack on democracy that
should never be forgotten.” Only 14% of Republicans believe Trump bears “a
great deal” or “a good amount” of responsibility for the siege of the Capitol.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Capitalizing
on this vast gulf between perception and reality, Trump is currently ahead in
general election <a href="https://www.realclearpolling.com/elections/president/2024">polls</a> and <a href="https://www.electionbettingodds.com/">betting markets</a>. The leads are narrow, and Trump faces <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2023/trump-investigations-indictments/?itid=lk_inline_manual_14">numerous legal problems</a>, but there is no
guarantee that any of the cases will be resolved before the election. And even
if they were, to date Trump hasn’t gotten a scratch (polling-wise) from the
indictments; how much would a conviction change this?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The upshot is
that mass, programmed ignorance threatens 235 years of American democracy.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Donald Trump’s
America is a cauldron of fear beset with <a href="https://newrepublic.com/post/177840/bomb-threats-state-capitols-2024">bomb threats</a> at state capitols,
election workers <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2023-10-10/election-workers-quitting-exodus-threat-to-democracy">in exodus</a>, and <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/mass-shootings-days-2023-database-shows/story?id=96609874">rampant gun violence</a> rubber-stamped by a
political party whose members play along for personal <a href="https://www.vox.com/23899688/2024-election-republican-primary-death-threats-trump">safety</a> and personal gain. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">If Trump isn’t
held accountable for January 6, it will only get worse. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump’s
lawyers recently <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-oath-support-constitution-colorado-insurrection-1847482#:~:text=In%20their%20appeal%20against%20the,to%20%22support%22%20the%20Constitution.">argued</a> that he had not taken an
oath to support the Constitution prior to January 6, and the former president
has made no secret of his plans should he re-take the White House.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A cabinet of <a href="https://newrepublic.com/post/177380/trumps-proposed-cabinet-stuff-nightmares">loyal—if not necessarily
qualified--extremists</a>.
<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/11/us/politics/trump-2025-immigration-agenda.html">Mass roundups,
detentions, deportations</a> and an <a href="https://www.donaldjtrump.com/agenda47/agenda47-day-one-executive-order-ending-citizenship-for-children-of-illegals-and-outlawing-birth-tourism">end</a> to automatic citizenship
for people born in the U.S.A. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">An expansion of
Muslim <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/oct/17/trump-muslim-ban-gaza-refugees">bans</a>. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">An end to the
longstanding prohibition on <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-hints-at-expanding-domestic-role-for-the-military-within-the-u-s">using the military
domestically</a>
(in order to harass Democratic-majority cities). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-weaponization-justice-department-political-opponents/">Weaponization</a> of the historically
non-partisan Department of Justice and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/17/us/politics/trump-plans-2025.html?unlocked_article_code=2Sr7jt9DPXwm-Gj4-4lZXxexDV5xM2yvdRschhIlQjQDVbZcF_2ovF1BigWD7uAwoXKToqArji6Le1nOOs_nHfnZhQ45s8J_68xq86ypIxUw4r8jz63XSc0fDe7BRo-M5mADze7Kd64jGwBfEv1iD6tkRjNu-78eZxe8SFt_YQcU6nldlP970t0e9jQBBpZgzj4aet-EnS9as5LGsfF7tEVvD26r6zKwzjuSQHj9fAHCSAMruaFqllfWW1OUdtKBv3hmGtH6Eh7mNl-J6ghMTecM7wwW5B2QGQ54i-O12oRZZzk1Zl9jSFrj26rJJ-0o1uJ4xoPRSn27AvAEsbk&smid=tw-share">unilateral executive
branch control</a>
over government agencies. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/01/us/politics/trump-2025-lawyers.html">phalanx of far-right
lawyers</a>
in the White House and government agencies bound to Trump’s whims, rather than
the rule of law. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Replacement of
50,000 non-partisan civil service employees with <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-retribution-agenda-government-workers-schedule-f-rcna78785">partisan Republican
stooges</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">An <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/11/30/trump-obamacare-repeal-00129223">end to the Affordable
Care Act</a>
(and with it, coverage for tens of millions and protections for Americans with
pre-existing conditions). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/01/trump-lgbtq-transgender-community-protections/676139/">An assault</a> on LGBTQ rights. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/08/05/donald-trump-homeland-security-threat-00109928">Empowerment</a> of extreme-right white
nationalist groups and <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/trump-jan-6-rioters/">pardons</a> for the January 6 seditionists. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">If this seems like
cartoonishly dystopian doom-mongering, consider how much more <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-master-of-low-expectations-666.html">destructive</a> George W. Bush was than
the mild-mannered “compassionate conservative” who ran in 2000. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Or that
hundreds of thousands of Americans died needlessly because of Trump’s <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2021/05/trumpfailed.html">mishandling</a> of Covid-19. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Or how close America
came to becoming <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2023/01/donald-trumps-failed-coup-complete.html">a banana republic</a> on January 6, 2021.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">If the recent
past is prologue, a second Trump term would probably be much grimmer for our
future than we can now imagine. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="background: white;">
</p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On Tuesday,
November 5, America faces a stark choice: we can continue to grow into a
dynamic, multicultural democracy or we can devolve into a stunted <i>Handmaid’s
Tale</i> plutocracy, forever playing catch up with the 21<sup>st</sup> Century.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>This feature originally <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/raw-investigates/donald-trump-january-6-coup/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">appeared</span></a> at</i> RawStory.</span></p><p style="background: white; margin: 0in;"><b style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span></span></i></b></p><p style="background: white; margin: 0in;"><b style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;">Follow Dan Benbow on </span><a href="https://twitter.com/danbenbow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Twitter</span></a><span style="color: #222222;"> </span></span></i></b></p><p style="background: white; margin: 0in;"><b style="background-color: transparent; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-align: center;"><br /></b></p><p style="background: white; margin: 0in;"><b style="background-color: transparent; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-align: center;"> More political writing by Dan Benbow:</b></p><p style="background: white; margin: 0in;"><b style="background-color: transparent; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-align: center;"><br /></b></p><div class="MsoNormal"><div style="text-align: center;"><div><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Republicans seek <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/wisconsin-republicans/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>ballot box apartheid</b></span></a> in Wisconsin</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The GOP's <a href="https://progressive.org/op-eds/gop-plan-steal-2024-election-benbow-220210/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>Plan</b></span></a> to <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/op-ed/article258390958.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>Steal</b></span></a> the 2024 Election </span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Wisconsin, and U.S. elections, </span><a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-wisconsin-us-elections-balance-20220908-nngeyywg5vftfonwi4si2qkxlm-story.html" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #3d85c6;">in the balance</span></b></a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">ANATOMY OF <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2021/05/trumpfailed.html?_sm_au_=iVVJk56QjZGRSZRsFLQtvKtpMGMvF" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>A MAN-MADE DISASTER</b></span></a>: </span>1,001 ways Donald Trump failed</div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">to protect America from the coronavirus<br /></span></span><div style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-master-of-low-expectations-666.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>The Master of Low Expectations</b></span></a><span style="color: #3d85c6;">: 666 reasons sentient citizens</span></span></span></span><br /><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> are still celebrating </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the long overdue departure of George W. Bush</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-breathtaking-stupidity-of_16.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The <b>breathtaking stupidity</b> of #BernieOrBust</span></a></span></span></span></div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Death of a President in the <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2018/12/death-of-president-in-united-states-of.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>United States of Amnesia</b></span></a></span></span><br /><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> (<i>a review of the public life of George H.W. Bush</i>)</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Aliens, unicorns, and <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2018/10/spoilerparty.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>the narcissism</b></span></a> </span></span><br /><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">of voting Green</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2017/01/ten-reasons-barack-obama-is-clearly.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">10 reasons</span></a> </b></span>Barack Obama is clearly</span></span><br /><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the best president in my lifetime</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/10/178-reasons-hillary-clinton-is.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>178 reasons</b></span></a> Hillary Clinton is infinitely better</span></span><br /><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">than Donald Trump (even on her worst day)</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div><div><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/09/colin-kaepernick-is-right.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Colin Kaepernick is right</span></a></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span></div><div><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/04/stephen-colbert-delivers-best-political.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Stephen Colbert delivers the best political roast of all time</span></a></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/05/memorial-day-in-united-states-of-amnesia.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Memorial Day in the United States of Amnesia</span></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2012/10/romney-ryans-road-to-perdition.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Romney-Ryan's Road to Perdition</span></a><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12pt; text-align: left;"> </span></div></div>Dan Benbowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02258556216655283390noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3869308843623818842.post-83828289385623642402023-01-20T10:10:00.001-08:002023-01-20T10:17:00.723-08:00Donald Trump’s failed coup: the complete January 6 timeline<p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-size: 12pt;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; clear: both;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span><span style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">It was obvious that Donald
Trump was likely to lose the 2020 presidential election at 11:20 p.m. EST on
election night, when the Fox News Decision Desk </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/04/us/politics/trump-fox-news-arizona.html"><span style="background: white;">called</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"> Arizona for Joe Biden. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div></span></span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNL4XwlqKIuC7XJKz-1gagB86rTWpbjtUr5csPlcFbcrAe2yuT_OMdCbZOJRbE_F_VBpprYJNBSuULMpGVXBD4om_pbCKrKa34LkawT1loH9W0-aGZjxDHUVuE_3Ojx7_FGEHNwkZ3W16A9yKPwA5NCp7PWZHgsdaHy-aB9EwBdzvIaxORe3Qno7jO/s320/Fln5hApXkAA_JUv.jpg" /></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div class="separator" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; clear: both;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div>The Copper State had gone Democratic just <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_elections_in_Arizona">once</a> since 1948, when Bill Clinton won by two points in his 1996 landslide. Without Arizona, Trump would have to win three of the five states left (Georgia, Nevada, and the Blue Wall states—Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania).The Blue Wall states had supported Democratic candidates in every presidential election since 1992 except for the outlier 2016 race in which Trump <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/12/01/donald-trump-will-be-president-thanks-to-80000-people-in-three-states/">scraped by</a> with the help of <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/election-2016-restrictive-voting-laws-numbers#newrestrictivevotinglaws2016">voter suppression</a>, <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2018/10/spoilerparty.html">Jill Stein</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/may/06/cambridge-analytica-how-turn-clicks-into-votes-christopher-wylie">Cambridge Analytica, </a> <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/what-the-latest-mueller-indictment-reveals-about-wikileaks-ties-to-russia-and-what-it-doesnt">Julian Assange</a>, <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-comey-letter-probably-cost-clinton-the-election/">James Comey, </a>and Russia’s <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-found-more-russian-bots-trump-interacted-with-many-2018-1">50,000+ fake Twitter accounts</a>.<br /><br />Sensing that they’d been dealt a death blow, the Trump campaign had <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/04/us/politics/trump-fox-news-arizona.html?auth=login-google1tap&login=google1tap">conniption fits</a> when Arizona was called by their network of choice. Efforts to pressure Fox to take the projection back failed. By the end of the night, the AP followed suit.</span></div></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Biden
also </span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-donald-trump-lincoln-omaha-elections-1139307c472f6c14599ed5761c247671"><span style="background: white;">won</span></a><span style="background: white;"> Nebraska’s 2<sup>nd</sup>
district on election day, giving him 238 electoral college votes. To get to the
magic number of 270, he just needed to win Wisconsin (10), Michigan (16), and
Nevada, Georgia, or Pennsylvania.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">With
so many routes to 270, Biden’s likelihood of winning shot up to 80% at electionbettingodds.com
by the morning of <b>November 4</b>. That afternoon-into-evening, p</span><span>re-2016 patterns
re-asserted themselves when Wisconsin and Michigan were called for Biden, the
latter by over 150,000 votes. Trump’s campaign team made noise about challenging
Biden’s 20,000-ballot Wisconsin win, but as former Wisconsin governor and Trump
ally Scott Walker pointed out at the time, a recount was </span><a href="https://twitter.com/scottwalker/status/1324002777597677569"><span>highly unlikely</span></a><span> to change the
result.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">With Wisconsin and Michigan in Biden’s column, Democrats needed just six
more electoral college votes to retake the White House, exactly the number in
Nevada. Biden’s<span style="color: black;"> chances of losing Nevada (a state
Democrats had won in the previous three election cycles) were remote, and
Pennsylvania appeared to be </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/04/upshot/pennsylvania-election-results-ballots.html?auth=-google1tap">a
really good bet</a><span style="color: black;"> for Biden, based on Trump’s
narrowing margin and the proportion of votes which remained to be counted in
heavily-Democratic precincts. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Joe Biden was officially declared the winner of Pennsylvania and
president-elect of the United States on <b>Saturday, November 7, 2020. <o:p></o:p></b></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Biden would go on to win Nevada and Georgia, giving him 306 electoral
college votes—well above the necessary threshold of 270—to go with a commanding
seven million-ballot popular vote win. <span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">If anything, it was <span style="color: black;">surprising that the race was
even close, given that Biden came into election day with </span><a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/national/">an
8.4% national lead</a>. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Among the possible<span style="color: black;"> causes for the polling errors
were </span><a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voter-suppression-2020">GOP
voter suppression</a><span style="color: black;">, the </span><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-19/-shy-trump-voters-re-emerge-as-explanation-for-pollsters-miss">reluctance</a><span style="color: black;"> of some Trump supporters to talk to pollsters, and Trump’s
momentum at the end of the race.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">Sifting through the election results, it was evident
that </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/20/party-polarization-hit-high-under-trump-can-biden-reel-it-back/">record
levels of culture war polarization</a><span style="color: black;"> stirred up by Donald
Trump turned right-leaning whites out in droves, making Iowa and Ohio (which
were </span><a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/">predicted</a><span style="color: black;"> to be close) Republican blowouts, and Biden’s Wisconsin
win </span><a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/wisconsin/">much
narrower</a><span style="color: black;"> than pollsters thought it would be. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At the same time, racial divisiveness backfired
among young voters, suburbanites, and people of color, driving Georgia and
Arizona to Joe Biden. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">Given voter turnout demographics, the results of
the 2020 presidential election were relatively orderly and predictable. Biden’s
victory was </span>more conclusive than <span style="color: black;">either of </span><a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-master-of-low-expectations-666.html">W.
Bush</a><span style="color: black;">’s wins and Trump’s 2016 victory, and his
popular-vote margin exceeded Obama’s 2012 re-election. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In any functional democracy, the Pennsylvania
call would have ended the election drama, triggered a graceful concession, and
set the presidential transition in motion. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">But America had the unique distinction of being
governed by Donald J. Trump, a deeply wounded narcissist with an iron grip on
the levers of power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">***<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump’s disinformation campaign had begun long
before the election with constant repetition of the false claim that <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2020/05/26/trump-says-the-election-will-be-rigged-by-mail-in-voting-despite-research/?sh=3b338bc41a7d">mail
balloting</a> was inherently corrupt and that the 2020 election would be “<a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-tweet-us-2020-election-mail-in-ballots-twitter-today-a9578951.html">rigged</a>” against him, a way to pre-emptively delegitimize a
potential loss at the polls. Trump repeated this flagrant <a href="https://news.columbia.edu/in-mail-absentee-ballots-secure-vote-election">lie</a>
so often that many Republican voters took it at face value, prepping his
followers to believe the many lies to come. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Outside of the right-wing echo chamber, it was common
knowledge that Republican-leaning, in-person votes would be counted first in a
lot of competitive states, creating a “<a href="https://hwkfsh.medium.com/how-red-mirage-shaped-the-2020-election-narrative-81e404d2a58b">red
mirage</a>” (the false impression that Trump was
going to win), after which there would be a “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/01/why-itll-be-normal-if-results-shift-in-the-days-after-the-election">blue
shift</a>” as more Democratic votes—mail votes in
particular—were counted. Three days before the 2020 election, on <b>October
31, 2020</b> Trump strategist Steve Bannon <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/07/leaked-audio-steve-bannon-trump-2020-election-declare-victory/">told</a> “a group of associates” that Trump was going to exploit his base’s programmed ignorance by
staging a big announcement not long after polls closed, while the red mirage
was at its peak:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“What Trump’s gonna do is just
declare victory. Right? He’s gonna declare victory. But that doesn’t mean he’s
a winner….He’s just gonna say he’s a winner.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Jonathan Swan of <i>Axios</i> </span><a href="https://www.axios.com/2020/11/01/trump-claim-election-victory-ballots"><span style="background: white;">broke a story</span></a><span style="background: white;"> about this strategy on <b>November 1</b>, two days before
the election. According to Swan, “</span>President Trump has told confidants he'll
declare victory on Tuesday night if it looks like he's ‘ahead,’ according to
three sources familiar with his private comments. That's even if the Electoral
College outcome still hinges on large numbers of uncounted votes in key states
like Pennsylvania.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Sure enough, <a href="https://www.vox.com/2022/6/13/23166193/congress-house-committee-trump-capitol-giuliani-january-6-hearing"><span style="background: white;">egged on</span></a><span style="background: white;"> by a drunken Rudy Giuliani while </span><a href="https://www.npr.org/live-updates/capitol-insurrection-hearing-2022-06-13#campaign-advisers-say-they-told-trump-not-to-declare-victory-on-election-night">i<span style="background: white;">gnoring</span></a><span style="background: white;"> more cautious advisors, </span>Trump held a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9d6j2uO6MI">press conference</a> early on the morning after election day. He claimed that his
shrinking leads in competitive states were fraudulent and said, “Frankly, we
did win this election.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">This would be the opening of an aggressive
campaign to steal the presidency through disinformation,
<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-campaign-lawsuits-election-results-2020-11">frivolous
lawsuits</a>, abrupt
personnel changes, and pressure on state and local officials (and Mike Pence).
<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The core of the campaign was <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/big-lie-trump-stolen-election-inside-creation">Trump’s
Big Lie</a>, a baseless theory which slotted neatly into the white grievance narrative
believed by big portions of the Republican base. This sense of victimhood was
inflamed by Trump’s allies in <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/13/republican-legislatures-trump-conspiracy-458507"><span style="color: #0070c0;">state legislatures</span></a>,<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/01/republicans-own-insurrection/617583/"><span style="color: black; text-decoration-line: none;"> </span><span style="color: #0070c0;">Congress</span></a>, the <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/republican-ags-group-sent-robocalls-urging-march-capitol-n1253581">Republican
Attorneys General Association</a>, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/how-social-media-made-the-trump-insurrection-a-reality"><span style="color: #0070c0;">right-wing media</span></a>, and <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-hosted-surge-of-misinformation-and-insurrection-threats-in-months-leading-up-to-jan-6-attack-records-show?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=majorinvestigations&utm_content=feature">social
media</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">While <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/05/donald-trump-supporters-dunning-kruger-effect-213904/">gullible</a>
and crestfallen Republican voters were being conned, Trump’s
chief of staff Mark Meadows operated <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/inside-mark-meadows-e2-80-99s-final-push-to-keep-trump-in-power/ar-AAX3I2Z">in
the shadows</a> to keep Joe Biden out of the White
House. Meadows played a double game, assuring some administration members that
Trump would step down when the time came even as he was “<a href="https://www.rawstory.com/mark-meadows-georgia-grand-jury/">directing
traffic</a>” among conspirators to keep Trump in office.
In the two months between Trump’s loss and the insurrection, Meadows was <a href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/feature/mark-meadows-exchanged-texts-with-34-members-of-congress-about-plans-to-overturn-the-2020-election">conspired
with</a> at least 34 far-right Republican members of
Congress. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The day after the election (<b>November 4</b>),
as it became obvious Trump would lose, Meadows received a <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/12/17/most-damning-mark-meadows-text-was-sent-from-rick-perrys-phone-report_partner/">text</a> from Energy Secretary Rick Perry suggesting an “aggressive
strategy” to hold the White House. The plan was to convince at least three
Republican-controlled legislatures in states Trump had lost to shatter long-standing
legal precedent by ignoring the will of their voters and declaring electors
for Trump. Shorting Biden of three states would throw the election to the House
of Representatives, where Republicans had a majority of delegations in more
states than Democrats. <b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/08/politics/donald-trump-jr-meadows-text/index.html">reported</a> at CNN.com, on <b>November 5 </b>Meadows received a text
from Donald Trump, Jr. which discussed “filing lawsuits and advocating
recounts to prevent certain swing states from certifying their results, as well
as having a handful of Republican state houses put forward slates of fake ‘Trump
electors.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>“If all that failed,
according to the Trump, Jr. text, GOP lawmakers in Congress could simply vote
to reinstall Trump as President on January 6.”</span><span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>The will of the
American people was irrelevant, according to Trump, Jr.: “It’s very simple….We
have multiple paths. We control them all.”</span><span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Meadows received another fake electors
proposal on <b>November 6</b> from Andy Biggs, a House representative of Arizona, to
which he texted back, “<a href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/january-6-committee-advance-contempt-proceedings-meadows"><span style="color: #0070c0;">I love it</span></a>!” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Also on the 6<sup>th</sup>, Representative Paul
Gosar of Arizona (who would later be <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/exclusive-jan-6-organizers-met-congress-white-house-1245289/">tied</a>
to the January 6 “Save America” rally) sent out widely-shared
tweets implying that his states’ tally was fraudulent
due to vote-flipping on Dominion voting machines, a talking point Republicans
would milk to death over the next two months—even though Trump’s lawyers <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/21/us/politics/trump-dominion-voting.html">knew
the claim was false</a>. <i>(Right-wing networks
Newsmax, Fox, and One America News would later be </i><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/jul/04/fox-oan-newsmax-lawsuits-election-fraud-claims?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email"><i>sued</i></a><i> for presenting disinformation about Dominion’s machines). </i><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">While various Republicans publicly implied that
fraud was happening in America’s black and brown Democratic cities, Trump
spokesman Jason Miller <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/25/politics/mark-meadows-texts-2319/index.html">texted</a> Mark Meadows and a host of other top officials that the
narrative was false in Pennsylvania, which was about to be declared for Biden:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">“One other key data point: In 2016, POTUS received
15.5% of the vote in Philadelphia County. Today he is currently at 18.3%. So he
increased from his performance in 2016. In 2016, Philadelphia County made up
11.3% of the total vote in the state. As it currently stands, Philadelphia
County only makes up 10.2% of the statewide vote tally. So POTUS performed
better in a smaller share. Sen. (Rick) Santorum was just making this point on
CNN - cuts hard against the urban vote stealing narrative.” Philadelphia’s
Republican city commissioner Al Schmidt would </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/11/politics/philadelphia-city-commissioner-2020-election-cnntv/index.html"><span style="line-height: 107%;">say</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
much the same thing to CNN a few days later. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>Even as the deceitfulness
behind the fraud claims was becoming more apparent, Republican conspirators
were hard at work to overturn legitimate election results. On <b>November 7,
2020</b>, the day Biden was officially declared president-elect, Utah senator
Mike Lee </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/15/politics/mike-lee-chip-roy-text-messages-jan-6-mark-meadows-overturn-election/index.html"><span>texted</span></a><span style="color: #262626;"> </span><span>Mark
Meadows with a suggestion that Trump meet with lawyer Sidney Powell, who “[had]
a strategy to keep things alive and put several states back in play.”</span><span style="color: #262626;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>November 9</b>, Trump’s <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/01/20/william-barr-trumps-sword-and-shield">exceptionally
loyal</a> attorney general, William Barr, sent a
directive to federal prosecutors to ramp up voter fraud charges <i>before</i>
state elections were certified, a change in Justice Department policy which
prompted <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/13/politics/federal-prosecutors-william-barr-election-fraud/index.html">the
resignation</a> of Richard Pilger, who headed the
department’s election crimes division. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On the same day, Trump fired Defense Secretary
Mark Esper for not being “<a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/77681/mark-meadows-timeline-the-chief-of-staff-and-schemes-to-overturn-2020-election/">sufficiently
loyal</a><span class="MsoHyperlink">.</span>” Esper had fallen out of favor for<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/11/trump-johnny-mcentee-january-6-betrayal/620646/">
refusing</a> to deploy troops to American cities
during the summer protests, supporting diversity, barring Confederate flags on
military bases, and keeping an eye on Russia. Esper was replaced with the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/acting-defense-secretary-chris-miller/2020/11/09/43a4296e-22d0-11eb-8599-406466ad1b8e_story.html">underqualified</a> Christopher Miller, who brought <a href="https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-army-christopher-miller-mark-esper-james-anderson-95f848b7cdaba116b7c09787edb4c839">three
Trump loyalists</a> with him, including <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/04/16/kash-patel-trump-intelligence-community/">Kash
Patel</a>, a lawyer with no military experience. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">This was an oddly consequential move for an outgoing administration to make. Suspicions were
further aroused when two administration officials <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/09/us/politics/esper-defense-secretary.html">told</a> reporters from the<i> New York Times</i> that Trump was
considering firing FBI chief Christopher Wray and CIA head Gina Haspel. Haspel <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/we-are-way-right-wing-coup-cia-director-privately-warned-1647538">reportedly
told</a> General Mark Milley (chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff), “We are on the way to a right-wing coup.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Haspel was on to something. On <b>November 10</b>,
two Texas businessmen linked to Energy Secretary Rick Perry <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/two-texas-businessmen-pitched-trump-on-plan-to-overturn-2020-election-jan-6-report-reveals/?utm_source=123456&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=12497&recip_id=24770&list_id=1">met
with Donald Trump</a> in the Oval Office,
where they discussed the plan to have Republican-controlled state legislatures
ignore the will of their voters and unilaterally pick
the electors for their states. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/07/i-alone-can-fix-it-mark-milley-likened-trump-to-hitler.html">According
to</a> <i>I Alone Can Fix It</i> by <i>Washington
Post</i> reporters Carol Leonnig and Phillip Rucker, when hearing of the fake
elector plans circulating, Mark Milley responded that, “They may try, but
they’re not going to fucking succeed” because “You can’t do this without the
military. You can’t do this without the CIA and the FBI. We’re the guys with
the guns.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Speaking at a military installation in Virginia on
<b>November 11 </b>(Veteran’s Day), Milley <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/top-general-military-oath-individual-pentagon-shakeup-1547167">told</a> the assembled crowd, “We do not take an oath to a
king or queen, or tyrant or dictator, we do not take an oath to an individual….We
take an oath to the Constitution, and every soldier that is represented in this
museum—every sailor, airman, marine, coastguard—each of us protects and defends
that document, regardless of personal price.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>November 13</b>, Zach Parkinson (deputy director of communications
for the Trump campaign) <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/21/us/politics/trump-dominion-voting.html">asked</a>
campaign staff to look into conspiracy theories about Dominion voting machines
which were making the rounds on right-wing media. Staff gave Parkinson a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/09/21/us/trump-campaign-memo.html">memo</a>
on <b>November 14</b> which showed that most of the claims were false. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Though Joe Biden had been officially declared president-elect and was
presumably going to take office, the Trump administration made another significant
personnel move on <b>November 18</b>. Republican Chris Krebs, the Trump-appointed
head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security
Agency, was <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/17/politics/chris-krebs-fired-by-trump/index.html">fired</a> by tweet because he had publicly fact-checked false claims
of election fraud and gotten off-message by sharing his observation that 2020 was “the most secure election in
American history.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That same day, Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro <a href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/feature/exclusive-trump-lawyer-kenneth-chesebro-talks-about-his-role-in-the-runup-to-jan-6">sent</a> Jim Troupis (a Republican lawyer in Wisconsin) a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/02/02/us/trump-electors-memo-november.html">memo</a> detailing a plan to get Wisconsin’s legitimate electors
replaced with fake (pro-Trump) electors. This <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/02/us/politics/trump-jan-6-memos.html">would
be</a> “among the earliest known efforts to put on
paper proposals for preparing alternate electors” and one of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/15/us/trump-emails-eastman-chesebro-jan-6.html">several</a> such memos Chesebro would send to GOP operatives in
swing states Trump had lost. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/02/us/politics/trump-jan-6-memos.html">According
to</a> reporters for <i>the New York Times</i>, <span style="background: white;">“The memos show how just over two
weeks after Election Day, Mr. Trump’s campaign was seeking to buy itself more
time to undo the results. At the heart of the strategy was the idea that their
real deadline was not Dec. 14, when official electors would be chosen to
reflect the outcome in each state, but Jan. 6, when Congress would meet to
certify the results.”</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Next door to Wisconsin, after pressure from Trump, two Republican members of the Wayne
County Board of Canvassers (covering Detroit, which is <a href="https://worldpopulationreview.com/us-cities/detroit-mi-population">78%
Black</a>) tried to <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/wayne-county-republican-canvassers-rescind-votes-certifying-election/story?id=74290114">rescind</a> their certifications of the county’s vote totals.
The 11<sup>th</sup>-hour reversal to placate Trump came too late and only delayed
the obvious, given Biden’s <a href="https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/results/state/michigan/president">154,000-vote
margin of victory</a> in Michigan. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Refusing to let the will of the voters get in the way of raw power, on <b>November
19</b> Trump’s outside attorneys Rudy Giuliani, Sydney Powell, and Jenna Ellis
had a surreal <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/11/rudy-giuliani-hair-dye-press-conference">hair
dye-dripping</a> press conference in which they served
up several <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/19/politics/giuliani-trump-legal-team-press-briefing-fact-check/index.html">false
claims</a> to try to pressure the Justice Department
to open “a full-scale criminal investigation” of the election. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">These lawyers were part of “Team Kraken,” second-string
attorneys who stepped up to push ludicrous legal claims as Trump’s official
lawyers stepped back to honor the rule of law. One GOP operative <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/11/gop-insiders-on-trump-rudy-giulianis-losing-election-fight.html">told</a> a reporter for <i>New York</i> magazine, “Any time Rudy
Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and Jenna Ellis are leading your legal battle,
you are not in a good place….I wouldn’t let those lawyers represent me for a parking
ticket.”<span style="color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;">
</p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Two members of Congress who were in <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/15/politics/mike-lee-chip-roy-text-messages-jan-6-mark-meadows-overturn-election/index.html">regular
text contact</a> with Mark Meadows—senator
Mike Lee of Utah and representative Chip Roy of Texas—were critical of the
press conference. Roy told Meadows, “Hey brother—we need substance or people
are going to break.” Lee said, “The potential defamation liability for the
president is significant here….Unless Powell can back up everything she said,
which I kind of doubt she can.” Meadows wrote Lee back that he agreed and was
“very concerned” about the press conference. <i>(Four
months later, when Powell was sued by Dominion, her lawyers defended
their client by </i><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/23/sidney-powell-trump-election-fraud-claims"><i><span style="color: #0070c0;">claiming</span></i></a><i> that “no reasonable person”
would have believed Powell’s attacks on Dominion.)</i></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>November 20</b>, Trump continued the
campaign to flip states he’d lost when he <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/20/politics/michigan-house-speaker-will-meet-trump/index.html">invited</a> Republican representatives from Michigan’s state
legislature to the White House. Trump was unable to cow
them into submission because there was no legal way for Republicans to overturn
Biden’s victory in the state. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">After the meeting, the Michigan representatives made a joint statement to
the press in which they <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-trump-michigan-idINKBN2802CE">said</a>,
“<span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">We have
not yet been made aware of any information that would change the outcome of the
election in Michigan and as legislative leaders, we will follow the law and
follow the normal process regarding Michigan's electors, just as we have said
throughout this election.” </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Trump
was at it again on <b>November 21</b>, </span><a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1330319748660416513"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">tweeting</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> “</span><span style="background: white; color: #0f1419;">Why is Joe Biden so quickly forming a Cabinet when my
investigators have found hundreds of thousands of fraudulent votes, enough to ‘flip’
at least four States, which in turn is more than enough to win the Election?
Hopefully the Courts and/or Legislatures will have....the COURAGE to do what
has to be done to maintain the integrity of our Elections, and the United
States of America itself. THE WORLD IS WATCHING!!!”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; color: #0f1419;">On <b>November 23</b>, Trump
appointee Emily Murphy of the General Services Administration finally </span><a href="https://twitter.com/jeremyherb/status/1331011115149627393"><span style="background: white;">released</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #0f1419;"> money for the Biden Administration’s transition. This
unprecedented delay jeopardized national security (since Biden was not yet
receiving intelligence briefings) and containment of Covid-19, which was at
peak numbers due to Trump’s </span><a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2021/05/trumpfailed.html"><span style="background: white;">abject failure</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #0f1419;"> to address the pandemic.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">With Michigan secured for Joe Biden, Trump turned
his attention to Pennsylvania. On <b>November 25</b>, Trump <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/11/25/donald-trump-still-believes-us-election-was">conferenced
in</a> from the White House to a hearing/publicity
stunt in Gettysburg, where Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani issued—and Trump
backed—false claims about voter fraud in that state. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump later <a href="https://apnews.com/article/doug-mastriano-positive-virus-trump-70354ddc031781fb7ee476809a6b67db">invited</a> Pennsylvania legislators to the White House. Joining Trump
was Phil Waldron, a retired Army colonel who <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/phil-waldron-mark-meadows-powerpoint/2021/12/11/4ea67938-59df-11ec-9a18-a506cf3aa31d_story.html">would
circulate</a> a PowerPoint presentation chockfull
of outlandish conspiracy theories to Mark Meadows and Republican members of Congress. <i>(Waldron would later say that he
spoke with Mark Meadows “</i><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/phil-waldron-mark-meadows-powerpoint/2021/12/11/4ea67938-59df-11ec-9a18-a506cf3aa31d_story.html"><i>maybe
eight to ten times</i></a><i>” between election day
and the insurrection; they also exchanged </i><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/26/politics/meadows-texts-phil-waldron-seize-voting-machines-election-fraud/index.html"><i>texts</i></a><i>.)</i><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">False claims continued on <b>November 29</b>,<b>
</b>when Trump spewed <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/29/media/bartiromo-trump-interview/index.html">election
lies</a> and whined about the FBI and the Justice
Department in an interview with Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo, who would go on to be
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/04/business/media/smartmatic-fox-news-lawsuit.html?auth=link-dismiss-google1tap">sued</a> for promulgating disinformation about the presidential election.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump’s favored narrative took a major hit on <b>December
1<i>,</i></b><i> </i>when Attorney General William Barr <a href="https://www.thebulwark.com/how-trump-repeatedly-duped-the-gop-elites/">told</a> an AP reporter, <span style="background: white;">“we have
not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome of the
election.” According to reporter Jonathan Karl, Barr felt that Trump’s fraud
allegations were “all </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/27/politics/william-barr-trump-election-claims-break/index.html"><span style="background: white;">bullshit</span></a><span style="background: white;">,” but he’d agreed to the investigations to “appease his
boss.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">In a fit of rage at the breaking
AP story, Trump allegedly </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFYZkkPaM5A"><span style="background: white;">heaved</span></a><span style="background: white;"> a porcelain
plate of food through the air, leaving servants to wipe up the ketchup which
dripped down a wall of the White House dining room. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Another
Republican who refused to parrot </span><a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/big-lie-trump-stolen-election-inside-creation"><span style="background: white;">Trump’s Big Lie</span></a><span style="background: white;"> was Gabriel Sterling. Sterling, who
worked for Georgia’s </span><a href="https://justfacts.votesmart.org/candidate/evaluations/142732/brad-raffensperger"><span style="background: white;">conservative Republican</span></a><span style="background: white;"> secretary of state Brad Raffensperger,
held a press conference to </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/01/georgia-election-official-condemns-trump-441879"><span style="background: white;">denounce</span></a><span style="background: white;"> the violent threats Georgia elections officials were
receiving as a result of Trump’s endless disinformation about voting machines
in the state: <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Mr. President, it looks like
you likely lost the state of Georgia….Stop inspiring people to commit potential
acts of violence. Someone is going to get hurt, someone is going to get shot,
someone is going to get killed. And it’s not right.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><span style="background: white;">(The </span>United States
House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack—</i><b>hereafter referred to as
“the January 6 committee</b>”<i>—<span style="background: white;">would
feature testimony about the </span></i><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/06/21/ruby-freeman-shaye-moss-jan6-testimony/"><i><span style="background: white;">domestic terror campaign </span></i></a><i><span style="background: white;">endured by Georgia elections workers Shaye
Moss and her mother Ruby Freeman after Rudy Giuliani publicly accused them of
rigging the vote in Joe Biden’s favor. As part of a settlement, the
extreme-right One America News network would later</span></i><a href="https://news.yahoo.com/oan-finally-admits-no-widespread-022816382.html"><i><span style="background: white;"> admit</span></i></a><i><span style="background: white;"> that there was “no widespread voter fraud by election
workers” in Georgia.)<o:p></o:p></span></i></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">On <b>December 2</b>, White
House Communications Director Alyssa Farrah Griffin told Mark Meadows she would
be putting in her resignation. </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGAMEobAnKc&t=48s"><span style="background: white;">According to</span></a><span style="background: white;"> Griffin, Meadows replied, “What if I could tell you we’re
actually going to be staying?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Lawyer </span><a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/06/17/1105600072/who-is-john-eastman-the-trump-lawyer-at-the-center-of-the-jan-6-investigation"><span style="background: white;">John Eastman</span></a><span style="background: white;"> was one of the central legal architects—along with Kenneth
Chesebro— of Trump’s extralegal efforts to stay in the White House. On <b>December
4</b>, Eastman </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/10/eastman-emails-pennsylvania-legislators-biden-00031668"><span style="background: white;">emailed</span></a><span style="background: white;"> Russ Diamond, a far-right member of Pennsylvania’s House of
Representatives. Eastman proposed that Pennsylvania Republicans challenge and
disqualify enough absentee ballots in the state to “provide some cover” for the
GOP-controlled legislature to declare the election invalid and appoint fake electors
for Trump. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">The
fake elector strategy continued on <b>December 5</b>, as Trump </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/05/politics/trump-georgia-brian-kemp-phone-call/index.html">tried
to</a> muscle <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGhrW_qbfQU">conservative Republican</a> governor Brian Kemp into throwing out Georgia’s electors
and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-pennsylvania-speaker-call/2020/12/07/d65fe8c4-38bf-11eb-98c4-25dc9f4987e8_story.html">pressured</a> the Republican head of the Pennsylvania House of
Representatives, Bryan Cutler, to do the same in his state. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Convincing Republicans in at least three swing states to reject Biden’s
legitimate electors was still Trump’s only chance at holding onto the White
House, barring a Supreme Court decision to toss out Biden’s wins in several
swing states. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In a <b>December 7</b> communication to Trump advisor Boris Epshteyn, Jim Troupis
(see November 18) said that this strategy revolved around getting false
electors on the books on December 14—the day the electoral college met—with the
long-term goal of getting these electors—as opposed to the legitimate
ones—accepted in the six most competitive states lost by Trump on January 6. In
Troupis’ <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/26/us/politics/trump-fake-electors-emails.html">words</a>:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<span style="font-family: georgia;">“The second slate [of fake electors] just shows up at noon on Monday [December 14] and votes and then transmits the results….It is up to Pence on Jan 6 to open them. Our strategy, which we believe is replicable in all 6 contested states, is for the electors to meet and vote so that an interim decision by a Court to certify Trump the winner can be executed on by the Court ordering the Governor to issue whatever is required to name the electors. The key nationally would be for all six states to do it so the election remains in doubt until January.”</span>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Twenty of Joe Biden’s electoral college votes were in Pennsylvania. Trump’s
maneuvering to overcome an 80,000-vote loss in that state was set back on <b>December
8</b>, when the U.S. Supreme Court <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/12/08/944230517/supreme-court-rejects-gop-bid-to-reverse-pennsylvania-election-results">rejected</a>
a lawsuit claiming a measure to expand mail voting passed by Pennsylvania’s <i>Republican</i>
legislature had been unconstitutional. <span style="color: red;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Legal setbacks notwithstanding, the plot continued. Arizona lawyer Jack
Wilenchik <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/26/us/politics/trump-fake-electors-emails.html">emailed</a> Trump advisor Boris Epshteyn: <span style="background: white;">“We would just be sending in ‘fake’ electoral votes to [Mike] Pence so
that ‘someone’ in Congress can make an objection when they start counting
votes, and start arguing that the ‘fake’ votes should be counted.” </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">This
was part of a multi-state effort among Mark Meadows, Rudy Giuliani, and
Epshteyn, who was “</span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/26/us/politics/trump-fake-electors-emails.html"><span style="background: white;">a regular point of contact</span></a><span style="background: white;">” for lawyer John
Eastman. Wilenchik further wrote that the plan should be “[kept] under wraps
until Congress counts the vote Jan. 6<sup>th</sup> (so we can try to ‘surprise’
the Dems and media with it).” <i>(Wilenchik later </i></span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/26/us/politics/trump-fake-electors-emails.html"><i><span style="background: white;">corrected</span></i></a><i><span style="background: white;"> himself, typing in the same thread
that “‘alternative’ votes is probably a better term than ‘fake’ votes,” to
which he attached a smiley face emoji.)</span></i><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Referring
to a suggestion proposed by Eastman ally </span><a href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/feature/exclusive-trump-lawyer-kenneth-chesebro-talks-about-his-role-in-the-runup-to-jan-6"><span style="background: white;">Kenneth Chesebro</span></a><span style="background: white;"> (see November 18), Wilenchik said, “His
idea is basically that all of us (GA, WI, AZ, PA, etc.) have our electors send
in their votes (even though the votes aren’t legal under federal law — because
they’re not signed by the Governor); so that members of Congress can fight
about whether they should be counted on January 6<sup>th</sup>.”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">These
efforts were coordinated through outside lawyer Rudy Giuliani; Trump’s official
White House lawyers saw the moves as illegal. </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">By the end of <b>December 9</b>, the District of
Columbia and all 50 states had <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/09/politics/2020-election-results-certified/index.html">certified</a> their vote totals, and Joe Biden’s win. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Though Attorney General William Barr had already
issued his finding that Biden was the legitimate winner of the 2020 election,
Trump poked him again on <b>December 10</b> with a <a href="https://media-cdn.factba.se/realdonaldtrump-twitter/1337062011520356352.jpg">retweet</a> asking for a special prosecutor to investigate baseless allegations
of fraud. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A major personnel change was considered then averted on <b>December 11. </b>Trump <a href="https://www.axios.com/kash-patel-cia-gina-haspel-757b92c0-82a5-457b-bde8-d0d683ee222e.html">planned</a> to fire CIA director Gina Haspel’s deputy director and
replace him with the woefully-underqualified <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/truth-social/how-devin-nunes-and-kash-patel-appealed-qanon-extremists-build-truth-socials-user-base">Kash
Patel</a> (see November 9) in order to install a
loyalist near the top of the CIA. As with the post-election <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/09/mark-esper-fired-defence-pentagon-donald-trump">firing</a> of Defense Secretary Mike Esper and (Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency leader) Christopher Krebs,
this would be a consequential move for a lame duck administration to make. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In response, Haspel told Trump she would
resign if her deputy was let go. Afterward, Trump met with Mike Pence and other
senior aides, who recommended keeping Haspel happy. Trump left Haspel’s deputy
in place. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Another one of Trump’s machinations was thwarted when the U.S. Supreme Court <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/11/us/politics/supreme-court-election-texas.html">tossed</a> a lawsuit by the state of Texas challenging results in
four <i>other </i>states, saying Texas did not have “<span style="background: white;">a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another
state conducts its elections.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Outraged by the decision,
conspiracy-addled Trump supporters held </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/12/us/4-stabbed-and-one-shot-as-trump-supporters-and-opponents-clash.html"><span style="background: white;">protests</span></a><span style="background: white;"> across the country on <b>December 12</b>.<b> </b>The </span><a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/12/12/945825924/trump-supporters-arrive-in-washington-once-again-for-a-million-maga-march"><span style="background: white;">D.C. rally</span></a><span style="background: white;">, which featured future January 6 paramilitary operators the
Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, and the </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/03/us/politics/first-amendment-praetorian-trump-jan-6.html"><span style="background: white;">1<sup>st</sup> Amendment Praetorian</span></a><span style="background: white;">, turned violent when counter-protesters
showed up, leading to four stabbings and 33 arrests. </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">One
protester </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/12/us/4-stabbed-and-one-shot-as-trump-supporters-and-opponents-clash.html"><span style="background: white;">told</span></a><span style="background: white;"> a reporter for <i>the New York Times</i>, “They
don’t want to deal with this…It’s going to have to go nuclear, using the Insurrection
Act and bringing out the military.” This comment referenced the wild card
possibility that Donald Trump would use the chaos of street violence (even
street violence provoked by his own supporters) to assert control over the
presidency by deploying troops domestically. </span><span style="background: white; color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">That
same day, <span style="letter-spacing: 0.3pt;">Christina Bobb (an anchor for the </span></span><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/one-america-news-network"><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.3pt;">far-right</span></a><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.3pt;"> One America News) </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/26/us/politics/trump-fake-electors-emails.html"><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.3pt;">sent</span></a><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.3pt;"> an </span>email about Douglas Mastriano, Trump’s point person for
Pennsylvania’s fake electors: “Mastriano needs a call from [Rudy Giuliani].
This needs to be done. Talk to him about legalities of what they are doing,….Electors
want to be reassured that the process is * legal * essential for greater
strategy.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">One person who wasn’t convinced of the legality of this strategy was
Andrew Hitt, chairman of the GOP in Wisconsin. After being contacted by Rudy
Giuliani for a call, Hitt <a href="https://january6th.house.gov/sites/democrats.january6th.house.gov/files/Report_FinalReport_Jan6SelectCommittee.pdf">texted</a>
a friend that “These guys are up to no good and its [sic] gonna fail
miserably.” <i>(Despite his stated reservations, Hitt would later </i><a href="https://www.wpr.org/democrats-file-lawsuit-against-wisconsin-republicans-who-posed-electors"><i>become</i></a><i>
a fake elector for Trump).</i> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">On <b>December 13</b>, Kenneth Chesebro
</span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/15/us/trump-emails-eastman-chesebro-jan-6.html"><span style="background: white;">emailed</span></a><span style="background: white;"> Giuliani about the campaign’s “</span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/15/jan-6-house-committee-third-hearing-preview?utm_term=62ab143c6052700b23b523bfd73f530b&utm_campaign=GuardianTodayUS&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&CMP=GTUS_email"><span style="background: white;">President of the Senate” strategy</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white;">.</span></span><span style="background: white;">
The idea was to get false Trump electors accepted on January 6 by convincing
Mike Pence to “firmly take the position that he, and he alone, is charged with
the constitutional responsibility not just to open the votes, but to count them
— including making judgments about what to do if there are conflicting votes.”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">One
leg of this strategy involved flipping Georgia, where Trump operative Robert
Sinners </span><a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/fake-pro-trump-electors-in-georgia-were-told-to-operate-in-complete-secrecy-after-biden-victory-email-shows"><span style="background: white;">instructed</span></a><span style="background: white;"> state </span>Republicans to appoint
alternate electors in “complete secrecy” so that the media wouldn’t know what
they were doing: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“I must ask for your complete discretion in this process….Your duties are
imperative to ensure the end result – a win in Georgia for President Trump –
but will be hampered unless we have complete secrecy and discretion.”<span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.3pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Emails from Christina Bobb to Trump lawyers and swing state operatives<span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.3pt;"> </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/21/top-trump-lawyers-briefed-on-granular-details-of-alternate-elector-plot-00047107"><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.3pt;">revealed</span></a><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.3pt;"> </span>that state Republicans had false electors ready in Arizona,
Michigan, Nevada, Wisconsin, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania.<span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.3pt;"> </span><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.3pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>(Not coincidentally, Special Counsel Jack Smith would later<span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.3pt;"> </span></i><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/14/politics/jack-smith-subpoena-battleground-states/index.html"><i><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.3pt;">subpoena these states</span></i></a><i><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.3pt;"> </span>as part of his investigation into Donald Trump’s potential
criminal liability for the January 6 insurrection). <o:p></o:p></i></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">On<b> December 14, </b></span>the Electoral College met and certified Joe Biden’s victory.
According to Biden, seven Republican senators called to congratulate him. Trump
allies Mitch McConnell, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Vladimir Putin publicly <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/12/15/mitch-mcconnell-putin-acknowledge-biden-victory-thwart-trump-effort/3898813001/">congratulated</a> the president-elect. <span style="background: white;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">While the rest of the civilized
world recognized Biden’s victory, 59 state-level Republican officials in seven
swing states signed </span><a href="https://www.americanoversight.org/american-oversight-obtains-seven-phony-certificates-of-pro-trump-electors"><span style="background: white;">fake electors</span></a><span style="background: white;"> in hopes that Vice President Mike Pence would reject the
legitimate electors on January 6. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Meanwhile,
Donald </span>Trump’s obsessive attempts to find elusive “voter fraud” took on
new life. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/15/politics/trump-allies-emails-justice-department-2020-election/index.html">reported</a> by CNN, <span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">“Trump's assistant sent [deputy attorney general
Jeff] Rosen and [Justice Department official] Richard Donoghue a document
claiming to show voter fraud in Antrim County, Michigan. An aide to Donoghue
forwarded the document to the US Attorneys for the Eastern and Western
Districts in Michigan. Less than an hour later, Trump tweeted that [Attorney
General William] Barr would be leaving the Justice Department just before
Christmas, elevating both Rosen and Donoghue to the top spots at [the Justice
Department].”</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">The
day after the electoral college validated </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">Biden’s win, <b>December 15</b>, Trump tweeted, “This Fake
Election can no longer stand” and invited Jeff Rosen to the White House. At the
Oval Office, Trump </span><a href="https://dnyuz.com/2021/06/05/meadows-pressed-justice-dept-to-investigate-election-fraud-claims/"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">pressured</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> his next attorney general to put Justice Department backing
behind election lawsuits, </span><a href="https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/politics/elections/2021/01/06/trumps-failed-efforts-overturn-election-numbers/4130307001/"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">61 of 62</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> of which would be rejected </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">by Democratic <i>and</i>
Republican judges—including Trump appointees—often with </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/25/us/elections/trump-campaign-lawsuits.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">uncharacteristically scathing</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> judicial
rulings. </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">On <b>December
16</b>, </span>Senator Mike Lee told Mark Meadows, via text, that weeks of
failures to turn up concrete evidence of fraud were weakening party resolve. Referring
to senators objecting to the electoral vote certification, Lee<span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/15/politics/read-mark-meadows-texts-mike-lee-chip-roy/index.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">said</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">, </span>“I think we’re now passed [sic] the
point where we can expect anyone will do it without some direction and a strong
evidentiary argument.”<span style="background: white; color: #0c0c0c; letter-spacing: 0.3pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Lacking an evidentiary argument, someone in the Trump orbit drew up a<span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000017e-920d-d65f-a77e-fbad182f0000"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">draft executive order</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> to have the
military seize voting machines in Georgia. </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/01/21/read-the-never-issued-trump-order-that-would-have-seized-voting-machines-527572"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">According to</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> Betsy Woodruff Swan of <i>Politico</i>,
“</span><span style="background: white;">The order empowers the
defense secretary to ‘seize, collect, retain and analyze all machines,
equipment, electronically stored information, and material records required for
retention under’ a U.S. law that relates to preservation of election records.”
The order also “would have given the defense secretary 60 days to write an
assessment of the 2020 election. That suggests it could have been a gambit to
keep Trump in power until at least mid-February of 2021.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Variations
on this plan </span><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-asked-if-dhs-could-take-control-of-voting-machines-2022-2?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Sentences%202-1-22&utm_term=Sentences"><span style="background: white;">included</span></a><span style="background: white;"> Rudy Giuliani asking the Department of Homeland Security to
seize machines, Trump asking Bill Barr, and Trump asking Republican legislators
in Pennsylvania and Michigan to summon local law enforcement. Memos were drawn
up for </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/21/politics/trump-executive-order/index.html"><span style="background: white;">both</span></a><span style="background: white;"> the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon to seize voting
machines. The requests were not acted on. </span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">A document
covering similar ground (dated <b>December 17) </b>was<b> </b>referenced in </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">a </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000017e-1335-dee4-a5ff-ff3d3f310000"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">privilege log</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> </span>provided to the January 6 committee by the attorney
for Bernard Kerik (see January 4 entry). The withheld document was titled, “DRAFT
LETTER FROM POTUS TO SEIZE EVIDENCE IN THE INTEREST OF NATIONAL SECURITY FOR
THE 2020 ELECTIONS.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>December 18</b>, a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/dec-18-2020-memo/af2cc1eb-730b-4171-bcc8-50bbe07e0ff9/?itid=lk_inline_manual_4">memo</a>
was drawn up advocating for the Department of Defense (DOD) to appoint a team
who would review data (collected by the National Security Agency) in search of foreign
interference in the 2020 election. The memo <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/592627-memo-argued-trump-linked-officials-should-seize-nsa-data-to-effort-to/">concluded</a>
that the Trump Administration could take the law into their own hands,
depending on the findings: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; color: #2b2c30;">“If evidence of foreign
interference is found, the team would generate a classified DOD legal finding
to support next steps to defend the Constitution in a manner superior to
current civilian-only </span><span style="background: white;">judicial remedies (which should still be pursued in parallel).”</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">The
content of the documents drawn up December 16-18 dovetailed with a contentious six-hour
meeting at the White House that evening. </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">The
meeting began when Trump received “</span><a href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/live-blog/michigan-judge-holds-sanctions-hearing-on-2020-election-conspiracy-mongers"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Team Kraken</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">” (Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell,
Michael Flynn, and Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne), outsiders unaffiliated
with Trump’s official White House legal team who were happy to entertain—and
act on—the president’s ridiculous conspiracy theories.</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: red;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Upon
finding out who was with the outgoing president, Trump’s lawyer Pat Cipollone “</span><a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-taped-testimony-paints-picture-of-unhinged-white-house-meeting-as-trump-tried-to-fight-election-results"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">rushed</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">” to the White House, purportedly
out of fear that Trump could receive advice which could put him at risk of breaking
the law. </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">According
to </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVIAYhjz4Gk&t=20s"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">witness testimony</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> before the January 6 committee, a
screaming match ensued between those who supported the rule of law and those
who did not. </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Firmly
in the latter category were Rudy Giuliani and Trump’s former national security
advisor, </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/07/opinion/michael-flynn-charges-dropped.html">convicted
felon</a> Michael Flynn, who had <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/michael-flynn-trump-military-martial-law-overturn-election-2020-12">recently
said</a> that Trump should declare martial law, seize
voting machines, and force a new election. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On the side of law and historical precedent were
White House lawyers Pat Cipollone and Eric Herschmann, and White House staff
secretary Derek Lyons.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="MsoHyperlink">Among the ideas Cipollone and Herschmann were </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/01/us/jan-6-panel-trump-voting-machines.html">subjected
to</a><span class="MsoHyperlink"> were Flynn’s claim that foreign countries had
rigged America’s election with </span><a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/06/jan-6-roe-gas-prices-congress-skewed-priorities.html">Nest-brand
thermostats</a><span class="MsoHyperlink"> and </span>suggestions
that Trump <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/19/politics/trump-oval-office-meeting-special-counsel-martial-law/index.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">declare a national emergency</span></a> (which could be used as a justification for martial
law), sign an executive order to have the National Guard seize voting machines
and/or oversee re-votes in the six states Trump was contesting, and <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/19/sidney-powell-trump-special-counsel-448694">name</a> Sidney Powell Special Counsel to investigate voting
machines. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">When Cipollone and Herschmann asked for evidence to support the fraud
claims, nothing substantial was offered. Unhappy with this line of questioning,
Trump griped about the White House lawyers not giving him “<a href="https://www.vox.com/23205660/trump-unhinged-giuliani-flynn-powell-january-6">solutions</a>.”
Giuliani <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/07/giuliani-called-trump-lawyers-pussies-for-rejecting-1-6-plot.html">accused</a>
them of being “pussies.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In an <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcBVxLJFlPE">interview</a> with Rachel Maddow, <i>Politico</i> reporter <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/31/kerik-documents-jan-6-committee-526297">Nicholas
Wu</a> said of the overlap between the potential
“<a href="https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/trump-january-6-letter-insurrection-act-20220103.html">smoking
gun</a>” December 17 document (referenced in a <a href="https://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000017e-1335-dee4-a5ff-ff3d3f310000">privilege
log</a><span style="color: red;"> </span>provided by Bernie Kerik’s lawyer) and the
controversial topics discussed on December 18, “It’s unclear exactly if these
two things are linked, but…that’s quite a coincidence.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">With lawyerly options to overthrow the election narrowing, Trump escalated
his tactics. At 1:42 a.m. on <b>December 19</b>, just a few hours after the
White House showdown, <span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Trump </span><a href="https://www.thetrumparchive.com/?results=1&searchbox=%22+%E2%80%9CA+great+report+by+Peter.+Statistically+impossible+to+have+lost+the+2020+Election.+Big+protest+in+D.C.+on+January+6th.+Be+there%2C+will+be+wild%21%E2%80%9D%22"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">tweeted</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> “</span><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 Election. Big
protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!” </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump’s announcement set
far-right militants into motion. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/29/us/politics/trump-tweet-jan-6.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article"><span style="background: white;">According to</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"> </span><i><span style="background: white;">New York Times</span></i><span style="background: white;"> reporters </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/alan-feuer"><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">Alan Feuer</span></a><span class="css-1baulvz"><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0in;">, </span></span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/michael-s-schmidt"><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">Michael S.
Schmidt</span></a><span style="background: white;"> and </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/luke-broadwater"><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">Luke
Broadwater</span></a><span class="css-1baulvz"><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0in;">, extremists </span></span><span style="background: white;">“began to set up
encrypted communications channels, acquire protective gear and, in one case,
prepare heavily armed ‘quick reaction forces’ to be staged outside Washington.</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">“They
also began to whip up their members with a drumbeat of bellicose language, with
their private messaging channels increasingly characterized by what one called
an ‘apocalyptic tone.’ Directly after Mr. Trump’s tweet was posted, the Capitol
Police began to see a spike in right-wing threats against members of Congress.”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">A
Twitter employee who monitored traffic on the site told the January 6
committee:</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">“It
felt as if a mob was being organized and they were gathering together their
weaponry and their logic and their reasoning behind why they were prepared to
fight prior to December 19….Very clear that individuals were ready willing and
able to take up arms. After this Tweet on December 19, again it became clear
not only were these individuals ready and willing, but the leader of their
cause was asking them to join him.” </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/08/politics/oath-keepers-explosives-death-list-january-6/index.html?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email"><span style="background: white;">According to</span></a><span style="background: white;"> reporters from CNN, “a Justice
Department court filing revealed that the Oath Keepers had extensive plans for
violence in the days surrounding January 6. Prosecutors say that at least three
chapters of the gang held military training camps focusing on ‘military-style
basic’ training, ‘unconventional warfare,’ and ‘hasty ambushes.’ At least one
of the Oath Keepers brought explosives, including grenades, to the </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/10/12/oath-keeper-weapons-firearms-jan-6-hotel-00061449"><span style="background: white;">quick reaction force</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a;"> (QRF) site outside Washington, D.C.” <i>(Oath Keeper
leader </i></span><a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/elmer-stewart-rhodes"><i><span style="background: white;">Elmer Stewart Rhodes</span></i></a><i><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a;"> would later be found </span></i><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/29/stewart-rhodes-oath-keepers-verdict-00071248"><i><span style="background: white;">guilty</span></i></a><i><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a;"> of seditious conspiracy against the U.S. government).</span></i><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">The
forces of insurrection—</span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000008392796/rile-up-the-normies-how-proud-boys-breached-the-capitol.html"><span style="background: white;">the Proud Boys</span></a><span style="background: white;">, the Oath Keepers, the Three
Percenters, Bikers for Trump, Vets for Trump, members of QAnon, and others—were
banding together. The head of homeland security for the District of Columbia,
Donell Harvin, </span><a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/07/trump-jan-six-hearing-knew-violence.html"><span style="background: white;">told</span></a><span style="background: white;"> the January 6 committee:</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.2in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>“We
got derogatory information from [open source intelligence] suggesting that some
very, very violent individuals were organizing to come to D.C. But not only
were they organizing to come to D.C.—these non-aligned groups were aligning….When
you have armed militia collaborating with white supremacy groups collaborating
with conspiracy theory groups online all towards a common goal, you start
seeing what we call in terrorism a blended ideology and that’s a very, very bad
sign.”</span><span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #2b2c30;">On</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> <b>December 21</b>, Donald
Trump, Rudy Giuliani, and Mark Meadows met with congressional allies at the
White House. </span><a href="https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/3466785-new-details-emerge-on-extent-of-gop-effort-to-unwind-trumps-loss/"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">According to</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> Mark
Meadows’ aide Cassidy Hutchinson—one of the </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/28/politics/cassidy-hutchinson-who-is/index.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">central witnesses</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">
before the January 6 committee—this group included Republicans Paul Gosar, Jody
Hice, Scott Perry, Andy Harris, Brian Babin, Louie Gohmert, </span><a href="https://www.ajc.com/politics/former-white-house-aide-says-marjorie-greene-requested-pardon-after-jan-6/2JFLJ72H6VD7VCJ7QZSHXQN4RA/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Marjorie Taylor Greene</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">,
Matt Gaetz, Andy Biggs, Mo Brooks, and Jim Jordan.</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #ff0066;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">The House
members had come in response to an </span><a href="https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/july-12-2022"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">email invite</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">
from Mo Brooks (who would speak at the January 6 rally) with a subject line of
“White House meeting December 21 regarding January 6.” The topic, once again,
was how to get illegitimate electors from swing states Trump had lost accepted.
<i>(</i></span><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #111111;">Brooks would later </span></i><a href="https://www.rawstory.com/mo-brooks-pardon/?utm_source=123456&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=10706&recip_id=24770&list_id=1"><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">ask</span></i></a><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #111111;"> for a pardon for himself and other members of </span></i><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">this group. </span></i><i><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Biggs,
who exchanged at least </span></i><a href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/feature/as-the-2020-election-slipped-away-andy-biggs-and-mark-meadows-schemed-to-reverse-the-vote-in-arizona"><i><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">63 text messages</span></i></a><i><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">
with Mark Meadows, would </span></i><a href="https://www.mediaite.com/tv/gop-congressman-wont-commit-to-complying-with-illegitimate-jan-6-subpoena-dont-want-to-dignify-what-theyre-doing/"><i><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">refuse</span></i></a><i><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> to
appear before the January 6 committee.)</span></i><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Trump’s
public communications that day included the
</span><a href="https://factba.se/trump/search#%22we%2Bneed%2Bbacking%2Bfrom%22"><span>tweet</span></a><span> that
he’d “won in a landslide” and “[needed] backing from the Justice Department.” </span><span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>The propaganda continued on <b>December 22</b>, </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">when Trump </span><a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-vlog-contesting-election-results-december-22-2020"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">tweeted</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> a video with the claim that “</span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">The rigging of the 2020 election was
only the final step in the Democrats’ and the media’s yearslong effort to </span><a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-vlog-contesting-election-results-december-22-2020"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">overthrow the will of the American
people</span></a><span>.”</span><span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>In order to overthrow the will of the American people,
Scott Perry, one of </span><a href="https://www.penncapital-star.com/campaigns-elections/a-timeline-of-pa-rep-scott-perrys-texts-following-the-2020-election-analysis/"><span>the main collaborators</span></a><span>, “</span><a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/06/trump-effin-a-hole-jeff-clark-attorney-general.html"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">arranged</span></a><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #222222;"> for [Jeffrey] Clark to meet Trump behind the back of senior
Department </span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">of Justice officials—and
contrary to long-standing department regulations—in the Oval Office.” Clark was
a largely unknown lawyer for the Environment and Natural Resources Division
(and head of the United States Department of Justice Civil Division) with no
legal purview over White House affairs. </span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: red;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">While Jeffrey Clark was on the way
to becoming a key figure in Donald Trump’s <i>coup</i> attempt, </span><span>Mark Meadows </span><a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/inside-mark-meadows-e2-80-99s-final-push-to-keep-trump-in-power/ar-AAX3I2Z"><span>flew</span></a><span> to
Georgia, where he hoped to crash signature-matching done by elections officials.
Per established protocols, Meadows was not allowed to observe the process. As a
consolation prize, Meadows wangled the phone number of Frances Watson, an
elections investigator at the site. </span><span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>Donald Trump </span><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/you-ll-be-praised-audio-trump-call-georgia-elections-investigator-n1261159"><span>called</span></a><span>
Watson the following day, <b>December 23. </b>He flattered her, trotted out
grievances about imaginary voter fraud, and said, “<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">When the right answer comes out, you'll be praised….People will say ‘great,’
because that's what it's about, the ability to check and to make it right,
because everyone knows it's wrong.”</span></span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">The big news that Wednesday was the </span><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/14/attorney-general-william-barr-resigns-effective-dec-23.html"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">resignation</span></a><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> of Attorney General William Barr. </span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; margin: 15pt 0in 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">With Barr out of the way, </span><span>Trump
</span><a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/06/trump-effin-a-hole-jeff-clark-attorney-general.html"><span>called</span></a><span> new
attorney general Jeffrey Rosen on <b>December 24</b> to see if he could
convince him to issue fake findings of vote fraud. During the conversation, Trump
asked Rosen if he knew Jeffrey Clark. Rosen told the January 6 committee, <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">“When I hung up I was quizzical as to how does the
president even knew Mr. Clark….I was not aware that they had ever met or that
the president had been involved in any of the issues in the civil division.”</span></span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">While
Trump worked on Rosen, outside attorney John Eastman commented (in an email to
Kenneth Chesebro and “</span><a href="https://dnyuz.com/2022/06/15/trump-lawyer-cited-heated-fight-among-justices-over-election-suits/"><span style="background: white;">Trump campaign officials</span></a><span style="background: white;">”) that there was
a “heated fight” on the Supreme Court about Trump’s lawsuit to overturn the
election. Chesebro responded that the </span>“odds of action before Jan. 6 will
become more favorable if the justices start to fear that there will be ‘wild’
chaos on Jan. 6 unless they rule by then, either way.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The email hinted that Clarence Thomas’ wife Ginni—a board member of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/22/magazine/clarence-thomas-ginni-thomas.html">far-right
Council for National Policy</a>—may have given insider information to Eastman
about the status of Trump’s case before the Supreme Court. Ginni Thomas sent <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ginni-thomas-corresponded-with-john-eastman-sources-in-jan-6-house-investigation-say/ar-AAYwbI3">multiple
texts</a> to Eastman, who had previously <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/former-clerks-clarence-thomas-who-helped-prop-up-trump-2022-7#patrick-strawbridge-10">clerked
</a>for her husband. Swaying Justice Thomas was seen as <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/02/trump-lawyers-saw-justice-thomas-as-only-chance-to-stop-2020-election-certification-00064592">the
linchpin</a> to blocking electors in Georgia, which Thomas oversaw. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>(The texts to Eastman were just a small part of Ginni Thomas’ </i><a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ginni-thomas-corresponded-with-john-eastman-sources-in-jan-6-house-investigation-say/ar-AAYwbI3"><i>efforts
to help steal the election</i></a><i>, which included </i><a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/03/watermarked-ballots-ginni-thomas-mark-meadows.html"><i>conspiratorial</i></a><i>
texts to Mark Meadows and pleas to Republican members of the Arizona
legislature to ignore the will of Arizona voters. Justice Thomas would be the
one member of the Supreme Court to </i><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/19/us/politics/trump-supreme-court-jan-6.html"><i>support</i></a><i>
Donald Trump’s effort to block White House communications documents from the
January 6 committee.)<span style="color: #333333;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">While
much of the world celebrated <b>Christmas</b>, Donald Trump was </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/16/us/politics/trump-olson-lindell-election.html?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">on the phone</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> with William J. Olson, a
Republican lawyer who would go on to represent MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell. Among
the ideas Olson advocated were declaring martial law and replacing Jeffrey
Rosen with an attorney general willing to revive the Texas Attorney General’s </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_v._Pennsylvania#:~:text=The%20suit%20was%20filed%20by,the%20spread%20of%20COVID%2D19."><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">lawsuit</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> to nullify electoral college
votes in <i>other</i> states (which had been rejected by the Supreme Court on
December 11). </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">On <b>December 26</b>, Trump
</span><a href="https://media-cdn.factba.se/realdonaldtrump-twitter/1342974375008600070.jpg"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">tweeted</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> more lies about the election (calling it “the biggest SCAM
in our nation’s history”), attacked the FBI, the Justice Department, and the
courts for following the rule of law, and </span><a href="https://media-cdn.factba.se/realdonaldtrump-twitter/1342821189077622792.jpg"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">referenced</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> his </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">January 6 “Save America” rally. </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">The
rally was top of mind for Trump’s militant supporters. That day, the Secret
Service </span><a href="https://twitter.com/January6thCmte/status/1580630699966550017?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1580630699966550017%7Ctwgr%5Ea4dcabf40a7cfe90510b35fba4246a807070e41b%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.motherjones.com%2Fpolitics%2F2022%2F10%2Fdonald-trump-january-6-committee-final-hearing-story-subversion-democracy%2F"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">received intelligence</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> that the Proud
Boys “think they will have a large enough group to march into DC armed and will
outnumber the police so they can’t be stopped.” Moreover, “Their plan is to
literally kill people.”</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: red;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Meanwhile,
Trump ally Scott </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">Perry </span><a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/06/trump-effin-a-hole-jeff-clark-attorney-general.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">texted</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> Mark </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Meadows, suggesting that the administration elevate Jeffrey
Clark to attorney general if they hoped to overturn the election. This was one of
at least </span><a href="https://www.rawstory.com/timeline-of-text-messages-reveals-rep-scott-perrys-outsized-role-in-efforts-to-overturn-2020-election/?utm_source=123456&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=12403&recip_id=24770&list_id=1"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">62 texts</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> with Meadows after the election
(in addition, Perry had </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/12/16/trump-jan-6-perry-00074379"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">dozens</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> of contacts with Trump’s outside
lawyers). </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: red;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Clark
was being mentioned because Trump’s attorney general of less than a week,
Jeffrey Rosen, insisted on following the rule of law. On <b>December 27</b></span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">, Trump </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/30/politics/trump-election-justice/index.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">pressured</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> Rosen to review “election fraud” in Pennsylvania and
Arizona that William Barr had already found to be inconsequential. Rosen
reportedly </span><a href="https://www.wsiltv.com/news/senate-judiciary-committee-issues-sweeping-report-detailing-how-trump-and-a-top-doj-lawyer-attempted/article_173f9a88-5efb-50ce-bed8-1acc7db34280.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">told</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> Trump that the Department of Justice “can’t, and won’t,
just flip a switch and change the election.” In response, Trump told Rosen to “just
say that the election was corrupt” and “leave the rest to me and the [Republican]
congressmen.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">Trump’s allies were in on a
“</span><a href="https://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000017e-132a-dca7-a1ff-b33b8afd0000"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Strategic Communications Plan</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">,” </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">a document detailing an aggressive
disinformation campaign filled with talking points about fraud in swing states,
messaging channels, and target audiences—even though </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">Trump was </span><a href="https://www.greenwichtime.com/news/article/New-evidence-shows-Trump-was-told-many-times-16975783.php"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">told</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> that the fraud talking points were false by “at least 11
aides and close confidants.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">Trump also tried to get
Rosen to sign on to a lawsuit (which had already been rejected by the
Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel) asking the Supreme Court to
toss out electoral college votes in six states Biden had won and </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/08/10/trump-asked-ag-overturn-election-503341"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">order a “special election</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">Trump wasn’t the only one
badgering Rosen. Jeffrey Clark </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/07/us/politics/jeffrey-rosen-trump-election.html?searchResultPosition=2"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">made five cracks</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> at the new attorney general, trying to get him </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">to challenge
election </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">results in key
states lost by Trump. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">Rosen’s second-in-command
also felt the heat. Coaxed by Trump, Pennsylvania representative Scott Perry </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/10/07/senate-judiciary-trumps-2020-pa-house-republican-515549"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">called</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> Richard Donoghue, the Deputy Attorney General, to try to
get the Justice Department to review debunked voter fraud claims in
Pennsylvania. Perry also tried to convince Donoghue to grant more power to </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Trump loyalist
Jeffrey Clark, who wanted to scour election results for any data which could be
exploited</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #ff0066;">. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">(Perry would later duck
the January 6 committee while citing his devotion to “</span></i><a href="https://www.inquirer.com/news/scott-perry-january-6-panel-congress-pennsylvania-20211221.html"><i><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">the rule of law</span></i></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><i><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">,” then play the victim
and </span></i></span><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/gop-rep-scott-perry-drops-lawsuit-return-phone-data-seized-fbi-rcna54270"><i><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">file a lawsuit</span></i></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><i><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> when the FBI
confiscated his phone at part of a </span></i></span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/10/scott-perry-trump-fbi-investigation-00050901"><i><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Justice Department investigation</span></i></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><i><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> of January 6). <o:p></o:p></span></i></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">On <b>December 28</b>, Clark
</span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/06/politics/doj-clark-trump-election/index.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">peddled conspiracy theories</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">around the Justice Department and </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/04/politics/draft-doj-georgia-letter-election-reversal/index.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #0070c0;">sent</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: red;"> </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">a message to Jeff Rosen and Richard Donoghue requesting their
sign-off on a </span><a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/January-6-Clearinghouse-Jeffrey-Clark-emails-and-rejected-draft-letter-to-stop-Georgia-certification-december-28-2020.pdf"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">letter</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> (conveniently typed on official
Department of Justice letterhead) which asked Georgia’s Republican legislature
to call a special session to investigate election “irregularities” and choose a
slate of illegitimate electors for Trump. </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">In
the </span><a href="https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/june-23-2022"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">words</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> </span>of historian Heather Cox Richardson, “Clearly,
there was no time to actually conduct another investigation into the election
before January 6; the letter was designed simply to justify counting out
Biden’s ballots or, failing that, to create popular fury that might delay the
January 6 count.”<span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Donoghue
responded via email that signing such a letter was “not even in the realm of possibility.”</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">Without the backing of Justice
Department leadership, Clark </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">worked with </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">aide Ken Klukowski (who had started at the Justice
Department on </span><a href="https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Donoghue%20Transcript.pdf"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">December 15</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">) to gather witnesses to provide “testimony” o</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">f voter fraud.
The January 6 committee </span><a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/06/trump-effin-a-hole-jeff-clark-attorney-general.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">revealed</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> that </span><a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/analysis/Ken_Blackwell.pdf"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">voter suppression expert</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> </span></span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">Ken Blackwell emailed Mike Pence’s
office to ask him to meet with Klukowski and John Eastman. </span><a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/06/trump-effin-a-hole-jeff-clark-attorney-general.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">According to</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> Jeremy Stahl of <i>Slate</i>, “</span><span style="color: #222222;">this email was the first piece of public evidence linking
Eastman directly to the efforts to use the [Department of Justice] to change
the outcome of the election.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #222222;">Another effort to change the outcome of the
election came from William Olson, the lawyer Trump had spoken to on Christmas. Warning
that “time is about to run out” for their plans, Olson sent a </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/07/16/us/politics/olson-memo-trump-election.html?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email">letter</a><span style="color: #222222;"> to Trump saying that the Office of White House Counsel
and Attorney General Rosen were failing the president. Olson suggested the
White House replace Rosen within 24 hours and re-file a case along the lines of
</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_v._Pennsylvania"><i>Texas
v. Pennsylvania</i></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><i>, </i></span>which would <span style="color: #222222;">have nullified the electoral college votes of Georgia,
Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.</span> If the Supreme Court didn’t rule
in Trump’s favor, the president could act unilaterally, since “that body was
never intended to be the final authority on matters of this sort.”<span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Mark
Meadows continued the full-court press on<b> December 29</b> when he </span><a href="https://oversight.house.gov/news/press-releases/committee-obtains-key-evidence-of-president-trump-s-attempts-to-overturn-the"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #0070c0;">urged</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> Rosen and Deputy
Attorney General Richard Donoghue to consider the </span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-afs:Content:9887147615"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #0070c0;">right-wing myth</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> that the
number of votes cast in Pennsylvania was larger than the number of registered
voters in the state and to take a look at “Italygate” (a </span><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-fact-check-debunking-italy-gate/fact-check-evidence-disproves-claims-of-italian-conspiracy-to-meddle-in-u-s-election-idUSKBN29K2N8"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #0070c0;">theory</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> that Biden
supporters in Italy had used satellites to change a decisive number of votes in
swing states from Trump to Biden).</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Meanwhile,
Trump’s personal assistant Molly Michael </span><a href="https://oversight.house.gov/sites/democrats.oversight.house.gov/files/documents/COR-SelectedDOJDocuments-2021-6-15-FINAL.pdf"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #0070c0;">emailed</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> Rosen,
Donoghue, and Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall a legal complaint baselessly
claiming that the six swing states Trump had lost by the narrowest margins (Nevada,
Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, Arizona) had violated the Electors
Clause of the Constitution, along with a request to file a case before the U.S.
Supreme Court. </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Trump’s
outside attorney, Kurt Olsen, </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/05/politics/january-6-timeline-trump-coup/index.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">called</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> Jeff Rosen on <b>December 30</b> and said that Trump
expected him to file Michael’s Supreme Court lawsuit by noon that day. Rosen
refused. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">Trump’s strategist Steve
Bannon </span><a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/bob-woodward-finds-seven-conspiratorial-actions-by-trump-and-bannon"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">called</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> the president and suggested he lure Mike Pence back to
Washington (from a skiing vacation) in order to pressure him into refusing to
accept Biden electors during the January 6 certification. The goal was to convince
Pence to “kill the Biden presidency in the crib.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">As Trump worked on Pence, </span><a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/biden-transition-updates/2020/12/30/951430323/gop-sen-hawley-will-object-to-electoral-college-certification"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">presidential aspirant</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> Josh Hawley, a Republican senator
from Missouri, </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">became the first senator to announce his intent to object
to electors for Joe Biden on January 6. </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">While
Hawley made </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">a savvy play</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> for future
Republican primary voters, Trump’s minions continued to pressure the Justice
Department </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">(DOJ). In </span><a href="https://dnyuz.com/2021/06/05/meadows-pressed-justice-dept-to-investigate-election-fraud-claims/"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">two of five known emails</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> Mark </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Meadows sent asking the DOJ to
review tinfoil-hat conspiracy theories, Trump’s chief of staff that day </span><a href="https://oversight.house.gov/sites/democrats.oversight.house.gov/files/documents/COR-SelectedDOJDocuments-2021-6-15-FINAL.pdf"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">sent Justice officials disinformation</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> about alleged voter fraud in Fulton
County, Georgia</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">. (</span>Meadows also forwarded <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/02/politics/mark-meadows-election-fraud-liaison/index.html">debunked
conspiracy theories</a> to “<span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">the FBI, Pentagon, National Security
Council, and Office </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">of the Director of National Intelligence.”)</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: red;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Unable
to get the new attorney general to do his bidding, Trump invited Rosen and
Donoghue to the White House on <b>December 31</b>. At the meeting, Trump
reportedly </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/05/politics/january-6-timeline-trump-coup/index.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">said</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> that </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">he was considering replacing Rosen with Jeffrey Clark
because Rosen hadn’t been aggressive enough in investigating voter fraud. Trump
wanted voting machines seized by the Justice Department, but was told by Rosen
that the DOJ had “no legal authority” to do so. If any such authority existed,
it was </span><a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/06/trump-january-six-hearings-crimes-trial-jury-ouch.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">held</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Once
the meeting had ended, “</span><span style="color: #2a2a2a;">Trump then </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/06/23/jan6-doj-clark-rosen-donoghue-testimony/">called</a><span style="color: #2a2a2a;"> Ken Cuccinelli, </span>the DHS acting deputy secretary,
and falsely told him that the acting attorney general had just said that it was
Cuccinelli’s job to seize voting machines ‘and you’re not doing your job.’”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As Trump tried to cling to power, Chip Roy,<span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> a supporter of Trump’s election
challenges a few weeks earlier,</span> <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/15/politics/mike-lee-chip-roy-text-messages-jan-6-mark-meadows-overturn-election/index.html">texted</a><span style="color: #2a2a2a;"> </span>Mark Meadows that it was time to give up:<span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The president should call everyone off. It’s the only
path. If we substitute the will of states through electors with a vote by
congress every 4 years…we have destroyed the electoral college.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">On <b>January
1, 2021</b>, Jeff Rosen </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/18/mark-meadows-center-6-january-donald-trump"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">received</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> a 13-minute YouTube video about
Italygate from Mark Meadows (which Meadows had gotten the day prior </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/06/23/jan6-doj-clark-rosen-donoghue-testimony/"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">from</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> Scott Perry). Meadows also asked Rosen to send Jeffrey
Clark to Georgia, presumably so that Clark could find something, anything which
could be construed as “voter fraud.”</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Trump
loyalist and director of presidential personnel Johnny McEntee </span><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/11/trump-johnny-mcentee-january-6-betrayal/620646/"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">texted</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> a memo to Greg Jacob, Mike
Pence’s chief of staff, headlined with the words “Jefferson Used His Position
as VP to Win,” a fanciful interpretation of the 1800 presidential election. </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: red;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">McEntee’s
memo took a hit when a Trump-appointed judge in Texas </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/01/louie-gohmert-lawsuit-pence-453387"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">rejected</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> Arizona representative Louie
Gohmert’s lawsuit claiming Mike Pence could pick and choose which electors to
accept on January 6. </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Chip
Roy </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/15/politics/mike-lee-chip-roy-text-messages-jan-6-mark-meadows-overturn-election/index.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">texted</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> Mark Meadows that Trump’s plans
to overrule the will of the people could “[drive] a stake in the heart of the
federal republic.”</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>January 2, 2021</b> was a big day in the annals of failed election
theft. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Eleven Republican senators, including former and likely future
presidential candidate Ted Cruz, made a joint statement in which they <a href="https://www.cruz.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/joint-statement-from-senators-cruz-johnson-lankford-daines-kennedy-blackburn-braun-senators-elect-lummis-marshall-hagerty-tuberville">referred
to<span style="color: #4472c4; mso-themecolor: accent1;"> ill-defined </span>fraud</a>
and advocated “<em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0in;">an emergency 10-day audit of the election returns in the
disputed states.” </span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></span></em></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0in;">The senators’ public
pretense was that the audit was necessary in order to assuage millions of
Americans who had doubts about the legitimacy of the 2020 election. Polls cited
showed that one-third of independents, two-thirds of Republicans, and 39% of
all voters held the </span></em><a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/exhaustive-fact-check-finds-little-evidence-of-voter-fraud-but-2020s-big-lie-lives-on"><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">baseless belief</span></a><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: red; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"> </span><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0in;">that the election had been “rigged.”</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></span></em></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0in;">In plain
English, the senators were contending that since four out of every 10 Americans
were gullible enough to believe ludicrous and self-serving Republican lies
about an election they clearly lost, a 10-day “audit” giving Republicans more time
to peddle ludicrous and self-serving lies about the election to gullible
Americans was necessary in order to “restore faith in American Democracy.”</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></span></em></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">While his congressional sycophants performed Kabuki theater, Trump made another
attempt to flip Georgia. After <a href="https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/june-21-2022">18 requests</a>
from Mark Meadows, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger consented to a
call with Trump. During an <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AW_Bdf_jGaA">infamous
67-minute conference call</a>, Raffensperger debunked Trump’s conspiracy
theories and pointed out that multiple recounts hadn’t come close to reversing
Trump’s Georgia loss. Unbowed by the facts, Trump tried to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump%E2%80%93Raffensperger_phone_call">bully</a><span class="MsoHyperlink"> the </span>Republican Secretary of State into “[finding] 11,780 votes” for him—just enough to give
Trump Georgia’s 16 electoral college votes. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump also <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/willard-trump-eastman-giuliani-bannon/2021/10/23/c45bd2d4-3281-11ec-9241-aad8e48f01ff_story.html">called</a> 300 Republican state legislators, telling them they
could overrule the will of the voters in their states and put forward fake
electors. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The Justice Department continued to refuse to bend to Trump’s will. <span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Jeff Rosen
wrote </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">Jeffrey Clark back
and </span><a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/doj-officials-rejected-colleagues-request-intervene-georgias-election/story?id=79243198"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">asserted</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">, as his second-in-command Richard Donoghue had already
done on December 28, that he was “not </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">prepared to sign” a letter asking Georgia’s
Republican legislature to “investigate” trumped-up fraud. </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Nonetheless,
plans continued for January 6.</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/28/january-6-hearings-cassidy-hutchinson-key-moments-video-analysis-00042914"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">According to</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> Mark Meadows aide Cassidy H</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">utchinson, “the terms ‘Proud Boys’
and ‘Oath Keepers’” came up “when [Rudy] Giuliani was around.” After a January
2 meeting between Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, and other White House officials,
Giuliani told Hutchinson, “We’re going to the Capitol! It’s going to be great!”
Hutchinson asked Meadows for clarification. Meadows told her </span><span style="background: white;">“There’s a lot
going on…things might get real, real bad on January 6.”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">On <b>January
3, 2021</b>, </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">Meadows </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/14/politics/january-6-committee-text-messages/index.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">received a text</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> which said, “I heard Jeff Clark is [going to </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">replace Jeff
Rosen] on Monday [January 4]. That's amazing. It will make a lot of patriots happy,
and I'm personally so proud that you are at the tip of the spear, and I could
call you a friend.” </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Call
logs </span><a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/stunning-details-missed-thursdays-jan-hearing-trumps-pressure/story?id=85607045"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">revealed</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> by the January 6 committee showed
that Clark called the White House </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/06/23/jan6-doj-clark-rosen-donoghue-testimony/"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">four times</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> that day. By the fourth call—at
4:19 p.m.—Clark was officially referred to in the logs as the “acting Attorney General.”<u> </u></span><u><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></u></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">In </span><a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/06/trump-effin-a-hole-jeff-clark-attorney-general.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">testimony</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> before the committee, Jeff Rosen
said that Clark “</span><span style="background: white;">told me that the timeline had moved up and that the president
had offered him the job and that he was accepting it.” Rosen “wasn’t going to
accept being fired by [a] subordinate,” so he arranged a meeting at the White
House. </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Rosen <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/07/politics/senate-judiciary-committee-investigation-trump-2020-election/index.html">told</a> congressional investigators that Trump began the meeting
by saying, “One thing we know is you, Rosen, aren't going to do anything
to overturn the election,” and implied that he could keep his job if he agreed to
send Jeffrey Clark’s letter (<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/06/23/jan6-doj-clark-rosen-donoghue-testimony/">written</a>
by Ken Klukowski, see December 28) to Georgia legislators. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">For
two-and-a-half hours, Clark tried to convince Trump that he should become
attorney general while Richard Donoghue, Pat Cipollone, Jeff Rosen, and Assistant
Attorney General for the </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Legal_Counsel" title="Office of Legal Counsel"><span style="background: white;">Office of Legal
Counsel</span></a><span style="background: white;"> Steven Engel argued against the elevation of Clark. Engel told the
January 6 committee:</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“I
said, ‘Mr. President you’re talking about putting a man in that seat who has
never tried a criminal case, who has never conducted a criminal investigation,
and he’s telling you that he’s going to take charge of the department’s 115,000
employees, including the entire FBI, and turn the place on a dime and conduct
nationwide criminal investigations that will produce results in a matter of days.
It’s impossible, it’s absurd, it is not going to happen, and it is going to
fail.’<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“He
has never been in front of a trial jury, a grand jury, he’s never even been to
[FBI Director] Chris Wray’s office. I said at one point, ‘If you walked into
Chris Wray’s office, one, would you know how to get there, and two, if you got
there, would he even know who you are? And do you really think that the FBI is
going to suddenly start following your orders?’ It’s not going to happen. He’s
not competent.”<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump backed off of his threat to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trump-justice-department-overturn-election/2021/01/22/b7f0b9fa-5d1c-11eb-a976-bad6431e03e2_story.html">replace</a> Rosen <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/07/politics/senate-judiciary-committee-investigation-trump-2020-election/index.html">after</a> <span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">“Donoghue
and Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel Steve Engel made
clear that there would be mass resignations at [the Department of Justice] if
Trump moved forward with replacing Rosen with Clark.” </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Though he left Rosen in place, Trump <a href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/4-days-in-january-the-story-of-trumps-ouster-of-atlantas-top-federal-prosecutor">fired</a> the U.S. attorney who covered the Atlanta area, Bjay Pak.
Trump said Pak hadn’t done enough to uncover fraud in his district. Pak’s
replacement, Trump loyalist Bobby Christine, later concluded that “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/us-attorney-georgia-fraud/2021/01/12/45a527c6-5526-11eb-a817-e5e7f8a406d6_story.html">There’s
just nothing to</a>” Trump’s claims of voter
fraud in Fulton County, where Biden amassed a huge share of his Georgia votes.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">While manipulating the electoral college certification was Trump’s main focus,
many political insiders had concerns that the president might fall back on the
Insurrection Act—especially if pro-Trump protesters clashed with left-leaning forces
on January 6. Earlier that day, all ten living defense secretaries, including
the recently deposed Mark Esper, penned <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/10-former-defense-secretaries-military-peaceful-transfer-of-power/2021/01/03/2a23d52e-4c4d-11eb-a9f4-0e668b9772ba_story.html">an
op-ed</a> in <i>the Washington Post </i>aimed at key players in the Trump
administration’s national security apparatus. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The signatories said that acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller and
those working under him “are each bound by oath, law and precedent to
facilitate the entry into office of the incoming administration, and to do so
wholeheartedly. They must also refrain from any political actions that
undermine the results of the election or hinder the success of the new team.” <span style="color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump and his collaborators weren’t yet accepting that there would be a
“new team” on January 20. <i> </i><span style="letter-spacing: 0.3pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>January 4, 2021</b>, Republican senators were given a <a href="https://lawandcrime.com/2020-election/kraken-attorneys-behind-outlandish-2020-election-lawsuits-urge-federal-appeals-court-to-overturn-sanctions-that-included-bar-referrals/">Team
Kraken</a> pitch to <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/2020-election-republican-meeting-revealed/?e=benbosity@gmail.com&utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=9775&recip_id=24770&list_id=1">seize
voting machines</a> and delay the official January 6 certification. Kevin
Cramer, a conservative Republican senator who had <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-trump-score/">voted with
Trump</a> 94% of the time, disclosed that the presenters wheeled out “some of
the most fantastical claims” about interference from Venezuela or China as a
justification for the extraordinary step. Attending via Zoom was Wisconsin
senator Ron Johnson, who would try to <a href="https://theintercept.com/2022/08/23/ron-johnson-january-6-fake-electors/">pass
off fake electors</a> for his state on January 6. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Another Wisconsin Republican who was in on the plot was Mark Jefferson,
executive director of the state party. In a text to a colleague, he <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/trump-team-orchestrated-fake-electors-try-overturn-election-jan-6-comm-rcna34605">said</a>,
“Freaking Trump idiots want someone to fly original elector papers to the senate
President….They’re going to call one of us to tell us just what the hell is
going on.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>As revealed during the January 6
committee hearings, here</span><a href="https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/june-28-2022"><span> summarized</span></a><span> by historian Heather
Cox Richardson: <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">“on January 4, National Security
Advisor Robert O’Brien called [Mark] Meadows to warn of violence on January 6.
The Secret Service and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Anthony Ornato, who
was in charge of security protocol to protect anyone covered by presidential
protection, also warned of coming violence.”</span></span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Despite these warnings, </span><span>General
Mark Milley was turned down when he </span><a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/79623/crisis-of-command-the-pentagon-the-president-and-january-6/"><span>suggested</span></a><span> to Trump cabinet
members that permits for a January 6 protest at the Capitol building be revoked
due to the possibility of violence. </span><span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>Still hoping to avoid a messy, violent<i>
coup</i> in favor of a bloodless, lawyerly <i>coup</i>, Trump’s outside
attorney John Eastman presented Mike Pence with </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/21/politics/read-eastman-memo/index.html"><span>a six-step plan</span></a><span> to toss
the electoral college votes from seven states Trump lost. If Pence carried out
the plan, neither candidate would have 270 electoral college votes, which would
throw the election to the House of Representatives, allowing Republicans to override
the will of American voters. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>Eastman’s plan was in clear violation of the Electoral Count Act
passed after the 1876 election; Pence’s counsel Mark Jacob would later </span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/capitol-siege-biden-elections-government-and-politics-presidential-42911f613bee85913dcbcbaeed096b2c"><span>say</span></a><span> that Eastman’s misreading of
130 years of election precedent was “essentially entirely made up.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>A second option was to have Pence adjourn the counting, allowing
time for states Trump had lost to send fake electors. Eastman had </span><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/11/trump-coup-blueprint/"><span>advocated</span></a><span> for this scheme on a
Steve Bannon podcast two days earlier and sketched out its details in a </span><a href="https://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2021/images/09/20/eastman.memo.pdf"><span>two-page memo</span></a><span> to Republican senators
Lyndsey Graham and Mike Lee, both of whom would later conclude that Trump’s fraud
claims were </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/09/20/peril-woodward-costa-graham-lee-fraud/"><span>baseless</span></a><span>. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Speaking to Jim Acosta on CNN, famous Watergate
reporter Carl Bernstein <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/trump-coup-press-investigate-bernstein/?cx_testId=4&cx_testVariant=cx_1&cx_artPos=4#cxrecs_s">said
of the Eastman memo</a>, “<span style="background: white;">I think what we are seeing in these memos particularly are blueprints
for a coup<i>…</i>.The actual blueprints in document form in which the
president of the United States, through his chief of staff, is sending to Mike
Pence’s, the vice president’s, staff a blueprint to overturn an election, a
blueprint for a conspiracy led by a president of the United States to result in
an authoritarian coup in which the election is stolen.”</span> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The nerve center of the authoritarian <i>coup</i> attempt was a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/willard-trump-eastman-giuliani-bannon/2021/10/23/c45bd2d4-3281-11ec-9241-aad8e48f01ff_story.html"><span style="color: #0070c0;">war room</span></a> at the Willard Hotel, one block from
the White House. In the weeks before January 6, Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani
led a team of conspirators who attempted to overturn Biden’s election victory.
Strategies included injecting disinformation about voter fraud into the right-wing media bloodstream, encouraging Trump supporters in swing
states to pressure their state legislators to block certification of
Biden’s win, pushing state legislators directly to block certification of
Biden’s victory, and trying to convince Mike Pence that he had the power to
deny state-certified electoral college votes. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At various times Giuliani was joined by Steve
Bannon, John Eastman, <a href="https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/trump-january-6-letter-insurrection-act-20220103.html">Bernard
Kerik</a>, Phil Waldron (author of a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/phil-waldron-mark-meadows-powerpoint/2021/12/11/4ea67938-59df-11ec-9a18-a506cf3aa31d_story.html">38-page
PowerPoint</a> detailing ways to overturn the
election), and Roger Stone, who <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/596850-new-evidence-details-roger-stones-efforts-against-2020-electionwapo/">had</a>
Oath Keepers as bodyguards along with<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/20/us/politics/roger-stone-jan-6.html">
connections</a> to both Stewart Rhodes (leader of the Oath Keepers) and Enrique
Tarrio (leader of the Proud Boys), <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Details of the Willard team’s agenda were revealed in a<a href="https://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000017e-132a-dca7-a1ff-b33b8afd0000"> document</a><span style="color: red;"> </span>given to the January 6 committee by Bernard Kerik’s
attorney. (See December 17)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">While Trump and his war room cabal brainstormed
ways to manipulate Mike Pence, other Republicans gave the vice president sound
interpretations of constitutional law. Conservative
judge J. Michael Luttig <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/willard-trump-eastman-giuliani-bannon/2021/10/23/c45bd2d4-3281-11ec-9241-aad8e48f01ff_story.html">told</a> Pence’s staff that there was no legal basis for him to
reject electoral college votes, advice also passed on by conservatives <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/12/us/politics/mike-pence-trump.html?referringSource=articleShare">John
Yoo</a> and <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/09/dan-quayle-convinced-mike-pence-to-reject-trumps-coup.html">former
vice president Dan Quayle</a>. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That night, <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?507634-1/president-trump-campaigns-republican-senate-candidates-georgia">appearing
at a rally</a> for two Republican senators facing
runoffs in Georgia, Trump told the audience Joe Biden
wasn’t “taking this White House. We’re going to fight like hell.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The imminent threat to democracy was far greater than was known to the
U.S. public on <b>January 5, 2021</b>, the day before the official counting of
electoral ballots. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Mike
Pence’s attorney, Greg Jacob, </span><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">released a </span><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/22058340-greg-jacob-jan-5-memo"><span style="background: white;">three-page memo</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"> which pointed out that Pence’s rejection of Joe </span><span style="background: white;">Biden electors
would be a flagrant violation </span><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">of the 1887 Electoral College Act. </span>Mike Pence’s chief of staff,
Marc Short, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/03/us/politics/trump-pence-safety-jan-6.html">called</a>
a meeting with Timothy Giebels, the head of the vice president’s security
detail. Giebels was told that due to Pence’s reluctance to meddle with the
electoral count, Donald Trump <span style="background: white;">“was going to turn publicly against the vice president, and
there could be a security risk to Mr. Pence because of it.”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Oddly enough, <a href="https://iowacapitaldispatch.com/2021/01/05/grassley-suggests-he-may-preside-over-senate-debate-on-electoral-college-votes/">an
article</a> appeared that day about Trump ally and Republican senator Chuck
Grassley overseeing the electoral college vote if Pence somehow failed to show
up. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; color: #0f0f0f;">The Capitol was supposed to
be </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/15/politics/barry-loudermilk-tour-january-6/index.html"><span style="background: white;">closed</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #0f0f0f;"> to the public due to Covid-19, but Republican House member
Barry Loudermilk of Georgia </span><a href="https://www.rawstory.com/capitol-reconnaissance-tours/"><span style="background: white;">gave</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #0f0f0f;"> a tour of the Capitol that day. One of the people on the tour marched
to the Capitol the following day while </span><a href="https://rollcall.com/2022/06/15/jan-6-panel-shows-man-from-loudermilk-tour-threatening-lawmakers-near-capitol-on-day-of-riot/"><span style="background: white;">threatening violence</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #0f0f0f;"> against Democratic members of </span><span style="background: white;">Congress. The
January 6 committee would later </span><a href="https://twitter.com/January6thCmte/status/1537075019918065666"><span style="background: white; color: #0070c0;">tweet</span></a><span style="background: white;"> that “Individuals on the tour
photographed/recorded areas not typically of interest to tourists: hallways,
staircases and security checkpoints.” <i>(</i></span><i>Loudermilk would be
among the 147 House Republicans who would </i><a href="https://www.rawstory.com/loudermilk-pressured-to-answer-the-committee-s-questions-after-shocking-jan-6-video/?utm_source=123456&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=10661"><i>refuse</i></a><i>
to certify Biden’s win.)<span style="color: red;"> </span></i><span style="background: white; color: red;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Though the Secret Service “<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/08/25/secret-service-warned-capitol-police-violent-threats-january-riot-506806">warned
the U.S. Capitol Police</a> that their officers could face violence at the
hands of supporters of former President Donald Trump,” Mark Meadows <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/12/meadows-jan-6-national-guard-trump-524133">sent</a> out an email demanding that the National Guard <span style="background: white;">“protect <i>pro-Trump people</i>. A </span><a href="https://twitter.com/KayLouMo/status/1470434467730923529/photo/1"><span style="background: white;">statement</span></a><span style="background: white;"> from the White House Office of the Press Secretary hyped the
threat of left-leaning protesters, saying “President Trump will not allow
Antifa, or any terrorist organization, to destroy our great country.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Trump mirrored this with </span><a href="https://twitter.com/KayLouMo/status/1470434382234202114"><span style="background: white;">a tweet</span></a><span style="background: white;"> threatening members of antifa who showed up in D.C. on January 6. There
was </span><a href="https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/12/17/trumps-jan-6-coup-how-it-worked-how-close-it-came-and-why-it-failed"><span style="background: white;">speculation</span></a><span style="background: white;"> later that this messaging could have been put in place to
give Trump cover to declare a national emergency on January 6, if anti-Trump protesters
showed up to fight pro-Trump protesters. A national emergency would have
allowed Trump to seize voting machines according to Phil Waldron’s 38-page </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/10/trump-powerpoint-mark-meadows-capitol-attack"><span style="background: white;">PowerPoint</span></a><span style="background: white;"> titled “Election Fraud, Foreign Interference & Options
for January 6” (see November 25, January 4).<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Mark Meadows continued to “</span><a href="https://www.rawstory.com/mark-meadows-georgia-grand-jury/"><span style="background: white;">direct traffic</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white;">.</span></span><span style="background: white;">” Among other things, he </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/20/trump-secret-meetings-january-6-capitol-attack-stephanie-grisham?utm_term=61e963daf3962dad2d465fa7f0c7cad9&utm_campaign=GuardianTodayUS&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&CMP=GTUS_email"><span style="background: white;">arranged</span></a><span style="background: white;"> secret White House meetings between Trump and his
conspirators (behind the backs of White House counsel) and </span><a href="https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/june-28-2022">contacted</a> Michael Flynn and Roger Stone—convicted felons whom
Trump had recently pardoned that would be <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/mike-flynn-riot-2657638150/">connected</a> to the coup attempt<span style="color: red;">. </span>Flynn and Stone would <a href="https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/july-12-2022">appear</a> that night at a Freedom Plaza event.<span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Republican representative Debbie Lesko was <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/12/politics/january-6-hearing-day-7-takeaways/index.html">caught
on tape</a> asking congressional leadership to
“come up with a safety plan for members” because “I’m actually very concerned
about this, because we have who knows how many hundreds of thousands of people
coming here. We have Antifa. We also have, quite honestly, Trump supporters,
who actually believe that we are going to overturn the election. And when that
doesn’t happen – most likely will not happen – they are going to go nuts.” <i><span style="letter-spacing: 0.3pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Washington D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser requested
National Guard backup, but Donald Trump’s Defense Department handcuffed the
Guard’s mission. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trump-protests-washington-guard-military/2021/01/07/c5299b56-510e-11eb-b2e8-3339e73d9da2_story.html"><span style="color: #2e74b5; mso-themecolor: accent5; mso-themeshade: 191;">According to</span></a> Paul Sonne, Peter Hermann, and Missy Ryan of <i>the
Washington Post</i>, “the Pentagon prohibited the District’s guardsmen from
receiving ammunition or riot gear, interacting with protesters unless necessary
for self-defense, sharing equipment with local law enforcement, or using Guard
surveillance and air assets without the defense secretary’s explicit sign-off.”
<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In addition, “The D.C. Guard was also told it
would be allowed to deploy a quick-reaction force only as a measure of last
resort,” which forced local D.C. officials to get approval from Trump’s Defense
Department for rapid deployment, a bureaucratic hurdle which hadn’t existed
previously. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As D.C. girded for trouble, Trump riled his
supporters up with <a href="https://twitter.com/billkristol/status/1359167496062980097">a 5 p.m. tweet</a> which read, “<span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Washington is being inundated with people who don’t want to see an
election victory stolen by emboldened Ra</span><span style="background: white;">dical Left Democrats….Our Country
has had enough, they won’t take it anymore!”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="story-textparagraph"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">This call out to the troops coincided with a pro-Trump event
at Freedom Plaza that night. Speaking at the rally were Trump allies who were
too extreme to speak at the main event on January 6—Alex Jones, Ali Alexander,
Michael Flynn, and Roger Stone. Stone </span><a href="https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/july-12-2022?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share"><span style="background: white;">told</span></a><span style="background: white;"> those in attendance they were in an “epic
struggle for the future of this country between dark and light, between the
godly and the godless, between good and evil. And we will win this fight or
America will step off into a thousand years of darkness.”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/07/12/1111123258/jan-6-committee-hearing-transcript"><span style="background: white;">According to</span></a><span style="background: white;"> deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews,
during an Oval Office meeting which took place </span><a href="https://twitter.com/manhattanmadam/status/1346784951258255360"><span style="background: white;">while music was booming</span></a><span style="background: white;"> at Freedom Plaza
(just half a mile from the White House), “[Trump] was in a very good mood. And
I say that because he had not been in a good mood for weeks leading up to that,
and then it seemed like he was in a fantastic mood that evening.” </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Deputy
Press Secretary Judd Deere </span><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/live-blog/-january-6-hearings-committee-live-updates-day-7-rcna36734?icid=ed_npd_nn_nn_np_liveblog#rcrd3649"><span style="background: white;">concurred</span></a><span style="background: white;">, saying Trump was “animated” and
“excited about the next day. He was excited to do a rally with his supporters.”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">At the
meeting, Trump discussed the march to the capitol which would follow his speech
at the Ellipse. Though it was </span><a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/07/12/trump-march-to-capitol-jan6-panel"><span style="background: white;">known</span></a><span style="background: white;"> to pro-Trump activists and administration figures,
the march to the Capitol wasn’t public knowledge. As January 6 committee member
Stephanie Murphy would later say, “the evidence confirms that this was not a
spontaneous call to action, but rather was a deliberate strategy decided upon
in advance by the president.”</span><span style="background: white; color: red;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Late that
evening, </span>Trump <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/30/donald-trump-called-top-aides-capitol-riot-biden">called
his apparatchiks</a> at the Willard Hotel and strategized about how they could delay
the vote count long enough to get three swing states to reject Biden’s
electoral votes and send false electoral votes to the Capitol. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">One of the key strategists at the Willard was Steve Bannon. Liz Cheney,
future vice chair of the January 6 committee, would later <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/house/577673-bannon-eyed-as-key-link-between-white-house-jan-6-riot">say</a>,
“<span style="background: white;">Based on
the committee’s investigation, it appears that Mr. Bannon had substantial
advance knowledge of the plans for January 6th and likely had an important role
in formulating those plans.” </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On his podcast the night of January 5, Steve Bannon
<a href="https://docs.house.gov/meetings/IJ/IJ00/20211019/114156/HRPT-117-NA.pdf">concluded
ominously:</a> “It’s not going to happen like
you think it’s going to happen. OK, it’s going to be quite extraordinarily
different. All I can say is, strap in….You made this happen and tomorrow it’s
game day. So strap in. Let’s get ready.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">***<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Prior to January 6, 2021, the
electoral college vote count and certification had been </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/01/04/pence-1887-electoral-vote-count-act-trump-biden/"><span style="background: white;">purely ceremonial</span></a><span style="background: white;">. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">But since none of Trump’s
banana republic tactics to overthrow the election had worked, the president’s </span>fundraiser <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-campaign-fundraiser-ellipse-rally">Caroline
Wren</a>, campaign operative <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/exclusive-jan-6-organizers-met-congress-white-house-1245289/">Katrina
Pierson</a>, chief of staff <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/exclusive-jan-6-organizers-met-congress-white-house-1245289/">Mark
Meadows</a>, Republican members of Congress, and <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/j6-white-house-rally-organizers-trump-cooperate-1260849/">right-wing
activists</a> planned <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/exclusive-jan-6-organizers-met-congress-white-house-1245289/">one
final, grand charade</a>: a “Save America”<span style="color: #0070c0;"> </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/06/us/politics/capitol-mob-trump-supporters.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20210110&instance_id=25857&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=48890&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74"><span style="color: #4472c4; mso-themecolor: accent1;">rally</span></a> followed by a march to the Capitol which wasn’t yet
public knowledge. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Activists involved in the planning <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/jan-6-rally-organizers-trump-white-house-1262122/">bought
burner phones</a> with cash to secretly communicate
with members of the White House, including chief of staff <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/exclusive-jan-6-organizers-met-congress-white-house-1245289/">Mark
Meadows</a>. It would later <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2021/10/details-of-the-money-behind-jan-6-protests-continue-to-emerge/">come
out</a> that “<span style="background: white; color: #0f0f0f;">Trump’s political operation reported paying more than $4.3
million to people and firms that organized the Jan. 6 rally since the start of
the 2020 election.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/exclusive-jan-6-organizers-met-congress-white-house-1245289/"><span style="background: white;">According to</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #0f0f0f;"> Hunter Walker of <i>Rolling Stone</i>, event planners also
collaborated with fringe-right members of Congress such as </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/02/technology/marjorie-taylor-greene-twitter.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur"><span style="background: white;">Marjorie Taylor Greene</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #0f0f0f;">, Louie Gohmert, Paul Gosar (later to
become one of the </span><a href="https://www.theuprising.info/p/congressman-paul-gosars-stunning"><span style="background: white;">biggest defenders</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #0f0f0f;"> of the insurrectionists), </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/03/madison-cawthorn-republican-party-gerrymandering"><span style="background: white;">Madison Cawthorn</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #0f0f0f;"> (who spoke at the January 6 rally), </span><a href="https://www.azcentral.com/restricted/?return=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.azcentral.com%2Fstory%2Fnews%2Fpolitics%2Farizona%2F2021%2F02%2F19%2Frep-andy-biggs-has-long-history-conservatisms-fringes%2F6740694002%2F"><span style="background: white;">Andy Biggs</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #0f0f0f;">, and Lauren Boebert. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; color: #0f0f0f;">Two of </span><span style="background: white;">Walker’s sources
(both event planners) said that Gosar—who allegedly made phone calls to the
sources on January 6—promised that </span><span style="background: white; color: #0f0f0f;">Trump would grant them pardons if they incurred any legal
trouble as a result of the rally. Right-wing activist </span><a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/stop-the-steal-organizer-in-hiding-after-denying-blame-for-riot"><span style="background: white;">Ali Alexander</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #0f0f0f;">, one of the organizers of the “</span><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210101004652if_/https:/wildprotest.com/#about"><span style="background: white;">Wild Protest</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #0f0f0f;">,” had also </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/01/13/ali-alexander-capitol-biggs-gosar/"><span style="background: white;">mentioned</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #0f0f0f;"> collaborating with Biggs, Gosar, and Mo Brooks (who spoke at
the rally) in a video which was later deleted. Walker’s sources further
contended that Mark Meadows was </span><a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/exclusive-jan-6-organizers-met-congress-white-house-1245289/"><span style="background: white;">warned</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #0f0f0f;"> in advance about potential violence; there’s no evidence he
did anything to stop it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The rally and the march were a prelude to the
formal challenge by 13 Republican senators and 140 House members to Joe Biden’s
electoral college victory. The challenge would consist of regurgitated fraud claims
which had been rejected for lack of merit in more than<a href="https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/jan/08/joe-biden/joe-biden-right-more-60-trumps-election-lawsuits-l/"><span style="color: #0070c0;"> 60 judicial cases</span></a>,
by judges of all ideological stripes. Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro would
later <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-advisor-peter-navarro-lays-out-how-he-and-steve-bannon-planned-to-overturn-bidens-electoral-win">brag</a> about his role in recruiting members of Congress
for this cynical stunt. He and Steve Bannon came up with a plan called “the
Green Bay sweep.” The aim was to get challengers to delay the electoral vote
certification as long as possible in hopes that several hours of televised
hearings (full of Republican propaganda about a “rigged election”) would
pressure Mike Pence to reject electors from Biden states and end 232 years of American
democracy. <span style="color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">While the suits conspired, Trump’s ground troops stood by. Alongside the
Oath Keepers, who “<a href="https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/june-9-2022">were expecting</a>
Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act” so that he could have a false pretense to
call up the U.S. military and <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/insurrection-act-explained">maintain
control</a> of the government by force, 250-300 Proud Boys had <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/14/us/politics/enrique-tarrio-jan-6-document.html">plans</a>
to pre-empt the certification by <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/proud-boys-enrique-tarrio-occupy-congress-supreme-court-january-6-2021/">seizing</a>
government offices and making demands on behalf of the losing presidential
candidate. The leaders of the two groups had <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/09/us/nick-quested-filmmaker-jan-6-testimony.html">met</a>
in a D.C. underground parking lot the day prior. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">According to Mark Meadows’ aide Cassidy
Hutchinson, </span><a href="https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/june-28-2022"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">as of 8:00 a.m.</span></a><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">, “intelligence reports were already coming in that some of
the people near the Ellipse, where Trump was to speak, were dressed in body armor
and armed with Glock-style pistols, shotguns, and AR-15s, along with other
weapons.” </span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">When deputy chief of
staff Anthony Ornato </span><a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2022-06-28/jan-6-bombshell-takeaways-surprise-hearing-cassidy-hutchinson"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">told</span></a><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> Meadows about weapons confiscated
by law enforcement, “</span><span>Meadows
appeared uninterested and didn't look up from his phone…saying: ‘All right,
anything else?’”</span><span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>At
8:24 a.m., Eric Waldow, a deputy chief in the Capitol Police Force </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/04/30/capitol-police-trump-insurrection-485138"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">who was</span></a><span> “</span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">responsible for directing officers’ movements,” sent a message
over Capitol Police Radio for his fellow officers to “watch out for anti-Trump
protesters in the massive pro-Trump crowd.” There was concern of violence
between Trump’s white supremacist followers and left-wing activists, but this
would turn out to be an empty threat. Prodded to stay home with </span><a href="https://twitter.com/patriottakes/status/1346087224140394496"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">hashtags</span></a><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> #Jan6TrumpTrap and
#DontTakeTheBait, the left’s presence at the rally </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/01/us/politics/antifa-conspiracy-capitol-riot.html"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">was minimal to nonexistent</span></a><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">.</span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">With
just over four hours to go before the certification was to start, Trump allies
continued their attempts to overturn the will of the American people. </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">The speaker
of the Arizona House, Rusty Bowers, </span><a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/07/everything-we-learned-january-sixth.html"><span style="background: white;">received</span></a><span style="background: white;"> a call from House of
Representatives member Andy Biggs asking Bowers to reject</span><span style="background: white; color: #ff0066;"> </span><span style="background: white;">Biden’s legitimate electors for the
state of Arizona. This was one of many requests from conspirators to Bowers (including
a call from Rudy Giuliani in which Giuliani admitted that “we have lots of
theories, we just don’t have the evidence”). </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Bowers
refused, even as Trump supporters shouted epithets </span><a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/arizona-rusty-bowers-trump-kacey-rae-b2106779.html"><span style="background: white;">outside of his home</span></a><span style="background: white;"> while his daughter was inside dying
of cancer. <i>(Bowers would later </i></span><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/arizona-house-speaker-bowers-quashes-bill-legislature-overturn-election-results-2022-2"><i><span style="background: white;">kill</span></i></a><i><span style="background: white;"> a Republican bill empowering the
Arizona legislature to override the will of the voters in choosing electoral
college votes. In retaliation, the GOP organized and </span></i><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2022-election/rusty-bowers-jan-6-committee-star-witness-loses-gop-primary-arizona-rcna40647"><i><span style="background: white;">defeat</span></i></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><i><span style="background: white;">ed</span></i></span><i><span style="background: white;"> Bowers in a 2022 state Senate
primary).</span></i><span style="background: white;"> </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/77852/timeline-rep-jim-jordan-a-systematic-disinformation-campaign-and-january-6/"><span style="background: white;">One of the main conspirators</span></a><span style="background: white;"> was
Representative Jim Jordan. Jordan and Trump </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/04/politics/jim-jordan-trump-january-6/"><span style="background: white;">spoke</span></a><span style="background: white;"> for ten minutes that morning. Jordan would later gum
up the works during the certification—after the Capitol was cleared (then dodge
the January 6 committee and be coy about when he spoke with Trump that day.)<i>
</i></span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">The most
momentous call Trump had was with vice president Mike Pence. </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Around
11:20 a.m., Trump called Pence from the Oval Office while several witnesses
were present. Pence took the call. Marc Short, Pence’s chief of staff, estimated
that the call lasted 15-20 minutes. </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/20/jan-6-committee-trump-pence-call-00026597"><span style="background: white;">According to</span></a><span style="background: white;"> reporters Kyle Cheney and Betsy
Woodruff Swan, “</span>Multiple people familiar with
the testimony given to the [January 6] committee about the call offered a
consistent account. One of those people — granted anonymity to speak candidly —
said witnesses described the conversation as beginning relatively pleasantly,
with Trump embracing the legal advice he was given about Pence’s ability to
send the election back to the states.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="story-textparagraph"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Although people in the
Oval Office couldn’t hear him, Pence had clearly rejected Trump’s entreaties,
the person indicated. Witnesses have said listeners in the room were surprised
because it was the first time they recalled Pence saying no to Trump. The call
deteriorated and Trump grew frustrated.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="story-textparagraph"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/12/us/politics/mike-pence-trump.html">told</a> Pence <span style="background: white;">“You can either go
down in history as a patriot…or you can go down in history as a pussy.”</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Pence chose to go down in
history as a patriot. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Just before the count began, he</span><a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/read-pences-full-letter-saying-he-cant-claim-unilateral-authority-to-reject-electoral-votes"><span style="background: white; color: black;"> </span><span style="color: #0070c0;">released
a public letter confirming</span></a> that he lacked
the constitutional authority to unilaterally decide which electoral college
votes to accept.<span style="color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Preserving long-held democratic precedents were not a priority at the “Save
America” rally, which was simmering with latent violence. As <a href="https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/june-28-2022">reported</a> by
historian Heather Cox Richardson, “<span style="background: white;">Text messages between [Cassidy] Hutchinson and [Deputy Chief
of Staff Anthony] Ornato show that Trump was ‘furious’ before the Ellipse rally
because he wanted photos to show the space full of people and it was not full
because law enforcement was screening people for weapons before they could go
in. Trump wanted the screening machines, called magnetometers, to be taken
down.”</span><u><o:p></o:p></u></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">According
to </span>Hutchinson’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1g8rmptg40&t=91s">testimony</a>
before the January 6 committee, “I overheard the president say something to the
effect of, you know, ‘I don’t even care that they have weapons. They’re not
here to hurt me. Take the f-ing mags away. Let my people in. They can march to
the Capitol from here. Let the people in. Take the f-ing mags away.’”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The speeches included several<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/07/briefing/white-house-capitol-donald-trump-jon-ossoff.html"><span style="color: #0070c0;"> incitements to violence</span></a>. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Lead-off speaker Mo Brooks, <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/07/mo-brooks-body-armor-jan-6-rally.html">clad
in body armor</a>, said, <span style="background: white;">“Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking
ass!”</span> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Addressing congressional Republicans who
intended to honor the will of American voters, Donald Trump, Jr. said, “<span style="background: white;">We’re coming for
you, and we’re going to have a good time doing it.” If they didn’t change their
minds and oppose Biden’s certification “</span><a href="https://www.vox.com/22220746/trump-speech-incite-capitol-riot?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Sentences%201821&utm_content=Sentences%201821+CID_5cdd5fe59652d724914f30c48ed58541&utm_source=cm_email&utm_term=How%20Trumps%20speech%20led%20to%20the%20Capitol%20riot"><span style="background: white; color: #0070c0;">I’m gonna be in your backyard in a
couple of months</span></a><span style="background: white;">.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, said,
“Let’s have trial by combat,” which was </span>“<a href="https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Backup-was-denied-Capitol-Police-chief-says-15860394.php"><span style="color: #0070c0;">an eerie reference to battles to the death in the series
‘Game of Thrones</span></a>.’”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Donald
Trump headlined at noon. Talking tough from behind bulletproof glass, he
unleashed a torrent </span>of self-serving lies about the election, “<a href="https://www.vox.com/22220746/trump-speech-incite-capitol-riot?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Sentences%201821&utm_content=Sentences%201821+CID_5cdd5fe59652d724914f30c48ed58541&utm_source=cm_email&utm_term=How%20Trumps%20speech%20led%20to%20the%20Capitol%20riot"><span style="background: white; color: #0070c0;">used</span></a><span style="background: white;"> the words ‘fight’ or ‘fighting’</span><a href="https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-trump-speech-save-america-rally-transcript-january-6"><span style="background: white; color: black;"> </span><span style="background: white; color: #0070c0;">at least 20 times</span></a><span style="background: white;">,” and said “You’ll never take back our country with
weakness. You have to show strength. You have to be strong.”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Over
at the Capitol, with the clock running down, Republicans were still scheming to
get illegitimate electors to Mike Pence. </span><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/trump-team-orchestrated-fake-electors-try-overturn-election-jan-6-comm-rcna34605"><span style="background: white;">At 12:37</span></a><span style="background: white;">, an aide to Republican senator Ron Johnson texted a Pence
aide about “alternate” electors Johnson wanted to pass off. In response, the
Pence aide said, “Do not give that to [Pence].”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">By 12:54 p.m.—six minutes before Nancy Pelosi was scheduled to bring
Congress to order—Trump supporters had <a href="https://twitter.com/January6thCmte/status/1535082372030414861">busted</a>
through barrier fences around the U.S. Capitol. <span style="color: red;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Five-ten
minutes after the formal count had begun, Trump finished his speech with a call
to action:</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“We will never give up; we will never
concede….We will stop the steal. We’re going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue,
and we’re going to the Capitol…We’re going to try and give our Republicans, the
weak ones…the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our
country.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The<span style="color: #ff0066;"> </span>march
had been hidden—by design—from the general public. In a January 4 communication,
conservative organizer Kylie Jane Kramer had <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/12/why-evidence-that-trump-planned-capitol-march-is-important/">texted</a> MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell that “It can also not get
out about the march because I will be in trouble with the national park service
and all the agencies but POTUS is going to just call for it ‘unexpectedly.’” Trump’s
advisors<span style="color: #ff0066;"> </span><a href="https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a40591694/january-6-trump-mob-march-capitol-unexpectedly/">composed
a tweet</a><span style="color: #ff0066;"> </span>which mentioned the march; Trump
read the tweet, but didn’t send it. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In the getaway car, the Secret Service refused to take Trump to the Capitol.
Cassidy Hutchinson told the January 6 committee that the outgoing president <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/07/19/1112177450/14-key-moments-from-the-jan-6-committee-hearings-so-far">threw
a fit</a><span class="MsoHyperlink"> </span>as he “attempted to grab the steering
wheel and then lunged at the agent driving” the vehicle. Trump’s demand (“I am
the fucking president, take me up to the Capitol now”) went unheeded. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At 1:14 p.m., vice president-elect Kamala Harris was <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/01/06/harris-was-inside-dnc-on-jan-6-when-pipe-bomb-was-discovered-outside-526695">evacuated</a>
from Democratic National Committee headquarters, where a pipe bomb was found.
Another pipe bomb, placed by <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/contact-us/field-offices/washingtondc/news/press-releases/fbi-washington-field-office-releases-video-and-additional-information-regarding-the-pipe-bomb-investigation-090821">the
same suspect</a> the night prior, would be found at the Republican National
Committee headquarters. The motive remains unknown, but it could have been to
draw law enforcement attention away from the Capitol. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Donald Trump was <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2022-07-21/jan-6-hearing-president-trump-white-house-dining-room">in
the White House dining room</a> by 1:25, where he “<span style="background: white;">was informed of violence at the
Capitol within 15 minutes of leaving the stage after his speech at the Ellipse.”
</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">While
doing nothing to stop the insurrection, Trump got cozy in front of Fox News. He
“</span>asked aides for a list of senators to call as
he continued to pursue paths to overturn his defeat,” <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/21/jan-6-panel-trump-attack-00047130">according
to</a> White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany. <span style="background: white; color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Around the same time, Trump’s ally, Paul Gosar (who had collaborated with
the “Save America” organizers), began the GOP stalling tactics, objecting to
electors from Arizona. The two houses of Congress separated to “debate” Gosar’s
objection. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At 1:30 p.m., insurrectionists overtook police at the back of the Capitol,
forcing them inside the building. Unaware of the threat, Congress continued the
proceedings. Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell, who had voted with Trump <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-trump-score/mitch-mcconnell/">91%
of the time</a>, said “<span style="background: white;">Voters, the courts, and the states have all spoken — they've
all spoken….If we overrule them, it would damage our republic forever.” </span><span style="background: white; color: #333333;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; color: #333333;">As McConnell spoke, </span>a crowd of 8,000 <a href="https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Backup-was-denied-Capitol-Police-chief-says-15860394.php"><span style="color: #0070c0;">equipped with</span></a> “<span style="background: white;">riot helmets, gas masks, shields, pepper spray,
fireworks, climbing gear...</span><a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/07/09/oath-keeper-explosives-jan-6-riot-doj"><span style="background: white;">explosives</span></a><span style="background: white;">, metal pipes, [and] baseball bats” surrounded the front of
the Capitol. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">At 1:39 p.m., the president </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/january-6-hearings-july-21/h_d4820bb18a7df875eb3010d9e0dc5f09"><span style="background: white;">had</span></a><span style="background: white;"> a four-minute call with Rudy Giuliani, who would call several senators
that day to try to slow the certification down. They spoke again a half hour
later. </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a name="_Hlk120782477">Because local officials’ authority
to call for backup had been taken away by the Trump administration </a><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/03/politics/us-capitol-riot-hearing-dhs-fbi-pentagon/index.html"><span style="color: #0070c0;">one day before
the certification</span></a>, it was left to Capitol police chief Steven Sund to beg Trump
allies in the Department of Defense for backup. Trump’s military officials stonewalled
Sund, who <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/03/03/973292523/dod-took-hours-to-approve-national-guard-request-during-capitol-riot-commander-s">started calling at 1:49 p.m.</a> for help. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">According to testimony before the January 6 committee, here <a href="https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/june-28-2022">referenced</a>
by Professor Heather Cox Richardson, “[Cassidy] <span style="background: white;">Hutchinson went into [Mark] Meadows’s
[White House] office between 2:00 and 2:05 to ask if he was watching the scene
unfold on his television. Scrolling through his phone, he answered that he was.
She asked if he had talked to Trump. He said, ‘Yeah. He wants to be alone right
now.’ [White House Counsel Pat] Cipollone burst into the office and said to go
get the president. Meadows repeated that Trump didn't want to do anything.
Cipollone very clearly said this to Mark—something to the effect of, ‘Mark,
something needs to be done or people are going to die and the blood’s going to
be on your f-ing hands. This is getting out of control.”’</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.2in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 107%;">Back at the Capitol, as officer
Caroline Edwards later </span><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/-was-slipping-peoples-blood-police-officer-describes-battling-rioters-rcna32903"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 107%;">described</span></a><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 107%;"> it to the January 6
committee, “</span><span style="line-height: 107%;">What
I saw was just a war scene….There were officers on the ground. They were
bleeding. They were throwing up. I saw friends with blood all over their faces.
I was slipping in people’s blood. I was catching people as they fell. It was
carnage. It was chaos.”</span><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">At </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2021/what-happened-trump-jan-6-insurrection/"><span style="background: white;">2:11 p.m.</span></a><span style="background: white;">, </span>Trump supporters—<a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/several-well-known-hate-groups-identified-at-capitol-riot?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=majorinvestigations&utm_content=feature"><span style="color: #0070c0;">heavily represented by right-wing hate groups</span></a><span style="color: #0070c0;">, </span>including many <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/01/capitol-riots-new-details-plans.html"><span style="color: #0070c0;">former members of law enforcement and the military</span></a><span style="background: white;">—b</span>usted
through a police line to<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/06/pence-rushed-out-of-senate-capitol-455483"><span style="color: black;"> </span><span style="color: #0070c0;">storm the Capitol</span></a>, the first hostile takeover of America’s seat of
government since 1814. By 2:13, they were <a href="https://twitter.com/January6thCmte/status/1535082372030414861">inside</a> the building. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Once inside, insurrectionists <a href="https://www.the-sun.com/news/2109105/bleeding-capitol-cop-screams-help-maga-mob-mask/"><span style="color: #0070c0;">assaulted Capitol police officers</span></a>,<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/07/us/politics/capitol-lockdown.html"><span style="color: black;"> </span><span style="color: #0070c0;">attacked journalists</span></a>,<a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/02/capitol-riot-january-6-trauma-terror-attack.html"><span style="color: #0070c0;"> traumatized</span></a><span style="color: #0070c0;"> </span>members of Congress and<a href="https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Pelosi-says-staff-hid-under-a-table-for-hours-as-15860759.php"><span style="color: black;"> </span><span style="color: #0070c0;">congressional aides</span></a>, and contributed to<a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/01/could-the-capitol-riot-become-a-superspreader-event.html"><span style="color: black;"> </span><span style="color: #0070c0;">multiple members</span></a> of Congress getting Covid-19. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Under the surface appearance of random chaos were a number of determined
seditionists with concrete goals. Some targeted the
offices of specific members of Congress<a href="https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-ap-top-news-michael-pence-nancy-pelosi-capitol-siege-14c73ee280c256ab4ec193ac0f49ad54"><span style="color: #0070c0;"> in hopes of kidnapping them</span></a>, or<a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/01/justice-department-arizona-filing-qanon-shaman-capture-and-assassinate-lawmakers.html"><span style="color: black;"> </span><span style="color: #0070c0;">worse</span></a>. Others ransacked the Senate parliamentarian’s office in
an apparent attempt to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2021/11/16/jonathan-karl-abc-news-chief-washington-correspondent-author-betrayal-final-act-trump-show/">intercept</a> electoral college ballots. There were allegations that
plotters<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/13/politics/capitol-insurrection-insider-help/index.html"><span style="color: #0070c0;"> may have had help</span></a>
from<a href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/fivepoints/capitol-insurrection-january-6-house-hearing-police"><span style="color: black;"> </span><span style="color: #0070c0;">members of the Capitol
police force</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"> and/or </span>Republican representatives (including Barry
Loudermilk, who had <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/15/loudermilk-tour-group-photos-00039804">conducted
a tour</a> of the Capitol on January 5). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At 2:15 p.m., Pat Cipollone <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/tv/this-is-a-shtshow-cnns-john-king-summarizes-texts-sent-to-mark-meadows-begging-trump-to-call-off-jan-6-rioters/">texted</a> Mark Meadows that “we
need to do something more. They’re literally calling for the vice president to
be f’ing hung.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Meadows responded that “You heard [Trump], Pat.
He thinks Mike deserves that. He doesn’t think they’re doing anything wrong.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Cipollone’s reply: “This is f’ing crazy, we need
to do something more.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Four minutes later, Hogan Gidley (the national press secretary for Trump’s
2020 campaign) <a href="https://twitter.com/gregpinelo/status/1604970851576717312">texted</a>
Hope Hicks (counselor to the president) with a suggestion that Trump put out a
request to his followers to be non-violent. Hicks replied that she had
suggested as much “several times” on Monday and Tuesday—this was Wednesday—but
“I’m not there.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The Senate was called into recess at 2:20 p.m., right after Mike Pence was
<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2022/10/january-6-republican-gop-response-trump-capitol/671752/">escorted
out</a> of the chamber by Secret Service. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The House soon followed. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At 2:24 p.m., <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/01/25/among-the-insurrectionists"><span style="background: white; color: #0070c0;">while</span></a><span style="background: white;"> “America Firsters and other invaders fanned out in search of
lawmakers, breaking into offices and reveling in their own astounding
impunity,” Trump sent out what would become a notorious</span><a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/six-hours-of-paralysis-inside-trump-e2-80-99s-failure-to-act-after-a-mob-stormed-the-capitol/ar-BB1cFqj4?ocid=uxbndlbing"><span style="background: white; color: black;"> </span><span style="background: white; color: #0070c0;">tweet:</span></a><span style="background: white;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Mike Pence didn’t have the
courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our
Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not
the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously
certify….USA demands the truth!” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">As Trump’s deputy press
secretary Sarah Matthews would </span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/jan-6-hearing-takeaways-da9e850c8744a3d4395928cf19eaf36f"><span style="background: white;">tell</span></a><span style="background: white;"> the January 6 committee, this was exactly what <i>wasn’t</i> needed in
that moment, as Trump was “giving the green light to [the insurrectionists]”
who “truly latch on to every word and every tweet.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">While lawmakers hid from
rioters, Trump called Alabama senator Tommy Tuberville to ask him to stall the
electoral college vote certification whenever (or<i> if</i>) it could safely resume.
Trump reached Tuberville around 2:26 p.m. and was </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2021/what-happened-trump-jan-6-insurrection/"><span style="background: white;">notified</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;"> </span><span style="background: white;">that Mike
Pence, his wife, his brother, and his daughter had been whisked away from the
Senate floor. Later reports showed that the seditionists missed Pence and his
family by </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/pence-rioters-capitol-attack/2021/01/15/ab62e434-567c-11eb-a08b-f1381ef3d207_story.html"><span style="background: white;">one minute</span></a><span style="background: white;"> (or “</span><a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/07/22/mike-pence-jan-6-hearing-insurrection"><span style="background: white;">five to 10 feet</span></a><span style="background: white;">” by another account). <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">An </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/07/15/jan-6-i-alone-can-fix-it-book-excerpt/"><span style="background: white;">excerpt</span></a><span style="background: white;"> from <i>I Alone Can Fix It</i> by reporters </span>Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker described the scene:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“At that moment, Pence was still in his ceremonial
office — protected by Secret Service agents, but vulnerable because the
second-floor office had windows that could be breached and the intruding thugs
had gained control of the building. Tim Giebels, the lead special agent in
charge of the vice president’s protective detail, twice asked Pence to evacuate
the Capitol, but Pence refused. ‘I’m not leaving the Capitol,’ he told Giebels.
The last thing the vice president wanted was the people attacking the Capitol
to see his 20-car motorcade fleeing. That would only vindicate their
insurrection.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“At 2:26, after a team of agents scouted a safe path
to ensure the Pences would not encounter trouble, Giebels and the rest of
Pence’s detail guided them down a staircase to a secure subterranean area that
rioters couldn’t reach, where the vice president’s armored limousine awaited.
Giebels asked Pence to get in one of the vehicles. ‘We can hold here,’ he
said.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At 2:28, Mark Meadows <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/tv/this-is-a-shtshow-cnns-john-king-summarizes-texts-sent-to-mark-meadows-begging-trump-to-call-off-jan-6-rioters/">received</a>
a text from Republican representative-elect Marjorie Taylor Greene (“Please
tell the president to calm people…This isn’t the way to solve anything”). Meadows
would continue to field desperate pleas to stop the violence from Trump allies (including
Laura Ingraham and Mick Mulvaney) over the next half hour.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Around 2:30, Capitol police chief Steven Sund <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/06/jan-6-generals-lied-ex-dc-guard-official-523777">asked</a> Lieutenant Generals Walter Piatt and Charles Flynn (the
brother of <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-should-declare-martial-law-michael-flynn-retweeted-his-now-banned-account-1654226">Martial
Law advocate</a> Michael Flynn) for permission to deploy the National Guard.<b> </b>Accompanying
Sund were Major General William Walker (the commander of the D.C. National
Guard), Walker’s counsel (Colonel Earl Matthews), and D.C. chief of police
Robert Contee.<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">According to Colonel Matthews, Piatt told Sund
he<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trump-protests-washington-guard-military/2021/01/07/c5299b56-510e-11eb-b2e8-3339e73d9da2_story.html"><span style="color: black;"> </span><span style="color: #0070c0;">didn’t like “the optics</span></a>” of “having armed military personnel on the grounds of the
Capitol,” though the Defense Department had had no concern for “optics” in June
2020, when they had<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/07/us/police-response-black-lives-matter-protest-us-capitol/index.html"><span style="color: #0070c0;"> deployed armed military personnel</span></a> at peaceful Black Lives Matter protests. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">After police chief Contee said he would ask D.C.
Mayor Muriel Bowser to have a press conference exposing Piatt and Flynn’s
suspicious delay, Piatt’s <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/06/jan-6-generals-lied-ex-dc-guard-official-523777">fallback
suggestion</a> was to have <span style="background: white;">“Guardsmen take
over D.C. police officers’ traffic duties so those officers could head to the
Capitol.” </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">This
too was baffling, as a hand-off would take more time than sending the Guard
directly to the Capitol. As </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/06/jan-6-generals-lied-ex-dc-guard-official-523777"><span style="background: white;">reported</span></a><span style="background: white;"> by <i>Politico</i>, Colonel Matthews’ </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/06/jan-6-generals-lied-ex-dc-guard-official-523777"><span style="background: white;">36-page memo</span></a><span style="background: white;"> about January 6 said that “Every
D.C. Guard leader was desperate to get to the Capitol to help…then stunned by
the delay in deployment. Responding to civil unrest in Washington is ‘a
foundational mission, a statutory mission of the D.C. National Guard.’”</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy had been invited to the call but was
“incommunicado or unreachable for most of the afternoon,” according to
Matthews. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As Trump’s Defense Department officials let seditionists
ravage the Capitol, Trump allies—including former New Jersey governor <a href="https://www.axios.com/chris-christie-trump-january-6-feefb7e3-a3af-41ad-b442-93accdb02bd8.html">Chris
Christie</a>, senator Lindsey Graham, Kevin McCarthy,
and former advisor Kellyanne Conway—called the White House to try to get Trump
to act.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">But the commander-in-chief wasn’t taking calls.
He was wrapped up in watching the<a href="https://clinecenter.illinois.edu/coup-detat-project-cdp/statement_jan.27.2021"><span style="color: #0070c0;"> attempted <i>coup</i></span></a><span style="color: #0070c0;">
</span>he’d fomented on Fox in the West Wing dining
room. As one aide<a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/six-hours-of-paralysis-inside-trump-e2-80-99s-failure-to-act-after-a-mob-stormed-the-capitol/ar-BB1cFqj4?ocid=uxbndlbing"><span style="color: black;"> </span><span style="color: #0070c0;">told a reporter</span></a>, “‘<span style="background: white;">He was hard to reach,
and you know why? Because it was live TV….If it’s TiVo, he just hits pause and
takes the calls. If it’s live TV, he watches it, and he was just watching it
all unfold.’”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">According to White House counsel Pat Cipollone, Trump was also <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/07/jan-6-committee-finale-trump-complicity.html">pressured</a>
(in person) to ask the rioters to go home by “<span style="background: white;">Fellow lawyers </span><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Pat Philbin and Eric Herschmann, Ivanka
Trump, Jared Kushner…Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, [Deputy Chief of Staff
for Communications] Dan Scavino, [</span><span style="background: white;">Pence National Security Advisor] Gen. Keith
Kellogg, and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.” </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Fulfilling the request would have required minimal effort. Sarah Matthews <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jul/22/january-6-panel-gripping-finale-trump-us-capitol-riot">told</a>
the January 6 committee, <span style="background: white; color: #121212;">“It would
take probably less than 60 seconds to get from the Oval Office dining room to
the press briefing room. There’s a camera that is on in there at all times. If
the president wanted to address people, he could have done so.”</span><span style="background: white; color: red;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">But Trump was unmoved, even when his daughter Ivanka initially <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/02/politics/bennie-thompson-trump-capitol-insurrection/index.html">asked</a> him to stop the violence, likely because he <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/12/the-chilling-lesson-of-mark-meadows-january-6-text-messages.html">felt</a> the rioters kept his hopes alive by obstructing the vote
count. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Eventually, Trump took a call
from Republican minority leader Kevin McCarthy, who was inside the Capitol. Republican
representative Jamie Herrera Beutler, who was with McCarthy, </span><a href="https://twitter.com/herrerabeutler/status/1360419828721401856?s=21"><span style="background: white;">tweeted</span></a><span style="background: white;"> that “When McCarthy finally reached the president on January 6 and
asked him to publicly and forcefully call off the riot, the president initially
repeated the falsehood that it was anti-fascists that had breached the
Capitol….McCarthy refuted that and told the president that these were Trump
supporters. That's when, according to McCarthy, the president said, ‘Well,
Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.’”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">This was of a piece with a comment
from Republican senator Ben Sasse that Trump was </span>“<a href="https://edition.cnn.com/politics/live-news/washington-dc-riots-trump-news-friday/h_3b3d237d139679d425ef2e0a54ddfca7"><span style="background: white; color: #0070c0;">confused about why other people on his
team weren’t as excited as he was</span></a><span style="background: white;"> as you had rioters pushing against Capitol Police trying to
get into the building.” Sasse also mentioned that Trump was talking to the
other people in the room about “a path by which he was going to stay in office
after January 20.” </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white;">Key to this path was
a delay in the certification. As they hid in </span></span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/03/21/couy-griffin-cowboys-trump-jan6/"><span style="background: white;">an underground Senate loading dock</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white;">,</span></span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white; color: red;"> </span><span style="background: white;">Trump’s deputy chief of staff (in charge of the Secret
Service) Tim Giebels </span></span><a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/secret-service-rush-to-evacuate-pence-from-besieged-capitol-becomes-coup-focus"><span style="background: white;">asked</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white;"> Mike Pence to get into one of the Secret Service-protected
vehicles. </span></span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/07/15/jan-6-i-alone-can-fix-it-book-excerpt/"><span style="background: white;">According to</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white;"> reporting in <i>I Alone Can Fix It</i>, Pence
replied, “</span></span>I’m not getting in the car,
Tim….I trust you, Tim, but you’re not driving the car. If I get in that
vehicle, you guys are taking off. I’m not getting in the car.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/07/15/jan-6-i-alone-can-fix-it-book-excerpt/">Another
excerpt</a> from <i>I Alone Can Fix It</i> indicates
that Pence had good reason to stay put. In the scene described, Mike Pence’s
national security advisor Keith Kellogg interacts with <span style="background: white;">White House Deputy Chief of Staff/liaison
to the Secret Service Anthony Ornato. The exchange takes place shortly </span>after
Pence’s refusal to get into the Secret Service car. Ornato’s loyalties—to Donald
Trump or democracy—are in question, as Trump had brought Ornato to the White
House from the Secret Service, a <a href="https://www.salon.com/2022/06/30/reporter-acolyte-disputed-hutchinson-testimony-broke-every-secret-tradition_partner/">major
break</a> with the non-partisan code of the Secret Service:<span style="color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Kellogg ran into Tony Ornato in the West Wing.
Ornato, who oversaw Secret Service movements, told him that Pence’s detail was
planning to move the vice president to Joint Base Andrews. ‘You can’t do that,
Tony,’ Kellogg said. ‘Leave him where he’s at. He’s got a job to do. I know you
guys too well. You’ll fly him to Alaska if you have a chance. Don’t do it.’”<span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">While Pence held firm, Ivanka Trump convinced
her father to make a half-hearted attempt to defuse the violence with a<a href="https://www.thetrumparchive.com/"><span style="color: #0070c0;"> tweet</span></a> at
2:38 (“<span style="background: rgb(251, 254, 255);">Please
support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement. They are truly on the side of
our Country. Stay peaceful!”). Loyal foot soldier Donald Trump, Jr. </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/13/hes-got-to-condemn-this-shit-panel-releases-urgent-jan-6-texts-from-trump-jr-lawmakers-524188"><span style="background: rgb(251, 254, 255);">texted</span></a><span style="background: rgb(251, 254, 255);"> Mark Meadows in response </span>(“He’s
got to condemn this shit ASAP. The capitol police tweet is not enough.”).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="background: rgb(251, 254, 255);"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At 3:13
p.m., Trump sent another tweet (“I am asking for everyone at the U.S. Capitol
to remain peaceful. No violence! Remember, WE are the Party of Law & Order
– respect the Law and our great men and women in Blue. Thank you!”). <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(251, 254, 255);">But he </span><a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/07/22/sarah-matthews-trump-tweets-jan-6-hearing"><span style="background: rgb(251, 254, 255);">wouldn’t</span></a><span style="background: rgb(251, 254, 255);"> ask the insurrectionists to leave the Capitol, </span><a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/10/13/footage-pelosi-schumer-mcconnel-jan6"><span style="background: rgb(251, 254, 255);">which forced</span></a><span style="background: rgb(251, 254, 255);"> Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and Mike Pence to do his job
for him, with calls to the governors of Virginia and Maryland, the secretary of
defense, the attorney general, anyone who could help. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(251, 254, 255);">Around
the time of Trump’s 3:13 tweet, some of his supporters showed their dedication
to law and order by harassing the Capitol police who were protecting members of
Congress huddled in the Speaker’s Lobby. Once they convinced the officers to abandon
their posts, seditionists started smashing the windows inside the doors to the
lobby. Some of them continued even after an officer pointing a gun at them
appeared on the other side of the door. </span><span style="background: rgb(251, 254, 255);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(251, 254, 255);">One
of the insurrectionists who refused to back off was QAnon follower </span><a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ashli-babbitt-violence-road-rage-extramarital-affair_n_61d2ff37e4b0c7d8b8a640b3"><span style="background: rgb(251, 254, 255);">Ashli Babbitt</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: rgb(251, 254, 255);">. While a nearby rioter screamed, “He’s got a gun!
He’s got a gun!,” Babbitt </span></span><span style="background: rgb(251, 254, 255);">tried to climb through a broken window in the
doorframe. Moments after Babbitt was </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQaeg1d82Lo"><span style="background: rgb(251, 254, 255);">fatally shot</span></a><span style="background: rgb(251, 254, 255);">, tactical officers appeared, clearing the area and moving
the attackers away from the lobby. </span><span style="background: rgb(251, 254, 255); color: blue;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">By
3:45, Trump spokesman Jason Miller had come up with messaging which could end
the insurrection and appease the president by shifting the blame. Miller </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/25/politics/mark-meadows-texts-2319/index.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">texted</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> Mark Meadows and (Trump aide) Dan Scavino two tweet
suggestions:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in 12pt 0.5in; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo5; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span><span style="color: #262626;">1)<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">“Bad
apples, likely ANTIFA or other crazed leftists, infiltrated today’s peaceful
protest over the fraudulent vote count. Violence is never acceptable! MAGA
supporters embrace our police and the rule of law and should leave the Capitol
now!”<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in 12pt 0.5in; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo5; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span>2)<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]--><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">“The
fake news media who encouraged this summer’s violent and radical riots are now
trying to blame peaceful and innocent MAGA supporters for violent actions. This
isn't who we are! Our people should head home and let the criminals suffer the
consequences!”</span><span style="background: rgb(251, 254, 255);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(251, 254, 255);">At
4:06 p.m., president-elect Joe Biden tweeted </span><a href="https://twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1MYGNmNwMRoKw?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1346926053462319114%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2F2022%2F01%2F05%2F1069977469%2Fa-timeline-of-how-the-jan-6-attack-unfolded-including-who-said-what-and-when"><span style="background: rgb(251, 254, 255);">a speech</span></a><span style="background: rgb(251, 254, 255);"> in which he said, “</span><span style="background: white; color: #333333;">I call on President Trump to go on
national television now, to fulfill his oath and defend the Constitution and
demand an end to this siege. This is not a protest. It is an insurrection.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Since Trump’s
tweets had no discernible impact on the insurrectionists, his advisors came up
with </span><a href="https://deadline.com/2022/07/trump-january-sixth-speech-changes-raw-video-1235074800/"><span style="background: white;">a neutral, yet unequivocal statement</span></a><span style="background: white;">:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“I urge all of my
supporters to do exactly what 99% of them have already been doing — express
their passions and opinions PEACEFULLY.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“My supporters have a
right to make their voices heard, but make no mistake — NO ONE should be using
violence or threats of violence to express themselves. Especially at the U.S.
Capitol. Let’s respect our institutions. Let’s all do better.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“I am asking you to leave
the Capitol Hill region NOW and go home in a peaceful way.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Trump
agreed to ask his followers to go home, but ad-libbed disinformation which fed
the delusional rage at the heart of the insurrection. His video plea was posted
at 4:17 p.m.,</span><span style="background: white; color: red;"> </span><a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/six-hours-of-paralysis-inside-trump-e2-80-99s-failure-to-act-after-a-mob-stormed-the-capitol/ar-BB1cFqj4?ocid=uxbndlbing"><span style="background: white; color: #2e74b5; mso-themecolor: accent5; mso-themeshade: 191;">over
two hours into the breach</span></a><span style="background: white;">
and over three hours after he became aware of the violence outside the Capitol:
</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“It was a landslide election.
And everyone knows it. Especially the other side. But you have to go home….There’s
never been a time like this when such a thing happened when they could take it
away from all of us. From me, from you, from our country. This was a fraudulent
election….Go home. We love you. You're very special.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">As </span><a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/79623/crisis-of-command-the-pentagon-the-president-and-january-6/"><span style="background: white;">reported</span></a><span style="background: white;"> by Ryan Goodman and Justin Hendrix, “According to the </span><a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Jan6-Clearinghouse-Department-of-Defense-Planning-and-Execution-Timeline.pdf"><span style="background: white; color: #2e74b5; mso-themecolor: accent5; mso-themeshade: 191;">Department
of Defense</span></a><span style="background: white;">’s and </span><a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/january-6-clearinghouse-Internal-Report-of-US-Army-Operations-on-January-6-2021-March-18-2021.pdf"><span style="background: white; color: #2e74b5; mso-themecolor: accent5; mso-themeshade: 191;">U.S.
Army</span></a><span style="background: white;">’s own timelines, it is only after President Trump publicly released [his
video statement] that [Defense Secretary Christopher] Miller approved [Army
Secretary Ryan] McCarthy’s plan for deploying the D.C. National Guard to the
Capitol and even later when McCarthy authorized [D.C. National Guard commander
William] Walker to deploy his forces to the Capitol.”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The National Guard finally <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/03/03/973292523/dod-took-hours-to-approve-national-guard-request-during-capitol-riot-commander-s">arrived</a> at 5:20 p.m.<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The Capitol<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/01/15/us/trump-capitol-riot-timeline.html"><span style="color: black;"> </span><span style="color: #0070c0;">was cleared</span></a> at 5:34 p.m.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At 6:01 p.m., Trump<a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/six-hours-of-paralysis-inside-trump-e2-80-99s-failure-to-act-after-a-mob-stormed-the-capitol/ar-BB1cFqj4?ocid=uxbndlbing"><span style="color: black;"> </span><span style="color: #0070c0;">tweeted</span></a><span style="color: #5b9bd5;"> </span>“These are the things
and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously
& viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly &
unfairly treated for so long….Go home with love & in peace. Remember this
day forever!” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Around 7 p.m., with an hour to go before the
vote count would resume, Rudy Giuliani <a href="https://thedispatch.com/article/giuliani-to-senator-try-to-just-slow/">called</a>
what he thought was Alabama senator Tommy Tuberville’s cellphone and left a
voicemail. Giuliani mistakenly dialed the wrong
senator, who gave <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=80&v=2EoLug0n0KM&feature=emb_title">the
recording</a> to <i>The Dispatch</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In the message, Giuliani asked the senator to organize objections to ten
states won by Joe Biden in order to drag the certification out as long as possible,
preferably until the end of the following day. Giuliani said that the delay
would give Republicans more time to present evidence of “fraud” in key swing
states. Another goal could have been to impede the certification in order to
allow more time for the resolution of a longshot election lawsuit that was
before the Supreme Court (who <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/supreme-court-trump-election-disputes/">would
refuse to expedite</a><span style="color: red;"> </span>the claim on January 11).
<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">After Mike Pence re-started the official vote count,
Trump’s lawyer John Eastman <a href="https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/21397551/031137348875.pdf">emailed</a> Pence’s lawyer, Greg Jacob, claiming that Pence was
breaking the Electoral Count Act because debate was going “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2021/what-happened-trump-jan-6-insurrection/">past
the allotted time</a>.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Pence <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/01/05/1069977469/a-timeline-of-how-the-jan-6-attack-unfolded-including-who-said-what-and-when">officially
certified</a> Joe Biden’s victory at 3:42 a.m. on <b>January
7, 2021</b>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Biden’s win was certified despite the objections of<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/01/more-dangerous-capitol-riot/617655/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=atlantic-daily-newsletter&utm_content=20210113&silverid-ref=NjY0NzQxMzgxNDkxS0"><span style="color: #0070c0;"> two-thirds of House Republicans and eight Republican
senators</span></a> who came out of hiding to<span style="color: #ff0066;"> </span>parrot<a href="https://www.factcheck.org/2020/12/nine-election-fraud-claims-none-credible/"><span style="color: #0070c0;"> election fraud lies</span></a>
which had jeopardized their safety just hours earlier.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.2in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>Remarkably, dead-enders continued to push
Trump’s cause after the sun came up. </span><span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.2in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/06/john-eastman-hearing-criminal-defense-pardon.html"><span>According to</span></a><span>
White House counsel Eric Herschmann, he received a call from John Eastman </span><span>“asking </span><span style="color: #222222;">for legal work ‘preserving something
potentially for appeal’ in the contested state of Georgia,” where Trump lawyer
Sidney Powell flew—</span><a href="https://www.ajc.com/politics/georgia-election-data-copied-under-direction-of-trump-attorney/XCPM33PXC5ABJN6UXG645EXLM4/"><span>that very day</span></a><span style="color: #222222;">—to </span><a href="https://www.ajc.com/politics/georgia-election-data-copied-under-direction-of-trump-attorney/XCPM33PXC5ABJN6UXG645EXLM4/"><span>gather confidential voter data</span></a><span style="color: #222222;">.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.2in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #222222;">Herschmann reportedly </span><span>told</span><span style="color: red;"> </span><span style="color: #222222;">Eastman,
“You’re out of your effin’ mind” and </span><span>“Now I’m going to give you the best free
legal advice you’re getting in your life: Get a great effing criminal defense
lawyer. You’re going to need it.”</span><span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.2in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #222222;">Not long after this
conversation, Eastman </span><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/john-eastman-asked-for-a-presidential-pardon-after-january-6-hearing-2022-6"><span>emailed</span></a><span style="color: #222222;"> Rudy Giuliani to ask if he could be added to the growing list
of pardon requests. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">While some administration officials <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/07/politics/resignations-trump-white-house/index.html">resigned</a>
and others pondered <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/lawmakers-call-trumps-impeachment-wake-capitol-hill-violence/story?id=75097032">using
the 25<sup>th</sup> amendment</a> to force Donald Trump from office, Ivanka
Trump patiently <a href="https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/1550313169729511426">fought
off</a> temper tantrums as she tried to coax her father to make a statement
condemning the violence he had caused. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump <a href="https://headtopics.com/ca/i-can-t-say-that-outtakes-show-trump-having-difficulty-admitting-he-lost-the-election-28339077">couldn’t</a>
admit he had lost. He <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-refused-say-january-6-rioters-prosecuted-fullest-extent-law-2022-7">cut
out</a> language in a prepared speech about the importance of law and order,
one of his favorite themes during the campaign, removing his advisors’ verbiage
that <span style="background: white;">“I am
directing the Department of Justice to ensure all lawbreakers are prosecuted to
the fullest extent of the law. We must send a clear message—not with mercy but
with JUSTICE. Legal consequences must be swift and firm.” </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Trump
removed a line that could have insulted his fanbase: “I want to be very clear
you do not represent me. You do not represent our movement.” </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump’s most feral supporters had done substantial
damage. They had inflicted severe <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/04/magazine/jan-6-capitol-police-officers.html">trauma</a>
on Capitol law enforcement. They had <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/capitol-police-injuries-riot/">injured</a>
more than 150 law enforcement officers and contributed to the deaths of five (an Iraq War vet who was<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-police-officer/homicide-investigation-opened-into-death-of-capitol-police-officer-idUSKBN29D2LI"><span style="color: black;"> </span><span style="color: #0070c0;">bashed in the head with
a fire extinguisher</span></a> and four who later <a href="https://www.axios.com/four-police-officers-january-6-die-by-suicide-37e8cb88-9414-42b2-85a9-aebfb727ca2b.html">committed
suicide</a>).
Their rampage cost America’s taxpayers <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-04/national-guard-s-post-riot-deployment-cost-at-least-480-million?sref=IYQ5mP1s"><span style="color: #0070c0;">$480 million</span></a> to
secure the Capitol (with 25,000 National Guard members) before Joe Biden’s
inauguration. Taxpayers spent another <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/capitol-riot-defendants-pay-damages-restitution/2021/06/03/74691812-c3ec-11eb-93f5-ee9558eecf4b_story.html">$1.5
million dollars</a> to repair the citadel of American
democracy. The damage done to America’s long-standing tradition of
peaceful transfers of power was (and still is) incalculable. <span style="color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #ff0066;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Donald Trump expressed no contrition. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #ff0066;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In fact, he <i>embraced</i> January 6. In a TV appearance
in September of 2021, ABC reporter Jonathan Karl, who
interviewed Trump for his book <i>Betrayal: the Final Act of the Trump Show</i>,
<a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/week-transcript-19-21-dr-anthony-fauci-adm/story?id=80098106">said</a>, “I was absolutely dumbfounded at how fondly he
looks back on January 6th. He thinks it was a great day. He thinks it was one
of the greatest days of his time in politics.”</span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">***<span style="color: red;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Two years after the January 6 insurrection, there’s a lot
that we still don’t know. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">GOP leadership saw no political benefit in angering
Trump’s base or holding hundreds of Republican officials—including <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/republican-official-january-6-participation/">dozens
of members of Congress</a>—to account. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #ff0066;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">First, Senate Republicans <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/28/us/politics/capitol-riot-commission.html">killed</a> an independent investigation of January 6. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">When Democrats proposed a
bipartisan House committee, Republicans tried to plant two aggressive
perpetrators of the Big Lie on the committee: <a href="https://www.vox.com/22588475/kevin-mccarthy-january-6-committee-banks-jordan">Jim
Banks and Jim Jordan</a>, the latter of whom
was <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/77852/timeline-rep-jim-jordan-a-systematic-disinformation-campaign-and-january-6/">heavily
involved</a> in Trump’s <i>coup </i>attempt. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Their hands tied by Republican ploys, Democrats did the
best they could to conduct an accurate investigation without a partisan
process, forming a select committee with two conservative Republicans who were
willing to take an honest look at what happened on January 6, 2021.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The select committee was hobbled in their mission by a
long list of Republican officials who <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-20/jan-6-panel-s-trump-subpoena-battles-show-limits-to-congress-power">refused
to appear</a> before the committee or <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/12/06/jeffrey-clark-john-eastman-join-some-rare-company-pleading-fifth-jan-6-committee/">pleaded
the 5<sup>th</sup> Amendment</a> when they did appear. Obstruction served as a
get-out-of-jail-free card for numerous Republicans who skirted the law in their
collaboration with Trump and his associates. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Communication gaps are another big hole in the story. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/29/us/politics/jan-6-committee-trump-subpoena.html">Encrypted
communications</a> among Republican conspirators, among insurrectionist
organizers, and <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/jan-6-rally-organizers-trump-white-house-1262122/"><i>between</i>
organizers and Republican conspirators</a> have slipped into the ether. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Phone communications on January 6 among members of key government
agencies—the Secret Service and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/02/pentagon-jan-6-phones-wiped/">the
Defense Department</a>—<a href="https://twitter.com/BeschlossDC/status/1554566226524999687">have
disappeared</a>. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">During the January 6 committee hearings, <span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white;">Representative Jamie
Raskin called Mike Pence’s refusal to get into the Secret Service vehicle (“I’m
not getting into that car”) “the six most chilling words of this entire thing
I’ve seen so far” and </span></span><a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/secret-service-rush-to-evacuate-pence-from-besieged-capitol-becomes-coup-focus"><span style="background: white;">asserted</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white;"> that the efforts to get Pence out of the Capitol
were motivated by a desire to delay the vote certification: “[Pence] knew
exactly what this inside coup they had planned for was to do.”</span></span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span color="windowtext" style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.rawstory.com/secret-service-january-6-texts/?utm_source=123456&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=10880&recip_id=24770&list_id=1"><span style="background: white;">The role of Secret Service members</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white;"> in Trump’s plot could
be a critical piece of the puzzle, but Secret Service texts from January 5 and January
6 </span></span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/30/politics/secret-service-timeline/index.html"><span style="background: white;">mysteriously disappeared</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white;">. The texts
disappeared </span></span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/14/politics/secret-service-text-messages-erased/index.html"><i><span style="background: white;">after</span></i></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><i><span style="background: white;"> </span></i></span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white;">multiple<i> </i>House committees requested all such
records be preserved </span></span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jul/16/secret-service-deleted-text-messages-january-6?utm_term=62d3f2bb075d189ccdf58a77daf2888d&utm_campaign=GuardianTodayUS&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&CMP=GTUS_email"><span style="background: white;">on January 16, 2021</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white;">. The
Trump-appointed Department of Homeland Security inspector general Joseph
Cuffari </span></span><a href="https://www.rawstory.com/olivia-troye-reveals-she-went-public-because-she-did-not-trust-dhs-inspector-general/?utm_source=123456&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=10923&recip_id=24770&list_id=1"><span style="background: white;">discovered</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white;"> that these texts had been deleted in May of 2021 but
didn’t notify Congress until July 14, 2022. Officials in the inspector
general’s office </span></span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/11/missing-secret-service-texts-congress-notified-april?utm_term=62f639ba68174f075b527328e4e7e5f4&utm_campaign=GuardianTodayUS&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&CMP=GTUS_email"><span style="background: white;">wrote a memo</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white;"> notifying Congress of the missing texts in April of
2022, but Cuffari didn’t forward the information. </span></span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span color="windowtext" style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white;">Not surprisingly,
Joe Biden </span></span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/dec/31/joe-biden-secret-service-team-trump-loyalty?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email"><span style="background: white;">hired a new Secret Service team</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white;"> on entering office.
</span></span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span color="windowtext" style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white;">Arguably the biggest
question still on the table is </span></span><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">why backup deployment
to the Capitol took so long. </span><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.25pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">This delay happened despite the fact that chief of staff Mark Meadows, who
was with Trump, was in “<a href="https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2021/09/25/Joe-Biden-executive-privilege-Trump-records-January-6/5811632577831/"><span style="color: #0070c0;">non-stop</span></a>” communication all day with Kash
Patel, the chief of staff for Defense Secretary Christopher Miller—whom Trump
had installed after losing the 2020 election. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">One <a href="https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2022/12/1/2139214/-Did-Some-in-Our-Federal-Police-Conspire-to-Overthrow-America">line
of thought</a> is that Trump’s appointees <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Jan6-Clearinghouse-Acting-Secretary-of-Defense-Christopher-Miller-Memorandum-for-Secretary-of-Army-Employment-Guidance-for-the-DC-National-Guard-Jan-4-2021.pdf">handcuffed</a>
D.C. police and conspired to delay Guard deployment to give the
insurrectionists time to stop the vote certification. Miller
was perfectly aware of how dire the situation was from early on and yet
reportedly didn’t <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2021/what-happened-trump-jan-6-insurrection/">sign
on</a><span style="color: red;"> </span>to<span style="color: red;"> </span>the emergency deployment until 4:32 p.m., <i>two
hours and 43 minutes after Capitol police chief Steven Sund first asked for
backup.</i> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">And it’s hard to imagine <span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">Deputy Chief of Staff for
Operations General Charles Flynn (whose brother Michael Flynn was in Trump’s
inner circle of <i>coup</i> planners) being disappointed if the certification
didn’t happen; this could explain his odd concern about “optics” when </span>Capitol police chief Steven Sund asked for permission to
deploy backup around 2:30 p.m. Colonel Earl Matthews, a lawyer for the
commanding general of the D.C. National Guard, said that Flynn and his cohort
Lieutenant General Walter Piatt were “<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/06/jan-6-generals-lied-ex-dc-guard-official-523777">absolute
and unmitigated liars</a>” when they spoke to the
January 6 committee. <b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A second <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/79623/crisis-of-command-the-pentagon-the-president-and-january-6/">theory</a>,
based on the testimony of General Mark Milley
(chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) and <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/january-6-clearinghouse-house-oversight-hearing-chris-christopher-testimony-may-2021.pdf">Christopher
Miller</a> before the January 6 committee, is that deployment was held off out
of fear that the introduction of troops could create the chaos Trump needed to
invoke the Insurrection Act, just as the Oath Keepers <a href="https://twitter.com/RightWingWatch/status/1337847629494018053">hoped he
would</a>. The timing of deployment—after Trump had asked his supporters to go
home in the 4:17 p.m. video—may support this theory. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Or maybe Miller and/or Milley were covering their asses before the
committee, after the fact. Maybe the deployment happened when it did because Mike
Pence and congressional leadership were pushing the Department of Defense to
act and Miller/Milley felt that Trump’s 4:17 p.m. video indicated that he no
longer expected their acquiescence. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">Despite these major gray areas, two very important truths are
crystal clear. </span><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.25pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">One, </span><a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/big-lie-trump-stolen-election-inside-creation">The
Big Lie</a> that fueled the <i>coup</i> attempt<span style="color: #ff0066;"> </span>looks
even more preposterous now than it did two years ago, as swing state recounts
in 2020—and 2022 election results—reinforced Biden’s legitimacy. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Georgia did <a href="https://www.11alive.com/article/news/politics/elections/georgia-election-recount-results-final-numbers/85-cbaacd70-f7e0-40ae-8dfa-3bf18f318645"><span style="color: #0070c0;">three recounts</span></a>, one by hand. All three
verified a Biden margin of over 11,000 ballots. Biden’s
<a href="https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/results/president">win</a> was within .6% of the <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/">pre-election
projections</a><span class="MsoHyperlink"> </span>at 538.com. In
2022, Democratic Senate candidate Raphael Warnock <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2022-elections/georgia-senate-runoff-results">beat</a> Republican Herschel Walker by almost 100,000 votes in the
Peach State, despite <a href="https://acluga.org/georgias-anti-voter-law/">aggressive voter suppression</a> legislation passed by Republicans in 2021. <span style="color: red;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The final 2020 tally in Arizona was within <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/az/arizona_trump_vs_biden-6807.html">.6%</a> of the RealClearPolitics polling projection. An
independent audit of Arizona’s largest county, Maricopa, found <a href="https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/elections/2021/02/23/maricopa-countys-election-audits-show-2020-votes-counted-correctly/4550644001/">no
change</a> in Biden’s margin of victory. Arizona’s
Republican legislature didn’t like this finding, so they hired Cyber Ninjas, a <a href="https://slate.com/technology/2021/05/arizona-recount-cyber-ninjas-doug-logan-explained.html">Trump-supporting
cybersecurity company</a>, on the taxpayer dime. The
Cyber Ninjas’ audit <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/24/us/arizona-election-review-trump-biden.html?referringSource=articleShare">increased</a> Biden’s Maricopa margin by 360 votes. In 2022, Democrats
won the two most hotly-contested races in the state—for governor and U.S.
Senate—despite party-line Republican voter suppression legislation <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/arizona-epicenter-fight-voting-rights-today">passed</a> after the 2020 election. Incumbent Democratic senator Mark
Kelly won by almost six points. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A recount of Wisconsin’s two biggest Democratic
counties requested by Republicans <a href="https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-joe-biden-donald-trump-madison-wisconsin-7aef88488e4a801545a13cf4319591b0">padded</a> Biden’s 20,000+-vote margin by another 87 ballots. In
2022, Democrat Mandela Barnes narrowly lost to incumbent U.S. senator Ron
Johnson (after being <a href="https://www.wizmnews.com/2022/11/07/sen-ron-johnson-losing-in-direct-donations-but-dominating-outside-spending-over-challenger-lt-gov-barnes/">swamped</a> by outside money), but Democrats won four out of the other
five statewide offices. Democratic governor Tony Evers, the <a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-wisconsin-us-elections-balance-20220908-nngeyywg5vftfonwi4si2qkxlm-story.html">bulwark</a> against a complete Republican takeover of the state’s
election system, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/09/tony-evers-tim-michels-wisconsin-governor-race-results-2022-00064761">won</a> by a comfortable 90,000
votes despite race-based <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/wisconsin-republicans/">GOP voter suppression
measures</a> on the books. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Michigan’s recount <a href="https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/local/2021/02/12/michigan-election-audit-hand-recount-matches-machine-recount-within-1/">validated</a> Biden’s 154,000-vote margin. Biden’s win was small next to
Democrats’ victories in 2022, in which Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer won
by 11 points and Democrats <a href="https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-government/huge-wins-democrats-theyre-poised-retake-michigan-legislature">regained
control</a> of the state legislature. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, Biden <a href="https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/results/president">won</a> Nevada by enough of a margin—2.4 points in Biden’s case—to
negate the need for a recount. This margin was
within <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/nv/nevada_trump_vs_biden-6867.html?utm_source=ballotpedia.org&utm_medium=ballotpedia_dem_pres_iowa&utm_campaign=rcp_syndicated_widgets">.3%</a> of the RealClearPolitics’ pre-election projection. Nevada’s
Secretary of State put out a <a href="https://www.nvsos.gov/sos/home/showdocument?id=9191">point-by-point
refutation</a> of right-wing conspiracies just in
case. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A <a href="https://www.vote.pa.gov/About-Elections/Pages/Post-Election-Audits.aspx">sample
audit</a> of 63 counties in Pennsylvania after the
2020 election found results which were within “a fraction of a percentage
point” of the official tabulation. Biden’s margin of victory—1.2%—was the <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/Pennsylvania.html">exact
same margin</a> predicted by RealClearPolitics.com. Democrats
easily won the two big races in 2022: John Fetterman clinched the U.S. Senate
seat by <a href="https://www.politico.com/2022-election/results/pennsylvania/senate/">five
points</a>; Josh Shapiro <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Pennsylvania_gubernatorial_election">won</a> the governor’s mansion by almost 15 points. Democrats also
<a href="https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/democrats-set-to-win-control-of-pa-house-20221116.html">won
control</a> of the state House of Representatives for
the first time in 12 years. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A <a href="https://apnews.com/article/voter-fraud-election-2020-joe-biden-donald-trump-7fcb6f134e528fee8237c7601db3328f">thorough
AP study</a> of the six closest swing states in 2020 found a<i> total</i> of
less than 475 potentially fraudulent votes. Not all of the ballots were
necessarily fraudulent (thus the word “potentially”), not all of the ballots
were necessarily counted, and the ballots came from Democrats, Republicans, and
independents. Joe Biden won each of these states by <i>more than 10,000 </i>votes.
<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2103619118">peer-reviewed
study</a> published by the National Academy of Sciences concluded the
following: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“After the 2020 US presidential election Donald Trump
refused to concede, alleging widespread and unparalleled voter fraud. Trump’s
supporters deployed several statistical arguments in an attempt to cast doubt
on the result. Reviewing the most prominent of these statistical claims, we
conclude that none of them is even remotely convincing. The common logic behind
these claims is that, if the election were fairly conducted, some feature of
the observed 2020 election result would be unlikely or impossible. In each
case, we find that the purportedly anomalous fact is either not a fact or not
anomalous.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Lost, Not Stolen,” a paper <a href="https://www.cato.org/blog/lost-not-stolen-prominent-conservatives-refute-2020-election-myths">published</a>
by “<span style="background: white; color: #1a1714; letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">a </span><a href="https://lostnotstolen.org/"><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">group</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #1a1714; letter-spacing: 0.1pt;"> of prominent conservative legal and political figures,”
concluded that </span><span style="background: white; color: #333333;">“there is
absolutely no evidence of </span><span style="background: white;">fraud in the 2020 Presidential Election on the
magnitude necessary to shift the result in any state, let alone the nation
as a whole. In fact, there was no fraud that changed the outcome in even a
single precinct.”</span><span style="background: white; color: #ff0066;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">The
biggest takeaway from all of the evidence to emerge over the past two years is
that Donald Trump did nothing to clear the Capitol for over three hours. </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In the <a href="https://january6th.house.gov/news/press-releases/thompson-cheney-luria-kinzinger-opening-statements-select-committee-hearing#:~:text=%E2%80%9CFor%20187%20minutes%20on%20January,those%20facing%20down%20the%20riot.">words</a>
of January 6 committee chairman Bennie Thompson, <span style="background: white;">“For </span><span style="background: white; color: #1d2228;">187 minutes on January 6th, this man of unbridled destructive
energy could not be moved—not by his aides, not by his allies.…or the desperate
pleas of those facing down the rioters….He ignored and disregarded the
desperate pleas of his own family, including Ivanka and Don Jr., even though he
was the only person in the world who could call off the mob. He could not be
moved to rise from the dining room table… and carry his message to the violent
mob.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">January 6 committee co-chair Liz Cheney was one of the few Republican
officials willing to acknowledge the extent of Donald Trump’s efforts to end
democracy in the United States. The daughter of <a href="https://www.pfaw.org/press-releases/bush-running-mate-dick-cheneys-congressional-voting-record-emphatically-far-right/"><span style="color: #0070c0;">ultra-conservative</span></a>
former vice president Dick Cheney and the former chair of the House GOP
Conference (the third most powerful Republican in the House of Representatives),
Cheney endorsed Trump twice, voted for him twice, donated to and raised money
for his 2020 campaign as a <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/16/kimberly-guilfoyle-liz-cheney-jan-6-00039997">co-captain</a> of the Trump Victory Finance Committee, and <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-trump-score/house/"><span style="color: #0070c0;">voted <i>with</i> Trump 93% of the time</span></a> during his single term in office. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">For refusing to go along with Donald Trump’s Big
Lie, Cheney was <a href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/cheney-sunday-show-interviews-gop-leadership-ouster">demoted</a> from her leadership position in the party and replaced
with <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/loyalty-trump-catapults-elise-stefanik-into-republican-stardom-2021-05-11/">Trump
toady</a> Elise Stefanik, who had called Trump a “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/31/us/politics/elise-stefanik.html">whack
job</a>” in private. Cheney was then primaried, where
she <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2022-election/rep-liz-cheney-loses-primary-wyoming-trump-backed-challenger-rcna43379">lost</a> to an election denier. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In <a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/07/22/liz-cheney-jan-6-hearing-trump">closing
remarks</a> made in a January 6 committee hearing
last July, Cheney said, “In our hearing tonight, you saw an American president
faced with a stark and unmistakable choice between right and wrong. There was
no ambiguity, no nuance. Donald Trump made a purposeful choice to violate his
oath of office.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Claims that the committee was a partisan witch hunt were undercut by the
witnesses called: “The case made against him is not made by his political
enemies. It is instead a series of confessions by Donald Trump's own
appointees, his own friends, his own campaign officials, people who worked for
him for years and his own family.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Looking to 2024, Cheney posed the question every American with a shred of
decency should ask themselves: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;">
</p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Can a president who is willing to make the choices Donald Trump made
during the violence of Jan. 6 ever be trusted with any position of authority in
our great nation again?”<span style="color: red;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>This feature originally <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/timeline-of-jan-6-events/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>appeared</b></span></a> at</i> RawStory.</span></p><p style="background: white; margin: 0in;"><b style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span></span></i></b></p><p style="background: white; margin: 0in;"><b style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;">Follow Dan Benbow on </span><a href="https://twitter.com/danbenbow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Twitter</span></a><span style="color: #222222;"> </span></span></i></b></p><p style="background: white; margin: 0in;"><b style="background-color: transparent; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-align: center;"><br /></b></p><p style="background: white; margin: 0in;"><b style="background-color: transparent; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-align: center;"> More political writing by Dan Benbow:</b></p><div class="MsoNormal"><div style="text-align: center;"><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Republicans seek <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/wisconsin-republicans/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>ballot box apartheid</b></span></a> in Wisconsin</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The GOP's <a href="https://progressive.org/op-eds/gop-plan-steal-2024-election-benbow-220210/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>Plan</b></span></a> to <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/op-ed/article258390958.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>Steal</b></span></a> the 2024 Election </span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Wisconsin, and U.S. elections, </span><a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-wisconsin-us-elections-balance-20220908-nngeyywg5vftfonwi4si2qkxlm-story.html" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #3d85c6;">in the balance</span></b></a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">A dress rehearsal for fascism: <b><a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2022/01/a-dress-rehearsal-for-fascism-complete.html?_sm_au_=iVVJk56QjZGRSZRsFLQtvKtpMGMvF" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the complete January 6 timeline</span></a> </b></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">ANATOMY OF <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2021/05/trumpfailed.html?_sm_au_=iVVJk56QjZGRSZRsFLQtvKtpMGMvF" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>A MAN-MADE DISASTER</b></span></a>: </span>1,001 ways Donald Trump failed</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">to protect America from the coronavirus<br /></span></span><div style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-master-of-low-expectations-666.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>The Master of Low Expectations</b></span></a><span style="color: #3d85c6;">: 666 reasons sentient citizens</span></span></span></span><br /><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> are still celebrating </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the long overdue departure of George W. Bush</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-breathtaking-stupidity-of_16.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The <b>breathtaking stupidity</b> of #BernieOrBust</span></a></span></span></span></div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Death of a President in the <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2018/12/death-of-president-in-united-states-of.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>United States of Amnesia</b></span></a></span></span><br /><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> (<i>a review of the public life of George H.W. Bush</i>)</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Aliens, unicorns, and <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2018/10/spoilerparty.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>the narcissism</b></span></a> </span></span><br /><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">of voting Green</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2017/01/ten-reasons-barack-obama-is-clearly.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">10 reasons</span></a> </b></span>Barack Obama is clearly</span></span><br /><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the best president in my lifetime</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/10/178-reasons-hillary-clinton-is.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>178 reasons</b></span></a> Hillary Clinton is infinitely better</span></span><br /><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">than Donald Trump (even on her worst day)</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div><div><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/09/colin-kaepernick-is-right.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Colin Kaepernick is right</span></a></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span></div><div><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/04/stephen-colbert-delivers-best-political.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Stephen Colbert delivers the best political roast of all time</span></a></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/05/memorial-day-in-united-states-of-amnesia.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Memorial Day in the United States of Amnesia</span></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2012/10/romney-ryans-road-to-perdition.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Romney-Ryan's Road to Perdition</span></a><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12pt; text-align: left;"> </span></div></div>Dan Benbowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02258556216655283390noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3869308843623818842.post-38967576262055560362022-07-18T17:39:00.011-07:002022-07-19T09:38:28.486-07:00Joe Rogan is politically illiterate<p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz8LbsYwTrFCXfg_JRcW418NRIUdBvD4H3cwrYveys_jD0pxG3DICzNbJeHHx_P-GP1afQjCBJtTUawBFEkuYsrVnQWp2Wsu6QUlsiA69QW_WSdON3BJI6-T40Zx-iP8MxJnovpx5SAdyA3ajmMFqJLjbEug9Qz4bG6Xg7Vrh0hCwkrsbNbn8iP7Tf/s1024/Rogan%20green%201.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="536" data-original-width="1024" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz8LbsYwTrFCXfg_JRcW418NRIUdBvD4H3cwrYveys_jD0pxG3DICzNbJeHHx_P-GP1afQjCBJtTUawBFEkuYsrVnQWp2Wsu6QUlsiA69QW_WSdON3BJI6-T40Zx-iP8MxJnovpx5SAdyA3ajmMFqJLjbEug9Qz4bG6Xg7Vrh0hCwkrsbNbn8iP7Tf/w320-h168/Rogan%20green%201.png" width="320" /></a></span></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In 2016, podcaster and </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iNUiMnuDV8"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">former
“Fear Factor” host</span></a><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Joe <span style="color: #222222;">Rogan
endorsed </span></span><a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-breathtaking-stupidity-of_16.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">longshot presidential candidate</span></a><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary. </span></span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #222222;">When Sanders lost because of </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/17/us/politics/bernie-sanders-black-voters-outreach.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">tepid support</span></a><span style="color: #222222;"> among Black Democrats, I figured
Rogan would do the rational thing and support </span></span><a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/10/178-reasons-hillary-clinton-is.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Hillary Clinton</span></a><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">. Clinton and Sanders had voted together </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/28/upshot/the-senate-votes-that-divided-hillary-clinton-and-bernie-sanders.html?_r=0"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">93% of the time</span></a><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> in the Senate. </span><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Even while
he <span style="color: #222222;">was in a heated primary against her, Sanders had
</span></span><a href="https://inthesetimes.com/article/bernie-sanders-ralph-nader-lessons-from-2000-election-november"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">said</span></a><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
that, “</span><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">on her worst day, Hillary Clinton will be an
infinitely better candidate and president than the Republican candidate on his
best day.”</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> </span></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Sanders </span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson/bernie-sanderss-hard-fight-for-hillary-clinton"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">campaigned aggressively</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> for Clinton after he lost because “I disagree
with Donald Trump on virtually all of his policy positions,” but Rogan effectively
</span><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">sat
out </span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(to then) the most
important presidential election in his lifetime, </span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://twitter.com/joerogan/status/760151670504370176"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">wasting his very public voice</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> on third party candidate Gary “</span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.globalcitizen.org/fr/content/presidential-candidate-gary-johnson-asks-what-is-a/"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What is Aleppo</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">?” Johnson. Following the stereotypical Bernie Bro playbook,
Rogan justified his decision by ignoring the </span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2021/05/trumpfailed.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">enormous human stakes</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> of the 2016 election while showing disdain
for a woman far smarter and </span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/10/178-reasons-hillary-clinton-is.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">vastly more accomplished</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> than he would ever be. </span><span style="color: #222222;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">After Trump took office,
he followed through on the neo-fascist agenda Sanders had warned about, ripped
the nation in two, and soiled the presidency daily through his antics. Rogan
could have admitted his error in judgment, but he chose to double down,
continuing his blinkered attacks on Hillary Clinton while hosting a series of
charlatans on his podcast. </span><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #222222;">Comedian Jimmy Dore </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tY3ZVmkAKyM" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">denied</span></a></span><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Syria’s </span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.gppi.net/media/GPPi_Schneider_Luetkefend_2019_Nowhere_to_Hide_Web.pdf"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">well-documented</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> chemical weapons attacks on its own people and regurgitated bogus
anti-Clinton talking points Russian intelligence had </span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.justice.gov/archives/sco/file/1373816/download"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">used in 2016</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> to splinter America’s left.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">As Donald Trump was on his way to racking up </span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/24/trumps-false-or-misleading-claims-total-30573-over-four-years/"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">over 30,000 lies</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> in just one term, Rogan and professional troll (and Fox regular)
Michael Malice </span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zv80ug2J0fI"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">significantly
exaggerated</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Hillary Clinton’s </span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/28/hillary-clinton-honest-transparency-jill-abramson"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">garden-variety</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> political dishonesty.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Rogan and Pat Miletich (a former MMA fighter
posing as a serious thinker) </span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2i9CLccQl8Y"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">minimized</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> the seriousness of </span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/548794-there-was-trump-russia-collusion-and-trump-pardoned-the-colluder/"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> and leveled accusations against the Clinton
Foundation—while predictably failing to mention</span><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> the foundation’s tens of millions of impoverished
beneficiaries in the developing world, including </span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">the </span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2016/jun/15/hillary-clinton/clinton-clinton-foundation-helped-9-million-lower-/"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">nine million women</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> who received discount rate AIDS drugs.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">While </span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwKSUQW6is8"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">chatting with the dullard</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> John Joseph (lead singer of the Cro-Mags), Rogan
dredged up right-wing conspiracy theories about the Clintons </span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/clinton-body-bags/"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">having people murdered</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> and trotted out the </span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2019/09/lingering-myths-of-2016-presidential.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">debunked theory</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> that the DNC had robbed Bernie Sanders of the Democratic
candidacy in 2016.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Lost in these conversations were the </span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/trump-legacy-and-its-consequences"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">many concrete ways</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Donald Trump’s presidency was negatively impacting millions of Americans’
lives, and the undeniable fact that a Hillary Clinton presidency would have involved
a radically </span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/10/178-reasons-hillary-clinton-is.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">more humane and sustainable policy decision tree</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> (to say nothing of </span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-hillary-endorsement-20160923-snap-story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">vastly more competent</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> governance). </span><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Context and nuance took a back seat to heated
speculation and shiny objects. Rogan and his guests were poster boys for </span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/05/donald-trump-supporters-dunning-kruger-effect-213904/"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">the Dunning-Kruger effect</span></a></span><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">; they had crawled down
just enough Internet rabbit holes to fake their way through with cavalier confidence.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">With the arrival of the coronavirus in 2020,
Rogan had a chance to redeem himself. Surely, this moment of social chaos, mass
death, and </span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/11/trumps-lies-about-coronavirus/608647/"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">deadly Trump administration deception</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">could </span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">give a skeptic like Rogan the opportun</span><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ity to up his game—to be
civic-minded, to be accurate, to at least aspire to be a poor man’s Marc Maron.
</span><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Rogan instead zigzagged wildly in the true
spirit of the low-information voter.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Again he </span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ve7ccl3YrHU"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">advocated</span></a></span><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #222222;"> for Bernie Sanders during the Democratic primary. When Sanders
lost the primary due to his </span><a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/joe-biden-owes-it-all-to-african-american-voters.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">lack of support</span></a><span style="color: #222222;"> among Black Democrats (just as he
had in 2016), one would think Rogan would have supported Sanders’ choice, Joe
Biden. Biden and Sanders had a governing partnership plan which was codified in
a </span></span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/07/08/889189235/democratic-task-forces-deliver-biden-a-blueprint-for-a-progressive-presidency"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">110-page policy paper</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And the alternative was horrendous. Sanders </span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/15/bernie-sanders-joe-biden-irresponsible-not-support"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">campaigned</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> for Biden in fear of what would happen if we “allow the most
dangerous president in modern American history to get re-elected” and called
sitting out the election “</span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-ap-top-news-elections-joe-biden-politics-a1bfb62e37fe34e09ff123a58a1329fa"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">irresponsible</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">.”</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">As he had done in 2</span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">016, Rogan made the political dilettante’s
error of overlooking the qualifications of the candidates and the cumulative
impact their decisions would have on actual human beings in favor of hot takes based
largely on his visceral reactions. Rogan refused to endorse either major
candidate in 2020, despite Trump’s </span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2021/05/trumpfailed.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">colossal mismanagement</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> of the pandemic.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What commentary Rogan did offer on the race
that would decide the fate of American democracy often devolved in</span><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">to </span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-X5-kZuBn6U"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">attacks
on Biden’s cognition</span></a></span><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> which failed to account for the degree to which
Biden’s verbal misfires were </span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://thehill.com/changing-america/respect/accessibility/471707-how-joe-bidens-gaffes-have-affected-his-campaign-and/"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">the result of his stutter</span></a></span><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">. Rogan at one point </span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/04/joe-rogan-donald-trump-joe-biden-bernie-sanders"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">said</span></a></span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> he favored the obese, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/14/us/politics/trump-ramp-water-glass-health.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">minimally-ambulatory</span></a> Trump over the trim, fit-as-a-fiddle Biden because “he doesn’t seem to be aging at all.”</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Even after abandoning Joe
Biden and American democracy, Rogan still had a chance to be a Science-forward
independent.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">But he blew that too,
becoming a frequent purveyor of misinformation that undermined public health.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He </span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/tv/culture/young-people-shouldn-t-worry-about-getting-covid-vaccine-joe-rogan-says-v5eed23ff"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">suggested</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> young, healthy people not get vaccinated.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He </span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/joe-rogan-covid19-misinformation-ivermectin-spotify-podcast-1219976/"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">hosted</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> a guest who claimed—without evidence—that the cattle de-wormer ivermectin
could extinguish Covid-19. He hyped ivermectin based on anecdata after <i>he</i>
got infected and convinced </span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.rawstory.com/aa/"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">his caught-in-a-lie
bro Aaron Rodgers</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
to “recuperate” with this unproven miracle drug.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He </span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/aug/31/joe-rogan/joe-rogan-falsely-says-mrna-vaccines-are-gene-ther/"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">mistakenly</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> likened mRNA vaccines to gene therapy.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He </span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://thehill.com/changing-america/enrichment/arts-culture/587588-joe-rogans-sold-out-show-cancelled-after-covid-19/"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">said</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> he wasn’t getting vaccinated after catching Covid-19, though
vaccination would have improved and extended his immunity.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He </span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2022/jan/31/joe-rogan-covid-claims-what-does-the-science-actually-say"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">claimed</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> lockdowns “make things worse,” though data showed lockdowns </span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2405-7"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">lowered infections and deaths</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He hosted a vaccine scientist who said that
millions of Americans were being convinced to get vaccinated due to “</span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-science-health-joe-rogan-ap-fact-check-a87b1044c6256968dcc33886a36c949f"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">mass-formation hypnosis</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">” and a cardiologist who claimed that the
pandemic was “</span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://healthfeedback.org/claimreview/joe-rogan-interview-with-peter-mccullough-contains-multiple-false-and-unsubstantiated-claims-about-the-covid-19-pandemic-and-vaccines/"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">planned</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">.”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: georgia;">On December 31, 2021, 270 </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: georgia;">“</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">scientists, medical professionals, professors, and science communicators</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #222222;">” signed </span><a href="https://spotifyopenletter.wordpress.com/2022/01/10/an-open-letter-to-spotify/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">an open letter</span></a><span style="color: #222222;"> to Spotify (who sponsor Rogan</span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: georgia;">’</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: georgia;">s platform) suggesting their star podcaster pay more attention to the facts. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #222222;">The didn't take the matter seriously until Neil Young (and later, Joni Mitchell) boycotted Spotify </span><a href="https://www.dukechronicle.com/article/2022/02/joe-rogan-spotify-podcast-neil-young-joni-mitchell" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">several weeks later</span></a><span style="color: #222222;">. C</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: georgia; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">oncerns that other musicians might pull their music (and more to the
point, their revenue) forced Spotify to take token actions. Spotify’s CYA maneuver was to create
an advisory board </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">to review any Covid-19-related
content on Rogan’s podcast.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #161616;">Blessed with a $</span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/17/arts/music/spotify-joe-rogan-misinformation.html"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #3d85c6;">200
million contract</span></a></span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #161616;">, Rogan went
along with the advisory board and issued a </span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.instagram.com/tv/CZYQ_nDJi6G/?utm_medium=share_sheet"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #3d85c6;">scripted
<i>mea culpa</i></span></a></span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #161616;"> on Instagram which
included the admission that, “I do all the scheduling myself, and I don’t
always get it right.”</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #161616;">Despite being hobbled by stricter standards around pandemic
information, Rogan continues to spread his political illiteracy far and wide. </span><span style="color: #161616; mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Though Joe Biden has </span><span style="color: #34102d; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">rolled up</span><span style="color: #3d0733; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">formidable accomplishments
with a threadbare congressional majority—the $1.9 trillion </span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/11/politics/biden-sign-covid-bill/index.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Covid-19 relief bill</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">, the $1.2 trillion bipartisan </span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/11/15/1055841358/biden-signs-1t-bipartisan-infrastructure-bill-into-law"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">infrastructure bill</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">, a </span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://news.ballotpedia.org/2022/05/03/biden-has-appointed-most-federal-judges-through-may-1-of-a-presidents-second-year/"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">record number</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> of (</span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/diversity-federal-judicial-selection-during-biden-administration"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">diverse</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">) judges, big strides for </span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.hrc.org/resources/president-bidens-pro-lgbtq-timeline"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">LGBTQ rights</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">, the lowest unemployment </span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/mar/24/us-unemployment-lowest-level-since-1969"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">since 1969</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">, and healthcare coverage extended to </span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/12/22/statement-by-president-biden-on-4-6-million-americans-gaining-health-insurance-this-year/"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">4.6 million Americans</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">—Rogan continues to reduce the Biden
presidency down to high school taunts about Biden’s cognition, claiming the
president is “</span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMIixxeHX6E"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">basically
a shell</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">.”</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Ironically, </span><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Rogan is doing exactly what he accused
others of doing recently </span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">when he was outed for
having used the N-word more than 20 times: making sweeping
statements about a public figure based on </span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2022/02/08/exp-tsr-todd-joe-rogan-spotify-n-word-controversy.cnn"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">unflattering montages</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> posted by political opponents.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Sweeping statements which
are dubious at best.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">During his </span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">NATO expansion </span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nf5XwsFq1WY"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">press conference</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> just days ago, Biden stumbled a few times, but he kept his
place and kept moving, in the process putting on a foreign policy clinic. He inventoried
individual NATO ally’s GDP commitments to defense spending and reiterated NATO’s
commitment to Article 5. He discussed America’s force posture in Europe, rotational
deployments in the Baltics, advanced multiple rocket systems, and counter-battery
radars. He explained actions taken by the Partnership for Global </span><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Infrastructure and
Development and a bunch of other things that are as foreign to Rogan as valid
sourcing.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">But ageist attacks on
the man who got by far the most votes for president ever, the man who <i>oh-by-the-way</i>
saved American democracy, aren’t the low point for Rogan.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">On his podcast
recently, in addition to saying we had a “dead man” as president, Rogan praised
Florida governor Ron DeSantis for </span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/8/13/22622168/ron-desantis-florida-covid-response-failures"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">his (lackadaisical) Covid-19 response</span></a></span><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">, saying DeSantis would
make a “good president.”</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In just two years,
Rogan has gone from endorsing (for the second time) a Democratic Socialist who backs
Medicare for All, strong labor unions, steep tax increases on the rich, free
community college, subsidized childcare, a woman’s right to choose, LGBTQ
rights, voting rights, and aggressive measures to regulate greenhouse gases to
supporting a far-right Republican with an extremist agenda.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Given the chance, a
President DeSantis would slash Medicare spending, do everything in his power to
destroy unions, shower the wealthy with huge tax windfalls, do nothing to help
working Americans afford college or childcare, and appoint theocratic judges
certain to further erode women’s rights, the rights of LGBTQ Americans, the
right to vote, and any federal laws designed to protect our air and water or
combat climate change.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Down deep, Rogan knows many of his political opinions
are fraudulent. In February of 2020, after the Sanders campaign caught flack
for trumpeting his support, Rogan </span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=38&v=P-KjcOQPVeI&feature=emb_title"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">told</span></a></span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> guest Mark Normand, “Here’s a really important point. </span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I'm a fucking moron. If you're
basing who you're going to vote [for president] based on…what <i>I</i> like?
I'm not, I’m not that balls-deep into this stuff, I’m just not. I’m not the
guy….I don’t know what’s required to be a good president, I really don’t. And I
don’t understand what’s required to make sure the economy functions correctly,
and also I don’t understand what’s required to make the military function
correctly. It’s just guesswork.”</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Rogan is free to
indulge in guesswork because he is completely divorced from the harsh economic
realities of most Americans. While 58% of Americans </span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/27/more-than-half-of-americans-live-paycheck-to-paycheck-amid-inflation.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">live paycheck-to-paycheck</span></a></span><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">, Rogan makes </span><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-celebrities/actors/joe-rogan-net-worth/"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">$60 million annually</span></a></span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">and lives in </span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">an </span><span style="mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.workandmoney.com/s/joe-rogans-house-austin-texas-dc70658dead7495c"><span style="color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">11,000-square-foot, $14.4 million French country estate</span></a></span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-underline: none;"> </span></span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">on Lake Austin.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">He has precisely <i>no</i>
skin in the game. Politics is just a parlor game for Rogan.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Quaint notions like intellectual
credibility and social responsibility are for suckers when you’re laughing all
the way to the bank.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><a name="_Hlk107754308" style="background-color: transparent;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: black; font-family: georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Unfortunately
for American democracy (and public discourse), Rogan’s 11 million listeners
aren’t in on the joke.</span></a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><a name="_Hlk107754308" style="background-color: transparent;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: black; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This feature originally </span></a><a href="https://www.rawstory.com/joe-rogan-politically-illiterate/" name="_Hlk107754308" style="background-color: transparent;" target="_blank"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #3d85c6; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">appeared</span></a> at</i> RawStory.</span></p><p style="background: white; margin: 0in;"><b style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span></span></i></b></p><p style="background: white; margin: 0in;"><b style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;">Follow Dan Benbow on </span><a href="https://twitter.com/danbenbow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Twitter </span></a><span style="color: #222222;"> </span></span></i></b></p><p style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><p style="background: white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><div class="MsoNormal"><div style="text-align: center;"><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>More political writing by Dan Benbow:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">A dress rehearsal for fascism: <b><a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2022/01/a-dress-rehearsal-for-fascism-complete.html?_sm_au_=iVVJk56QjZGRSZRsFLQtvKtpMGMvF" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the complete January 6 timeline</span></a> </b></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">ANATOMY OF <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2021/05/trumpfailed.html?_sm_au_=iVVJk56QjZGRSZRsFLQtvKtpMGMvF" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>A MAN-MADE DISASTER</b></span></a>: </span>1,001 ways Donald Trump failed</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">to protect America from the coronavirus<br /></span></span><div style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-master-of-low-expectations-666.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>The Master of Low Expectations</b></span></a><span style="color: #3d85c6;">: 666 reasons sentient citizens</span></span></span></span><br /><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> are still celebrating </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the long overdue departure of George W. Bush</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-breathtaking-stupidity-of_16.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The <b>breathtaking stupidity</b> of #BernieOrBust</span></a></span></span></span></div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Death of a President in the <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2018/12/death-of-president-in-united-states-of.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>United States of Amnesia</b></span></a></span></span><br /><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> (<i>a review of the public life of George H.W. Bush</i>)</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Aliens, unicorns, and <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2018/10/spoilerparty.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>the narcissism</b></span></a> </span></span><br /><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">of voting Green</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2017/01/ten-reasons-barack-obama-is-clearly.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">10 reasons</span></a> </b></span>Barack Obama is clearly</span></span><br /><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the best president in my lifetime</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/10/178-reasons-hillary-clinton-is.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>178 reasons</b></span></a> Hillary Clinton is infinitely better</span></span><br /><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">than Donald Trump (even on her worst day)</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div><div><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/09/colin-kaepernick-is-right.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Colin Kaepernick is right</span></a></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span></div><div><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/04/stephen-colbert-delivers-best-political.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Stephen Colbert delivers the best political roast of all time</span></a></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/05/memorial-day-in-united-states-of-amnesia.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Memorial Day in the United States of Amnesia</span></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2012/10/romney-ryans-road-to-perdition.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Romney-Ryan's Road to Perdition</span></a><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12pt; text-align: left;"> </span></div></div></div>Dan Benbowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02258556216655283390noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3869308843623818842.post-17095853895898911982022-03-07T16:35:00.016-08:002022-03-09T09:56:49.187-08:00How the GOP could gerrymander the electoral college<p><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi3L8l1yF2OH2KVfE6sJcxvE1T64qjEcY3vdrx65LOBNifjDFvaKKE5Dr3YYh5dGIS1iY_HszVzCwEbqKJ0FpeyAq_LVmNkaKhS8Ti6eiztF1uFf_wEKo-nuMFj7dUfI0qbROd_JioJjJ8AHPfs40LZbE5TwWopUkQJpKoGbnnhFNSlAfa3JaKQHxPU=s750" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="750" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi3L8l1yF2OH2KVfE6sJcxvE1T64qjEcY3vdrx65LOBNifjDFvaKKE5Dr3YYh5dGIS1iY_HszVzCwEbqKJ0FpeyAq_LVmNkaKhS8Ti6eiztF1uFf_wEKo-nuMFj7dUfI0qbROd_JioJjJ8AHPfs40LZbE5TwWopUkQJpKoGbnnhFNSlAfa3JaKQHxPU=w320-h213" width="320" /></a></span></span></div><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Three
midterm governor’s races could determine the fate of American democracy.</span></span><p></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Though Joe Biden won the
popular vote by more than seven million ballots in 2020, his electoral college
victory over Donald Trump was very slim—fewer than <a href="https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/results/president" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc;">43,000 votes</span></a> in Georgia, Arizona, and
Wisconsin separated the candidates. Biden’s win was helped by <a href="https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/04/record-high-turnout-in-2020-general-election.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc;">unusually high turnout</span></a>,
fueled largely by expanded <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/01/28/turnout-soared-in-2020-as-nearly-two-thirds-of-eligible-u-s-voters-cast-ballots-for-president/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc;">mail voting</span></a>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">There was <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-08-17/trump-big-lie-experts-debunk-voting-fraud-claims" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc;">no
evidence</span></a> of widespread voter fraud in 2020, but Republicans in
state governments have used Trump’s “<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/19/politics/donald-trump-big-lie-explainer/index.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc;">Big Lie</span></a>” narrative as a
cover to try to transfer election oversight from bipartisan boards to
partisan Republican officials in <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/11/pennsylvania-election-threat/620684/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc;">Pennsylvania</span></a>, <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2021/10/18/new-wayne-county-gop-canvasser-wouldnt-have-certified-vote/8506771002/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc;">Michigan</span></a>,
and <a href="https://www.democracydocket.com/alerts/georgia-republicans-take-first-step-in-takeover-of-fulton-county-elections/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc;">Georgia</span></a>. </span><span style="color: #222222;">If successful, these moves could allow Republicans
to </span><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://washingtonmonthly.com/2021/05/08/what-happens-when-republicans-simply-refuse-to-certify-democratic-wins/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc;">refuse</span></a> to certify
presidential election results they don’t like, leading to a constitutional
crisis.</span><span style="color: #222222;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">But the GOP could
avoid a messy public fight by <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/07/12/1015371195/the-right-to-vote-the-big-lie-and-what-it-did-to-voting-access" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc;">suppressing Democratic turnout</span></a> in
key states </span><span style="color: #222222;">to such an extent that it
would be virtually impossible for the Democratic candidate to win the electoral
college. Prevailing at the ballot box (by any means necessary) could give the
Republican candidate a patina of legitimacy among a critical mass of the
American public and press, ending democracy with a whimper, rather than a bang.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>To this end,
Republican legislatures have muscled through dozens of voter suppression bills
on party-line votes. <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/07/politics/what-texas-voting-bill-does/index.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Senate bill 1</span></a> in Texas received a lot of media
attention, but Democrats haven’t won Texas since 1976. The 2024 presidential
race will likely be decided in the five states which flipped from Donald Trump
in 2016 to Joe Biden in 2020. The GOP would need to win three of these states
to regain the White House. They could be well on their way.</span><span style="color: #222222;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>Last year, the
Georgia legislature passed Senate bill 202 (SB 202), also known as “The
Election Integrity Act of 2021.” <a href="https://www.gpb.org/news/2021/03/27/what-does-georgias-new-voting-law-sb-202-do" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">SB 202</span></a></span><a name="m_-4018076426669333393_m_-17991103340219"><span style="color: #222222;"> bans
public officials from sending out unsolicited absentee ballots, reduces the
window of time allowed to request or return absentee ballots, and increases ID
requirements for absentee ballots. SB 202 also limits the number of
absentee-ballot drop boxes and the hours drop boxes are available.</span></a><span style="color: #222222;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">These changes
will disproportionately harm Democrats in a state where Biden <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/02/us/politics/georgia-voting-law-annotated.html"><span style="color: #1155cc;">received 65%</span></a> of the absentee vote. The omnibus
bill will have an especially adverse effect on Black and Latinx voters, who
wait <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/waiting-vote"><span style="color: #1155cc;">around 45% longer</span></a> to vote in person and
have faced <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/10/17/924527679/why-do-nonwhite-georgia-voters-have-to-wait-in-line-for-hours-too-few-polling-pl"><span style="color: #1155cc;">notoriously long lines</span></a> in Georgia<b>.</b></span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p style="background: white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">Arizona’s
legislature passed <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/arizona-legislature-passes-law-purge-infrequent-mail-voters-n1267025"><span style="color: #1155cc;">SB 1485</span></a>, which purges infrequent
voters from the early voting list, and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/az-state-wire-elections-government-and-politics-a4d2f7a1d980c4b01547a4b895bf39f9"><span style="color: #1155cc;">SB 1003</span></a>, which limits the amount of time
voters have to fix unsigned absentee ballots. Both bills will likely have an <a href="https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/2021/09/01/we-are-suing-over-these-voting-bills-that-racially-discriminate/5622941001/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc;">inordinate impact</span></a> on
voters of color. </span><span style="color: #222222;">If </span><span style="color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/data/seats-congress-gainedlost-the-presidents-party-mid-term-elections" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc;">historical patterns</span></a> hold,
and Arizona Republicans expand their majorities in the 2022 midterms, they
might be able to pass other laws which restrict the franchise, including <a href="https://legiscan.com/AZ/bill/HB2793/2021" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc;">HB 2793</span></a>, which prohibits automatic voter
registration.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: black;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Taken
together, these bills could tip the balance in a state Biden won by only <a href="https://www.politico.com/2020-election/results/arizona/"><span style="color: #1155cc;">10,543 votes</span></a>, where<a href="https://news.azpm.org/p/newsfeature/2020/8/21/178857-arizonas-long-history-with-voting-by-mail/"><span style="color: black;"> </span></a>nearly 90% voted by mail in 2020 and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-arizona-race-and-ethnicity-bills-voting-rights-a06a005420048eb04e8e71cc99f106f0"><span style="color: #1155cc;">75%</span></a> are registered on permanent early
voting lists.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">If the
GOP legislation works as designed, Arizona and Georgia—the two tightest
contests in 2020—may effectively be gerrymandered in the 2024 presidential
election. </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">Which would leave Democratic
hopes tied to the Blue Wall states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania,
all of which have Republican legislatures eager to follow Georgia’s lead and
Democratic governors up for re-election in 2022. To ensure that America has a
legitimate presidential election in 2024, Democrats may need to run the table
in these races.</span><span style="color: #222222;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">Michigan’s Republican-led
legislature is <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/contributors/2021/10/30/election-reform-democracy-audits/6196083001/"><span style="color: #1155cc;">trying to slip</span></a> absentee ballot restrictions
and voter ID laws (which could <a href="https://www.aclu.org/other/oppose-voter-id-legislation-fact-sheet" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc;">harm Black voters</span></a>) past Democratic
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Taking advantage of an obscure provision in the state
Constitution which has only been used <a href="https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-government/how-republicans-plan-tighten-michigan-voting-laws-evade-whitmer-veto" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc;">nine
times</span></a> in the past 58 years, Republicans are attempting to gather
340,000 signatures—less than 10% of the number of voters who cast ballots in
the last gubernatorial race—for the “<a href="https://www.metrotimes.com/news-hits/archives/2021/09/27/michigan-gop-initiative-to-restrict-voting-access-gets-approval-to-gather-signatures" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc;">Secure MI Vote</span></a>”
initiative.</span><span style="color: #222222;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">If 340,000
signatures are collected in a six-month span, Republicans will pass the bill
into law while avoiding Whitmer’s veto pen. If they fail to get the signatures
needed but Whitmer loses her re-election bid, a new Republican governor would
rubber-stamp any of <a href="https://www.michigan.gov/documents/sos/Summary_of_Bills_to_Restrict_Voting_Rights_722845_7.pdf">several
dozen</a> voter suppression bills drawn up by Republican legislators.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p style="background: white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Joe Biden won
Wisconsin by just 20,000 votes out of more than three million cast. If
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers loses his bid for re-election bid this fall, the GOP
legislature has <a href="https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-wisconsin-bills-senate-elections-elections-999276d467af56c3186a99e9ee1ffa64"><span style="color: #1155cc;">voter suppression legislation</span></a> ready which
would <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/14/us/politics/disability-voting-rights.html"><span style="color: #1155cc;">harm disabled Wisconsinites</span></a> and make it very
challenging for a Democratic presidential candidate to win the state.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p style="background: white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Even if
Whitmer and Evers win, the GOP could cement control in Pennsylvania, where the
Republican legislature passed House Bill 1300. The “<a href="https://www.spotlightpa.org/news/2021/06/pa-election-law-voter-id-republican-proposal/"><span style="color: #1155cc;">Voting Rights Protection Act</span></a>” toughens voter
ID requirements, reduces the window of time to register to vote and request
absentee ballots, and limits the use of absentee ballot drop boxes. Democratic
governor Tom Wolf <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/30/politics/pennsylvania-tom-wolf-vetoes-gop-election-overhaul-bill/index.html"><span style="color: #1155cc;">vetoed</span></a> the bill; his Republican opponent
in 2022 would have no such reluctance. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; color: black;">Given the </span><a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/11/13/america-is-exceptional-in-the-nature-of-its-political-divide/" target="_blank"><span style="background: white; color: #1155cc;">polarized</span></a><span style="background: white; color: black;"> and closely-divided nature of the
U.S. electorate, a big enough voter suppression boost in Pennsylvania,
Michigan, or Wisconsin in conjunction with the same in Arizona and Georgia
could give the Republican presidential candidate a virtual mathematical lock on
the electoral college in 2024. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; color: black;">A Republican presidential
victory would further strengthen the </span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-donald-trump-mitch-mcconnell-elections-judiciary-d5807340e86d05fbc78ed50fb43c1c46" target="_blank"><span style="background: white; color: #1155cc;">right-wing tilt</span></a><span style="background: white; color: black;"> of the federal
courts and the erosion of voting rights for the foreseeable future. </span><span style="background: white; color: #500050;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">Optimists
believed that the 2020 election proved the system works, as Republican judges
and state officials followed the rule of law despite Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn
the election results. </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: black;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">2021 showed
that</span><span style="color: #222222;"> </span><span style="color: black;">the
ranks of Republicans willing to oppose undemocratic power grabs is smaller than
expected.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p style="background: white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">The 2022
midterms could determine whether U.S. democracy stays on life support or
flatlines.</span></span></p><p style="background: white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="background: white; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span><i style="color: black;"> A shorter version of this piece appeared originally at </i></span></span></p><p style="background: white; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>the Progressive<i style="color: black;"> and was later picked up by </i><a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/op-ed/article258390958.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the Miami Herald</span></a><i style="color: black;"> and </i><a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/commentary-the-gops-plan-to-steal-the-2024-election/ar-AATIVML" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">MSN News</span></a></span></span></p><p style="background: white; margin: 0in;"><b style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span></span></i></b></p><p style="background: white; margin: 0in;"><b style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;"> Follow Dan Benbow on </span><a href="https://twitter.com/danbenbow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Twitter </span></a><span style="color: #222222;"> </span></span></i></b></p><p style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><p style="background: white; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><div class="MsoNormal"><div style="text-align: center;"><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>More political writing by Dan Benbow:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">A dress rehearsal for fascism: <b><a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2022/01/a-dress-rehearsal-for-fascism-complete.html?_sm_au_=iVVJk56QjZGRSZRsFLQtvKtpMGMvF" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the complete January 6 timeline</span></a> </b></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">ANATOMY OF <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2021/05/trumpfailed.html?_sm_au_=iVVJk56QjZGRSZRsFLQtvKtpMGMvF" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>A MAN-MADE DISASTER</b></span></a>: </span>1,001 ways Donald Trump failed</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">to protect America from the coronavirus<br /></span></span><div style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-master-of-low-expectations-666.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>The Master of Low Expectations</b></span></a><span style="color: #3d85c6;">: 666 reasons sentient citizens</span></span></span></span><br /><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> are still celebrating </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the long overdue departure of George W. Bush</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-breathtaking-stupidity-of_16.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The <b>breathtaking stupidity</b> of #BernieOrBust</span></a></span></span></span></div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Death of a President in the <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2018/12/death-of-president-in-united-states-of.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>United States of Amnesia</b></span></a></span></span><br /><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> (<i>a review of the public life of George H.W. Bush</i>)</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Aliens, unicorns, and <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2018/10/spoilerparty.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>the narcissism</b></span></a> </span></span><br /><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">of voting Green</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2017/01/ten-reasons-barack-obama-is-clearly.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">10 reasons</span></a> </b></span>Barack Obama is clearly</span></span><br /><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the best president in my lifetime</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/10/178-reasons-hillary-clinton-is.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>178 reasons</b></span></a> Hillary Clinton is infinitely better</span></span><br /><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">than Donald Trump (even on her worst day)</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div><div><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/09/colin-kaepernick-is-right.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Colin Kaepernick is right</span></a></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span></div><div><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/04/stephen-colbert-delivers-best-political.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Stephen Colbert delivers the best political roast of all time</span></a></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/05/memorial-day-in-united-states-of-amnesia.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Memorial Day in the United States of Amnesia</span></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2012/10/romney-ryans-road-to-perdition.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Romney-Ryan's Road to Perdition</span></a></div></div>Dan Benbowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02258556216655283390noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3869308843623818842.post-5623933439659553902022-01-13T09:56:00.007-08:002022-01-13T10:01:45.315-08:00A dress rehearsal for fascism: the complete January 6 timeline<p><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgvtYgGA6MTHcwGKeziAD7f9jUWOKkevD-Ad3IFFFd1oTtn70EtE-Vr6kPHmL7UMdRuI-knC-i9Emdm6MouYsEn1ruIRoFSXng7oQdYKcTOTMPN7xVGbRiuANYCF15gq00RdUHMWTUveCeMb2fsFGwob6C6t0G7E7bhbKAi8uqN8krmcMrQFCs0n6jg=s3000" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2000" data-original-width="3000" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgvtYgGA6MTHcwGKeziAD7f9jUWOKkevD-Ad3IFFFd1oTtn70EtE-Vr6kPHmL7UMdRuI-knC-i9Emdm6MouYsEn1ruIRoFSXng7oQdYKcTOTMPN7xVGbRiuANYCF15gq00RdUHMWTUveCeMb2fsFGwob6C6t0G7E7bhbKAi8uqN8krmcMrQFCs0n6jg=s320" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;">TODAY<i> </i>MARKS<i> </i>the one-year
anniversary of a violent assault on the seat of U.S. democracy.</span><p></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Like most one-year-olds who get scolded for bad behavior, Republicans
aren’t owning up to their role in the insurrection. With the exception of a
handful of brave souls who are willing to risk losing their seats for the
greater good, congressional Republicans are either pretending January 6 never
happened or spinning a fantastical victim narrative where the insurrection was
a mere “protest” and the Big Bad Democrats (and <span style="color: black;">Liz
Cheney) are being unfair to their twice-impeached, one-term president. </span><a href="https://www.axios.com/conservative-social-media-crypto-publishing-internet-56a77cbd-89c6-480a-a8a4-6092b7eea481.html">Right-wing
media</a><span style="color: black;"> is singing from the same hymnal, feeding
mass denial among the Republican base, two-thirds of whom still </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/11/10/why-do-some-still-deny-bidens-2020-victory-heres-what-data-says/">can’t
accept</a><span style="color: black;"> that Biden won legitimately. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Numerous Republicans involved in the attack on democracy have <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/jan-6-committee-trump-perry-conspiracy-theories/2021/12/22/031acd5a-626a-11ec-bf70-58003351c627_story.html?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Sentences%2012.22"><span style="color: #0070c0;">refused</span></a> to appear before the House Select
Committee on the January 6 Attack (hereafter referred to as “the January 6
committee”), gone to court to <span style="color: black;">try to </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/22/michael-flynn-sues-capitol-riot-committee-525964?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Sentences%2012.22&utm_term=Sentences">dictate</a><span style="color: black;"> the terms of their testimony, </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/12/06/jeffrey-clark-john-eastman-join-some-rare-company-pleading-fifth-jan-6-committee/">pleaded
the 5<sup>th</sup></a><span style="color: black;"> in front of the committee, </span><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/files-trump-block-the-jan-6-committee-from-obtaining-2021-10">withheld</a><span style="color: black;"> public documents, or sued to </span><a href="https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/586891-flynn-sues-jan-6-panel-to-block-access-to-phone-records-testimony">block
phone records</a><span style="color: black;"> which could provide key details
about the insurrection and Team Trump’s extensive efforts to overturn the will
of the people. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">Despite epic stonewalling of the committee, a
clear picture of the Republican Party’s full ownership </span>of January 6 has
come into view. With <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/29/politics/january-6-committee-investigation-trump-what-matters/index.html">each
new revelation</a><span style="color: black;">, the circle of collaborators widens
to include numerous congressional Republicans, Trump operatives, and high-level
members of the Trump administration. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In a world governed by facts, logic, and data, the insurrection—and the
story you’re about to read—wouldn’t exist. No one who was paying attention to polling
in the weeks before the 2020 election was surprised when Biden won. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It was apparent by the evening of Wednesday, <b>November 4, </b>less than
24 hours after <span style="color: black;">polls closed on election day, that
Donald Trump was going to lose. With Wisconsin and Michigan called for Joe Biden
that day, and Arizona and the 2<sup>nd</sup> district of Nebraska before that,
Biden only had to win Nevada to amass 270 electoral college votes. His chances
of losing Nevada, an effectively blue state Democrats had won in the previous
three election cycles, was remote, and Pennsylvania appeared to be </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/04/upshot/pennsylvania-election-results-ballots.html?auth=-google1tap">a
really good bet</a><span style="color: black;"> for Biden, based on Trump’s
narrowing margin and the number of votes which remained to be counted in heavily-Democratic
precincts. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The projections proved correct. On <b>Saturday, November 7, 2020,</b> Joe Biden
was officially declared the winner of Pennsylvania and president-elect of the
United States. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">If anything, it was <span style="color: black;">surprising that the election
was even close, given that Biden had </span><a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/national/">an
8.4% national lead</a><span style="color: black;"> on election day. A number of
theories would emerge for why pollsters had failed so spectacularly for a
second straight presidential election, but it was evident that </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/20/party-polarization-hit-high-under-trump-can-biden-reel-it-back/">record
levels of <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>culture war polarization</a><span style="color: black;"> stirred up by Donald Trump turned right-leaning whites out
in droves, making Iowa and Ohio (which were </span><a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/">predicted</a><span style="color: black;"> to be close) Republican blowouts, and Biden’s Wisconsin
win </span><a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/wisconsin/">far
smaller</a><span style="color: black;"> than pollsters thought it would be. At
the same time, racial divisiveness backfired among most young voters, suburban
voters, and voters of color, driving Georgia and Arizona—states a Democratic
presidential candidate hadn’t won since 1992 and 1996, respectively—to Joe
Biden. The Democratic sweep of 2020 Senate races in these states proved that
Biden’s wins were no fluke. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">Though the results of the presidential election were
orderly </span>and predictable based <span style="color: black;">on voter turnout
demographics, Trump and his allies in </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/13/republican-legislatures-trump-conspiracy-458507"><span style="color: #0070c0;">state legislatures</span></a><span style="color: black;">,</span><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/01/republicans-own-insurrection/617583/"><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"> </span><span style="color: #0070c0;">Congress</span></a><span style="color: black;">, the </span><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/republican-ags-group-sent-robocalls-urging-march-capitol-n1253581">Republican
Attorneys General Association</a><span style="color: black;">, </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/how-social-media-made-the-trump-insurrection-a-reality"><span style="color: #0070c0;">right-wing media</span></a>, and <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-hosted-surge-of-misinformation-and-insurrection-threats-in-months-leading-up-to-jan-6-attack-records-show?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=majorinvestigations&utm_content=feature">social
media</a> w<span style="color: black;">ere lethally effective in manipulating
that polarization in the eight-and-a-half weeks between Trump’s loss and the
insurrection. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">In fact, Trump’s disinformation campaign began
months before the election with constant claims that </span><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2020/05/26/trump-says-the-election-will-be-rigged-by-mail-in-voting-despite-research/?sh=3b338bc41a7d">mail
balloting</a><span style="color: black;"> was inherently </span>corrupt and that <span style="color: black;">the election would be “</span><a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-tweet-us-2020-election-mail-in-ballots-twitter-today-a9578951.html">rigged</a><span style="color: black;">” against him, </span>an attempt to suppress a voting method
preferred by many Democrats and pre-emptively delegitimize a potential loss at
the polls. Trump repeated these <a href="https://news.columbia.edu/in-mail-absentee-ballots-secure-vote-election">baseless
talking points</a> with such mind-numbing repetition that most Republican voters
took them seriously, prepping his followers to believe the many lies to come. <span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">Outside of the right-wing echo chamber, it was common
knowledge that Republican-leaning, in-person votes would be counted first in a
lot of competitive states, creating a “</span><a href="https://hwkfsh.medium.com/how-red-mirage-shaped-the-2020-election-narrative-81e404d2a58b">red
mirage</a><span style="color: black;">” (the false impression that Trump was
going to win), when the reality was that there would be a “</span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/01/why-itll-be-normal-if-results-shift-in-the-days-after-the-election">blue
shift</a><span style="color: black;">” as more Democratic votes—mail votes in
particular—were counted. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">Preying on Republican voters’ programmed
ignorance, Trump held a </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9d6j2uO6MI">press conference</a><span style="color: black;"> early on the morning after election day where he claimed
that his shrinking leads in competitive states were fraudulent, and said,
“Frankly, we did win this election.” This would be the opening of a </span>full-court
press to steal <span style="color: black;">the presidency through disinformation,
dozens of </span><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-campaign-lawsuits-election-results-2020-11">frivolous
lawsuits</a><span style="color: black;">, abrupt personnel changes, abuse of
executive powers, and pressure campaigns on state and local officials. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Later that day, <b><span style="color: black;">November 4, </span></b><span style="color: black;">Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows received a text (likely
</span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/17/politics/rick-perry-jan-6-text-mark-meadows-nov-4/index.html">from</a><span style="color: black;"> Trump energy secretary Rick Perry) suggesting </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/17/politics/rick-perry-jan-6-text-mark-meadows-nov-4/index.html">an
“aggressive strategy</a><span style="color: black;">” to hold the White House.
The plan was to convince at least three Republican-controlled state
legislatures to shatter long-standing legal precedent by tossing out the will
of the voters and declaring their state’s electors for Trump. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Two days later, on <b>November 6</b>, a member
of Congress texted Meadows with a similar proposal. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Meadows’ response? <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">“</span><a href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/january-6-committee-advance-contempt-proceedings-meadows"><span style="color: #0070c0;">I love it</span></a>!” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Also on the 6<sup>th</sup>, Representative <span style="color: black;">Paul
Gosar of </span>Arizona (who would later be <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/exclusive-jan-6-organizers-met-congress-white-house-1245289/">tied</a>
to the January 6 “Save America” rally) sent <span style="color: black;">out </span>widely-shared
tweets <span style="color: black;">implying that his states’ tally was fraudulent
due to vote-flipping on Dominion voting machines, a talking point that
Republicans would milk to death—even though Trump’s lawyers </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/21/us/politics/trump-dominion-voting.html">knew
the claim was false</a><span style="color: black;">.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>November 9</b>, Trump’s <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/01/20/william-barr-trumps-sword-and-shield">exceptionally
loyal</a> <span style="color: black;">attorney general, William Barr, sent a
directive to federal prosecutors which allowed them to ramp up voter fraud
charges <i>before</i> state elections were certified, a change in Justice
Department policy which prompted </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/13/politics/federal-prosecutors-william-barr-election-fraud/index.html">the
resignation</a><span style="color: black;"> of Richard Pilger, who headed the
department’s election crimes </span>division. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On the same day, <span style="color: black;">Trump fired Defense Secretary
Mark Esper for not being “</span><a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/77681/mark-meadows-timeline-the-chief-of-staff-and-schemes-to-overturn-2020-election/">sufficiently
loyal</a><span style="color: black;">” (i.e. for </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/us/politics/esper-milley-trump-protest.html">refusing</a><span style="color: black;"> to deploy troops to American cities during the summer
protests, among other apostasies). Trump replaced Esper with the </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/acting-defense-secretary-chris-miller/2020/11/09/43a4296e-22d0-11eb-8599-406466ad1b8e_story.html">underqualified</a><span style="color: black;"> Christopher Miller, who brought </span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-army-christopher-miller-mark-esper-james-anderson-95f848b7cdaba116b7c09787edb4c839">three
Trump loyalists</a><span style="color: black;"> with him, including </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/04/16/kash-patel-trump-intelligence-community/">Kash
Patel</a><span style="color: black;">, a lawyer with no military experience. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">This was </span>an oddly consequential move <span style="color: black;">for an outgoing administration to make. Suspicions were
further aroused when two administration officials </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/09/us/politics/esper-defense-secretary.html">told</a><span style="color: black;"> the<i> New York Times</i> that Trump was considering
firing FBI chief Christopher Wray and CIA head Gina Haspel too; Haspel </span><a href="https://www.newsweek.com/we-are-way-right-wing-coup-cia-director-privately-warned-1647538">reportedly
told</a><span style="color: black;"> General Mark Milley (chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff), “We are on the way to a right-wing coup.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/07/i-alone-can-fix-it-mark-milley-likened-trump-to-hitler.html">According
to</a><span style="color: black;"> <i>I Alone Can Fix It</i> by <i>Washington
Post</i> reporters Carol Leonnig and Phillip Rucker, on or around <b>November
10, </b>Milley received a call referring to the likelihood that Trump and his
allies would try to overturn the election. Milley responded that, “They may
try, but they’re not going to fucking succeed” because “You can’t do this
without the military. You can’t do this without the CIA and the FBI. We’re the
guys with the guns.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">Speaking at a military installation in Virginia the
following day (Veteran’s Day), Milley </span><a href="https://www.newsweek.com/top-general-military-oath-individual-pentagon-shakeup-1547167">told</a><span style="color: black;"> </span>the assembled crowd, “We do not take an oath to a
king or queen, or tyrant or dictator, we do not take an oath to an individual….We
take an oath to the Constitution, and every soldier that is represented in this
museum—every sailor, airman, marine, coastguard—each of us protects and defends
that document, regardless of personal price.”<span style="color: #222222;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #222222;">One public official who paid a personal price
for following the Constitution was Republican Chris Krebs, the Trump-appointed
head of the </span><span style="color: black;">Cybersecurity and Infrastructure
Security Agency. On <b>November 18, </b>Trump </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/17/politics/chris-krebs-fired-by-trump/index.html">fired</a><span style="color: black;"> Krebs by tweet because he’d had the gall to fact-check
false claims of election fraud online and had gotten off-message by publicly
sharing his observation that 2020 was “the most secure election in American
history.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Later that day, after <span style="color: black;">pressure from Trump, the
two Republican members of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers (covering
Detroit, which is </span><a href="https://worldpopulationreview.com/us-cities/detroit-mi-population">78%
Black</a><span style="color: black;">) tried to </span><a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/wayne-county-republican-canvassers-rescind-votes-certifying-election/story?id=74290114">rescind</a><span style="color: black;"> their certifications of the county’s vote totals. They
were denied in these efforts, which would have only delayed the obvious, given
Biden’s </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/results/state/michigan/president">154,000-vote
margin of victory</a><span style="color: black;"> in Michigan. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">Unwilling to let objective reality get in the
way of raw power, on <b>November 19</b> Trump’s attorneys Rudy Giuliani and
Sydney Powell had a surreal </span><a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/11/rudy-giuliani-hair-dye-press-conference">hair
dye-dripping</a><span style="color: black;"> press conference in which they served
up several </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/19/politics/giuliani-trump-legal-team-press-briefing-fact-check/index.html">false
and misleading claims</a><span style="color: black;"> to try to pressure the
Justice Department to open “a full-scale criminal investigation” of the
election. (Four months later, when Powell was sued by </span>Dominion, who manufactured
the voting machines which Powell said had produced fraudulent vote tallies,
Powell’s lawyers defended their client by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/23/sidney-powell-trump-election-fraud-claims"><span style="color: #0070c0;">claiming</span></a> that “no reasonable person” would have
believed Powell’s attacks <span style="color: black;">on Dominion.) <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>November 20</b><span style="color: black;">, Trump continued his
campaign to flip states he’d lost when he </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/20/politics/michigan-house-speaker-will-meet-trump/index.html">invited</a><span style="color: black;"> </span>Republican representatives from Michigan’s state
legislature to the <span style="color: black;">White House. Trump was unable to cow
them into submission because there was no legal way for Republicans to overcome
Biden’s 154,000-vote victory in the state. After the meeting, the Michigan
representatives made a joint statement to the press in which they said, “</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">We have not yet been made aware of any
information that would change the outcome of the election in Michigan and as
legislative leaders, we will follow the law and follow the normal process
regarding Michigan's electors, just as we have said throughout this election.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">With Michigan a long shot, Trump turned his
attention to Pennsylvania. On <b>November 25</b>, Trump </span><a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/11/25/donald-trump-still-believes-us-election-was">conferenced
in</a><span style="color: black;"> from the White House to a hearing/publicity
stunt in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania where Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani issued—and
Trump backed—debunked claims about voter fraud in that state. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">Trump later </span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/doug-mastriano-positive-virus-trump-70354ddc031781fb7ee476809a6b67db">invited</a><span style="color: black;"> key Pennsylvania legislators to the White House. Joining
Trump was Phil Waldron, a retired Army </span>colonel <span style="color: black;">who
</span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/phil-waldron-mark-meadows-powerpoint/2021/12/11/4ea67938-59df-11ec-9a18-a506cf3aa31d_story.html">would
circulate</a><span style="color: black;"> a PowerPoint presentation chockfull of
outlandish conspiracy theories to Mark Meadows and Republican members of
Congress. Waldron would later say that he spoke with Mark Meadows “</span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/phil-waldron-mark-meadows-powerpoint/2021/12/11/4ea67938-59df-11ec-9a18-a506cf3aa31d_story.html">maybe
eight to ten times</a><span style="color: black;">” between election day and the
insurrection. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">False claims continued on <b>November 29</b>,<b>
</b>when Trump spewed </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/29/media/bartiromo-trump-interview/index.html">election
lies</a><span style="color: black;"> and whined about the FBI and the Justice
Department in an interview with Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo. (Bartiromo would
later be </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/04/business/media/smartmatic-fox-news-lawsuit.html?auth=link-dismiss-google1tap">sued</a><span style="color: black;"> for promulgating disinformation about the presidential election).
<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">Trump’s favored narrative took a major hit on <b>December
1<i>,</i></b><i> </i>when Attorney General William Barr </span><a href="https://www.thebulwark.com/how-trump-repeatedly-duped-the-gop-elites/">told</a><span style="color: black;"> an AP reporter, <span style="background: white;">“we have
not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome of the
election.” According to reporter Jonathan Karl, Barr felt that Trump’s fraud
allegations were “all </span></span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/27/politics/william-barr-trump-election-claims-break/index.html"><span style="background: white;">bullshit</span></a><span style="background: white; color: black;">,” but he’d agreed to the investigations to “appease his
boss.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; color: black;">Barr’s boss was busy on <b>December
5</b>, as he </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/05/politics/trump-georgia-brian-kemp-phone-call/index.html">tried
to</a><span style="color: black;"> muscle </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Q1cfjh6VfE">conservative Republican</a><span style="color: black;"> governor Brian Kemp into throwing out Georgia’s electors
and </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-pennsylvania-speaker-call/2020/12/07/d65fe8c4-38bf-11eb-98c4-25dc9f4987e8_story.html">pressured</a><span style="color: black;"> the Republican head of the Pennsylvania House of
Representatives, Bryan Cutler, to do the same in his state. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Convincing Republicans in at least three swing states Joe Biden had won to
send alternate slates of electors, or toss out electors for Biden, was Trump’s
only chance. If neither presidential candidate amassed 270 electoral college votes,
the election would be thrown to the House of Representatives, where Republicans
had a majority of the state delegations. If put into action, this plan would have
allowed Trump to stay in office by effectively nullifying the presidential
election and the votes of <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/12/30/fact-check-fals-president-than-were-registered-u-s/4010087001/">159,000,000
Americans</a><span style="color: red;">.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Twenty of Biden’s electoral college votes were in Pennsylvania. Trump’s maneuvering
to overcome an 80,000-vote loss in that state was set back on <b>December 8</b>,
when the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit claiming a measure <span style="color: black;">passed by Pennsylvania’s <i>Republican</i> legislature to
expand mail voting had been unconstitutional.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">By the end of <b>December 9</b>, the District of
Columbia and all 50 states had </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/09/politics/2020-election-results-certified/index.html">certified</a><span style="color: black;"> their vote totals, and Biden’s win.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">Though Attorney General William Barr had already
issued his finding that Biden was the legitimate winner of the 2020 election,
Trump poked him again on <b>December 10</b> with a </span><a href="https://media-cdn.factba.se/realdonaldtrump-twitter/1337062011520356352.jpg">retweet</a><span style="color: black;"> asking for a special prosecutor to investigate allegations
of fraud. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">Chaos was averted on <b>December 11. </b>Trump </span><a href="https://www.axios.com/kash-patel-cia-gina-haspel-757b92c0-82a5-457b-bde8-d0d683ee222e.html">planned</a><span style="color: black;"> to fire CIA director Gina Haspel’s deputy director and
replace him with the woefully-underqualified Kash Patel (see November 9 entry) in
order to install a loyalist near the top of the CIA. As with the post-election
firing of Defense Secretary Mike Esper, this would be a significant and confusing
move for a lame duck administration to make. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In response, Haspel told Trump she would resign
if her deputy was let go. Following the meeting, Trump got together with Mike
Pence and other senior aides who recommended keeping Haspel happy, so Trump
left Haspel’s deputy in place. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">Another one of Trump’s machinations was thwarted
when the U.S. Supreme Court </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/11/us/politics/supreme-court-election-texas.html">tossed</a><span style="color: black;"> a lawsuit by the state of Texas challenging results in
four <i>other </i>states, saying Texas did not have “<span style="background: white;">a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another
state conducts its elections.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><span style="background: white; color: black;">December 14</span></b><span style="background: white; color: black;"> should have put an end to Trump’s efforts
to steal the 2020 presidential election. On that day, </span><span style="color: black;">the Electoral College met and certified Joe Biden’s win.
According to Biden, seven Republican senators called to congratulate him. Trump
allies Mitch McConnell, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Vladimir Putin publicly </span><a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/12/15/mitch-mcconnell-putin-acknowledge-biden-victory-thwart-trump-effort/3898813001/">congratulated</a><span style="color: black;"> the president-elect. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">While some Republicans in swing states won by
Biden engaged in </span><a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/paulmcleod/electoral-college-trump-supporters">kabuki
theater</a><span style="color: black;"> by appointing legally-meaningless
alternate electors, Trump continued his efforts to subvert democracy. </span>As<span style="color: black;"> </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/15/politics/trump-allies-emails-justice-department-2020-election/index.html">reported</a><span style="color: black;"> by</span> CNN, <span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">“Trump's
assistant sent [deputy attorney general Jeff] Rosen and [Justice Department]
official Richard Donoghue a document claiming to show voter fraud in Antrim
County, Michigan. An aide to Donoghue forwarded the document to the US
Attorneys for the Eastern and Western Districts in Michigan. Less than an hour
later, Trump tweeted that [Attorney General William] Barr would be leaving the
Justice Department just before Christmas, elevating both Rosen and Donoghue to
the top spots at [the Justice Department].”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">The day after the electoral college
validated <span style="color: #262626;">Biden’s win, <b>December 15</b>, Trump
tweeted, “This Fake Election can no longer stand” and invited Jeff Rosen to the
Oval Office, where he </span></span><a href="https://dnyuz.com/2021/06/05/meadows-pressed-justice-dept-to-investigate-election-fraud-claims/"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">pressured</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> his next attorney general to put Justice Department backing
behind election lawsuits, </span><a href="https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/politics/elections/2021/01/06/trumps-failed-efforts-overturn-election-numbers/4130307001/"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">61 of 62</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> of which would be rejected </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">by Democratic <i>and</i> Republican judges, including Trump
appointees. <span style="color: red;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">A document dated <b>December 17</b> would
later become </span><a href="https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/trump-january-6-letter-insurrection-act-20220103.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">a potential smoking gun</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> in the investigation of the <i>coup</i> attempt. Included
<span style="color: #262626;">in a </span></span><a href="https://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000017e-1335-dee4-a5ff-ff3d3f310000"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">privilege log</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> provided to the January 6 committee by the attorney for Bernard
Kerik (see January 4 entry), the withheld document was titled, </span><span style="background: white; color: #16183a; letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">“DRAFT LETTER FROM
POTUS TO SEIZE EVIDENCE IN THE INTEREST OF NATIONAL SECURITY FOR THE 2020
ELECTIONS.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">The timing and presumed content of the
document dovetailed neatly with the meeting Trump held with top advisors on <b>December
18</b>. According to </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/19/politics/trump-oval-office-meeting-special-counsel-martial-law/index.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #0070c0;">CNN</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">, a screaming match took place in the Oval Office between those who
supported the rule of law and those who did not. Firmly in the latter category
was Trump’s former national security advisor, </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/07/opinion/michael-flynn-charges-dropped.html">convicted
felon</a><span style="color: black;"> Michael Flynn, who had </span><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/michael-flynn-trump-military-martial-law-overturn-election-2020-12">recently
said</a><span style="color: black;"> that Trump should declare martial law, seize
voting machines, and force a new election. Not surprisingly, two of the suggestions
which came up at the Oval Office were that Trump </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/19/politics/trump-oval-office-meeting-special-counsel-martial-law/index.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">declare a national emergency</span></a><span style="color: black;"> </span>(which could be used as a justification for martial
law) <span style="color: black;">and that Lin Wood (see November 19 entry) </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/19/sidney-powell-trump-special-counsel-448694">be
named</a><span style="color: black;"> </span>Special Counsel to investigate
voting machines, which would require approval from the attorney general. In <span style="color: black;">an </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcBVxLJFlPE">interview</a><span style="color: black;"> with Rachel Maddow this week, <i>Politico</i> reporter </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/31/kerik-documents-jan-6-committee-526297">Nicholas
Wu</a><span style="color: black;"> said</span> of the overlap between the December
17 document and the controversial topics discussed on December 18, “It’s
unclear exactly if these two things are linked, but…that’s quite a
coincidence.”<span style="color: red;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>December 19</b>, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/19/politics/trump-campaign-sidney-powell-dominion-voting-systems/index.html">according
to</a> reporters Kaitlin Collins, Kevin Liptak, and Pamela Brown, “T<span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">rump's campaign <span style="color: #262626;">legal
team sent a memo to </span>dozens of staffers…instructing them to preserve all
documents related to </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2020/12/18/dominion-voting-systems-ceo-john-poulos-debunks-trump-conspiracy-theories-ebof-vpx.cnn" target="_blank"><span color="windowtext" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Dominion Voting Systems</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> and </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/24/business/sidney-powell-qanon/index.html" target="_blank"><span color="windowtext" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Sidney Powell</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> in
anticipation of potential litigation by the company against the pro-Trump
attorney.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">The same day, Trump </span><a href="https://www.thetrumparchive.com/?results=1&searchbox=%22+%E2%80%9CA+great+report+by+Peter.+Statistically+impossible+to+have+lost+the+2020+Election.+Big+protest+in+D.C.+on+January+6th.+Be+there%2C+will+be+wild%21%E2%80%9D%22"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">tweeted</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">
“</span><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Statistically impossible
to have lost the 2020 Election. Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there,
will be wild!”</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">The drumbeat of propaganda continued on </span><b>December
21</b>, when Trump <a href="https://factba.se/trump/search#%22we%2Bneed%2Bbacking%2Bfrom%22">tweeted</a>
that he’d “won in a landslide” and “[needed] backing from the Justice
Department,” and <b>December 22</b>, <span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">when he </span><a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-vlog-contesting-election-results-december-22-2020"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">tweeted</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> a video with the claim that “</span><span style="background: white;">The rigging of the 2020 election was only the final
step in the Democrats’ and the media’s yearslong effort to </span><a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-vlog-contesting-election-results-december-22-2020"><span color="windowtext" style="background: white; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">overthrow the will of the American people</span></a>.”<span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">Attorney General William
Barr resigned on <b>December 23</b>. </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">On <b>December 26</b>, Trump
</span><a href="https://media-cdn.factba.se/realdonaldtrump-twitter/1342974375008600070.jpg"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">tweeted</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> more lies about the election (calling it “the biggest SCAM
in our nation’s history”), attacked the FBI, the Justice Department, and the
courts for following the rule of law, and </span><a href="https://media-cdn.factba.se/realdonaldtrump-twitter/1342821189077622792.jpg"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">referenced</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> his January 6 rally. He also </span><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/you-ll-be-praised-audio-trump-call-georgia-elections-investigator-n1261159"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">called</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> Frances Watson, the top elections investigator in the
Georgia Secretary of State’s office, and employed flattery to try to get her to
take another look at the ballots in a state he’d lost by over 11,000 votes.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">As the </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">date of congressional certification grew <span style="color: #262626;">closer, Trump became increasingly desperate. On <b>December
27</b>, he </span></span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/30/politics/trump-election-justice/index.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">pressured</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> his new Attorney General, Jeff Rosen, to review “election
fraud” in Pennsylvania and Arizona that William Barr had already found to be inconsequential.
Rosen reportedly </span><a href="https://www.wsiltv.com/news/senate-judiciary-committee-issues-sweeping-report-detailing-how-trump-and-a-top-doj-lawyer-attempted/article_173f9a88-5efb-50ce-bed8-1acc7db34280.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">told</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> Trump that the Department of Justice “can’t, and won’t,
just flip a switch and change the election.” In response, Trump told Rosen to “just
say that the election was corrupt” and “leave the rest to me and the [Republican]
congressmen.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">Trump also tried to get
Rosen to sign on to a lawsuit (which had already been rejected by the
Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel) asking the Supreme Court to
toss out electoral college votes in six states Trump lost and </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/08/10/trump-asked-ag-overturn-election-503341"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">order a “special election</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">Trump wasn’t the only one
badgering Rosen. Trump loyalist Jeffrey Clark (the </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Assistant_Attorney_General"><span color="windowtext" style="text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Assistant Attorney General</span></a> for
the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Justice_Civil_Division" title="United States Department of Justice Civil Division"><span color="windowtext" style="text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Civil
Division</span></a> in the Department of Justice) <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/07/us/politics/jeffrey-rosen-trump-election.html?searchResultPosition=2"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">made five cracks</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> at Rosen, trying to get him </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">to challenge election <span style="color: #262626;">results in key
states lost by Trump.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">Rosen’s second-in-command
also felt the heat. Coaxed by Trump, Pennsylvania representative Scott Perry </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/10/07/senate-judiciary-trumps-2020-pa-house-republican-515549"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">called</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> Richard Donoghue, the Deputy Attorney General, to try to
get the Justice Department to review debunked voter fraud claims in
Pennsylvania. In addition, Perry tried to convince Donoghue to grant more power
to Trump loyalist Jeffrey Clark to look at election results. (Perry would later
duck the January 6 committee, citing his devotion to “</span><a href="https://www.inquirer.com/news/scott-perry-january-6-panel-congress-pennsylvania-20211221.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">the rule of law</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">.”)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">On <b>December 28</b>, Clark
</span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/06/politics/doj-clark-trump-election/index.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">peddled conspiracy theories</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">around
the Justice Department and </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/04/politics/draft-doj-georgia-letter-election-reversal/index.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #0070c0;">sent</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: red;"> </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">a message to Jeff
Rosen and Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue requesting their sign-off on
a letter which asked Georgia’s Republican legislature to call a special session
to investigate election “irregularities” and choose a slate of electors for
Trump. Donoghue <span style="color: #262626;">responded via email that signing
such a letter was “not even in the realm of possibility.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">Mark Meadows did his part on<b>
December 29</b> when he </span><a href="https://oversight.house.gov/news/press-releases/committee-obtains-key-evidence-of-president-trump-s-attempts-to-overturn-the"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">urged</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> Rosen and Donoghue to consider the </span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-afs:Content:9887147615"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">right-wing myth</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> that the number of votes cast in Pennsylvania was larger
than the number of registered voters and to take a look at “Italygate” (a </span><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-fact-check-debunking-italy-gate/fact-check-evidence-disproves-claims-of-italian-conspiracy-to-meddle-in-u-s-election-idUSKBN29K2N8"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">theory</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> that Biden supporters in Italy had used satellites to
change a massive number of votes in several swing states from Trump to Biden).<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">Meanwhile, Trump’s personal
assistant Molly Michael </span><a href="https://oversight.house.gov/sites/democrats.oversight.house.gov/files/documents/COR-SelectedDOJDocuments-2021-6-15-FINAL.pdf"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">emailed</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> Rosen, Donoghue, and Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall a
legal complaint baselessly claiming that the six swing states Trump had lost by
the narrowest margins (NV, WI, PA, MI, GA, AZ) had violated the Electors Clause
of the Constitution, with a request to file a case before the U.S. Supreme
Court. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">The following day, <b>December
30</b>, Trump’s strategist Steve Bannon </span><a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/bob-woodward-finds-seven-conspiratorial-actions-by-trump-and-bannon"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">called</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> the president and suggested he lure Mike Pence back to
Washington (from a skiing vacation) in order to pressure him about the January
6 certification, in hopes that they could “kill the Biden presidency in the
crib.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">As Trump worked on Pence, </span><a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/biden-transition-updates/2020/12/30/951430323/gop-sen-hawley-will-object-to-electoral-college-certification"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">presidential aspirant</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> Josh Hawley, a Republican senator
from Missouri, made a savvy play for future Republican primary voters when he became
the first senator to announce his </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">intent
to object to electors for Joe Biden on January 6. <span style="color: #262626;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">Trump’s minions continued
to pressure the Justice Department. In </span><a href="https://dnyuz.com/2021/06/05/meadows-pressed-justice-dept-to-investigate-election-fraud-claims/"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">two of five known emails</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> Mark </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Meadows sent to the DOJ asking them to review far-out conspiracy
theories, Trump’s chief of staff that day </span><a href="https://oversight.house.gov/sites/democrats.oversight.house.gov/files/documents/COR-SelectedDOJDocuments-2021-6-15-FINAL.pdf"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">sent Justice officials disinformation</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> about Italygate and alleged voter
fraud in Fulton County, Georgia</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">. (</span>Meadows
also forwarded <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/02/politics/mark-meadows-election-fraud-liaison/index.html">debunked
conspiracy theories</a><span style="color: black;"> to “</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">the FBI, Pentagon, National Security
Council, and Office of the Director of National Intelligence.”)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Trump’s outside attorney, Kurt Olsen, </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/05/politics/january-6-timeline-trump-coup/index.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">called</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> Jeff Rosen and said that Trump expected him to file Molly
Michael’s Supreme Court lawsuit (see December 29 entry) by noon that day. Rosen
refused to comply. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Unable to get the new Attorney General to
do his bidding, Trump invited Rosen and Donoghue to the White House on <b>New
Year’s Eve</b>. At the meeting, Trump reportedly </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/05/politics/january-6-timeline-trump-coup/index.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">said</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> that </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">he was
considering replacing Rosen with Jeffrey Clark because Rosen hadn’t been
aggressive enough in investigating alleged voter fraud. <span style="color: #262626;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">On <b>January 1, 2021</b>, Rosen </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/18/mark-meadows-center-6-january-donald-trump"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">received</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">
a 13-minute YouTube video about Italygate from Mark Meadows and a Trump-appointed
judge in Texas </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/01/louie-gohmert-lawsuit-pence-453387"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">rejected</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">
Arizona representative Louie Gohmert’s lawsuit claiming Mike Pence could pick
and choose which electors to accept. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>January 2, 2021</b> was a big day in the annals of failed election
theft. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Eleven Republican senators, including former and likely future
presidential candidate Ted Cruz, made a joint statement in which they <a href="https://www.cruz.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/joint-statement-from-senators-cruz-johnson-lankford-daines-kennedy-blackburn-braun-senators-elect-lummis-marshall-hagerty-tuberville">referred
to ill-defined fraud</a> and advocated “<em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">an emergency 10-day audit of the election returns in the disputed
states.” The senators’ public pretense was that the audit was necessary in
order to assuage millions of Americans who had doubts about the legitimacy of
the 2020 election. Polls cited showed that one-third of independents,
two-thirds of Republicans, and 39% of all voters held the </span></em><a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/exhaustive-fact-check-finds-little-evidence-of-voter-fraud-but-2020s-big-lie-lives-on"><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">baseless belief</span></a><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: red; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"> </span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">that the election had been
“rigged.”<o:p></o:p></span></em></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-style: normal; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In plain English, the senators were
contending that since four out of every 10 Americans were gullible enough to
believe ludicrous Republican lies about the election, a 10-day “audit” giving
Republicans more openings to spread ludicrous lies about the election to
gullible Americans was necessary in order to “restore faith in American
Democracy.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></em></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">While his congressional sycophants stretched irony past the breaking
point, Trump made a heavy-handed attempt to flip Georgia. During an <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AW_Bdf_jGaA">infamous hour-long
conference call</a>, Trump tried to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump%E2%80%93Raffensperger_phone_call">bully</a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"> </span></span><span style="color: black;">conservative Republican Secretary of State Brad
Raffensperger into “[finding] 11,780 votes” for him—just enough to give Trump
Georgia’s 16 electoral college votes. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">Trump also </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/willard-trump-eastman-giuliani-bannon/2021/10/23/c45bd2d4-3281-11ec-9241-aad8e48f01ff_story.html">called</a><span style="color: black;"> 300 state </span>legislators, telling them they could
overrule the will of the voters in their states. <span style="color: red;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">In another Justice Department setback for
Trump, Jeff Rosen wrote <span style="color: #262626;">Jeffrey Clark back and </span></span><a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/doj-officials-rejected-colleagues-request-intervene-georgias-election/story?id=79243198"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">asserted</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">, as his second-in-command Richard Donoghue had on December
28, that he was “not prepared to sign” a letter asking Georgia’s Republican
legislature to investigate alleged fraud and send an alternative slate of
electors for Trump. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">On <b>January 3, 2021</b>,
Mark Meadows </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/14/politics/january-6-committee-text-messages/index.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">received a text</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> which said, “I heard Jeff Clark is [going to replace Jeff
Rosen] on Monday [</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">January 4]. That's
amazing. It will make a lot of patriots happy, and I'm personally so proud that
you are at the tip of the spear, and I could call you a friend.” <span style="color: red;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Because Rosen insisted on following the
rule of law, Trump held a meeting that Sunday with Clark, Rosen, and Donoghue
to decide if he wanted to replace Rosen with Clark, </span>who would be certain
to abuse the powers of the Department <span style="color: black;">of Justice (DOJ)
to try to push voter fraud lies and pressure Georgia to give their electors to
Trump. This was one of </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/07/politics/senate-judiciary-committee-investigation-trump-2020-election/index.html">nine
times</a><span style="color: black;"> Trump tried to get his DOJ to undermine
democracy</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">, </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/07/politics/senate-judiciary-committee-investigation-trump-2020-election/index.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">according to</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;"> a Democratic Senate judiciary report. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">Rosen </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/07/politics/senate-judiciary-committee-investigation-trump-2020-election/index.html">told</a><span style="color: black;"> congressional investigators that Trump began the meeting
by saying, “</span>One thing we know is you, Rosen, aren't going to do anything
to overturn the election,” and implied that he could keep his job if he agreed
to send Jeffrey Clark’s letter to Georgia legislators. <span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">Trump backed off of his threat to </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trump-justice-department-overturn-election/2021/01/22/b7f0b9fa-5d1c-11eb-a976-bad6431e03e2_story.html">replace</a><span style="color: black;"> Rosen </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/07/politics/senate-judiciary-committee-investigation-trump-2020-election/index.html">after</a><span style="color: black;"> </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #262626;">“Donoghue
and Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel Steve Engel made
clear that there would be mass resignations at DOJ if Trump moved forward with
replacing Rosen with Clark.” </span><span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">Though he left Rosen in place, Trump </span><a href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/4-days-in-january-the-story-of-trumps-ouster-of-atlantas-top-federal-prosecutor">fired</a><span style="color: black;"> the U.S. attorney who covered the Atlanta area, Bjay Pak,
because Trump felt Pak hadn’t done enough to investigate alleged fraud in his
district. Pak’s replacement, Trump loyalist Bobby Christine, later concluded
that “</span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/us-attorney-georgia-fraud/2021/01/12/45a527c6-5526-11eb-a817-e5e7f8a406d6_story.html">There’s
just nothing to</a><span style="color: black;">” Trump’s claims of voter fraud in
Fulton County.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Earlier that day, all ten living defense secretaries, including the
recently deposed Mark Esper, penned <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/10-former-defense-secretaries-military-peaceful-transfer-of-power/2021/01/03/2a23d52e-4c4d-11eb-a9f4-0e668b9772ba_story.html">an
op-ed</a> in <i>the Washington Post</i> in which they advocated for an orderly
transition of power and said that acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller
and those working under him “are each bound by oath, law and precedent to
facilitate the entry into office of the incoming administration, and to do so
wholeheartedly. They must also refrain from any political actions that
undermine the results of the election or hinder the success of the new team.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump and his collaborators weren’t yet accepting that there would be a “new
team” on January 20. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">According to <i>Peril</i> by Bob Woodward and
Robert Costa, on <b>January 4, 2021</b>, General Mark Milley was turned down
when he </span><a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/79623/crisis-of-command-the-pentagon-the-president-and-january-6/">suggested</a><span style="color: black;"> to Trump cabinet members </span>that permits for a January
6 protest at the Capitol building be revoked (due to the possibility of
violence). <span style="color: red;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That same day, Trump’s <span style="color: black;">lawyer John Eastman presented
Mike Pence with </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/21/politics/read-eastman-memo/index.html">a
six-step plan</a><span style="color: black;"> to toss the electoral college votes
from seven states Trump lost. If Pence carried out the plan, neither candidate
would have 270 electoral college votes, which would throw the election to the House
of Representatives, allowing Republicans to ignore the voters. A second option
was to have Pence adjourn the counting, allowing time for states Trump had lost
to send alternate electors. Eastman had </span><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/11/trump-coup-blueprint/">advocated</a><span style="color: black;"> for this scheme on a Steve Bannon podcast two days earlier
and sketched out its details in a </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/media/sullivan-eastman-memo/2021/09/29/68d93000-211f-11ec-9309-b743b79abc59_story.html">two-page
memo</a><span style="color: black;"> that had been sent to Republican senators
Lyndsey Graham and Mike Lee, both of whom would conclude that Trump’s fraud claims
were </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/09/20/peril-woodward-costa-graham-lee-fraud/">baseless</a><span style="color: black;">. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">Speaking to Jim Acosta on CNN, famous Watergate
reporter Carl Bernstein </span><a href="https://www.rawstory.com/trump-coup-press-investigate-bernstein/?cx_testId=4&cx_testVariant=cx_1&cx_artPos=4#cxrecs_s">said
of the Eastman memo</a><span style="color: black;">, “<span style="background: white;">I think what we are seeing in these memos particularly are blueprints
for a coup….The actual blueprints in document form in which the president of
the United States, through his chief of staff, is sending to Mike Pence's, the
vice president's, staff a blueprint to overturn an election, a blueprint for a
conspiracy led by a president of the United States to result in an
authoritarian </span></span><span style="background: white;">coup in which the
election is stolen.”</span> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The nerve center of the authoritarian <i>coup</i> attempt was a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/willard-trump-eastman-giuliani-bannon/2021/10/23/c45bd2d4-3281-11ec-9241-aad8e48f01ff_story.html"><span style="color: #0070c0;">war room</span></a> at the Willard Hotel, one block from
the White House. In the weeks before January 6, Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani
led a team of conspirators who attempted to overturn Biden’s victory by
injecting disinformation about voter fraud into the right<span style="color: black;">-wing media bloodstream, encouraging Trump supporters in swing
states to pressure their state legislators </span>to block certification of
Biden’s victory, pushing state legislators directly to block certification of
Biden’s victory, and trying to convince Mike Pence that he had the power to
deny state-certified electoral college votes. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At various times Giuliani was joined <span style="color: black;">by Steve
Bannon, John Eastman, </span><a href="https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/trump-january-6-letter-insurrection-act-20220103.html">Bernard
Kerik</a><span style="color: black;"> (see December 17 entry), and Phil Waldron
(see November 25 entry), author of a </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/phil-waldron-mark-meadows-powerpoint/2021/12/11/4ea67938-59df-11ec-9a18-a506cf3aa31d_story.html">38-page
PowerPoint</a><span style="color: black;"> detailing ways to </span>overturn the
election.<span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">Exhaust</span>ive details of the Willard team’s disinformation
and public pressure strategies were revealed just this week in a<a href="https://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000017e-132a-dca7-a1ff-b33b8afd0000"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"> </span>document</a><span style="color: red;"> </span>given to the January 6 committee by Bernard Kerik’s
attorney. <span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">While Trump and his war room cabal brainstormed
ways to manipulate Mike Pence, other Republicans gave the vice president sound
interpretations of constitutional law. </span>Conse<span style="color: black;">rvative
judge J. Michael Luttig </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/willard-trump-eastman-giuliani-bannon/2021/10/23/c45bd2d4-3281-11ec-9241-aad8e48f01ff_story.html">told</a><span style="color: black;"> Pence’s staff that there was no legal basis for him to
reject electoral college votes, </span>advice he also received <span style="color: black;">from conservatives John Yoo (who’d </span><a href="https://www.aclu.org/other/memo-regarding-torture-and-military-interrogation-alien-unlawful-combatants-held-outside">authored</a><span style="color: black;"> the </span><a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-master-of-low-expectations-666.html">Bush
Administration</a><span style="color: black;"> torture memo) and </span><a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/09/dan-quayle-convinced-mike-pence-to-reject-trumps-coup.html">former
vice president Dan Quayle</a><span style="color: black;">. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">That night, </span><a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?507634-1/president-trump-campaigns-republican-senate-candidates-georgia">appearing
at a rally</a><span style="color: black;"> </span>for two Republican senators facing
runoffs in Georgia, <span style="color: black;">Trump told the audience Biden
wasn’t “taking this White House. We’re going to fight like hell.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The imminent threat to democracy was far greater than was known to the
U.S. public on <b>January 5, 2021</b>, the day before the official counting of
electoral ballots. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Mark Meadows received a text from Ohio congressman <span style="color: black;">Jim Jordan advocating for Pence to </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/16/jim-jordan-texts-capitol-attack-trump-mark-meadows">question
electoral votes</a><span style="color: black;"> and </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/12/meadows-jan-6-national-guard-trump-524133">sent</a><span style="color: black;"> out an email demanding that the National Guard <span style="background: white;">“protect pro-Trump people.”</span> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">The Secret Service </span>“<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/08/25/secret-service-warned-capitol-police-violent-threats-january-riot-506806">warned
the U.S. Capitol Police</a> that their officers could face violence at the
hands of supporters of former President Donald Trump.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">Washington D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser requested
National Guard backup, but Donald Trump’s Defense Department handcuffed the
Guard’s mission. </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trump-protests-washington-guard-military/2021/01/07/c5299b56-510e-11eb-b2e8-3339e73d9da2_story.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">According to</span></a><span style="color: black;"> Paul
Sonne, Peter Hermann, and Missy Ryan of <i>the Washington Post</i>, “the
Pentagon prohibited the District’s guardsmen from receiving ammunition or riot
gear, interacting with protesters unless necessary for self-defense, sharing
equipment with local law enforcement, or using Guard surveillance and air
assets without the defense secretary’s explicit sign-off.” In a directive that
would have disastrous consequences, “The D.C. Guard was also told it would be
allowed to deploy a quick-reaction force only as a measure of last resort,”
which forced local D.C. officials to get approval from Trump’s Defense
Department for rapid deployment, a bureaucratic hurdle which hadn’t existed
previously. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">As D.C. girded for trouble, Trump riled his
supporters up with </span><a href="https://twitter.com/billkristol/status/1359167496062980097">a tweet</a><span style="color: black;"> that read, “</span><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Washington is being inundated with people who don’t want to see an
election victory stolen by emboldened Radical Left Democrats….Our Country has
had enough, they won’t take it anymore!” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Sensing that Pence wasn’t going to intervene on his behalf, Trump <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/30/donald-trump-called-top-aides-capitol-riot-biden">called
his apparatchiks</a> at the Willard Hotel late in the evening and strategized
about how they could delay the vote count long enough to get three swing states
to de-certify Biden’s electoral votes or send alternate slates of electoral
votes to the Capitol. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">One of the central figures at the Willard Hotel was Steve Bannon. Liz
Cheney, the future vice chair of the January 6 committee, would later <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/house/577673-bannon-eyed-as-key-link-between-white-house-jan-6-riot">say</a>,
“<span style="background: white;">Based on the committee’s investigation, it
appears that Mr. Bannon had substantial advance knowledge of the plans for
January 6th and likely had an important role in formulating those plans.”</span><b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On his podcast the night of January 5, Steve <span style="color: black;">Bannon
</span><a href="https://docs.house.gov/meetings/IJ/IJ00/20211019/114156/HRPT-117-NA.pdf">concluded
ominously<span style="text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">:</span></a><span style="color: black;"> “</span>It’s not going to happen like you think it’s going
to happen. OK, it’s going to be quite extraordinarily different. All I can say
is, strap in…. You made this happen and tomorrow it’s game day. So strap in.
Let’s get ready.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"></p><p align="center" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">***<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; color: black;">Prior to January 6, 2021, the
electoral college vote count and certification had been </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/01/04/pence-1887-electoral-vote-count-act-trump-biden/"><span style="background: white;">purely ceremonial</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">.</span></span><span style="background: white; color: black;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; color: black;">But since none of Trump’s
banana republic tactics to overthrow the election had worked, the president’s </span><span style="color: black;">fundraiser </span><a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-campaign-fundraiser-ellipse-rally">Caroline
Wren</a><span style="color: black;">, campaign operative </span><a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/exclusive-jan-6-organizers-met-congress-white-house-1245289/">Katrina
Pierson</a><span style="color: black;">, chief of staff </span><a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/exclusive-jan-6-organizers-met-congress-white-house-1245289/">Mark
Meadows</a><span style="color: black;">, Republican members of Congress, and </span><a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/j6-white-house-rally-organizers-trump-cooperate-1260849/">right-wing
activists</a><span style="color: black;"> planned </span><a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/exclusive-jan-6-organizers-met-congress-white-house-1245289/">one
final, grand charade</a><span style="color: black;">: a “Stop the Steal”</span><span style="color: #0070c0;"> </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/06/us/politics/capitol-mob-trump-supporters.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20210110&instance_id=25857&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=48890&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74"><span style="color: #4472c4; mso-themecolor: accent1;">rally</span></a><span style="color: black;"> followed by a “Save America March.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">Activists involved in the planning </span><a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/jan-6-rally-organizers-trump-white-house-1262122/">bought
burner phones</a><span style="color: black;"> with cash to communicate with
members of the White House, including chief of staff </span><a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/exclusive-jan-6-organizers-met-congress-white-house-1245289/">Mark
Meadows</a><span style="color: black;">. It would later </span><a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2021/10/details-of-the-money-behind-jan-6-protests-continue-to-emerge/">come
out</a><span style="color: black;"> that “</span><span style="background: white; color: #0f0f0f;">Trump’s political operation reported paying more than $4.3
million to people and firms that organized the Jan. 6 rally since the start of
the 2020 election.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/exclusive-jan-6-organizers-met-congress-white-house-1245289/"><span style="background: white;">According to</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #0f0f0f;"> Hunter Walker of <i>Rolling Stone</i>, event planners also
collaborated with fringe-right members of Congress such as </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/02/technology/marjorie-taylor-greene-twitter.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur"><span style="background: white;">Marjorie Taylor Greene</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #0f0f0f;">, Louie Gohmert (see January 1 entry), Paul
Gosar (later to become one of the </span><a href="https://www.theuprising.info/p/congressman-paul-gosars-stunning"><span style="background: white;">biggest defenders</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #0f0f0f;"> of the insurrectionists), </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/03/madison-cawthorn-republican-party-gerrymandering"><span style="background: white;">Madison Cawthorn</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #0f0f0f;"> (who spoke at the rally on January 6), </span><a href="https://www.azcentral.com/restricted/?return=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.azcentral.com%2Fstory%2Fnews%2Fpolitics%2Farizona%2F2021%2F02%2F19%2Frep-andy-biggs-has-long-history-conservatisms-fringes%2F6740694002%2F"><span style="background: white;">Andy Biggs</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #0f0f0f;">, and Lauren Boebert (later accused of giving “</span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/01/19/lauren-boebert-tour-capitol-riots/"><span style="background: white;">reconnaissance tours</span><span style="background: white; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">”</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #0f0f0f;"> of the Capitol building to
seditionists-to-be in the days before the insurrection).<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; color: #0f0f0f;">Two of </span><span style="background: white;">Walker’s sources (both activist event planners) said
that Gosar—who allegedly made phone calls to the sources on January 6—promised
that <span style="color: #0f0f0f;">Trump would grant them pardons if they incurred
any legal trouble as a result of the rally. Right-wing activist </span></span><a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/stop-the-steal-organizer-in-hiding-after-denying-blame-for-riot"><span style="background: white;">Ali Alexander</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #0f0f0f;">, one of the key organizers of the “</span><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210101004652if_/https:/wildprotest.com/#about"><span style="background: white;">Wild Protest</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #0f0f0f;">,” had also </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/01/13/ali-alexander-capitol-biggs-gosar/"><span style="background: white;">mentioned</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #0f0f0f;"> collaborating with Biggs, Gosar, and Mo Brooks (who spoke at
the rally) in a video which was later deleted. Walker’s sources further
contended that Mark Meadows was </span><a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/exclusive-jan-6-organizers-met-congress-white-house-1245289/"><span style="background: white;">warned</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #0f0f0f;"> in advance about potential violence, though there’s no
evidence he did anything to stop it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">The rally and the march were a prelude to the
formal challenge by 13 Republican senators and 140 House members to Joe Biden’s
seven million-ballot win. The challenge would consist of regurgitated fraud claims
which had been rejected for lack of merit in more than</span><a href="https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/jan/08/joe-biden/joe-biden-right-more-60-trumps-election-lawsuits-l/"><span style="color: #0070c0; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"> </span><span style="color: #0070c0;">60 judicial cases</span></a><span style="color: black;">,
by judges of all ideological stripes. Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro would
later </span><a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-advisor-peter-navarro-lays-out-how-he-and-steve-bannon-planned-to-overturn-bidens-electoral-win">brag</a><span style="color: black;"> </span>about his role in recruiting members of Congress for
this cynical political stunt. He and Steve Bannon came up with a plan called
“the Green Bay sweep.” The aim was to get challengers to delay the electoral
vote certification as long as possible in hopes that several hours of televised
hearings (full of Republican propaganda about a “rigged election”) would
pressure Mike Pence to flip and end American democracy. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">Before the ceremony, Trump called vice president
Mike Pence and</span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/12/us/politics/mike-pence-trump.html"><span style="color: #0070c0; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"> </span><span style="color: #0070c0;">told him</span></a><span style="color: black;">, <span style="background: white;">“You can either go down in history as a patriot…or you
can go down in history as a pussy.”</span></span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="background: white; color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Pence chose to go down in
history as a patriot. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; color: black;">Just before the count began, he</span><a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/read-pences-full-letter-saying-he-cant-claim-unilateral-authority-to-reject-electoral-votes"><span style="background: white; color: black; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"> </span><span style="color: #0070c0;">released a public letter stating the obvious</span></a><span style="color: black;">—that he lacked the constitutional authority to
unilaterally decide which electoral votes to accept or reject.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">Concerns about The U.S. Constitution and
long-established democratic precedents were absent from the speeches at Trump’s
rally on the Mall, which included numerous</span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/07/briefing/white-house-capitol-donald-trump-jon-ossoff.html"><span style="color: #0070c0; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"> </span><span style="color: #0070c0;">incitements to violence</span></a><span style="color: black;">. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">Lead-off speaker Mo Brooks, </span><a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/07/mo-brooks-body-armor-jan-6-rally.html">clad
in body armor</a><span style="color: black;">, said, <span style="background: white;">“Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking
ass!”</span> Donald Trump, Jr. told congressional Republicans who intended to
honor the election results, “<span style="background: white;">We’re coming for
you, and we’re going to have a good time doing it” and that if they didn’t
change their minds and oppose Biden’s certification “</span></span><a href="https://www.vox.com/22220746/trump-speech-incite-capitol-riot?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Sentences%201821&utm_content=Sentences%201821+CID_5cdd5fe59652d724914f30c48ed58541&utm_source=cm_email&utm_term=How%20Trumps%20speech%20led%20to%20the%20Capitol%20riot"><span style="background: white; color: #0070c0;">I’m gonna be in your backyard in a
couple of months</span></a><span style="background: white; color: black;">.”
Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, said, “Let’s have trial by combat,” which was </span><span style="color: black;">“</span><a href="https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Backup-was-denied-Capitol-Police-chief-says-15860394.php"><span style="color: #0070c0;">an eerie reference to battles to the death in the series
‘Game of Thrones</span></a><span style="color: black;">.’”</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Donald Trump headlined at high noon and
talked tough from behind bulletproof glass. He trotted out a </span>litany of lies
about the election<span style="color: black;">, “</span><a href="https://www.vox.com/22220746/trump-speech-incite-capitol-riot?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Sentences%201821&utm_content=Sentences%201821+CID_5cdd5fe59652d724914f30c48ed58541&utm_source=cm_email&utm_term=How%20Trumps%20speech%20led%20to%20the%20Capitol%20riot"><span style="background: white; color: #0070c0;">used</span></a><span style="background: white; color: black;"> the words ‘fight’ or ‘fighting’</span><a href="https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-trump-speech-save-america-rally-transcript-january-6"><span style="background: white; color: black; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"> </span><span style="background: white; color: #0070c0;">at least 20 times</span></a><span style="background: white; color: black;">,” and said “You’ll never take back our
country with weakness. You have to show strength. You have to be strong.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">By 1:00 p.m.—five minutes before Nancy Pelosi brought Congress to
order—Trump supporters had busted through barrier fences around the U.S.
Capitol. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump finished with a call to action, just minutes
after the formal count had begun:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><span style="color: black;">“We will never give up; we will never
concede….We will stop the steal. We’re going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue,
and we’re going to the Capitol…We’re going to try and give our Republicans, the
weak ones…the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our
country.”</span></i><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">While Trump returned </span>to the safety of the
White House, his ally, Paul Gosar (one of the members of Congress who had
collaborated with the “Stop the Steal” organizers), began the GOP stalling
tactics, objecting to electors from Arizona. The two houses of Congress
separated to “debate” Gosar’s objection.<span style="color: red;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At 1:30 p.m., insurrectionists at the back of the Capitol overtook police,
forcing them inside the building. Unaware of these dangers, Congress continued
the proceedings. Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell, who had voted with
Trump <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-trump-score/mitch-mcconnell/">91%
of the time</a>, said “<span style="background: white; color: #333333;">Voters, the
courts, and the states have all spoken — they've all spoken….If we overrule
them, it would damage our republic forever.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; color: #333333;">As McConnell spoke, </span><span style="color: black;">a crowd of 8,000 </span><a href="https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Backup-was-denied-Capitol-Police-chief-says-15860394.php"><span style="color: #0070c0;">equipped with</span></a><span style="color: black;"> “<span style="background: white;">riot helmets, gas masks, shields, pepper spray,
fireworks, climbing gear...explosives, metal pipes, [and] baseball bats” surrounded
the Capitol.</span></span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; color: black;">At </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2021/what-happened-trump-jan-6-insurrection/"><span style="background: white;">2:11 p.m.</span></a><span style="background: white; color: black;">, </span><span style="color: black;">Trump supporters—</span><a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/several-well-known-hate-groups-identified-at-capitol-riot?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=majorinvestigations&utm_content=feature"><span style="color: #0070c0;">heavily represented by right-wing hate groups</span></a><span style="color: #0070c0;">, </span><a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/01/capitol-riots-new-details-plans.html"><span style="color: #0070c0;">former members of law enforcement and the military</span></a><span style="background: white; color: black;">, and including </span><a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/06/10/federico-klein-plea-deal-offered-trump-state-department-appointee/7635329002/"><span style="background: white;">at least one Trump appointee</span></a><span style="background: white; color: black;">, b</span><span style="color: black;">usted
through a police line to</span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/06/pence-rushed-out-of-senate-capitol-455483"><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"> </span><span style="color: #0070c0;">storm the Capitol</span></a><span style="color: black;">,
the first hostile takeover of America’s seat of government since
1814. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The Senate was called into recess at 2:20 p.m. The House soon followed. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Now inside the Capitol, insurrectionists <a href="https://www.the-sun.com/news/2109105/bleeding-capitol-cop-screams-help-maga-mob-mask/"><span style="color: #0070c0;">assaulted Capitol police officers</span></a><span style="color: black;">,</span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/07/us/politics/capitol-lockdown.html"><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"> </span><span style="color: #0070c0;">attacked journalists</span></a><span style="color: black;">,</span><a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/02/capitol-riot-january-6-trauma-terror-attack.html"><span style="color: #0070c0; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"> </span><span style="color: #0070c0;">traumatized</span></a><span style="color: #0070c0;"> </span><span style="color: black;">members of Congress and</span><a href="https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Pelosi-says-staff-hid-under-a-table-for-hours-as-15860759.php"><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"> </span><span style="color: #0070c0;">congressional aides</span></a><span style="color: black;">,
and contributed to</span><a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/01/could-the-capitol-riot-become-a-superspreader-event.html"><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"> </span><span style="color: #0070c0;">multiple members</span></a><span style="color: black;"> of
Congress getting Covid-19. </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Under the surface appearance of random chaos were a number of determined seditionists
with concrete goals. Some <span style="color: black;">targeted the offices of
specific members of Congress</span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-ap-top-news-michael-pence-nancy-pelosi-capitol-siege-14c73ee280c256ab4ec193ac0f49ad54"><span style="color: #0070c0; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"> </span><span style="color: #0070c0;">in hopes of kidnapping them</span></a><span style="color: black;">, or</span><a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/01/justice-department-arizona-filing-qanon-shaman-capture-and-assassinate-lawmakers.html"><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"> </span><span style="color: #0070c0;">worse</span></a><span style="color: black;">, while others
appear to have ransacked the Senate parliamentarian’s office in an attempt to </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2021/11/16/jonathan-karl-abc-news-chief-washington-correspondent-author-betrayal-final-act-trump-show/">intercept</a><span style="color: black;"> electoral college ballots. There were allegations that plotters</span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/13/politics/capitol-insurrection-insider-help/index.html"><span style="color: #0070c0; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"> </span><span style="color: #0070c0;">may have had help</span></a><span style="color: black;">
from Republican representatives and/or</span><a href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/fivepoints/capitol-insurrection-january-6-house-hearing-police"><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"> </span><span style="color: #0070c0;">members of the Capitol police force</span></a><span style="color: black;">.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">Because local officials’ authority to call for
backup had been taken away by the Trump administration </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/03/politics/us-capitol-riot-hearing-dhs-fbi-pentagon/index.html"><span style="color: #0070c0;">one day before the certification</span></a><span style="color: black;">, it was left to Capitol police chief Steven Sund to beg Trump
allies in the Department of Defense for backup. Trump’s military officials stonewalled
Sund, who </span><a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/03/03/973292523/dod-took-hours-to-approve-national-guard-request-during-capitol-riot-commander-s">started
calling at 1:49 p.m.</a><span style="color: black;"> for help. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">Around 2:30, Sund </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/06/jan-6-generals-lied-ex-dc-guard-official-523777"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">“</span>pleaded<span style="text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">”</span></a><span style="color: black;"> with Lieutenant Generals Walter Piatt and Charles Flynn,
the brother of Michael Flynn—who had </span><a href="https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-should-declare-martial-law-michael-flynn-retweeted-his-now-banned-account-1654226">suggested
that</a><span style="color: black;"> Trump declare martial law—to deploy the
National Guard.<b> </b>Accompanying Sund were Major General William Walker (the
commander of the DC National Guard), Walker’s counsel (Colonel Earl Matthews),
and D.C. chief of police Robert Contee.<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">According to Matthews, Piatt told Sund he</span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trump-protests-washington-guard-military/2021/01/07/c5299b56-510e-11eb-b2e8-3339e73d9da2_story.html"><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"> </span><span style="color: #0070c0;">didn’t like “the optics</span></a><span style="color: black;">” of “having armed military personnel on the grounds of the Capitol,”
though the Defense Department had had no concern about “optics” in June 2020
when they had</span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/07/us/police-response-black-lives-matter-protest-us-capitol/index.html"><span style="color: #0070c0; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"> </span><span style="color: #0070c0;">deployed armed military personnel</span></a><span style="color: black;"> at peaceful Black Lives Matter protests. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">After Contee said he would notify D.C. Mayor
Muriel Bowser and ask her to have a press conference to expose Piatt and
Flynn’s decision, Piatt’s cover-your-ass </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/06/jan-6-generals-lied-ex-dc-guard-official-523777">fallback
suggestion</a><span style="color: black;"> </span>was to have <span style="background: white;">“Guardsmen take over D.C. police officers’ traffic
duties so those officers could head to the Capitol.” This too was baffling, since
there was no good reason to send the police (rather than the Guard) and a hand-off
would take more time than sending the Guard directly to the Capitol. As </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/06/jan-6-generals-lied-ex-dc-guard-official-523777"><span style="background: white;">reported</span></a><span style="background: white; color: black;"> by <i>Politico</i>, </span><span style="background: white;">Matthew’s
</span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/06/jan-6-generals-lied-ex-dc-guard-official-523777"><span style="background: white;">36-page memo</span></a><span style="background: white;">
about January 6 said that “Every D.C. Guard leader was desperate to get to t<span style="color: black;">he Capitol to help…then stunned by the delay in deployment.
Responding to civil unrest in Washington is ‘a foundational mission, a
statutory mission of the D.C. National Guard.’”</span></span><span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy had been invited to
the call but was “incommunicado or unreachable for most of the afternoon,”
according to Matthews. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">As Trump’s Defense Department officials let
insurrectionists ravage the Capitol, several Republicans—including former New
Jersey governor </span><a href="https://www.axios.com/chris-christie-trump-january-6-feefb7e3-a3af-41ad-b442-93accdb02bd8.html">Chris
Christie</a><span style="color: black;">, senator Lindsey Graham, House minority
leader Kevin McCarthy, and former advisor Kellyanne Conway—called the White
House to try to get Trump to act.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">But the commander-in-chief wasn’t taking calls.
He was too wrapped up in watching the</span><a href="https://clinecenter.illinois.edu/coup-detat-project-cdp/statement_jan.27.2021"><span style="color: #0070c0; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"> </span><span style="color: #0070c0;">attempted <i>coup</i></span></a><span style="color: #0070c0;">
</span><span style="color: black;">he’d fomented on TV. As one aide</span><a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/six-hours-of-paralysis-inside-trump-e2-80-99s-failure-to-act-after-a-mob-stormed-the-capitol/ar-BB1cFqj4?ocid=uxbndlbing"><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"> </span><span style="color: #0070c0;">told a reporter</span></a><span style="color: black;">, “‘<span style="background: white;">He was hard to reach, and you know why? Because it was
live TV….If it’s TiVo, he just hits pause and takes the calls. If it’s live TV,
he watches it, and he was just watching it all unfold.’”<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">Since Trump wasn’t answering, numerous
Republicans tried to get to him by texting one of the </span><a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/house/585667-meadows-moves-to-center-of-jan-6-probe">key
players</a><span style="color: black;"> in efforts to overturn the </span>election,
<span style="color: black;">chief of staff Mark Meadows. </span>While at the
White House with the president, Meadows <a href="https://www.thebulwark.com/fox-hosts-begged-trump-to-stop-the-january-6-attack-on-the-capitol/">received</a><span style="color: red;"> </span>pleas to have Trump call off the insurrection from
Fox News personalities Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity, and Brian Kilmeade,
congressional Republicans under siege in the Capitol, and Donald Trump, Jr. <span style="color: red;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">President Trump was </span>unmoved, even when
Ivanka <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/02/politics/bennie-thompson-trump-capitol-insurrection/index.html">asked</a><span style="color: black;"> him to stop the violence, perhaps because he </span><a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/12/the-chilling-lesson-of-mark-meadows-january-6-text-messages.html">felt</a><span style="color: black;"> the rioters kept his hopes alive by obstructing the vote
count. </span><a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/trump-impeachment-trial-live-updates/2021/02/13/967625878/as-trumps-impeachment-trial-nears-end-some-lawmakers-want-details-on-mccarthy-ca"><span style="background: white; color: #0070c0;">According to</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #0070c0;"> </span><span style="background: white; color: black;">Republican congressional representative Jamie Herrera
Beutler, who was with Republican minority leader Kevin McCarthy (inside the
Capitol), “When McCarthy finally reached the president on January 6 and asked
him to publicly and forcefully call off the riot, the president initially
repeated the falsehood that it was anti-fascists that had breached the
Capitol….McCarthy refuted that and told the president that these were Trump
supporters. That's when, according to McCarthy, the president said, ‘Well,
Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.’”</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; color: black;">This was of a piece with a
report from Republican senator Ben Sasse that Trump was </span><span style="color: black;">“</span><a href="https://edition.cnn.com/politics/live-news/washington-dc-riots-trump-news-friday/h_3b3d237d139679d425ef2e0a54ddfca7"><span style="background: white; color: #0070c0;">confused about why other people on his
team weren’t as excited as he was</span></a><span style="background: white; color: black;"> as you had rioters pushing against Capitol Police trying to
get into the building.” Sasse also mentioned that Trump was talking to the
other people in the room about “a path by which he was going to stay in office
after January 20.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; color: black;">At 2:24 p.m., </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/01/25/among-the-insurrectionists"><span style="background: white; color: #0070c0;">as</span></a><span style="background: white; color: black;"> “America Firsters and other invaders fanned out in search of
lawmakers, breaking into offices and reveling in their own astounding
impunity,” Trump</span><a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/six-hours-of-paralysis-inside-trump-e2-80-99s-failure-to-act-after-a-mob-stormed-the-capitol/ar-BB1cFqj4?ocid=uxbndlbing"><span style="background: white; color: black; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"> </span><span style="background: white; color: #0070c0;">tweeted</span></a><span style="background: white; color: black;"> that “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage
to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution,
giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent
or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify….USA demands the
truth!”</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; color: black;">While lawmakers hid from
rioters, Trump called Republican Tommy Tuberville to push the Alabama senator
to stall the electoral college vote certification whenever it could safely
resume. Trump reached Tuberville around 2:26 p.m. and was </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2021/what-happened-trump-jan-6-insurrection/"><span style="background: white;">notified</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;"> </span><span style="background: white; color: black;">that Mike
Pence and his wife and daughter had been whisked away from the Senate floor. (It
would later come out that the seditionists missed Pence and his family by </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/pence-rioters-capitol-attack/2021/01/15/ab62e434-567c-11eb-a08b-f1381ef3d207_story.html"><span style="background: white;">one minute</span></a><span style="background: white; color: black;">.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">As </span><a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-trump-score/mitch-mcconnell/">Trump
ally</a><span style="color: black;"> Mitch McConnell would later</span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/13/us/politics/trump-capitol-riot.html?action=click&campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20210214&instance_id=27134&module=Top+Stories&nl=the-morning&pgtype=Homepage&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=51688&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74"><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"> </span><span style="color: #0070c0;">say</span></a><span style="color: black;"> at Trump’s
second impeachment trial, the president “kept pressing his scheme to overturn
the election. Even after it was clear to any reasonable observer that Vice
President Pence was in serious danger, even as the mob carrying Trump banners
was beating cops and breaching perimeters, the president sent a further tweet
attacking his own vice president.”</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">Trump made half-hearted attempts to defuse the
situation with</span><a href="https://www.thetrumparchive.com/"><span style="color: #0070c0; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"> </span><span style="color: #0070c0;">tweets</span></a><span style="color: black;"> at 2:38 (“<span style="background: rgb(251, 254, 255);">Please support our Capitol Police and Law
Enforcement. They are truly on the side of our Country. Stay peaceful!”) and
3:13 p.m. (“I am asking for everyone at the U.S. Capitol to remain peaceful. No
violence! Remember, WE are the Party of Law & Order – respect the Law and
our great men and women in Blue. Thank you!”).<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(251, 254, 255);">Around the time of Trump’s 3:13 tweet, some
of his supporters showed their dedication to law and order by harassing the
Capitol police who were protecting members of Congress huddled in the Speaker’s
Lobby. Once they convinced the officers to abandon their posts,
insurrectionists started smashing the windows inside the doors to the lobby. Many
of them continued even after they saw an officer pointing a gun at them on the
other side of the door. One of the insurrectionists who refused to back off was
QAnon follower </span><a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ashli-babbitt-violence-road-rage-extramarital-affair_n_61d2ff37e4b0c7d8b8a640b3"><span style="background: rgb(251, 254, 255);">Ashli Babbitt</span></a><span style="background: rgb(251, 254, 255);">. Moments after Babbitt was fatally shot, tactical officers appeared,
clearing the area and moving the attackers away from the lobby. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(251, 254, 255);">At 4:06 p.m., president-elect Joe Biden tweeted
</span><a href="https://twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1MYGNmNwMRoKw?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1346926053462319114%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2F2022%2F01%2F05%2F1069977469%2Fa-timeline-of-how-the-jan-6-attack-unfolded-including-who-said-what-and-when"><span style="background: rgb(251, 254, 255);">a speech</span></a><span style="background: rgb(251, 254, 255);">
in which he said, “</span><span style="background: white; color: #333333;">I call
on President Trump to go on national television now, to fulfill his oath and
defend the Constitution and demand an end to this siege. This is not a protest.
It is an insurrection.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; color: black;">Pressured by aides since his tweets
had had no discernible impact on his followers, Trump released a slightly more assertive
video plea at 4:17 p.m., </span><a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/six-hours-of-paralysis-inside-trump-e2-80-99s-failure-to-act-after-a-mob-stormed-the-capitol/ar-BB1cFqj4?ocid=uxbndlbing"><span style="background: white; color: #0070c0;">two hours into the breach</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span color="windowtext" style="background: white; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">.</span></span><span style="background: white; color: black;"> </span><span style="background: white;">But even then, he fed the
ill-founded rage at the heart of the insurrection:</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><span style="background: white; color: black;">“It was a landslide
election. And everyone knows it. Especially the other side. But you have to go
home….There’s never been a time like this when such a thing happened when they
could take it away from all of us. From me, from you, from our country. This
was a fraudulent election….Go home. We love you. You're very special.”</span></i><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">The National Guard finally </span><a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/03/03/973292523/dod-took-hours-to-approve-national-guard-request-during-capitol-riot-commander-s">arrived</a><span style="color: black;"> at 5:20 p.m., <b>three hours and 31 minutes </b></span><b>after
the initial request from Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund. </b><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">This <span style="color: black;">jaw-dropping delay happened despite the
fact that Mark Meadows, who was with Trump, was in “</span><a href="https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2021/09/25/Joe-Biden-executive-privilege-Trump-records-January-6/5811632577831/">non-stop</a><span style="color: black;">” communication all day with Kash Patel (see December 11
entry), the chief of staff for Defense Secretary Christopher Miller—whom Trump
had installed after losing the 2020 election. One has to be naïve not to at
least <i>wonder</i> if the parties were conspiring to delay Guard deployment,
as Miller was perfectly aware of how dire the situation was from early on and yet
reportedly didn’t </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2021/what-happened-trump-jan-6-insurrection/">sign
off on</a><span style="color: red;"> </span><span style="color: black;">the
deployment until 4:32 p.m., two hours and 43 minutes after Steven Sund first
asked for backup. (One further wonders if Miller’s predecessor, the “</span><a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/11/trump-terminated-defense-secretary-mark-esper/">insufficiently
loyal</a><span style="color: black;">” Mark Esper, would have waited so long to
sign off.) <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">The Capitol</span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/01/15/us/trump-capitol-riot-timeline.html"><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"> </span><span style="color: #0070c0;">was cleared</span></a><span style="color: black;"> at 5:34
p.m. </span><span style="color: red;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">At 6:01 p.m., Trump</span><a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/six-hours-of-paralysis-inside-trump-e2-80-99s-failure-to-act-after-a-mob-stormed-the-capitol/ar-BB1cFqj4?ocid=uxbndlbing"><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"> </span><span style="color: #0070c0;">tweeted</span></a><span style="color: #5b9bd5;"> </span><span style="color: black;">“These are the things and events that happen when a sacred
landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away
from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long….Go
home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">With an hour to go before the vote count would
resume, Rudy</span> Giuliani called what he thought was Tommy Tuberville’s cellphone
and left a voicemail<span style="color: black;">. Giuliani mistakenly dialed the
wrong senator, who gave </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=80&v=2EoLug0n0KM&feature=emb_title">the
recording</a><span style="color: black;"> to <i>The Dispatch</i>. </span>In the
message, Giuliani asked the senator to organize objections to ten states won by
Biden in order to drag the vote count-and-certification out as long as possible,
preferably until the end of the following day. Giuliani said that the delay
would give Republicans more time to present evidence of “fraud” in key swing
states. Another goal could have been to impede the certification in order to
allow more time for the resolution of a longshot election lawsuit that was
before the Supreme Court (who <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/supreme-court-trump-election-disputes/">would
refuse to expedite</a><span style="color: red;"> </span>the claim on January 11).
<span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">After Mike Pence had re-started the official
vote count, Trump’s lawyer John Eastman emailed Pence’s lawyer, Greg Jacob,
claiming that Pence was breaking the Electoral Count Act because debate was
going “</span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2021/what-happened-trump-jan-6-insurrection/">past
the allotted time</a><span style="color: black;">.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Jacob didn’t reply to the email. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">Pence </span><a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/01/05/1069977469/a-timeline-of-how-the-jan-6-attack-unfolded-including-who-said-what-and-when">officially
certified</a><span style="color: black;"> Joe Biden’s victory at 3:42 a.m., <b>January
7, 2021</b>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">Biden’s win was certified despite the objections
of</span><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/01/more-dangerous-capitol-riot/617655/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=atlantic-daily-newsletter&utm_content=20210113&silverid-ref=NjY0NzQxMzgxNDkxS0"><span style="color: #0070c0; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"> </span><span style="color: #0070c0;">two-thirds of House Republicans and eight Republican
senators</span></a><span style="color: black;"> who came out of their hiding spots
to push the</span><a href="https://www.factcheck.org/2020/12/nine-election-fraud-claims-none-credible/"><span style="color: #0070c0; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"> </span><span style="color: #0070c0;">false election fraud narrative</span></a><span style="color: black;"> which had jeopardized their safety just hours earlier.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">The most concise summation of January 6 came
from Republican Liz Cheney, the daughter of </span><a href="https://www.pfaw.org/press-releases/bush-running-mate-dick-cheneys-congressional-voting-record-emphatically-far-right/"><span style="color: #0070c0;">ultra-conservative</span></a><span style="color: black;">
former vice president Dick Cheney and the chair of the House GOP Conference who
had </span><a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-trump-score/house/"><span style="color: #0070c0;">voted with Trump 93% of the time</span></a><span style="color: black;"> during his single term in office. On the eve of the January
13, 2021 House of Representatives vote which would give Donald Trump the
distinction of being </span><a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/history-and-civilisation/2021/01/in-a-historic-first-a-us-president-has-been-impeached-twice-heres">the
only president to be impeached twice</a><span style="color: black;">, Cheney
released a statement: </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“On January 6, 2021 a violent mob attacked the United
States Capitol to obstruct the process of our democracy and stop the counting
of presidential electoral votes. This insurrection caused injury, death and
destruction in the most sacred space in our Republic.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><i><span style="background: white; color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Much more will become clear
in coming days and weeks, but what we know now is enough. The President of the
United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this
attack. Everything that followed was his doing. None of this would have
happened without the President. The President could have immediately and
forcefully intervened to stop the violence. He did not. There has never been a
greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath
to the Constitution.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Cheney’s matter-of-fact statement
was rare on the right side of the aisle. Only six Republican senators and 10 House
members supported impeachment.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Remarkably, Republican denial about
Trump’s role in the insurrection <a href="https://www.thebulwark.com/the-gops-attempt-to-memory-hole-jan-6th/">has only
deepened</a> in the year since the impeachment vote, despite all of the
information exposing a GOP web of complicity that now includes <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/05/trump-capitol-attack-democracy-election-insurrection-index">over
1,000 public figures</a> (according to Public Wise’s <a href="https://insurrectionindex.org/">Insurrection Index</a><span class="MsoHyperlink">)</span>. <span style="color: red;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: red;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">Republicans
</span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/28/us/politics/capitol-riot-commission.html">killed</a><span style="color: black;"> a Senate investigation of January 6. When Democrats
proposed a bipartisan House committee, Republicans tried to plant two
aggressive perpetrators of the Big Lie on the committee: </span><a href="https://www.vox.com/22588475/kevin-mccarthy-january-6-committee-banks-jordan">Jim
Banks and Jim Jordan</a><span style="color: black;">, </span>the latter of whom <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/15/politics/jim-jordan-mark-meadows-text/index.html">texted</a><span style="color: black;"> Mark Meadows on January 5, suggesting Mike Pence could
block certification. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: black;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">Republicans
</span><a href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/cheney-sunday-show-interviews-gop-leadership-ouster">demoted</a><span style="color: black;"> Liz Cheney for her unwillingness to stay on message and replaced
her with </span><a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/loyalty-trump-catapults-elise-stefanik-into-republican-stardom-2021-05-11/">Trump
toady</a><span style="color: black;"> Elise Stefanik. GOP strategists are </span><a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/9-of-the-10-house-republicans-who-voted-for-impeachment-already-have-primary-challengers/">primarying</a><span style="color: black;"> all of the Republican House members who supported
impeachment that are up for re-election in 2022. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">The House
select committee that emerged, which includes Republicans Liz Cheney and Adam
Kinzinger (both of whom voted for Trump in 2020), has been stonewalled by many
of the people who could have the most information about January 6, including </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/03/eastman-takes-the-fifth-with-jan-6-committee-523712"><span style="background: white;">Lee Eastman</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a;">, </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/01/capital-attack-committee-jeffrey-clark-trump-doj">Jeffrey
Clark</a><span style="color: black;">, </span><a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-ally-roger-stone-invokes-5th-amendment-appearance/story?id=81813396">Roger
Stone</a><span style="color: black;">, </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/07/politics/bannon-status-conference-contempt-charge/index.html">Steve
Bannon</a><span style="color: black;">, </span><a href="https://www.rawstory.com/bernard-kerik-january-6-committee/">Bernard
Kerik</a><span style="color: black;">, and—after he’d disappointed his master by </span><a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/politics-news/mark-meadows-fox-news-hosts-texts-1235062070/">giving</a><span style="color: black;"> the committee two thousand texts and thousands of pages of
email records—</span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/12/07/former-trump-chief-staff-mark-meadows-refusing-appear-deposition-with-jan-6-committee/?itid=lk_inline_manual_9">Mark
Meadows</a><span style="color: black;">. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: black;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">Trump is
trying to </span><a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-seeks-block-jan-6-panels-access-his-notes-call-logs-2021-10-30/">block</a><span style="color: black;"> the committee from seeing notes and phone records from
that day as well as his </span><a href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trump-spokesperson-taylor-budowich-lawsuit-january-6-committee">financial
transactions</a><span style="color: black;"> in the weeks surrounding the
insurrection. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: black;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Not only is Trump unrepentant about
his role in the severe <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/04/magazine/jan-6-capitol-police-officers.html">trauma</a>
inflicted on Capitol law enforcement, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/capitol-police-injuries-riot/">injuries</a>
to more than 150 officers, the deaths of five law enforcement officers (<span style="color: black;">an Iraq War vet who was</span><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-police-officer/homicide-investigation-opened-into-death-of-capitol-police-officer-idUSKBN29D2LI"><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"> </span><span style="color: #0070c0;">bashed in the head with a fire extinguisher</span></a><span style="color: black;"> and four who </span><a href="https://www.axios.com/four-police-officers-january-6-die-by-suicide-37e8cb88-9414-42b2-85a9-aebfb727ca2b.html">committed
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>suicide</a><span style="color: black;">), the
</span><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-04/national-guard-s-post-riot-deployment-cost-at-least-480-million?sref=IYQ5mP1s"><span style="color: #0070c0; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">$</span><span style="color: #0070c0;">480 million taxpayer-funded tab</span></a><span style="color: black;"> to secure the Capitol with 25,000 National Guard members before
Joe Biden’s inauguration, the </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/capitol-riot-defendants-pay-damages-restitution/2021/06/03/74691812-c3ec-11eb-93f5-ee9558eecf4b_story.html">$1.5
million dollars</a><span style="color: black;"> in damage done to the citadel of
American democracy, </span>let alone the damage done to America’s reputation
abroad and long-standing tradition of peaceful transfers of power, Trump <i><span style="color: black;">embraces </span></i><span style="color: black;">January 6. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: black;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">ABC
reporter Jonathan Karl, who interviewed Trump for his book <i>Betrayal: the Final
Act of the Trump Show</i>, </span><a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/week-transcript-19-21-dr-anthony-fauci-adm/story?id=80098106">said</a><span style="color: black;">, “</span>I was absolutely dumbfounded at how fondly he
looks back on January 6th. He thinks it was a great day. He thinks it was one
of the greatest days of his time in politics.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Meanwhile, the Big Lie that fueled
the insurrection looks even more preposterous than it did a year ago, as swing
state recounts have only reinforced Biden’s legitimacy. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Georgia did <a href="https://www.11alive.com/article/news/politics/elections/georgia-election-recount-results-final-numbers/85-cbaacd70-f7e0-40ae-8dfa-3bf18f318645"><span style="color: #0070c0;">three recounts</span></a>, one by hand. All three
verified a Biden margin of over 11,000 ballots<span style="color: black;">. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">An independent audit of Arizona’s largest
county, Maricopa, found </span><a href="https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/elections/2021/02/23/maricopa-countys-election-audits-show-2020-votes-counted-correctly/4550644001/">no
change</a><span style="color: black;"> in Biden’s margin of victory. Arizona’s
Republican legislature didn’t like this finding, so they hired Cyber Ninjas, a </span><a href="https://slate.com/technology/2021/05/arizona-recount-cyber-ninjas-doug-logan-explained.html">Trump-supporting
cybersecurity company</a><span style="color: black;">, on the taxpayer dime. The
Cyber Ninjas’ audit </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/24/us/arizona-election-review-trump-biden.html?referringSource=articleShare">increased</a><span style="color: black;"> Biden’s Maricopa margin by 360 votes. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">A recount of Wisconsin’s two biggest Democratic
counties requested by Republicans </span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-joe-biden-donald-trump-madison-wisconsin-7aef88488e4a801545a13cf4319591b0">padded</a><span style="color: black;"> Biden’s 20,000+-vote margin by another 87 ballots. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">Michigan’s recount </span><a href="https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/local/2021/02/12/michigan-election-audit-hand-recount-matches-machine-recount-within-1/">validated</a><span style="color: black;"> Biden’s comfortable 154,000-vote margin. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A <a href="https://apnews.com/article/voter-fraud-election-2020-joe-biden-donald-trump-7fcb6f134e528fee8237c7601db3328f">thorough
AP study</a> of the six closest swing states found a<i> total</i> of less than
475 potentially fraudulent votes. Not all of the ballots were necessarily
fraudulent (thus the word “potentially”), not all of the ballots were
necessarily counted, and the ballots came from Democrats, Republicans, and
independents. Joe Biden won each of these states by <i>more than 10,000 </i>votes.
<span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Despite irrefutable real-world evidence that Biden won the 2020
presidential election, most Republican officials across the country have refused
to acknowledge Trump’s loss or actively doubled down on the Big Lie out of fear
of incurring Trump’s wrath or agitating his hordes of followers. Right-wing media
has followed <a href="https://www.axios.com/conservative-social-media-crypto-publishing-internet-56a77cbd-89c6-480a-a8a4-6092b7eea481.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top">in
goose-step formation</a>. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">This chorus of lies and complicity of silence has played to the false
victimhood at the core of the conservative identity, transforming the
Republican Party into an <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/06/29/truth-about-gop-they-prefer-authoritarianism-democracy/">authoritarian
cult</a> whose followers by and large lack the critical thinking skills (or the
will) to process factual information which is at odds with what they want to
believe. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/11/10/why-do-some-still-deny-bidens-2020-victory-heres-what-data-says/">68%</a>
of Republican voters still believe that Trump was robbed of a second term. That
figure rises to 82% among Republicans whose main <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/579160-stunning-survey-gives-grim-view-of-flourishing-anti-democratic-opinions">(dis)information
source is Fox</a> and 97% of Republicans who take Newsmax and One America News
Network at face value. 30% of Republicans are so dismayed by Donald Trump’s
election loss that they believe “<a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/579160-stunning-survey-gives-grim-view-of-flourishing-anti-democratic-opinions">violence
might be warranted</a>,” a number which jumps to 40% among the Newsmax and One
America crowd. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The main cause of this <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/media/522428-presidential-historian-meacham-describes-trump-supporters-as-anguished-white">lizard
brain hostility</a> is <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/donald-trump-and-the-politics-of-fear/498116/">fear</a>.
Fear of modernity, fear of technology, fear of the competitive, ever-shifting global
economy, fear of the heightened influence of women, fear of the increased
visibility of LGBTQ Americans, and—perhaps most of all—<a href="https://prospect.org/blogs/tap/how-racist-are-republicans-very/">fear of changing
racial demographics</a>, all of which have been aggressively weaponized through
Republican politicians’ <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/01/republicans-sow-outrage-trump-style-2022-midterms-house-senate?utm_term=61d0575bd3b30568e314d9a4add36f9e&utm_campaign=GuardianTodayUS&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&CMP=GTUS_email">polarizing
culture war distractions</a>. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.prri.org/about/">According to</a> a recent poll by
the Public Religion Research Institute, only 29% of Republicans feel that
American life has improved since the patriarchal, Caucasian-dominated, gays-closeted,
pre-civil rights 1950s, two-thirds feel being Christian and born in the U.S.
are an important part of American citizenship, and 80% feel the diversifying U.S.
is at risk of losing its “cultural identity.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The consequences of the Republican
Party’s <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/07/theres-word-what-trumpism-becoming/619418/">proto-fascist
lurch</a> are reflected in America’s status as a “<a href="https://thefulcrum.us/big-picture/the-economist-democracy-index"><span style="color: #0070c0;">flawed democracy</span></a>” for five straight years in
the Democracy Index, the 2021 report of the International Institute for
Democracy and Electoral Assistance, which recently listed American democracy as
“<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/11/22/united-states-backsliding-democracies-list-first-time/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Sentences%2011-23-21">backsliding</a>”
for the first time, and the <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22309075/freedom-house-2021-report-freedom-in-the-world">Freedom
House assessment</a> (done <i>before</i> January 6, 2021) which showed the
state of U.S. democracy in freefall, comparable to Mongolia and Panama,
countries with a limited history of free and fair elections. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It seems perfectly logical that Republicans
are scheduling this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/10/14/cpac-set-to-stage-far-right-conference-in-hungary-as-prosecutors-zero-in/">in
Hungary</a>, a former democracy which provides a blueprint for the GOP’s dream
of an oligarchic America with fixed elections. (Trump even <a href="https://twitter.com/ShaneGoldmacher/status/1477997873010819078/photo/1">endorsed</a>
Hungary’s dictator, <span style="background: white; color: #0f1419;">Viktor Orbán</span>,
for another term.)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">And it’s likely to get worse after
the 2022 mid-terms. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The <a href="https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/data/seats-congress-gainedlost-the-presidents-party-mid-term-elections">historical
data</a> is clear: parties in control of the White House and both houses of
Congress routinely lose seats, and often lose a lot of seats, in mid-term
elections. Barack Obama lost 63 House seats and six Senate seats in his first
mid-term election. Even Bill Clinton, who was <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/05/24/ken-starr-bill-clinton/84861918/">exceptionally
skilled</a> at messaging, lost 52 House seats and eight Senate seats in his first
mid-term. <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/20/politics/retirements-house-democrats-murphy-sires-lowenthal/index.html">Mass
retirements</a> among House Democrats are a key indicator that power is about
to switch hands; being in the minority party in the lower chamber of any
legislature can be a thankless task.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">If Republicans win back the House
of Representatives, they will kill the select committee investigating January
6. Jim Jordan, who </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/16/jim-jordan-texts-capitol-attack-trump-mark-meadows" style="font-family: georgia;">texted</a><span class="MsoHyperlink" style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="text-underline: none;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Mark
Meadows the day before the insurrection with the suggestion that Pence could
ignore state-certified electoral votes, would become the </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/16/politics/rep-jim-jordan-january-6-text/" style="font-family: georgia;">head
of the House Judiciary Committee</a><span style="font-family: georgia;">, which would engage in a series of
hyped-up hearings to taint a </span><a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/587125-lets-be-honest-2021-wasnt-all-bad" style="font-family: georgia;">relatively
scandal-free</a><span style="font-family: georgia;"> Biden Administration and distract people from the GOP’s culpability
for January 6.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At the state level, Republicans
will probably win back governor’s mansions, flip legislatures, and increase
their margins in legislatures they already control, allowing them to throw down
<a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/163842/gop-voter-suppression-state-government">an
iron curtain of voter suppression</a><span style="color: red;"> </span>in key
states. After 2022, expect more and stricter voter ID laws which<span style="color: red;"> </span><a href="https://www.aclu.org/other/oppose-voter-id-legislation-fact-sheet">punish
Americans</a><span style="color: red;"> </span>for the crime of Voting While
Black, more laws<span style="color: red;"> </span>to <a href="https://apnews.com/article/health-coronavirus-pandemic-voting-rights-election-2020-2caf9b85bec73c807ecea15775f6da63">make
it harder to vote by mail</a>,<span style="color: red;"> </span>more laws to <a href="https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2021/07/28/republican-legislators-curb-authority-of-county-state-election-officials">replace
bipartisan election administrators</a><span style="color: red;"> </span>with
right-wing Republicans eager to target and disenfranchise as many Democratic
voters as possible.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Supporters of democracy hold out hope that Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin
will magically transcend<span style="color: red;"> </span>their current roles as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/28/joe-manchin-kyrsten-sinema-build-back-better-plan">corporate-funded</a>
Agents of Doom to support <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/23/politics/joe-biden-filibuster-voting-rights/index.html">a
filibuster carve-out</a> for The Freedom to Vote Act, which would supersede
state-level voter suppression legislation passed on GOP party-line votes. <span style="color: black;">But so far Sinema and Manchin have </span><a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/01/will-a-doomed-voting-rights-push-really-help-biden.html?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=The%20National%20Interest%20-%20Column%20Alert%20-%20Tue%20Jan%2004%202022&utm_term=Subscription%20List%20-%20The%20National%20Interest">given
no indication</a><span style="color: black;"> that they’re willing to change the
filibuster rules, and even if they did, the bill would ultimately have to get
past a 6-3 Republican Supreme Court majority which has shown </span><a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/07/01/998758022/the-supreme-court-upheld-upholds-arizona-measures-that-restrict-voting"><span style="color: #1155cc;">hostility to free and fair elections</span></a><span style="color: black;">.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Sure, anything can happen. I don’t
have a crystal ball. Biden’s economy is humming, the pandemic could calm down,
the mid-terms are 10 months off—an eternity in politics. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">But from where we sit now,
America’s future looks bleak. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Come 2024, we may discover that
January 6 was not a low point, but a mere dress rehearsal for the death of the
world’s oldest democracy. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>This feature was <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/insurrection-timeline/" target="_blank">originally published</a> at RawStory</i></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><br /></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;"> Follow Dan Benbow on </span><a href="https://twitter.com/danbenbow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Twitter </span></a><span style="color: #222222;"> </span></span></i></b><br style="font-family: "Times New Roman";" /></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><div class="MsoNormal"><div style="text-align: center;"><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>More political writing by Dan Benbow:</b></span><br /><div style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-master-of-low-expectations-666.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>The Master of Low Expectations</b></span></a><span style="color: #3d85c6;">: 666 reasons sentient citizens</span></span></span></span><br /><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> are still celebrating </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the long overdue departure of George W. Bush</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-breathtaking-stupidity-of_16.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The <b>breathtaking stupidity</b> of #BernieOrBust</span></a></span></span></span></div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Death of a President in the <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2018/12/death-of-president-in-united-states-of.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>United States of Amnesia</b></span></a></span></span><br /><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> (<i>a review of the public life of George H.W. Bush</i>)</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Aliens, unicorns, and <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2018/10/spoilerparty.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>the narcissism</b></span></a> </span></span><br /><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">of voting Green</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2017/01/ten-reasons-barack-obama-is-clearly.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">10 reasons</span></a> </b></span>Barack Obama is clearly</span></span><br /><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the best president in my lifetime</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/10/178-reasons-hillary-clinton-is.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>178 reasons</b></span></a> Hillary Clinton is infinitely better</span></span><br /><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">than Donald Trump (even on her worst day)</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div><div><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/09/colin-kaepernick-is-right.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Colin Kaepernick is right</span></a></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span></div><div><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/04/stephen-colbert-delivers-best-political.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Stephen Colbert delivers the best political roast of all time</span></a></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2014/12/GaryWebbrailroaded.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Justice Delayed: "Kill the Messenger" vindicates Gary Webb</span></a></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2014/04/21st-century-republicans-part-iv.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">21st Century Republicans, Part IV</span></a></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/10/inequality-for-all-and-elephant-in-room.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"Inequality for All" and the Elephant in the Room</span></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/05/memorial-day-in-united-states-of-amnesia.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Memorial Day in the United States of Amnesia</span></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2012/10/romney-ryans-road-to-perdition.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Romney-Ryan's Road to Perdition</span></a></div></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span><p></p>Dan Benbowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02258556216655283390noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3869308843623818842.post-5237262222060994782021-11-08T16:08:00.013-08:002021-11-30T04:55:43.838-08:00Aaron Rodgers' thinking errors<p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizQ3vY_LRkpHoMAk7MdI-8XfDJXIyVo9E9Agw6C-wyWKn9wn8roOY_614JVqJO4kbFzHpFp-0ykmkZWZEp_cL21B76NHJ_BD5pvOZXWXczrkf89F31X5FQbOWkee3P4lGGTYCc2co7PKI/s1200/aaron-rodgers.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1200" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizQ3vY_LRkpHoMAk7MdI-8XfDJXIyVo9E9Agw6C-wyWKn9wn8roOY_614JVqJO4kbFzHpFp-0ykmkZWZEp_cL21B76NHJ_BD5pvOZXWXczrkf89F31X5FQbOWkee3P4lGGTYCc2co7PKI/s320/aaron-rodgers.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Aaron Rodgers is widely acknowledged to be one of the
best regular season quarterbacks in NFL history. The three-time MVP routinely
posts impressive stat lines and is on course to break </span><a href="https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/aaron-rodgers-by-the-numbers-packers-legend-becoming-a-top-five-quarterback-of-all-time/"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">numerous
records</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> if he stays healthy. He is a shoe-in to be inducted
into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.</span></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">But he hasn’t always dealt well with adversity. Control
is important to Rodgers, and when his preternatural cool is challenged—</span><a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/skeptical-football-the-aaron-rodgers-enigma/"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">when
his team is behind</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> or playing tough opponents in the
playoffs—he often </span><a href="https://www.mediaite.com/sports/hes-a-choke-artist-skip-bayless-torches-aaron-rodgers-in-fiery-throwdown-with-shannon-sharpe/"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">chokes</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Rodgers’ recent public relations </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/nov/06/aaron-rodgers-covid-interview-vaccine-hesistanccy"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">disaster</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
is no different.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Rather than fess up after being caught in </span><a href="https://www.sportingnews.com/us/nfl/news/terry-bradshaw-aaron-rodgers-immunized/1gc8whfdlzxa71ll1e0wptinqi"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">a
lie</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
about his vaccination status, Rodgers doubled down with misinformation and
logical fallacies that would make his Berkeley professors weep. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">In last Friday’s now-infamous </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3jM13A7OEw"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">interview</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
with Pat McAfee, Rodgers began with a transparently-scripted </span><a href="https://www.yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ad-hominem"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><i><span style="line-height: 107%;">ad
hominem</span></i><span style="line-height: 107%;"> attack</span></span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> on the “woke mob” and
then played the victim with a reference to the “final nail” being put in his
“cancel culture casket.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">He then somehow choked out the words that he would “set
the record straight” while doing the exact opposite. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">He claimed that he was allergic to the mRNA vaccines
without disclosing the nature of the allergy or noting that severe reactions to
vaccines are extremely rare—the CDC estimates that “</span><a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/adverse-events.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">2
to 5” people in every million</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> experience anaphylaxis
from the </span></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">mRNA </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">vaccines.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Despite the trove of </span><a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/JJUpdate.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">CDC
data</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
showing the Johnson & Johnson shot to be safe, he claimed he hadn’t gotten
the J & J because of </span><a href="https://www.yourlogicalfallacyis.com/anecdotal"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">anecdotal “evidence</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="line-height: 107%; text-decoration: none;">”</span></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> (friends
who had gotten sick from the Johnson & Johnson). <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">He played the parenting card, saying that he was
reluctant to get the Johnson & Johnson shot because he wanted to have
children, though there is </span><a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/planning-for-pregnancy.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">no
evidence</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> that vaccinations negatively impact fertility.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">He defended his </span><a href="https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2021/11/06/aaron-rodgers-was-asked-a-follow-up-question-in-august-based-on-the-presumption-that-hes-vaccinated-and-he-answered-it/"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">statement
to a reporter in August</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> (“Yeah, I’ve been immunized”) who
had asked if he was <i>vaccinated, </i>rather than admit that he had finessed a simple question with a
deceptive and </span><a href="https://www.yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ambiguity"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">ambiguous
answer</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.<i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></i></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">He said he was getting treatment advice from Joe
Rogan, a podcaster </span><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/joe-rogan-s-covid-vaccine-misinfo-matters-ncna1265812"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">not
exactly known</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> for medical literacy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">He tried to create the impression that he had had a
rigorous alternative treatment protocol, but there’s </span><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/aaron-rodgers-gets-covid-after-immunized-claim-homeopathic-remedies-don-ncna1283359"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">zero
evidence</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"> </span>that alternative treatments work and the drug he
cited, ivermectin, is a <i>cattle de-wormer</i> which has </span><a href="https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/why-you-should-not-use-ivermectin-treat-or-prevent-covid-19"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">not
been proven</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> to protect people from COVID. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Worst of all, he defended his selfish decisions to lie
about his vaccination status, to not wear a mask while speaking to reporters
who thought he was vaccinated, to jeopardize his teammates and coaches by not
wearing a mask, by<span style="color: #3d85c6;"> </span></span><a href="https://theshadowleague.com/aaron-rodgers-misquotes-martin-luther-king-jr-and-throws-shade-at-kyrie-irving-to-double-down-on-his-vaccine-lie-video/"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">misquoting</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">
</span>Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous “</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_from_Birmingham_Jail"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">Letter
from Birmingham Jail</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">In Aaron Rodgers’ world, he’s a martyr, comparable to a
Black activist who was </span><a href="https://abc7chicago.com/mlk-photos-martin-luther-king-bernard-kleina-color/9661975/"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">spit
on</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">,
</span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-8403052422"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">stabbed</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">,
and ultimately </span><a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/01/martin-luther-king-jrs-road-to.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">took a fatal bullet to the face</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> in
his quest to gain civil rights for millions of oppressed people. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Add another record to Rodgers’ career: issuing the
most loathsome example of </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">false equivalence</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
ever uttered by an </span><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/30/aaron-rodgers-signs-134-million-nfl-contract-commits-to-green-bay.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">overpaid</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> <i>prima
donna</i> jock.</span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;">Follow Dan Benbow on </span><a href="https://twitter.com/danbenbow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Twitter </span></a><span style="color: #222222;"> </span></span></i></b><br style="font-family: "Times New Roman";" /></span></span></p><div class="MsoNormal"><div style="text-align: center;"><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>More political writing by Dan Benbow:</b></span><br /><div style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-master-of-low-expectations-666.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>The Master of Low Expectations</b></span></a><span style="color: #3d85c6;">: 666 reasons sentient citizens</span></span></span></span><br /><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> are still celebrating </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the long overdue departure of George W. Bush</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-breathtaking-stupidity-of_16.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The <b>breathtaking stupidity</b> of #BernieOrBust</span></a></span></span></span></div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Death of a President in the <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2018/12/death-of-president-in-united-states-of.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>United States of Amnesia</b></span></a></span></span><br /><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> (<i>a review of the public life of George H.W. Bush</i>)</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Aliens, unicorns, and <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2018/10/spoilerparty.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>the narcissism</b></span></a> </span></span><br /><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">of voting Green</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2017/01/ten-reasons-barack-obama-is-clearly.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">10 reasons</span></a> </b></span>Barack Obama is clearly</span></span><br /><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the best president in my lifetime</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/10/178-reasons-hillary-clinton-is.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>178 reasons</b></span></a> Hillary Clinton is infinitely better</span></span><br /><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">than Donald Trump (even on her worst day)</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div><div><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/09/colin-kaepernick-is-right.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Colin Kaepernick is right</span></a></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span></div><div><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/04/stephen-colbert-delivers-best-political.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Stephen Colbert delivers the best political roast of all time</span></a></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2014/12/GaryWebbrailroaded.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Justice Delayed: "Kill the Messenger" vindicates Gary Webb</span></a></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2014/04/21st-century-republicans-part-iv.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">21st Century Republicans, Part IV</span></a></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/10/inequality-for-all-and-elephant-in-room.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"Inequality for All" and the Elephant in the Room</span></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/05/memorial-day-in-united-states-of-amnesia.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Memorial Day in the United States of Amnesia</span></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2012/10/romney-ryans-road-to-perdition.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Romney-Ryan's Road to Perdition</span></a></div></div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i> This piece <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/aa/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">originally appeared</span></a> at RawStory</i></span></span></p>Dan Benbowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02258556216655283390noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3869308843623818842.post-50705599390004196472021-08-22T16:53:00.052-07:002021-08-24T10:01:35.031-07:00One million hits<span style="font-family: georgia;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaAR6XJteWRniH7C6T-hqV7k49a4Y5L5cdzbLCl15yyx67cwH9jqHwmGr2g8LHVrSUCutIukJA0Gqa60Gyl0g-CHPN5OxvfAi5jLWnCmpHNRXL_5zHaLU1mY5q4_SwJgRPzIuRZcUSUHY/s1288/stats.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="992" data-original-width="1288" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaAR6XJteWRniH7C6T-hqV7k49a4Y5L5cdzbLCl15yyx67cwH9jqHwmGr2g8LHVrSUCutIukJA0Gqa60Gyl0g-CHPN5OxvfAi5jLWnCmpHNRXL_5zHaLU1mY5q4_SwJgRPzIuRZcUSUHY/s320/stats.png" width="320" /></a></div>In 2012 I branched off from <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20111113110347/http://www.kotorimagazine.com/author/dan" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">features writing at kotorimagazine.com</span></a> to create <i>Truth and </i><i>Beauty</i>. I was a political writer at the time, a journey which had begun when I’d answered an ad for <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20070413141555/http:/getunderground.com/underground/author.cfm?Contributor_ID=264" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">getunderground.com</span></a> (later taken over by Kotori) in 2003. </div></div></span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">I started the blog to showcase occasional short-form writing and apolitical content—<a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/search/label/photo%20essay" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">photo essays</span></a>, <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/search/label/music" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">music fandom</span></a>, <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/search/label/film" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">film reviews</span></a>—which would make up the <i>beauty</i> portion of this page, as opposed to the <i>truth</i> face (writing about politics and history). At times, burned out on the perpetual ugliness of America’s political scene, I considered making this blog predominantly cultural in nature. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">But major events kept calling, and I found that apolitical pieces generally don’t drive much traffic. Thanks in large part to political writing, <i>Truth and Beauty</i> recently passed one million pageviews. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Five of the top six drivers of traffic were “178 reasons Hillary Clinton is <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/10/178-reasons-hillary-clinton-is.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">infinitely better</span></a> than Donald Trump (even on her worst day),” “The <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-breathtaking-stupidity-of_16.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">breathtaking stupidity</span></a> of #BernieOrBust,” “Ten reasons Barack Obama is (clearly) <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2017/01/ten-reasons-barack-obama-is-clearly.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the best president in my lifetime</span></a>,” “Anatomy of a Man-made Disaster: 370 ways <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2020/03/anatomy-of-man-made-disaster-370-ways.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Donald Trump failed</span></a> to protect us from the coronavirus,” and “Romney-Ryan's Road to Perdition.” </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">“<a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2012/10/romney-ryans-road-to-perdition.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Romney-Ryan’s Road to Perdition</span></a>” was one in a series of election-year pieces I wrote which contrasted the major party candidates’ policies and demolished the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20070411153032/http://www.getunderground.com/underground/features/article.cfm?Article_ID=1234" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">absurd talking point</span></a>—pushed by Ralph Nader and other <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2018/10/spoilerparty.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">charlatans</span></a>—that presidential elections weren’t that consequential because “the parties are the same.” “Perdition” showed the human stakes of the 2012 presidential election by comparing the public record of first-term president Barack Obama with the policy platform of candidate Mitt Romney, a former moderate who had lurched to the right to cater to the base of the Republican Party he hoped to lead. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">“<a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2020/03/anatomy-of-man-made-disaster-370-ways.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Anatomy of a Man-made Disaster</span></a>” provided a detailed timeline of the U.S. federal government’s astonishingly incompetent response to COVID-19. This lengthy feature covered the Trump administration’s public health actions (and inactions) from January of 2017 until the end of March, 2020. The timeline grew as I continued to document Trump’s COVID failures in real time. Throughout 2020, different versions of “Anatomy” were picked up by <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/04/19/detailed-timeline-of-trumps-failures-shows-how-americas-coronavirus-crisis-was-man-made_partner/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Salon</span></a>, <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/2020/10/anatomy-of-a-man-made-disaster-830-ways-donald-trump-failed-to-protect-americans-from-the/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">RawStory</span></a>, <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/anatomy-of-a-man-made-disaster-here-are-595-hard-facts-about-trumps-abysmal-19-response/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">AlterNet</span></a>, and <a href="https://buzzflash.com/articles/9bxvtdlxo4dckzws3zwfd62isibzo8" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">BuzzFlash</span></a>. The most recent timeline—covering the entire Trump presidency, based on what was known as of May 2021—can be found <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2021/05/trumpfailed.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">here</span></a>. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Ten reasons Barack Obama is <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2017/01/ten-reasons-barack-obama-is-clearly.html">(<span style="color: #3d85c6;">clearly) the best president in my lifetime</span></a>” was a 2017 policy analysis of some of the major ways Obama had improved American life. It covered the <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2017/01/19/obama-good-jobs-president/96777976/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">night-and-day economic turnaround</span></a> from when he took office until he left, the <a href="https://www.cbpp.org/research/health/chart-book-accomplishments-of-affordable-care-act" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">monumental achievement</span></a> of the Affordable Care Act, his raft of measures to <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/09/obamas-war-on-inequality/501620/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">counter economic inequality</span></a>, and his <a href="https://www.edf.org/blog/2017/01/12/ready-defend-obamas-environmental-legacy-top-10-accomplishments-focus" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">stellar environmental legacy</span></a>. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-breathtaking-stupidity-of_16.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">breathtaking stupidity</span></a> of #BernieOrBust” praised Bernie Sanders while highlighting the danger posed by his most extreme and misinformed followers, who threatened to withhold their votes from the Democratic ticket in the general election if primary voters chose Hillary Clinton over Sanders. Posted in January of 2016 (10 months before Donald Trump’s shock election) and read by over 100,000 people, this feature discussed the near-certainty that Clinton would win the Democratic primary, the fact that Clinton and Bernie Sanders had <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/02/06/the-rare-times-that-hillary-clinton-and-bernie-sanders-disagreed-in-the-senate/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">voted together 93% of the time</span></a> in the Senate, and the reality that the irrational hostility of many Sanders supporters toward Clinton could help put a Republican in the White House, with disastrous effects on every progressive priority under the sun. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">This article pissed off a lot of people on the daydream left, but it was quite prescient. Thanks to Russia’s exploitation of this divide (using <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jan/19/twitter-admits-far-more-russian-bots-posted-on-election-than-it-had-disclosed" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">50,000 Twitter accounts</span></a> to attack Clinton and <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/russians-launched-pro-jill-stein-social-media-blitz-help-trump-n951166" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">promote</span></a> Green Party candidate/<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/guess-who-came-dinner-flynn-putin-n742696" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Putin dinner guest</span></a> Jill Stein) and the media manipulations of Julian Assange, who <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/15/politics/assange-embassy-exclusive-documents/index.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">strategically leaked</span></a> Clinton campaign emails (stolen by Russian intelligence hackers) in the decisive final weeks of the 2016 campaign, America’s left was fractured just enough for Trump to squeak by with a <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/01/how-russia-helped-to-swing-the-election-for-trump" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">dubious electoral college victory</span></a>.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Fittingly, <i>Truth and Beauty</i>’s highest-traffic piece was the most important. Posted ten days before the 2016 presidential election, “176 reasons Hillary Clinton is infinitely better than Donald Trump (even on her worst day)” clocked in at over 330,000 hits. Based on a Bernie Sanders statement that “on her worst day, Hillary Clinton will be an infinitely better candidate and president than the Republican candidate on his best day,” the piece <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/10/178-reasons-hillary-clinton-is.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">contrasted</span></a> Clinton and Trump’s temperaments, governing experience, and policy agendas. Weeks before the 2016 election, Hillary famously <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/16/magazine/hillary-clinton-campaign-final-weeks.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">said</span></a> “I’m the last thing standing between you and the apocalypse.” She was not exaggerating. If someone wanted to write an alternative history novel of how much better off the U.S. would have been under a Clinton presidency, this piece would be a good place to start. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">The top-traffic <i>beauty</i> post, and the 5th highest overall, is “<a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2012/09/great-guitar-solos-2-frank-zappa.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Great Guitar Solos, #2: Frank Zappa</span></a>.” I’ve been a fan of guitar solos for 35-40 years and a practitioner since the early ’90s, so I felt this was a topic I could bring passion to. After beginning the series with <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2012/08/great-guitar-solos-1-eddie-hazel.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a post</span></a> about the little-known but remarkable Funkadelic guitarist Eddie Hazel, I moved on to Zappa because I’m a hardcore Frankophile and because many people have no idea just how skilled and original his stylings were. This post really took off, so I did two more articles about Zappa’s guitar mastery—“Shut Up ‘N Play Yer Guitar - The <span style="color: #3d85c6;"><a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/12/shut-up-n-play-yer-guitar-six-string.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Six-String Wizardry</span></a> </span>of Frank Zappa, Part II” and “<a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2017/12/frankshreds.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Great Guitar Solos, #11</span></a>: Frank Zappa’s ‘Zoot Allures.’” </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">I also celebrated the two big rock guitarists of the ’80s, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Eddie Van Halen.
On the 23rd anniversary of Vaughan’s untimely death, I posted “<a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-second-coming-stevie-ray-vaughan.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">The Second Coming: Stevie Ray Vaughan</span></a>,” a lengthy account of his last concert (which I was blessed to witness) and the ways this show influenced my playing as a then-budding electric blues guitarist. I used the phrase “the second coming” because in my opinion Vaughan was (and still is) the only rock/blues guitarist who reached levels of expression and emotional intensity comparable to Jimi Hendrix. His performance that night was mind-blowing, the experience was mystical, his guitar essence lodged into my soul and stayed there ever after. This is one of the most personal pieces I’ve written, my inner child taking the reins while the world-weary social critic stands off to the side. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">I have never incorporated <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/search/label/eddie%20van%20halen" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Eddie Van Halen</span></a>’s highly technical playing into my guitar voice, but I’ve always loved it as a fan, so I wrote the tribute piece “<a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2014/01/eddie-van-halens-fair-warning.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Eddie Van Halen’s ‘Fair Warning</span></a>’: an appreciation” to coincide with Van Halen’s 59th birthday in 2014. There were four members in the original/the true/the only Van Halen, but Eddie owned this down-and-dirty hard rock album, which had no radio-ready hits or frivolous party tunes. The creative tension between Van Halen and front man David Lee Roth fueled an anger and a drive in the guitarist that generated restlessly inventive playing and legions of pale imitators. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">“A look back at ‘Strange Fruit’ on the 100th anniversary of Billie Holiday’s birth” (2015) <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2015/04/strangefruit.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">chronicled</span></a> the creation of (and public response to) Holiday’s “Strange Fruit,” a timeless and sublime song about lynching in the South which was too much truth for many (white) people to handle in World War II-era America. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Less historically-freighted, but viewed by just as many people, was “<a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/02/photo-essay-random-san-francisco.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Random San Francisco</span></a>,” one of many <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/search/label/San%20Francisco" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">photo essays</span></a> I did about the picturesque city by the bay. Inspired by a workshop colleague’s <a href="https://mockturtleworld.blogspot.com/2011/08/city-life-stow-lake-and-strawberry-hill.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">photography posts</span></a>, I culled through thousands of photos I’d taken around the city to create a visual walking tour, aiming to capture San Francisco’s spirit and aesthetic for people who’d never been there. Another popular essay, based on a weekday afternoon’s worth of snaps, was “<a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/09/on-clear-day-you-can-see-forever.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">On a Clear Day You Can See Forever</span></a>,” which got exposure from the “<a href="https://m.facebook.com/LostSanFrancisco/?__tn__=C-R" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Lost San Francisco</span></a>” Facebook page. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Some pieces don’t get the love they deserve because social media page curators don’t think the article will draw eyeballs or because article links don’t jive with Facebook’s <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/08/02/facebooks-broken-vows" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">profit-driven algorithms</span></a>, which favor dumbed-down content (memes, videos) that keeps viewers on the platform so that the social media giant can leech out advertising dollars. I’ve had many such articles since I was first published online in 2003, but five stand out from </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Truth and Beauty</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">On the Sunday night-into-Monday morning of January 6-7, 2013, my friend Tom committed suicide. I wrote <span style="color: #3d85c6;"><a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/01/tom.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a post</span></a> </span>detailing things I’d enjoyed about Tom and our relationship, and later took a camera—with the approval of the others present—to his funeral service, where his ashes were spread on the glistening water by the Golden Gate Bridge. Tom’s parents couldn’t be at the service, so “<a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/02/gone-but-not-forgotten.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Gone but not Forgotten</span></a>” was a window into their only child’s final journey they otherwise wouldn’t have had. It serves as a record anytime Tom’s parents or close friends want to be transported back to that day, that moment, and it was a tribute I’d be happy to get on my death. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Truth is in the eye of the interpreter: a review of ‘Room 237,’” discusses a 2013 documentary which explored theories about hidden meanings in Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining.” I spent a lot of time on <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/04/truth-is-in-eye-of-interpreter-review.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">this post</span></a>. I re-watched “The Shining” (including multiple DVD extras), took notes, and read a bunch of online articles with different interpretations of the film. I even consulted a book which pulled many of the theories together. I then decoded this mass of research, as if trying to piece together a challenging puzzle…all while not really knowing what the endlessly clever Kubrick had intended with his shocking imagery. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Another <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/11/there-must-be-something-in-water-magic.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">film review</span></a> I remain close to is “There must be something in the water: the magic of ‘Muscle Shoals.’” The documentary about a tiny Alabama town that produced some of the best R & B ever heard (with integrated bands, in the early ’60s) has a special place in my heart. My love for “Muscle Shoals” comes through in this post, which is longer than most of my movie reviews, filled with historical context and embedded videos of timeless tracks. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">The “Muscle Shoals” review was of a piece with the civil rights writing I’ve done, best exemplified by “<a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/01/martin-luther-king-jrs-road-to.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Road to the Mountaintop</span></a>,” an ode to one of my personal heroes. “Mountaintop” provides a history of the speech Martin Luther King, Jr. gave the night before he was assassinated, in which he finished by saying that he’d “seen the Promised Land” but “I may not get there with you” thanks to the forces of hate who opposed integration. Prior to writing the piece, I’d visited the site of the assassination, the Lorraine Motel, so I included a few photos along with my impressions of being in that horrible (and yet sacred) location. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">There was poetic beauty in King’s speech, a poignancy to the visit, but ultimately the experience was weighted down with the unpleasant truth that a man of vision, hope, and unity was felled by the forces of reaction, and that those same forces control the Republican Party 53 years later in the person of Donald Trump and his thousands of disciples in state, federal, and local governments across the country. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Which leads to my last undersung article, “<a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2014/11/charles-bukowskis-apocalyptic-vision.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Charles Bukowski’s apocalyptic vision: ‘Dinosauria, We</span></a>.” Published in 1992, toward the end of Bukowski’s life, the poem “Dinosauria, We” offers an unflinchingly bleak—yet at times all-too-realistic—glimpse at the human costs of America’s<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkUT5-_2sHv21r8Xkg9b6NQOPzSqZtLsogbgzNP0lEnJkgeKYaGAZlEpw-RM_gTxiOimvcWhpuMzZYEk7Ty3pLpi4qkVCd6-7hIZrCyLZ48sS5hVZDqhwRqFM3jeSU6f_W2J0pss5fCVM/s1116/Greece.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="744" data-original-width="1116" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkUT5-_2sHv21r8Xkg9b6NQOPzSqZtLsogbgzNP0lEnJkgeKYaGAZlEpw-RM_gTxiOimvcWhpuMzZYEk7Ty3pLpi4qkVCd6-7hIZrCyLZ48sS5hVZDqhwRqFM3jeSU6f_W2J0pss5fCVM/w400-h266/Greece.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>predatory capitalism and an apocalyptic vision of a future following nuclear war. Framing the poem is the prediction that human beings will ultimately go the way of the dinosaurs. But humans won’t die from an asteroid; the species will destroy itself.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Nuclear war (or a nuclear “accident”) may not come to pass, but the human race will continue to experience a host of self-inflicted horrors. In the nine years since <i>Truth and Beauty</i> came to life, human-induced climate change has marched forward with a grim finality (July, 2021 was <a href="https://scitechdaily.com/its-official-noaa-declares-july-2021-earths-hottest-month-on-record/#:~:text=It's%20Official%3A%20NOAA%20Declares%20July%202021%20Earth's%20Hottest%20Month%20on%20Record,-TOPICS%3AClimate%20Change&text=Around%20the%20globe%3A%20the%20combined,records%20began%20142%20years%20ago." target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the hottest month recorded</span></a>), the world has been disabled by a pandemic fueled by demagogues and hundreds of millions of <a href="https://coloradonewsline.com/2021/05/06/anti-vaxxers-and-the-never-ending-pandemic/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">primitive people</span></a> who reject science, and <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-authoritarianism-has-spread-since-the-coronavirus-pandemic-began" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">authoritarianism has been on the rise</span></a>, including in America—land of an <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/capitol-riot-2650916551/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">attempted coup</span></a> and a vast array of <a href="https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2021/03/25/republican-wave-of-voting-restrictions-swells"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Banana Republican voter-suppression laws</span></a>. Even as technology hurtles forward, human beings are really making a mess down here on planet earth.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">One thing I have control over is this page. I have plenty of ideas to explore beauty—music features, loads of digital photos which could become narratives, perhaps some standup clips that deserve a shoutout—but the perilous state of the world may dictate that I pour more of my energy into truth. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">The future remains to be written. Stay tuned. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">(And thank you for reading).</span></div>Dan Benbowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02258556216655283390noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3869308843623818842.post-76708110880376947042021-05-22T11:46:00.000-07:002021-08-23T16:26:28.284-07:00ANATOMY OF A MAN-MADE DISASTER: 1,001 ways Donald Trump failed to protect America from the coronavirus<p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRyBv-SEhWv2wj5O6MJsUueT0iNtseXIPScP1FOdXCCv4UWONmXhtwAfWtfrlWRNTzCNQB5_xZgwcfQgDfR7hfPlrPB0RI_nLgF48R8db5tV1LOE8VN_RdPcPJ7cJiFhw-ODjmXiDV77Q/s1200/colossal+incompetence.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="1200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRyBv-SEhWv2wj5O6MJsUueT0iNtseXIPScP1FOdXCCv4UWONmXhtwAfWtfrlWRNTzCNQB5_xZgwcfQgDfR7hfPlrPB0RI_nLgF48R8db5tV1LOE8VN_RdPcPJ7cJiFhw-ODjmXiDV77Q/s320/colossal+incompetence.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Crises have a way of sorting the good presidents from the
bad. <o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Historians consistently <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_presidents_of_the_United_States"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">rank</span></a><span style="color: #3d85c6;"> </span>Abe Lincoln and Franklin Delano
Roosevelt among the top three presidents for their handling of the Civil War,
the Great Depression, and World War II. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">By contrast, the string of catastrophes that trailed <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-master-of-low-expectations-666.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">George W. Bush</span></a>—from <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/11/opinion/the-bush-white-house-was-deaf-to-9-11-warnings.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">9/11</span></a> to <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2020/03/bloodbathiniraq.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Iraq</span></a> to <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/08/hurricane-katrina-george-w-bush-new-orleans"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Hurricane Katrina</span></a> to his <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/business/21admin.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">obliviousness</span></a> to warning signs in the housing market before the 2008
crash—guarantee that he will have a permanent place in the bottom tier of
presidents.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Also certain to be at or near the bottom of that list is
Donald Trump.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump was able to maintain 40% approval ratings by effectively
manipulating the <a href="https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/12/15/16781222/trump-racism-economic-anxiety-study"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">lizard brains</span></a> of white Republicans, but historians considered him one
of <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-worst-president-presidential-greatness-survey-presidents-day-obama-george-washington-a8218721.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the worst</span></a> presidents
even <i>before</i> the coronavirus hit America.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump’s increase in attention to the virus for the brief
window of time between March 13, 2020 (when he declared a national emergency) until
he shifted his attention back to his re-election campaign (roughly five weeks
later) helped mitigate the damage somewhat, but his inaction from <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/3/21/21189179/coronavirus-trump-intelligence-reports-warned-pandemic"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">January 3, 2020</span></a> (when
the administration claimed to have first become aware of the virus) until March
13 made the situation exponentially worse than it should have been. And his failures of governance from March 13 until his
escape to Mar-a-Lago on January 20, 2021 greatly outweigh the handful of
positive steps he took in that time in scope and number. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As Dr. Anthony Fauci <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/05/dr-fauci-agrees-the-us-has-the-worst-coronvirus-outbreak-in-the-world-the-numbers-dont-lie.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">said</span></a>,
numbers don't lie. America's federal response under Trump was <a href="https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the shame</span></a> of
the developed world. Despite </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">President Biden's </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/26/politics/biden-100-days-covid/index.html" style="font-family: georgia;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">sea-change policy improvements</span></a><span style="font-family: georgia;">, </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">the U.S. has officially logged well <a href="https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">over 30,000,000 infections</span></a> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: georgia;">(more than 6X any other developed country) and </span><a href="https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries" style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">over 600,000 deaths</span></a><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (4-5X any other developed country). Staggering as
those numbers are, they are major undercounts. Actual COVID-19 deaths are likely on the order of <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/05/covid-death-toll-underreported-higher-excess-deaths-study.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">900,000 or more</span></a> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: georgia;">and Trump’s own Centers for Disease Control pointed out that </span><a href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/07/21/cdc-study-actual-covid-19-cases/" style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #4472c4;">true infection rates
could be 6 to 24X higher</span></a><span style="color: black; font-family: georgia;">
than the official numbers.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">This story starts, as many tales of grotesque Republican incompetence
do, with sheer ignorance and lack of curiosity. Ronald Reagan was able to <a href="https://lithub.com/ronald-reagan-presided-over-89343-deaths-to-aids-and-did-nothing/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">ignore</span></a> the
AIDS crisis for years because it was “a gay disease” and didn’t impact anyone
close to him until his old Hollywood acquaintance Rock Hudson asked for—<a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/nancy-reagan-rejected-rock-hudson-plea-aids-article-1.2101827"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">but did not receive</span></a>—his help in 1985. Despite having spent months manipulating
post-9/11 public fear with <a href="https://publicintegrity.org/politics/search-the-935-iraq-war-false-statements/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">an orchestrated campaign of lies</span></a> about fictitious WMDs, George W. Bush <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/views/2007/06/15/what-every-american-should-know-about-iraq"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">still didn’t understand</span></a> the historical friction between Sunnis and Shias in
Iraq when he invited Iraqi guests of mixed faiths to a super bowl party two
months before the invasion. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">History repeated itself with Donald Trump, like Reagan and Bush a P.R.-centric
empty suit lacking intellectual curiosity, policy chops, or any interest in the
mechanics of governing. </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Addressing his lack of qualifications for the job on
the campaign trail in 2016, Trump asked voters “what do you have to lose?” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>America would find out the hard way.</span><span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><b style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><span style="color: blue;">January 11, 2017-January 2, 2020</span></b></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><span>As warnings about the importance of pandemic
preparedness pile up, the Trump administration dismantles America's public health infrastructure.</span></i><i><o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><span><br /></span></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It was common knowledge before Trump took office that an infectious
outbreak of some kind was likely to occur during his presidency. </span><a href="https://www.healio.com/news/infectious-disease/20170111/fauci-no-doubt-trump-will-face-surprise-infectious-disease-outbreak" style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">As reported</span></a><span style="font-family: georgia;"> on </span><b style="font-family: georgia;">January
11, 2017</b><span style="font-family: georgia;">, Anthony Fauci told a pandemic preparedness forum (held at
Georgetown University) “history has told us definitively that [outbreaks]
will happen because [facing] infectious diseases is a perpetual challenge. It
is not going to go away. The thing we’re extraordinarily confident about is
that we’re going to see this in the next few years.” (</span><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">W1</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">*)
(*</span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Pandemic-related warnings will be abbreviated throughout this piece with a</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span><span style="color: red; font-family: georgia;">red W</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">) </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>January 13, 2017</b>, seven days before Trump took office, officials
from the Obama administration had a <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/16/trump-inauguration-warning-scenario-pandemic-132797"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">three-hour transition meeting</span></a> with top Trump officials in which they discussed
disaster management. Of the exercises they went through together, the pandemic
response exercise was “perhaps the most concrete and visible transition
exercise that dealt with the possibility of pandemics, and top officials from
both sides — whether they wanted to be there or not — were forced to confront a
whole-of-government response to a crisis. The Trump team was told it could face
specific challenges, such as shortages of ventilators, anti-viral drugs and
other medical essentials, and that having a coordinated, unified national
response was ‘paramount.’” (<span style="color: red;">W2</span>)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Unfortunately for the hundreds of thousands of Americans who would die of the
coronavirus, and the millions more who would get infected, stable, competent
staffing and effective collaboration in the executive branch were prerequisites
to an effective national response. Whereas Obama's administration would retain
the same cabinet members and White House staff through his first term, 2/3rds
of the Trump staffers attending the transition meeting <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2020/05/07/how-instability-and-high-turnover-on-the-trump-staff-hindered-the-response-to-covid-19/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">would be gone</span></a> by the time the pandemic was in full swing, leading to
a major loss of institutional memory and cross-agency collaboration. (1)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Another key element of an effective national disaster preparedness response was
a president who was engaged in the process. From before he took office, there
were concerns that Trump <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/12/outbreaks-trump-disease-epidemic-ebola/511127/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">wasn’t up to the task</span></a> because of his ignorance of the subject and
indifference to getting up to speed with this crucial part of his job.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/02/trump-response-coronavirus/606610/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">According</span></a> to
Peter Nicholas of <i>the Atlantic</i>, “When a senior White House aide
would brief President Donald Trump in 2018 about an Ebola-virus outbreak in
central Africa, it was plainly evident that hardships roiling a far-flung part
of the world didn’t command his attention. He was zoning out. ‘It was like
talking to a wall,’ a person familiar with the matter told me.” (2)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">This indifference manifested with Trump’s first budget to
Congress. Though the administration found money for big increases in the
already-<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/27/us/politics/trump-budget-military.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">bloated defense budget</span></a> and later passed a $<a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/28/tax-cuts-trump-gop-analysis-430781"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">2.3 trillion</span></a> tax
cut <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/12/18/16791174/republican-tax-bill-congress-conference-tax-policy-center"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">overwhelmingly tilted to the 1%</span></a>, Trump’s minions <a href="https://www.apha.org/news-and-media/news-releases/apha-news-releases/2017/trump-budget-cuts"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">cut funding</span></a> (3)
for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the agency tasked
with protecting public health in the face of the opiate epidemic, AIDS, flu,
and infectious outbreaks.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Within the tax cut bill were <a href="https://www.the-scientist.com/daily-news/cuts-to-prevention-and-public-health-fund-puts-cdc-programs-at-risk-30298"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">steep cuts</span></a> to
the Prevention and Public Health Fund (called “the core of public health
programs” by Tom Frieden, who headed the CDC under <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2017/01/ten-reasons-barack-obama-is-clearly.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Barack Obama</span></a>).
(4)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>May 11, 2017</b>, Trump's Director of National Intelligence, Dan
Coats, submitted a <a href="https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/Newsroom/Testimonies/SSCI%20Unclassified%20SFR%20-%20Final.pdf"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">threat assessment</span></a> to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence which
said “A novel or reemerging microbe that is easily transmissible between
humans and is highly pathogenic remains a major threat because such an organism
has the potential to spread rapidly and kill millions.” (<span style="color: red;">W3</span>)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Appointed to head the CDC, in <b>July 2017</b>, was
Brenda Fitzgerald, a right-wing Republican from Georgia who replaced interim
director <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/anne-schuchat-interim-cdc-director_n_5886a37de4b096b4a2344cd4"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Anne Schuchat</span></a>, a highly-experienced, long-time public health advocate
(5). Among Fitzgerald's priorities was scrubbing <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/16/16785100/cdc-seven-prohibited-words-science-evidence-transgender-fetus-entitlement-diversity-vulnerable"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">seven dirty words</span></a>—including “evidence-based,” “science-based,” “diversity,”
and “fetus”—from CDC budget documentation. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Fitzgerald’s time at the CDC was brief: she resigned on
January 31, 2018 when it came out that she had owned stocks in a tobacco
company even as she ran an agency dedicated to anti-smoking campaigns
(6). <i>Politico</i> <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/30/cdc-director-tobacco-stocks-after-appointment-316245"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that
“one day after Fitzgerald purchased stock in Japan Tobacco, she toured the
CDC's Tobacco Laboratory, which studies tobacco's toxic effects.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>February 1, 2018</b>, <i>the Washington Post</i> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/02/01/cdc-to-cut-by-80-percent-efforts-to-prevent-global-disease-outbreak/?utm_term=.ff3917c3c439"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that
“CDC to cut by 80 percent efforts to prevent global disease outbreak”
(7): “<span style="color: #3d85c6;">The </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/02/01/cdc-to-cut-by-80-percent-efforts-to-prevent-global-disease-outbreak/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">global health section of the CDC</span></a> was so drastically cut in 2018 that much of its staff
was laid off (8) and the number of countries it was working in was reduced from
49 to merely 10. Meanwhile, throughout 2018, the U.S. Agency for International
Development and its director, Mark Green, came repeatedly <a href="https://www.devex.com/news/white-house-opens-new-front-in-war-on-us-aid-budget-93310?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWXpNeFpEaG1ZbU5rT0dNNCIsInQiOiJka0JEdVNGY1FIM2hhTzZkUVpNNmdSOEdVWEk2RVFyVkltN0JuWUlRdTZpRFhPdFBYS0lGUFZhQ2F1K0FuOWxMOSs4TkRlc1h3QW1xeWt4a3NLMTFQcWhTM20xaXpndGVUNnpCVGRaNjg1ZnVEalpvT0ptcU5cL2lGeEdtTlpYdVMifQ%3D%3D&utm_campaign=newswire&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">under fire</span></a> from
both the <a href="https://khn.org/news/religious-conservatives-ties-to-trump-officials-pay-off-in-aids-policies-funding/?utm_campaign=KHN%3A%20First%20Edition&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=65367866&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_1qQIODfqXazw2GSe4Qlnu7d7Jc08ArhvTSjMcfE-EdcLTKmuO-lEFhK6ZZZA-DKjsPSM7SLOz15tkBmI-9Ziu7bkAQpExQVDONqf4rZUMPool0bI&_hsmi=65367866"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">White House</span></a><span style="color: #3d85c6;"> </span>and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
(9) And though Congress has so far managed to block Trump administration plans
to cut the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps by <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/white-house-announces-proposed-revamp-of-federal-government-including-a-consolidation-of-social-safety-net-programs/2018/06/21/64fdb8ca-756a-11e8-9780-b1dd6a09b549_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">40 percent</span></a> (10),
the disease-fighting cadres have steadily eroded as retiring officers go
unreplaced.” (11)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>February 13, 2018</b>, Dan Coats (Trump's Director of National
Intelligence) submitted a <a href="https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/Newsroom/Testimonies/2018-ATA---Unclassified-SSCI.pdf"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">threat assessment</span></a> to Congress which stated that “The increase in
frequency and diversity of reported disease outbreaks—such as dengue and
Zika—probably will continue through 2018, including the potential for a severe
global health emergency that could lead to major economic and societal
disruptions, strain governmental and international resources, and increase
calls on the United States for support. A novel strain of a virulent microbe
that is easily transmissible between humans continues to be a major threat,
with pathogens such as H5N1 and H7N9 influenza and Middle East Respiratory
Syndrome Coronavirus having pandemic potential if they were to acquire
efficient human-to-human transmissibility.” (<span style="color: red;">W4</span>)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>April 10, 2018</b>, Trump hired John Bolton, one
of the architects of George W. Bush’s <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2020/03/bloodbathiniraq.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">invasion of Iraq</span></a>, as his National Security Adviser. Bolton in turn <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/tom-bossert-trump-s-homeland-security-adviser-resign-n864321"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">fired</span></a> Homeland
Security advisor Tom Bossert (12), whom <i>the Washington Post</i> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/05/10/top-white-house-official-in-charge-of-pandemic-response-exits-abruptly/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> “had
called for a comprehensive biodefense strategy against pandemics and biological
attacks.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>April 27, 2018</b>, at the Malaria Summit in
London, Bill Gates discussed the federal government’s lack of readiness for the
“significant probability of a large and lethal modern-day pandemic occurring in
our lifetimes.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>In the second week of May, 2018</b>, “the White House <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/05/10/top-white-house-official-in-charge-of-pandemic-response-exits-abruptly/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">pushed</span></a> Congress
to cut funding for Obama-era disease security programs, proposing to eliminate
$252 million in previously committed resources for rebuilding health systems in
Ebola-ravaged Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea. (13) Under fire from both
sides of the aisle, President Donald Trump dropped the proposal to
eliminate Ebola funds a month later. But other White House efforts included reducing <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/trump-calls-on-congress-to-pull-back-15-billion-in-spending-including-on-childrens-health-insurance-program/2018/05/07/9427de18-5216-11e8-a551-5b648abe29ef_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">$15 billion</span></a> in
national health spending (14) and cutting the global disease-fighting
operational budgets of the CDC, NSC, DHS, and HHS. (15) And the
government’s <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/05/09/ebola-is-back-and-trump-is-trying-to-kill-funding-for-it/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">$30 million</span></a> Complex
Crises Fund was eliminated.” (16)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/05/10/top-white-house-official-in-charge-of-pandemic-response-exits-abruptly/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">An article</span></a> by
Lena Sun of <i>the Washington Post</i> touched on just how big of a
blow these moves were to U.S. disaster preparedness:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The White House proposal ‘is threatening to claw back funding whose precise
purpose is to help the United States be able to respond quickly in the event of
a crisis,’ said Carolyn Reynolds, a vice president at PATH, a global health
technology nonprofit. (<span style="color: red;">W5</span>)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Collectively, warns Jeremy Konyndyk, who led foreign
disaster assistance at the U.S. Agency for International Development during the
Obama administration, ‘What this all adds up to is a potentially really
concerning rollback of progress on U.S. health security preparedness.’</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“‘It seems to actively unlearn the lessons we learned
through very hard experience over the last 15 years,’ said Konyndyk….‘These
moves make us materially less safe. It’s inexplicable.’” (<span style="color: red;">W6</span>)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That same week, on <b>May 9, 2018</b>, “Luciana Borio, director of medical
and biodefense preparedness at the [National Security Council], spoke at a
symposium at Emory University to mark the 100th anniversary of the 1918 influenza
pandemic. That event killed an estimated 50 million to 100 million people
worldwide.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">‘The threat of pandemic flu is the number one health
security concern,’ she told the audience. ‘<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/05/10/top-white-house-official-in-charge-of-pandemic-response-exits-abruptly/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Are we ready to respond? I fear the answer is
no</span></a>.’” (<span style="color: red;">W7</span>)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>May 10, 2018</b>, Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton
“re-organized” the National Security Council (NSC), or more accurately “<a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/31/coronavirus-china-trump-united-states-public-health-emergency-response/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">fired the government’s entire pandemic
response chain of command</span></a>, including
the White House management infrastructure” which had been set up by the Obama
administration after the Ebola crisis, by collapsing the NSC’s Office of Global
Security (17). In the wake of Bolton’s action, the top official tasked with
coordinating a response to a pandemic, Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer from the
National Security Council, resigned on <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/05/10/top-white-house-official-in-charge-of-pandemic-response-exits-abruptly/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the same day</span></a> that
a new Ebola outbreak was reported in the Congo. (18)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The Office of Global Security had been a comprehensive
crisis response team which brought together principals from the National
Institutes of Health, the CDC, the National Security Council, and the
Department of Homeland Security; the Trump administration replaced neither
Ziemer nor the command infrastructure (19). </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>May 15, 2018</b>, Virginia Democrat Gerald Connolly, a member
of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, wrote Bolton <a href="https://connolly.house.gov/uploadedfiles/connolly_bera_letter_to_nsa_john_bolton_on_global_health_security.pdf"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a letter</span></a> “to
express the deep concerns with several recent actions the White House has taken
to downgrade the importance of global health security.” Looking forward, the
letter stated, “We fear these recent decisions will leave the United
States vulnerable to pandemics and commit us to a strategy of triage should one
occur.” (<span style="color: red;">W8</span>)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Democratic senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio piggybacked on these concerns in
a <b>May 18, 2018</b> <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/sherrod-brown-letter-president-trump-WH-Global-Health-Security-5.18.18.pdf"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">letter</span></a> to
President Trump:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“In our globalized world, where diseases are never more than a plane ride away,
we must do all we can to prepare for the next, inevitable outbreak and keep
Americans safe from disease. I urge you to act swiftly in reaffirming your
commitment to global health security by taking immediate action to designate
senior level NSC personnel to focus on global health security, supporting
adequate and appropriate funding for global health security initiatives, and
leading the way in preparing for the next pandemic threat.” (<span style="color: red;">W9</span>)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In <b>September of 2018, </b>Trump's Department of
Health and Human Services <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-immigrant-children-detention-hhs-cuts-funds-programs-like-cancer-research-230259583.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">diverted $266 million</span></a> from the CDC to operations to detain immigrant
children. (20)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In <b>January of 2019</b>, the Office of the Director of National
Intelligence put out a threat assessment warning that “<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/u-s-intel-agencies-warned-rising-risk-outbreak-coronavirus-n1144891"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the United States and the world will remain
vulnerable</span></a> to the next flu pandemic or
large-scale outbreak of a contagious disease that could lead to massive rates
of death and disability, severely affect the world economy, strain
international resources, and increase calls on the United States for support.”
(<span style="color: red;">W10</span>)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In their <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/budget/documents/fy2020/fy-2020-detail-table.pdf"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">fiscal year 2020 budget</span></a>, released in <b>March of 2019</b>, the Trump administration
proposed a <a href="https://inkstickmedia.com/budget-cuts-have-made-the-us-less-ready-for-coronavirus/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">20% cut</span></a> to
the CDC (21).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>April 17, 2019</b>, at a bio-defense summit,
Health and Human Services secretary Alex Azar <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/03/politics/kfile-officials-worried-over-pandemic-last-year/index.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">said</span></a>,
“Of course, the thing that people ask: ‘What keeps you most up at night in the
biodefense world?’ Pandemic flu, of course. I think everyone in this room
probably shares that concern.” (<span style="color: red;">W11</span>)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">According to John Bolton, on <b>June 29, 2019</b>, when Trump met with
Chinese president Xi Jinping in Japan, Trump “turned the conversation to
the coming U.S. presidential election, alluding to China’s economic capability
and pleading with Xi to ensure he’d win. He stressed the importance of farmers
and increased Chinese purchases of soybeans and wheat in the electoral
outcome.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In <b>July of 2019</b>, under pressure from industry groups, the
administration quietly <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/disability/news/2020/04/21/483545/trump-administrations-deregulation-nursing-homes-leaves-seniors-disabled-higher-risk-covid-19/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">seeded a future disaster</span></a> by “relaxing the requirements tied to infection
control” in nursing homes. (22) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In <b>September of 2019</b>, a “<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Mitigating-the-Impact-of-Pandemic-Influenza-through-Vaccine-Innovation.pdf"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">study by the Council of Economic Advisers</span></a> ordered by the National Security Council <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/2020/04/trump-ignored-white-house-economists-warning-of-devastating-impact-of-pandemic-months-ago-report/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">predicted</span></a> that
a pandemic similar to the 1918 Spanish flu or the 2009 swine flu could lead to
a half-million deaths and cost the economy as much as $3.8 trillion.” (<span style="color: red;">W12</span>)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That same month, <a href="https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2020-04-02/coronavirus-trump-pandemic-program-viruses-detection"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the Trump administration ended PREDICT</span></a>, “a <span style="background: white;">pandemic early-warning program aimed at training scientists
in China and other countries to detect and respond to such a threat.</span>”<span style="background: white;"> The
program </span>“<span style="background: white;">gathered specimens from more than 10,000 bats and 2,000 other
mammals in search of dangerous viruses. They detected about 1,200 viruses that
could spread from wild animals to humans, signaling pandemic potential. More
than 160 of them were novel coronaviruses, much like SARS-CoV-2.</span>”<span style="background: white;"> (23)</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">On <b>October
25, 2019</b>, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden </span><a href="https://twitter.com/joebiden/status/1187829299207954437?lang=en"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;">tweeted</span></a><span style="background: white;"> “</span>We are not
prepared for a pandemic. Trump has rolled back progress President Obama and I
made to strengthen global health security. We need leadership that builds
public trust, focuses on real threats, and mobilizes the world to stop
outbreaks before they reach our shores.” (<span style="color: red;">W13</span>)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>On <b>November 18, 2019</b>, one day after <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3074991/coronavirus-chinas-first-confirmed-covid-19-case-traced-back"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the first known case</span></a> of COVID-19, “an independent, bipartisan panel formed
by the Center for Strategic and International Studies <a href="https://healthsecurity.csis.org/final-report/?utm_campaign=KFF-2018-Daily-GHP-Report&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=79793549&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8HgwTDqeSUbA_EHRDOE3KL1aGBFeH4zjEJexxgVfmkTZC-B8TqCB1McjhjEOkNhdpC0RVP5Nuu3yr8YInPmfooPQxRjMRUUwP2xuQuwxLHAk_05OA&_hsmi=79793549"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">concluded</span></a><span style="color: #3d85c6;"> </span></span><span>that lack of preparedness was so
acute in the Trump administration that the ‘United States must either pay now
and gain protection and security or wait for the next epidemic and pay a much
greater price in human and economic costs.’” (<span style="color: red;">W14</span>)</span><span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><span style="color: blue; font-size: medium;">January 3, 2020-March 12, 2020 </span></b><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><span>Trump’s original sin. 70 lost days during which
the administration fails to get functional tests or PPE out and refuses to
publicly advocate for social distancing and masks. As infections spread
undetected, the president lies, denies, and minimizes.</span></i><i><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Though Josh
Margolin and James Gordon Meek of ABC News would later <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Politics/intelligence-report-warned-coronavirus-crisis-early-november-sources/story?id=70031273&id=70031273&__twitter_impression=true"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">report</span></a> that the White House had been briefed
about the coronavirus in December of 2019, the administration’s story is that
they were <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/3/21/21189179/coronavirus-trump-intelligence-reports-warned-pandemic"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">first informed</span></a> of the coronavirus on <b>January 3, 2020, </b>when
CDC head Robert Redfield received a phone call from Chinese officials.<b> </b>Around
this time, intelligence services began putting information about coronavirus
in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2020/04/04/coronavirus-government-dysfunction/?arc404=true"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump's Daily Brief</span></a>. (<span style="color: red;">W15</span>)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>January 8</b>, the American public was made aware
of COVID-19 when <i>the Washington Post</i> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/specter-of-possible-new-virus-emerging-from-central-china-raises-alarms-across-asia/2020/01/08/3d33046c-312f-11ea-971b-43bec3ff9860_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> an
outbreak of an “‘unidentified and possibly new viral disease in central China’
that was sending alarms across Asia in advance of the Lunar New Year travel
season.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Already, “Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Thailand and the
Philippines were contemplating quarantine zones and scanning travelers from
China for ‘signs of fever or other pneumonia-like symptoms that may indicate a
new disease possibly linked to a wild animal market in Wuhan.’”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In response, the CDC <a href="https://emergency.cdc.gov/han/han00424.asp"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">issued</span></a> a public health alert. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Rather than address the new potential public health crisis,
Trump tried to score cheap partisan points by <a href="https://www.politifact.com/article/2020/jan/08/fact-checking-donald-trumps-speech-after-iran-miss/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">lying</span></a> about
Barack Obama's <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2018-08-13/how-we-got-iran-deal"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Iran peace deal</span></a> at that day’s press conference (24).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar wasn't able to get Trump’s
ear about the coronavirus until <b>January 18</b>, fifteen days after the
administration claims they had been notified (25). <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/us-intelligence-reports-from-january-and-february-warned-about-a-likely-pandemic/2020/03/20/299d8cda-6ad5-11ea-b5f1-a5a804158597_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">According to</span></a> <i>the
Washington Post</i>, Trump was more concerned about short-term political
pressure than public health: “When [Azar] reached Trump by phone, the
president interjected to ask about [a proposed ban on] vaping and when flavored
vaping products would be back on the market.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That same day, Rick Bright, who headed <span style="background: white;">the Biomedical Advanced Research and
Development Authority (BARDA), </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/09/us/politics/whistle-blower-trump-coronavirus.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200510&instance_id=18372&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=27142&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">pleaded</span></a><span style="background: white;"> with
his boss, Dr. Robert Kadlec (</span>the
assistant secretary for preparedness and response) <span style="background: white;">to </span>“convene
high-level meetings about the virus.” Kadlec responded that was “not sure
if that is a time sensitive urgency.” (26)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>January 21</b>, the day the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/21/health/cdc-coronavirus.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">first coronavirus case</span></a> in the U.S. was confirmed by the CDC, Dr. Bright
emailed Laura Wolf (the director of the Division of Critical
Infrastructure Protection, which is under the HHS Office of the Assistant
Secretary for Preparedness and Response). The email <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/in-the-early-days-of-the-pandemic-the-us-government-turned-down-an-offer-to-manufacture-millions-of-n95-masks-in-america/2020/05/09/f76a821e-908a-11ea-a9c0-73b93422d691_story.html?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">asked</span></a> Wolf
to reach out to Michael Bowen, the CEO of Prestige Ameritech, a domestic
medical supply company. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Appearing on CNBC on <b>January 22</b>, Trump
offered the first of dozens of false reassurances when he told an interviewer,
“We have it totally under control. It's one person coming in from China, and we
have it under control. <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/22/trump-on-coronavirus-from-china-we-have-it-totally-under-control.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">It’s going to be just fine</span></a>.” (27) Asked if he trusted the COVID-related information he
was getting from China, Trump said he did because “I have a great relationship
with President Xi” and “We just signed probably the biggest deal ever made.”
(In reality, Trump was covering up for Xi; Trump's intelligence briefings
had <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/presidents-intelligence-briefing-book-repeatedly-cited-virus-threat/2020/04/27/ca66949a-8885-11ea-ac8a-fe9b8088e101_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">made it clear</span></a> China was suppressing information about the virus, but
Trump was more concerned about increasing trade with China, which he thought
could help him win a second term.)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Earlier in the day, Michael Bowen had emailed “top administrators in the
Department of Health and Human Services” and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/in-the-early-days-of-the-pandemic-the-us-government-turned-down-an-offer-to-manufacture-millions-of-n95-masks-in-america/2020/05/09/f76a821e-908a-11ea-a9c0-73b93422d691_story.html?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">offered to produce 1.7 million N95 masks per
week</span></a> for the national stockpile. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Bowen's offer was turned down by Laura Wolf, so he sent a follow-up email
on <b>January 23 </b>which stated “We are the last major
domestic mask company....My phones are ringing now, so I don’t ‘need’
government business. I’m just letting you know that I can help you preserve our
infrastructure if things ever get really bad. I’m a patriot first, businessman
second.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Despite Rick Bright's warnings about a coming shortage of
masks (<span style="color: red;">W16</span>)—the national stockpiles had
around <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/in-the-early-days-of-the-pandemic-the-us-government-turned-down-an-offer-to-manufacture-millions-of-n95-masks-in-america/2020/05/09/f76a821e-908a-11ea-a9c0-73b93422d691_story.html?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">1/50th</span></a> of
what the country would need during a pandemic—and multiple emails from Bowen
alluding to the “imminent risk” of a mask shortage and the mass
orders he was getting from China and Hong Kong, the administration would
never follow through on Bowen's offer. (28) </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">This indifference was reflected in two meetings of Trump's disaster management
team that took place on the 23rd. Bright's concerns about medical supplies and
BARDA's lack of funds <a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/05/07/coronavirus-whistleblower-hhs-n95-ppe/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">weren't shared by Robert Kadlec or Alex Azar</span></a> (29), who “asserted that the United States would
be able to contain the virus and keep it out of the United States. Secretary
Azar further indicated that the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention]
would look at the issue of travel bans to keep the virus contained.” Bright was
punished for his outspokenness; Azar and Kadlec excluded him from the next
disaster management meeting. (30)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That same day, Trump was briefed by a CIA analyst and National Security Adviser
Robert O'Brien, who communicated that COVID-19 could “spread globally.” (<span style="color: red;">W17</span>)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>January 24</b>, one day after China had <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/28/politics/trump-coronavirus-prepared-national-security/index.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">shut down</span></a> Wuhan
and other cities, Trump <a href="https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1220818115354923009?lang=en"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">tweeted</span></a> praise
of China's “transparency” and said that “It will all work out well.”
This would be just one of <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/15/trump-china-coronavirus-188736"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">fifteen times</span></a> Trump praised China in January and February of 2020.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>January 25</b>, Michael Bowen <a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/05/07/coronavirus-whistleblower-hhs-n95-ppe/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">emailed Bright</span></a> “about the mask shortage, explaining that his company
was getting requests from China and that nearly half of the masks in the U.S.
are imported from Chinese manufacturers. ‘If the supply stops, US hospital will
run out of masks. No way to prevent it.’” Bright <a href="https://www.kmblegal.com/sites/default/files/NEW%20R.%20Bright%20OSC%20Complaint_Redacted.pdf"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">forwarded</span></a> the
information to Kadlec the following day. (<span style="color: red;">W18</span>)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>January 27</b>, “White House aides huddled with
then-acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney in his office, trying to get senior
officials to pay more attention to the virus, according to people briefed on
the meeting. Joe Grogan, the head of the White House Domestic Policy Council,
argued that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/us-intelligence-reports-from-january-and-february-warned-about-a-likely-pandemic/2020/03/20/299d8cda-6ad5-11ea-b5f1-a5a804158597_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the administration needed to take the virus
seriously</span></a> or it could cost the president
his reelection, and that dealing with the virus was likely to dominate life in
the United States for many months.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Mulvaney then began convening more regular meetings. In early
briefings, however, officials said Trump was dismissive because he did not
believe that the virus had spread widely throughout the United States.” (31)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>January 28</b>, twenty-five days after the
administration had officially become aware of coronavirus, on the day that
China’s president met with the Director-General of the World Health
Organization to map out responses to COVID-19, the same day that Department of
Veterans Affairs senior medical adviser Dr. Carter Mecher told colleagues
that “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/us/politics/coronavirus-trump-response.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the projected size of the outbreak already
seems hard to believe</span></a>” and mitigation efforts would soon
be necessary on a “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/us/politics/coronavirus-red-dawn-emails-trump.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Red Dawn</span></a>” email
(<span style="color: red;">W19</span>), CNN <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/28/politics/trump-coronavirus-prepared-national-security/index.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that
“Trump has not…named a single official within the White House responsible for
coordinating the administration's response. (32) That has some wondering
whether enough is being done in advance of a potential crisis, particularly
since the role of the National Security Council under Trump has shifted away
from leading a response to a health crisis to merely coordinating between
agencies.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump’s indifference was <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/31/coronavirus-china-trump-united-states-public-health-emergency-response/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a direct contrast to Barack Obama</span></a>, who had “<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/01/now-trump-needs-deep-state-fight-coronavirus/605752/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">anointed</span></a> a
former vice presidential staffer, Ronald Klain, as a sort of ‘epidemic czar’
inside the White House, clearly stipulated the roles and budgets of various
agencies, and placed incident commanders in charge in each Ebola-hit country
and inside the United States.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On the same day Trump was told (again) by an intelligence briefer that China
was “<a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/05/02/849619486/trump-received-intelligence-briefings-on-coronavirus-twice-in-january"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">withholding data</span></a>” about COVID-19, he <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?468445-1/president-trump-rally-wildwood-jersey"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">gushed</span></a> at
a campaign rally in New Jersey that he had “signed a fantastic new trade
agreement with China that will boost New Jersey exports and defend New Jersey
jobs.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>January 29</b>, Peter Navarro, an economic
adviser to Donald Trump, sent a memo to the White House warning that <a href="https://www.axios.com/exclusive-navarro-deaths-coronavirus-memos-january-da3f08fb-dce1-4f69-89b5-ea048f8382a9.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">coronavirus could kill up to 543,000 Americans</span></a>. (<span style="color: red;">W20</span>) Despite Navarro's
memo, and the fact that the U.S. had yet to take any significant actions
to counteract the coronavirus (33), Trump continued his narrative of false
assurances with a tweet that he had “Just received a briefing on the
Coronavirus in China from all of our GREAT agencies, who are also working
closely with China. We will continue to monitor the ongoing developments. We
have the best experts anywhere in the world, and they are on top of it 24/7!”
(34) </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On Thursday, <b>January 30, </b>World Health Organization (WHO)
director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared a global health emergency
while praising China’s efforts to contain the virus. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On a flight to campaign appearances in the Midwest, Trump
received a call from Alex Azar, who warned him a second time of the destructive
potential of the pandemic. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/us/politics/coronavirus-trump-response.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump dismissed Azar as "alarmist</span></a>." (35) </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Later that day, speaking in front of Michigan auto workers on the day the WHO
had declared a global health emergency, the day the CDC <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020/p0130-coronavirus-spread.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> the
first person-to-person transmission in the U.S., Trump said, “We think we have
it very well under control. We have very little problem in this country at this
moment — five. And those people are all recuperating successfully. But we’re
working very closely with China and other countries, and we think it’s going to
have a very good ending for it. So that I can assure you.” (36)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross doubled down on Trump’s
denial, <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/wilbur-ross-says-coronavirus-will-help-to-accelerate-the-return-of-jobs-to-north-america-2020-01-30"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">telling</span></a> <i>Fox
Business News</i> that the virus “will help to accelerate the return of
jobs to North America." (37)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Though Ross claimed the virus would increase job growth, and
Trump was confident that the U.S. had “very little problem” with the virus, the
Trump Administration delivered one of a string of <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-03-30/trumps-mixed-messages-confuse-coronavirus-response"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">mixed messages</span></a> (38) when they announced the formation of a
Coronavirus Task Force on the same day.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In contrast to the efficient and responsive crisis
management model <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2017/01/ten-reasons-barack-obama-is-clearly.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Barack Obama</span></a> had
set up, in which Ron Klain coordinated actions among diverse agencies, Trump’s commission
had confusing lines of authority, where “<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/07/trump-coronavirus-management-style-123465"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">at least three different people</span></a>—[Health and Human Services head Alex] Azar, Vice President
Mike Pence and coronavirus task force coordinator Debbie Birx—can claim
responsibility.” (39) In a crisis where immediate, decisive action was needed,
the administration chose a slow-moving model choked with discussion and
deliberation which focused on closing off borders <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2020/04/04/coronavirus-government-dysfunction/?arc404=true"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">rather than</span></a> testing
and tracing and countrywide mitigation (40).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Klain offered a prescient prognosis at <i>the Atlantic
Monthly</i>: “The U.S. government has the tools, talent, and team to help
fight the coronavirus abroad and minimize its impact at home. But the
combination of Trump’s paranoia toward experienced government officials (who
lack ‘loyalty’ to him), inattention to detail, opinionated rejection of science
and evidence, and isolationist instincts may prove toxic when it comes to
managing a global-health security challenge. <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/01/now-trump-needs-deep-state-fight-coronavirus/605752/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">To succeed, Trump will have to trust the kind
of government experts he has disdained to date, set aside his own terrible
instincts, lead from the White House, and work closely with foreign leaders and
global institutions—all things he has failed to do in his first 1,200 days in
office</span></a>.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Writing in <i>Foreign Policy </i>the next
day, <b>January 31</b>, Laurie Garrett (a Pulitzer-winning science
journalist) posed an important question: “The epidemic control
efforts unfolding today in China—including placing some 100 million citizens on
lockdown, shutting down a national holiday, building enormous quarantine
hospitals in days’ time, and ramping up 24-hour manufacturing of medical
equipment—are indeed gargantuan. It’s impossible to watch them without
wondering, ‘What would we do? <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/31/coronavirus-china-trump-united-states-public-health-emergency-response/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">How would my government respond if this virus
spread across my country</span></a>?’”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Her government that day declared <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2020/01/31/secretary-azar-declares-public-health-emergency-us-2019-novel-coronavirus.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a public health emergency</span></a> and restricted Americans who had been in China over
the past two weeks from re-entering the country.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump presented the decision as a <i><span style="background: white;">coup de grâce</span></i><span style="background: white;"> to the pandemic. </span>Speaking
to Fox’s Sean Hannity on <b>February 2</b>, Trump said, “We pretty much
shut it down coming from China.” (41) In fact, as Ron Klain would mention to
Congress a few days later, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/14/tracking-trumps-false-or-misleading-coronavirus-claims/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">over 100,000 people</span><span style="color: black;">*</span></a> had
come to the States from China in the month before the ban, so “the horse is
already out of the barn.” (*<i>the New York Times </i>would later point
out that this was a significant underestimate, as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/04/us/coronavirus-china-travel-restrictions.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">430,000 travelers</span></a> would enter the country from China from January-April
of 2020, including <a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-trump-china-travel-ban-45a2da12-8063-4ad9-ba28-61cdeb1ce0b3.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">40,000</span></a> after
the travel ban, 42)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump would go on to brag repeatedly about the China ban as an example of a
gutsy leadership move, but he made the decision reluctantly (after Delta
Airlines and American Airlines had suspended flights from China and
United <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/one-final-viral-infusion-trumps-move-to-block-travel-from-europe-triggered-chaos-and-a-surge-of-passengers-from-the-outbreaks-center/2020/05/23/64836a00-962b-11ea-82b4-c8db161ff6e5_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">notified</span></a> the
White House that they were about to do so) and he wouldn't restrict travel
from Europe, which brought <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/one-final-viral-infusion-trumps-move-to-block-travel-from-europe-triggered-chaos-and-a-surge-of-passengers-from-the-outbreaks-center/2020/05/23/64836a00-962b-11ea-82b4-c8db161ff6e5_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">many more travelers</span></a> into the U.S.. than China and would provide <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/science/new-york-coronavirus-cases-europe-genomes.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the bulk of New York's cases</span></a>, for six more weeks (43). In just the month of February,
two million Europeans would come to the U.S., <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-spread.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">hundreds</span></a> bringing
the virus with them. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In a <b>February 3</b> <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2020/2/3/laurie_garrett_coronavirus_trump_admin_response"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">interview</span></a> with
Amy Goodman on <i>Democracy Now</i>, Laurie Garrett explained that John
Bolton’s dissolution of the pandemic response office (see #17) was done out of
spite: “it was a big mistake by the Trump administration to obliterate the
entire infrastructure of pandemic response that the Obama administration had
created. Why did he do it? Well, it certainly wasn’t about the money, because
it wasn’t a heavily-funded program. It was certainly because it was Obama’s
program.” (44)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Pressed by Goodman to provide more detail about the Global
Security Office, Garrett continued: </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“It was a special division inside the National Security Council, a special
division inside of the Department of Homeland Security…and collaborating
centers in HHS, headquarters in Washington, the Office of Global Health Affairs,
and the Commerce Department, Treasury Department. But what Obama understood,
dealing with Ebola in 2014, is that any American response had to be an
all-of-government response, that there were so many agencies overlapping, and
they all had a little piece of the puzzle in the case of a pandemic.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“...What the Obama administration realized was that you can’t corral multiple
agencies and things from private sector as well as public sector to come to the
aid of America, unless you have some one person in charge who’s really the
manager of it all. And in his case, it was Ron Klain, who had worked under Vice
President Biden. And he was designated, with an office inside the White House,
to give orders and coordinate all these various things….Well, that was all
eliminated. It’s gone. And now they’re hastily trying to recreate something.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>February 4</b>, <i>the Wall Street Journal</i> posted
an <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/stop-a-u-s-coronavirus-outbreak-before-it-starts-11580859525"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">op-ed</span></a> by
Trump’s former FDA commissioner, Scott Gottlieb, titled “Stop a U.S.
Coronavirus Outbreak Before It Starts,” in which he stressed the importance of
ramping up testing for the virus so that public health officials would know
where to focus their efforts. (<span style="color: red;">W21</span>)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That same day, the administration rolled out new regulatory
guidelines. Any lab that wanted to test needed to meet strict criteria to get an
Emergency Use Authorization (EUA). Though Trump had <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/climate/trump-environment-rollbacks.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">gutted every environmental regulation</span></a> in sight, and <a href="https://prospect.org/economy/trump-s-assault-financial-reform/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">scaled back</span></a> oversight
of Wall Street, his FDA over-regulated this crucial public health function
(45), <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2020/03/the-fda-is-forcing-the-cdc-to-waste-time-double-testing-some-coronavirus-cases/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">forcing public health labs to re-run their tests</span></a>, which would delay reporting of the number of confirmed
cases (46), robbing public health officials of vital information about the
spread of infection in their areas. The EUA also slowed down private labs by
demanding that they get CDC approval before using their tests (47).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>February 5</b>, <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/senator-says-white-house-turned-down-emergency-coronavirus-funding-in-early-february/ar-BB11OvE1"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Democratic senators met with administration
officials and proposed emergency funding</span></a> “for
essential preventative measures, including hiring local screening and testing
staff, researching a vaccine and treatments and the stockpiling of needed
medical supplies.” (<span style="color: red;">W22</span>)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">HHS secretary Azar declined the funding, claiming it wasn’t needed. (48)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">After the meeting, Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut <a href="https://twitter.com/chrismurphyct/status/1244640034386579457"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">tweeted</span></a> “Just
left the Administration briefing on Coronavirus. Bottom line: they
aren’t taking this seriously enough. Notably no request for ANY emergency
funding, which is a big mistake. Local health systems need supplies, training,
screening staff etc. And they need it now.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>February 6</b>, the World Health Organization shipped out <a href="https://www.una-sf.org/covid19-resolution"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">250,000 test kits</span></a>.
The administration could have requested WHO kits, but insisted that the U.S.
develop its own tests. That day, the CDC shipped out <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2020/04/04/coronavirus-government-dysfunction/?arc404=true"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">90 test kits</span></a>.
(49)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>February 7</b>, the same day World Health
Organization head T<span style="background: white;">edros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that </span>“<span style="background: white;">The world is
facing </span><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-who/who-warns-of-global-shortage-of-coronavirus-protective-equipment-idUSKBN2011EK"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">a chronic shortage</span></a><span style="background: white;"> of
gowns, masks, gloves and other protective equipment in the fight against a
spreading coronavirus epidemic,</span>” the same
day that Rick Bright's suggestion that the federal government begin mass
production of masks <a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/05/07/coronavirus-whistleblower-hhs-n95-ppe/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">was rejected</span></a> by
Trump's disaster management team, (50) Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
tweeted about <span style="background: white;">“the transportation of nearly 17.8 tons of donated medical
supplies...including masks, gowns, gauze, respirators, and other vital
materials</span>”—<a href="https://www.ourquadcities.com/news/local-news/u-s-sent-17-8-tons-of-masks-respirators-other-ppe-to-china-in-february/"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">to China</span></a><span style="background: white;">. </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">These shipments represented just a fraction of the vital medical
supplies, later desperately needed inside our borders, which would be
exported from the U.S. due to the Trump administration's </span><a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/04/01/coronavirus-medical-supplies-export/"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">failure to plan ahead</span></a><span style="background: white;"> and
ban exports, as Germany, South Korea, and twenty-two others countries did. (51)</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Asked at a news conference that day if he was concerned that China was covering
up the full extent of the virus, Trump </span><a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-marine-one-departure-82/"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">replied</span></a><span style="background: white;"> “</span>No. China is working very hard. Late last night, I had a
very good talk with President Xi, and we talked about — mostly about the
coronavirus. They’re working really hard, and I think they are doing a very
professional job. They’re in touch with World — the World — World
Organization. CDC also. We’re working together. But World Health is working
with them. CDC is working with them. I had a great conversation last night with
President Xi. It’s a tough situation. I think they’re doing a very good job.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">He said much the same thing on Twitter, where he praised China's leadership and
pushed misinformation about warm weather ending COVID-19: “</span>Just had a long and very good conversation by phone with
President Xi of China. He is strong, sharp and powerfully focused on leading
the counterattack on the Coronavirus. He feels they are doing very well, even
building hospitals in a matter of only days. Nothing is easy, but.......he will
be successful, especially as the weather starts to warm & the virus
hopefully becomes weaker, and then gone. Great discipline is taking place in
China, as President Xi strongly leads what will be a very successful operation.
We are working closely with China to help!”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Rick Bright
continued his focus on medical supplies on <b>February 8</b>, when he met
with Trump's economic adviser, Peter Navarro (see </span><span style="background: white; color: red;">W20</span><span style="background: white;">). Bright and Navarro "</span><a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/05/07/coronavirus-whistleblower-hhs-n95-ppe/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">drafted a memo</span></a> sent to the White House coronavirus task force that
called for the U.S. to immediately halt the export of N95 masks and ramp up
production." (<span style="color: red;">W23</span>)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">On <b>February 9</b>, "</span>a
group of governors in town for a black-tie gala at the White House secured a
private meeting with [<span style="background: white;">Dr. </span>Anthony] Fauci and [CDC head Robert]
Redfield. The briefing rattled many of the governors, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2020/04/04/coronavirus-government-dysfunction/?arc404=true"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">bearing little resemblance</span></a> to the words of the president.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>February 10</b>, Trump repeated a false talking point multiple
times. “Trump <a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-interview-trish-regan-fox-business-february-10-2020"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">said</span></a> on
Fox Business: ‘You know in April, supposedly, it dies with the hotter
weather.’” (52) He <a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-remarks-business-meeting-governors-february-10-2020"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">told state governors</span></a>: ‘You know, a lot of people think that goes away in
April with the heat — as the heat comes in. Typically, that will go away in
April.’ (53) And he <a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-speech-kag-rally-manchester-new-hampshire-february-10-2020"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">told supporters</span></a> at a campaign rally: ‘Looks like by April, you
know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away. I
hope that’s true.’” (54) Just before the rally, when asked by Trish Regan of
Fox News about China's COVID-19 transparency, Trump said that the Chinese
“<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAwlsIG9NWg"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">have everything under control</span></a>....We’re working with them. You know, we just sent some of
our best people over there...It's going to be fine.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>February 11</b>, Federal Reserve chairman Jay
Powell contradicted Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross (see #37) when he said that
the coronavirus would “very likely” impact America’s economy.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>February 12,</b> <i>the New York Times</i> reported
that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/12/health/coronavirus-test-kits-cdc.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump’s CDC had sent state labs flawed test
kits</span></a>, further slowing down the testing
process. (55) </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">HHS secretary Alex Azar appeared before a Senate committee
on <b>February 13</b> and said, “As of today, I can announce that the
CDC has begun working with health departments in five cities to use its flu
surveillance network to begin testing individuals with flu-like symptoms for
the Chinese coronavirus….This effort will help see whether there is broader
spread than we have been able to detect so far.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The statement gave the impression that the Trump
administration was making progress in combating the virus, which was false, as
the cities still lacked functional tests and the surveillance systems weren’t
in place. Azar knew this, but was desperate to create positive spin for the
administration (56). </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Valentine’s Day</b>, as worldwide deaths from the
virus were at 1,000 and climbing, Trump spoke before the National Border
Control Council. He again wheeled out the false assertion that warm weather
would douse the virus (57) and said, “We have a very small number of people in
the country, right now, with it. It’s like around 12. Many of them are getting
better. Some are fully recovered already. So we’re in very good shape.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>February 18</b>, Trump tweeted <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1229790102949449728"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">opposition</span></a> to
a measure that would limit sales of U.S. technology to China and again defended
President Xi. Asked at a news conference what he thought of “the data
coming out of China,” Trump <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-air-force-one-departure-joint-base-andrews-md-2/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">said</span></a>, “Look,
I know this: President Xi loves the people of China, he loves his country, and
he’s doing a very good job with a very, very tough situation.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Taking stock of Trump's handling of COVID-19 so far, <i>Atlantic </i>contributor
Peter Nicholas <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/02/trump-response-coronavirus/606610/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">offered</span></a> perceptive
summations of the Trump Administration’s failures of governance and the
challenges ahead: “He has hollowed out federal agencies and
belittled expertise (see #1), prioritizing instead his own intuition and the
demands of his political base. But he’ll need to rely on a bureaucracy he’s
maligned to stop the virus’s spread.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The article cited the ramifications of Trump’s allergy to
bad news: “‘We have a president who doesn’t particularly care about
competent administration, and who created a culture in which bad news is shut
down,’ (58) says Democratic Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii, whose state is home
to one of multiple airports screening passengers for the coronavirus. ‘And when
you’re dealing with a potential pandemic, you need to know all the bad news. If
this disease ends up not overwhelming us, that would be a blessing. But it
would not be because the Trump administration was ready. They were not.’”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Nicholas also addressed Trump’s continual lies and
distortions about the scope of the virus: “Since Trump’s first upbeat
assessment, the number of people sickened by the virus has spiraled. At the
time of the CNBC interview (see #27), 17 people in China had died from the
virus and about 540 were infected. Today, the death toll is about 1,900 and the
number of infections tops 73,000. At least 15 cases have been reported in the
U.S., and <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/fourteen-americans-headed-home-from-coronavirus-cruise-ship-test-positive-11581931972"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">an additional 14 Americans</span></a> infected with the virus arrived yesterday following
their evacuation from a cruise ship in Japan.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Undeterred by scientific facts, Trump pushed the warm
weather myth again on <b>February 19</b>, telling a reporter “I think it’s
going to work out fine. I think when we get into April, in the warmer weather,
that has a very negative effect on that and that type of a virus. So let’s see
what happens, but I think it’s going to work out fine.” (59) </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">He also went to bat for President Xi. Asked how confident he was “that China is
being 100 percent honest with us when it comes to this scary virus?,” Trump
said, “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylx23c8WUZI"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">I’m confident that they’re trying very hard</span></a>....I know President Xi. I get along with him very well. We
just made a great trade deal....I think it’s going to work out fine.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>February 20</b>, <i>Politico</i> <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/20/cdc-coronavirus-116529"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> on
the flawed test kits the CDC had sent out and mentioned that the cost of the kits
was so high ($250/each) that Trump’s Health and Human Services department was
starting to run out of money (60)—which could have been avoided if Azar had
accepted additional congressional funding proposed on February 5 (see #48).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The coronavirus task force met on <b>February 21</b>. Reviewing the
escalation in cases abroad, the group “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/us/politics/coronavirus-trump-response.html"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">concluded</span></a><span style="background: white;"> they
would soon need to move toward aggressive social distancing, even at the risk
of severe disruption to the nation’s economy and the daily lives of millions of
Americans.</span>”<span style="background: white;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Early on the morning of <b>February 23</b>, Michael Mina, an
epidemiologist and professor at Harvard, <a href="https://twitter.com/michaelmina_lab/status/1231503805159813121?lang=en"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">tweeted</span></a> that
“the US remains extremely limited in <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/COVID19?src=hash"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">#COVID19</span></a> testing.
Only 3 of 100 public health labs have <a href="https://twitter.com/cdc"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">@CDC</span></a> test kits working (61) and CDC is not sharing what
went wrong with the kits. How to know if COVID19 is spreading here if we are
not looking for it.” (62)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Later that day, Peter Navarro wrote <a href="https://www.axios.com/exclusive-navarro-deaths-coronavirus-memos-january-da3f08fb-dce1-4f69-89b5-ea048f8382a9.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a memorandum</span></a> to
the president stating that “There is an increasing probability of a
full-blown COVID-19 pandemic that could infect as many as 100 million
Americans, with a loss of life as many as 1-2 million souls...To minimize
economic and social disruption and loss of life, there is an urgent need for an
immediate, supplemental appropriation of at least $3.0 billion dollars to
support efforts at prevention, treatment, inoculation, and diagnostics...Any
member of the Task Force who wants to be cautious about appropriating funds for
a crisis that could inflict trillions of dollars in economic damage and take
millions of lives has come to the wrong administration.” (<span style="color: red;">W24</span>)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Unconcerned with trifles like data, Trump <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-marine-one-departure-83/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">told</span></a> reporters
that day, “We're very much involved. We're very — very cognizant of
everything going on. We have it very much under control in this country.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On Monday, <b>February 24</b>, trying to make up for
previous short-sighted budget cuts, the administration “<a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/02/what-we-know-about-the-trump-admins-response-to-coronavirus.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">asked Congress for $2.5 billion in emergency
funds</span></a> to handle coronavirus in the
United States. (To compare to a recent health crisis, the Obama administration
requested $6 billion in emergency funding for the 2014 Ebola outbreak and
eventually received $5.4 billion.) Though Democrats in Congress have pushed the
administration to call for emergency coronavirus funding since early
February, <i>Politico</i> states that ‘White House officials have
been hesitant to press Congress for additional funding, with some hoping that
the virus would burn itself out by the summer.’” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The $2.5 billion request was a pittance, approximately 1/1000th the size of
Trump’s tax cut (63), <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/12/18/16791174/republican-tax-bill-congress-conference-tax-policy-center"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">most of which went</span></a> to the wealthiest 1% of Americans. Azar knew the
funding was inadequate, but was hamstrung by administration officials who <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2020/04/04/coronavirus-government-dysfunction/?arc404=true"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">didn't grasp</span></a> the
seriousness of the virus and lacked pull with Trump to override them in favor
of the public interest. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Even as the news grew worse, Trump continued to give false
assurances, tweeting “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the
USA….Stock Market starting to look very good to me!” (64). In fact, Trump had
no idea if things were “under control” because his administration had failed to
get functional test kits out.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That same day, the stock market had its <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/trump-stock-market-starting-look-very-good-plunging-1000-points-2020-2-1028933348"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">second biggest drop</span></a> in its history. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The following day, <b>February 25</b>, the stock market
cratered for the fourth consecutive day, losing 879 points to end at 27,081.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">While the Dow Jones tanked, Nancy Messonier, the director
for the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, <a href="https://www.aappublications.org/news/2020/02/25/preparedness022520"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">made the case for community mitigation</span></a> and told reporters that the virus would cause “severe”
disruptions in American’s lives. Unaware that his public health officials were
planning to propose mitigation efforts, Trump <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/us-intelligence-reports-from-january-and-february-warned-about-a-likely-pandemic/2020/03/20/299d8cda-6ad5-11ea-b5f1-a5a804158597_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">scolded</span></a> Messonier's
ultimate boss, Alex Azar, for the toll her announcement had on the stock market
(65) and the next day demoted Azar, putting Mike Pence in charge of the
coronavirus task force. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/us/politics/coronavirus-trump-response.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">As a result of Trump's temper tantrum</span></a>, the task force's time-sensitive recommendations for social
distancing, school closures, and cancellations of crowded events was put on
hold. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It would be three long, deadly weeks before Trump would finally announce social
distancing recommendations on March 16 (66), during which time the CDC would
later <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6918e2.htm?s_cid=mm6918e2_w"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">estimate</span></a> “COVID-19
cases increased more than 1,000-fold.” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/20/us/coronavirus-cases-deaths.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">According to</span></a> researchers
at Columbia University, the last two weeks of delay cost the lives of tens of
thousands of Americans. (67)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At a time when bipartisan harmony was more important than
ever, Trump trolled Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer on Twitter for
pointing out that $2.5 billion wasn’t remotely adequate to the
task: “Cryin’ Chuck Schumer is complaining, for publicity purposes only,
that I should be asking for more money than $2.5 Billion to prepare for
Coronavirus. If I asked for more he would say it is too much. He didn’t like my
early travel closings. I was right. He is incompetent!” (68)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">And even as it was <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-cuts-programs-responsible-for-fighting-coronavirus-2020-2"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that
“Trump spent the past 2 years slashing the government agencies responsible for
handling the coronavirus outbreak,” Trump tweeted that “CDC and my
Administration are doing a GREAT job of handling Coronavirus.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">While in India that day, Trump told reporters, “You may ask
about the coronavirus, which is very well under control in our country. We have
very few people with it, and the people that have it are…getting better.
They’re all getting better….As far as what we’re doing with the new virus, I
think that we’re doing a great job.” (69)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump’s economic adviser Larry Kudlow <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/larry-kudlow-claims-america-has-contained-coronavirus-says-its-pretty-close-to-airtight"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">echoed Trump’s lies</span></a> and contradicted CDC officials when he told CNBC, “We
have contained this, I won’t say airtight but pretty close to airtight.” (70)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Meanwhile, <i>the Washington Post</i> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/shortages-confusion-and-poor-communication-complicate-coronavirus-preparations/2020/02/25/d9e56396-575d-11ea-9b35-def5a027d470_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> on
the severe shortage of N95 masks American hospitals were facing due to onerous
federal regulations (71) and a lack of support from the Trump administration
(72), and the administration’s lack of a plan going forward, which was causing
confusion and panic among state and local officials (73). Though the
administration had had three years to …. As build national reserves of
emergency medical supplies, Azar's testimony to the Senate Appropriations
Committee that day showed <span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">that </span>“<span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">the Strategic National Stockpile had only 30
million masks. That number is less than one one-hundredth of the 3.5 billion
that a </span><a href="https://report.nih.gov/crs/View.aspx?Id=2641"><span style="color: #3d85c6; letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">specialized group</span></a><span style="color: #3d85c6; letter-spacing: 0.15pt;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">within HHS that focuses on the risk
from viral outbreaks has estimated are necessary.</span>”
(74)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The next day, <b>February 26</b>, <i>Politico</i> <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/26/coronavirus-cdc-117779"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that
the “U.S. isn’t ready to detect stealth coronavirus spread” due to poor
coordination among crisis management staff (75), the administration’s failure
to get functional test kits out in a timely fashion (76), and needlessly strict
test criteria: “Just 12 of more than 100 public health labs in the U.S.
are currently able to diagnose the coronavirus because of problems with a test
developed by the CDC, potentially slowing the response if the virus starts
taking hold here. The faulty test has also delayed a plan to widely screen
people with symptoms of respiratory illness who have tested negative for
influenza to detect whether the coronavirus may be stealthily spreading.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Only six states were testing for the virus and the testing
was limited to people who had been to China or were experiencing symptoms,
which was allowing the virus to spread undetected. Harvard epidemiology
professor Mark Lipsitch told <i>Politico</i>, “China tested 320,000 people
in Guangdong over a three-week period. This is the scale we need to be thinking
on.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Meanwhile, on the same day he was told that community
spread <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-trumps-frantic-attempts-to-minimize-the-coronavirus-crisis/2020/02/29/7ebc882a-5b25-11ea-9b35-def5a027d470_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">was present</span></a> in
the U.S., Trump <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1232652371832004608"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">tweeted</span></a> that
the U.S. was in “great shape," (77) continued to compare
coronavirus to the flu, though the virus has approximately <a href="https://www.sciencealert.com/the-new-coronavirus-isn-t-like-the-flu-but-they-have-one-big-thing-in-common"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">20 times</span></a> the
mortality rate (78), and told White House reporters, “Because of all we’ve
done, the risk to the American people remains very low….<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-vice-president-pence-members-coronavirus-task-force-press-conference/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">When you have 15 people, and the 15 within a
couple of days is going to be down to close to zero</span></a>. That’s a pretty good job we’ve done.” (79) In
reality, the States had 60 cases at the time, the number was increasing, and
the real number was far greater but undetected due to the administration’s
failure to get functional test kits out. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The poor communication among officials overseeing the
coronavirus response continued, as “[Health and Human Services Secretary Alex]
Azar didn’t know until late in the afternoon that Vice President Mike Pence
would be <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-says-coronavirus-risk-americans-very-low-administration-effectively-handling-n1143756"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">in control</span></a> of
the process. The HHS secretary was reportedly ‘<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-downplays-risk-places-pence-in-charge-of-coronavirus-outbreak-response/2020/02/26/ab246e94-58b1-11ea-9000-f3cffee23036_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">blindsided</span></a>’
by the news.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In picking Pence to lead the administration's response to the
coronavirus, Trump referred to his vice president as an “expert” and someone
with “a certain talent for this,” though Pence’s reluctance to support needle
exchange and steep cuts to Planned Parenthood (which provides HIV testing in
addition to birth control) as governor of Indiana <a href="https://www.factcheck.org/2020/02/pence-moved-slowly-in-combating-hiv-outbreak/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">had contributed to an HIV outbreak</span></a> there.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">With Pence’s ascension, FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn was
finally brought into the coronavirus committee. For weeks the FDA’s powers to
work with private companies to increase production of test kits, PPE, and other
medical necessities <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-coronavirus-response-squandered-time/2020/03/07/5c47d3d0-5fcb-11ea-9055-5fa12981bbbf_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">had been ignored</span></a> (80).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As of <b>February 27</b>, 2,800 people had died and
82,000 cases had been reported worldwide. <i>Business Insider</i> had <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/trump-defends-cuts-cdc-budget-federal-government-hire-doctors-coronavirus-2020-2-1028946602"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the following headline</span></a>: “Trump defends huge [19%] cuts to the CDC's budget
(81) by saying the government can hire more doctors 'when we need them' during
crises.” Trump responded to criticisms of the budget cuts by saying, "I'm
a businessperson. I don't like having thousands of people around when you don't
need them….When we need them, we can get them back very quickly." </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Despite the increasing gloom, the administration continued
to play pretend. <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?469774-1/hhs-secretary-azar-testifies-presidents-2021-budget-request"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Appearing</span></a> before
the House Ways and Means committee, Alex Azar said, “The immediate risk to
the public remains low” (82) and “It will look and feel to the American people
more like a severe flu season in terms of the interventions and approaches you
will see.” Trump told an audience attending an African American History
Month event at the White House, “It's going to disappear. One day it's <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/28/trump-coronavirus-misleading-claims"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">like a miracle, it will disappear</span></a>.” (83) He also tweeted “Only a very small number in U.S.,
& China numbers look to be going down. All countries working well
together!” (84)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On Friday, <b>February 28</b>, nearly two months after
the administration had first been informed of the coronavirus, NBC <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/after-missteps-cdc-says-its-coronavirus-test-kit-ready-primetime-n1145206"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that
the U.S. had done fewer than 500 tests, even as China had done over 300,000 and
South Korea was doing 10,000 or more/day. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>ProPublica</i> offered one of many
post-mortems to come, highlighting<a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/cdc-coronavirus-covid-19-test"> <span style="color: #3d85c6;">the grave error the
administration had made in bypassing World Health Organization test kits</span></a> which were ready to go (see #49) in favor of CDC test
kits, which weren’t:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The CDC announced on Feb. 14 that surveillance testing
would begin in five key cities, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco
and Seattle. That effort has not yet begun. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Until the middle of this week, only the CDC and the six
state labs — in Illinois, Idaho, Tennessee, California, Nevada and Nebraska —
were testing patients for the virus, according to Peter Kyriacopoulos, APHL’s
senior director of public policy. Now, as many more state and local labs are in
the process of setting up the testing kits, this capacity is expected to
increase rapidly.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“There are other ways to expand the country’s testing
capacity. Beyond the CDC and state labs, hospitals are also able to develop
their own tests for diseases like COVID-19 and internally validate their
effectiveness, with some oversight from the federal Centers for Medicare and
Medicaid Services. But because the CDC declared the virus a public health
emergency, it triggered a set of federal rules that raises the bar for all
tests, including those devised by local hospitals.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“So now, hospitals must validate their tests with the FDA —
even if they copied the CDC protocol exactly. Hospital lab directors say the
FDA validation process is onerous and is wasting precious time when they could
be testing in their local communities.” (85)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As Margaret Hamburg (Obama’s FDA commissioner from
2009-2015) would later tell Olga Khazan of <i>the Atlantic</i>, “<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/03/why-coronavirus-testing-us-so-delayed/607954/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the [FDA] could have proactively reached out
to different national and international labs to see whether their tests could
be approved for use in the U.S.,” but there’s no evidence that they did</span></a> (86), and in fact the FDA “told one Seattle
infectious-disease expert, Helen Chu, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/10/us/coronavirus-testing-delays.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">to stop testing</span></a> for the coronavirus entirely….Chu was not alone.
Dozens of labs in the U.S. were eager to make tests and willing to test
patients, but they were hamstrung by regulations for most of February, even as
the virus crept silently across the nation.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Uncertainty over the virus contributed to the markets
having <a href="https://www.nbcboston.com/news/business/stocks-tumble-on-virus-fears-wall-street-plunge/2083133/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">their worst week</span></a> since the crash of 2008.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Later that night, even as other countries had started social
distancing in response to the virus, Trump put thousands of his supporters at
risk of exposure with a political rally in North Charleston, South Carolina. It
was one of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2020/04/04/coronavirus-government-dysfunction/?arc404=true"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">eight campaign events</span></a> Trump would have after being notified of coronavirus.
(87)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Asked about administration efforts to combat coronavirus before the rally,
Trump told Sinclair Broadcasting, “<a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-interview-sinclair-media-group-eric-bolling-february-28-2020"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">I think it’s really going well</span></a>. We did something very fortunate: we closed up to certain
areas of the world very, very early — far earlier than we were supposed to. I
took a lot of heat for doing it. It turned out to be the right move, and we
only have 15 people and they are getting better, and hopefully they’re all
better. There’s one who is quite sick, but maybe he’s gonna be fine….We’re
prepared for the worst, but we think we’re going to be very
fortunate.” During the rally, Trump accused Democrats of politicizing the
coronavirus and said <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/02/29/at_sc_rally_trump_blames_dems_for_stoking_virus_fears_142533.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">concern over the issue was a “hoax</span></a>.” (88)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump’s chief of staff Nick Mulvaney used the same talking
point that night, telling reporters at the Conservative Political Action
conference, “The reason you're seeing so much attention to it [the
coronavirus] today is [Democrats] think this is going to be what brings down
the president….That's what this is all about….I got a note today from a reporter
saying, 'What are you going to do today to calm the markets?' I'm like, really,
what I might do to calm the markets is tell people to turn their televisions
off for 24 hours.” (89)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The next day, <b>Saturday, February 29</b>, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/29/health/us-coronavirus-saturday/index.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the first American death at the hand of the
coronavirus “hoax” was reported</span></a>. Speaking
in Maryland before the Conservative Political Action Conference, Trump
said “And we've done a great job. And I've gotten to know these professionals.
They're incredible. And everything is under control. I mean, they're very, very
cool. They've done it, and they've done it well. Everything is really under
control.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Appearing on CBS’s “Face the Nation” the next day, <b>Sunday, March 1</b>,
Alex Azar <a href="https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/03/11/fact-check-a-list-of-28-ways-trump-and-his-team-have-been-dishonest-about-the-coronavirus/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">claimed</span></a> that,
“In terms of testing kits, we've already tested over 3,600 people for the
virus. We now have the capability in the field to test 75,000 people, and
within the next week or two we'll have a radical expansion even beyond
that.” Like most of the Trump administration’s public messaging, this was
false. (90) At the time, less than 1,000 tests had been completed. By
comparison, South Korea, a country 1/6th the size of the U.S., which had
discovered the virus within its borders on the same day—January 20—<a href="https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/mar/25/donald-trump/trumps-boast-about-us-south-korea-coronavirus-test/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">had done over 80,000 tests</span></a>. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As of <b>Monday, March 2</b>, U.S. coronavirus deaths
were up to six; globally over 90,000 cases had been reported.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Dr. Matt McCarthy, a physician at New York-Presbyterian,
told CNBC that he still didn’t have any test kits (91): “‘This is not
good. We know that there are 88 cases in the United States. There are going to
be hundreds by the middle of the week. There’s going to be thousands by next
week. And this is a testing issue.’ McCarthy added, ‘<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/02/coronavirus-new-york-city-doctor-has-to-plead-to-test-people.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">They’re testing 10,000 a day in some
countries, and we can’t get this off the ground</span></a>….I’m a practitioner on the firing line, and I don’t have the
tools to properly care for patients today.’”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Dr. Eva Lee, an infectious disease researcher at the Georgia Institute of
Technology, commented in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/us/politics/coronavirus-red-dawn-emails-trump.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a Red Dawn email</span></a> (see <span style="color: red;">W18</span>) with
Trump administration public health officials: “We need actions, actions,
and more actions. We are going to have pockets of epicenters across the
country, West coast, East coast and the South. Our policy leaders must act now.
Please make it happen!”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At a campaign rally the same day in Charleston, North
Carolina, Trump said, “We had a great meeting today with a lot of the great
companies and they’re going to have vaccines, I think relatively soon. And
they’re going to have something that makes you better and that’s going to
actually take place, we think, even sooner.” <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/public-global-health/484702-health-official-says-coronavirus-vaccine-will-take-at"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">This was patently false</span></a> (92), as Dr. Anthony Fauci, the chief medical
expert on the coronavirus task force, had told Trump earlier that day. Fauci
estimated that it would take a year-and-a-half for a vaccine to emerge. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">After solid gains on Monday, the Dow lost 800 points on <b>Tuesday, March
3</b>, bringing it down to 25,917 at day’s close. Speaking to reporters, Trump
continued to minimize the virus, claiming, “There’s only one hot spot, and
that’s also pretty much in a very — in a home, as you know, in a nursing home.”
In fact, the nursing home in Washington state wasn’t the only cluster of known
coronavirus activity, as California and Oregon had both reported areas of
community contagion. (93)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Wednesday, March 4</b>, the death toll in the U.S.
reached ten and New York reported an infected community. Two months after the
administration had been notified of the virus, and six weeks after Michael
Bowen had written Health and Human Services (HHS) officials about the need for
mass production of masks (see #28), HHS <a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/05/07/coronavirus-whistleblower-hhs-n95-ppe/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">finally ordered</span></a> 500 million N95 masks. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Speaking to airline executives at the White House,
Trump <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-vice-president-pence-coronavirus-briefing-airline-ceos/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">continued to downplay the extent of the crisis</span></a>, saying, “Some people will have this at a very light level
and won’t even go to a doctor or hospital, and they’ll get better. There are
many people like that.” (94) He also blamed the Obama administration for the
lag in testing, claiming an Obama regulation had slowed the administration
down, which was false (95).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump’s lies and blame shifting continued in an interview
with Sean Hannity which appeared later that day. Trump <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/04/politics/donald-trump-obama-testing-lamar-alexander/index.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">falsely claimed</span></a> that the Obama administration “didn’t do anything
about” swine flu and that based purely on his intuition, science-based
coronavirus fatality rates were flawed—“I think the 3.4 percent is really a
false number — and this is just my hunch — but based on a lot of conversations
with a lot of people that do this, because a lot of people will have this and
it's very mild, they'll get better very rapidly. They don't even see a doctor.
They don't even call a doctor. You never hear about those people.” (96)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Friday, March 6</b>, reported cases in the U.S.
passed 300 and deaths were up to 17, including the first on the East Coast.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>The Atlantic </i>ran an
article about <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/03/how-many-americans-have-been-tested-coronavirus/607597/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the administration’s failure to get functional
test kits out</span></a> called “The Strongest Evidence
Yet That America Is Botching Coronavirus Testing.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Two months after the Trump administration had first been notified of the
coronavirus and one month after a task force had been formed, only 1,895 tests
could be verified, a fraction of the 10,000-20,000 tests South Korea was
performing daily.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">According to the authors, “The figures we gathered
suggest that the American response to the coronavirus and the disease it
causes, COVID-19, has been shockingly sluggish, especially compared with that
of other developed countries….The net effect of these choices is that the
country’s true capacity for testing has not been made clear to its residents.
(97) This level of obfuscation is unexpected in the United States, which has
long been <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Global_Health_and_the_Future_Role_of_the/aaA4DwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=united+states+leader+public+health+disease+surveillance&printsec=frontcover"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a global leader in public-health transparency</span></a>.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Earlier in the day, Trump had appeared at a signing ceremony
for the Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act, which would
dedicate $8.3 billion to fighting the coronavirus. The funding was more than
three times what the administration had requested (see #63) and yet still a
pittance relative to the scope of the virus, roughly <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/12/18/16791174/republican-tax-bill-congress-conference-tax-policy-center"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">1/235th of the amount Trump spent on his tax
cut, the bulk of which went to the upper 1%</span></a>.
(98)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Many public health officials felt the appropriations came a
month too late (99), shortchanging localities of crucial resources for testing
and personal protective equipment. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At the signing, Trump offered false assurances and minimized
the scope of the public health disaster that he was spending $8.3 billion on,
saying, “And in terms of deaths, I don’t know what the count is today. Is it
eleven? Eleven people? And in terms of cases, it’s very, very few.” (100)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">After the signing, Trump visited CDC headquarters in
Atlanta, where <a href="https://www.inquirer.com/health/coronavirus/trump-coronavirus-test-fact-check-20200312.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">he continued to lie about test kits</span></a>: “Anybody that needs a test can have a test. They are
all set. They have them out there. In addition to that they are making millions
more as we speak but as of right now and yesterday anybody that needs a test
that is the important thing and the test are all perfect like the letter was
perfect.” (101)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Asked about the passengers on the Grand Princess cruise ship
docked in San Francisco who were forced to stay on the ship for the time being,
Trump expressed concern that allowing them onshore, where they would be added
to the number of confirmed cases, would make him look bad: “I would rather
— because I like the numbers being where they are. I don’t need to have the
numbers double because of one ship. That wasn’t our fault, and it wasn’t the
fault of the people on the ship, either. OK? It wasn’t their fault either. And
they’re mostly Americans, so I can live either way with it. I’d rather have
them stay on, personally.” (102)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump also said “I hear the numbers are getting much better
in Italy,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/09/world/coronavirus-news.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">though the country was entering a lockdown</span></a> and would experience two hundred more deaths over the
weekend to come.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Saturday, March 7</b>, <i>Politico</i> led
with “<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/07/trump-coronavirus-management-style-123465"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump's mismanagement helped fuel coronavirus
crisis</span></a>,” an in-depth feature by Dan
Diamond exploring the impact of the Trump administration’s internal
dysfunctions on their crisis management response.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Diamond’s <span style="background: white;">exposé </span>revealed
that Mike Pence and other administration officials had wanted to evacuate the
Grand Princess cruise ship in order to keep the passengers who didn’t have
coronavirus from getting it from those who did, but that Trump had overruled
his advisors because he didn’t want the number of reported cases to increase.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The article stated that “As the outbreak has grown, Trump
has become attached to the daily count of coronavirus cases and how the United
States compares to other nations, reiterating that he wants the U.S. numbers
kept as low as possible. Health officials have found explicit ways to oblige
him by highlighting the most optimistic outcomes in briefings (103), and their
agencies have tamped down on promised transparency. The CDC has stopped
detailing how many people in the country have been tested for the virus (104),
and its <a href="http://cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-in-us.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">online dashboard</span></a> is running well behind the number of U.S. cases <a href="https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">tracked</span></a> by
Johns Hopkins and even lags the European Union’s <a href="https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/geographical-distribution-2019-ncov-cases"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">own estimate</span></a> of
U.S. cases.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The article confirmed that onerous regulations and Trump’s
lack of policy engagement (see #2) were key elements in the test delays and
that “Trump’s aides discouraged [HHS Secretary Alex] Azar from briefing the
president about the coronavirus threat back in January” because Trump “rewards
those underlings who tell him what he wants to hear while shunning those who
deliver bad news.” (see #58)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…The pressure to earn Trump’s approval can be a distraction
at best and an obsession at worst: Azar, having just survived a bruising clash
with a deputy [Seema Verma, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
Services] and sensing that his job was on the line, spent part of January
making appearances on conservative TV outlets and taking other steps to shore
up his anti-abortion bona fides and win approval from the president, even as
the global coronavirus outbreak grew stronger.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Around the same time, Azar had concluded that the new
coronavirus posed a public health risk and tried to share an urgent message
with the president: The potential outbreak could leave tens of thousands of
Americans sickened and many dead.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The jockeying for Trump’s favor was part of the cause of
Azar’s destructive feud with Verma, as the two tried to box each other out of events
touting Trump initiatives. Now, officials including Azar, Verma and other
senior leaders are forced to spend time shoring up their positions with the
president and his deputies at a moment when they should be focused on a shared
goal: stopping a potential pandemic. (105)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“‘The boss has made it clear, he likes to see his people
fight, and he wants the news to be good,’ said one adviser to a senior
health official involved in the coronavirus response. ‘This is the world
he’s made.’” (106)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The closing paragraph read “‘If this sort of dysfunction
exists as part of the everyday operations—then, yes, during a true crisis the
problems are magnified and exacerbated,’ said a former Trump HHS official. ‘And
with extremely detrimental consequences.’”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The following day, <b>March 8, </b>as
international cases had passed 100,000 and the importance of social distancing
was becoming increasingly obvious, HUD secretary Ben Carson was asked by ABC’s
George Stephanopoulos about the advisability of Trump holding rallies where
thousands of people were crammed together. Carson, a neurosurgeon who knew
better, <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/week-transcript-20-sen-bernie-sanders-dr-ben/story?id=69465733"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">chose Trump’s favored talking point over
public safety</span></a>: “…going to a rally, if
you’re a healthy individual and you’re taking the precautions that have been
placed out there, there's no reason that you shouldn't go. However, if you
belong to one of those categories of high risk, obviously, you need to think
twice about that.” (107)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As of <b>Monday, March 9</b>, the official tally in the U.S. was over 700
infections and 26 deaths. The Dow lost 2,000 points that day, <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/us-markets-march-9-2020"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the biggest one-day loss in history</span></a>. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Former Republican senator and governor <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/486533-judd-gregg-trump-sails-into-the-perfect-political-storm"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Judd Gregg offered a sober appraisal</span></a> of Trump’s handling of the coronavirus:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The budget he recently submitted to Congress savaged the
BioShield account (108). This is the program that was set up after the SARS
epidemic and anthrax events well over a decade ago to allow the federal
government to fund research on pharmaceutical responses to biological attacks
or a pandemic outbreak.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The program was needed because this type of research is
extremely expensive and has little commercial upside. The drugs developed are
unique and narrowly targeted.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Thus, in order to get this research up and running, Congress
and the prior administrations created the program. In this instance, Congress
actually anticipated a serious issue and began addressing it effectively.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“But the president and his people got it wrong. In their
usual naive and uninformed style, they have tried to eviscerate the program.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“This action came in the face of significant warnings from
the intelligence community that a biological attack is one of the primary
threats we face from terrorists. And now we know a pandemic is also a primary
threat.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Gregg’s key takeaway: “The president and his people
also have an abysmal track record when it comes to preparing for pandemics.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">While the virus spread undetected, testing continued to move
at a glacial pace, and the Dow was in free fall, Trump kept busy attacking
imagined foes on Twitter.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">One tweet read “This is your daily reminder that it took
Barack Obama until October of 2009 to declare Swine Flu a National Health
Emergency. It began in April of ’09 but Obama waited until 20,000 people in the
US had been hospitalized & 1,000+ had died. Where was the media hysteria
then?” In actuality, Obama had declared a public health emergency <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/news/2009/04/26/press-briefing-swine-influenza"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">two days</span></a> after
the first swine flu death (109).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A second tweet read “The Fake News Media and their partner,
the Democrat Party, is doing everything within its semi-considerable power (it
used to be greater!) to inflame the CoronaVirus situation, far beyond what the
facts would warrant. Surgeon General, ‘The risk is low to the average
American.’” (110)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump also tweeted his mistaken talking point about
coronavirus being akin to the flu, not for the first time: “So last year
37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and
70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on. At this
moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think
about that!” (111)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">By <b>Tuesday, March 10</b>, over 113,000 coronavirus
cases had been reported globally and more than 4,000 people had died.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At a hearing about Trump’s 2021 budget proposal, Russ
Vought, the administration’s director of the Office of Management and Budget
(OMB), <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/finance/486817-trump-budget-chief-holds-firm-on-cdc-cuts-amid-virus-outbreak"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">defended a 15% proposed cut to the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention</span></a> (112)
and a steep cut to the annual contribution to the Infectious Diseases Rapid
Response Reserve Fund. (113)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">More administration failures were uncovered by David Lim
and Brianna Ehley of <i>Politico</i> with <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/10/coronavirus-testing-lab-materials-shortage-125212"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a big scoop</span></a> titled
“U.S. coronavirus testing threatened by shortage of critical lab materials.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The piece detailed how a shortage of lab materials (114) was exacerbating
America’s already-slow pace of testing, thereby jeopardizing public safety
(115) by keeping public health officials from having accurate data about the
number of cases and the areas with high concentration.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The article pointed out that seven weeks after the first
case was discovered in the U.S., just over 5,000 people had been tested, though
“HHS Secretary Alex Azar had told lawmakers [one week earlier] that U.S. labs’
capacity could grow to 10,000-20,000 people per day by the end of the week.”
(116)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">All evidence to the contrary (see #1-#116), Donald Trump
continued to blame his predecessor and pitch the case that his administration
was doing a good job of crisis management. During a briefing at the capital, Trump
said, “As you know, it’s about 600 cases, it’s about 26 deaths, within our
country. And had we not acted quickly, that number would have been
substantially more.” He added that “…I think the U.S. has done a very good job
on testing. We had to change things that were done that were nobody’s fault,
perhaps, they wanted to do something a different way, but it was a much slower
process from a previous administration and we did change them.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The next day, <b>Wednesday, March 11</b>, the U.S. had
over 1,000 reported cases and 32 deaths. The World Health Organization (WHO)
declared the coronavirus a pandemic. The Dow lost over 1,000 points for the
second time in three days, ending at 23,553. The National Basketball
Association suspended its season.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">CNN.com posted <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/12/us/coronavirus-testing-problems-nationwide-invs/index.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">an investigative piece</span></a> entitled “Confusion over the availability and criteria
for coronavirus testing is leaving sick people wondering if they're infected.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The article noted that though Mike Pence had recently said on CNN’s “New Day”
that anyone with a doctor’s order could get a test, this was not the case in
practice, as the U.S. was woefully unprepared to provide tests on this scale.
(117)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">People were also not getting tests due to strict CDC
criteria: “In order to be prioritized for testing, the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention advises that one must have a fever, cough or difficulty
breathing as well as have been in close contact with a person known to have
coronavirus. Or, they had to ‘have a history of travel from affected geographic
areas within 14 days of their symptom onset.’”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As the article noted, “only 11,079 specimens [have] been
tested in the U.S., paling in comparison to the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/12/asia/coronavirus-south-korea-testing-intl-hnk/index.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">more than 230,000 people</span></a> tested in South Korea, which has about one sixth the
US population.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Dr. Rod Hochman, the CEO of Providence St. Joseph Health,
told <i>Politico</i>, “Testing is so critically important because it
helps us as clinicians figure out the extent of the spread. It has implications
for how we care for patients and where we put them….It's unraveling the
detective story of how the virus spreads but we are trying to do it now with no
data.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On Rachel Maddow’s show that evening, Ron Klain, who had
been Obama’s Ebola czar (see #39, #41), pointed out that one of the Trump
administration’s biggest mistakes was to privatize testing. <a href="https://buzzflash.com/articles/privatization-may-be-killing-us-mystery-of-why-the-trump-administration-still-hasnt-sent-out-promised-million-cv-tests-as-delay-is-facilitating-transmission-of-the-virus-by-undetected-carriers"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">As related</span></a> by
journalist Thom Hartmann, “Instead of taking the World Health Organization
(WHO) test kits which are cheap and widely available all over the planet, and
having them distributed across the country back in December, or January, or
February when we knew this disease was spreading in the United States, Klain
said that Trump has outsourced the testing to two big American companies, Quest
and Labcorp.” (see #49)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump’s public appearances on Wednesday didn’t inspire
confidence. During a press conference with Ireland’s prime minister, Trump
again minimized the threat by saying, “It goes away….It’s going away. We want
it to go away with very, very few deaths.” (118)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Though the virus was supposedly going away, Wednesday’s
1,000-point drop in the Dow convinced Trump to address the nation in a
prime-time speech that was <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-coronavirus-teleprompter-speech/2020/03/12/81bc8a3a-647a-11ea-acca-80c22bbee96f_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">roundly panned</span></a>. Again he minimized the threat (claiming coronavirus had a
“very, very low risk” for most Americans, 119), cast blame on China and Europe
for having the disease before the U.S., gave confusing information while
ad-libbing that contradicted administration policy (120), and again lied about
the slow pace of testing when he said, “Testing and testing capabilities are
expanding rapidly, day by day. We are moving very quickly.” The address was
meant to reassure the American public and stabilize the markets, but Trump’s
ill-prepared speech <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/12/investing/premarket-stocks-trading/index.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">sent stock futures tumbling in real time</span></a>.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Republican journalist and former W. Bush speechwriter David
Frum <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/trump-ensuring-worst-possible-outcome-coronavirus-crisis/607867/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">predicted the future with uncanny precision</span></a>:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“More people will get sick because of his presidency than if
somebody else were in charge. More people will suffer the financial hardship of
sickness because of his presidency than if somebody else were in charge. The
medical crisis will arrive faster and last longer than if somebody else were in
charge. So, too, the economic crisis. More people will lose their jobs than if
somebody else were in charge. More businesses will be pushed into bankruptcy
than if somebody else were in charge. More savers will lose more savings than
if somebody else were in charge. The damage to America’s global leadership will
be greater than if somebody else were in charge.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Thursday, March 12</b>, the day after Trump’s
prime time address meant to reassure the nation and calm the stock market, the
Dow Jones lost almost 1,000 points, ending at 21,200.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In an email thread with Tom Bossert, Trump's former homeland security adviser
(see #12), James Lawler (director of Clinical and Bio-defense Research at
the National Strategic Research Institute) said, “We are making every
misstep leaders initially made in [simulations] at the outset of pandemic
planning in 2006. We had systematically addressed all of these and had a plan
that would work—and has worked in Hong Kong/Singapore. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/us/politics/coronavirus-trump-response.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">We have thrown 15 years of institutional
learning out the window</span></a> and
are making decisions based on intuition. Pilots can tell you what happens when
a crew makes decisions based on intuition rather than what their instruments
are telling them.” (121)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The most glaring of the Trump administration’s failures was
its inability to get test kits out. Even Republicans were starting to
grumble, <a href="https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/In-Congress-bipartisan-complaints-to-Trump-15126672.php"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">as detailed in</span></a> “Testing lag ignites political uproar as Trump insists
process is very smooth.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Cutting against Trump’s consistently self-serving narrative,
Anthony Fauci, Trump’s key coronavirus advisor, said, “The system is not geared
toward what we need right now, what you are asking for….<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/it-failing-let-s-admit-it-fauci-says-coronavirus-testing-n1157036"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">It is a failing. Let’s admit it</span></a>.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The piece pointed out that more than two months after the
administration first became aware of the virus, “only about 11,000 people have
been tested, according to figures shared with members of Congress on Thursday.
According to statistics compiled by the American Enterprise Institute,
nationwide capacity to process the test kits being distributed has so far
ramped up only to about 20,000 people per day - meaning it could be weeks
before any tested patient gets results.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Lawmakers of both parties reached for the same touchstone -
South Korea, which has managed to treat hundreds of thousands of its people, allowing
it to avoid the rapid spread seen in China, Italy and other countries….‘South
Korea is able to process tests in an hour, and in the U.S. it takes more than
two days - that's not adequate,’ said Ben Sasse, a Republican senator from
Nebraska.” The article pointed out that South Korea tests in a single day the
number of people the U.S. has tested in over two months, with drive-up exams
which aren’t possible in the U.S. due to strict testing guidelines. (122)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Burdensome and deadly regulations were further discussed
at <i>ProPublica</i>, which revealed that an FDA directive “requires that
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a sister agency, re-test every
positive coronavirus test run by a public health lab to confirm its accuracy.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The result, experts say, is <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/cdc-coronavirus-covid-19-test"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">wasting limited resources at a time when
thousands of Americans are waiting in line to get tested for COVID-19</span></a>.” (123)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Duplicate tests were just one element of a failed operation. <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/03/12/814881355/white-house-knew-coronavirus-would-be-a-major-threat-but-response-fell-short"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">The Trump administration’s key mistakes</span></a> were summarized by <i>Politico</i> reporter
Dan Diamond in an interview with NPR’s Terry Gross:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The Trump administration and health officials knew back in
January that this coronavirus was going to be a major threat. They knew that
tests needed to be distributed across the country to understand where there
might be outbreaks. But across the month of February, as my colleague David Lim
at Politico first reported, the tests that they sent out to labs across the
country simply did not work. They were coming back with errors.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The CDC, the Centers for Disease Control, recognized that
and promised that new tests would be distributed soon. But one day turned into
two days turned into three days turned into several weeks, and in the meantime,
we know now coronavirus was silently spreading in different communities, like
Seattle. By the time that the Trump administration made a decision to allow new
tests to be developed by hospitals by clinical laboratories, it was a step that
was seen as multiple weeks late.” (124)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…I don't use this word lightly, Terry, but I'd say that
this testing failure and the broader response to the coronavirus has been a
catastrophe.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…the Trump administration failed to plan for this moment.
There were leadership failures, like failing to think through the implications
of not having a testing strategy in place. (125) There were leadership failures
in allowing feuds to fester for months and months that - in the middle of a
crisis, those cracks have widened and caused delays in making simple decisions.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“He cut funding for a program that predicted when viruses
could jump from animals to humans basically around the same time that this new
coronavirus appears to have jumped from animals to humans in China.” (see
#22)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Amid the disaster unfolding all around and because of him,
Trump continued to lie to the American public. Asked about the lack of testing
at a White House briefing, Trump said, “over the next few days, they're
going to have four million tests out” and “Frankly, the testing has been going
very smooth….If you go to the right agency, if you go to the right area, you
get the test." </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">He even found a way to brag about the administration’s
response:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“It’s going to go away….The United States, because of what I
did and what the administration did with China, we have 32 deaths at this
point…when you look at the kind of numbers that you’re seeing coming out of
other countries, it’s pretty amazing when you think of it.” (126)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><span style="color: blue; font-size: medium;">March 13, 2020-late April 16, 2020</span></b><span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><span><span>The third longest economic expansion in the last
160 years dies on Trump’s watch. Trump signs the CARES Act and reluctantly
agrees with short-term shutdowns. The administration refuses to marshal federal
resources to remotely the scale necessary, leaving most states (especially blue
states) to fight among themselves for overpriced PPE and ventilators. Jared
Kushner works on a national testing and tracing plan, but abandons it. Sensing
that the pandemic will present a health risk for in-person voting, Trump starts
to attack mail balloting in hopes that vote suppression will help him win a
second term.</span></span><span> </span></i><i><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Friday the 13th</b> was
again all about the test kits. Where were they?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Raw Story</i> reported
that <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/2020/03/were-weeks-into-this-cnn-reporter-crushes-trump-for-just-now-appointing-coronavirus-testing-czar/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the Trump Administration’s Health and Human
Services agency had finally named a testing czar—ten weeks after being notified
of the virus</span></a>. (127)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Caitlin Owens of<i> Axios</i> pointed out that “<a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-testing-labs-delay-a3868ece-a2e5-4ed2-8822-44d20c73774d.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">less than a dozen academic labs” were doing
tests because of strict administration guidelines</span></a>. Medical directors discussed how their requests to test had
been delayed or denied until it was too late. (128)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-51836898"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">According to</span></a> the
BBC, testing capacity in the U.S. was just 22,000 people/day while South Korea,
which is 1/6th the size of the U.S., was testing up to 20,000 people/day. And
the 22,000 projection was very optimistic, according to Andy Slavitt, Barack
Obama’s acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services,
who <a href="https://twitter.com/ASlavitt/status/1238304906219528192"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">tweeted</span></a>,
“We can at best do 10,000 tests/day. We should be able to do millions” and “All
of this could have been ramped up and solved in January & February and right
now we would be talking about containment.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>The Atlantic </i>reported
that <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/03/why-coronavirus-testing-us-so-delayed/607954/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">less than 14,000 tests had been done in the
ten weeks since the administration had first been notified of the virus</span></a>, though Mike Pence had promised the week prior that 1.5
million tests would be available by this time.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The article’s key takeaway?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Getting out lots of tests for a new disease is a major
logistical and scientific challenge, but it can be pulled off with the help of
highly efficient, effective government leadership. In this case, such
leadership didn’t appear to exist.” (129)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Speaking to one of the prime causes of that failure in
leadership, Beth Cameron, who ran Obama’s pandemic office in the National
Security Council, explained <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/nsc-pandemic-office-trump-closed/2020/03/13/a70de09c-6491-11ea-acca-80c22bbee96f_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the disastrous operational vacuum caused by
John Bolton’s closing of the Global Security Office</span> (</a>see
#17): “In a health security crisis, speed is essential. When this new
coronavirus emerged, there was no clear White House-led structure to oversee
our response, and we lost valuable time.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…The job of a White House pandemics office would have been
to get ahead: to accelerate the response, empower experts, anticipate failures,
and act quickly and transparently to solve problems.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Our team reported to a senior-level response coordinator on
the National Security Council staff who could rally the government at the
highest levels, as well as to the national security adviser and the homeland
security adviser. This high-level domestic and global reporting structure
wasn’t an accident. It was a recognition that epidemics know no borders and
that a serious, fast response is crucial.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“A directorate within the White House would have been
responsible for coordinating the efforts of multiple federal agencies to make
sure the government was backstopping testing capacity, devising approaches to
manufacture and avoid shortages of personal protective equipment, strengthening
U.S. lab capacity to process covid-19 tests, and expanding the health-care
workforce. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The office would galvanize resources <a href="https://www.nti.org/analysis/atomic-pulse/united-states-must-lead-fight-against-coronavirus/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">to coordinate a robust and seamless</span></a> domestic and global response. It would identify needs
among state and local officials, and advise and facilitate regular, focused
communication from federal health and scientific experts to provide states and
the public with fact-based tools to minimize the virus’s spread. The White
House is uniquely positioned to take into account broader U.S. and global
security considerations associated with health emergencies, including their
impact on deployed citizens, troops and regional economies, as well as peace
and stability. A White House office would have been able to elevate urgent
issues fast, so they didn’t linger or devolve to inaction, as with coronavirus
testing in the United States.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security director,
piggybacked on these criticisms with a look at <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/white-house-set-fail/607960/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the culture of mis-governance Trump bred and
embodied</span></a>, and Trump’s fixation on his 2020
campaign to the exclusion of all else:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“As the first COVID-19 cases began to spread with alarming
speed and lethality in China, President Trump evidently did not choose to make
the issue a priority. Based on his public comments and Twitter feed, the
incoming information that consumed his attention was more likely to come from
cable television or political gossip than deep inside his intelligence
briefings. (130) Presumably, he also had a certain view of what he’d be doing
in early 2020—chiefly, preparing the ground for his reelection campaign—and
veering off course to prepare for a pandemic would have undermined those
plans. A simple presidential communication of interest in a subject
can set the government in motion, but in this case, that signal apparently
never came.” (131)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…Instead of seeing U.S. government expertise as a resource,
Trump has routinely derided career experts as “deep state” operatives,
insufficiently loyal to him and his agenda. (132) Well into the COVID-19
outbreak, he said things such as ‘A lot of people think that it goes away in
April with the heat,’ or ‘This is a flu.’ I doubt that any government expert
would suggest that Trump say those things. The statements, instead, suggest a
president either making things up or cherry-picking things he’s heard from
non-experts to offer false reassurance to the public.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…By constantly trying to get himself through the news cycle,
Trump has done irreparable damage to the long-term objective of ensuring that
he’s a credible voice on the COVID-19 crisis.” (133)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That night, as the administration got ready to <a href="https://www.vox.com/identities/2020/3/13/21178257/trump-administration-food-stamps-coronavirus-economy"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">take food stamps away from 700,000 Americans
in the middle of a pandemic</span></a> (134),
a 1,000-point loss in the Dow prompted Trump to finally declare a national
emergency. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At a press conference announcing the news, Trump failed to model coronavirus
safety protocols, <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/investigations/2020/04/09/instead-prepping-coronavirus-trump-partied-golfed-held-fundraisers/2941076001/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">as he had done all week</span></a>, shaking hands and standing cheek-by-jowl with other
administration officials (135). Trump also made a <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/3/15/21180518/coronavirus-google-verily-website-testing-trump"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">false claim</span></a> about
Google constructing a testing center and, reality aside, claimed that “the
administration expects 1.4 million tests in the next week and 5 million within
the month.” (<i>ten </i>days later, less than 300,000 tests would be
completed; <i>one month</i> later, <a href="https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">less than three million</span></a> would be completed, 136)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Asked if he took responsibility for the lag in testing,
Trump said, “<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-vice-president-pence-members-coronavirus-task-force-press-conference-3/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">I don't take responsibility at all</span></a> because we were given a set of circumstances, and we
were given rules, regulations, and specifications from a different time that
wasn't meant for this kind of an event with the kind of numbers that we're
talking about.” (137) </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Asked by PBS reporter Yamiche Alcindor how he could say he
had no responsibility for the testing failures despite his appointee’s
elimination of the Global Security Office (see #17), <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2020/mar/13/coronavirus-trump-slams-reporter-for-nasty-question-over-pandemic-response-team-video"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump again ducked responsibility</span></a>, saying “That’s a nasty question…When you say me, I didn’t
do it. We have a group of people [in the administration].” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That night, after stocks rebounded on news of the
declaration, Trump “sent a note to supporters that included a chart showing the
Dow Jones Industrial Average dramatically rising roughly at the time he <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/13/politics/donald-trump-emergency/index.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">began a news conference declaring a national
emergency over coronavirus</span>.</a> The President signed the chart.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/13/politics/trump-stock-market-gains-signed-photo/index.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">chart</span></a> were
the words “<span style="background: white; color: #222222;">'</span>The President
would like to share the attached image with you, and passes along the following
message: From opening of press conference, biggest day in stock market
history!'” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Peter Wehner, a conservative Republican who had served under
multiple Republican administrations, summed up the historical moment in
an <i>Atlantic</i> post: “…<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/peter-wehner-trump-presidency-over/607969/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the president and his administration are
responsible for grave, costly errors</span></a>,
most especially the epic manufacturing failures in diagnostic testing, the
decision to test too few people, the delay in expanding testing to labs outside
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and problems in the supply
chain. (138) These mistakes have left us blind and badly behind the curve, and,
for a few crucial weeks, they created a false sense of security. What we now
know is that the coronavirus silently spread for several weeks, without us
being aware of it and while we were doing nothing to stop it. Containment and
mitigation efforts could have significantly slowed its spread at an early,
critical point, but we frittered away that opportunity.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Saturday, March 14</b>, in “From complacency to
emergency: How Trump changed course on coronavirus,” Gary Orr and Nancy Cook
of <i>Politico</i> <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/14/how-trump-changed-course-on-coronavirus-129528"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> on
Donald Trump’s 180-degree turn. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Just three days before he declared a national emergency, Trump had said the
coronavirus “will go away” and that his administration’s “response was ‘really
working out.’” In fact, Trump’s indifference to the crisis had forced city and
state leaders to step up before a federal response of any kind had taken shape.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Though he was purportedly now focused on helping the
American people get through an economic crisis, Trump continued to
advocate <a href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/coronavirus-payroll-tax-cut-trump-economics-skepticism"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a payroll tax cut</span></a> which would steal revenue from Social Security and
Medicare and give more money in real dollars to the wealthy and upper-middle
class, doing little for the people who needed the money most. (139)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The following <b>Monday, March 16</b>, <i>the
Washington Post</i> led with, “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/03/16/cdc-who-coronavirus-tests/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">How U.S. coronavirus testing stalled</span></a>: Flawed tests, red tape and resistance to using the
millions of tests produced by the WHO.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The key stat-line in the piece was that “From mid-January
until Feb. 28, fewer than 4,000 tests from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention were used out of more than 160,000 produced.” (140)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The CDC had come up with a test quickly, by January 17, but
“From there…U.S. efforts fell quickly behind, especially when compared with the
efforts of the [World Health Organization], which has distributed more than 1
million tests to countries around the world based in part on the method
developed by the German researchers….As early as Feb. 6, four weeks after the
genome of the virus was published, the WHO had shipped 250,000 diagnostic tests
to 70 laboratories around the world.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“By comparison, the CDC at that time was shipping about
160,000 tests to labs across the nation — but then the manufacturing troubles
were discovered, and most would be deemed unusable because they produced confusing
results. Over the next three weeks, only about 200 of those tests sent to labs
would be used.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…U.S. efforts to distribute a working test stalled until
Feb. 28, when federal officials <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/02/27/coronavirus-testing-california/?tid=lk_inline_manual_40&itid=lk_inline_manual_40"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">revised the CDC test</span></a><span style="color: #3d85c6;"> </span>and
began loosening up <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/02/29/new-fda-policy-will-expand-coronavirus-testing/?tid=lk_inline_manual_40&itid=lk_inline_manual_40"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">FDA rules</span> </a>that had limited who could develop coronavirus diagnostic
tests.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Due to the flawed test kits and CDC regulations, as of
February 21, “Health officials across the country began pleading for a test
that worked, or at least the authorization to use another test.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Interviewed for the article was Alex Greninger of the
University of Washington. “His lab had developed its own test and began seeking
approval to use it on patients on Feb. 18. But that test, along with others
that had been developed in various academic centers and hospitals, could not be
used on patients until the FDA relaxed its testing rules.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“[Greninger] noted that many of the state public health labs
had also figured out how to use the CDC test properly — by tossing one of its
components — but were not allowed to actually do so until the FDA approved the
workaround that same day.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“We had all these state public health labs that had a
perfectly good [test] on their hands, and they knew it, they were upset,”
Greninger said.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…As late as Feb. 27, only 203 specimen tests had been run
out of state labs; another 3,125 had been run out of the CDC.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Even as earlier stumbling blocks to mass testing had been
overcome, new hurdles that had been overlooked by the administration (141) were
appearing, as <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/16/coronavirus-testing-glitch-cotton-swabs-132692"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;">reported</span></a> by
David Lim of <i>Politico</i>:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> “A potential shortage of cotton swabs and other basic
supplies needed for coronavirus testing is emerging as a new threat to the
Trump administration’s plans to roll out high-volume testing to 2,000 sites
across the country by the end of the week.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…The materials in question include swabs that medical
workers use to collect samples of patients’ phlegm and saliva for testing, and
disposable plastic tips for the pipettes that lab technicians use to transfer
liquids. Testing labs say they’re also concerned about the availability of
personal protective equipment for their staff.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Asked at a press conference that day how he’d rate his
response to the crisis, Trump said, “I’d rate it a ten,” part of a pattern
of <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/trump/you-should-be-saying-congratulations-here-are-116-times-trump-has-praised-his-own-coronavirus-response/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">over 100 self-congratulatory remarks</span></a> he would make throughout his upcoming press
briefings. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The following day, <b>Tuesday, March 17</b>, <i>the
Washington Post</i> published an <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/covid-19-hits-doctors-nurses-emts-threatening-health-system/2020/03/17/f21147e8-67aa-11ea-b313-df458622c2cc_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">article</span></a> about
another disastrous facet of the pandemic which the administration had failed to
prepare for: “Covid-19 hits doctors, nurses and EMTs, threatening health
system.” (142)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In addition to the concern about hospital overcrowding and a
lack of beds, the virus was now threatening the health and lives of the
clinicians tasked with administering to the sick, putting yet another strain on
the system:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Dozens of health-care workers have fallen ill with
covid-19, and more are quarantined after exposure to the virus, an expected but
worrisome development as the U.S. health system girds for an anticipated surge
in infections.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“From hotspots such as the Kirkland, Wash., <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/nursing-home-with-the-biggest-cluster-of-covid-19-deaths-to-date-in-the-us-thought-it-was-facing-an-influenza-outbreak-a-spokesman-says/2020/03/16/c256b0ee-6460-11ea-845d-e35b0234b136_story.html?tid=lk_inline_manual_3&itid=lk_inline_manual_3" title="www.washingtonpost.com"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">nursing home</span></a> where nearly four dozen staffers tested positive for
the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/02/28/what-you-need-know-about-coronavirus/?tid=lk_inline_manual_3&itid=lk_inline_manual_3"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">coronavirus</span></a>,
to outbreaks in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, California and elsewhere, the
virus is picking off doctors, nurses and others needed in the rapidly expanding
crisis.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“They have been put at risk in the United States not only by
the nature of their jobs, but by shortages of protective equipment such as N95
face masks (143) and government bungling of the testing program, which was
delayed for weeks while the virus spread around the country undetected.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Because testing has lagged, health-care workers often have
no way to know whether people walking through the door with respiratory
symptoms are suffering from the flu or covid-19, providers said. Even when
precautions are taken, the virus has found its way into health-care
facilities.” (144)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As clinicians in the trenches struggled with shortages of
protective gear, swabs, and their own illnesses thanks to Trump’s indifference
to the virus for ten weeks, Trump <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/us/politics/trump-coronavirus.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">said</span></a><span style="color: #3d85c6;"> </span>at a press conference, “This is a
pandemic…I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.” One
week earlier he had said that the coronavirus “will go away.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Though the president had changed his tune, many of his
followers still thought the virus was a hoax (see #88). After two months in
which Trump had minimized and dismissed the seriousness of the virus with a
steady stream of propaganda, polling showed that 79% of Democrats understood
that “the worst is yet to come,” while <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/me-worry-coronavirus-it-depends-your-politics-n1160256"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">only 40% of Republicans grasped the obvious</span></a>, a level of ignorance which would lead to a lack of
compliance with public safety guidelines and a major spread in infections in
the ensuing months. (145) Despite Trump’s numerous failures to protect the
public from the virus (#1-#145), 81% of Republicans approved of Trump’s
management of the crisis. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Wednesday, March 18</b>, <i>New York</i> magazine’s
Jonathan Chait discussed <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/03/coronavirus-surge-hospitals-trump-beds-respirators-ventilators-fema-cdc.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">imminent, devastating human consequences</span></a> which could have been significantly reduced with
proper planning in “The Hospital Deluge Is Coming. Washington Has Done Almost
Nothing to Prepare.” His opening paragraph summarized why America found itself
in such a disastrous situation: </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The most efficient first step would have been to prevent
the coronavirus pandemic from spreading in the first place. As many
reports have widely documented, that first step never took place because the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention failed to deploy an effective
coronavirus test. ‘This is such a rapidly moving infection that losing a few
days is bad, and losing a couple of weeks is terrible,’ Ashish Jha, director of
the Harvard Global Health Institute, tells <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-17/coronavirus-testing-shortage-u-s-called-private-sector-too-late"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;">Bloomberg News</span></a>. ‘Losing 2 months is close to disastrous, and that’s what
we did.’</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The loss of those two months deprived the government of any
chance to prevent the pandemic from sweeping across the entire country.
Officials have been forced into reaction mode (146), deploying blunt measures
of closing public spaces to try to slow down the spread. Even so, it is highly
likely that, within a few weeks, the number of infected patients will exceed
the capacity of the hospital system to treat them.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Washington has had weeks and weeks to prepare for this
surge. The three most obvious and foreseeable shortages are hospital beds
(147), respirator masks to protect medical staff (148), and ventilators (the
machines that are needed to pump air into the lungs of patients with the most
serious coronavirus symptoms). (149)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“You would think the government would have spent the last
two months scrambling to produce more of all three. There is no evidence this
has happened, and a great deal of evidence it has not.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The answer to the supply shortage was clear: Trump
needed to invoke the Defense Production Act, which would marshal the resources
of the federal government to mass-produce the medical supplies needed by
American hospitals. Fifty-seven House Democrats had sent <a href="https://andylevin.house.gov/media/press-releases/57-house-members-urge-president-invoke-defense-production-act-authority"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">an open letter</span></a> to Trump on March 13, asking him to trigger the act.
Though the situation was clearly about to become desperate, Trump told a
reporter, “Well, we’re able to do that if we have to. Right now, we haven’t had
to, but it’s certainly ready. If I want it, we can do it very quickly. We’ve
studied it very closely over two weeks ago, actually. We’ll make that decision
pretty quickly if we need it. We hope we don’t need it. It’s a big step.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The scale of the administration’s negligence to help prepare
states and localities was laid out with grim statistics: </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Oregon <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/11JLocjh05rPY-1cUnr2X4KSuHDYWHZKD/view"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">sent a letter</span></a> to Vice President Mike Pence on March 3 asking for 400,000
N95 masks. For days, it got no response, and only by March 14 received its
first shipment, of 36,800 masks. But there was a problem. Most of the equipment
they got was well past the expiration date and so ‘wouldn’t be suitable for
surgical settings,’ the state said. (150)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“New York City also put in a request for more than 2 million
masks and only received 76,000; all were expired, said Deanne Criswell, New
York City’s emergency management commissioner.” (151)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Over at <i>Axios, </i>Bob Herman<i> </i><a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-hospital-bed-crunch-capacity-18e22c81-006b-4654-a74c-40ff86488431.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">focused</span></a> on
just one aspect of the coming shortage in “No part of the U.S. has enough
hospital beds for a coronavirus crisis.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Herman reported that, “Every corner of the U.S. is at risk
for a severe shortage of hospital beds as the coronavirus outbreak worsens.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…Why it matters: Total nationwide capacity for health
care supplies doesn't always matter, because hospitals in one area can help out
neighboring systems when they're overwhelmed by a crisis. But these projections
indicate that won't be an option with the coronavirus — everybody will be hurting
at the same time. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“By the numbers: Harvard's projections show if 50% of
all currently occupied hospital beds were emptied and sizable percentages of
Americans were infected, the country would need at least three times more beds
to care for everyone.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Those models line up with James Lawler, an infectious
disease doctor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center who forecasted in a
recent presentation to hospital insiders that the U.S. may eventually have as
many as 96 million cases, resulting in
4.8 million hospitalizations. He told Axios he stands by those
projections.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The U.S. has <a href="https://www.aha.org/statistics/fast-facts-us-hospitals"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">924,000</span></a> total
hospital beds, or less than three beds for every 1,000 people. Roughly 5% of those
beds are in standard intensive care units, where the sickest coronavirus
patients would need to go.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Due to the expected shortage in hospital beds, medical
facilities were delaying heart surgeries, “slow-growing or early-stage
cancers,” and cancer screenings such as mammograms and colonoscopies (152,
153, 154).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Thursday March 19</b>, as the full scale of the
disaster was coming into clearer focus, <i>the New York Times</i> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/19/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-outbreak.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">documented the Trump administration’s failures</span></a> to act on information that was readily available in
“Coronavirus Outbreak: A Cascade of Warnings, Heard but Unheeded.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The piece revealed that Trump’s Health and Human Services
department had run a series of simulations (called “Crimson Contagion”) about
responding to a hypothetical respiratory virus from China from January to
August of 2019. The simulations “drove home just how underfunded, underprepared
and uncoordinated the federal government would be for a life-or-death battle
with a virus for which no treatment existed.” (<span style="color: red;">W25</span>)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Further, “The draft report, marked ‘not to be disclosed,’
laid out in stark detail repeated cases of ‘confusion’ in the exercise. Federal
agencies jockeyed over who was in charge. State officials and hospitals
struggled to figure out what kind of equipment was stockpiled or available.
Cities and states went their own ways on school closings.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Many of the potentially deadly consequences of a failure to
address the shortcomings are now playing out in all-too-real fashion across the
country. And it was hardly the first warning for the nation’s leaders. Three
times over the past four years the U.S. government, across two administrations,
had grappled in depth with what a pandemic would look like, identifying likely
shortcomings and in some cases recommending specific action.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…Asked at his news briefing on Thursday about the
government’s preparedness, Mr. Trump responded: ‘Nobody knew there would be a
pandemic or epidemic of this proportion. Nobody has ever seen anything like
this before.’ </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The work done over the past five years, however,
demonstrates that the government had considerable knowledge about the risks of
a pandemic and accurately predicted the very types of problems Mr. Trump is now
scrambling belatedly to address. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">But the planning and thinking happened many layers down in
the bureaucracy. The knowledge and sense of urgency about the peril appear
never to have gotten sufficient attention at the highest level of the executive
branch or from Congress."</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Just as Republicans did when <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/09/28/katrina.brown/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">George W. Bush failed New Orleans</span></a> after Hurricane Katrina and contributed to the deaths
of <a href="https://www.insurancejournal.com/blogs/corelogic/2015/08/03/374178.htm"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">1,800 Americans</span></a> through sheer incompetence, Trump passed the buck to
state governments. At a press conference that day, Trump said, “Governors
are supposed to be doing a lot of this work…the federal government is not
supposed to be out there buying vast amounts of items and then shipping. We’re
not a shipping clerk.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As <i>New York Magazine</i>’s Jonathan Chait <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/03/trump-coronavirus-governors-hospitals-ventilators-respirators.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">pointed out</span></a>,
“It is absolutely astonishing that Trump believes state and local governments
should have primary responsibility for handling a national pandemic. Those
governments lack the bargaining power and national scale to take control of
industrial processes that lie outside their borders.” (155)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At the same press conference, a <i>Washington Post</i> photographer
noticed that Trump had made one change to the notes he was using while speaking
to the press—crossing out the word “coronavirus” and writing the words “Chinese
virus” above it, <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/19/washington-post-photographer-spots-crossed-out-coronavirus-favor-chinese-virus-trump"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a dog whistle to his racist supporters</span></a> and a needless provocation to a country we should have
been collaborating with who could provide the U.S. with pharmaceuticals and
personal protective equipment (156).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As of <b>Friday, March 20, </b><i>eleven weeks</i> after
administration officials were first officially notified of the
coronavirus, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/20/coronavirus-tests-states-138426"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">states and localities were still waiting for
tests</span></a> so that they could know where
outbreaks were concentrated. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">According to reporters Dan Goldberg, Brianna Ehley, and
David Lim of <i>Politico</i>:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…governors and public health officials say they are still
being forced to dramatically ration the tests (157), while labs are confronting
daunting backlogs that delay the results (158)….governors have been on the
phone with Vice President Mike Pence and other federal officials, begging for
additional supplies, testing kits, swabs, reagents and protective equipment.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The shortage of tests means that in many states people who
believe they might have contracted the virus can’t know for sure and are told
to stay home for weeks. (159) It means health care workers don’t know whether
they've contracted the illness even as they treat infected patients and tend to
members of high-risk groups, such as the elderly, who might be in the hospital
for other reasons. (160) And it means public health officials are left guessing
where they should direct resources because they can’t be certain whether there
are clusters of cases.” (161)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“….That’s left states to impose strict criteria on who can
be tested, frustrating people across the country who are showing symptoms,
worried but were told to wait and see if their cases worsen. (162) In
several states, only those who are hospitalized or at high risk, including
those with underlying conditions, can be tested.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Karen Weise and Mike Baker of <i>the New York
Times </i>gave a preview of <a href="https://www.boston.com/news/health/2020/03/20/chilling-plans-who-gets-care-when-washington-state-hospitals-reach-their-max"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the severe rationing American hospitals would
soon face</span></a>:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Medical leaders in Washington state, which has the highest
number of U.S. coronavirus deaths, have quietly begun preparing a bleak triage
strategy to determine which patients may have to be denied complete medical
care in the event that the health system becomes overwhelmed by the coronavirus
in the coming weeks.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Fearing a critical shortage of supplies, including the
ventilators needed to help the most seriously ill patients breathe, state
officials and hospital leaders held a conference call Wednesday night to
discuss the plans, according to several people involved in the talks. The
triage document, still under consideration, will assess factors such as age,
health and likelihood of survival in determining who will get access to full
care and who will merely be provided comfort care, with the expectation that
they will die.” (163)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In addition to having shortages of beds, clinicians would be
hampered from doing their jobs because of the Trump administration’s failure to
help states get adequate surgical masks and other personal protective
equipment. (see #143)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In “<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/going-war-butter-knife/608428/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Where are the Masks?</span></a>,” Wajahat Ali revealed that the U.S. had tested only 82,000
people (by comparison to 270,000 tested in South Korea, 1/6th America’s size),
leaving clinicians in the dark about whether their patients had the virus, and
that “2,629 health workers had been infected” in Italy, giving a preview of
what medical workers in the States had to look forward to if stocks of
protective gear weren’t ramped up quickly. If clinicians get sick, “no one else
will be left, especially in small communities, to take care of patients as the
coronavirus exponentially spreads.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump had committed to using the Defense Production Act to
address this issue two days earlier, but had changed his mind later that
night, <a href="https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1240391871026864130"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">tweeting</span></a> that
he would only invoke the Act “in a worst-case scenario in the future.” (164)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Ali reported that “Almost every health-care professional I
interviewed criticized the government’s lack of preparedness. ‘The biggest
mistake we’ve made is that we awakened to this problem too late,’ said [a] New
York emergency-room doctor. ‘We had three months of warning from China and then
Europe, and we didn’t take it seriously.’”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Another New York physician told Ali, “We have known for six
weeks, and there was literally zero response and preparedness….The entire
health-care system is a massive failure on a federal level.’”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Clinicians “also voiced frustration toward the CDC and its
changing guidelines on personal protective equipment. A few weeks ago the CDC
said physicians needed N95 masks. Later, it said surgical masks would suffice.
This week, it said bandanas and scarves can be used as a last resort. The
physicians said they believe these shifting guidelines are driven by equipment
shortages, and not the actual safety of health-care workers.” (165)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">With cities and some states shutting down, reported cases
increasing by the day, widespread testing still not happening, hospitals
overburdened and expecting worse, adequate PPE nowhere in sight, and a record
number of Americans about to file for unemployment in no small part due to
administration inaction from January 3 until March 13, Peter Alexander of NBC
asked Trump at that day’s daily coronavirus briefing, “What do you say to
Americans who are watching you right now who are scared?”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump’s <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattperez/2020/03/20/trump-rages-over-simple-question-id-say-that-youre-a-terrible-reporter/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">response</span></a> to
this reasonable question was, “I say that you're a terrible reporter, that's
what I say. I think it's a very nasty question, and I think it's a very bad
signal that you're putting out to the American people." </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Saturday, March 21</b> featured
an autopsy of executive branch failures from <i>Politico</i>’s resident
expert on the Trump administration’s response, Dan Diamond.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Diamond pointed out that while Trump’s sudden shift to
publicly acknowledging the coronavirus with regular briefings and promises of
federal assistance was assuaging gullible and uninformed Americans, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/21/short-term-thinking-trump-coronavirus-response-140883"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">behind the scenes the failures were evident</span></a>:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…no one in the White House had devised a national strategy
for obtaining and distributing the necessary supplies in the likely months-long
fight against the pandemic that lies ahead, said three people with knowledge of
the planning efforts. Those supply-planning efforts are only now underway.”
(166)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As a result of 10 weeks of inaction from the administration,
Seattle and New York City “have effectively abandoned efforts to conduct broad
testing on residents, instead urging them to stay home given the shortages — an
acknowledgment that efforts to contain coronavirus have failed and they need to
prioritize limited supplies (167). Local officials also are making unusual
crowdsourcing appeals. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“‘We need companies to be creative to supply the crucial
gear our healthcare workers need. NY will pay a premium and offer funding,’ New
York Gov. Andrew Cuomo tweeted on Friday. ‘If you have any of these unused
supplies, please email COVID19supplies@esd.ny.gov.’”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In addition to not using the Defense Production Act, the
administration was actively competing with states for equipment, robbing states
of supplies in order to build up national reserves. (168)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Supply-chain shortages would negatively impact coronavirus
victims and the clinicians who served them, people who couldn’t get surgeries
due to the flood of coronavirus victims into hospitals, and women having babies
(169). According to <i>ProPublica</i>, “Over the next three months, nearly
a million women in the United States will give birth to nearly a million babies
— a huge influx of mostly healthy, highly vulnerable patients into a hospital
system that’s about to come under unprecedented strain. Pregnant women, not
surprisingly, are anxious. Those in their third trimester, looking to deliver
during an epidemic, are close to frantic.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As the crisis in our hospitals became clearer, Trump
continued to blame his predecessors.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Though the Obama administration had <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/488069-obama-officials-walked-trump-aides-through-global-pandemic-exercise-in-2017"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">briefed</span></a> the
incoming Trump administration on the importance of pandemic planning (see <span style="color: red;">W2</span>), <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/488069-obama-officials-walked-trump-aides-through-global-pandemic-exercise-in-2017"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">run through a pandemic exercise</span></a> with them, and left highly competent officials in
charge of the CDC and the NSC’s Office of Global Security, when asked about the
shortage of masks in his daily briefing, Trump said, “Many administrations
preceded me — for the most part they did very little, in terms of what you’re
talking about…We’re making much of the stuff now, it’s being delivered now.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Sunday, March 22</b>, ABC <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/coronavirus-live-updates-us-now-highest-globally-covid/story?id=69733219&cid=social_fb_abcn&fbclid=IwAR0DNxBtaHYTbxapeU-_kvqBDNavfe56QqnlC0gpl58jQ4JfJ2iv05tRozU"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that
the U.S. “now has the third most cases worldwide,” over 31,000.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Appearing on CNN, Bronx/Queens representative
Alexandra-Ocasio Cortez said, “The fact that the president has not really
invoked the Defense Production Act for the purpose…of emergency
manufactur[ing] <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/22/ocasio-corteztrump-going-to-cost-lives-141701"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">is going to cost lives</span></a>.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Because the Trump administration had failed to think ahead
and was refusing to invoke the Defense Production Act—while <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-trump-outbid-states-on-medical-supplies-2020-3"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">stealing supplies from states</span></a> to stock the national reserves—administration
officials were tasked with coming up with contingency plans for hospitals as
they run out of PPE, ventilators, and vital medical supplies.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As reported by <i>the Washington Post</i>, “Most
disturbing for some people is the idea that the wealthiest nation in the world
is leaving its caregivers unprotected in this crisis because it did not plan
for it and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/government-scrambling-to-advise-hospitals-that-run-out-of-basic-supplies/2020/03/21/d9c36702-6b88-11ea-abef-020f086a3fab_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">wasted precious weeks</span></a> before responding.” (170)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Further into the piece, the authors looked at the Trump
administration’s original sin:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“CDC Director Robert Redfield heard from Chinese
counterparts on Jan. 3 that a spreading respiratory illness could be caused by
a novel coronavirus. Redfield told Health and Human Services Secretary Alex
Azar, who sought to immediately notify the White House National Security
Council, according to four senior administration officials who spoke on the
condition of anonymity to discuss internal government actions. Azar briefed
Trump on Jan. 18 about the virus, but the president was said to be quickly
disinterested. (see #25) The CDC, HHS, National Institutes of Health,
State Department, National Security Council and other agencies and aides began
meeting to discuss the virus in January.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Yet Trump and several of his aides were reluctant to take
the virus seriously until the first confirmed U.S. case surfaced on Jan. 21,
according to two senior administration officials. (171) Trump continued to
downplay the threat of the virus until this month.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Not until the first week of March did the administration
and Congress agree to an $8.3 billion supplemental spending bill to address the
outbreak, wasting weeks that could have been used to respond to equipment
shortages…”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…Lauren Sauer, director of operations for the Johns Hopkins
Office of Critical Event Preparedness and Response, said, ‘Lack of clarity from
the White House has been frustrating….It feels like every decision that is
being made from the administration is the first decision they’ve had to make on
this.’” (172)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Not only was the administration failing to provide clear
guidance to hospitals as to how to cope with the man-made disaster that awaited
them, but due to the shortages—which were exacerbated by the administration
outbidding states—states were competing with one another and even against other
countries. As Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker told CNN, “<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/22/wild-west-states-pritzker-says-141580"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">It‘s a wide Wild West…out there</span></a>. And, indeed, we’re overpaying, I would say, for [personal
protective equipment] because of that competition.” (173)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump’s response to Pritzker’s criticism of the grossly
inadequate federal response, in the middle of a pandemic he had made infinitely
worse than it needed to be (see #1-#173), was to spend his precious
time <a href="https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1241760294776561667?lang=en"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">trolling Pritzker on Twitter</span></a> (174).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">When he wasn’t using Twitter to attack public officials who
tried to hold him accountable, Trump added to the chaos and suffering he’d
already caused by tweeting that “HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE & AZITHROMYCIN, taken
together, have a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in the
history of medicine. The FDA has moved mountains - Thank You!”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As <i>ProPublica</i> <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/lupus-patients-cant-get-crucial-medication-after-president-trump-pushes-unproven-coronavirus-treatment?utm_source=pardot&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=majorinvestigations"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a>,
“Trump’s push to use hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 has triggered a run
on the drug. Healthy people are stocking up just in case they come down with
the disease. That has left lupus patients…and those with rheumatoid arthritis
suddenly confronting a lack of medication that safeguards them, and not only
from the effects of those conditions.” (175)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Moreover, there was no concrete evidence that the
combination was effective. As Trump’s top medical coronavirus advisor, Anthony
Fauci, told an interviewer, “The information that you're referring to is
anecdotal. It wasn't done in a controlled clinical trial, so you can't make a
definitive statement about it.” (176)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Fauci’s inability to keep Trump focused on facts popped up again on <b>Monday,
March 23</b>, in an interview with <i>Science Magazine</i>. Asked about
Trump’s constant bragging about closing off travel from China and 180-degree
turn from <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/15/trump-china-coronavirus-188736"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">praising China effusively</span></a> in January and February to blaming them for the state
of the pandemic in the United States in March (177), Fauci said, “I know,
but what do you want me to do? I mean, <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/i-m-going-keep-pushing-anthony-fauci-tries-make-white-house-listen-facts-pandemic"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">seriously Jon, let’s get real, what do you
want me to do</span></a>?”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Fauci’s lack of sway was again evident in Trump’s messaging
at that day’s briefing. Despite the fact that the impact of the virus was
increasing dramatically, with the country now at over 42,000 cases and 100
deaths in a day, and the warnings of health officials that a shutdown was <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/23/coronavirus-economy-trump-restart-145222"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">necessary to flatten the curve</span></a>, Trump minimized the scope of the pandemic by mentioning
the number of fatal auto accidents annually (178), again compared the
coronavirus to the flu (179), and said he would <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-says-he-may-soon-lift-restrictions-to-reopen-businesses-defying-the-advice-of-coronavirus-experts/2020/03/23/f2c7f424-6d14-11ea-a3ec-70d7479d83f0_story.html?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">review</span></a> his
decision to shut the country down once the initial 15-day order was up,
potentially re-opening parts of the country while the pandemic continued to
spread. He even claimed that there would be more suicides from social isolation
than deaths from the virus itself (180).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That same day, Michael Poznansky of <i>the Washington
Post</i> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/23/apparently-trump-ignored-early-coronavirus-warnings-that-has-consequences/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that
the administration had had access to “repeated” intelligence warnings since the
beginnings of the virus (see <span style="color: red;">W14</span>), but it
was unclear if Trump was aware of the information in real time because “Trump
reportedly does not read intelligence assessments, does not ask probing
questions of his intelligence advisers (181), and does not schedule
intelligence briefings nearly as often as his predecessors.” (182)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-china-cdc-exclusiv/exclusive-u-s-axed-cdc-expert-job-in-china-months-before-virus-outbreak-idUSKBN21910S"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Another major (and unforced) administration
error</span></a> was revealed by journalist
Marisa Taylor, who reported that “Several months before the coronavirus
pandemic began, the Trump administration eliminated a key American public
health position in Beijing intended to help detect disease outbreaks in
China.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">According to Taylor, “the American disease expert, a medical
epidemiologist embedded in China’s disease control agency, left her post in
July [2019]…The first cases of the new coronavirus may have emerged as early as
November, and as cases exploded, the Trump administration in February chastised
China for censoring information about the outbreak and keeping U.S. experts
from entering the country to help.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“‘It was heartbreaking to watch,’ said Bao-Ping Zhu, a
Chinese American who served in that role, which was funded by the U.S. Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention, between 2007 and 2011. ‘If someone had been
there, public health officials and governments across the world could have
moved much faster.’ (183)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“As an American CDC employee, they said, Quick was in an
ideal position to be the eyes and ears on the ground for the United States and
other countries on the coronavirus outbreak, and might have alerted them to the
growing threat weeks earlier.” (A follow-up <a href="https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/03/26/trump-administration-slashed-cdc-staff-inside-china-prior-to-coronavirus-outbreak/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">article</span></a> by
Taylor would reveal that the disease expert was just one of many health
officials in Beijing who were pulled out by the administration, which had
eliminated 33 of 47 positions at that location.)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Asked about the story at a press conference, Trump said the
report was “100 percent wrong” but offered no factual rebuttal of the information
provided.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Seeking to mitigate the unfolding disaster that Trump had
created, Congress was at work on a time-sensitive stimulus bill. As ever,
Republican Mitch McConnell <a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-the-wrong-coronavirus-stimulus-20200323-h6erlkfgvjg5vlmrizphmgpdb4-story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">played chicken with the Democrats</span></a>, crafting a Senate bill that shortchanged everyday people
and desperate medical facilities while directing enormous sums of taxpayer
subsidies to business interests with no strings attached. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">When Democrats refused to play ball, McConnell blamed the
Democrats for the delay, a dishonest rhetorical thrust <a href="https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1242293340151873536"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">echoed by the president</span></a> (184) which forced Nancy Pelosi to step in and shape a
stimulus package that would at least try to strike a balance between public
needs and private interests. With no thanks to the president, <a href="https://washingtonmonthly.com/2020/03/26/americans-can-thank-democrats-for-a-strong-stimulus-package/?fbclid=IwAR0KZNLnjovNCiUAUBDsniWeTCp6U6Yx-A3VWtocriDQCWAT3i4pNo8mBvI#.Xn_DECAoB28.facebook"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Pelosi molded</span></a> a bill that spent more money on hospitals,
unemployment benefits, and federal disaster management, included progressive
tax cuts (in place of the regressive tax cuts Trump/McConnell wanted), and made
airlines getting huge infusions of taxpayer money follow green
practices. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Tuesday, March 24</b> offered
another post-mortem on <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/24/dhs-pandemic-coronavirus-146884"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the Trump administration’s failures</span></a> to act on the coronavirus with “DHS wound down
pandemic models before coronavirus struck” by Daniel Lippman at<i> Politico</i>.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The opening paragraphs tell the crux of the story:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The Department of Homeland Security stopped updating its
annual models of the havoc that pandemics would wreak on America’s critical
infrastructure in 2017, according to current and former DHS officials with
direct knowledge of the matter. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“From at least 2005 to 2017, an office inside DHS, in tandem
with analysts and supercomputers at several national laboratories, produced
detailed analyses of what would happen to everything from transportation
systems to hospitals if a pandemic hit the United States.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“But the work abruptly stopped in 2017 amid a bureaucratic
dispute over its value, two of the former officials said, leaving the
department flat-footed as it seeks to stay ahead of the impact the COVID-19
outbreak is having on vast swaths of the U.S. economy. (185) Officials at other
agencies have requested some of the reports from the pandemic modeling unit at
DHS in recent days, only to find the information they needed scattered or hard
to find quickly.” (186)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Former Obama DHS official Juliette Kayyem said the
administration’s blindness to the value of the models could be attributed to
its singular focus on <a href="https://time.com/4473972/donald-trump-&/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">scapegoating Mexicans</span></a>:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“We should not be surprised that a department that has for
the last 3½ years viewed itself solely as a border enforcement agency seems
ill-equipped to address a much greater threat to the homeland.” (187)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">This short-sightedness robbed crisis management officials of
information that could have helped them from the outset of the virus’s
expansion into the U.S.: “The former DHS officials said if the pandemic
models had been maintained properly, the administration might have had an
earlier understanding of where shortages might occur, and acted accordingly to
address them…(188)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“‘A lot of what we’re doing now is shooting in the dark, and
there’s going to be secondary impacts to infrastructure that are going to be
felt in part because we didn’t maintain these models,’ (189) said one of the
former DHS officials. ‘Our ability to potentially foresee where the impacts are
or may manifest is a result of the fact that we don’t have the capabilities
anymore.’”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The impact of not having these models in the present was
grim, as states strained under the weight of <a href="https://www.politico.com/states/new-jersey/story/2020/03/24/governors-beg-for-cash-as-unemployment-claims-crush-states-1268856"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">medical supply shortages and record numbers of
unemployment claims</span></a>. Nowhere was this felt more
acutely than New York, which was now “the U.S. epicenter of the pandemic, with
25,665 cases,” and facing a disastrous shortage of ventilators and other
crucial medical equipment. The state had 7,000 ventilators and needed 30,000.
The administration had thus far sent just 400 ventilators. (190)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Addressing the shortage, New York governor Andrew
Cuomo <a href="https://www.axios.com/andrew-cuomo-coronavirus-ventilators-bfbd9ef5-a03f-4c52-b5c9-48905ba6f2b8.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiospm&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">said</span></a>, “I
understand the federal government's point that many companies have come
forward and said we want to help, and General Motors and Ford
and people are willing to get into the ventilator business. It
does us no good if they start to create a ventilator in three weeks
or four weeks or five weeks. We're looking at an apex of
14 days….The [Defense Production Act] can actually help companies, because
the federal government can say, ‘Look, I need you to go into this
business. I will contract with you today for x number of ventilators. Here's
the startup capital you need’….Not to exercise that power is inexplicable to
me.” (191)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Bridling, as he always does, at criticism—even when it is
well-deserved—Trump <a href="https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/mar/25/donald-trump/donald-trump-misses-key-facts-claim-new-york-gover/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">falsely accused</span></a> Cuomo of creating death panels during a Fox News
virtual town hall that day and continued to refuse to activate the Defense
Production Act. This was of a piece with the administration’s pattern of delay
and obfuscation, as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/24/us/politics/coronavirus-ventilators.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> in
“Slow Response to the Coronavirus Measured in Lost Opportunity” at <i>the
New York Times</i>.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Had the administration called on its potential industrial
power in January, when they knew about the virus's destructive power overseas,
or even early February, when Democratic senators proposed emergency funding
(see #48), hospitals could have had sufficient stocks of equipment when the
first big wave of cases came in, but due to administration delays, the
proposed partnership between GE and General Motors wouldn’t produce equipment
until June (192). The administration’s promise to send out 60,000 test kits
fell well short of the “tens of millions needed.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Even as the administration failed to get ventilators out
(despite having an awareness of ventilator shortages in Chinese hospitals <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/u-s-wasted-months-before-preparing-for-virus-pandemic?fbclid=IwAR0O6BHcxnjIWRK3V6fqrbC7z_TSMI_YmV998CaEObXypNQFB1CXgiohrMQ"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">two months earlier</span></a>), even as public health officials recommended a
shutdown of up to “<a href="https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2020/3/17/21181694/coronavirus-covid-19-lockdowns-end-how-long-months-years"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a year or more</span></a>,” even as the spokesperson for the World Health
Organization had said that very day that the U.S. could be <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/25/united-states-coronavirus-pandemic-new-epicenter/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the next epicenter</span></a> of the coronavirus, Trump <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/24/coronavirus-response-trump-wants-to-reopen-us-economy-by-easter.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">said</span></a> “the
faster we go back, the better it's going to be” during a virtual town hall
and told Fox viewers that he wanted the country to be “<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/24/politics/trump-easter-economy-coronavirus/index.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">opened up and just raring to go by Easter</span></a>.” (193)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">While official cases increased from 7,800 to 53,268 in just
one week, one of the <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/25/trump-coronavirus-national-security-council-149285"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">root causes of the public health disaster</span></a> was explored the next day, <b>Wednesday, March 25</b>,
by <i>Politico </i>reporters Nahal Toosi and Dan Diamond in “Trump
team failed to follow NSC’s pandemic playbook.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">According to the piece, <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2017/01/ten-reasons-barack-obama-is-clearly.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Barack Obama</span></a>’s
National Security Council had a plan for just these kinds of situations, but
the Trump administration had ignored the playbook for the past twelve weeks,
thereby enabling the catastrophe that was unfolding in New York City and other
parts of the country. (194)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">One excerpt from the playbook read “‘Is there sufficient
personal protective equipment for healthcare workers who are providing medical
care?’ the playbook instructs its readers, as one early decision that officials
should address when facing a potential pandemic. ‘If YES: What are the triggers
to signal exhaustion of supplies? Are additional supplies available? If NO:
Should the Strategic National Stockpile release PPE to states?’”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The plan consisted of “hundreds of tactics and key policy
decisions laid out in a 69-page National Security Council playbook on fighting
pandemics….Other recommendations include that the government move swiftly to
fully detect potential outbreaks, secure supplemental funding and consider
invoking the Defense Production Act — all steps in which the Trump
administration lagged behind the timeline laid out in the playbook.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“….The guide further calls for a ‘unified message’ on the
federal response, in order to best manage the American public's questions and
concerns. ‘Early coordination of risk communications through a single federal
spokesperson is critical,’ the playbook urges.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“However, the U.S. response to coronavirus has featured a
rotating cast of spokespeople and conflicting messages (195); Trump already is
discussing loosening government recommendations on coronavirus in order to
‘open’ the economy by Easter, despite the objections of public health advisers.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“A former Obama official said, ‘These are recommended
discussions to be having on all levels, to ensure that there’s a structure to
make decisions in real-time.’”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Though briefed on the playbook (officially titled the
Playbook for Early Response to High-Consequence Emerging Infectious Disease
Threats and Biological Incidents) by outgoing Obama administration officials,
Trump’s NSC never followed through on its recommendations.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Another example of <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/internal-emails-show-how-chaos-at-the-cdc-slowed-the-early-response-to-coronavirus"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">how not to handle a pandemic</span></a> appeared on <i>ProPublica</i>’s website the
following day, <b>Thursday, March 26</b>. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Internal Emails Show How Chaos at the CDC Slowed the Early Response to
Coronavirus” gave examples of the Trump administration's miscommunications with
state health officials in Nevada and failures to gather accurate data about the
number of coronavirus cases.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Among the key findings: 1) the CDC gave
contradictory information about test guidelines to public health officials
(196); 2) the CDC intended to outsource testing to state health departments,
but this was slowed down because of delays with the test kits; 3) the CDC asked
states to use DCIPHER, a web platform, but provided no training on how to use
the platform until February 24 (197); and 4) the CDC protocol for screening
passengers at Los Angeles airport returning from China was unclear and
ineffective (198).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Returning to the present, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/26/health/coronavirus-hospitals-do-not-resuscitate-bn/index.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">hospitals were weighing universal do not
resuscitate orders</span></a> in order to keep clinicians
safe: “The conversations are driven by the realization that the risk to
staff amid dwindling stores of protective equipment — such as masks, gowns and gloves
— may be too great to justify the conventional response when a
patient ‘codes,’ and their heart or breathing stops.” (199)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“‘…It’s extremely dangerous in terms of infection risk
because it involves multiple bodily fluids,’ explained one ICU physician in the
Midwest, who did not want her name used because she was not authorized to speak
by her hospital.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">One New York nurse who died from COVID-19 worked on a unit
where <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/kious-kelly-hospital-nurse-dies-trash-bags-2020-3"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">clinicians had to wear garbage bags due to a
shortage of PPE</span></a>. (200)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That evening, it was reported that <a href="https://www.inquirer.com/health/coronavirus/coronavirus-jobs-unemployment-20200327.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">3.3 million Americans had applied for
unemployment</span></a>, a record number (201), and Trump
told Sean Hannity, “I don't believe you need 40,000 or 30,000
ventilators. <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/26/trump-ventilators-coronavirus-151311"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">You go into major hospitals sometimes, and
they'll have two ventilators</span></a>.
And now all of a sudden they're saying, ‘Can we order 30,000
ventilators?’” (202*)(*<i>The New York Times</i> would <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/26/health/coronavirus-ventilator-sharing.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">report</span> </a>the next day that the state of New York was so short of
ventilators that patients were actually <i>sharing</i> ventilators,
203)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump’s minimizing of the crisis extended to his daily
briefing, where he talked about classifying areas of the country based on known
infection rates and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-pushes-to-open-up-the-country-as-governors-in-hard-hit-states-warn-more-needs-to-be-done-to-combat-pandemic/2020/03/26/6f426042-6fa5-11ea-b148-e4ce3fbd85b5_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">opening up the spots with lower rates</span></a>, even though testing had been limited, the extent of the
virus was unknown and had been underestimated in the past, and there were no
guarantees of safety.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump’s false narratives prompted a discussion at <a href="https://www.axios.com/trump-coronavirus-briefings-media-22d51064-ec2a-468d-b248-b3722d956a8c.html"><i><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Axios</span></i></a><i>, </i>“Trump's coronavirus briefings see big audiences. Some argue
that's bad.” The piece explored the inability of networks to fact check Trump’s
claims in real time, allowing the president’s inaccurate and often unscientific
statements to confuse millions of viewers with poor critical-thinking skills.
(204)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As just one example, one month earlier, Trump had <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-vice-president-pence-members-coronavirus-task-force-press-conference/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">told reporters</span></a>, “when you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of
days is going to be down to close to zero, that’s a pretty good job we’ve
done.” As of March 26, the United States had over 1,000 deaths, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/26/usa-now-has-more-coronavirus-cases-than-either-china-or-italy.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the most reported cases of any country</span></a>, and the numbers were increasing significantly every day.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Stories detailing Trump’s denial about the scope of the
crisis continued on <b>Friday, March 27</b>. Aaron Blake and William Wan
of <i>The Washington Post</i> reported that Trump’s steady stream of
public lies and misstatements had been <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/03/27/coronavirus-models-politized-trump/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">taken at face value by many of his supporters
and other low-information voters</span></a> (205),
contributing to most Republican governors refusing to order shelter-in-place
edicts, thereby endangering public safety. Further, the variance in individual
states’ commitments to combating the virus was making it hard to create sound
epidemiology models, keeping public health officials from knowing true risk
levels (206), which should be the driver of public policy. It was pointed out
that the cities that lifted shelter-in-place orders too soon during the 1918
Spanish flu paid a steep price.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The same day that it was reported that the number of
official cases had passed 100,000, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/27/us-coronavirus-cases-top-100000-doubling-in-three-days.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">twice what they had been three days earlier</span></a> (and yet still a major underestimate due to test
delays), Jonathan Swan at <i>Axios</i> <a href="https://www.axios.com/donald-trump-coronavirus-easter-timeline-cb04697d-d7ab-4efb-a58d-b251f2cd78a2.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span> </a>that “weaning Trump from setting a date for millions of
Americans to get back to work is a delicate, ongoing process.” One
administration official said, “I don’t think he feels in any way that his
messaging was off….He feels more convinced than ever that America needs to get
back to work.” (207)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">To his credit, Trump did take some productive actions Friday
the 27th—nearly three months after the administration had first been informed
of coronavirus. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Earlier in the day, he signed the two trillion-dollar
stimulus bill with no Democrats present, as he couldn’t help being <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-03-27/house-to-hold-voice-vote-on-coronavirus-rescue-package-sending-to-trumps-desk"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">petty</span></a> and
partisan (208) in this moment of national crisis. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Friday evening he finally invoked the Defense Production Act to have General
Motors produce ventilators, <a href="https://www.lmtonline.com/news/article/The-U-S-was-beset-by-denial-and-dysfunction-as-15179067.php"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">more than two months</span></a> after Robert Kadlec (an Air Force physician and the
assistant secretary for preparedness and response at Health and Human
Services) had started readying the process. The ventilator request was too
little, too late, and Trump's use of the Defense Production Act didn't extend
to any other badly-needed medical supplies or personal protective equipment
(209), but it’s better than what the administration had done so far, which was
close to nothing.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The ventilators wouldn’t be ready anytime soon, and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/27/nyregion/coronavirus-new-york-update.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiospm&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">according</span></a> to <i>the
New York Times</i>, New York was estimated to need “20 million N-95 masks,
30 million surgical masks, 45 million exam gloves, 20 million gowns and 30,000
ventilators, all astronomical amounts compared to New York’s current
stockpile.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Saturday, March 28</b>, the U.S. passed 2,000 COVID-19 deaths and
David Atkins of <i>Washington Monthly</i> wrote about the
administration's penchant for <a href="https://washingtonmonthly.com/2020/03/28/is-trump-using-critical-medical-supplies-to-blackmail-blue-state-governors/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">giving or withholding medical supplies</span></a> based on whether governors publicly challenged Trump's
false and self-serving narratives about his response to coronavirus. (210)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Sunday, March 29, </b>as the scale of the crisis and Trump's
central role in it was becoming more evident to the public, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/29/trump-campaign-joe-biden-ron-klain-153056"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Republicans reverted to deflection and
character assassination</span></a>, attacking
Ron Klain (see #39, #41) for having the audacity to publicly call the
administration out for its lackluster response to coronavirus (see #1-#210).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">GOP blame shifting continued on <b>Monday, March 30</b>,
as Republicans alleged that <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/2020/03/panicked-republicans-now-want-to-blame-impeachment-for-bungling-the-coronavirus-response-report/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=4139"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Democrats bore some responsibility for the
administration’s failures</span></a> because
of their impeachment drive, though Democratic senator Chuck Schumer had “urged
the Department of Health and Human Services on Jan. 26 to declare coronavirus a
public health emergency, which would free up $85 million in funding to control
the outbreak” and Democratic senator Chris Murphy had made a similar request on
February 5 (see #48).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As medical workers across the country panicked due to a shortage of
ventilators, <i>ProPublica</i> reported that a company in
Pennsylvania which had received taxpayer money to design a ventilator—the
Trilogy Evo—<a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/taxpayers-paid-millions-to-design-a-low-cost-ventilator-for-a-pandemic-instead-the-company-is-selling-versions-of-it-overseas-?utm_source=pardot&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=majorinvestigations"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">had yet to ship a single unit to the national
stockpile</span></a>—even as they had sold units abroad.
The administration could have blocked exports of vital medical equipment to
help its own citizens, as Germany, South Korea, and 22 other countries had done
(see #51), but chose to side with business interests instead.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/30/coronavirus-masks-trump-administration-156327"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Another thing the administration wasn’t doing</span></a> was recommending masks, a common practice worldwide
and an oversight they would have to correct later. (211)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What the administration <i>was</i> doing was providing false
hope. <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-members-coronavirus-task-force-press-briefing/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Speaking</span></a> to
reporters that day, Trump said, “Stay calm, it will go away. You know it
-- you know it is going away, and it will go away, and we're going to have a
great victory.” (212)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Tuesday, March 31</b>, <i>Politico</i> opened with “What
they told us about the coronavirus,” a list of <a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook/2020/03/31/what-they-told-us-about-the-coronavirus-488757"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">contradictions in the administration’s
messaging</span></a> about whether or to what
extent they had control over the situation, how much exposure one needed to get
the virus (213), who was susceptible to the virus (214), when we would be able
to ease up on social distancing (see #193), whether or not we should cover our
mouths (215), the accessibility of tests, and the availability of ventilators.<br />
<br />
Later that day, the White House Coronavirus Task Force predicted that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/03/31/coronavirus-latest-news/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">there would be 100,000-240,000 deaths</span></a> in the U.S. due to COVID-19. Though this number was
potentially an underestimate, and was far higher than it would have been if the
administration had responded in a competent fashion, Trump said at that day’s
briefing that if “<a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/04/how-donald-trump-plans-on-spinning-200000-coronavirus-deaths-as-a-win/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">we have between 100 and 200,000...we
altogether have done a very good job</span></a>.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Wednesday, April 1, </b><a href="https://www.thepoke.co.uk/2020/04/03/5-reactions-to-trump-boasting-about-his-facebook-ratings/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump bragged about his Facebook ratings</span></a> and Mike Pence tried to play an April Fool’s joke on
CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. In response to Blitzer’s comment about Trump’s consistent
dismissal of COVID-19’s destructive potential through January, February, and
the first two weeks of March, Pence <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/2020/04/wolf-blitzer-spars-with-pence-it-would-have-been-good-if-the-president-wasnt-belittling-the-pandemic/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=4170"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">said</span></a>,
“Well, Wolf, respectfully, I’d take issue with two things that you just said. I
don’t believe the president has ever belittled the threat of the coronavirus.”<br />
<br />
Back in the real world, <i>the Washington Post</i> reported
that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/coronavirus-protective-gear-stockpile-depleted/2020/04/01/44d6592a-741f-11ea-ae50-7148009252e3_story.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiospm&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the national stockpile of protective gear was
“nearly depleted</span>”</a> due
to the Trump administration’s lack of foresight (see #28) and Margaret Talev
of <i>Axios</i> reported that coronavirus was further
exacerbating <a href="https://www.axios.com/axios-ipsos-coronavirus-index-rich-sheltered-poor-shafted-9e592100-b8e6-4dcd-aee0-a6516892874b.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the yawning levels of inequality helped along
by Trump’s tax cut and reverse-Robin Hood budget priorities</span></a>. While nearly half of upper-middle class Americans and 39%
of the wealthy were able to work remotely and stay safe, only 17% of
middle-class Americans and single digits of lower middle- and poor Americans
could work remotely, forcing our most economically-vulnerable citizens to risk
infection or go broke. (216)<br />
<br />
And as millions were losing their healthcare, <i>Raw Story</i> <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/2020/04/fanatical-cruelty-as-pandemic-rages-trump-refuses-to-reopen-affordable-care-act-enrollment-to-help-uninsured/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that
Trump was ignoring requests by “advocacy groups and more than 100 members of
Congress” to re-open the Affordable Care Act marketplace. (217)<br />
<br />
Human desperation continued to dominate news stories on <b>Thursday, April
2</b>.<br />
<br />
Matthew Yglesias of <i>Vox</i> reported that unemployment filings for
the previous week reached 6.6 million, <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/4/2/21203850/unemployment-initial-claims-march-28"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">smashing the record set the week before</span></a>. (218)<br />
<br />
Ina Fried looked at <a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-domestic-violence-de98b402-51f2-49ec-919c-c70052e29eef.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the uptick of domestic violence in Seattle</span></a> (near the first reported infection in the U.S.), a
sign of things to come (219), while Nadja Popovich of <i>the New York Times</i> showed <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/01/us/coronavirus-covid-19-symptoms-data.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">how far behind the U.S. was in diagnosing the
disease</span></a><span style="color: #3d85c6;"> </span>due to the administration’s lag time in getting functional
test kits out. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>ProPublica</i> <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/terrified-pregnant-health-care-workers-at-risk-for-coronavirus-are-being-forced-to-keep-working?utm_source=pardot&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=majorinvestigations"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that
New York State, the epicenter of the pandemic in the U.S., was being forced to
pay “Up to 15 Times the Normal Prices for Medical Equipment” (see #173) and
looked at <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/in-desperation-new-york-state-pays-up-to-15-times-the-normal-price-for-medical-equipment?utm_source=pardot&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=majorinvestigations"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the anxieties of pregnant medical workers</span></a> on the front lines who lacked PPE (220) or clear
safety guidelines from the CDC. (221)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In this grave national moment, when unity was more important than ever, Trump
trolled Democrats with <a href="https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000171-3f7b-d6b1-a3f1-fffb5e270000&nname=playbook&nid=0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=630318"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">an open letter</span></a> to Democratic senator Chuck Schumer of New York and
a <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/04/02/coronavirus-trump-hits-governors-says-andrew-cuomo-working-hard/5108421002/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">tw</span></a><a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/04/02/coronavirus-trump-hits-governors-says-andrew-cuomo-working-hard/5108421002/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">eet</span></a> blaming
states, who hadn't had numerous intelligence warnings about coronavirus in
January and February, and didn't have anywhere near the pandemic resources the
federal government had, for the predicament the administration had put them
in: “Massive amounts of medical supplies... are being delivered directly
to states...Some have insatiable appetites & are never satisfied
(politics?). The complainers should have been stocked up and ready long before
this crisis hit.” (222) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As of <b>Friday, April 3</b>, over 7,000 Americans had died from COVID-19
and the U.S. had <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/04/03/coronavirus-latest-news/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">its biggest single-day bump in cases</span></a>—30,000. <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/early-data-shows-african-americans-have-contracted-and-died-of-coronavirus-at-an-alarming-rate?utm_source=pardot&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=majorinvestigations"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">African-Americans were being hit particularly
hard</span></a>.<br />
<br />
In “How Trump surprised his own team by ruling out Obamacare,” Adam Cancryn,
Nancy Cook, and Susannah Luthi of <i>Politico </i>provided a
behind-the-scenes account of<i> </i><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/03/trump-obamacare-coronavirus-164285"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump’s decision not to open the Affordable
Care Act (see #217) to people who’d lost their health insurance</span></a>: “[Opening Affordable Care Act enrollment] made sense to
many in both the industry and Trump’s own administration, because Americans who
lose their health insurance as a result of losing their job are already
eligible to sign up for Obamacare outside the traditional monthlong enrollment
period. With the coronavirus pandemic straining hospitals and the
administration’s projections growing increasingly dire, health officials began
signaling to insurers that it was preparing to give the broader pool of
uninsured Americans a fresh shot at getting coverage…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“And by late March, administration officials sent word to insurers that the
call would soon be official: They were reopening Obamacare, an unprecedented
move that would have recognized the depth of the public health emergency.<br />
<br />
“Major health insurance groups prepped news releases in anticipation of an
announcement as soon as March 28, two people with knowledge of the arrangements
said.”<br />
<br />
Loathe to expand a program they had long wanted to kill, or to spend more money
later if further funding was needed to maintain coverage, the administration
instead opted for the much narrower and wholly inadequate policy of helping
hospitals defray the costs of infected patients.<br />
<br />
One Republican “close to the administration” told a reporter, “You have a
perfectly good answer in front of you, and instead you’re going to make another
one up….It’s purely ideological.” (223)<br />
<br />
The administration’s failure to get functional test kits out in a timely
fashion was again put under a microscope on <b>Saturday, April 4</b> in
“<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2020/04/03/coronavirus-cdc-test-kits-public-health-labs/?arc404=true"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Inside the coronavirus testing failure</span></a>: Alarm and dismay among the scientists who sought to help.”<br />
<br />
The piece reported that “On Jan. 10, CDC scientists received an important break
when the Chinese government published the pathogen’s genetic sequence. The
sequence, a long string of letters representing the RNA structure of SARS-CoV-2
described a coronavirus never before seen in humans. It also gave scientists a
path to create a precise diagnostic test that could detect the virus.”<br />
<br />
On January 15, a top scientist at the CDC told health officials from around the
country that they would have test kits soon.<br />
<br />
The CDC test wasn’t approved until February 4, but the model sent out to states
and localities was flawed (see#55), leading to further delays. Due to FDA
regulations, public health labs weren’t allowed to use their own tests unless
they jumped through an inordinate number of bureaucratic hoops. As minimum
requirements, labs were required to complete a 28-page application and spend
two weeks testing their kits. Alex Greninger, a scientist at the University of
Washington (see #140), reported being denied (after having spent 100 hours on
testing and documentation) because he'd submitted his application via email.
(224)<br />
<br />
On February 27, though the U.S. had done virtually no testing, “CDC Director
Robert R. Redfield [testified] to the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on
Asia, the Pacific and nonproliferation that the ‘CDC believes that the
immediate risk of this new virus to the American public is low.’” (225)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">This contradicted what Redfield knew to be true, as “Privately, the CDC
concluded that a ‘much broader’ effort to testing is needed. An internal memo
titled, ‘A Plan to Increase Covid-19 testing in the U.S.,’ frankly acknowledged
the approach was not working. The spread of the virus was ‘leading to
significant impact on healthcare systems and causing social disruption,’ it
said. ‘A much broader interagency approach is needed to fill the greater need
for diagnostics by commercial manufacturers and laboratories capable of
developing their own tests.’”<br />
<br />
The CDC didn’t loosen regulations until February 29, six weeks after they had
promised health officials that they’d have test kits ‘soon,’ leaving
state and local public health officials in the dark about infection rates and
allowing COVID-19 to spread in the shadows.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On the <b>Sunday, April 5</b> edition of “Meet the Press,” Surgeon
General Jerome Adams told host Chuck Todd, “The next week is going to be
our Pearl Harbor moment. It's going to be our 9/11 moment. It's going to be the
hardest moment for many Americans in their entire lives, and we really need to
understand that if we want to flatten that curve and get through to the other
side, everyone needs to do their part. Ninety percent of Americans are doing
their part, even in the states where, where they haven't had a shelter in
place. But if you can't give us 30 days, governors, give us, give us a week,
give us what you can, so that we don't overwhelm our healthcare systems over
this next week. And then let's reassess at that point. We want everyone to
understand you've got to be Rosie The Riveter you've got to do your part.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The next day, <b>Monday, April 6</b>, the U.S. passed <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/us-deaths-from-covid-19-soar-past-10000/2020/04/06/865fe0ec-7806-11ea-9bee-c5bf9d2e3288_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">10,000 official deaths</span></a> and Republican judges ensured that Wisconsin would be
the one state to hold a primary during the height of a pandemic (16 other
states and territories had <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/2020-campaign-primary-calendar-coronavirus.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">postponed primaries</span></a>).<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/10/wisconsin-primary-coronavirus-republican-voting-by-mail"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Knowing that COVID-19 would disproportionately
impact turnout in the Democratic strongholds of Madison and Milwaukee</span></a>, where people would be at greater risk of catching the
virus and would have to wait longer to vote due to population density, state
Republicans appealed Democratic governor Tony Evers’ last-minute executive
order to postpone the election. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The Republican majority on the state Supreme Court forced the vote in order to
give an advantage to the Republican Supreme Court candidate backed by Trump,
leaving tens of thousands of voters who hadn't received absentee ballots in
time with two terrible options (staying home and not voting or risking their
health by voting in person). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Despite putting hundreds of thousands of Wisconsinites’ safety at risk for
partisan advantage and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/13/us/wisconsin-election-voting-rights.html?auth=login-google&campaign_id=9&emc=edit_NN_p_20200414&instance_id=17621&nl=morning-briefing&regi_id=126380121&section=topNews&segment_id=25091&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">purposely disenfranchising</span></a> thousands or tens of thousands of Democrats, <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Wisconsin_Supreme_Court_elections,_2020"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Republicans lost the state Supreme Court race
by almost eleven points</span></a>.<br />
<br />
Asked about the Supreme Court contest at a briefing on <b>Tuesday, April 7</b>,
Trump claimed Tony Evers had sought to move the election because he (Trump) had
endorsed the Republican candidate, though Democrats had filed a lawsuit trying
to move the election back <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-coronavirus-conspiracy-wisconsin-election_n_5e8cfd39c5b6e1d10a6b590c"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">before Trump issued his endorsement</span></a>. Trump also claimed he had had <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-vice-president-pence-members-coronavirus-task-force-press-briefing-april-7-2020/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">no inkling</span></a> of
Peter Navarro's prescient warnings in January (see <span style="color: red;">W19</span>): “I read about it maybe a day, two
days ago,...It was a recommendation that he had, I think he told certain people
on the staff, but it didn't matter. I didn't see it.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">And though vote-by-mail elections are <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/5/23/17383400/vote-by-mail-home-california-alaska-nebraska"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">less expensive, more secure, and more
convenient</span></a> than in-person elections,
and <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/491674-trump-defends-his-mail-in-ballot-after-calling-vote-by-mail-corrupt"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">he used mail voting himself</span></a>, Trump signaled that he would suppress the Democratic vote
in the upcoming presidential election with a baseless attack on mail voting:
“Mail ballots are a very dangerous thing for this country because they’re
cheaters,” the president said, adding, “They collect them, and they get people
to go in and sign them, and then they have forgeries in many cases. It’s a
horrible thing.” (226)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Further negative impacts on working-class Americans were reported in “<a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-public-transportation-subway-bus-ridership-9f039bd9-459b-45f9-954c-b26380a037dc.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Public transit’s death spiral</span></a>” on <b>Wednesday, April 8</b>. While 36% of essential
workers across the country used public transportation, transit lines were
operating “at only 10% capacity” due to funding shortages and workers getting
sick. Transport managers were faced with the challenge of keeping service
running despite cash shortages while maintaining safety for riders and employees
alike, and there was no telling when or if vital transportation systems would
be fully functioning again. (227)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As public transit strained under budget shortfalls, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/08/trump-coronavirus-aid-oversight-176160"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the Trump administration was handing out
billions of dollars with scant oversight</span></a>,
in violation of the terms of the bipartisan stimulus bill.<br />
<br />
According to reporter Kyle Cheney, Trump diminished government oversight by
dismissing the chairman of one of the watchdog boards tasked with overseeing
stimulus fund disbursement, choosing a highly partisan White House loyalist
likely to generate Democratic opposition as one of the inspector generals, and
“issuing a signing statement that said it would be unconstitutional to require
Executive Branch watchdogs to report any obstruction in their investigations,
unless Trump himself approves.” The result was that taxpayer money would be
sent out to banks, hospitals, and small businesses with little attention to
where those funds were needed most. (228)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Another failed allocation of federal resources came to light when <i>the
Washington Post</i> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/kushner-coronavirus-effort-said-to-be-hampered-by-inexperienced-volunteers/2020/05/05/6166ef0c-8e1c-11ea-9e23-6914ee410a5f_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> on
a whistleblower report about the failure of Jared Kushner's coronavirus
response team to secure PPE “in part because none of the team members had
significant experience in health care, procurement or supply-chain operations.
In addition, none of the volunteers had relationships with manufacturers or a
clear understanding of customs requirements or Food and Drug Administration
rules.” (229)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Thursday, April 9</b>, as the number of reported infections in the
U.S. continued to skyrocket, with record tallies of daily deaths just a few
days out, Jonathan Swan <a href="https://www.axios.com/some-trump-aides-eye-may-1-start-to-coronavirus-reopening-edde842d-e3f7-4722-96ab-c93190a9893b.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that
“Some Trump aides eye May 1 start to coronavirus reopening.”<br />
<br />
One official told Swan, “We are looking at when the data will allow the
opportunity to reopen” the economy, in hopes that Trump wouldn’t have to run
for a second term during a steep recession. An official at Health and Human
Services said, “Talk of reopening the American economy — when we don’t fully
understand the virus, and can’t even crank our own domestic assembly lines to
make diagnostic tests, respirators and ventilators — isn't just myopic, it's
flat out ridiculous.” (230)<br />
<br />
Stuck with the reality that even targeted re-openings which put citizens in
danger would do little to improve <a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-unemployment-filings-6cb04d2d-9cc4-45b4-a473-9acbf4c99d43.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiospm&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the deep economic slump he had contributed to</span></a>, Trump continued to <a href="https://apnews.com/58f1b869354970689d55ccae37c540f3"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">shift the blame to others</span></a>, from the Obama administration to Democratic governors to
China to the World Health Organization.<br />
<br />
As for his own administration’s response, when asked by a reporter if he could
have done more, Trump said, “I couldn’t have done it any better,” part of a
pattern of <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/trump/you-should-be-saying-congratulations-here-are-116-times-trump-has-praised-his-own-coronavirus-response/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">116 times Trump had congratulated himself or
his administration</span></a>.<br />
<br />
<b>Friday, April 10</b>, marked the two-year anniversary of Trump’s elevation
of John Bolton to head the National Security Council (NSC). Bolton had fired
the head of Homeland Security, Tom Bossert (see #12), <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/05/10/top-white-house-official-in-charge-of-pandemic-response-exits-abruptly/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">who had</span></a> “called
for a comprehensive biodefense strategy against pandemics and biological
attacks,” and disbanded the Global Security Office inside the NSC (see #17),
effectively <a href="https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-fire-pandemic-team/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">gutting the administration’s main pandemic
response unit</span></a>.<br />
<br />
Unconcerned with these relevant but inconvenient facts, the Republican National
Committee (RNC) announced that they would be running digital ad spots <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/10/rnc-trump-coronavirus-ad-178625"><i><span style="color: #3d85c6;">praising</span></i><span style="color: #3d85c6;"> Trump’s response</span></a> to
the coronavirus.<br />
<br />
While the RNC tried to re-write history, Mike Pence quietly <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/10/trump-pence-easter-coronavirus-178677"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">cleaned up one of Trump’s messes</span></a>, according to Gabby Orr of <i>Politico</i>. To make
sure that houses of worship connected to the White House knew that Trump wasn’t
serious when he’d said that he wanted churches open on Easter (see #193), and wouldn’t
embarrass the administration with public services on Easter, Pence and his
staff called allies in the faith community and made the case for social
distancing.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>ProPublica</i> <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/rationing-protective-gear-means-checking-on-coronavirus-patients-less-often-this-can-be-deadly?utm_source=pardot&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=majorinvestigations"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> on
another one of the messes caused by Trump's incompetence—due to a shortage of
PPE, hospital clinicians were having to ration time with patients to avoid
infection, leading to shortfalls in patient care (231), patients being alone
for hours at a time (232), and patients dying alone. (233)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Saturday, April 11</b>, America passed 20,000 known deaths, making
the U.S. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/04/11/coronavirus-latest-news/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">#1 in the world</span></a>. COVID-19 was now the <a href="https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-leading-cause-of-death.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">leading cause of death</span></a> in the United States. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Dave Jamieson of <i>Huffington Post</i> <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/osha-labor-department-coronavirus-cases-at-work_n_5e91cc70c5b6f7b1ea8218bf"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that
the administration had used Friday afternoon—a great time to dump damning
information—to announce that “employers outside of the health care industry
generally won’t be required to record coronavirus cases among their workers, a
decision that left some workplace safety advocates incredulous.<br />
<br />
“…if employers don’t have to try to figure out whether a transmission happened
in the workplace, it could leave both them and the government in the dark about
emerging hotspots in places like retail stores or meatpacking plants.” (234)<br />
<br />
“Debbie Berkowitz, a worker safety expert at the National Employment Law
Project, told HuffPost in an email that the implications of the guidance are
larger than they seem. She said it would lead employers outside of health care
to ‘not consider any of these [infections] work-related and therefore something
they can prevent.’<br />
<br />
“‘This is despicable and will lead to more cases among workers and the public,’
(235) she said in an email. ‘[OSHA] should be requiring employers to keep
workers six feet apart, provide double cotton layer masks, hand sanitizers
throughout facilities, [and] time to wash hands with soap and water.’”<br />
<br />
<b>Sunday, April 12</b>, Katie Thomas and Knvul Sheikh of <i>the New York
Times</i> reported that Chloroquine, a drug very similar to Hydroxychloroquine,
falsely billed by Trump as a miracle cure for COVID-19 (see #176), was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/12/health/chloroquine-coronavirus-trump.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">causing irregular heartbeats in test subjects</span></a>.<br />
<br />
On <b>Monday, April 13</b>, <i>Politico</i> led with “States
still baffled over how to get coronavirus supplies from Trump.”<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/13/states-baffled-coronavirus-supplies-trump-179199?nname=playbook&nid=0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=630318"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Fourteen weeks after CDC head Robert Redfield
was first informed of the virus, the administration was still failing states</span></a>. Pleas from Jared Polis (the Democratic governor of
Colorado) to FEMA were ignored. Messages from Polis to Mike Pence were ignored.
(236) Miraculously, when Republican Senator Cory Gardner made a request to the
administration, ventilators were sent out the next day, but even that shipment
was far short of what was needed—only 100 units. (237)<br />
<br />
The lack of a formal process was creating chaos:<br />
<br />
“The federal government’s haphazard approach to distributing its limited
supplies has left states trying everything — filling out lengthy FEMA
applications, calling Trump, contacting Pence, sending messages to Jared
Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, and trade adviser Peter Navarro, who are both
leading different efforts to find supplies, according to local and states
officials in more than a half-dozen states. They’re even asking mutual friends
to call Trump or sending him signals on TV and Twitter.<br />
<br />
“Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t.” (238)<br />
<br />
“…The confusion is indicative more broadly of how Trump and his administration
have responded to a number of crises. The president often bounces from one
issue to the next, reacting to the headlines of the day. Record turnover rates
and competing power centers have hampered long-term planning. The result has
been rotating strategies that are hard to fully chronicle.” (239)<br />
<br />
Allocations were based not on need, but on public flattery of Trump:<br />
<br />
“‘Right now, you have more discretion at the White House, and we have prized
our relationship in order to secure some of the ventilators and other
supplies,’ said an aide to one governor, who asked that even the state not be named
for fear of jeopardizing the supplies. ‘We operate within the world we live in.
We made the decision to have a very constructive and amicable relationship.’”
(240)<br />
<br />
Trump’s megalomania was again a topic of discussion on <b>Tuesday, April
14</b>.<br />
<br />
Amanda Marcotte of <i>Salon</i> opined on the previous evening’s
daily presser, <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/04/14/trump-says-his-authority-is-total--while-he-blames-everyone-else-for-his-failures/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">which was even more bizarre than usual</span></a>. In addition to making White House reporters watch a
propaganda video claiming against all available evidence (see #1-#240) that the
administration had done a good job of handling COVID-19, Trump said that he
alone would decide when states opened back up: “When somebody's the president
of the United States, the authority is total, and that's the way it's got to
be.”<br />
<br />
When a reporter questioned this, Trump barked back, “Enough!”<br />
<br />
While Trump’s attacks on reporters were boorish and unpresidential, his temper
tantrums took much more consequential forms. In his continuing effort to
deflect blame, Trump froze U.S. funding to the World Health Organization (WHO)
for 60 days (241). Trump claimed—with no evidence—that the WHO was covering up
for China, part of his P.R. strategy to scapegoat China and racialize the
pandemic (242), even as he had publicly <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/15/trump-china-coronavirus-188736"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">praised China 15 times</span></a> in January and February (and sent them medical
equipment, #51) while he was hoping to cement a trade deal.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/15/world-health-organization-trump-funding-cuts-187615"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> by
Quint Forgey and Nahal Toosi on <b>Wednesday, April 15</b>, the move
caught overseas allies and Trump’s own staff off-guard: “The order was just the
latest example of officials seeking to fill in the details of a lurching policy
shift by the president, who is prone to the bureaucratic equivalent of shooting
first and asking questions later.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Josep Borrell Fontelles, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, <a href="https://twitter.com/JosepBorrellF/status/1250356625803599875"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">said</span></a> there
was ‘no reason justifying this move’ by the American president ‘at a moment
when [WHO’s] efforts are needed more than ever to help contain & mitigate
the #coronavirus pandemic.’”<br />
<br />
The abrupt funding cut-off came after the administration’s 2021 budget proposal
had <a href="https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/FY-2021-CBJ-Final-508compliant.pdf"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">slashed America’s contribution by 50%</span> </a>(243), while
the U.S. was still $99 million in arrears to the organization.<br />
<br />
Chaos within the administration was further detailed by James Hohmann of <i>the
Washington Post</i> in “Leaked CDC and FEMA plan warns of ‘significant
risk of resurgence of the virus’ with phased reopening.”<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2020/04/15/daily-202-leaked-cdc-and-fema-plan-warns-of-significant-risk-of-resurgence-of-the-virus-with-phased-reopening/5e9688d288e0fa101a763033/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Directly undermining Trump’s advocacy for
re-opening the economy</span></a>, a “draft
national strategy to reopen the country in phases, developed by the Federal
Emergency Management Agency and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
emphasizes that even a cautious and phased approach ‘will entail a significant
risk of resurgence of the virus.’ (244)<br />
<br />
“The internal document, obtained by The Washington Post, warns of a ‘large
rebound curve’ of novel coronavirus cases if mitigation efforts are relaxed too
quickly before vaccines are developed and distributed or broad community
immunity is achieved.<br />
<br />
“The framework lays out criteria that should be in place before a region can
responsibly ease guidelines related to public gatherings: a ‘genuinely low’
number of cases; a ‘well-functioning’ monitoring system capable of ‘promptly
detecting’ spikes of infections; a public health system able to react robustly
to new cases and local health systems that have enough inpatient beds to
rapidly scale up in the event of a surge in cases.”<br />
<br />
As Hohmann pointed out, the administration was nowhere near to meeting these
criteria—in fact, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/14/coronavirus-testing-delays-186883"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">commercial testing plummeted 30% that week</span></a><span style="color: #3d85c6;"> </span>(245)—and
Trump hadn’t committed to following the guidelines because he was “fearful of
the potential damage to his reelection chances.”<br />
<br />
Re-opening the economy to help the 2020 campaign, consequences be damned, was a
foregone conclusion within Trump's inner circle, putting his appointees in
pre-emptive damage control mode: “Trump’s advisers are trying to shield the
president from political accountability should his move to reopen the economy
prove premature and result in lost lives, and so they are trying to mobilize
business executives, economists and other prominent figures to buy into the
eventual White House plan, so that if it does not work, the blame can be shared
broadly.” (246)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>Meanwhile, it came out that stimulus money to desperate Americans would
be <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/coming-to-your-1200-relief-check-donald-j-trumps-name/2020/04/14/071016c2-7e82-11ea-8013-1b6da0e4a2b7_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">delayed</span></a> by
Trump's insistence that his signature appear on the checks. (247)<br />
<br />
On <b>Thursday, April 16</b>, <i>the Washington Post</i> reported
that all of the job gains of the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjones/2020/02/17/obamas-2009-recovery-act-kicked-off-over-10-years-of-economic-growth/#4681b5368b77"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">lengthy Obama recovery</span></a> were gone (248) as the pandemic surged. Just days
after reaching 20,000 deaths, the U.S. passed <a href="https://www.axios.com/31-days-coronavirus-pain-47bfd3a9-7be1-42fd-9da8-ddb67b516697.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">30,000 deaths</span></a>.<br />
<br />
At that day’s briefing, Trump gave governors the authority to decide when to
re-open their states, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/16/trump-plan-for-reopening-economy-191073"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">contradicting his statement earlier in the
week</span></a></span><span> that he had “total authority”
over state-by-state re-opening. Allowing states to make their own decisions
would allow Trump to blame governors if infections spiked, even if he had urged
them to re-open in the first place. (see #246)</span><span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><span style="color: blue; font-size: medium;">April 17, 2020-June 16, 2020</span></b><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><span>Convinced his re-election hinges on an economic
recovery, Trump disappears the Coronavirus Task Force and publicly pushes to
re-open the economy, even as the pandemic continues to rage. Many of Trump’s
Republican allies in state governments follow his lead, causing a huge
upsurge of infections and deaths in red states. Focused on keeping up
appearances rather than maintaining public safety, Trump starts insisting that
schools open in the fall. </span></i><i><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
<br />
</span><span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/17/trump-states-stay-at-home-orders-192386"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Friday Trump contradicted Thursday Trump</span></a> on <b>April 17</b> when he Tweeted support
for fringe-right extremists in Michigan, Virginia, and Minnesota who were
protesting stay-at-home orders, even as the U.S. had experienced <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-surges-in-some-asian-countries-that-had-been-lightly-hit-11587031743"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a record number of deaths</span></a> (4,591) the day before, twice the record set earlier
in the week. (249)<br />
<br />
Asked at a press conference if he was recommending the orders be lifted, Trump
contradicted himself yet again: “No, but elements of what they’ve done are too
much....It’s too tough.” (250)<br />
<br />
In a public statement, Washington governor Jay Inslee said, “I hope someday we
can look at today’s meltdown as something to be pitied, rather than condemned.
But we don’t have that luxury today. There is too much at stake.”<br />
<br />
An AP feature on <b>Saturday, April 18</b> looked at the danger of
re-opening before adequate testing had been done.<br />
<br />
According to the authors, “<a href="https://apnews.com/9983363b779562ec9ebaaf6303922ecb"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">more than a month after [Trump] declared,
‘Anybody who wants a test, can get a test,’ the reality has been much different</span></a>. People report being unable to get tested. Labs and public
officials say critical supply shortages are making it impossible to increase
testing to the levels experts say is necessary to keep the virus in check.<br />
<br />
“‘There are places that have enough test swabs, but not enough workers to
administer them. There are places that are limiting tests because of the CDC
criteria on who should get tested,’ said Dr. Megan Ranney, an emergency
physician and associate professor at Brown University. ‘There’s just so many
inefficiencies and problems with the way that testing currently happens across
this country.’” (251)<br />
<br />
The piece went on to mention that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/17/us/coronavirus-testing-states.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200419&instance_id=17774&nl=morning-briefing&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=25500&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">testing would have to increase three-fold</span></a> to give public officials the data they needed to make
safe and informed decisions and that Trump was pawning responsibility for
testing off on the states, though he knew states didn’t remotely have the
resources necessary due to “shortages of swabs, protective gear and highly
specialized laboratory chemicals needed to analyze the virus’ genetic
material.” (252)<br />
<br />
The delays in getting functional test kits out, the biggest factor in <a href="https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">America’s first-in-the-world totals in
infections and deaths</span></a>, was the subject of two <i>Washington
Post</i> articles, one focused on <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/contamination-at-cdc-lab-delayed-rollout-of-coronavirus-tests/2020/04/18/fd7d3824-7139-11ea-aa80-c2470c6b2034_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the CDC’s failure to follow agency protocols</span></a>, which contributed to contaminated kits being sent out
(253), as well as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2020/04/18/timeline-coronavirus-testing/?arc404=true"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a detailed timeline of all of the Trump administration’s
test kit errors</span></a>.<br />
<br />
<i>The Post</i>’s key conclusion: “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2020/04/04/coronavirus-government-dysfunction/?arc404=true"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">it took 70 days from [China's initial
notification to CDC head Robert Redfield] for President Trump to treat the
coronavirus pandemic seriously</span><span style="color: blue;">.</span></a>" (254)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">David S. Cloud, Paul Pringle, and Eli Stokols of <i>the Los Angeles Times</i> continued
this thread the following day, <b>Sunday, April 19</b>, in “<a href="https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-04-19/coronavirus-outbreak-president-trump-slow-response"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">How Trump let the U.S. fall behind the curve
on coronavirus threat</span></a>.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The piece looked at chronic dysfunction within the top tiers
of the administration and the central role Trump’s fixation on the Senate
impeachment trial and re-election (i.e. his inability to pivot from political
combat to governing) played in the confusion and inaction:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Trump's unwillingness to take the health threat seriously
and disagreements among his top aides effectively sidelined the U.S. Department
of Health and Human Services, leaving key responders without direction from a
White House that was focused on the president's impeachment trial in the
Senate.” (255)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…‘In an ideal world, there would have been a structure and
someone with vision empowered in the White House,’ said J. Stephen Morrison, a
health policy expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a
Washington think tank. ‘Everything was seen through the impeachment and
reelection process.’”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…At the White House, Trump and his close advisors, consumed
by his impending impeachment trial in the Senate, rebuffed attempts by
Redfield's boss, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, to alert them
about the threat, according to a former federal official with knowledge of the
communications.” (see #58)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“...The conflicts inside the White House along with the
impeachment trial underway in the Senate kept the health threat barely on
Trump’s radar.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“‘You have Trump as the lone-wolf operator,’ said Anthony
Scaramucci, who served briefly as Trump's director of communications and has
recently been critical of the president. ‘What happens is everybody gets
immobilized. They don't know what their marching orders are … so that's caused
them to be very slow-footed in the midst of this crisis.’”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…The federal government had an array of options to prevent
the predictions from becoming a reality, experts said, including invoking the
Defense Production Act to require private companies <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-03-18/coronavirus-stimulus-bill-trump-treasury"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">to address shortages</span></a> of medical masks, ventilators and other equipment;
mobilizing the military <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-03-20/u-s-military-can-help-in-responding-to-the-coronavirus-outbreak-within-limits"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">to construct field hospitals</span></a> and organize testing centers around the country;
and <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-27/mercy-hospital-ship-with-1-000-beds-arrives-in-l-a-to-help-with-coronavirus"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">dispatching Navy hospital ships</span></a> to New York and Los Angeles sooner.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“But there was little urgency to the government response.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“‘It was one failure after another, piling up on each
other,’ said Dr. Ashish Jha, faculty director of the Harvard Global Health Institute.
‘When that happens, it usually means it wasn’t a priority. It was a lack of
leadership.’” (256)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The lack of leadership was (again) evident that day
when <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/19/trump-dpa-testing-swabs-reported-shortages-195721"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump finally triggered the Defense Production
Act to increase production of testing swabs</span></a>,
“weeks after reported shortages” and months after easily-foreseen shortages
(257), supply shortages that were being exacerbated by <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/hospitals-face-a-white-house-blockade-for-coronavirus-ppe.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the administration’s blockade of supplies
ordered by the states</span></a> themselves. (see #168)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Monday, April 20</b>, the U.S. <a href="https://themedicalprogress.com/2020/04/20/coronavirus-the-united-states-crosses-the-40000-dead-mark/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">passed 40,000 deaths</span></a> and the gulf between vital public health imperatives
and the Trump administration’s self-serving political agenda widened. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Interviewed that morning by George Stephanopoulos, Anthony
Fauci <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/news/dr-fauci-condemns-protesters-clamoring-for-end-to-lockdown-premature-reopening-will-backfire/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">stressed the danger of re-opening the economy
too soon</span></a>: “If you jump the gun and go into a
situation where you have a big spike, you’re going to set yourself back….So as
painful as it is to go by the careful guidelines of gradually phasing into a
reopening, it’s going to backfire [if you reopen prematurely]. That’s the
problem.” (<span style="color: red;">W26</span>)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Despite his awareness of the public health dangers and
his <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/16/trump-plan-for-reopening-economy-191073"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">public statement</span></a> four days earlier that governors should decide when to
end or modify statewide shelter-in-place laws, behind the scenes Trump was
pushing governors—particularly Republican allies—to re-open the economy
prematurely for fear that mass unemployment could doom his re-election bid
(258).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As reported in “<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/20/trump-revs-up-state-fight-coronavirus-shutdowns-195443"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump revs up for a state-by-state fight over
coronavirus shutdowns</span></a>":</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Over the next two weeks at the urging of the Trump administration, the map of
the U.S. will start to resemble a patchwork quilt, with some states open for
business while others remain locked down because of the spread of the virus.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump was only too happy to exploit divisions between the
majority of Americans who grasped the threat of the virus and the vocal
minority of rabid ideologues who didn’t: </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Senior administration officials and Trump advisers say the level of hostility
between the president and governors will probably only increase in the coming
days, in part because Trump sees so much political opportunity in stoking those
divisions during his reelection campaign. Governors have become his latest
political foil, along with China and the World Health Organization, and he’s
trying to bully and scapegoat them amid his administration’s response to the
pandemic. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Small protests over the weekend in Texas, North Carolina,
Michigan and New Hampshire only highlighted the frustration of some Americans
about the shuttering of huge swaths of the economy. Trump aides and advisers
are closely monitoring those protests because they think the demonstrations
give momentum to the president’s argument to reopen the economy as soon as
possible — not to mention a potential source of energy heading into the fall
election.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Though governors had nowhere near the purchasing/negotiating
power and resources of the federal government, and could neither afford nor
realistically be expected to get hold of the amount of supplies necessary (see
#155), “The White House has been setting itself up for weeks now to blame
governors for the response to the coronavirus, including any failure to procure
medical equipment and resources, or problems that arise from restarting
businesses and resuming public life.” (259)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">While the administration sought to deflect attention from
their failure to plan ahead, statnews.com reported on <b>Tuesday, April 21</b>,
that <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/21/rick-bright-out-at-barda/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump’s allergy to science and reasoned
disagreement was continuing to hamper the administration’s COVID-19 response</span></a>: “Rick Bright, one of the nation’s leading vaccine
development experts and the director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and
Development Authority, is no longer leading the organization, officials told
STAT.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The shakeup at the agency, known as BARDA, couldn’t come at
a more inopportune time for the office, which invests in drugs, devices, and
other technologies that help address infectious disease outbreaks and which
has <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/06/barda-coronavirus-response/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">been at the center of the government’s
coronavirus pandemic respons</span><span style="color: blue;">e</span></a>.” (260)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…BARDA was expected to play an even larger role in the
coming months; Congress more than tripled BARDA’s budget in the most recent coronavirus
stimulus package. Already, the office has a role in some of the splashiest
Covid-19 projects, including partnerships with Johnson & Johnson and
Moderna Therapeutics, both of which are developing potential Covid-19
treatments.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Appearing on “Face the Nation” a few days later, Trump’s
former FDA head Scott Gottlieb said, “I think <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/494734-gottlieb-says-reassigning-vaccine-chief-is-going-to-set-us-back"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">changing leadership in that position right now
certainly is going to set us back</span></a>….It's
hard to argue that that's not going to have some impact on the continuity and
also make businesses, companies that need to collaborate with BARDA, a little
bit more reluctant now to embrace BARDA now that there's a cloud hanging over
it and some uncertainty about the leadership.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It would come out later that Bright (see #26) was demoted
because he had <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/22/rick-bright-trump-hydroxychloroquine-coronavirus"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">disagreed with Trump’s focus on the
pie-in-the-sky cure-all of hydroxychloroquine</span></a>,
part of Trump’s consistent pattern of punishing public health officials who
didn’t parrot his ill-informed talking points. (261)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The same day, <i>the National Review</i>, a conservative
publication, put the lie to one of Trump’s favorite talking points in February
and early March with “<a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/04/coronavirus-kills-more-americans-in-one-month-than-the-flu-kills-in-one-year/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Coronavirus Kills More Americans in One Month
Than the Flu Kills in One Year</span></a>.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The theme of Trump’s <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-coronavirus-timeline-dismissed-969381/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">blatant lies and bad advice</span></a> came up again at that day’s briefing when PBS reporter
Yamiche Alcindor related an anecdote about a family who’d gotten infected
(after taking Trump’s misinformation at face value) and asked the president,
“Are you concerned downplaying the virus maybe got some people sick?”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The president of the United States said that <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/2020/04/trump-shows-a-total-inability-to-have-empathy-remorse-when-confronted-with-the-consequences-of-his-actions/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the infections he caused in effect didn’t
matter</span></a> because “a lot of people love
Trump, right?,” because he’d “<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/01/how-russia-helped-to-swing-the-election-for-trump"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">won</span></a> an
election,” because he’d probably “win” another one. Though the
amount of testing and detection was still <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/22/coronavirus-testing-problem-america-201372"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">not remotely adequate</span></a> almost four months after the administration had first
been notified of the virus (262), and the desperate and chaotic situation in
America due to Trump's failures had been likened to “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/apr/22/top-economist-us-coronavirus-response-like-third-world-country-joseph-stiglitz-donald-trump"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a third world country</span></a>,” Trump then told Alcindor that his single action of
closing off travel from China—even as <a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/04/12/u-s-got-more-confirmed-index-cases-of-coronavirus-from-europe-than-from-china/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">he had allowed infected travelers to stream in
from Europe for another six weeks</span></a>—proved
that he had taken COVID-19 seriously.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Just how seriously the administration had taken the pandemic
was again revealed the following day, <b>Wednesday, April 22</b>, when
Aram Roston and Marisa Taylor of <i>Reuters</i> reported that a “<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-hhschief-speci/special-report-former-labradoodle-breeder-was-tapped-to-lead-us-pandemic-task-force-idUSKCN2243CE"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Former Labradoodle breeder was tapped to lead
U.S. pandemic task force</span></a>.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The piece explained how Alex Azar had put the day-to-day
operations of the Coronavirus Task Force in the hands of Brian Harrison, a
37-year-old with a background in dog breeding. Harrison “was an unusual choice,
with no formal education in public health, management, or medicine and with
only limited experience in the fields.” (263)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At that day’s press briefing, the lies continued when
Trump <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/22/trump-downplays-risk-of-coronavirus-rebound-202325"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">said</span></a>,
“If [coronavirus] comes back though, it won’t be coming back in the form that
it was, it will be coming back in smaller doses that we can contain….it’s also
possible it doesn’t come back at all.” This <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/04/21/coronavirus-secondwave-cdcdirector/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">flatly contradicted CDC head Robert Redfield’s
statement the day before</span></a> that
the second wave of COVID-19 could be worse than the first and represented yet
another example of the mixed messaging the administration was putting out to
the public. (264)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As of <b>Thursday, April 23</b>, <a href="https://apnews.com/e928d091f81f75b9bc8830c7370f41fb"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">U.S. unemployment rates had reached
Depression-era levels</span></a><span style="color: #3d85c6;"> </span>(265). Trump continued to push misinformation, claiming
that <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/23/trump-coronavirus-sunlight-205969"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">sunlight could wipe out coronavirus</span></a>: “‘The whole concept of the light, the way it kills
it in one minute, that’s pretty powerful,’ Trump said during a White House
press briefing. He raised the possibility of hitting a human body ‘with a
tremendous — whether it's ultraviolet or just very powerful light.’” (266)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">He also sang the praises of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/04/24/disinfectant-injection-coronavirus-trump/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the miracle cure of injecting disinfectants</span></a>: “Then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out
in a minute, one minute. Is there a way we can do something like that, by
injection inside, or almost a cleaning?" (267)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The next day, <b>Friday, April 24</b>, COVID-19 deaths
in the U.S. <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/public-global-health/494484-us-hits-grim-milestone-50000-coronavirus-deaths"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">passed 50,000</span></a>, more than twice the number of deaths in any other
country. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As media wheels spun over Trump’s off-the-wall comments from
the day before, he tried to shake off bad press by falsely claiming he was
being sarcastic. His comments were no laughing matter, as <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertglatter/2020/04/25/calls-to-poison-centers-spike--after-the-presidents-comments-about-using-disinfectants-to-treat-coronavirus/#4556ea211157"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a rash of disinfectant-related accidents</span></a> would prove. (268)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Another one of Trump’s coronavirus quick fixes was revealed
as quackery when Trump’s own “<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/id/10000889"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Food and Drug Administration</span></a> warned
consumers…against taking malaria drugs chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine to
treat Covid-19 outside a hospital or formal clinical trial setting after deaths
and poisonings were reported.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That weekend, on <b>Sunday, April 26</b>, Helena
Bottemiller Evich of <i>Politico</i> reported on <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/26/food-banks-coronavirus-agriculture-usda-207215"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the incompetence of Trump’s Agriculture
Department</span></a> in “USDA let millions of
pounds of food rot while food-bank demand soared.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">According to Evich: “Tens of millions of pounds of
American-grown produce is rotting in fields as food banks across the country
scramble to meet a massive surge in demand, a two-pronged disaster that has
deprived farmers of billions of dollars in revenue while millions of newly
jobless Americans struggle to feed their families. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“While other federal agencies quickly adapted their programs
to the coronavirus crisis, the Agriculture Department took more than a month to
make its first significant move to buy up surplus fruits and vegetables —
despite repeated entreaties.” (269)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“….Images of farmers destroying tomatoes, piling up squash,
burying onions and dumping milk shocked many Americans who remain fearful of
supply shortages. At the same time, people who recently lost their jobs lined
up for miles outside some food banks, raising questions about why there has
been no coordinated response at the federal level to get the surplus of
perishable food to more people in need, even as commodity groups, state leaders
and lawmakers repeatedly urged the Agriculture Department to step in.” (270)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Monday, April 27</b>, with the U.S. death toll
over 55,000, Greg Miller and Ellen Nakashima of <i>the Washington Post</i> reported
that <a href="https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/President-s-intelligence-briefing-book-repeatedly-15229783.php"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump had received “more than a dozen
[intelligence] warnings” about the coronavirus</span></a> in his January and February Presidential Daily Brief
(PDB), even as he publicly dismissed concerns about COVID-19. It was unclear if
Trump ignored the warnings or never heard them because he “routinely skips
reading the PDB and has at times shown little patience even for the oral
summary he now takes two or three times per week.” (see #181, #182)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That same day, Trump's Attorney General William Barr sent a<span style="color: #3d85c6;"> </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/attorney-general-william-p-barr-s-memo-balancing-public-safety-with-the-preservation-of-civil-rights/749fc86a-f81c-4baf-b002-b68deb3f1ade/?itid=lk_inline_manual_2"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">two-page memo</span></a> to all 94 United States Attorney Offices instructing
them to sue any state and local governments who “go too far” in public
safety mandates. (271) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">When asked on <b>Tuesday, April 28</b>, about his
non-response to more than a dozen intelligence briefings about COVID-19, Trump
claimed that “<a href="https://twitter.com/jeffmason1/status/1255165563632062477?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1255165563632062477&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rawstory.com%2F2020%2F04%2Ftrump-lies-about-dire-intel-he-received-on-virus-and-says-most-people-thought-it-would-blow-over%2F"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">most people thought earlier this year that the
coronavirus was going to blow over</span></a>.”
In reality, there had been numerous warnings in January and February that the
virus would blow up (<span style="color: red;">see W14-W23</span>).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As of <b>Wednesday, April 29</b>, the U.S. had <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/us-passes-60000-dead-as-hopes-rise-for-a-promising-drug-therapy/2020/04/29/c8c42d92-8a0a-11ea-9dfd-990f9dcc71fc_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">passed 60,000</span></a> official deaths and <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/4/28/21239172/coronavirus-us-confirmed-cases-update-1-million"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">one million infections</span></a>, far more than any other country; there were <a href="https://www.barrons.com/news/us-records-2-502-coronavirus-deaths-in-past-24-hours-tracker-01588207503"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">2,502 deaths that day alone</span></a>. Trump announced that he would not be extending social
distancing recommendations past Thursday (272). Spinning himself silly, Jared
Kushner “predicted that by July the country will be <span style="background: white; color: #222222;">‘</span><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/29/coronavirus-latest-updates.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">really rocking again</span></a>.<span style="background: white; color: #222222;">’</span>”
(273)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">AP reported that <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/29/us-economy-coronavirus-220441"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the U.S. economy had contracted 4.8%</span></a> in the first quarter of 2020, the biggest drop since
the economy lost 8.4% of its value in the final quarter of 2008, as <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-master-of-low-expectations-666.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">George W. Bush</span></a>’s presidency was winding down. Forecasters predicted that
the second quarter of 2020 would be even worse.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Eager to shift attention away from the grim human toll of
the administration’s failure to get ahead of COVID-19, senior administration
officials were pressuring intelligence agencies to find a link between
coronavirus and state-run labs in China, as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/30/us/politics/trump-administration-intelligence-coronavirus-china.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> in <i>the
New York Times</i> on <b>Thursday, April 30</b>. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">This theory—<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/24/gop-memo-anti-china-coronavirus-207244"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">part of a coordinated Republican response</span></a> to change the subject and misinform the public
(274)—had <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/18/us/politics/trump-china-virus.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">floated around the right-wing echo chamber for
a while</span></a>, but “Most intelligence agencies
remain skeptical that conclusive evidence of a link to a lab can be found, and
scientists who have studied the genetics of the coronavirus say that the
overwhelming probability is that it leapt from animal to human in a
nonlaboratory setting, as was the case with H.I.V., Ebola and SARS.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“….In a statement released earlier on Thursday, the Office
of the Director of National Intelligence said that the intelligence community
‘will continue to rigorously examine emerging information and intelligence to
determine whether the outbreak began through contact with infected animals or
if it was the result of an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan.’</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Intelligence agencies, the statement said, concur ‘with the
wide scientific consensus that the Covid-19 virus was not man-made or
genetically modified.’”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Friday, May 1</b>, Courtenay Brown and Kyle Daly
of <i>Axios</i> <a href="https://www.axios.com/creaky-unemployment-systems-plague-jobless-americans-b5244634-f72b-4b33-a65d-dbc2f0f5492a.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> on
the inability of many states to keep up with unemployment claims due to the
steep economic collapse tied to Trump's failure to contain the virus. (275)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“One out of every five working Americans” (30,000,000) had
filed for unemployment over the prior six weeks, but this was an undercount.
The true number could be as high as 44,000,000, but was hard to determine
because understaffed state agencies couldn’t keep up with the
applications. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As millions of Americans and their families struggled to get
by, the administration continued to try to conceal its gross negligence
by <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/white-house-blocking-fauci-testifying-congress-about-coronavirus-response-n1198276"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">blocking</span></a> Anthony
Fauci from appearing before a Democratic-led House Appropriations Committee
investigating the administration’s COVID-19 response—at the same time as it was
announced that Fauci would be allowed to speak to a Republican-led Senate
Health Committee hearing. (276)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Later that day, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/01/us/politics/trump-health-department-watchdog.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">in another act of petty revenge</span></a>, the administration replaced Christi Grimm, a Health and
Human Services deputy inspector general who had authored an unflattering but
objective report: (277)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“<a href="https://oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/oei-06-20-00300.asp"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Her report, released last month</span></a> and based on extensive interviews with hospitals
around the country, identified critical shortages of supplies, revealing that
hundreds of medical centers were struggling to obtain test kits, protective
gear for staff members and ventilators. Mr. Trump was embarrassed by the report
at a time he was already under fire for playing down the threat of the virus
and not acting quickly enough to ramp up testing and provide equipment to
doctors and nurses.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The administration announced the move Friday evening so that
the story would be buried.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The next morning, on <b>Saturday, May 3</b>, it was
reported that <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/02/who-us-just-reported-deadliest-day-for-coronavirus.html?fbclid=IwAR3Y5JDL1sXSdK0beExlE1ESFI-hnqFY2xAR20JZq-OeuP5lE_Sg-RgIO6I"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">2,909 Americans had died on Thursday, one of
the highest totals to date</span></a>. A few
hours later, <i>the Washington Post</i> published a blockbuster <span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a;">exposé</span> entitled “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/34-days-of-pandemic-inside-trumps-desperate-attempts-to-reopen-america/2020/05/02/e99911f4-8b54-11ea-9dfd-990f9dcc71fc_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">34 days of pandemic: Inside Trump’s desperate
attempts to reopen U.S.</span></a>”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The article revealed that despite public health officials’
warnings of a second wave of infections (see #244), Trump had been obsessed
with re-opening the economy for the sole purpose of helping his re-election
bid.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">To this end, the administration had formed a “small team led
by Kevin Hassett - a former chairman of Trump's Council of Economic Advisers
with no background in infectious diseases (278)….[who] quietly built an
econometric model to guide response operations.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…senior administration officials said [Hassett’s]
presentations characterized the count as lower than commonly forecast (279) -
and that it was embraced inside the West Wing by the president's son-in-law,
Jared Kushner, and other powerful aides helping to oversee the government's
pandemic response. It affirmed their own skepticism about the severity of the
virus and bolstered their case to shift the focus to the economy, which they
firmly believed would determine whether Trump wins a second term.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“For Trump - whose decision-making has been guided largely
by his reelection prospects - the analysis, coupled with Hassett's grim
predictions of economic calamity, provided justification to pivot to where he
preferred to be: cheering an economic revival rather than managing a
catastrophic health crisis. (see #230)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…By the end of April - with more Americans dying in the
month than in all of the Vietnam War - it became clear that the Hassett model
was too good to be true. ‘A catastrophic miss,’ as a former senior
administration official briefed on the data described it. The president's
course would not be changed, however. Trump and Kushner began to declare a
great victory against the virus, while urging America to start reopening
businesses and schools.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“‘It's going to go. It's going to leave. It's going to be
gone. It's going to be eradicated,’ the president said Wednesday, hours after
his son-in-law claimed the administration's response had been ‘a great success
story.’” (280)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…And though Trump was fixated on reopening the economy, he
and his administration fell far short of making that a reality. The factors
that health and business leaders say are critical to a speedy and effective
reopening - widespread testing, contact tracing and coordinated efforts between
Washington and the states - remain lacking.” (281)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #222222;">Two stories on </span><b style="color: #222222;">Monday, May 4</b><span style="color: #222222;">, made
it clearer than ever that Trump was willing to sacrifice hundreds of thousands
of American lives to win a second term.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #222222;">“</span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/04/cdc-daily-deaths-coronavirus-234377"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Models shift to predict dramatically more U.S.
deaths as states relax social distancing</span></a><span style="color: #222222;">” revealed that “A key model of the
coronavirus pandemic </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/24/trump-coronavirus-model-207582"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">favored by the White House</span></a><span style="color: #222222;"> nearly doubled its prediction Monday for
how many people will die from the virus in the U.S. by August – primarily
because states are reopening too soon. (</span><span style="color: red;">W25</span><span style="color: #222222;">)</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The Institute for Health Metrics and
Evaluation at the University of Washington’s School of Medicine is now
projecting 134,000 coronavirus-related fatalities, up from a previous
prediction of 72,000. Factoring in the scientists’ margin of error, the new prediction
ranges from 95,000 to 243,000.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Dr. Christopher Murray, the director of IHME,
told reporters on a call Monday the primary reason for the increase is many
states’ ‘premature relaxation of social distancing.’”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #222222;">Even as the White House knew relaxing social
distancing and other stay-at-home measures would kill tens of thousands more
Americans (at a minimum), and up to 3,000 people daily, later that day it was
reported that “</span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-cheers-on-governors-as-they-ignore-white-house-coronovirus-guidelines-in-race-to-reopen/2020/05/04/bedc6116-8e18-11ea-a0bc-4e9ad4866d21_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump cheers on governors as they ignore White
House coronavirus guidelines in race to reopen</span></a><span style="color: #222222;">.” (282) </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">One state that followed
Trump’s lead was the Republican enclave of Texas. As reported on <b>Tuesday,
May 5</b>, Texas saw its <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/texas-sees-highest-single-day-jumps-coronavirus-cases-since-outbreak-began-within-two-days-1502061"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">biggest single-day infection totals</span></a> two days after
throwing off social distancing guidelines. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The circumstances in
Texas were predictable, given the state of the pandemic. As reported by <i>the
New York Times</i> that day, “Any notion that the coronavirus threat is
fading away appears to be <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/05/us/coronavirus-deaths-cases-united-states.html?auth=login-email&campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200506&instance_id=18254&login=email&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=26699&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">magical thinking</span></a>, at odds with what the
latest numbers show.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Despite the clear
connection between premature re-openings and increased infections, Trump faced
no political repercussions among his base because <a href="https://www.axios.com/axios-ipsos-coronavirus-week-8-5a1947d5-9850-4e58-9583-9b617e6fdc1b.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">most Republican voters were in the dark about
COVID-19</span></a> due
to poor critical thinking skills and/or a resistance to valid sources of
information. A poll reported by Margaret Talev of <i>Axios</i> showed
that 76% of Republicans didn’t realize that <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/coronavirus-deaths/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the official death tallies were significant
undercounts</span></a> due
to under-reporting in many states and a large number of people who weren’t
counted because they died before being diagnosed with COVID-19. Forty percent
of Republicans actually thought the official numbers <i>were too high</i>.
(283)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-color: transparent;">Some of the Republican ignorance was attributable to the
fact that communities of color had so far been hit at far higher rates than the
white-majority communities many conservatives lived in. </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/05/black-counties-disproportionately-hit-by-coronavirus-237540" style="background-color: transparent;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">As reported in <i>Politico</i></span></a><span style="background-color: transparent;">, “<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Counties across the country with a disproportionate number of
African American residents accounted for 52 percent of diagnoses and 58 percent
of coronavirus deaths nationally, according to a new study released Tuesday.”</span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The
study, “conducted by epidemiologists and clinician-researchers at four
universities in conjunction with the nonprofit AIDS research organization amFar
and PATH’s Center for Vaccine Innovation and Access,” helped to fill in the gap
left by Trump’s CDC, which had failed to publish detailed demographic data
about COVID-19 deaths. (284)</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">“The
disproportionate toll on African Americans ‘calls for interventions like
considering emergency enrollment for </span><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2012/07/how-much-do-you-really-know-about.html"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">the Affordable Care Act</span></a><span style="background: white;">,’
said Dr. Patrick Sullivan, professor of epidemiology at Emory University. ‘And
in the longer-term Medicaid expansion in the South.’” As of the article
posting, the administration had yet to do anything to help expand healthcare to
impacted communities, even as </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/05/states-cut-medicaid-programs-239208"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">states were slashing Medicaid</span></a><span style="background: white;"> rolls
due to a lack of funding. (285)</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">The U.S. passed </span><a href="https://ummid.com/news/2020/may/06.05.2020/over-70000-dead-1-2-mln-ill-covid-19-ravage-continues-in-united-states.html"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">70,000 official deaths</span></a><span style="background: white;"> and </span><a href="https://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2020/05/05/coronavirus-latest-new-university-of-penn-model-predicts-350000-deaths-by-end-of-june-if-all-states-fully-reopen/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">further carnage</span></a> was predicted in a study conducted by the University
of Pennsylvania which projected that 350,000 Americans would die by the end of
June if social distancing measures were relaxed countrywide, 233,000 more than
were projected to die if social distancing was maintained. (<span style="color: red;">W27</span>)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In another jaw-dropping stat revealed that day, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/05/consumer-debt-hits-new-record-of-14point3-trillion.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">first quarter consumer debt hit an all-time
high</span></a>. (286)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">
</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Bad economic news continued on <b>Wednesday, May 6</b>,
as it was reported that <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/06/adp-private-payrolls-april-2020-drop-by-record-20point2-million.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the U.S. had lost over 20 million jobs in
April</span></a>, the most since records had started
in 2002: “‘Job losses of this scale are unprecedented,’ said Ahu Yildirmaz,
co-head of the ADP Research Institute, which compiles the report in conjunction
with Moody’s Analytics. ‘The total number of job losses for the month of April
alone was more than double the total jobs lost during the Great Recession.’”
(287)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Food insecurity was one of the ramifications of the economic
catastrophe made infinitely worse than it otherwise would have been by Trump’s
inaction in the first 10 weeks of the pandemic (see #254). According to <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/05/06/the-covid-19-crisis-has-already-left-too-many-children-hungry-in-america/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a study</span><span style="color: blue;"> </span></a>cited at the Brookings Institution
blog, children were “experiencing food insecurity to an extent unprecedented in
modern times” and “40.9 percent of mothers with children ages 12 and under
reported household food insecurity since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
(288)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Despite the obvious need to counteract food shortages among
millions of Americans, Republicans were <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/06/us/politics/coronavirus-hunger-food-stamps.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200507&instance_id=18281&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=26779&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">blocking</span></a> Democratic
proposals to increase food stamp benefits. (289)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At a time when people were anxious and steady, transparent,
and empathic leadership was more important than ever, Trump continued to blame
shift, scold, and brag. During an Oval Office meeting meant to honor
National Nurses Day, Sophia Thomas (<span style="background: white;">president of the American Association of Nurse
Practitioners) mentioned that she’d had to use the same N95 mask for three
weeks due to a shortage of PPE at her place of employment. Throwing Trump a
bone that he didn’t deserve, she softened her statement by adding that, “We’re
nurses, and we learn to adapt and do whatever, the best thing that we can do
for our patients.”</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/coronavirus/ny-coronavirus-trump-nurse-oval-office-protective-gear-20200506-ldawejbkmzbe5fxb3kr27zceb4-story.html?fbclid=IwAR1Dlgg41XGtwkRBSR9Q_B5FvuYr3DPHdXiM8t7ALKE4sR6o3kuhK4ZwrB8"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">Trump’s response</span></a><span style="background: white;"> was
to talk over Thomas, toss out the baseless anecdotal claim that “I’ve heard the
opposite….I’ve heard that they’re loaded up with gowns now,” then blame
Obama: “Initially we had nothing, we had empty cupboards, we had empty
shelves, we had nothing because it wasn’t put there by the last
administration.”</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Asked by ABC’s David Muir why he hadn’t done anything to
shore up the national reserves of PPE in the first three years of his
administration, Trump <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/05/trump-ppe-coronavirus-blame-impeachment-russia.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">blamed</span></a> the
Mueller investigation of <a href="https://themoscowproject.org/collusion-timeline/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump campaign collusion with Russia</span></a> and the impeachment investigation, and said <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/06/trump-praises-his-coronavirus-response-239787"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the administration’s coronavirus response was
“maybe our best work</span></a>.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">More evidence of Trump’s “best work” was revealed on <b>Thursday,
May 7</b>, when it came out that <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-sustained-clip-of-new-covid-19.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the administration had “[buried] detailed CDC
advice on reopening</span></a>.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/07/admin-shelves-cdc-guide-to-reopening-country-242008"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">According to</span></a> Jason
Dearen and Mike Stobbe of the AP, the CDC had put together detailed safety
guidelines for public health officials around the country to follow, but the
administration had blocked the report from coming out. The likelihood is that
Trump’s people feared that a safe, slow opening could hinder the economic
rebound they felt was necessary for Trump to win a second term. (290)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump’s preference for spin over public health was <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-face-mask-fears-wearing-in-public-hurt-reelection-ap-2020-5"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">further reviewed</span></a> in “Trump won't wear a mask in public because he's
afraid he might look ridiculous and it will harm his reelection chances,
report says.” Though <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/2020/05/all-white-house-officials-will-now-wear-masks-when-close-to-trump-after-president-not-happy-his-valet-tested-positive/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=4480&recip_id=24770&list_id=1"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump was making his staff wear masks</span></a>, he refused to follow his own CDC’s guidelines in public
appearances because he felt that “<span style="background: white;">wearing a face mask would ‘send the wrong message’ that he is
more focused on health than reopening the economy, which aides think is key to
his winning in November.” (291)</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Though most federal GOP officials publicly agreed with
Trump’s re-opening death march, at least in part because of a fear of
reprisals, Republican senator Lamar Alexander <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/07/senate-reopen-coronavirus-243536"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">was willing to tell the truth</span></a> because he was about to retire. As reported by David
Lim of <i>Politico</i>, at a hearing of the Senate HELP Committee that day
(which he chaired), Alexander said that the U.S. had not done “nearly enough”
testing to safely reopen. Alexander also said, <span style="background: white;">“there is no safe
path forward to combat the novel coronavirus without adequate testing.” (</span><span style="background: white; color: red;">W28</span><span style="background: white;">)</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">The
article went on to state that “</span>The Harvard
Global Health Institute released new data Thursday that suggest more than 900,000
coronavirus tests need to be completed daily to consider safely relaxing
distancing measures, as a growing number of states are doing.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“That
number is significantly higher than the approximately 250,000 tests per day the
country is currently running, according to data from The COVID Tracking
Project. Premier Inc., a group purchasing organization, released a survey
Thursday that found health systems will need to at least triple the current
testing capacity to restore nonemergency services even partially.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Premier’s
survey found two factors that are major obstacles to increasing coronavirus
testing: not enough chemical reagents needed to perform tests and shortages of
swabs to take patient samples.” </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">The
shortage in reagents (292) and swabs was rooted in Trump’s unwillingness to order
a national testing plan and rev up the Defense Production Act to the extent
necessary. To most observers, this would’ve been seen as a major failure in
planning and execution with horrible human costs, but Trump told the press more
testing wasn’t necessarily the answer, as it would just increase the official
number of infections and deaths: “In a way, </span><a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/05/08/trump-blocks-national-testing-program--why-because-tests-make-us-look-bad/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">by doing all this testing we make ourselves
look bad</span></a><span style="background: white;">.” </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A real-world way in which the administration had made itself
look bad was explored on <b>Friday, May 8</b>, in “Coronavirus: US death
toll would have been halved had it acted 4 days sooner, study says.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/coronavirus-us-death-toll-halved-093000321.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">According to the article</span></a>, “The daily death toll from <a href="https://www.scmp.com/topics/coronavirus-pandemic-all-stories?utm_medium=partner&utm_campaign=contentexchange&utm_source=YahooFinance"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Covid-19</span></a> in
the United States could have been more than halved if authorities had acted
more swiftly in recommending self-isolation and the wearing of face masks,
according to a new study.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Several US states
began issuing stay-at-home orders in late March, while federal health
authorities began recommending the use of face masks for all in early April. However,
had such measures been implemented just four days earlier, the roughly 2,000
Covid-19 deaths currently being recorded each day would have been cut to less
than 1,000, the study said. (293)</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Furthermore, lifting
the measures in a bid to kick-start the economy would almost instantly increase
the daily death toll to more than 3,000…” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Despite the knowledge that not acting sooner had doubled
deaths, despite the knowledge that reopening too soon would increase the
daily death toll significantly, despite the feeling among 2/3rds of Americans (<a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article242593036.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">and 87% of Democrats/informed Americans</span></a>) that it wasn’t time to reopen, Trump continued to give
false assurances to the American public.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In “<a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/as-deaths-mount-trump-tries-to-convince-americans-it-s-safe-to-inch-back-to-normal/ar-BB13QL8U"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">As deaths mount, Trump tries to convince
Americans it’s safe to inch back to normal</span></a>,”
posted on <b>Saturday, May 9</b>, four <i>Washington Post</i> reporters
examined the administration’s campaign strategy:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“In a week when the novel coronavirus ravaged new
communities across the country and the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/national/coronavirus-us-cases-deaths/?itid=hp_rhp__hp-banner-low_web-gfx-death-tracker%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">number of dead</span><span style="color: blue;"> </span></a>soared past 78,000, President Trump
and his advisers shifted from hour-by-hour crisis management to what they
characterize as a long-term strategy aimed at reviving the decimated economy
and preparing for additional outbreaks this fall.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“But in doing so, the administration is effectively bowing to — and asking
Americans to accept — a devastating proposition: that a steady, daily
accumulation of lonely deaths is the grim cost of reopening the nation.” (294)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The article explained that the administration was telling
itself the country was more or less good to go because the worst was behind us
and hospitals could handle upcoming cases, though <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/04/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-death-toll.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the administration’s own models</span></a> and the multiple waves experienced during <a href="https://www.history.com/news/spanish-flu-second-wave-resurgence"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the Spanish Flu</span></a> indicated otherwise. Since the administration wasn’t
willing to set up national testing (see #292) or contact tracing (295), their
focus was on propaganda—convincing gullible Republicans (see #145, #204, #283)
and independents that it was safe to ease up on restrictions, even if it
wasn’t, even if 10,000+ Americans were dying every week.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Though the country wasn't ready to re-open, Trump applauded governors who put
their constituents at risk by <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1259153410756153350?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1259153410756153350%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.vox.com%2F2020%2F6%2F8%2F21242003%2Ftrump-failed-coronavirus-response"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">tweeting</span></a> the
slogan "TRANSITION TO GREATNESS." (296)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Sunday, May 10</b>,
as it came out that multiple members of the administration had <a href="https://www.thehour.com/news/article/White-House-aides-rattled-after-positive-15259298.php"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">contracted COVID-19</span></a>, Adam Cancryn of <i>Politico</i> documented <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/10/anthony-fauci-deborah-birx-withdrawal-246165"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the conspicuous disappearance of Trump’s top
public health officials</span></a>, Anthony
Fauci and Deborah Birx: “The Trump administration in recent weeks has clamped
down on messaging, largely shifting its focus to cheerleading a restart of the
nation’s economy even as states and businesses clamor for guidance on how to do
so safely.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Key health agencies remain relegated to the background. Some congressional
requests for health officials’ testimony are being rejected. (297) And though
the task force is still intact, it has not held a press briefing for 13 days —
the longest the public has gone without having Anthony Fauci or Deborah Birx at
the White House podium since the briefings began in late February. (298)<br />
<br />
“‘It’s a blind spot that the federal government doesn’t see this first and
foremost as a public health crisis,’ said Joshua Sharfstein, a public health
professor at Johns Hopkins University. ‘This is the public health crisis of the
century, and we’re sometimes treating it as anything but.’”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The next morning, <b>Monday, May 11</b>, Trump
continued to shut the pandemic from his mind and stay on message. Though the
coronavirus task force had <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/unreleased-white-house-report-shows-coronavirus-rates-spiking-heartland-communities-n1204751"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported spikes</span></a> in infection rates around the country just days
earlier, Trump claimed that Democratic governors were making the tough but
necessary choice to stay locked down <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-usa-election/trump-an-eye-on-re-election-accuses-democrats-of-reopening-us-states-too-slowly-idUSL1N2CT0Q7"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">in order to hurt his campaign</span></a>, even as <i>he</i> was making his absurd claim purely to
serve his campaign. (299)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">While the Trump administration devoted an ever-increasing
share of its time and attention to the upcoming election, it continued to fail
at the much more immediate task of governing. <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/11/coronavirus-vaccine-supply-shortages-245450"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">As reported</span></a> by
Sarah Owermohle for <i>Politico</i>, “Meeting the overwhelming demand for
a successful coronavirus vaccine will require a historic amount of coordination
by scientists, drug makers and the government.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The nation’s supply chain isn’t anywhere close to ready for such an effort.”
(300)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Despite this short-sightedness, and the administration’s long list of other
failures and shortcomings (see #1-#299), Trump met that day with reporters in
the White House Rose Garden to puff up his record and give the American public
more false assurances about the advisability of re-opening our economy.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Standing by signs that read “America leads the world in
testing,” which was true in total numbers—because of the country’s size and
number of infections—but <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104645/covid19-testing-rate-select-countries-worldwide/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">was false per capita</span></a>, Trump declared <span style="background: white;">“In every generation, through every challenge and
hardship and danger, America has risen to the task.” Despite over </span><a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/coronavirus-pandemic-more-than-80-000-dead-due-to-covid-19-in-us-report-2227170"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">80,000 deaths</span></a><span style="background: white;"> and
more than a million infections, many/most due to his administration’s gross
negligence, Trump added, “</span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/11/white-house-instructs-staff-wear-masks-249204?nname=politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition&nid=00000170-c000-da87-af78-e185fa700000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=2670445"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">We have met the moment and we
have prevailed</span></a><span style="background: white;">,” a false claim intended to create the dangerously ignorant
impression that COVID-19 was winding down and American life could return to
normal. (301)</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">As
reported by Sheryl Gay Stolberg of <i>the New York Times</i> the next
day, <b>Tuesday, May 12</b>, </span><a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/at-senate-hearing-government-experts-paint-bleak-picture-of-the-pandemic/ar-BB13Zkwl?li=BBnb7Kz"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">there was still no evidence
that the worst of the pandemic was behind us</span></a><span style="background: white;">.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Stolberg’s
“</span>At Senate Hearing, Government
Experts Paint Bleak Picture of the Pandemic” discussed the testimony of top
administration public health officials Anthony Fauci and Robert Redfield, who “<span style="background: white;">predicted dire
consequences if the nation reopened its economy too soon, noting that the
United States still lacked critical testing capacity and the ability to trace
the contacts of those infected.” (</span><span style="background: white; color: red;">W29</span><span style="background: white;">)</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Fauci
told the Republican-controlled Senate Committee on Health, Education, </span>Labor and Pensions that if “states reopen their economies
too soon, ‘there is a real risk that you will trigger an outbreak that you may
not be able to control,’ which could result not only in ‘some suffering and
death that could be avoided, but could even set you back on the road to trying
to get economic recovery.’”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…Dr. Redfield pleaded with senators to build up the
nation’s public health infrastructure, even as he acknowledged that the C.D.C.
had not filled 30 jobs authorized by Congress last year to expand its capacity
to track outbreaks, and had yet to put in place a ‘comprehensive surveillance’
system to monitor outbreaks in nursing homes, which have been hard hit by the
pandemic.” (302, 303)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Fauci and Redfield were barred by the administration from
appearing before House committees controlled by Democrats who were guaranteed
to ask more pointed—and relevant—questions. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-color: white;">The
war between Trump and public health officials who want to keep us safe was in
the news again on </span><b>Wednesday, May 13.</b></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">“Trump
deepens rift with top doctor Fauci on US reopening” looked at Trump and Fauci’s
conflicting priorities, including </span><a href="https://www.barrons.com/news/trump-deepens-rift-with-top-doctor-fauci-on-us-reopening-01589411110"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">Trump’s insistence that
schools re-open in the fall</span></a><span style="background: white;">, which Fauci felt would put
children’s health in danger.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">In “</span>Team Trump Pushes CDC to Revise Down Its COVID Death
Counts,” published at <i>the Daily Beast</i>, it came out that <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/team-trump-pushes-cdc-to-dial-down-covid-death-counts"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump was badgering CDC officials to </span></a><a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/team-trump-pushes-cdc-to-dial-down-covid-death-counts"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">obscure the scope of the
pandemic</span></a><span style="background: white;"> (and the scope of </span><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2020/03/anatomy-of-man-made-disaster-230-ways.html"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">the administration’s failures</span></a><span style="background: white;">) by
giving Americans bad data</span>, even as the CDC’s numbers were
already <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2020/04/27/covid-19-death-toll-undercounted/?arc404=true"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">an underestimate</span></a>. (304)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">One CDC official told <i>the Daily Beast</i>, “The
system can always get better. But if we’ve learned anything it’s that we’re
seeing some of these individuals who have died of the virus slip through the
cracks….It’s not that we’re overcounting.” </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Millions more were at risk of slipping through the cracks
due to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-foodstamps/trumps-usda-fights-court-ruling-protecting-food-benefits-during-pandemic-idUSKBN22P33J"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the Trump administration’s aggressive efforts
to cut food stamp eligibility during the biggest economic crisis since the
Great Depression</span></a> (305). In December of 2019,
the administration had imposed work requirements on food stamp recipients with
the excuse that jobs were plentiful. In March, as the coronavirus surged, a
district court judge put the rule on hold. Though children were going hungry
(see #288), jobs were scarce, there was no sign of a rebound around the corner,
and millions of Americans were forced to go to food banks, Trump’s Department
of Agriculture vowed to challenge the court ruling.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Republicans were also making their constituents’ lives much
more challenging than they needed to be by <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/13/vote-mail-poll-255281"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">opposing vote-by-mail options</span></a> proposed by House Democrats. Three out of five voters
supported Democratic efforts to “provide mail-in ballots to all voters for
elections occurring during the coronavirus pandemic,” and the dangers of
forcing voters to show up at polling places during a pandemic were obvious, but
congressional Republicans saw a political advantage in suppressing the vote by
keeping voters scared—especially in high-density Democratic cities—as
low-turnout races are favorable to the GOP. (306)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Mail-in balloting has been shown to be <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/5/27/15701708/voting-by-mail"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">safer, less expensive, and more secure</span></a>, and has worked like a charm in states in which it has been
implemented, but Republican voters in the poll opposed the practice 48-42%, a
reflection of the brute <span style="background: white;">effectiveness of Trump’s hyper-partisan messaging, his GOP
allies’ lockstep adherence to counterfactual talking points, and the negative
impact of his base’s cult-like ignorance on public policy. (307)</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">The
theme of </span><a href="https://www.heraldmailmedia.com/news/nation/battle-over-coronavirus-rules-and-reopenings-across-us-is-increasingly-partisan-and-bitter/article_c1005f31-9887-5f8c-ac8e-91287c7b0e2d.html"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">Republican disinformation
campaigns</span></a><span style="background: white;"> was revealed again in “</span>Battle
over coronavirus rules and reopenings across US is increasingly partisan, and
bitter,” a column by Melissa Etehad of <i>the Los Angeles Times</i> which
dropped on <b>T<span style="background: white;">hursday, May 14.</span></b></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Though </span><a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/one-simple-chart-explains-how-social-distancing-saves-lives"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">social distancing had been
proven to save lives</span></a><span style="background: white;"> and the pandemic was still going strong—with 85,000
dead and 1.4 million infected—Republican politicians around the country were
following Trump’s lead, forcing states and localities to open before it was
safe to do so. In Wisconsin, Republicans on the state Supreme Court overturned
the Democratic governor's shelter-in-place order, to which Trump tweeted “</span>The Great State of Wisconsin, home to Tom Tiffany’s big
Congressional Victory on Tuesday, was just given another win. Its Democrat
Governor was forced by the courts to let the State Open. The people want to get
on with their lives. The place is bustling!” (308*) (*The state would go on to
have a huge spike in infections directly tied to the premature re-opening.)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Unwilling
to do what was necessary to slow down the pandemic, Trump fell back on his
favored tool of deflection, claiming that the U.S. </span><a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/5/15/21259888/trump-coronavirus-testing-very-few-cases"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">had more cases</span></a><span style="background: white;"> because
we did more testing (309) and feigning reverence for the medical personnel
whose lives had been made miserable by his inaction. At that day’s briefing, he
said that </span><a href="https://www.rawstory.com/2020/05/trump-horrifies-health-workers-by-saying-its-beautiful-to-watch-them-running-into-death/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=4540"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">the image of medical staff “</span></a><a href="https://www.rawstory.com/2020/05/trump-horrifies-health-workers-by-saying-its-beautiful-to-watch-them-running-into-death/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=4540"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">running into death just like soldiers run into
bullets….is a beautiful thing to see</span></a>.” </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Friday, May 15</b>, the day after Trump waxed
poetic about putting doctors and nurses in proximity to death and dying and
horrible human suffering, two jaw-dropping statistics came out.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It was reported that “<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/14/economy/low-income-layoffs-coronavirus/index.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Nearly </span></a><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/14/economy/low-income-layoffs-coronavirus/index.html"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">40% of low-income workers
lost their jobs in March</span></a><span style="background: white;">” (310) and </span>Robert Redfield announced that the U.S. would have <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/15/us-on-pace-to-pass-100-000-covid-19-deaths-by-june-1-cdc-director-says-261468"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">100,000 deaths</span></a> by June 1. Shocking as it was, the latter number was
an underestimate, as the U.S. would actually reach 100,000 deaths well before
the end of May, and the official numbers were far lower than the actual death
tolls. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Though the administration’s own models showed <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/04/cdc-daily-deaths-coronavirus-234377"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a doubling of cases with premature re-openings</span></a>, though <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/15/stay-at-home-order-coronavirus-259041"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">only two states had met the CDC criteria to
re-open</span></a>, though Dr. Fauci and most voters
opposed it, Trump <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/19/trumps-push-to-reopen-schools-and-day-care-gets-chilly-reception-from-voters-269430"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">continued to push schools to re-open</span></a> in the fall, a move that would put children and
teachers and their families at risk so that Trump’s failure to contain the
pandemic wasn’t so evident at election time. (311)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Saturday, May 16</b>, Trump received <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31140-5/fulltext"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the honor</span><span style="color: blue;"> </span></a>of a write-up in one of the world’s
oldest and most prestigious medical journals, <i>The Lancet</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The authors of “Reviving the US CDC” opened by referring to “the inconsistent
and incoherent national response to the COVID-19 crisis,” as the U.S. had
dozens if not hundreds of plans, depending on the location, and no broad
national strategy. (312)<br />
<br />
Later on, the article read “only a steadfast reliance on basic public health
principles, like test, trace, and isolate, will see the emergency brought to an
end, and this requires an effective national public health agency,” but this
wasn’t happening. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In fact, the administration’s actions indicated that Trump was downright
indifferent to the mass suffering of his constituents. The following
day, <b>Sunday, May 17</b>, Burgess Everett of <i>Politico</i> reported
that “<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/17/congress-coronavirus-deal-unemployment-260737"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Congress [was] nowhere close to a coronavirus
deal as unemployment spikes</span></a>.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Though Trump and his Republican allies had passed an enormous and totally
unnecessary $2+ trillion tax cut <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/12/18/16791174/republican-tax-bill-congress-conference-tax-policy-center"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">heavily tilted to the wealthy</span></a> and rammed through <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/18/senate-passes-700-billion-defense-policy-bill-backing-trump-call-for-steep-increase-in-military-spending.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">huge increases</span></a> to the <a href="https://www.pgpf.org/chart-archive/0053_defense-comparison"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">already gargantuan defense budget</span></a>, the HEROES Act, a bill passed by House Democrats
which <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/5/12/21254397/next-coronavirus-stimulus-package-democrats-heroes-act"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">extended vital aid to state and local
governments, and provided money for unemployment benefits, business payrolls,
mortgage relief, and front line medical workers</span></a>, was languishing in the Republican Senate, as Mitch
McConnell and his ringmaster—Donald Trump—chose the worst possible moment to
stonewall tens of millions of Americans.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">The
top story on <b>Monday, May 18</b>, the day the U.S. </span><a href="https://tekdeeps.com/the-united-states-rounds-90000-dead-and-1-5-million-infected-with-corona-2/"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">passed 90,000 deaths</span></a><span style="background: white;"> due
to administration negligence (see #1-#312), was </span><a href="https://www.axios.com/trump-hydroxychloroquine-e594e81b-c35a-47f8-878d-67f84ce421ea.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiospm&stream=top"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">Trump’s claim that he was
taking hydroxychloroquine</span></a><span style="background: white;">, despite health warnings from his
own FDA and studies showing that use of </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/12/health/chloroquine-coronavirus-trump.html"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">the drug could be fatal</span></a><span style="background: white;">. Sure
enough, Trump’s self-medication was later </span><a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/republicans-use-potentially-lethal-drug-hydroxychloroquine-as-trump-bait"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">aped by Trumpanzees</span></a><span style="background: white;">.
(313) </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Back
in the real world, on <b>Tuesday, May 19</b>, a memo leaked from a
Pentagon source </span><a href="https://taskandpurpose.com/news/coronavirus-vaccine-pentagon-memo"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">put the lie to two of Trump’s
repeated claims</span></a><span style="background: white;">.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Written
by Defense Secretary Mark Esper, the memo stated that contrary to Trump’s
insistence that the worst of the pandemic was behind us, the U.S. armed forces
had to maintain disaster readiness because </span>“<span style="background: white;">We have a long
path ahead, with the real possibility of a resurgence of COVID-19….Therefore,
we must now re-focus our attention on resuming critical missions, increasing
levels of activity, and making necessary preparations should a significant
resurgence of COVID-19 occur later this year.</span>”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">And
though Esper had told the media just days earlier that “</span>the Pentagon would ‘deliver by the end of this year a
vaccine at scale to treat the American people and our partners abroad,’” his
memo stated that “The Defense Department should prepare to operate in a
‘globally-persistent’ novel coronavirus (COVID-19) environment without an
effective vaccine until ‘at least the summer of 2021.’” </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">More evidence of the danger in reopening too soon was
revealed <b>Wednesday, May 20</b>. A model from the University of Pennsylvania’s
Wharton School predicted that <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8340325/5million-Americans-infected-COVID-19-July-model-shows.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a premature relaxation of social distancing
guidelines around the country could lead to 5.4 million infections and 290,000
deaths by July 24</span></a>. (<span style="color: red;">W30</span>)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The CDC was the one
agency whose actions could keep those death rates down, but the CDC had not
been allowed to do its job. As reported by Robert Kuznia, Curt Devin, and Nick
Valencia of cnn.com, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/20/politics/coronavirus-travel-alert-cdc-white-house-tensions-invs/index.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">public health officials had been diminished
from early in the pandemic</span></a>: “In the early weeks of the US
coronavirus outbreak, staff members in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention had tracked a growing number of transmissions in Europe and
elsewhere, and proposed a global advisory that would alert flyers to the
dangers of air travel.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“But about a week passed before the alert was issued
publicly -- crucial time lost when about 66,000 European travelers were
streaming into American airports <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2020/03/13/travelers-europe-will-face-additional-scrutiny/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">every day</span></a>.”
(314)<br />
<br />
“…In interviews with CNN, CDC officials say their agency's efforts to mount a
coordinated response to the Covid-19 pandemic have been hamstrung by a White
House whose decisions are driven by politics rather than science. (315)<br />
<br />
“The result has worsened the effects of the crisis, sources inside the CDC say,
relegating the 73-year-old agency that has traditionally led the nation's
response to infectious disease to a supporting role.<br />
<br />
“‘We've been muzzled,’ said a current CDC official. ‘What's tough is that if we
would have acted earlier on what we knew and recommended, we would have saved
lives and money.’<br />
<br />
“…A senior official inside the CDC told CNN that the agency also alerted the
White House to the virus's rapid spread across Europe, but that ‘the White
House was extremely focused on China and not wanting to anger Europe ... even
though that's where most of our cases were originally coming from.’” (see #43)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The administration’s disregard for public health continued into the present,
as <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/20/media/anthony-fauci-tv-interviews/index.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Dr. Fauci had been taken off the air</span></a> (see #297) and Republicans were “recruiting ‘extremely
pro-Trump’ doctors to go on television to prescribe reviving the U.S. economy
as quickly as possible, without waiting to meet safety benchmarks proposed by
the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to slow the spread of
the new coronavirus.” (316)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">While <a href="https://apnews.com/4ee1a3a8d631b454f645b2a8d9597de7"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">recruiting quack doctors to push fake news</span></a>, Trump continued <a href="https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election/article242863131.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the GOP’s campaign to suppress the Democratic
vote</span></a> in the fall by “[threatening]<span style="background: white;"> over
Twitter…to pull federal funding from Michigan and Nevada for mail-in-voting
efforts.” (317)</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Another example of the fallout from the Trump
administration’s shockingly inadequate response to COVID-19 and the economic
shock waves it had created was reported by Jessica Menton at <i>USA Today</i> on <b>Thursday,
May 21</b>. According to the dispatch, “<span style="background: white;">Mortgage delinquencies surged by 1.6 million in
April, </span><a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/05/21/coronavirus-mortgage-delinquencies-surge-1-6-m-april/5231835002/"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">the largest single-month jump
in history</span></a><span style="background: white;">.” (318)</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…At 6.45%,
the national delinquency rate nearly doubled from 3.06% in March, the largest
single-month increase recorded, and nearly three times the prior record for a
single month during the height of the financial crisis in late 2008.”</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…The
Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, passed in March, allows
homeowners to suspend their mortgage payments for up to a year on federally
backed mortgages. It doesn’t protect mortgages that aren’t backed by the
government, which make up about half of all mortgages in the USA.”</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Though the need for more government relief to homeowners,
renters, and the unemployed couldn’t have been clearer, and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/13/business/economy/fed-chair-powell-economy-virus-support.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200514&instance_id=18463&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=27760&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">was prescribed by none other than Trump’s own
hand-picked Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell</span></a>, Trump ally Mitch McConnell continued to ignore the HEROES
Act passed by House Democrats and made no counter proposals of his own that
could be negotiated between the House and Senate, claiming there was “no
immediate need” to address the desperation of tens of millions of Americans.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As of <b>Friday, May 22, </b>the U.S. had <a href="https://apnews.com/900aa1955a82b7bbe2e028a8bc1a4be7"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">lost 39 million jobs</span></a> since the start of the pandemic. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In a misguided effort to reverse this slide, <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2020/05/07/as-states-reopen-covid-19-is-spreading-into-even-more-trump-counties/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=sendto_newslettertest&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">red states were opening up more aggressively
than blue/purple states and seeing increases in infections</span></a>. As reported on the Brookings Institution blog, “for four
weeks running, counties newly designated with a high prevalence of COVID-19
cases were more likely to have voted for Trump than for Hillary Clinton in the
2016 presidential election.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…COVID-19’s spread is continuing southward and westward
from its northeastern concentration at the end of March. Counties identified in
the most recent week are heavily located in the South (80 counties) and Midwest
(68). There is also a high representation in smaller areas, as 159 of the 176
newly identified high-prevalence counties lie in outer suburbs, small
metropolitan areas, or outside of metropolitan areas.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…Among new high-prevalence counties from the week of May 11
to May 17, Trump won 151 of them in the 2016 election. Clinton was the victor
in just 25.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…Over the four-week period between April 20 and May 17, 697
new high COVID-19 prevalence counties voted for Trump, compared with just 127
that voted for Clinton.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">One might think the direct connection between lax social
distancing and an increase in infections would be obvious, and that the
credibility of public health officials would be reinforced by this inescapable
conclusion, but Trump’s months of misinformation had disconnected tens of
millions of Americans from reality. <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2020/05/21/trust-in-medical-scientists-has-grown-in-u-s-but-mainly-among-democrats/?fbclid=IwAR0VujNUymHIMiIHFiBm7ARPQeHVnbSYob9Jhz36v_eKXT45lhDsVpBAASA"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">A recent Pew poll</span></a> showed that Democrats were more likely than
Republicans to trust scientists (319) and think scientists should have an
active role in forming policy (320), much more likely to grasp the value in
social distancing (321), much more likely to grasp the importance of testing in
mitigating the damage of the virus (322), and much more likely to know that the
U.S. had had far more cases than any other country.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Republican voters’ COVID-19 ignorance was also evident in an
ABC poll published Friday which showed that <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/black-americans-latinos-times-died-covid-19-poll/story?id=70794789"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">89% of Republicans approved of Trump’s
handling of the coronavirus</span></a>, despite an
endless and unceasing list of administration failures (see #1-#322).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The insidious impact of Trump’s lies was reviewed again
on <b>Saturday, May 23 </b>in<b> </b><a href="https://www.mediaite.com/politics/bill-gates-bioweapons-and-bad-data-poll-shows-fox-news-viewers-believe-covid-conspiracies-misinformation-in-big-numbers/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a <i>Mediaite</i> piece</span></a> by Caleb Howe. According to a Yahoo/YouGov poll, 50%
of Fox News viewers thought Bill Gates wanted to use a COVID-19 vaccination
campaign to implant a microchip in their heads as a tracking device, 65%
thought the virus was “engineered in a lab in China,” 46% thought it was
“intentionally created” as a “biowarfare weapon,” and 55% thought the official
COVID-19 death tallies were too high. (323)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The impact of Trump’s appeals to lockstep stupidity on the
right were also explored in “<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/24/pennsylvania-election-nightmare-275410"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Key swing state warns of November election
nightmare</span></a>.” Because of the GOP’s refusal to
help fund mail-in voting, Pennsylvania was facing a nightmare scenario for
their upcoming primary, with thousands of voters not receiving ballots on time
and districts lacking the staff to count the ballots when they came in. With
Pennsylvania likely to be one of the central states in determining who would win
the presidential election, there was a possibility that Republicans’ laser
focus on suppressing the vote (served by not funding mail-in voting during a
pandemic) could leave the world waiting days—if not weeks—to find out who won
Pennsylvania, and therefore, the presidency itself. (324)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As Trump undermined the sacred process of voting, the
administration continued to fail to govern. On <b>Sunday, May 24</b>, <span style="background: white;">Loveday Morris
and Luisa Beck of <i>the Washington Post</i> </span><a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/while-us-struggles-to-roll-out-coronavirus-contact-tracing-germany-has-been-doing-it-from-the-start/ar-BB14yvg1"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">compared</span></a><span style="background: white;"> </span>the responses of Germany and the United States in relation
to contact tracing. While Germany had begun contract tracing since their first
COVID-19 cases were confirmed, the U.S. still had no national system in place
nearly five months after first being notified of COVID-19’s threat, creating
predictably divergent results: “Epidemiologists say the effort [in Germany] has
been essential to the country’s ability to contain its coronavirus outbreak and
avoid the larger death tolls seen elsewhere, even with a less stringent
shutdown than in other countries.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Because the administration had failed to get behind the
practice of contact tracing, Republican voters were once again in the dark,
showing a Pavlovian resistance to something they didn’t understand. On Memorial
Day, <b>Monday, May 25</b>, Will Sommer of <i>the Daily Beast</i> posted “<a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/trumpsters-already-revolting-against-covid-083852347.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trumpsters Are Already Revolting Against COVID
Contact Tracing</span></a>”: (325)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">“Donald Trump’s allies in conservative media have a new villain in the
coronavirus fight: contact tracing, the rigorous efforts to track the virus’s
spread that public health experts say is essential to safely restarting
society.” </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">“…A
wide range of public health officials and experts have insisted that the
country needs to vastly expand contact tracing, with one Johns Hopkins study
calling for the hiring of at least 100,000 </span><a href="https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/our-work/pubs_archive/pubs-pdfs/2020/200410-national-plan-to-contact-tracing.pdf"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">additional contact tracers</span></a><span style="background: white;">. Dr.
Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious
Diseases, </span><a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-second-wave-fauci-4fea926c-485d-4ea4-8c63-ebae73c533fc.html"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">said</span></a><span style="background: white;"> earlier
this month that coronavirus deaths will ‘of course’ increase without additional
tracing and testing.”</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">“…But
much of the fearmongering about contact tracing seems to be driven by ignorance
of what it actually is. Failed Republican congressional candidate and </span><a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/qanon-the-crazy-pro-trump-conspiracy-melts-down-over-oig-report"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">QAnon conspiracy theorist</span></a><span style="background: white;"> DeAnna
Lorraine Tesoriero, whose call to ‘#FireFauci’ Trump retweeted in April, has
urged her fans to not get tested for COVID-19. She also appears to misunderstand
contact tracing, claiming that contact tracers go through phone ‘contact’
lists, rather than in-person contacts.” </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Dropping the ball on contact tracing was just one of the
administration’s many failures of governance. The administration had also
failed to provide the resources necessary for nursing home staff to be tested
on a deadline recommended <i>by the administration itself</i>. According
to Alan Suderman of the Associated Press, the “lack of testing and other
resources <a href="https://apnews.com/681479be1d9f1a0fea4d64b1a44d5b9e"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">have left [nursing homes] nearly powerless</span></a> to stop the virus from entering their facilities
because they haven’t been able to identity silent spreaders not showing
symptoms.” (326)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">During the day’s <a href="https://www.ctpost.com/news/article/Memorial-Day-offers-contrasts-as-Biden-and-Trump-15293738.php"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">dueling Memorial Day events</span></a>, Joe Biden and his wife wore masks, while Trump did not.
(327)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That evening, white Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin
murdered African-American George Floyd over a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The details of the murder weren’t widely known the following
day, <b>Tuesday, May 26</b>, so coronavirus continued to get a lot of news
coverage. Among other stories, Trump once again displayed and encouraged
ignorance among his fan base by calling a reporter “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-calls-mask-wearing-politically-correct-biden-calls-him-a-fool/2020/05/26/a58025e6-9f9c-11ea-81bb-c2f70f01034b_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">politically correct</span></a>” for not removing his mask while asking a question. (328)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Another one of Trump’s false talking points—that mail-in voting was rife with
fraud—was finally called out by Twitter with a warning label about <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/26/twitter-fact-checks-trump-slaps-warning-labels-on-his-tweets-about-mail-in-ballots.html?fbclid=IwAR2k22JzR2l3NqPcpFQ24ZeRRgHis7I4KbdSTqTDI_dXhBCewtH-baRpxn8"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">misinformation</span></a> attached to two of Trump’s tweets. (329)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The results of Trump’s months of lies and the parroting of
his lies by Republican allies and media surrogates were reflected in a Gallup
poll which again showed <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/311408/republicans-skeptical-covid-lethality.aspx"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the stone ignorance of Republican voters</span></a> (see #145, #204, #283, #307, #313, #s 319-323. #325).
Only 40% of Republican voters (as opposed to 87% of Democrats) understood that
COVID-19 was <a href="https://www.livescience.com/new-coronavirus-compare-with-flu.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">far more lethal</span></a> than seasonal flu (330). Half of Republicans falsely
believed official death counts were overstated, <i>ten times</i>’ the
number of Democrats.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The magical thinking of Trump supporters and other
low-information citizens was evident in the huge crowds that came out on
Memorial Day, despite the fact that coronavirus was still going strong. (331)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In the reality-based world, indications showed that the U.S.
was still “<a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/05/26/862230065/as-the-u-s-heads-toward-100-000-covid-19-deaths-we-re-early-in-this-outbreak"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">early in this outbreak</span></a>,” hospitalizations were increasing across much of the
U.S. (332), the World Health Organization was warning of <a href="https://www.lmtonline.com/news/article/WHO-warns-of-second-peak-discourages-swift-15296366.php"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a second peak</span></a> resulting from a premature relaxation of safety
guidelines, and millions of American children were going hungry because of
the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/26/us/coronavirus-live-updates.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">slow rollout</span></a> of
the Pandemic-EBT program (333) and the GOP’s resistance to expanding food
stamps (see #289).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In addition to shortchanging children of basic human needs,
in part because they refused to come up with a coordinated federal response to
food insecurity (334), the administration was setting many states up to fail by
not creating a coordinated federal testing program, even as the need for a
national testing program was becoming clearer all the time. (335) </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As <a href="https://www.boston.com/news/coronavirus/2020/05/26/trump-coronavirus-testing-strategy"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> by
Apoorva Mandavilli and Catie Edmondson of <i>the New York Times</i>, the
administration’s official “plan”—released in a report—was to outsource testing
to the states, though states lacked the resources to test at a capacity
necessary to keep citizens safe:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The [administration] proposal also says existing testing capacity, if properly
targeted, is sufficient to contain the outbreak. But epidemiologists say that
amount of testing is orders of magnitude lower than many of them believe the
country needs.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The report cements a stance that has frustrated governors
in both parties, following the administration’s announcement last month that
the<span style="color: #3d85c6;"> </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/27/politics/white-house-testing-blueprint/index.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">federal government should be considered ‘the
supplier of last resort</span><span style="color: blue;">’</span></a> and that states should develop their own testing
plans.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“[Scott Becker, executive director of the Association of Public Health
Laboratories] and others said it’s reasonable to expect states to implement
some aspects of the testing, such as designating test sites. But acquiring
tests involves reliance on national and international supply chains — which are
challenging for many states to navigate.<br />
<br />
“‘That’s our biggest question, that’s our biggest concern, is the robustness of
the supply chain, which is critical,’ Becker said. ‘You can’t leave it up to
the states to do it for themselves. This is not the Hunger Games.’”<br />
<br />
The administration’s report also greatly underestimated the number of tests
necessary, pegging it at 300,000/day, roughly 1/10th of what the Edmond J.
Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard said was needed. (336)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/27/coronavirus-death-toll-100000-285043"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump passed his personal milestone of 100,000
dead Americans</span></a> on <b>Wednesday, May 27</b>. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As incomprehensible as the number was, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/27/bad-state-coronavirus-data-trump-reopening-286143?nname=politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition&nid=00000170-c000-da87-af78-e185fa700000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=2670445"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">it was an underestimate</span></a>, perhaps even a major underestimate, as many states were
failing to report accurate death counts. Trump’s response to this horrible
human tragedy of his own making was to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/for-a-numbers-obsessed-trump-theres-one-he-has-tried-to-ignore-100000-dead/2020/05/27/0a9c58ee-9f63-11ea-9590-1858a893bd59_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">tweet-brag</span></a>:
“For all of the political hacks out there, if I hadn’t done my job well, &
early, we would have lost 1 1/2 to 2 Million People, as opposed to the 100,000
plus that looks like will be the number.”<br />
<br />
In other news, the United States, under Trump’s leadership, had had both 3X as
many deaths as any other country and <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-effects-of-covid-19-on-international-labor-markets-an-update/?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200528&instance_id=18874&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=29399&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the biggest increase in unemployment</span></a> among comparable developed countries (337), which was
about to lead to an “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/27/us/coronavirus-evictions-renters.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">avalanche of evictions</span></a>,” predominantly in red states with limited tenant
protections. (338)<br />
<br />
Trump’s failures to ramp up testing, tracing, and PPE from early in the
pandemic also exerted a toll on American citizens’ health and medical services.
According to <a href="https://www.kff.org/report-section/kff-health-tracking-poll-may-2020-health-and-economic-impacts/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a Kaiser Family Foundation study</span></a>, “Nearly half of adults (48%) say they or someone in their
household have postponed or skipped medical care due to the coronavirus
outbreak.” (see #152-#154)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Despite how much more gravely the impacts of COVID-19 were
felt in the United States than other developed countries due to Trump’s
failures of leadership, between 80-90% of Republicans continued to approve of
his handling of coronavirus (339). A key to this steadfast support of a
president who had so obviously failed us was discussed in a study released by
two political scientists.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-effect-new-study-connects-white-american-intolerance-support-authoritarianism-ncna877886?fbclid=IwAR3DpjF9r7FZmV8mYe2FDyGbQJjoAgHKyQzdApxo6CZMcCrdX4WwLtszfVQ"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">an article</span></a> titled
“The Trump effect: New study connects white American intolerance and support
for authoritarianism,” Noah Berlatsky discussed the findings, the key one being
that “when intolerant white people fear democracy may benefit marginalized
people, they abandon their commitment to democracy.”<br />
<br />
“…For instance, people who said they did not want to live next door to
immigrants or to people of another race were more supportive of the idea of
military rule, or of a strongman-type leader who could ignore legislatures and
election results.”<br />
<br />
While racist Trump supporters cheered on their toxic strongman, the four
Minneapolis police officers responsible for George Floyd’s death were fired and
protests around the country continued to flare.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Thursday, May 28</b> was
a bad day for America. It was reported that <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/28/us-economy-shrank-at-5-annual-rate-in-q1-287717"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the economy had contracted by 5%</span></a> in the first quarter of 2020, and the second quarter
was likely to be worse. 2.1 million Americans had lost their jobs and
bankruptcies were “<a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/05/jobless-claims-bankruptcies-coronavirus-recession.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">soaring</span></a>.”
(340) Millions of Americans who were unemployed and unlikely to find work any
time soon were <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/28/business/economy/coronavirus-stimulus-unemployment.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">fearing the end of their federal benefits</span></a>, as Trump’s Republican allies in the Senate continued to
ignore the House Democrats’ stimulus bill, passed two weeks earlier, or come up
with a counter bill.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/28/rising-icu-bed-use-red-flag-287552?nname=politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition&nid=00000170-c000-da87-af78-e185fa700000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=2670445"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">ICU bed use was increasing</span></a> in hot spots around the country (341) and <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/5/28/21270515/coronavirus-covid-reopen-economy-social-distancing-states-map-data"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">only six states</span></a> met the minimum (which is not to say <i>adequate</i>)
standards for re-opening, even as virtually the whole country had re-opened to
one extent or another, largely at Trump’s prodding.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As coronavirus and protests raged, Trump picked petty fights with imaginary
foes. Though Trump had used Twitter for years as his primary source of
messaging, Twitter’s 11th hour decision to fact-check Trump’s misleading tweets
about mail-in voting gave the president a hissy fit and prompted him to sign
a <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/trump-social-media-executive-order/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">legally void</span></a> executive
order limiting social media companies’ practices while claiming to “defend
free speech from one of the gravest dangers it has faced in American history.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Early on <b>Friday, May 29</b>, Trump got <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2020/05/28/twitter-fact-checks-trump-facebooks-mark-zuckberberg-disputes-move/5272584002/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">another rebuff from Twitter</span></a> when he expressed his feelings about the George Floyd
protests by reviving a line uttered by <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/05/trump-looting-shooting-racist-history.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a racist Miami police chief</span></a><span style="color: #3d85c6;"> </span>in
1967. Tweeting at 12:53 a.m. for some reason, Trump said “when the looting
starts, the shooting starts” while threatening to send the military out to
handle civilian affairs in Minneapolis. Twitter noted that the message violated
their rules about “<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/28/politics/trump-twitter-social-media-executive-order/index.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">glorifying violence</span></a>.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At a news conference that day, Trump went after another imaginary foe, announcing
that he would “<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-says-u-s-will-be-terminating-relationship-who-n1218441?cid=sm_npd_nn_fb_ma&fbclid=IwAR1swxOwFnVeDUA50edmyGgQ4Wgv_lUHHiAyS2xuUfprFBL3scwCDkh2tTw"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">terminate</span></a> America’s
relationship with the [World Health Organization].” (342) Trying to deflect
attention from his own catastrophic failures of governance, Trump once again
blamed China for the first-in-the-world rates of deaths and infections in the
U.S., then blamed the WHO for not forcing China’s hand, though the organization
had had no means to do so.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-a-us-exit-from-the-who-means-for-covid-19-and-global-health/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=health&utm_content=link&utm_term=2020-06-01_top-"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">According to</span></a> Amy
Maxman of <i>Nature</i> magazine, due to Trump’s decision, “experts
in health policy are contending with repercussions that could range from a
resurgence of polio and malaria, to barriers in the flow of information on
COVID-19. (343) Scientific partnerships around the world would also be damaged,
and the United States could lose influence over global health initiatives,
including those to distribute drugs and vaccines for the new coronavirus as they
become available, say researchers.” (344)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“...Proposals for new US-led initiatives for pandemic preparedness abroad do
little to quell researchers’ concerns. Some say these efforts might even add
incoherence to the world's response to COVID-19, and global health more
generally, if they're not connected to a fully-funded WHO.”<br />
<br />
“…The rift is poorly timed, given the need for international coordination and
cooperation to contend with the coronavirus. ‘In this pandemic, people have
said we’re building the plane while flying,’ [Rebecca] Katz [director of the
Center for Global Health Science and Security at Georgetown University] says.
‘This proposal is like removing the windows while the plane is mid-air.’” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That evening, <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2020/04/wisconsin-republicans-make-mockery-of.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Wisconsin</span></a>,
a state which had been forced to re-open by right-wing Republican judges on the
state Supreme Court, announced that it had a <a href="https://www.wisn.com/article/state-sets-new-record-for-most-coronavirus-cases-reported-in-one-day/32714669"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">record one-day spike</span></a> in reported cases.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Saturday, May 30</b>, David Pitt of the AP <a href="https://apnews.com/54f1efe0afa71b0a939fda91cf917366"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that
the U.S. had just experienced its largest monthly increase in food prices in 46
years. (345)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump wasn’t about to get distracted by trifling matters
like food prices or the mass protests all across the country which were
amplified by his divisive rhetoric. His attention instead went into gushing
over the empty pageantry around Elon Musk’s spaceman vanity project and <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-republican-national-convention-north-carolina-coronavirus-masks-social-distancing-roy-cooper-a9540051.html?fbclid=IwAR1ymyAsoLDiB2QlbJd2Hbx0twehafTN8oZIk_6vb_7-PDXJ3NE6Gmm642g"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">petulantly demanding</span></a> that North Carolina allow a GOP convention with no
masks or social distancing. (346)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Sunday, May 31</b>,
it was reported that Florida, a state whose Republican governor (Ron DeSantis)
had been dismissive of the pandemic, was seeing a major increase in COVID-19
deaths, even as the reported numbers were an <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/floridas-seen-a-statistically-significant-uptick-in-pneumonia-deaths-the-cdc-says-its-likely-covid?ref=home"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">undercount</span></a> masked
by COVID deaths attributed to pneumonia or influenza. New deaths in Florida
were overwhelmingly happening in <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/as-florida-reopens-the-deaths-quietly-keep-piling-up-in-nursing-homes/ar-BB14Qelu"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">nursing homes</span></a>.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A number of substantive pieces about COVID-19 dropped
on <b>Monday, June 1</b>.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Sam Baker of <i>Axios</i> <a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-lockdown-lessons-2f2e28cb-848b-42e2-a9da-b2d31fb8bda6.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">pointed out</span></a> that
“The national lockdown is easing and the pandemic is no longer the single
dominant storyline of our lives, but nothing has really changed — we didn’t
develop a treatment and the virus didn’t get naturally weaker. It’s just as
contagious as it ever was.” (<span style="color: red;">W31</span>)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A <i>Washington Post</i>-ABC poll found that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/despite-widespread-economic-toll-most-americans-still-favor-controlling-outbreak-over-restarting-economy-post-abc-poll-finds/2020/06/01/3e052ec0-a27b-11ea-81bb-c2f70f01034b_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump’s unceasing demagoguery had created
sharp partisan divides in accepting this reality</span></a>: “<span style="background: white;">57 percent of Americans overall and 81 percent of
Democrats say trying to control the spread of the coronavirus is most important
right now, even if it hurts the economy. A far smaller 27 percent of
Republicans agree, while 66 percent of them say restarting the economy is
more important, even if it hurts efforts to control the virus. Nearly 6 in 10
independents say their priority is trying to control the virus’s spread.” (347)</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In a rare interview, with the medical site statnews.com,
Anthony Fauci said that his meetings with Donald Trump to discuss the federal
COVID-19 response had “<a href="https://www.mediaite.com/trump/dr-fauci-says-his-meetings-with-trump-have-dramatically-decreased/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">dramatically decreased</span></a>.” (348)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What was the president up to in the middle of a pandemic?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Threatening to <a href="https://apnews.com/a2797b342b4fc509e43f404817a56aa9"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">sic the military on protesters</span></a>, calling governors “fools” and “jerks” in a <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/trump/trump-reportedly-berates-governors-as-fools-jerks-in-conference-call-demands-they-dominate-protesters-with-force/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">conference call</span></a> because they weren’t using force on protesters,
and <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/06/police-tear-gas-protesters-before-a-trump-photo-op-with-a-bible/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">having demonstrators tear-gassed</span></a> so that he could walk across the street to St. John’s
Church and hold a Bible for an awkward photo op.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Tuesday, June 2</b>, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/02/north-carolina-governor-rejects-gops-demand-for-full-fledged-convention-296566?nname=playbook&nid=0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=630318"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump had a temper tantrum</span></a> over the refusal of North Carolina’s Democratic
governor to allow a GOP convention without COVID precautions on the same day
that Deborah Birx <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/02/deborah-birx-coronavirus-outbreak-summer-296490"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">warned</span></a> at
a public event that <span style="background: white;">"None of us can be lulled into this false sense of
security that the cases may go down this summer." (349)</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">While Trump fixated on staging a <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/super-spreader-coronavirus/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">super-spreader</span></a> convention, it was reported that his inactions had
contributed to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/06/01/americans-are-delaying-medical-care-its-devastating-health-care-providers/?arc404=true"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the loss of 1.4 million healthcare jobs</span></a> in the U.S. (350) and that many of the most vulnerable
Americans were not getting the COVID-related care they needed, in no small part
because the administration had <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/02/emergency-health-aid-coronavirus-297701"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">failed to disburse emergency funds</span></a> approved by Congress. (351) The scale of the pandemic
caused by Trump’s mismanagement had also left nearly a hundred million
Americans to delay healthcare procedures in order to clear facilities for
COVID-19 patients. (see #152-#154)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The vast impact of the administration’s failures to act
sooner and more aggressively were revisited the following day, <b>Wednesday,
June 3</b>, when Chris Arnold of NPR <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/06/03/867856602/millions-of-americans-skipping-payments-as-tidal-wave-of-defaults-and-evictions-"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that
“Millions Of Americans Skip Payments As Tidal Wave Of Defaults And Evictions
Looms.” (352)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Government aid was keeping many Americans afloat, but the administration had
failed to get benefits out to millions (353), and even those who had received
benefits were unlikely to be able to make the money stretch more than a couple
months, at which time there would be no jobs available. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Another one of the Trump administration’s shortcomings was
reported again on <b>Thursday, June 4 </b>in “CDC head apologizes for
lack of racial disparity data on coronavirus.” Speaking to a House
Appropriations subcommittee, Robert Redfield apologized for <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/04/coronavirus-robert-redfield-racial-disparity-cdc-301223"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the CDC’s continued failure</span></a> (see #284) to collect race-related COVID-19 data,
which was “[hampering] <span style="background: white;">the public health response in communities of color
disproportionately affected by the virus.”</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">The
administration and their Republican allies in Congress were also </span><a href="https://www.axios.com/cities-budgets-worsen-coronavirus-george-floyd-protests-4fed7c83-7436-4744-9a47-2937ffb1f90a.html"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">shortchanging cities</span></a><span style="background: white;">. Due
to a lack of tax revenue and federal aid, cities were being forced to make
steep cuts to essential services (354). The situation was dire, but the GOP had
no plans to act until July, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said any
future stimulus bill would “</span>be narrow in
scope and focus on short-term economic relief, not longer-term recovery.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">In
addition to cities bleeding revenue, </span><a href="https://apnews.com/44eacc05b3ceb43897418ccfe96645e2"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">food bank demand was still
high</span></a><span style="background: white;"> (355), as reported on <b>Friday, June 5</b>.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">But
none of this concerned Trump, who seized on a better-than-expected jobs report
to puff up his ego. At a press conference that day, Trump referred to the </span><a href="https://cdn.newseum.org/dfp/pdf6/NY_NYT.pdf"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">second worst</span></a><span style="background: white;"> unemployment rate
since the Great Depression as the “greatest comeback in American history,”
a “great day” for George Floyd, and “a great, great day in terms of
equality.” </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">While
Trump and his Republican allies gushed about double digit unemployment and
pretended that the virus was behind us—Trump </span><a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/fauci-virus-task-force-vanish-with-trump-all-in-on-reopen/ar-BB154Otf"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">hadn’t allowed</span></a><span style="background: white;"> the
virus task force to brief reporters since April 27 (356)—</span><a href="https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2020/are-coronavirus-cases-increasing-again/"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">20 states</span></a><span style="background: white;"> had
seen increases in cases over the prior five days, largely because of the
premature economic re-opening Trump was celebrating. (357)</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Saturday, June 6</b> the U.S. <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/live-blog/2020-06-06-coronavirus-news-n1226456"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">passed 110,000</span></a> official deaths and it came out that Trump’s
triumphalism on Friday over the jobs numbers had been premature, as the Bureau
of Labor Statistics had <a href="https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/business/article/The-May-jobs-report-had-misclassification-error-15320999.php"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">underestimated</span></a> the unemployment rate by at least three percentage
points.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Discussing the jobs report in an interview with Nancy Cook of <i>Politico</i>,
former director of the National Economic Council Gene Sperling said,
“Considering that this was a return of a small percentage of the jobs that were
lost only due to Trump's inexplicably slow and weak response to the Covid
crisis, he should be far more measured….Trump surely knows he is on track to be
the first president since Herbert Hoover to lose net jobs during their
presidency, and he may just be overcompensating.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Republicans used the initial, overinflated job numbers—which received far more
media attention than the corrected, real numbers—as <a href="https://rollcall.com/2020/06/05/gop-renews-go-slow-approach-on-virus-aid-after-jobs-report/"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;">rhetorical cover</span></a> for continuing to stonewall on more stimulus. (358)
The Democratic House had passed a stimulus bill on May 18. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Within the job numbers was the news that African-American unemployment rates
had actually gone up, something that Republicans didn’t talk about much. (359)
African-Americans were also dying from COVID-19 in disproportionate numbers.
A <b>Sunday, June 7</b> <a href="https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/voices/racism-not-genetics-explains-why-black-americans-are-dying-of-covid-19/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=health&utm_content=link&utm_term=2020-06-08_featured-this-week"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">post</span></a> at <i>Scientific
American</i> showed that this was systemic, not genetic.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">According to author Clarence Gravlee, African-Americans were dying at 2.4X the
rate of whites, one of the reasons it was so easy for Trump supporters in
white-majority areas to ignore the crisis. Discussions around this disparity
too often fell back on theories about a genetic disposition to hypertension and
high blood pressure among African-Americans, while more convincing
environmental factors didn’t get the attention they deserved: “The conditions
in which we develop—including limited access to healthy food, exposure to toxic
pollutants, the threat of police violence or the injurious stress of racial
discrimination—influence the likelihood that any one of us will suffer from
high blood pressure, diabetes or serious complications from COVID-19.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The role of environmental factors in coronavirus transmission came up again
on <b>Monday, June 8</b>. According to a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/06/08/shutdowns-prevented-60-million-coronavirus-infections-us-study-finds/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">study</span></a> published
in <i>Nature</i> magazine, shutdown orders in the United States had
spared 60 million Americans from contracting COVID-19.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">One country which had addressed coronavirus early and aggressively, New
Zealand, reported that they had <a href="https://news.trust.org/item/20200608004114-98xz5"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">no active cases</span></a>.
By contrast, the U.S., who had acted slowly and inadequately, had almost <a href="https://www.medicaleconomics.com/news/coronavirus-case-numbers-united-states-june-8-update"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">two million infections and 104,400 deaths</span></a>.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Having followed Trump’s lead of inaction and indifference to public
health, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/08/texas-reports-a-record-high-number-of-hospitalized-coronavirus-patients-after-state-reopened-early.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">red states</span></a> continued
to be hit especially hard by coronavirus. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">And as had been the case all along, America’s first-in-the-world numbers
were <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/cdc-wants-states-to-count-probable-coronavirus-cases-and-deaths-but-most-arent-doing-it/2020/06/07/4aac9a58-9d0a-11ea-b60c-3be060a4f8e1_story.html?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a significant undercount</span></a>, because thousands of Americans had died from COVID-19
before being diagnosed and only half of the states were following CDC
guidelines in reporting.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump continued to degrade the office of the presidency and act as if the
pandemic was over, issuing an order to have 9,500 American troops removed from
Germany (in retaliation for Angela Merkel’s refusal to attend a G7 summit with
Trump and Vladimir Putin) and announcing that he would re-start crowded
campaign rallies which were certain to be <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/super-spreader-coronavirus/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">super-spreader events</span></a>. (360)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The reality TV presidency continued full throttle the next day, <b>Tuesday,
June 9</b>, when Trump <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/trump/beyond-deranged-commentators-across-political-spectrum-condemn-trumps-claim-elderly-man-attacked-by-police-is-antifa/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">tweeted</span></a> that
Martin Gugino, a 75-year-old protester with cancer who had sustained a
fractured skull after being pushed down by a Buffalo police officer, “could be
an ANTIFA provocateur,” an assertion which was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/09/nyregion/who-is-martin-gugino-buffalo-police.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">completely unfounded</span></a>.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Back in the real world, <a href="https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Coronavirus-hospitalizations-rise-sharply-in-15328752.php"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">premature re-openings</span></a> fueled by Trump's campaign strategy were contributing
to spikes in cases around the country, with 12 states posting their biggest
single-day increases. Texas, a state under complete Republican control for over
two decades which had done little to combat COVID-19, had its <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/09/texas-reports-two-consecutive-days-of-record-coronavirus-hospitalizations-weeks-after-reopening.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">second consecutive day</span></a> of record hospitalizations. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Farm laborers around the country were especially vulnerable to infection due to
the administration’s <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/09/farm-workers-coronavirus-309897"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">unwillingness</span></a> to enact adequate safety regulations or disburse money
for testing. (361)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">People working long hours under the hot sun to harvest our food are invisible
to most Americans, so their problems were easy for Trump to ignore as part of
the administration’s tactic of pretending that COVID-19 didn’t matter anymore.
On <b>Wednesday, June 10</b>, Dan Diamond of <i>Politico</i> <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/10/white-house-stops-talking-about-coronavirus-309993"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reviewed</span></a> this
P.R. thrust in “White House goes quiet on coronavirus as outbreak spikes again
across the U.S.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As revealed by Diamond, though cases continued to surge throughout much of the
country, around 1,000 Americans were dying daily, and hospitalizations in Texas
had gone up 42% since Memorial Day, the administration had largely stopped
communicating with the public about the virus for over a month, since the last
task force briefing (362). After being ever present in the media through March
and April, Anthony Fauci had long since been sidelined. (see #297, #348) The
CDC had mostly stopped providing guidance to state public health officials.
(363) The FDA was turning back to lesser priorities, including tobacco
regulations. (364)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition/2020/06/10/dont-call-it-a-second-wave-489488"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">According</span></a> to
reporter Ranuka Rasayasam, not only was COVID-19 not remotely through with us,
we weren’t even out of the first wave. The U.S. was “uniquely vulnerable to
Covid” due to the number of people without health insurance and the Trump
administration’s handling of the pandemic, specifically the lack of a national
strategy for dealing with coronavirus and the resistance to public health
guidelines fueled by Trump’s anti-science rhetoric. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Though the U.S. had only 4% of the world’s population, it accounted for more
than a quarter of COVID 19-related deaths. Making matters worse, the
administration’s unwillingness to force insurance companies’ hands was allowing
major insurers such as BlueCross BlueShield and United Healthcare to <a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-testing-payment-insurers-b5206ee2-3eff-4023-bfed-a33450113547.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">deny full coverage</span></a> of testing unless it was deemed “medically necessary,”
leaving millions of Americans untested, uncertain of whether or not they were
infected, and likely to infect others. (365)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump had more important things on his mind, including his <a href="https://www.axios.com/trump-confederate-generals-ecc596fe-5d37-4d8a-8a12-42656886446f.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiospm&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">opposition</span></a> to
renaming military bases named after Confederate generals and planning for his
first super-spreader campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The event was scheduled
for Juneteenth (June 19), a holiday celebrating the freeing of the last slaves,
in a town known for “the single worst incident of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_racial_violence_in_the_United_States"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">racial violence in American history</span></a>.” In 1921, white mobs had killed hundreds of
African-Americans, incarcerated thousands, left 10,000 African-Americans
homeless, and destroyed 35 square blocks of “Black Wall Street”—one of the
wealthiest black neighborhoods in the country at the time.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Red, anti-science states that had followed Trump's lead continued to lead the
pack in infections on <b>Thursday, June 11</b>.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article243452186.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Florida</span></a> had
its highest daily total of (reported) new cases and Arizona was <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/covid-is-so-bad-in-arizona-theyre-running-out-of-beds"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">running out of hospital beds</span></a>. (366, 367)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A doctor at the Harvard Global Health Institute was projecting <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8410159/100-000-people-die-coronavirus-September.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">100,000 more deaths</span></a> in the U.S. by September 1 due to the premature
re-opening of the economy and the surge in cases which was following. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As the ranks of the unemployed increased, with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/11/business/economy/unemployment-claims-coronavirus.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">1.5 million new filings</span></a> (368), Trump’s Small Business Administration was <a href="https://www.pressherald.com/2020/06/11/trump-administration-wont-say-who-got-511-billion-in-taxpayer-backed-coronavirus-loans/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">refusing</span></a> to
meet their legal responsibility (under the Cares Act) to disclose how $660
billion of taxpayer money had been disbursed. Due to the administration’s lack
of oversight of applicants, and lack of direction to the banks disbursing
funds, big businesses had capitalized while many small businesses had
been <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/21/big-banks-sued-putting-large-corporations-ahead-main-street-small-business-owners"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">left in the lurch</span></a>. (369)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The administration and state officials were also <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/11/native-american-coronavirus-data-314527"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">ignoring requests</span></a> from Native American epidemiologists asking for “access
to data showing how the coronavirus is spreading around their lands,
potentially widening health disparities and frustrating tribal leaders already
ill-equipped to contain the pandemic.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…The communication gaps threaten to hinder efforts to track the virus within
Native populations that are more prone to illness, disability and early death
and have fragile health systems. Tribal authorities say without knowing who's
sick and where, they can't impose lockdowns or other restrictions or organize contact
tracing on tribal lands (370). The lack of data also is weighing on
epidemiologists who track public health for the nearly three-quarters of Native
Americans who live in urban areas and not on reservations.” (371)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…Native American organizations have repeatedly run into roadblocks trying to
get data from federal officials over the past month. The CDC has denied a
series of requests from the nation’s 12 tribal epidemiology centers for raw
coronavirus data — even though state health departments are allowed to freely
access the information.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“‘…If you can’t measure [the coronavirus,] you can’t manage it,’ said Stacy
Bohlen, the executive director of the National Indian Health Board, which
provides policy expertise to the 560 federally recognized Native American
tribes. ‘It’s another chronic failing of what Indian people experience across
the health system. We know it’s happening across the country.’”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The administration was also pretending not to notice the public health
necessity of universal access to mail ballots in the fall. During the recent
Georgia primary, voters had waited up to <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/11/deep-partisan-divide-over-in-person-mail-in-voting-312290"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">six hours</span></a> to
vote, not unlike what had happened in Wisconsin in April, when Republican
judges refused to extend deadlines for absentee ballots. Republicans looked the
other way because voters of color (overwhelmingly Democrats) were
disproportionately impacted in both instances. (372)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Something that <i>was</i> a priority for the administration was
avoiding legal accountability for its upcoming super-spreader campaign rally in
Tulsa. As <a href="https://www.westport-news.com/news/article/Trump-s-Tulsa-campaign-rally-sign-up-page-15334187.php"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> by
Felicia Sonmez of <i>the Washington Post</i>, “The sign-up page for
tickets to President Donald Trump's campaign rally in Tulsa next week includes
something that hasn't appeared ahead of previous rallies: a disclaimer noting
that attendees ‘voluntarily assume all risks related to exposure to COVID-19’
and agree not to hold the campaign or venue liable should they get sick.” (373)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It was a savvy legal decision by the Trump administration. The next day, <b>Friday,
June 12</b>, it was reported that just a week before the rally, a Tulsa
Whirlpool plant <a href="https://www.tulsaworld.com/news/local/whirlpool-plant-in-tulsa-temporarily-shuttered-after-covid-19-outbreak/article_4909b32f-59bf-5d00-ab9a-c415c613ede9.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">had closed</span></a> due
to a COVID-19 outbreak. It was also reported that “Tulsa County now has its
highest seven-day average of coronavirus cases since the outbreak began in
March.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Holding the rally in a COVID-19 hot spot was of a piece with Trump’s strategy
of pretending coronavirus was behind us. Trump’s economic advisor Lawrence
Kudlow (see #70) stayed on message that day when he <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/12/larry-kudlow-coronavirus-second-wave-314904"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">told</span></a><span style="color: #3d85c6;"> </span>"Fox & Friends" that
the virus was “contained” and “They are saying there is no second spike. Let me
repeat that. There is no second spike.” (374)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In the real world, Houston was on the “<a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/houston-precipice-disaster-virus-cases-210423072.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">precipice of disaster</span></a>” due to Republican governor Greg Abbott's lockstep
following of Trump's edicts (375) and Florida had another daily <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article243482076.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">record in infections</span></a>, a number that was a significant undercount, according to
Florida’s “<a href="https://theweek.com/speedreads/919739/fired-florida-scientist-goes-rogue-publishes-covid19-data-grimmer-outlook-than-states"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">top coronavirus data scientist</span></a>.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At a briefing that day, the administration again demonstrated mixed messaging
when CDC officials <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/12/cdc-warns-large-gatherings-315521"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">suggested</span></a> that
Americans maintain social distancing, wear masks when out in public, and
“warned that large gatherings in confined places pose the highest risk for
spreading the coronavirus, a day after President Donald Trump's campaign
announced his first post-lockdown rally.” (376)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Appearing on ABC News, Anthony Fauci said more or less the same thing: “The
best way you can avoid either acquiring or transmitting infection is to avoid
crowded places, to wear a mask whenever you’re outside and if you can do both,
avoid the congregation of people and do the mask, that’s great.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A <a href="https://www.sfgate.com/science/article/Study-100-face-mask-use-could-crush-second-15333170.php"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">study</span></a> by
Cambridge and Greenwich universities repeated this guidance, showing that the
universal use of face masks could significantly mitigate the damage of a second
or third wave of COVID-19.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Florida, one of the states that had most aggressively
flouted public safety recommendations, had a record total of new cases for
the <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article243513417.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">third day in a row</span></a> on <b>Saturday, June 13</b>.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Oklahoma, another deep red state that had taken Trump's
misinformation at face value, continued to experience a spike in infections
(377). Deborah Birx and Anthony Fauci had both counseled against holding the
rally, a feeling that was shared by Bruce Dart, the Tulsa County health
director. As reported on <b>Sunday, June 14</b>, Dart <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/502640-tulsa-health-department-director-i-wish-we-could-postpone-trump-rally"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">told</span></a> a
local newspaper, “COVID is here in Tulsa, it is transmitting very
efficiently….I wish we could postpone this to a time when the virus isn’t as
large a concern as it is today.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As of <b>Monday, June 15</b>, the United States had gone to hell in a
handbasket, saddled with a pandemic, the worst economic decline since the Great
Depression, and mass protests over systemic police brutality, all of which
would have been far less pronounced with a competent and empathic leader.
Trump’s breathtaking failures were reflected in a Gallup poll which showed that
the number of Americans who were proud of their country was at <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/312644/national-pride-falls-record-low.aspx"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a record low</span></a>.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Tuesday, June 16</b>, a separate poll, conducted
by the University of Chicago, found that “<a href="https://apnews.com/0f6b9be04fa0d3194401821a72665a50"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Americans are the unhappiest they’ve been in
50 years</span></a>.” (378)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Contributing to Trump’s dubious achievement of creating record amounts of
unhappiness was the <a href="https://apnews.com/8a490dd827bc37a655dd4c0f8a133253"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">stress of health workers</span></a> who felt the brunt of Trump’s failures most acutely,
in the sheer scope of the pandemic in the States, the lack of PPE, the fear of
getting sick themselves and getting their families sick (379), and the trauma
of regular exposure to sickness and death. (380)<br />
<br />
Healthcare workers in Republican-led states which had downplayed public safety
recommendations at Trump's behest were feeling his shortcomings as a leader and
a human being daily. Cases in Alabama (381), South Carolina (382), Oklahoma
(see #377), and Arizona were <a href="https://news.trust.org/item/20200616101601-zwjb3"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">increasing rapidly</span></a>;
Arizona’s spike was <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/2020/06/health-experts-link-rise-in-arizona-covid-cases-to-end-of-stay-at-home-order/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=4785"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">directly attributed</span></a> to Republican governor Doug Ducey’s decision to let a
stay-at-home order expire. Texas had <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/503005-texas-hits-new-high-for-coronavirus-cases-hospitalizations"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">new highs</span></a> in
cases and hospitalizations.<br />
<br />
Trump continued his happy talk about the economy, but Jerome Powell, Trump’s
appointed Fed chairman, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/16/powell-pandemic-trump-323312"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">told</span></a> the
Senate Banking Committee that “Significant uncertainty remains about the timing
and strength of the recovery….Much of that economic uncertainty comes from
uncertainty about the path of the disease and the effects of measures to
contain it. Until the public is confident that the disease is contained, a full
recovery is unlikely.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> <b><span style="color: blue; font-size: medium;">June 17, 2020-August 16, 2020</span></b></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>After a “slowdown” to 20,000 official
infections/day, the premature re-opening of the economy contributes to a second spike
to 77,000 infections/day and a high of 1,500 deaths. Against a backdrop of
double-digit unemployment, the GOP abandons stimulus talks, allowing additional
benefits to run out for millions. Though national plans to combat the virus
have been effective in the rest of the developed world, the administration refuses
to come up with a coordinated federal response, leaving states to flounder with
inadequate testing, tracing, and PPE. </i><i><o:p></o:p></i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Wednesday, June 17</b>, a model created by the
Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (at the University of Washington)
which had been previously used by the White House now forecast that the U.S.
would have in excess of <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-white-house-model-prediction-200000-deaths-october/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">200,000 deaths</span></a> by October 1.<br />
<br />
People of color, the vast majority of whom hadn’t voted for Trump, were being
victimized by Trump’s inaction at inordinate rates. (383) An analysis done by
the Brookings Institution showed that people of color ages 35-44 were dying
at <a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-racial-disparities-age-ea4730ce-52aa-4a17-a02c-5817da4245c5.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">10X the rate</span></a> of
Caucasians of the same age. The report’s authors wrote that “Race gaps in
vulnerability to Covid-19 highlight the accumulated, intersecting inequities
facing Americans of color (but especially Black people) in jobs, housing,
education, criminal justice – and in health.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Another group of color who was shortchanged by the Trump administration was
Native American tribes who were waiting on $679 million promised in the
congressional stimulus passed months earlier. The administration was <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/tribes-covid-relief-treasury-department-033604920.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">holding up the funding</span></a> (384), compounding the administration’s earlier delays
in disbursing money to tribes. (385) A federal judge ruled that the
administration had to pay up within the week as “Continued delay in the face of
an exceptional public health crisis is no longer acceptable.”<br />
<br />
Also on Trump’s pay-no-mind list was Anthony Fauci. (see #297, #348)
Interviewed by NPR, Fauci revealed that he hadn’t spoken to Trump <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/radio/dr-fauci-says-he-hasnt-spoken-to-trump-about-the-coronavirus-pandemic-for-two-weeks/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">for two weeks</span></a>. (386) Asked if he would like to join thousands of
Caucasian yahoos crammed together elbow-to-elbow with no masks in Tulsa, Fauci
replied, “I’m in a high-risk category. Personally, I would not. Of course not.”<br />
<br />
The lack of masks was largely driven by Trump’s modeling. Despite the <a href="https://theconversation.com/masks-help-stop-the-spread-of-coronavirus-the-science-is-simple-and-im-one-of-100-experts-urging-governors-to-require-public-mask-wearing-138507"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">clear scientific basis</span></a> for wearing a mask during a pandemic, despite the fact
that Trump’s own surgeon general had <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/14/health/us-surgeon-general-coronavirus-masks/index.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">recommended</span></a> that
Americans wear masks, despite the threat that not wearing a mask posed to their
families, co-workers, and others in their communities, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/necessary-or-needless-three-months-pandemic-americans-are-divided-wearing-n1231191"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">many Republicans</span></a> refused to use masks out of a misguided solidarity to
Trump and a desire to “stick it to the libs.” (387)<br />
<br />
Trump's influence in seeding opposition to masks and other aspects of the
administration's COVID-19 failures were explored in depth in “With the Federal
Health Megaphone Silent, States Struggle With a Shifting Pandemic,” which
focused on <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/17/us/politics/coronavirus-pandemic-federal-response.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200618&instance_id=19492&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=31211&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the administration’s abandonment of a federal
response</span></a>.<br />
<br />
The piece looked at the contradiction between the increasing rate of infections
through much of the country and the administration’s messaging, including Mike
Pence’s claim in a recent <i>Wall Street Journal</i> editorial that
concern about a second wave was “overblown” (388) and Trump’s comment to Sean
Hannity the night before that COVID-19 was “<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/trump-hannity-coronavirus-fading-away-tulsa-rally"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">fading away</span></a>.”
(389)<br />
<br />
Former CDC acting director Dr. Richard Besser, who had done regular briefings
in 2009 during the H1N1 pandemic, pointed out that “As states are moving to
reopen the economy, as people are increasing their social activities, it
becomes even more important that the public understand the critical value in
following public health guidance — wearing masks, social distancing, washing
hands, staying home if you’re sick….without that daily reinforcement, you have
what is happening around the country — people not believing the pandemic is
real, cases rising in some places and the possibility that some communities’
health care systems will get overwhelmed.” (390)<br />
<br />
The coronavirus task force was no longer speaking publicly, which “has left the
country with no singular public voices updating citizens, businesses and state
and local governments on best practices. Where once there were voices, now
there are just echoes — a promising study in Britain about a steroid that may
save the lives of the sickest patients, new evidence of the benefits of staying
outdoors. But there is no clarion federal guidance. (391)<br />
<br />
“Past pandemics, and simulations conducted by the federal government to prepare
for new ones, all teach the same lesson: Having clear, consistent and regular
communication with the public is essential to managing any infectious disease
outbreak. The C.D.C. has a <a href="https://emergency.cdc.gov/cerc/manual/index.asp"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">462-page manual</span></a> for
crisis communications, which it uses to <a href="https://emergency.cdc.gov/cerc/training/index.asp"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">train state and local health officials</span></a>.<br />
<br />
“’It’s a great guide, and it’s just been tossed out the window,’ said Joshua M.
Sharfstein, an expert in public health communications at Johns Hopkins School
of Public Health.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-color: transparent;">Even as Trump appeared indifferent to the impact of COVID-19
on the people he was supposed to serve, the pain was real. As </span><a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/americans-skip-millions-of-loan-payments-as-coronavirus-takes-economic-toll-11592472601" style="background-color: transparent;"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;">reported</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent;"> by
AnnaMaria Andriotis of <i>the Wall Street Journal</i>, on <b>Thursday,
June 18</b>, “Americans have skipped payments on more than 100 million student
loans (392), auto loans (393) and other forms of debt since the coronavirus hit
the U.S., the latest sign of the toll the pandemic is taking on people’s
finances.”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump was more focused on himself, telling <i>the Wall Street Journal</i> that
some people wore masks just to “signal disapproval of him.”<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, Oklahoma, the site of Trump’s upcoming rally, was among the handful
of hot spots in the country, showing a <a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-pandemic-south-arizona-oklahoma-trump-dbd813f7-52a8-4474-872d-624212bd257c.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">91% increase</span></a> in
cases in the past week.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Friday, June 19</b>, The Republican-controlled
states of Texas, Florida, and Arizona continued to lead the way, posting <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/503588-arizona-texas-florida-again-report-record-high-covid-19-cases"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">record numbers of infections</span></a>. By contrast, Democratic governors and mayors were pushing
constituents to <a href="https://news.trust.org/item/20200619003042-1a2ye"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">wear masks</span></a> through
laws or public recommendations.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump again showed his contempt for democracy, saying in an interview that
mail-in voting (high turnout) was the <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/03/trump-2020-election-legal-battle-coronavirus-162152"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">biggest threat</span></a> to winning a second term and <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/19/trump-threatens-protesters-the-day-before-his-tulsa-rally.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">tweeting</span></a> that
“Any protesters, anarchists, agitators, looters or lowlifes who are going to
Oklahoma please understand, you will not be treated like you have been in New
York, Seattle, or Minneapolis. It will be a much different scene!”<br />
<br />
The psychological impact of the chaos Trump lives and breathes and had
inflicted on American life was reflected in <a href="https://www.studyfinds.org/land-of-the-worried-83-of-americans-very-stressed-over-nations-future/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">polling</span></a> done
by the American Psychological Association which found that 72% of Americans
polled “believe <a href="https://www.studyfinds.org/political-polarization-peaking-in-america-voters-embrace-all-or-nothing-mentality-along-party-lines/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">this is the lowest point</span></a> in the country’s history that they’ve ever been alive
to see.” Another key finding was that “66% of respondents say that the
government’s ongoing response to the coronavirus continues to stress them out
on a daily basis. Among that group, 84% are mostly worried about the federal
government’s response.” (394)<br />
<br />
The anemic federal response was mind-boggling to public health experts
overseas, whose countries had handled the pandemic much more aggressively,
resulting in a fraction of the deaths and infections seen in the United
States. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/06/19/countries-keeping-coronavirus-bay-experts-watch-us-case-numbers-with-alarm/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">According to</span></a> Rick
Noack of <i>the Washington Post</i>, “As coronavirus cases surge in states
across the South and West of the United States, health experts in countries
with falling case numbers are watching with a growing sense of alarm and
disbelief, with many wondering why virus-stricken U.S. states continue to
reopen and why the advice of scientists is often ignored.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“‘It really does feel like the U.S. has given up,” (395) said Siouxsie Wiles,
an infectious-diseases specialist at the University of Auckland in New Zealand
- a country that has confirmed only three new cases over the last three weeks
and where citizens have now largely returned to their pre-coronavirus
routines.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/06/19/faster-response-prevented-most-us-covid-19-deaths/?utm_source=pocket&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pockethits"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">piece</span></a> at
statnews.com looked at how things could have gone differently in the U.S. if a
competent leader—say, <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/10/178-reasons-hillary-clinton-is.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Hillary Clinton</span></a>—had been president when COVID struck:<br />
<br />
“Had American leaders taken the decisive, early measures that several other
nations took when they had exactly the same information the U.S. did, at
exactly the same time in their experience of the novel coronavirus, how many of
these Covid-19 deaths could have been prevented?<br />
<br />
“That isn’t a hypothetical question. And the answer that emerges from a direct
comparison of the fatalities in and policies of the U.S. and other countries —
South Korea, Australia, Germany, and Singapore — indicates that between 70% and
99% of the Americans who died from this pandemic might have been saved by
measures demonstrated by others to have been feasible.” (396)<br />
<br />
Based on a study by Oxford University students, “14 days from the date of the
15th confirmed case in each country — a vital early window for action — the
U.S. response to the outbreak lagged behind the others by miles.” (397)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> <b>“…</b>Due to exponential
viral spread, [America’s] delay in action was devastating. In the wake of the
U.S. response, <a href="https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">117,858 Americans</span></a> died in the four
months following the first 15 confirmed cases. After an equivalent period,
Germany suffered only <a href="https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/germany/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">8,863</span></a> casualties. Scaling up the German
population of 83.7 million to America’s 331 million, a U.S.-sized Germany would
have suffered 35,049 Covid-19 deaths. So if the U.S. had acted as effectively
as Germany, 70% of U.S. coronavirus deaths might have been prevented.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Seventy percent,
though, is the most conservative estimate. Scaled-up versions of South Korea,
Australia, and <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/23/singapore-teach-united-states-about-covid-19-response/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Singapore</span></a> would have
experienced 1,758, 1,324, and 1,358 deaths, respectively, in the four months
after 15 cases were confirmed in each country. Had we handled the coronavirus
as effectively as any of these three countries, roughly 99% of the 117,858 U.S.
Covid-19 deaths might have been averted.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump’s mis-governance
had impacted state governments too:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Often <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/04/politics/republican-governors-stay-at-home-orders-coronavirus/index.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">taking cues</span></a> from the
president’s words, state by state measures were rolled out <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/03/12/815200313/what-governors-are-doing-to-tackle-spreading-coronavirus"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">piecemeal</span></a>. Florida and Georgia,
for example, waited until April 3 to issue stay-at-home orders while South
Carolina held off until April 7.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Late Friday night, an opportune time to bury important news, Trump <a href="https://www.thehour.com/news/article/Barr-says-at-his-request-Trump-has-removed-15354618.php"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">fired Geoffrey Berman</span></a>, the U.S. Attorney of
the Southern District of New York. Not coincidentally, Berman was the top
federal prosecutor in a number of sticky cases involving Trump and his
associates. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Saturday, June 20</b>, it was reported that the U.S. had <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/20/us-reports-his-number-of-daily-coronavirus-cases-since-may-1.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">30,000 new COVID-19 cases</span></a>, the biggest one-day
totals since May 1. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump had a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000007202247/trump-tulsa-rally.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200621&instance_id=19590&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=31491&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">super-spreader rally</span></a> in Tulsa, Oklahoma (398) to an arena that was two-thirds
empty. During his speech, Trump said “I have done a phenomenal job” managing
COVID-19 and stated emphatically that he had asked underlings to “slow the
testing down” (399) because increasing infection numbers made him look bad. He
also called coronavirus the “kung flu” as a dog whistle to his racist
supporters. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Sunday, June 21</b>, Trump reached his personal milestone of <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/u-s-coronavirus-death-toll-surpasses-120-000-china-south-n1231663"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">120,000 dead Americans</span></a>, a staggering number which was 5X higher than the death
totals of any other developed country—and yet still a significant undercount of
actual COVID-related deaths.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Among the most vulnerable victims of Trump’s failures were residents and
employees (400) of nursing homes, particularly residents with limited financial
resources.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/21/business/nursing-homes-evictions-discharges-coronavirus.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">As reported</span></a> by
Jessica Silver-Greenberg and Amy Julia Harris of <i>the New York Times</i>,
“More than 51,000 residents and employees of nursing homes and long-term care
facilities have died (401), representing more than 40 percent of the total
death toll in the United States.” In order to boost profits, nursing homes were
taking in lucrative COVID-19-infected patients (covered by Medicare or private
plans) while “kicking out old and disabled residents [covered by Medicaid] —
among the people most susceptible to the coronavirus — and shunting them into
homeless shelters, rundown motels and other unsafe facilities, according to 22
watchdogs in 16 states, as well as dozens of elder-care lawyers, social workers
and former nursing home executives.” (402)<br />
<br />
Medicaid recipients in nursing homes were far from alone in feeling the
devastation wrought by the Trump administration’s grossly inadequate response
to COVID-19. As reported on <b>Monday, June 22</b>, companies providing
mental health and addiction services were flooded with new patients but were
being <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/22/coronavirus-bailout-mental-health-334588"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">shortchanged</span></a> by
the administration’s Health and Human Services Department, who had failed to
disburse stimulus money which could keep operations going. Three months after
the CARES Act had been passed, a third of providers had not received their
money, forcing them to get rid of staff (403) and leaving them short of PPE
(404), and many didn’t know how long they would be able to stay open,
potentially leading to even greater shortfalls in services down the road. (405)<br />
<br />
Countrywide, new cases increased 24% from the week before, primarily in red
states who had death-marched along with Trump's election plans. The failures of
the Republican leadership of Arizona and Texas to heed the power of the
pandemic were increasingly obvious, as the Children’s Hospital in Houston <a href="https://www.khou.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/texas-childrens-hospital-admitting-adult-patients-as-covid-19-cases-continue-to-rise/285-5aa0a132-a318-4a41-81b3-6659086c2ef7"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">opened up</span></a> space
for COVID-infected adults (406) and Arizona <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/22/coronavirus-hospitalizations-grow-in-arizona-and-texas.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that
“83% of inpatient beds and 85% of intensive-care unit beds were in use.” (407)<br />
<br />
As bad as things were, the administration’s Health and Human Services
Department was making matters worse by <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/dems-trump-sitting-billions-coronavirus-221008162.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">holding up</span></a> billions
of dollars for testing (408) and contact tracing (409), perhaps because Trump
had ordered them to “slow the testing down.”<br />
<br />
Though COVID-19 cases were skyrocketing in the U.S., the impact of the virus
had been blunted in continental Europe. The reasons for this stark contrast
were reviewed by Dan Diamond and Sarah Wheaton in “‘The U.S. has hamstrung
itself’: <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/22/united-states-italy-traded-places-coronavirus-333122"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">How America became the new Italy on
coronavirus</span></a>.”<br />
<br />
The key distinction between the U.S. response and the response in Europe was
that Europe had focused on public health (mandatory masks, leaving lockdowns in
place longer) rather than short-term campaign considerations. Italy, the first
epicenter in Europe, had had just 264 new cases on Sunday. Spain and France had
had under 500 new cases per day. The U.S. was seeing over 30,000 new cases per
day, a number that was rising sharply.<br />
<br />
Trump’s politicization of the virus had contributed to Republican leaders in
individual states failing to protect their constituents and Trump’s decision to
outsource the COVID-19 response had left states to fight a pandemic with
woefully inadequate resources.<br />
<br />
Texas outdid itself on <b>Tuesday, June 23</b>, with over <a href="https://dfw.cbslocal.com/2020/06/23/texas-surpasses-5k-new-cases-coronavirus-spreading/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">5,000 new infections</span></a>, a record. Right-wing libertarian governor Greg Abbott, who
had dismissed the virus in the recent past, <a href="https://www.dallasnews.com/news/public-health/2020/06/23/spread-is-so-rampant-texas-hits-all-time-high-of-more-than-5k-new-covid-19-cases-gov-greg-abbott-says/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">increased regulations</span></a> for childcare centers and “gave local officials more
powers to limit public gatherings during the upcoming Fourth of July weekend.”<br />
<br />
Arizona, the sight of Trump’s second super-spreader rally that day (410),
reported a <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/23/arizona-reports-record-single-day-increase-in-coronavirus-cases-ahead-of-trumps-visit.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">record single-day increase</span></a> in coronavirus cases ahead of Trump’s visit. The rally
itself had no public health requirements; people sat next to each other with
barely a mask in sight (411) and Trump said COVID-19 was “<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewsolender/2020/06/23/its-going-away-trump-plays-down-coronavirus-at-arizona-rally-as-cases-surge-in-the-state/#6070e6a42b3b"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">going away</span></a>.”
(412)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><br />
Things were so bad in the States that the European Union was considering </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/23/world/europe/coronavirus-EU-American-travel-ban.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiospm&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">a ban on travelers
from America</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;">.
(413) The direct connection between the administration’s poor policy-making and
the uniquely horrible results in the States were revealed again when Anthony
Fauci told a House Energy and Commerce committee hearing that the
administration had given an order for the National Institutes of Health
to </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/23/fauci-nih-white-house-bat-study-336452"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">cancel a study</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> looking at the transmission of viruses
from bats to humans, which is likely </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/05/anthony-fauci-no-scientific-evidence-the-coronavirus-was-made-in-a-chinese-lab-cvd/#close"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">how COVID-19 had
started</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;">.
(see #22)<br />
<br />
Trump fiddled while the U.S. burned, focusing on campaigning rather than
governing. Topmost in Trump’s mind was finding ways to deflect his COVID-19
failures onto other entities, including </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/23/trump-cdc-overhaul-coronavirus-335039"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">his own CDC</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> and </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/23/trump-governors-2020-328085"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">governors</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> who lacked the resources and information
that the federal government had had to mitigate the virus. He made a visit to
the border wall to show his commitment to </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.westport-news.com/news/article/Trump-visits-border-wall-to-drive-immigration-15361294.php"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">keeping brown-skinned
people out of the country</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;">, went to the mat for monuments of </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://news.trust.org/item/20200623133258-dobya"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">despicable men from our ugly past</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;">—including Civil War traitors—and received
a </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.axios.com/twitter-flags-trump-tweet-for-violating-rules-on-abusive-behavior-726d9326-9f6b-4008-be15-ffae9ac3b87b.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiospm&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">warning</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> from Twitter after threatening D.C.
protesters with “serious force.”<br />
<br />
While Trump raged against the feeling that he was losing control of the
country, COVID-19 surged. On <b>Wednesday, June 24</b>, the U.S. had
a </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/24/us-hits-highest-single-day-of-coronavirus-cases-at-36358-breaking-april-record.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">one-day record</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> of new cases, 36,358, which was forcing
state and local officials to </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/virus-surges-across-us-throwing-reopenings-into-disarray/ar-BB15SSck?li=BBnb7Kz"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">consider shutting down
again</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;">.<br />
<br />
Among the many, many victims of the administration’s mishandling of COVID-19
were Americans who were having long-term medical complications, including
kidney failure and heart and lung damage, from coronavirus. The administration
had vowed to keep medical costs down for these patients, but was </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/24/trump-pay-coronavirus-symptoms-338924"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">failing to do so</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;">, leading to staggering medical bills. (414)<br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">According to Susannah Luthi of <i>Politico</i>, “A
spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services declined to say
whether the administration is talking to health plans about a solution. The
government hasn't issued guidance on billing for post-virus conditions, citing
ongoing research and the many unknowns about the long-term effects of
Covid-19.”<br />
<br />
As much damage as the administration had already done, they were far from
finished, announcing that they were about to <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/24/trump-administration-drive-through-coronavirus-testing-338217"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">close drive-through testing sites</span></a> even as cases spiked. (415)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white;">The insidious impact of
Trump’s months of lies, and right-wing media’s propaganda offensive on his
behalf, were weighed by Christopher Ingraham of </span><i style="background-color: white;">the Washington Post</i><span style="background-color: white;"> on </span><b style="background-color: white;">Thursday,
June 25</b><span style="background-color: white;">.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Ingraham <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/06/25/fox-news-hannity-coronavirus-misinformation/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">looked at</span></a> “three
studies…focused on conservative media’s role in fostering confusion about the
seriousness of the coronavirus. Taken together, they paint a picture of a media
ecosystem that amplifies misinformation, entertains conspiracy theories and
discourages audiences from taking concrete steps to protect themselves and
others.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">“The end result,
according to one of the studies, is that infection and mortality rates are
higher in places where one pundit who initially downplayed the severity of the
pandemic — Fox News’s Sean Hannity — reaches the largest audiences.” </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Another study “found
that people who got most of their information from mainstream print and
broadcast outlets tended to have an accurate assessment of the severity of the
pandemic and their risks of infection. But those who relied on conservative
sources, such as Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, were more likely to believe in
conspiracy theories or unfounded rumors, such as the belief that taking vitamin
C could prevent infection, that the Chinese government had created the virus,
and that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention exaggerated the
pandemic’s threat ‘to damage the Trump presidency.’”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">In whole, the studies
went a long way toward explaining the startling ignorance of many/most
Republicans (see #145, #204, #283, #307, #313, #319-323, #325, #330, #339,
#347, #387) and the ramifications of that ignorance—no masks, no social
distancing, increased infection rates, and the chaos, death, and disruption
associated with those higher rates. (416)</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">As bad as things seemed
on the surface, they were even worse in reality, as Trump’s CDC estimated that
COVID-19 had infected <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-cases/coronavirus-may-have-infected-10-times-more-americans-than-reported-cdc-says-idUSKBN23W2PU"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">10X as many Americans as had been reported</span></a>. (417)</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Trump’s response was
continued indifference. <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-ignores-virus-spike-as-us-cases-surge-toward-records/ar-BB15YpgG"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">According to</span></a> reporter Josh
Wingrove, “President Donald Trump has paid little heed to a resurgence in U.S.
coronavirus cases -- which on Thursday hit a record level -- announcing no new
steps to curb the outbreak and continuing with a normal schedule of meetings
and travel as hospitals fill with sick patients.” (418) Trump that day tweeted
that cases were “way down,” though the opposite was true. (419) For good
measure, Trump’s Department of Justice sided with the plaintiffs in a <a href="https://www.blogger.com/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">lawsuit</span></a> against Hawaii’s
quarantine on out-0f-state travelers. (420)</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: transparent;">The administration showed just how much they cared again
on </span><b style="background-color: transparent;">Friday, June 26</b><span style="background-color: transparent;">.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Since the pandemic had begun, enrollments in the Affordable
Care Act (ACA) <a href="https://www.axios.com/aca-enrollment-coronavirus-b94f8171-d9ad-4070-99cf-c9259fd92c74.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">had increased 46%</span></a> from 2019 due to mass job losses. In all, 23,000,000
Americans had coverage through the ACA and 130,000,000 were protected by the
pre-existing condition clause. Ignoring the potential fate of more than half of
the U.S. population, the administration filed a brief with the Supreme Court
to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/us/politics/obamacare-trump-administration-supreme-court.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200626&instance_id=19769&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=31917&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">overturn the ACA</span></a>. (421)</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Though Trump was unconcerned about trifling matters like healthcare security,
he was happy to go to bat for his political allies. When Texas’s Republican
governor and senators complained about the administration’s plan to stop
funding drive-through testing sites, Trump’s HHS <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/26/trump-texas-coronavirus-testing-sites-341795"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">extended the money</span></a> for two more weeks for five of Texas’s seven sites.
Drive-through sites in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Colorado, and Illinois were
left to close as scheduled.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">The spike in cases brought The Coronavirus Task Force out of
hiding for the first time in two months. Unfortunately, Mike Pence treated the
important public health gathering as a campaign event. While the U.S. posted a
record number of new infections for the third day in a row, Pence gave a <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/26/coronavirus-task-force-returns-341675"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">rose-colored-glasses</span></a> presentation, claiming that the increases were limited
to “specific communities,” (422) that “We have made truly remarkable progress
in moving our nation forward,” that “<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/first-coronavirus-task-force-briefing-in-two-months-pence-national-accomplishment-flatten-the-curve-2020-6?amp&utmSource=twitter&utmContent=referral&utmTerm=topbar&referrer=twitter&__twitter_impression=true&fbclid=IwAR08ClISR9RmjVTPAxNiXcWhHm8M_sKdewdXAhTjTjiJs1YfmDPNbuuuO1Q"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">We flattened the curve</span></a>. (423) We saved lives.” </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">The vice president put far more energy into rhetoric than
reality. <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/26/coronavirus-task-force-returns-341675"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">According to</span></a> David
Lim and Alice Miranda Ollstein of <i>Politico</i>, “Pence did not announce
any new initiatives, resources or strategies in response to the new outbreaks —
or even recommend the public wear masks. (424) Instead, he emphasized that the
federal government stood ready to assist states if they ask for help on
anything from hospital capacity to protective equipment and generally urged
Americans to remain vigilant, pray and exercise ‘personal responsibility.’”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Pence couldn’t sustain his lies for more than a single sleep cycle.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: transparent;">As of <b>Saturday, June 27</b>, the daily tally of new
infections had </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/27/world/coronavirus-updates.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200628&instance_id=19825&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=32064&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74#link-3631c3c5" style="background-color: transparent;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">climbed 65%</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent;"> in
the span of two weeks. (425) As mind-blowing as this number was, it
likely </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/27/health/coronavirus-antibodies-asymptomatic.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200628&instance_id=19825&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=32064&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74" style="background-color: transparent;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">undercounted</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent;"> infections
by 90%, according to Trump’s own CDC. In response, Pence </span><a href="https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/watch/pence-cancels-trips-to-arizona-florida-due-to-concerns-over-spike-in-coronavirus-cases-86142021953?cid=sm_npd_ms_fb_ma&fbclid=IwAR18RF5oYGjPGvaX7ev4BsJyNTcIELmWVsVhutzRg78H4DYOULcdkrdHbqw" style="background-color: transparent;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">cancelled campaign events</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent;"> in Florida and Arizona he had defended at the previous
day’s press conference.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">The gulf between actions and words was even more pronounced with Donald Trump.
Though he had been coaxing Americans to risk their health by consistently
minimizing the severity of COVID-19 in public, holding super-spreader rallies,
refusing to wear a mask, lying to reporters when asked about the pandemic, and
pressuring states to re-open their economies prematurely, behind the scenes
Trump was taking extraordinary precautions.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/26/politics/donald-trump-coronavirus-protocols/index.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">According to</span></a> Kevin
Liptak and Kaitlin Collins of cnn.com, “<a href="http://www.cnn.com/specials/politics/president-donald-trump-45"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">President Donald Trump</span></a> appears ready to move on from a still-raging <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2020/02/06/health/wuhan-coronavirus-timeline-fast-facts/index.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">coronavirus pandemic</span></a> -- skipping the <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2020/06/26/politics/mike-pence-trump-rallies-coronavirus/index.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">first White House task force briefing</span></a> in months (426) and moving the event out of the White
House itself. But the measures meant to protect him from catching the virus
have scaled up dramatically.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">“…When he travels to locations where the virus is surging, every venue the
President enters is inspected for potential areas of contagion by advance
security and medical teams, according to people familiar with the arrangements.
Bathrooms designated for the President's use are scrubbed and sanitized before
he arrives. Staff maintain a close accounting of who will come into contact
with the President to ensure they receive tests.<br />
<br />
“While the White House phases out steps such as temperature checks and required
mask-wearing in the West Wing -- changes meant to signal the country is moving
on -- those around the President still undergo regular testing.”<br />
<br />
“…After Trump told aides at the beginning of the outbreak he must avoid getting
sick at all costs, efforts to prevent him from contracting the virus have
progressively become more intensive and wide-ranging. Early steps such as
keeping more hand sanitizer nearby eventually evolved into an intensive safety
apparatus, including the testing regimen requiring dozens of staffers.”<br />
<br />
Though he’d been successful to date at avoiding infection, Trump’s failures to
keep millions of his constituents safe were becoming more and more obvious to
the U.S. public. The connection between the administration’s incompetence and
the increase in infections <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/with-trump-leading-the-way-america-s-coronavirus-failures-exposed-by-record-surge-in-new-infections/ar-BB162SAS?li=BBnb4R7"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">was reviewed</span></a> in
“With Trump leading the way, America’s coronavirus failures exposed by record
surge in new infections” by Toluse Olorunnipa, Josh Dawsey, and Yasmeen
Abutaleb of <i>the Washington Post</i>.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Among the key points: “Trump’s public mentions of the
coronavirus <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-coronavirus-pandemic-jobs-law-and-order/2020/06/05/3248ce5e-a747-11ea-b619-3f9133bbb482_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">declined by two-thirds</span></a> between April and early June. (427) When he did discuss
the pandemic, it was often to float misinformation about treatments, masks and
testing — science-defying views that have been embraced by his supporters and
top Republican lawmakers.” (428)</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Anthony Fauci had been blocked from public appearances because he had trouble
“staying on message” (see #297, #348) and the administration had had weeks of
internal debate over whether to hold Friday’s task force briefing or pretend
infections weren’t increasing.<br />
<br />
Max Skidmore of the University of Missouri at Kansas City pointed out that
Trump’s decision to ignore public health in service to his campaign was unique:
“We’re the only country in the world that has politicized the approach to a
pandemic.” (429)<br />
<br />
Despite the surge in infections, “The president has dramatically scaled back
the number of coronavirus meetings on his schedule in recent weeks, instead
holding long meetings on polling and endorsements, his reelection campaign, the
planned Republican National Convention in Jacksonville, Fla., the economy and other
topics, according to two advisers, who, like others, spoke on the condition of
anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.” (430)<br />
<br />
Lacking any direction or directives from the top due to Trump’s focus on the
campaign to the exclusion of all else, the administration continued to fail
states: “Some states are still struggling to procure testing kits and supplies
for the kits, including swabs, and have pleaded for the federal government to
play a larger role in coordinating purchases, resolving supply shortages and
distributing the tests. Doctors and health-care facilities are still grappling
with shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE), including private
doctors’ offices that cannot perform routine procedures safely because they do
not have the necessary equipment, according to the American Medical
Association.” (431)<br />
<br />
As before (see #237), what limited federal resources <i>were</i> being
allocated were given out based on pull, not need: “More than five months after
the first test for the coronavirus was conducted in the United States, testing
equipment is still being doled out based on which states manage to get federal
officials on the phone to press their case. After a recent weekend that saw
demand for testing outstrip capacity, the governor’s office in Arizona placed a
call to the White House and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
said Daniel Ruiz, Ducey’s chief operating officer. Within 24 hours, they had
secured expedited access to a rapid Roche testing machine, he said.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Ironically, Trump’s shortcomings continued to be felt most acutely by <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/27/southern-states-coronavirus-surge-342267"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">his fan base in the Superstition Belt</span></a>. Four states with Republican control of the governor’s
mansion and the legislature recorded their highest totals of new infections:
Georgia, South Carolina, Florida, and Arizona, and as of <b>Sunday, June
28</b>, “<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/28/health/us-coronavirus-sunday/index.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">only two US states</span></a> [were] reporting a decline in new coronavirus cases.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">The Trump campaign’s lack of concern for the safety of their
sheep-like supporters was looked at in <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/27/politics/social-distancing-stickers-trump-campaign-tulsa-rally/index.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a cnn.com story</span></a> about the super-spreader rally in Tulsa. Before the
event, Bank of Oklahoma Center employees had placed thousands of stickers
stating “Do Not Sit Here, Please!” throughout the arena to encourage social
distancing. Trump campaign staff swept in before the rally and removed the
stickers. (432) As could be expected, Trump supporters sat next to each other
without masks, setting in motion a <a href="https://tulsaworld.com/news/local/connect-the-dots-tulsa-county-covid-19-cases-soaring-weeks-after-trump-rally-large-scale/article_7c6dfef3-230a-5314-94bc-bab491189960.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">record-breaking</span></a> batch of new infections for the other citizens of
Tulsa.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">That evening, “60 Minutes” ran a <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-antibody-testing-inaccurate-data-60-minutes-2020-06-28/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">segment</span></a> which
showed that the Trump administration had taken “the unprecedented step of
allowing COVID antibody tests to flood the market without review.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">“…Over the course of a three-month investigation, 60 Minutes
has learned that federal officials knew many of the antibody tests were
seriously flawed but continued to allow them to be sold anyway. Now, as
Coronavirus surges in parts of the country, that government failure is
complicating efforts to know the reach of the Coronavirus.”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">“60 minutes” interviewed Robert Castañeda, a clinic owner in Laredo, Texas.
Castañeda told of buying 20,000 test kits which were flawed, leaving the
community uncertain of true infection rates. This scenario was playing out
around the country due to the administration’s unwillingness to regulate the
sale of antibody tests. (433)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Earlier in the day, Trump had shown just how seriously he
took leaving a little ol' Laredo clinic owner out of <a href="https://www.theeagle.com/news/state-and-regional/a-laredo-er-spent-500-000-on-coronavirus-tests-health-officials-say-they-re-unreliable/article_5c14fba3-9deb-5565-bf2e-cf573e516c1f.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">half a million dollars</span></a> by tweeting a video of a Trump supporter yelling
“White Power” before he went golfing with Lindsey Graham.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white;">COVID-19
continued to wreak havoc in anti-science Republican states on </span><b>Monday,
June 29</b><span style="background-color: white;">.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition/2020/06/29/covid-swamps-trump-country-489670"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">According to</span></a> Patterson
Clark and Ryan Heath of <i>Politico</i>, “On the pandemic’s first peak in
early April, the states that voted for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton
accounted for 67 percent of new Covid-19 cases. For the newest peak, which
we’re still climbing, the states that voted for President Donald Trump have an
even larger share: They accounted for 73 percent of new cases on June 28.”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">States and local jurisdictions were being forced to backtrack. Arizona
Republican governor Doug Ducey, <a href="https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/national/coronavirus/arizona-governor-orders-shutdown-of-bars-pools-gyms-as-covid-19-spreads-through-state"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a Trump ally who had re-opened to soon</span></a>, “ordered bars, gyms, movie theaters, water parks, and
tubing operators to close for at least 30 days.”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Another Trump ally who’d failed to take COVID-19 seriously was Ron DeSantis, the
governor of Florida. On May 20, in an event with Mike Pence, DeSantis had
declared victory over the virus with the words “we succeeded.” (434) Now, as
Florida set records for new infections almost daily, there was some question as
to whether Trump would be able to have his dreamed-of, <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/floridas-coronavirus-outbreak-complicates-republican-convention-trumps-reelection-bid/ar-BB167QTS"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">public safety-free Republican convention</span></a> in Jacksonville, his backup choice after North
Carolina’s Democratic governor had refused to allow a super-spreader convention
in his state.<br />
<br />
In news that actually mattered, the pandemic’s ripples were being felt far and
wide. As had been foreseen many months earlier by <a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/05/07/coronavirus-whistleblower-hhs-n95-ppe/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">public health officials who were ignored</span></a>, hospitals were <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-latest-news-06-29-2020-11593420521"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">getting slammed</span></a> (435). The pandemic had also “<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/29/pandemic-unleashes-a-spike-in-overdose-deaths-345183"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">put on hold</span></a> a
billion-dollar research program focused on new forms of addiction treatment”
(436) and contributed to an increase in overdose deaths brought on by “anxiety,
social isolation and depression.” (437) The administration had done virtually
nothing to offset the loss of treatment options for many addicts, and the
potential death of the Affordable Care Act at the hands of the administration
(see #421) would only make matters worse.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">The steep economic slump <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/29/nearly-half-the-us-population-is-without-a-job-showing-how-far-the-labor-recovery-has-to-go.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">continued</span></a>—just
52.8% of American adults were working, a decrease from 61.2% before the
pandemic (438)—but Trump ally Mitch McConnell had yet to lift a finger to
negotiate a new stimulus deal with the Democrats, who had <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/29/schumer-pelosi-to-mcconnell-move-on-coronavirus-relief-344211"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">passed a relief bill</span></a> in the House of Representatives 45 days earlier “which
included over $3 trillion in aid for states and local governments, hospitals
and front-line workers.” McConnell said he wouldn’t address the matter until
after the Senate’s two-week July 4th vacation.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">While Mitch McConnell enjoyed a lengthy vacation at
taxpayers’ expense, millions of Americans waited for tax refunds or stimulus
checks from his allies in the Trump administration (439), <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/irs-tax-refund-millions-waiting/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">as revealed</span></a> by
cbsnews.com on <b>Tuesday, June 30</b>.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Amid widespread economic desperation, COVID-19 continued to surge. And as high
as infection rates were, they were destined to climb further, potentially much
higher. Dr. Fauci told a Senate committee that the States could soon have <a href="https://www.axios.com/fauci-senate-testimony-coronavirus-9d0204a8-f8e5-4deb-a8f7-07dcbd41d11c.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">up to 100,000 new infections</span></a> daily.<br />
<br />
Soaring infection rates had prompted many high-ranking Republican public
officials, including Mike Pence and congressional leaders Mitch McConnell and
Kevin McCarthy, to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/republican-leaders-now-say-everyone-should-wear-a-mask--even-as-trump-refuses-and-mocks-those-who-do/2020/06/30/995a32d0-bae9-11ea-80b9-40ece9a701dc_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">wear masks</span></a> and
to advocate mask usage in public statements. Trump continued to hold out, and
many of his followers mimicked his stupidity, as reflected in an Axios-Ipsos
poll which showed that Democrats were twice as likely as Republicans to wear a
mask “at all times,” (440) though the science behind masks was clear—the World
Health Organization had concluded that masks alone could <a href="https://www.livescience.com/face-masks-eye-protection-covid-19-prevention.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reduce infections by 85%</span></a>.<br />
<br />
To this end, the federal government had started an “America Strong” project in
which they would send “reusable cotton face coverings to critical
infrastructure sectors, companies, healthcare facilities, and faith-based and
community organizations across the country to help slow the spread of
COVID-19.” Unfortunately, due to <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/federal-government-runs-out-of-free-face-masks-tsa-also-faces-shortage-215241857.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">poor planning and a lack of follow through</span></a>, the administration could no longer accept new requests.
(441)<br />
<br />
In addition, “the Transportation Security Administration, whose agents oversee
security checkpoints at the nation’s airports, also faces a potential shortfall
in face coverings” and other PPE due to “strain and unreliability [in] the
supply chain.” (442)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Amid a national disaster for which the fixes were obvious but unaddressed, the
bulk of the U.S. public was fed up with the administration’s dithering.
According to Pew polls, only 12% of Americans felt “satisfied with the way
things are going in the country” and <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2020/06/30/publics-mood-turns-grim-trump-trails-biden-on-most-personal-traits-major-issues/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">just 17% were proud of “the state of the
country</span></a>.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">A <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-poll/americans-concerns-about-coronavirus-jump-as-cases-surge-reuters-ipsos-poll-shows-idUSKBN2425B8"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Reuters/Ipsos poll</span></a> reported the following day, on <b>Wednesday, July
1</b>, “found that 81% of American adults said they are ‘very’ or ‘somewhat’
concerned about the pandemic, the most since a similar poll conducted May
11-12.” Nine of out of ten Democrats were concerned, seven out of ten
Republicans.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Americans had good cause to be concerned, as the U.S. had had <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/01/coronavirus-live-updates-us/?fbclid=IwAR3LQd0H8-ylryv7eBh8HUGrZy6x1SYJCpY5jQjCGO5hOP1uIvQppJB7o_E"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">over 50,000 new daily infections</span></a> for the first time. 45 states had seen an increase in
weekly infections. And as high as the totals of new infections were, they were
being undercounted by about 90%, according to Trump’s former FDA head, Scott
Gottlieb (see <span style="color: red;">W20</span>, #265), who pegged actual
new daily infections at <a href="https://www.axios.com/scott-gottlieb-fda-coronavirus-infections-117194af-bd6e-4c92-8d96-3f9253a76d2f.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiospm&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">half a million</span></a>.<br />
<br />
Deaths were being undercounted too. According to a Yale study, <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20200701-pandemic-caused-18-pc-rise-in-deaths-in-us-study"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">122,000 more Americans had died from COVID-19</span></a> than had been reported.<br />
<br />
As cases escalated along with Americans’ anxiety, Trump continued to <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/trump-hole-digs-deeper-racial-200758877.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">divide America</span></a>, calling a Black Lives Matter stencil scheduled to be
inscribed in front of Trump Tower in Manhattan a “symbol of hate,” threatening
to veto measures to remove the names of Confederate generals from military
bases, and threatening to get rid of anti-segregation housing rules. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><b>Thursday, July 2</b>,
it was reported that the U.S. had had its <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/02/us-coronavirus-cases-soar-by-more-than-50600-in-record-single-day-jump.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">biggest single-day jump</span></a> in infections. COVID-19 cases were “<a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-map-cases-rising-most-states-1d3ec8d8-af4c-418e-8f9b-2360b917f91a.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">flat or growing in 48 states</span></a>.” Cases in Republican-run Florida had <a href="https://news.trust.org/item/20200702133857-sz3ql"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">increased 109%</span></a> over
the prior week and Thursday hit a record, with over 10,000 new (reported)
infections.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Republican-controlled Texas continued to bear horrible human costs because of
governor Greg Abbott’s earlier indifference to the COVID threat, reaching new
highs of daily infections. Texas was such a mess that the far-right,
anti-science, anti-government Abbott was <a href="https://www.axios.com/texas-governor-face-masks-order-fed3a449-b9fa-4439-9c39-38676da43b0c.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiospm&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">requiring</span></a> that
face masks be worn in any county with 20 or more confirmed infections.<br />
<br />
State and local governments were feeling the brunt of the coronavirus, but were
getting little help from the federal government. As revenue dried up, public
sector jobs <a href="https://www.axios.com/state-local-government-workers-budget-coronavirus-e58846e4-18c5-4144-8f5e-960b4dac1358.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axioscities&stream=cities"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">were being slashed</span></a> (443), with many more public employees susceptible to
layoffs in the future. Trump ally Mitch McConnell’s delays were making matters
worse, leaving state and local leaders in limbo as the new fiscal year started
July 1. (444)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">At a briefing with reporters that day, Trump <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-jobs-numbers-report-2/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">said</span></a> the
States was getting the coronavirus “under control.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">It was reported on <b>Friday, July 3</b> that the
U.S. had achieved <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/u-reports-55-000-covid-035453811.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a global high</span></a> of 55,000 new cases on Thursday, with 37 of 50 states
seeing an increased rate of infections. (445)</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Rather than try to mitigate the growing public health crisis stemming directly
from Trump’s refusal to take the pandemic seriously for 70 days (see #254) and
then pushing states to re-open prematurely, the administration’s new message
was, in effect, “Learn to live with it.” (446)<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/we-need-live-it-white-house-readies-new-message-nation-n1232884"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">According to</span></a> Carol
E. Lee, Kristen Welker, and Monica Alba of nbcnews.com, “Administration
officials are planning to intensify what they hope is a sharper, and less
conflicting, message of the pandemic next week, according to senior
administration officials, after struggling to offer clear directives amid a
crippling surge in cases across the country.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p>“...At the crux of the
message, officials said, is a recognition by the <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/unreleased-white-house-report-shows-coronavirus-rates-spiking-heartland-communities-n1204751"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">White House</span></a> that the virus is
not going away any time soon — and will be around through the November
election.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Key to the messaging would be minimizing the sky-high infection rates by
highlighting the low death rates among recent infections relative to April
infections (a result of young people contracting the disease) and emphasizing
quack medical fixes (447). <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: transparent;">As administration campaign hacks crafted their latest snake
oil P.R. strategy, Trump held </span><a href="https://apnews.com/e4725ee4f6c777273a4b5dc83ab57823" style="background-color: transparent;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">another super-spreader campaign rally</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent;">. Though he was considered the </span><a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-worst-president-presidential-greatness-survey-presidents-day-obama-george-washington-a8218721.html" style="background-color: transparent;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">worst president in American history</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3d85c6;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent;">by
200 political scientists in 2018, Trump chose Mount Rushmore, located on land
stolen from Native Americans. As with Trump’s other rallies, no social
distancing or masks were required (448), and Trump </span><a href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/columnists/2020/7/9/21319147/mona-charen-donald-trump-mount-rushmore-speech-racism" style="background-color: transparent;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">aimed low</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent;">,
playing to his followers’ racism and decrying attacks on monuments to false
idols.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">While the clown show continued on high beam, the Biden campaign hired <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/07/02/joe-biden-600-lawyers-ready-battle-trump-election-chicanery/5362546002/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">600 lawyers</span></a> to
pre-empt the Trump campaign’s aggressive attempts to keep Democrats from
voting.<br />
<br />
America celebrated Independence Day, <b>Saturday, July 4</b>, by <a href="https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-07-covid-cases-hours-tracker.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">setting a record</span></a> for new daily infections: 57,683. <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/505889-texas-hits-new-record-of-coronavirus-cases"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Texas</span></a> and <a href="https://news.trust.org/item/20200704142842-m73rh"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Florida</span></a> continued
to serve as cautionary tales of what not to do in the middle of a pandemic;
both states reported daily records.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Meanwhile, every other developed country around the world
was seeing a fraction of the number of cases of the U.S., the <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/do-americans-understand-how-badly-they-re-doing/ar-BB16fK5n"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">laughingstock of the first world</span></a>. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Trump hit his milestone of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/jul/06/coronavirus-live-news-india-sees-record-new-cases-as-texas-warns-of-overwhelmed-hospitals"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">130,000 dead Americans</span></a> on <b>Monday, July 6</b>. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/states-mandate-masks-begin-to-shut-down-again-as-coronavirus-cases-soar-and-hospitalizations-rise/ar-BB16pmw8?li=BBnb7Kz"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">In just the first few days of July</span></a>, America had had over 300,000 new infections. 12 states had
seen new highs in seven-day infection totals. Arizona’s ICU beds were 89% full.
Miami-Dade County was shutting back down. West Virginia was requiring face
masks in public buildings. Jared Kushner's claim that the U.S. would be “really
rocking again” in July (see #273) had taken on a whole new meaning.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Trump and other administration figures attributed the steep
rise in infections to increased testing, but the data proved otherwise. (449)
As <a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-cases-testing-growth-62d6256b-33e2-491d-b94e-91110a74bc85.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">shown</span></a> by
Caitlin Owens and Andrew Witherspoon of <i>Axios</i>, areas such New York
and D.C. actually had more new tests than new cases, while Florida had 9X the
number of new cases as tests, a pattern that played out throughout the country
in areas that had failed to take the virus seriously.</p>
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><br />
As tens of millions of Americans struggled to pay their bills, facing eviction
and worse as government benefits were set to expire at the end of the month,
Brian Slodysko of the AP </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://apnews.com/2edf8670a491a702ecfb7312f507f83a"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">reported that</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> “Forty lobbyists with ties to President
Donald Trump helped clients secure more than $10 billion in federal coronavirus
aid, among them five former administration officials whose work potentially
violates Trump’s own ethics policy, according to a report.” (450)<br /></span></span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Mike Tanglis, one of the authors of the report, said “The
swamp is alive and well in Washington, D.C…..These (lobbying) booms that these
people are having, you can really attribute them to their connection to Trump.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-color: transparent;">Uninterested in the swamp he’d made far more pestilent,
Trump continued to deflect from issues that mattered to everyday Americans’
lives (451) with </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/06/us/politics/trump-bubba-wallace-nascar.html?action=click&campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200707&instance_id=20070&module=Top+Stories&nl=the-morning&pgtype=Homepage&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=32782&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74" style="background-color: transparent;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">racist tweets</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent;"> showing his displeasure with the renaming of the
Washington Redskins, making a dog whistle reference to the “China virus,”
attacking NASCAR for removing the confederate flag from race tracks, and
suggesting that Bubba Wallace—the only black NASCAR driver—should apologize for
inheriting “the only garage pull out of 1,684 stalls at 29 inspected NASCAR
tracks to be fashioned as a noose.”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The impact Trump’s racist demagoguery was having on the U.S psyche was
reflected in polling. <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/313454/trump-job-approval-rating-steady-lower-level.aspx"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">A Gallup poll</span></a> showed “the largest partisan gap Gallup has ever
measured for a presidential approval rating in a single survey.” The same poll
showed that Trump’s approval rating among Republicans had gone up several
points to 91% in the past month as the resident of the United States had poured
gasoline on the fire lit by George Floyd’s murder.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Partisan divides in critical thinking skills (see #145,
#204, #283, #307, #313, #s 319-323. #325, #330, #339, #347, #387, #440)
were <a href="https://www.axios.com/axios-ipsos-poll-coronavirus-index-15-weeks-e4eb53cc-9bc8-4cac-8285-07e5e5ef6b2b.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">further reviewed</span></a> on <b>Tuesday, July 7</b>, by Margaret Talev
of <i>Axios</i>. Based on four months of data, Talev <a href="https://www.axios.com/axios-ipsos-poll-coronavirus-index-15-weeks-e4eb53cc-9bc8-4cac-8285-07e5e5ef6b2b.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">found</span></a> that
young Republican men without degrees took the pandemic “the least seriously” of
all demographic groups (452) and that Republicans were half as likely as
Democrats to wear a mask “at all times,” in no small part because of Trump’s
messaging.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The latest example of Trump’s brainwashing had come out that morning when he’d
tweeted that “We have the lowest Mortality Rate in the World. The Fake
News should be reporting these most important of facts, but they
don’t!” As Anthony Fauci <a href="https://www.axios.com/fauci-coronavirus-death-rate-c763343d-15d2-4bef-bd7f-38109926c229.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiospm&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">said</span></a> at
a public event later in the day, “it's a false narrative to take comfort in a
lower rate of death….There’s so many other things that are dangerous and bad
about the virus. Don’t get into false complacency." <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Fauci was proven right, again, when the U.S. <a href="https://www.barrons.com/news/us-posts-new-daily-virus-case-record-of-60-209-johns-hopkins-01594169104"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">set a record</span></a> of
new infections that day, hitting 60,209. At the rate things were going, the
University of Washington projected that the U.S. would have over <a href="https://www.cnn.com/webview/world/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic-07-07-20-intl/h_c5c9c0b1f6e8db4ffbd3dc5dcca35387"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">208,000 COVID-related deaths</span></a> by November due to the administration’s colossal
incompetence.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Other victims of the administration’s failures included millions of Americans
who were <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-food-aid-exclusive-idUSKBN248184"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">being shortchanged</span></a> in the Farmers to Families Food Bank program.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The program “aimed to take food from farmers typically
produced for restaurants and deliver it to the millions of people who lost
their jobs or were otherwise hit by the coronavirus lockdown,” but the delivery
targets weren’t being met because Trump’s USDA had chosen inexperienced
contractors who weren’t up to the task. According to reporter Christopher
Walljasper, as of early June, rates of food insecurity had doubled since the
beginning of the pandemic, but only 63% of the money allocated for the program
had been used, shortchanging food banks and the struggling Americans who rely
on them. (453)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump was more focused on imaginary foes than starving constituents. As part of
his ongoing effort to remove attention from his COVID-19 failures (see
#1-#453), shift the blame to China, and blame the World Health Organization
(WHO) for China’s lack of transparency, the administration <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/07/07/888186158/trump-sets-date-to-end-who-membership-over-its-handling-of-virus"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">officially notified</span></a> the WHO that the U.S. would be leaving the
organization—and the billions of people who benefit from it—high and dry.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Wednesday, July 8</b>, America’s public health
crisis continued to escalate.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump reached his personal milestone of <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/07/08/covid-19-us-3-million-cases-florida-new-jersey/5391309002/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">three million official infections</span></a> as his adopted home state of Florida continued to be
the poster boy for mis-governance, with <a href="https://www.newsbreak.com/news/0PXriWxO/live-updates-dozens-of-fla-hospitals-run-out-of-icu-beds-as-us-approaches-3-million-coronavirus-cases"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">56 ICUs at full capacity</span></a> and cases increasing.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As high as the numbers were, they weren’t capturing the true extent of the
pandemic because the U.S. still wasn’t testing at an adequate capacity. “‘<a href="https://apnews.com/52e57911691a332630a3c93a6e76612a"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">A hot mess’: Americans face testing delays as
virus surges</span></a>” by Christopher Weber and Acacia Coronado
of the AP looked at America’s continued testing shortcomings, six months after
the administration was first notified of the virus.<br />
<br />
According to Weber and Coronado, “Four months, 3 million confirmed infections
and over 130,000 deaths into the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S., Americans
confronted with a resurgence of the scourge are facing long lines at testing
sites in the summer heat or are getting turned away. (454) Others are going a
week or more without receiving a diagnosis. (455)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Some sites are running out of kits, while labs are
reporting shortages of materials and workers to process the swabs. (456, 457)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Some frustrated Americans are left to wonder why the U.S.
can’t seem to get its act together, especially after it was given fair warning
as the virus wreaked havoc in China and then Italy, Spain and New York.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Dr. Ashish Jha of Harvard’s Global Health Institute
pinpointed the culprit: “I am stunned that as a nation, six months into
this pandemic, we still can’t figure out how to deliver testing to the American
people when they need it….It is an abject failure of leadership and shows that
the federal government has not prioritized testing in a way that will allow us
to get through this pandemic.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The abject failures at the federal level extended to PPE.
Six months after the administration had become aware of the virus, the U.S. was
still shortchanging the brave men and women at the front lines of the crisis.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/07/08/ppe-shortage-masks-gloves-gowns/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">According to</span></a> William
Wan of <i>the Washington Post</i>, “Nurses say they are reusing N95 masks
for days and even weeks at a time. (458) Doctors say they can’t reopen offices
because they lack personal protective equipment. (459) State officials say they
have scoured U.S. and international suppliers for PPE and struggle to get
orders filled. (460). Experts worry the problem could worsen as coronavirus
infections climb, straining medical systems.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“‘A lot people thought once the alarm was sounded back in March surely the
federal government would fix this, but that hasn’t happened,’ said Deborah
Burger, a California nurse and president of National Nurses United, a union
representing registered nurses. Like many health-care workers, Burger blamed
the Trump administration for the lack of equipment, noting the administration
has insisted the responsibility falls to state and local officials, with the
federal government playing only a supporting role.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The specter of equipment shortages comes as other issues
that plagued the country’s early response to the pandemic return: surging
cases, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/as-coronavirus-rebounds-more-patients-are-being-hospitalized-thats-a-bad-sign/2020/07/02/62f60720-bc4f-11ea-80b9-40ece9a701dc_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_8"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">overwhelmed hospitals</span></a>, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/as-cases-surge-lines-for-covid-19-tests-sometimes-stretch-miles-in-the-summer-heat/2020/07/01/f0951586-ba4b-11ea-80b9-40ece9a701dc_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_8"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">lagging testing</span></a> and contradictory <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/06/25/trumps-dumbfounding-refusal-encourage-wearing-masks/?itid=lk_inline_manual_8"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">public health messages</span></a>. But the inability to secure PPE is especially frustrating,
health-care workers say, because it is their main defense against catching the
virus.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Because of the federal government’s unwillingness to regulate vendors or
provide adequate assistance to the states, private for-profit companies were
gouging businesses and local and state governments which were already dealing
with huge budget shortfalls: “Demand for protective equipment has soared,
but unlike in March, when efforts focused on getting PPE for major hospitals —
especially in New York, Detroit and Chicago — supplies now are desperately
needed by primary care offices, nursing homes, prisons and psychiatric and
disability facilities. As many states continue to reopen their economies,
demand has also surged from the construction industry and other sectors. With
soaring demand, prices have skyrocketed.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The big story of the day was Trump’s <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/08/trump-reopen-schools-353245?nname=politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition&nid=00000170-c000-da87-af78-e185fa700000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=2670445"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">insistence that schools open</span></a> in the fall so that America could play a game of
charades in which we pretend we aren’t in the middle of a pandemic during the
height of campaign season in order to help Donald Trump win a second term.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump cited school re-openings in other developed countries, but those
countries had a tiny fraction of the infection rates the U.S. would likely have
this fall.<br />
<br />
And as Caitlin Owens and Marisa Fernandez of <i>Axios</i> <a href="https://www.axios.com/trump-schools-coronavirus-reopen-67467f4b-bd63-4c3b-b1d9-6097bf3282e2.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">pointed out</span></a>,
maintaining social distancing and consistent usage of masks in schools across
the country would require resources that struggling local governments lacked,
and the administration had yet to offer up the scale of federal aid needed to
bridge the gap. Forcing schools to re-open without these measures in place
would lead to millions of children around the country serving as vectors of
infection to older and more vulnerable Americans. (461)<br />
<br />
Trump’s real incentive to open schools was to prime the pump so he could campaign
on his “management of the economy” (a.k.a. his <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjones/2020/02/17/obamas-2009-recovery-act-kicked-off-over-10-years-of-economic-growth/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">inheritance of Barack Obama’s record sustained
growth</span></a>). Lily Eskelsen García, president
of the National Education Association, said “He's hoping some indicator goes up
that people are going back to work….and he is saying, ‘Sacrifice your children,
sacrifice their teachers, sacrifice their families that they could infect,
because I need something to sell in November.’” (462)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">The
administration was playing chicken with peoples’ lives by </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/08/trump-schools-reopening-federal-funding-352311"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">threatening to withhold federal money</span></a><span style="background: white;"> to
schools which refused to play along (463), and Trump’s advocacy </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/08/trump-white-house-reopening-schools-352236"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">directly contradicted</span></a><span style="background: white;"> the
safety guidelines put out by his own CDC (464). To narrow the gulf between
Trump’s selfish desires and public safety, Mike Pence vowed to </span><a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/07/pence-cdc-change-school-guidelines-after-trump-complaint.html"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">water down</span></a><span style="background: white;"> the
CDC’s guidelines. (465)</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Part of Trump’s challenge in convincing schools to follow
his lead was that he had no credibility when it came to COVID-19. He’d recently
said that 99% of coronavirus cases were “<a href="https://www.factcheck.org/2020/07/trumps-false-claim-on-coronavirus-harm/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">totally harmless</span></a>” though 4.5% of people who caught the disease died, “14% of
confirmed coronavirus cases led to hospitalizations — including 2% in intensive
care units,” and even those who weren’t hospitalized were subject to
serious <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/brain-problems-linked-even-mild-virus-infections-study-102940044.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">brain degeneration</span></a>. (466)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">He had demanded that churches re-open and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/white-house-and-cdc-remove-coronavirus-warnings-about-choirs-in-faith-guidance/2020/05/28/5d9c526e-a117-11ea-9590-1858a893bd59_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">rescinded limitations</span></a> on crowded church choirs in order to kowtow to his
evangelical base, which was contributing to the <a href="https://dnyuz.com/2020/07/08/churches-were-eager-to-reopen-now-they-are-a-major-source-of-coronavirus-cases/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">spikes</span></a> around
the country. (467) </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">He had insisted on a
rally in Tulsa even as the city’s main public health official had warned
against it, which was leading to <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/08/tulsa-trump-rally-coronavirus-353708"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a surge in cases</span></a> there. (468)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Miraculously, <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/coronavirus-polls/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">80% of Republicans</span></a> still approved of
Trump’s “handling” of the coronavirus. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump continued to build on his record of failure the
following day, <b>Thursday, July 9</b>, as the U.S. hit a new record of
daily infections—<a href="https://www.barrons.com/news/us-posts-new-record-daily-virus-caseload-of-more-than-65-000-johns-hopkins-01594341905"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">over 65,000</span></a>—shattering
the record set earlier in the week. 42 states were showing an increasing number
of infections.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The missteps of Trump’s political allies in the sun belt were especially
obvious, as hospitals across the South and Southwest were swamped with new
cases. Laz Gamio of <i>the New York Times</i> presented <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/09/us/coronavirus-cases-reopening-trends.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the hard data</span></a>. Since prematurely re-opening their economies with Trump’s
prompting, Florida had seen a 7-day increase in infections of 1,393% (469),
South Carolina a 999% increase (470), Arizona an 858% increase (471), Texas a
680% increase (472), and Georgia a 245% increase (473). New York, which had
ignored Trump’s bad advice, had seen a decrease of 52% in the same time frame.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The spike in infections caused by the Trump administration’s
anti-science rhetoric and astonishing failures of governance continued to
depress the economy. 1.3 million more Americans had <a href="https://news.trust.org/item/20200709134449-nkejb"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">filed for unemployment</span></a> (474).
Long term, the pandemic was <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/07/09/after-covid-19-giant-corporations-chains-may-be-only-ones-left/?arc404=true&utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">accelerating the trend</span></a> of small businesses going under and being replaced by
corporations and soulless, faceless chains with minimal concern for their
customers and no connections to the communities they operated in, a process
certain to lead to increasing concentrations of wealth at the top, fewer
choices for consumers, and lower wages for workers. (475-477)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At the root in the spike of infections was <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/finance/other/americans-are-bewildered-by-patchwork-of-social-distancing-rules/ar-BB16wRvc"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">mixed messaging</span></a> from Trump and his state-level allies, who had spent
months contradicting public health officials, which had led to tens of millions
of scientifically-illiterate Americans ignoring guidelines and infecting others
in the process.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The Centers for Disease Control had the resources and
know-how to educate the public, but were being handcuffed by Trump. As reported
in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/trump-sidelines-public-health-advisers-in-growing-rift-over-coronavirus-response/2020/07/09/ad803218-c12a-11ea-9fdd-b7ac6b051dc8_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a deep dive</span></a> (“CDC
feels pressure from Trump as rift grows over coronavirus response”) by Lena Sun
and Josh Dawsey of <i>the Washington Post</i>, the agency’s use of
evidence-based practices was creating friction with Trump’s political handlers,
who were largely rendering the agency “invisible.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As Tom Frieden (Obama’s CDC head) put it, the CDC was “not being allowed to
guide policy, not being allowed to develop, standardize, and post information
that would give, by state and county, the status of the epidemic and of our
control measures.” (478)<br />
<br />
In one example of many, Sun and Dawsey cited an instance were senior adviser
Paul Alexander had sent a rage email to CDC principals accusing the agency of
“undermining the President”—because they’d had the audacity to publish <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6925a1.htm"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a report</span></a> showing
the risks COVID-19 posed to pregnant women. (479) <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump’s war on science was in the news again on <b>Friday, July 10</b>, as
it came out that Dr. Fauci <a href="https://theweek.com/speedreads/924772/fauci-says-hasnt-briefed-trump-covid19-2-months"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">hadn’t briefed Trump in two months</span></a> (480) and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/10/politics/donald-trump-anthony-fauci-coronavirus/index.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">hadn’t seen him since June 2</span></a> (481). Fauci told <i>the Financial Times</i>, “I
have a reputation, as you probably have figured out, of speaking the truth at
all times and not sugar-coating things….And that may be one of the reasons why
I haven’t been on television very much lately.”* (*Fauci, the government’s top
infectious disease expert, had not been physically present at that week’s
coronavirus task force briefing with reporters, having been asked to dial in by
phone instead, 482)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Asked on Wednesday about Fauci’s comment that the U.S. was “knee-deep in the
first wave” of the virus, Trump had said, “I think we are in a good place.
I disagree with him.” Two days after Trump’s “good place” comment, the
U.S. notched a new record of daily infections—<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/10/coronavirus-live-updates-us/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">over 67,000</span></a>—and
an increase in the weekly death toll. (483)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Infections were spread all over, but <a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition/2020/07/10/its-everywhere-489766"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">states which had re-opened too soon</span></a>, or never taken the virus seriously, continued to have most
of the hot spots. Wisconsin, which had been forced to open up when Republican
judges overruled the Democratic governor’s stay-at-home order, had seen a
doubling in positive tests over the prior two weeks and a record number of new
infections on Thursday and Friday.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The five biggest hospitals in <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Mississippi_state_executive_offices"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">far-right</span></a> Mississippi
were <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8510917/Mississippis-five-largest-hospitals-run-ICU-beds-infections-soar-state.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">full up</span></a> and
four other hospitals had only 5% of their beds left.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/south-carolinas-coronavirus-outbreak-is-worse-than-most-countries"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">75% of the hospital beds</span></a> in South Carolina (a state <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/South_Carolina_state_executive_offices"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">without a single statewide Democratic
officeholder</span></a>) were full, even as infections were
on the way up. According to a <i>New York Times</i> analysis, South
Carolina had the third worst outbreak rate per capita <i>in the world</i>,
behind only Florida and Arizona, two other states under complete Republican
control.<br />
<br />
One district in Phoenix—the location of Trump’s June 23 super-spreader
rally—had so many deaths that the <a href="https://www.abc15.com/news/coronavirus/phoenix-mayor-abrazo-nearly-out-of-morgue-space-may-be-requesting-refrigerated-trucks"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">morgues were at 96% of capacity</span></a> and the city was looking to rent refrigerated trucks.
(484)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Because of the administration’s failures to act in a timely
fashion, or in an adequate fashion, or to even give a shit, the U.S. was moving
toward a herd immunity strategy “<a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-herd-immunity-united-states-4fa3a3bd-f92f-4619-b0ec-06182521186f.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">by default</span></a>.”
Yet the country wasn’t ready for that either (485): </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Letting the virus spread while minimizing human loss is
doable, in theory. But it requires very strict protections for vulnerable
people, almost none of which the U.S. has established. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Cases are skyrocketing, with hospitalizations and deaths following suit in
hotspots. Not a single state has ordered another lockdown, even though per
capita cases in Florida and Arizona have reached levels similar to New York and
New Jersey’s in April.”<br />
<br />
“…Separating older, sicker people from younger, healthier ones while the virus
burns through the latter group could be a way to achieve herd immunity —
assuming immunity exists — without hundreds of thousands of people dying.<br />
<br />
“But the U.S. hasn’t adopted such a strategy with any planning or foresight.
Although younger people make up a larger portion of coronavirus cases now than
they did earlier in the pandemic, vulnerable people still go to work or live
with non-vulnerable people.”<br />
<br />
All told, the U.S. was looking at 250,000 dead by the end of the year, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/zeke-emanuel-covid-deaths-250000-americans/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">according to</span></a> Dr.
Zeke Emanuel, a bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Most human beings who had brought horrible suffering on
millions of people through their own actions (and inactions) would feel a
degree of remorse, or maybe even humility, but Trump fell back on self-pity. In
“<a href="https://www.thehour.com/news/article/Trump-the-victim-President-complains-in-private-15398859.php"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump the victim: President complains in
private</span></a>,” by Ashley Parker, Philip Rucker,
and Josh Dawsey of <i>the Washington Post</i>, it came out that “Callers
on President Donald Trump in recent weeks have come to expect what several
allies and advisers describe as a ‘woe-is-me’ preamble.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The president rants about the deadly coronavirus destroying ‘the greatest
economy,’ one he claims to have personally built. He laments the unfair ‘fake
news’ media, which he vents never gives him any credit. And he bemoans the
‘sick, twisted’ police officers in Minneapolis, whose killing of an unarmed black
man in their custody provoked the nationwide racial justice protests that have
confounded the president.”<br />
<br />
“…The president has cast himself in the starring role of the blameless victim -
of a deadly pandemic, of a stalled economy, of deep-seated racial unrest, all
of which happened to him rather than the country.”<br />
<br />
“‘…We had the greatest economy in the world,’ Trump said in an Oval Office
meeting last month, talking about how good the statistics were before the
coronavirus, said one adviser. An outside adviser in frequent touch with the
White House offered a similar recollection, saying that Trump simply keeps on
repeating, ‘I had this great economy and they made me shut it down.’”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a history professor at New York University and author of the
forthcoming book, Strongmen, a history of authoritarian leaders, said Trump's
victimization complex fits a pattern of authoritarian leaders past and present.<br />
<br />
“They have no empathy, and they only see the world through how things affect
them personally,’ Ben-Ghiat said. ‘They're not there to govern. They're there
to enrich themselves, they're there to plunder the nation, and they're there to
be world historical.’” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Saturday, July 11</b>, while Trump wallowed in self-pity, it was
reported that the U.S. had a record number of new cases—<a href="https://news.trust.org/item/20200711041631-sbox5"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">over 69,000</span></a>—for the
third day in a row.<br />
<br />
Saddled with bad news of their own making, the administration targeted the one
official under the Trump umbrella who actually had any integrity, Anthony
Fauci. As reported by <i>the Washington Post</i>, administration
officials <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-white-house-made-a-list-of-all-the-times-fauci-has-been-wrong-on-the-coronavirus"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">circulated</span></a> “a
list of all the times he ‘has been wrong on things,’” hoping to damage his
public credibility as he undermined Trump’s propagandistic talking points with
factual analysis. (486)<br />
<br />
Someone who had swallowed Trump’s propagandistic talking points whole was Ron DeSantis,
the Republican governor of Florida. DeSantis’s failures led news on <b>Sunday,
July 12</b>, as infections continued to skyrocket in Florida, with a one-day
total of <a href="https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2020/07/12/florida-reports-15k-new-cases-smashing-national-record-1299981?nname=playbook&nid=0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=630318"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">over 15,000</span></a> official
cases. As <a href="https://twitter.com/GloriaFallon123/status/1282637847590305793"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> at <i>Axios</i>,
“NBC Nightly News’ pointed out that if Florida were a country, it would have
the world's fourth-highest tally of new COVID-19 cases (a record 15,300) for
the 24 hours ending yesterday, after the U.S. (66,281), Brazil (45,048) and
India (28,637).”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In competition with Florida for the least effective response
to COVID-19 were the Republican-run states of Texas and Arizona; Arizona's
situation was deemed “<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/arizona-coronavirus-cases-worst-in-united-states/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the worst in the entire country</span></a>” by a top public health official. On <b>Monday, July
13</b>, it came out that Texas—like Arizona—was <a href="https://www.fox5ny.com/news/refrigerated-trucks-requested-in-arizona-texas-as-morgues-reach-capacity-amid-covid-19-surge"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">renting refrigerated trucks</span></a> to handle the overflow of deaths from morgues. (487)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Many Americans who got infected but didn’t end up on the wrong side of a meat
truck would be susceptible to long-term heart damage, according to <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/scans-reveal-heart-damage-over-half-covid-19-patients-study-1517293"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a study</span></a> co-authored
by Marc Dweck of the University of Edinburgh. As many Americans were facing
heart damage, <a href="https://www.healthline.com/health-news/lifelong-lung-damage-the-serious-covid-19-complication-that-can-hit-people-in-their-20s"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">lung damage</span></a>,
and <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-brain-damage/a-54111054"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">brain degeneration</span></a> which could have been avoided with a competent federal
response, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/13/world/coronavirus-updates.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">5.4 million Americans had lost their health
insurance</span></a> (488), a fraction of the
number who could lose coverage if the administration’s legal challenge to the
Affordable Care Act was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. (see #421) Many
of those who had lost health insurance were out of work and <a href="https://www.greenwichtime.com/business/article/Workers-are-pushed-to-the-brink-as-they-continue-15403810.php"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">still waiting</span></a> for their unemployment benefits. All told, 18 million
Americans were on unemployment and <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2020/07/09/nearly-50-million-americans-have-filed-for-unemployment-heres-whats-really-happening/#4dc714b827d3"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">50 million</span></a> had
applied since the virus began. (489)<br />
<br />
Overwhelmed by the waves of bad and totally objective news, Trump <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/13/trump-questions-public-health-experts-twitter-359388?nname=politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition&nid=00000170-c000-da87-af78-e185fa700000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=2670445"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">shared a tweet</span></a> (490) from former game show host Chuck Woolery that
read “Everyone is lying. The CDC, Media, Democrats, our Doctors, not all but
most, that we are told to trust. I think it’s all about the election and
keeping the economy from coming back, which is about the election. I’m sick of
it.” Just days later it would come out that Woolery’s son had <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/16/us/chuck-woolery-son-covid-19/index.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">contracted COVID-19</span></a>, prompting the game show host to deactivate his Twitter
account.<br />
<br />
While Woolery accused the CDC, the media, Democrats, and doctors of lying,
Trump reached another personal milestone by having made <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/07/13/president-trump-has-made-more-than-20000-false-or-misleading-claims/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">20,000 “false or misleading claims</span></a>.”<br />
<br />
As of <b>Tuesday, July 14</b>, the United States had what Helen Branswell
of statnews.com called “<a href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/07/14/fix-covid-19-dumpster-fire-us/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a raging dumpster fire</span></a>”:<br />
<br />
“Where a number of countries in Asia and Europe have managed to dampen spread
of the SARS-CoV-2 virus to the point where they can consider returning to a
semblance of normalcy…many international borders remain closed to Americans.
(see #413)<br />
<br />
“On Sunday, Florida reported more than 15,000 cases — in a single day. South
Korea hasn’t registered 15,000 cases in the entire pandemic to date.”<br />
<br />
“…The website <a href="https://www.covidexitstrategy.org/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Covidexitstrategy.org</span></a> has updated its previously tri-colored U.S. map, which
showed states as either green, signifying they are trending better; yellow,
making progress; or red, trending poorly. A fourth designation, called ‘bruised
red,’ signals states with uncontrolled spread; criteria for this category
includes hospitals nearing capacity both in terms of overall beds and ICU
space. Already 17 states are wearing bruised red.” (491)<br />
<br />
This was an ugly reality that Trump wanted to obscure, so his henchman (trade
adviser Peter Navarro) went after the one official willing to tell it like
it is in <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/todaysdebate/2020/07/14/anthony-fauci-wrong-with-me-peter-navarro-editorials-debates/5439374002/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">an op-ed in <i>USA Today</i></span></a> which claimed that “Fauci has been wrong about
everything I have interacted with him on.” (492)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><br />
Trump’s contempt for science was also demonstrated that day by the news that
the administration’s CDC would no longer be in control of collecting and
disseminating coronavirus death and infection information.<br />
<br />
</span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/us/politics/trump-cdc-coronavirus.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">According to</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> Sheryl Gay Stolberg of <i>the New
York Times</i>: “The Trump administration has ordered hospitals to bypass the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and send all Covid-19 patient information
to a central database in Washington beginning on Wednesday. The move has
alarmed health experts who fear the data will be politicized or withheld from
the public.<br />
<br />
“The new instructions were posted recently in a </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/covid-19-faqs-hospitals-hospital-laboratory-acute-care-facility-data-reporting.pdf"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">little-noticed
document</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> on
the Department of Health and Human Services website. From now on, the
department — not the C.D.C. — will collect daily reports about the patients
that each hospital is treating, the number of available beds and ventilators,
and other information vital to tracking the pandemic.”<br />
<br />
The move was designed to withhold information from the public: “…the Health and
Human Services database that will receive new information is not open to the
public, which could affect the work of scores of researchers (493), modelers
and health officials who rely on </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nhsn/covid19/report-patient-impact.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">C.D.C. data</span><span style="color: blue; line-height: 107%;"> </span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;">to make projections and crucial decisions. (494)<br />
<br />
“‘Historically, C.D.C. has been the place where public health data has been
sent, and this raises questions about not just access for researchers but
access for reporters (495), access for the public to try to better understand
what is happening with the outbreak,’ (496) said Jen Kates, the director of
global health and H.I.V. policy with the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.”<br />
<br />
“…Centralizing control of all data under the umbrella of an inherently political
apparatus is dangerous and breeds distrust,” said Dr. Nicole Lurie, who served
as assistant secretary for preparedness and response under former President
Barack Obama. “It appears to cut off the ability of agencies like C.D.C. to do
its basic job.” (497)<br />
<br />
Cutting off the ability of the CDC to do its job had been the administration’s
practice from early in Trump’s presidency. A bipartisan group of four former
CDC directors explained </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/07/14/cdc-directors-trump-politics/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">the damage this had
done</span></a></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 107%;">in “We ran the
CDC. No president ever politicized its science the way Trump has” for <i>the
Washington Post</i>.<br />
<br />
The opening line told the tale: “…The four of us led the CDC over a period of
more than 15 years, spanning Republican and Democratic administrations alike.
We cannot recall over our collective tenure a single time when political
pressure led to a change in the interpretation of scientific evidence.”<br />
<br />
Politicization had caused confusion, division, and ultimately, more infections:
“…Unfortunately, [the CDC’s] sound science is being challenged with partisan
potshots, sowing confusion and mistrust at a time when the American people need
leadership, expertise and clarity. These efforts have even fueled a backlash
against public health officials across the country: Public servants have
been </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.dispatch.com/news/20200615/first-came-pandemic-then-came-politics-why-amy-acton-quit"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">harassed</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;">, </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/amid-threats-and-political-pushback-public-health-officials-leaving-posts/2020/06/22/6075f7a2-b0cf-11ea-856d-5054296735e5_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_8"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">threatened</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> and </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2020/06/09/2-wisconsin-health-dept-officials-resign-in-middle-of-covid-19-pandemic/"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">forced to resign</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.ctpost.com/news/coronavirus/article/CT-health-official-resigns-in-midst-of-15172791.php"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">when</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> we need them most. (498) This is
unconscionable and dangerous.<br />
<br />
“We’re seeing the terrible effect of undermining the CDC play out in our
population. Willful disregard for public health guidelines is, unsurprisingly,
leading to a sharp rise in infections and deaths. America now stands as a
global outlier in the coronavirus pandemic…The United States is home to a
quarter of the world’s reported coronavirus infections and deaths, despite
being home to only 4.4 percent of the global population.<br />
<br />
“Sadly, we are not even close to having the virus under control. Quite the
opposite, in fact.”<br />
<br />
One of the main reasons the virus wasn’t even close to being under control in
the U.S. was the Trump administration’s decentralization of the COVID-19
response to states that were unprepared to handle a pandemic. </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/14/states-look-to-trump-for-a-national-plan-to-fight-coronavirus-361906?nname=politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition&nid=00000170-c000-da87-af78-e185fa700000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=2670445"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">As reported</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> by Dan Goldberg and Alice Miranda
Ollstein, “Leaving the nation's coronavirus fight to individual states has
created gaping holes in the public health response that have allowed the
infection rate to soar and death rates to rise once again. (499)<br />
<br />
“While countries like New Zealand and Germany have taken a unified national
approach to fighting the virus — and are enjoying the fruits of a successful
mitigation strategy — the Trump administration’s federalist philosophy has
helped create chaos across the South and West.<br />
<br />
“Cash-strapped cities and states trying to create their own testing, tracing
and public awareness campaigns from scratch are desperate for federal support
as they grapple with questions about whether it’s safe for people to return to
school and work, along with bars and beaches.” (see #391)<br />
<br />
Cash-strapped cities and states were again being forced to compete against each
other for supplies (see #173) because the administration had refused to ramp up
the Defense Production Act to the extent necessary, and the lack of a national
contact tracing plan was leaving us with only one-third the number of tracers
needed to get COVID-19 under control.<br />
<br />
David Eisenman of the UCLA Center for Public and Health Disasters summed up the
lack of planning and execution that brought us to this point: “We shut down the
country for three months and we could have used that time for all kinds of
planning and preparing, and we did not use it at all.” (500)<br />
<br />
Planning, preparation, and thinking ahead were clearly not the Trump
administration’s forte, as several stories on <b>Wednesday, July 15</b> showed.<br />
<br />
Maggie Severns of <i>Politico</i> reported that the administration
had </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/15/coronavirus-nursing-homes-361510"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">reduced training
requirements</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> for
caregivers in nursing homes <i>after</i> the pandemic had made its
way to American shores. Previously, nurses’ aides had been required to have 75
hours of training. Acting on the wishes of the nursing home industry, the
administration had lowered the requirement significantly, allowing nursing
homes to hire people whose sum total of training was eight hours online. (501)<br />
<br />
And the online training wasn’t actually eight hours long. According to Severns,
“There is no requirement that students watch the required videos or download
the assignments during the training, and there is only one untimed assessment.
A POLITICO reporter was able to register for the eight-hour program and obtain
a temporary nurse’s aide certificate, using the internet to look up test
answers, in less than 40 minutes.”<br />
<br />
As a result, inexperienced workers were being put in charge of eldercare during
the middle of a pandemic. Jesse Martin (the SEIU vice president in Connecticut)
told Severns, “Working in nursing homes is complicated….You have PPE, you have
infection control procedures. Putting someone brand new into the care setting
with Covid is a recipe for disaster." (502)<br />
<br />
Other victims of the administration’s short-term thinking included constituents
of Republican governors who had taken Trump’s advice. Writing for <i>the
Hill</i>, James Zirin reviewed the </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/507398-listening-to-trump-gave-sunbelt-governors-a-new-covid-19-headache"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">red state missteps</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;">:<br />
<br />
“The temperatures are </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/07/13/heat-wave-south-coronavirus/"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">soaring this week</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> in seven Sunbelt states of Florida,
Georgia, Arizona, Texas, South Carolina, Arkansas and Tennessee. So are the
number of </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/14/us/coronavirus-united-states.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">new cases of COVID-19</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;">, and the pro-Trump Republican governors of
these states have much to answer for.<br />
<br />
“In the spring, when the weather was more temperate, the spread figures seemed
to be under control in these states. And the governors, all Trump loyalists,
largely </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/southern-governors-who-initially-downplayed-coronavirus-threat-ease-into-reopening-of-their-states/2020/04/29/92d9d122-8a3d-11ea-9dfd-990f9dcc71fc_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">followed the
president’s lead</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> in
suggesting that once the weather got warmer, the coronavirus would, as Trump
put it, </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/505487-trump-maintains-coronavirus-will-just-disappear-at-some-point"><span style="color: blue; line-height: 107%;">‘</span><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">disappear…like a
miracle.’”</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><br />
<br />
Far from disappearing like a miracle, daily infections were hitting </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://news.yahoo.com/coronavirus-cases-fatalities-continue-rise-across-us-001801216.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">a record national high</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> of 67,632.<br />
<br />
Renuka Rayasam reviewed </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition/2020/07/15/how-scared-should-you-be-489808"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">the frazzled state of
the nation</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> in
“How scared should you be?”:<br />
<br />
“Halfway through July, the situation is actually worse in many parts of the
country than at the start of the pandemic…”<br />
<br />
“…About 7 to 9 percent of the population, or 23 million people, have been
infected to date, estimates Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease researcher
at the University of Minnesota. He said transmission won’t slow until at least
half of the population becomes infected. If cases continue growing at today’s
pace, even with a lower death rate, he projects that about 800,000 people will
die before any sort of herd immunity kicks in.”<br />
<br />
“…Unlike </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/commission-summer-is-for-coronavirus-second-wave-prep-not-vacation-travel-restrictions-borders/"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">other countries</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> now comfortably opening businesses and
schools, the U.S. wasted valuable time during its lockdown (503), said Amesh
Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. The
positive test rate is in double digits in many states, a sign that the virus is
spreading faster than it can be controlled through testing and contact tracing.
‘What I am continually seeing in these states is that they keep making the same
mistake in not being able to do the core elements of public health,’ he said.
The problem, in his view: Testing supplies are limited, test results are too
slow to be useful in guiding behavior, there are still too few contact tracers
and many states don’t have a handle on who is actually infected. Until state or
federal officials can fix those problems, hotspots will continue to emerge
around the country.”<br />
<br />
Because of these countless failures, the U.S. was looking at a projection
of </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://news.yahoo.com/us-covid-19-epidemic-projected-worsen-151435022.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">224,000 dead</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> by election day.<br /></span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In addition to a staggering, first-in-the-world death toll,
the Trump virus was causing headaches for elections workers. As of <b>Thursday,
July 16</b>, New York had <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/07/new-york-primary-results-still-waiting.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">yet to finish</span></a> counting the vote from the June 23rd primary because
of the volume of mail ballots.<br />
<br />
Due to the lack of a vigorous national testing and tracing system, this
scenario was likely to play out again in the presidential election, as many of
those who could would avoid voting in person. <a href="https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/national-covid-19-testing-and-tracing-action-plan/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">As reported</span></a> by
the Rockefeller Foundation, the U.S. was doing just a fraction of the amount of
testing necessary to counteract the coronavirus, a problem which promised to
get worse with the flu season. The keys to containing COVID-19 were more and
cheaper testing, faster test results, widespread contact tracing, and targeted
isolation. The foundation’s plan being ignored by the White House could be
implemented for $75 billion, roughly 1/30th of the amount the GOP had spent
on <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/28/tax-cuts-trump-gop-analysis-430781"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump’s tax cut for the rich</span></a>.<br />
<br />
Making up for the mistakes of the past was not a priority for the
administration, which was engaged in a full-court press to force schools to
re-open in the fall. As cases were <a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-cases-increase-map-37-states-pandemic-b5e91376-1543-40a0-99fb-556c535c0842.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">increasing in 37 states</span></a> and 45% of counties nationwide were experiencing “<a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8529781/Data-map-shows-45-counties-seeing-epidemic-spread-COVID-19.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">uncontrollable spread</span></a>,” White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8531199/White-House-vows-not-let-science-stand-way-Donald-Trumps-push-reopen-schools.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">told reporters</span></a> that the administration would not “let the science
[public health concerns] stand in the way” of prying schools open. (504)<br />
<br />
Putting children and teachers in harm’s way was seen as necessary in order to
goose the economy as unemployment filings increased “by more than 1 million
for <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/16/weekly-jobless-claims.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">[the] 17th straight week</span></a>.” (505)<br />
<br />
Coronavirus refused to cooperate with Trump’s artificial timeline. On <b>Friday,
July 17</b>, it was reported that the U.S. had hit <a href="https://news.trust.org/item/20200717011211-17cr2"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a new high of daily infections</span></a>—77,217.
969 Americans died in the same time frame, the biggest one-day totals since
June 10. Though the administration wasn’t saying it publicly (506), a
Coronavirus Task Force report obtained by the Center of Public Integrity
recommended that 18 states with the highest infection rates should <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/17/politics/white-house-states-hot-spots-task-force/index.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reverse their re-openings</span></a>.<br />
<br />
Among the troubling data points in the rising numbers was a <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-16/childhood-covid-19-infections-mount-with-schools-eyeing-openings"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">big increase</span></a> in
infections among Americans under 18, which made up around 6.4% of cases
nationally, including nearly 10% of the total cases in California and
Mississippi. In Florida, 31% of children tested positive for COVID-19. The
increase in infections among children made the danger of opening schools
prematurely even clearer.<br />
<br />
Though these concerns were at the forefront of public dialogue, the
administration continued to censor public health officials who’d been asked to
provide guidance for school officials. As reported by Bianca Quilantan, CDC
head Robert Redfield (or a “designee”) had been invited by Bobby Scott (the
Democratic chair of the Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education
Subcommittee) “to discuss the immediate needs of K-12 public schools as many
districts look to reopen in the fall.” Redfield <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/17/education-democrats-cdc-director-congress-367935"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">had been blocked</span></a> from appearing even as the CDC was delaying safety
guidelines for schools. In a statement, Scott said, “It is alarming that the
Trump Administration is preventing the CDC from appearing before the Committee
at a time when its expertise and guidance is so critical to the health and
safety of students, parents, and educators….This lack of transparency does a
great disservice to the many communities across the country facing difficult
decisions about reopening schools this fall.”<br />
<br />
While the administration took a libertarian approach to protecting American
children and their families from the pandemic, Trump ordered an <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/17/us/portland-protests.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">authoritarian crackdown</span></a> in Portland, unleashing soldiers from the Department
of Homeland Security on unsuspecting protesters.<br />
<br />
On <b>Saturday, July 18</b>, it was reported that the U.S. had had its
second consecutive day of over <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/18/us-reports-more-than-70000-new-coronavirus-infections-for-second-day-in-a-row.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">70,000 new infections</span></a> and Trump reached his personal milestone of 140,000
dead Americans. Coinciding with this startling—<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/01/official-us-coronavirus-death-toll-is-a-substantial-undercount-of-actual-tally-new-yale-study-finds.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">and yet still lowball</span></a>—number, an all-star team of reporters at <i>the New
York Times</i> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/18/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-response-failure-leadership.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">published</span></a> “Inside
Trump’s Failure: The Rush to Abandon Leadership Role on the Virus,” a long read
explaining why the U.S. had had by far the steepest human costs of any
developed country.<br />
<br />
The piece revealed that even in April, as 2,000 Americans were dying daily from
COVID-19, the administration was secretly planning on pawning the problem off
onto state governments which were ill-equipped to handle the pandemic (507).
According to the authors, “Over a critical period beginning in mid-April,
President Trump and his team convinced themselves that the outbreak was fading,
that they had given state governments all the resources they needed to contain
its remaining ‘embers’ and that it was time to ease up on the lockdown.<br />
<br />
“In doing so, he was ignoring warnings that the numbers would continue to drop
only if social distancing was kept in place, rushing instead to restart the
economy and tend to his battered re-election hopes.<br />
<br />
“…Mr. Trump’s bet that the crisis would fade away proved wrong. But an
examination of the shift in April and its aftermath shows that the approach he
embraced was not just a misjudgment. Instead, it was a deliberate strategy that
he would stick doggedly to as evidence mounted that, in the absence of strong
leadership from the White House, the virus would continue to infect and kill
large numbers of Americans.” (508)<br />
<br />
The administration’s virus response had been a comedy of errors, the blind
leading the blind: “Key elements of the administration’s strategy were
formulated…by aides who for the most part had no experience with public health
emergencies and were taking their cues from the president.” (509)<br />
<br />
When the administration <i>did</i> seek scientific advice, they relied on the
rosy assessments of Deborah Birx rather than the hard-headed (and accurate)
views of Dr. Fauci, as Birx’s advice would enable Trump to do what he already
wanted to do—re-open the economy (510). On April 16, voluntary public safety
guidelines had been issued and Trump had told governors, “You’re going to call
your own shots,” effectively allowing state leaders to re-open prematurely.<br />
<br />
Around the same time, there was a marked shift in Birx’s communications with
the University of Washington, which was providing data models: “‘We made clear
that to get the epidemic under control and bring it down to effectively zero
transmission required the social distancing mandates to be in place,’ said
Christopher J. L. Murray, the director of the modeling program. ‘April 22 —
somewhere around that period. That’s when the tone shifted. They started to ask
questions about what will be the trajectory and where with the lifting of
mandates?’” (511)<br />
<br />
Birx predicted that cases would peter out, but “Dr. Birx’s belief that the
United States would mirror Italy turned out to be disastrously wrong. The
Italians had been almost entirely compliant with stay-at-home orders and social
distancing, squelching new infections to negligible levels before the country
slowly reopened. Americans, by contrast, began backing away by late April from
what social distancing efforts they had been making, egged on by Mr. Trump.<br />
<br />
“The difference was critical. As communities across the United States raced to
reopen, the number of daily cases barely dropped below 20,000 in early May. The
virus was still circulating across the country.”<br />
<br />
“…Other nations had moved aggressively to employ an array of techniques that
Mr. Trump never mobilized on a federal level, including national testing
strategies and contact tracing to track down and isolate people who had
interacted with newly diagnosed patients.<br />
<br />
“‘These things were done in Germany, in Italy, in Greece, Vietnam, in
Singapore, in New Zealand and in China,’ said Andy Slavitt, a former federal
health care official who had been advising the White House.<br />
<br />
“‘They were not secret,’ he said. ‘Not mysterious. And these were not all
wealthy countries. They just took accountability for getting it done. But we
did not do that here.’”<br />
<br />
The administration’s lack of accountability—specifically their fear of a more
accurate accounting of the true extent of deaths and infections—showed up again
in negotiations with Congress over the relief package. As <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-administration-pushing-to-block-new-money-for-testing-tracing-and-cdc-in-upcoming-coronavirus-relief-bill/ar-BB16UnyK?li=BBnb7Kz"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> by
Erica Werner and Jeff Stein of <i>the Washington Post</i>, “The Trump
administration is trying to block billions of dollars for states to conduct
testing (512) and contact tracing (513) in the upcoming coronavirus relief
bill, people involved in the talks said Saturday.<br />
<br />
“The administration is also trying to block billions of dollars that GOP senators
want to allocate for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (514), and
billions more for the Pentagon and State Department to address the pandemic at
home and abroad, the people said. (515)<br />
<br />
“…One person involved in the talks said Senate Republicans were seeking to
allocate $25 billion for states to conduct testing and contact tracing [1/3rd
the amount sought by House Democrats], but that certain administration
officials want to zero out the testing and tracing money entirely.”<br />
<br />
Administration resistance was tied to their P.R. effort to shirk responsibility
for the crisis: “Trump and other White House officials have been pushing for
states to own more of the responsibility for testing and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-plays-down-coronavirus-testing-as-us-falls-far-short-of-level-scientists-say-is-needed/2020/05/08/d9241454-913f-11ea-a9c0-73b93422d691_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">have objected to creating national standards</span></a>, at times seeking to minimize the federal government’s
role.”<br />
<br />
More results of the administration’s abdication of duty were reported on <b>Sunday,
July 19</b>.<br />
<br />
As bad as Trump’s official unemployment numbers were, they only told part of
the story. Four to seven million Americans had experienced cuts in wages (516),
several million had seen their wages capped (517), and millions more had seen
their hours cut back (518). Overall, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/19/wage-cuts-economy-crisis-368508"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">one in eight employed Americans were coping
with reduced incomes</span></a>, which meant less spending, which
impacted revenues for already-struggling businesses.<br />
<br />
This was just one way in which the U.S. population, under Trump’s
mis-leadership, continued to feel the pandemic far more acutely than the
citizens of other developed countries. The failure of the U.S. federal
government to effectively mobilize its vast financial and medical resources was<a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/health-news/the-crisis-that-shocked-the-world-americas-response-to-the-coronavirus/ar-BB16WaBS?li=BBnb7Kz"><span style="color: blue;"> </span><span style="color: #3d85c6;">probed</span></a> in “The crisis that shocked
the world: America’s response to the coronavirus.”<br />
<br />
The disaster movie vibe was unique to the United States: “Many countries have
rigorously driven infection rates nearly to zero. In the United States,
coronavirus transmission is out of control. The national response is
fragmented, shot through with <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/the-battle-over-masks-in-a-pandemic-an-all-american-story/2020/06/19/3ad25564-b245-11ea-8f56-63f38c990077_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">political rancor and culture-war divisiveness</span></a>. Testing shortcomings that revealed themselves in March
have become acute in July, with week-long waits for results leaving the
country blind to real-time virus spread and rendering contact tracing nearly
irrelevant.”<br />
<br />
America's failings could be tied directly to core elements of Trump’s
governance:<br />
<br />
“The fumbling of the virus was not a fluke: The American coronavirus fiasco has
exposed the<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-coronavirus-pandemic-no-plan/2020/07/15/7581bea4-c5df-11ea-a99f-3bbdffb1af38_story.html"><span style="color: blue;"> </span><span style="color: #3d85c6;">country’s incoherent leadership</span></a>, self-defeating <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/01/16/trump-is-most-polarizing-president-record-almost-nobodys-opinion-him-is-changing/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">political polarization</span></a>, a <a href="https://thenationshealth.aphapublications.org/content/50/2/1.2"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">lack of investment</span></a> in public health, and persistent socioeconomic and
racial inequities that have left millions of people vulnerable to disease and
death.<br />
<br />
“…While other countries endured some of the same setbacks, few have suffered
from all of them simultaneously and catastrophically. If there was a mistake to
be made in this pandemic, America has made it.”<br />
<br />
The “single biggest miscalculation was rushing to reopen the economy while the
virus was still spreading at high rates through much of the country” and the
“death rate from covid-19 in the United States looks like that of countries
with vastly lower wealth, health-care resources and technological
infrastructure.”<br />
<br />
The key takeaway: “…Future historians will not treat kindly Trump’s efforts to
divide (519) and confuse, said James Grossman, executive director of the
American Historical Association.<br />
<br />
“‘You look at the Great Depression and how Roosevelt made a concerted effort to
unite the country — the fireside chats, the New Deal. That is the instinctive
reaction of almost every president in crisis. Even if you don’t succeed, you
try to convince people that they’re all in this together,’ Grossman said. ‘This
presidency is the exception and anomaly.’”<br />
<br />
Dan Primack and Nicholas Johnston of <i>Axios</i> picked up this
theme again on <b>Monday, July 20</b>, with “<a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-america-blew-it-b3d84ea3-78b3-4fe0-8dce-1c4ed0ec0a4c.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">We blew it</span></a>.”<br />
<br />
Due to the Trump administration’s lack of foresight and execution, test results
were taking a week and longer, allowing asymptomatic carriers to continue to
transmit the virus (520), and since the U.S. had little contact tracing in
place, test results would be late and often not followed up on to the extent
they should be (521). Stimulus funds dedicated to K-12 education had been just
enough to cover basic costs; the U.S. had yet to pony up anything approaching
the amount of money necessary to keep schools safe. Stimulus money to keep
millions of Americans afloat was about to run out due to the failure of Trump
and his GOP Senate allies to respond to a second stimulus bill passed by the
Democratic House on May 15. The Paycheck Protection Program, intended to help
small businesses, was also about to run out due to GOP negligence, and the
administration still hadn’t even disbursed all of the funds authorized by the
original bill.<br />
<br />
Nowhere were the human consequences of this <a href="https://news.trust.org/item/20200720140811-wyc7i"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">hyper-partisan stupidity and recklessness</span><span style="color: blue;"> </span></a>more
evident than Florida, which had more than 10,000 official infections for the
sixth consecutive day, part of a national trend showing that America’s 7-day
average had increased for <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/20/covid-live-updates-us/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">41 consecutive days</span></a>. (522)<br />
<br />
Despite the costs of his divisive and dishonest tactics, Trump <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/07/trump-interview-chris-wallace-cognitive-dementia-fox-news.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">doubled down on lies and distortions</span></a> in an interview with Fox’s Chris Wallace. In the space
of just 40 minutes, Trump made false claims that increased testing explained
the rise in cases (523), that the U.S. had “the best testing in the world,”
that mail-in voting would “rig” the 2020 election, that the U.S. had the lowest
COVID-19 mortality rates in the world (524), that the administration wasn’t
trying to discredit Anthony Fauci (see #492), that masks “cause problems,”
(525) and that Democrats opposed re-opening schools just to hurt him
politically. (526)<br />
<br />
One of the major impacts of Trump’s months of disinformation was explored
on <b>Tuesday, July 21</b>. In “Why masks are (still) politicized in
America,” Anna North of <i>Vox</i> examined just how <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/7/21/21331310/mask-masks-trump-covid19-rule-georgia-alabama?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Sentences%2072120&utm_content=Sentences%2072120+CID_89812755617cb793e8aecddf38c0f6c0&utm_source=cm_email&utm_term=How%20Trump%20started%20the%20culture%20war%20over%20masks"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">out of step</span></a> the
U.S. was with other developed countries:<br />
<br />
“More than five months into the <a href="https://www.vox.com/coronavirus-covid19"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Covid-19</span></a> pandemic,
the evidence for masks keeps getting stronger.<br />
<br />
“<a href="http://ftp.iza.org/dp13319.pdf"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">One study in Germany</span></a> found
that mask mandates reduced the growth of infections by about 40 percent. <a href="https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2020.00818"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Another</span></a> estimated
that mask rules in 15 US states and Washington, DC, may have prevented as many
as 230,000 to 450,000 cases.”<br />
<br />
Despite the obvious public health necessity of wearing a mask, “The words of
Trump and other [Republican] public figures appear to be having an impact on
the behavior of ordinary people, whose mask-wearing habits break down along
party, racial, and gender lines. The result is that one of the cheapest and simplest
ways to curb the spread of Covid-19 has been turned into a political football —
and it’s costing people their lives.” (527)<br />
<br />
“…The effects of this politicization can be seen in recent polling on mask use.
In a <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/06/23/most-americans-say-they-regularly-wore-a-mask-in-stores-in-the-past-month-fewer-see-others-doing-it/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Pew poll</span></a> conducted
June 4 to 10, 76 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters said they
wear a mask in stores all or most of the time. Just 53 percent of Republicans
and Republican-leaning voters said the same. Men are also less likely to
prioritize mask-wearing than women — in <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2020/06/25/republicans-democrats-move-even-further-apart-in-coronavirus-concerns/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">another Pew poll</span></a>, conducted in mid-June, 42 percent of men said people in
their community should wear masks in public places, while 53 percent of women
said the same. The disconnect could reflect the fact that more men identify as
Republican, as well as the fact that Trump and others have implicitly or
explicitly linked <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/5/12/21252476/masks-for-coronavirus-trump-pence-honeywell-covid-19"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a refusal to wear a mask</span></a> with toughness and masculinity.<br />
<br />
“White Americans are also less likely than other racial groups to routinely
wear masks, according to the early June Pew data. In that poll, 78 percent of
white people said they wear masks in stores at least some of the time, compared
with 86 percent of Black respondents, 87 percent of Latinx respondents, and 89
percent of those of Asian descent. While there are many possible reasons for
the racial gaps, including party affiliation and the fact that many Black and
Latinx communities have been especially hard hit by Covid-19, racist rhetoric
by Trump and others may play a role in convincing some white people not to wear
masks.”<br />
<br />
Murtaza Akhter of the University of Arizona College of Medicine summed up just
how out of touch anti-maskers were with the rest of the civilized world: “We
just really need a cultural shift….This isn’t even a debate in other places.”<br />
<br />
Due in no small part to self-centered young people and <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/axios-ipsos-coronavirus-index?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">low-information Republicans</span></a> ignoring public health guidelines, the U.S. saw <a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-deaths-thousand-may-a10e174a-9cdc-4148-93e1-dfe55c1f03e4.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">over 1,000 reported deaths</span></a> for the first time in nearly two months.<br />
<br />
As high as the official death and infection totals were, they were a major
undercount. Trump’s own CDC estimated that infection rates could be anywhere
from <a href="https://www.axios.com/cdc-coronavirus-cases-could-be-13-times-higher-5354be41-bc97-43c4-adbf-eab4bb54b14a.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiospm&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">six to 24 times higher than reported</span></a>.<br />
<br />
One of the reasons we didn’t have better data was continued delays in getting
test results. As <a href="https://apnews.com/969fbbf44dd2ba1acea130f95b21ef62"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> on <b>Wednesday,
July 22</b>, “Laboratories across the U.S. are buckling under a surge of
coronavirus tests, creating long processing delays that experts say are
undercutting the pandemic response.<br />
<br />
“With the U.S. tally of confirmed infections at nearly 4 million Wednesday and
new cases surging, the bottlenecks are creating problems for workers kept off
the job while awaiting results (528), nursing homes struggling to keep the
virus out (529) and for the labs themselves as they deal with a crushing
workload.<br />
<br />
“Some labs are taking weeks to return COVID-19 results, exacerbating fears that
people without symptoms could be spreading the virus if they don’t isolate
while they wait.<br />
<br />
Tom Frieden, who had led the CDC under Barack Obama, told reporters “There’s
been this obsession with, ‘How many tests are we doing per day?’ but ‘The
question is how many tests are being done with results coming back within a
day, where the individual tested is promptly isolated and their contacts are
promptly warned.’”<br />
<br />
Public health experts pointed out that “Test results that come back after two
or three days are nearly worthless…because by then the window for tracing the
person’s contacts to prevent additional infections has essentially closed.”<br />
<br />
As with the administration’s many other failures, the lack of a national
testing program (or sufficient aid to states to run their own tests) was <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/white-neighborhoods-have-more-access-to-covid-19-testing-sites/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">hitting people of color the hardest</span></a>. According to Soo Rin Kim, Matthew Vann, Laura Bronner and
Grace Manthey of 538.com, “[testing] sites in communities of color in many
major cities face higher demand than sites in whiter or wealthier areas in
those same cities. The result of this disparity is clear: Black and Hispanic
people are more likely to experience longer wait times and understaffed testing
centers. (530)<br />
<br />
“…An assessment of city and state health department websites also revealed,
over and over, fewer testing sites in areas primarily inhabited by racial
minorities.”<br />
<br />
People of color were also <a href="https://www.cbpp.org/research/full-employment/the-impact-of-the-covid19-recession-on-the-jobs-and-incomes-of-persons-of"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">disproportionately impacted</span></a> by the economic collapse resulting from Trump’s
failures to contain the pandemic. The latest jobs numbers were grim. On <b>Thursday,
July 23</b>, it came out that <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/23/unemployment-claims-numbers-coronavirus-379729"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">1.4 million new unemployment claims</span></a> had been filed in the prior week, an increase of
100,000 from the week before, bringing the total to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/07/23/business/stock-market-today-coronavirus"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">30 million Americans without work</span></a>. As one example of many, Yelp estimated that “more than
half of the restaurants temporarily closed are now <a href="https://mashable.com/article/yelp-restaurants-temporary-permanent-closures/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">permanently shuttered</span></a>.” (531)<br />
<br />
Against a backdrop of mass misery, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/22/congress-unemployment-aid-cliff-378871?nname=politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition&nid=00000170-c000-da87-af78-e185fa700000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=2670445"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the GOP continued to play games with peoples’
lives</span></a>. As reported by Sarah Ferris and
Andrew Desiderio, “Tens of millions of unemployed Americans are about to lose
their economic lifeline during the worst recession in 80 years, with eviction
protections set to expire (see #338) at the same time.” (532)<br />
<br />
“…Without quick action from Congress, the still-growing ranks of America’s unemployed
will receive their final round of an extra $600 benefit within days, with no
certainty about when more help might arrive.”<br />
<br />
The benefits were about to expire because Trump’s key congressional ally,
Republican Mitch McConnell, hadn’t bothered to address the issue until more
than <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/5/15/21258854/house-three-trillion-stimulus-bill"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">two months</span></a> after
House Democrats—who had been thinking ahead—had passed a stimulus bill. Due to
McConnell’s delay, even fast-tracked negotiations would leave millions hanging,
as states tasked with administering the benefits would take weeks to catch up
with the likely changes to federal policy.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/23/gap-unemployment-heres-why-379267"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">According to</span></a> the
reporters, thanks to the uncertainty caused by McConnell’s delay, “Any changes
could create an accounting disaster for the state systems, which are still
struggling to keep up as the number of new workers applying for unemployment
benefits each week remains at nearly two times the peak seen during the Great
Recession.”<br />
<br />
While Mitch McConnell single-handedly screwed tens of millions of Americans,
Ron DeSantis, Republican governor of Florida, proved that he thoroughly
deserved the COVID-19 dunce cap. That day, it was reported that Florida had
had <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article244430452.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">173 coronavirus deaths</span></a>, a new record, which amounted to <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/covid-19-death-every-8-044632133.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">one death every 11 and ½ minutes</span></a>. <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/a-public-health-employee-predicted-floridas-coronavirus-catastrophe-then-she-was-fired-this-is-everything-i-was-trying-to-warn-184810565.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">DeSantis had been warned</span></a> of the threat of resurgence months earlier by Rebekah
Jones (then-manager of Florida’s coronavirus dashboard), but the data she was
presenting didn’t align with his Trumpian desire to re-open the economy, so he
fired her and had underlings rig the data to undercount deaths and infections
once she was gone. DeSantis’s maneuvers were proving shortsighted, and
ironically, hurt his mentor; Trump announced that infection rates were so
severe in Florida that he would have to <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/23/trump-moves-to-cancel-parts-of-gop-convention-set-for-florida-citing-coronavirus.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">cancel</span></a> his
dreamt-of super-spreader convention.<br />
<br />
And there weren’t many other spots around the country he could move the event
to. Nationwide, <a href="https://news.trust.org/item/20200723091312-956hb"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">2,600 new infections</span></a> were
being discovered on the hour, “the highest rate in the world.”<br />
<br />
One thing Trump wouldn’t budge on was his insistence that American children go
back to school in the fall so that the severity of the pandemic (and his
colossal failures to mitigate it) wouldn’t be quite so obvious in the crucial
weeks before the election. Bowing to Trump’s perception of his short-term
political interests, the CDC <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/cdc-guidelines-school-reopening-puts-heavy-emphasis-having-students-back-n1234770"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">released safety guidelines</span></a> which placed more emphasis on the costs of keeping
children out of school than the far grimmer consequences of forcing them into
classrooms with insufficient public safety resources. (533)<br />
<br />
And the truth was that we weren’t prepared. As pointed out by reporters Ryan
Heath and Myah Ward, “most schools in most countries are still closed” and the
U.S., due to structural factors and infection rates, was <a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">unsuited to re-open</span></a>: “the administration is missing key context when it points
to European countries with open schools as a model to follow.<br />
<br />
“A combination of three factors exist in Europe, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CC9mu7gAKEp/?igshid=unhnw4xwmotp"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">New Zealand</span></a>,
Australia and other countries, which enabled them to re-open their schools.<br />
<br />
1. The virus is under control because of widely adhered nationwide pandemic
rules. We’re talking daily deaths in the single digits.<br />
<br />
2. They have functional safety nets of universal health care and public schools
with enough funds to adapt to hybrid learning or other teaching models.<br />
<br />
3. Teachers unions have typically been involved in planning from the get-go.
That’s essential, because teachers are the only viable enforcers of new safety
rules.<br />
<br />
Everywhere else is missing at least one of these ingredients, and in the U.S.
all three ingredients are missing in most states and at the federal level.”<br />
<br />
Most Americans grasped this in part or in whole, but many Republicans, unable
to see through Trump's self-serving rhetoric, continued to demonstrate <a href="https://apnews.com/b133f482b2eba88f8bd733e2d15d13ae"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">ignorance of the human stakes</span></a>, as shown in polling done by the AP in conjunction with the
NORC Center for Public Affairs. (534)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Forty-three percent of Republicans felt that K-12 schools could “open as usual”
or “open with minor adjustments,” while only six percent of Democrats believed
this. Forty-four percent of Democrats said schools should “not open at all,”
while only 14% of Republicans felt this way. Nine of ten Democrats knew that
re-opening should be contingent on students and teachers wearing masks, while
half of Republicans didn’t think masks were necessary. Twice as many Democrats
as Republicans understood that “schools should use a mix of in-person and
virtual instruction to reduce the number of students in buildings.”<br />
<br />
<b>Friday, July 24</b>, marked the <a href="https://twitter.com/COVID19Tracking/status/1286793355742126080?s=20"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">4th consecutive day</span></a> that the U.S. officially posted over 1,000 deaths from
COVID-19. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200724&instance_id=20585&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=34251&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Thirty-seven states</span></a> had experienced increases in infections over the prior
two weeks and Trump reached his personal milestone of four million infections
nationally. <a href="https://twitter.com/mlitwack/status/1286617475765993473/photo/1"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">A graphic</span></a> flashed
on CNN showed that “It took the U.S. a little more than three months to get to
1 million coronavirus cases, then two weeks to add the most recent 1 million.”<br />
<br />
The rapid increase was coming primarily from Republican-led states whose
governors had <a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-surveymonkey-republican-governors-75a1f938-754d-4144-a1ba-56d3b1ec891b.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">marched in lockstep with Trump's commands</span></a>. Trump allies were encouraging him to <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/24/trump-backers-plead-virus-plan-381316"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">come up with a national strategy</span></a> to combat COVID-19, but all they were getting was
mechanical news conferences and a lot of spin.<br />
<br />
While Trump was focused on his campaign to the exclusion of all else, small
businesses were struggling. According to a survey done by the National
Federation of Small Businesses, 45% of the businesses that had gotten loan
approval through the $360 billion Economic Injury Disaster Loan program
(EIDL) <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/thousands-of-small-business-owners-have-not-gotten-disaster-loans-the-government-promised-them?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=majorinvestigations&utm_content=river"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">had yet to receive their money</span></a> from Trump’s Small Business Administration (535). And
the $660 billion Payment Protection Program (PPP), established by Congress to
prop up small businesses, was running out of money, leading to a wave of
closures and an increase in unemployment (536). <a href="https://www.adn.com/nation-world/2020/07/23/a-band-aid-on-a-bullet-wound-workers-are-getting-laid-off-anew-across-us-as-ppp-program-runs-out/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">As detailed</span></a> by
Eli Rosenberg of <i>the Washington Post</i>, “A recent report from Goldman
Sachs found that only about one in six businesses that received loans said they
felt confident they could pay their employees without further assistance.”<br />
<br />
Western Europe “had used a different model: universal payroll aid that saw
governments paying as much as 80 percent of workers' salaries to keep them on
payroll for a longer time, which has kept more businesses afloat and less
people out of work.”<br />
<br />
Europe’s success was based not only on the stimulus model they chose, but on
their ability to contain the virus so much more effectively than Trump had.<br />
<br />
Robert Reich, Labor Secretary under Bill Clinton, told <i>the Post</i> that
the failure of the PPP to achieve long-term success “basically says the same
thing as our outlier status in the numbers of death and infections: We blew
it….Other countries managed to both contain the coronavirus after three months,
and also keep large numbers of workers on payrolls. We didn't do either.”<br />
<br />
As much as Trump had screwed things up so far, he was far from finished.
Looming on the horizon was potentially the most chaotic and hazardous American
election since the Civil War. Garrett Graff <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/07/24/2020-election-disaster-perfect-storm-372778"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">previewed the horror show</span></a> in “8 Big Reasons Election Day 2020 Could Be a
Disaster.”<br />
<br />
Graff went through election highlights from 2020 so far—vote tally failures at
the Iowa caucuses, <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2020/04/wisconsin-republicans-make-mockery-of.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">mass confusion</span></a> in the Wisconsin primary due to GOP lawsuits, the long
lines in Georgia—and pointed out that use of the analogy of a perfect storm to
describe the upcoming election was misplaced, as just about all of the problems
expected in the presidential election could be predicted (and prevented) in
advance.<br />
<br />
The threats to a functional election included the lack of safety for elections
workers and Americans who were voting in person, confusion and long lines as a
result of the reduction in and relocation of polling places, onerous
requirements for the use and validation of absentee ballots, a lack of staff to
respond to absentee ballot requests, slow delivery times for the ballots due to
the struggles of the U.S. Postal Service, and 50,000 “poll watchers” hired to
harass voters, particularly voters of color in inner cities.<br />
<br />
The common thread in these scenarios was Republican malfeasance or negligence.
In order to reduce turnout, Republicans had filed lawsuits across the country
to oppose mail-in balloting and force voters to <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/03/trump-2020-election-legal-battle-coronavirus-162152"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">risk their health</span></a> by voting in person (537). The lack of resources for
local elections officials was a result of Senate Republicans <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/senate-stimulus-package-includes-400-million-to-help-run-elections-amid-the-pandemic/2020/03/25/4d0db91e-6ebe-11ea-b148-e4ce3fbd85b5_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">only agreeing to $400 million</span></a> in funding after House Democrats had asked for 9X as
much money, then refusing to negotiate in good faith (538). The 50,000 poll
watchers were <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/18/us/Voting-republicans-trump.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">hired by the GOP</span></a> after harassment of voters was deemed legal by
Republican Supreme Court judges who gutted a key section of the Voting Rights
Act in the 2013 <i>Shelby County v. Holder</i> decision. The sorry
state of the U.S. Postal Service stemmed from years of Republican budget cuts
and the actions of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a former Trump donor who
was <a href="https://apnews.com/59c25efd4d325c4895f8ba85517f9bfd?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=AP&utm_campaign=SocialFlow"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">dismantling the agency</span></a> without regard for how it would <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/expect-mail-delays-as-trumps-new-postal-service-chief-pushes-cost-cutting-2020-07-15"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">impact service</span></a> (539).<br />
<br />
On <b>Saturday, July 25</b>, the U.S. had <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/coronavirus-updates-hundreds-texas-bar-owners-pledge-defiance/story?id=71982262"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">over 1,000 official deaths</span></a> for the fifth consecutive day. Hospitals were jammed
in Florida and Texas, leading to <a href="https://www.chron.com/news/article/Houston-Miami-other-cities-face-mounting-health-15433996.php"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">shortages</span></a> in
key medical staff.<br />
<br />
<i>The Washington Post</i> had a <a href="https://www.thehour.com/news/article/Coronavirus-ravaged-Florida-as-Ron-DeSantis-15434450.php"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">lengthy feature</span></a> about the policies of Ron DeSantis, governor of
Florida, whose COVID-19 response had been driven by the short-term interests of
Donald Trump, with “decision-making…increasingly shaped by politics and
divorced from scientific evidence.”<br />
<br />
Florida had been used by Trump to drive other states off the cliff:<br />
<br />
“…the crisis in Florida has been particularly acute, infectious-disease
specialists say, because politics have dictated the response at crucial
junctures - never more so than with the state's reopening, which was cast by
the governor as a return to normal rather than as a new and even more
precarious phase of the pandemic.<br />
<br />
“Trump told aides that Florida's early success gave other states a
justification to reopen, according to three administration officials.
Meanwhile, DeSantis quickly turned presidential rhetoric into gubernatorial
orders, all while rejecting measures, including a statewide mask mandate and an
extended stay-at-home order, that helped other states contain their outbreaks.”<br />
<br />
The results were in: “One out of every 52 Floridians has been infected with the
virus. The state's intensive care units are being pushed to the brink, with
some overcapacity. Florida's unemployment system is overwhelmed and its tourism
industry is in shambles.”<br />
<br />
Asked about DeSantis’s response to the pandemic, a spokesman for Trump
told <i>the Post</i> “Ron DeSantis is doing a great job and will go
down in history as a great governor of Florida.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Ron Desantis’s failures of leadership were demonstrated again on <b>Sunday,
July 26</b> when <a href="https://news.trust.org/item/20200726135648-ec1xb"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Florida passed New York</span></a> for
total number of COVID-19 infections, making it second only to California, a
state twice its size. Due to Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo’s competent and
aggressive response to the coronavirus, New York now had the pandemic <a href="https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2020/08/03/gov-andrew-cuomo-touts-new-lows-in-coronavirus-hospitalizations-icu-admittance-and-deaths-the-progress-is-even-better-than-we-expected/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">under control</span></a>. Florida was among the states on <a href="https://coronavirus.health.ny.gov/covid-19-travel-advisory"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">New York’s travel advisory list</span></a>. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Across the country, the U.S. had over <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/26/health/us-coronavirus-sunday/index.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">1,000 official deaths for a 4th consecutive
day</span></a>, contributing to Trump posting
his <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/26/support-for-trumps-coronavirus-strategy-dips-381509"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">lowest COVID-19 approval ratings</span></a> to date—32%.<br />
<br />
On <b>Monday, July 27</b>, Ashley Parker and Philip Rucker of <i>the
Washington Post</i> <a href="https://www.chron.com/news/article/One-question-still-dogs-Trump-Why-not-try-harder-15436174.php"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">asked the obvious question</span></a>. Given that Trump’s election hopes were tied to getting the
pandemic under control, or at least <i>appearing</i> to get the
pandemic under control, "Why not try harder to solve the coronavirus
crisis?”<br />
<br />
Based on the far lower death and infection rates in the rest of the developed
world, the route to success was obvious: channeling America’s vast resources
through a coordinated federal response. Yet Trump continued to dither and
impose sickness, death, and misery on tens of millions because of his personal
shortcomings:<br />
<br />
“People close to Trump, many speaking anonymously to share candid discussions
and impressions, say the president's inability to wholly address the crisis is
due to his almost pathological unwillingness to admit error; a positive
feedback loop of overly rosy assessments and data from advisers and Fox News;
and a penchant for magical thinking that prevented him from fully engaging with
the pandemic.” (540)<br />
<br />
Former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci elaborated
further:<br />
<br />
“‘His operating style is to double- and triple-down on positions and to never,
ever admit he's wrong about anything….His 50-year track record is to bulldog
through whatever he's doing, whether it's Atlantic City, which was a failure,
or the Plaza Hotel, which was a failure, or Eastern Airlines, which was a
failure. He can never just say, ‘I got it wrong and let's try over again.’”<br />
<br />
Trump had shown little concern for the mass suffering he had unleashed until it
had impacted Republicans: “In the past couple of weeks, senior advisers began
presenting Trump with maps and data showing spikes in coronavirus cases among
‘our people’ in Republican states, a senior administration official said. They
also shared projections predicting that virus surges could soon hit politically
important states in the Midwest - including Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin.”<br />
<br />
The results of Trump’s pathologies manifested in <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8564627/New-COVID-19-cases-hit-fresh-highs-DOZEN-states.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">over a dozen states</span></a> reporting record numbers of infections, which was
taking a toll on small businesses. Already shortchanged by the administration’s
slow disbursement of money from the EIDL program (see #535) and indifference to
replenishing funds for the Payment Protection Program (see #536), small
businesses were “<a href="https://www.axios.com/small-business-coronavirus-expenses-87b59746-7a44-45e8-b1d9-3c6e56735b1a.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">drowning in</span></a>”
expenses tied to COVID-19 safety features that would not be necessary if the
coronavirus were under control. (541)<br />
<br />
But Trump was unwilling to acknowledge the severity of the pandemic.
Incredibly, he <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic-07-27-20-intl/h_fe7a6127cb063cdb9414b3fb1d5a0fe7"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">advocated that more states re-open</span></a> their economies fully (542) and took to Twitter to
share a video from <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/stella-immanuel-trumps-new-covid-doctor-believes-in-alien-dna-demon-sperm-and-hydroxychloroquine"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">right-wing quack doctor</span></a> Stella Immanuel (543), known for pimping
hydroxychloroquine, dismissing the irrefutable science behind wearing masks,
and other bizarre claims. The video was <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8566907/Donald-Trump-goes-Twitter-binge-retweets-posts-praising-hydroxychloroquine.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">removed</span></a> from
Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.<br />
<br />
Grim realities made it all too clear why Trump wanted to hide behind his
Twitter account. Despite Trump’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/28/world/coronavirus-covid-19.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">assertion</span></a> that
much of the country was “corona-free,” on <b>Tuesday, July 28</b> it
was reported that 21 states (an increase from the week prior) <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/28/world/coronavirus-covid-19.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200729&instance_id=20734&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=34620&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74#link-1e0e9a70"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">were still in the red zone</span></a>, with more than 100 new cases per 100,000 people.<br />
<br />
Infection spread caused by a premature re-opening of the economy and a lack of
federal response was continuing to hamper the economy. <a href="https://apnews.com/f7141aab14400d4fcd7f47a88e3b8e44"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Consumer confidence dropped</span></a> even further from the low numbers in June. (544)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><br />
Most of this damage could have been avoided with a competent federal effort. As
pointed out in a paper by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, “More than
117,000 Americans had died of COVID-19 by mid-June. If our response had been as
effective as Germany’s, estimates show that we would have had only 36,000
COVID-19 deaths in that period in the United States. If our response had been
as effective as South Korea, Australia, or Singapore’s, fewer than 2,000
Americans would have died. We </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://uspirg.org/resources/usp/shut-it-down-start-over-do-it-right"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">could have prevented
99%</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> of those
COVID-19 deaths. But we didn’t.” (see #397)<br />
<br />
The contrast between the focused pandemic responses overseas and the
indifference of the U.S. federal government was highlighted again on <b>Wednesday,
July 29</b>, when Trump reached his personal milestone of </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-latest-news-07-29-2020-11596011647"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">150,000 dead Americans</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;">. As mind-blowing as the number was, it
was </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/01/official-us-coronavirus-death-toll-is-a-substantial-undercount-of-actual-tally-new-yale-study-finds.html#:~:text=At%20least%20127%2C425%20have%20died,excess%20deaths%20varied%20by%20states."><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">a significant
undercount</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;">.
Included in this total were </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://twitter.com/COVID19Tracking/status/1288603954985578498?s=20"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">1,400 deaths that day</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;">, the most since May.<br />
<br />
Despite the premature re-opening of the economy, it came out that the second
quarter contraction of America’s gross domestic product showed “</span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/29/trump-v-shape-rebound-gone-387425"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">the biggest drop</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> in more than seven decades of records.”<br />
<br />
The combination of the </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/us-is-about-to-unveil-the-ugliest-gdp-report-ever-recorded/ar-BB17jsXO"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">worst economy in seven
decades</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> and
the administration’s refusal to increase SNAP benefits (see #289) was leaving
the richest country in history “with almost </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/finance/markets/almost-30-million-in-us-didn-e2-80-99t-have-enough-to-eat-last-week/ar-BB17ldBN"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">30 million Americans</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> reporting that they’d not had enough to
eat at some point in the seven days through July 21.”<br />
<br />
Absent federal action, high levels of food insecurity (see #288, #289, #305,
#333, #334, #345, #355, #453) were guaranteed to continue, as roughly </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/07/29/almost-half-of-all-jobs-lost-during-coronavirus-may-be-gone-permanently/112446072/"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">half of the jobs</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> lost during the pandemic were unlikely to
return. (545)<br />
<br />
The economic devastation was causing a </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://apnews.com/f84604913630146a6e4d174e581ae615"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">rise in crime</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> around the country (546). Remarkably,
though the state of the economy and the rise in crime were directly tied to the
administration’s failure to combat COVID-19, Trump tried to </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://apnews.com/344477113461be394548f8ce775313dc"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">scare gullible white
people</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> into
believing that crime would be even worse if Joe Biden were president. Robert
Spitzer of the State University of New York College at Cortland told the AP,
“Irony is way down the list of things that President Trump worries about.”<br />
<br />
One of the biggest ironies was that with all of Trump’s concern for the
economy, he apparently exerted no pressure on his Republican Senate ally Mitch
McConnell to keep federal stimulus flowing to his constituents. On <b>Thursday,
July 30</b>, in the midst of an </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/30/weekly-jobless-claims.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">increase in
unemployment filings</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> to
1.4 million—the 19th straight week with one million or more new filings—all signs
showed that $600 of additional weekly unemployment benefits for 30,000,000
Americans and an eviction moratorium protecting the 25-33% of Americans who
were short of rent would expire because of </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/07/31/republicans-would-rather-destroy-the-country-than-ease-up-on-brutal-class-war/"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">months of inaction by
McConnell</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;">.
(547)<br />
<br />
Another result of McConnell’s delay was that K-12 schools starting in-person
instruction in August </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/30/stimulus-schools-restart-387420"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">wouldn’t have</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> anywhere near the amount of money and
resources needed to open safely (548). And federal assistance in the Republican
stimulus plan (when or if it was ever acted on) was predicated on school
districts maintaining the same level of funding they’d had previously, an
impossibility given </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.ncsl.org/research/fiscal-policy/coronavirus-covid-19-state-budget-updates-and-revenue-projections637208306.aspx"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">revenue reductions</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> due to the contraction of the economy.<br />
<br />
Few governors were more gung-ho about </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2020/08/10/in-florida-a-coronavirus-showdown-as-desantis-rejects-tampa-area-schools-plan-1306786"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">marching
schoolchildren into the buzz saw</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> of the pandemic than Ron DeSantis of Florida,
whose state had had a record of </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/florida-reports-217-more-people-have-died-from-covid-19-the-highest-of-pandemic/ar-BB17l3VS"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">217</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> official COVID-19 deaths the day
prior—the </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://news.trust.org/item/20200730134919-dqydg"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">third consecutive day</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> of record fatalities—and whose ICUs in
Miami-Dade County were at </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://news.yahoo.com/miami-dade-ic-us-at-146-percent-capacity-with-coronavirus-patients-151222876.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">146% of capacity</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;">.<br />
<br />
Florida's failures were extreme, but deaths were trending upward across the
country. </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://twitter.com/COVID19Tracking/status/1288970515344842753?s=20"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">1,529 Americans died</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> from COVID-19 on Thursday, </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://news.trust.org/item/20200730001802-03zgs"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">one every minute</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;">. Public health guidelines put out by Harvard
University’s Global Health Institute and Edmond J. Safra Center recommended
that </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://news.yahoo.com/these-are-the-13-states-that-need-to-lock-down-now-according-to-harvard-coronavirus-experts-162201179.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">13 states lock down
immediately</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;">;
all but Nevada were red states which had voted for Trump. The institute found
that infections in 22 other states were at “dangerous levels” and said that
“stay-at-home orders are advised.” (<span style="color: red;">W32</span>)<br />
<br />
Asked how it was that infections and deaths were so much worse in the United
States than in every other developed country, Anthony Fauci said, “Other,
certainly Asian countries, and certainly the European Union, when they
so-called locked down — shut down, shelter in place, whatever you want to call
it — they did it to about 95 percent of their countries….Some countries got hit
badly, but once they locked down and turned things around, they came down to a
very low baseline — down to tens or hundreds of new cases a day, not thousands.
They came down and they stayed down.<br />
<br />
“Now, in the United States, when we shut down, even though it was a stress and
a strain for a lot of people, we only did it to the tune of about 50 percent of
the country shutting down….Our curve goes up and starts to come down. But we
never came down to a reasonable baseline. We came down to about 20,000 new
infections per day, and we stayed at that level for several weeks in a row.
Then we started to open up — getting America ‘back to normal’ — and started to
see the cases go from 20,000 a day to 30,000, 40,000. We even hit that one
point last week of 70,000 new cases a day.”<br />
<br />
Trump’s response to the crisis of his own making was largely window dressing.
As reported by Alayna Treene and Jacob Knutson of <i>Axios</i>, the
administration had concocted a P.R.-based “</span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.axios.com/trump-ember-strategy-coronavirus-hotspots-bf80b55a-889a-4d61-985c-fae3b57b1a10.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">Embers Strategy</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;">” in which they focused on hot spots (while
ignoring infections in the vast majority of the country, 549) and Trump hyped
vaccines that wouldn’t arrive until early 2021 under the best-case scenario.<br />
<br />
The shortcomings of a targeted (as opposed to a comprehensive) federal approach
to fighting the pandemic were </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/7/30/21331369/london-breed-coronavirus-covid-san-francisco-california-trump"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">reviewed</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> by German Lopez of <i>Vox</i> in
“San Francisco’s lonely war against Covid-19.”<br />
<br />
As reported by Lopez, San Francisco had had one of the most aggressive
responses to the pandemic in the country. San Francisco mayor London Breed had
declared a state of emergency on February 25, the day Trump </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-press-conference-4/"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">told reporters</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> “You may ask about the coronavirus, which
is very well under control in our country. We have very few people with it, and
the people that have it are…getting better. They’re all getting better….As far
as what we’re doing with the new virus, I think that we’re doing a great job.”<br />
<br />
The city had closed down even before the state of California, which had been
the first state to shut down, and had stayed closed after the state re-opened.
Residents had tended to wear masks and follow social distancing guidelines.
Relative to other American cities its size, San Francisco had kept infections
low, but there was no guarantee this would continue due to the Trump
administration’s failure to provide local governments with adequate PPE and
testing resources.<br />
<br />
Grant Colfax, who heads San Francisco’s Department of Public Health, told <i>Vox</i>,
“We are not isolated; we are interconnected….The virus exploits that very
interconnectedness of our society. Without a consistent, robust, and sustained
federal response that is driven by science … eventually things cannot be
sustained.”<br />
<br />
The U.S. could have had a robust and sustained federal response, and had been
working on one in March and April, but the effort was aborted for short-sighted
political reasons, as revealed in “How Jared Kushner’s Secret Testing Plan
‘Went Poof Into Thin Air,’” </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/07/how-jared-kushners-secret-testing-plan-went-poof-into-thin-air"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">a</span><span style="color: blue; line-height: 107%;"> </span><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">blockbuster <i>Vanity
Fair</i> piece</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> by
Katherine Eban. (550)<br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">According to Eban, on March 31, the administration secretly
acquired one million COVID-19 tests for a task force headed by Jared Kushner,
part of “a secret project to devise a comprehensive plan that would have
massively ramped up and coordinated testing for COVID-19 at the federal level.”<br />
<br />
“…Inside the White House, over much of March and early April, Kushner’s
handpicked group of young business associates, which included a former college
roommate, teamed up with several top experts from the diagnostic-testing
industry. Together, they hammered out the outline of a national testing
strategy.”<br />
<br />
“…Rather than have states fight each other for scarce diagnostic tests and
limited lab capacity, the plan would have set up a system of national oversight
and coordination to surge supplies, allocate test kits, lift regulatory and
contractual roadblocks, and establish a widespread virus surveillance system by
the fall, to help pinpoint subsequent outbreaks.”<br />
<br />
“…The plan crafted at the White House, then, set out to connect the dots. Some
of those who worked on the plan were told that it would be presented to
President Trump and likely announced in the Rose Garden in early April. ‘I was
beyond optimistic,’ said one participant. ‘My understanding was that the final
document would make its way to the president over that weekend’ and would
result in a ‘significant announcement.’”<br />
<br />
The turning point came when “the effort ran headlong into shifting sentiment at
the White House. Trusting his vaunted political instincts, President Trump had
been downplaying concerns about the virus and spreading misinformation about
it—efforts that were soon amplified by Republican elected officials and
right-wing media figures. Worried about the stock market and his reelection
prospects, Trump also feared that more testing would only lead to higher case
counts and more bad publicity. Meanwhile, Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House’s
coronavirus response coordinator, was reportedly sharing models with senior
staff that optimistically—and erroneously, it would turn out—predicted the
virus would soon fade away.<br />
<br />
“Against that background, the prospect of launching a large-scale national plan
was losing favor, said one public health expert in frequent contact with the
White House’s official coronavirus task force.<br />
<br />
“Most troubling of all, perhaps, was a sentiment the expert said a member of
Kushner’s team expressed: that because the virus had hit blue states hardest, a
national plan was unnecessary and would not make sense politically. ‘The
political folks believed that because it was going to be relegated to
Democratic states, that they could blame those governors, and that would be an
effective political strategy.’”<br />
<br />
All these months later, as red states were getting hit harder by COVID-19 than
blue states, the catastrophic miscalculation couldn’t be more obvious. Dr.
Rajiv Shah of the Rockefeller Foundation told <i>Vanity Fair</i>, “We know
what has to be done: broad and ubiquitous testing tied to broad and effective
contact tracing….It takes about five minutes for anyone to understand that is
the only path forward to reopening and recovering.” Without testing and
tracing, “Our country is going to be stuck facing a series of rebound epidemics
that are highly consequential in a really deleterious way.”<br />
<br />
On <b>Friday, July 31</b>, the bills for the administration’s strategy to
let blue states suffer came due as it was reported that there had been <a href="https://news.trust.org/item/20200801004545-71yqc"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">25,000 COVID-19 deaths</span></a> in
July, a record number of monthly infections, and a <a href="https://twitter.com/COVID19Tracking/status/1289327679666188288?s=20"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">record number of hospitalizations</span></a>. Leading the way, as usual, was Florida, with a
record <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2020-07-31/florida-daily-coronavirus-death-toll-jumps-40-in-four-days"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">257 deaths</span></a> on
Friday.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Trump’s “economic miracle” continued to disintegrate, with
economic contraction projected to be <a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/global-translations/2020/07/31/tanking-economies-tanking-reputations-489936"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">more severe this year than in 1932</span></a>, during the lowest point of the Great Depression. The
failures of the administration to control the pandemic had “[wiped] out five
years of economic growth,” <a href="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/07/31/nytfrontpage/scannat.pdf"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">according to</span></a> <i>the
New York Times </i>(551), and Fitch Ratings “revised its outlook on the
country’s credit score to negative from stable, citing a “<a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/united-states-outlook-revised-to-negative-from-stable-by-fitch/ar-BB17qy05"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">deterioration in the U.S. public finances</span></a> and the absence of a credible fiscal consolidation
plan.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Among the many, many victims of the economic collapse were small businesses who
were <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/small-business-owners-are-leaning-on-credit-cards-to-survive/ar-BB17q2Mg"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">running up credit card debt</span></a> just to stay alive (552) and medical non-profits who
were <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/07/31/jdrf-medical-nonprofits-pandemic-fundraising/?utm_source=STAT+Newsletters&utm_campaign=7a30ec45b3-Daily_Recap&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8cab1d7961-7a30ec45b3-152815530"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">in the red</span></a> because
donations had slowed down and they were unable to have the fundraisers they
normally relied on. (553)<br />
<br />
Further nightmares were on the horizon. A graphic shared by <i>the New
York Times</i> showed that most of the Southern half of the United
States—and especially Trump’s bedrock of support, the Deep South—<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/31/us/coronavirus-school-reopening-risk.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200731&instance_id=20861&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=34885&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">wasn’t ready to re-open schools</span></a>, though the traditional start of K-12 classes was just
weeks away. And Pilar Melendez of <i>the Daily Beast</i> <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/a-summer-camp-took-almost-every-precaution-the-majority-of-kids-still-got-covid-19"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> on
a summer camp in Georgia where “76 percent of campers who were tested came back
positive” after just one week, “despite the organizers following most state
guidelines set by the governor and the CDC.”<br />
<br />
Another nightmare-to-come was the November election. Trump <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/31/trump-greatest-election-disaster-2020-389712"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">said</span></a> we
were facing “the greatest election disaster in history” due to the avalanche of
mail-in ballots that would be cast. This was likely true, but the disaster was
directly tied to Trump’s policies, from <a href="https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/april-may-june-2019/congress-is-sabotaging-your-post-office/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">underfunding</span></a> the
post office (see #539) to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/31/us/politics/trump-usps-mail-delays.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200802&instance_id=20914&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=35036&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">blocking overtime for carriers</span></a> (leading to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-postoffice/u-s-postal-service-reorganization-sparks-delays-election-questions-idUSKCN258197"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">delays</span></a> in
service) to failing to fund state and local governments who would be severely
short of elections workers due to the reluctance of elderly volunteers to come
out in the middle of a pandemic. <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/31/coronavirus-election-worker-shortage-389831?nname=politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition&nid=00000170-c000-da87-af78-e185fa700000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=2670445"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">A lack of volunteers</span></a>—and a lack of federal aid to make up for those lost
volunteers—was certain to lead to the relocation and reduction of polling
places, causing chaos and long lines at the polls, particularly in cities, just
as Republicans hoped. (554)<br />
<br />
The folly of sending children back to school prematurely was revealed again
on <b>Saturday, August 1</b>. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/01/us/schools-reopening-indiana-coronavirus.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200802&instance_id=20914&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=35036&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">As reported</span></a> in <i>the
New York Times</i>, “Just hours into the first day of classes… a call from the
county health department notified Greenfield Central Junior High School in
Indiana that a student who had walked the halls and sat in various classrooms
had tested positive for the coronavirus.<br />
<br />
“Administrators began an emergency protocol, isolating the student and ordering
everyone who had come into close contact with the person, including other
students, to quarantine for 14 days.”<br />
<br />
A history teacher at Greenfield-Central High School told <i>the Times</i>,
“I most definitely felt like we were not ready….Really, our whole state’s not
ready. We don’t have the virus under control. It’s just kind of like pretending
like it’s not there.”<br />
<br />
These feelings were mirrored by Jeff Gregorich, a superintendent of public
schools in Arizona for 20 years who was <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/08/01/schools-reopening-coronavirus-arizona-superintendent/?arc404=true&utm_content=con_TzB_Enterprise_ArizonaSuperintendent&utm_medium=email&utm_source=acquisition&utm_campaign=pw_acq_con_080520"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">profiled by Eli Saslow</span></a> for <i>the Washington Post</i>. Gregorich
oversees a district where 90% of the children receive free or reduced lunch; in
Gregorich’s words, “these kids need every dollar we can get.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">But infection rates in the community, and among staff, were so high that it
didn’t make sense to re-open, certainly not when they weren’t being provided
the resources to re-open safely—as just one example, Gregorich mentioned having
to rely on shower curtains because Plexiglass barriers hadn’t been received.
And Arizona’s Republican governor, Trump ally Doug Ducey, had effectively
ransomed Arizona’s public schools, telling them they would lose 5% of their
funding if they didn’t do in-person learning. As Gregorich told Saslow, “it
feels like there’s a gun to my head.” Gregorich desperately wanted to re-open,
but it wasn’t safe. Claims to the contrary were “a fantasy.”<br />
<br />
In effect, Trump’s failure to contain the virus had created <a href="https://apnews.com/1bd44b60f9bb9ea769146c97e5fcd0f1"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a lose-lose situation</span></a> for parents of school-aged children (555). Keep kids
out of school and they would miss out on in-person instruction, school lunches,
and other resources, and one of their parents would have to stay home or send
them to daycare, draining the family income. Send the kids to school and risk
infection and death.<br />
<br />
As much as many Americans wanted to go back to normal, as much as Trump wanted
to pretend that we could go back to normal, the pandemic wasn’t
cooperating. Over 450,000 new infections had been reported in the past
week and 37 states were projected to see an uptick in deaths. <br />
<br />
And the spread was all over. Ohio’s Republican governor Mike DeWine told
a <i>Washington Post</i> reporter, “There are fewer and fewer places
where anybody can assume the virus is not there….It's in our most rural
counties. It's in our smallest communities. And we just have to assume <a href="https://www.expressnews.com/news/article/Coronavirus-threat-rises-across-U-S-We-just-15451292.php"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the monster is everywhere</span></a>.”<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.aamc.org/covidroadmap"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">A report</span></a> from
the Association of American Medical Colleges said that “If the nation does not
change its course - and soon - deaths in the United States could be well into
the multiple hundreds of thousands.” (<span style="color: red;">W33</span>)<br />
<br />
On <b>Sunday, August 2</b>, it was <a href="https://www.axios.com/state-coronavirus-infection-records-dacd090e-3fa3-4e1b-9aa7-76e1a2690418.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that
nine states had seen record single-day infection records in the week that ended
on July 31.<br />
<br />
Following in the footsteps of their Republican brethren in Texas and Arizona,
who had relied on Donald Trump for public safety guidance, morgues in beet-red
Mississippi were at capacity, forcing the state to utilize public refrigeration
units (556). Other than Arizona, Mississippi had the highest per capita
COVID-19 death rate in the country. Due to a woeful lack of resources in
Mississippi—“just <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/amid-a-mississippi-coronavirus-surge-morgues-are-overflowing-and-coroners-are-scared"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">two medical examiners</span></a> and a single tech statewide”—coroners would be certain
to miss COVID-related causes of death among many of the deceased.<br />
<br />
In the middle of a pandemic that had exploded because of the administration’s
push to re-open the economy prematurely, Trump’s economic advisor Stephen Moore
again put short-term economic growth and political considerations over public
safety, <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/510131-trump-economist-calls-for-no-more-lockdowns-no-more-shutting-down"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">telling a radio interviewer</span></a>, “We’ve got to get America back up and running….No more
lockdowns. No more shutting down businesses.” (557)<br />
<br />
Among the consequences of the administration’s focus on short-term economic
growth at the expense of public health was an increase in psychiatric
disorders. As reported on <b>Monday, August 3</b>, <a href="https://news.trust.org/item/20200803145104-mqgw9"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a study</span></a> done
in Italy showed that “COVID-19 survivors suffer higher rates of psychiatric
disorders including post-traumatic stress (PTSD), anxiety, insomnia and
depression.” The numbers were grim: “physicians found PTSD in 28% of cases,
depression in 31%, anxiety in 42% of patients and insomnia in 40%, and finally
obsessive-compulsive symptoms in 20%.” (558-562)<br />
<br />
Stress and anxiety were rational responses to a pandemic that continued to
rage. Even Trump toady Deborah Birx <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/02/politics/birx-coronavirus-new-phase-cnntv/index.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">told CNN</span></a> that
“What we are seeing today is different from March and April….It is
extraordinarily widespread. It's into the rural as equal urban areas.”<br />
<br />
On cue, Trump took to Twitter to <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-criticizes-health-adviser-deborah-birx-after-her-coronavirus-warning-11596469424"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">deride Birx for her flash of honesty</span></a>, but his craven lies (563) and distortions were no match
for reality. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the dollar had lost <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/finance/markets/dollar-e2-80-99s-slide-is-a-warning-that-us-has-lost-grip-on-virus/ar-BB17uloo"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">10% of its value</span></a> (564) and Trump’s premature re-opening had only led to
more infections, which was causing the economy to stall. Neel Kashkari, a
self-described “free-market Republican” and president of the Minneapolis
Federal Reserve Bank, penned a <i>New York Times</i> op-ed which said
that the only way to revamp the economy, long term, was to do what public
health officials had long advocated: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/07/opinion/coronavirus-lockdown-unemployment-death.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">shut the economy down</span></a> until the virus was under control. (<span style="color: red;">W34</span>)<br />
<br />
Trump had no interest in long-term thinking. As reported by Alice Miranda
Ollstein, Trump reauthorized money for the National Guard to assist states with
COVID-19 responses, but he <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/03/trump-national-guard-coronavirus-mission-391085"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">slashed aid by 25%</span></a>, creating reductions in funding for “running testing sites,
assisting with contact tracing, building field hospitals, sanitizing nursing
homes and stocking food banks as the virus surges across more states.” (565)<br />
<br />
Though Trump shortchanged 48 states of badly-needed assistance, he left full
funding in place for his <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/04/trump-texas-florida-national-guard-funds-391535"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">political allies in Texas and Florida</span></a>. The director of the Democratic Governors Association, Noam
Lee, told <i>Politico</i>, “While the coronavirus doesn't discriminate
between ‘red’ states or ‘blue’ states, it is disturbingly clear that our president
does.”<br />
<br />
Trump’s soft spot for Florida came up again on <b>Tuesday, August 4</b>.<br />
<br />
Though Trump (<a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/06/every-trump-ally-who-has-voted-by-mail-list.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">who votes by mail</span></a>) had spent months attacking mail voting, months suing to
force Americans to vote in person during a pandemic, and was doing everything
in his power to ensure that the U.S. Postal Service would fail to get ballots
out to constituents or return them in time to be counted, on Tuesday he tweeted
“Whether you call it Vote by Mail or Absentee Voting, in Florida the election
system is Safe and Secure, Tried and True.” There was no concrete evidence that
Florida’s system was safer than any other, but the president and his political
hacks were concerned that his months of attacks on voting by mail had created
a <a href="https://apnews.com/19ade6dafb5b6f82f324e4be9b12a7a0"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">big disparity</span></a> in absentee ballot requests in Florida: Democrats had
requested 1.9 million ballots, while Republicans had requested just 1.3 million
ballots.<br />
<br />
The incident showed how gullible many of Trump’s followers were and are, both
how <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/05/voting-by-mail-elections-poll-391318"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">willing they were to believe</span></a> Trump's baseless claims that mail balloting was
somehow corrupt and that voting in person during a pandemic was perfectly safe
(566). This bedrock ignorance (see #145, #204, #283, #307, #313, #s
319-323. #325, #330, #339, #347, #387, #440, #452, #534) and the denial of most
Republican voters about the extent of the coronavirus and Trump's role in it
were also reflected in <a href="https://apnews.com/4d27d2b01e6e4bb3c9dd2050e5afd70e"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a study</span></a> done
by Gallup and the Knight Foundation which found that Trump had succeeded in
making the mere act of reporting the news hyper-partisan.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">According to the study, “71% of Republicans have a ‘very’ or ‘somewhat’
unfavorable opinion of the news media, while 22% of Democrats feel the same
way.” The distrust of the media was rooted in conservatives’ belief that a
president who had lied <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/07/13/president-trump-has-made-more-than-20000-false-or-misleading-claims/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">over 20,000 times</span></a> was more trustworthy than a press corps that is
consistently adversarial to presidents of both parties. It manifested in tens
of millions of conservatives flouting public safety measures and helping the
virus spread several months after the dangers of transmission had been obvious.
(567) <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Emboldened by the fact that his base never held him accountable, Trump made a
number of misstatements in <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/tv/you-cant-do-that-watch-the-most-stunning-exchanges-from-president-trumps-interview-with-axios-jonathan-swan/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">an interview</span></a> with
Jonathan Swan of <i>Axios</i>. Asked about the wisdom of having held his
super-spreader rally in Tulsa during a spike in cases there (see #373), a rally
which was “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/08/us/politics/coronavirus-tulsa-trump-rally.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">likely</span></a>” shown
to have made community spread worse in the area, Trump bragged about the
ratings the rally produced at Fox. Asked when Americans could have testing with
same-day results, as he had promised, Trump said, “there are those that say you
can test too much. You do know that.” (568) Asked about the state of the
pandemic in the U.S., Trump said it was under control; when Swan pointed out
that over a thousand Americans were dying daily, Trump said, “They are dying,
that’s true, it is what it is.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">In the real world, <a href="https://twitter.com/zubakskees/status/1290664357123194885?s=20"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">23 states</span></a> (18
of which had supported Trump in 2016) were in the red zone, Americans were
being hit with the <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/personalfinance/for-the-unemployed-rising-grocery-prices-stretch-budgets-even-more/ar-BB17z6H8"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">steepest increase</span></a> in grocery prices in decades (see #345), millions of
low-income Americans were <a href="https://www.axios.com/low-income-families-energy-bills-pandemic-8f6dbddf-26c6-4fb7-9807-50b91440c76f.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axioscities&stream=cities"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">unable to pay their energy bills</span></a> (569), 40% of Americans were <a href="https://www.axios.com/census-americans-delayed-medical-care-coronavirus-99913086-58d5-4200-9fc3-6fab08030aba.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">delaying medical care</span></a>, and <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/nobody-accurately-tracks-health-care-workers-lost-to-covid-19-so-she-stays-up-at-night-cataloging-the-dead?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=majorinvestigations&utm_content=feature"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">200,000 or more medical workers</span></a>—including one of every four nursing home employees—had
contracted the virus because of Trump’s failure to get a handle on the
pandemic. (570)<br />
<br />
As much damage as he had already inflicted on his constituents, Trump was far
from done. His desire to force schools open (so the extent of the pandemic
wasn’t so obvious during the crucial final two months of the election) received
a failing grade when Gwinnett County Public Schools in Georgia <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/08/04/school-outbreaks-reopening-georgia/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">sent 260 employees home</span></a> in the first week because they had tested positive for
COVID-19 or been exposed to someone who had.<br />
<br />
As <a href="https://www.axios.com/children-coronavirus-community-spread-ec749389-9873-4a95-9ab1-de87c3c0cd98.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> by
Caitlin Owens at <i>Axios</i>, “The more we learn about kids and the
coronavirus, the riskier reopening schools for in-person learning appears to
be, at least in areas with high caseloads,” which is why Deborah Birx
herself <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/08/04/daily-202-birx-argues-privately-against-trumps-push-reopening-schools-major-coronavirus-flashpoint/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">had advocated</span></a> for online education in communities with a “high
caseload and active community spread.”<br />
<br />
Trump <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/510246-trump-criticizes-birx-over-pelosi-covid-19-remarks-pathetic"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">referred</span></a> to
Birx’s comments as “pathetic” and continued to double down on dangerous lies.
On <b>Wednesday, August 5</b>, the Trump campaign posted claims that
children were “virtually immune” to the coronavirus on Facebook and Twitter.
Both posts were considered <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/05/facebook-removes-trump-post-for-spreading-misinformation-on-coronavirus-392014"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">misinformation</span></a> and forced down. (571)<br />
<br />
That same day, Trump praised Arizona’s response to COVID-19 as <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/05/trump-arizona-coronavirus-doug-ducey-392019"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a “model” approach</span></a> though Arizona had “the fifth-highest number of
current hospitalizations in the country, the fifth-highest number of new cases
in the last week, and the fifth-highest rate of tests that come back positive”
and a “positivity rate of about 18 percent — far higher than the 5 percent that
the CDC says indicates sufficient testing and control of the virus.” (572)<br />
<br />
Trump also <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-says-surging-virus-e2-80-98will-go-away-like-things-go-away-e2-80-99/ar-BB17BcbL"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">told Fox News</span></a> that the U.S. was in “very good shape” and that “This
thing’s going away. It will go away like things go away.” (573)<br />
<br />
One state where COVID-19 wasn’t going away was Florida, which officially
passed <a href="https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/96dd742462124fa0b38ddedb9b25e429?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">half a million infections</span></a>, more than any developed country outside the U.S. Elderly
nursing home residents were <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/floridas-elder-care-facilities-buckle-as-virus-deaths-climb-11596628812"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">hit especially hard</span></a>.<br />
<br />
Republican stonewalling on the stimulus negotiations figured prominently in
news coverage on <b>Thursday, August 6</b>.<br />
<br />
Having ignored the House Democrats’ stimulus bill from its passage on May 15
until well into July, thereby intentionally missing the deadlines for both the
eviction moratorium and the expiration of additional unemployment benefits
(574), Republicans were now severely low-balling necessary funding.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook/2020/08/05/you-admit-you-dont-know-what-youre-talking-about-489987"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Sticking points</span></a> included aid for strapped cities and states, money for
the struggling U.S. Postal Service, funding for childcare, and a resumption of
enhanced unemployment benefits that had died as a result of Republican
inaction. In all instances, Republicans were far less generous than Democrats
to Americans in need, even as the figures being discussed were a fraction of
the two trillion-dollar tax cut (<a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/12/18/16791174/republican-tax-bill-congress-conference-tax-policy-center"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">which went overwhelmingly to millionaires</span></a>) Republicans had passed two years earlier on <a href="https://www.axios.com/republicans-pass-historic-tax-cuts-without-a-single-democratic-vote-1515110718-8cdf005c-c1c9-481a-975b-72336765ebe4.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a party-line vote</span></a>.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/06/trump-economic-recovery-election-392497?nname=politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition&nid=00000170-c000-da87-af78-e185fa700000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=2670445"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Economic numbers</span></a> only magnified the GOP’s moral leprosy in shortchanging
their constituents during a time of national desperation. More than a million
Americans had filed new unemployment claims for 20 straight weeks. Thirty-two
million Americans were receiving either state or federal unemployment, an
increase of eleven million from pre-pandemic levels. Several million Americans’
jobs had simply vanished, never to return; a study in May projected that <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/06/coronavirus-permanent-unemployment-392022"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">42% of the jobs lost would be gone permanently</span></a>. Just 167,000 new jobs had been created in July, a fraction
of the expected rebound, and the U.S. leapt ahead of 25 other countries in the
annual <a href="https://www.bloombergquint.com/global-economics/misery-ranking-will-show-u-s-getting-worse-versus-rest-of-world"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Bloomberg Misery Index</span></a>.<br />
<br />
Mark Zandi, an economist for Moody’s Analytics, told <i>Politico</i>, “The
economy has largely gone sideways since mid-June, as the re-intensification of
the virus has forced about half the nation’s states to either backtrack or
pause their business re-openings….It is critical that lawmakers agree to
another substantial fiscal rescue package before Congress goes away on its
August recess for the fragile economy to avoid backsliding into recession.”<br />
<br />
Unlikely to help the sluggish economy was news that the U.S. had recorded <a href="https://www.barrons.com/news/us-tops-2-000-deaths-in-24-hours-for-first-time-in-three-months-johns-hopkins-01596761106?tesla=y"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">over 2,000 deaths</span></a> in a day for the first time since May 7. As high as
these numbers were, as always, they were an undercount. Data was poor due to
state systems being overwhelmed, a lack of consistency in how the data was
collected and reported among states and local governments, insufficient testing
and contact tracing, slow test results, and the Trump administration’s decision
to hide the data from the public (see #493-497).<br />
<br />
The lack of accurate real-time data was robbing public health officials,
schools, and businesses of the information they needed to drive sound policy
and contain the virus. <a href="https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2020/8/5/21351766/covid-19-testing-tracking-hospitalizations-schools-reopening"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">As reported</span></a> by
Brian Resnick of <i>Vox</i>, “The best data we have on community spread of
Covid-19 is weeks out of date when it arrives. And schools won’t necessarily be
able to monitor the consequences of their decisions in real time. With a virus
capable of exponential growth, these lags in data can result in catastrophe.” (575)<br />
<br />
The lags in test data were one of the many factors looked at in a <i>New
York Times</i> deep dive by David Leonhardt titled “<a href="https://www.boston.com/news/coronavirus/2020/08/07/the-unique-u-s-failure-to-control-the-virus"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">The Unique U.S. Failure to Control the Virus</span></a>.” Drawing on a trove of data, Leonhardt explored why it was
that the U.S. was “the only affluent nation to have suffered a severe,
sustained outbreak for more than four months.”<br />
<br />
The contrasts to the rest of the developed world were startling: “Over the past
month, about 1.9 million Americans have tested positive for the virus…That’s
more than five times as many as in all of Europe, Canada, Japan, South Korea
and Australia, combined.” Spain’s 50,000 new infections were high by European
standards, yet Florida—with half of Spain’s population—had had 300,000
infections in the same time frame.<br />
<br />
Despite America’s vast resources, “When it comes to the virus, the United
States has come to resemble not the wealthy and powerful countries to which it
is often compared but instead far poorer countries, like Brazil, Peru and South
Africa, or those with large migrant populations, like Bahrain and Oman.” (576)<br />
<br />
America’s failures were due in part to a national emphasis on individualism and
libertarian economic philosophies, the former leading to millions unwilling to
follow public health guidelines, the latter allowing for a healthcare system
that often fails people on the lower rungs of the economic ladder, particularly
people of color who are impacted by COVID-19 at <a href="https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/covid-19-crisis-continues-have-uneven-economic-impact-race-and-ethnicity"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">inordinate rates</span></a>.<br />
<br />
But the main reason the U.S. had vastly more deaths and infections than every
other developed country was Donald Trump’s failures of leadership (see
#1-#576): “In no other high-income country — and in only a few countries,
period — have political leaders departed from expert advice as frequently and
significantly as the Trump administration. President Trump has said the virus
was not serious; predicted it would disappear; spent weeks questioning the need
for masks; encouraged states to reopen even with large and growing caseloads;
and promoted medical disinformation.”<br />
<br />
Trump’s tack had been mimicked by many of his Republican political allies
around the country, with devastating results, and the U.S. had never had a
federal plan to clean up the mess. Caitlin Rivers of the John Hopkins Center
for Health Security told <i>the Times</i>, “In many of the countries that
have been very successful they had a much crisper strategic direction and
really had a vision….I’m not sure we ever really had a plan or a strategy.”<br />
<br />
The numbers told the story: “the American death toll is of a different order of
magnitude than in most other countries. With only 4 percent of the world’s
population, the United States has accounted for 22 percent of coronavirus
deaths. Canada, a rich country that neighbors the United States, has a per
capita death rate about half as large. And these gaps may worsen in coming
weeks, given the lag between new cases and deaths.”<br />
<br />
Not only were deaths significantly higher in the U.S., but “the normal
activities of life — family visits, social gatherings, restaurant meals,
sporting events — may be more difficult in the United States than in any other
affluent country” (577) and the U.S. had vastly more COVID-19 survivors,
leading to millions who would be subject to a whole host of physiological
problems (<a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/07/brain-fog-heart-damage-covid-19-s-lingering-problems-alarm-scientists"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">heart damage</span></a>,
kidney damage, lung scarring, blood clots, strokes, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/07/health/chronic-fatigue-syndrome-covid-19-survivors-wellness/index.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">chronic fatigue</span></a>, <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/freaking-covid-19-survivors-hair-153850699.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">hair loss</span></a>)
and <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/08/12/after-covid19-mental-neurological-effects-smolder/?utm_source=STAT+Newsletters&utm_campaign=7cc248a320-Daily_Recap&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8cab1d7961-7cc248a320-152815530"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">neurological</span></a> problems
(<a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/07/brain-fog-heart-damage-covid-19-s-lingering-problems-alarm-scientists"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">brain fog</span></a>,
headaches, insomnia, lack of mood regulation, <a href="https://nypost.com/2020/07/31/covid-19-survivors-may-lose-hearing-sense-of-smell-and-taste/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">loss of taste</span></a>, <a href="https://nypost.com/2020/07/31/covid-19-survivors-may-lose-hearing-sense-of-smell-and-taste/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">loss of smell</span></a>). (578)<br />
<br />
Policy failures included loopholes in the China travel ban that had
allowed <a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-trump-china-travel-ban-45a2da12-8063-4ad9-ba28-61cdeb1ce0b3.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">40,000 people</span></a> into the country in February and March, delays in
banning travel from Europe until March, after which travel was still allowed
from the U.K. (which had high infection rates, 579), and a lax approach to
quarantining people who entered the country (580). Australia, which had had
rigorous regulations around travel, had less than 300 official COVID-19
deaths—total—not much more than Florida had recently had <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2020-07-31/florida-daily-coronavirus-death-toll-jumps-40-in-four-days"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">in a single day</span></a>.<br />
<br />
The U.S. had insisted on developing its own tests, rather than use WHO tests
that were ready to go, but created flawed tests which had to be fixed, leaving
the U.S. with very limited testing well into March, creating the false
impression that infections were low and allowing the virus to spread.<br />
<br />
Months later, a lack of federal investment was forcing many Americans to wait
in <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/07/11/covid-19-test-results-delayed-labs-struggle-cases-surge/5406936002/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">long lines</span></a> to
be tested and wait up to two weeks for a test result. By contrast, “In Belgium
recently, test results have typically come back in 48 to 72 hours. In Germany
and Greece, it is two days. In France, the wait is often 24 hours.”<br />
<br />
The failure of U.S. officials to advocate for masks early and often was also a
major contributor to the pandemic’s death grip on America. Due to the anti-mask
messaging of Trump, Fox, Sinclair Broadcasting, and many other anti-science
Republican politicians and media outlets, masks became just another victim of
political polarization: “Throughout much of the [Democratic] Northeast and the
West Coast, more than 80 percent of people wore masks when within six feet of
someone else. In more conservative areas, like the Southeast, the share was
closer to 50 percent.” (see #452)<br />
<br />
Europe had waited until infection rates were low before re-opening their
economy, but most of the U.S. had barged ahead while the pandemic was still
active, largely at Trump’s urging. America had seen a brief uptick in job
growth, but ultimately this led to an upsurge in infections and an economy that
was little better than before the re-openings, with states that opened earliest
seeing the biggest spikes in new cases. Georgia, led by hard-right Republican
Brian Kemp, was one of the first states to re-open: “In June and July, Georgia
reported more than 125,000 new virus cases, turning it into one of the globe’s
new hot spots. That was more new cases than Canada, France, Germany, Italy,
Japan and Australia combined during that time frame.”<br />
<br />
By contrast, New York, which had been the COVID-19 epicenter early on, brought
infections way down through the aggressive mitigation efforts of Democratic
governor Andrew Cuomo. New York’s experience showed that America’s failures
were caused by a lack of leadership, not a lack of resources or know-how. Dr.
Thomas Frieden, who headed the CDC under Barack Obama, told <i>the Times</i>,
“This isn’t actually rocket science….We know what to do, and we’re not doing
it.”<br />
<br />
The failures of Trump and his state-level Republican allies continued to drive
the pandemic on <b>Friday, August 7</b>. <a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-testing-positivity-midwest-64e2dcc9-c969-4831-b0c2-235fb75bcffe.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">A 13% reduction in testing</span></a> over the prior week had obscured infection numbers nationally,
but as reported by Caitlin Owens and Andrew Witherspoon of <i>Axios</i>,
“A cluster of states in the Midwest are seeing more of their coronavirus tests
coming back positive — potentially an early indicator of a growing outbreak.”
States outside of the Midwest continued to have high rates of positive tests
too, including Nevada and the Republican-run states of Alabama, Mississippi,
Arkansas, Arizona, and Florida.<br />
<br />
Countrywide, the U.S. was projected to <a href="https://news.trust.org/item/20200806221829-76we1"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">lose 300,000 citizens</span></a> to
COVID-19 by December 1.<br />
<br />
The following day, <b>Saturday, August 8</b>, the 300,000 projection—based
on the official death tally of 162,000—was shown to be an underestimate
as <i>the New York Times</i> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/05/us/coronavirus-death-toll-us.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that
“there have been 200,700 excess deaths in the United States during the
coronavirus pandemic, much higher than the current total of 161,000 confirmed
deaths.”<br />
<br />
With stimulus negotiations stalled because of chief of staff Mark Meadows’ lack
of concern for tens of millions of Americans in need, Trump signed executive
orders. Trump’s action looked good to Republicans and other low-information
voters, but was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/09/business/trump-executive-orders-unemployment.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200810&instance_id=21130&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=35682&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">insufficient to the moment</span></a> and problematic on legal grounds, as <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-attempts-to-wrest-tax-and-spending-powers-from-congress-with-new-executive-actions/ar-BB17JjQI"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Congress typically disburses funds</span></a>. Trump low-balled unemployment extensions from the $600 of
additional weekly funding Democrats had proposed to $400 (581) and pawned 25%
of this benefit off onto states which were already deep in debt (582). Even if
the measures withstood court challenges, it could take months for state unemployment
systems to adjust to the funding reduction. Payroll taxes were set to be
deferred from September through December, but there was no guarantee that
employers would comply and if they did comply, revenue for Medicare and Social
Security would be cut.<br />
<br />
The other issues Democrats had brought up in stimulus negotiations—money for
testing, election security, small businesses, the U.S. Postal Service, state
and local governments, childcare assistance, and public safety funds for
schools about to re-open—were left unaddressed. (583-589)<br />
<br />
Trump’s abdication of duty was a consistent theme. Philip Rucker, Yasmeen
Abutaleb, Josh Dawsey, and Robert Costa of <i>the Washington Post</i> looked
at the administration’s <a href="https://www.adn.com/nation-world/2020/08/08/a-lost-summer-how-trump-fell-short-in-confronting-the-virus/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">indifference to the human costs</span></a> of the pandemic in “A lost summer: How Trump fell
short in confronting the virus.”<br />
<br />
The administration had nothing to show for the month of June and had only acted
when they felt it was in their political interest to do so: “Under mounting
pressure to improve the president's reelection chances as his poll numbers
declined, the White House had what was described as a stand-down order on
engaging publicly on the virus through the month of June, part of a deliberate
strategy to spotlight other issues even as the contagion spread wildly across
the country (590). A senior administration official said there was a desire to
focus on the economy in June.<br />
<br />
“It was only in July, when case counts began soaring in a trio of populous,
Republican-leaning states - Arizona, Florida and Texas - and polls showed a
majority of Americans disapproving of Trump's handling of the pandemic, that
the president and his top aides renewed their public activity related to the
virus.”<br />
<br />
Mark Meadows was in charge of coordinating the executive branch response to the
coronavirus. Meadows’ libertarian mindset had torpedoed the stimulus talks and
undermined public health experts inside the administration: “Meadows no longer
holds a daily 8 a.m. meeting that includes health professionals to discuss the
raging pandemic. Instead, aides said, he huddles in the mornings with a
half-dozen politically oriented aides - and when the virus comes up, their
focus is more on how to convince the public that President Donald Trump has the
crisis under control, rather than on methodically planning ways to contain it.”
(591)<br />
<br />
The pandemic was not remotely under control, and administration projections
showed that things would only get worse, but they weren’t sharing this
information with the public: “the virus rages coast to coast, making the United
States the world leader, by far, in the number of confirmed coronavirus cases
and deaths. An internal model by Trump's Council on Economic Advisers predicts
a looming disaster, with the number of infections projected to rise later in
August and into September and October in the Midwest and elsewhere.” (592)<br />
<br />
On <b>Sunday, August 9</b>, Trump hit his personal milestone of over five
million infections.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://apnews.com/2a03a4e685316eb7d5a6e7181000fbfe"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">According to</span></a> Nicole
Winfield and Lisa Marie Paine of the AP, “With confirmed coronavirus cases in
the U.S. hitting 5 million Sunday, by far the highest of any country, the
failure of the most powerful nation in the world to contain the scourge has
been met with astonishment and alarm in Europe.”<br />
<br />
The differences between the extent of the pandemic in America and Europe were
especially shocking considering the timing of initial infections and respective
resources: “…Much of the incredulity in Europe stems from the fact that America
had the benefit of time, European experience and medical know-how to treat the
virus that the continent itself didn’t have when the first COVID-19 patients
started filling intensive care units.<br />
<br />
“Yet, more than four months into a sustained outbreak, the U.S. reached the 5
million mark, according to the running count kept by Johns Hopkins University.
Health officials believe the actual number is perhaps 10 times higher, or
closer to 50 million, given testing limitations and the fact that as many as
40% of all those who are infected have no symptoms.”<br />
<br />
Dr. David Ho, from Columbia University’s Irving Medical Center, summed up
America’s sorry state of affairs:<br />
<br />
“There’s no national strategy, no national leadership, and there’s no urging
for the public to act in unison and carry out the measures together….That’s
what it takes, and we have completely abandoned that as a nation.” (593)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Another thing the administration had abandoned was federal aid to help schools
open safely (see#461), a consequence of the failed stimulus talks. And though
over 97,000 children had <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/09/world/coronavirus-covid-19.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">tested positive</span></a> for coronavirus in the last two weeks of July, studies
showed that children were <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/latest-research-points-to-children-carrying-transmitting-coronavirus-11596978001"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">vectors of transmission</span></a>, and polls reflected that a majority of Americans <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/12/growing-number-of-voters-oppose-trump-demand-to-fully-reopen-schools-393962"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">opposed</span></a> full
in-person instruction, Trump continued to push schools to re-open.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><a href="https://www.chron.com/news/article/School-year-like-no-other-launches-with-chaos-15470902.php"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">17 out of 20</span></a> of
the biggest K-12 school districts in the country were opening up with remote
learning, and many of the schools that <i>were</i> re-opening were
running into <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/hundreds-quarantined-in-schools-that-followed-trump-s-advice/ar-BB17TmHt?ocid=uxbndlbing"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">easily foreseeable</span></a> problems. A high school in Georgia <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/students-get-suspended-for-posting-pictures-of-schools-crowded-halls-now-several-people-have-been-infected-2020-08-09"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">suspended</span></a> two
students after they took photos of hallways jam-packed with students, most of
whom weren’t wearing masks; the school had to close down for a couple days
after nine children were found to be infected.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Education Secretary Betsy Devos took to Fox
to </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/hundreds-quarantined-in-schools-that-followed-trump-s-advice/ar-BB17TmHt?ocid=uxbndlbing"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">minimize</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> the public safety threat (594), claiming
that opposition to re-opening schools was a “coordinated effort and a campaign
to sow fear.”</span></p><span style="line-height: 107%;">
<br />
What was actually sowing fear was the pace of new COVID-19 infections. Though
rates had come down from the astronomical numbers in July, on <b>Monday,
August 10</b>, it was reported that </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://digifolktimes.com/tag/axios/"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">five states</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> (ND, WI, KY, MO, AL) had had a record
number of cases in the prior week. All five states had supported Trump in 2016.<br />
<br />
While other first world countries had daily death tolls in the single digits,
the U.S. was experiencing over 1,000 COVID-19 deaths every day, and many of
these people were dying lonely deaths. A </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.studyfinds.org/people-dying-alone-covid-19/"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">study</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> done by Northwestern University showed
that “Patients with COVID-19 this year are 12 times more likely to die in a
medical facility than patients dying of any cause in 2018” and “From Feb. 1
through May 23, a staggering 91 percent of all COVID-19 deaths occurred in a
medical facility or nursing home.”<br />
<br />
Due to the infectiousness of the coronavirus, record numbers of Americans were
dying alone, which was horrible for patients (see #233) and family (595) alike.
Dr. Sadiya Khan of Northwestern said, “A loved one dying alone takes a huge
mental toll on families….It impairs the family’s ability to grieve and cope
with the loss. For patients, we’ve all thought about how terrible it would be to
have to die alone. This is the horror happening to thousands of people in
medical facilities where no family member or loved one is able to be present
with them during their final moments on earth.”<br />
<br />
More consequences of the administration’s failures of governance were reported
on <b>Tuesday, August 11</b>.<br />
<br />
Business bankruptcies were at a </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-bankruptcies-on-track-for-10-year-high-with-more-than-100-consumer-companies-already-filing-2020-08-11"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">10-year high</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> (596) and individuals—and families—were
stuck with a long list of hardships, in no small part because Republicans had
killed the stimulus talks (for the time being) by delaying their response to
the Democratic house bill, then negotiating in bad faith.<br />
<br />
As </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="http://www.axios.com/consumer-financial-health-coronavirus-dad215e6-33f7-4e84-921b-0b2a320b1cb2.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">reported</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> by Jennifer Kingson of <i>Axios</i>,
unemployment rates were “alarmingly high,” complaints to the Consumer Financial
Protection Bureau were at record levels (597), homelessness was growing (598),
and food bank usage was up 60% (599). Separate stories revealed a food line in
Dallas which stretched for </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://dfw.cbslocal.com/2020/08/11/car-line-stretches-mile-fair-park-food-giveaway/"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">a mile</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;">, and that “almost 20% of Americans with kids at
home </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/more-americans-go-hungry-amid-coronavirus-pandemic-census-shows-11597570200"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">couldn’t afford</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> to give their children enough food.” (600)<br />
<br />
Rising violence was another toll of the economic devastation caused by Trump’s
failure to get the pandemic under control. As </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://dnyuz.com/2020/08/11/in-the-wake-of-covid-19-lockdowns-a-troubling-surge-in-homicides/"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">reported</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> at <i>the New York Times</i>, “Across
20 major cities, the murder rate at the end of June was on average 37 percent
higher than it was at the end of May.” (601)<br />
<br />
Unsurprisingly, the unceasing horror show created by Trump and his appointees
was wearing on the American psyche. A <i>Washington Post</i> piece by
ace reporters Brady Dennis, Jeremy Duda, and Joel Achenbach </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.lmtonline.com/news/article/With-no-end-to-the-pandemic-in-sight-coronavirus-15475104.php"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">captured</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> this moment vividly:<br />
<br />
“Parents lie awake, their minds racing with thoughts of how to balance work
with their newfound role as home-schoolers. Frontline health workers are bone
tired, their nerves frayed by endless shifts and constant encounters with the
virus and its victims. Senior citizens have grown weary of isolation.
Unemployed workers fret over jobs lost, benefits that are running out, rent
payments that are overdue. Minority communities continue to shoulder the
disproportionate burden of the contagion's impact, which in recent weeks has
killed an average of about 1,000 people a day.<br />
<br />
“The metaphor of a marathon doesn't capture the wearisome, confounding,
terrifying and yet somehow dull and drab nature of this ordeal for many
Americans, who have watched leaders fumble the pandemic response from the start.
Marathons have a defined conclusion, but 2020 feels like an endless slog -
uphill, in mud.<br />
<br />
“Recent opinion polls hint at the deepening despair. A Gallup survey in
mid-July showed 73% of adults viewed the pandemic as growing worse - the
highest level of pessimism recorded since Gallup began tracking that assessment
in early April. Another Gallup Poll, published Aug. 4, found only 13% of adults
are satisfied with the way things are going overall in the country, the lowest
in nine years.<br />
<br />
“A July Kaiser Family Foundation poll echoed that, finding that a majority of
adults think the worst is yet to come. Fifty-three percent said the crisis has
harmed their mental health.”<br />
<br />
</span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/08/12/coronavirus-covid-live-updates-us/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">Trump’s failures</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> were being directly felt in Florida and
Georgia, which posted a record number of COVID-19 deaths on <b>Wednesday,
August 12</b> because their Republican governors had followed Trump’s lead
by not taking the coronavirus seriously.<br />
<br />
The loyalty was one-sided. Despite the position he’d put his red state allies
in in terms of COVID-related deaths and infections and the concomitant economic
decline, Trump continued to </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://twitter.com/markknoller/status/1293576355007942658?s=20"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">refuse</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> to provide aid to states (<span style="color: #3d85c6;">and </span></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.axios.com/the-pandemic-is-hitting-city-budgets-harder-than-the-great-recession-0156574a-c5f9-454d-b579-1292595abdca.html#:~:text=What%20they're%20saying%3A%20%22,League%20of%20Cities%20research%20director."><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">cities</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;">) who were deep in the red and unable to provide
basic services, a move which was certain to </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-hit-state-budgets-create-a-drag-on-u-s-recovery-11597224600"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">hurt economic growth</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;">. (602)<br />
<br />
The administration was also shortchanging states of important COVID-related
data since having shifted the reporting of hospital data from the CDC to Health
and Human Services (see #493-497). As </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.axios.com/hhs-hospital-data-coronavirus-9256f863-f5d4-4371-a658-bbdec4690709.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">explained</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> by Caitlin Owens of <i>Axios</i>, “A
month after the Trump administration changed how hospital data is reported, the
public release of this data ‘has slowed to a crawl.’”<br />
<br />
“…Testing and case data — which tell the story of where people are getting sick
— have been a problem for the last six months. This latest fiasco blurs the
picture of how many people are getting very sick at a given time, which until
now has been a more reliable measure of the pandemic.”<br />
<br />
For example, “important data, like the number of beds occupied by coronavirus
patients, is lagging by a week or more.” Moreover, “The implications go beyond
tracking the virus. Hospitalization data is also used by agencies to determine
where to send remdesivir and personal protective equipment.”<br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Dr. Jeffrey Engel of the Council of State and Territorial
Epidemiologists called the hand-off from the CDC to Health and Human Services
“a disaster.”<br />
<br />
Two data points the administration couldn’t hide were America’s COVID-19 death
toll and infection rates. On <b>Thursday, August 13</b>, it was reported
that the U.S. had had 1,500 deaths the day prior, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-53730372"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the most</span></a> since
the middle of May. Though down from recent highs of 75,000 cases per day,
infection totals of <a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-cases-infections-us-map-florida-texas-arizona-fae7f4d9-967a-47e7-b2c7-0c7919a32a76.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">50,000 per day</span></a> were still higher than the number of cases
Switzerland, Greece, Ireland, Australia, Austria, and Denmark had had since the
pandemic had begun.<br />
<br />
More grim data came from Trump’s own CDC, who had conducted a survey which
showed that <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/13/cdc-mental-health-pandemic-394832"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;">one of every four</span></a> adults aged 18 to 24 had “considered suicide in the
past month because of the pandemic.” (603) The same survey found that “more
than 40 percent of those surveyed [had] experienced a mental or behavioral
health condition connected to the Covid-19 emergency.” The psychological toll
of the pandemic disproportionately impacted essential workers, unpaid
caregivers, and people of color.<br />
<br />
While the administration and the public discourse should have been focused on
ways to get the pandemic under control and heal the populace, much of the
oxygen in the room was being taken up by Trump’s moves to cheat in the fall
election by <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/08/trump-admits-starving-usps-sabotage-voting-by-mail.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">undermining</span></a> the
U.S. postal service (USPS) as the country was expecting a record number of mail
ballots. Speaking to the Fox News Network, Trump <a href="https://apnews.com/14a2ceda724623604cc8d8e5ab9890ed"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">said</span></a> that
stonewalling the Democrats during stimulus negotiations (which had included
money for the USPS) would help his campaign:<br />
<br />
“Now, they need that money in order to make the Post Office work, so it can
take all of these millions and millions of ballots….If they don’t get those two
items, that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting, because they’re not
equipped.”<br />
<br />
This was just one of Trump’s tactics to block mail-in voting. In addition to
previous budget cuts and <a href="https://nbcmontana.com/news/local/dozens-of-montana-usps-drop-boxes-removed"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">removal of collection boxes</span></a> that could be used for absentee ballots (604), Trump’s
postmaster general, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/08/how-postal-service-preparing-election/615271/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=atlantic-daily-newsletter&utm_content=20200817&silverid-ref=NjY0NzQxMzgxNDkxS0"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Louis DeJoy</span></a>,
had limited overtime (605), even as thousands of employees were out due to
COVID-19, and instructed carriers to<span style="color: #3d85c6;"> </span><a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/08/11/901219097/how-are-postmaster-general-dejoys-changes-affecting-workers"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">let mail pile up</span></a> at distribution centers if they couldn’t get to it on
their regular shift (606). As <a href="https://theweek.com/articles/930312/donald-trump-trying-steal-election"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> by
Ryan Cooper:<br />
<br />
“In cities like <a href="https://www.wbaltv.com/article/baltimore-mail-delays-continue-no-mail-in-weeks/33535355"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Baltimore</span></a>, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/minneapolis-mail-ballot-delays/2020/08/08/6ecf9978-d8ea-11ea-930e-d88518c57dcc_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Minneapolis</span></a>, <a href="https://patch.com/illinois/chicago/no-mail-weeks-post-service-falling-apart-chicago"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Chicago</span></a>,
and <a href="https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia/usps-tracking-in-transit-late-mail-delivery-philadelphia-packages-postal-service-20200802.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Philadelphia</span></a>,
residents report that they have not gotten mail for weeks. People are not
getting checks, bills, <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/rosalindadams/post-office-delay-prescription-medicine?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">medicines</span></a>,
or other vital necessities, and it only seems to be getting worse.”<br />
<br />
DeJoy was pushing another change that would directly hurt mail balloting. In
the past, mail ballots had been billed at non-profit bulk rates but treated
like first-class mail, with delivery times of 2-5 days. The USPS was now <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/7032485-USPS-July-31-2020-letter-to-Wyman.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">warning</span></a> states
that they might have to use first-class postage—<i>at three times’ the cost</i>—to
guarantee that ballots would be mailed in the same time frame. Absent the
first-class postage and higher costs to states, ballots would be subject to the
same delivery times as marketing mail (3-10 days), potentially suppressing the
vote in 34 states (including the key swing states of MI, WI, PA, AZ, and NH)
that invalidate ballots received after election day.<br />
<br />
Executive VP of the Postal Service, Thomas J. Marshall, said as much when he
penned letters to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/usps-states-delayed-mail-in-ballots/2020/08/14/64bf3c3c-dcc7-11ea-8051-d5f887d73381_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">46 states</span></a> notifying them
that the USPS “cannot guarantee all ballots cast by mail for the November
election will arrive in time to be counted.” As reported by <i>the
Washington Post</i>, “The letters sketch a grim possibility for the tens of
millions of Americans eligible for a mail-in ballot this fall: Even if people
follow all of their state’s election rules, the pace of Postal Service delivery
may disqualify their votes.”<br />
<br />
Trump’s assault on the USPS was a win-win proposition: it undermined mail-in
balloting and would neatly dovetail with his false narrative about the
fraudulence of mail voting (see #226) if the expected days-long mail ballot
counts after election day produced a victory for Joe Biden, a possibility given
the <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/bidens-supporters-appear-way-more-likely-to-vote-by-mail-than-trumps-that-could-make-for-a-weird-election-night/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">partisan split</span></a> on mail-in balloting. Facebook executives were
discussing a “<a href="https://dnyuz.com/2020/08/21/facebook-braces-itself-for-trump-to-cast-doubt-on-election-results/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">kill switch</span></a>”
option in case Trump and his <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/17/technology/indictment-russian-tech-facebook.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">online troll army</span></a> pushed this toxic and dangerous line of propaganda
during the mail count.<br />
<br />
Hobbling the postal service was just one part of Trump’s strategy for cheating
in the 2020 election. Stalled stimulus negotiations had robbed local officials
around the country of billions of dollars in aid to help administer elections
and make up for certain shortfalls in elections volunteers. Running smooth
elections would seem to be an essential priority for any democracy, but the
administration treated it as a partisan issue. Asked about the money for
elections officials on CNBC, Trump economic adviser Larry Kudlow <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/13/kudlow-money-voting-rights-liberal-left-wish-list-394715"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">dismissed</span></a> the
aid as part of the “really liberal left wish list.” (607)<br />
<br />
While doing what they could to guarantee election day chaos at the polls during
a pandemic, Trump’s lawyers were systematically attempting to disenfranchise
voters through the courts. In Pennsylvania, the GOP was trying to get absentee
ballot drop-off sights <a href="https://www.courthousenews.com/federal-judge-orders-trump-campaign-to-provide-proof-of-mail-in-voting-fraud/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">removed</span></a>,
forcing voters to walk their ballots into (possibly crowded) voting precincts
(608). In Minnesota, the GOP was <a href="https://www.courthousenews.com/trump-campaign-fights-waiver-of-minnesota-ballot-witness-rule/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">opposing</span></a> a
relaxation of the requirement that each absentee ballot contain a witness
signature (609) and a measure to mail absentee ballots 30 days before the
election (to ensure they would be returned in time to be counted, 610).
In <a href="https://www.courthousenews.com/trump-campaign-sues-nevada-over-mail-in-ballot-plans/?relatedposts_hit=1&relatedposts_origin=594879&relatedposts_position=2"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Nevada</span></a> and <a href="https://www.courthousenews.com/trump-campaign-sues-to-block-mailing-of-ballots-in-new-jersey/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">New Jersey</span></a>,
the GOP was trying to kill universal mail balloting outright. (611, 612)<br />
<br />
The GOP’s utter lack of concern for public safety or the economic struggles of
tens of millions of Americans was laid plain on <b>Friday, August 14</b>.
Unwilling to negotiate a stimulus bill more than three weeks after enhanced
unemployment benefits had expired, Mitch McConnell <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/13/where-stimulus-talks-stand-now-that-senate-has-adjourned-for-august.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">adjourned</span></a> the
Senate until after Labor Day. Also put on hold were aid for state and local
governments, money for food assistance, and funding for more testing.<br />
<br />
House Democrats had included $75 billion for new testing in the stimulus bill
they had passed on May 15; Republicans had countered with a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/15/us/coronavirus-testing-decrease.html?auth=login-google&campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200816&instance_id=21323&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&section_index=1&section_name=big_story&segment_id=36229&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">meager $16 billion</span></a> during negotiations, but even that was held up now.
The administration’s lack of attention to this vital national priority got
another look on <b>Saturday, August 15</b> in “‘We’re Clearly Not
Doing Enough’: Drop in Testing Hampers Coronavirus Response.”<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/15/us/coronavirus-testing-decrease.html?auth=link-dismiss-google1tap&campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200816&instance_id=21323&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&section_index=1&section_name=big_story&segment_id=36229&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">The article</span></a> stated
that an effective response to COVID-19 would require several million tests per
day. Because of the Trump administration’s unwillingness to create and fund a
national testing plan, the U.S. was falling far short of this goal—with just
750,000 tests/day on average—and testing was actually decreasing at the worst
possible time: “Now, the number of tests being given has slowed just as the
nation braces for the possibility of another surge as schools reopen and cooler
weather drives people indoors.” (613)<br />
<br />
Until a vaccine was rolled out, testing was our only hope:<br />
<br />
“Without a vaccine or a highly successful treatment, widespread testing is seen
as a cornerstone for fighting a pandemic in which <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/06/health/coronavirus-asymptomatic-transmission.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">as many as 40 percent of infected people</span></a> do not show symptoms and may unknowingly spread the
virus. Testing a lot of people is crucial to seeing where the virus is going
and identifying hot spots before they get out of hand. Experts see extensive
testing as a key part of safely reopening schools, businesses and sports.”<br />
<br />
The U.S. wasn’t conducting remotely enough tests, and <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/15/forty-percent-of-us-covid-19-tests-come-back-too-late-to-be-clinically-meaningful-data-show.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">up to 40% of the tests</span></a> were of minimal value because of delays in processing
the results; in many cases the delays were so long that people had stopped
quarantining by the time they found out they were infected, having passed their
infection on to others. Dr. Ashish Jha of Harvard told a reporter, “It’s really
clear that if tests take more than 48 hours, you’ve lost the window for contact
tracing….I think, basically, beyond 72 hours, the test is close to useless.”
(614)<br />
<br />
Some states were turning tests around quickly, but others weren’t. The solution
to this problem was obvious, but not being acted on. According to Jha, “It
would take a national testing strategy to make sure that, if there’s excess
capacity in Massachusetts, but long lines in Florida, that Massachusetts could
help Florida out….Largely we have not had a national testing strategy. The
strategy out of the White House has been for every state to figure this out on
their own.”<br />
<br />
What testing was being done highlighted the danger in forcing children back
into in-person learning. New CDC data showed that the number of children
infected with COVID-19 had been “<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/15/health/us-coronavirus-saturday/index.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">steadily increasing</span></a>” (615) and that Trump’s assurances about the minimal risk
to children was a lie: “the new CDC guidance notes children can develop severe
illness and complications, even if that risk is lower compared to adults. The
rate of hospitalizations among children is increasing, the guidance says, and
among those hospitalized, one in three children is admitted to intensive care
-- the same as adults.” (616)<br />
<br />
This complicated the already-dicey situation of children attending school in
the middle of a pandemic. Because of the Trump administration’s failure to get
a handle on the coronavirus, the least-worst option for many children was
remote learning, which was <a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-education-special-needs-online-20176c9e-5905-4eb7-ab44-b0ea8a2c6e89.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosdeepdives&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">insufficient</span></a> for
America’s seven million high-needs students (617), <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/08/virtual-learning-when-you-dont-have-internet/615322/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=atlantic-daily-newsletter&utm_content=20200818&silverid-ref=NjY0NzQxMzgxNDkxS0"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">inaccessible</span></a> to
at-risk children with limited financial resources (618), and <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/kindergartener-virtual-education/615316/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=atlantic-daily-newsletter&utm_content=20200818&silverid-ref=NjY0NzQxMzgxNDkxS0"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">inferior</span></a> in
educational quality. (619)<br />
<br />
Kim Hart and Alyson Snyder looked at the <a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-education-virtual-remote-school-765d00a0-e456-495b-acec-0c5945a77d1e.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosdeepdives&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">long-term consequences</span></a> of not being able to safely conduct in-personal
learning:<br />
<br />
“As millions of students are about to start the school year virtually, at least
in part, experts fear students may fall off an educational cliff — missing key
academic milestones, falling behind grade level and in some cases dropping out
of the educational system altogether.”<br />
<br />
Remote learning could <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/06/how-quarantine-will-affect-kids-social-development/613381/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">stunt social development</span></a> and hurt students’ future economic prospects: “<a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-and-social-sector/our-insights/covid-19-and-student-learning-in-the-united-states-the-hurt-could-last-a-lifetime"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">McKinsey estimates</span></a> the average K-12 student in the U.S. could lose
$61,000 to $82,000 in lifetime earnings — or the equivalent of a year of
full-time work, as a result of learning losses related to COVID-19.” (620)<br />
<br />
Children of color would be inordinately impacted: “Losses are expected to be
even greater for Black, Hispanic and low-income students, widening the existing
achievement gaps by 15%-20%, per McKinsey.” (621)<br />
<br />
Since <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/what-weve-stolen-our-kids/615211/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=atlantic-daily-newsletter&utm_content=20200818&silverid-ref=NjY0NzQxMzgxNDkxS0"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump had failed America’s children</span></a>, parents would have to pick up the slack. Keri Rodrigues of
the National Parents Union told <i>Axios</i>, “Now we have this continual
conversation about how this is going to devastate our children….That puts
everyone in the mindset that our children are broken. It is our job as the
adult to push on and persevere to figure this out for them.”<br />
<br />
Stats reported at <i>Axios</i> on <b>Sunday, August 16</b>,
showed that six states had had their highest 7-day totals of infections. All
six states had voted for Trump in 2016.<br />
<br />
Even
as national daily infections had come down from late July, the U.S. was still <a href="https://www.axios.com/rich-countries-coronavirus-data-united-states-cc412dd5-ef7d-4dc9-a891-e300712860e7.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">greatly underperforming</span></a> all other developed world nations in its response to
COVID-19. From July 1 to August 13, the U.S. had recorded 2.5 million new
infections, 8X the rate of other first world countries, and 37,000 deaths, 6X
the rate of other first world countries.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="color: blue; font-size: medium;">August 17, 2020-November 3, 2020</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><i>Official cases come down to 40,000-50,000/day in late summer,
more than the total number of infections many developed countries have
experienced during the whole pandemic. The Republican Party engages in four
days of collective amnesia at their convention, lauding Dear Leader’s
management of the pandemic. Trump settles on a campaign strategy of pretending
that tens of thousands of new cases and 1,000 deaths a day is hunky dory while
trying to convince white swing state voters that their personal safety is
threatened by sporadic looting in faraway cities. By election day, the U.S. records 100,000 new cases daily; Trump tells rallygoers we are </i>“<i>rounding the corner.</i>”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
<br />
The failures of the administration to act in January or February, before the
virus had spread across the country, had been deadly to America (see #254), but
the U.S. could have corrected its course, as every other industrialized country
had done. The possible reasons for the GOP's willful indifference to the
pandemic were examined by Ezra Klein on <b>Monday, August 17</b> in “<a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/8/17/21368234/trump-republicans-covid-19-2020-democrats-senate-relief-stimulus-polls"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Why Republicans are failing to govern</span></a>.”<br />
<br />
Klein’s key takeaways were that the GOP’s collective failure to act at the
federal level was based on three things: 1) fear among congressional
Republicans of crossing a president who had 91% approval ratings among
Republican voters; 2) philosophical opposition to government intervention, no
matter the cost; and 3) concern that more stimulus money, no matter how
necessary to alleviate mass human suffering, would offend Tea Party extremists.<br />
<br />
Resigned to allow the pandemic to ravage the country until a vaccine was rolled
out, all that the GOP had left was a strategy of vote suppression and
misinformation. As <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/17/trump-scott-atlas-coronavirus-doctor-396741"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> by
Nancy Cook of <i>Politico</i>, Trump was done with the bad—if
accurate—news presented by Dr. Fauci, and sometimes Deborah Birx. Stepping in
to become Trump’s top public health toady was Dr. Scott Atlas, an academic from
Stanford whom Trump had discovered on Fox News. (622)<br />
<br />
According to Cook, Atlas had gotten the president’s ear by minimizing the
fierceness of the pandemic and the threat to children, advocating for the
re-opening of schools and sports, keeping his mouth shut about the need for
more testing, and opposing home saliva tests which could be easily accessible
to millions of Americans. His hands-off approach to the pandemic was perfectly
suited to Trump’s P.R. campaign to pretend that American life could go on as
usual:<br />
<br />
“With the virus showing no sign of letting up — the U.S. <a href="https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">has recorded</span></a> roughly
5.4 million Covid-19 cases and 170,000 deaths — and with less than three months
to go in an uphill reelection battle, the president is betting that a telegenic
physician with a positive outlook, but no expertise in infectious diseases or
epidemiology, can change his fortunes.<br />
<br />
“Atlas, upbeat and relentlessly on message that Americans should resume life as
much as they can, is the living embodiment of the president’s
Covid-is-not-that-big-of-a-deal approach. Where school superintendents and
football conference officials see a risk of the virus’ spread this fall, Atlas
cautions against too-strict measures. During Fox News appearances, he has
downplayed the need for students to wear face coverings or practice social
distancing if schools do reopen.” (623)<br />
<br />
By telling Trump what he wanted to hear, rather than what he needed to hear,
Atlas had “become the president’s go-to Covid-19 doctor, the anti-Fauci, even
if he does not have a background in infectious diseases or epidemiology.
Instead, his specialty lies in radiology and neuroradiology, subjects he taught
for many years as a professor and chief of neuroradiology at the Stanford
University Medical Center.”<br />
<br />
Juliette Kayyem, who had been involved in the Obama administration’s H1N1
response while working for the Department of Homeland Security, told <i>Politico</i> that
Trump had “found someone who will take him back to 2019 who says, ‘Don’t wear
masks. Open the schools…We are going through this. We’re not going back.”
Kayyem added, “The strategy of see no evil may be working for Trump, but it is
not working for America. This is just more of the same.”<br />
<br />
More of the same included Trump having another <a href="http://www.rawstory.com/2020/08/trump-ripped-for-arizona-rally-look-at-this-super-spreader-event-happening-in-yuma/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">super-spreader campaign rally</span></a> on <b>Tuesday, August 18</b>. The event took
place in Yuma County, AZ, one of the counties with the highest rate of
infections in one of the states with the highest rate of infections. The rally
had no social distancing and photos revealed that only a fraction of the
attendees wore masks. (624)<br />
<br />
On <b>Wednesday, August 19</b>, it was reported that Trump had taken to
Twitter to respond to Michelle Obama’s speech at the Democratic National
Convention. As he had done many times before, Trump <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/trump-erupts-angrily-michelle-obamas-124758798.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">took credit</span></a> for
inheriting <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjones/2020/02/17/obamas-2009-recovery-act-kicked-off-over-10-years-of-economic-growth/#59d658bd68b7"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a growing economy</span></a> from Obama: “My Administration and I built the
greatest economy in history, of any country, turned it off, saved millions of
lives, and now am building an even greater economy than it was before. Jobs are
flowing, NASDAQ is already at a record high, the rest to follow. Sit back &
watch!”<br />
<br />
The truth was quite different. The “greater economy” was nowhere in sight, and
Trump’s failure to get a handle on COVID-19 was crushing employers in a long
list of ways. As <a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-recession-double-whammy-8066e2d6-ba5d-4938-9f89-d52c63c16ad9.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">detailed</span></a> in
“How this recession is different,” by Felix Salmon, productivity was down 5-10%
(625). As examples, Salmon mentioned that co-workers were collaborating (and
coming up with creative ideas) less often in remote settings, nursing aides had
to pay more attention to infections than caregiving, airlines still needed a
basic number of crew members no matter how many people were on the flight, and
teachers were distracted from instruction by having to put so much focus on
public safety guidelines.<br />
<br />
According to Salmon, “Show me a business that involves individuals entering a
building, and I'll show you a business where leaders are being urged to put
significant new resources towards social distancing, ventilation, temperature
checks, health attestations, contact-tracing databases, ubiquitous hand
sanitizer stations, and myriad other COVID-related expenses.” (626)<br />
<br />
Between the increased costs of safety precautions and the drop in productivity,
for-profit businesses were struggling, especially low-margin businesses like
restaurants.<br />
<br />
Salmon’s key conclusion?<br />
<br />
“So long as COVID-19 continues to spread at a rate of more than 50,000 new
cases per day, the virus will continue to act as a deadweight on the economy,
depressing productivity — and total economic output — to well below pre-crisis
levels.” (627)<br />
<br />
Also in the news on Wednesday was the latest fallout from Trump’s attempts to
undermine the U.S. Postal Service and mail balloting. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mail-ballot-worries/2020/08/19/d75d97fe-e238-11ea-b69b-64f7b0477ed4_story.html?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">As reported</span></a> by
Amy Gardner, Erin Cox, and Michelle Ye Hee Lee of <i>the Washington Post</i>,
“Election officials are racing to install more ballot drop boxes and secure
large venues for Election Day voting, part of an urgent push to reassure
Americans worried about trusting their ballots to a U.S. Postal Service
engulfed in a political storm.<br />
<br />
“State and local election officials say they have been inundated with calls
from residents who say they no longer trust voting by mail, given widespread
reports of postal delays in recent weeks, as well as President Trump’s public
hostility to voting by mail.” (628)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Trump’s actions were sowing chaos in an already-challenging election season:<br />
<br />
“…The upheaval comes after months of planning by election administrators, who
are expecting <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/politics/vote-by-mail-states/?itid=lk_inline_manual_7"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">historic numbers of voters</span></a> to cast their ballots by mail to avoid risking
exposure to the novel coronavirus. Now, officials are worried that legions of
voters won’t choose to vote by mail after all, forcing them to reexamine their
capacity to safely offer in-person voting and to provide other ways to drop off
ballots.” (629)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">The administration had already stiffed election planners of money to adapt to
the pandemic (see #607). Now they were forcing local governments to raid
threadbare cupboards:<br />
<br />
“The onslaught of anxiety has prompted officials to scour for funds to install
ballot drop boxes across their communities. Although states and local
governments had already adopted plans for hundreds of drop boxes this year,
those plans accelerated this week. (630)<br />
<br />
“There are now efforts to install or expand drop boxes for the November
elections in Arizona, Iowa, Michigan, Kansas, Pennsylvania, Washington,
California, Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Idaho, Georgia, South
Carolina and more.”<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, “One thing many states can’t do is change deadlines set by
statute for requesting a ballot. In the past month, the Postal Service has sent
letters to 46 states informing them that their deadlines do not give the agency
time to guarantee that completed ballots will arrive back with election
officials in time to be counted.<br />
<br />
“Given that it’s too late in many states to consider changing those deadlines,
some officials are instead considering whether to tell voters not to rely on
the mail to return their ballots within two weeks of Nov. 3.”<br />
<br />
Ultimately, Trump’s months of lies were convincing previously unforeseen
numbers of voters to risk their health by voting in person, making election
officials “[seek] new, larger venues for in-person voting on Election Day
in case an unexpectedly high volume of voters shows up.”<br />
<br />
More post office shenanigans came to light on <b>Thursday, August 20</b>.
Despite Louis DeJoy’s statement earlier in the week that the USPS wouldn’t go
through with his planned “reforms,” Aaron Gordon of Vice.com <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/n7wk9z/the-post-office-is-deactivating-mail-sorting-machines-ahead-of-the-election"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that
the “USPS instructed all maintenance managers around the country not to
reconnect or reinstall any mail sorting machines they had already disconnected,
according to emails obtained by Motherboard.” (631)<br />
<br />
While DeJoy did Trump’s dirty work and Trump trolled Biden by going to his home
state (where he “<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/20/politics/trump-false-claims-pennsylvania-speech-biden-fact-check/index.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">delivered</span></a> a
wild monologue that involved unscripted musings about sharks, boxing,
dishwashers and the maintenance of forests”), a slew of coronavirus stories hit
the web.<br />
<br />
Trump’s adopted home state of Florida, helmed by Trump protégé Ron
DeSantis, <a href="https://www.axios.com/florida-coronavirus-death-toll-10000-f3b16124-1b2e-48bd-914f-c00284d5551a.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">passed 10,000 official COVID-19 deaths</span></a>.<br />
<br />
Tori Marsh <a href="https://www.goodrx.com/blog/covid-19-testing-deserts-in-the-united-states/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that
the administration’s refusal to set up a national testing plan was
shortchanging 67 million Americans who lived in “testing deserts,” contributing
to increases in infections in those communities. (632)<br />
<br />
One study showed that despite the administration’s promises of assistance, one
in every five nursing homes had “<a href="https://dnyuz.com/2020/08/20/1-in-5-nursing-homes-short-on-ppe-and-staff-in-virus-rebound/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">severe shortages</span></a>” of PPE, which was contributing to staff turnover and poor
patient care. (633)<br />
<br />
Another study concluded that “Not only are children quite capable of ‘silently
spreading’ COVID-19, they appear to be <a href="https://www.studyfinds.org/coronavirus-more-contagious-children-silently-spreading-covid-19/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">significantly more contagious</span></a> than infected adults,” certain to spread infections,
yet <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/20/us/schools-reopening-nurses-covid.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200821&instance_id=21485&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&section_index=2&section_name=four_more_big_stories&segment_id=36686&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">less than 40%</span> </a>of K-12 schools had a full-time nurse to handle medical
issues and no federal relief was on the horizon to close this gap. (634)<br />
<br />
Louis DeJoy’s <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/21/dejoy-postal-service-hearing-399659?nname=playbook&nid=0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=630318"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">virtual appearance</span></a> before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental
Affairs Committee led news on <b>Friday, August 21</b>.<br />
<br />
Though DeJoy’s policies had caused a <a href="https://oversight.house.gov/sites/democrats.oversight.house.gov/files/PMG%20Briefing%20%E2%80%93%20Service%20Performance%20Management%2008-12-20.pdf"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">clear decline</span></a> in service, and the USPS had warned states that they
might not be able to get ballots through the mail in time to be counted—just as
Trump wanted—DeJoy said the narrative that he was doing Trump’s bidding was an
“outrageous claim.” He promised to put his “reforms” on hold until after the
election, but refused to reverse his limits on overtime, or return the
mailboxes and sorting machines the USPS had decommissioned, and said, with
unintended irony, that “Managing the Postal Service in an efficient and
effective manner cannot succeed if everything is politicized.”<br />
<br />
Not willing to take DeJoy at his word, attorneys general in 20 different
states <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/postal-service-20-state-attorneys-general-sue-trump-administration/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">filed suit</span></a> to
stop the changes.<br />
<br />
Jordan Weissman and Aaron Mak of Slate took <a href="https://slate.com/business/2020/08/usps-mail-slowdown-dejoy-trump-election.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a close look</span></a> at
the state of the USPS since DeJoy had come in in July. Among the results of
DeJoy’s changes were vets not receiving their medications on time (635) and big
delays nationally (636):<br />
<br />
“<a href="https://postalpro.usps.com/mnt/glusterfs/2020-08/AIM%20Eastern%20Area%20Service.pdf"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">In the Eastern region</span></a>, the share of first class letters and so-called flat mail,
such as catalogs, delivered on time fell from over 91 percent to 79 percent. In
subareas like Northern Ohio, it dropped as far as 68 percent.<br />
<br />
The on-time rate <a href="https://postalpro.usps.com/mnt/glusterfs/2020-08/Pacific%20Area%20AIM%20Meeting%20Presentation%20(August%2013,%202020)_0.pdf"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">also fell significantly</span></a> in the Pacific region, though not quite as steeply.”<br />
<br />
The USPS also had chosen an odd time—an election year—to increase the number of
sorting machines removed many times over: “In 2018, the agency decommissioned
125 machines, which accounted for around 3 percent of the total. In 2019, it
decommissioned 186 machines, around 5 percent. This year’s 671 machines account
for about 13 percent.”<br />
<br />
Appearing before the Congressional Progressive Caucus on Thursday, Mark
Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union, “said the timing
of such a move seemed particularly ill-advised. Even though USPS should have
the capacity to handle a flurry of ballots, taking away the machines would
still limit its flexibility in an emergency.”<br />
<br />
An internal “Service Performance Measure” <a href="https://oversight.house.gov/sites/democrats.oversight.house.gov/files/PMG%20Briefing%20%E2%80%93%20Service%20Performance%20Management%2008-12-20.pdf"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">report</span></a> from
the USPS released by Carolyn Maloney (the chair of the House Oversight
Committee) on <b>Saturday, August 22</b> provided more damning data
about the decline in service since DeJoy’s takeover.<br />
<br />
The documentation also put the lie to the Republican talking point that the
Democrats’ concerns were overblown. As the House was getting ready to vote on a
stand-alone bill to provide the USPS with $25 billion in aid, Maloney told the
press, “To those who still claim there are ‘no delays’ and that these reports
are just ‘conspiracy theories,’ I hope this new data causes them to re-think
their position and support our urgent legislation today. We have all seen the
headlines from every corner of our country, we have read the stories and seen
pictures, we have heard directly from our constituents, and these new documents
show that the delays are far worse than we were told.”<br />
<br />
While his ally worked to dismantle a cherished American institution on the sly
and lied about doing so, Trump continued to try to shine the public on. As over
40,000 new cases were reported and Midwestern states got <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/08/22/coronavirus-covid-updates/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">slammed</span></a> with
infections—with seven-day increases in “the Dakotas, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas,
Minnesota, Oklahoma and Wyoming”—Trump fell back on misinformation.<br />
<br />
Borrowing from the “embers strategy” plank of distracting the public from the
horrors of the present by selling false hope with medical “fixes” that weren’t
realistic now or any time soon (see #507), Trump Tweeted support, yet again,
for hydroxychloroquine, which his own FDA had <a href="https://www.fda.gov/drugs/drug-safety-and-availability/fda-cautions-against-use-hydroxychloroquine-or-chloroquine-covid-19-outside-hospital-setting-or"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">ruled</span></a> was
ineffective and risky (637), and made a completely unfounded claim that “The
deep state, or whoever, over at the FDA is making it very difficult for drug companies
to get people in order to test the vaccines and therapeutics. Obviously, they
are hoping to delay the answer until after November 3rd.”<br />
<br />
Eric Topol, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/08/22/coronavirus-covid-updates/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">described</span></a> as
“a cardiologist and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute,”
told <i>the Washington Post</i>, “This is really taking it to an
unprecedented level….Every aspect of covid-19 — whether it’s diagnostic,
therapeutic — every single aspect, through and through, is being overtaken by
Trump….The whole idea is to promote human health and safety….and this is all
steps to compromise that.” (638)<br />
<br />
Trump’s continual lies and misinformation during the public health crisis were
disgraceful and destructive, as they helped convince millions of Americans to
behave recklessly and spread the virus. At the same time, Trump’s lies were banal
and predictable, given his obvious human limitations. As Saturday night wound
to a close, the world got an up-close view of the twisted psychology of the
leader of the free world when <a href="https://www.startribune.com/in-secretly-recorded-audio-president-trump-s-sister-says-he-has-no-principles-and-you-can-t-trust-him/572196022/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">audio recordings</span></a> of Trump’s older sister Maryanne were leaked.<br />
<br />
The woman who had observed Trump since he had come out of the womb, who had
babysat Trump as a toddler, who arguably knew Trump better than any living
being, told her niece that her younger brother, “Has no principles. None.” She
also referred to “His goddamned tweet and lying” and added, “I’m talking too
freely, but you know. The change of stories. The lack of preparation. The
lying. Holy shit.”<br />
<br />
While Trump was coasting on <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjones/2020/02/17/obamas-2009-recovery-act-kicked-off-over-10-years-of-economic-growth/#22daa33968b7"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">Barack Obama’s extended
economic boom</span></a>, these character defects were easy
for millions to overlook, but in a time of national emergency they were at the
root of a mass human tragedy projected to <a href="https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">kill 310,000 Americans</span></a> by December 1. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Knowing that the death toll on election day would be impossible to hide, Trump
continued his effort to convince Americans that we were on the verge of a major
medical breakthrough. On <b>Sunday, August 23</b>, Trump promised a big
announcement.<br />
<br />
In what Trump’s press secretary had billed as “a major therapeutic
breakthrough,” the FDA “<a href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/08/23/fda-under-pressure-from-trump-expected-to-authorize-blood-plasma-as-covid-19-treatment/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">authorized</span></a><span style="color: #3d85c6;"> </span>the
use of blood plasma from patients who have recovered from Covid-19 as a
treatment for the disease.” At a press conference announcing the EAU (emergency
use authorization), Trump claimed that “Today’s action will dramatically expand
access to this treatment” (639) and that “convalescent plasma has been proven
to reduce mortality by 35%.” (640)<br />
<br />
As ever with Trump, it was a case of overselling and underdelivering. <br />
<br />
Trump’s own staff at the National Institutes of Health had tried to block the
authorization because test data on the treatment was insufficient, and as
Nicholas Florko of statnews.com<span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-themecolor: accent5;"> </span><a href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/08/23/fda-under-pressure-from-trump-expected-to-authorize-blood-plasma-as-covid-19-treatment/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">pointed out</span></a>, the mortality numbers cited were questionable. Eric Topol
of the Scripps Research Translational Institute tweeted that the FDA’s action
was “outrageous” and “There’s no evidence to support any survival benefit. 2
days ago FDA’s website stated there was no evidence for an EUA.”<br />
<br />
Shilling magic plasma was Trump’s feeble attempt to convince the public that
the administration was making progress against the coronavirus. In reality,
COVID was still in control of the country, with reported cases in the <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/country/united-states?country=~USA"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">tens of thousands daily</span></a> and deaths over a thousand per day because of Trump’s
failure to do his job. <br />
<br />
Anyone with basic powers of observation could see that things weren’t going so
well in the U.S., that we were far worse off than we’d been when Trump took
office, that we were far worse off than most developed countries, and that
Trump’s failures of governance (see #1-#640) had played a major hand in
bringing us to this low point. Yet polling on the eve of the Republican
National Convention once again showed the effectiveness of Trump’s pattern of
consistent, pathological dishonesty (641) and the breathtaking stupidity and
selfishness of most Republican voters. (See #145, #204, #283, #307, #313, #s
319-323. #325, #330, #339, #347, #387, #440, #452, #534, #566-567) <br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/republicans-economy-coronavirus-opinion-poll-cbs-news-battleground-tracker/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">According to</span></a> CBS news, 57% of Republicans found the deaths of
176,000 Americans due to COVID-19 “acceptable.” 73% of Republicans thought
Trump’s handling of the coronavirus was “going well.” 64% of Republicans
believed that the official number of deaths was an overcount; only 18% grasped
that the total was a significant undercount, <a href="https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/largest-seroprevalence-study-in-us-shows-vast-covid-19-undercount-67762"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">according to</span></a> Trump’s own CDC. 75% of Republicans believed America was
better off than it had been four years prior, when there had been no pandemic,
no mass protests, and a roaring economy. 67% of Republicans considered the
worst economy since the Great Depression to be “good.”<br />
<br />
While Republicans turned reality on its head, Jacob Blake, an African-American
from Kenosha, Wisconsin lay in a hospital bed after having been <a href="https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2020/08/27/questions-police-use-force-after-kenosha-shooting-answered/5645186002/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">shot seven times in the
back</span></a> by a white police officer as his
three young sons sat in his car. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">The ability of Republican voters to stick their heads in the
sand was again on display on <b>Monday, August 24</b>. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Florida, a state under full GOP control since 1999 which had largely <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/ron-de-santis-sidelined-his-health-department-florida-paid-the-price-090031468.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">ignored</span></a> public health guidelines, passed <a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-florida-infections-milestone-a09da649-e7f0-4d49-9ce6-b8fb581f5ef5.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">600,000</span></a> official COVID-19 infections. The efforts of Trump ally,
governor Ron DeSantis, to force school districts into re-opening for in-person
instruction were <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/24/world/covid-19-coronavirus.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200825&instance_id=21584&nl=the-morning&regi_id=87101069&section_index=1&section_name=big_story&segment_id=36872&te=1&user_id=1baa2c82b5fd57364c41fdc8e1f99240#link-bd84ee2"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">blocked</span></a> by a judge who said that the order “arbitrarily
[disregarded] safety.”<br />
<br />
The opening night of the Republican Convention would have none of these harsh
realities. The day started off with Trump <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-24/trump-to-win-symbolic-republican-vote-to-jump-start-campaign"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">lying</span></a> about mail-in balloting (642) and followed up later
with a St. Louis couple who played to <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/24/mccloskey-convention-speech-guns-suburbs-401297"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">primal and irrational
white grievances</span></a> and fear (643). The star
attraction of the evening was Donald Trump, Jr., who <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/the-rnc-has-made-a-strong-case-for-americas-imminent-collapse/ar-BB18no9z"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">attacked</span></a> teachers’ unions for wanting to keep kids and school
staff safe (644), <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-08-24/republican-convention-what-happened-day-one"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">dog-whistled</span></a> to white Republicans by blaming “the Chinese Communist
Party” for the coronavirus’s transmission from bat to human (645), and <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/25/rnc-trump-covid-19-401387"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">against all evidence</span></a>—including the fact the GOP was hosting a virtual convention
due to public health concerns—presented his daddy as a president who had
“marshaled resources, forcefully responded to the deadly threat, and ‘moved
mountains’ to save American lives” from COVID-19.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">COVID-19 re-asserted its prominence in the reality-based
world on <b>Tuesday, August 25</b>.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Universities which had opened too soon were <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/08/25/college-coronavirus-cases/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">getting slammed</span></a> with new infections (646), medical bills were <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/for-many-pandemic-victims-lingering-effects-stress-insurance-coverage-11598347801"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">mounting</span></a> for Americans who weren’t recovering fully from
COVID-19 (647), and mortgage delinquency rates <a href="http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/08212020_national_delinquency_survey.asp"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">continued to climb</span></a>. (648)<br />
<br />
The administration had no public plans to address these issues, but they <i>were</i>
proactive in trying to reduce official infection rates—by signaling to
asymptomatic Americans that they didn’t need to get tested, even if they had
been exposed to people who had tested positive. (649)<br />
<br />
As <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/25/health/covid-19-testing-cdc.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">reported</span></a> by Katherine Wu of <i>the New York Times</i>, the
CDC’s sudden policy change directly contradicted an initiative put out just
weeks earlier by the National Institutes of Health which was focused on
“[detecting] people who are asymptomatic.”<br />
<br />
The change was bound to cause confusion for state and local public health
officials (650), as it was a radical shift from previous CDC policy:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">“Prior iterations of the C.D.C.’s testing guidelines struck
a markedly different tone, explicitly stating that ‘testing is recommended for
all close contacts’ of people infected with the coronavirus, regardless of
symptoms. The agency also specifically emphasized ‘the potential for
asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic transmission’ as an important factor in the
spread of the virus.”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">The administration directive to ignore the 40% of infected people who manifest
no symptoms was baffling to the medical community. Susan Butler-Wu, a
microbiologist from the University of Southern California, told <i>the
Times</i>, “Wow, that is a walk-back….We’re in the middle of a pandemic, and
that’s a really big change.” She added that “If people are getting exposed, and
they’re not getting tested, and they’re not isolating, that’s a huge
problem.” <br />
<br />
That same day, following “an outcry from medical experts, Food and Drug
Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn…apologized for overstating the
life-saving benefits of treating COVID-19 patients with convalescent plasma.”
(see #639-640)<br />
<br />
As <a href="https://apnews.com/a7f0e8aac34a860ad502912564681b7c"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">reported</span></a> by Matthew Perrone and Deb Riechmann of the Associated
Press, “Hahn had echoed Trump in saying that 35 more people out of 100 would
survive the coronavirus if they were treated with the plasma. That claim vastly
overstated preliminary findings of Mayo Clinic observations.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Dr. Jesse Goodman from Georgetown mentioned that Hahn’s
distortions had not only provided false hope, but did damage to the credibility
of the FDA (651), which could hinder America’s future efforts to get citizens
to take the COVID-19 vaccine:</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">“I think the constant pressure, the name-calling, the perception that decisions
are made under pressure is damaging….We need the American people to have full
confidence that medicines and vaccines are safe.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p><span style="line-height: 107%;">These transparently political moves fed the
public view that Joe Biden was </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.axios.com/axios-ipsos-poll-coronavirus-index-biden-trump-trust-3b11f3f6-27c0-4ddf-869f-a719fb99df32.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">more
trustworthy</span></a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> in
dealing with the virus than Trump, but as ever, most Republican voters were
blind to just how inadequate Trump’s response (see #1-#651) had been.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">This disconnect from reality showed up in night two of the
Republican National Convention. As <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/8/26/21402124/rnc-coronavirus-past-tense-larry-kudlow?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Sentences%2082620&utm_content=Sentences%2082620+CID_89fd469ad8f939a82620aa126a127a29&utm_source=cm_email&utm_term=Vox%20%20Aaron%20Rupar"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">reported</span></a> by Aaron Rupar for <i>Vox</i>, speakers gave
viewers a false sense of security by referring to the coronavirus in <i>the
past tense</i> (652), even though jobless claims were increasing, over
36,000 new infections and 1,100 deaths were tallied that day, the fall flu
season could easily lead to an uptick in cases, and the administration had no
concrete plans to combat the pandemic anytime soon. <br />
<br />
As one example of many, Trump’s economic adviser Larry Kudlow said, “It was
awful….Health and economic impacts were tragic. Hardship and heartbreak were
everywhere. But presidential leadership came swiftly and effectively with an
extraordinary rescue for health and safety to successfully fight the Covid
virus.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Try as they might
to normalize a pandemic, the GOP couldn’t stop legitimate news organizations
from reporting the numerous ways the coronavirus was impacting Americans or the
key role the administration had had (and was continuing to have) in enabling
the pandemic’s spread.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">On <b>Wednesday, August 26</b>, more information
came out about Trump’s latest attempt to reduce the number of tests
administered in order to try to win a second term by keeping public infection
totals artificially low. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">David Lim and Adam Cancryn of <i>Politico</i> <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/26/brett-giroir-coronavirus-testing-cdc-402524"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">detailed</span></a> the administration’s inexplicable decision earlier in
the week to give state and local governments the green light to reduce testing
(see #649) in “Trump officials pressured CDC to change virus testing
guidelines.”<br />
<br />
The opening paragraph cut to the heart of the matter:<br />
<br />
“Top Trump administration officials involved with the White House coronavirus
task force ordered the Centers for Disease Control and Protection to stop
promoting coronavirus testing for most people who have been exposed to the
virus but aren't showing symptoms, according to two people with knowledge of
the process.”<br />
<br />
The administration had tried to sneak the new guidelines past the eyes of the
press and the public, and was abdicating responsibility to states and local
governments, as they had done all along:<br />
<br />
“The revised testing guidelines, which CDC released late Monday with no public
notice (653), say it is up to state and local
public health officials and health providers to decide whether people without
symptoms or underlying risk factors need a test after high-risk situations —
such as coming into contact with an infected person for more than 15 minutes.<br />
<br />
“The agency also now says it is up to local public health experts to decide
whether testing is needed for people who attend a public or private gathering
of more than 10 individuals when masks are not worn and social-distancing
guidelines are not followed.” (654)<br />
<br />
Susan Bailey, president of the American Medical Association, told <i>Politico</i>,
“Suggesting that people without symptoms, who have known exposure to
COVID-positive individuals, do not need testing is a recipe for community
spread and more spikes in coronavirus.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Reducing the number of tests and official infections
appeared to be directly tied to reducing Trump’s culpability at election time
for America’s first-in-the-world infection rates. Another stunningly cynical
tactic Trump was engaged in was his two-step on mail balloting; even as he <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/06/every-trump-ally-who-has-voted-by-mail-list.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">voted by mail</span></a>, and his son <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/26/donald-trump-jr-vote-mail-robocall-402503"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">Don Jr.’s voice</span></a> was used in robocalls to swing states advocating mail
voting, Trump continued to peddle the lie that voting by mail was rife with
fraud. One of his <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1275024974579982336?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">claims</span></a>, that foreign powers would manipulate mail voting from
abroad, was disputed by “<a href="http://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/26/intel-officials-contradict-trump-on-voting-by-mail-402470"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">a top official</span></a>” in Trump’s own Office of the Director of National
Intelligence. (655)</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">What little the administration <i>was</i> trying
to do to combat the pandemic was dubious on policy grounds. As part of the
CARES Act passed in March, the administration’s Education Department had been
given $16 billion in aid to disburse to K-12 schools. Education Secretary Betsy
Devos (who is married to a billionaire) took it upon herself to “<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/26/judge-blocks-devos-plan-pandemic-relief-private-school-students-402900"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">rewrite the statutory
formula</span></a>” for school aid (656) as an excuse
to divert taxpayer money from public schools to private schools without regard
for the economic need of the students, in effect shortchanging at-risk children
across the country (657). Devos’ efforts to favor children of privilege was
blocked in court on Wednesday, the <a href="https://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2020/08/judge-devos-coronavirus-rule-injunction.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">second time</span></a> this had happened in the prior week.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Against a hellscape largely of Trump’s creation, Republicans did what they do
best at the convention that night: <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/08/27/fact-checking-third-night-2020-republican-national-convention/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">lie</span></a> about the coronavirus, paint <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/04/22/715875291/is-joe-biden-too-centrist-for-todays-democratic-party"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">lifetime centrist</span></a> Joe Biden as a radical leftist, and play to conservative
white Americans’ <a href="https://www.salon.com/test2/2015/04/10/white_americas_racial_illiteracy_why_our_national_conversation_is_poisoned_from_the_start_partner/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">denial about race</span></a>.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Lee Zeldin, a representative from New York, said, “The administration delivered
public, private and semi-automated lab testing approvals at blinding speed,”
though the U.S. in actuality had failed to get tests out on any scale for over
two months. Mike Pence gushed about the administration’s “seamless partnership”
with governors, though many governors had begged for PPE they never received,
and once again wheeled out the myth that Trump’s move to limit flights from
China had been decisive and unprecedented, though 38 countries had done
something similar and 40,000 people had come into the country from China after
the ban had gone into effect.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Manipulating lizard brain fear about localized events happening thousands of
miles away, and ignoring the fact that a right-wing vigilante in Kenosha
had <a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/08/27/tucker-carlson-defends-kenosha-shooter/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">gunned two people down</span></a> the night before, multiple speakers took the occasion
of the looting and violence following Jacob Blake’s shooting to claim that Joe
Biden would undermine law enforcement officials, who were not funded or
overseen by the federal government. Mike Pence even claimed that “you won’t be
safe in Biden’s America.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><i>New Yorker</i> writer Susan Glasser summed up the evening’s staggering
ironies with <a href="https://twitter.com/sbg1/status/1298819585135779840?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200827&instance_id=21656&nl=the-morning&regi_id=87101069&section_index=2&section_name=three_more_big_stories&segment_id=37015&te=1&user_id=1baa2c82b5fd57364c41fdc8e1f99240"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">a tweet</span></a>:<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">“So America right now has: deadly pandemic, massive unemployment and recession,
schools unable to open, protests over racial injustice, a killer hurricane
bearing down on the South...<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">And I am watching Mike Pence talk about how bad things would be in Joe Biden’s
America.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Pence and Trump’s failures of governance were looked at
on <b>Thursday, August 27</b> in a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/27/world/global-coronavirus-attitudes-pew-intl/index.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">Pew Research study</span></a> of 14 developed countries. Because of Trump’s
hyper-politicization of the pandemic, America finished “dead last” in its
ability to maintain unity throughout the pandemic (658). The U.S. also finished
last—tied with the U.K., another developed country under conservative rule—in
how well its government had handled the pandemic. 78% of Republicans in the
survey believed that “the economic situation is good and the government is
handling the crisis well.”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">In the real world, the economic situation was not good, as in excess of a
million Americans had <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/unemployment-benefits-jobless-claims-08-27-2020-11598481716"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">filed</span></a> for unemployment benefits in the prior week (659),
roughly 5X the rate people had been filing at before the pandemic, and the
Commerce Department reported that America’s GDP had fallen by 31.7% in the
second quarter of 2020. (660)<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">House Democrats had passed the HEROES Act on May 15 to pump
stimulus into the economy, help state and local governments which were deep in
debt, and ensure that tens of millions of Americans struggling with
unemployment would continue to receive enhanced benefits, but <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/13/where-stimulus-talks-stand-now-that-senate-has-adjourned-for-august.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">the GOP had sandbagged
the negotiations</span></a>. Asked about this poorly-timed
concern with fiscal discipline by Ben White of <i>Politico</i>, Trump economic
adviser Larry Kudlow, who had been a key advocate for Trump’s $2 trillion tax
cut which had gone <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/15/rich-would-get-1-trillion-tax-cut-under-trumps-tax-loophole.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">overwhelmingly</span></a> to the wealthy, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/27/kudlow-coronavirus-relief-spending-403736"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">claimed</span></a> that “At least a third, if not more” of the Democrats’
proposals were not “smart spending.” Cited as an example of unnecessary
spending was the Democrats’ request for $25 billion for the U.S. Postal Service
(USPS).</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">As Julie Zauzmer of <i>the Washington Post</i> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2020/08/27/usps-delayed-packages/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">reported</span></a>, Kudlow’s talking point belied the experience of numerous
USPS customers around the country who were receiving messages telling them that
their packages were “being held at a post office ‘at the request of the
customer.’” The message was leading to confusion—and potentially risky visits
to the post office (661)—because in many cases the packages simply didn’t go
out on time. (see #636)<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">According to Zauzmer, “The packages are delayed because of
broad changes Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has implemented to the nation’s
mail delivery operations, including policies that slow down package delivery.
When a mail carrier cannot deliver a package on the day it was scheduled
because their shift is ending, postal workers say, the system sometimes
generates a misleading ‘held at the request of the customer’ message.”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">When pressed by Congress, DeJoy had refused to “reverse his ban on extra trips
to deliver more mail,” leading to continued delays in delivery (662), a worrisome
sign right before an election certain to have record amounts of mail ballots.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">But late mail was for little people. The big event of the
day was Trump’s nomination speech at the Republican National Convention,
which <a href="https://www.chron.com/news/article/Trump-celebrates-at-crowded-party-mostly-devoid-15520959.php"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">flagrantly violated</span></a> the COVID-19 safety standards set by Trump’s own CDC.
There were reportedly no pre-screenings for temperature and other symptoms of
COVID-19 and few of the people were pre-tested (663). The crowd flouted
regulations about public meetings, with 1,500 people crammed into a small space—the
South Lawn of the White House (664). There was no social distancing; attendees
sat right next to each other on folding chairs (665). Masks were few and far
between (666). There was a distinct likelihood that Trump’s speech could become
yet another one of his super-spreader events. (667)</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">The lies came so fast and furious during Trump’s speech that MSNBC host Rachel
Maddow performed real-time fact-checking at “<a href="https://www.mediaite.com/election-2020/watch-rachel-maddows-blistering-fact-check-of-trump-speech-delivered-at-auctioneer-speed/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">auctioneer speed</span></a>.” Despite the death of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/08/12/us/covid-deaths-us.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">over 200,000 Americans</span></a> from COVID-19, millions infected, six million jobs lost,
and seven trillion dollars added to the national debt, Trump spoke of the
“extraordinary progress” made under his presidency.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Though African-Americans had been <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/05/30/865413079/what-do-coronavirus-racial-disparities-look-like-state-by-state"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">disproportionately
impacted</span></a> by both the pandemic he’d failed to
control and the resulting economic collapse (668), Trump <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-presented-the-mother-of-all-fabrications-on-the-white-house-lawn/2020/08/28/a08c2fb8-e8d9-11ea-97e0-94d2e46e759b_story.html?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">claimed</span></a> to have “done more for the African American community than
any president since Abraham Lincoln.” <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">As ever, his main focus was on triggering <a href="https://apnews.com/74c29d2096afc272e7260b84654b8307"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">white Republicans’
amygdalas</span></a>. Though Trump couldn’t bring himself
to acknowledge Jacob Blake by name, he used the unrest that took place in
downtown Kenosha, which had zero impact on 99.99999% of Americans, as a
platform to float dog whistle statements about “law and order” and claim the
Democrats would give “free rein to violent anarchists, agitators and
criminals.” <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">When it came to the pandemic, Trump again played the race card by blaming China
for his own failures (669) and advocated re-opening the economy further, though
we weren’t ready to do so safely (670). He also <a href="https://www.axios.com/trump-rnc-speech-strategy-b2cbd308-6406-4308-a5d4-96c5a96dba49.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">claimed</span></a> that Biden’s science-first, long-term plan was “a surrender
to the virus,” (671) while in fact it was his largely hands-off, see-no-evil
governance which had been the true surrender to the virus. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">The next morning, <b>Friday, August 28</b>, German Lopez <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020-presidential-election/2020/8/28/21405325/trump-rnc-speech-fact-check-cnn-daniel-dale"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">wrote</span></a> about CNN reporter Daniel Dale’s 3-minute fact check of
Trump’s speech, which covered 21 false claims. As Zack Beauchamp of <i>Vox</i>
put it, the Republicans had “<a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/8/28/21405144/trump-rnc-speech-fact-check-lies-hatch-act?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Sentences%2082820&utm_content=Sentences%2082820+CID_a6d7c26a7955ec9e7e1eb97ed24006cd&utm_source=cm_email&utm_term=The%20RNC%20weaponized%20exhaustion"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">weaponized exhaustion</span></a>,” telling more lies on the first night of their convention
than the Democrats had told in all four nights of their convention <i>combined</i>.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">They got away with it because most Republican voters were
mis- or ill-informed (see #145, #204, #283, #307, #313, #s 319-323. #325, #330,
#339, #347, #387, #440, #452, #534, #s 566-567, #641) and because the
Republicans “have become so disdainful of the essentials of political practice
in a democratic society — a baseline attachment to the rule of law and honesty
in political discourse — that they mock the very idea of accountability on
these questions. They count on the sheer volume of misinformation — ‘<a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/1/16/20991816/impeachment-trial-trump-bannon-misinformation"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">flooding the zone with
shit</span></a>,’ in Steve Bannon’s memorable
phrase — to overwhelm our political institutions’ ability to check their
misbehavior.” (672)</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Far less easy for Republicans to control than their
sheep-like supporters were real world events. Consumer spending, already low,
was <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-consumer-spending-rebound-cools-130322665.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">slowing down</span></a> and likely to decrease even more due to the GOP’s <a href="https://www.axios.com/mcconnell-senate-recess-august-defaea3c-6f3c-4e39-964f-f63ef8ef2674.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">abandonment</span></a> of stimulus talks. (673)</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">In Friday’s<span style="color: #4472c4; mso-themecolor: accent1;">
</span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/08/28/coronavirus-covid-live-updates-us/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">coronavirus news</span></a>, a man in Nevada was re-infected with COVID-19, the first
reported instance in the U.S. America continued to lead the world with over
178,000 official COVID-19 deaths and 5.8 million infections, both <a href="https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/largest-seroprevalence-study-in-us-shows-vast-covid-19-undercount-67762"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">major undercounts</span></a>. Colleges which had opened prematurely continued to see
huge spikes in infections.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">And national health organizations were in an uproar over the
CDC’s tacit push to reduce testing. The National Association of County and City
Health Officials and Big Cities Health Coalition sent a letter to the CDC which
said, “Changing testing guidelines to suggest that close contacts to confirmed
positives without symptoms do not need to be tested is inconsistent with the
science and the data” and “these changes in testing guidelines may have broad
impacts on our ability to fight covid-19.” (674) The American Academy of
Pediatrics said the CDC’s new policy was a “dangerous step backward in our
efforts to control this deadly virus.”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">After months of terrible decisions which had killed hundreds
of thousands of Americans, it was clear the administration didn’t much care
about sound public health policy. The single and only goal was to confuse an
electoral college majority’s worth of gullible (mostly white) voters into
believing that the administration was on top of the crisis.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">In service to this goal, the administration dumped Emily
Miller, who had been the FDA spokesperson for a grand total of two weeks. <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/28/fda-top-spokesperson-leaves-404422"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">According to</span></a> Dan Diamond and Adam Cancryn of <i>Politico</i>, while the
FDA spokesperson slot had generally been filled by “a career civil servant” who
knew what they were talking about, the administration had chosen an
extreme-right pseudo journalist with “no prior medical or science experience.”
(675) A health official told<i> Politico</i> that Miller “couldn't even
pronounce convalescent plasma.” Her sin in the administration’s eyes was not a
lack of qualifications for her job or craven dishonesty about important public
health matters, but making the president look bad during election season.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">More administration blunders came out on <b>Saturday, August
29</b>. In “Trump Program to Cover Uninsured Covid-19 Patients Falls Short of
Promise,” Abby Goodnough of <i>the New York Times</i> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/29/health/Covid-obamacare-uninsured.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200830&instance_id=21756&nl=the-morning&regi_id=87101069&section_index=1&section_name=big_story&segment_id=37185&te=1&user_id=1baa2c82b5fd57364c41fdc8e1f99240"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">reported</span></a> on the cracks in America’s coronavirus safety net.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">In April, Trump had blocked a proposal to expand the Affordable
Care Act (ACA) to cover Americans who were losing their coverage due to mass
layoffs; he had also opposed the expansion of Medicaid. As <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/29/health/Covid-obamacare-uninsured.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200830&instance_id=21756&nl=the-morning&regi_id=87101069&section_index=1&section_name=big_story&segment_id=37185&te=1&user_id=1baa2c82b5fd57364c41fdc8e1f99240"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">reported</span></a> by <i>Politico</i> at the time, the administration instead
had opted to pay “providers directly for coronavirus treatment,” rather than go
through the ACA. According to the <i>Politico</i> article, “The uninsured will
be able to seek treatment immediately, without worrying about first purchasing
insurance coverage, [Health and Human Services Secretary Alex] Azar said. And
hospitals will be reimbursed swiftly for their expenses, on the additional
condition that they not stick their patients with surprise bills.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">“‘In many respects, it’s better for those uninsured
individuals,’” Azar had said. “‘What President Trump is doing here with this
money is an unprecedented disease-specific support of care for individuals to
make sure that people get treatment.’”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Time showed that Azar had made a false promise:</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">“…a review by The New York Times of <a href="https://data.cdc.gov/Administrative/Claims-Reimbursement-to-Health-Care-Providers-and-/rksx-33p3"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">payments made through</span></a> [the administration’s program], as well as interviews with
hospital executives, patients and health policy researchers who have examined
the payments, suggest the quickly concocted plan has not lived up to its
promise. It has caused confusion at participating hospitals, which in some
cases have mistakenly billed patients…who should be covered by it (676). Few
patients seem to know the program exists, so they don’t question the charges
(677). And some hospitals and other medical providers have <a href="https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Companies-take-millions-in-COVID-help-but-don-t-15429867.php"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">chosen not to participate</span></a> in the program, which bars them from seeking any
payment from patients whose bills they submit to it. (678)</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">“Large numbers of patients have also been disqualified
because Covid-19 has to be the primary diagnosis for a case to be covered
(unless the patient is pregnant). (679) Since hospitalized Covid patients often
have other serious medical conditions, many have other primary diagnoses. At
Jackson Health in Miami, for example, only 60 percent of uninsured Covid-19
patients had decisively met the requirements to have their charges covered
under the program as of late July, a spokeswoman said.”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">The failures of the administration showed that “Mr. Trump
and his party have no vision for improving health coverage, and instead promote
piecemeal solutions, even in a national health crisis. Mr. Trump had promised a
plan to replace the Affordable Care Act by the beginning of August, but none
has been announced and he and other Republicans barely mentioned health policy
in their national convention last week.”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">As with all of the administration’s efforts, the program
wasn’t remotely up to the scale necessary:</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">“Health care providers in all 50 states had been reimbursed
a total of $851 million from the fund as of last week — $267 million for
testing and $584 million for treatment— with hospitals in Texas and New Jersey
receiving the most.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">“But the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan research
organization, has estimated that hospital costs alone for uninsured coronavirus
patients could reach between <a href="https://www.kff.org/uninsured/issue-brief/estimated-cost-of-treating-the-uninsured-hospitalized-with-covid-19/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">$13.9 billion and $41.8
billion</span></a>, far more than what the program has
paid out so far.” (680)</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Sara Rosenbaum, a professor at George Washington University,
told <i>the Times</i>, “This is not the way you deal with uninsured people
during a public health emergency.”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Contrary to the rosy picture Republicans had painted all
week, America’s public health emergency was far from over. A <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/29/coronavirus-cases-climb-in-the-midwest-as-more-states-report-growing-outbreaks.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">CNBC analysis</span></a> showed that cases were rising by 5% or more in 21 states
and the District of Columbia. Infection rates were especially high in “Indiana,
Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio and South
Dakota.” Other than Minnesota, all of these states had supported Trump in 2016.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">While the pandemic spread through the Midwest, Trump’s years
of extreme polarization bore fruit in Portland that night after the far-right
Patriot Prayer group trolled Black Lives Matter protesters. In the melee that
followed, a member of Patriot Prayer <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/30/us/portland-trump-rally-shooting.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">lost his life</span></a>.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><i>The Washington Post</i>
broke the big story on <b>Sunday, August 30</b>, “How Trump
politicized another federal agency’s response to the pandemic.”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/how-trump-politicized-another-federal-agencys-response-to-the-pandemic/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">The long read</span></a> gave a fly-on-the-wall view of the administration’s snake
oil sale of convalescent plasma a week earlier (see #s 639-640). The FDA hadn’t
been ready to advocate for the treatment because the research data was
inconclusive, but the White House fast-tracked the emergency use authorization
anyway to boost Trump in the lead-in to his convention (681). The night before
the announcement, Trump’s press secretary Kayleigh McEnany had tweeted that
there was a “major therapeutic breakthrough on the China Virus.” Trump’s FDA
head Stephen Hahn had rushed from his home in Colorado to be at the president’s
side for the announcement.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Hahn knew Trump was grossly exaggerating at the press
conference when he cited false data and called convalescent plasma a “very
historic breakthrough,” but decided to lie to reporters rather than contradict
his temperamental boss. (682)</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">According to <i>the Post</i>, “The misrepresentations became
a debacle for the FDA, shaking its professional staff to the core (683) and
undermining its credibility as it approaches one of the most important and
fraught decisions in its history (684) amid a divisive presidential election –
deciding when a covid-19 vaccine is safe and effective. Yet again, the
president had harnessed the machinery of government to advance his political
agenda – with potentially corrosive effects on public trust in government scientists’
handling of the pandemic.”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Hahn had backtracked from the claims he’d made on Monday,
but “demoralized [FDA] employees felt he had allowed the agency to become a
prop in the president’s re-election campaign – a bit player in a reality TV
show scripted by political operatives, not scientists.”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">“…What rankled agency insiders was the way a defensible FDA
decision to authorize an incremental advance for a disease with few treatments
was being described as a huge leap forward in an over-the-top White House
rollout. How, they wondered, would the FDA have any credibility on a vaccine
decision if it bungled something much simpler?”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Hahn’s poor judgment was of a piece with the FDA’s earlier
back-and-forth on whether to regulate hydroxychloroquine, its decision not to
regulate covid-19 antibodies (see #433), and the CDC’s recent moves to reduce
testing. Hahn’s lack of government experience was also hobbling the agency:</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">“The FDA’s situation is further complicated by an
inexperienced commissioner who former agency leaders say failed at a critical
task: to clearly explain the complicated ‘risk-benefit’ calculation that goes
into every drug authorization or approval.” (685)</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Adding to the confusion, Trump’s Health and Human Services
Department (HHS) had been more concerned about public perceptions than public
health reality, thus they were “angry that Hahn had publicly apologized for
misstating plasma’s potential benefits without clearing that with HHS
communications staff. Michael Caputo, assistant secretary for public affairs at
HHS, argued that it muddled Trump’s and the administration’s message on the
treatment, according to one former and one current official.”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">These type of politically-driven policy decisions were out
of the norm for previous administrations:</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">“HHS officials are ‘making clear what their expectations are
in a way that is not traditional,’ said another individual familiar with the
situation. ‘It doesn’t mean it’s illegal or wrong. … Generally speaking, you
don’t have HHS leadership weigh in on specific drug approvals, an (emergency
use authorization), or those sorts of things.’ The FDA does have ‘less and less
autonomy.’” (686)</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Jerome Avorn of Harvard Medical School told <i>the Post</i>,
“I’ve been following health regulatory decisions for decades and have never
seen this amount of White House arm twisting to force agencies like FDA and CDC
to make decisions based on political pressure, rather than the best science.”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Trump’s indifference to science and public health was
reviewed again on <b>Monday, August 31</b> by reporters Yasmeen Abutaleb and
Josh Dawsey in “New Trump pandemic adviser pushes controversial ‘herd immunity’
strategy, worrying public health officials.”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><a href="https://www.lmtonline.com/news/article/New-Trump-pandemic-adviser-pushes-controversial-15526711.php"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">According to</span></a> Abutaleb and Dawsey, Trump’s new favorite public health
adviser, Scott Atlas (see #s 622-623) was “urging the White House to embrace a
controversial ‘herd immunity’ strategy to combat the pandemic, which would
entail allowing the coronavirus to spread through most of the population to
quickly build resistance to the virus, while taking steps to protect those in
nursing homes and other vulnerable populations. (687)</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">“The administration has already begun to implement some
policies along these lines, according to current and former officials as well
as experts, particularly with regard to testing.”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Atlas had pointed to Sweden as an example of herd immunity “success,”
but “Sweden's handling of the pandemic has been heavily criticized by public
health officials and infectious-disease experts as reckless - the country has
among the highest infection and death rates in the world. It also hasn't
escaped the deep economic problems resulting from the pandemic.”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Public health experts in the U.S. were scratching their
heads, again:</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">“That this approach is even being discussed inside the White
House is drawing concern from experts inside and outside the government who
note that a herd immunity strategy could lead to the country suffering hundreds
of thousands, if not millions, of lost lives.”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Atlas, “who does not have a background in infectious
diseases or epidemiology,” had claimed that “an increased case count will move
the nation more quickly to herd immunity and won't lead to more deaths if the
vulnerable are protected. But infectious-disease experts strongly dispute that,
noting that more than 25,000 people younger than 65 have died of the virus in
the United States. In addition, the United States has a higher number of
vulnerable people of all ages because of high rates of heart and lung disease
and obesity, and millions of vulnerable people live outside nursing homes -
many in the same households with children, whom Atlas believes should return to
school.”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Though the administration wouldn’t admit it publicly, in
practice they were moving the U.S. in the direction of herd immunity by pushing
schools to re-open, reducing testing guidelines, and not funding testing and
tracing at anywhere near the level necessary, which was allowing infections to
spread far and wide and often undetected.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">That same day, Atlas <a href="https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2020/08/31/atlas-makes-florida-swing-backing-desantis-on-schools-and-sports-1314047?nname=politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition&nid=00000170-c000-da87-af78-e185fa700000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=2670445"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">made an appearance</span></a> in Florida, where he appeared with Republican governor Ron
DeSantis, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/coronavirus-ravaged-florida-as-ron-desantis-sidelined-scientists-and-followed-trump/2020/07/25/0b8008da-c648-11ea-b037-f9711f89ee46_story.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">the poster boy for
coronavirus mismanagement</span></a>. Atlas
parroted the administration talking point that healthy people didn’t need to be
tested (688), suggested that college athletes should put their health on the
line for the sake of other peoples’ entertainment, and dismissed the safety of
Florida’s schoolchildren, telling reporters, “There is no need to fear at this
point….We are the only country of our peer nations in the western world who are
this hysterical about opening schools.” (689)</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">But there was a reason many schools around the country
weren’t open to in-person instruction: because the U.S. had by far the most
infections in the world. That day, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/31/us-coronavirus-cases-pass-6m-406044"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">Trump’s America passed
6,000,000 official infections</span></a>,
more than 10X the total of any other developed country—and yet still a <a href="https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/largest-seroprevalence-study-in-us-shows-vast-covid-19-undercount-67762"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">significant undercount</span></a>.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">And daily infections were rising across much of the country.
Will Feuer of CNBC.com reported that the new <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/31/coronavirus-cases-are-on-the-rise-again-across-more-than-half-of-the-us.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">7-day averages showed
increases in 26 states</span></a>. Included
in those totals were an increase in cases among children, whose official <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/08/31/us/coronavirus-cases-children.html?auth=link-dismiss-google1tap"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">infection numbers had
gone up 720%</span></a> from May 21 to August 20. (690)</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Misinformation coming from the White House had almost
certainly played a role in that startling three-month increase among children.
As reported by Alice Miranda Ollstein of <i>Politico</i>, the administration
had danced <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/31/white-house-warned-red-zones-406211?nname=politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition&nid=00000170-c000-da87-af78-e185fa700000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=2670445"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">a perilous two-step</span></a> during that time, issuing warnings to state public health
officials in private while minimizing the pandemic publicly. (691)</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">According to eight weeks’ worth of documents (from Trump’s
coronavirus task force) released by The House Select Subcommittee on the
Coronavirus Crisis, “Senior Trump administration officials in June privately
warned seven states about dangerous coronavirus outbreaks that put them in the
highest risk ‘red zone’ while publicly dismissing concerns about a second wave
of Covid-19.”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Despite the clear public health threat to millions of
Americans, the administration stood idly by while state officials dithered:</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">“…several states have failed to implement public health
recommendations the task force made more than two months ago — including mask
mandates, closing bars and banning large gatherings” but “the administration
has made little effort to enforce its guidance or make the same recommendations
publicly.” (692)</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Public dismissals had come straight from the top:</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">“In mid-June, <a href="https://coronavirus.house.gov/sites/democrats.coronavirus.house.gov/files/06-23-2020_Report.pdf"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">documents showed</span></a> the task force confidentially alerted seven states
where spikes in cases had put them in the ‘red zone’ of highest virus spread,
just after Vice President Mike Pence, who led the task force, wrote an op-ed
dismissing fears of a ‘second wave’ of the virus as ‘overblown.’ (see #388)</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">“By late June, <a href="https://coronavirus.house.gov/sites/democrats.coronavirus.house.gov/files/06-29-2020_Report.pdf"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">documents revealed</span></a> 10 states were in the red zone, and that cases had
surged in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. But Pence at the time
continued to say that ‘all 50 states are opening up safely and responsibly.’
(693)</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">“By mid-July, 19 states were in the ‘red zone’ and the task
force was <a href="https://coronavirus.house.gov/sites/democrats.coronavirus.house.gov/files/07-14-2020_Report.pdf"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">pleading</span></a> with them to increase testing. However, Trump <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/23/trump-joking-slowing-coronavirus-testing-335459"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">repeatedly insisted</span></a> that the country was testing too much and claimed
without evidence that the virus would soon ‘disappear.’</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">“By early August, the task force document <a href="https://coronavirus.house.gov/sites/democrats.coronavirus.house.gov/files/08-02-2020_Report.pdf"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">listed 23 states</span></a> in the red zone — right around the time Trump in an
Axios interview brushed off concerns of more than 1,000 people dying per day,
saying, ‘It is what it is. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t doing everything we
can. It’s under control as much as you can control it.’”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Jim Clyburn, head of the subcommittee, told <i>Politico</i>,
“Rather than being straight with the American people and creating a national
plan to fix the problem, the president and his enablers kept these alarming
reports private….As a result of the president’s failures, more than 58,000
additional Americans have died since the Task Force first started issuing
private warnings, and many of the Task Force’s recommendations still have not
been implemented.”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">The 58,000 who had died since the task force warnings began
were just a subset of the Americans whose lives could have been saved with a
competent federal response. On <b>Tuesday, September 1</b>, in “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/01/briefing/coronavirus-kenosha-massachusetts-your-tuesday-briefing.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">America’s death gap</span></a>,”
journalist David Leonhardt compared the U.S. response to the performance of
other developed countries with similar resources.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Leonhardt’s key conclusion?</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">“If the United States had done merely an average job of
fighting the coronavirus — if the U.S. accounted for the same share of virus
deaths as it did global population — how many fewer Americans would have died?</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">“The answer: about 145,000.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">“That’s a large majority of the country’s 183,000 confirmed
coronavirus-related deaths.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">“No other country looks as bad by this measure. The U.S.
accounts for 4 percent of the world’s population, and for 22 percent of
confirmed Covid-19 deaths. It is one of the many signs that the Trump
administration has done a poorer job of controlling the virus than dozens of
other governments around the world.”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Results of this first-in-the-world failure were being felt
in real time. Polling by Gallup showed just <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/317948/fear-bankruptcy-due-major-health-event.aspx?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">how dire the healthcare situation was</span></a> for tens of millions of Americans due to a combination of
the pandemic’s impact on the economy and the administration’s refusal to expand
the Affordable Care Act (see #217) or Medicaid (see #285) for people who had
lost their coverage.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Fifty percent of Americans feared going bankrupt over a
“major health event,” including 64% of Americans of color. 28% of Americans in
households earning less than $40,000/year were carrying long-term medical debt,
and 26% of Americans said they would have to borrow money to pay a $500 medical
bill. 14% of people with “likely COVID-19 symptoms” were foregoing medical care
due to the costs. (694)</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Trump’s failure to get the pandemic under control was also
having <a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-child-care-business-crisis-035a9fe2-0f8a-4563-bc34-9016f65c6c66.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">a devastating economic impact on child care centers</span></a> (695)—50% of which would close without federal aid—and <a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-college-town-businesses-608788e9-6936-4c95-8634-8ebc3fcc07d6.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">businesses that relied on college students</span></a> for their revenue (696). Data from Yelp showed that
“Businesses in college towns are 24% more likely to shutter permanently than
their counterparts in other towns,” guaranteeing further drags on the economy
until colleges could re-open safely.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">For all of Trump’s claims that the worst recession since the
Great Depression was on the mend due to his ill-defined “management of the
economy,” the reality was that things were likely to get much worse. On <b>Wednesday,
September 2</b>, Dion Rabouin of <i>Axios</i> reviewed our near-term economic
future in “<a href="https://www.axios.com/recession-within-recession-coronavirus-0bcb2af4-4c1a-4ded-9579-096214c5b2d6.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">Here comes the real recession</span></a>.”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">According to Rabouin, “Economists are warning that the
economic downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic is now creating another
recession: mass job losses, business failures and declines in spending even in
industries not directly impacted by the virus.” (697)</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">This “recession within a recession” was “likely to
permanently push millions out of the labor force, lower wages and leave
long-lasting scars on the economy.”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Within these broader trends were a growing number of layoffs
which had “gone from classified as temporary to classified as permanent” and an
increase in long-term unemployment, both of which pointed to a recession
settling in, rather than easing.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Constance Hunter, president of “the historically
right-leaning National Association for Business Economics” told <i>Axios</i>
that premature re-openings, pushed by Trump, had brought us to this point:</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">“We had an uneven shutdown around the country and what
that allowed the virus to do is really take hold and remain a force for
economic outcomes.”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">During the Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt
had addressed Americans’ economic anxieties with a steady stream of progressive
legislation aimed at countering the downturn and messages of hope (“the only
thing we have to fear is fear itself”). Key to Roosevelt’s messaging were 30 “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fireside_chats"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">fireside
chats</span></a>”—radio announcements explaining
what he was doing and why which calmed the American public and helped him win
four landslides.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">By contrast, Trump was doing everything in his power to
exacerbate the horrible human suffering and anxiety caused by his mishandling
of the pandemic by inflaming cultural and racial divisions (698). Convinced
that a divide-and-conquer strategy was his route to a second term, Trump had
played to his <a href="https://www.salon.com/test2/2015/04/10/white_americas_racial_illiteracy_why_our_national_conversation_is_poisoned_from_the_start_partner/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">white supporters’ ignorance about institutional racism</span></a> (and the reasons for the protests) <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/02/trump-black-lives-matter-poll-407227"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">for months</span></a>
by “[calling] the Black Lives Matter movement a ‘<a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1278324681477689349"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">symbol of hate</span></a>,’ ‘discriminatory,’ ‘<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/10/elections-republicans-black-lives-matterbacklash-389906"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">Marxist</span></a>’ and ‘bad for Black people.’”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Since Jacob Blake had been shot by the police and paralyzed
from the waist down Trump had gone into overdrive. In “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/02/briefing/ed-markey-jet-pack-khmer-rouge-your-wednesday-briefing.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">Trump, Unbound</span></a>,”
<i>New York Times</i> columnist David Leonhardt gave a sampling of the
president’s divisive statements over just the past few days.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">He had refused to “condemn the killings of two protesters in
Kenosha, [Wisconsin],” “defended the 17-year-old charged in the shootings — a
Trump supporter named Kyle Rittenhouse — saying he <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000007317812/trump-rittenhouse-teenager-peaceful-protest.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">was acting in
self-defense</span></a>,” and “promoted <a href="https://twitter.com/Timcast/status/1299327274710437888"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">a Twitter post</span></a> that called Rittenhouse ‘a good example of why I
decided to vote for Trump.’”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">He had “defended violence committed by his supporters in
Portland, Ore., who <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/22/us/portland-protests.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">fired paintballs and
pepper spray at Black Lives Matter protesters</span></a>.”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">He had said “Democrats were trying to ‘destroy’ suburbs with
‘low-income housing, and with that comes a lot of other problems, including
crime’ and “<a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1300622368918982664"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">added that</span></a> Cory Booker — one of the highest-profile Black
Democrats — would be ‘in charge of it.’”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">He had “said that protests against police brutality were
actually <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-shares-oan-messages-calling-protests-a-coup-2020-8"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">a secret ‘coup attempt’</span></a> by anarchists ‘trying to take down the President.’”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">He had “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/01/us/politics/trump-fact-check-protests.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">said that Biden</span></a>, at the Democratic National Convention, ‘didn’t even
discuss law enforcement, the police. Those words weren’t mentioned.’ In fact,
Biden held a discussion at the convention on policing, with a police chief.”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Gallup polls showed that <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/318851/perceptions-white-black-relations-sink-new-low.aspx?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">Trump’s racist rhetoric had taken a huge toll on
national unity</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;"> at a
trying time</span></span>. Americans’ feelings about the
state of race relations in the country were at a 20-year low. Views that
Black-white relations were “very” or “somewhat good” had dropped 25% since
2014, when Barack Obama was president. (699)</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Deep social discord was the inevitable result of Trump’s scorched-earth
war on democratic norms and consistent appeals to the worst elements of
humanity. His continued reliance on this strategy guaranteed that the weeks
leading up to the election would be filled with distraction, division,
violence, and a lethal lack of focus on the pandemic which ravaged America.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition/2020/09/02/its-been-six-months-what-now-490247"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">As of the six-month
mark</span></a>, “<span style="background: white;">only about a half-dozen [blue] states in the Northeast [had]
contained the virus, with consistently low positive-test ratios of around 1
percent” as cases continued to spread in the South and Midwest. According to
the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, the
U.S. could face 3,000 deaths/day if public health measures were rolled back. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">Trump’s failure to get a handle on the pandemic was leaving parents of
children who weren’t in school with nothing but bad choices in regards to
childcare (700), as </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/on-parenting/covid-day-care-decisions/2020/09/02/03dde7ea-ea1b-11ea-970a-64c73a1c2392_story.html?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">explored</span></a></span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"> in “</span><span style="line-height: 107%;">‘The most crushing, anxious parenting choice’: To return to day care or
not?” by Caitlin Gibson of <i>the Washington Post</i>. Parents who sent their
children to daycare in order to work put their family’s health at risk. Parents
who kept their children home to avoid community spread would have to juggle
remote work and child-rearing or not go to work, straining the family finances.
And millions of Americans with lesser means lived in a “daycare desert,”
locations where childcare wasn’t even available. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Melissa Boteach of the </span><a href="https://nwlc.org/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">National
Women’s Law Center</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> told <i>the Post</i>, “There were
child-care deserts before. Now we’re talking about the Sahara of child-care
deserts….For low-income families, for families of color, and families in rural
areas as well — in places where there is not a sufficient supply of affordable
and high-quality child care — what it adds up to is that parents face bad
choices. And providers face bad choices. This is disproportionately Black and
Brown women and immigrant women. They’ve spent their entire lives caring for
children, building up women- and minority-owned businesses, and they’re
disappearing in the flash of an eye. Parents are seeing the house of cards fall
down. There are a lot of tears.”<span style="color: #2a2a2a;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">On <b>Thursday, September 3</b>, it came out that </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/03/briefing/trump-coronavirus-massachusetts-your-thursday-briefing.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">one in every eight Americans did not have
enough to eat</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">, and that the psychological undertow of
the coronavirus had spawned a public health crisis (“</span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/09/03/coronavirus-sleep-insomnia/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">Coronasomnia</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">”)
within a public health crisis which was “creating a massive new population of
chronic insomniacs grappling with declines in </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/wellness/productivity-coronavirus-pandemic-projects/2020/04/06/742edf54-76e4-11ea-85cb-8670579b863d_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_7" target="_blank"><span style="color: #6fa8dc; line-height: 107%;">productivity</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="line-height: 107%;">
(701)</span></span><span style="line-height: 107%;">, </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/wellness/anger-control-protests-masks-coronavirus/2020/06/29/a1e882d0-b279-11ea-8758-bfd1d045525a_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_7" target="_blank"><span style="color: #6fa8dc; line-height: 107%;">shorter fuses</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="line-height: 107%;">
(702)</span></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> and increased </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/coronavirus-is-expecially-threatening-for-people-with-heart-disease/2020/03/19/6c2542a2-6894-11ea-9923-57073adce27c_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_7" target="_blank"><span style="color: #6fa8dc; line-height: 107%;">risks of hypertension</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="line-height: 107%;"> (703)</span></span><span style="line-height: 107%;">, </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/05/26/coronavirus-update-us/?itid=lk_inline_manual_7" target="_blank"><span style="color: #6fa8dc; line-height: 107%;">depression</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> and other health
problems.” Alon Avidan of the UCLA Sleep Disorders Center told <i>the
Washington Post</i>, “Patients who used to have insomnia, patients who used to
have difficulty falling asleep because of anxiety, are having more problems.
Patients who were having nightmares have more nightmares (704)….With covid-19,
we recognize that there is now an epidemic of sleep problems.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">As the relative success of every other developed
country showed, there <i>were</i> policies aplenty to address what ailed us,
but the administration had abdicated its duties. Renuka Rayasam of <i>Politico </i></span><a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition/2020/09/02/its-been-six-months-what-now-490247"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">took stock</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
of the state of the coronavirus on the six-month anniversary of the first
reported death in the U.S. America’s 1,000 official daily deaths was down from
April, but still “dangerous[ly] high.” The University of Washington’s Institute
for Health Metrics and Evaluation was projecting that the U.S. would be back up
to 2,000 deaths/day by November if current infection rates held. Eric Toner of
the John Hopkins Center for Health Security told <i>Politico</i> “<span style="background: white;">We have become
used to this level of disease that is really pretty awful.”</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">More human fallout from Trump’s failure to get the
virus under control was reported on <b>Friday, September 4</b>. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Due to infection spread among students, </span><a href="http://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition/2020/09/04/the-old-college-try-fails-490257"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">180 colleges</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
had had to change their plans; 78 had backtracked to remote learning. </span><a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/09/04/a-majority-of-young-adults-in-the-u-s-live-with-their-parents-for-the-first-time-since-the-great-depression/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">More than half</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
of young adults in the U.S. were living with their parents, which hadn’t
happened since the Great Depression (705). </span><a href="http://www.axios.com/mental-health-coronavirus-pandemic-depression-suicide-c09ad125-10a9-44b0-a91d-ca40656816aa.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">Rates of depression had tripled</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
since before the pandemic, leading to big increases in suicide. An alarming
number of American hotels were sliding into bankruptcy, </span><a href="http://www.axios.com/hotel-crisis-coronavirus-economy-travel-556b1f8d-9a12-4555-8a94-a790d78f9bd3.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">jeopardizing up to two million jobs</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">;
research showed that “the American hotel industry is projected to shrink by 45%
in 2020.” (706)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Because of the administration’s lack of long-term
thinking, all of these trends were guaranteed to continue. Trump had rolled the
dice with American lives by re-opening the country too quickly and the
short-term economic boost he’d gotten was petering out. Temporary census
employees had helped to bring August unemployment numbers down, but “an
increasing number of people…</span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/04/business/economy/jobs-report.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200906&instance_id=21961&nl=the-morning&regi_id=87101069&section_index=1&section_name=big_story&segment_id=37533&te=1&user_id=1baa2c82b5fd57364c41fdc8e1f99240"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">had lost their jobs permanently</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">,”
(707) a more telling metric. No relief was in sight, as the GOP had sabotaged
stimulus talks and failed to renew the Paycheck Protection Program (see #536) to
bolster struggling businesses. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Absent control of the virus, no sustained economic
recovery would be possible. And the U.S. was </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/04/us/coronavirus-briefing-a-summer-of-lost-opportunity.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200906&instance_id=21961&nl=the-morning&regi_id=87101069&section_index=1&section_name=big_story&segment_id=37533&te=1&user_id=1baa2c82b5fd57364c41fdc8e1f99240"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">nowhere near</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
to containing the virus. In fact, the U.S. was on target to lose </span><a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/04/key-coronavirus-forecast-predicts-over-410000-total-us-deaths-by-jan-1.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">410,000 citizens</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
by the beginning of 2021. A whole summer had gone by where the administration
had done next to nothing, leading to </span><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/09/08/coronavirus-covid-live-updates-us/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">a quadrupling of cases</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
(708), and fall—and a potentially </span><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/health/coronavirus-fall-projections-second-wave/2020/09/04/6edb3392-ed61-11ea-99a1-71343d03bc29_story.html?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">deadly flu season</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">—was
coming up. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">More human consequences of Trump’s failure to get the
coronavirus under control were reported on <b>Monday, September 7</b>. Due to
the state of the economy and the GOP’s unwillingness to bargain in good faith
on stimulus talks, “</span><a href="http://www.axios.com/coronavirus-worker-angst-94565e60-528c-4dff-a73b-79d400913676.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">worker malaise</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">”
was increasing (709) and charities around the country were </span><a href="https://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/515154-charities-scramble-to-plug-revenue-holes-during-pandemic"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">cutting</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> staff (710) and
services. (711)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The continued high rate of infection was also creating
a lose-lose situation in the upcoming election. In order to avoid contracting
the virus, a record number of Americans were planning to vote by mail, but up
to 1/3<sup>rd</sup> of swing state voters using mail ballots would potentially
be </span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-ap-top-news-oh-state-wire-az-state-wire-mi-state-wire-881c098ab2847dea9d87604bab9568d6"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">disenfranchised</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
(712), not least because of Trump’s assault on the U.S. Postal Service, which was
likely to make many ballot submissions late (713). People of color (Democrats)
would be disproportionately impacted, exactly as the administration hoped.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The administration’s coronavirus mitigation strategy,
such as it was, was limited to bringing down deaths in nursing homes by
shipping out antigen tests<span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-themecolor: accent5;"> </span></span><a href="http://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/08/nursing-homes-coronavirus-testing-mandate-410229"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">known to produce false negatives</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
(714). By contrast, keeping children safe was not a major concern. On <b>Tuesday,
September 8</b>, Sarah Kliff and Margot Sanger-Katz of <i>the New York Times</i>
</span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/08/upshot/children-testing-shortfalls-virus.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">reported</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
that even as Trump had badgered schools into re-opening, the administration was
doing nothing to counteract the limits on testing of children. (715)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">This was a big problem. As reported on <b>Wednesday,
September 9</b>, over 513,000 children had tested positive for coronavirus,
with the numbers </span><a href="http://www.axios.com/us-children-diagnosed-coronavirus-88ab5157-3190-44c8-8f5f-08ce600fc7c4.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">increasing 16%</span></a><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 107%;">in the final week of
August/beginning of September. Despite the clear and present danger to American
children and those who lived and interacted with them, Dr. Paul Alexander, a
key adviser at Trump’s National Institutes of Health was trying to </span><a href="http://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-official-preventing-fauci-discussing-210330893.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">handcuff Dr. Fauci</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
by suggesting that he shouldn’t propose that children wear masks or get tested regularly
in an interview with MSNBC. (716) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The administration’s effort to convince an electoral
college majority’s worth of gullible, low-information voters that COVID-19 was
under control also manifested in an announcement that enhanced screening of
international passengers would no longer be required at American airports, which
</span><a href="http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/report-white-house-orders-end-to-covid-19-airport-screenings-for-foreign-travelers/ar-BB18RZJm"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">jeopardized public safety</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> (717)
and robbed public health officials of crucial contact tracing data (718). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The big story of the day were the revelations of
veteran reporter Bob Woodward, who had interviewed Trump 18 times for his new
book, <i>Rage</i>. As </span><a href="https://www.chron.com/news/article/Trump-says-he-knew-coronavirus-was-deadly-and-15553997.php"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">reported</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> by
Robert Costa and Phillip Rucker of <i>the Washington Post</i>, on February 7,
even as he was publicly downplaying the virus—claiming it was little different
than seasonal flu—and holding big, crowded super-spreader rallies, Trump had
told Woodward that the coronavirus was “deadly stuff” and that it was
significantly “more deadly than even your strenuous flu.” On March 19, Trump
had admitted to Woodward that young people could be impacted by COVID-19, in
direct contradiction to his public stance, and said that “I always wanted to
play [the pandemic] down.” Dr. Fauci, the one honest public official connected
to the administration, had at various times said Trump was “on a separate
channel,” that his “attention span is like a minus number,” that his leadership
during the pandemic was “rudderless,” that “his sole purpose is to get
re-elected.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The gap between what Trump knew to be true and what he
was saying publicly had contributed to big portions of Americans not taking the
virus seriously (719), which ultimately had led to the States doing “</span><a href="http://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/9/9/21429166/trump-woodward-rage-coronavirus-covid-19-pandemic?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Sentences%209920&utm_content=Sentences%209920+CID_ba93bd6a5e706bfb7c38374a83132053&utm_source=cm_email&utm_term=Vox%20%20German%20Lopez"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">seven times worse than the median
developed country</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">” at containing the coronavirus. A study
by Our World in Data showed that </span><a href="http://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/9/9/21428769/covid-19-coronavirus-deaths-statistics-us-canada-europe?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Sentences%209920&utm_content=Sentences%209920+CID_ba93bd6a5e706bfb7c38374a83132053&utm_source=cm_email&utm_term=Vox%20%20German%20Lopez"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">109,000 fewer Americans would have died</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
if the U.S. had been as effective as Canada at fighting the virus. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">News on <b>Thursday, September 10</b>, showed that the
U.S. was seeing </span><a href="https://www.axios.com/us-coronavirus-infections-cases-improving-0fc7bfd1-026a-40ef-8459-a3b6f4379f76.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">37,000 infections/day</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">,
though testing was going down (720). Included in these deaths were </span><a href="http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/coronavirus/teacher-deaths-raise-alarms-as-new-school-year-begins/2610242/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">teachers</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> (721)
and front-line </span><a href="https://apnews.com/02a0542e8a05176bd5d79757134bc277"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">medical workers who <i>still</i> had
inadequate resources</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> more than eight months after the
administration had been notified of the virus (722). Not surprisingly, </span><a href="http://www.statnews.com/2020/09/10/trust-cdc-fauci-evaporating/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">public trust in Trump’s CDC had plummeted</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.
<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The distrust was fully earned. On <b>Friday, September
11</b>, Dan Diamond of <i>Politico</i> </span><a href="http://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/11/exclusive-trump-officials-interfered-with-cdc-reports-on-covid-19-412809"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">reported</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
that “<span style="background: white;">politically appointed
communications aides” from Trump’s Health and Human Services Department (HHS)
had “demanded the right to review and seek changes to the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention’s weekly scientific reports charting the progress of the
coronavirus pandemic, in what officials characterized as an attempt to
intimidate the reports’ authors and water down their communications to health
professionals. (723)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">“In some cases, emails
from communications aides to CDC Director Robert Redfield and other senior
officials openly complained that the agency’s reports would undermine President
Donald Trump's optimistic messages about the outbreak…”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">Though the reports had
not been politicized in the past, and were “the main vehicle for the agency to
inform doctors, researchers and the general public about how Covid-19 is
spreading and who is at risk,” the CDC had “increasingly agreed to allow the
political officials to review the reports and, in a few cases, compromised on
the wording.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">The manipulations of
important public information had become especially aggressive since May, after
the arrival of Michael Caputo, “a former Trump campaign official with no medical
or scientific background (724)” had become the spokesman for HHS. (After being
outed by <i>Politico</i>, Caputo would </span><a href="https://www.chron.com/news/article/Health-and-Human-Services-spokesman-warns-of-15567068.php"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">accuse CDC scientists of
“sedition”</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"> for undermining Trump’s
talking points and </span><a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/top-trump-health-spokesman-deletes-twitter-account-after-rant/ar-BB191SLV?ocid=uxbndlbing"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">suggest reporters should
be tear-gassed</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"> before
deleting his Twitter account and taking a leave of absence from his post.)</span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">One administration official who hadn’t drank the
Kool-Aid was National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins. Asked that
night at a CNN town hall what he thought about Trump’s rally in Michigan, which
had featured thousands of people, no social distancing, and few masks (725),
Collins </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/11/nih-official-disheartened-by-trump-rally-412312"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">said</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">, “How did we get here? Imagine you were an alien who landed
on planet Earth, and you saw that our planet was afflicted by an infectious
disease and that masks were an effective way to prevent the spread…”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">“…And yet, when you went around, you saw some people not wearing
them and some people wearing them. And you tried to figure out why, and it
turned out it was their political party. And you would scratch your head and
think, ‘This is just not a planet that has much promise for the future, if
something that is so straightforward can somehow get twisted into
decision-making that really makes no sense.’”</span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Trump could care less about the health of his
sheep-like followers or the people they interacted with. On <b>Saturday,
September 12</b>, he had </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/13/opinions/trump-risky-hunger-games-rallies-obeidallah/index.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">another outdoor super-spreader rally</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">,
this time in Nevada, a state with an increasing infection rate and an
exceptionally high positive test rate of 9.5%. World Health Organization
guidance suggested that locations which had positivity rates of 5% and higher
close down, but the rally followed no public health guidelines, violating state
laws on crowd sizes and mask mandates (726). Speaking to reporters at the
event, Trump said the U.S. was “rounding a corner.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Data that came out on <b>Sunday, September 13</b>,
showed otherwise. Eleven states were showing case </span><a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/13/coronavirus-cases-are-growing-in-11-us-states.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">increases of 5% and higher</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.
Dr. Fauci called the trend “disturbing,” as the administration had clearly failed
to get a handle on the virus and was refusing to allocate the resources
necessary, even as the fall flu season was approaching. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Trump consigned
more Americans to infection and/or death by ignoring public health regulations
in Nevada with a second rally, this one indoors, which featured <a href="https://apnews.com/5d306f8176972692ce700b569b01cd73"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">no social distancing and few masks</span></a>—other than the
people sitting behind Trump, who were required to wear masks to give a false
impression for the news cameras (727). Against all evidence, Trump said the
U.S. was “making the last turn” against the virus. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">That evening, Bob Woodward (see #719) appeared on “60
Minutes.” Woodward revealed that Deputy National Security Advisor Matt
Pottinger had warned Trump on January 28 that “This [pandemic] is going to be
like the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic that killed 675,000 people in this country.”
Two days later at a public speech Trump had said, “We think we have it very
well under control. We have very little problem in this country at this moment
— five. And those people are all recuperating successfully. But we're working
very closely with China and other countries, and we think it's going to have a
very good ending for us. So that I can assure you.” (see #36).</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Despite the clear connection between Trump’s lies and
inactions and America’s first-in-the-world totals in deaths and infections,
Trump had told Woodward “Nothing more could have been done.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">One of the things that could have been done was a second
stimulus package. House Democrats had passed </span><a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/6800"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">the Heroes Act</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
on May 15, 2020, but Senate Republicans had ignored the bill for three months,
then </span><a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/9/10/21429678/senate-stimulus-vote"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">sabotaged negotiations</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> by
low-balling the amount of aid to businesses, citizens, states, and schools. As
reported on <b>Monday, September 14</b>, people of color—whose unemployment
rates were in double digits—had been </span><a href="http://www.vox.com/21433055/congresss-failure-second-stimulus-devastating-effect-on-minorities-unemployment-covid-bill?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Sentences%2091420&utm_content=Sentences%2091420+CID_a3836c66cd912a90b355c890cef70f7d&utm_source=cm_email&utm_term=Vox%20%20Aaron%20Ross%20Coleman"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">disproportionately impacted</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
by the GOP’s tactics. Nationally, thirty million Americans were on unemployment
and one million were applying each week. Three out of ten Americans had been
forced to </span><a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/14/americans-are-forced-to-raid-retirement-savings-during-the-pandemic.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">deplete their retirement accounts</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
just to make ends meet. (728)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Trump’s failures to contain the virus had also taken a
steep toll on America’s image abroad. A Pew poll of 13 developed countries
reported on <b>Tuesday, September 15</b> showed that only “15 percent of
respondents said the United States had handled the pandemic well, while </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/09/15/global-views-united-states-trump-coronavirus-pew-poll/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">85 percent said the country had responded
poorly</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">” and America’s reputation had fallen to a “new low.”
Trump had the lowest marks of any of the leaders, falling below President Xi of
China and Vladimir Putin, with only 16% of international respondents expressing
confidence in his leadership. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Fortunately for Trump, tens of millions of
Americans—Republican voters in particular (</span><span style="line-height: 107%;">see #145, #204, #283, #307, #313, #s 319-323. #325, #330,
#339, #347, #387, #440, #452, #534, #s 566-567, #641</span><span style="line-height: 107%;">)—failed
to grasp what was obvious to the vast majority of adults overseas. First and
foremost, they failed to grasp how badly Trump had played them for suckers.
Audio recordings released by Bob Woodward revealed a </span><a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/9/15/21437802/trump-woodward-audio-coronavirus-killer?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Sentences%2091520&utm_content=Sentences%2091520+Version+A+CID_e11ff3e6bc667e03a626eec756d2876c&utm_source=cm_email&utm_term=Vox%20%20Aaron%20Rupar"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">vast gulf</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
between what Trump had told Woodward on the phone on April 13 (“this thing is a
killer if it gets you. If you’re the wrong person, you don’t have a chance.”)
and the false assurances he had given to his 86 million Twitter followers (729)
just three days earlier (“The Invisible Enemy is in full retreat!”). Four days
after the conversation with Woodward, Trump had cheered on right-wing
protesters in Minnesota, Virginia, and Michigan who were opposed to public
health guidelines. (see #249)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Months had gone by since the grim days of April, but
the lies continued. In an interview with Michael Caputo (see #723-#724) for a
taxpayer-funded Health and Human Services Department podcast, </span><a href="https://www.statnews.com/2017/05/11/mental-health-trump-nomination/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">Elinore McCance-Katz</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> (the
head of Trump’s <span style="background: white;">Substance Abuse and
Mental Health Services Administration) </span></span><a href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/09/15/top-health-official-echoes-trumps-covid-19-views-drawing-accusations-of-politicizing-u-s-mental-health-agency/?utm_source=STAT+Newsletters&utm_campaign=24da08bb43-Daily_Recap&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8cab1d7961-24da08bb43-152815530"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">parroted administration
talking points</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">. Though the
U.S. hadn’t done remotely enough to stop the virus, she claimed that the U.S.
“had used a sledgehammer when [we we] needed a scalpel.” (730) McCance-Katz
seconded Caputo’s ridiculous claim that the media—who had tried to hold the
administration accountable—didn’t care about public health information. She also
doubled down on the administration’s effort to push schoolchildren into harm’s
way (731). Regina LaBelle, who had worked for Barack Obama at the White House
Office of National Drug Control Policy, told a reporter “It’s so blatantly
political and cynical, and it breaks my heart to see this….Families are
suffering and they deserve to be treated with respect by their government.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">Trump’s appearance at an
ABC town hall that evening, on a day in which over 1,000 Americans died from
COVID-19, showed that treating American families with respect was very low on
the administration’s list of priorities. While Americans needed straight talk
in the face of a pandemic, a steep recession, and levels of anxiety
unparalleled in the modern era, Trump gave them </span><a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/9/16/21439460/trump-abc-town-hall-stephanopoulos?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Sentences%2091620&utm_content=Sentences%2091620+CID_2a04c8dea9b50d8a436f1665f4dba4f3&utm_source=cm_email&utm_term=Trumps%20ABC%20town%20hall%20revealed%20a%20president%20disconnected%20from%20reality"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">lie after lie</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"> for 90 minutes. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">Among other things, Trump
blamed Democrats for not imposing a national mask mandate (though they lacked
the power to do so), claimed that “a lot of people think that masks are not
good,” </span><a href="https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/more-testing-more-cases-covid-19/?utm_campaign=Snopes%20Debunker%20-%20Saturday%2C%20September%2026%2C%202020%20-%20Is%20the%20US%20COVID-19%20Case%20Total%20Highest%20Globally%20Due%20to%20%E2%80%98Great%20Testing%E2%80%99%3F%20%28RLUBgP%29&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Snopes%20Debunker%20-%20Saturday%20Edition&_ke=eyJrbF9lbWFpbCI6ICJiZW5ib3NpdHlAZ21haWwuY29tIiwgImtsX2NvbXBhbnlfaWQiOiAiTFdUYkhmIn0%3D"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">falsely claimed</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;"> </span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">our first-in-the-world numbers in death and
infections were driven by our relatively high amount of testing, minimized
America’s mortality rates, and denied downplaying the pandemic, even as he had
admitted to Bob Woodward that he had purposely downplayed the pandemic. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background: white;">The lies continued on <b>Wednesday, September 16</b>, a day in
which the U.S. had </span><a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-latest-news-09-16-2020-11600244664"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;">40,000 new reported infections</span></a><span style="background: white;">, the highest totals in the past month, and it came out that
the already-high official death toll failed to account for </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/16/dementia-deaths-coronavirus-nursing-homes-416530"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;">tens of thousands of COVID-related
dementia deaths</span></a><span style="background: white;">. After allowing CDC head Robert Redfield to
speak before the Republican-controlled Senate Appropriations Committee earlier
in the day (while </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/18/white-house-blocked-fda-hahn-417831"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;">blocking</span></a><span style="background: white;"> FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn from testifying before a
Democratic-led House committee, 732), Trump </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/16/trump-contradicts-his-cdc-director-over-masks-vaccine-timeline-416475"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;">contradicted</span></a><span style="background: white;"> Redfield at a press conference. Redfield had told the
committee that wearing a face mask could do a better job of protecting an
individual than the vaccine; Trump said Redfield had “made a mistake.” (733) Trump
also said that Redfield had been “confused” when he’d said that vaccines
wouldn’t be rolled out until the summer or fall of 2021. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background: white;">The administration’s </span><a href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/09/17/trump-redfield-back-and-forth-messaging/?utm_source=STAT+Newsletters&utm_campaign=78ebfbcd05-Daily_Recap&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8cab1d7961-78ebfbcd05-152815530"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;">months of mixed messaging</span></a><span style="background: white;">, which had confused the public and led to higher infection
and death rates (734), was an inevitable result of the disregard for science at
the top. Nowhere was this better exemplified than the recent flameout of
Michael Caputo, the Health and Human Services spokesman. (see #723-724,
#730-731)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background: white;">As </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/16/how-michael-caputo-shook-up-hhs-416632?nname=playbook&nid=0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=630318"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;">reported</span></a><span style="background: white;"> by Dan Diamond, Adam Cancryn, and Sarah Overmohle of <i>Politico</i>,
Caputo had been hired to conceal the work of the Health and Human Services
(HHS) Department from the American public: </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white;">“Trump’s calculation seemed clear: If he couldn’t easily move
aside the health professionals who led the agencies, he could dramatically
alter what the public learned about their work on the coronavirus.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white;">“Caputo immediately began supplanting career public affairs
staff with his own loyalists and Trump veterans — political appointees who
often knew little or nothing about health care.” (735)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white;">Caputo “also plucked an unpaid, part-time professor from
obscurity inside a</span><b> </b><span style="background-color: white;">Canadian university to be his science adviser —
and used him to challenge and intimidate the scores of highly credentialed
scientists in the CDC and other government agencies.” (736)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white;">Caputo was on leave for the time being, but morale was low at
HHS:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white;">“Interviews with more than 30</span><b> </b><span style="background-color: white;">current and former
health officials painted a picture of a health department laid low by its own
press spokesman in the midst of the worst pandemic in a century. (737) They
recounted how Caputo succeeded in installing his own loyalists in positions
even outside the communications realm, ordered a $250 million, taxpayer-funded
PR campaign that he himself promised would counter grim official predictions
about the coronavirus threat, and sought to stifle experts from the FDA to CDC
to the</span><b> </b><span style="background-color: white;">National Institutes of Health.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white;">Speaking about Caputo’s role in the administration’s pandemic
response, one HHS official told </span><i>Politico</i><span style="background-color: white;">, “It didn’t add, it didn’t
subtract….It just created a public relations nightmare.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background: white;">No amount of public relations could cover up the human impact
of Trump’s failures to contain the coronavirus. On <b>Thursday, September 17</b>,
it was reported that </span><a href="http://www.axios.com/coronavirus-map-new-cases-infections-united-states-6aee486c-d136-47c7-a865-052f90426316.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;">infections had increased in 17 states</span></a><span style="background: white;"> over the prior week even as testing had gone down 6%. A
leaked FEMA memo showed that COVID-19 </span><a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Health/live-updates/coronavirus/?id=73065540&cid=social_twitter_abcn#73067281"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;">deaths had increased 17%</span></a><span style="background: white;"> over the past week. Helped along by the GOP’s unwillingness
to negotiate a stimulus deal in good faith, the job market was </span><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN2681Y1?il=0"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;">stalling</span></a><span style="background: white;">, leading to the “</span><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/09/17/new-unemployment-claims-september/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">26th-straight week of record-level unemployment claims</span></a>.” (738)</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">The administration
didn’t let reality intrude on their daily messaging. Trump told a <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/2020/09/donald-trump-mocked-for-95-minute-slurring-campaign-speech-before-crowd-packed-in-like-sardines-in-wisconsin/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=5497"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">crowded and near-maskless campaign rally</span></a> in rural
Wisconsin that “we are doing an incredible job on the virus.” Speaking at
Hilldale College the same day, Attorney General Bill Barr <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/17/william-barr-coronavirus-lockdowns-slavery-416776"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">fed the ignorance</span></a> and recklessness of Trump
supporters (739) by likening the lockdowns which <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/06/09/872441984/modelers-suggest-pandemic-lockdowns-saved-millions-from-dying-of-covid-19"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">had kept hundreds of thousands of Americans from
contracting COVID-19</span></a>
to slavery and saying politicians should make public health decisions, not
scientists: <span style="background: white;">“The person in the white
coat is not the ‘grand seer’ who can come up with a right decision for society.
A free people makes its decision through its elected representative.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background: white;">The administration’s focus on propaganda, in place of sound
public health policy, convinced Olivia Troye—a lifelong Republican who had been
Mike Pence’s top staffer on the coronavirus task force—to very </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/17/politics/former-pence-aide-coronvirus-task-force-slams-trump/index.html"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;">publicly endorse Joe Biden</span></a><span style="background: white;">. According to Troye:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: #fefefe;">“Towards the middle of February,
we knew it wasn't a matter of if Covid would become a big pandemic here, it was
a matter of when….But the President didn't want to hear that, because his
biggest concern was that we were in an election year, and how was this going to
affect what he considered to be his record of success?”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">In a two-minute video
that accompanied her endorsement, Troye <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/pence-s-former-top-aide-says-trump-called-coronavirus-a-good-thing-because-he-didn-t-like-shaking-hands-with-disgusting-supporters/ar-BB199CZw"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">said</span></a>, “When we were in a task-force meeting, the president
said, ‘Maybe this COVID thing is a good thing — I don't like shaking hands with
people. I don't have to shake hands with these disgusting people’….Those
disgusting people are the same people he claims to care about. These are the
people who are still going to his rallies today, who have complete faith in who
he is.”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal;">Troye told <i>the Washington Post</i> that Trump’s
pandemic response reflected a “flat-out disregard for human life” and that his
“<span style="background: white;">rhetoric and his own attacks against people in
his administration trying to do the work, as well as the promulgation of false
narratives and incorrect information of the virus have made this ongoing
response a failure.”</span> <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal;">One of the results of that failure was an increase in
medical debt (740). As reported by Jessica Menton of <i>USA Today </i>on <b>Friday,
September 18</b>, <span style="background: white;">“</span><a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/09/18/unemployment-americans-face-45-b-worth-medical-debt-collections/3480192001/"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;">Medical debt has been growing further
during the pandemic</span></a><span style="background: white;">,
rising 7% from the end of last year and just over 3% from when the pandemic
started” and “Experts expect it to continue to rise in the coming months.”</span> <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal;">Another result of that failure was that over 50,000
U.S. Postal Service employees had been forced to take time off, because of
COVID-related illness to themselves or their family members. As <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/poorly-protected-postal-workers-are-catching-covid-19-by-the-thousands-its-one-more-threat-to-voting-by-mail?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=majorinvestigations&utm_content=feature"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">reported</span></a> by
Maryam Jameel and Ryan McCarthy of <i>ProPublica</i>, “The total number of
postal workers testing positive has more than tripled from about 3,100 cases in
June to 9,600 in September, and at least 83 postal workers have died from complications
of COVID-19, according to USPS (741). Moreover, internal USPS data shows that
about 52,700 of the agency’s 630,000 employees, or more than 8%, have taken
time off at some point during the pandemic because they were sick, or had to
quarantine or care for family members.” (742)<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal;">In conjunction with Trump donor/Postmaster General
Louis DeJoy’s service cuts (see #539), significant reductions in staff could
lead to many votes—especially Democrats, who were voting by mail in larger
numbers—not being counted:<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal;"> <span style="background: white;">“High rates of absence could slow ballot delivery in
key states, especially if there’s a second wave of the coronavirus, as some
epidemiologists predict. </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2020/politics/mail-in-voting/"><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0in;">Twenty-eight
states</span></a><span style="background: white;">, including
Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Florida, require mail-in ballots to arrive by
Election Day to be counted.”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">On <b>Saturday, September 19</b>, NBC reported that </span><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/u-s-covid-19-death-toll-surpasses-200-000-n1240034"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">Trump had reached his milestone of
200,000 official COVID-19 deaths</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">, more than 5X the total
of any other developed country. As high as the number was, it was a significant
undercount from the real total, which was </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/05/us/coronavirus-death-toll-us.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">in excess of 260,000 and climbing</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.
<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">A competent president with any concern for his
constituents would have tried to soften the blow of the pandemic, but the Trump
administration was making matters worse with needless last-minute changes to
the Pandemic-EBT program which had been set up to help struggling parents feed
their children. As </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/19/children-coronavirus-food-aid-states-trump-rules-417871"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">reported</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
by Helena Bottemiller Evich of <i>Politico</i>, <span style="background: white;">“Millions of low-income children are likely to miss out on
special benefits that help their families buy groceries this month because the
Trump administration has imposed eligibility requirements that prevent some
states from getting the payments out before the money expires.”</span> (743)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Monday, September 21</span></b><span style="line-height: 107%;">
brought news that yet another administration official tasked with protecting
public health had been </span><a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/redstate-covid-troll-streiff-is-actually-bill-crews-and-he-actually-works-for-dr-anthony-fauci"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">aggressively undermining public health</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.
As reported by Lachlan Markay at <i>the Daily Beast</i>, William B. Crews, a
press officer at <span style="background: white;">the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, had been
anonymously posting disinformation about the coronavirus for months on
RedState, a right-wing website. (744)</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">While
technically working under Dr. Fauci, Crews had referred to Fauci as a “mask
Nazi,” made reference to the “attention-grubbing and media-whoring Anthony
Fauci,” and “[intimated] </span><span style="line-height: 107%;">that government officials responsible for
the pandemic response should be executed.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">In June, a month in which tens of thousands of
Americans died from COVID-19, Crews had written that <span style="background: white;">“I think we’re at the point where it
is safe to say that the entire Wuhan virus scare was nothing more or less than
a massive fraud perpetrated upon the American people by ‘experts’ who were
determined to fundamentally change the way the country lives and is organized
and governed.”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">Many
of Crews’ posts went live during business hours, indicating that he was using
taxpayer money to spread dangerous propaganda. </span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">Another
person using taxpayer money to spread dangerous propaganda was Donald Trump. At
a super-spreader rally (745), in Swanton, Ohio, Trump </span><a href="http://www.mediaite.com/news/trump-says-coronavirus-affects-virtually-nobody-as-death-toll-set-to-hit-200000/"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">repeated the myth</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"> that the coronavirus
“[affected] virtually nobody” other than “</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">elderly people with heart problems and other
problems,” (746) despite what he’d </span><a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/09/trump-coronavirus-woodward-young-people-risk.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">told reporter Bob
Woodward</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">
on March 19: </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">“It’s turning out it’s not just old people….Just today
and yesterday, some startling facts came out. It’s not just old—older. Young
people, too. Plenty of young people.”<span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">Back
in the real world, </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/22/briefing/schools-supreme-court-china-your-tuesday-briefing.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">infections had gone up
more than 15%</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;"> over the prior ten days. </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">As
</span><a href="https://www.wvgazettemail.com/news/health/rising-coronavirus-case-numbers-in-many-states-spur-warning-of-autumn-surge/article_fcdd4926-2a4e-5889-b8e0-47c7d69c280b.html"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">reported</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"> on <b>Tuesday,
September 22</b> by Joel Achenbach and Karen Brulliard of <i>the Washington
Post</i>, “Twenty-seven states and Puerto Rico have shown an increase in the
seven-day average of new confirmed cases since the final week of August” and “Minnesota,
Montana, Oklahoma, Utah, Wisconsin, Wyoming and Puerto Rico set record highs
Monday for seven-day averages.”</span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">The
spike was widespread:</span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">“Disease
trackers are watching the virus’ reproductive number — the amount of people
infected, on average, by each infected person. When that number goes over one,
exponential viral spread results. Columbia University epidemiologist Jeffrey
Shaman said Monday that his team’s coronavirus model showed that 579 counties
in the United States, many of them in the Midwest and the Mississippi Valley,
had a reproductive number over one as of Sunday.”</span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">The
increase in infections was especially concerning in light of the surge of cases
expected with the fall flu season. Michael Osterholm, an epidemiologist at the University
of Minnesota, told <i>the Post</i>: “</span><span style="line-height: 107%;">I think we’re just in the
beginning of what’s going to be a marked increase in cases in the fall. And it
won’t be just a testing artifact, either. This is real.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">So undeniably real to even minimally-observant
Americans that Trump knew he would have no chance of winning a free and fair
election. His only route to victory was the mass disenfranchisement of
Democratic voters. To this end, his legal team was advancing lawsuits all
across the country. As reported by David Leonhardt of <i>the New York Times</i>
on <b>Wednesday, September 23</b>, a lawsuit in Pennsylvania—the state most
likely to decide the election—produced a </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/23/briefing/president-trump-mitt-romney-louisville-your-wednesday-briefing.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">gratuitous but potentially fateful court
decision</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> that absentee ballots which weren’t inside a “secrecy
envelope,” <i>within the regular envelope</i>, would be tossed out. An
elections official estimated that this could disenfranchise over 100,000
voters, most of them Democrats, more than twice Trump’s margin of victory in
2016.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">If refusals to give elections officials the resources
they needed to run safe, efficient elections, months of bogus attacks on mail
balloting, assaults on the U.S. Postal service’s delivery times, lawsuits, tens
of thousands of </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/18/us/Voting-republicans-trump.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">“election security” thugs harassing
voters</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">, the insidious vote suppression efforts of his
Republican state allies, and mass technical challenges to mail-in ballots after
election day weren’t enough for Trump to cheat his way to an illegitimate,
razor-thin electoral college win, the administration had a plan to bypass the
voters altogether. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">As detailed by Barton Gellman in “</span><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/what-if-trump-refuses-concede/616424/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">The Election That Could Break America</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">,”
the U.S. could face a constitutional crisis of Trump’s making if Biden didn’t
win overwhelmingly and quickly. Given the volume of mail ballots cast because
of Trump’s failure to get the coronavirus under control, there was a
possibility that it would take several days, maybe even weeks, to determine the
winners in crucial states such as Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, which don’t count
absentee ballots until election day. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">This lag time would play into Trump’s false narrative
about the fraudulence of mail ballots and give him public cover to file
lawsuits challenging vote totals in swing states. If Trump were to succeed in
tying up the courts until December 8—the date states were expected to choose
their electors—Republican
legislators in Pennsylvania (and other vital swing states, all of which are
Republican-controlled) could legally ignore the will of the voters and give
Trump their state’s electoral college votes—and a second term. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">GOP efforts to undermine mail balloting were in the
news again on <b>Thursday, September 24</b>. As reported by Eric Larson for
Bloomberg News, when ordered by a judge to reverse the harmful changes he had
made to U.S. Postal Service operations, Trump donor and Postmaster General
Louis DeJoy claimed that the mail-sorting machines he’d decommissioned couldn’t
be reassembled. Not surprisingly, </span><a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/dejoy-tells-judge-mail-sorting-machines-cant-be-reassembled/ar-BB19nX71"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">72% of the machines pulled out of service
just happened to be in districts won by Hillary Clinton in 2016</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.
<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Between DeJoy’s efforts to sabotage mail voting,
aggressive Republican challenges to accepting mail ballots before and after the
election, the far higher number of Democrats opting to use mail ballots, and
the fact that mail ballots are </span><a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/08/22/904693468/more-than-550-000-primary-absentee-ballots-rejected-in-2020-far-outpacing-2016"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">rejected in higher numbers</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
than in-person ballots—especially mail ballots submitted by young voters and
voters of color—some Democratic officials and organizations were starting to
suggest to voters that they cast ballots </span><a href="https://www.axios.com/democrats-mail-voting-pivot-838522b7-8dac-42b4-a566-1ba93818654d.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">in person</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.
This was risky, but Trump had put voters in a lose-lose situation by failing to
contain the coronavirus: vote in person and risk your health, or vote by mail
and have a greater chance of a Republican lawyer stealing your franchise over a
technicality. (747)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">With the fall flu season coming up, this decision was
bound to get more fraught with time. Most world leaders would have tried to do
something to counteract the combination of COVID-19 and the annual flu season,
but Trump had no strategy other than to let his constituents suffer until a
vaccine was developed and distributed (748). Unfortunately, Trump was screwing
that up too. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">As </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/24/trump-undermining-vaccine-race-421487?nname=playbook&nid=0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=630318"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">reported</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
by Adam Cancryn, while speaking to a Senate panel on Wednesday, FDA
Commissioner Stephen Hahn had promised not to rush a vaccine, saying “science
will guide our decisions” and the <span style="background: white;">“FDA
will not permit any pressure from anyone to change that.”</span> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Waiting until a safe vaccine was developed didn’t sync
with Trump’s desire to wheel any vaccine out—no matter how safe or effective—in
time for election day. According to Cancryn, “<span style="background: white;">Hours [after Hahn’s testimony], President Donald Trump sought
to do just that. Incensed over the prospect the new guidelines could slow the
process, Trump blew up the FDA’s carefully laid plans – vowing to have final
say over his administration’s procedures for authorizing a long-sought Covid-19
vaccine. The White House has since demanded that Hahn submit a fuller
justification of his bid to set stricter standards, two administration
officials said, a directive that could halt the proposal indefinitely. (749)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">“The move put health
officials in a torturous but familiar position – reeling from a presidential
statement undermining their work, while senior officials try to pretend nothing
is amiss.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">Trump’s political
interference and lack of credibility on all things related to the coronavirus
was causing public confidence in a vaccine to plunge, which would undermine the
public health response when a vaccine <i>did </i>come: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">
</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">“Just over half of
Americans now say they would take a vaccine if it were available today, </span><a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2020/09/17/u-s-public-now-divided-over-whether-to-get-covid-19-vaccine/" target="_blank"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">polling</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"> shows, a 21-point drop from earlier this
year. That’s alarming from a public health point of view, since having fewer
people take the vaccine dilutes its effectiveness.” (750)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">An official in Trump’s
Health and Human Services Department told <i>Politico</i> “People’s short-term
political agendas have incredibly long-lasting potential negative impacts….We
need science to be the place of trust.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">The </span><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">pitched battle </span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">between Trump’s short-term political interests
and the sworn duties of public health officials to keep Americans safe was
discussed again by </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/profiles/jeremy-diamond"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">Jeremy Diamond</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">, </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/profiles/nick-valencia-profile"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">Nick Valencia</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">,<span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> and </span></span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/profiles/sara-murray"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">Sara
Murray</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">
of CNN.com on </span><b><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">Friday,
September 25</span></b><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">The opening paragraph
showed that once again, </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/25/politics/redfield-trump-cdc-morale/index.html"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">Trump saw science as an
obstacle</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">, rather than a signpost:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">“</span><a href="http://www.cnn.com/specials/politics/president-donald-trump-45" target="_blank"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">President Donald Trump</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;"> has lost
patience with the head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
Dr. Robert Redfield, as well as with the other public health experts on his
coronavirus team because their sober messaging on the future of the pandemic
clashes with his rosy assessments.”</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">Tired
of waiting for a magic scientific breakthrough that could get him out of the
political jam he’d created for himself, Trump was taking his frustrations out
on Redfield. Trump’s antics were also impacting the people who worked under
Redfield:</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">“…Trump's
public undermining of the CDC chief and Redfield's tendency to fold to the
White House are taking a toll on CDC staff, from top to bottom, employees say.
Some have questioned whether their work is making a difference and others have
even considered resigning -- and whether the sagging spirits may be hampering
pandemic response.</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal;">“Eight current and
former public health officials described for CNN a crushing environment at the
agencies charged with the coronavirus response brought on by a President intent
on contradicting critical public health messaging and downplaying the threat of
the virus, politically motivated pressure from the White House and baseless
allegations from political appointees that government scientists are part of a
disloyal ‘deep state.’<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal;">“‘The morale is as low
as I've ever seen it (751) and we have no confidence in our leadership,’ (752) a
CDC official said. ‘People are miserable and it's a shame because this pandemic
is still flying away and we still need a robust public health response.’”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal;">According to CNN, the
CDC’s “unforced errors, undermining by the White House and what some referred
to as Redfield's ‘ineffective’ leadership are taking a practical toll, making
some CDC officials reluctant to rotate into the agency's incident management
structure for the coronavirus response -- previously a coveted rotation --
because of concerns about how the response is being handled and a sense of
futility…” (753)<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal;">As one CDC official put
it, “Why spend a lot of time trying to do something that the government isn't
going to listen to or pay attention to.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal;">While Trump and his
political operatives dismantled and demoralized the one government agency most
able to mitigate damage from the coronavirus, the U.S. passed <a href="https://whdh.com/news/the-us-just-topped-more-than-7-million-coronavirus-cases-as-23-states-report-rising-numbers/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">seven million official
infections</span></a>,
a significant undercount from the actual totals. America was just one of four
countries with over a million cases; the other three—India, Russia, and
Brazil—were governed by authoritarian allies of Donald Trump. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal;">Within those numbers,
23 states had seen increases over the prior week, as America’s daily average
increased 9% to 43,000 reported infections/day—more cases than Austria,
Ireland, Australia, Denmark, Greece, Norway, South Korea, Finland, Hong Kong,
Iceland, or New Zealand had had <i>in total</i>, since the pandemic had begun. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal;">Unwilling to take the
elementary public health steps that had helped the leaders of Austria, Ireland,
Australia, Denmark, Greece, Norway, South Korea, Finland, Hong Kong, Iceland,
and New Zealand keep the vast majority of their citizens safe, the
administration fell back on their favored strategy whenever they were backed
into a corner: misinformation and distraction.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal;">At a super-spreader,
masks-optional rally in Jacksonville, Florida (754) the day before, Trump had
played to <a href="https://whdh.com/news/the-us-just-topped-more-than-7-million-coronavirus-cases-as-23-states-report-rising-numbers/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">his audience’s ignorance
and wishful thinking</span></a> with words of reminiscence: <span style="background: white;">“Normal life. O! I love normal life. We want to get back to
normal life.” On Friday, Trump protégé Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor who
had already sent more than 14,000 of his constituents—vulnerable elderly
Floridians in particular—to an early death by re-opening the economy
prematurely, granted Trump his wish. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal;"><span style="background: white;">As reported by Marc Caputo of <i>Politico</i>, DeSantis
“[cancelled] all state coronavirus restrictions Friday without warning,
catching local governments and epidemiologists off-guard amid their own
strategies to keep the coronavirus contained.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal;"><span style="background: white;">The executive order nullified fines used to enforce a very
necessary mask mandate in Miami-Dade County:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal;"><span style="background: white;">“…Florida slowly </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition/2020/09/11/florida-man-gets-a-covid-do-over-490310" target="_blank"><span style="background: white;">began the process of reopening</span></a><span style="background: white;"> earlier this month, but
DeSantis’ decision Friday accelerated it at warp speed. It also blindsided
Republican allies like Carlos Gimenez, a congressional candidate and mayor of
Miami-Dade, the state’s most-populous county, and home to the most coronavirus
cases in the state.”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal;"><span style="background: white;">The sudden, consequential actions made no sense on public
health grounds, as the state was not seeing a decline in cases and the flu
season was right around the corner; Florida had 120 deaths and 2,847 new
infections that day alone, both </span><a href="https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;">more than New Zealand had had in total
since the beginning of the pandemic</span></a><span style="background: white;">.
DeSantis’ decision to make guinea pigs of his constituents appeared to be taken
solely for the purpose of boosting Trump’s flagging campaign (755):<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal;"><span style="background: white;">“DeSantis’ unilateral action capped
a week of headline-grabbing announcements – from a </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/24/desantis-trump-protest-crackdown-421156" target="_blank"><span style="background: white;">crackdown on rioters</span></a><span style="background: white;"> to protections for </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2020/09/24/thats-what-college-kids-do-desantis-wants-protections-for-partying-students-1318392" target="_blank"><span style="background: white;">college kids partying during a pandemic</span></a><span style="background: white;"> – that aligned neatly with
president’s campaign messaging around putting the coronavirus behind us. The
burst of activity, including the Jacksonville MAGA rally DeSantis attended with
Trump on Thursday, coincided with the first batch of domestic absentee ballots
being mailed out to Florida voters.” </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal;"><span style="background: white;">Terry Rizzo, the chairwoman of
Florida’s Democratic Party, told <i>Politico</i> “We all desperately want
things to return back to normal, but that can't happen when DeSantis and Trump
have no plan to get us out of this public health crisis.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal;"><span style="background: white;">Trump was hoping the crisis would
just go away, </span><a href="https://www.courant.com/coronavirus/ct-nw-nyt-trump-quotes-covid-19-20201002-4gdxkic4gra7pccvqap2llp54a-story.html"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;">like a miracle</span></a><span style="background: white;">, but infections were on the rise. On
</span><b>Sunday, September 27, </b>Lisa Shumaker of Reuters reported that <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN26I10Y"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">positive
rates had increased up to 25%</span></a> in
the Midwest. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal;">Remarkably,<span style="background: white;"> this wasn’t the worst
news Trump would get on Sunday. Trump’s years-long effort to be the only modern
president to hide his tax returns from his constituents came to an end with </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/27/us/donald-trump-taxes.html"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;">a
bombshell scoop</span></a><span style="background: white;"> from <i>the New York Times</i>:
“Long-concealed records show Trump’s chronic losses and years of tax
avoidance.” </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal;"><span style="background: white;">While
millions of Americans struggled to feed their families, pay their utility
bills, or keep a roof over their heads, it came out that Trump had paid no
federal taxes in 11 of the 18 years examined and taken a $75,000 tax write-off
for hair care. In 2017, his first year as president, Trump had paid only $750
in federal taxes, roughly the same amount a single filer with no children and
an annual income of $18,000 would’ve paid. Contrary to the claim Trump had
staked his candidacy on—that he could transfer his </span><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;">financial
savvy </span><span style="background: white;">to the White House—records showed that Trump’s businesses had
lost $174 million in the period audited and that he personally </span><a href="https://theweek.com/articles/940021/trump-literally-cant-afford-lose-election"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;">owed
up to $421 million</span></a><span style="background: white;"> over the next few years to the IRS
and undisclosed creditors. As <i>the Times</i> put it, “</span><span style="background: white;">Ultimately, Mr. Trump has been more successful playing a business
mogul than being one in real life.”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal;"><span style="background: white;">On <b>Monday,
September 28</b>, as news of Trump’s tax-dodging exploded across the web, more
stories about the administration’s interference with public health officials
popped up. Monica Alba of NBC News </span><a href="https://news.yahoo.com/redfield-voices-alarm-over-influence-090057649.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAGYnxkJTn0sfr7OLmxnFB9HN2Zn4Oc8T-dLo81W6mgaTM4qoAGj64Oaj2z_f5b94Mxgbn7A64x-so4BsnnB-mpOBjZP3BR2VoAiKrg4oJOTavCUADfGa-a8GKZuSnJ56yDGskEpWsb_E9R2RqNU6t-AOVFRJdRqEaqIWXgUFK07Z"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;">reported</span></a><span style="background: white;"> on a
candid conversation Trump’s CDC head (Robert Redfield) had had on a commercial
flight. </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal;"><span style="background: white;">According
to Alba, </span>“The director of the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention has grown increasingly concerned that President Donald
Trump, pushed by a new member of his coronavirus task force, is sharing
incorrect information about the pandemic with the public.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal;">The new member of the task force was Scott Atlas (see
#622-623, #687-689), “<span style="background: white; color: #1d2228;">a neuroradiologist with no background in
infectious diseases or public health” whom Trump had plucked from Fox News. In
the overheard conversation, Redfield had “</span><span style="background: white;">suggested…that Dr. Scott Atlas is arming Trump with
misleading data about a </span><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/masks-bring-help-bring-down-covid-19-cases-governors-state-n1240448" target="_blank"><span style="background: white;">range of issues</span></a><span style="background: white;">, including questioning the </span><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/16/cdc-director-says-face-masks-may-provide-more-protection-than-coronavirus-vaccine-.html" target="_blank"><span style="background: white;">efficacy of masks</span></a><span style="background: white;">, whether young people are susceptible to the virus and the
potential benefits of </span><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/fauci-paul-clash-over-covid-19-herd-immunity-senate-hearing-n1240858" target="_blank"><span style="background: white;">herd immunity</span></a><span style="background: white;">.”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal;"><span style="background: white;">As one example, “when Redfield
testified last week that 90 percent of Americans remain susceptible to the
coronavirus, Atlas directly contradicted him and claimed that he had ‘misstated’
that fact under oath. Atlas argued that Redfield was using ‘old’ data, even
though Redfield cited information from July and August when answering
lawmakers' questions on Capitol Hill.” (756)</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal;"><span style="background: white;">With cases having increased by 22%
over the prior two weeks, Trump had made an unqualified quack doctor his top
public health official, likely because Atlas told him what he wanted to hear.
(757) Referring to Atlas on the flight, Redfield said, “Everything he says is
false.”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/mark-mazzetti"><span class="css-1baulvz"><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; letter-spacing: 0.25pt; padding: 0in; text-decoration-line: none;">Mark
Mazzetti</span></span></a><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">, </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/noah-weiland"><span class="css-1baulvz"><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; letter-spacing: 0.25pt; padding: 0in; text-decoration-line: none;">Noah Weiland</span></span></a>,<span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.25pt;"> and </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/sharon-lafraniere"><span class="css-1baulvz"><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; letter-spacing: 0.25pt; padding: 0in; text-decoration-line: none;">Sharon LaFraniere</span></span></a> of <i>the New
York Times</i> looked at another instance of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/28/us/politics/white-house-cdc-coronavirus-schools.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-themecolor: accent5;">the administration’s manipulation
of data and betrayal of the public trust</span></a> in “Behind the White House
Effort to Pressure the C.D.C. on School Openings.”<o:p></o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;">According to the opening paragraph, “<span style="background: white;">Top White House
officials pressured the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this summer
to play down the risk of sending children back to school, a strikingly
political intervention in one of the most sensitive public health debates of
the pandemic, according to documents and interviews with current and former
government officials.” (758)</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="background: white;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="background: white;">The administration’s dangerous propaganda offensive “included
Dr. Deborah L. Birx, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, and
officials working for Vice President Mike Pence, who led the task force. It
left officials at the C.D.C., long considered the world’s premier public health
agency, alarmed at the degree of pressure from the White House.”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="background: white;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="background: white;">Since sound data showed that opening schools was potentially
very risky, “White House officials…tried to circumvent the C.D.C. in a search
for alternate data showing that the pandemic was weakening and posed little
danger to children.”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="background: white;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="background: white;">“…The White House seized on a bar chart the C.D.C.
distributed…to other agencies, which showed that 60 percent of coronavirus
deaths were people over the age of 75. Officials asked the C.D.C. to provide a
new chart to show people 18 and under as a separate group — rather than
including them as normal in an under-25 category — in an effort to demonstrate
that the risk for school-age children was relatively low.”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="background: white;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="background: white;">Birx also tried to “push the C.D.C. to incorporate work from
a little-known agency inside the Department of Health and Human Services, the
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration [SAMHSA],” into
official CDC guidance, even though “C.D.C. scientists pointed out numerous
errors in the document and raised concerns that it appeared to minimize the
risk of the coronavirus to school-age children.”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="background: white;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="background: white;">Ultimately, the disinformation from SAMHSA minimizing the
risks to school staff, school children, and their parents was included in the
official CDC guidance, over the wishes of CDC staff. </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="background: white;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="background: white;">Olivia Troye, a former aide to Mike Pence who had witnessed
the manipulations of public health information, told <i>the Times</i>, “You’re
impacting people’s lives for whatever political agenda. You’re exchanging votes
for lives, and I have a serious problem with that.”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="background: white;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;">The state of the union was perilous on<b> Tuesday, September 29. </b>A record
number of <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-retail-bankruptcies-store-closures-hit-record-in-first-half-11601371800"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-themecolor: accent5;">retail stores were going under</span></a>.
(759) Disney announced that it would be <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/disneylands-reopening-date-remains-unclear-11601413802?mod=hp_lead_pos1"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-themecolor: accent5;">laying off 28,000 employees</span></a>.
(760) Infections were on the way up, in the neighborhood of <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/country/united-states?country=~USA"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-themecolor: accent5;">50,000 daily</span></a>. <o:p></o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;">Against this backdrop, it came out that the White House
had <a href="http://www.axios.com/scoop-white-house-overruled-cdc-cruise-ships-florida-91442136-1b8e-442e-a2a1-0b24e9a39fb6.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-themecolor: accent5;">overruled Robert Redfield’s
proposal</span></a> to extend a ban on cruise ships into next year (likely
because the industry is vital to Florida’s economy, 761) and a bi-partisan
group of seven former FDA commissioners published an op-ed discussing <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/09/29/former-fda-commissioners-coronavirus-vaccine-trump/?utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&stream=top"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-themecolor: accent5;">the destructive impact of the
administration’s interference</span></a> with the FDA’s public health mission. <o:p></o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;">Naturally, Trump had no intention of addressing his
constant assaults on public health officials in the name of short-term
political interests, his catastrophic failure to control the coronavirus (see
#1-#761), or the grim economic situation this failure had put tens of millions
of Americans in during that night’s presidential debate.<o:p></o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;">So Trump chose distraction and disruption instead. <o:p></o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;">He boorishly <a href="https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-joe-biden-donald-trump-chris-wallace-campaigns-04ee2e8d54f456ee6cafdc5fe53a5d28"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-themecolor: accent5;">interrupted Biden or moderator
Chris Wallace 71 times</span></a> to try to force a handful of fallacious
right-wing talking points into the debate. He levelled multiple attacks on
Biden’s son Hunter. <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/30/fact-check-debate-423228"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-themecolor: accent5;">He lied repeatedly and flagrantly</span></a>,
about how much he had paid in taxes, about Biden’s stance on law and order,
about his healthcare policy, about mail ballots. He also lied numerous times
about COVID-19-related items, claiming his packed and largely mask-less rallies
weren’t spreading infection and that a coronavirus vaccine would soon be
available. Not surprisingly, many members of his entourage <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/future-presidential-debates-unclear-trump-151225591.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-themecolor: accent5;">refused to wear masks</span></a>
at the debate, despite the rules of laid out in advance, a selfish ideological
gesture with consequences for others. <o:p></o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;">Rather than advocate for mask usage during a pandemic, as
any responsible president would have done, he mocked it (762). In one exchange
that would become particularly ironic by the end of the week, Trump said, “I
think masks are OK. You have to understand, if you look — I mean, I have a mask
right here. I put a mask on when I think I need it. Tonight, as an example, everybody’s
had a test, and you’ve had social distancing and all of the things that you
have to….When needed, I wear masks. I don’t wear masks like [Joe Biden]….Every
time you see him, he’s got a mask. He could be speaking 200 feet away from
them, and he shows up with the biggest mask I’ve ever seen.” <o:p></o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;">On <b>Wednesday, September 30</b><b> </b>the impact of the
administration’s lack of concern for public safety in K-12 schools got another
look in “<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/30/new-york-los-angeles-chicago-miami-broward-schools-reopening-423767?nname=politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition&nid=00000170-c000-da87-af78-e185fa700000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=2670445"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-themecolor: accent5;">Children have become acceptable
carnage</span></a>.” A team of journalists at <i>Politico</i> reviewed four of
the country’s biggest school systems—New York, L.A., Chicago, and Miami-Dade
County.<o:p></o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;">Among the challenges school administrators had to deal
with: <span style="background: white;">“Children can spread the
virus, rapidly, even if they may suffer less if they have it themselves. One in
three U.S. public school teachers </span><a href="https://www.childtrends.org/blog/nearly-one-third-of-u-s-teachers-are-at-higher-risk-of-severe-illness-from-covid-19-due-to-age" target="_blank"><span style="background: white;">is 50 or older</span></a><span style="background: white;">, putting them at
greater risk of developing a severe form of the illness.”</span><o:p></o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;">While struggling to keep students socially distanced and
staff safe, administrators “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/28/us/politics/white-house-cdc-coronavirus-schools.html" target="_blank"><span style="background: white;">lack clear guidance they can
trust from the federal government</span></a><span style="background: white;"> to help them make decisions on
reopening schools.” (763) Dan Domenech, head of the School Superintendents
Association, told <i>Politico</i> that schools were “‘on their own’…because the
credibility of CDC guidance is in question amid allegations of White House
meddling.” Domenech added that “It's ridiculous that, with something as serious
and as vital as what we're facing right now, that children have become
acceptable carnage.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="background: white;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="background: white;">The CDC was
also dropping the ball on collecting data about infection rates among children,
which could “track the spread of Covid-19 in schools and help researchers
develop best safety practices to successfully continue reopening schools for
in-person classes.” To date, the CDC had left tracking to local school
districts, guaranteeing that much less information and guidance would be shared
from district to district. (764)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="background: white;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="background: white;">Randi
Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers told reporters that CDC
guidelines were a “patchwork mess” with “</span>no consistent message.” <o:p></o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;">Leading the charge to force children into harm’s way was
Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida (see #434, #689). DeSantis threatened to
withhold funding to Miami-Dade schools if they didn’t open on his—and
Trump’s—preferred/accelerated timeline, though Miami-Dade had the highest
numbers of infections in the state which had been the world epicenter this
summer. Of DeSantis’ forced death march, Dan Domenech said “<span style="background: white;">it’s like the kids are the pawns in this
whole process….You know, let’s just throw ‘em out, just like cannon fodder. No
regard to their safety. No regard to their welfare. It’s just to make sure that
schools are open and parents can go to work.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="background: white;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="background: white;">The lack of
guidance from the CDC came up again on <b>Thursday, October 1</b>. Even as
cases were surging again, with </span><a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-cases-increasing-america-states-texas-d87186d3-ce1a-415a-b3ac-bec8a8e09df3.html"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; mso-themecolor: accent5;">25 states showing
increases</span></a><span style="background: white;">, the CDC had
failed to release any new coronavirus information for a whole week (765). As </span><a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/cdc-places-moratorium-releasing-coronavirus-health-guidance/story?id=73351190"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; mso-themecolor: accent5;">reported</span></a><span style="background: white;"> by Dr. Mark Abdelmalek, Dr. Jay Bhatt,
and John Santucci for abcnews.com, “</span>The type of information that has
been withheld has previously been vital to hospitals, health officials and
local leaders on the front lines providing updated guidance on how to treat,
test and slow the spread of the illness, which has <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/200000-americans-died-coronavirus-grim-milestone-context/story?id=72912791" target="_blank">claimed over 200,000 American lives.</a> A source told ABC
News that includes additional ‘guidance on who should be tested and when,’
adding, ‘That stuff won't get updated.’”<o:p></o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;">According to ABC News, a source said that “‘We know we
have new science, but updates based on new and emerging science are not updated
or able to be shared,’ including CDC ‘recommendations on best practices and
guidance on how to protect yourself and others from getting and spreading
COVID.’”<o:p></o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;">Dr. Richard Besser, who headed the CDC under Barack
Obama, told ABC, “[the CDC’s] <span style="background: white;">leadership
has been prevented from communicating directly with the American people….Without
this direct communication, it is impossible to develop and maintain trust. As a
result, thousands of American lives have been lost -- particularly in
communities of color, which have been hit the hardest -- and trust in our
nation's scientific and public health institutions has eroded.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="background: white;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;">While the number of lives lost was shocking considering
the unparalleled amount of resources at Trump’s disposal, tens of millions of
living-and-breathing Americans were silently struggling because of Trump’s
failure to get a handle on the coronavirus. Thanks to the state of the economy
and the long-term consequences of permanent job losses, up to half of Americans
55 and over could <a href="http://www.marketwatch.com/story/half-of-americans-over-55-may-retire-poor-2020-10-01"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-themecolor: accent5;">face poverty when they retired</span></a>
(766). The GOP’s sabotaging of stimulus talks was putting up to 179,000,000
Americans <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/10/01/power-water-gas-bills/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F2be1d1f%2F5f75fcaa9d2fda0efb3ac48c%2F597420fc9bbc0f1cdcfbd42b%2F42%2F72%2F0a33cfd8923c5e66c2850894011b9e34"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-themecolor: accent5;">at risk of losing access to water
or power</span></a> (767). Americans with diabetes were <a href="http://www.statnews.com/2020/10/01/why-people-with-diabetes-are-being-hit-so-hard-by-covid-19/?utm_source=STAT+Newsletters&utm_campaign=1b7f6d7974-Daily_Recap&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8cab1d7961-1b7f6d7974-152815530"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-themecolor: accent5;">suffering at inordinate rates</span></a>
(768), and many who survived COVID-19 would experience <a href="http://www.axios.com/coronavirus-organ-damage-975f146b-563c-482e-a812-82980652e288.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-themecolor: accent5;">damage</span></a> to their lungs,
kidneys, gastrointestinal tracts, or hearts while also being more susceptible
to strokes, brain hemorrhages, and memory loss. (769)<o:p></o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;">That night, <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-guests-al-smith-dinner/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-themecolor: accent5;">speaking</span></a> virtually to
the Al Smith dinner, Trump said, <span style="background: white;">“I
just want to say that the end of the pandemic is in sight, and next year will
be one of the greatest years in the history of our country.”</span><o:p></o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;">At 12:54 a.m. on <b>Friday, October 2</b>, Trump <a href="http://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook/2020/10/02/president-trump-and-melania-have-covid-19-what-now-490505"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-themecolor: accent5;">announced</span></a> to the world
that he had contracted COVID-19. <o:p></o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;">News of Trump’s infection revealed that Trump had likely
exposed numerous people to COVID-19 because of his unwillingness to socially
distance, wear a mask, or require those around him to wear masks (770). He
could have infected Chris Wallace and Joe Biden at the Tuesday presidential
debate, supporters at a rally he attended in Minnesota on Wednesday, and people
who’d been exposed to him at a fundraiser early Thursday. <o:p></o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;">The fundraiser happened <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-went-ahead-with-golf-club-fundraiser-after-hicks-tested-positive"><i><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-themecolor: accent5;">after</span></i><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-themecolor: accent5;"> Trump had found out that close
aide Hope Hicks had been infected</span></a>. Unconcerned that he might spread
infection, Trump wore no mask and concealed this information at a
meet-and-greet with dozens of supporters; New Jersey officials <a href="https://www.politico.com/states/new-jersey/story/2020/10/02/trump-looked-100-percent-normal-during-bedminster-fundraiser-attendee-says-1319744?nname=politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition&nid=00000170-c000-da87-af78-e185fa700000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=2670445"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-themecolor: accent5;">feared</span></a> that Trump had
unleashed yet another super-spreader event (771). Trump’s spokeswoman, Kayleigh
McEnany, neglected to tell reporters about Hicks’ infection at that day’s press
conference, which potentially exposed the press to infection, as McEnany had
spent time with Hicks in the past couple days. (772)<o:p></o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;">Then there were secret service personnel, Air Force
personnel, members of Congress and their aides, reporters, and hordes of fan
boys and girls in half a dozen states he’d held rallies in. Depending on when
he had contracted the virus, Trump could have passed the coronavirus on to
hundreds if not thousands of people, creating <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/02/trump-campaign-contact-tracing-425622"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-themecolor: accent5;">a contact tracing nightmare</span></a>.
<o:p></o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;">Georges Benjamin, the executive director of the
American Public Health Association, told <i>Politico</i>, “They’re way behind
the curve in trying to catch all the folks that the president has been around….The
fact that he’s been around so many people and that he doesn’t wear a mask, he
could be a superspreader, we just don’t know yet.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Making tracing even harder, it was impossible to know
when Trump had gotten infected because of the lax culture around the White
House. Former Mike Pence aide </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-trumps-washington/it-was-all-about-the-election-the-ex-white-house-aide-olivia-troye-on-trumps-narcissistic-mishandling-of-covid-19"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">Olivia Troye</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
described the atmosphere as </span><a href="https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Trump-seemed-to-defy-the-laws-of-science-and-15617686.php"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">a “petri dish”</span></a><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 107%;">and told<i> the
Washington Post</i> <span style="background: white; color: #111111;">“The fact of
the matter was, 75 percent did not walk around with masks. Maybe 85 percent…It
was a very small percentage of people who wore the masks all the time.” (773)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Despite Trump’s illness, and the clear connection
between Trump’s infection and the reactionary, anti-science mindset that
spawned it, an administration official said that face coverings would still not
be mandatory at the White House, as masks were “</span><a href="https://twitter.com/AP_Politics/status/1312103720750989313"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">a personal choice</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.”
(774).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">On <b>Saturday, October 3</b>, it was reported that
the U.S. had had over 54,000 new infections on Friday. 33 states were now
showing increases in cases. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The White House </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/white-house-covid-contact-tracing/2020/10/03/2a6b8e2a-05a1-11eb-897d-3a6201d6643f_story.html?itid=hp-top-table-high"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">hadn’t bothered</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
to initiate contact tracing to protect the thousands of people who could have
gotten COVID from Trump and other administration officials, but one of the key
super-spreader events was coming to light. As </span><a href="http://www.statnews.com/2020/10/03/hugs-handshakes-and-few-masks-rose-garden-supreme-court-announcement-packed-with-covid19-red-flags/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">reported</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
by Andrew Joseph of statnews.com, the official Rose Garden announcement of the
nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court one week prior appeared to
have set off a wave of infections.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">In
a karmic boomerang for the ages, a celebration of the extreme right’s imminent
control of the Supreme Court for decades to come, a move certain to lead to
mass human suffering for everyday Americans—from the loss of healthcare for
tens of millions to assaults on unions to the gutting of environmental
protections to the desecration of voting rights for people of color to further
corporate corrosion of our political system—had triggered a ripple of
infections. A number of privileged (white) elite who had gloated in the misery
they were about to inflict while shaking hands, not social distancing, and not
wearing masks had contracted the virus, including right-wing senators Thom
Tillis and Mike Lee, the president’s former aide Kellyanne Conway, and Chris
Christie, the president’s designated propagandist on Sunday morning talk shows.</span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">While
sociopaths got their comeuppance, the administration </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/03/trump-hospital-covid-health-425840"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">delivered yet more mixed
messages</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">,
this time about the state of Trump’s health. Early in the day, Trump’s
physician (Dr. Sean Conley) had addressed reporters assembled outside of the
Walter Reed Medical Center, where Trump was getting care. Conley put on a happy
face, dodged media questions about Trump’s use of oxygen, and claimed (while
citing little relevant data) that Trump was “doing very well.” Conley also said
that Trump had been diagnosed <i>72</i> hours earlier, which indicated that
Trump had been aware of his infection on Wednesday, not Thursday, as the White
House had originally said, and had knowingly infected many more people than
previously known. (The administration later claimed that Conley had misspoken).
</span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">Just
minutes after Conley’s presentation, once the official event was over, Trump’s
chief of staff Mark Meadows painted a radically different picture, telling
reporters that “The president’s vitals over the last 24 hours were very
concerning and the next 48 hours will be critical in terms of his care” and
“We’re still not on a clear path to a full recovery.” It also came out that
Trump had needed oxygen Friday, contrary to the statement from Dr. Conley. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">Saturday evening, Trump
released a video on Twitter which contradicted Meadows. In the video, Trump
minimized his transfer to Walter Reed, </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/10/04/trump-claims-that-he-had-no-choice-risk-his-own-health-americans-disagree/"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">dubiously claiming</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"> he could just as easily have convalesced at the
White House, but hadn’t wanted to be isolated:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">“I just didn’t want to
stay in the White House. I was given that alternative….Stay in the White House,
lock yourself in, don’t ever leave, don’t even go to the Oval Office, just stay
upstairs and enjoy it. Don’t see people, don’t talk to people and just be done
with it, and I can’t do that.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">Scott Jennings, an official
in the W. Bush administration, told <i>Politico</i>, “The world has to know
whether the president of the United States is in good health….You cannot have
inconsistent reports about the president’s health.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/04/us/politics/trump-virus.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20201005&instance_id=22811&nl=the-morning&regi_id=87101069&section_index=2&section_name=the_latest_news&segment_id=39842&te=1&user_id=1baa2c82b5fd57364c41fdc8e1f99240"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">Inconsistent reports</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
were exactly what the public was getting. On <b>Sunday, October 4</b>, Trump
left Walter Reed hospital to be chauffeured around in an SUV, giving the
impression that he was mobile and doing ok, yet he was taking steroids intended
for severe COVID patients and medical information indicated that he’d had a
high fever on Friday and that his blood oxygen levels had fallen off twice
since he had been publicly diagnosed. Of Trump’s photo op, Dr. James Phillips,
a physician at Walter Reed, tweeted “Every single person in the vehicle during
that completely unnecessary Presidential ‘drive-by’ just now has to be
quarantined for 14 days. They might get sick. They may die. For political
theater. Commanded by Trump to put their lives at risk for theater. This is
insanity.” (775)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">As Trump’s illness held center stage in the national
political drama, more came out about the spreading trail of infection left in
Trump’s wake due to his callous disregard for public health guidelines. </span><a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/10/trump-reckless/616610/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=atlantic-daily-newsletter&utm_content=20201005&silverid-ref=NjY0NzQxMzgxNDkxS0"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">Trump had routinely shown no concern for
the safety of his aides</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> and </span><a href="http://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/04/biden-still-at-risk-for-covid-426086"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">could have infected</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
Joe Biden at the Tuesday debate. Trump’s Wednesday rally in Duluth, Minnesota
had been a cautionary tale of “</span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/04/duluth-is-still-recovering-from-trumps-visit-426119"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">worst pandemic practices</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">”
which would result in </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/09/trump-minnesota-rally-coronavirus-cases-428425"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">multiple infections</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> (776).
Trump covered up a positive rapid test earlier in the day on Thursday when he
went to a fundraiser in New Jersey, </span><a href="http://www.politico.com/states/new-jersey/story/2020/10/04/officials-racing-to-contact-206-guests-who-attended-trumps-new-jersey-fundraiser-1320897"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">potentially infecting 206 people</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> (777).
Trump also covered up his rapid test result when speaking to Sean Hannity
Thursday night and </span><a href="https://www.rawstory.com/2020/10/dont-tell-anyone-trump-tried-to-hide-positive-19-tests-spreading-through-the-white-house/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=5604"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">asked an adviser</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
not to tell the press of his infections or any of the other infections plaguing
White House staff. (778) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The co-chair of the right-wing super PAC Great America
told <i>the Washington Post</i> that the slew of infections to Trump, his
allies, and his aides </span><a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/as-virus-spreads-across-gop-ranks-some-republicans-say-party-will-pay-price-for-stupid-approach/ar-BB19FM3f"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">showed the GOP to be “the stupid party</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">,”
but the Trump campaign wasn’t letting reality get in the way of their messaging.
Appearing on “This Week” Sunday morning, Trump’s adviser Jason Miller </span><a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/top-trump-campaign-official-ridicules-joe-biden-s-mask-wearing-n1242041"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">lied</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> about the lack of
precautions around the White House and accused Joe Biden of wearing a mask as
“a prop.” (779)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">One of the White
House officials who didn’t much care for “props” was Kayleigh McEnany, Trump’s
spokeswoman. On <b>Monday, October 5</b>, it came out that <a href="http://www.mediaite.com/trump/breaking-white-house-press-secretary-kayleigh-mcenany-tests-positive-for-coronavirus/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">McEnany’s cavalier attitude about masks had given her
the coronavirus</span></a>.
McEnany was <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/02/trump-campaign-manager-tests-positive-for-covid-19-425722"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">one of 20 people</span></a> who’d been at the super-spreader
announcement of Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme Court nine days
earlier, yet the administration<span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-themecolor: accent5;">
</span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/05/health/contact-tracing-white-house.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">had yet to initiate any contact tracing of the event</span></a> (780). This
attempt to pretend the coronavirus didn’t exist was one with the
administration’s catastrophic non-response nationally and <a href="https://theweek.com/speedreads/941938/white-house-residence-staffers-who-caught-coronavirus-reportedly-told-keep-quiet"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">the cover up of infections among housekeepers</span></a> at the White
House a few weeks earlier. (781)<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">No one
demonstrated the administration’s denial more blatantly than Donald Trump.
Though the state of his physical condition was questionable, he announced that
he would be <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/05/meadows-trump-hospital-monday-426394"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">returning</span></a> to the White House Monday evening. Of the
virus that had killed 270,000 Americans and infected millions, Trump told his
constituents “Don’t be afraid of Covid” and “Don’t let it dominate your life.”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">In the real world,
COVID-19 <i>was</i> dominating Americans’ lives because Trump had failed to
contain the virus, or even <i>try</i> to contain the virus. The country was
logging <a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-trump-america-failure-150de3e7-ce72-48c4-a7cf-50f735a461ac.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">over 40,000 new infections daily</span></a>; thirty-four
states had seen <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-10-05/covid-19-is-making-a-dangerous-comeback-in-most-parts-of-america?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20201006&instance_id=22849&nl=the-morning&regi_id=87101069&section_index=1&section_name=big_story&segment_id=39939&te=1&user_id=1baa2c82b5fd57364c41fdc8e1f99240"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">an increase in 7-day averages</span></a> from a month
earlier.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">As detailed by
Alice Miranda Ollstein and Dan Goldberg of <i>Politico</i>, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/05/midwest-reopening-coronavirus-cases-426593?nname=politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition&nid=00000170-c000-da87-af78-e185fa700000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=2670445"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">the Midwest was getting slammed</span></a>: Nebraska had
recently had a 7-day record, Iowa was recording more than 1,000 new cases/day,
North Dakota’s infection rates had doubled in September, and Wisconsin was logging
more than 2,000 infections/day while its hospitals were near capacity, forcing
the state to build a field hospital in Milwaukee.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Despite the
ravages of the pandemic, Republican office holders in the Midwest were doubling
down on Trumpian ignorance. Iowa governor Kim Reynolds had loosened quarantine
rules, allowed student bars to re-open, and refused to issue a statewide mask
mandate. Wisconsin Republicans had supported a lawsuit to overturn the
Democratic governor’s mask mandate, though the state was one of the world’s
pandemic epicenters. North Dakota’s Republican governor “<span style="background: white;">bowed to public pressure and rescinded an
order that required close contacts of infected patients to quarantine.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Dr. Ashish Jha
(from Brown University’s School of Public Health) told <i>Politico</i>, “We
can’t seem to learn our lesson….We touch the stove, it’s hot, we burn
ourselves, but we think if we touch it again, we’ll be fine.”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">More Trump-related
infections were reported on <b>Tuesday, October 6</b>. A <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/2020/10/trail-of-wreckage-cnn-graphic-shows-all-the-people-infected-by-trumps-super-spreader-administration/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=5610"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">growing number</span></a> of Trump loyalists, including adviser <a href="http://www.axios.com/stephen-miller-tests-positive-coronavirus-0ba1ac28-66ec-47b6-a341-abd7057128d7.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">Stephen Miller</span></a>, had contracted COVID-19. “<a href="https://theweek.com/speedreads/942048/least-1-trumps-military-aides-tasked-carrying-nuclear-football-reportedly-coronavirus"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">At least one</span></a>” of the military aides who followed Trump
around with the nuclear briefcase had caught COVID-19. Several White House reporters
<a href="https://www.axios.com/white-house-coronavirus-cases-reporters-316b4da7-8f98-4973-87fd-0b42561f870a.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">caught the disease</span></a> (as did, potentially, their family
members). (782)</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Not content with
the damage they had already done, the Trump administration stayed stuck on
stupid. <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/06/trump-coronavirus-flu-comparison-426712"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">Trump tweeted a lie</span></a> that had been one of his favorite talking
points in February and March:</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">“Flu season is
coming up! Many people every year, sometimes over 100,000, and despite the
Vaccine, die from the Flu. Are we going to close down our Country? No, we have
learned to live with it, just like we are learning to live with Covid, in most
populations far less lethal!!!” (783)</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Trump also sent
the markets into freefall by <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8811961/Roid-rage-Trump-crashes-markets-tweeting-NO-stimulus-election.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">unilaterally announcing via tweet</span></a> that he was
ending stimulus negotiations, leaving cities, states, small businesses, and
millions of Americans in the lurch.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">In a much less
public but potentially devastating move, Alex Azar (head of Trump’s Health and
Human Services) and Scott Atlas (see #622-623, #687-689, #756-757) “<span style="background: white;">met Monday with a
trio of scientists who back the controversial theory that the United States can
quickly and safely achieve widespread immunity to the coronavirus by allowing
it to spread unfettered among healthy people.</span>”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">As <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/06/trump-herd-immunity-scientists-426911"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">reported</span></a> by Sarah Overmohle and David Lim of <i>Politico</i>,
the doctors Azar and Atlas were meeting with were outliers in the scientific
community who “[favored] <span style="background: white;">moving
aggressively to reopen the economy while sidelining broad testing and other
fundamental public health measures.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">The known results
of this strategy were grim:</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white;">“Mainstream medical and public health experts say that
seeking widespread, or herd, immunity in the manner the scientists prescribe
could result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands or even millions more U.S.
residents.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white;">Jeremy Konyndyk, who had managed disaster preparedness in the
Obama administration, told </span><i>Politico</i><span style="background-color: white;">, “They are putting out a half-baked
policy proposal that is not grounded in science, but aligns very well with the
political direction that the administration wants to take and that the
president wants to take and that he sees as being most consistent with his
reelection prospects.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background: white;">Not surprisingly, </span><a href="http://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/axios-ipsos-coronavirus-index?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;">70% of Americans</span></a><span style="background: white;"> said they trusted Trump either “not at all” (54%) or “not
very much” (16%) when it came to the coronavirus.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white;">The news on </span><b>Wednesday, October 7</b><span style="background-color: white;"> was unlikely to
increase public trust in Trump.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background: white;">Updated information showed that </span><a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/34-people-connected-white-house-previously-infected-coronavirus/story?id=73487381"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;">34 people</span></a><span style="background: white;"> with connections to the White House were infected with the
coronavirus.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background: white;">A <i>Daily Beast</i> scoop </span><a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/white-house-quietly-told-vets-group-it-might-have-exposed-them-to-covid"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;">revealed</span></a><span style="background: white;"> that the administration had “quietly informed” a veteran’s
group that Gold Star families who had been at the White House on September 27
could have been infected. The indoor event had lacked social distancing and
very few attendees had worn masks. (784)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background: white;">Due to the economic collapse tied to Trump’s failure to
contain the coronavirus, long-term unemployment surged to a modern record. As </span><a href="https://thehill.com/policy/finance/519878-long-term-jobless-figures-rise-underscoring-economic-pain"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;">reported</span></a><span style="background: white;"> by Niv Ellis of <i>the Hill</i>, “According to the Labor
Department, the number of people out of work for more than 27 weeks increased
to 2.4 million in September, an increase of 32.5 percent from the previous
month. There are 4.9 million people who have been unemployed between 15 and 26
weeks.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white;">Worse yet, “Workers who have been
separated from their jobs for more than 6 months typically have a more
difficult time getting back to work even once the economy improves.” (785)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background: white;">Thanks to Trump’s sabotaging of the
stimulus negotiations, the pain was likely to spread to even more Americans:
“The number of long-term unemployed workers is expected to rise in the months
ahead, something likely to be exacerbated by </span><a href="https://thehill.com/people/donald-trump"><span style="background: white;">President Trump</span></a><span style="background: white;">’s decision to scrap talks with
Democrats on a COVID-19 economic relief bill before the elections.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background: white;">Sam Baker of <i>Axios</i> </span><a href="https://www.axios.com/cost-washington-coronavirus-failure-e7cbd25e-84fa-4e0c-81c7-ff7babe84e80.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;">highlighted</span></a><span style="background: white;"> another way Trump’s abandonment of
the stimulus talks could exacerbate the coronavirus:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background: white;">“</span>Heading
into the winter months without a new round of stimulus in place will leave
vulnerable workers without a financial safety net if they get sick — and
because of that, experts say, it will likely make the pandemic itself worse.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">“The reasons are simple: If you
can’t afford to miss work, and if there’s no temporary aid to make it feasible
for you to miss work, then you’ll keep going to work — even if you’re infected.
Those workers will infect others, and the virus will spread from there.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">Also negatively impacted by Trump’s
abandonment of stimulus talks were election workers—and ultimately,
voters—around the country. As <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/election-protection-officials-say-theyre-basically-broke-just-in-time-for-the-vote?via=newsletter&source=Politics"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">detailed</span></a><span style="color: #5b9bd5;"> </span>by journalist Sam Brodey, elections workers were dealing
with budget cut shortfalls due to the state of the economy, “<span style="background: white;">Yet there’s more work than ever for
elections officials to do. They’re funding awareness campaigns to inform people
how to vote, finding new spaces for in-person voting, expanding mail voting and
tracking down personal protective equipment for election workers.” (786)</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="background: white;">The Democratic House of
Representatives had passed a stimulus bill on May 15 which had included $3.6
billion for elections workers, but the funding had died with the GOP’s bad
faith stance in the negotiations. One state elections director told Brodey, “I
feel like I’ve got democracy in a boat….and my staff is bailing water out while
people are drilling holes in it.”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="background: white;">The big event of the day
was the vice-presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Mike Pence. Like his
boss, Pence </span><a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/vice-presidential-debate-mike-pence-kamala-harris/#post-update-4a7e19a2"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;">violated the agreed-upon rules</span></a><span style="background: white;">, interrupting Harris and going over
his allotted time frequently, and </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/08/briefing/mike-pence-kamala-harris-nobel-prize-in-literature-your-thursday-briefing.html"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;">lied constantly</span></a><span style="background: white;">. Pence’s lies about the
administration’s coronavirus response </span><a href="https://www.axios.com/pences-alternative-pandemic-world-dee32cda-1ca4-4d8c-bc4b-0d13e251358f.html"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;">were brazen</span></a><span style="background: white;">, especially considering they were
delivered while he and Harris were separated by Plexiglass dividers. </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="background: white;">As administration
figures had done many times, Pence made a big deal of Trump’s decision to limit
travel from China, though it had come after airlines were already cancelling
flights to and from China and Trump would take another six weeks to ban travel
from Europe, allowing thousands of infected travelers to flood the U.S. Pence
mischaracterized Harris’s attacks on the administration’s coronavirus failures
(see #1-#786) as attacks on the American public who had been victimized by
those failures (“</span>When
you say what the American people have done over these last eight months hasn't
worked, that's a great disservice to the sacrifices that the American people
have made.”) <span style="background: white;">Pence
minimized the undeniable impact of Amy Coney Barrett’s super-spreader event by
mentioning that some of the people had been tested beforehand and the event was
outside—while neglecting to mention that there was no social distancing and
virtually no masks. Pence claimed that Biden’s plan to combat COVID was just a carbon
copy of Trump’s, while in reality </span><a href="https://www.axios.com/joe-biden-coronavirus-response-52072778-bd60-4657-af48-32cf0dd567dc.html?stream=top"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;">Biden’s plan</span></a><span style="background: white;"> was far more aggressive,
better-funded, more reliant on science, and certain to be far more effective. (787)</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="background: white;">Pence had no option <i>but</i>
to lie because Team Trump’s failures were producing consistently bad news for
the administration. On <b>Thursday, October 8</b>, nine months after the
administration had first been notified of the coronavirus, </span><a href="https://www.gazettextra.com/news/nation_world/months-into-pandemic-ppe-shortage-persists/article_725af2e4-0f0c-5e61-b24b-2ea3c71945eb.html"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;">medical providers still lacked
adequate PPE</span></a><span style="background: white;">, forcing them to re-use
limited supplies or go without (788). Coronavirus was now the </span><a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/covid-19-is-now-the-third-leading-cause-of-death-in-the-u-s1/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=week-in-science&utm_content=link&utm_term=2020-10-09_featured-this-week&spMailingID=68995654&spUserID=NDIyMTA1NTc2ODI1S0&spJobID=1981109864&spReportId=MTk4MTEwOTg2NAS2"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;">third leading cause of death</span></a><span style="background: white;"> in the U.S., and cases were up 6%
from the week before: </span><a href="http://www.axios.com/coronavirus-23-states-dc-e11cfce1-6c0b-4dd0-a118-8978f74ce303.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;">only four states</span></a><span style="background: white;"> had had a reduction in cases over
the prior week. </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/08/health/us-coronavirus-thursday/index.html"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;">Hospitalizations were up</span></a><span style="background: white;">, with six states that supported
Trump in 2016—M</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">ontana, Nebraska,
North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Wyoming—setting records. The CDC was
projecting that the official death toll could reach 233,000 by the end of the
month. As staggering and tragic as the first-in-the-world number was, it was a
major undercount from Trump’s actual death total. </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">The administration
wasn’t doing anything to inspire confidence that things would get better. Trump
was trampling on science again by pushing the FDA to </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/10/08/trump-regeneron-antibodies-covid/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #5b9bd5;">fast track another miracle “cure”</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #5b9bd5;"> </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">and refusing to participate in a presidential debate which </span><a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/08/second-presidential-debate-between-trump-and-biden-on-oct-15-will-be-virtual.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #5b9bd5;">had to be virtual because he’d
failed to follow public safety guidelines</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">. After it came out that right-wing extremists had </span><a href="https://www.axios.com/michigan-gretchen-whitmer-kidnap-32d06af2-30d1-4a38-8474-ff98664e9161.html?utm_campaign=organic&utm_medium=socialshare&utm_source=twitter"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #5b9bd5;">plotted</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> to kidnap and overthrow the
Democratic governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, Whitmer pointed out that
Trump’s public attacks on her lockdowns earlier in the year, and his refusal to
condemn white supremacists at the presidential debate, had served as a
“rallying cry” for extremists. Trump’s response was to </span><a href="https://www.axios.com/trump-gretchen-whitmer-kidnapping-plot-d6a62746-fdb0-44fd-a0f0-16bd15c55f3f.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #5b9bd5;">attack Whitmer</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> again for the necessary lockdowns
in her state which had saved countless lives. (789)</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="background: white;">Because of Trump’s
months of dangerously dishonest messaging and other colossal failures, Joe
Biden became the first presidential candidate to be endorsed by <i>the New
England Journal of Medicine</i>. In a column titled “</span><a href="https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2029812"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;">Dying in a Leadership Vacuum</span></a><span style="background: white;">,” the editors said that “The
magnitude of this failure is astonishing,” pointing out that America had more
cases and deaths than China, a country with 4X the population of the U.S., had
50X the death rate of Japan, and 2000X the death rate of Vietnam, considered a
“lower-middle-income” nation. </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="background: white;">America had come “into
this crisis with enormous advantages,” yet the U.S. had “</span>failed at almost
every step. We had ample warning, but when the disease first arrived, we were
incapable of testing effectively and couldn’t provide even the most basic
personal protective equipment to health care workers and the general public.
And we continue to be way behind the curve in testing. While the absolute
numbers of tests have increased substantially, the more useful metric is the
number of tests performed per infected person, a rate that puts us far down the
international list, below such places as Kazakhstan, Zimbabwe, and Ethiopia,
countries that cannot boast the biomedical infrastructure or the manufacturing
capacity that we have. (790) Moreover, a lack of emphasis on developing
capacity has meant that U.S. test results are often long delayed, rendering the
results useless for disease control. (791)<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">“Although we tend to focus on technology, most of the
interventions that have large effects are not complicated. The United States
instituted quarantine and isolation measures late and inconsistently, often
without any effort to enforce them, after the disease had spread substantially
in many communities. Our rules on social distancing have in many places been
lackadaisical at best, with loosening of restrictions long before adequate
disease control had been achieved. And in much of the country, people simply
don’t wear masks, largely because our [Republican] leaders have stated outright
that masks are political tools rather than effective infection control
measures.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The conclusion:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">“Anyone else who recklessly squandered lives and money
in this way would be suffering legal consequences. Our leaders have largely
claimed immunity for their actions. But this election gives us the power to
render judgment. Reasonable people will certainly disagree about the many
political positions taken by candidates. But truth is neither liberal nor
conservative. When it comes to the response to the largest public health crisis
of our time, our current political leaders have demonstrated that they are
dangerously incompetent. We should not abet them and enable the deaths of
thousands more Americans by allowing them to keep their jobs.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">More evidence of the administration’s enabling of infections
and deaths was </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/09/health/coronavirus-covid-masks-cdc.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">revealed</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
on <b>Friday, October 9</b>. As reported by Sheila Kaplan for <i>the New York
Times</i>, “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention drafted a sweeping
order last month requiring all passengers and employees to wear masks on all
forms of public and commercial transportation in the United States, but it was
blocked by the White House.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The measure, which “would have required face coverings
on airplanes (792), trains (793), buses (794) and subways (795), and in transit
hubs such as airports (796), train stations (797) and bus depots (798),” was
supported by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, but killed by Mike
Pence, head of the Coronavirus Task Force. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Peter DeFazio, the Oregon Democrat who heads the House
of Representatives committee on transportation and infrastructure, told <i>the
Times</i> the administration’s moves were “especially outrageous because the
science is so clear: masks save lives….The millions of Americans who work in
and use our transportation systems every day — from bus drivers, train
conductors and flight attendants, to the frontline workers who rely on public
transit — deserve to know their president is relying on experts’ best advice
and doing everything possible to keep them safe.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Indifferent to science, reason, or experts, Trump continued
to follow his narrow self-interest as he saw it. On <b>Saturday, October 10</b>,
it was reported that Trump had received a sign-off from his doctor to do
campaign events again, though he had yet to test negative for COVID-19. Trump’s
first rally was held outside the White House with <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2020/10/10/politics/donald-trump-covid-white-house-event/index.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">no social distancing
and few masks</span></a> (799). In addition to the usual lies
about Joe Biden wanting to defund the police and take peoples’ guns, Trump
claimed that the coronavirus was “disappearing” and that we would have a
vaccine “very, very soon.” <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">In the real world, <a href="https://news.trust.org/item/20201010090727-mn0ok"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">cases in the U.S. were increasing rapidly</span></a>. 58,000 new infections—the highest daily total in two
months—had been tabulated on Friday, hospitalizations in the Midwest were at
record levels for a fifth consecutive day, and ten states had recorded their
highest one-day increase on Friday.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">As the pandemic surged across the U.S. due to Trump’s
failures of governance, <i>the New York Times</i> posted “<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/10/10/us/trump-properties-swamp.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">The Swamp That Trump
Built</span></a>,” an exhaustive accounting of the ways</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Trump had used his presidency to enrich himself and his
family, primarily by “<span style="background: white;">turning his own hotels
and resorts into the Beltway’s new back rooms, where public and private business
mix and special interests reign.”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white;">The </span><i>Times</i><span style="background-color: white;"> “found over 200 companies,
special-interest groups and foreign governments that patronized Mr. Trump’s
properties while reaping benefits from him and his administration.” Conducting
private business on public time, Trump had spent one of every four days away
from the White House, raking in over $12 million alone in just the first two
years of his presidency.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span lang="EN" style="line-height: 115%;">As of <b>Sunday, October 11</b>, </span><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8828981/CDC-forecasts-coronavirus-death-toll-hit-233-000-end-month.html"><span lang="EN" style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 115%;">CDC estimates</span></a><span lang="EN" style="line-height: 115%;"> showed that the U.S. could be back up to 1,000
deaths/day by the end of the month.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Eager to bury this news, the administration </span><a href="http://www.mediaite.com/tv/jon-karl-says-white-house-wouldnt-allow-fauci-other-medical-experts-to-appear-on-abcs-this-week/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">blocked Dr. Fauci</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> (800)
and everyone else on their public health team (801) from appearing on ABC’s “This
Week.” Speaking to the cameras, the show's host (George Karl) said, “We had
hoped to talk to Dr. Fauci about both the outbreak at the White House and
across the country. He was more than willing to join us, but the White House
wouldn’t allow you to hear from the nation’s leading expert on coronavirus. In
fact, they wouldn’t allow any of the medical experts on the president’s own
coronavirus task force to appear on this show.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">An administration official who <i>was</i> allowed to
appear on the Sunday talk shows was senior economic adviser Larry Kudlow, one
of Trump’s top snake oil salesmen (see #70, #374, #607, #652, #661). True to
form, Kudlow minimized the economic desperation of tens of millions of
Americans and claimed that “We are learning to deal with the virus in a targeted,
safe, prevented way.” Kudlow’s statement was so patently ridiculous that CNN
host Jake Tapper </span><a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/jake-tapper-literally-laughs-when-larry-kudlow-says-were-safely-dealing-with-covid"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">laughed and replied</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
“We are not learning to live with the virus, Larry. We had four days in a row
of 50,000 infections and the death rate is the highest in the world.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">
</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">One public health official who couldn’t be censored
was Republican Scott Gottlieb, who had led the FDA in the first two years of Trump’s
presidency before returning to the private sector. Trump had recently raved
about an antibody drug he’d been given after getting COVID-19, and claimed he
would get it distributed to hospitals free of charge, but this was nowhere near
to becoming a reality. As Gottlieb told host Margaret Brennan on “Face the
Nation,” the administration had been advised to “ramp up” manufacturing of
therapeutic drugs numerous times in February and March, but had dropped the
ball. Even without accounting for likely increases in infection rates, the U.S.
needed between 300,000-400,000 doses of the antibody per month; at present, the
manufacturer had 50,000 doses <i>total</i>. As with so many other vital aspects
of their pandemic response, the administration had in Gottlieb’s words “</span><a href="http://www.axios.com/fda-trump-antibody-drug-7f37cf30-1bca-4694-a7e5-d760bb383478.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">definitely missed the window</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.”
(802)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">Bad
news continued on <b>Monday, October 12</b>. </span><a href="https://news.trust.org/item/20201012182911-m9vye"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%; mso-themecolor: accent5;">According to</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"> Lisa Shumaker of
Reuters, infections had risen 11% in the past week, “Twenty-nine out of 50
states have seen cases rise for at least two weeks in a row, up from 21 states
in the prior week,” and “</span><span style="line-height: 107%;">The percentage of tests that came back
positive for the virus rose to 5.0% from 4.6% the prior week.” Shumaker added
that “The World Health Organization considers rates above 5% concerning because
it suggests there are more cases in the community that have not yet been
uncovered.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The five states with the biggest increases </span><a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/covid-19-soars-in-red-states-as-trump-restarts-rallies/ar-BB19X2p2?ocid=uxbndlbing"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%; mso-themecolor: accent5;">had supported Trump</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
in 2016. Some of the states at the very heart of Trump’s pandemic would soon
host a Trump campaign rally. As Dr. Fauci </span><a href="http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-rallies-raise-concern-about-spread-of-virus-fauci-says/ar-BB19X8Rt?ocid=uxbndlbing"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%; mso-themecolor: accent5;">told CNN</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">,
“We know that that is asking for trouble when you do that. We’ve seen that when
you have situations of congregant settings where there are a lot of people
without masks, the data speak for themselves.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Though the Trump campaign was only too happy to use
Fauci’s words—and his integrity—out of context, for misleading campaign ads
that the non-partisan Fauci </span><a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/10/12/dr-fauci-says-trump-ad-featuring-him-should-taken-down/5972629002/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%; mso-themecolor: accent5;">wanted pulled off the air</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">,
they continued to show no concern for his public health advice. Major news
organizations were </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/12/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-journalists.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%; mso-themecolor: accent5;">refusing</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
to send reporters on Trump’s campaign planes for fear that they would get
infected, an unprecedented pass on what had historically been a highly-coveted
assignment. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Trump’s first major super-spreader rally since he’d
contracted COVID-19 was held before thousands of </span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-virus-outbreak-donald-trump-sanford-health-42f306cf95d0a7337b818f89770cf539"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%; mso-themecolor: accent5;">tightly-packed and mostly mask-less</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> (803)
fans in Sanford, Florida. Even as the virus was surging due to his
administration having led the most incompetent pandemic response in the
developed world (see #1-#803), Trump told the crowd, “Under my leadership,
we’re delivering a safe vaccine and a rapid recovery like no one can even
believe.” He even had the chutzpah to say, “If you look at our upward path, no
country in the world has recovered the way we have recovered.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The United States had “recovered” its way into </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/10/15/us/coronavirus-cases-us-surge.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-themecolor: accent5;">a third major spike in
cases</span></a><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">. </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/13/health/us-coronavirus-tuesday/index.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-themecolor: accent5;">As of</span></a><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-themecolor: accent5;"> </span><b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Tuesday, October 13</span></b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">,
30 states had seen increases in the past week, 13 states (12 of whom had
supported Trump in 2016) were seeing positive test rates of 10% and higher,
child infections had increased 13% over the prior two weeks, and 10 states had
reported record numbers of hospitalizations on Monday.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span>The U.S. was also </span><a href="http://www.axios.com/united-states-coronavirus-death-rate-a40eb02b-bf8c-4146-8ef2-3cfd6b22de5b.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-themecolor: accent5;">failing</span></a><span> in terms of its coronavirus death rate. Early in the
pandemic, other developed countries had had higher death rates—at least in part
due to having higher concentrations of elderly residents—but those countries
had learned from their mistakes and gotten the virus under control. By
contrast, the States had continued to post high death rates months into the
pandemic. Since June 7, the U.S. had had 3X the death rate of the next-worst
developed nations and up to 27X the rate of some developed countries. (804)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span>Thanks to the Trump campaign, those numbers were unlikely to
improve anytime soon. On Tuesday, Mike Pence </span><a href="https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/10/13/mike-pences-campaign-rally-weldall-manufacturing-waukesha/5977194002/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-themecolor: accent5;">spoke in Wisconsin</span></a><span>, which was experiencing </span><a href="https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/health-med-fit/as-wisconsin-again-sets-records-for-covid-19-deaths-and-cases-gov-tony-evers-calls/article_da1bad86-ec76-5194-84e2-7bcc6adf8c15.html#tracking-source=home-breaking"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-themecolor: accent5;">record numbers of
infections</span></a><span>, while Trump campaigned in
Pennsylvania. Neither rally featured </span><a href="http://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly/2020/10/13/whats-missing-at-trumps-new-rallies-490590"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-themecolor: accent5;">social distancing or
mandatory mask usage</span></a><span> (805, 806). </span><span>A study done by
Zach Nayer for statnews.com showed that at least half of Trump’s
coronavirus-era rallies </span><a href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/10/16/trump-campaign-rallies-leave-a-trail-of-community-outbreaks/?utm_source=STAT+Newsletters&utm_campaign=7bfa41a1c6-Daily_Recap&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8cab1d7961-7bfa41a1c6-152815530"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-themecolor: accent5;">had led to community outbreaks</span></a><span>.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span>The </span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-virus-outbreak-joe-biden-donald-trump-georgia-53ed788ba411c6446be4edb40e046dee"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-themecolor: accent5;">super-spreader rallies
continued</span></a><span> on <b>Wednesday, October 14</b>, as
Trump campaigned in Iowa, a Republican state where the virus was “</span><a href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/10/13/trump-iowa-covid-19-out-of-control/?utm_source=STAT+Newsletters&utm_campaign=6e46fe1415-Daily_Recap&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8cab1d7961-6e46fe1415-152815530"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-themecolor: accent5;">out of control</span></a><span>,” with record numbers of hospitalizations and a positive
test rate of 9.5%. (807)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span>While </span><a href="https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america?view=daily-deaths&tab=trend"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-themecolor: accent5;">death rates were
climbing back toward 1000/day</span></a><span>
nationally and many U.S. hospitals were </span><a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/shaky-u-hospitals-risk-bankruptcy-133423429.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-themecolor: accent5;">facing bankruptcy</span></a><span> (808) in the near future due to Trump’s failure to contain
the virus, </span><a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/as-coronavirus-spread-early-on-reports-of-trump-administration-briefings-fueled-sell-off/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-themecolor: accent5;">the depth of the
administration’s dishonesty was reinforced yet again</span></a><span> by Mark Mazzetti and Kate Kelly of <i>the New York Times</i>.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span>Mirroring Bob Woodward’s discovery (see #719, #729) that the
administration had lied to the American people about the danger of the
coronavirus in February, Mazzetti and Kelly reported on curious happenings from
February 24 and February 25. On February 24, Trump tweeted that the virus was
“very much under control” and on February 25, Trump’s top economic adviser,
Larry Kudlow </span><span>(see
#70, #374, #607, #652, #661)</span><span> claimed on
CNBC that control of the virus was “pretty close to airtight.” While covering
up the known threat from the public, Trump economic officials—including Kudlow—had
disclosed the true state of the pandemic to board members from the Hoover
Institution (a right-wing think tank run out of Stanford University) on those
same days. (809)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span>This private information “</span><span>quickly spread through parts of the
investment world. U.S. stocks were already spiraling because of a warning from
a federal public health official that the virus was likely to spread, but
traders spotted the immediate significance: The president’s aides appeared to
be giving wealthy party donors an early warning of a potentially impactful
contagion at a time when Trump was publicly insisting that the threat was
nonexistent.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span>Information from
the meetings “provide a glimpse of how elite traders had access to information
from the administration that helped them gain financial advantage during a
chaotic three days when global markets were teetering.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span>Despite the
blatantly contradictory nature of his public and private statements in February,
Kudlow told </span><i>the Times</i><span> </span><span style="background: white;">“</span><span>There was never any intent on my part to misinform.</span><span style="background: white;">”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background: white;">Eight months after Kudlow’s
deliberate attempt to deceive the public on CNBC, the lid on the coronavirus
was anything <i>but </i>airtight. On <b>Thursday, October 15</b>, the U.S.
reported </span><a href="http://www.axios.com/us-coronavirus-63000-cases-4228347d-4427-4acc-a033-ad73e5b0cde6.html"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; mso-themecolor: accent5;">over 63,000 infections</span></a><span style="background: white;">, the most since July 31. Total
infections in the States were up 17%. 44 states were showing increasing case
numbers and 30 states were seeing </span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-netherlands-italy-france-czech-republic-987993953a51f39a861c0f481c0e38f8"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; mso-themecolor: accent5;">rising COVID-related deaths</span></a><span style="background: white;">. Trump’s failure to contain the virus
was so pronounced that even our friendly neighbors to the north, Canada, announced
that they would likely </span><a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/news/2020/10/15/justin-trudeau-canada-us-border-not-reopening-covid-19/3661758001/"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; mso-themecolor: accent5;">keep the shared U.S.-Canada border
closed</span></a><span style="background: white;">.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background: white;">As the coronavirus ravaged America,
a new jobs report indicated that the economic rebound Trump had promised </span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-business-jobless-claims-united-states-economy-f904abdb3bc24f01e757915eb01a377a"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; mso-themecolor: accent5;">was a mirage</span></a><span style="background: white;">. New unemployment filings hit their
highest numbers in two months (810) as the U.S. was 11 million jobs short of
its pre-pandemic employment rates. Between the administration’s failure to
contain the virus—which was the one thing which could allow the economy to
fully re-open—and their unwillingness to negotiate in good faith with House
Democrats on further stimulus, </span><a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/careers-finance/sns-nyt-millions-in-poverty-after-federal-aid-gone-20201015-acpwxebb2zaf5kiyuxoivl4r6m-story.html"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; mso-themecolor: accent5;">six-eight million Americans had fallen
below the poverty line since May</span></a><span style="background: white;">. (811)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Trump had an opportunity to address constituent
concerns at an NBC town hall Thursday evening, but chose to lie instead. Asked
by host Savannah Guthrie when his last negative test had been before he tested
positive, and if he had been tested the day he debated Joe Biden, Trump </span><a href="https://www.rawstory.com/2020/10/fast-talking-trump-stumbles-at-town-hall-cant-or-wont-say-when-he-last-tested-negative-before-testing-positive/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=569"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%; mso-themecolor: accent5;">claimed he couldn’t remember</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.
Asked about masks, Trump </span><a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/10/15/21518760/trump-biden-town-hall-top-highlights"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%; mso-themecolor: accent5;">mistakenly claimed</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
that 85% of people who wore masks got the coronavirus (812); the data he was
referring to showed that people <i>who dined out</i> were much more likely to
get coronavirus, even when wearing masks, presumably because they had to remove
their masks to eat and drink. When Guthrie mentioned the high death rate in the
States (see #804), Trump cut her off with<span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-themecolor: accent5;"> </span></span><a href="https://www.axios.com/trump-biden-abc-nbc-town-hall-e8c987f5-fcd5-47bb-8708-f936ecf62731.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%; mso-themecolor: accent5;">the nonsensical statement</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
“Excess mortality! Excess mortality, we’re a winner.” He later claimed the U.S.
was “rounding the corner” in handling the virus. Expectations were so low that
his stumbling performance was considered a victory among members of his
campaign team. One adviser </span><a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/the-biden-and-trump-shows-its-mr-rogers-vs-someones-crazy-uncle?via=newsletter&source=Politics"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%; mso-themecolor: accent5;">told</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> <i>the Daily
Beast</i>, “He didn’t spend the whole time yelling, he didn’t piss himself…so
this was as best as we could have hoped for.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; mso-line-height-alt: 11.75pt;"><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Numbers reported on <b>Friday, October 16</b> showed
that the U.S. wasn’t even closer to “rounding the corner.” For the second day
in a row, America </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/10/16/coronavirus-covid-live-updates-us/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">had over 60,000 new
infections</span></a><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">. Forty-four states
had higher caseloads than a month earlier; </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/16/briefing/amy-coney-barrett-qanon-mexico-your-friday-briefing.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">17 had record highs</span></a><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">. Trump reached his personal milestone of over
eight million official infections, the most in the world, and yet still </span><a href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/07/21/cdc-study-actual-covid-19-cases/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">a major undercount from
the true number</span></a><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">.
The pandemic was so severe in the Midwest that eight Kansas City hospitals “</span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/10/16/coronavirus-covid-live-updates-us/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">had to temporarily
stop accepting ambulances Wednesday night</span></a><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">.” (813)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; mso-line-height-alt: 11.75pt;"><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">As </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/16/pandemic-states-virus-rebound-429753?nname=playbook&nid=0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=630318" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">reported</span></a><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> by Dan Goldberg of <i>Politico</i>,
hospitals all around the country were in dire straits because of the
administration’s failure to contain the virus and unwillingness to provide
necessary resources to state and local governments. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; mso-line-height-alt: 11.75pt;"><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">According to Goldberg, the ICU at the
University of Utah Health System was 95% full (814). Indiana had “critical ICU
bed shortages along with personnel shortages” (815) which was forcing the state
to “put out a call for volunteers to help fill staffing shortages in hard-hit
facilities near the Michigan and Kentucky borders.” Julie Willems Van Dijk, a
deputy secretary in Wisconsin’s state health department, told <i>Politico</i>,
“Many of our ICUs are strained….Every region of our state has one or more
hospitals reporting current and imminent staff shortages (816).” Texas Governor
Greg Abbott had to send 75 medical professionals to the El Paso area, as the
city of 700,000 was down to 10 ICU beds (817). In Albuquerque, New Mexico, “two
out of three major hospitals…are at, or exceeding, capacity (818).” Hospitals
in Missouri were “reaching capacity,” (819) while Integris, referred to as
“Oklahoma’s largest health system,” had just one ICU bed left (820). Bismarck,
the state capital of North Dakota, also had only one ICU bed left. (821)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Since the administration had no interest in
ameliorating the mass misery it had allowed to occur, the next best option was
to cover up their dereliction of duty by censoring unflattering information.
Jason Dearen, Mike Stobbe, and Richard Lardner of the AP looked at </span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-virus-outbreak-pandemics-public-health-new-york-e321f4c9098b4db4dd6b1eda76a5179e" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">one branch of the
administration’s COVID propaganda mill</span></a><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> in “White House puts ‘politicals’ at CDC to try to control
info.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222;">According to the opening paragraph, “The Trump
White House has installed two political operatives at the nation’s top public
health agency to try to control the information it releases about the
coronavirus pandemic as the administration seeks to paint a positive outlook,
sometimes at odds with the scientific evidence.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222;">“The two appointees assigned to the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention’s Atlanta headquarters in June have no
public health background (822, 823). They have instead been tasked with keeping
an eye on Dr. Robert Redfield, the agency director, as well as scientists…”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; mso-line-height-alt: 11.75pt;"><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Sources told the AP that “When the two
appointees showed up in Atlanta, their roles were a mystery to senior CDC
staff…They had not even been assigned offices. Eventually one, Nina Witkofsky,
became acting chief of staff, an influential role as Redfield’s right hand. The
other, her deputy Chester ‘Trey’ Moeller, also began sitting in on scientific
meetings…”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; mso-line-height-alt: 11.75pt;"><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Witkofsky had no qualifications for the job:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; mso-line-height-alt: 11.75pt;"><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“Witkofsky seemed a particularly strange fit
for the nation’s top public health agency. She studied finance and business
administration in college and graduate school, and at one point worked as a
publicist and talent booker for Turner Broadcasting’s Cartoon Network. Her
political work included being an events director during the George W. Bush 2000
presidential campaign. As a State Department official, she developed an
international engagement program for U.S. athletes and coaches.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; mso-line-height-alt: 11.75pt;"><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“Her lack of familiarity with the CDC, and how
it worked, quickly became clear in meetings, according to multiple agency
officials. At one, Witkofsky expressed surprise that the CDC had a supporting
foundation, one agency official recalled.” (824)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; mso-line-height-alt: 11.75pt;"><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Witkofsky had worked closely with Michael
Caputo (see #s 723-724, #s730-731, #s 735-737), the extreme-right political
operative installed at Health and Human Services who had had a spectacular
public meltdown after </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/11/exclusive-trump-officials-interfered-with-cdc-reports-on-covid-19-412809" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">his efforts to
manipulate the CDC’s MMWR</span></a><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report) had been outed
by <i>Politico</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; mso-line-height-alt: 11.75pt;"><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The Democratic-led House Select Subcommittee
on the Coronavirus Crisis was “seeking to interview [Witkofsky and Moeller] as
part of a probe…into allegations the Trump administration blocked the CDC from
publishing accurate scientific reports during the pandemic.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; mso-line-height-alt: 11.75pt;"><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“The subcommittee’s investigators want to know
more about Witkofsky and Moeller’s roles in reported attempts by Caputo and
administration officials to gain editorial control over the MMWR and other CDC
publications. The investigators are also interested in whether Witkofsky and
Moeller </span><span>were
involved in making changes to CDC COVID-19 guidance for schools, as well as
agency information that has been changed multiple times on how the virus
spreads through the air.” (825)</span><span style="color: #00b0f0; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; mso-line-height-alt: 11.75pt;"><span>Dr. Rick Bright (see </span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">#26, #s29-30, #50, #s260-261, </span><span style="color: red; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">W16</span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">, </span><span style="color: red; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">W18</span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">, </span><span style="color: red; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">W23</span><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">), a whistleblower
who’d been demoted because of a lack of enthusiasm for Trump’s quack drug
hydroxychloroquine, then left the administration, told the AP that the
administration’s interference was “absolutely frightening….(It) leads to the
mixed signals to the public. And I think that is increasing the magnitude and
duration of this entire pandemic.” (826)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Bright was hardly alone in his concerns.
An </span><a href="https://medium.com/@eis1984/open-letter-by-epidemic-intelligence-service-officers-past-and-present-in-support-of-cdc-759cdc0666c3" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">open letter</span></a><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> attacking the administration’s rampant
politicization (and dismantling) of the CDC and advocating for a competent
national pandemic response had amassed signatures from over one thousand
current and former CDC epidemic intelligence officers. Pre-Trump, the CDC had
been tailor made for the coronavirus:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222;">“In previous public health crises, CDC
provided the best available information and straightforward recommendations
directly to the public. It was widely respected for effectively synthesizing
and applying scientific evidence from epidemiologists and biomedical
researchers at CDC and worldwide.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; mso-line-height-alt: 11.75pt;"><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But the Trump administration had gutted the
agency, leaving it ineffective and unable to rise to the occasion:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; mso-line-height-alt: 11.75pt;"><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“[CDC’s] historic credibility was based on
incomparable expertise and 70+ years of institutional memory. That focus and
organization is hardly recognizable today.” (827)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Referring to the Trump administration’s
mishandling of the coronavirus (see #1-#827), the letter said “The absence of
national leadership on COVID-19 is unprecedented and dangerous.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: transparent; line-height: 107%;">The
absence of national <a name="_Hlk60035707"></a><a name="_Hlk60035687">leadership was again evident the following
day, <b>Saturday, October 17</b>, as Trump headlined </a></span><a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/election-2020/ct-donald-trump-joe-biden-wisconsin-janesville-20201017-3glbofqlvzhzzalx3u6cvsdfaa-story.html" style="background-color: transparent;"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%; mso-themecolor: accent5;">a
large, packed rally</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; line-height: 107%;">
in the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; line-height: 107%;">swing
state of Wisconsin</span><span style="background-color: transparent; line-height: 107%;">. In his speech, Trump attacked
Wisconsin’s Democratic governor for trying to protect public safety (828) and
repeated his line about the U.S. “rounding the corner,” even though the state
was experiencing record numbers of new cases and had among the highest
infection rates in the country. According to press reports, attendees had to go
the rally in “crowded shuttle buses” and once there, only 1/3<sup>rd</sup> wore
masks. (829)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">With infections rising rapidly and Trump doing his
level best to escalate that trend, the pandemic was guaranteed</span><span style="color: #202124; line-height: 107%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> to get worse.
Appearing on “Meet the Press” on <b>Sunday, October 18</b>, infectious disease
expert Michael Osterholm called Trump advisor </span><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Scott Atlas’s belief that the U.S. could attain herd
immunity before vaccines were administered “pixie <span style="color: #202124;">dust”
and predicted that America would “blow right through” the high totals from
Friday, with the upcoming 6 to 12 weeks likely to be </span></span><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8853715/Infectious-disease-expert-warns-6-12-weeks-darkest-entire-pandemic.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-themecolor: accent5;">the
“</span><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%; mso-themecolor: accent5;">darkest of the entire
pandemic</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #202124; line-height: 107%;">.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Data released on <b>Monday, October 19</b> bolstered
Osterholm’s pessimism. Case averages had increased 13% from a week earlier. </span><a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/19/coronavirus-hospitalizations-are-growing-in-37-us-states.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%; mso-themecolor: accent5;">Hospitalizations were growing 5% or more
per week</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> in 37 states and ten states (all of which had
supported Trump in 2016) were experiencing record numbers. In an </span><a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fauci-no-surprised-trump-covid-19-media-appearances-60-minutes/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%; mso-themecolor: accent5;">interview</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
which had aired on “60 Minutes” the day prior, Dr. Fauci had told it like it
was, saying, “When you have a million deaths and over 30 million infections
globally, you cannot say that we're on the road to essentially getting out of
this.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Angered by Fauci’s matter-of-fact statement, Trump
again undermined his public health staff’s messaging by </span><a href="http://www.the-sun.com/news/1655736/donald-trump-dr-fauci-coronavirus-idiot/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%; mso-themecolor: accent5;">referring to Fauci is an “idiot” and a
“disaster”</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> (830) on a call with campaign staff which was open to
reporters. Trump also said that U.S. public was “tired of hearing” about the
virus which had officially killed 220,000 Americans, sent millions to the
unemployment line, caused hunger for millions more, and completely upended
American life. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Trump carried his dangerous dishonesty out on the
trail again on <b>Tuesday, October 20</b>. Campaigning in Arizona, he claimed
that the Republican-led state was “</span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/20/us/elections/in-arizona-trump-dismisses-the-virus-and-again-claims-democrats-will-destroy-the-suburbs.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%; mso-themecolor: accent5;">in great shape</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">,”
though Arizona had the 8<sup>th</sup> highest infection totals in the country
and had seen a 58% increase in infections over the prior two weeks. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #202124; line-height: 107%;">The truth was that Trump wasn’t paying
attention to the state of the pandemic because he had no interest in governing.
All that mattered was winning the presidential election. As Francis Collins
(Trump’s National Institutes of Health Director) told a reporter from NPR,
Trump </span><a href="https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/521876-nih-chief-trump-has-not-met-with-white-house-covid-task-force-in-quite-some"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%; mso-themecolor: accent5;">hadn’t met his own coronavirus task force
in “quite some time</span></a><span style="color: #202124; line-height: 107%;">.” Trump was getting virus
information from Mike Pence, a non-scientist, and quack doctor Scott Atlas, an
advocate for herd immunity, a strategy which was </span><a href="https://www.bloombergquint.com/onweb/sweden-says-it-sees-no-signs-herd-immunity-is-stopping-the-virus"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%; mso-themecolor: accent5;">failing Sweden</span></a><span style="color: #202124; line-height: 107%;">. Letting Trump down easy for failing to fulfill a crucial part
of his job—ensuring public health and safety—Collins added that </span><span style="line-height: 107%;">“Obviously,
it's a bit of a chaotic time with the election….There's not a direct connection
between the task force members and the president as there was a few months ago
(831), but this seems to be a different time with different priorities.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #202124; line-height: 107%;">Saving lives was
clearly a low priority, particularly when those lives weren’t a part of the
main #MAGA demographic. A study done by Trump’s CDC showed that excess deaths
(the number of deaths above what the U.S. had had during a similar period of
time in 2015-2019) in 2020 had reached 300,000, yet more evidence that the
official COVID death count of 220,000 was a significant undercount.
Statnews.com reporter Andrew Joseph </span><a href="http://www.statnews.com/2020/10/20/cdc-data-excess-deaths-covid-19/"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%; mso-themecolor: accent5;">noted</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #202124; line-height: 107%;"> that the burden</span><span style="background: white; color: #00b0f0; line-height: 107%;"> </span><span style="background: white; color: #202124; line-height: 107%;">fell
disproportionately on people of color:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">“Deaths among white people in 2020 were just 11.9%
higher than average years, a much lower increase than deaths among Latinx
people (53.6% higher than average), Asian people (36.6% higher), Black people
(32.9% higher), and American Indians and Alaska Natives (28.9% higher).”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://ncdp.columbia.edu/custom-content/uploads/2020/10/Avoidable-COVID-19-Deaths-US-NCDP.pdf?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%; mso-themecolor: accent5;">Further analysis</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
of these excess deaths on <b>Wednesday, October 21<span style="color: #00b0f0;"> </span></b>showed
that<b> “</b>at least 130,000 deaths and perhaps as many as 210,000 could have
been avoided with earlier policy interventions and more robust federal
coordination and leadership.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The key culprits for Trump’s failures were a lack of
preparation, an unwillingness to adjust as new realities came to light, and an
indifference to human suffering with ominous signs for the near future:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">“Particularly, it is the inability or unwillingness of
U.S. officials to adapt or improve the federal response over the course of the pandemic
that has strongly contributed to the nation's uniquely high COVID-19 fatality
rate.” (832)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white;">Dr.
Ali Khan, an epidemiologist and the dean of the </span></span><span style="background: white;">University of Nebraska Medical Center's
College of Public Health, told CNN, "There's no doubt, </span><a href="http://www.rawstory.com/2020/10/worst-case-of-public-health-malpractice-ever-epidemiologist-delivers-brutal-epitaph-to-trumps-response/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=5736"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; mso-themecolor: accent5;">this is the worst
case of public health malpractice we've ever seen in this nation</span></a><span style="background: white;">." </span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;">The impact of the administration’s malpractice
continued to be felt on <b>Thursday, October 22.</b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">As </span><a href="http://www.axios.com/coronavirus-pandemic-getting-worse-9e2dc6ee-fe03-4f08-9425-12017c6b32cb.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%; mso-themecolor: accent5;">reported</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
by Sam Baker and Andrew Witherspoon, “Every available piece of data proves it:
The coronavirus pandemic is getting worse again, all across America.” Positive
tests were up. New cases were now going up by 15% per week, part of a six-week
trend of increases. Hospitalizations were increasing; 16 states had record
hospitalization rates. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #202124; line-height: 107%;">One day after Robert
Redfield had cited the “</span><a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/cdc-warns-distressing-trend-covid-19-cases-country-heads-fall-n1244196"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%; mso-themecolor: accent5;">distressing trend</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #202124; line-height: 107%;">” of the pandemic, Trump did what he does best
at Thursday’s presidential debate—</span><a href="http://www.axios.com/trump-biden-debate-coronavirus-14b6e962-e968-4547-933d-6d7105df24b9.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%; mso-themecolor: accent5;">lie with abandon</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%; mso-themecolor: accent5;">
and mislead the public about the seriousness of the pandemic</span></span><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%; mso-themecolor: accent5;">. </span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">(833) </span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">Addressing
a TV viewership of 63 million Americans, Trump claimed the surging coronavirus
would “go away,” that we were “rounding the corner,” that “more and more people
are getting better,” that “we’re not going to have a dark winter,” that people
“were learning to live with” the pandemic, even that he’d “</span><span style="line-height: 107%;">been
congratulated by the heads of many countries on what we've been able
to do.”<span style="color: #333335;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><i>New York Times</i> columnist David Leonhardt <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/23/briefing/presidential-debate-uber-colorado-wildfires-your-friday-briefing.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-themecolor: accent5;">perfectly summed up this surreal
moment</span></a>:<o:p></o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;"> <o:p></o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;">“…the debate wasn’t normal by the standards of nearly all
of American history. It wasn’t normal because one of the nominees — the sitting
president — told one lie after another. He did so about the virus, North Korea,
China, Russia, climate change, his own health care policy, Joe Biden’s health
care policy, Biden’s finances and the immigrant children who were separated
from their parents….it’s impossible to analyze a debate filled with untruths
without first acknowledging them. They undermine an event meant to highlight
differences between candidates. They undermine democracy. To ignore them is to
miss the biggest story: a president trying to construct his own reality.”<o:p></o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><br /></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">One day after Trump said America was learning to live
with the virus, on <b>Friday, October 23</b>, it was </span><a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/us-records-most-covid-19-cases-in-a-day-since-july-as-trump-claims-virus-going-away?via=newsletter&source=Politics"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%; mso-themecolor: accent5;">reported</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
that the U.S. had had over 70,000 new infections Thursday, the most since July
24. On Friday, the U.S. would have 80,000+ new infections, </span><a href="http://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/23/coronavirus-single-day-record-us-432079"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%; mso-themecolor: accent5;">a record</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">. </span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;">A new study published by the <span style="background: white; color: #1c1c1c;">University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and
Evaluation found that </span><a href="http://www.statnews.com/2020/10/23/universal-mask-use-could-save-130000-lives-by-the-end-of-february-new-modeling-study-says/?utm_source=STAT+Newsletters&utm_campaign=b26065f5aa-Daily_Recap&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8cab1d7961-b26065f5aa-152815530"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-themecolor: accent5;">a universal mask mandate could
save the lives of 130,000 Americans by February</span></a>, but admitting the
obvious and advocating for public health would undermine Trump’s false
narrative that he had successfully handled the pandemic. Trump instead doubled
down on misinformation and had a <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-10-23/trump-ramps-up-rallies-bucking-health-guidelines-as-virus-rages"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-themecolor: accent5;">dizzying schedule</span></a><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-themecolor: accent5;"> </span>of crowded, mostly
mask-less rallies, many of them in COVID hotspots. <o:p></o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;"> <o:p></o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;">Trump’s strategy was to sacrifice as many people as
possible in the short term, including tens or hundreds of thousands of
Americans who hadn’t attended his campaign events, leaving vaccines to save the
day. But he was even screwing <i>that</i> up. As <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/23/health/covid-vaccine-safety.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-themecolor: accent5;">reported</span></a> by Carl
Zimmer, “<span style="background: white;">Purely
by chance, thousands of vaccinated people will have heart attacks, strokes and
other illnesses shortly after the injections. Sorting out whether the vaccines
had anything to do with their ailments will be a thorny problem, requiring a
vast, coordinated effort by state and federal agencies, hospitals, drug makers
and insurers to discern patterns in a flood of data. Findings will need to be
clearly communicated to a distrustful public swamped with disinformation.</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="css-axufdj" style="background: white; vertical-align: baseline;">“For now, Operation Warp Speed,
created by the Trump administration to spearhead development of coronavirus
vaccines and treatments, is focused on getting vaccines through clinical trials
in record time and manufacturing them quickly.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="css-axufdj" style="background: white; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">“The next job will be to monitor
the safety of vaccines once they’re in widespread use. But the administration
last year quietly disbanded the office with the expertise for exactly this job,
merging it into an office focused on infectious diseases. Its elimination has
left that long-term safety effort for coronavirus vaccines fragmented among
federal agencies, with no central leadership, experts say.” (834)<o:p></o:p></p><p class="css-axufdj" style="background: white; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="css-axufdj" style="background: white; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">Daniel Salmon, who handled vaccine
coordination during the H1N1 outbreak in 2009, told the <i>Times</i>, “We’re
behind the eight ball….we don’t even know who’s in charge.”<o:p></o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;">The reality was that no one was in charge. Trump had
stifled his public health team and was focused on campaigning to the exclusion
of all else, leaving the pandemic to run rampant. On <o:p></o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><b>Sunday, October 25</b>, it was reported that the U.S.
had had a <a href="http://www.livemint.com/news/world/us-sees-record-88-973-covid-19-infections-for-second-day-straight-11603589386244.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-themecolor: accent5;">record number</span></a> of cases
again on Saturday, almost 90,000, even as Trump had told a North Carolina
audience, “<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-says-us-rounding-turn-covid-19-even-cases-surge-2020-10"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; mso-themecolor: accent5;">We're rounding
the turn, our numbers are incredible</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #111111;">.” (835)</span><o:p></o:p></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The recklessness of the Trump campaign was coming home
to roost, as it was </span><a href="http://www.mediaite.com/news/new-pence-chief-of-staff-marc-short-tests-positive-for-coronavirus/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">reported</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
that Marc Short (Mike Pence’s chief of staff) and four other White House
staffers had contracted COVID-19. Pence had no plans to stop his busy schedule
of risky rallies to quarantine; over the last six weeks of the campaign, Pence would
have 34 rallies which featured none of the safeguards the Democratic candidates
were following—little or no social distancing, masks optional (836-869).
Throwing up their hands even as they continually claimed victory over the virus
on the campaign trail, one White House official told a reporter “</span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-joe-biden-donald-trump-pandemics-virus-outbreak-03de71eecbb9a605b1efc324cdeb3a5e"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">we’re not going to control the pandemic</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">This comment proved true.
As of<b> Monday, October 26</b>, nine states were reporting </span><a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/hospitals-in-nearly-every-region-report-a-flood-of-covid-19-patients/ar-BB1aq0L7?ocid=uxbndlbing"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">record hospitalizations</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.
<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Against this backdrop of chaos and death, the
administration continued to fall back on cruelty. As reported by Helena
Bottemiller Evich of <i>Politico</i>, Trump’s Agriculture Department was </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/26/trump-blocks-pandemic-food-aid-432560"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">blocking emergency food assistance</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
for 40% of the families eligible for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance
Program (SNAP). A federal judge had called the move an “egregious disobedience”
of federal law. Despite the clear intent of the law, despite the ruling of the
judge, the administration was continuing to push for starvation, appealing the
ruling. (870)<span class="MsoHyperlink"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Out on the trail, Trump kept up </span><a href="http://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/26/trump-pence-attempt-come-from-behind-act-432428"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">a breakneck pace of super-spreader
rallies</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">. In one of his three appearances in Pennsylvania
Monday, Trump continued to implant a false sense of security by pushing his favorite
</span><a href="https://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2020/10/26/president-donald-trump-campaign-pennsylvania-allentown-lititz-martinsburg/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">campaign-friendly fairytale</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">:
“it’s not going to be a dark winter. It’s going to be a great winter.” (871)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Trump did his part to guarantee a dark winter by
holding a </span><a href="https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/as-wisconsin-sets-daily-record-for-covid-19-deaths-thousands-pack-trump-rally-in-west/article_c0274845-93f3-5984-81a7-d57ffa7aa1f1.html#tracking-source=home-trending"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">jam-packed rally in Wisconsin</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
on <b>Tuesday, October 27</b>, the same day the state set a record for new infections
and deaths (872). As he’d done before, Trump attacked Wisconsin’s Democratic
governor for the limited public health measures he’d been able to get through a
Republican-controlled state Supreme Court and spoke of “turning the corner.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Opposite Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, who were doing
only small events and drive-ins with social distancing, the Trump-Pence
super-spreader events gave the GOP ticket a big competitive advantage, rallying
the base in the crucial days before the election to drive turnout. Another
competitive advantage the GOP had was that Trump’s Postmaster General, Louis
DeJoy, had dismantled the postal service, in the process undermining mail
balloting, which hurt Democrats across the country. Court orders demanding
reversals of DeJoy’s destructive changes were too little, too late; the Postal
Service was </span><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/10/27/usps-delays-election-day/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F2c5c56c%2F5f98471f9d2fda0efb557d31%2F597420fc9bbc0f1cdcfbd42b%2F26%2F68%2F0a33cfd8923c5e66c2850894011b9e34"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">so hobbled by DeJoy’s actions</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> that
voters were being told to turn their absentee ballots in in person or risk
their health and stand in line to vote in person. (873) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">On <b>Wednesday, October 28</b>, </span><a href="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Elc7RE6VoAAmj0c?format=jpg&name=medium"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">1,025 more Americans died, largely
because of Trump’s gross negligence</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> and states </span><a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-states-face-biggest-cash-crisis-since-the-great-depression-11603910750"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">continued to struggle</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
with severe revenue shortfalls and service cuts due to the GOP’s unwillingness
to bargain in good faith on another federal stimulus bill.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The U.S. “rounded the corner” again on <b>Thursday,
October 29</b>,<b> </b></span><a href="http://www.the-sun.com/news/1713175/us-coronavirus-cases-smash-daily-record-91000-ill/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">crushing its previous record</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
with 91,000 new cases as eight states posted record highs and 42 saw an
increase from the week prior. Beet-red North Dakota led the pack with 5% of its
population testing positive for COVID-19.<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Despite the surging pandemic, Mike Pence had been AWOL
from one of his key task force duties: taking part in a weekly call to all 50
of America’s governors to coordinate public health responses. </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/29/pence-absent-coronavirus-calls-433637"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">According to</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
Adam Cancryn and Dan Goldberg of <i>Politico</i>, Pence’s vanishing act (874)
was “<span style="background: white;">a prolonged absence that
represents just the latest sign of the task force’s diminished role in the face
of the worsening public health crisis it was originally created to combat. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">“Once
a driving force behind the White House’s coronavirus messaging, the group
hasn’t held a collective press briefing in months (875). Inside the West Wing,
task force members’ growing alarm over the virus’ resurgence has gone largely
ignored (876). And among health officials on the front lines, there is mounting
consensus that the federal government has little new aid to offer – leaving
states to face the pandemic’s third and potentially worst wave increasingly on
their own. (877)<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">“‘There’s
not any acknowledgment or appreciation of the severity of the surge,’ said an
official in one governor’s office long frustrated with the federal response<b>. </b>‘The
stark reality that we’re facing is the White House – from top to bottom – has
stopped governing and is only campaigning.’” <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Another administration official who had failed to
protect public health was Seema Verma, Trump’s head of the Centers for Medicare
and Medicaid Services (CMS). Despite some tough talk before the cameras about
holding nursing homes accountable, Verma’s CMS had too often let the industry regulate
itself, levying only token fines when patients’ safety was violated. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">According to a <i>Washington Post</i> investigation, </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/10/29/nursing-home-deaths-fines/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">the lax approach</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
was part of “a three-year push at CMS to ease rules long considered burdensome
to the nursing home industry, whose lobbyists and leaders include former
politicians and government insiders. Even before the coronavirus crisis, the
agency took steps to limit the use of some fines and strike an Obama-era
mandate requiring nursing homes to bring on at least part-time infection
preventionists.” (878)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Despite the clear threat to nursing home residents’
health and life posed by the coronavirus, “the
government inspectors deployed by CMS during the first six months of the crisis
cleared nearly 8 in 10 nursing homes of any infection-control violations…” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="font--body" style="margin: 0in;">“…Those
cleared included homes with mounting coronavirus outbreaks before or during the
inspections (879), as well as those that saw cases and deaths spiral upward
after inspectors reported no violations had been found, in some cases multiple
times (880). All told, homes that received a clean bill of health earlier this
year had about 290,000 coronavirus cases and 43,000 deaths among residents and
staff, state and federal data shows.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="font--body" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="font--body" style="margin: 0in;">Charlene Harrington, described as “a
sociology and nursing professor at the University of California at San
Francisco who has studied the [nursing home] industry for more than 30 years,”
told the<i> Post</i>, “I can’t think of one decision that CMS made
properly….They just rolled over, whatever the nursing homes wanted. CMS made it
so much worse than it could have been if they had just kept their oversight in
place.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="font--body" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="font--body" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">On <b>Friday, October 30</b>, </span><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-record/u-s-reports-world-record-of-more-than-100000-covid-19-cases-in-single-day-idUSKBN27G07S"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">Trump reached his milestone of over
100,000 new daily infections</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">, smashing both the world
record and his personal best. Trump also passed nine million official
infections, a </span><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamhaseltine/2020/11/04/every-day-one-million-americans-likely-infected/?sh=a40959164560"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">major undercount</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
but still #1 in the world.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">As part of his victory lap, Trump held another public
safety-optional, super-spreader campaign event in Wisconsin, a world hotspot
which had had </span><a href="https://news.yahoo.com/trump-ignores-wisconsin-really-grim-020326483.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">a record number of daily infections</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
on Tuesday (881). Up in front of his adoring fans, Trump bragged about the
crowd size, attacked Biden for focusing on the pandemic, and repeated the lie
that cases were up because testing had increased. Emergency medical physician
Dr. Jeff Pothof of the University of Wisconsin Health told a reporter for <i>the
Daily Beast</i> “<span style="background: white;">it just seems unfathomable that in a country like the United States
where we have a public health crisis, where hospitals are at capacity, where
there's a field hospital open in the state, that any group would consider
having an event that would cause people to gather in large numbers, not spaced
and not masked.” Pothof likened the super-spreader rallies to “throwing
gasoline on the fire at the same time our healthcare workers are exhausted.
They have given it their all and our hospitals are about to bust.”</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">A Stanford study reported on <b>Saturday, October 31</b>
revealed that </span><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/31/coronavirus-trump-campaign-rallies-led-to-30000-cases-stanford-researchers-say.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">Trump’s rallies had led to a minimum of 30,000+
infections and 700 deaths</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">. The study only looked at the span
between June 20 and September 22, when Trump wasn’t doing many campaign stops.
That day, Trump had four rallies, with five scheduled on Sunday and another
five on Monday. In total, </span><a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/politics/ct-viz-presidential-campaign-trail-tracker-20200917-edspdit2incbfnopchjaelp3uu-htmlstory.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">Trump had dozens of super-spreader
rallies</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> (47 of which haven’t been accounted for in this
timeline, until now—882-929). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Commenting on the study, Biden spokesman Andrew Bates
said, “The worst part is that this doesn’t even capture Trump’s many super-spreader
events on White House grounds or the last five weeks of events across the
country. How many more lives have been upended in that time? How many more
empty seats are there at kitchen tables across America because of Donald
Trump’s ego?” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Cause-and-effect, valid data, and horrible human
consequences for others were of no concern to the administration. Appearing on
“This Week” with George Stephanopoulos on <b>Sunday, November 1</b>, Trump
adviser Jason Miller </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/01/doctors-profit-coronavirus-deaths-trump-miller-433793"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">refused to back down</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
from a </span><a href="https://www.factcheck.org/2020/10/trump-baselessly-suggests-covid-19-deaths-inflated-for-profit/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">flagrant lie</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
Trump was using in his stump speeches—that doctors were over-diagnosing
COVID-19 for profit (930). In reality, there was no evidence that doctors had
been willing to commit fraud for higher reimbursements and the </span><a href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/10/20/cdc-data-excess-deaths-covid-19/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">official COVID death totals were greatly <i>understated</i></span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">—not
overstated, as Trump implied—because tens of thousands of Americans had died
from the virus before being diagnosed. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">In stark contrast to Miller, Anthony Fauci used
straight talk in an interview with <i>the Washington Post</i>. Fauci revealed
that Trump hadn’t spoken to him since early October (931), and then only
because Trump had contracted the coronavirus. Fauci said that “the public
health aspect of the task force has diminished greatly” and said of Trump’s
favorite advisor, Scott Atlas </span><span style="line-height: 107%;">(see #622-623, #687-689, #756-757)</span><span style="line-height: 107%;">, “He’s a smart
guy who’s talking about things that I believe he doesn’t have any real insight
or knowledge or experience in. He keeps talking about things that when you
dissect it out and parse it out, it doesn’t make any sense.” Of the state of
the pandemic in the U.S., he said, <span style="color: #2a2a2a;">“</span></span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/fauci-covid-winter-forecast/2020/10/31/e3970eb0-1b8b-11eb-bb35-2dcfdab0a345_story.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">All the stars are aligned in the wrong
place as you go into the fall and winter season, with people congregating at
home indoors. You could not possibly be positioned more poorly</span></a><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">.</span><span style="color: #2a2a2a; line-height: 107%;">”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Another rare administration official willing to
acknowledge reality was Deborah Birx, who had been handpicked by Trump to lead
the coronavirus response. As revealed in <i>the Washington Post</i> on <b>Monday,
November 2, </b></span><a href="https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Trump-adviser-pleads-for-more-aggressive-action-15695855.php"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">an internal report authored by Birx
directly contradicted many of Trump’s COVID-19 talking points</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.
<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The increase in cases had nothing to do with the
volume of testing, as testing in many high-infection areas was “flat or
declining,” and Trump and Pence’s rallies were exactly what the country <i>didn’t
</i>need: <span style="background: white;">“There
is an absolute necessity of the Administration to use this moment to ask the American
people to wear masks, physical distance and avoid gatherings in both public and
private spaces.”</span></span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Trump’s framing that the only two choices were doing
next to nothing to stop the virus (his strategy) or a full lockdown (what he
claimed was Joe Biden’s strategy) was a false dichotomy: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">“This is not about lockdowns - It hasn't been about
lockdowns since March or April. It's about an aggressive balanced approach that
is not being implemented.” (932)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 107%;">Birx’s main point: “essential
at this time point” was “</span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">consistent messaging about uniform use of masks, physical
distancing and hand washing with profound limitation </span><span style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 107%;">on indoor gatherings, especially with family
and friends.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 107%;">As Birx’s concerns
spread across the Internet, Trump’s handlers planned an indoor election night
party at the White House </span><a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election-2020/trump-2020-election-night-party-white-house-b1515592.html"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">for several hundred
guests with few precautions</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 107%;">. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The state of the union could hardly be worse on <b>Tuesday,
November 3</b>, election day 2020. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Coronavirus cases were surging to </span><a href="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EmBNma5VcAA0lLC?format=jpg&name=4096x4096"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">over 100,000 daily</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">—including
</span><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/more-61-000-children-got-covid-19-last-week-record-n1245851"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">more than 61,000 children in just the
past week</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">—the economy was in the tank, </span><a href="https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/09/08/americans-view-of-black-white-race-relations-hits-a-20-year-low"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">race relations were at a modern low</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">,
and thanks to Trump’s ceaseless hyper-partisan demagoguery and threats to the
democratic process, </span><a href="https://www.studyfinds.org/2020-election-day-most-stressful/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">55% of Americans felt that this would be
the most stressful day of their lives</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">. (933)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="color: blue; font-size: medium;">November 4, 2020-January 20, 2021</span></b><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><i>Despite a massive and unprecedented GOP vote
suppression effort, Joe Biden wins the 2020 election with 306 electoral college
votes and a commanding seven million-ballot popular vote victory, the second
highest margin in the past 20 years of presidential races. Ignoring the
pandemic as it </i><i>surges to 300,000 new daily
infections, over 4,000 daily deaths, and 130,000 hospitalizations, Trump tries
to overturn the election with frivolous lawsuits, pressure on state and county
elections officials and state legislators, and a
flagrantly unconstitutional effort to get Mike Pence to reject
Democratic electors. Trump’s attempt to dispense with a 232 year-tradition of
democratic elections ends when an insurrection he
incited fails to keep Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s win. </i><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">By early evening on <b>Wednesday, November 4</b>, it
was clear that Trump had lost, even though he had demonstrated </span><a href="https://www.rawstory.com/2020/11/whats-wrong-with-68-million-americans-expert-says-trumps-mental-illness-infected-48-of-the-electorate/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=5830&recip_id=24770&list_id=1"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">a cult-like grip on under- and dis-informed
Republican voters</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">. With Biden having already won the swing
state of Arizona and Nebraska’s 2nd district, AP calls for Biden in </span><a href="https://fox11online.com/news/election/ap-calls-wisconsin-for-biden"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">Wisconsin</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
and </span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/ap-explains-michigan-joe-biden-4a2bbdd10e3bb42a2e129f91c6ae5132"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">Michigan</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> gave
the Democrat 270 electoral votes, enough to clinch the presidency. There was a
possibility that Arizona had been called prematurely, but Pennsylvania was almost
certain to go Biden’s way, based on the vote margin and </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/04/upshot/pennsylvania-election-results-ballots.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">the districts that had yet to be counted</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">,
and Georgia was </span><a href="https://www.11alive.com/article/news/politics/elections/georgia-results-election-2020-blog-on-nov-4/85-5526aee2-9130-4f8c-8566-313d98fc975e"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">trending toward Biden</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Election stories dominated news on <b>Thursday,
November 5</b>, but COVID-19 continued to have an outsized impact. The U.S.
logged </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/05/us/covid-one-day-in-america.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20201106&instance_id=23862&nl=the-morning&regi_id=87101069&segment_id=43736&te=1&user_id=1baa2c82b5fd57364c41fdc8e1f99240"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">over 121,000 new cases</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">,
the highest total to date, and state </span><a href="https://www.bloombergquint.com/onweb/more-americans-than-forecast-file-for-state-jobless-benefits"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">unemployment filings</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> increased
more than expected due to Trump’s failure to get control of the pandemic. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Rather than fulfill the most important duty on his job
description—to keep Americans safe—Trump focused 100% of his energy on clogging
the courts with frivolous lawsuits and making </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/05/us/politics/trump-presidency.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">easily-debunked claims</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> about
election fraud. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Friday, November 6</span></b><span style="line-height: 107%;">
saw new cases jump to </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/11/06/coronavirus-covid-live-updates-us/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">over 128,000</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.
<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Not surprisingly, </span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/counties-worst-virus-surges-voted-trump-d671a483534024b5486715da6edb6ebf?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">93% of the counties with the highest
infection rates had supported Trump</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> on Tuesday. Even as
their communities were being devastated by COVID-19, the bulk of Republican
voters continued to be played for suckers by Trump and his dangerous and
dishonest rhetoric (934):<span style="color: red;"> </span>AP polls found that
36% of Trump voters felt the pandemic was “completely” or “mostly” under
control, while a separate 47% believed the pandemic was “somewhat” under
control. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The correct answer, known by 82% of Biden supporters,
was that the pandemic was “not at all” under control. Cases set </span><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20201122131353/https:/www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/U-S-breaks-record-for-daily-new-cases-again-as-15710179.php"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">another record</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
on <b>Saturday, November 7</b>, increasing to 134,000. Fittingly,
Pennsylvania—and the election—were </span><a href="https://www.snopes.com/ap/2020/11/07/2020-latest-biden-is-46th-president-after-pennsylvania-win/?utm_campaign=Snopes%20Debunker%20-%20Saturday%2C%20November%207%2C%202020%20-%20Biden%20Is%2046th%20President%20%28X3hwKF%29&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Snopes%20Debunker%20-%20Saturday%20Edition&_ke=eyJrbF9lbWFpbCI6ICJiZW5ib3NpdHlAZ21haWwuY29tIiwgImtsX2NvbXBhbnlfaWQiOiAiTFdUYkhmIn0%3D"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">officially called for Joe Biden</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
that afternoon.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">By contrast to our acting president, who ignored a
crisis which was killing over 1,000 Americans/day to rage-Tweet and stir up his
primitive fanbase with ludicrous and math-challenged conspiracy theories, the
president-elect </span><a href="https://www.axios.com/biden-to-announce-covid-19-task-force-monday-23b353bd-863b-4e0f-bb64-c6da4a5758b2.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">snapped into action pronto</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">,
announcing that he would name his coronavirus task force Monday. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">On <b>Monday, November 9</b>, the need for Biden’s
swift action was </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/09/coronavirus-overwhelm-us-before-biden-435235?nname=playbook&nid=0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=630318"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">reinforced</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
by Dan Goldberg and Alice Miranda Ollstein of <i>Politico</i>. The U.S.
healthcare system, already overwhelmed, was likely to be further strained as
the country was on course to see one million new infections weekly by the end
of the year. The holes Biden had to fill were many: a lack of sufficient PPE
(935) and testing (936), cities and states deep in the red due to Trump’s
recession (937), collaborative relationships to repair with the World Health
Organization and international allies (938). Cyrus Shahpar (a former CDC
official in charge of the Covid Exit Strategy) told <i>Politico</i>, “<span style="background: white;">If you want to have a better 2021, then
maybe the rest of 2020 needs to be an investment in driving the virus down.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Unfortunately, the Trump administration was making no
such investment, even as HUD secretary Ben Carson and other administration
figures came down with the virus after attending </span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-election-night-party-virus-d229a9d6d26e11dd30ce43294035850f"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">Trump’s crowded election-night “victory
party</span></a><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">.” </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">What <i>was</i> the president up to in the middle of
the worst public health crisis in 100 years?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Fundraising.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/all-the-ways-trumpworld-wants-to-cash-in-on-maga-anger-over-the-election?via=newsletter&source=Politics"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">Capitalizing on grievance-peddling</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">,
Trump’s allies were tapping his supporters for funds to support the campaign’s
litigation assaults on democracy. Big portions of the money would be used to
pay off campaign debt, and some of it was going straight into Trump’s pocket,
but there was no need to mention that in the fundraising emails. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">While Trump used his office and the faith placed in
him by tens of millions of gullible Americans to serve his own interests, </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/10/10/us/trump-properties-swamp.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">again</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">, the virus he’d
unleashed grew in intensity. On <b>Tuesday, November 10</b>, the U.S. had </span><a href="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EmgKDi9WMAYtsDu?format=jpg&name=small"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">over 130,000 infections</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
(the </span><a href="https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/covid-2020-11-10"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">7<sup>th</sup> straight day</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
with over 100,000 new cases) and a record number of hospitalizations. In total,
America had over 10,000,000 official cases, a </span><a href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/07/21/cdc-study-actual-covid-19-cases/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">dramatic undercount</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
of the real numbers and yet still </span><a href="https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">vastly higher than any other country</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.
<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Daily cases climbed even higher on <b>Wednesday,
November 11</b>, all the way </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/11/11/coronavirus-covid-live-updates-us/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">up to 145,000</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">,
an increase from 104,000 just a week earlier, with 49 states seeing daily
increases. Wednesday’s </span><a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8942267/Daily-COVID-19-death-toll-spikes-nearly-1-900.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">death totals</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
were almost 1,900, the highest since May. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">As almost two thousand of his constituents died each
day because of his incompetence and indifference, Trump whined about </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/11/11/trump-angry-about-pfizer-vaccine/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">the “medical deep state</span></a><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">,” </span><span style="line-height: 107%;">claiming that Big Pharm
behemoth Pfizer was secretly a left-wing organization which had withheld </span><a href="https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-detail/pfizer-and-biontech-announce-vaccine-candidate-against"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">the announcement</span></a><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 107%;">of successful late-stage
clinical trials until after the election in order to hurt him politically.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">With the totals shooting up again on <b>Thursday,
November 12</b>, to </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/11/12/covid-social-gatherings/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">over 152,000 infections and 66,000
hospitalizations</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">, it would have been a good time for the
administration to aggressively counter the virus, or, at the very least, to have
the president speak to the country to calm his constituents’ nerves. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Instead of doing what any responsible leader would
have done, Trump continued to ghost the American public, </span><a href="https://www.rawstory.com/2020/11/trump-shamed-for-hate-watching-cable-news-while-america-enters-hell/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=5870"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">“hate-watching” cable TV</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">,
hiding behind his Twitter account and not speaking publicly (939), while
plotting to create </span><a href="https://www.axios.com/trump-fox-news-digital-media-competitor-25afddee-144d-4820-8ed4-9eb0ffa42420.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">a digital propaganda network</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
for people who find far-right Fox to be “too liberal.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">While Trump licked his self-inflicted wounds and
inflamed his white supporters’ false sense of victimhood, millions of Americans
suffered. As of <b>Friday, November 13</b>, </span><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/beloved-businesses-are-going-bankrupt-waiting-federal-help-it-will-n1247561"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">100,000 small businesses had gone under</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
due to the GOP’s unwillingness to negotiate a stimulus deal in good faith, which
had allowed the Paycheck Protection Program to run out of money. Healthcare
workers were being </span><a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/11/third-surge-breaking-healthcare-workers/617091/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=atlantic-daily-newsletter&utm_content=20201113&silverid-ref=NjY0NzQxMzgxNDkxS0"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">pushed to the brink</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> (see
#379) and </span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/covid-19-surge-schools-go-remote-344a2b564fb33719f51fcd7a73cad101"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">schools were starting to close again</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
(940), something that wasn’t having to be done </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/europe-schools-covid-open/2020/12/01/4480a5c8-2e61-11eb-9dd6-2d0179981719_story.html?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F2d3ac1e%2F5fc7c2cf9d2fda0efb7bd4ac%2F597420fc9bbc0f1cdcfbd42b%2F40%2F68%2F5fc7c2cf9d2fda0efb7bd4ac"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">in Europe</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.
Ten states had just posted a record number of infections and weekly numbers
were increasing 2-3X over in many parts of the country. Dr. Gregory Poland (the
leader of Mayo Clinic’s Vaccine Research Group) told a reporter from Yahoo, </span><a href="https://news.yahoo.com/we-blew-it-us-reaches-explosive-covid-19-spread-as-virus-is-nearly-impossible-to-control-experts-say-210948870.html"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">“We are now exponential.
You cannot control exponentiality. We blew it; we’re past that.”</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">On <b>Saturday, November 14</b>, it was reported that </span><a href="https://www.the-sun.com/news/1802080/covid-cases-increase-all-50-states-first-time/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">the number of infections was increasing
in all 50 states for the first time</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">In other news, it came out that Trump hadn’t been to a
coronavirus task force meeting </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-coronavirus-response/2020/11/14/61137f4c-25cb-11eb-8599-406466ad1b8e_story.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">in five months</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.
(see #833)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Not only was Trump refusing to leverage the formidable
resources of the U.S. federal government to mitigate the disaster he’d played a
central role in creating, but he was blocking the incoming administration from
being able to respond to the pandemic effectively. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">As </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/15/fauci-coronavirusbiden-transition-team-436588"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">reported</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
on <b>Sunday, November 15</b>, Trump’s General Services Administration
appointee, Emily Murphy, was holding up the presidential transition, though
Biden had won a clear victory at the ballot box with 306 electoral college
votes (the same as Trump in 2016) and a popular vote margin projected to reach
seven million ballots, the second highest margin since the 1996 election. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Murphy’s hyper-partisan loyalty to Trump’s bruised ego
was keeping Biden’s team from collaborating with public health agencies,
robbing them of crucial public health data (941) and potentially jeopardizing
the rollout of vaccines (942), distribution of PPE (943), and national testing
strategies (944). Even Trump’s own testing czar, Brett Giroir, </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/15/fauci-coronavirusbiden-transition-team-436588"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">told ABC’s “This Week”</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
that Murphy should stop playing games: <span style="background: white;">“This is an issue of public health and saving American lives. There’s
nothing more important than that.”</span> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Trump reached his personal milestone of over </span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/gretchen-whitmer-michigan-washington-thanksgiving-holidays-2de897b146fb8515abce187a8bff8d38"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">11,000,000 Americans (officially)
infected</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> on <b>Monday, November 16</b>, just a week after
reaching his personal milestone of 10,000,00 Americans (officially) infected.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Included in the 11,000,000 were a small subset of
people who denied that they had the coronavirus—<i>while dying from the
coronavirus</i>. As reported on <b>Tuesday, November 17</b>, the denial
implanted by Trump, which had trickled down to his state-level Republican
allies, had made its way down to the right-wing <i>hoi polloi</i> in South
Dakota, the state with the highest per-capita rate of infection. </span><a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/11/17/south-dakota-nurse-jodi-doering-covid-19-patients-denial/6330791002/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">According to</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> Jodi
Doering, a South Dakota nurse, “I have a night off from the hospital. As I’m on
my couch with my dog I can’t help but think of the Covid patients the last few
days. The ones that stick out are those who still don’t believe the virus is
real….They tell you there must be another reason they are sick. They call you
names and ask why you have to wear all that ‘stuff’ because they don’t
have COVID because it’s not real. Yes. This really happens.” (945)<span style="color: #303030;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">An Axios-Ipsos poll shared by reporter Sam Baker
showed that this extreme trend was part of </span><a href="https://www.axios.com/axios-ipsos-coronavirus-risk-dining-thanksgiving-30e8195f-f985-412b-9028-86a6f4a444e2.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">a national cult of Republican ignorance
about COVID-19</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 107%;">(see #145, #204, #283, #307, #313, #s 319-323.
#325, #330, #339, #347, #387, #440, #452, #534, #s 566-567, #641, #739, #942,
#945).</span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Despite eight months of mass death, infection, and
increasingly clear data available to anyone with Internet access, only 52% of
Republicans (as opposed to 87% of Democrats) knew that “attending in-person
gatherings outside your household” held a large/moderate risk of infection,
only 45% of Republicans (as opposed to 87% of Democrats) understood that restaurant
dining held a large/moderate risk of infection, and only 51% of Republicans (as
opposed to 92% of Democrats) grasped that holiday traveling held a large/moderate
risk of infection, a cluelessness which contributed to infection-spreading
behavior. (946) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">This disconnect from reality carried over to the
election itself, as </span><a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/11/18/21573145/poll-trump-election-fraud-allegations-republican-voters?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Sentences%20111820&utm_content=Sentences%20111820+CID_32b6569beb1615753c1270d8fe6ba849&utm_source=cm_email&utm_term=Vox%20poll%2073%20percent%20of%20Republican%20voters%20are%20questioning%20Bidens%20victory"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">73% of Republicans</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
questioned the validity of Biden’s win, despite the clear margin of victory and
the fact that months of polls had pointed to a highly likely Biden victory. In
the interest of keeping his followers in the dark, Trump </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/17/politics/chris-krebs-fired-by-trump/index.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">fired</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> Christopher
Krebs, a Republican who Trump had appointed to lead the <span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">Cybersecurity and
Infrastructure Security Agency. Krebs had committed multiple sins. From the
early post-election days Krebs had </span></span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/10/dhs-fact-checking-trump-conspiracies-435821?nname=politico-nightly&nid=00000170-c000-da87-af78-e185fa700000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=2670445"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">publicly debunked</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;"> right-wing
disinformation about election fraud, as his agency was supposed to do. On
November 12, his agency had said in a joint statement that “</span><a href="https://www.cisa.gov/news/2020/11/12/joint-statement-elections-infrastructure-government-coordinating-council-election"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">The November 3rd
election was the most secure in American history</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">”</span><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;"> </span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">and </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">“There is no evidence
that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way
compromised.” State elections officials </span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-donald-trump-virus-outbreak-general-elections-elections-4060823b211ce91959b26f46efb73636"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">from both parties</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;"> had mirrored Krebs’
statements about the security of our election machinery and </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/10/us/politics/voting-fraud.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20201111&instance_id=24000&nl=the-morning&regi_id=87101069&segment_id=44192&te=1&user_id=1baa2c82b5fd57364c41fdc8e1f99240"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">the <i>lack </i>of
fraud</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">,
but they didn’t work for Trump, so he couldn’t fire them. </span><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">As of <b>Wednesday, November 18</b>, </span><a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-cases-counties-prison-outbreaks-920e9b50-3cc0-47ca-ac50-c64700a65321.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">83% of counties</span></a><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 107%;">around the U.S. had seen
an increase in infections over the prior two weeks, with <i>average </i>increases
of 156%. Twenty-two percent of hospitals around the country </span><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/11/third-surge-hospitals-staffing-shortage/617128/?stream=top"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">were understaffed</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
and eight states expected to see 1/3<sup>rd</sup> of their hospitals
understaffed in the coming week. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">That day, the U.S. </span><a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/11/18/935930352/as-u-s-reaches-250-000-deaths-from-covid-19-a-long-winter-is-coming"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">passed 250,000 official deaths</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
from COVID-19, </span><a href="https://www.mediaite.com/news/staggering-new-cdc-data-suggests-true-coronavirus-death-toll-is-now-near-400000/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">an undercount</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
from the actual number but still far higher than any other country in the
world. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">A headline at Axios.com on <b>Thursday, November 19</b>,
summed up the state of the virus in the United States: “</span><a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-cases-infections-dining-thanksgiving-bars-b93f666d-a70b-4c0e-9cb7-f58f20c5421a.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">The pandemic is as bad as it’s ever been</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.”
<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">As reported by Sam Baker and Andrew Witherspoon, “This
is bad as the pandemic has ever been — the most cases, the most explosive
growth and the greatest strain on hospitals. If businesses were closed right
now, it would not be safe to reopen them. And holiday travel will be risky no
matter where you’re coming from or where you’re going.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Infection numbers were up 30% from the week before,
which had had a 40% increase from the week before that, and “No state in
America could clear the threshold right now to safely allow indoor gatherings.”
(947)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Exacerbating the raging state of the pandemic were
insufficient testing resources around the country—still!—leading to </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/11/18/coronavirus-thanksgiving-test/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">long lines and long waits</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
for test results, which rendered the tests </span><a href="https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/934480"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">virtually useless</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">. (948)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">But Trump had no time for such trifles. He had more
important things to attend to. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Namely, stealing the election from the rightful
victor, Joe Biden. After </span><a href="https://www.newstimes.com/news/article/Georgia-s-secretary-of-state-says-fellow-15731775.php"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">failing</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> to get Georgia’s
conservative Republican secretary of state to invalidate Democratic votes, he
was </span><a href="https://amp.detroitnews.com/amp/3777657001"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">inviting</span></a><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 107%;">Republican state
legislators from Michigan to the White House in an effort to get them to toss
out Biden’s 154,000-vote win and choose the state’s electors. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The U.S. </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/20/health/us-coronavirus-friday/index.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">broke records</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
for new infections (193,000) and hospitalizations (82,000) again on <b>Friday,
November 20</b>. Half of America’s counties were in the “</span><a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90529280/what-is-a-covid-19-red-zone-do-you-live-in-one-heres-how-to-find-out"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">red zone</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.”
Due to increased hospitalizations, 1,000 U.S. hospitals were considered “</span><a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/11/20/937152062/1-000-u-s-hospitals-are-short-on-staff-and-more-expect-to-be-soon"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">critically short</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">”
of necessary staff; </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/election-results/north-dakota-2020/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">Trump-loving North Dakota</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
led the way, with 51% of their hospitals short-staffed. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">That afternoon, Trump had a rare opportunity to
collaborate with G20 allies at a meeting on pandemic preparedness. In
attendance would be leaders from Germany and South Korea who had handled the
virus infinitely better than Trump and presumably had a lot of good advice to
offer. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://www.mediaite.com/news/just-in-trump-skips-g20-pandemic-preparedness-meeting-to-go-golfing/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">He went golfing instead</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.
(949)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">On <b>Monday, November 23</b>, Trump’s General
Services Administration head, Emily Murphy, finally allowed the presidential
transition to move forward after stonewalling the president-elect for </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/23/gsa-acknowledges-biden-victory-kicking-off-transfer-of-power-439875?nname=politico-nightly&nid=00000170-c000-da87-af78-e185fa700000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=2670445"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">more than two weeks after he’d been
declared the winner</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">. Trump announced the decision </span><a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1331013907859845121"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">via Tweet</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
while saying that his frivolous lawsuits to overturn the election result and
ignore the will of 81 million Americans would continue. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The U.S. had over 1,500 reported COVID-related deaths
on <b>Tuesday, November 24.</b><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Over at <i>the Washington Post</i>, Hannah Natanson
looked at the </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/fairfax-schools-more-failing-grades/2020/11/24/1ac2412e-2e34-11eb-96c2-aac3f162215d_story.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">dire shortcomings</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
of the shift to online education necessitated by Trump’s failure to get the
pandemic under control. In findings which had been mirrored in St. Paul and
Houston, schools in Fairfax County, VA were seeing an increase of 83% in F’s
since in-person learning had become unsafe. Children with disabilities had 111%
more F’s, while F’s among children learning English went up 106%. Latinx
children were harmed the most of any demographic, with 92% more F’s. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">And </span><a href="https://threader.app/thread/1331229035863691264"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">these numbers</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> were averages of all
students, K-12. The data for young children was especially troubling, with F’s
up <i>300%</i> among middle-schoolers. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Natanson’s conclusion: “…the data confirms experts’
worst fears/predictions about online learning: That children who were already
engaged, and in stable/supportive home situations, will do just fine. BUT that
kids who were already struggling will take a deep, possibly irrecoverable
nosedive.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The following day, <b>Wednesday, November 25</b>, the
U.S. </span><a href="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EntZ5lnVcAArxQz?format=jpg&name=4096x4096"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">had</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> over 2,000 deaths
from COVID-19, while hospitalizations hit a record high—just shy of 90,000—3X
the hospitalization rate on October 1.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="background: white; color: #111111;">
</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">As had been the case all along, Americans of color
were disproportionately impacted by Trump’s failure to contain the pandemic.
Reporting for <i>the Guardian</i>, Nina Lakhani and Maanvi Singh looked at </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/food/2020/nov/25/us-hunger-surges-spiraling-pandemic"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">growing food insecurity in the U.S.</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
According to Lakhani and Singh, “demand for food aid” had increased 60% from
before the pandemic and “5.6 [million] households [had] struggled to put enough
food on the table in the past week.” Of these 5.6 million households, “27% of
black and 23% of Latino respondents with children reported not having enough to
eat sometimes or often over the past week – compared with 12% of white people.”
Hunger for families with children was “three times higher than in 2019.” (950)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Barack Obama had increased food stamp eligibility
during the Great Recession, but America’s poor in 2020 were saddled with a
Republican administration which was trying to<i> reduce</i> food stamp benefits
(see #875) and a Republican Senate which had blocked additional food assistance
for months by refusing to negotiate with House Democrats, who’d passed the
Heroes Act on May 15. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Ellen Vollinger of the Food Research & Action
Centre told <i>the Guardian</i>, “It’s difficult to understand the lack of
political will to address this when the county is in such a dire emergency.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Another complication with food security was a lack of
volunteers to help run food clinics. On <b>Thursday, November 26</b>,
Thanksgiving, Orion Rummler reported that “</span><a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-food-bank-thanksgiving-holiday-772f54cd-bdce-4d63-bfda-8888c0e8fd26.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">Soup kitchens and
charities, usually brimming with holiday volunteers, are getting far
less help</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.” A big contributor to the problem was
that elderly volunteers weren’t able to risk coming out, due to Trump’s failure
to contain the pandemic. Feeding America, a national provider, said that 60% of
their food banks needed more volunteers. At risk were “50 million people in the
U.S., including 17 million children, [who] could become food insecure this year
due to the pandemic.” (951)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">One of the stories with significant implications which
was buried in the slow holiday news cycle was the radical change at the U.S.
Supreme Court following Trump’s appointment of Amy Coney Barrett to replace
Ruth Bader Ginsburg. While Ginsburg had been alive, the court had ruled 5-4
that states could limit public religious gatherings, which had been found to be
potential </span><a href="https://www.healthline.com/health-news/indoor-church-services-are-covid-19-hot-spots-heres-why"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">super-spreader events</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.
After the elevation of Barrett, the court </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/26/supreme-court-religion-covid-barrett-440808"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">ruled</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> that the desire
of churchgoers to worship in public was more important than the community need
for public safety, a decision the five right-wing members of the court would later
try to impose on other states. (952)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">On <b>Friday, November 27</b>, </span><a href="https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/covid-2020-11-27?mod=hp_lead_pos2"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">the U.S. passed 90,000 COVID-19
hospitalizations for the first time</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">, to 90,481, a number
which grew to 91,635 on <b>Saturday, November 28</b>. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">By <b>Monday, November 30</b>, </span><a href="https://twitter.com/COVID19Tracking/status/1333574466991837184"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">hospitalizations were up to 96,039</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">,
twice the number on November 1, 3X the number on October 1. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The progress of COVID-19 vaccine trials was giving the
American public some hope, but the administration was doing the bare minimum
with the rollout. As with testing, PPE, and many other vital elements of the
U.S. response, the administration was outsourcing this complicated process to
states. </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/30/trump-states-handle-vaccines-440798?nname=playbook&nid=0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=630318"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">As reported</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
by Sara Owermohle, Rachel Roubein, and Zachary Brennan, “The Trump
administration is shunting to the states hard decisions about which Americans
will get the limited early supplies of coronavirus vaccines — setting up a
confusing patchwork of distribution plans that could create unequal access to
the life-saving shots.” (953)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The administration had “decided to allocate scarce
early doses based on states’ total populations”—rather than on need—“forcing
hard choices in states with a greater proportion of residents at high risk — including
Black, Indigenous and Latino communities that have suffered disproportionate
rates of hospitalization and death from Covid-19.” (954)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Josh Michaud, referred to as “an associate director
for global health policy at Kaiser Family Foundation who has reviewed nearly
every state’s distribution plan,” told <i>Politico</i>, “It’s very obvious
that states are in different places when it comes to planning and identifying
who those people are.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The decentralization of the vaccine process “translates
into an uneven rollout among states, that could shake the public’s already
fragile confidence in the government's coronavirus response and possibly even
in the vaccines themselves.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The human impact of the right-wing theology about
local control—the belief that local governments always make the best
decisions—got a look on <b>Tuesday, December 1</b> at <i>ProPublica</i>. In “</span><a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/states-with-few-coronavirus-restrictions-are-spreading-the-virus-beyond-their-borders?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=majorinvestigations&utm_content=feature"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">States with Few Coronavirus Restrictions
Are Spreading the Virus Beyond Their Borders</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">,” Armstrong
showed how Trump’s months of lies and minimization of the coronavirus had
filtered down to Republican leaders at the state level and ultimately, to their
citizens. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">In focus were the borders between Democratic- and
Republican-run states (Washington-Idaho, Minnesota and South Dakota, Illinois
and Iowa). Specifically, the practice of irresponsible people from blue states
with strict health guidelines going to red states with few or no safety
measures, catching COVID, and bringing it back to their communities, as
thousands of the riders at South Dakota’s </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/10/17/sturgis-rally-spread/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">Sturgis motorcycle rally</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
had done to their fellow Minnesota residents. This was also happening in
Spokane, Washington, near the Idaho border, where infection rates were much
higher than in Seattle, which was further from right-wing, COVID-friendly
Idaho.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Referring to Trump’s unwillingness to enact minimum
federal guidelines for the states to follow, Dr. Ashish Jha (of Brown
University’s School of Public Health) told<i> ProPublica</i>, “What really
struck me [is] how hard it is to take the pandemic strategy as laid out by the
White House with every state on its own and ... implement it because every
state is not on its own, they are all interconnected.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">This approach represented a race to the bottom: “In
some ways, the whole country is essentially living with the strategy of the
least effective states because states interconnect and one state not doing a
good job will continue to spread the virus to other states….States can’t wall
themselves off.” (955)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">That same day, Georgia’s voting system implementation
manager Gabe Sterling (a Republican who had voted for Trump) </span><a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/12/gabe-sterling-someones-gonna-get-killed-because-of-trump.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">gave an impassioned press conference</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
in response to Trump’s constant claims that he’d been robbed of a win in the
state, which had generated threats to Georgia elections officials and their
families. Addressing Trump directly, Sterling said, “Mr.
President, as the secretary said yesterday, people aren’t giving you the
best advice of what’s actually going on the ground. It’s time to look forward.
If you want to run for reelection in four years, fine do it. But everything
we’re seeing right now, there’s not a path. Be the bigger man here and stop —
step in, tell your supporters, ‘Don’t be violent don’t intimidate.’ All that’s
wrong. It’s un-American.” In words that would prove remarkably prescient,
Sterling said that if Trump didn’t stop his toxic lies, “Someone’s gonna get
shot. Someone’s gonna get killed.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">On <b>Wednesday, December 2</b>, the United States </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/03/health/us-coronavirus-thursday/index.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">continued to spiral downward</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">,
with a record numbers of hospitalizations (100,667) and deaths (2,800). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">In a virtual talk to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, CDC
head Robert Redfield said that </span><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-usa/cdc-chief-warns-americans-face-rough-winter-from-covid-19-surge-idUSKBN28C20R"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">December, January, and February would be
“the most difficult time in the public health history” of the United States</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9017085/US-breaks-highest-daily-death-toll-record-2-879-deaths.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">Deaths increased to 2,879</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> on
<b>Thursday, December 3</b>. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/528706-trump-largely-silent-as-health-officials-sound-covid-19-alarm"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">Trump continued to be AWOL from the
battle with COVID-19</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">, staying out of sight and focusing his public
messaging on gripes about the election (the <i>New York Times</i> would later </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/05/us/politics/trump-presidency-election-loss.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">report</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> that Trump “<span style="background: white;">posted or reposted about 145 messages on
Twitter </span>lashing out at the results of an election he lost. He mentioned
the coronavirus pandemic now reaching its darkest hours four times — and even
then just to assert that he was right about the outbreak and the experts were
wrong.”)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Appearing on CNN Thursday, Republican senator Mitt
Romney </span><a href="https://www.the-sun.com/news/1912441/mitt-romney-donald-trump-covid-tragedy/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">took Trump to task</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
for his baseless claims of election fraud and lack of focus on the pandemic:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12pt;">“It's
unfortunate that this became a political issue. It's not political. This is
public health….And, unfortunately, we have not made that message clear enough
to the American people. And people are dying because of it.” (956)<span style="color: red;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Friday, December 4</span></b><span style="line-height: 107%;">
offered more of the same. As </span><a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9021045/Hospitals-admitting-fewer-COVID-patients-beds-run-out.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">reported</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
by <i>the Daily Mail</i>, hospitalizations (101,276) and new infections
(227,885) hit new highs. The U.S. now had one-third of the new cases in the
world while making up just 5% of the world’s population. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><i>Boston
Globe</i>
reporter Hanna Krueger <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/12/04/nation/makes-you-ask-why-hell-we-even-bother-infectious-disease-experts-face-disillusionment-covid-19-pandemic-worsens/?outputType=amp&__twitter_impression=true"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">interviewed</span></a> some of America’s top
infectious disease experts for a big picture perspective on the state of the
pandemic in the U.S. As Krueger noted, “The [United
States], and in particular [Boston], are home to some of the greatest public
health experts in the world, many of whom have spent their careers preparing
for a crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12pt;">And yet, the pandemic had had a more
devastating impact on the United States than any other developed country, mainly
due to Trump’s incompetence/indifference and the culture of selfishness and
scientific illiteracy he had tapped into. Michael Mina (see #61-62), an assistant
professor of epidemiology and immunology at Harvard’s school of public health,
reflected the consensus: “<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">At almost every step of
this pandemic, we have failed magnificently as a country….And in ways that we
just really didn’t need to fail.”</span> <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12pt;">The
policies which were needed to get us out of this disaster were plain as day, but
the Trump administration had <i>chosen</i> failure: <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12pt;">“I’m just astounded by the dysfunction, the willingness to just
stay the course as hundreds of thousands of people die, and the unwillingness
to innovate in literally any way (957)….I’ve realized that when we need to rise
up as a country, we have truly no moral capacity to do it. It’s just the most
mind-bending, complete ‘Twilight Zone’ experience that makes you ask why the
hell we even bother.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">While much of the media attention was given to the
dizzying numbers, COVID-19 continued to wreak havoc in ways that weren’t as
headline-friendly. On <b>Saturday, December 5</b>, Lindsey Tanner of the AP explored
</span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/anxiety-mental-health-boston-coronavirus-pandemic-massachusetts-004adb5ee0ef17ff4b5e2e294e36ff3d"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">another grim consequence</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
of Trump’s failure to get a handle on the pandemic: the mental health toll on
Americans under 18. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">According to Tanner, “With schools closed, routines
disrupted and parents anxious over lost income or uncertain futures, children
are shouldering new burdens many are unequipped to bear.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Emergency rooms in Massachusetts had seen “four times
more children and teens in psychiatric crisis weekly than usual,” a trend
reflected nationwide. And when children arrive, “they often wait days in
emergency rooms because there aren’t enough psychiatric beds.” Ralph Buonopane
(described as “a mental health program director at Franciscan Hospital for
Children in Boston”) told the AP, “I’ve been director of this program for 21
years and worked in child psychiatric services since the 1980s and it is very
much unprecedented.” (958)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Also victimized by Trump’s abject failure of
leadership were millions of financially-strapped Americans. In a </span><a href="https://www.studyfinds.org/two-thirds-americans-living-paycheck-to-paycheck-during-covid/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">poll</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> run by Highland
Solutions, 63% of respondents said they were living paycheck-to-paycheck. 47%
said they had depleted emergency savings. One-fourth said they had amassed more
than $10,000 in debt just to get by. 82% said they wouldn’t be able to afford a
sudden $500 expense.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">As of <b>Sunday, December 6</b>, the U.S. had logged
over a million new infections in just the past five days, with an average of
190,948 cases over the prior week, </span><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2020/12/06/health/us-coronavirus-sunday/index.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">a record</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.
<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Vaccines were on the way, but 40% of Americans were
expressing resistance to getting vaccinated, not least because of Trump’s lack
of scientific credibility (a credibility so tarnished that it was even being
called “</span><a href="https://www.rawstory.com/2020/12/a-massive-failure-by-president-trump-chris-wallace-beats-down-hhs-secretary-over-debacle/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">a massive failure</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">”
at Fox News). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">And the vaccines which were going out in December
represented just </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/12/05/operation-warp-speed-coronavirus-vaccine-shortfall/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">a fraction of what states had been
promised by the administration</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">, creating logistical
problems for the states (959) and shortchanging public safety. (960)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Supply chain problems were cited as one of the main
reasons the administration wouldn’t come close to meeting its vaccination rate
goals. It also came out that the administration had made an unforced error by
not securing more doses when they’d had a chance, potentially losing America’s
spot in line to other developed nations, which would extend the window of time
that tens of millions of Americans would be at risk for infection or worse
(961). As </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/07/us/trump-covid-vaccine-pfizer.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">reported</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
by </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/sharon-lafraniere"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Sharon
LaFraniere</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">, </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/katie-thomas"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Katie Thomas</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">, and </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/noah-weiland"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Noah Weiland</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
of <i>the New York Times</i>, “<span style="background: white;">The government was in July given the option to request 100
million to 500 million additional doses. But despite repeated warnings from
Pfizer officials that demand could vastly outstrip supply and amid urges to
pre-order more doses, the Trump administration turned down the offer, according
to several people familiar with the discussions.”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The administration tried to make up for these mistakes
on <b>Monday, December 7</b>, sort of, by having a summit which could firm up
public trust. The summit presented a great opportunity to heal the nation after
a bitter political battle, to calm peoples’ anxieties, to smooth the transition
during the middle of pandemic, but Trump reverted to his default pettiness, </span><a href="https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-claims-he-won-when-asked-why-joe-bidens-team-not-invited-vaccine-summit-1553334"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">refusing to invite</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
president-elect Joe Biden or his coronavirus response team. (962) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">One month after the AP had </span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/why-did-AP-call-election-for-Biden-fe79276cd9175fffc7cf4fb58045fcf9"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">called the election for Biden</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">,
Trump was still trying to undo the mass rejection he’d received from the U.S.
public, with over 81 million Americans having voted against him. The
president’s latest gambit was to </span><a href="https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Trump-asks-Pennsylvania-House-speaker-for-help-15783063.php"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">pressure</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
the Republican speaker of Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives to give him
the state’s electoral votes, though Biden had won Pennsylvania by 81,000
ballots. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">While Trump played chicken with democracy, millions of
Americans suffered from the economic downturn resulting from his failure to get
the pandemic under control. Few sectors of the economy took a harder hit than
the restaurant industry. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">In a public letter to Congress, the National
Restaurant Association </span><a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/restaurant-industry-free-fall-10-140000375.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">announced</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
that “17% of restaurants—more than 110,000 establishments—are closed
permanently or long-term” and half of a million restaurants were in an
“economic freefall.” Of these businesses, the “vast majority of permanently
closed restaurants were well-established businesses, and fixtures in their
communities. On average these restaurants had been in business for 16 years,
and 16% had been open for at least 30 years.” Republican intransigence in
stimulus negotiations would make matters worse: “every month that passes
without a solution from Congress, thousands more restaurants will close their
doors for good.” (963)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Of those who <i>were</i> lucky enough to keep their
jobs, </span><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/08/1-in-3-workers-faced-pandemic-pay-cuts-but-recovery-is-uneven.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">one in three had taken a pay cut</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">,
according to a study reported on <b>Tuesday, December 8</b>. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">And there were no signs that the rate of new infections
would subside enough to allow the economy to recover. The U.S. had just
experienced<span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-themecolor: accent5;"> </span></span><a href="https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/529175-us-records-highest-weekly-covid-19-death-toll"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">its deadliest week</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">,
with an average of 2,249 daily deaths, more than Ireland, Denmark, Australia,
South Korea, Finland, Norway, and Hong Kong had had </span><a href="https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">during the entire pandemic</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.
<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">In rare good news, the conservative U.S. Supreme Court
</span><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-election-court-pennsylvania/u-s-supreme-court-rejects-republican-challenge-to-bidens-pennsylvania-win-idUSKBN28I35L"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">rejected</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
Trump’s attempt to win Pennsylvania by getting Democratic mail ballots
invalidated. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">On <b>Wednesday, December 9</b> </span><a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9037453/The-Deadliest-Day-coronavirus-deaths-surpass-3-000-highest-single-day-date.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">the United States had its “deadliest day</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">,”
with over 3,000 deaths, 221,267 infections, and 106,688 hospitalizations, also
a record. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The numbers were staggering, but only told part of the
tale. Behind those 3,124 deaths were thousands of stories of grief and loss.
Todd Purdum looked at </span><a href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/12/09/drive-by-burials-and-facetime-farewells-grief-in-the-covid-era-will-weigh-on-the-american-psyche-for-years-to-come/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">the psychic toll of these lonely and ugly
deaths</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> in “Drive-by burials and FaceTime farewells: Grief in
the Covid era will weigh on the American psyche for years to come.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Due to the circumstances surrounding COVID
deaths—patients and their loved ones unable to be together at the time of
death, healing events like funerals not held due to public health concerns, the
necessary isolation of the survivors after the death—many Americans were stuck
with </span><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5990943/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">prolonged grief disorder</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.
According to Purdum, “<span style="background: white;">the negative health effects of unresolved grief on the human
cardiovascular and immune systems are well-established, along with heightened
risks for conditions such as anxiety, depression, substance use, and
post-traumatic stress disorder.” (964)</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The nightmare continued on <b>Thursday, December 10</b>,
as Health and Human Services data </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/10/health/us-coronavirus-thursday/index.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">revealed</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
that 200 U.S. hospitals were at full capacity while 1/3rd were “almost out of
ICU space.” That day, the U.S. again broke hospitalization records, increasing
to 107,248, which was harming Americans who needed hospital care for non-COVID
conditions. (965)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Susan Heavey of Reuters took stock of </span><a href="https://news.trust.org/item/20201211142145-sambj"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">the horror movie unleashed by Trump’s indifference and
incompetence</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> on <b>Friday, December 11</b>. In “U.S.
vaccine near, but deaths rising by 9/11 proportions each day,” Heavey reported
that the eye-popping daily death tolls—2,902 on Thursday—were expected to be
the norm for the foreseeable future, or until Americans were vaccinated. <span style="background: white;">The University of
Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation was predicting that
the coronavirus would kill half a million Americans by April 1. </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Monday, December 14 </span></b><span style="line-height: 107%;">was
an eventful day.<b> </b></span><a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-covid-deaths-us-3b926c93-ee13-4c78-b11f-ead8b12de7f5.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">Trump hit his personal milestone of
300,000 official COVID-related deaths</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">, the first American was </span><a href="https://abc7ny.com/covid-vaccine-coronavirus-pfizer-ny/8763858/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">vaccinated</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">,
Wisconsin’s state Supreme Court </span><a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/wisconsin-supreme-court-rejects-trump-election-lawsuit"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">rejected</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
Trump’s attempt to overcome a 20,000-vote deficit by invalidating lawfully-cast
ballots, and the electoral college officially proclaimed Joe Biden
president-elect. Mike Allen and Dion Rabouin of <i>Axios</i> related the epic
mess Trump would be leaving him:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">“Biden will take office with thousands of people dying
daily, full vaccination months away, President Trump taunting him from the
Twitter sidelines, the government rattled by an epic cyberattack, China
asserting its power, and Americans divided like never before. To the victor
goes the spoils.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">In a victory speech, </span><a href="https://www.axios.com/biden-presidency-coronavirus-economic-pain-da86bef8-a551-4bdc-86b0-e917ca3a221c.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">Biden exhibited a grace and empathy which
his soon-to-be predecessor utterly lacked</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">, telling listeners,
“<span style="background: white; letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">My heart goes out to all of you in this dark winter of the
pandemic, about to spend the holidays and the new year with a black hole in
your hearts.”</span><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: -0.1pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">As fortunate as America was to soon have a president
who actually cared about his constituents, Trump’s toxic influence on the state
of the pandemic was certain to linger past his White House residence. On <b>Tuesday,
December 15</b>, for the second time in three weeks, Trump’s Supreme Court
appointees </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/15/politics/supreme-court-colorado-new-jersey-covid/index.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">meddled with lower court decisions</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">—this
time in Colorado and New Jersey—ruling that the desire of churchgoers to
worship in crowded public places was more important than the public safety of
their communities. (966, 967)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The big story on <b>Wednesday, December 16</b> was “</span><a href="https://dnyuz.com/2020/12/16/like-a-hand-grasping-trump-appointees-describe-the-crushing-of-the-c-d-c/" target="_blank"><span style="line-height: 107%;">‘Like a Hand Grasping’: Trump Appointees Describe the
Crushing of the C.D.C.</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="line-height: 107%;">”
<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Based on interviews with
Republican appointees Kyle McGowan and Amanda Campbell, the <i>New York Times</i>
</span></span><a href="https://dnyuz.com/2020/12/16/like-a-hand-grasping-trump-appointees-describe-the-crushing-of-the-c-d-c/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">exposé</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> offered yet
another first-hand glimpse at the ways the Trump administration had trampled on
science in service to spin. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">McGowan said the dismantling of the CDC was slow and
insidious, not swift:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">“Everyone
wants to describe the day that the light switch flipped and the C.D.C. was
sidelined. It didn’t happen that way….It was more of like a hand grasping
something, and it slowly closes, closes, closes, closes until you realize that,
middle of the summer, it has a complete grasp on everything at the C.D.C.”</span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">Among
other things revealed in the piece were the harassment and marginalization of
career employees Dr. Anne Schuchat (see #5) and Dr. Nancy Messonier (see #65)
for telling the truth about the state of the pandemic (968), White House
attempts to limit the CDC’s budget in stimulus talks (969), and the “endless
loop” of non-scientists in the administration who loosened public safety
guidelines to appease business interests, meddled with updates to guidelines, and
manipulated the weekly Morbidity and Mortality Reports. (see #723)</span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">McGowan
told <i>the Times</i>, “Damage has been done to the C.D.C. that will take years
to undo….And that’s terrible to hear, because it happened under my time there.”
</span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The human costs of these deceitful maneuvers were reflected
in </span><a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9061919/US-breaks-record-coronavirus-deaths-3-400.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">Wednesday’s human carnage</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">:
a record 3,656 Americans dead, a record 247,403 infections, a record 113,069
hospitalizations. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The heightened state of the pandemic and the
greater-than-ever chance of catching COVID-19 couldn’t be more obvious, but due
to months of Trump’s minimizing (970), and a misplaced decision to put loyalty
to Trump over community health, a critical mass of Republican voters continued
to exhibit startling levels of ignorance about the pandemic </span><span style="line-height: 107%;">(see #145,
#204, #283, #307, #313, #s 319-323. #325, #330, #339, #347, #387, #440, #452,
#534, #s 566-567, #641, #739, #942, #s945-946, #955).</span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">As </span><a href="https://www.axios.com/states-covid-cases-media-consumption-babc62e3-3a33-44bb-99c0-90b2707396a9.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">detailed</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
by Neal Rothschild on <b>Thursday, December 17</b>, with a few exceptions, red
state online readers tended to have little interest in stories about the
coronavirus, no matter how heavily impacted their state was, while blue state
readers chose to be informed about the pandemic, even when they didn’t live in
a hotspot. All ten states which showed more interest (in the pandemic) than
cases were blue, while all ten states which showed more cases than interest
were red, other than Arizona, which Biden had won by .3%. Jim Anderson, the CEO
of SocialFlow, euphemistically told <i>Axios</i>, “It’s clear that
stories about COVID simply don’t animate red state residents the same way
they do those in blue states.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">As of <b>Friday, December 18</b>, 3,000 daily COVID-19
deaths and over 200,000 new cases </span><a href="https://news.trust.org/item/20201218112841-kdslf"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">had become the new normal</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">,
unemployment was </span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/technology-jobless-claims-unemployment-coronavirus-pandemic-economy-3dfd19dfdf6a9e940b492e23b4d87403"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">increasing</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">,
and </span><a href="https://www.studyfinds.org/americas-toughest-year-2020-left-people-feeling-defeated/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">77% of Americans believed the country was
in an existential crisis</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">. It would have been a perfect time
for the president, or any president with a modicum of decency, to try to comfort
the American public, to show that he cared, to outline what he was doing to
turn things around.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Trump was not that president. (971)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">As the human condition in the country he presided over
continued to worsen, Trump held a meeting with Michael Flynn, the disgraced
(and </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/25/us/politics/michael-flynn-pardon.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">pardoned</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">)
former national security advisor who’d pled guilty to lying to the FBI (</span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/07/opinion/michael-flynn-charges-dropped.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">twice</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">), in which they
discussed Trump </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/20/media/stelter-trump-martial-law/index.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">overturning his landslide election loss
by declaring martial law</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The same day that Trump tried to wriggle out of ballot
box accountability for his failure to contain the pandemic, the public became
aware of another major administration screw-up, as it came out that the first
rollout of vaccines would contain just 25-40% of the doses that had been promised.
(see #959-960) </span><a href="https://www.axios.com/pfizer-vaccine-shortage-governors-064228c7-1cd1-4a07-86a1-03211a6c8e40.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">According to</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
Mike Allen of <i>Axios</i>, “The snafu reveals communication gaps between the
Trump administration and Pfizer, and between the administration and the states.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The botched rollout of the vaccine offered Trump
another opportunity to apologize to the American public, or to at least console
them, for administration mistakes that prolonged death and suffering and
anxiety. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Instead, Trump chose to pass the buck, forcing a
heavily-decorated four-star general—Operation Warp Speed leader Gustave Perna—</span><a href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/12/19/operation-warp-speed-leader-takes-sole-responsibility-for-covid-19-vaccine-distribution-confusion/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">to prostrate himself before cameras</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
on <b>Saturday, December 19</b>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Behind this one failure was a history of failures
flowing from the inadequacies of Donald Trump, who was among the most
unqualified people to ever run for president. </span><a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-inside-story-of-how-trumps-denial-mismanagement-and-magical-thinking-led-to-the-pandemics-dark-winter/ar-BB1c4os0?ocid=BingNews"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">A <i>Washington Post</i> deep dive</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
showed how the personal intersected with the political to create horrific human
tragedy. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">In “The inside story of how Trump’s denial,
mismanagement and magical thinking led to the pandemic’s dark winter,” <i>Post</i>
reporters <span style="background: white;">Yasmeen
Abutaleb, Ashley Parker, Josh Dawsey, and Philip Rucker gave an in-depth
account of administration decisions which had caused illness or death for
millions of Americans.</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">The
pandemic had been mishandled from the start:</span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="background: white;">“The
best chance to control an outbreak is at the very beginning. But U.S. officials
squandered that opportunity in February for two key reasons. The first was the
CDC’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2020/04/03/coronavirus-cdc-test-kits-public-health-labs/?arc404=true" target="_blank" title="www.washingtonpost.com">failure to deploy a working
coronavirus test</a>, and the second was the task force’s almost singular focus
on repatriating Americans from China and cruise ships, rather than on preparing
the United States for an inevitable outbreak. <o:p></o:p></p><p style="background: white;">“A
review of task force agendas from that time demonstrates a disproportionate
focus on cruise ships, masks and other bureaucratic and logistical issues,
rather than on more practical public health steps such as testing, contact
tracing and targeted efforts to prevent the virus’s spread. That allowed the
virus to spread undetected for all of February, several officials and experts
said, as it seeded itself in New York, Washington state, California, New
Orleans and other populous areas. And from then on, the country was perpetually
behind the virus.” (972)<o:p></o:p></p><p style="background: white;">In
the middle of March, Robert Kadlec (the assistant secretary for preparedness
and response at the Department of Health and Human Services) came up with the
idea of shipping masks to every household in the U.S. Working with Jerry Cook
of the clothing manufacturer Hanes, they created a plan to manufacture 650
million masks—five for each household—which “would bear an HHS logo, contain a
microbiocide that would kill the virus, and say: ‘Do your part, help stop the
spread.’”<o:p></o:p></p><p style="background: white;">The
plan was approved by leaders at FEMA and doctors on the coronavirus task force,
but killed by non-medical members of the White House task force. (973)<o:p></o:p></p><p style="background: white;">Flash
forward to mid-November. Though “their warnings had gone largely unheeded for
months in the dormant West Wing,” Deborah Birx, Anthony S. Fauci, Stephen Hahn,
and Robert Redfield went to chief of staff Mark Meadows with desperate pleas to
do something, <i>anything</i>, to fight the pandemic. Meadows “told the doctors
he did not believe their troubling data assessment. And he accused them of
outlining problems without prescribing solutions.<o:p></o:p></p><p style="background: white;">“The
doctors explained that the solutions were simple and had long been clear —
among them, to leverage the power of the presidential bully pulpit to persuade
all Americans to wear masks, especially the legions of Trump supporters
refusing to do so, and to dramatically expand testing.”<o:p></o:p></p><p style="background: white;">After
some pushing and prodding, Mike Pence agreed to let the doctors hold a November
19 press conference—“something they had not done since the summer. But much to
the doctors’ dismay, Pence did not forcefully implore people to wear masks, nor
did the administration take meaningful action on testing. (974)<o:p></o:p></p><p style="background: white;">“As
for the president, he did not appear at all.” (975)<o:p></o:p></p><p style="background: white;">Trump’s
absence was of a piece with his failures throughout the pandemic:<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="background: white;">“The catastrophe began
with Trump’s initial refusal to take seriously the threat of a
once-in-a-century pandemic. But, as officials detailed, it has been compounded
over time by a host of damaging presidential traits — his skepticism of
science, impatience with health restrictions, prioritization of personal
politics over public safety, undisciplined communications, chaotic management
style, indulgence of conspiracies, proclivity toward magical thinking,
allowance of turf wars and flagrant disregard for the well-being of those
around him.” (976)</span><span style="background: white; color: #00b0f0;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="background: white;">A
close advisor to Trump told <i>the Post</i>, “I think he’s just done with
covid….I think he put it on a timetable and he’s done with covid. . . . It just
exceeded the amount of time he gave it.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">On <b>Monday, December 21</b>, Trump loyalist William
Barr, the outgoing attorney general, said he saw “</span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/21/us/politics/barr-trump-hunter-biden-election.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">no reason</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">”
a special counsel should be appointed to investigate the </span><a href="https://www.factcheck.org/2020/12/nine-election-fraud-claims-none-credible/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">mythical “election fraud</span><span style="line-height: 107%;">”</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
Trump kept foaming at the mouth about. Barr’s view was shared by several dozen
judges of both parties—including conservative Republican judges appointed by
Trump—who had </span><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-campaign-lawsuits-election-results-2020-11"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">rejected</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
attempts by Trump’s lawyers to toss out Democratic votes in swing states based
on curious readings of election law. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Unconcerned by the reality that Biden had won a clear
electoral college victory and beat Trump by 7 million ballots in the popular
vote, House Republicans </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/21/trump-house-overturn-election-449787"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">met</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> with the
president to game out a means by which they could try to toss out the will of
the people and overturn Joe Biden’s convincing victory.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">While the GOP schemed to make the U.S. a dictatorship,
the Democratic head of the House select subcommittee on coronavirus, Jim
Clyburn, released administration documents which showed that “<span style="background: white;">Trump appointees [had] attempted to ‘alter
or block’ at least 13 scientific reports on the coronavirus as outbreaks surged
across the spring and summer.” (see #825)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/21/house-watchdog-cdc-covid-reports-449517"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">According to</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"> reporter Dan Diamond, these moves were hardly
rogue affairs, as “Top political officials at [Health and Human Services] and
[the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] not only tolerated these
efforts, but in some cases aided them.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Documents targeted for censorship by administration
officials included “<span style="background: white;">reports on the
use of masks, the spread of Covid-19 in children, the virus’ transmission
during an April 7 primary election in Milwaukee and other reports that were
seen as politically sensitive.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">Clyburn “issued subpoenas
to Azar and Redfield, ordering them by Dec. 30 to<b> </b>produce ‘full and
unredacted’<b> </b>documents that Clyburn said his panel has sought for
months.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">On <b>Tuesday, December 22</b>, the U.S. </span><a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9082583/US-records-second-deadliest-day-3-400-COVID-19-deaths.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">recorded</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
3,401 COVID-19 deaths and a record 117,777 hospitalizations. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Mike Stobbe of the AP </span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/us-coronavirus-deaths-top-3-million-e2bc856b6ec45563b84ee2e87ae8d5e7"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">reported</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
that the United States had had three million deaths in 2020, 400,000 more than
2019. Some small amount of the increase could be attributed to an increase in
overdose deaths in 2020, but the vast majority were due to the coronavirus. The
official U.S. death toll was 318,000, but this failed to account for tens of
thousands of COVID-related deaths which </span><a href="https://www.mediaite.com/news/jaw-dropping-new-cdc-figures-suggest-true-u-s-coronavirus-death-toll-approaching-half-a-million/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">hadn’t been captured</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
in the data, as the people had never been diagnosed. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The ripple effect <span style="background: white; color: #202124;">a small sample of that 318,000 had on their families was shared
in “A holiday haunted by loss” by Susan Dominus on <b>Wednesday, December 23</b>.
Accompanied by family photos, </span></span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/12/23/magazine/covid-family-deaths.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">the piece</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #202124; line-height: 107%;"> profiled seven families who had lost loved
ones to COVID-19, a story of holiday grief shared by hundreds of thousands of
Americans, many more than would have been the case with a competent U.S.
response to the pandemic. (977)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">A poll released on <b>Thursday, December 24</b>,
showed that this widespread sense of loss had sunk in outside of </span><a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/12/24/paleologos-on-poll-breaking-down-donald-trump-cult-like-following/4037335001/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">the Trump cult</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">,
as 50% of Americans polled by <i>USA Today</i> felt that history would view
Trump as </span><a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/12/24/donald-trump-failed-president-50-usa-today-poll-say/3926190001/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">a “failed president</span><span style="line-height: 107%;">.”</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Numbers reported by Oriana Gonzalez in “</span><a href="http://www.axios.com/neediest-holiday-season-coronavirus-62bb6425-7b89-4278-9b7b-b487ca053ff0.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">The neediest holiday season</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">”
on <b>Friday, December 25</b>, Christmas 2020, offered a window into why Trump
was held in such low esteem by such a sizable number of his constituents.
According to Gonzalez, “13% of all adults in the country — 27 million — said
their households didn't have enough food during the last week,” a four-fold
increase over Christmas 2019. Eight million Americans had fallen into poverty
in 2020, “the biggest one-year increase in the 60 years that the government has
been tracking poverty.” And renters were struggling: “Between 2.4 million and 5
million U.S. households are at risk of eviction in January alone” and “By next
year, roughly 12 million will owe an average of $5,850 in back rent and
utilities.” (978)<span style="color: #333335;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">On<b> Sunday, December 27, </b>after six days of empty
posturing,<b> </b>Trump finally signed the second stimulus bill. His delay </span><a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/12/trump-signs-second-stimulus-bill-including-usd600-checks.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">achieved nothing of substance</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
(he signed exactly the same bill that had been put on his desk six days
earlier), but it did allow unemployment benefits to temporarily expire for 14
million Americans and robbed recipients of one week of the additional $300
add-on. (979)<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The most revealing drop on Sunday came from Peter Maas
of <i>the Intercept</i>, which reported on the Trump administration’s effort to
</span><a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/12/27/covid-photography-hospitals/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">keep the American public in the dark</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
about the extent of the pandemic by blocking photojournalists from hospitals:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">“In the pandemic’s early days, when hospitals were
first inundated with media requests, the prevailing HIPAA guidelines were quite
restrictive, even on matters that had nothing to do with media access. Those
guidelines predated the Trump administration and were not written for a
pandemic. But the scale of the Covid-19 crisis quickly forced the Trump
administration to loosen a wide range of privacy restrictions on medical
providers — except, as it turned out, the ones that kept Americans from
viscerally seeing the ailing and the dying.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">“For instance, HHS allowed hospitals to </span><a href="https://www.radarfirst.com/blog/privacy-vs-public-health-compliance-and-reporting-during-covid-19/"><span style="line-height: 107%;">share
Covid-19 information with first responders</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> and
with </span><a href="https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2020/04/09/ocr-announces-notification-enforcement-discretion-community-based-testing-sites-during-covid-19.html"><span style="line-height: 107%;">organizations
involved in Covid-19 testing</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">. Hospitals were told
that they would not face sanctions for </span><a href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https://compliancecosmos.org/despite-temptation-keep-media-out-without-prior-authorization"><span style="line-height: 107%;">sharing
information</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> with the families or friends of
Covid-19 patients. Doctors were freed to discuss or transfer patient
information with </span><a href="https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2020/03/17/ocr-announces-notification-of-enforcement-discretion-for-telehealth-remote-communications-during-the-covid-19.html"><span style="line-height: 107%;">technologies
that were not secure</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">, such as email, FaceTime, and Skype. As
it relaxed these restrictions, the agency said that medical providers
would </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2C6iOdS_FR0"><span style="line-height: 107%;">not
be punished for breaches</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> of patient confidentiality if
they acted in good faith during the pandemic.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Media coverage which could be unflattering to the
administration was held to a far higher privacy standard: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt; line-height: 107%;">“The government’s permissiveness
did not extend to journalists. The media guidelines announced by Severino in
May reinforced HIPAA’s restrictions and warned hospitals that violations could
bring fines in the millions of dollars. The announcement was not reported by
general-interest publications, but news outlets for the health care
industry </span><a href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https://compliancecosmos.org/despite-temptation-keep-media-out-without-prior-authorization"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt; line-height: 107%;">noticed</span></a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt; line-height: 107%;"> what
had happened. The headline of </span><a href="https://journal.ahima.org/patient-privacy-prevails-over-covid-19-media-coverage/"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt; line-height: 107%;">one of those industry stories</span></a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt; line-height: 107%;"> was blunt: ‘Patient Privacy Prevails Over Covid-19
Media Coverage.’” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt; line-height: 107%;">Censorship of the press had
contributed to a major portion of the U.S public being woefully ignorant of the
human impact of the pandemic: “…</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt; line-height: 107%;">the
relative paucity of videos and photographs of the pandemic’s victims might help
explain why Covid-19 skepticism has thrived as the death toll in America
reaches the level of a 9/11 every day.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">“‘For society to respond in ways
commensurate with the importance of this pandemic, we have to see it,’ </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/01/opinion/coronavirus-photography.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; letter-spacing: 0.1pt; mso-themecolor: accent5;">wrote</span></a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;"> art historian Sarah Elizabeth Lewis. ‘For us
to be transformed by it, it has to penetrate our hearts as well as our minds.
Images force us to contend with the unspeakable. They help humanize clinical
statistics, to make them comprehensible.’” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">The Trump administration’s blackout of
hospitals had unmistakable parallels to the Bush administration’s </span><a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100597542"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; letter-spacing: 0.1pt; mso-themecolor: accent5;">blackout of
the caskets of dead soldiers</span></a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">
returning from Iraq: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">“The unifying principle between repressing photography
of a war and photography of a pandemic is that a population that cannot see
human carnage will not object as strongly to its perpetuation and will not care
as much about the incompetence that brought it on. Hospitals and nursing homes
may not have the mendacious intent of the U.S. military, but their actions have
a similar effect of making it nearly impossible for ordinary Americans to be
confronted with visual evidence of the true cost of the calamity that’s
unfolding.” (980)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Censorship couldn’t conceal the fact that December had
been </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/27/health/us-coronavirus-sunday/index.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">the deadliest month of the pandemic</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">,
though there were still several days to go. To date, 63,000 Americans had died
from COVID in December, far more than the 36,964 who’d passed away in November.
<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Appearing on CNN Sunday, the day the U.S. passed 19
million official infections, Anthony Fauci said, “</span><span style="line-height: 107%;">When you're dealing with a baseline
of 200,000 new cases a day and about 2,000 deaths per day, with the
hospitalizations over 120,000, we are really at a very critical point.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Making matters worse was the aggressive denial of
significant portions of the country. Reporting on <b>Monday, December 28</b>,
Frank Morris of NPR looked at how </span><a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/12/28/950861977/toxic-individualism-pandemic-politics-driving-health-care-workers-from-small-tow"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">months of Trump’s lies and distortions
had infected rural Kansas</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Rural hospitals were struggling even before the
pandemic (132 had closed since 2010). The hostility directed toward medical
professionals by right-wing local officials and members of the public who
refused to acknowledge public health science had led to an exodus of
badly-needed healthcare workers as “<span style="background: white;">More than a quarter of all the public health
administrators in Kansas quit, retired or got fired this year.” </span>(981)<span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">Alan
Morgan, the National Rural Health Association’s CEO, told NPR this wasn’t
unique to Kansas: </span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">“In
community after community, after community, all I hear about is workforce,
workforce, workforce losing clinical staff, trying to attract clinical staff
into these communities. It is taking up the full time of our members right
now.”</span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">The
head of the Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs, Chris Merrett said of these
workers, “</span><span style="line-height: 107%;">They are really the lifeblood of any community and a
rural community in particular….These are well-paid individuals who are the ones
who are buying cars, buying homes, and really part of that economic anchor of
your community.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">In essence, “Merrett [said] towns that let
pandemic politics drive medical professionals away are choosing what he calls
‘toxic individualism’ over the common good.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Hospitals were taking a hit countrywide. On <b>Tuesday,
December 29</b>, the U.S. had 124,686 people in hospitals</span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/29/health/us-coronavirus-tuesday/index.html"><span style="line-height: 107%;">,
</span><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">a record</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">,
with COVID-infected patients increasing from 16% of ICU patients in September
to 40% by the end of the year. The trendline made it likely that “<span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">some hospitals”
would soon “have to ration nurses, respirators and care.” </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">On the day that </span><a href="https://covidtracking.com/data/national/cases?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">over 3,000 Americans died</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
and </span><a href="https://covidtracking.com/data/national/cases?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">195,194 got infected</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">,
largely because of his failures of governance, Trump’s lawyers appealed to the
U.S. Supreme Court to </span><a href="http://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2020/12/29/trump-asks-u-s-supreme-court-set-aside-wisconsins-election/4081415001/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">let the gerrymander-created Republican
legislature override the will of the voters</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> in Wisconsin, a
state where Joe Biden had had a 21,000+ vote victory even <i>after</i> the GOP
legislature had put </span><a href="https://truthout.org/articles/wisconsins-voter-suppression-could-swing-2020-election-in-trumps-favor/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">a gauntlet of measures</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
in place to suppress the Democratic vote.
<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">While Trump made another attempt to “win” a state he
had lost at the ballot box, a review of absentee ballots in Georgia (a state
Trump had lost by 12,000 votes) “</span><a href="https://www.ajc.com/politics/no-fraud-georgia-audit-confirms-authenticity-of-absentee-ballots/QF2PTOGHLNDLNDJEWBU56WEQHM/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">didn’t find a single fraudulent absentee
ballot</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> during an </span><a href="https://www.ajc.com/politics/georgia-voter-signature-audit-will-validate-ballots-or-find-fraud/7B5TNF6ZFBGBZEDA3G7EM7MBRA/" target="_blank"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%; padding: 0in;">audit</span></a><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 107%;">of over 15,000 voter
signatures.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Sadly, as audit after recount after audit showed that
Biden had won clearly and convincingly, Trump’s assaults on 232 years of
democratic precedents </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/30/hawley-challenge-biden-electors-forcing-vote-452319"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">were given media life</span></a><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 107%;">on <b>Wednesday, December
30</b> by Republican senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, who agreed to join a
Republican challenge of the electoral college certification on January 6. The
GOP’s tactics—called “</span><a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/trumps-embarrassing-electoral-college-hustle-11609371708?mod=opinion_lead_pos1"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">Trump’s Embarrassing Electoral College
Hustle</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">” by the conservative <i>Wall Street Journal</i>
editorial page, and </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/SenatorSasse/posts/3517705981660655?__tn__=K-R"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">deconstructed state-by-state</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
by conservative Republican senator Ben Sasse—had </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/01/republicans-hawley-election-challenge-453362"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">virtually no chance</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
of accomplishing anything, but they did help Hawley </span><a href="https://twitter.com/jaketapper/status/1344693684588212225?lang=en"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">raise money</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
and gave him a leg up on corralling Trump supporters in his expected 2024
presidential run by demonstrating his loyalty to a lost cause. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">While Republicans continued their attacks on democracy,
Americans died by the thousands. Wednesday saw </span><a href="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EqhsMLKUUAIeqae?format=jpg&name=large"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">a record number of deaths</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
(3,903). Also reported on Wednesday was the discovery of an especially </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/30/health/us-coronavirus-wednesday/index.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">virulent new strain</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
of the coronavirus in California and Colorado. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">New Year’s Eve, <b>Thursday, December 31</b>, offered
two fly-on-the-wall pieces about how America had become the world’s poster boy
for how <i>not</i> to handle a pandemic. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Reporter Dan Diamond talked about </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/31/how-trump-warped-hhs-452964?nname=playbook&nid=0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=630318"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">Trump’s dismantling of his Health and
Human Services department pre-2020</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">, such that “<span style="background: white;">when America’s health agencies confronted
the ultimate challenge — the worst global pandemic in a century — they had
already been battered by internal divisions, feuds and suspicions.” (982)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">The consistent thread:
“Trump appointees sidelined, ignored or pushed out career health officials in
favor of policies demanded by the White House, a dynamic that would repeat
itself throughout the pandemic.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">“Years before Trump's
deputies </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/27/trump-malaria-coronavirus-152498" target="_blank"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">pressured
scientists</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"> to
rush the president's preferred malaria drugs as Covid-19 treatments without
evidence of their effectiveness, Trump's deputies pressured health officials to
kill a variety of health programs — from Obamacare ads to teen pregnancy
prevention — driven by their own beliefs rather than data showing that the
programs didn't work.”</span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">Tom
Novotny, a former assistant surgeon general who was then the deputy assistant
secretary of health, resigned after being demoted in 2017. His “forced
retirement shook members of his core eight-person team, which focused on a
broad range of public health issues, from implementing national strategies on
autism and pain to helping fight the Zika outbreak.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">The administration often
replaced seasoned professionals with political hacks who didn’t know what they
were doing: “One persistent challenge inside the health department: simply
teaching a series of Trump appointees, many brand-new to federal service or
deeply skeptical of it, how the government worked.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">Novotny’s exit haunted
the agency during the pandemic: “some current officials said the loss of
Novotny has especially been felt amid Covid-19. The CDC veteran with global
health ties could have been a particularly useful, high-level staffer amid a
pandemic that's taxed every corner of the department.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">Trump
appointees’ shift to prioritizing short-term political needs over science and
public health was leaving a mess for Joe Biden: “…as President-elect Joe Biden
prepares to take office, his incoming team faces a massive repair job: a
demoralized health department, filled with tens of thousands of career staff
who have been fighting the pandemic for a year — and often fighting the Trump
administration for nearly three years before that.” (983)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">The <i>New York Times</i>
published </span><a href="https://dnyuz.com/2020/12/31/covid-covid-covid-in-trumps-final-chapter-a-failure-to-rise-to-the-moment/"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">another autopsy of the
administration’s failed approach to COVID-19</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">: “</span><span style="color: #121212; line-height: 107%;">Trump’s Focus as the
Pandemic Raged: What Would It Mean for Him?”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #121212; line-height: 107%;">Where Diamond had focused on systemic
failures, the <i>Times</i> piece lasered in on the impact Trump’s human
inadequacies had had on administration policies. The key point was “</span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">Throughout late summer
and fall, in the heat of a re-election campaign that he would go on to lose,
and in the face of mounting evidence of </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html"><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; line-height: 107%; padding: 0in;">a surge in infections and deaths</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"> far worse than in
the spring, Mr. Trump’s </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/us/politics/coronavirus-trump-response.html"><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; line-height: 107%; padding: 0in;">management of the crisis</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"> — </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/18/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-response-failure-leadership.html"><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; line-height: 107%; padding: 0in;">unsteady, unscientific and colored by politics all year </span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">— was in effect reduced to
a single question: What would it mean for him?”</span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #121212; line-height: 107%;">The article covered some well-trodden
ground—Trump’s complaints about testing making him look bad, Trump’s fixation
on getting a major vaccine announcement before election day (no matter how
shoddy the research had been), the toxic effect of Dr. Scott Atlas on the
morale of Trump’s public health team, the counterproductive infighting which
surrounded Trump (and that Trump sometimes encouraged). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #121212; line-height: 107%;">Two anecdotes stood out.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #121212; line-height: 107%;">During the summer, Trump had been
presented with data from <i>his own pollster</i> showing that a majority of
Republican voters would support a mask mandate. Based purely on his intuition
(and the hunches of his most ideologically-extreme advisors), Trump overlooked
hard data and decided that his base would bridle at a mask mandate. Thereafter,
even when infections skyrocketed, Trump wouldn’t wear a mask in public and
continually belittled masks, leading Republican voters around the country to do
the same. (984)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #121212; line-height: 107%;">A second key inflection point was Trump’s
transfer from the Walter Reed Army Medical Center back to the White House in
October: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">“After he recovered from his bout with the virus, some
of his top aides, including [Jared] Kushner and Jason Miller, a senior campaign
strategist, thought the illness offered an opportunity to demonstrate the kind
of compassion and resolve about the pandemic’s toll that Mr. Trump had so far
failed to show.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">When Mr. Trump returned from the hospital, his
communications aides, with the help of Ivanka Trump, his daughter, urged him to
deliver a national address in which he would say: ‘I had it. It was tough, it
kicked my ass, but we’re going to get through it.’”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">
</span></p><p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">Trump instead chose to downplay the threat of
COVID-19 and present himself as a “<a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/music/ct-ent-trump-village-people-20200915-lxael5px6rcodab6ew523baohq-story.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-themecolor: accent5;">Macho Man</span></a>” for
overcoming the virus (<span style="color: #121212;">with elite medical
care and experimental therapies not available to 99.9% of the American public).
(985)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 15pt; vertical-align: baseline;">Ultimately, “<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">The
result…was a lose-lose situation. Mr. Trump not only ended up </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/results-president.html"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #3d85c6; padding: 0in;">soundly defeated by Joseph R. Biden Jr.</span></a><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">, but missed his chance to show that he could rise to
the moment in the final chapter of his presidency and meet the defining challenge
of his tenure.”</span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">Unfortunately
for America, poor governance came with major human consequences in the final
chapter of Trump’s presidency. </span><a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-9096267/US-given-2-million-Americans-vaccine-doses.html"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">Barely more than half</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;"> </span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">of the 20 million doses
promised by years’ end had been shipped, and of the 11 million doses which <i>had</i>
been shipped out, only two million had been administered. The reasons for the
failed start to vaccinations were the same reasons </span><a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/americas-vaccine-rollout-disaster.html"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">the U.S. had done such a
terrible job with testing</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"> and PPE: the administration had outsourced a complicated process
which would have been more effectively handled by the federal government (see
#953), then underfunded the states. </span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">States’
public health systems were already overwhelmed, and not versed in rapid, mass
vaccine administration. As health journalist Natalie Rahhal </span><a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-9096267/US-given-2-million-Americans-vaccine-doses.html"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">put it</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">, “<span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">when it came to actually getting vaccines into the
arms of Americans, the federal government punted, requiring states to submit
plans to it last month, specifying just how they planned to vaccinate millions
of residents, track who had gotten one or two doses, and ensure proper storage
of vaccines at freezing or ultra-cold temperatures.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: -0.1pt; line-height: 107%;">And
while the administration had seen fit to pass a two <i>trillion</i>-dollar tax
cut, overwhelmingly tilted to the wealthy, states had been given only $340
million—</span><a href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/12/29/public-health-experts-grow-frustrated-with-pace-of-covid-19-vaccine-rollout/"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; letter-spacing: -0.1pt; line-height: 107%;">a fraction
of the $8 billion they’d asked for</span></a><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: -0.1pt; line-height: 107%;">—to vaccinate their citizens. (986)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: -0.1pt; line-height: 107%;">Dr.
Ashish Jha (see #256, #614, #955) </span><a href="https://www.inquirer.com/health/coronavirus/coronavirus-vaccines-slow-start-20201231.html"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; letter-spacing: -0.1pt; line-height: 107%;">told</span></a><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: -0.1pt; line-height: 107%;"> a reporter, </span><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: -0.15pt; line-height: 107%;">“This
is not how you handle the biggest health, economic, political and social crisis
the country has faced in decades….There's a lack of seriousness.”</span><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: -0.1pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The lack of seriousness continued to come at a
horrible human cost. On <b>Friday, January 1, 2021</b>, the U.S. </span><a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9103865/US-sets-coronavirus-hospitalization-record-NYE-125-379.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">passed 20,000,000 official infections</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">,
twice the amount of the nearest country (India), which has 4X the population of
the U.S., and nearly 10X the next-highest developed country (France). Only 3.17
million Americans had been vaccinated, and 77,000 Americans had died in
December alone. The administration’s most acute failures (see #878-880)
affected our most vulnerable citizens—the elderly in nursing homes and
long-term care facilities—</span><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/12/america-has-not-fixed-its-deadliest-pandemic-errors/617532/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=atlantic-daily-newsletter&utm_content=20210104&silverid-ref=NjY0NzQxMzgxNDkxS0"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">20,455 of whom lost their lives</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
in December. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Late on Friday, a Republican lawsuit to allow Mike
Pence—president of the Senate—to choose which electoral college votes to accept
on January 6 was </span><a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9105755/Federal-judge-tosses-lawsuit-asking-Mike-Pence-power-overturn-election-results.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">tossed out by a Trump-appointed judge</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.
<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">A more accurate picture of the scale of COVID-19
deaths emerged on <b>Saturday, January 2, 2021</b>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">As </span><a href="https://www.mediaite.com/news/jaw-dropping-new-cdc-figures-suggest-true-u-s-coronavirus-death-toll-approaching-half-a-million/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">reported</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
by Tommy Christopher, America’s first-in-the-world total of official deaths
(374,780) was a major undercount. According to Trump’s own CDC, the number of
excess deaths for 2020 was 470,000. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Among the many, many victims of Trump’s failures were </span><a href="https://www.axios.com/private-schools-coronavirus-public-schools-d6aaf803-d458-4301-a3a7-71364b00a5b0.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">public schools</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.
School closures necessitated by public health concerns were convincing many
parents—especially parents with money—to transfer their children to private
schools, which are held to lower public health standards. Survey data showed
that only 5% of private schools began fall classes virtually, as compared to
62% of public schools. As a result, public schools were losing funding at the
very moment when they needed it most (since local governments were bleeding
revenue and getting no help from the federal government) and the opportunity
gap between rich and poor children was widening. (987)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">While vital American institutions continued to be
eroded by the surging pandemic, 11 Republican senators announced that they
would try to </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/02/ted-cruz-electoral-college-challenge-453430"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">erode democracy</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
by joining Republican presidential aspirant Josh Hawley in challenging Joe
Biden’s election win on January 6. Of his grandstanding Republican colleagues,
senator Mitt Romney said, <span style="background: white;">“The egregious ploy to reject electors may enhance the
political ambition of some, but dangerously threatens our Democratic Republic.
The congressional power to reject electors is reserved for the most extreme and
unusual circumstances. These are far from it.”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">One
of Trump’s egregious ploys made worldwide news on <b>Sunday, January 3, 2021</b>
when a recording of a phone call between Trump and Georgia’s conservative
Republican secretary of state Brad Raffensperger was leaked to <i>the
Washington Post</i>. In </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-raffensperger-call-georgia-vote/2021/01/03/d45acb92-4dc4-11eb-bda4-615aaefd0555_story.html"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">the call</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">, Trump made a slew of </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/03/us/politics/fact-checking-trump-georgia.html"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">debunked claims</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"> about the presidential
vote in Georgia and told Raffensperger, “</span><span style="background: white; color: #121212; line-height: 107%;">So look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes”—exactly
the number needed for Trump to steal the state from Biden. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #121212; line-height: 107%;">While the political
universe reeled, Kimberly Kindy, Ted Mellnik, and </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/arelis-r-hernandez/"><span class="author-name"><span color="windowtext" style="line-height: 107%; text-decoration-line: none;">Arelis R. Hernández</span></span></a><span class="author-name"><span style="line-height: 107%;"> </span></span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-chicken-covid-coronavirus-biden/2021/01/03/ea8902b0-3a39-11eb-98c4-25dc9f4987e8_story.html?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F2e23d91%2F5ff343a29d2fda0efb9f5af2%2F597420fc9bbc0f1cdcfbd42b%2F29%2F68%2F5ff343a29d2fda0efb9f5af2"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">reported</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
on another administration policy which was worsening the pandemic:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">“The Trump administration allowed 15 poultry plants to
increase slaughter line speeds during the pandemic, an action that boosts
production and makes it more difficult for workers to maintain space between
one another. It also appears to have hastened the spread of the </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/coronavirus/?itid=lk_inline_manual_2" target="_blank"><span style="line-height: 107%;">coronavirus</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">A <i>Washington Post </i>analysis found that the
plants with increased line speeds were “10 times as likely to have coronavirus
cases than poultry plants without the line-speed waivers.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The connection between increased line speeds and
increased infections was clear: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">“Workers say the fast line speeds make it difficult,
sometimes impossible, for them to socially distance during their eight-hour
shifts<b> </b>as they struggle to work faster. Most of these plants are
also large, employing thousands of workers who work in tight quarters, creating
conditions that can fuel the spread of the virus.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">As with COVID-19 cases across the country, meat plant
hot spots disproportionately impacted Americans of color:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">“More than 60 percent of meat plant workers are
Black, Latino, Asian American or Native American, according to Labor Department
data. About 37.5 percent are immigrants with limited or no English
proficiency.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Despite increased infection spread at the 15 pilot
plants, the administration was trying to roll the policy out nationwide:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">“Days after Trump lost his bid for reelection, the
USDA sent a proposed regulation to allow all poultry plants to increase line
speeds to the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, seeking its
approval.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Debbie Berkowitz, a former OSHA (Occupational Safety
and Health Administration) employee, told <i>the Post</i>, “The fact that the
agency sent this new proposed rule right after the election to the White House for
clearance is a clear signal that they are trying to ram this rule through
before the new administration can shut it down.” (988)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The cumulative impact of the administration’s
pandemic-related decisions and abdications was reflected in data reported on <b>Monday,
January 4, 2021</b>. </span><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-trends/in-deadliest-week-so-far-u-s-loses-more-than-18400-lives-to-covid-19-idUSKBN2992A6"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">According to</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
Reuters, in the week which ended Sunday, 18,400 Americans had lost their lives
to COVID-19, 1.5 <i>million</i> new infections had been reported (a 16.5%
increase from the week prior), and 13.6% of tests had been positive, with
Trump-supporting states Iowa (64%), Idaho (56%), and Alabama (47%) leading the
way. 126,000 Americans were
hospitalized, a 25% increase from a month earlier. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">And Trump wasn’t done. While attendees at Joe Biden’s
Georgia campaign event that day all had masks on, Trump held another
super-spreader rally where most of the attendees </span><a href="https://www.axios.com/trump-biden-dueling-georgia-rallies-runoff-races-eve-d2b537d5-d8d8-4eee-aebc-7a8403f4b945.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">did not</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">. (989)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">As all eyes were on the Peach state Senate races,
Byung J. Pak, the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney for Georgia, suddenly resigned,
citing “unforeseen circumstances.” It would later come out that Pak had been
forced out by the Trump administration because “</span><a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/01/u-s-attorney-ousted-amid-trumps-georgia-pressure-campaign.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">he didn’t do enough to help President
Trump overturn</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">” his loss in the state. </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The vaccine rollout continued to lag well behind
expectations. As of <b>Tuesday, January 5, 2021 </b></span><a href="https://www.axios.com/nursing-home-residents-coronavirus-vaccine-delays-662d31b8-365d-4e77-992d-431f4e703cf7.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">only 14%</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
of the doses sent to nursing homes had been administered. Ashley Gold and Sara
Fischer of <i>Axios</i> </span><a href="https://www.axios.com/vaccine-distribution-information-vacuum-fbb15860-5a9c-4751-bcd9-4e7122652aa0.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">reported</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
on the gap left by the administration’s decision to outsource vaccine
administration to underfunded (see #986) and underprepared (see #953) states. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Trump’s abdication of federal duty was leaving much of
the public in the dark about the vaccination process:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">“Millions of lives, along with the country’s economic
recovery, depend on a speedy and successful rollout of the vaccine. But as
people hunt for scarce information about vaccine availability and delivery
processes, the lack of coordinated communication risks opening an information
vacuum — into which misinformation could easily pour.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Procedures which should have been mapped out months in
advance by the resource-rich federal government were now being done on the fly
by ill-equipped local officials. (990) As one example, counties in Florida were
relying on Eventbrite, “a platform known for selling concert tickets and
coordinating happy hours, to schedule COVID-19 vaccine appointments,” which was
“not an ideal approach for some populations, including seniors who aren't
internet-savvy.” (991)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Big tech platforms, riddled with public health disinformation
and lax fact-checking, were not a good fit, which left the responsibility (by
default) on local pharmacies. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Kathleen Hall Jamieson, co-founder of the non-partisan
site factcheck.org, told <i>Axios</i>, “We're going to have to think through
systems that will reach people when they need information that's highly
specific — and in this case, time sensitive….We'll need to institutionalize
that structure and keep track of it.” Of the current state of vaccine
confusion, Jamieson said, “The fact that we don't already have it is a real
indictment….We should've thought this through before.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Wednesday, January 6, 2021</span></b><span style="line-height: 107%;">,
was one of the most shameful days in American history. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The official electoral college vote certification,
traditionally a purely ceremonial ritual, took a disturbing turn thanks to
Donald Trump and his allies in </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/13/republican-legislatures-trump-conspiracy-458507"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">state legislatures</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">,
</span><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/01/republicans-own-insurrection/617583/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">Congress</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">,
and </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/how-social-media-made-the-trump-insurrection-a-reality"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">far-right social media</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.
<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">After riling up Republican voters for two months with </span><a href="https://www.factcheck.org/2020/12/nine-election-fraud-claims-none-credible/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">craven lies</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
about the election having been stolen (claims which had been rejected for lack
of evidence in </span><a href="https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/jan/08/joe-biden/joe-biden-right-more-60-trumps-election-lawsuits-l/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">60 judicial cases</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">,
by Republican and Democratic judges), the GOP had arranged one final, grand
charade: a “Stop the Steal” </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/06/us/politics/capitol-mob-trump-supporters.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20210110&instance_id=25857&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=48890&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">rally</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> followed by a
“Save America March” as a prelude to 13 Republican senators and 140 House
members formally challenging Joe Biden’s 7-million ballot win by recycling
Trump’s debunked claims. Washington D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser had requested
National Guard backup, but Trump’s Defense Department had </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trump-protests-washington-guard-military/2021/01/07/c5299b56-510e-11eb-b2e8-3339e73d9da2_story.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">handcuffed</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
the Guard’s mission even before the event took place. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">On the day of the certification, Trump called vice
president Mike Pence, who would preside over the ceremony, and </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/12/us/politics/mike-pence-trump.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">told him</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">,
<span style="background: white;">“You can
either go down in history as a patriot…or you can go down in history as a
pussy.” </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">Pence
chose to go down in history as a patriot. Just before the count began, he </span><a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/read-pences-full-letter-saying-he-cant-claim-unilateral-authority-to-reject-electoral-votes"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">released a public letter stating the
obvious</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">—that he lacked the Constitutional authority to
unilaterally decide which electoral votes to accept or reject. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Any mention of The Constitution and long-established democratic
precedents were absent from the speeches at Trump’s super-spreader rally on the
Mall, which preyed on white, right-wing victimhood and featured numerous </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/07/briefing/white-house-capitol-donald-trump-jon-ossoff.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">incitements to violence</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.
Leading things off, Republican representative Mo Brooks said, <span style="background: white;">“Today is the day
American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass!”</span> Referring to
congressional Republicans who intended to honor the election results by not
challenging Biden’s legitimate win, Donald Trump, Jr. said, “<span style="background: white;">We’re coming for
you, and we’re going to have a good time doing it” and that if they didn’t
change their minds and oppose certification “</span></span><a href="https://www.vox.com/22220746/trump-speech-incite-capitol-riot?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Sentences%201821&utm_content=Sentences%201821+CID_5cdd5fe59652d724914f30c48ed58541&utm_source=cm_email&utm_term=How%20Trumps%20speech%20led%20to%20the%20Capitol%20riot"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">I’m gonna be in your
backyard in a couple of months</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">.” Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, told the crowd,
“Let’s have trial by combat,” which was </span><span style="line-height: 107%;">“</span><a href="https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Backup-was-denied-Capitol-Police-chief-says-15860394.php"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">an eerie reference to battles to the
death in the series ‘Game of Thrones</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.’” <span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">Talking
tough from behind bulletproof glass, Trump spewed </span><span style="line-height: 107%;">a
litany of baseless assertions about the election, “</span><a href="https://www.vox.com/22220746/trump-speech-incite-capitol-riot?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Sentences%201821&utm_content=Sentences%201821+CID_5cdd5fe59652d724914f30c48ed58541&utm_source=cm_email&utm_term=How%20Trumps%20speech%20led%20to%20the%20Capitol%20riot"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">used</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"> the words ‘fight’ or ‘fighting’ </span><a href="https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-trump-speech-save-america-rally-transcript-january-6"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">at least 20 times</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">,” said “You’ll never
take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength. You have to be
strong,” and finished with a call to action:</span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">“We will never give up; we will never concede….We will
stop the steal. We’re going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue, and we’re going
to the Capitol…We’re going to try and give our Republicans, the weak ones…the
kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">As could be expected, the violent rhetoric whipped the
MAGA-ites into a frenzy. After traversing Pennsylvania Avenue, hundreds of
Trump supporters—</span><a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/several-well-known-hate-groups-identified-at-capitol-riot?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=majorinvestigations&utm_content=feature"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">heavily represented by right-wing hate
groups</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="line-height: 107%;">, inlaid </span></span><span style="line-height: 107%;">with
</span><a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/01/capitol-riots-new-details-plans.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">incognito law enforcement and military
members</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">—busted through a police line to </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/06/pence-rushed-out-of-senate-capitol-455483"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">storm the Capitol</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">,
the first hostile takeover of America’s seat of government since 1814. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Once inside, the insurrectionists stopped the
certification of Biden’s win, </span><a href="https://www.the-sun.com/news/2109105/bleeding-capitol-cop-screams-help-maga-mob-mask/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">assaulted Capitol police officers</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">,
</span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/07/us/politics/capitol-lockdown.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">assaulted journalists</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">,
terrorized members of Congress and </span><a href="https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Pelosi-says-staff-hid-under-a-table-for-hours-as-15860759.php"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">congressional aides</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">,
and contributed to </span><a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/01/could-the-capitol-riot-become-a-superspreader-event.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">multiple members</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
of Congress getting COVID-19. Some of the insurrectionists carried </span><a href="https://nypost.com/2021/01/14/air-force-vet-carrying-zip-ties-in-capitol-riot-wanted-to-take-hostages/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">zip-tie handcuffs</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
or weapons, and targeted the offices of specific members of Congress, </span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-ap-top-news-michael-pence-nancy-pelosi-capitol-siege-14c73ee280c256ab4ec193ac0f49ad54"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">in hopes of kidnapping them</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">,
or worse. There were indications that some plotters </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/13/politics/capitol-insurrection-insider-help/index.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">may have had help</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
from Republican House members. <span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-themecolor: accent5;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Because Washington, D.C. is not a state (due to
Republicans blocking statehood), it has no governor and thus couldn’t call up a
state National Guard. It was left to Capitol police chief Steven Sund to beg
administration officials in the Department of Defense for backup. </span><a href="https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Backup-was-denied-Capitol-Police-chief-says-15860394.php"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">Multiple requests</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
from Sund were </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trump-protests-washington-guard-military/2021/01/07/c5299b56-510e-11eb-b2e8-3339e73d9da2_story.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">denied</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Several Republicans, including senator Lindsey Graham,
House minority leader Kevin McCarthy, and former advisor Kellyanne Conway
called the White House to try to get Trump to act, but Trump wasn’t taking
calls because he was wrapped up in watching the <i>coup</i> attempt he’d
fomented on TV. As one aide </span><a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/six-hours-of-paralysis-inside-trump-e2-80-99s-failure-to-act-after-a-mob-stormed-the-capitol/ar-BB1cFqj4?ocid=uxbndlbing"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">told <i>the Washington Post</i></span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">,
“‘<span style="background: white;">He was
hard to reach, and you know why? Because it was live TV….If it’s TiVo, he just
hits pause and takes the calls. If it’s live TV, he watches it, and he was just
watching it all unfold.’”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">Not
only was Trump unreachable, he was </span><span style="line-height: 107%;">“</span><a href="https://edition.cnn.com/politics/live-news/washington-dc-riots-trump-news-friday/h_3b3d237d139679d425ef2e0a54ddfca7"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">confused about why other
people on his team weren’t as excited as he was</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"> as you had rioters
pushing against Capitol Police trying to get into the building” and talking to
the other people in the room about “a path by which he was going to stay in
office after January 20.” Right around the time of the breach, Trump </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/08/politics/mike-lee-tommy-tuberville-trump-misdialed-capitol-riot/index.html"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">called</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"> senator Mike Lee. He
was intending to reach Republican senator Tommy Tuberville, to push Tuberville
to obstruct the electoral college vote certification whenever it could safely
resume. (Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani would make </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/08/politics/mike-lee-tommy-tuberville-trump-misdialed-capitol-riot/index.html"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">another call</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"> to Lee, later in the
day, with the same purpose). </span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">Twenty-five
minutes into the breach, </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/01/25/among-the-insurrectionists"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">as</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"> “America Firsters and
other invaders fanned out in search of lawmakers, breaking into offices and
reveling in their own astounding impunity,” Trump </span><a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/six-hours-of-paralysis-inside-trump-e2-80-99s-failure-to-act-after-a-mob-stormed-the-capitol/ar-BB1cFqj4?ocid=uxbndlbing"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">tweeted</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"> “Mike Pence didn’t have
the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our
Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not
the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously
certify….USA demands the truth!” </span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/six-hours-of-paralysis-inside-trump-e2-80-99s-failure-to-act-after-a-mob-stormed-the-capitol/ar-BB1cFqj4?ocid=uxbndlbing"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">Two hours into the
breach</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">
Trump relented, sort of, releasing a video which </span><span style="line-height: 107%;">reiterated false
claims about the “fraudulent election” he’d lost, asked his followers to “go
home,” and said, “We love you. You’re very special.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Four hours into the breach, with the Capitol still
under siege, Trump </span><a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/six-hours-of-paralysis-inside-trump-e2-80-99s-failure-to-act-after-a-mob-stormed-the-capitol/ar-BB1cFqj4?ocid=uxbndlbing"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">tweeted</span></a><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 107%;">“These are the things and events that
happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously &
viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly
treated for so long….Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day
forever!”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">After </span><a href="https://wtop.com/maryland/2021/01/hogan-federal-approval-to-send-national-guard-during-capitol-attack-delayed/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">an inexplicably long delay</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">,
with the assistance of </span><a href="https://www.chron.com/news/article/Trump-s-retreat-into-rage-is-followed-by-grudging-15854550.php"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">Mike Pence</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
(since Trump had “</span><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2021/01/06/reports-trump-resisted-sending-national-guard-to-quell-violent-mob-at-us-capitol/?sh=22f701091e18"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">resisted requests</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">”
to stop the violence), the National Guard was called up. </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/06/politics/pence-national-guard/index.html"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The
Capitol</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="line-height: 107%;"> was finally cleared</span></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> </span><a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/six-hours-of-paralysis-inside-trump-e2-80-99s-failure-to-act-after-a-mob-stormed-the-capitol/ar-BB1cFqj4?ocid=uxbndlbing"><i><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">six hours</span></i><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;"> after it had been
breached</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">.
D</span><span style="line-height: 107%;">ozens
of police officers </span><a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/congress-electoral-college-tally-live-updates/2021/01/07/954333542/four-dead-police-injured-dozens-arrested-after-siege-at-the-u-s-capitol"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">had been injured</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">,
millions of dollars in damage had been done to the citadel of American
democracy, and six people would die, including two Capitol police officers, <span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-themecolor: accent5;">one of
whom was an Iraq War vet who had been bashed in the head with a fire
extinguisher</span></span>. If not for the </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2021/01/14/dc-police-capitol-riot/?arc404=true"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">bravery</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> of
significantly-outnumbered capitol police officers, the toll would have been far
worse, as rioters came </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2021/01/16/video-timeline-capitol-siege/?arc404=true&campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20210119&instance_id=26150&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=49657&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">within a hair’s breadth</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
of getting their hands on Mike Pence and members of Congress. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Ultimately, the insurrection was unsuccessful. Once
the Capitol was secured, Congress </span><a href="https://www.axios.com/congress-certifies-biden-electoral-college-win-eeb6ba0a-0bc7-4508-ada7-9c1b93aca416.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">certified Joe Biden’s win</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="line-height: 107%;">, </span></span><span style="line-height: 107%;">despite the objections of
</span><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/01/more-dangerous-capitol-riot/617655/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=atlantic-daily-newsletter&utm_content=20210113&silverid-ref=NjY0NzQxMzgxNDkxS0"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">2/3rds of House Republicans and eight
Republican senators</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> who doubled down on the false election
fraud narrative which had jeopardized their safety just hours earlier. <span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-themecolor: accent5;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">One way the insurrection <i>was</i> successful for the
administration: Trump’s ugliest and most consequential political stunt hid his
failures to contain COVID-19. Wednesday was the deadliest day of the pandemic
with </span><a href="https://www.vox.com/coronavirus-covid19/2021/1/7/22218521/us-covid-19-deaths-record-wednesday-capitol-protest?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Sentences%201721&utm_content=Sentences%201721+CID_49a414200550b0bf39a1e046482c0542&utm_source=cm_email&utm_term=Vox%20%20Dylan%20Scott"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">3,964 deaths</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.
<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Thursday, January 7, 2021 </span></b><a href="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ErLBOk2UcAMXtzK?format=jpg&name=large"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">was even worse</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">,
as the U.S. recorded more than 4,000 daily deaths for the first time, along
with 266,197 new infections and 132,370 hospitalizations, “</span><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/01/pandemic-cases-hospitalizations-record-south/617589/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=atlantic-daily-newsletter&utm_content=20210107&silverid-ref=NjY0NzQxMzgxNDkxS0"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">more than were hospitalized at the peak
of the spring and summer surges combined</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">As shocking as these numbers were, they were buried
under the avalanche of stories about the unending psychodrama of the Trump
presidency. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Prodded by aides who tapped into </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/07/us/politics/trump-leave-office-resignation.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">his concern about potential legal
problems</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> from his role in the assault on the Capitol building,
Trump signaled that he was done contesting his 7-million ballot election loss
in a video released to the public: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">“A
new administration will be inaugurated on January 20th. My focus now turns to
ensuring a smooth, orderly and seamless transition of power. This moment calls
for healing and reconciliation.”</span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">On <b>Friday, January 8, 2021</b>, it was </span><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/08/jobs-report-december-2020.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">reported</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
that the “</span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/09/07/president-trumps-repeated-claim-greatest-economy-history-our-country/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">greatest economy in the history of our
country</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">” had shed 140,000 jobs in December due to Trump’s
failure to contain the coronavirus. New </span><a href="https://covidtracking.com/data/national/cases?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">daily infections</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
hit an all-time high of 293,104. Life under Trump was so miserable that </span><a href="https://www.studyfinds.org/2020-so-bad-americans-entered-therapy-first-time/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">one in six Americans had tried therapy
for the first time</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> in 2020. (992)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">As House Democrats announced plans for a second
impeachment, </span><a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/most-americans-blame-trump-for-capitol-attack-but-are-split-on-his-removal"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">a Marist poll</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
found that 69% of Republicans felt that Trump deserved no or “not very much”
blame for the assault on America’s Capitol building he had incited. Sadly for
Trump’s obtuse supporters, his key disinformation pipeline was cut off when
Twitter permanently </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/08/tech/trump-twitter-ban/index.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">suspended Trump’s account</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
due to a “<span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">risk
of further incitement of violence,” specifically the possibility that Trump’s
tweets could add fuel to right-wing mobs’ plans to </span></span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/01/09/trump-twitter-protests/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F2e530c3%2F5ff9e6a69d2fda0efba77374%2F597420fc9bbc0f1cdcfbd42b%2F9%2F72%2F5ff9e6a69d2fda0efba77374"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">attack</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;"> government capitols
in the states and D.C. in the days leading up to—and <i>on</i>—Joe Biden’s
inauguration day. </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">As
of <b>Monday, January 11, 2021</b>, the U.S. was still lagging on its vaccine
rollout. In September, Trump had </span><a href="https://www.newsweek.com/trump-vowed-100m-covid-vaccine-doses-end-2020only-21m-have-been-administered-1557634"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">said</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;"> the U.S would
manufacture 100 million doses by the end of the year. Two months later, Health
and Human Services head Alex Azar </span><a href="https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/526593-us-will-have-40-million-coronavirus-vaccine"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">aimed lower</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">, for 40 million, a
number Azar </span><a href="https://www.defense.gov/Explore/News/Article/Article/2432663/operation-warp-speed-leaders-say-20-million-covid-19-vaccines-may-be-available/"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">reduced</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;"> </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">just a few weeks after
<i>that</i> to 20 million. Eleven days into the new year, with the state of the
pandemic desperate (200,000+ new infections and thousands of deaths daily),
only nine million Americans had been vaccinated.</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">In
an </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000176-f2c2-d367-a17e-feeac7b00000"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">open letter</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;"> to Azar, Senate
Democrats said the U.S. “</span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">cannot afford
for this vaccination campaign to continue to be hindered by the lack of
planning, communication, and leadership we have seen so far.” As was known by
public health officials before the rollout, “Federal responsibility does not
end with delivery of vaccines to states, as you have suggested….Vaccine
administration must be a close partnership between the federal government and
state, Tribal, and local governments, with the federal government stepping up
to ensure that all needs are met.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">A lack of communication
had resulted in some American hospitals receiving syringes from Operation Warp
Speed which could “</span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/10/hospitals-syringes-vaccine-waste-doses-457017"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">only extract five doses</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">” from Pfizer vials containing six or seven
shots. As a result, hospitals were having to toss out extra doses, even as they
didn’t know whether they would have enough vaccine to do a second round for
people who’d had their first shots. (993)</span><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">The
administration’s mismanagement and dereliction of duty (see #1-#993) were reflected
in America’s high official death toll relative to the rest of the developed
world. </span><a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2021/1/11/22220827/covid-19-pandemic-coronavirus-usa-europe-canada-trump?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=VoxCare%2011121&utm_content=VoxCare%2011121+CID_1711afd2d7428bc1a9060be4cc25c83c&utm_source=cm_email&utm_term=He%20writes"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">As reported</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"> by German Lopez of <i>Vox</i>, though Europe had
seen major spikes over the past few months, their leaders had managed to
contain the pandemic during the summer, something Trump had failed to do.
According to Lopez, </span><span style="line-height: 107%;">“If the U.S. had Canada’s death rate, more
than 225,000 of Americans who’d died of COVID would still be with us.” If the
U.S. had managed the pandemic as well as Germany, 212,000 fewer Americans would
have died. If the U.S. had Japan’s death rate, “<span style="background: white;">fewer than 10,000 Americans would
have died of the disease.”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">The
conclusion was inescapable: “when the numbers are added up, the US remains an
extraordinary failure in its handling of Covid-19.”</span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">And
U.S. leadership was guaranteed to remain a failure for the duration of Trump’s
presidency, as Trump continued to show no interest in governing. As one White
House official </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/11/isolated-self-absorbed-donald-trump-impeachment-defense-457983"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">told <i>Politico</i></span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">, “Since the election,
the day-to-day stuff as far as signing [executive orders] and focusing on
policy has definitely waned because his focus has been on the election and
overturning those results.” Now that his efforts to steal the election were
finally over, the “supremely self-absorbed” Trump was doing next to nothing:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">“Since Dec. 23, [Trump’s
official] schedule has included 15 variations of the language: ‘President Trump
will work from early in the morning until late in the evening. He will make
many calls and have many meetings.’ A former White House official said the
language was inserted at Trump’s directive in order to give off the appearance
of him being busy.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">Joe
Biden’s pandemic response team was eager to clean up Trump’s mess, but they had
been blocked from attending Operation Warp Speed meetings by the Trump
administration, who had limited them to briefings (994). Following press
disclosure of these petty and counterproductive tactics, the administration had
</span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/11/biden-warp-speed-meetings-457756"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">finally decided to
allow Biden’s team to attend the meetings in person</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">—two months after
Biden had been declared president-elect and just one week before he was to take
office. </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">Biden
would have his work cut out for him. On <b>Tuesday, January 12, 2021</b>, as a
new strain of the virus which was </span><a href="https://www.theladders.com/career-advice/why-the-new-covid-strain-in-is-so-lethal-and-it-may-already-be-here?ltm=CWXV50hREMfwOHM2%2BEGBEyuToIcHvZTWNfOWmJQOUToz%2FJhHilKI43rdzn8r0Obb&subscriber_type=member&utm_content=dnl-2021-1-12&utm_campaign=daily-newsletter&utm_source=member&utm_medium=email"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">70% more transmissible</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;"> than earlier variants
started to spread and hospitalizations hovered around 130,000, </span><a href="https://covidtracking.com/data/national/hospitalization?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20210113&instance_id=25950&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=49160&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">twice what they’d been
two months earlier</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">, the U.S. had the highest daily death toll of the
pandemic: </span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/us-coronavirus-deaths-1-day-over-4300-1efb7805ae0ff217a4753ee89550771d"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">4,327</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">. </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">What
limited actions the administration <i>was</i> taking in response to the
coronavirus were just making things worse. </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/12/trump-coronavirus-vaccine-distribution-458545?nname=playbook&nid=0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=630318"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">As reported</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;"> by Alice Miranda
Ollstein and Rachel Roubein of <i>Politico</i>, </span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">“Trump administration health officials blindsided states on
Tuesday with an abrupt and dramatic shift in how they’ll distribute coronavirus
vaccines that may set up new hurdles for the Biden transition team.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">Seemingly out of the
blue, the administration, which had set states up to fail by not assisting with
logistics (see #953)</span><span style="background: white; color: red; line-height: 107%;"> </span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">or funding (see #986), was “[planning] to punish
states that don’t move fast enough on vaccinations or that fail to provide the
government real-time reports on inoculations.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">The administration was
also making an abrupt shift away from prioritizing hard-hit communities of
color and people in the trenches, “[tearing] up a game plan crafted by Centers
for Disease Control advisers that states have used to make decisions. Some public
health experts on that committee said they’re concerned the new system could
amount to a free-for-all that favors the wealthy and connected and could shut
out essential workers, teachers and other groups that were previously in the
first tiers.” (995)</span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">In
addition to making an already-complicated process more confusing, “Some health
officials also fear that basing states’ vaccine allocation on their
distribution speed will create perverse incentives — leading states, for
example, to defer the slower work of identifying and vaccinating undocumented
workers, the homeless, rural residents and other at-risk groups. (996)</span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">“‘The
harder to reach populations are in so many ways the most important to reach
populations, but that wouldn’t show up on the balance sheet of how fast you’re
doing this,’ warned Adriane Casalotti, chief of government and public affairs
at the National Association of County and City Health Officials. ‘The more
people we get vaccinated the faster we get to herd immunity, but if we’re doing
that while we’re perpetuating disparities — getting all the easy folks and
leaving the harder folks for later — that’s not a just way to go.’”</span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">As
ever, news reports of the administration’s incompetence had to compete with
stories of presidential psychosis. In his first interaction with the press
since the <i>coup</i> attempt, Trump dismissed the direct connection between
his incendiary January 6 speech and the insurrection it caused, telling
reporters, </span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">“</span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/12/us/trump-capitol.html"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">People thought what I
said was totally appropriate</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">.”</span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">Liz
Cheney, the chair of the House GOP Conference (</span><a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-trump-score/house/"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">who had voted with Trump
93% of the time</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"> during his four years in office), begged to differ. On the
eve of a House impeachment vote, she released </span><a href="https://cheney.house.gov/2021/01/12/cheney-i-will-vote-to-impeach-the-president/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">a statement</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"> indicating that she
would support impeachment:</span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">“</span><span style="line-height: 107%;">On
January 6, 2021 a violent mob attacked the United States Capitol to obstruct
the process of our democracy and stop the counting of presidential electoral
votes. This insurrection caused injury, death and destruction in the most
sacred space in our Republic. <br />
<br />
“Much more will become clear in coming days and weeks, but what we know now is
enough. The President of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the
mob, and lit the flame of this attack. Everything that followed was his doing.
None of this would have happened without the President. The President could
have immediately and forcefully intervened to stop the violence. He did not.
There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of
his office and his oath to the Constitution.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">On <b>Wednesday, January 13, 2021,</b> Trump paid for
his betrayal to his office and his oath to the Constitution by becoming </span><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/13/house-to-impeach-trump-for-inciting-capitol-riot.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">the first president in American history
to be impeached twice</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Not considered an impeachable offense in D.C., but
perhaps even worse in terms of human impact, was Trump’s failure to contain the
pandemic. As </span><a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/7/31/21340268/coronavirus-pandemic-covid-state-maps-charts-data"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">reported</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">
by German Lopez of <i>Vox</i>, the third wave of coronavirus had a crushing
grip on the U.S. Official deaths were at 380,000 and climbing, </span><a href="https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">the highest in the world by far</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">,
and every state was behind the curve in protecting public health. Looking at
three key metrics—new infection rates, infection spread, positivity rates on
tests—Lopez found that not one single state met all three benchmarks. Infection
spread was too high in 29 states. Only three states had positivity rates of
less than 5%. Infection rates were too high in all 50 states.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Among a long list of failures (see #1-#996), Trump’s
insistence on re-opening the economy prematurely while refusing to address
public health concerns had been perhaps the most tragic in its dimensions:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">“The
effects are felt not just in terms of more infections, critical illnesses, new
chronic conditions, and deaths, but in the long-term financial impact as the
economy struggles, many people still refuse to go out, and businesses resist
reopening during a pandemic.</span><span style="line-height: 107%;">”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">As University of Chicago infectious diseases doctor
Jade Pagkas-Bather told Lopez, <span style="background: white;">“Dead people don’t shop. They don’t spend money. They don’t
invest in things….When you fail to invest in the health of your population, then
there are longitudinal downstream effects.”</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">More downstream effects were felt and reported on <b>Thursday,
January 14, 2021</b>. The “</span><a href="https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/oct/01/donald-trump/donald-trumps-dubious-statement-about-presiding-ov/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">greatest economy in the history of our
country</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">” </span><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/14/us-weekly-jobless-claims-total-965000-vs-800000-estimate.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">continued to sputter due to Trump’s
failure to contain the pandemic</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">, with new unemployment
claims jumping to 965,000, an enormous increase from the week before and the
highest weekly total since August. The U.S. was averaging 250,000 new cases a
day and staggering daily death totals (sometimes </span><a href="https://covidtracking.com/data/national"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">in excess of 4,000 Americans</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">) and yet, the pandemic
was “</span><a href="https://www.statnews.com/2021/01/14/more-infectious-variants-could-make-things-much-worse/?utm_source=STAT+Newsletters&utm_campaign=58cfc861fb-Daily_Recap&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8cab1d7961-58cfc861fb-152815530"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">almost certainly about to get worse</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.”
Kristian Anderson of the Scripps Research Institute told a reporter from
statnews.com, <span style="background: white;">“I’m very, very concerned that we’ve now gone from a virus that we could
control to a virus that we really can’t, unless we do something very dramatic.”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">While
Trump tried to make matters worse with a rule to </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/14/trump-health-scientist-term-limits-459542"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">impose “term limits”</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"> on federal scientists
who refused to march in lockstep with right-wing talking points (997), president-elect
Joe Biden elevated his top science advisor post </span><a href="https://www.statnews.com/2021/01/15/lander-lead-science-policy-for-biden/?utm_source=STAT+Newsletters&utm_campaign=ec29cd170b-dc_diagnosis_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8cab1d7961-ec29cd170b-152815530"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">to a cabinet position</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"> and rolled out a
dramatic and comprehensive proposal to mitigate the impacts of the pandemic. </span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/14/biden-federal-pandemic-response-expansion-459473"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">Biden’s $1.9 trillion
stimulus plan</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"> represented a major shift from Trump’s grossly inadequate
approach to an aggressive federal response. Most of the policies in the plan
had been passed by House Democrats many months earlier and either outright
blocked or severely underfunded by Senate Republicans. Included were expanded
child tax credits and a $1,400 check for American adults, $350 billion for
state and local governments deep in the red, $130 billion to help schools open
safely, $50 billion to step up America’s sluggish testing schedule, $20 billion
to help </span><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/15/biden-to-deploy-fema-national-guard-to-set-up-covid-vaccine-clinics-across-the-us.html"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">FEMA and the National
Guard</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">
jumpstart America’s sluggish vaccination schedule, billions for PPE and contact
tracing, funding for 100,000 public health workers, increases in unemployment
payouts, as well as assistance with childcare, emergency and paid leave, and
rent and utility bill relief. </span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">As
one member of the Biden team told <i>Politico</i>, “What we’re inheriting from
the Trump administration is much worse than we could have imagined (998)….More
than 10 months later, they still don’t have the basics down. There are not
enough tests. Frontline workers are still reusing N95 masks and other PPE.
States are scrambling because there was no plan to get needles in arms and
there’s been very little coordination. We’re going to do just the opposite.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">Help was on the way, but
America was stuck with the Trump administration for another five long and
damaging days. As of <b>Friday, January 15, 2021</b>, thousands of Americans
were dying daily from COVID-19 and public health officials were predicting that
</span><a href="https://www.statnews.com/2021/01/15/covid19-b117-variant-cdc/?utm_source=STAT+Newsletters&utm_campaign=36ee2c3b15-Daily_Recap&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8cab1d7961-36ee2c3b15-152815530"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">a more transmissible new
variant</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"> of the virus was likely
to be the main strain by March. While the most powerful person in the world </span><a href="https://news.yahoo.com/trump-retreats-job-pence-fills-224119728.html"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">dumped his job duties on
the vice president</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"> and </span><a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-meets-my-pillow-ceo-mark-lindell-martial-law-1115519/"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">discussed martial law</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"> with the My Pillow guy, more administration
failures came to light. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Betsy McKay, Rebecca Ballhaus, and Stephanie Armour of
<i>the Wall Street Journal</i> helped explain the reasons for </span><a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-19-vaccine-leaders-waited-months-to-approve-distribution-plans-11610737935"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">America’s glacially slow pace of
vaccinations</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> in “Covid-19 Vaccine Leaders Waited
Months to Approve Distribution Plans.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Trump’s CDC had intended to help states begin planning
mass vaccinations in June, but “officials at Operation Warp Speed rebuffed the
agency’s plan for distributing vaccines. They adopted a similar plan in August
only after exploring other options—and then held the release of the CDC’s
playbook for states for two weeks for additional clearance and to put it out
with another document…” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">This delay, among other things, had left a “public-private
partnership…scrambling to speed up vaccinations, adjusting eligibility
guidelines while states race to increase their abilities to administer doses on
a large scale.” (999)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Exacerbating states’ challenges with mass vaccine
administration was a lack of vaccine supply. On Tuesday, Health and Human
Services head Alex Azar had said that the administration would soon be “<span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">releasing the
entire supply for order by states, rather than holding second doses in reserve.”
Three days later, </span></span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/15/politics/coronavirus-vaccine-reserve-dose/index.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">Friday Azar
contradicted Tuesday Azar</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">, telling a reporter that in fact, “There’s not a reserve
stockpile.” </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/15/politics/coronavirus-vaccine-reserve-dose/index.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">According to</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;"> Kristen Holmes and
Sara Murray of CNN, Azar’s revelation “blindsided many of the officials who
have been tasked with creating plans to administer vaccines at the state and
local level.” </span><span style="line-height: 107%;">(1,000)<span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">As
one example of many, Colorado, which had been expecting 210,000 doses the
following week, would now have only 79,000. Patrick Allen, Oregon’s health
director, spoke for beleaguered public health officials in states all across
the country: </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">“It's
just so disappointing….People are desperate for the vaccine, and we have worked
so hard to be able to expand who's eligible, and to not be able to do it is
just crushing right now.”</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">The
</span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">pandemic carnage</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;"> continued on <b>Saturday,
January 16, 2021, </b>as Trump added another 3,353 COVID-related deaths to his </span><a href="https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">astonishing and tragic
totals</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">.
</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">In
rare good news, data from the research firm Zignal Labs showed that the ban on
Donald Trump’s Twitter account—and suspensions of other far-right social media
propaganda organs—had helped </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/01/16/misinformation-trump-twitter/"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">reduce disinformation
about the presidential election by 73%</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;">. </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">Unfortunately,
other purveyors of right-wing disinformation were getting off scot-free. In
fact, some were being subsidized by the U.S. federal government. As </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/01/18/ppp-loans-anti-vaccine/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F2ea674b%2F6005bbb69d2fda0efbb56522%2F597420fc9bbc0f1cdcfbd42b%2F10%2F68%2F6005bbb69d2fda0efbb56522"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">reported</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 107%;"> </span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">by Elizabeth Dwoskin and Aaron Gregg of <i>the
Washington Post</i> on <b>Monday, January 18, 2021</b>, five corporations
with anti-vax messaging were being
funded through the Paycheck Protection Program at the very moment when vaccination
lies had the most potential to hurt public health. </span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">Trump’s
Small Business Administration knew about the misallocation of taxpayer money
but was doing nothing to stop it (though they’d had a fit about Planned
Parenthood getting money). Erica Dewald of the nonprofit Vaccine Your Family
told <i>the Post</i>, </span><span style="line-height: 107%;">“These organizations have been sowing the
seeds of doubt about vaccines and public health for years…Now, in the middle of
a pandemic, they are accepting funds for the chaos they’ve helped to create.”
(1,001)</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 107%;">On <b>Tuesday, January
19, 2021</b>, Donald Trump hit his personal milestone of </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/19/us/coronavirus-deaths-usa-400000.html"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">400,000 dead from
COVID-19</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 107%;"> and posted the </span><a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/328637/last-trump-job-approval-average-record-low.aspx"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">lowest Gallup approval
rating</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 107%;"> of his presidency
(34%), which was even lower than his average approval rating (41%)—the lowest
average of any president since the beginning of Gallup polls. Trump also had
the distinction of being the only president in Gallup poll history to never
reach an approval rating of 50%. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 107%;">The reasons for Trump’s
low approval ratings were clear. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 107%;">After inheriting a
country basking in peace and prosperity, Donald Trump was leaving a broken
America. As of Inauguration Day, <b>Wednesday, January 20, 2021</b>, high
unemployment was </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/14/business/economy/unemployment-claims.html"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">increasing rapidly</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 107%;">. </span><a href="https://www.axios.com/neediest-holiday-season-coronavirus-62bb6425-7b89-4278-9b7b-b487ca053ff0.html"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">Eight million</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 107%;"> Americans had fallen into poverty in the past
year and 15 million had </span><a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/nearly-15-million-americans-lost-employer-based-health-insurance-heres-how-to-get-health-coverage-again-11604407656"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">lost their
employer-based healthcare</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 107%;">. </span><a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/12/14/946420784/u-s-faces-food-insecurity-crisis-as-several-federal-aid-programs-set-to-run-out-"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">Tens of millions</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 107%;"> of Americans were at risk of food insecurity,
including millions of children. And the United States was </span><a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/283910/trump-third-year-sets-new-standard-party-polarization.aspx"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">the most polarized</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;"> </span><span style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 107%;">it had been in the history of Gallup polling,
thanks in large part to the </span><a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-lies-presidency-glenn-kessler-b1782752.html"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">30,000 (often divisive) lies</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 107%;"> Trump had told in just four years, lies which
had left tens of millions of Republican voters </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-trump-presidency-was-marked-by-battles-over-truth-itself-those-arent-over/2021/01/18/3bee0050-5750-11eb-a931-5b162d0d033d_story.html"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">dangerously out of touch
with reality</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 107%;">. </span><span style="line-height: 107%;">(see #145,
#204, #283, #307, #313, #s 319-323. #325, #330, #339, #347, #387, #440, #452,
#534, #s 566-567, #641, #739, #942, #s 945-946, #955, #970, #981, #984).</span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 107%;">Because of the January
6 insurrection incited by Trump and new threats from his most extreme
supporters, state capitols were </span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-capitol-siege-donald-trump-coronavirus-pandemic-racial-injustice-afde8d98740e057b340efa63c2d40007"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">boarded up and on alert</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 107%;"> and D.C. was armed to the teeth, with </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/15/politics/pentagon-national-guard-inauguration/index.html"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">25,000 National Guard
personnel</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 107%;">, </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/18/pentagon-deploys-troops-inauguration-security-460203"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">active duty troops</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 107%;">, and secret service </span><a href="https://www.chron.com/news/article/Secret-Service-launches-massive-security-15865876.php"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">swarming</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 107%;">. The FBI felt it necessary to </span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-inauguration-joe-biden-capitol-siege-politics-ap-top-news-ab877d14bc97682973add2acd514218e"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">vet National Guard
troops</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 107%;"> for right-wing
extremism and journalists covering the inauguration were gearing up with </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/18/media/journalists-inauguration-preparation/index.html"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">gas masks and bulletproof
vests</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 107%;">. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 107%;">The sorest of sore
losers, Trump was </span><a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-will-not-attend-biden-inauguration/"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">the first president in
152 years not to attend his successor’s inauguration</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 107%;">. But his presence would be felt from moment
one of Biden’s presidency, as the pandemic fueled by his grotesque levels of
incompetence, indifference, and dishonesty </span><a href="https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 107%;">continued to ravage
America</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 107%;">, with daily infection
totals in the U.S. higher than the <i>total</i> number of infections
transmitted in Greece, South Korea, Norway, Finland, Australia, Hong Kong,
Iceland, New Zealand, and Taiwan. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 107%;">Trump’s legacy?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 107%;">Death, destruction, a
nation torn asunder.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 107%;">In the words of Michael
D’Antonio, author of <i>Never Enough: Donald Trump and the Pursuit of Success</i>,
“</span><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">This is a person whose name will be synonymous
with betrayal and anti-democratic, anti-American thinking. What’s so amazing is
here’s this guy who literally hugged the flag and talked about traitors and
treason and enemies of the people and we’ve never had a public figure who’s
been more of an enemy of America than Donald Trump.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: blue; font-size: medium; line-height: 107%;">EPILOGUE</span></b><span style="color: #0070c0; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">In sum, the United States had the absolute worst
leader at the absolute worst time. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Amid the greatest crisis this country has faced
since World War II, America was rudderless, our fate in the hands of a hollow,
ignorant, self-centered, and mercurial man with no empathy or sense of honor
who neutered or fired the experts that could have mitigated the impacts of the
pandemic while empowering sycophants and political hacks. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Had the Trump
administration heeded <a href="https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Once-again-government-is-caught-unprepared-15179581.php"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">advice from the outgoing Obama administration</span></a>, or kept a competent disaster
management team in place, or acted aggressively from the moment they were
notified of the virus on January 3, or used World Health Organization test
kits, or recommended social distancing sooner, or maintained consistent and
transparent messaging, or leveraged the formidable resources of the U.S. federal
government, or put long-term public health needs ahead of short-term campaign wants,
or formed anything resembling a coherent national response, or learned from
their mistakes, America’s scale of suffering and grief would have been similar to other developed countries, all of whom have a
fraction of the deaths and infections the U.S. has experienced.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/03/12/814881355/white-house-knew-coronavirus-would-be-a-major-threat-but-response-fell-short"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Asked</span></a> by
NPR’s Terry Gross what went wrong with the test kits, <i>Politico</i> reporter
Dan Diamond quoted an administration official whose answer could apply to the
whole of Trump’s pandemic response: </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">“Terry, the question might not be what went wrong; it's what
went right?”</p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><b style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;"><i><span><span style="color: #222222;"> </span></span></i></b></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><b style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;"><i><span><span style="color: #222222;"> Follow Dan Benbow on </span><a href="https://twitter.com/danbenbow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Twitter </span></a><span style="color: #222222;"> </span></span></i></b><br /></span></span></p><div class="MsoNormal"><div style="text-align: center;"><div><span><b><br /></b></span><span><b>More political writing by Dan Benbow:</b></span></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2021/03/january-6-2021-facts.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">January 6, 2021: <b>The Facts</b></span></a><br /><div style="background-color: white;"><span><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><br /></span><span><span><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-master-of-low-expectations-666.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>The Master of Low Expectations</b></span></a><span style="color: #3d85c6;">: 666 reasons sentient citizens</span></span></span></span><br /><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><span> are still celebrating </span><span>the long overdue departure of George W. Bush</span></span><br /><span><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><br /></span><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><span><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-breathtaking-stupidity-of_16.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">The <b>breathtaking stupidity</b> of #BernieOrBust</span></a></span></span></span></div><span><span></span><span><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Death of a President in the <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2018/12/death-of-president-in-united-states-of.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>United States of Amnesia</b></span></a></span></span><br /><span style="color: #3d85c6;"> (<i>a review of the public life of George H.W. Bush</i>)</span></div><div><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2019/09/lingering-myths-of-2016-presidential.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>Lingering myths</b></span></a> of the 2016 presidential election: </span></div><div><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Bernie was robbed by the DNC!<br /></span><span><span><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Aliens, unicorns, and <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2018/10/spoilerparty.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>the narcissism</b></span></a> </span></span><br /><span style="color: #3d85c6;">of voting Green</span><br /><span><span><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2017/01/ten-reasons-barack-obama-is-clearly.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">10 reasons</span></a> </b></span>Barack Obama is clearly</span></span><br /><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the best president in my lifetime</span><br /><span><span><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/10/178-reasons-hillary-clinton-is.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>178 reasons</b></span></a> Hillary Clinton is infinitely better</span></span><br /><span style="color: #3d85c6;">than Donald Trump (even on her worst day)</span><br /><span><br /></span></div><div><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/09/colin-kaepernick-is-right.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Colin Kaepernick is right</span></a></div><div><span><i><b><br /></b></i></span></div><div><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/04/stephen-colbert-delivers-best-political.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Stephen Colbert delivers the best political roast of all time</span></a></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><span><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2014/12/GaryWebbrailroaded.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Justice Delayed: "Kill the Messenger" vindicates Gary Webb</span></a></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span><br /></span></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2014/04/21st-century-republicans-part-iv.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">21st Century Republicans, Part IV</span></a></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span><i><br /></i></span></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/10/inequality-for-all-and-elephant-in-room.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">"Inequality for All" and the Elephant in the Room</span></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span><i><br /></i></span></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/05/memorial-day-in-united-states-of-amnesia.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Memorial Day in the United States of Amnesia</span></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span><i><br /></i></span></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2012/10/romney-ryans-road-to-perdition.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Romney-Ryan's Road to Perdition</span></a></div></div></span></span></span>Dan Benbowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02258556216655283390noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3869308843623818842.post-82898169083887724632021-03-14T11:58:00.005-07:002021-03-14T12:09:39.658-07:00January 6, 2021: The Facts<p><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijSQzWJ9yynPE00bU962X9LYjZKhD5Yeyb3s9f3FqLk0Magwr7dJ7vnF4yFX063xuILLV7JpSH8JUAgzuofOR5_z8djtzqEdxXxv-u7NpFio9KfRg9bq0ckWYE8GNZlDLENSJOcksw284/s1020/Jan+6+mob+photo.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="680" data-original-width="1020" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijSQzWJ9yynPE00bU962X9LYjZKhD5Yeyb3s9f3FqLk0Magwr7dJ7vnF4yFX063xuILLV7JpSH8JUAgzuofOR5_z8djtzqEdxXxv-u7NpFio9KfRg9bq0ckWYE8GNZlDLENSJOcksw284/w320-h213/Jan+6+mob+photo.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;">At the recent Conservative Political Action
Conference (CPAC), the Republican Party tried to rewrite history, in this case
very recent history. <a href="https://popular.info/p/a-festival-of-lies"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">Seven panels</span></a> at the
event were dedicated to<span style="color: #5b9bd5;"> </span>the<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/13/us-election-most-secure-history-voter-fraud-false-claims"><span style="color: black;"> </span><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">thoroughly-debunked
assertion</span></a> that Joe Biden is not a
legitimate president, including “<span style="background: white;">Other Culprits:
Why Judges & Media Refused to Look at the Evidence” and “The Left Pulled
the Strings, Covered It Up, and Even Admits It.” Trump mined </span><a href="https://www.upworthy.com/the-trump-big-lie-explained-historian"><span style="background: white; color: #6d9eeb;">The Big Lie</span></a><span style="background: white;"> in his keynote speech, </span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-capitol-siege-donald-trump-florida-orlando-890c3b8d6b2ab4f9f29b0b36c03a304b"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">claiming</span></a> that “this
election was rigged,” that the Democrats had “just lost the White House,” that
“I may even decide to beat them a third time” in the 2024 presidential race.</span><p></p><p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">One thing Trump didn’t address at CPAC was the
insurrection he incited on January 6. </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">The GOP’s ongoing attempt to avoid blame for the
seditionist uprising while doubling down on the messaging that caused it is a
grave disservice to </span><a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/news/537204-us-score-falls-in-economists-2020-democracy-index"><span style="color: #6d9eeb;">our fragile democracy</span></a><span style="color: black;">.
We owe it to ourselves—and to future generations—to get the history right.
Following are known facts (so far).</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">Prior to January 6, 2021, the official electoral
college vote certification was a purely ceremonial ritual. The 2021
certification was fraught with violence and division because of the
disinformation promulgated by Donald Trump and his allies in </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/13/republican-legislatures-trump-conspiracy-458507"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">state legislatures</span></a><span style="color: black;">, </span><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/01/republicans-own-insurrection/617583/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">Congress</span></a><span style="color: black;">, and </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/how-social-media-made-the-trump-insurrection-a-reality"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">right-wing media</span></a><span style="color: black;">.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">After riling up Republican voters for two months
with </span><a href="https://www.factcheck.org/2020/12/nine-election-fraud-claims-none-credible/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">craven lies</span></a><span style="color: black;"> about
the election having been stolen, the GOP arranged one final, grand charade: a
“Stop the Steal” </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/06/us/politics/capitol-mob-trump-supporters.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20210110&instance_id=25857&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=48890&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">rally</span></a><span style="color: black;"> followed by a
“Save America March.” The rally and the march were a prelude to the formal
challenge by 13 Republican senators and 140 House members to Joe Biden’s seven
million-ballot win. The challenge, </span><a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/senator-josh-hawley-missouri-to-object-electoral-college-vote/"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;">led by</span></a><span style="color: black;"> senators keen
on appealing to the Republican base in 2024 presidential runs, would consist of
regurgitated claims rejected for lack of evidence in </span><a href="https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/jan/08/joe-biden/joe-biden-right-more-60-trumps-election-lawsuits-l/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">60 judicial cases</span></a><span style="color: black;">, by
both Democratic and Republican judges, including numerous judges appointed by
Trump.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">Sensing trouble, Washington D.C. mayor Muriel
Bowser requested National Guard backup, but Trump’s Defense Department
handcuffed the Guard’s mission. </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trump-protests-washington-guard-military/2021/01/07/c5299b56-510e-11eb-b2e8-3339e73d9da2_story.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">According to</span></a><span style="color: black;"> Paul
Sonne, Peter Hermann, and Missy Ryan of <i>the Washington Post</i>, “the
Pentagon prohibited the District’s guardsmen from receiving ammunition or riot
gear, interacting with protesters unless necessary for self-defense, sharing
equipment with local law enforcement, or using Guard surveillance and air
assets without the defense secretary’s explicit sign-off.” In a directive that
would have disastrous consequences, “The D.C. Guard was also told it would be
allowed to deploy a quick-reaction force only as a measure of last resort,” which
in effect forced local D.C. officials to get a sign-off from Trump’s Defense
Department for rapid deployment, a bureaucratic hurdle which hadn’t existed
previously. </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">On the day of the certification, Trump called
vice president Mike Pence, who would preside over the ceremony, and </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/12/us/politics/mike-pence-trump.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">told him</span></a><span style="color: black;">, <span style="background: white;">“You can either go down in history as a patriot…or you
can go down in history as a pussy.”</span></span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; color: black;">Pence chose to go down in
history as a patriot. Just before the count began, he </span><a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/read-pences-full-letter-saying-he-cant-claim-unilateral-authority-to-reject-electoral-votes"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">released a public letter stating the obvious</span></a><span style="color: black;">—that he lacked the constitutional authority to
unilaterally decide which electoral votes to accept or reject.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">Concerns about The U.S. Constitution and
long-established democratic precedent were absent from the speeches at Trump’s
rally on the Mall, which preyed on right-wing victimhood and included numerous </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/07/briefing/white-house-capitol-donald-trump-jon-ossoff.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">incitements to violence</span></a><span style="color: black;">. Leading things off, Republican representative Mo Brooks
said, <span style="background: white;">“Today is the day American patriots start
taking down names and kicking ass!”</span> Referring to congressional
Republicans who intended to honor the election results by <i>not</i>
challenging Biden’s legitimate win, Donald Trump, Jr. said, “<span style="background: white;">We’re coming for you, and we’re going to have a good
time doing it” and that if they didn’t change their minds and oppose
certification “</span></span><a href="https://www.vox.com/22220746/trump-speech-incite-capitol-riot?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Sentences%201821&utm_content=Sentences%201821+CID_5cdd5fe59652d724914f30c48ed58541&utm_source=cm_email&utm_term=How%20Trumps%20speech%20led%20to%20the%20Capitol%20riot"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;">I’m gonna be in your backyard in a
couple of months</span></a><span style="background: white; color: black;">.”
Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, told the crowd, “Let’s have trial by combat,”
which was </span><span style="color: black;">“</span><a href="https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Backup-was-denied-Capitol-Police-chief-says-15860394.php"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">an eerie reference to battles to the death in the series
‘Game of Thrones</span></a><span style="color: black;">.’”</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; color: black;">Talking tough from behind
bulletproof glass, Trump spewed </span><span style="color: black;">a litany of
baseless assertions about the election, “</span><a href="https://www.vox.com/22220746/trump-speech-incite-capitol-riot?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Sentences%201821&utm_content=Sentences%201821+CID_5cdd5fe59652d724914f30c48ed58541&utm_source=cm_email&utm_term=How%20Trumps%20speech%20led%20to%20the%20Capitol%20riot"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;">used</span></a><span style="background: white; color: black;"> the words ‘fight’ or ‘fighting’ </span><a href="https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-trump-speech-save-america-rally-transcript-january-6"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;">at least 20 times</span></a><span style="background: white; color: black;">,” said “You’ll never take back our
country with weakness. You have to show strength. You have to be strong,” and
finished with a call to action:</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><span style="color: black;">“We will never give up; we will never
concede….We will stop the steal. We’re going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue,
and we’re going to the Capitol…We’re going to try and give our Republicans, the
weak ones…the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our
country.”</span></i><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">As could be expected, the violent rhetoric whipped
the MAGA-ites into a frenzy. After traversing Pennsylvania Avenue, a crowd of
8,000, some </span><a href="https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Backup-was-denied-Capitol-Police-chief-says-15860394.php"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">equipped with</span></a><span style="color: black;"> “<span style="background: white;">riot helmets, gas masks, shields, pepper spray,
fireworks, climbing gear...explosives, metal pipes, [and] baseball bats,”
arrived at the Capitol.</span></span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; color: black;">Just before 2 p.m., </span><span style="color: black;">Trump supporters—</span><a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/several-well-known-hate-groups-identified-at-capitol-riot?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=majorinvestigations&utm_content=feature"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">heavily represented by right-wing hate groups</span></a><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">,</span><span style="color: black;"> inlaid with </span><a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/01/capitol-riots-new-details-plans.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">former members of law
enforcement and the military</span></a><span style="background: white; color: black;">—</span><span style="color: black;">busted through a police line to</span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/06/pence-rushed-out-of-senate-capitol-455483"><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"> </span><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">storm the Capitol</span></a><span style="color: black;">,
the first hostile takeover of America’s seat of government since
1814. </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">Once inside, </span><a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/02/09/965472049/the-capitol-siege-the-arrested-and-their-stories#database"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-themecolor: accent5;">the insurrectionists</span></a><span style="color: black;"> stopped the certification of Biden’s victory, </span><a href="https://www.the-sun.com/news/2109105/bleeding-capitol-cop-screams-help-maga-mob-mask/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">assaulted Capitol police officers</span></a><span style="color: black;">, </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/07/us/politics/capitol-lockdown.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">attacked journalists</span></a><span style="color: black;">, </span><a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/02/capitol-riot-january-6-trauma-terror-attack.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">traumatized</span></a><span style="color: black;"> members
of Congress and </span><a href="https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Pelosi-says-staff-hid-under-a-table-for-hours-as-15860759.php"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">congressional aides</span></a><span style="color: black;">,
and contributed to </span><a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/01/could-the-capitol-riot-become-a-superspreader-event.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">multiple members</span></a><span style="color: black;"> of
Congress getting COVID-19. </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">Some of the insurrectionists carried </span><a href="https://nypost.com/2021/01/14/air-force-vet-carrying-zip-ties-in-capitol-riot-wanted-to-take-hostages/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">zip-tie handcuffs</span></a><span style="color: black;"> or
weapons and targeted the offices of specific members of Congress </span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-ap-top-news-michael-pence-nancy-pelosi-capitol-siege-14c73ee280c256ab4ec193ac0f49ad54"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">in hopes of kidnapping them</span></a><span style="color: black;">, or </span><a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/01/justice-department-arizona-filing-qanon-shaman-capture-and-assassinate-lawmakers.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">worse</span></a><span style="color: black;">. There were allegations
that plotters </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/13/politics/capitol-insurrection-insider-help/index.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">may have had help</span></a><span style="color: black;">
from Republican representatives or </span><a href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/fivepoints/capitol-insurrection-january-6-house-hearing-police"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">members of the Capitol police force</span></a><span style="color: black;">.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">Because local officials’ authority to call for
backup had been taken away </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/03/politics/us-capitol-riot-hearing-dhs-fbi-pentagon/index.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; mso-themecolor: accent5;">one day before the certification</span></a><span style="color: black;">, it was left to Capitol police chief Steven Sund to beg
Trump administration officials in the Department of Defense (DOD) for backup.
Trump’s DOD stonewalled Sund. Lieutenant General Walter Piatt reportedly told
Sund he </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trump-protests-washington-guard-military/2021/01/07/c5299b56-510e-11eb-b2e8-3339e73d9da2_story.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">didn’t like “the optics</span></a><span style="color: black;">” of “having armed military personnel on the grounds of the Capitol,”
though the DOD had </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/07/us/police-response-black-lives-matter-protest-us-capitol/index.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">deployed armed military personnel</span></a><span style="color: black;"> at peaceful Black Lives Matter protests in June.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">Several Republicans, including senator Lindsey
Graham, House minority leader Kevin McCarthy, and former advisor Kellyanne
Conway called the White House after the breach to try to get Trump to act, but
Trump wasn’t taking calls at first because he was wrapped up in watching the </span><a href="https://clinecenter.illinois.edu/coup-detat-project-cdp/statement_jan.27.2021"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">attempted <i>coup</i></span></a><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">
</span><span style="color: black;">he’d fomented on TV. As one aide </span><a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/six-hours-of-paralysis-inside-trump-e2-80-99s-failure-to-act-after-a-mob-stormed-the-capitol/ar-BB1cFqj4?ocid=uxbndlbing"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">told a reporter</span></a><span style="color: black;">, “‘<span style="background: white;">He was hard to reach, and you know why? Because it was
live TV….If it’s TiVo, he just hits pause and takes the calls. If it’s live TV,
he watches it, and he was just watching it all unfold.’”</span></span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/trump-impeachment-trial-live-updates/2021/02/13/967625878/as-trumps-impeachment-trial-nears-end-some-lawmakers-want-details-on-mccarthy-ca"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;">According to</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;"> </span><span style="background: white; color: black;">Republican congressional representative Jamie Herrera
Beutler, who was with Kevin McCarthy, “When McCarthy finally reached the
president on January 6 and asked him to publicly and forcefully call off the
riot, the president initially repeated the falsehood that it was anti-fascists
that had breached the Capitol….McCarthy refuted that and told the president
that these were Trump supporters. That's when, according to McCarthy, the president
said: ‘Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than
you are.’”</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; color: black;">This was of a piece with a
report from Republican senator Ben Sasse that Trump was </span><span style="color: black;">“</span><a href="https://edition.cnn.com/politics/live-news/washington-dc-riots-trump-news-friday/h_3b3d237d139679d425ef2e0a54ddfca7"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;">confused about why other people on his
team weren’t as excited as he was</span></a><span style="background: white; color: black;"> as you had rioters pushing against Capitol Police trying to
get into the building.” Sasse also mentioned that Trump was talking to the
other people in the room about “a path by which he was going to stay in office
after January 20.” </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; color: black;">While lawmakers hid from
rioters, Trump called Republican senator Tommy Tuberville, to push Tuberville
to obstruct the electoral college vote certification whenever it could safely
resume. (Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani would make </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/08/politics/mike-lee-tommy-tuberville-trump-misdialed-capitol-riot/index.html"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;">a call</span></a><span style="background: white; color: black;"> to Republican senator Mike Lee, later in the day, with
the same purpose). When Trump reached Tuberville, around 2:15 p.m., he was </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/01/15/us/trump-capitol-riot-timeline.html"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;">notified</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;"> </span><span style="background: white; color: black;">that Mike Pence and his family had been whisked away from the
Senate floor. </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; color: black;">Despite his knowledge of the
threat to the vice president’s safety, at 2:24 p.m., </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/01/25/among-the-insurrectionists"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;">while</span></a><span style="background: white; color: black;"> “America Firsters and other invaders fanned out in search of
lawmakers, breaking into offices and reveling in their own astounding
impunity,” Trump </span><a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/six-hours-of-paralysis-inside-trump-e2-80-99s-failure-to-act-after-a-mob-stormed-the-capitol/ar-BB1cFqj4?ocid=uxbndlbing"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;">tweeted</span></a><span style="background: white; color: black;"> that “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage
to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution,
giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent
or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify….USA demands the
truth!”</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">As former Trump ally Mitch McConnell would later </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/13/us/politics/trump-capitol-riot.html?action=click&campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20210214&instance_id=27134&module=Top+Stories&nl=the-morning&pgtype=Homepage&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=51688&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">say</span></a><span style="color: black;"> at Trump’s
impeachment trial, the president “kept pressing his scheme to overturn the
election. Even after it was clear to any reasonable observer that Vice
President Pence was in serious danger, even as the mob carrying Trump banners
was beating cops and breaching perimeters, the president sent a further tweet
attacking his own vice president.”</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">Trump made half-hearted attempts to defuse the
situation with </span><a href="https://www.thetrumparchive.com/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">tweets</span></a><span style="color: black;"> at 2:38 (“<span style="background: rgb(251, 254, 255);">Please support our Capitol Police and Law
Enforcement. They are truly on the side of our Country. Stay peaceful!”) and
3:13 p.m. (“I am asking for everyone at the U.S. Capitol to remain peaceful. No
violence! Remember, WE are the Party of Law & Order – respect the Law and
our great men and women in Blue. Thank you!”).</span></span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; color: black;">Pressured by aides when these
tweets had no discernible impact on the rioters, Trump released a slightly more
forceful video plea </span><a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/six-hours-of-paralysis-inside-trump-e2-80-99s-failure-to-act-after-a-mob-stormed-the-capitol/ar-BB1cFqj4?ocid=uxbndlbing"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;">two hours into the breach</span></a><span style="background: white; color: black;">, but even then, he fed the ill-founded rage
at the heart of the insurrection:</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><span style="background: white; color: black;">“It was a landslide
election. And everyone knows it. Especially the other side. But you have to go
home. … There’s never been a time like this when such a thing happened when
they could take it away from all of us. From me, from you, from our country.
This was a fraudulent election. … Go home. We love you. You're very special.”</span></i><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">After </span><a href="https://wtop.com/maryland/2021/01/hogan-federal-approval-to-send-national-guard-during-capitol-attack-delayed/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">an inexplicably long delay</span></a><span style="color: black;">, with the assistance of </span><a href="https://www.chron.com/news/article/Trump-s-retreat-into-rage-is-followed-by-grudging-15854550.php"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">Mike Pence</span></a><span style="color: black;"> (since
Trump had “</span><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2021/01/06/reports-trump-resisted-sending-national-guard-to-quell-violent-mob-at-us-capitol/?sh=22f701091e18"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">resisted requests</span></a><span style="color: black;">”
to stop the violence), the National Guard was called up. </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">The Capitol </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/01/15/us/trump-capitol-riot-timeline.html"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">was finally cleared</span></a><span style="color: black;">
at 5:34 p.m., three-and-a-half hours after it had been breached. Over </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/24/us/politics/capitol-riot-damage.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">$30 million dollars in damage</span></a><span style="color: black;"> was done to the citadel of American democracy. 146 police
officers </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/13/us/politics/capitol-riots-impeachment-trial.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">sustained injuries</span></a><span style="color: black;">
and seven people would end up dead, including three Capitol police officers—one
of whom was an Iraq War vet who had been </span><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-police-officer/homicide-investigation-opened-into-death-of-capitol-police-officer-idUSKBN29D2LI"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">bashed in the head with a fire extinguisher</span></a><span style="color: black;">, and two others who would later </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/27/second-officer-suicide-following-capitol-riot-463123"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">commit suicide</span></a><span style="color: black;">. If
not for the </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2021/01/14/dc-police-capitol-riot/?arc404=true"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">bravery</span></a><span style="color: black;"> of the
Capitol police, the toll would have been even worse, as rioters came </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2021/01/16/video-timeline-capitol-siege/?arc404=true&campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20210119&instance_id=26150&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=49657&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">within a hair’s breadth</span></a><span style="color: black;"> of getting their hands on Mike Pence and members of Congress.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">At 6:01 p.m., Trump </span><a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/six-hours-of-paralysis-inside-trump-e2-80-99s-failure-to-act-after-a-mob-stormed-the-capitol/ar-BB1cFqj4?ocid=uxbndlbing"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">tweeted</span></a><span style="color: #5b9bd5;"> </span><span style="color: black;">“These are the things and events that happen when a sacred
landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away
from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long….Go
home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!”</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">Ultimately, the insurrection was unsuccessful.
Once the Capitol was secured, Congress</span><a href="https://www.axios.com/congress-certifies-biden-electoral-college-win-eeb6ba0a-0bc7-4508-ada7-9c1b93aca416.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"> </span><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">certified Joe Biden’s win</span></a><span style="color: black;">, despite the objections of </span><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/01/more-dangerous-capitol-riot/617655/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=atlantic-daily-newsletter&utm_content=20210113&silverid-ref=NjY0NzQxMzgxNDkxS0"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">2/3rds of House Republicans and eight Republican senators</span></a><span style="color: black;"> who came out of hiding to pimp the </span><a href="https://www.factcheck.org/2020/12/nine-election-fraud-claims-none-credible/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">false election fraud narrative</span></a><span style="color: black;"> which had jeopardized their safety just hours earlier</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">In the two weeks between the election
certification and Joe Biden’s inauguration, U.S. taxpayers were stuck with a </span><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-04/national-guard-s-post-riot-deployment-cost-at-least-480-million?sref=IYQ5mP1s"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">$480 million tab</span></a><span style="color: black;"> to
secure the Capitol, as 25,000 National Guard members were sent to D.C.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">The most concise summation of January 6 came
from rock-ribbed Republican Liz Cheney, the daughter of </span><a href="https://www.pfaw.org/press-releases/bush-running-mate-dick-cheneys-congressional-voting-record-emphatically-far-right/"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;">ultra-conservative</span></a><span style="color: black;">
former vice president Dick Cheney and the chair of the House GOP Conference who
</span><a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-trump-score/house/"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">voted with Trump 93% of the time</span></a><span style="color: black;"> during his four years in office. On the eve of the January
13 House of Representatives vote to impeach Trump for inciting a riot, Cheney
released a statement: </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“On January
6, 2021 a violent mob attacked the United States Capitol to obstruct the
process of our democracy and stop the counting of presidential electoral votes.
This insurrection caused injury, death and destruction in the most sacred space
in our Republic.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; margin: 12pt 0in;"><i><span style="background: white; color: black;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Much more will become clear
in coming days and weeks, but what we know now is enough. The President of the
United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this
attack. Everything that followed was his doing. None of this would have
happened without the President. The President could have immediately and
forcefully intervened to stop the violence. He did not. There has never been a
greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath
to the Constitution.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p>
<p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Sadly, <span style="color: black;">Cheney’s matter-of-fact
statement was as brave as it was rare. With the exception of a very small
number of congressional Republicans who supported impeachment (10 in the House,
six in the Senate), t</span>he party has tried to bury January 6, to pretend
that it never happened. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Since one of our two major political parties is AWOL in
its oversight role, it is incumbent on Congressional Democrats to nut up and make
a 9/11-style commission with aggressive subpoena powers become reality. If the
U.S. is to remain a functioning democracy, American citizens need a full
accounting of everything that happened on January 6, 2021—whether Donald Trump
likes it or not. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><b style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;"> Follow Dan Benbow on </span><a href="https://twitter.com/danbenbow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Twitter </span></a><span style="color: #222222;"> </span></span></i></b><br style="font-family: "Times New Roman";" /></span></span></p><div class="MsoNormal"><div style="text-align: center;"><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><br /></b></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>More political writing by Dan Benbow:</b></span><br /><div style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-master-of-low-expectations-666.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>The Master of Low Expectations</b></span></a><span style="color: #3d85c6;">: 666 reasons sentient citizens</span></span></span></span><br /><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> are still celebrating </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the long overdue departure of George W. Bush</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-breathtaking-stupidity-of_16.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The <b>breathtaking stupidity</b> of #BernieOrBust</span></a></span></span></span></div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Death of a President in the <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2018/12/death-of-president-in-united-states-of.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>United States of Amnesia</b></span></a></span></span><br /><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> (<i>a review of the public life of George H.W. Bush</i>)</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Aliens, unicorns, and <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2018/10/spoilerparty.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>the narcissism</b></span></a> </span></span><br /><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">of voting Green</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2017/01/ten-reasons-barack-obama-is-clearly.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">10 reasons</span></a> </b></span>Barack Obama is clearly</span></span><br /><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the best president in my lifetime</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/10/178-reasons-hillary-clinton-is.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>178 reasons</b></span></a> Hillary Clinton is infinitely better</span></span><br /><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">than Donald Trump (even on her worst day)</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div><div><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/09/colin-kaepernick-is-right.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Colin Kaepernick is right</span></a></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span></div><div><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/04/stephen-colbert-delivers-best-political.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Stephen Colbert delivers the best political roast of all time</span></a></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2014/12/GaryWebbrailroaded.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Justice Delayed: "Kill the Messenger" vindicates Gary Webb</span></a></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2014/04/21st-century-republicans-part-iv.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">21st Century Republicans, Part IV</span></a></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/10/inequality-for-all-and-elephant-in-room.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"Inequality for All" and the Elephant in the Room</span></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/05/memorial-day-in-united-states-of-amnesia.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Memorial Day in the United States of Amnesia</span></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2012/10/romney-ryans-road-to-perdition.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Romney-Ryan's Road to Perdition</span></a></div></div>
<p style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p>Dan Benbowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02258556216655283390noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3869308843623818842.post-43122107794102229462020-10-19T17:45:00.002-07:002020-10-31T11:04:14.084-07:00ANATOMY OF A MAN-MADE DISASTER: 830 ways Donald Trump failed to protect America from the coronavirus<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF0nTq2C7b04rCXsN12AyCRjln8v3S7iTV19FWTq3_B1RajjxeF7D6mw1bc74hDb6GlV-V94R4gLFMKWFj0i0QdWhuWR6L7unPuYhvowU_l3lI0n44PcnspMY7prfJAG43yjBRxMW84Ic/s1200/colossal+incompetence.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="1200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF0nTq2C7b04rCXsN12AyCRjln8v3S7iTV19FWTq3_B1RajjxeF7D6mw1bc74hDb6GlV-V94R4gLFMKWFj0i0QdWhuWR6L7unPuYhvowU_l3lI0n44PcnspMY7prfJAG43yjBRxMW84Ic/s320/colossal+incompetence.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Crises have a way of sorting the good presidents from the
bad. <o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Historians <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_presidents_of_the_United_States"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">rank</span></a><span style="color: #3d85c6;"> </span>Abe Lincoln and Franklin Delano
Roosevelt among the top three presidents for their handling of the Civil War,
the Great Depression, and World War II. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">By contrast, the string of catastrophes that trailed <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-master-of-low-expectations-666.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">George W. Bush</span></a>, from <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/11/opinion/the-bush-white-house-was-deaf-to-9-11-warnings.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">9/11</span></a> to <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2020/03/bloodbathiniraq.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Iraq</span></a> to <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/08/hurricane-katrina-george-w-bush-new-orleans"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Hurricane Katrina</span></a> to his <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/business/21admin.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">obliviousness</span></a> to warning signs in the housing market before the 2008
crash guarantee that he will have a permanent place in the bottom tier of
presidents.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Also certain to be at or near the bottom of that list is
Donald Trump.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump has been able to maintain 40% approval ratings
by effectively manipulating the <a href="https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/12/15/16781222/trump-racism-economic-anxiety-study"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">lizard brains</span></a> of white Republicans, but even before the coronavirus
hit, he was considered one of <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-worst-president-presidential-greatness-survey-presidents-day-obama-george-washington-a8218721.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the worst</span></a> presidents
in the two surveys of scholars done in 2018.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump’s increase in attention to the virus for the brief
window of time between when he declared a national emergency on March 13 until
he shifted his attention back to his re-election campaign (roughly five weeks
later) helped mitigate the damage somewhat, but his inaction from <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/3/21/21189179/coronavirus-trump-intelligence-reports-warned-pandemic"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">January 3</span></a> (when
the administration claims to have first become aware of the virus) until March
13 made the situation exponentially worse than it should have been. And his
failures of governance since March 13 greatly outweigh the handful of positive
steps he took in that time in scope and number. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As Anthony Fauci <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/05/dr-fauci-agrees-the-us-has-the-worst-coronvirus-outbreak-in-the-world-the-numbers-dont-lie.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">said</span></a>,
numbers don't lie. Our federal response has been <a href="https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the shame</span></a> of
the first world, as America has posted <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/08/12/us/covid-deaths-us.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">over 224,000 deaths</span></a> (5X any other developed country) and <a href="https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">8,300,000 infections</span></a> (more than 10X any developed country), the latter a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-coronavirus-cases-deaths-real-scale-estimates-charts-2020-7"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">significant undercount</span></a> from the true numbers. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">This story starts, as many tales of Republican incompetence
do, with sheer ignorance and lack of curiosity. Ronald Reagan was able to <a href="https://lithub.com/ronald-reagan-presided-over-89343-deaths-to-aids-and-did-nothing/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">ignore</span></a> the
AIDS crisis for years because it was “a gay disease” and didn’t impact anyone
close to him until his old Hollywood acquaintance Rock Hudson asked for—<a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/nancy-reagan-rejected-rock-hudson-plea-aids-article-1.2101827"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">but did not receive</span></a>—his help in 1985. Despite having spent months manipulating
post-9/11 public fear with <a href="https://publicintegrity.org/politics/search-the-935-iraq-war-false-statements/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">an orchestrated campaign of lies</span></a> about fictitious WMDs, George W. Bush <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/views/2007/06/15/what-every-american-should-know-about-iraq"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">still didn’t understand</span></a> the historical friction between Sunnis and Shias in
Iraq when he invited Iraqi guests of mixed faiths to a super bowl party two months
before the invasion. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">History repeated itself with Donald Trump, like Reagan and Bush a P.R.-centric
empty suit lacking intellectual curiosity, policy chops, or any interest in the
mechanics of governing. Addressing his lack of qualifications for the job on
the campaign trail in 2016, Trump asked voters “what do you have to lose?”
America would find out the hard way.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">January 11, 2017-January 2, 2020</span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><i style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: black;">As warnings about the importance of pandemic
preparedness pile up, the Trump administration dismantles public health.</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It was common knowledge before Trump took office that an infectious
outbreak of some kind was likely to occur during his presidency. <a href="https://www.healio.com/news/infectious-disease/20170111/fauci-no-doubt-trump-will-face-surprise-infectious-disease-outbreak"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">As reported</span></a> on <b>January
11, 2017</b>, Anthony Fauci told a pandemic preparedness forum (held at
Georgetown University) “history has told us definitively that [outbreaks]
will happen because [facing] infectious diseases is a perpetual challenge. It
is not going to go away. The thing we’re extraordinarily confident about is
that we’re going to see this in the next few years.” (<span style="color: red;">W1</span>*)
(*<i>Pandemic-related warnings will be abbreviated throughout this piece with a</i> <span style="color: red;">red W</span>) <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>January 13, 2017</b>, seven days before Trump took office, officials
from the Obama administration had a <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/16/trump-inauguration-warning-scenario-pandemic-132797"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">three-hour transition meeting</span></a> with top Trump officials in which they discussed
disaster management. Of the exercises they went through together, the pandemic
response exercise was “perhaps the most concrete and visible transition
exercise that dealt with the possibility of pandemics, and top officials from
both sides — whether they wanted to be there or not — were forced to confront a
whole-of-government response to a crisis. The Trump team was told it could face
specific challenges, such as shortages of ventilators, anti-viral drugs and
other medical essentials, and that having a coordinated, unified national
response was ‘paramount.’” (<span style="color: red;">W2</span>)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Unfortunately for the hundreds of thousands of Americans who would die of the
coronavirus, and the millions more who would get infected, stable, competent staffing
and effective collaboration in the executive branch were prerequisites to an
effective national response. Whereas Obama's administration would retain the
same cabinet members and White House staff through his first term, 2/3rds of
the Trump staffers attending the transition meeting <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2020/05/07/how-instability-and-high-turnover-on-the-trump-staff-hindered-the-response-to-covid-19/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">would be gone</span></a> by the time the pandemic was in full swing, leading to
a major loss of institutional memory and cross-agency collaboration. (1)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Another key element of an effective national disaster preparedness response was
a president who was engaged in the process. From before he took office, there
were concerns that Trump <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/12/outbreaks-trump-disease-epidemic-ebola/511127/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">wasn’t up to the task</span></a> because of his ignorance of the subject and
indifference to getting up to speed with this crucial part of his job.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/02/trump-response-coronavirus/606610/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">According</span></a> to
Peter Nicholas of <i>the Atlantic</i>, “When a senior White House aide
would brief President Donald Trump in 2018 about an Ebola-virus outbreak in central
Africa, it was plainly evident that hardships roiling a far-flung part of the
world didn’t command his attention. He was zoning out. ‘It was like talking to
a wall,’ a person familiar with the matter told me.” (2)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">This indifference manifested with Trump’s first budget to
Congress. Though the administration found money for big increases in the
already-<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/27/us/politics/trump-budget-military.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">bloated defense budget</span></a> and later passed a $<a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/28/tax-cuts-trump-gop-analysis-430781"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">2.3 trillion</span></a> tax
cut <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/12/18/16791174/republican-tax-bill-congress-conference-tax-policy-center"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">overwhelmingly tilted to the 1%</span></a>, Trump’s minions <a href="https://www.apha.org/news-and-media/news-releases/apha-news-releases/2017/trump-budget-cuts"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">cut funding</span></a> (3)
for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the agency tasked
with protecting public health in the face of the opiate epidemic, AIDS, flu,
and infectious outbreaks.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Within the tax cut bill were <a href="https://www.the-scientist.com/daily-news/cuts-to-prevention-and-public-health-fund-puts-cdc-programs-at-risk-30298"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">steep cuts</span></a> to
the Prevention and Public Health Fund (called “the core of public health
programs” by Tom Frieden, who headed the CDC under <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2017/01/ten-reasons-barack-obama-is-clearly.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Barack Obama</span></a>).
(4)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>May 11, 2017</b>, Trump's Director of National Intelligence, Dan
Coats, submitted a <a href="https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/Newsroom/Testimonies/SSCI%20Unclassified%20SFR%20-%20Final.pdf"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">threat assessment</span></a> to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence which
said “A novel or reemerging microbe that is easily transmissible between
humans and is highly pathogenic remains a major threat because such an organism
has the potential to spread rapidly and kill millions.” (<span style="color: red;">W3</span>)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Appointed to head the CDC, in <b>July 2017</b>, was Brenda
Fitzgerald, a right-wing Republican from Georgia who replaced interim
director <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/anne-schuchat-interim-cdc-director_n_5886a37de4b096b4a2344cd4"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Anne Schuchat</span></a>, a highly-experienced, long-time public health advocate
(5). Among Fitzgerald's priorities was scrubbing <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/16/16785100/cdc-seven-prohibited-words-science-evidence-transgender-fetus-entitlement-diversity-vulnerable"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">seven dirty words</span></a>—including “evidence-based,” “science-based,” “diversity,”
and “fetus”—from CDC budget documentation. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Fitzgerald’s time at the CDC was brief: she resigned on
January 31, 2018 when it came out that she had owned stocks in a tobacco
company even as she ran an agency dedicated to anti-smoking campaigns
(6). <i>Politico</i> <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/30/cdc-director-tobacco-stocks-after-appointment-316245"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that
“one day after Fitzgerald purchased stock in Japan Tobacco, she toured the
CDC's Tobacco Laboratory, which studies tobacco's toxic effects.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>February 1, 2018</b>, <i>the Washington Post</i> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/02/01/cdc-to-cut-by-80-percent-efforts-to-prevent-global-disease-outbreak/?utm_term=.ff3917c3c439"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that
“CDC to cut by 80 percent efforts to prevent global disease outbreak”
(7): “<span style="color: #3d85c6;">The </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/02/01/cdc-to-cut-by-80-percent-efforts-to-prevent-global-disease-outbreak/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">global health section of the CDC</span></a> was so drastically cut in 2018 that much of its staff
was laid off (8) and the number of countries it was working in was reduced from
49 to merely 10. Meanwhile, throughout 2018, the U.S. Agency for International
Development and its director, Mark Green, came repeatedly <a href="https://www.devex.com/news/white-house-opens-new-front-in-war-on-us-aid-budget-93310?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWXpNeFpEaG1ZbU5rT0dNNCIsInQiOiJka0JEdVNGY1FIM2hhTzZkUVpNNmdSOEdVWEk2RVFyVkltN0JuWUlRdTZpRFhPdFBYS0lGUFZhQ2F1K0FuOWxMOSs4TkRlc1h3QW1xeWt4a3NLMTFQcWhTM20xaXpndGVUNnpCVGRaNjg1ZnVEalpvT0ptcU5cL2lGeEdtTlpYdVMifQ%3D%3D&utm_campaign=newswire&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">under fire</span></a> from
both the <a href="https://khn.org/news/religious-conservatives-ties-to-trump-officials-pay-off-in-aids-policies-funding/?utm_campaign=KHN%3A%20First%20Edition&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=65367866&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_1qQIODfqXazw2GSe4Qlnu7d7Jc08ArhvTSjMcfE-EdcLTKmuO-lEFhK6ZZZA-DKjsPSM7SLOz15tkBmI-9Ziu7bkAQpExQVDONqf4rZUMPool0bI&_hsmi=65367866"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">White House</span></a><span style="color: #3d85c6;"> </span>and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
(9) And though Congress has so far managed to block Trump administration plans
to cut the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps by <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/white-house-announces-proposed-revamp-of-federal-government-including-a-consolidation-of-social-safety-net-programs/2018/06/21/64fdb8ca-756a-11e8-9780-b1dd6a09b549_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">40 percent</span></a> (10),
the disease-fighting cadres have steadily eroded as retiring officers go
unreplaced.” (11)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>February 13, 2018</b>, Dan Coats (Trump's Director of National
Intelligence) submitted a <a href="https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/Newsroom/Testimonies/2018-ATA---Unclassified-SSCI.pdf"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">threat assessment</span></a> to Congress which stated that “The increase in
frequency and diversity of reported disease outbreaks—such as dengue and
Zika—probably will continue through 2018, including the potential for a severe
global health emergency that could lead to major economic and societal
disruptions, strain governmental and international resources, and increase
calls on the United States for support. A novel strain of a virulent microbe
that is easily transmissible between humans continues to be a major threat,
with pathogens such as H5N1 and H7N9 influenza and Middle East Respiratory
Syndrome Coronavirus having pandemic potential if they were to acquire
efficient human-to-human transmissibility.” (<span style="color: red;">W4</span>)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>April 10, 2018</b>, Trump hired John Bolton, one
of the architects of George W. Bush’s <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2020/03/bloodbathiniraq.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">invasion of Iraq</span></a>, as his National Security Adviser. Bolton in turn <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/tom-bossert-trump-s-homeland-security-adviser-resign-n864321"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">fired</span></a> Homeland
Security advisor Tom Bossert (12), whom <i>the Washington Post</i> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/05/10/top-white-house-official-in-charge-of-pandemic-response-exits-abruptly/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> “had
called for a comprehensive biodefense strategy against pandemics and biological
attacks.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>April 27, 2018</b>, at the Malaria Summit in
London, Bill Gates discussed the federal government’s lack of readiness for the
“significant probability of a large and lethal modern-day pandemic occurring in
our lifetimes.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>In the second week of May, 2018</b>, “the White House <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/05/10/top-white-house-official-in-charge-of-pandemic-response-exits-abruptly/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">pushed</span></a> Congress
to cut funding for Obama-era disease security programs, proposing to eliminate
$252 million in previously committed resources for rebuilding health systems in
Ebola-ravaged Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea. (13) Under fire from both
sides of the aisle, President Donald Trump dropped the proposal to
eliminate Ebola funds a month later. But other White House efforts included
reducing <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/trump-calls-on-congress-to-pull-back-15-billion-in-spending-including-on-childrens-health-insurance-program/2018/05/07/9427de18-5216-11e8-a551-5b648abe29ef_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">$15 billion</span></a> in
national health spending (14) and cutting the global disease-fighting
operational budgets of the CDC, NSC, DHS, and HHS. (15) And the
government’s <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/05/09/ebola-is-back-and-trump-is-trying-to-kill-funding-for-it/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">$30 million</span></a> Complex
Crises Fund was eliminated.” (16)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/05/10/top-white-house-official-in-charge-of-pandemic-response-exits-abruptly/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">An article</span></a> by
Lena Sun of <i>the Washington Post</i> touched on just how big of a
blow these moves were to U.S. disaster preparedness:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The White House proposal ‘is threatening to claw back funding whose precise
purpose is to help the United States be able to respond quickly in the event of
a crisis,’ said Carolyn Reynolds, a vice president at PATH, a global health
technology nonprofit. (<span style="color: red;">W5</span>)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Collectively, warns Jeremy Konyndyk, who led foreign
disaster assistance at the U.S. Agency for International Development during the
Obama administration, ‘What this all adds up to is a potentially really
concerning rollback of progress on U.S. health security preparedness.’</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“‘It seems to actively unlearn the lessons we learned
through very hard experience over the last 15 years,’ said Konyndyk….‘These
moves make us materially less safe. It’s inexplicable.’” (<span style="color: red;">W6</span>)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That same week, on <b>May 9, 2018</b>, “Luciana Borio, director of medical
and biodefense preparedness at the [National Security Council], spoke at a
symposium at Emory University to mark the 100th anniversary of the 1918
influenza pandemic. That event killed an estimated 50 million to 100 million
people worldwide.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">‘The threat of pandemic flu is the number one health
security concern,’ she told the audience. ‘<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/05/10/top-white-house-official-in-charge-of-pandemic-response-exits-abruptly/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Are we ready to respond? I fear the answer is
no</span></a>.’” (<span style="color: red;">W7</span>)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>May 10, 2018</b>, Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton
“re-organized” the National Security Council (NSC), or more accurately “<a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/31/coronavirus-china-trump-united-states-public-health-emergency-response/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">fired the government’s entire pandemic
response chain of command</span></a>, including
the White House management infrastructure” which had been set up by the Obama
administration after the Ebola crisis, by collapsing the NSC’s Office of Global
Security (17). In the wake of Bolton’s action, the top official tasked with
coordinating a response to a pandemic, Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer from the
National Security Council, resigned on <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/05/10/top-white-house-official-in-charge-of-pandemic-response-exits-abruptly/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the same day</span></a> that
a new Ebola outbreak was reported in the Congo. (18)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The Office of Global Security had been a comprehensive
crisis response team which brought together principals from the National
Institutes of Health, the CDC, the National Security Council, and the
Department of Homeland Security; the Trump administration replaced neither
Ziemer nor the command infrastructure (19). </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>May 15, 2018</b>, Virginia Democrat Gerald Connolly, a member
of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, wrote Bolton <a href="https://connolly.house.gov/uploadedfiles/connolly_bera_letter_to_nsa_john_bolton_on_global_health_security.pdf"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a letter</span></a> “to
express the deep concerns with several recent actions the White House has taken
to downgrade the importance of global health security.” Looking forward, the
letter stated, “We fear these recent decisions will leave the United
States vulnerable to pandemics and commit us to a strategy of triage should one
occur.” (<span style="color: red;">W8</span>)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Democratic senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio piggybacked on these concerns in
a <b>May 18, 2018</b> <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/sherrod-brown-letter-president-trump-WH-Global-Health-Security-5.18.18.pdf"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">letter</span></a> to
President Trump:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“In our globalized world, where diseases are never more than a plane ride away,
we must do all we can to prepare for the next, inevitable outbreak and keep
Americans safe from disease. I urge you to act swiftly in reaffirming your
commitment to global health security by taking immediate action to designate
senior level NSC personnel to focus on global health security, supporting
adequate and appropriate funding for global health security initiatives, and
leading the way in preparing for the next pandemic threat.” (<span style="color: red;">W9</span>)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In <b>September of 2018, </b>Trump's Department of
Health and Human Services <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-immigrant-children-detention-hhs-cuts-funds-programs-like-cancer-research-230259583.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">diverted $266 million</span></a> from the CDC to operations to detain immigrant
children. (20)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In <b>January of 2019</b>, the Office of the Director of National
Intelligence put out a threat assessment warning that “<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/u-s-intel-agencies-warned-rising-risk-outbreak-coronavirus-n1144891"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the United States and the world will remain
vulnerable</span></a> to the next flu pandemic or large-scale
outbreak of a contagious disease that could lead to massive rates of death and
disability, severely affect the world economy, strain international resources,
and increase calls on the United States for support.” (<span style="color: red;">W10</span>)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In their <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/budget/documents/fy2020/fy-2020-detail-table.pdf"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">fiscal year 2020 budget</span></a>, released in <b>March of 2019</b>, the Trump administration
proposed a <a href="https://inkstickmedia.com/budget-cuts-have-made-the-us-less-ready-for-coronavirus/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">20% cut</span></a> to
the CDC (21).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>April 17, 2019</b>, at a bio-defense summit,
Health and Human Services secretary Alex Azar <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/03/politics/kfile-officials-worried-over-pandemic-last-year/index.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">said</span></a>,
“Of course, the thing that people ask: ‘What keeps you most up at night in the
biodefense world?’ Pandemic flu, of course. I think everyone in this room
probably shares that concern.” (<span style="color: red;">W11</span>)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">According to John Bolton, on <b>June 29, 2019</b>, when Trump met with
Chinese president Xi Jinping in Japan, Trump “turned the conversation to
the coming U.S. presidential election, alluding to China’s economic capability
and pleading with Xi to ensure he’d win. He stressed the importance of farmers
and increased Chinese purchases of soybeans and wheat in the electoral
outcome.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In <b>July of 2019</b>, under pressure from industry groups, the
administration quietly <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/disability/news/2020/04/21/483545/trump-administrations-deregulation-nursing-homes-leaves-seniors-disabled-higher-risk-covid-19/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">seeded a future disaster</span></a> by “relaxing the requirements tied to infection
control” in nursing homes. (22) <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In <b>September of 2019</b>, a “<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Mitigating-the-Impact-of-Pandemic-Influenza-through-Vaccine-Innovation.pdf"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">study by the Council of Economic Advisers</span></a> ordered by the National Security Council <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/2020/04/trump-ignored-white-house-economists-warning-of-devastating-impact-of-pandemic-months-ago-report/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">predicted</span></a> that
a pandemic similar to the 1918 Spanish flu or the 2009 swine flu could lead to
a half-million deaths and cost the economy as much as $3.8 trillion.” (<span style="color: red;">W12</span>)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That same month, <a href="https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2020-04-02/coronavirus-trump-pandemic-program-viruses-detection"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the Trump administration ended PREDICT</span></a>, “a <span style="background: white; color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">pandemic early-warning program aimed at training scientists
in China and other countries to detect and respond to such a threat.</span>”<span style="background: white; color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"> The
program </span>“<span style="background: white; color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">gathered specimens from more than 10,000 bats and 2,000 other
mammals in search of dangerous viruses. They detected about 1,200 viruses that
could spread from wild animals to humans, signaling pandemic potential. More
than 160 of them were novel coronaviruses, much like SARS-CoV-2.</span>”<span style="background: white; color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"> (23)</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">On <b>October
25, 2019</b>, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden </span><a href="https://twitter.com/joebiden/status/1187829299207954437?lang=en"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;">tweeted</span></a><span style="background: white;"> “</span>We are not
prepared for a pandemic. Trump has rolled back progress President Obama and I
made to strengthen global health security. We need leadership that builds
public trust, focuses on real threats, and mobilizes the world to stop
outbreaks before they reach our shores.” (<span style="color: red;">W13</span>)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>November 18, 2019</b>, one day after <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3074991/coronavirus-chinas-first-confirmed-covid-19-case-traced-back"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the first known case</span></a> of COVID-19, “an independent, bipartisan panel formed
by the Center for Strategic and International Studies <a href="https://healthsecurity.csis.org/final-report/?utm_campaign=KFF-2018-Daily-GHP-Report&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=79793549&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8HgwTDqeSUbA_EHRDOE3KL1aGBFeH4zjEJexxgVfmkTZC-B8TqCB1McjhjEOkNhdpC0RVP5Nuu3yr8YInPmfooPQxRjMRUUwP2xuQuwxLHAk_05OA&_hsmi=79793549"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">concluded</span></a><span style="color: #3d85c6;"> </span>that lack of preparedness was so
acute in the Trump administration that the ‘United States must either pay now
and gain protection and security or wait for the next epidemic and pay a much
greater price in human and economic costs.’” (<span style="color: red;">W14</span>)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">January 3, 2020-March 12, 2020 </span></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><span style="color: black;">Trump’s original sin. 70 lost days during which
the administration fails to get functional tests or PPE out and refuses to
publicly advocate for social distancing and masks. As infections spread
undetected, the president lies, denies, and minimizes.</span></i><i><o:p></o:p></i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Though Josh
Margolin and James Gordon Meek of ABC News would later <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Politics/intelligence-report-warned-coronavirus-crisis-early-november-sources/story?id=70031273&id=70031273&__twitter_impression=true"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">report</span></a> that the White House had been briefed
about the coronavirus in December of 2019, the administration’s story is that
they were <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/3/21/21189179/coronavirus-trump-intelligence-reports-warned-pandemic"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">first informed</span></a> of the coronavirus on <b>January 3, 2020, </b>when
CDC head Robert Redfield received a phone call from Chinese officials.<b> </b>Around
this time, intelligence services began putting information about coronavirus
in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2020/04/04/coronavirus-government-dysfunction/?arc404=true"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump's Daily Brief</span></a>. (<span style="color: red;">W15</span>)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>January 8</b>, the American public was made aware
of COVID-19 when <i>the Washington Post</i> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/specter-of-possible-new-virus-emerging-from-central-china-raises-alarms-across-asia/2020/01/08/3d33046c-312f-11ea-971b-43bec3ff9860_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> an
outbreak of an “‘unidentified and possibly new viral disease in central China’
that was sending alarms across Asia in advance of the Lunar New Year travel
season.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Already, “Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Thailand and the
Philippines were contemplating quarantine zones and scanning travelers from
China for ‘signs of fever or other pneumonia-like symptoms that may indicate a
new disease possibly linked to a wild animal market in Wuhan.’”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In response, the CDC <a href="https://emergency.cdc.gov/han/han00424.asp"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">issued</span></a> a public health alert. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Rather than address the new potential public health crisis,
Trump tried to score cheap partisan points by <a href="https://www.politifact.com/article/2020/jan/08/fact-checking-donald-trumps-speech-after-iran-miss/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">lying</span></a> about
Barack Obama's <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2018-08-13/how-we-got-iran-deal"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Iran peace deal</span></a> at that day’s press conference (24).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar wasn't able to get Trump’s
ear about the coronavirus until <b>January 18</b>, fifteen days after the
administration claims they had been notified (25). <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/us-intelligence-reports-from-january-and-february-warned-about-a-likely-pandemic/2020/03/20/299d8cda-6ad5-11ea-b5f1-a5a804158597_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">According to</span></a> <i>the
Washington Post</i>, Trump was more concerned about short-term political
pressure than public health: “When [Azar] reached Trump by phone, the
president interjected to ask about [a proposed ban on] vaping and when flavored
vaping products would be back on the market.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That same day, Rick Bright, who headed <span style="background: white; color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">the Biomedical Advanced Research and
Development Authority (BARDA), </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/09/us/politics/whistle-blower-trump-coronavirus.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200510&instance_id=18372&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=27142&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">pleaded</span></a><span style="background: white; color: black;"> with
his boss, Dr. Robert Kadlec (</span>the
assistant secretary for preparedness and response) <span style="background: white; color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">to </span>“convene
high-level meetings about the virus.” Kadlec responded that was “not sure
if that is a time sensitive urgency.” (26)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>January 21</b>, the day the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/21/health/cdc-coronavirus.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">first coronavirus case</span></a> in the U.S. was confirmed by the CDC, Dr. Bright
emailed Laura Wolf (the director of the Division of Critical
Infrastructure Protection, which is under the HHS Office of the Assistant
Secretary for Preparedness and Response). The email <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/in-the-early-days-of-the-pandemic-the-us-government-turned-down-an-offer-to-manufacture-millions-of-n95-masks-in-america/2020/05/09/f76a821e-908a-11ea-a9c0-73b93422d691_story.html?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">asked</span></a> Wolf
to reach out to Michael Bowen, the CEO of Prestige Ameritech, a domestic
medical supply company. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Appearing on CNBC on <b>January 22</b>, Trump
offered the first of dozens of false reassurances when he told an interviewer,
“We have it totally under control. It's one person coming in from China, and we
have it under control. <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/22/trump-on-coronavirus-from-china-we-have-it-totally-under-control.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">It’s going to be just fine</span></a>.” (27) Asked if he trusted the COVID-related information he
was getting from China, Trump said he did because “I have a great relationship
with President Xi” and “We just signed probably the biggest deal ever made.”
(In reality, Trump was covering up for Xi; Trump's intelligence briefings
had <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/presidents-intelligence-briefing-book-repeatedly-cited-virus-threat/2020/04/27/ca66949a-8885-11ea-ac8a-fe9b8088e101_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">made it clear</span></a> China was suppressing information about the virus, but
Trump was more concerned about increasing trade with China, which he thought
could help him win a second term.)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Earlier in the day, Michael Bowen had emailed “top administrators in the
Department of Health and Human Services” and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/in-the-early-days-of-the-pandemic-the-us-government-turned-down-an-offer-to-manufacture-millions-of-n95-masks-in-america/2020/05/09/f76a821e-908a-11ea-a9c0-73b93422d691_story.html?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">offered to produce 1.7 million N95 masks per
week</span></a> for the national stockpile. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Bowen's offer was turned down by Laura Wolf, so he sent a follow-up email
on <b>January 23 </b>which stated “We are the last major
domestic mask company....My phones are ringing now, so I don’t ‘need’
government business. I’m just letting you know that I can help you preserve our
infrastructure if things ever get really bad. I’m a patriot first, businessman
second.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Despite Rick Bright's warnings about a coming shortage of
masks (<span style="color: red;">W16</span>)—the national stockpiles had
around <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/in-the-early-days-of-the-pandemic-the-us-government-turned-down-an-offer-to-manufacture-millions-of-n95-masks-in-america/2020/05/09/f76a821e-908a-11ea-a9c0-73b93422d691_story.html?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">1/50th</span></a> of
what the country would need during a pandemic—and multiple emails from Bowen
alluding to the “imminent risk” of a mask shortage and the mass
orders he was getting from China and Hong Kong, the administration would
never follow through on Bowen's offer. (28) </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">This indifference was reflected in two meetings of Trump's disaster management
team that took place on the 23rd. Bright's concerns about medical supplies and
BARDA's lack of funds <a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/05/07/coronavirus-whistleblower-hhs-n95-ppe/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">weren't shared by Robert Kadlec or Alex Azar</span></a> (29), who “asserted that the United States would
be able to contain the virus and keep it out of the United States. Secretary
Azar further indicated that the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention]
would look at the issue of travel bans to keep the virus contained.” Bright was
punished for his outspokenness; Azar and Kadlec excluded him from the next
disaster management meeting. (30)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That same day, Trump was briefed by a CIA analyst and National Security Adviser
Robert O'Brien, who communicated that COVID-19 could “spread globally.” (<span style="color: red;">W17</span>)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>January 24</b>, one day after China had <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/28/politics/trump-coronavirus-prepared-national-security/index.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">shut down</span></a> Wuhan
and other cities, Trump <a href="https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1220818115354923009?lang=en"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">tweeted</span></a> praise
of China's “transparency” and said that “It will all work out well.”
This would be just one of <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/15/trump-china-coronavirus-188736"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">fifteen times</span></a> Trump praised China in January and February of 2020.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>January 25</b>, Michael Bowen <a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/05/07/coronavirus-whistleblower-hhs-n95-ppe/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">emailed Bright</span></a> “about the mask shortage, explaining that his company
was getting requests from China and that nearly half of the masks in the U.S.
are imported from Chinese manufacturers. ‘If the supply stops, US hospital will
run out of masks. No way to prevent it.’” Bright <a href="https://www.kmblegal.com/sites/default/files/NEW%20R.%20Bright%20OSC%20Complaint_Redacted.pdf"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">forwarded</span></a> the
information to Kadlec the following day. (<span style="color: red;">W18</span>)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>January 27</b>, “White House aides huddled with
then-acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney in his office, trying to get senior
officials to pay more attention to the virus, according to people briefed on
the meeting. Joe Grogan, the head of the White House Domestic Policy Council,
argued that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/us-intelligence-reports-from-january-and-february-warned-about-a-likely-pandemic/2020/03/20/299d8cda-6ad5-11ea-b5f1-a5a804158597_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the administration needed to take the virus
seriously</span></a> or it could cost the president
his reelection, and that dealing with the virus was likely to dominate life in
the United States for many months.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Mulvaney then began convening more regular meetings. In early
briefings, however, officials said Trump was dismissive because he did not
believe that the virus had spread widely throughout the United States.” (31)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>January 28</b>, twenty-five days after the
administration had officially become aware of coronavirus, on the day that
China’s president met with the Director-General of the World Health
Organization to map out responses to COVID-19, the same day that Department of
Veterans Affairs senior medical adviser Dr. Carter Mecher told colleagues
that “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/us/politics/coronavirus-trump-response.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the projected size of the outbreak already
seems hard to believe</span></a>” and mitigation efforts would soon
be necessary on a “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/us/politics/coronavirus-red-dawn-emails-trump.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Red Dawn</span></a>” email
(<span style="color: red;">W19</span>), CNN <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/28/politics/trump-coronavirus-prepared-national-security/index.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that
“Trump has not…named a single official within the White House responsible for
coordinating the administration's response. (32) That has some wondering
whether enough is being done in advance of a potential crisis, particularly
since the role of the National Security Council under Trump has shifted away
from leading a response to a health crisis to merely coordinating between
agencies.” </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump’s indifference was <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/31/coronavirus-china-trump-united-states-public-health-emergency-response/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a direct contrast to Barack Obama</span></a>, who had “<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/01/now-trump-needs-deep-state-fight-coronavirus/605752/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">anointed</span></a> a
former vice presidential staffer, Ronald Klain, as a sort of ‘epidemic czar’
inside the White House, clearly stipulated the roles and budgets of various
agencies, and placed incident commanders in charge in each Ebola-hit country
and inside the United States.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On the same day Trump was told (again) by an intelligence briefer that China
was “<a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/05/02/849619486/trump-received-intelligence-briefings-on-coronavirus-twice-in-january"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">withholding data</span></a>” about COVID-19, he <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?468445-1/president-trump-rally-wildwood-jersey"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">gushed</span></a> at
a campaign rally in New Jersey that he had “signed a fantastic new trade
agreement with China that will boost New Jersey exports and defend New Jersey
jobs.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>January 29</b>, Peter Navarro, an economic
adviser to Donald Trump, sent a memo to the White House warning that <a href="https://www.axios.com/exclusive-navarro-deaths-coronavirus-memos-january-da3f08fb-dce1-4f69-89b5-ea048f8382a9.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">coronavirus could kill up to 543,000 Americans</span></a>. (<span style="color: red;">W20</span>) Despite Navarro's
memo, and the fact that the U.S. had yet to take any significant actions
to counteract the coronavirus (33), Trump continued his narrative of false
assurances with a tweet that he had “Just received a briefing on the
Coronavirus in China from all of our GREAT agencies, who are also working
closely with China. We will continue to monitor the ongoing developments. We
have the best experts anywhere in the world, and they are on top of it 24/7!”
(34) </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On Thursday, <b>January 30, </b>World Health Organization (WHO)
director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared a global health emergency
while praising China’s efforts to contain the virus. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On a flight to campaign appearances in the Midwest, Trump
received a call from Alex Azar, who warned him a second time of the destructive
potential of the pandemic. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/us/politics/coronavirus-trump-response.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump dismissed Azar as "alarmist</span></a>." (35) </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Later that day, speaking in front of Michigan auto workers on the day the WHO
had declared a global health emergency, the day the CDC <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020/p0130-coronavirus-spread.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> the
first person-to-person transmission in the U.S., Trump said, “We think we have
it very well under control. We have very little problem in this country at this
moment — five. And those people are all recuperating successfully. But we’re
working very closely with China and other countries, and we think it’s going to
have a very good ending for it. So that I can assure you.” (36)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross doubled down on Trump’s
denial, <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/wilbur-ross-says-coronavirus-will-help-to-accelerate-the-return-of-jobs-to-north-america-2020-01-30"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">telling</span></a> <i>Fox
Business News</i> that the virus “will help to accelerate the return of
jobs to North America." (37)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Though Ross claimed the virus would increase job growth, and
Trump was confident that the U.S. had “very little problem” with the virus, the
Trump Administration delivered one of a string of <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-03-30/trumps-mixed-messages-confuse-coronavirus-response"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">mixed messages</span></a> (38) when they announced the formation of a
Coronavirus Task Force on the same day.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In contrast to the efficient and responsive crisis
management model <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2017/01/ten-reasons-barack-obama-is-clearly.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Barack Obama</span></a> had
set up, in which Ron Klain coordinated actions among diverse agencies, Trump’s
commission had confusing lines of authority, where “<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/07/trump-coronavirus-management-style-123465"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">at least three different people</span></a>—[Health and Human Services head Alex] Azar, Vice President
Mike Pence and coronavirus task force coordinator Debbie Birx—can claim
responsibility.” (39) In a crisis where immediate, decisive action was needed,
the administration chose a slow-moving model choked with discussion and
deliberation which focused on closing off borders <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2020/04/04/coronavirus-government-dysfunction/?arc404=true"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">rather than</span></a> testing
and tracing and countrywide mitigation (40).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Klain offered a prescient prognosis at <i>the Atlantic
Monthly</i>: “The U.S. government has the tools, talent, and team to help
fight the coronavirus abroad and minimize its impact at home. But the
combination of Trump’s paranoia toward experienced government officials (who
lack ‘loyalty’ to him), inattention to detail, opinionated rejection of science
and evidence, and isolationist instincts may prove toxic when it comes to
managing a global-health security challenge. <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/01/now-trump-needs-deep-state-fight-coronavirus/605752/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">To succeed, Trump will have to trust the kind
of government experts he has disdained to date, set aside his own terrible
instincts, lead from the White House, and work closely with foreign leaders and
global institutions—all things he has failed to do in his first 1,200 days in
office</span></a>.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Writing in <i>Foreign Policy </i>the next
day, <b>January 31</b>, Laurie Garrett (a Pulitzer-winning science
journalist) posed an important question: “The epidemic control
efforts unfolding today in China—including placing some 100 million citizens on
lockdown, shutting down a national holiday, building enormous quarantine
hospitals in days’ time, and ramping up 24-hour manufacturing of medical
equipment—are indeed gargantuan. It’s impossible to watch them without
wondering, ‘What would we do? <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/31/coronavirus-china-trump-united-states-public-health-emergency-response/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">How would my government respond if this virus
spread across my country</span></a>?’”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Her government that day declared <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2020/01/31/secretary-azar-declares-public-health-emergency-us-2019-novel-coronavirus.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a public health emergency</span></a> and restricted Americans who had been in China over
the past two weeks from re-entering the country.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump presented the decision as a <i><span style="background: white; color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">coup de grâce</span></i><span style="background: white; color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"> to the pandemic. </span>Speaking
to Fox’s Sean Hannity on <b>February 2</b>, Trump said, “We pretty much
shut it down coming from China.” (41) In fact, as Ron Klain would mention to
Congress a few days later, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/14/tracking-trumps-false-or-misleading-coronavirus-claims/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">over 100,000 people</span><span style="color: black;">*</span></a> had
come to the States from China in the month before the ban, so “the horse is
already out of the barn.” (*<i>the New York Times </i>would later point
out that this was a significant underestimate, as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/04/us/coronavirus-china-travel-restrictions.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">430,000 travelers</span></a> would enter the country from China from January-April
of 2020, including <a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-trump-china-travel-ban-45a2da12-8063-4ad9-ba28-61cdeb1ce0b3.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">40,000</span></a> after
the travel ban, 42)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump would go on to brag repeatedly about the China ban as an example of a
gutsy leadership move, but he made the decision reluctantly (after Delta
Airlines and American Airlines had suspended flights from China and
United <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/one-final-viral-infusion-trumps-move-to-block-travel-from-europe-triggered-chaos-and-a-surge-of-passengers-from-the-outbreaks-center/2020/05/23/64836a00-962b-11ea-82b4-c8db161ff6e5_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">notified</span></a> the
White House that they were about to do so) and he wouldn't restrict travel
from Europe, which brought <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/one-final-viral-infusion-trumps-move-to-block-travel-from-europe-triggered-chaos-and-a-surge-of-passengers-from-the-outbreaks-center/2020/05/23/64836a00-962b-11ea-82b4-c8db161ff6e5_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">many more travelers</span></a> into the U.S.. than China and would provide <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/science/new-york-coronavirus-cases-europe-genomes.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the bulk of New York's cases</span></a>, for six more weeks (43). In just the month of February,
two million Europeans would come to the U.S., <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-spread.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">hundreds</span></a> bringing
the virus with them. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In a <b>February 3</b> <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2020/2/3/laurie_garrett_coronavirus_trump_admin_response"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">interview</span></a> with
Amy Goodman on <i>Democracy Now</i>, Laurie Garrett explained that John
Bolton’s dissolution of the pandemic response office (see #17) was done out of
spite: “it was a big mistake by the Trump administration to obliterate the
entire infrastructure of pandemic response that the Obama administration had
created. Why did he do it? Well, it certainly wasn’t about the money, because
it wasn’t a heavily-funded program. It was certainly because it was Obama’s
program.” (44)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Pressed by Goodman to provide more detail about the Global
Security Office, Garrett continued: </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“It was a special division inside the National Security Council, a special
division inside of the Department of Homeland Security…and collaborating
centers in HHS, headquarters in Washington, the Office of Global Health Affairs,
and the Commerce Department, Treasury Department. But what Obama understood,
dealing with Ebola in 2014, is that any American response had to be an
all-of-government response, that there were so many agencies overlapping, and
they all had a little piece of the puzzle in the case of a pandemic.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“...What the Obama administration realized was that you can’t corral multiple
agencies and things from private sector as well as public sector to come to the
aid of America, unless you have some one person in charge who’s really the
manager of it all. And in his case, it was Ron Klain, who had worked under Vice
President Biden. And he was designated, with an office inside the White House,
to give orders and coordinate all these various things….Well, that was all
eliminated. It’s gone. And now they’re hastily trying to recreate something.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>February 4</b>, <i>the Wall Street Journal</i> posted
an <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/stop-a-u-s-coronavirus-outbreak-before-it-starts-11580859525"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">op-ed</span></a> by
Trump’s former FDA commissioner, Scott Gottlieb, titled “Stop a U.S.
Coronavirus Outbreak Before It Starts,” in which he stressed the importance of
ramping up testing for the virus so that public health officials would know
where to focus their efforts. (<span style="color: red;">W21</span>)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That same day, the administration rolled out new regulatory
guidelines. Any lab that wanted to test needed to meet strict criteria to get
an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA). Though Trump had <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/climate/trump-environment-rollbacks.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">gutted every environmental regulation</span></a> in sight, and <a href="https://prospect.org/economy/trump-s-assault-financial-reform/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">scaled back</span></a> oversight
of Wall Street, his FDA over-regulated this crucial public health function
(45), <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2020/03/the-fda-is-forcing-the-cdc-to-waste-time-double-testing-some-coronavirus-cases/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">forcing public health labs to re-run their
tests</span></a>, which would delay reporting of the
number of confirmed cases (46), robbing public health officials of vital
information about the spread of infection in their areas. The EUA also slowed
down private labs by demanding that they get CDC approval before using their
tests (47).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>February 5</b>, <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/senator-says-white-house-turned-down-emergency-coronavirus-funding-in-early-february/ar-BB11OvE1"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Democratic senators met with administration
officials and proposed emergency funding</span></a> “for
essential preventative measures, including hiring local screening and testing
staff, researching a vaccine and treatments and the stockpiling of needed
medical supplies.” (<span style="color: red;">W22</span>)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">HHS secretary Azar declined the funding, claiming it wasn’t needed. (48)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">After the meeting, Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut <a href="https://twitter.com/chrismurphyct/status/1244640034386579457"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">tweeted</span></a> “Just
left the Administration briefing on Coronavirus. Bottom line: they
aren’t taking this seriously enough. Notably no request for ANY emergency
funding, which is a big mistake. Local health systems need supplies, training,
screening staff etc. And they need it now.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>February 6</b>, the World Health Organization shipped out <a href="https://www.una-sf.org/covid19-resolution"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">250,000 test kits</span></a>.
The administration could have requested WHO kits, but insisted that the U.S.
develop its own tests. That day, the CDC shipped out <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2020/04/04/coronavirus-government-dysfunction/?arc404=true"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">90 test kits</span></a>.
(49)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>February 7</b>, the same day World Health
Organization head T<span style="background: white;">edros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that </span>“<span style="background: white;">The world is
facing </span><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-who/who-warns-of-global-shortage-of-coronavirus-protective-equipment-idUSKBN2011EK"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">a chronic shortage</span></a><span style="background: white;"> of
gowns, masks, gloves and other protective equipment in the fight against a
spreading coronavirus epidemic,</span>” the same
day that Rick Bright's suggestion that the federal government begin mass
production of masks <a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/05/07/coronavirus-whistleblower-hhs-n95-ppe/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">was rejected</span></a> by
Trump's disaster management team, (50) Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
tweeted about <span style="background: white;">“the transportation of nearly 17.8 tons of donated medical
supplies...including masks, gowns, gauze, respirators, and other vital
materials</span>”—<a href="https://www.ourquadcities.com/news/local-news/u-s-sent-17-8-tons-of-masks-respirators-other-ppe-to-china-in-february/"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">to China</span></a><span style="background: white;">. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; color: black;">These shipments represented just a fraction of the vital medical
supplies, later desperately needed inside our borders, which would be
exported from the U.S. due to the Trump administration's </span><a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/04/01/coronavirus-medical-supplies-export/"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">failure to plan ahead</span></a><span style="background: white; color: black;"> and
ban exports, as Germany, South Korea, and twenty-two others countries did. (51)</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; color: black;">Asked at a news conference that day if he was concerned that China was covering
up the full extent of the virus, Trump </span><a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-marine-one-departure-82/"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">replied</span></a><span style="background: white; color: black;"> “</span>No. China is working very hard. Late last night, I had a
very good talk with President Xi, and we talked about — mostly about the
coronavirus. They’re working really hard, and I think they are doing a very
professional job. They’re in touch with World — the World — World
Organization. CDC also. We’re working together. But World Health is working
with them. CDC is working with them. I had a great conversation last night with
President Xi. It’s a tough situation. I think they’re doing a very good job.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; color: black;">He said much the same thing on Twitter, where he praised China's leadership and
pushed misinformation about warm weather ending COVID-19: “</span>Just had a long and very good conversation by phone with
President Xi of China. He is strong, sharp and powerfully focused on leading
the counterattack on the Coronavirus. He feels they are doing very well, even
building hospitals in a matter of only days. Nothing is easy, but.......he will
be successful, especially as the weather starts to warm & the virus
hopefully becomes weaker, and then gone. Great discipline is taking place in
China, as President Xi strongly leads what will be a very successful operation.
We are working closely with China to help!”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">Rick Bright
continued his focus on medical supplies on <b>February 8</b>, when he met
with Trump's economic adviser, Peter Navarro (see </span><span style="background: white; color: red;">W20</span><span style="background: white; color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">). Bright and Navarro "</span><a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/05/07/coronavirus-whistleblower-hhs-n95-ppe/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">drafted a memo</span></a> sent to the White House coronavirus task force that
called for the U.S. to immediately halt the export of N95 masks and ramp up
production." (<span style="color: red;">W23</span>)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white; color: black;">On <b>February 9</b>, "</span>a
group of governors in town for a black-tie gala at the White House secured a
private meeting with [<span style="background: white; color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">Dr. </span>Anthony] Fauci and [CDC head Robert]
Redfield. The briefing rattled many of the governors, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2020/04/04/coronavirus-government-dysfunction/?arc404=true"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">bearing little resemblance</span></a> to the words of the president.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>February 10</b>, Trump repeated a false talking point multiple
times. “Trump <a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-interview-trish-regan-fox-business-february-10-2020"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">said</span></a> on
Fox Business: ‘You know in April, supposedly, it dies with the hotter
weather.’” (52) He <a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-remarks-business-meeting-governors-february-10-2020"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">told state governors</span></a>: ‘You know, a lot of people think that goes away in
April with the heat — as the heat comes in. Typically, that will go away in
April.’ (53) And he <a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-speech-kag-rally-manchester-new-hampshire-february-10-2020"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">told supporters</span></a> at a campaign rally: ‘Looks like by April, you
know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away. I
hope that’s true.’” (54) Just before the rally, when asked by Trish Regan of
Fox News about China's COVID-19 transparency, Trump said that the Chinese
“<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAwlsIG9NWg"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">have everything under control</span></a>....We’re working with them. You know, we just sent some of
our best people over there...It's going to be fine.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>February 11</b>, Federal Reserve chairman Jay
Powell contradicted Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross (see #37) when he said that
the coronavirus would “very likely” impact America’s economy.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>February 12,</b> <i>the New York Times</i> reported
that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/12/health/coronavirus-test-kits-cdc.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump’s CDC had sent state labs flawed test
kits</span></a>, further slowing down the testing
process. (55) </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">HHS secretary Alex Azar appeared before a Senate committee
on <b>February 13</b> and said, “As of today, I can announce that the
CDC has begun working with health departments in five cities to use its flu
surveillance network to begin testing individuals with flu-like symptoms for
the Chinese coronavirus….This effort will help see whether there is broader
spread than we have been able to detect so far.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The statement gave the impression that the Trump
administration was making progress in combating the virus, which was false, as
the cities still lacked functional tests and the surveillance systems weren’t
in place. Azar knew this, but was desperate to create positive spin for the
administration (56). </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Valentine’s Day</b>, as worldwide deaths from the
virus were at 1,000 and climbing, Trump spoke before the National Border
Control Council. He again wheeled out the false assertion that warm weather
would douse the virus (57) and said, “We have a very small number of people in
the country, right now, with it. It’s like around 12. Many of them are getting
better. Some are fully recovered already. So we’re in very good shape.” </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>February 18</b>, Trump tweeted <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1229790102949449728"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">opposition</span></a> to
a measure that would limit sales of U.S. technology to China and again defended
President Xi. Asked at a news conference what he thought of “the data
coming out of China,” Trump <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-air-force-one-departure-joint-base-andrews-md-2/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">said</span></a>, “Look,
I know this: President Xi loves the people of China, he loves his country, and
he’s doing a very good job with a very, very tough situation.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Taking stock of Trump's handling of COVID-19 so far, <i>Atlantic </i>contributor
Peter Nicholas <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/02/trump-response-coronavirus/606610/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">offered</span></a> perceptive
summations of the Trump Administration’s failures of governance and the challenges
ahead: “He has hollowed out federal agencies and belittled expertise
(see #1), prioritizing instead his own intuition and the demands of his
political base. But he’ll need to rely on a bureaucracy he’s maligned to stop
the virus’s spread.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The article cited the ramifications of Trump’s allergy to
bad news: “‘We have a president who doesn’t particularly care about
competent administration, and who created a culture in which bad news is shut
down,’ (58) says Democratic Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii, whose state is home
to one of multiple airports screening passengers for the coronavirus. ‘And when
you’re dealing with a potential pandemic, you need to know all the bad news. If
this disease ends up not overwhelming us, that would be a blessing. But it
would not be because the Trump administration was ready. They were not.’”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Nicholas also addressed Trump’s continual lies and
distortions about the scope of the virus: “Since Trump’s first upbeat
assessment, the number of people sickened by the virus has spiraled. At the
time of the CNBC interview (see #27), 17 people in China had died from the
virus and about 540 were infected. Today, the death toll is about 1,900 and the
number of infections tops 73,000. At least 15 cases have been reported in the U.S.,
and <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/fourteen-americans-headed-home-from-coronavirus-cruise-ship-test-positive-11581931972"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">an additional 14 Americans</span></a> infected with the virus arrived yesterday following
their evacuation from a cruise ship in Japan.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Undeterred by scientific facts, Trump pushed the warm
weather myth again on <b>February 19</b>, telling a reporter “I think it’s
going to work out fine. I think when we get into April, in the warmer weather,
that has a very negative effect on that and that type of a virus. So let’s see
what happens, but I think it’s going to work out fine.” (59) </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">He also went to bat for President Xi. Asked how confident he was “that China is
being 100 percent honest with us when it comes to this scary virus?,” Trump
said, “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylx23c8WUZI"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">I’m confident that they’re trying very hard</span></a>....I know President Xi. I get along with him very well. We
just made a great trade deal....I think it’s going to work out fine.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>February 20</b>, <i>Politico</i> <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/20/cdc-coronavirus-116529"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> on
the flawed test kits the CDC had sent out and mentioned that the cost of the
kits was so high ($250/each) that Trump’s Health and Human Services department
was starting to run out of money (60)—which could have been avoided if Azar had
accepted additional congressional funding proposed on February 5 (see #48).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The coronavirus task force met on <b>February 21</b>. Reviewing the
escalation in cases abroad, the group “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/us/politics/coronavirus-trump-response.html"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">concluded</span></a><span style="background: white; color: black;"> they
would soon need to move toward aggressive social distancing, even at the risk
of severe disruption to the nation’s economy and the daily lives of millions of
Americans.</span>”<span style="background: white; color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Early on the morning of <b>February 23</b>, Michael Mina, an
epidemiologist and professor at Harvard, <a href="https://twitter.com/michaelmina_lab/status/1231503805159813121?lang=en"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">tweeted</span></a> that
“the US remains extremely limited in <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/COVID19?src=hash"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">#COVID19</span></a> testing.
Only 3 of 100 public health labs have <a href="https://twitter.com/cdc"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">@CDC</span></a> test kits working (61) and CDC is not sharing what
went wrong with the kits. How to know if COVID19 is spreading here if we are
not looking for it.” (62)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Later that day, Peter Navarro wrote <a href="https://www.axios.com/exclusive-navarro-deaths-coronavirus-memos-january-da3f08fb-dce1-4f69-89b5-ea048f8382a9.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a memorandum</span></a> to
the president stating that “There is an increasing probability of a
full-blown COVID-19 pandemic that could infect as many as 100 million
Americans, with a loss of life as many as 1-2 million souls...To minimize
economic and social disruption and loss of life, there is an urgent need for an
immediate, supplemental appropriation of at least $3.0 billion dollars to
support efforts at prevention, treatment, inoculation, and diagnostics...Any
member of the Task Force who wants to be cautious about appropriating funds for
a crisis that could inflict trillions of dollars in economic damage and take
millions of lives has come to the wrong administration.” (<span style="color: red;">W24</span>)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Unconcerned with trifles like data, Trump <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-marine-one-departure-83/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">told</span></a> reporters
that day, “We're very much involved. We're very — very cognizant of
everything going on. We have it very much under control in this country.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On Monday, <b>February 24</b>, trying to make up for
previous short-sighted budget cuts, the administration “<a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/02/what-we-know-about-the-trump-admins-response-to-coronavirus.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">asked Congress for $2.5 billion in emergency
funds</span></a> to handle coronavirus in the
United States. (To compare to a recent health crisis, the Obama administration
requested $6 billion in emergency funding for the 2014 Ebola outbreak and
eventually received $5.4 billion.) Though Democrats in Congress have pushed the
administration to call for emergency coronavirus funding since early
February, <i>Politico</i> states that ‘White House officials have
been hesitant to press Congress for additional funding, with some hoping that
the virus would burn itself out by the summer.’” </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The $2.5 billion request was a pittance, approximately 1/1000th the size of
Trump’s tax cut (63), <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/12/18/16791174/republican-tax-bill-congress-conference-tax-policy-center"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">most of which went</span></a> to the wealthiest 1% of Americans. Azar knew the
funding was inadequate, but was hamstrung by administration officials who <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2020/04/04/coronavirus-government-dysfunction/?arc404=true"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">didn't grasp</span></a> the
seriousness of the virus and lacked pull with Trump to override them in favor
of the public interest. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Even as the news grew worse, Trump continued to give false
assurances, tweeting “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the
USA….Stock Market starting to look very good to me!” (64). In fact, Trump had
no idea if things were “under control” because his administration had failed to
get functional test kits out.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That same day, the stock market had its <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/trump-stock-market-starting-look-very-good-plunging-1000-points-2020-2-1028933348"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">second biggest drop</span></a> in its history. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The following day, <b>February 25</b>, the stock market
cratered for the fourth consecutive day, losing 879 points to end at 27,081.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">While the Dow Jones tanked, Nancy Messonier, the director
for the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, <a href="https://www.aappublications.org/news/2020/02/25/preparedness022520"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">made the case for community mitigation</span></a> and told reporters that the virus would cause “severe”
disruptions in American’s lives. Unaware that his public health officials were
planning to propose mitigation efforts, Trump <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/us-intelligence-reports-from-january-and-february-warned-about-a-likely-pandemic/2020/03/20/299d8cda-6ad5-11ea-b5f1-a5a804158597_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">scolded</span></a> Messonier's
ultimate boss, Alex Azar, for the toll her announcement had on the stock market
(65) and the next day demoted Azar, putting Mike Pence in charge of the
coronavirus task force. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/us/politics/coronavirus-trump-response.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">As a result of Trump's temper tantrum</span></a>, the task force's time-sensitive recommendations for social
distancing, school closures, and cancellations of crowded events was put on
hold. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It would be three long, deadly weeks before Trump would finally announce social
distancing recommendations on March 16 (66), during which time the CDC would
later <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6918e2.htm?s_cid=mm6918e2_w"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">estimate</span></a> “COVID-19
cases increased more than 1,000-fold.” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/20/us/coronavirus-cases-deaths.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">According to</span></a> researchers
at Columbia University, the last two weeks of delay cost the lives of tens of
thousands of Americans. (67)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At a time when bipartisan harmony was more important than
ever, Trump trolled Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer on Twitter for
pointing out that $2.5 billion wasn’t remotely adequate to the
task: “Cryin’ Chuck Schumer is complaining, for publicity purposes only,
that I should be asking for more money than $2.5 Billion to prepare for
Coronavirus. If I asked for more he would say it is too much. He didn’t like my
early travel closings. I was right. He is incompetent!” (68)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">And even as it was <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-cuts-programs-responsible-for-fighting-coronavirus-2020-2"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that
“Trump spent the past 2 years slashing the government agencies responsible for
handling the coronavirus outbreak,” Trump tweeted that “CDC and my
Administration are doing a GREAT job of handling Coronavirus.” </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">While in India that day, Trump told reporters, “You may ask
about the coronavirus, which is very well under control in our country. We have
very few people with it, and the people that have it are…getting better.
They’re all getting better….As far as what we’re doing with the new virus, I
think that we’re doing a great job.” (69)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump’s economic adviser Larry Kudlow <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/larry-kudlow-claims-america-has-contained-coronavirus-says-its-pretty-close-to-airtight"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">echoed Trump’s lies</span></a> and contradicted CDC officials when he told CNBC, “We
have contained this, I won’t say airtight but pretty close to airtight.” (70)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Meanwhile, <i>the Washington Post</i> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/shortages-confusion-and-poor-communication-complicate-coronavirus-preparations/2020/02/25/d9e56396-575d-11ea-9b35-def5a027d470_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> on
the severe shortage of N95 masks American hospitals were facing due to onerous
federal regulations (71) and a lack of support from the Trump administration
(72), and the administration’s lack of a plan going forward, which was causing
confusion and panic among state and local officials (73). Though the
administration had had three years to …. As build national reserves of
emergency medical supplies, Azar's testimony to the Senate Appropriations
Committee that day showed <span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">that </span>“<span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">the Strategic National Stockpile had only 30
million masks. That number is less than one one-hundredth of the 3.5 billion
that a </span><a href="https://report.nih.gov/crs/View.aspx?Id=2641"><span style="color: #3d85c6; letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">specialized group</span></a><span style="color: #3d85c6; letter-spacing: 0.15pt;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">within HHS that focuses on the risk
from viral outbreaks has estimated are necessary.</span>”
(74)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The next day, <b>February 26</b>, <i>Politico</i> <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/26/coronavirus-cdc-117779"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that
the “U.S. isn’t ready to detect stealth coronavirus spread” due to poor
coordination among crisis management staff (75), the administration’s failure
to get functional test kits out in a timely fashion (76), and needlessly strict
test criteria: “Just 12 of more than 100 public health labs in the U.S.
are currently able to diagnose the coronavirus because of problems with a test
developed by the CDC, potentially slowing the response if the virus starts
taking hold here. The faulty test has also delayed a plan to widely screen
people with symptoms of respiratory illness who have tested negative for
influenza to detect whether the coronavirus may be stealthily spreading.” </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Only six states were testing for the virus and the testing
was limited to people who had been to China or were experiencing symptoms,
which was allowing the virus to spread undetected. Harvard epidemiology
professor Mark Lipsitch told <i>Politico</i>, “China tested 320,000 people
in Guangdong over a three-week period. This is the scale we need to be thinking
on.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Meanwhile, on the same day he was told that community
spread <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-trumps-frantic-attempts-to-minimize-the-coronavirus-crisis/2020/02/29/7ebc882a-5b25-11ea-9b35-def5a027d470_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">was present</span></a> in
the U.S., Trump <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1232652371832004608"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">tweeted</span></a> that
the U.S. was in “great shape," (77) continued to compare
coronavirus to the flu, though the virus has approximately <a href="https://www.sciencealert.com/the-new-coronavirus-isn-t-like-the-flu-but-they-have-one-big-thing-in-common"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">20 times</span></a> the
mortality rate (78), and told White House reporters, “Because of all we’ve
done, the risk to the American people remains very low….<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-vice-president-pence-members-coronavirus-task-force-press-conference/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">When you have 15 people, and the 15 within a
couple of days is going to be down to close to zero</span></a>. That’s a pretty good job we’ve done.” (79) In
reality, the States had 60 cases at the time, the number was increasing, and
the real number was far greater but undetected due to the administration’s
failure to get functional test kits out. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The poor communication among officials overseeing the
coronavirus response continued, as “[Health and Human Services Secretary Alex]
Azar didn’t know until late in the afternoon that Vice President Mike Pence
would be <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-says-coronavirus-risk-americans-very-low-administration-effectively-handling-n1143756"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">in control</span></a> of
the process. The HHS secretary was reportedly ‘<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-downplays-risk-places-pence-in-charge-of-coronavirus-outbreak-response/2020/02/26/ab246e94-58b1-11ea-9000-f3cffee23036_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">blindsided</span></a>’
by the news.” </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In picking Pence to lead the administration's response to the
coronavirus, Trump referred to his vice president as an “expert” and someone
with “a certain talent for this,” though Pence’s reluctance to support needle
exchange and steep cuts to Planned Parenthood (which provides HIV testing in
addition to birth control) as governor of Indiana <a href="https://www.factcheck.org/2020/02/pence-moved-slowly-in-combating-hiv-outbreak/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">had contributed to an HIV outbreak</span></a> there.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">With Pence’s ascension, FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn was
finally brought into the coronavirus committee. For weeks the FDA’s powers to
work with private companies to increase production of test kits, PPE, and other
medical necessities <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-coronavirus-response-squandered-time/2020/03/07/5c47d3d0-5fcb-11ea-9055-5fa12981bbbf_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">had been ignored</span></a> (80).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As of <b>February 27</b>, 2,800 people had died and
82,000 cases had been reported worldwide. <i>Business Insider</i> had <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/trump-defends-cuts-cdc-budget-federal-government-hire-doctors-coronavirus-2020-2-1028946602"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the following headline</span></a>: “Trump defends huge [19%] cuts to the CDC's budget
(81) by saying the government can hire more doctors 'when we need them' during
crises.” Trump responded to criticisms of the budget cuts by saying, "I'm
a businessperson. I don't like having thousands of people around when you don't
need them….When we need them, we can get them back very quickly." </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Despite the increasing gloom, the administration continued
to play pretend. <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?469774-1/hhs-secretary-azar-testifies-presidents-2021-budget-request"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Appearing</span></a> before
the House Ways and Means committee, Alex Azar said, “The immediate risk to
the public remains low” (82) and “It will look and feel to the American people
more like a severe flu season in terms of the interventions and approaches you
will see.” Trump told an audience attending an African American History
Month event at the White House, “It's going to disappear. One day it's <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/28/trump-coronavirus-misleading-claims"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">like a miracle, it will disappear</span></a>.” (83) He also tweeted “Only a very small number in U.S.,
& China numbers look to be going down. All countries working well
together!” (84)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On Friday, <b>February 28</b>, nearly two months after
the administration had first been informed of the coronavirus, NBC <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/after-missteps-cdc-says-its-coronavirus-test-kit-ready-primetime-n1145206"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that
the U.S. had done fewer than 500 tests, even as China had done over 300,000 and
South Korea was doing 10,000 or more/day. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>ProPublica</i> offered one of many
post-mortems to come, highlighting<a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/cdc-coronavirus-covid-19-test"> <span style="color: #3d85c6;">the grave error the
administration had made in bypassing World Health Organization test kits</span></a> which were ready to go (see #49) in favor of CDC test
kits, which weren’t:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The CDC announced on Feb. 14 that surveillance testing
would begin in five key cities, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco
and Seattle. That effort has not yet begun. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Until the middle of this week, only the CDC and the six
state labs — in Illinois, Idaho, Tennessee, California, Nevada and Nebraska —
were testing patients for the virus, according to Peter Kyriacopoulos, APHL’s
senior director of public policy. Now, as many more state and local labs are in
the process of setting up the testing kits, this capacity is expected to
increase rapidly.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“There are other ways to expand the country’s testing
capacity. Beyond the CDC and state labs, hospitals are also able to develop
their own tests for diseases like COVID-19 and internally validate their
effectiveness, with some oversight from the federal Centers for Medicare and
Medicaid Services. But because the CDC declared the virus a public health
emergency, it triggered a set of federal rules that raises the bar for all
tests, including those devised by local hospitals.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“So now, hospitals must validate their tests with the FDA —
even if they copied the CDC protocol exactly. Hospital lab directors say the
FDA validation process is onerous and is wasting precious time when they could
be testing in their local communities.” (85)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As Margaret Hamburg (Obama’s FDA commissioner from
2009-2015) would later tell Olga Khazan of <i>the Atlantic</i>, “<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/03/why-coronavirus-testing-us-so-delayed/607954/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the [FDA] could have proactively reached out
to different national and international labs to see whether their tests could
be approved for use in the U.S.,” but there’s no evidence that they did</span></a> (86), and in fact the FDA “told one Seattle
infectious-disease expert, Helen Chu, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/10/us/coronavirus-testing-delays.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">to stop testing</span></a> for the coronavirus entirely….Chu was not alone.
Dozens of labs in the U.S. were eager to make tests and willing to test
patients, but they were hamstrung by regulations for most of February, even as
the virus crept silently across the nation.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Uncertainty over the virus contributed to the markets
having <a href="https://www.nbcboston.com/news/business/stocks-tumble-on-virus-fears-wall-street-plunge/2083133/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">their worst week</span></a> since the crash of 2008.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Later that night, even as other countries had started social
distancing in response to the virus, Trump put thousands of his supporters at
risk of exposure with a political rally in North Charleston, South
Carolina. It was one of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2020/04/04/coronavirus-government-dysfunction/?arc404=true"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">eight campaign events</span></a> Trump would have after being notified of coronavirus.
(87)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Asked about administration efforts to combat coronavirus before the rally,
Trump told Sinclair Broadcasting, “<a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-interview-sinclair-media-group-eric-bolling-february-28-2020"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">I think it’s really going well</span></a>. We did something very fortunate: we closed up to certain
areas of the world very, very early — far earlier than we were supposed to. I
took a lot of heat for doing it. It turned out to be the right move, and we
only have 15 people and they are getting better, and hopefully they’re all
better. There’s one who is quite sick, but maybe he’s gonna be fine….We’re
prepared for the worst, but we think we’re going to be very
fortunate.” During the rally, Trump accused Democrats of politicizing the
coronavirus and said <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/02/29/at_sc_rally_trump_blames_dems_for_stoking_virus_fears_142533.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">concern over the issue was a “hoax</span></a>.” (88)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump’s chief of staff Nick Mulvaney used the same talking
point that night, telling reporters at the Conservative Political Action
conference, “The reason you're seeing so much attention to it [the
coronavirus] today is [Democrats] think this is going to be what brings down
the president….That's what this is all about….I got a note today from a
reporter saying, 'What are you going to do today to calm the markets?' I'm
like, really, what I might do to calm the markets is tell people to turn their
televisions off for 24 hours.” (89)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The next day, <b>Saturday, February 29</b>, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/29/health/us-coronavirus-saturday/index.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the first American death at the hand of the
coronavirus “hoax” was reported</span></a>. Speaking
in Maryland before the Conservative Political Action Conference, Trump
said “And we've done a great job. And I've gotten to know these professionals.
They're incredible. And everything is under control. I mean, they're very, very
cool. They've done it, and they've done it well. Everything is really under
control.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Appearing on CBS’s “Face the Nation” the next day, <b>Sunday, March 1</b>,
Alex Azar <a href="https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/03/11/fact-check-a-list-of-28-ways-trump-and-his-team-have-been-dishonest-about-the-coronavirus/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">claimed</span></a> that,
“In terms of testing kits, we've already tested over 3,600 people for the
virus. We now have the capability in the field to test 75,000 people, and
within the next week or two we'll have a radical expansion even beyond
that.” Like most of the Trump administration’s public messaging, this was
false. (90) At the time, less than 1,000 tests had been completed. By
comparison, South Korea, a country 1/6th the size of the U.S., which had
discovered the virus within its borders on the same day—January 20—<a href="https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/mar/25/donald-trump/trumps-boast-about-us-south-korea-coronavirus-test/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">had done over 80,000 tests</span></a>. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As of <b>Monday, March 2</b>, U.S. coronavirus deaths
were up to six; globally over 90,000 cases had been reported.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Dr. Matt McCarthy, a physician at New York-Presbyterian,
told CNBC that he still didn’t have any test kits (91): “‘This is not
good. We know that there are 88 cases in the United States. There are going to
be hundreds by the middle of the week. There’s going to be thousands by next
week. And this is a testing issue.’ McCarthy added, ‘<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/02/coronavirus-new-york-city-doctor-has-to-plead-to-test-people.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">They’re testing 10,000 a day in some
countries, and we can’t get this off the ground</span></a>….I’m a practitioner on the firing line, and I don’t have the
tools to properly care for patients today.’”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Dr. Eva Lee, an infectious disease researcher at the Georgia Institute of
Technology, commented in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/us/politics/coronavirus-red-dawn-emails-trump.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a Red Dawn email</span></a> (see <span style="color: red;">W18</span>) with
Trump administration public health officials: “We need actions, actions,
and more actions. We are going to have pockets of epicenters across the
country, West coast, East coast and the South. Our policy leaders must act now.
Please make it happen!”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At a campaign rally the same day in Charleston, North
Carolina, Trump said, “We had a great meeting today with a lot of the great
companies and they’re going to have vaccines, I think relatively soon. And
they’re going to have something that makes you better and that’s going to
actually take place, we think, even sooner.” <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/public-global-health/484702-health-official-says-coronavirus-vaccine-will-take-at"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">This was patently false</span></a> (92), as Dr. Anthony Fauci, the chief medical
expert on the coronavirus task force, had told Trump earlier that day. Fauci
estimated that it would take a year-and-a-half for a vaccine to emerge. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">After solid gains on Monday, the Dow lost 800 points on <b>Tuesday, March
3</b>, bringing it down to 25,917 at day’s close. Speaking to reporters, Trump
continued to minimize the virus, claiming, “There’s only one hot spot, and
that’s also pretty much in a very — in a home, as you know, in a nursing home.”
In fact, the nursing home in Washington state wasn’t the only cluster of known
coronavirus activity, as California and Oregon had both reported areas of
community contagion. (93)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Wednesday, March 4</b>, the death toll in the
U.S. reached ten and New York reported an infected community. Two months after
the administration had been notified of the virus, and six weeks after Michael
Bowen had written Health and Human Services (HHS) officials about the need for
mass production of masks (see #28), HHS <a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/05/07/coronavirus-whistleblower-hhs-n95-ppe/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">finally ordered</span></a> 500 million N95 masks. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Speaking to airline executives at the White House,
Trump <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-vice-president-pence-coronavirus-briefing-airline-ceos/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">continued to downplay the extent of the crisis</span></a>, saying, “Some people will have this at a very light level
and won’t even go to a doctor or hospital, and they’ll get better. There are
many people like that.” (94) He also blamed the Obama administration for the
lag in testing, claiming an Obama regulation had slowed the administration
down, which was false (95).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump’s lies and blame shifting continued in an interview
with Sean Hannity which appeared later that day. Trump <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/04/politics/donald-trump-obama-testing-lamar-alexander/index.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">falsely claimed</span></a> that the Obama administration “didn’t do anything
about” swine flu and that based purely on his intuition, science-based
coronavirus fatality rates were flawed—“I think the 3.4 percent is really a
false number — and this is just my hunch — but based on a lot of conversations
with a lot of people that do this, because a lot of people will have this and
it's very mild, they'll get better very rapidly. They don't even see a doctor.
They don't even call a doctor. You never hear about those people.” (96)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Friday, March 6</b>, reported cases in the U.S.
passed 300 and deaths were up to 17, including the first on the East Coast.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>The Atlantic </i>ran an
article about <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/03/how-many-americans-have-been-tested-coronavirus/607597/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the administration’s failure to get functional
test kits out</span></a> called “The Strongest Evidence
Yet That America Is Botching Coronavirus Testing.” </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Two months after the Trump administration had first been notified of the
coronavirus and one month after a task force had been formed, only 1,895 tests
could be verified, a fraction of the 10,000-20,000 tests South Korea was
performing daily.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">According to the authors, “The figures we gathered
suggest that the American response to the coronavirus and the disease it causes,
COVID-19, has been shockingly sluggish, especially compared with that of other
developed countries….The net effect of these choices is that the country’s true
capacity for testing has not been made clear to its residents. (97) This level
of obfuscation is unexpected in the United States, which has long been <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Global_Health_and_the_Future_Role_of_the/aaA4DwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=united+states+leader+public+health+disease+surveillance&printsec=frontcover"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a global leader in public-health transparency</span></a>.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Earlier in the day, Trump had appeared at a signing ceremony
for the Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act, which would
dedicate $8.3 billion to fighting the coronavirus. The funding was more than
three times what the administration had requested (see #63) and yet still a
pittance relative to the scope of the virus, roughly <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/12/18/16791174/republican-tax-bill-congress-conference-tax-policy-center"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">1/235th of the amount Trump spent on his tax
cut, the bulk of which went to the upper 1%</span></a>.
(98)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Many public health officials felt the appropriations came a
month too late (99), shortchanging localities of crucial resources for testing
and personal protective equipment. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At the signing, Trump offered false assurances and minimized
the scope of the public health disaster that he was spending $8.3 billion on,
saying, “And in terms of deaths, I don’t know what the count is today. Is it
eleven? Eleven people? And in terms of cases, it’s very, very few.” (100)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">After the signing, Trump visited CDC headquarters in
Atlanta, where <a href="https://www.inquirer.com/health/coronavirus/trump-coronavirus-test-fact-check-20200312.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">he continued to lie about test kits</span></a>: “Anybody that needs a test can have a test. They are
all set. They have them out there. In addition to that they are making millions
more as we speak but as of right now and yesterday anybody that needs a test
that is the important thing and the test are all perfect like the letter was
perfect.” (101)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Asked about the passengers on the Grand Princess cruise ship
docked in San Francisco who were forced to stay on the ship for the time being,
Trump expressed concern that allowing them onshore, where they would be added
to the number of confirmed cases, would make him look bad: “I would rather
— because I like the numbers being where they are. I don’t need to have the
numbers double because of one ship. That wasn’t our fault, and it wasn’t the
fault of the people on the ship, either. OK? It wasn’t their fault either. And
they’re mostly Americans, so I can live either way with it. I’d rather have
them stay on, personally.” (102)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump also said “I hear the numbers are getting much better
in Italy,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/09/world/coronavirus-news.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">though the country was entering a lockdown</span></a> and would experience two hundred more deaths over the
weekend to come.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Saturday, March 7</b>, <i>Politico</i> led
with “<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/07/trump-coronavirus-management-style-123465"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump's mismanagement helped fuel coronavirus
crisis</span></a>,” an in-depth feature by Dan
Diamond exploring the impact of the Trump administration’s internal dysfunctions
on their crisis management response.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Diamond’s <span style="background: white;">exposé </span>revealed
that Mike Pence and other administration officials had wanted to evacuate the
Grand Princess cruise ship in order to keep the passengers who didn’t have
coronavirus from getting it from those who did, but that Trump had overruled
his advisors because he didn’t want the number of reported cases to increase.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The article stated that “As the outbreak has grown, Trump
has become attached to the daily count of coronavirus cases and how the United
States compares to other nations, reiterating that he wants the U.S. numbers
kept as low as possible. Health officials have found explicit ways to oblige
him by highlighting the most optimistic outcomes in briefings (103), and their
agencies have tamped down on promised transparency. The CDC has stopped
detailing how many people in the country have been tested for the virus (104),
and its <a href="http://cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-in-us.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">online dashboard</span></a> is running well behind the number of U.S. cases <a href="https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">tracked</span></a> by
Johns Hopkins and even lags the European Union’s <a href="https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/geographical-distribution-2019-ncov-cases"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">own estimate</span></a> of
U.S. cases.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The article confirmed that onerous regulations and Trump’s
lack of policy engagement (see #2) were key elements in the test delays and
that “Trump’s aides discouraged [HHS Secretary Alex] Azar from briefing the
president about the coronavirus threat back in January” because Trump “rewards
those underlings who tell him what he wants to hear while shunning those who
deliver bad news.” (see #58)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…The pressure to earn Trump’s approval can be a distraction
at best and an obsession at worst: Azar, having just survived a bruising clash
with a deputy [Seema Verma, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
Services] and sensing that his job was on the line, spent part of January
making appearances on conservative TV outlets and taking other steps to shore
up his anti-abortion bona fides and win approval from the president, even as
the global coronavirus outbreak grew stronger.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Around the same time, Azar had concluded that the new
coronavirus posed a public health risk and tried to share an urgent message
with the president: The potential outbreak could leave tens of thousands of
Americans sickened and many dead.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The jockeying for Trump’s favor was part of the cause of
Azar’s destructive feud with Verma, as the two tried to box each other out of
events touting Trump initiatives. Now, officials including Azar, Verma and
other senior leaders are forced to spend time shoring up their positions with
the president and his deputies at a moment when they should be focused on a
shared goal: stopping a potential pandemic. (105)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“‘The boss has made it clear, he likes to see his people
fight, and he wants the news to be good,’ said one adviser to a senior
health official involved in the coronavirus response. ‘This is the world
he’s made.’” (106)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The closing paragraph read “‘If this sort of dysfunction
exists as part of the everyday operations—then, yes, during a true crisis the
problems are magnified and exacerbated,’ said a former Trump HHS official. ‘And
with extremely detrimental consequences.’”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The following day, <b>March 8, </b>as
international cases had passed 100,000 and the importance of social distancing
was becoming increasingly obvious, HUD secretary Ben Carson was asked by ABC’s
George Stephanopoulos about the advisability of Trump holding rallies where
thousands of people were crammed together. Carson, a neurosurgeon who knew
better, <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/week-transcript-20-sen-bernie-sanders-dr-ben/story?id=69465733"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">chose Trump’s favored talking point over
public safety</span></a>: “…going to a rally, if
you’re a healthy individual and you’re taking the precautions that have been
placed out there, there's no reason that you shouldn't go. However, if you
belong to one of those categories of high risk, obviously, you need to think
twice about that.” (107)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As of <b>Monday, March 9</b>, the official tally in the U.S. was over 700
infections and 26 deaths. The Dow lost 2,000 points that day, <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/us-markets-march-9-2020"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the biggest one-day loss in history</span></a>. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Former Republican senator and governor <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/486533-judd-gregg-trump-sails-into-the-perfect-political-storm"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Judd Gregg offered a sober appraisal</span></a> of Trump’s handling of the coronavirus:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The budget he recently submitted to Congress savaged the
BioShield account (108). This is the program that was set up after the SARS
epidemic and anthrax events well over a decade ago to allow the federal
government to fund research on pharmaceutical responses to biological attacks
or a pandemic outbreak.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The program was needed because this type of research is
extremely expensive and has little commercial upside. The drugs developed are
unique and narrowly targeted.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Thus, in order to get this research up and running,
Congress and the prior administrations created the program. In this instance,
Congress actually anticipated a serious issue and began addressing it
effectively.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“But the president and his people got it wrong. In their
usual naive and uninformed style, they have tried to eviscerate the program.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“This action came in the face of significant warnings from
the intelligence community that a biological attack is one of the primary
threats we face from terrorists. And now we know a pandemic is also a primary
threat.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Gregg’s key takeaway: “The president and his people
also have an abysmal track record when it comes to preparing for pandemics.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">While the virus spread undetected, testing continued to move
at a glacial pace, and the Dow was in free fall, Trump kept busy attacking imagined
foes on Twitter.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">One tweet read “This is your daily reminder that it took
Barack Obama until October of 2009 to declare Swine Flu a National Health
Emergency. It began in April of ’09 but Obama waited until 20,000 people in the
US had been hospitalized & 1,000+ had died. Where was the media hysteria
then?” In actuality, Obama had declared a public health emergency <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/news/2009/04/26/press-briefing-swine-influenza"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">two days</span></a> after
the first swine flu death (109).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A second tweet read “The Fake News Media and their partner,
the Democrat Party, is doing everything within its semi-considerable power (it
used to be greater!) to inflame the CoronaVirus situation, far beyond what the
facts would warrant. Surgeon General, ‘The risk is low to the average
American.’” (110)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump also tweeted his mistaken talking point about
coronavirus being akin to the flu, not for the first time: “So last year
37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and
70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on. At this
moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think
about that!” (111)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">By <b>Tuesday, March 10</b>, over 113,000 coronavirus
cases had been reported globally and more than 4,000 people had died.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At a hearing about Trump’s 2021 budget proposal, Russ
Vought, the administration’s director of the Office of Management and Budget
(OMB), <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/finance/486817-trump-budget-chief-holds-firm-on-cdc-cuts-amid-virus-outbreak"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">defended a 15% proposed cut to the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention</span></a> (112)
and a steep cut to the annual contribution to the Infectious Diseases Rapid
Response Reserve Fund. (113)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">More administration failures were uncovered by David Lim
and Brianna Ehley of <i>Politico</i> with <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/10/coronavirus-testing-lab-materials-shortage-125212"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a big scoop</span></a> titled
“U.S. coronavirus testing threatened by shortage of critical lab
materials.” </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The piece detailed how a shortage of lab materials (114) was exacerbating
America’s already-slow pace of testing, thereby jeopardizing public safety
(115) by keeping public health officials from having accurate data about the
number of cases and the areas with high concentration.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Seven weeks after the first
case was discovered in the U.S., just over 5,000 people had been tested, though
“HHS Secretary Alex Azar had told lawmakers [one week earlier] that U.S. labs’
capacity could grow to 10,000-20,000 people per day by the end of the week.”
(116)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">All evidence to the contrary (see #1-#116), Donald Trump
continued to blame his predecessor and pitch the case that his administration
was doing a good job of crisis management. During a briefing at the capital,
Trump said, “As you know, it’s about 600 cases, it’s about 26 deaths, within
our country. And had we not acted quickly, that number would have been
substantially more.” He added that “…I think the U.S. has done a very good job
on testing. We had to change things that were done that were nobody’s fault,
perhaps, they wanted to do something a different way, but it was a much slower
process from a previous administration and we did change them.” </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The next day, <b>Wednesday, March 11</b>, the U.S. had
over 1,000 reported cases and 32 deaths. The World Health Organization (WHO)
declared the coronavirus a pandemic. The Dow lost over 1,000 points for the
second time in three days, ending at 23,553. The National Basketball
Association suspended its season.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">CNN.com posted <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/12/us/coronavirus-testing-problems-nationwide-invs/index.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">an investigative piece</span></a> entitled “Confusion over the availability and criteria
for coronavirus testing is leaving sick people wondering if they're
infected.” </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The article noted that though Mike Pence had recently said on CNN’s “New Day”
that anyone with a doctor’s order could get a test, this was not the case in
practice, as the U.S. was woefully unprepared to provide tests on this scale.
(117)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">People were also not getting tests due to strict CDC
criteria: “In order to be prioritized for testing, the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention advises that one must have a fever, cough or difficulty
breathing as well as have been in close contact with a person known to have
coronavirus. Or, they had to ‘have a history of travel from affected geographic
areas within 14 days of their symptom onset.’”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As the article noted, “only 11,079 specimens [have] been
tested in the U.S., paling in comparison to the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/12/asia/coronavirus-south-korea-testing-intl-hnk/index.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">more than 230,000 people</span></a> tested in South Korea, which has about one sixth the
US population.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Dr. Rod Hochman, the CEO of Providence St. Joseph Health,
told <i>Politico</i>, “Testing is so critically important because it
helps us as clinicians figure out the extent of the spread. It has implications
for how we care for patients and where we put them….It's unraveling the
detective story of how the virus spreads but we are trying to do it now with no
data.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On Rachel Maddow’s show that evening, Ron Klain, who had
been Obama’s Ebola czar (see #39, #41), pointed out that one of the Trump
administration’s biggest mistakes was to privatize testing. <a href="https://buzzflash.com/articles/privatization-may-be-killing-us-mystery-of-why-the-trump-administration-still-hasnt-sent-out-promised-million-cv-tests-as-delay-is-facilitating-transmission-of-the-virus-by-undetected-carriers"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">As related</span></a> by
journalist Thom Hartmann, “Instead of taking the World Health Organization
(WHO) test kits which are cheap and widely available all over the planet, and
having them distributed across the country back in December, or January, or
February when we knew this disease was spreading in the United States, Klain
said that Trump has outsourced the testing to two big American companies, Quest
and Labcorp.” (see #49)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump’s public appearances on Wednesday didn’t inspire
confidence. During a press conference with Ireland’s prime minister, Trump
again minimized the threat by saying, “It goes away….It’s going away. We want
it to go away with very, very few deaths.” (118)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Though the virus was supposedly going away, Wednesday’s
1,000-point drop in the Dow convinced Trump to address the nation in a
prime-time speech that was <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-coronavirus-teleprompter-speech/2020/03/12/81bc8a3a-647a-11ea-acca-80c22bbee96f_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">roundly panned</span></a>. Again he minimized the threat (claiming coronavirus had a
“very, very low risk” for most Americans, 119), cast blame on China and Europe
for having the disease before the U.S., gave confusing information while
ad-libbing that contradicted administration policy (120), and again lied about
the slow pace of testing when he said, “Testing and testing capabilities are
expanding rapidly, day by day. We are moving very quickly.” The address was
meant to reassure the American public and stabilize the markets, but Trump’s
ill-prepared speech <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/12/investing/premarket-stocks-trading/index.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">sent stock futures tumbling in real time</span></a>.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Republican journalist and former W. Bush speechwriter David
Frum <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/trump-ensuring-worst-possible-outcome-coronavirus-crisis/607867/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">predicted the future with uncanny precision</span></a>:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“More people will get sick because of his presidency than if
somebody else were in charge. More people will suffer the financial hardship of
sickness because of his presidency than if somebody else were in charge. The
medical crisis will arrive faster and last longer than if somebody else were in
charge. So, too, the economic crisis. More people will lose their jobs than if
somebody else were in charge. More businesses will be pushed into bankruptcy
than if somebody else were in charge. More savers will lose more savings than
if somebody else were in charge. The damage to America’s global leadership will
be greater than if somebody else were in charge.” </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Thursday, March 12</b>, the day after Trump’s
prime time address meant to reassure the nation and calm the stock market, the
Dow Jones lost almost 1,000 points, ending at 21,200.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In an email thread with Tom Bossert, Trump's former homeland security adviser
(see #12), James Lawler (director of Clinical and Bio-defense Research at
the National Strategic Research Institute) said, “We are making every
misstep leaders initially made in [simulations] at the outset of pandemic planning
in 2006. We had systematically addressed all of these and had a plan that would
work—and has worked in Hong Kong/Singapore. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/us/politics/coronavirus-trump-response.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">We have thrown 15 years of institutional learning
out the window</span></a> and are making decisions based
on intuition. Pilots can tell you what happens when a crew makes decisions
based on intuition rather than what their instruments are telling them.” (121)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The most glaring of the Trump administration’s failures was
its inability to get test kits out. Even Republicans were starting to
grumble, <a href="https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/In-Congress-bipartisan-complaints-to-Trump-15126672.php"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">as detailed in</span></a> “Testing lag ignites political uproar as Trump insists
process is very smooth.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Cutting against Trump’s consistently self-serving narrative,
Anthony Fauci, Trump’s key coronavirus advisor, said, “The system is not geared
toward what we need right now, what you are asking for….<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/it-failing-let-s-admit-it-fauci-says-coronavirus-testing-n1157036"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">It is a failing. Let’s admit it</span></a>.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The piece pointed out that more than two months after the
administration first became aware of the virus, “only about 11,000 people have
been tested, according to figures shared with members of Congress on Thursday.
According to statistics compiled by the American Enterprise Institute,
nationwide capacity to process the test kits being distributed has so far
ramped up only to about 20,000 people per day - meaning it could be weeks
before any tested patient gets results.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Lawmakers of both parties reached for the same touchstone -
South Korea, which has managed to treat hundreds of thousands of its people,
allowing it to avoid the rapid spread seen in China, Italy and other
countries….‘South Korea is able to process tests in an hour, and in the U.S. it
takes more than two days - that's not adequate,’ said Ben Sasse, a Republican
senator from Nebraska.” The article pointed out that South Korea tests in a
single day the number of people the U.S. has tested in over two months, with
drive-up exams which aren’t possible in the U.S. due to strict testing
guidelines. (122)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Burdensome and deadly regulations were further discussed
at <i>ProPublica</i>, which revealed that an FDA directive “requires that
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a sister agency, re-test every
positive coronavirus test run by a public health lab to confirm its accuracy.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The result, experts say, is <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/cdc-coronavirus-covid-19-test"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">wasting limited resources at a time when
thousands of Americans are waiting in line to get tested for COVID-19</span></a>.” (123)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Duplicate tests were just one element of a failed
operation. <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/03/12/814881355/white-house-knew-coronavirus-would-be-a-major-threat-but-response-fell-short"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">The Trump administration’s key mistakes</span></a> were summarized by <i>Politico</i> reporter
Dan Diamond in an interview with NPR’s Terry Gross:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The Trump administration and health officials knew back in
January that this coronavirus was going to be a major threat. They knew that
tests needed to be distributed across the country to understand where there
might be outbreaks. But across the month of February, as my colleague David Lim
at Politico first reported, the tests that they sent out to labs across the
country simply did not work. They were coming back with errors.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The CDC, the Centers for Disease Control, recognized that
and promised that new tests would be distributed soon. But one day turned into
two days turned into three days turned into several weeks, and in the meantime,
we know now coronavirus was silently spreading in different communities, like
Seattle. By the time that the Trump administration made a decision to allow new
tests to be developed by hospitals by clinical laboratories, it was a step that
was seen as multiple weeks late.” (124)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…I don't use this word lightly, Terry, but I'd say that
this testing failure and the broader response to the coronavirus has been a
catastrophe.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…the Trump administration failed to plan for this moment.
There were leadership failures, like failing to think through the implications
of not having a testing strategy in place. (125) There were leadership failures
in allowing feuds to fester for months and months that - in the middle of a
crisis, those cracks have widened and caused delays in making simple decisions.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“He cut funding for a program that predicted when viruses
could jump from animals to humans basically around the same time that this new
coronavirus appears to have jumped from animals to humans in China.” (see
#22)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Amid the disaster unfolding all around and because of him,
Trump continued to lie to the American public. Asked about the lack of testing
at a White House briefing, Trump said, “over the next few days, they're
going to have four million tests out” and “Frankly, the testing has been going
very smooth….If you go to the right agency, if you go to the right area, you
get the test." </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">He even found a way to brag about the administration’s
response:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“It’s going to go away….The United States, because of what I
did and what the administration did with China, we have 32 deaths at this point…when
you look at the kind of numbers that you’re seeing coming out of other
countries, it’s pretty amazing when you think of it.” (126)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">March 13, 2020-late April 16, 2020</span></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><span style="color: black;">The third longest economic expansion in the last
160 years dies on Trump’s watch. Trump signs the CARES Act and reluctantly
agrees with short-term shutdowns. The administration refuses to marshal federal
resources to remotely the scale necessary, leaving most states (especially blue
states) to fight among themselves for overpriced PPE and ventilators. Jared
Kushner works on a national testing and tracing plan, but abandons it. Sensing
that the pandemic will present a health risk for in-person voting, Trump starts
to attack mail balloting in hopes that vote suppression will help him win a
second term. </span></i><i><o:p></o:p></i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><b style="font-family: georgia;">Friday the 13th</b><span style="font-family: georgia;"> was
again all about the test kits. Where were they?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Raw Story</i> reported
that <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/2020/03/were-weeks-into-this-cnn-reporter-crushes-trump-for-just-now-appointing-coronavirus-testing-czar/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the Trump Administration’s Health and Human
Services agency had finally named a testing czar—ten weeks after being notified
of the virus</span></a>. (127)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Caitlin Owens of<i> Axios</i> pointed out that “<a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-testing-labs-delay-a3868ece-a2e5-4ed2-8822-44d20c73774d.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">less than a dozen academic labs” were doing
tests because of strict administration guidelines</span></a>. Medical directors discussed how their requests to test had
been delayed or denied until it was too late. (128)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-51836898"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">According to</span></a> the
BBC, testing capacity in the U.S. was just 22,000 people/day while South Korea,
which is 1/6th the size of the U.S., was testing up to 20,000 people/day. And
the 22,000 projection was very optimistic, according to Andy Slavitt, Barack
Obama’s acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services,
who <a href="https://twitter.com/ASlavitt/status/1238304906219528192"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">tweeted</span></a>,
“We can at best do 10,000 tests/day. We should be able to do millions” and “All
of this could have been ramped up and solved in January & February and
right now we would be talking about containment.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>The Atlantic </i>reported
that <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/03/why-coronavirus-testing-us-so-delayed/607954/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">less than 14,000 tests had been done in the
ten weeks since the administration had first been notified of the virus</span></a>, though Mike Pence had promised the week prior that 1.5
million tests would be available by this time.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The article’s key takeaway?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Getting out lots of tests for a new disease is a major
logistical and scientific challenge, but it can be pulled off with the help of
highly efficient, effective government leadership. In this case, such
leadership didn’t appear to exist.” (129)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Speaking to one of the prime causes of that failure in
leadership, Beth Cameron, who ran Obama’s pandemic office in the National
Security Council, explained <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/nsc-pandemic-office-trump-closed/2020/03/13/a70de09c-6491-11ea-acca-80c22bbee96f_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the disastrous operational vacuum caused by
John Bolton’s closing of the Global Security Office</span> (</a>see
#17): “In a health security crisis, speed is essential. When this new
coronavirus emerged, there was no clear White House-led structure to oversee
our response, and we lost valuable time.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…The job of a White House pandemics office would have been
to get ahead: to accelerate the response, empower experts, anticipate failures,
and act quickly and transparently to solve problems.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Our team reported to a senior-level response coordinator on
the National Security Council staff who could rally the government at the highest
levels, as well as to the national security adviser and the homeland security
adviser. This high-level domestic and global reporting structure wasn’t an
accident. It was a recognition that epidemics know no borders and that a
serious, fast response is crucial.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“A directorate within the White House would have been
responsible for coordinating the efforts of multiple federal agencies to make
sure the government was backstopping testing capacity, devising approaches to
manufacture and avoid shortages of personal protective equipment, strengthening
U.S. lab capacity to process covid-19 tests, and expanding the health-care
workforce. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The office would galvanize resources <a href="https://www.nti.org/analysis/atomic-pulse/united-states-must-lead-fight-against-coronavirus/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">to coordinate a robust and seamless</span></a> domestic and global response. It would identify needs
among state and local officials, and advise and facilitate regular, focused
communication from federal health and scientific experts to provide states and
the public with fact-based tools to minimize the virus’s spread. The White
House is uniquely positioned to take into account broader U.S. and global
security considerations associated with health emergencies, including their
impact on deployed citizens, troops and regional economies, as well as peace
and stability. A White House office would have been able to elevate urgent
issues fast, so they didn’t linger or devolve to inaction, as with coronavirus
testing in the United States.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security director,
piggybacked on these criticisms with a look at <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/white-house-set-fail/607960/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the culture of mis-governance Trump bred and
embodied</span></a>, and Trump’s fixation on his 2020
campaign to the exclusion of all else:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“As the first COVID-19 cases began to spread with alarming
speed and lethality in China, President Trump evidently did not choose to make
the issue a priority. Based on his public comments and Twitter feed, the
incoming information that consumed his attention was more likely to come from
cable television or political gossip than deep inside his intelligence
briefings. (130) Presumably, he also had a certain view of what he’d be doing
in early 2020—chiefly, preparing the ground for his reelection campaign—and
veering off course to prepare for a pandemic would have undermined those
plans. A simple presidential communication of interest in a subject
can set the government in motion, but in this case, that signal apparently
never came.” (131)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…Instead of seeing U.S. government expertise as a resource,
Trump has routinely derided career experts as “deep state” operatives,
insufficiently loyal to him and his agenda. (132) Well into the COVID-19
outbreak, he said things such as ‘A lot of people think that it goes away in
April with the heat,’ or ‘This is a flu.’ I doubt that any government expert
would suggest that Trump say those things. The statements, instead, suggest a
president either making things up or cherry-picking things he’s heard from
non-experts to offer false reassurance to the public.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…By constantly trying to get himself through the news
cycle, Trump has done irreparable damage to the long-term objective of ensuring
that he’s a credible voice on the COVID-19 crisis.” (133)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That night, as the administration got ready to <a href="https://www.vox.com/identities/2020/3/13/21178257/trump-administration-food-stamps-coronavirus-economy"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">take food stamps away from 700,000 Americans
in the middle of a pandemic</span></a> (134),
a 1,000-point loss in the Dow prompted Trump to finally declare a national
emergency. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At a press conference announcing the news, Trump failed to model coronavirus
safety protocols, <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/investigations/2020/04/09/instead-prepping-coronavirus-trump-partied-golfed-held-fundraisers/2941076001/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">as he had done all week</span></a>, shaking hands and standing cheek-by-jowl with other
administration officials (135). Trump also made a <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/3/15/21180518/coronavirus-google-verily-website-testing-trump"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">false claim</span></a> about
Google constructing a testing center and, reality aside, claimed that “the
administration expects 1.4 million tests in the next week and 5 million within
the month.” (<i>ten </i>days later, less than 300,000 tests would be
completed; <i>one month</i> later, <a href="https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">less than three million</span></a> would be completed, 136)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Asked if he took responsibility for the lag in testing,
Trump said, “<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-vice-president-pence-members-coronavirus-task-force-press-conference-3/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">I don't take responsibility at all</span></a> because we were given a set of circumstances, and we
were given rules, regulations, and specifications from a different time that
wasn't meant for this kind of an event with the kind of numbers that we're
talking about.” (137) </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Asked by PBS reporter Yamiche Alcindor how he could say he
had no responsibility for the testing failures despite his appointee’s elimination
of the Global Security Office (see #17), <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2020/mar/13/coronavirus-trump-slams-reporter-for-nasty-question-over-pandemic-response-team-video"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump again ducked responsibility</span></a>, saying “That’s a nasty question…When you say me, I didn’t
do it. We have a group of people [in the administration].” </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That night, after stocks rebounded on news of the
declaration, Trump “sent a note to supporters that included a chart showing the
Dow Jones Industrial Average dramatically rising roughly at the time he <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/13/politics/donald-trump-emergency/index.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">began a news conference declaring a national
emergency over coronavirus</span>.</a> The President signed the chart.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/13/politics/trump-stock-market-gains-signed-photo/index.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">chart</span></a> were
the words “<span style="background: white; color: #222222;">'</span>The President
would like to share the attached image with you, and passes along the following
message: From opening of press conference, biggest day in stock market
history!'” </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Peter Wehner, a conservative Republican who had served under
multiple Republican administrations, summed up the historical moment in
an <i>Atlantic</i> post: “…<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/peter-wehner-trump-presidency-over/607969/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the president and his administration are
responsible for grave, costly errors</span></a>,
most especially the epic manufacturing failures in diagnostic testing, the
decision to test too few people, the delay in expanding testing to labs outside
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and problems in the supply
chain. (138) These mistakes have left us blind and badly behind the curve, and,
for a few crucial weeks, they created a false sense of security. What we now
know is that the coronavirus silently spread for several weeks, without us
being aware of it and while we were doing nothing to stop it. Containment and
mitigation efforts could have significantly slowed its spread at an early,
critical point, but we frittered away that opportunity.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Saturday, March 14</b>, in “From complacency to
emergency: How Trump changed course on coronavirus,” Gary Orr and Nancy Cook
of <i>Politico</i> <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/14/how-trump-changed-course-on-coronavirus-129528"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> on
Donald Trump’s 180-degree turn. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Just three days before he declared a national emergency, Trump had said the
coronavirus “will go away” and that his administration’s “response was ‘really
working out.’” In fact, Trump’s indifference to the crisis had forced city and
state leaders to step up before a federal response of any kind had taken shape.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><o:p>T</o:p>hough he was purportedly now focused on helping the
American people get through an economic crisis, Trump continued to advocate <a href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/coronavirus-payroll-tax-cut-trump-economics-skepticism"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a payroll tax cut</span></a> which would steal revenue from Social Security and
Medicare and give more money in real dollars to the wealthy and upper-middle
class, doing little for the people who needed the money most. (139)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The following <b>Monday, March 16</b>, <i>the
Washington Post</i> led with, “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/03/16/cdc-who-coronavirus-tests/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">How U.S. coronavirus testing stalled</span></a>: Flawed tests, red tape and resistance to using the
millions of tests produced by the WHO.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The key stat-line in the piece was that “From mid-January
until Feb. 28, fewer than 4,000 tests from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention were used out of more than 160,000 produced.” (140)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The CDC had come up with a test quickly, by January 17, but
“From there…U.S. efforts fell quickly behind, especially when compared with the
efforts of the [World Health Organization], which has distributed more than 1
million tests to countries around the world based in part on the method
developed by the German researchers….As early as Feb. 6, four weeks after the
genome of the virus was published, the WHO had shipped 250,000 diagnostic tests
to 70 laboratories around the world.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“By comparison, the CDC at that time was shipping about
160,000 tests to labs across the nation — but then the manufacturing troubles
were discovered, and most would be deemed unusable because they produced
confusing results. Over the next three weeks, only about 200 of those tests
sent to labs would be used.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…U.S. efforts to distribute a working test stalled until
Feb. 28, when federal officials <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/02/27/coronavirus-testing-california/?tid=lk_inline_manual_40&itid=lk_inline_manual_40"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">revised the CDC test</span></a><span style="color: #3d85c6;"> </span>and
began loosening up <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/02/29/new-fda-policy-will-expand-coronavirus-testing/?tid=lk_inline_manual_40&itid=lk_inline_manual_40"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">FDA rules</span> </a>that had limited who could develop coronavirus diagnostic
tests.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Due to the flawed test kits and CDC regulations, as of
February 21, “Health officials across the country began pleading for a test
that worked, or at least the authorization to use another test.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Interviewed for the article was Alex Greninger of the
University of Washington. “His lab had developed its own test and began seeking
approval to use it on patients on Feb. 18. But that test, along with others
that had been developed in various academic centers and hospitals, could not be
used on patients until the FDA relaxed its testing rules.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“[Greninger] noted that many of the state public health labs
had also figured out how to use the CDC test properly — by tossing one of its
components — but were not allowed to actually do so until the FDA approved the
workaround that same day.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“We had all these state public health labs that had a
perfectly good [test] on their hands, and they knew it, they were upset,”
Greninger said.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…As late as Feb. 27, only 203 specimen tests had been run
out of state labs; another 3,125 had been run out of the CDC.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Even as earlier stumbling blocks to mass testing had been
overcome, new hurdles that had been overlooked by the administration (141) were
appearing, as <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/16/coronavirus-testing-glitch-cotton-swabs-132692"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;">reported</span></a> by
David Lim of <i>Politico</i>:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“A potential shortage of cotton swabs and other basic
supplies needed for coronavirus testing is emerging as a new threat to the
Trump administration’s plans to roll out high-volume testing to 2,000 sites
across the country by the end of the week.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…The materials in question include swabs that medical
workers use to collect samples of patients’ phlegm and saliva for testing, and
disposable plastic tips for the pipettes that lab technicians use to transfer
liquids. Testing labs say they’re also concerned about the availability of
personal protective equipment for their staff.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Asked at a press conference that day how he’d rate his
response to the crisis, Trump said, “I’d rate it a ten,” part of a pattern
of <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/trump/you-should-be-saying-congratulations-here-are-116-times-trump-has-praised-his-own-coronavirus-response/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">over 100 self-congratulatory remarks</span></a> he would make throughout his upcoming press
briefings. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The following day, <b>Tuesday, March 17</b>, <i>the
Washington Post</i> published an <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/covid-19-hits-doctors-nurses-emts-threatening-health-system/2020/03/17/f21147e8-67aa-11ea-b313-df458622c2cc_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">article</span></a> about
another disastrous facet of the pandemic which the administration had failed to
prepare for: “Covid-19 hits doctors, nurses and EMTs, threatening health
system.” (142)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In addition to the concern about hospital overcrowding and a
lack of beds, the virus was now threatening the health and lives of the
clinicians tasked with administering to the sick, putting yet another strain on
the system:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Dozens of health-care workers have fallen ill with
covid-19, and more are quarantined after exposure to the virus, an expected but
worrisome development as the U.S. health system girds for an anticipated surge
in infections.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“From hotspots such as the Kirkland, Wash., <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/nursing-home-with-the-biggest-cluster-of-covid-19-deaths-to-date-in-the-us-thought-it-was-facing-an-influenza-outbreak-a-spokesman-says/2020/03/16/c256b0ee-6460-11ea-845d-e35b0234b136_story.html?tid=lk_inline_manual_3&itid=lk_inline_manual_3" title="www.washingtonpost.com"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">nursing home</span></a> where nearly four dozen staffers tested positive for
the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/02/28/what-you-need-know-about-coronavirus/?tid=lk_inline_manual_3&itid=lk_inline_manual_3"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">coronavirus</span></a>,
to outbreaks in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, California and elsewhere, the
virus is picking off doctors, nurses and others needed in the rapidly expanding
crisis.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“They have been put at risk in the United States not only by
the nature of their jobs, but by shortages of protective equipment such as N95
face masks (143) and government bungling of the testing program, which was
delayed for weeks while the virus spread around the country undetected.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Because testing has lagged, health-care workers often have
no way to know whether people walking through the door with respiratory
symptoms are suffering from the flu or covid-19, providers said. Even when
precautions are taken, the virus has found its way into health-care
facilities.” (144)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As clinicians in the trenches struggled with shortages of
protective gear, swabs, and their own illnesses thanks to Trump’s indifference
to the virus for ten weeks, Trump <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/us/politics/trump-coronavirus.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">said</span></a><span style="color: #3d85c6;"> </span>at a press conference, “This is a
pandemic…I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.” One
week earlier he had said that the coronavirus “will go away.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Though the president had changed his tune, many of his
followers still thought the virus was a hoax (see #88). After two months in
which Trump had minimized and dismissed the seriousness of the virus with a
steady stream of propaganda, polling showed that 79% of Democrats understood
that “the worst is yet to come,” while <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/me-worry-coronavirus-it-depends-your-politics-n1160256"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">only 40% of Republicans grasped the obvious</span></a>, a level of ignorance which would lead to a lack of
compliance with public safety guidelines and a major spread in infections in
the ensuing months. (145) Despite Trump’s numerous failures to protect the
public from the virus (#1-#145), 81% of Republicans approved of Trump’s
management of the crisis. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Wednesday, March 18</b>, <i>New York</i> magazine’s
Jonathan Chait discussed <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/03/coronavirus-surge-hospitals-trump-beds-respirators-ventilators-fema-cdc.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">imminent, devastating human consequences</span></a> which could have been significantly reduced with
proper planning in “The Hospital Deluge Is Coming. Washington Has Done Almost
Nothing to Prepare.” His opening paragraph summarized why America found itself
in such a disastrous situation: </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The most efficient first step would have been to prevent
the coronavirus pandemic from spreading in the first place. As many reports
have widely documented, that first step never took place because the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention failed to deploy an effective coronavirus
test. ‘This is such a rapidly moving infection that losing a few days is bad,
and losing a couple of weeks is terrible,’ Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard
Global Health Institute, tells <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-17/coronavirus-testing-shortage-u-s-called-private-sector-too-late"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;">Bloomberg News</span></a>. ‘Losing 2 months is close to disastrous, and that’s what
we did.’</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The loss of those two months deprived the government of any
chance to prevent the pandemic from sweeping across the entire country.
Officials have been forced into reaction mode (146), deploying blunt measures
of closing public spaces to try to slow down the spread. Even so, it is highly
likely that, within a few weeks, the number of infected patients will exceed
the capacity of the hospital system to treat them.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Washington has had weeks and weeks to prepare for this
surge. The three most obvious and foreseeable shortages are hospital beds
(147), respirator masks to protect medical staff (148), and ventilators (the
machines that are needed to pump air into the lungs of patients with the most
serious coronavirus symptoms). (149)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“You would think the government would have spent the last
two months scrambling to produce more of all three. There is no evidence this
has happened, and a great deal of evidence it has not.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The answer to the supply shortage was clear: Trump
needed to invoke the Defense Production Act, which would marshal the resources
of the federal government to mass-produce the medical supplies needed by
American hospitals. Fifty-seven House Democrats had sent <a href="https://andylevin.house.gov/media/press-releases/57-house-members-urge-president-invoke-defense-production-act-authority"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">an open letter</span></a> to Trump on March 13, asking him to trigger the act.
Though the situation was clearly about to become desperate, Trump told a
reporter, “Well, we’re able to do that if we have to. Right now, we haven’t had
to, but it’s certainly ready. If I want it, we can do it very quickly. We’ve
studied it very closely over two weeks ago, actually. We’ll make that decision
pretty quickly if we need it. We hope we don’t need it. It’s a big step.” </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The scale of the administration’s negligence to help prepare
states and localities was laid out with grim statistics: </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Oregon <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/11JLocjh05rPY-1cUnr2X4KSuHDYWHZKD/view"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">sent a letter</span></a> to Vice President Mike Pence on March 3 asking for
400,000 N95 masks. For days, it got no response, and only by March 14 received
its first shipment, of 36,800 masks. But there was a problem. Most of the
equipment they got was well past the expiration date and so ‘wouldn’t be
suitable for surgical settings,’ the state said. (150)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“New York City also put in a request for more than 2 million
masks and only received 76,000; all were expired, said Deanne Criswell, New
York City’s emergency management commissioner.” (151)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Over at <i>Axios, </i>Bob Herman<i> </i><a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-hospital-bed-crunch-capacity-18e22c81-006b-4654-a74c-40ff86488431.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">focused</span></a> on
just one aspect of the coming shortage in “No part of the U.S. has enough
hospital beds for a coronavirus crisis.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Herman reported that, “Every corner of the U.S. is at risk
for a severe shortage of hospital beds as the coronavirus outbreak worsens.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…Why it matters: Total nationwide capacity for health
care supplies doesn't always matter, because hospitals in one area can help out
neighboring systems when they're overwhelmed by a crisis. But these projections
indicate that won't be an option with the coronavirus — everybody will be
hurting at the same time. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“By the numbers: Harvard's projections show if 50% of
all currently occupied hospital beds were emptied and sizable percentages of
Americans were infected, the country would need at least three times more beds
to care for everyone.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Those models line up with James Lawler, an infectious
disease doctor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center who forecasted in a
recent presentation to hospital insiders that the U.S. may eventually have as
many as 96 million cases, resulting in
4.8 million hospitalizations. He told Axios he stands by those
projections.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The U.S. has <a href="https://www.aha.org/statistics/fast-facts-us-hospitals"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">924,000</span></a> total
hospital beds, or less than three beds for every 1,000 people. Roughly 5% of
those beds are in standard intensive care units, where the sickest coronavirus
patients would need to go.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Due to the expected shortage in hospital beds, medical
facilities were delaying heart surgeries, “slow-growing or early-stage
cancers,” and cancer screenings such as mammograms and colonoscopies (152,
153, 154).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Thursday March 19</b>, as the full scale of the
disaster was coming into clearer focus, <i>the New York Times</i> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/19/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-outbreak.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">documented the Trump administration’s failures</span></a> to act on information that was readily available in
“Coronavirus Outbreak: A Cascade of Warnings, Heard but Unheeded.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The piece revealed that Trump’s Health and Human Services
department had run a series of simulations (called “Crimson Contagion”) about
responding to a hypothetical respiratory virus from China from January to
August of 2019. The simulations “drove home just how underfunded, underprepared
and uncoordinated the federal government would be for a life-or-death battle
with a virus for which no treatment existed.” (<span style="color: red;">W25</span>)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Further, “The draft report, marked ‘not to be disclosed,’
laid out in stark detail repeated cases of ‘confusion’ in the exercise. Federal
agencies jockeyed over who was in charge. State officials and hospitals
struggled to figure out what kind of equipment was stockpiled or available.
Cities and states went their own ways on school closings.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Many of the potentially deadly consequences of a failure to
address the shortcomings are now playing out in all-too-real fashion across the
country. And it was hardly the first warning for the nation’s leaders. Three
times over the past four years the U.S. government, across two administrations,
had grappled in depth with what a pandemic would look like, identifying likely
shortcomings and in some cases recommending specific action.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…Asked at his news briefing on Thursday about the
government’s preparedness, Mr. Trump responded: ‘Nobody knew there would be a
pandemic or epidemic of this proportion. Nobody has ever seen anything like
this before.’ </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The work done over the past five years, however,
demonstrates that the government had considerable knowledge about the risks of
a pandemic and accurately predicted the very types of problems Mr. Trump is now
scrambling belatedly to address. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“But the planning and thinking happened many layers down in
the bureaucracy. The knowledge and sense of urgency about the peril appear
never to have gotten sufficient attention at the highest level of the executive
branch or from Congress."</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Just as Republicans did when <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/09/28/katrina.brown/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">George W. Bush failed New Orleans</span></a> after Hurricane Katrina and contributed to the deaths
of <a href="https://www.insurancejournal.com/blogs/corelogic/2015/08/03/374178.htm"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">1,800 Americans</span></a> through sheer incompetence, Trump passed the buck to
state governments. At a press conference that day, Trump said, “Governors
are supposed to be doing a lot of this work…the federal government is not
supposed to be out there buying vast amounts of items and then shipping. We’re
not a shipping clerk.” </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As <i>New York Magazine</i>’s Jonathan Chait <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/03/trump-coronavirus-governors-hospitals-ventilators-respirators.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">pointed out</span></a>,
“It is absolutely astonishing that Trump believes state and local governments
should have primary responsibility for handling a national pandemic. Those
governments lack the bargaining power and national scale to take control of
industrial processes that lie outside their borders.” (155)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At the same press conference, a <i>Washington Post</i> photographer
noticed that Trump had made one change to the notes he was using while speaking
to the press—crossing out the word “coronavirus” and writing the words “Chinese
virus” above it, <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/19/washington-post-photographer-spots-crossed-out-coronavirus-favor-chinese-virus-trump"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a dog whistle to his racist supporters</span></a> and a needless provocation to a country we should have
been collaborating with who could provide the U.S. with pharmaceuticals and
personal protective equipment (156).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As of <b>Friday, March 20, </b><i>eleven weeks</i> after
administration officials were first officially notified of the
coronavirus, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/20/coronavirus-tests-states-138426"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">states and localities were still waiting for
tests</span></a> so that they could know where
outbreaks were concentrated. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">According to reporters Dan Goldberg, Brianna Ehley, and David
Lim of <i>Politico</i>:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…governors and public health officials say they are still
being forced to dramatically ration the tests (157), while labs are confronting
daunting backlogs that delay the results (158)….governors have been on the
phone with Vice President Mike Pence and other federal officials, begging for
additional supplies, testing kits, swabs, reagents and protective equipment.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The shortage of tests means that in many states people who
believe they might have contracted the virus can’t know for sure and are told
to stay home for weeks. (159) It means health care workers don’t know whether
they've contracted the illness even as they treat infected patients and tend to
members of high-risk groups, such as the elderly, who might be in the hospital for
other reasons. (160) And it means public health officials are left guessing
where they should direct resources because they can’t be certain whether there
are clusters of cases.” (161)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“….That’s left states to impose strict criteria on who can
be tested, frustrating people across the country who are showing symptoms,
worried but were told to wait and see if their cases worsen. (162) In
several states, only those who are hospitalized or at high risk, including
those with underlying conditions, can be tested.” </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Karen Weise and Mike Baker of <i>the New York
Times </i>gave a preview of <a href="https://www.boston.com/news/health/2020/03/20/chilling-plans-who-gets-care-when-washington-state-hospitals-reach-their-max"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the severe rationing American hospitals would
soon face</span></a>:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Medical leaders in Washington state, which has the highest
number of U.S. coronavirus deaths, have quietly begun preparing a bleak triage
strategy to determine which patients may have to be denied complete medical
care in the event that the health system becomes overwhelmed by the coronavirus
in the coming weeks.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Fearing a critical shortage of supplies, including the
ventilators needed to help the most seriously ill patients breathe, state
officials and hospital leaders held a conference call Wednesday night to
discuss the plans, according to several people involved in the talks. The
triage document, still under consideration, will assess factors such as age,
health and likelihood of survival in determining who will get access to full care
and who will merely be provided comfort care, with the expectation that they
will die.” (163)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In addition to having shortages of beds, clinicians would be
hampered from doing their jobs because of the Trump administration’s failure to
help states get adequate surgical masks and other personal protective
equipment. (see #143)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In “<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/going-war-butter-knife/608428/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Where are the Masks?</span></a>,” Wajahat Ali revealed that the U.S. had tested only 82,000
people (by comparison to 270,000 tested in South Korea, 1/6th America’s size),
leaving clinicians in the dark about whether their patients had the virus, and
that “2,629 health workers had been infected” in Italy, giving a preview of
what medical workers in the States had to look forward to if stocks of
protective gear weren’t ramped up quickly. If clinicians get sick, “no one else
will be left, especially in small communities, to take care of patients as the
coronavirus exponentially spreads.” </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump had committed to using the Defense Production Act to
address this issue two days earlier, but had changed his mind later that
night, <a href="https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1240391871026864130"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">tweeting</span></a> that
he would only invoke the Act “in a worst-case scenario in the future.” (164)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Ali reported that “Almost every health-care professional I
interviewed criticized the government’s lack of preparedness. ‘The biggest
mistake we’ve made is that we awakened to this problem too late,’ said [a] New
York emergency-room doctor. ‘We had three months of warning from China and then
Europe, and we didn’t take it seriously.’”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Another New York physician told Ali, “We have known for six
weeks, and there was literally zero response and preparedness….The entire
health-care system is a massive failure on a federal level.’”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Clinicians “also voiced frustration toward the CDC and its
changing guidelines on personal protective equipment. A few weeks ago the CDC
said physicians needed N95 masks. Later, it said surgical masks would suffice.
This week, it said bandanas and scarves can be used as a last resort. The
physicians said they believe these shifting guidelines are driven by equipment
shortages, and not the actual safety of health-care workers.” (165)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">With cities and some states shutting down, reported cases
increasing by the day, widespread testing still not happening, hospitals
overburdened and expecting worse, adequate PPE nowhere in sight, and a record
number of Americans about to file for unemployment in no small part due to
administration inaction from January 3 until March 13, Peter Alexander of NBC
asked Trump at that day’s daily coronavirus briefing, “What do you say to
Americans who are watching you right now who are scared?”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump’s <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattperez/2020/03/20/trump-rages-over-simple-question-id-say-that-youre-a-terrible-reporter/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">response</span></a> to
this reasonable question was, “I say that you're a terrible reporter, that's
what I say. I think it's a very nasty question, and I think it's a very bad
signal that you're putting out to the American people." </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Saturday, March 21</b> featured
an autopsy of executive branch failures from <i>Politico</i>’s resident
expert on the Trump administration’s response, Dan Diamond.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Diamond pointed out that while Trump’s sudden shift to
publicly acknowledging the coronavirus with regular briefings and promises of
federal assistance was assuaging gullible and uninformed Americans, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/21/short-term-thinking-trump-coronavirus-response-140883"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">behind the scenes the failures were evident</span></a>:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…no one in the White House had devised a national strategy
for obtaining and distributing the necessary supplies in the likely months-long
fight against the pandemic that lies ahead, said three people with knowledge of
the planning efforts. Those supply-planning efforts are only now underway.”
(166)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As a result of 10 weeks of inaction from the administration,
Seattle and New York City “have effectively abandoned efforts to conduct broad
testing on residents, instead urging them to stay home given the shortages — an
acknowledgment that efforts to contain coronavirus have failed and they need to
prioritize limited supplies (167). Local officials also are making unusual
crowdsourcing appeals. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“‘We need companies to be creative to supply the crucial
gear our healthcare workers need. NY will pay a premium and offer funding,’ New
York Gov. Andrew Cuomo tweeted on Friday. ‘If you have any of these unused
supplies, please email COVID19supplies@esd.ny.gov.’”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In addition to not using the Defense Production Act, the
administration was actively competing with states for equipment, robbing states
of supplies in order to build up national reserves. (168)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Supply-chain shortages would negatively impact coronavirus
victims and the clinicians who served them, people who couldn’t get surgeries
due to the flood of coronavirus victims into hospitals, and women having babies
(169). According to <i>ProPublica</i>, “Over the next three months, nearly
a million women in the United States will give birth to nearly a million babies
— a huge influx of mostly healthy, highly vulnerable patients into a hospital
system that’s about to come under unprecedented strain. Pregnant women, not
surprisingly, are anxious. Those in their third trimester, looking to deliver
during an epidemic, are close to frantic.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As the crisis in our hospitals became clearer, Trump
continued to blame his predecessors.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Though the Obama administration had <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/488069-obama-officials-walked-trump-aides-through-global-pandemic-exercise-in-2017"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">briefed</span></a> the
incoming Trump administration on the importance of pandemic planning (see <span style="color: red;">W2</span>), <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/488069-obama-officials-walked-trump-aides-through-global-pandemic-exercise-in-2017"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">run through a pandemic exercise</span></a> with them, and left highly competent officials in
charge of the CDC and the NSC’s Office of Global Security, when asked about the
shortage of masks in his daily briefing, Trump said, “Many administrations
preceded me — for the most part they did very little, in terms of what you’re
talking about…We’re making much of the stuff now, it’s being delivered now.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Sunday, March 22</b>, ABC <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/coronavirus-live-updates-us-now-highest-globally-covid/story?id=69733219&cid=social_fb_abcn&fbclid=IwAR0DNxBtaHYTbxapeU-_kvqBDNavfe56QqnlC0gpl58jQ4JfJ2iv05tRozU"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that
the U.S. “now has the third most cases worldwide,” over 31,000.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Appearing on CNN, Bronx/Queens representative
Alexandra-Ocasio Cortez said, “The fact that the president has not really
invoked the Defense Production Act for the purpose…of emergency
manufactur[ing] <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/22/ocasio-corteztrump-going-to-cost-lives-141701"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">is going to cost lives</span></a>.” </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Because the Trump administration had failed to think ahead
and was refusing to invoke the Defense Production Act—while <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-trump-outbid-states-on-medical-supplies-2020-3"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">stealing supplies from states</span></a> to stock the national reserves—administration
officials were tasked with coming up with contingency plans for hospitals as
they run out of PPE, ventilators, and vital medical supplies.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As reported by <i>the Washington Post</i>, “Most
disturbing for some people is the idea that the wealthiest nation in the world
is leaving its caregivers unprotected in this crisis because it did not plan
for it and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/government-scrambling-to-advise-hospitals-that-run-out-of-basic-supplies/2020/03/21/d9c36702-6b88-11ea-abef-020f086a3fab_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">wasted precious weeks</span></a> before responding.” (170)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Further into the piece, the authors looked at the Trump
administration’s original sin:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><o:p> </o:p>CDC Director Robert Redfield heard from Chinese
counterparts on Jan. 3 that a spreading respiratory illness could be caused by
a novel coronavirus. Redfield told Health and Human Services Secretary Alex
Azar, who sought to immediately notify the White House National Security
Council, according to four senior administration officials who spoke on the
condition of anonymity to discuss internal government actions. Azar briefed
Trump on Jan. 18 about the virus, but the president was said to be quickly
disinterested. (see #25) The CDC, HHS, National Institutes of Health,
State Department, National Security Council and other agencies and aides began
meeting to discuss the virus in January.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Yet Trump and several of his aides were reluctant to take
the virus seriously until the first confirmed U.S. case surfaced on Jan. 21,
according to two senior administration officials. (171) Trump continued to
downplay the threat of the virus until this month.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Not until the first week of March did the administration
and Congress agree to an $8.3 billion supplemental spending bill to address the
outbreak, wasting weeks that could have been used to respond to equipment
shortages…”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…Lauren Sauer, director of operations for the Johns Hopkins
Office of Critical Event Preparedness and Response, said, ‘Lack of clarity from
the White House has been frustrating….It feels like every decision that is
being made from the administration is the first decision they’ve had to make on
this.’” (172)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Not only was the administration failing to provide clear
guidance to hospitals as to how to cope with the man-made disaster that awaited
them, but due to the shortages—which were exacerbated by the administration outbidding
states—states were competing with one another and even against other countries.
As Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker told CNN, “<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/22/wild-west-states-pritzker-says-141580"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">It‘s a wide Wild West…out there</span></a>. And, indeed, we’re overpaying, I would say, for [personal
protective equipment] because of that competition.” (173)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump’s response to Pritzker’s criticism of the grossly
inadequate federal response, in the middle of a pandemic he had made infinitely
worse than it needed to be (see #1-#173), was to spend his precious
time <a href="https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1241760294776561667?lang=en"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">trolling Pritzker on Twitter</span></a> (174).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">When he wasn’t using Twitter to attack public officials who
tried to hold him accountable, Trump added to the chaos and suffering he’d
already caused by tweeting that “HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE & AZITHROMYCIN, taken
together, have a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in the
history of medicine. The FDA has moved mountains - Thank You!”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As <i>ProPublica</i> <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/lupus-patients-cant-get-crucial-medication-after-president-trump-pushes-unproven-coronavirus-treatment?utm_source=pardot&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=majorinvestigations"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a>,
“Trump’s push to use hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 has triggered a run
on the drug. Healthy people are stocking up just in case they come down with
the disease. That has left lupus patients…and those with rheumatoid arthritis
suddenly confronting a lack of medication that safeguards them, and not only
from the effects of those conditions.” (175)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Moreover, there was no concrete evidence that the
combination was effective. As Trump’s top medical coronavirus advisor, Anthony
Fauci, told an interviewer, “The information that you're referring to is
anecdotal. It wasn't done in a controlled clinical trial, so you can't make a
definitive statement about it.” (176)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Fauci’s inability to keep Trump focused on facts popped up again on <b>Monday,
March 23</b>, in an interview with <i>Science Magazine</i>. Asked about
Trump’s constant bragging about closing off travel from China and 180-degree
turn from <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/15/trump-china-coronavirus-188736"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">praising China effusively</span></a> in January and February to blaming them for the state
of the pandemic in the United States in March (177), Fauci said, “I know,
but what do you want me to do? I mean, <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/i-m-going-keep-pushing-anthony-fauci-tries-make-white-house-listen-facts-pandemic"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">seriously Jon, let’s get real, what do you
want me to do</span></a>?”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Fauci’s lack of sway was again evident in Trump’s messaging
at that day’s briefing. Despite the fact that the impact of the virus was
increasing dramatically, with the country now at over 42,000 cases and 100
deaths in a day, and the warnings of health officials that a shutdown was <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/23/coronavirus-economy-trump-restart-145222"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">necessary to flatten the curve</span></a>, Trump minimized the scope of the pandemic by mentioning
the number of fatal auto accidents annually (178), again compared the
coronavirus to the flu (179), and said he would <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-says-he-may-soon-lift-restrictions-to-reopen-businesses-defying-the-advice-of-coronavirus-experts/2020/03/23/f2c7f424-6d14-11ea-a3ec-70d7479d83f0_story.html?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">review</span></a> his
decision to shut the country down once the initial 15-day order was up,
potentially re-opening parts of the country while the pandemic continued to
spread. He even claimed that there would be more suicides from social isolation
than deaths from the virus itself (180).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That same day, Michael Poznansky of <i>the Washington
Post</i> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/23/apparently-trump-ignored-early-coronavirus-warnings-that-has-consequences/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that
the administration had had access to “repeated” intelligence warnings since the
beginnings of the virus (see <span style="color: red;">W14</span>), but it
was unclear if Trump was aware of the information in real time because “Trump
reportedly does not read intelligence assessments, does not ask probing
questions of his intelligence advisers (181), and does not schedule
intelligence briefings nearly as often as his predecessors.” (182)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-china-cdc-exclusiv/exclusive-u-s-axed-cdc-expert-job-in-china-months-before-virus-outbreak-idUSKBN21910S"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Another major (and unforced) administration
error</span></a> was revealed by journalist
Marisa Taylor, who reported that “Several months before the coronavirus
pandemic began, the Trump administration eliminated a key American public
health position in Beijing intended to help detect disease outbreaks in
China.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">According to Taylor, “the American disease expert, a medical
epidemiologist embedded in China’s disease control agency, left her post in
July [2019]…The first cases of the new coronavirus may have emerged as early as
November, and as cases exploded, the Trump administration in February chastised
China for censoring information about the outbreak and keeping U.S. experts
from entering the country to help.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“‘It was heartbreaking to watch,’ said Bao-Ping Zhu, a
Chinese American who served in that role, which was funded by the U.S. Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention, between 2007 and 2011. ‘If someone had been
there, public health officials and governments across the world could have
moved much faster.’ (183)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“As an American CDC employee, they said, Quick was in an
ideal position to be the eyes and ears on the ground for the United States and
other countries on the coronavirus outbreak, and might have alerted them to the
growing threat weeks earlier.” (A follow-up <a href="https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/03/26/trump-administration-slashed-cdc-staff-inside-china-prior-to-coronavirus-outbreak/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">article</span></a> by
Taylor would reveal that the disease expert was just one of many health
officials in Beijing who were pulled out by the administration, which had
eliminated 33 of 47 positions at that location.)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Asked about the story at a press conference, Trump said the
report was “100 percent wrong” but offered no factual rebuttal of the
information provided.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Seeking to mitigate the unfolding disaster that Trump had
created, Congress was at work on a time-sensitive stimulus bill. As ever,
Republican Mitch McConnell <a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-the-wrong-coronavirus-stimulus-20200323-h6erlkfgvjg5vlmrizphmgpdb4-story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">played chicken with the Democrats</span></a>, crafting a Senate bill that shortchanged everyday people
and desperate medical facilities while directing enormous sums of taxpayer
subsidies to business interests with no strings attached. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">When Democrats refused to play ball, McConnell blamed the
Democrats for the delay, a dishonest rhetorical thrust <a href="https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1242293340151873536"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">echoed by the president</span></a> (184) which forced Nancy Pelosi to step in and shape a
stimulus package that would at least try to strike a balance between public
needs and private interests. With no thanks to the president, <a href="https://washingtonmonthly.com/2020/03/26/americans-can-thank-democrats-for-a-strong-stimulus-package/?fbclid=IwAR0KZNLnjovNCiUAUBDsniWeTCp6U6Yx-A3VWtocriDQCWAT3i4pNo8mBvI#.Xn_DECAoB28.facebook"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Pelosi molded</span></a> a bill that spent more money on hospitals,
unemployment benefits, and federal disaster management, included progressive
tax cuts (in place of the regressive tax cuts Trump/McConnell wanted), and made
airlines getting huge infusions of taxpayer money follow green
practices. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Tuesday, March 24</b> offered
another post-mortem on <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/24/dhs-pandemic-coronavirus-146884"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the Trump administration’s failures</span></a> to act on the coronavirus with “DHS wound down
pandemic models before coronavirus struck” by Daniel Lippman at<i> Politico</i>.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The opening paragraphs tell the crux of the story:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The Department of Homeland Security stopped updating its
annual models of the havoc that pandemics would wreak on America’s critical
infrastructure in 2017, according to current and former DHS officials with
direct knowledge of the matter. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“From at least 2005 to 2017, an office inside DHS, in tandem
with analysts and supercomputers at several national laboratories, produced
detailed analyses of what would happen to everything from transportation
systems to hospitals if a pandemic hit the United States.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“But the work abruptly stopped in 2017 amid a bureaucratic
dispute over its value, two of the former officials said, leaving the
department flat-footed as it seeks to stay ahead of the impact the COVID-19
outbreak is having on vast swaths of the U.S. economy. (185) Officials at other
agencies have requested some of the reports from the pandemic modeling unit at
DHS in recent days, only to find the information they needed scattered or hard
to find quickly.” (186)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Former Obama DHS official Juliette Kayyem said the
administration’s blindness to the value of the models could be attributed to
its singular focus on <a href="https://time.com/4473972/donald-trump-&/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">scapegoating Mexicans</span></a>:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“We should not be surprised that a department that has for
the last 3½ years viewed itself solely as a border enforcement agency seems
ill-equipped to address a much greater threat to the homeland.” (187)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">This short-sightedness robbed crisis management officials of
information that could have helped them from the outset of the virus’s
expansion into the U.S.: “The former DHS officials said if the pandemic
models had been maintained properly, the administration might have had an
earlier understanding of where shortages might occur, and acted accordingly to
address them…(188)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“‘A lot of what we’re doing now is shooting in the dark, and
there’s going to be secondary impacts to infrastructure that are going to be
felt in part because we didn’t maintain these models,’ (189) said one of the
former DHS officials. ‘Our ability to potentially foresee where the impacts are
or may manifest is a result of the fact that we don’t have the capabilities
anymore.’”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The impact of not having these models in the present was
grim, as states strained under the weight of <a href="https://www.politico.com/states/new-jersey/story/2020/03/24/governors-beg-for-cash-as-unemployment-claims-crush-states-1268856"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">medical supply shortages and record numbers of
unemployment claims</span></a>. Nowhere was this felt more
acutely than New York, which was now “the U.S. epicenter of the pandemic, with
25,665 cases,” and facing a disastrous shortage of ventilators and other
crucial medical equipment. The state had 7,000 ventilators and needed 30,000.
The administration had thus far sent just 400 ventilators. (190)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Addressing the shortage, New York governor Andrew
Cuomo <a href="https://www.axios.com/andrew-cuomo-coronavirus-ventilators-bfbd9ef5-a03f-4c52-b5c9-48905ba6f2b8.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiospm&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">said</span></a>, “I
understand the federal government's point that many companies have come
forward and said we want to help, and General Motors and Ford
and people are willing to get into the ventilator business. It
does us no good if they start to create a ventilator in three weeks
or four weeks or five weeks. We're looking at an apex of
14 days….The [Defense Production Act] can actually help companies, because
the federal government can say, ‘Look, I need you to go into this
business. I will contract with you today for x number of ventilators. Here's
the startup capital you need’….Not to exercise that power is inexplicable to
me.” (191)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Bridling, as he always does, at criticism—even when it is
well-deserved—Trump <a href="https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/mar/25/donald-trump/donald-trump-misses-key-facts-claim-new-york-gover/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">falsely accused</span></a> Cuomo of creating death panels during a Fox News
virtual town hall that day and continued to refuse to activate the Defense
Production Act. This was of a piece with the administration’s pattern of delay
and obfuscation, as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/24/us/politics/coronavirus-ventilators.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> in
“Slow Response to the Coronavirus Measured in Lost Opportunity” at <i>the
New York Times</i>.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Had the administration called on its potential industrial
power in January, when they knew about the virus's destructive power overseas,
or even early February, when Democratic senators proposed emergency funding
(see #48), hospitals could have had sufficient stocks of equipment when the
first big wave of cases came in, but due to administration delays, the
proposed partnership between GE and General Motors wouldn’t produce equipment
until June (192). The administration’s promise to send out 60,000 test kits
fell well short of the “tens of millions needed.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Even as the administration failed to get ventilators out
(despite having an awareness of ventilator shortages in Chinese hospitals <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/u-s-wasted-months-before-preparing-for-virus-pandemic?fbclid=IwAR0O6BHcxnjIWRK3V6fqrbC7z_TSMI_YmV998CaEObXypNQFB1CXgiohrMQ"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">two months earlier</span></a>), even as public health officials recommended a
shutdown of up to “<a href="https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2020/3/17/21181694/coronavirus-covid-19-lockdowns-end-how-long-months-years"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a year or more</span></a>,” even as the spokesperson for the World Health
Organization had said that very day that the U.S. could be <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/25/united-states-coronavirus-pandemic-new-epicenter/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the next epicenter</span></a> of the coronavirus, Trump <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/24/coronavirus-response-trump-wants-to-reopen-us-economy-by-easter.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">said</span></a> “the
faster we go back, the better it's going to be” during a virtual town hall
and told Fox viewers that he wanted the country to be “<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/24/politics/trump-easter-economy-coronavirus/index.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">opened up and just raring to go by Easter</span></a>.” (193)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">While official cases increased from 7,800 to 53,268 in just
one week, one of the <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/25/trump-coronavirus-national-security-council-149285"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">root causes of the public health disaster</span></a> was explored the next day, <b>Wednesday, March 25</b>,
by <i>Politico </i>reporters Nahal Toosi and Dan Diamond in “Trump
team failed to follow NSC’s pandemic playbook.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">According to the piece, <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2017/01/ten-reasons-barack-obama-is-clearly.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Barack Obama</span></a>’s
National Security Council had a plan for just these kinds of situations, but
the Trump administration had ignored the playbook for the past twelve weeks,
thereby enabling the catastrophe that was unfolding in New York City and other
parts of the country. (194)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">One excerpt from the playbook read “‘Is there sufficient
personal protective equipment for healthcare workers who are providing medical
care?’ the playbook instructs its readers, as one early decision that officials
should address when facing a potential pandemic. ‘If YES: What are the triggers
to signal exhaustion of supplies? Are additional supplies available? If NO:
Should the Strategic National Stockpile release PPE to states?’”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The plan consisted of “hundreds of tactics and key policy
decisions laid out in a 69-page National Security Council playbook on fighting
pandemics….Other recommendations include that the government move swiftly to
fully detect potential outbreaks, secure supplemental funding and consider
invoking the Defense Production Act — all steps in which the Trump
administration lagged behind the timeline laid out in the playbook.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“….The guide further calls for a ‘unified message’ on the
federal response, in order to best manage the American public's questions and
concerns. ‘Early coordination of risk communications through a single federal
spokesperson is critical,’ the playbook urges.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“However, the U.S. response to coronavirus has featured a
rotating cast of spokespeople and conflicting messages (195); Trump already is
discussing loosening government recommendations on coronavirus in order to
‘open’ the economy by Easter, despite the objections of public health advisers.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“A former Obama official said, ‘These are recommended
discussions to be having on all levels, to ensure that there’s a structure to
make decisions in real-time.’”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Though briefed on the playbook (officially titled the
Playbook for Early Response to High-Consequence Emerging Infectious Disease
Threats and Biological Incidents) by outgoing Obama administration officials,
Trump’s NSC never followed through on its recommendations.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Another example of <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/internal-emails-show-how-chaos-at-the-cdc-slowed-the-early-response-to-coronavirus"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">how not to handle a pandemic</span></a> appeared on <i>ProPublica</i>’s website the
following day, <b>Thursday, March 26</b>. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Internal Emails Show How Chaos at the CDC Slowed the Early Response to
Coronavirus” gave examples of the Trump administration's miscommunications with
state health officials in Nevada and failures to gather accurate data about the
number of coronavirus cases.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Among the key findings: 1) the CDC gave
contradictory information about test guidelines to public health officials (196);
2) the CDC intended to outsource testing to state health departments, but this
was slowed down because of delays with the test kits; 3) the CDC asked states
to use DCIPHER, a web platform, but provided no training on how to use the
platform until February 24 (197); and 4) the CDC protocol for screening
passengers at Los Angeles airport returning from China was unclear and
ineffective (198).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Returning to the present, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/26/health/coronavirus-hospitals-do-not-resuscitate-bn/index.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">hospitals were weighing universal do not
resuscitate orders</span></a> in order to keep clinicians
safe: “The conversations are driven by the realization that the risk to
staff amid dwindling stores of protective equipment — such as masks, gowns and
gloves — may be too great to justify the conventional response when a
patient ‘codes,’ and their heart or breathing stops.” (199)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“‘…It’s extremely dangerous in terms of infection risk
because it involves multiple bodily fluids,’ explained one ICU physician in the
Midwest, who did not want her name used because she was not authorized to speak
by her hospital.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">One New York nurse who died from COVID-19 worked on a unit
where <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/kious-kelly-hospital-nurse-dies-trash-bags-2020-3"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">clinicians had to wear garbage bags due to a
shortage of PPE</span></a>. (200)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That evening, it was reported that <a href="https://www.inquirer.com/health/coronavirus/coronavirus-jobs-unemployment-20200327.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">3.3 million Americans had applied for
unemployment</span></a>, a record number (201), and Trump
told Sean Hannity, “I don't believe you need 40,000 or 30,000
ventilators. <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/26/trump-ventilators-coronavirus-151311"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">You go into major hospitals sometimes, and
they'll have two ventilators</span></a>.
And now all of a sudden they're saying, ‘Can we order 30,000
ventilators?’” (202*)(*<i>The New York Times</i> would <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/26/health/coronavirus-ventilator-sharing.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">report</span><span style="color: blue;"> </span></a>the next day that the state of New
York was so short of ventilators that patients were actually <i>sharing</i> ventilators,
203)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump’s minimizing of the crisis extended to his daily
briefing, where he talked about classifying areas of the country based on known
infection rates and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-pushes-to-open-up-the-country-as-governors-in-hard-hit-states-warn-more-needs-to-be-done-to-combat-pandemic/2020/03/26/6f426042-6fa5-11ea-b148-e4ce3fbd85b5_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">opening up the spots with lower rates</span></a>, even though testing had been limited, the extent of the
virus was unknown and had been underestimated in the past, and there were no
guarantees of safety.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump’s false narratives prompted a discussion at <a href="https://www.axios.com/trump-coronavirus-briefings-media-22d51064-ec2a-468d-b248-b3722d956a8c.html"><i><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Axios</span></i></a><i>, </i>“Trump's coronavirus briefings see big audiences. Some argue
that's bad.” The piece explored the inability of networks to fact check Trump’s
claims in real time, allowing the president’s inaccurate and often unscientific
statements to confuse millions of viewers with poor critical-thinking skills.
(204)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As just one example, one month earlier, Trump had <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-vice-president-pence-members-coronavirus-task-force-press-conference/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">told reporters</span></a>, “when you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of
days is going to be down to close to zero, that’s a pretty good job we’ve
done.” As of March 26, the United States had over 1,000 deaths, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/26/usa-now-has-more-coronavirus-cases-than-either-china-or-italy.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the most reported cases of any country</span></a>, and the numbers were increasing significantly every day.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Stories detailing Trump’s denial about the scope of the
crisis continued on <b>Friday, March 27</b>. Aaron Blake and William Wan
of <i>The Washington Post</i> reported that Trump’s steady stream of
public lies and misstatements had been <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/03/27/coronavirus-models-politized-trump/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">taken at face value by many of his supporters
and other low-information voters</span></a> (205),
contributing to most Republican governors refusing to order shelter-in-place
edicts, thereby endangering public safety. Further, the variance in individual
states’ commitments to combating the virus was making it hard to create sound
epidemiology models, keeping public health officials from knowing true risk
levels (206), which should be the driver of public policy. It was pointed out
that the cities that lifted shelter-in-place orders too soon during the 1918
Spanish flu paid a steep price.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The same day that it was reported that the number of
official cases had passed 100,000, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/27/us-coronavirus-cases-top-100000-doubling-in-three-days.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">twice what they had been three days earlier</span></a> (and yet still a major underestimate due to test
delays), Jonathan Swan at <i>Axios</i> <a href="https://www.axios.com/donald-trump-coronavirus-easter-timeline-cb04697d-d7ab-4efb-a58d-b251f2cd78a2.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span><span style="color: blue;"> </span></a>that “weaning Trump from setting a
date for millions of Americans to get back to work is a delicate, ongoing
process.” One administration official said, “I don’t think he feels in any
way that his messaging was off….He feels more convinced than ever that America
needs to get back to work.” (207)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">To his credit, Trump did take some productive actions Friday
the 27th—nearly three months after the administration had first been informed
of coronavirus. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Earlier in the day, he signed the two trillion-dollar
stimulus bill with no Democrats present, as he couldn’t help being <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-03-27/house-to-hold-voice-vote-on-coronavirus-rescue-package-sending-to-trumps-desk"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">petty</span></a> and
partisan (208) in this moment of national crisis. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Friday evening he finally invoked the Defense Production Act to have General
Motors produce ventilators, <a href="https://www.lmtonline.com/news/article/The-U-S-was-beset-by-denial-and-dysfunction-as-15179067.php"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">more than two months</span></a> after Robert Kadlec (an Air Force physician and the
assistant secretary for preparedness and response at Health and Human
Services) had started readying the process. The ventilator request was too
little, too late, and Trump's use of the Defense Production Act didn't extend
to any other badly-needed medical supplies or personal protective equipment
(209), but it’s better than what the administration had done so far, which was
close to nothing.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The ventilators wouldn’t be ready anytime soon, and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/27/nyregion/coronavirus-new-york-update.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiospm&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">according</span></a> to <i>the
New York Times</i>, New York was estimated to need “20 million N-95 masks,
30 million surgical masks, 45 million exam gloves, 20 million gowns and 30,000
ventilators, all astronomical amounts compared to New York’s current
stockpile.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Saturday, March 28</b>, the U.S. passed 2,000 COVID-19 deaths and
David Atkins of <i>Washington Monthly</i> wrote about the
administration's penchant for <a href="https://washingtonmonthly.com/2020/03/28/is-trump-using-critical-medical-supplies-to-blackmail-blue-state-governors/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">giving or withholding medical supplies</span></a> based on whether governors publicly challenged Trump's
false and self-serving narratives about his response to coronavirus. (210)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Sunday, March 29, </b>as the scale of the
crisis and Trump's central role in it was becoming more evident to the
public, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/29/trump-campaign-joe-biden-ron-klain-153056"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Republicans reverted to deflection and
character assassination</span></a>, attacking
Ron Klain (see #39, #41) for having the audacity to publicly call the
administration out for its lackluster response to coronavirus (see #1-#210).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">GOP blame shifting continued on <b>Monday, March 30</b>,
as Republicans alleged that <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/2020/03/panicked-republicans-now-want-to-blame-impeachment-for-bungling-the-coronavirus-response-report/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=4139"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Democrats bore some responsibility for the
administration’s failures</span></a> because
of their impeachment drive, though Democratic senator Chuck Schumer had “urged
the Department of Health and Human Services on Jan. 26 to declare coronavirus a
public health emergency, which would free up $85 million in funding to control
the outbreak” and Democratic senator Chris Murphy had made a similar request on
February 5 (see #48).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As medical workers across the country panicked due to a shortage of
ventilators, <i>ProPublica</i> reported that a company in
Pennsylvania which had received taxpayer money to design a ventilator—the
Trilogy Evo—<a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/taxpayers-paid-millions-to-design-a-low-cost-ventilator-for-a-pandemic-instead-the-company-is-selling-versions-of-it-overseas-?utm_source=pardot&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=majorinvestigations"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">had yet to ship a single unit to the national
stockpile</span></a>—even as they had sold units abroad.
The administration could have blocked exports of vital medical equipment to
help its own citizens, as Germany, South Korea, and 22 other countries had done
(see #51), but chose to side with business interests instead.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/30/coronavirus-masks-trump-administration-156327"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Another thing the administration wasn’t doing</span></a> was recommending masks, a common practice worldwide
and an oversight they would have to correct later. (211)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What the administration <i>was</i> doing was providing false
hope. <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-members-coronavirus-task-force-press-briefing/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Speaking</span></a> to
reporters that day, Trump said, “Stay calm, it will go away. You know it
-- you know it is going away, and it will go away, and we're going to have a
great victory.” (212)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Tuesday, March 31</b>, <i>Politico</i> opened with “What
they told us about the coronavirus,” a list of <a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook/2020/03/31/what-they-told-us-about-the-coronavirus-488757"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">contradictions in the administration’s
messaging</span></a> about whether or to what
extent they had control over the situation, how much exposure one needed to get
the virus (213), who was susceptible to the virus (214), when we would be able
to ease up on social distancing (see #193), whether or not we should cover our
mouths (215), the accessibility of tests, and the availability of ventilators.<br />
<br />
Later that day, the White House Coronavirus Task Force predicted that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/03/31/coronavirus-latest-news/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">there would be 100,000-240,000 deaths</span></a> in the U.S. due to COVID-19. Though this number was
potentially an underestimate, and was far higher than it would have been if the
administration had responded in a competent fashion, Trump said at that day’s
briefing that if “<a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/04/how-donald-trump-plans-on-spinning-200000-coronavirus-deaths-as-a-win/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">we have between 100 and 200,000...we
altogether have done a very good job</span></a>.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Wednesday, April 1, </b><a href="https://www.thepoke.co.uk/2020/04/03/5-reactions-to-trump-boasting-about-his-facebook-ratings/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump bragged about his Facebook ratings</span></a> and Mike Pence tried to play an April Fool’s joke on
CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. In response to Blitzer’s comment about Trump’s consistent
dismissal of COVID-19’s destructive potential through January, February, and
the first two weeks of March, Pence <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/2020/04/wolf-blitzer-spars-with-pence-it-would-have-been-good-if-the-president-wasnt-belittling-the-pandemic/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=4170"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">said</span></a>,
“Well, Wolf, respectfully, I’d take issue with two things that you just said. I
don’t believe the president has ever belittled the threat of the coronavirus.”<br />
<br />
Back in the real world, <i>the Washington Post</i> reported
that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/coronavirus-protective-gear-stockpile-depleted/2020/04/01/44d6592a-741f-11ea-ae50-7148009252e3_story.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiospm&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the national stockpile of protective gear was
“nearly depleted</span><span style="color: blue;">”</span></a> due to the Trump administration’s lack of foresight
(see #28) and Margaret Talev of <i>Axios</i> reported that
coronavirus was further exacerbating <a href="https://www.axios.com/axios-ipsos-coronavirus-index-rich-sheltered-poor-shafted-9e592100-b8e6-4dcd-aee0-a6516892874b.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the yawning levels of inequality helped along
by Trump’s tax cut and reverse-Robin Hood budget priorities</span></a>. While nearly half of upper-middle class Americans and 39%
of the wealthy were able to work remotely and stay safe, only 17% of
middle-class Americans and single digits of lower middle- and poor Americans
could work remotely, forcing our most economically-vulnerable citizens to risk
infection or go broke. (216)<br />
<br />
And as millions were losing their healthcare, <i>Raw Story</i> <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/2020/04/fanatical-cruelty-as-pandemic-rages-trump-refuses-to-reopen-affordable-care-act-enrollment-to-help-uninsured/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that
Trump was ignoring requests by “advocacy groups and more than 100 members of
Congress” to re-open the Affordable Care Act marketplace. (217)<br />
<br />
Human desperation continued to dominate news stories on <b>Thursday, April
2</b>.<br />
<br />
Matthew Yglesias of <i>Vox</i> reported that unemployment filings for
the previous week reached 6.6 million, <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/4/2/21203850/unemployment-initial-claims-march-28"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">smashing the record set the week before</span></a>. (218)<br />
<br />
Ina Fried looked at <a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-domestic-violence-de98b402-51f2-49ec-919c-c70052e29eef.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the uptick of domestic violence in Seattle</span></a> (near the first reported infection in the U.S.), a
sign of things to come (219), while Nadja Popovich of <i>the New York Times</i> showed <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/01/us/coronavirus-covid-19-symptoms-data.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">how far behind the U.S. was in diagnosing the
disease</span></a><span style="color: #3d85c6;"> </span>due to the administration’s lag time in getting functional
test kits out. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>ProPublica</i> <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/terrified-pregnant-health-care-workers-at-risk-for-coronavirus-are-being-forced-to-keep-working?utm_source=pardot&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=majorinvestigations"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that
New York State, the epicenter of the pandemic in the U.S., was being forced to
pay “Up to 15 Times the Normal Prices for Medical Equipment” (see #173) and
looked at <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/in-desperation-new-york-state-pays-up-to-15-times-the-normal-price-for-medical-equipment?utm_source=pardot&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=majorinvestigations"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the anxieties of pregnant medical workers</span></a> on the front lines who lacked PPE (220) or clear
safety guidelines from the CDC. (221)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In this grave national moment, when unity was more important than ever, Trump
trolled Democrats with <a href="https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000171-3f7b-d6b1-a3f1-fffb5e270000&nname=playbook&nid=0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=630318"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">an open letter</span></a> to Democratic senator Chuck Schumer of New York and
a <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/04/02/coronavirus-trump-hits-governors-says-andrew-cuomo-working-hard/5108421002/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">tw</span></a><a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/04/02/coronavirus-trump-hits-governors-says-andrew-cuomo-working-hard/5108421002/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">eet</span></a> blaming
states, who hadn't had numerous intelligence warnings about coronavirus in
January and February, and didn't have anywhere near the pandemic resources the
federal government had, for the predicament the administration had put them
in: “Massive amounts of medical supplies... are being delivered directly
to states...Some have insatiable appetites & are never satisfied
(politics?). The complainers should have been stocked up and ready long before
this crisis hit.” (222) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As of <b>Friday, April 3</b>, over 7,000 Americans had died from COVID-19
and the U.S. had <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/04/03/coronavirus-latest-news/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">its biggest single-day bump in cases</span></a>—30,000. <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/early-data-shows-african-americans-have-contracted-and-died-of-coronavirus-at-an-alarming-rate?utm_source=pardot&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=majorinvestigations"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">African-Americans were being hit particularly
hard</span></a>.<br />
<br />
In “How Trump surprised his own team by ruling out Obamacare,” Adam Cancryn,
Nancy Cook, and Susannah Luthi of <i>Politico </i>provided a
behind-the-scenes account of<i> </i><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/03/trump-obamacare-coronavirus-164285"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump’s decision not to open the Affordable
Care Act (see #217) to people who’d lost their health insurance</span></a>: “[Opening Affordable Care Act enrollment] made sense to
many in both the industry and Trump’s own administration, because Americans who
lose their health insurance as a result of losing their job are already
eligible to sign up for Obamacare outside the traditional monthlong enrollment
period. With the coronavirus pandemic straining hospitals and the
administration’s projections growing increasingly dire, health officials began
signaling to insurers that it was preparing to give the broader pool of
uninsured Americans a fresh shot at getting coverage…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“And by late March, administration officials sent word to insurers that the
call would soon be official: They were reopening Obamacare, an unprecedented
move that would have recognized the depth of the public health emergency.<br />
<br />
“Major health insurance groups prepped news releases in anticipation of an
announcement as soon as March 28, two people with knowledge of the arrangements
said.”<br />
<br />
Loathe to expand a program they had long wanted to kill, or to spend more money
later if further funding was needed to maintain coverage, the administration
instead opted for the much narrower and wholly inadequate policy of helping
hospitals defray the costs of infected patients.<br />
<br />
One Republican “close to the administration” told a reporter, “You have a
perfectly good answer in front of you, and instead you’re going to make another
one up….It’s purely ideological.” (223)<br />
<br />
The administration’s failure to get functional test kits out in a timely
fashion was again put under a microscope on <b>Saturday, April 4</b> in
“<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2020/04/03/coronavirus-cdc-test-kits-public-health-labs/?arc404=true"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Inside the coronavirus testing failure</span></a>: Alarm and dismay among the scientists who sought to help.”<br />
<br />
The piece reported that “On Jan. 10, CDC scientists received an important break
when the Chinese government published the pathogen’s genetic sequence. The
sequence, a long string of letters representing the RNA structure of SARS-CoV-2
described a coronavirus never before seen in humans. It also gave scientists a
path to create a precise diagnostic test that could detect the virus.”<br />
<br />
On January 15, a top scientist at the CDC told health officials from around the
country that they would have test kits soon.<br />
<br />
The CDC test wasn’t approved until February 4, but the model sent out to states
and localities was flawed (see#55), leading to further delays. Due to FDA
regulations, public health labs weren’t allowed to use their own tests unless
they jumped through an inordinate number of bureaucratic hoops. As minimum
requirements, labs were required to complete a 28-page application and spend
two weeks testing their kits. Alex Greninger, a scientist at the University of
Washington (see #140), reported being denied (after having spent 100 hours on
testing and documentation) because he'd submitted his application via email.
(224)<br />
<br />
On February 27, though the U.S. had done virtually no testing, “CDC Director
Robert R. Redfield [testified] to the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on
Asia, the Pacific and nonproliferation that the ‘CDC believes that the
immediate risk of this new virus to the American public is low.’” (225)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">This contradicted what Redfield knew to be true, as “Privately, the CDC
concluded that a ‘much broader’ effort to testing is needed. An internal memo
titled, ‘A Plan to Increase Covid-19 testing in the U.S.,’ frankly acknowledged
the approach was not working. The spread of the virus was ‘leading to
significant impact on healthcare systems and causing social disruption,’ it
said. ‘A much broader interagency approach is needed to fill the greater need
for diagnostics by commercial manufacturers and laboratories capable of
developing their own tests.’”<br />
<br />
The CDC didn’t loosen regulations until February 29, six weeks after they had
promised health officials that they’d have test kits ‘soon,’ leaving
state and local public health officials in the dark about infection rates and
allowing COVID-19 to spread in the shadows.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On the <b>Sunday, April 5</b> edition of “Meet the Press,” Surgeon
General Jerome Adams told host Chuck Todd, “The next week is going to be
our Pearl Harbor moment. It's going to be our 9/11 moment. It's going to be the
hardest moment for many Americans in their entire lives, and we really need to
understand that if we want to flatten that curve and get through to the other
side, everyone needs to do their part. Ninety percent of Americans are doing
their part, even in the states where, where they haven't had a shelter in
place. But if you can't give us 30 days, governors, give us, give us a week,
give us what you can, so that we don't overwhelm our healthcare systems over
this next week. And then let's reassess at that point. We want everyone to
understand you've got to be Rosie The Riveter you've got to do your part.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The next day, <b>Monday, April 6</b>, the U.S. passed <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/us-deaths-from-covid-19-soar-past-10000/2020/04/06/865fe0ec-7806-11ea-9bee-c5bf9d2e3288_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">10,000 official deaths</span></a> and Republican judges ensured that Wisconsin would be
the one state to hold a primary during the height of a pandemic (16 other
states and territories had <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/2020-campaign-primary-calendar-coronavirus.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">postponed primaries</span></a>).<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/10/wisconsin-primary-coronavirus-republican-voting-by-mail"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Knowing that COVID-19 would disproportionately
impact turnout in the Democratic strongholds of Madison and Milwaukee</span></a>, where people would be at greater risk of catching the
virus and would have to wait longer to vote due to population density, state
Republicans appealed Democratic governor Tony Evers’ last-minute executive
order to postpone the election. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The Republican majority on the state Supreme Court forced the vote in order to
give an advantage to the Republican Supreme Court candidate backed by Trump,
leaving tens of thousands of voters who hadn't received absentee ballots in
time with two terrible options (staying home and not voting or risking their
health by voting in person). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Despite putting hundreds of thousands of Wisconsinites’ safety at risk for
partisan advantage and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/13/us/wisconsin-election-voting-rights.html?auth=login-google&campaign_id=9&emc=edit_NN_p_20200414&instance_id=17621&nl=morning-briefing&regi_id=126380121&section=topNews&segment_id=25091&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">purposely disenfranchising</span></a> thousands or tens of thousands of Democrats, <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Wisconsin_Supreme_Court_elections,_2020"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Republicans lost the state Supreme Court race
by almost eleven points</span></a>.<br />
<br />
Asked about the Supreme Court contest at a briefing on <b>Tuesday, April 7</b>,
Trump claimed Tony Evers had sought to move the election because he (Trump) had
endorsed the Republican candidate, though Democrats had filed a lawsuit trying
to move the election back <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-coronavirus-conspiracy-wisconsin-election_n_5e8cfd39c5b6e1d10a6b590c"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">before Trump issued his endorsement</span></a>. Trump also claimed he had had <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-vice-president-pence-members-coronavirus-task-force-press-briefing-april-7-2020/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">no inkling</span></a> of
Peter Navarro's prescient warnings in January (see <span style="color: red;">W19</span>): “I read about it maybe a day, two
days ago,...It was a recommendation that he had, I think he told certain people
on the staff, but it didn't matter. I didn't see it.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">And though vote-by-mail elections are <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/5/23/17383400/vote-by-mail-home-california-alaska-nebraska"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">less expensive, more secure, and more
convenient</span></a> than in-person elections,
and <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/491674-trump-defends-his-mail-in-ballot-after-calling-vote-by-mail-corrupt"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">he used mail voting himself</span></a>, Trump signaled that he would suppress the Democratic vote
in the upcoming presidential election with a baseless attack on mail voting:
“Mail ballots are a very dangerous thing for this country because they’re
cheaters,” the president said, adding, “They collect them, and they get people
to go in and sign them, and then they have forgeries in many cases. It’s a
horrible thing.” (226)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Further negative impacts on working-class Americans were reported in “<a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-public-transportation-subway-bus-ridership-9f039bd9-459b-45f9-954c-b26380a037dc.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Public transit’s death spiral</span></a>” on <b>Wednesday, April 8</b>. While 36% of essential
workers across the country used public transportation, transit lines were
operating “at only 10% capacity” due to funding shortages and workers getting
sick. Transport managers were faced with the challenge of keeping service
running despite cash shortages while maintaining safety for riders and employees
alike, and there was no telling when or if vital transportation systems would
be fully functioning again. (227)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As public transit strained under budget shortfalls, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/08/trump-coronavirus-aid-oversight-176160"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the Trump administration was handing out
billions of dollars with scant oversight</span></a>,
in violation of the terms of the bipartisan stimulus bill.<br />
<br />
According to reporter Kyle Cheney, Trump diminished government oversight by
dismissing the chairman of one of the watchdog boards tasked with overseeing
stimulus fund disbursement, choosing a highly partisan White House loyalist
likely to generate Democratic opposition as one of the inspector generals, and
“issuing a signing statement that said it would be unconstitutional to require
Executive Branch watchdogs to report any obstruction in their investigations,
unless Trump himself approves.” The result was that taxpayer money would be
sent out to banks, hospitals, and small businesses with little attention to
where those funds were needed most. (228)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Another failed allocation of federal resources came to light when <i>the
Washington Post</i> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/kushner-coronavirus-effort-said-to-be-hampered-by-inexperienced-volunteers/2020/05/05/6166ef0c-8e1c-11ea-9e23-6914ee410a5f_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> on
a whistleblower report about the failure of Jared Kushner's coronavirus
response team to secure PPE “in part because none of the team members had
significant experience in health care, procurement or supply-chain operations.
In addition, none of the volunteers had relationships with manufacturers or a
clear understanding of customs requirements or Food and Drug Administration
rules.” (229)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Thursday, April 9</b>, as the number of reported
infections in the U.S. continued to skyrocket, with record tallies of daily
deaths just a few days out, Jonathan Swan <a href="https://www.axios.com/some-trump-aides-eye-may-1-start-to-coronavirus-reopening-edde842d-e3f7-4722-96ab-c93190a9893b.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that
“Some Trump aides eye May 1 start to coronavirus reopening.”<br />
<br />
One official told Swan, “We are looking at when the data will allow the
opportunity to reopen” the economy, in hopes that Trump wouldn’t have to run
for a second term during a steep recession. An official at Health and Human
Services said, “Talk of reopening the American economy — when we don’t fully
understand the virus, and can’t even crank our own domestic assembly lines to
make diagnostic tests, respirators and ventilators — isn't just myopic, it's
flat out ridiculous.” (230)<br />
<br />
Stuck with the reality that even targeted re-openings which put citizens in
danger would do little to improve <a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-unemployment-filings-6cb04d2d-9cc4-45b4-a473-9acbf4c99d43.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiospm&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the deep economic slump he had contributed to</span></a>, Trump continued to <a href="https://apnews.com/58f1b869354970689d55ccae37c540f3"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">shift the blame to others</span></a>, from the Obama administration to Democratic governors to
China to the World Health Organization.<br />
<br />
As for his own administration’s response, when asked by a reporter if he could
have done more, Trump said, “I couldn’t have done it any better,” part of a
pattern of <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/trump/you-should-be-saying-congratulations-here-are-116-times-trump-has-praised-his-own-coronavirus-response/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">116 times Trump had congratulated himself or
his administration</span></a>.<br />
<br />
<b>Friday, April 10</b>, marked the two-year anniversary of Trump’s elevation
of John Bolton to head the National Security Council (NSC). Bolton had fired
the head of Homeland Security, Tom Bossert (see #12), <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/05/10/top-white-house-official-in-charge-of-pandemic-response-exits-abruptly/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">who had</span></a> “called
for a comprehensive biodefense strategy against pandemics and biological
attacks,” and disbanded the Global Security Office inside the NSC (see #17),
effectively <a href="https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-fire-pandemic-team/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">gutting the administration’s main pandemic
response unit</span></a>.<br />
<br />
Unconcerned with these relevant but inconvenient facts, the Republican National
Committee (RNC) announced that they would be running digital ad spots <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/10/rnc-trump-coronavirus-ad-178625"><i><span style="color: #3d85c6;">praising</span></i><span style="color: #3d85c6;"> Trump’s response</span></a> to
the coronavirus.<br />
<br />
While the RNC tried to re-write history, Mike Pence quietly <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/10/trump-pence-easter-coronavirus-178677"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">cleaned up one of Trump’s messes</span></a>, according to Gabby Orr of <i>Politico</i>. To make
sure that houses of worship connected to the White House knew that Trump wasn’t
serious when he’d said that he wanted churches open on Easter (see #193), and wouldn’t
embarrass the administration with public services on Easter, Pence and his
staff called allies in the faith community and made the case for social
distancing.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>ProPublica</i> <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/rationing-protective-gear-means-checking-on-coronavirus-patients-less-often-this-can-be-deadly?utm_source=pardot&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=majorinvestigations"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> on
another one of the messes caused by Trump's incompetence—due to a shortage of
PPE, hospital clinicians were having to ration time with patients to avoid
infection, leading to shortfalls in patient care (231), patients being alone
for hours at a time (232), and patients dying alone. (233)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Saturday, April 11</b>, America passed 20,000 known deaths, making
the U.S. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/04/11/coronavirus-latest-news/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">#1 in the world</span></a>. COVID-19 was now the <a href="https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-leading-cause-of-death.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">leading cause of death</span></a> in the United States. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Dave Jamieson of <i>Huffington Post</i> <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/osha-labor-department-coronavirus-cases-at-work_n_5e91cc70c5b6f7b1ea8218bf"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that
the administration had used Friday afternoon—a great time to dump damning
information—to announce that “employers outside of the health care industry
generally won’t be required to record coronavirus cases among their workers, a
decision that left some workplace safety advocates incredulous.<br />
<br />
“…if employers don’t have to try to figure out whether a transmission happened
in the workplace, it could leave both them and the government in the dark about
emerging hotspots in places like retail stores or meatpacking plants.” (234)<br />
<br />
“Debbie Berkowitz, a worker safety expert at the National Employment Law
Project, told HuffPost in an email that the implications of the guidance are
larger than they seem. She said it would lead employers outside of health care
to ‘not consider any of these [infections] work-related and therefore something
they can prevent.’<br />
<br />
“‘This is despicable and will lead to more cases among workers and the public,’
(235) she said in an email. ‘[OSHA] should be requiring employers to keep
workers six feet apart, provide double cotton layer masks, hand sanitizers
throughout facilities, [and] time to wash hands with soap and water.’”<br />
<br />
<b>Sunday, April 12</b>, Katie Thomas and Knvul Sheikh of <i>the New York
Times</i> reported that Chloroquine, a drug very similar to Hydroxychloroquine,
falsely billed by Trump as a miracle cure for COVID-19 (see #176), was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/12/health/chloroquine-coronavirus-trump.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">causing irregular heartbeats in test subjects</span></a>.<br />
<br />
On <b>Monday, April 13</b>, <i>Politico</i> led with “States
still baffled over how to get coronavirus supplies from Trump.”<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/13/states-baffled-coronavirus-supplies-trump-179199?nname=playbook&nid=0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=630318"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Fourteen weeks after CDC head Robert Redfield
was first informed of the virus, the administration was still failing states</span></a>. Pleas from Jared Polis (the Democratic governor of
Colorado) to FEMA were ignored. Messages from Polis to Mike Pence were ignored.
(236) Miraculously, when Republican Senator Cory Gardner made a request to the
administration, ventilators were sent out the next day, but even that shipment
was far short of what was needed—only 100 units. (237)<br />
<br />
The lack of a formal process was creating chaos:<br />
<br />
“The federal government’s haphazard approach to distributing its limited
supplies has left states trying everything — filling out lengthy FEMA
applications, calling Trump, contacting Pence, sending messages to Jared
Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, and trade adviser Peter Navarro, who are both
leading different efforts to find supplies, according to local and states
officials in more than a half-dozen states. They’re even asking mutual friends
to call Trump or sending him signals on TV and Twitter.<br />
<br />
“Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t.” (238)<br />
<br />
“…The confusion is indicative more broadly of how Trump and his administration
have responded to a number of crises. The president often bounces from one
issue to the next, reacting to the headlines of the day. Record turnover rates
and competing power centers have hampered long-term planning. The result has
been rotating strategies that are hard to fully chronicle.” (239)<br />
<br />
Allocations were based not on need, but on public flattery of Trump:<br />
<br />
“‘Right now, you have more discretion at the White House, and we have prized
our relationship in order to secure some of the ventilators and other
supplies,’ said an aide to one governor, who asked that even the state not be named
for fear of jeopardizing the supplies. ‘We operate within the world we live in.
We made the decision to have a very constructive and amicable relationship.’”
(240)<br />
<br />
Trump’s megalomania was again a topic of discussion on <b>Tuesday, April
14</b>.<br />
<br />
Amanda Marcotte of <i>Salon</i> opined on the previous evening’s
daily presser, <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/04/14/trump-says-his-authority-is-total--while-he-blames-everyone-else-for-his-failures/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">which was even more bizarre than usual</span></a>. In addition to making White House reporters watch a
propaganda video claiming against all available evidence (see #1-#240) that the
administration had done a good job of handling COVID-19, Trump said that he
alone would decide when states opened back up: “When somebody's the president
of the United States, the authority is total, and that's the way it's got to
be.”<br />
<br />
When a reporter questioned this, Trump barked back, “Enough!”<br />
<br />
While Trump’s attacks on reporters were boorish and unpresidential, his temper
tantrums took much more consequential forms. In his continuing effort to
deflect blame, Trump froze U.S. funding to the World Health Organization (WHO)
for 60 days (241). Trump claimed—with no evidence—that the WHO was covering up
for China, part of his P.R. strategy to scapegoat China and racialize the
pandemic (242), even as he had publicly <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/15/trump-china-coronavirus-188736"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">praised China 15 times</span></a> in January and February (and sent them medical
equipment, #51) while he was hoping to cement a trade deal.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/15/world-health-organization-trump-funding-cuts-187615"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> by
Quint Forgey and Nahal Toosi on <b>Wednesday, April 15</b>, the move
caught overseas allies and Trump’s own staff off-guard: “The order was just the
latest example of officials seeking to fill in the details of a lurching policy
shift by the president, who is prone to the bureaucratic equivalent of shooting
first and asking questions later.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Josep Borrell Fontelles, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, <a href="https://twitter.com/JosepBorrellF/status/1250356625803599875"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">said</span></a> there
was ‘no reason justifying this move’ by the American president ‘at a moment
when [WHO’s] efforts are needed more than ever to help contain & mitigate
the #coronavirus pandemic.’”<br />
<br />
The abrupt funding cut-off came after the administration’s 2021 budget proposal
had <a href="https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/FY-2021-CBJ-Final-508compliant.pdf"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">slashed America’s contribution by 50%</span><span style="color: blue;"> </span></a>(243),
while the U.S. was still $99 million in arrears to the organization.<br />
<br />
Chaos within the administration was further detailed by James Hohmann of <i>the
Washington Post</i> in “Leaked CDC and FEMA plan warns of ‘significant
risk of resurgence of the virus’ with phased reopening.”<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2020/04/15/daily-202-leaked-cdc-and-fema-plan-warns-of-significant-risk-of-resurgence-of-the-virus-with-phased-reopening/5e9688d288e0fa101a763033/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Directly undermining Trump’s advocacy for
re-opening the economy</span></a>, a “draft
national strategy to reopen the country in phases, developed by the Federal
Emergency Management Agency and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
emphasizes that even a cautious and phased approach ‘will entail a significant
risk of resurgence of the virus.’ (244)<br />
<br />
“The internal document, obtained by The Washington Post, warns of a ‘large
rebound curve’ of novel coronavirus cases if mitigation efforts are relaxed too
quickly before vaccines are developed and distributed or broad community
immunity is achieved.<br />
<br />
“The framework lays out criteria that should be in place before a region can
responsibly ease guidelines related to public gatherings: a ‘genuinely low’
number of cases; a ‘well-functioning’ monitoring system capable of ‘promptly
detecting’ spikes of infections; a public health system able to react robustly
to new cases and local health systems that have enough inpatient beds to
rapidly scale up in the event of a surge in cases.”<br />
<br />
As Hohmann pointed out, the administration was nowhere near to meeting these
criteria—in fact, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/14/coronavirus-testing-delays-186883"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">commercial testing plummeted 30% that week</span></a><span style="color: #3d85c6;"> </span>(245)—and
Trump hadn’t committed to following the guidelines because he was “fearful of
the potential damage to his reelection chances.”<br />
<br />
Re-opening the economy to help the 2020 campaign, consequences be damned, was a
foregone conclusion within Trump's inner circle, putting his appointees in
pre-emptive damage control mode: “Trump’s advisers are trying to shield the
president from political accountability should his move to reopen the economy
prove premature and result in lost lives, and so they are trying to mobilize
business executives, economists and other prominent figures to buy into the
eventual White House plan, so that if it does not work, the blame can be shared
broadly.” (246)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Meanwhile, it came out that stimulus money to desperate Americans would
be <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/coming-to-your-1200-relief-check-donald-j-trumps-name/2020/04/14/071016c2-7e82-11ea-8013-1b6da0e4a2b7_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">delayed</span></a> by
Trump's insistence that his signature appear on the checks. (247)<br />
<br />
On <b>Thursday, April 16</b>, <i>the Washington Post</i> reported
that all of the job gains of the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjones/2020/02/17/obamas-2009-recovery-act-kicked-off-over-10-years-of-economic-growth/#4681b5368b77"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">lengthy Obama recovery</span></a> were gone (248) as the pandemic surged. Just days
after reaching 20,000 deaths, the U.S. passed <a href="https://www.axios.com/31-days-coronavirus-pain-47bfd3a9-7be1-42fd-9da8-ddb67b516697.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">30,000 deaths</span></a>.<br />
<br />
At that day’s briefing, Trump gave governors the authority to decide when to
re-open their states, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/16/trump-plan-for-reopening-economy-191073"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">contradicting his statement earlier in the
week</span></a> that he had “total authority”
over state-by-state re-opening. Allowing states to make their own decisions
would allow Trump to blame governors if infections spiked, even if he had urged
them to re-open in the first place. (see #246)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><span style="color: blue;">April 17, 2020-June 16, 2020</span></b><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Convinced his re-election hinges on an economic
recovery, Trump disappears the Coronavirus Task Force and publicly pushes to
re-open the economy, even as the pandemic continues to rage. Many of Trump’s
Republican allies in state governments follow his guidance, leading to a huge
upsurge of infections and deaths in red states. Focused on keeping up
appearances rather than maintaining public safety, Trump starts insisting that
schools open in the fall. </i><i><o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/17/trump-states-stay-at-home-orders-192386"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Friday Trump contradicted Thursday Trump</span></a> on <b>April 17</b> when he Tweeted support
for fringe-right extremists in Michigan, Virginia, and Minnesota who were
protesting stay-at-home orders, even as the U.S. had experienced <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-surges-in-some-asian-countries-that-had-been-lightly-hit-11587031743"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a record number of deaths</span></a> (4,591) the day before, twice the record set earlier
in the week. (249)<br />
<br />
Asked at a press conference if he was recommending the orders be lifted, Trump
contradicted himself yet again: “No, but elements of what they’ve done are too
much....It’s too tough.” (250)<br />
<br />
In a public statement, Washington governor Jay Inslee said, “I hope someday we
can look at today’s meltdown as something to be pitied, rather than condemned.
But we don’t have that luxury today. There is too much at stake.”<br />
<br />
An AP feature on <b>Saturday, April 18</b> looked at the danger of
re-opening before adequate testing had been done.<br />
<br />
According to the authors, “<a href="https://apnews.com/9983363b779562ec9ebaaf6303922ecb"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">more than a month after [Trump] declared,
‘Anybody who wants a test, can get a test,’ the reality has been much different</span></a>. People report being unable to get tested. Labs and public
officials say critical supply shortages are making it impossible to increase
testing to the levels experts say is necessary to keep the virus in check.<br />
<br />
“‘There are places that have enough test swabs, but not enough workers to
administer them. There are places that are limiting tests because of the CDC
criteria on who should get tested,’ said Dr. Megan Ranney, an emergency
physician and associate professor at Brown University. ‘There’s just so many
inefficiencies and problems with the way that testing currently happens across
this country.’” (251)<br />
<br />
The piece went on to mention that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/17/us/coronavirus-testing-states.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200419&instance_id=17774&nl=morning-briefing&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=25500&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">testing would have to increase three-fold</span></a> to give public officials the data they needed to make
safe and informed decisions and that Trump was pawning responsibility for
testing off on the states, though he knew states didn’t remotely have the
resources necessary due to “shortages of swabs, protective gear and highly
specialized laboratory chemicals needed to analyze the virus’ genetic
material.” (252)<br />
<br />
The delays in getting functional test kits out, the biggest factor in <a href="https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">America’s first-in-the-world totals in
infections and deaths</span></a>, was the subject of two <i>Washington
Post</i> articles, one focused on <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/contamination-at-cdc-lab-delayed-rollout-of-coronavirus-tests/2020/04/18/fd7d3824-7139-11ea-aa80-c2470c6b2034_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the CDC’s failure to follow agency protocols</span></a>, which contributed to contaminated kits being sent out
(253), as well as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2020/04/18/timeline-coronavirus-testing/?arc404=true"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a detailed timeline of all of the Trump administration’s
test kit errors</span></a>.<br />
<br />
<i>The Post</i>’s key conclusion: “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2020/04/04/coronavirus-government-dysfunction/?arc404=true"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">it took 70 days from [China's initial
notification to CDC head Robert Redfield] for President Trump to treat the
coronavirus pandemic seriously</span><span style="color: blue;">.</span></a>" (254)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">David S. Cloud, Paul Pringle, and Eli Stokols of <i>the Los Angeles Times</i> continued
this thread the following day, <b>Sunday, April 19</b>, in “<a href="https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-04-19/coronavirus-outbreak-president-trump-slow-response"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">How Trump let the U.S. fall behind the curve
on coronavirus threat</span></a>.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The piece looked at chronic dysfunction within the top tiers
of the administration and the central role Trump’s fixation on the Senate
impeachment trial and re-election (i.e. his inability to pivot from political
combat to governing) played in the confusion and inaction:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Trump's unwillingness to take the health threat seriously
and disagreements among his top aides effectively sidelined the U.S. Department
of Health and Human Services, leaving key responders without direction from a
White House that was focused on the president's impeachment trial in the
Senate.” (255)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…‘In an ideal world, there would have been a structure and
someone with vision empowered in the White House,’ said J. Stephen Morrison, a
health policy expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a
Washington think tank. ‘Everything was seen through the impeachment and
reelection process.’”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…At the White House, Trump and his close advisors, consumed
by his impending impeachment trial in the Senate, rebuffed attempts by
Redfield's boss, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, to alert them
about the threat, according to a former federal official with knowledge of the
communications.” (see #58)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“...The conflicts inside the White House along with the
impeachment trial underway in the Senate kept the health threat barely on
Trump’s radar.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“‘You have Trump as the lone-wolf operator,’ said Anthony
Scaramucci, who served briefly as Trump's director of communications and has
recently been critical of the president. ‘What happens is everybody gets
immobilized. They don't know what their marching orders are … so that's caused
them to be very slow-footed in the midst of this crisis.’”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…The federal government had an array of options to prevent
the predictions from becoming a reality, experts said, including invoking the
Defense Production Act to require private companies <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-03-18/coronavirus-stimulus-bill-trump-treasury"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">to address shortages</span></a> of medical masks, ventilators and other equipment;
mobilizing the military <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-03-20/u-s-military-can-help-in-responding-to-the-coronavirus-outbreak-within-limits"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">to construct field hospitals</span></a> and organize testing centers around the country;
and <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-27/mercy-hospital-ship-with-1-000-beds-arrives-in-l-a-to-help-with-coronavirus"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">dispatching Navy hospital ships</span></a> to New York and Los Angeles sooner.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“But there was little urgency to the government response.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“‘It was one failure after another, piling up on each
other,’ said Dr. Ashish Jha, faculty director of the Harvard Global Health Institute.
‘When that happens, it usually means it wasn’t a priority. It was a lack of
leadership.’” (256)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The lack of leadership was (again) evident that day
when <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/19/trump-dpa-testing-swabs-reported-shortages-195721"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump finally triggered the Defense Production
Act to increase production of testing swabs</span></a>,
“weeks after reported shortages” and months after easily-foreseen shortages
(257), supply shortages that were being exacerbated by <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/hospitals-face-a-white-house-blockade-for-coronavirus-ppe.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the administration’s blockade of supplies
ordered by the states</span></a> themselves. (see #168)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Monday, April 20</b>, the U.S. <a href="https://themedicalprogress.com/2020/04/20/coronavirus-the-united-states-crosses-the-40000-dead-mark/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">passed 40,000 deaths</span></a> and the gulf between vital public health imperatives
and the Trump administration’s self-serving political agenda widened. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Interviewed that morning by George Stephanopoulos, Anthony
Fauci <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/news/dr-fauci-condemns-protesters-clamoring-for-end-to-lockdown-premature-reopening-will-backfire/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">stressed the danger of re-opening the economy
too soon</span></a>: “If you jump the gun and go into a
situation where you have a big spike, you’re going to set yourself back….So as
painful as it is to go by the careful guidelines of gradually phasing into a
reopening, it’s going to backfire [if you reopen prematurely]. That’s the
problem.” (<span style="color: red;">W26</span>)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Despite his awareness of the public health dangers and
his <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/16/trump-plan-for-reopening-economy-191073"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">public statement</span></a> four days earlier that governors should decide when to
end or modify statewide shelter-in-place laws, behind the scenes Trump was
pushing governors—particularly Republican allies—to re-open the economy
prematurely for fear that mass unemployment could doom his re-election bid
(258).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As reported in “<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/20/trump-revs-up-state-fight-coronavirus-shutdowns-195443"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump revs up for a state-by-state fight over
coronavirus shutdowns</span></a>":</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Over the next two weeks at the urging of the Trump administration, the map of
the U.S. will start to resemble a patchwork quilt, with some states open for
business while others remain locked down because of the spread of the virus.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump was only too happy to exploit divisions between the
majority of Americans who grasped the threat of the virus and the vocal
minority of rabid ideologues who didn’t: </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Senior administration officials and Trump advisers say the level of hostility
between the president and governors will probably only increase in the coming
days, in part because Trump sees so much political opportunity in stoking those
divisions during his reelection campaign. Governors have become his latest
political foil, along with China and the World Health Organization, and he’s
trying to bully and scapegoat them amid his administration’s response to the
pandemic. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Small protests over the weekend in Texas, North Carolina,
Michigan and New Hampshire only highlighted the frustration of some Americans
about the shuttering of huge swaths of the economy. Trump aides and advisers
are closely monitoring those protests because they think the demonstrations
give momentum to the president’s argument to reopen the economy as soon as
possible — not to mention a potential source of energy heading into the fall
election.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Though governors had nowhere near the purchasing/negotiating
power and resources of the federal government, and could neither afford nor
realistically be expected to get hold of the amount of supplies necessary (see
#155), “The White House has been setting itself up for weeks now to blame
governors for the response to the coronavirus, including any failure to procure
medical equipment and resources, or problems that arise from restarting
businesses and resuming public life.” (259)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">While the administration sought to deflect attention from
their failure to plan ahead, statnews.com reported on <b>Tuesday, April 21</b>,
that <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/21/rick-bright-out-at-barda/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump’s allergy to science and reasoned
disagreement was continuing to hamper the administration’s COVID-19 response</span></a>: “Rick Bright, one of the nation’s leading vaccine
development experts and the director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and
Development Authority, is no longer leading the organization, officials told
STAT.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The shakeup at the agency, known as BARDA, couldn’t come at
a more inopportune time for the office, which invests in drugs, devices, and
other technologies that help address infectious disease outbreaks and which
has <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/06/barda-coronavirus-response/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">been at the center of the government’s
coronavirus pandemic respons</span><span style="color: blue;">e</span></a>.” (260)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…BARDA was expected to play an even larger role in the
coming months; Congress more than tripled BARDA’s budget in the most recent coronavirus
stimulus package. Already, the office has a role in some of the splashiest
Covid-19 projects, including partnerships with Johnson & Johnson and
Moderna Therapeutics, both of which are developing potential Covid-19
treatments.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Appearing on “Face the Nation” a few days later, Trump’s
former FDA head Scott Gottlieb said, “I think <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/494734-gottlieb-says-reassigning-vaccine-chief-is-going-to-set-us-back"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">changing leadership in that position right now
certainly is going to set us back</span></a>….It's
hard to argue that that's not going to have some impact on the continuity and
also make businesses, companies that need to collaborate with BARDA, a little
bit more reluctant now to embrace BARDA now that there's a cloud hanging over
it and some uncertainty about the leadership.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It would come out later that Bright (see #26) was demoted
because he had <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/22/rick-bright-trump-hydroxychloroquine-coronavirus"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">disagreed with Trump’s focus on the
pie-in-the-sky cure-all of hydroxychloroquine</span></a>,
part of Trump’s consistent pattern of punishing public health officials who
didn’t parrot his ill-informed talking points. (261)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The same day, <i>the National Review</i>, a
conservative publication, put the lie to one of Trump’s favorite talking points
in February and early March with “<a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/04/coronavirus-kills-more-americans-in-one-month-than-the-flu-kills-in-one-year/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Coronavirus Kills More Americans in One Month
Than the Flu Kills in One Year</span></a>.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The theme of Trump’s <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-coronavirus-timeline-dismissed-969381/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">blatant lies and bad advice</span></a> came up again at that day’s briefing when PBS reporter
Yamiche Alcindor related an anecdote about a family who’d gotten infected
(after taking Trump’s misinformation at face value) and asked the president,
“Are you concerned downplaying the virus maybe got some people sick?”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The president of the United States said that <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/2020/04/trump-shows-a-total-inability-to-have-empathy-remorse-when-confronted-with-the-consequences-of-his-actions/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the infections he caused in effect didn’t
matter</span></a> because “a lot of people love
Trump, right?,” because he’d “<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/01/how-russia-helped-to-swing-the-election-for-trump"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">won</span></a> an
election,” because he’d probably “win” another one. Though the
amount of testing and detection was still <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/22/coronavirus-testing-problem-america-201372"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">not remotely adequate</span></a> almost four months after the administration had first
been notified of the virus (262), and the desperate and chaotic situation in
America due to Trump's failures had been likened to “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/apr/22/top-economist-us-coronavirus-response-like-third-world-country-joseph-stiglitz-donald-trump"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a third world country</span></a>,” Trump then told Alcindor that his single action of
closing off travel from China—even as <a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/04/12/u-s-got-more-confirmed-index-cases-of-coronavirus-from-europe-than-from-china/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">he had allowed infected travelers to stream in
from Europe for another six weeks</span></a>—proved
that he had taken COVID-19 seriously.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Just how seriously the administration had taken the pandemic
was again revealed the following day, <b>Wednesday, April 22</b>, when
Aram Roston and Marisa Taylor of <i>Reuters</i> reported that a “<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-hhschief-speci/special-report-former-labradoodle-breeder-was-tapped-to-lead-us-pandemic-task-force-idUSKCN2243CE"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Former Labradoodle breeder was tapped to lead
U.S. pandemic task force</span></a>.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The piece explained how Alex Azar had put the day-to-day
operations of the Coronavirus Task Force in the hands of Brian Harrison, a
37-year-old with a background in dog breeding. Harrison “was an unusual choice,
with no formal education in public health, management, or medicine and with
only limited experience in the fields.” (263)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At that day’s press briefing, the lies continued when
Trump <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/22/trump-downplays-risk-of-coronavirus-rebound-202325"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">said</span></a>,
“If [coronavirus] comes back though, it won’t be coming back in the form that
it was, it will be coming back in smaller doses that we can contain….it’s also
possible it doesn’t come back at all.” This <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/04/21/coronavirus-secondwave-cdcdirector/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">flatly contradicted CDC head Robert Redfield’s
statement the day before</span></a> that the
second wave of COVID-19 could be worse than the first and represented yet
another example of the mixed messaging the administration was putting out to
the public. (264)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As of <b>Thursday, April 23</b>, <a href="https://apnews.com/e928d091f81f75b9bc8830c7370f41fb"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">U.S. unemployment rates had reached
Depression-era levels</span></a><span style="color: #3d85c6;"> </span>(265). Trump continued to push misinformation, claiming
that <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/23/trump-coronavirus-sunlight-205969"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">sunlight could wipe out coronavirus</span></a>: “‘The whole concept of the light, the way it kills
it in one minute, that’s pretty powerful,’ Trump said during a White House
press briefing. He raised the possibility of hitting a human body ‘with a
tremendous — whether it's ultraviolet or just very powerful light.’” (266)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">He also sang the praises of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/04/24/disinfectant-injection-coronavirus-trump/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the miracle cure of injecting disinfectants</span></a>: “Then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out
in a minute, one minute. Is there a way we can do something like that, by
injection inside, or almost a cleaning?" (267)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The next day, <b>Friday, April 24</b>, COVID-19 deaths
in the U.S. <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/public-global-health/494484-us-hits-grim-milestone-50000-coronavirus-deaths"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">passed 50,000</span></a>, more than twice the number of deaths in any other
country. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As media wheels spun over Trump’s off-the-wall comments from
the day before, he tried to shake off bad press by falsely claiming he was
being sarcastic. His comments were no laughing matter, as <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertglatter/2020/04/25/calls-to-poison-centers-spike--after-the-presidents-comments-about-using-disinfectants-to-treat-coronavirus/#4556ea211157"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a rash of disinfectant-related accidents</span></a> would prove. (268)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Another one of Trump’s coronavirus quick fixes was revealed
as quackery when Trump’s own “<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/id/10000889"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Food and Drug Administration</span></a> warned
consumers…against taking malaria drugs chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine to
treat Covid-19 outside a hospital or formal clinical trial setting after deaths
and poisonings were reported.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That weekend, on <b>Sunday, April 26</b>, Helena
Bottemiller Evich of <i>Politico</i> reported on <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/26/food-banks-coronavirus-agriculture-usda-207215"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the incompetence of Trump’s Agriculture Department</span></a> in “USDA let millions of pounds of food rot while
food-bank demand soared.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">According to Evich: “Tens of millions of pounds of
American-grown produce is rotting in fields as food banks across the country
scramble to meet a massive surge in demand, a two-pronged disaster that has
deprived farmers of billions of dollars in revenue while millions of newly
jobless Americans struggle to feed their families. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“While other federal agencies quickly adapted their programs
to the coronavirus crisis, the Agriculture Department took more than a month to
make its first significant move to buy up surplus fruits and vegetables —
despite repeated entreaties.” (269)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“….Images of farmers destroying tomatoes, piling up squash,
burying onions and dumping milk shocked many Americans who remain fearful of
supply shortages. At the same time, people who recently lost their jobs lined
up for miles outside some food banks, raising questions about why there has
been no coordinated response at the federal level to get the surplus of
perishable food to more people in need, even as commodity groups, state leaders
and lawmakers repeatedly urged the Agriculture Department to step in.” (270)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Monday, April 27</b>, with the U.S. death toll
over 55,000, Greg Miller and Ellen Nakashima of <i>the Washington Post</i> reported
that <a href="https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/President-s-intelligence-briefing-book-repeatedly-15229783.php"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump had received “more than a dozen
[intelligence] warnings” about the coronavirus</span></a> in his January and February Presidential Daily Brief
(PDB), even as he publicly dismissed concerns about COVID-19. It was unclear if
Trump ignored the warnings or never heard them because he “routinely skips
reading the PDB and has at times shown little patience even for the oral
summary he now takes two or three times per week.” (see #181, #182)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That same day, Trump's Attorney General William Barr sent a<span style="color: #3d85c6;"> </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/attorney-general-william-p-barr-s-memo-balancing-public-safety-with-the-preservation-of-civil-rights/749fc86a-f81c-4baf-b002-b68deb3f1ade/?itid=lk_inline_manual_2"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">two-page memo</span></a> to all 94 United States Attorney Offices instructing
them to sue any state and local governments who “go too far” in public
safety mandates. (271) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">When asked on <b>Tuesday, April 28</b>, about his
non-response to more than a dozen intelligence briefings about COVID-19, Trump
claimed that “<a href="https://twitter.com/jeffmason1/status/1255165563632062477?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1255165563632062477&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rawstory.com%2F2020%2F04%2Ftrump-lies-about-dire-intel-he-received-on-virus-and-says-most-people-thought-it-would-blow-over%2F"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">most people thought earlier this year that the
coronavirus was going to blow over</span></a>.”
In reality, there had been numerous warnings in January and February that the
virus would blow up (<span style="color: red;">see W14-W23</span>).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As of <b>Wednesday, April 29</b>, the U.S. had <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/us-passes-60000-dead-as-hopes-rise-for-a-promising-drug-therapy/2020/04/29/c8c42d92-8a0a-11ea-9dfd-990f9dcc71fc_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">passed 60,000</span></a> official deaths and <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/4/28/21239172/coronavirus-us-confirmed-cases-update-1-million"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">one million infections</span></a>, far more than any other country; there were <a href="https://www.barrons.com/news/us-records-2-502-coronavirus-deaths-in-past-24-hours-tracker-01588207503"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">2,502 deaths that day alone</span></a>. Trump announced that he would not be extending social distancing
recommendations past Thursday (272). Spinning himself silly, Jared
Kushner “predicted that by July the country will be <span style="background: white; color: #222222;">‘</span><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/29/coronavirus-latest-updates.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">really rocking again</span></a>.<span style="background: white; color: #222222;">’</span>”
(273)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">AP reported that <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/29/us-economy-coronavirus-220441"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the U.S. economy had contracted 4.8%</span></a> in the first quarter of 2020, the biggest drop since
the economy lost 8.4% of its value in the final quarter of 2008, as <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-master-of-low-expectations-666.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">George W. Bush</span></a>’s presidency was winding down. Forecasters predicted that
the second quarter of 2020 would be even worse.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Eager to shift attention away from the grim human toll of
the administration’s failure to get ahead of COVID-19, senior administration
officials were pressuring intelligence agencies to find a link between
coronavirus and state-run labs in China, as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/30/us/politics/trump-administration-intelligence-coronavirus-china.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> in <i>the
New York Times</i> on <b>Thursday, April 30</b>. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">This theory—<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/24/gop-memo-anti-china-coronavirus-207244"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">part of a coordinated Republican response</span></a> to change the subject and misinform the public
(274)—had <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/18/us/politics/trump-china-virus.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">floated around the right-wing echo chamber for
a while</span></a>, but “Most intelligence agencies
remain skeptical that conclusive evidence of a link to a lab can be found, and
scientists who have studied the genetics of the coronavirus say that the
overwhelming probability is that it leapt from animal to human in a
nonlaboratory setting, as was the case with H.I.V., Ebola and SARS.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“….In a statement released earlier on Thursday, the Office
of the Director of National Intelligence said that the intelligence community
‘will continue to rigorously examine emerging information and intelligence to
determine whether the outbreak began through contact with infected animals or
if it was the result of an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan.’</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Intelligence agencies, the statement said, concur ‘with the
wide scientific consensus that the Covid-19 virus was not man-made or
genetically modified.’”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Friday, May 1</b>, Courtenay Brown and Kyle Daly
of <i>Axios</i> <a href="https://www.axios.com/creaky-unemployment-systems-plague-jobless-americans-b5244634-f72b-4b33-a65d-dbc2f0f5492a.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> on
the inability of many states to keep up with unemployment claims due to the steep
economic collapse tied to Trump's failure to contain the virus. (275)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“One out of every five working Americans” (30,000,000) had
filed for unemployment over the prior six weeks, but this was an undercount.
The true number could be as high as 44,000,000, but was hard to determine
because understaffed state agencies couldn’t keep up with the
applications. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As millions of Americans and their families struggled to get
by, the administration continued to try to conceal its gross negligence
by <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/white-house-blocking-fauci-testifying-congress-about-coronavirus-response-n1198276"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">blocking</span></a> Anthony
Fauci from appearing before a Democratic-led House Appropriations Committee
investigating the administration’s COVID-19 response—at the same time as it was
announced that Fauci would be allowed to speak to a Republican-led Senate
Health Committee hearing. (276)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Later that day, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/01/us/politics/trump-health-department-watchdog.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">in another act of petty revenge</span></a>, the administration replaced Christi Grimm, a Health and
Human Services deputy inspector general who had authored an unflattering but
objective report: (277)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“<a href="https://oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/oei-06-20-00300.asp"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Her report, released last month</span></a> and based on extensive interviews with hospitals
around the country, identified critical shortages of supplies, revealing that
hundreds of medical centers were struggling to obtain test kits, protective
gear for staff members and ventilators. Mr. Trump was embarrassed by the report
at a time he was already under fire for playing down the threat of the virus
and not acting quickly enough to ramp up testing and provide equipment to
doctors and nurses.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The administration announced the move Friday evening so that
the story would be buried.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The next morning, on <b>Saturday, May 3</b>, it was
reported that <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/02/who-us-just-reported-deadliest-day-for-coronavirus.html?fbclid=IwAR3Y5JDL1sXSdK0beExlE1ESFI-hnqFY2xAR20JZq-OeuP5lE_Sg-RgIO6I"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">2,909 Americans had died on Thursday, one of
the highest totals to date</span></a>. A few
hours later, <i>the Washington Post</i> published a blockbuster <span style="background: white; color: #1a1a1a;">exposé</span> entitled “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/34-days-of-pandemic-inside-trumps-desperate-attempts-to-reopen-america/2020/05/02/e99911f4-8b54-11ea-9dfd-990f9dcc71fc_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">34 days of pandemic: Inside Trump’s desperate
attempts to reopen U.S.</span></a>”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The article revealed that despite public health officials’
warnings of a second wave of infections (see #244), Trump had been obsessed
with re-opening the economy for the sole purpose of helping his re-election
bid.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">To this end, the administration had formed a “small team led
by Kevin Hassett - a former chairman of Trump's Council of Economic Advisers
with no background in infectious diseases (278)….[who] quietly built an
econometric model to guide response operations.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…senior administration officials said [Hassett’s]
presentations characterized the count as lower than commonly forecast (279) -
and that it was embraced inside the West Wing by the president's son-in-law,
Jared Kushner, and other powerful aides helping to oversee the government's pandemic
response. It affirmed their own skepticism about the severity of the virus and
bolstered their case to shift the focus to the economy, which they firmly
believed would determine whether Trump wins a second term.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“For Trump - whose decision-making has been guided largely
by his reelection prospects - the analysis, coupled with Hassett's grim
predictions of economic calamity, provided justification to pivot to where he
preferred to be: cheering an economic revival rather than managing a
catastrophic health crisis. (see #230)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…By the end of April - with more Americans dying in the
month than in all of the Vietnam War - it became clear that the Hassett model
was too good to be true. ‘A catastrophic miss,’ as a former senior
administration official briefed on the data described it. The president's
course would not be changed, however. Trump and Kushner began to declare a
great victory against the virus, while urging America to start reopening
businesses and schools.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“‘It's going to go. It's going to leave. It's going to be
gone. It's going to be eradicated,’ the president said Wednesday, hours after
his son-in-law claimed the administration's response had been ‘a great success
story.’” (280)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…And though Trump was fixated on reopening the economy, he
and his administration fell far short of making that a reality. The factors
that health and business leaders say are critical to a speedy and effective
reopening - widespread testing, contact tracing and coordinated efforts between
Washington and the states - remain lacking.” (281)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #222222;">Two stories on </span><b style="color: #222222;">Monday, May 4</b><span style="color: #222222;">, made
it clearer than ever that Trump was willing to sacrifice hundreds of thousands
of American lives to win a second term.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #222222;">“</span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/04/cdc-daily-deaths-coronavirus-234377"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Models shift to predict dramatically more U.S.
deaths as states relax social distancing</span></a><span style="color: #222222;">” revealed that “A key model of the
coronavirus pandemic </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/24/trump-coronavirus-model-207582"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">favored by the White House</span></a><span style="color: #222222;"> nearly doubled its prediction Monday for
how many people will die from the virus in the U.S. by August – primarily
because states are reopening too soon. (</span><span style="color: red;">W25</span><span style="color: #222222;">)</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The Institute for Health Metrics and
Evaluation at the University of Washington’s School of Medicine is now
projecting 134,000 coronavirus-related fatalities, up from a previous
prediction of 72,000. Factoring in the scientists’ margin of error, the new prediction
ranges from 95,000 to 243,000.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Dr. Christopher Murray, the director of IHME,
told reporters on a call Monday the primary reason for the increase is many
states’ ‘premature relaxation of social distancing.’”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #222222;">Even as the White House knew relaxing social
distancing and other stay-at-home measures would kill tens of thousands more
Americans (at a minimum), and up to 3,000 people daily, later that day it was
reported that “</span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-cheers-on-governors-as-they-ignore-white-house-coronovirus-guidelines-in-race-to-reopen/2020/05/04/bedc6116-8e18-11ea-a0bc-4e9ad4866d21_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump cheers on governors as they ignore White
House coronavirus guidelines in race to reopen</span></a><span style="color: #222222;">.” (282) </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">One state that followed
Trump’s lead was the Republican enclave of Texas. As reported on <b>Tuesday,
May 5</b>, Texas saw its <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/texas-sees-highest-single-day-jumps-coronavirus-cases-since-outbreak-began-within-two-days-1502061"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">biggest single-day infection totals</span></a> two days after
throwing off social distancing guidelines. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The circumstances in
Texas were predictable, given the state of the pandemic. As reported by <i>the
New York Times</i> that day, “Any notion that the coronavirus threat is fading
away appears to be <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/05/us/coronavirus-deaths-cases-united-states.html?auth=login-email&campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200506&instance_id=18254&login=email&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=26699&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">magical thinking</span></a>, at odds with what the
latest numbers show.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Despite the clear
connection between premature re-openings and increased infections, Trump faced
no political repercussions among his base because <a href="https://www.axios.com/axios-ipsos-coronavirus-week-8-5a1947d5-9850-4e58-9583-9b617e6fdc1b.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">most Republican voters were in the dark about
COVID-19</span></a> due
to poor critical thinking skills and/or a resistance to valid sources of
information. A poll reported by Margaret Talev of <i>Axios</i> showed
that 76% of Republicans didn’t realize that <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/coronavirus-deaths/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the official death tallies were significant
undercounts</span></a> due
to under-reporting in many states and a large number of people who weren’t
counted because they died before being diagnosed with COVID-19. Forty percent
of Republicans actually thought the official numbers <i>were too high</i>.
(283)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-color: transparent;">Some of the Republican ignorance was attributable to the
fact that communities of color had so far been hit at far higher rates than the
white-majority communities many conservatives lived in. </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/05/black-counties-disproportionately-hit-by-coronavirus-237540" style="background-color: transparent;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">As reported in <i>Politico</i></span></a><span style="background-color: transparent;">, “<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Counties across the country with a disproportionate number of
African American residents accounted for 52 percent of diagnoses and 58 percent
of coronavirus deaths nationally, according to a new study released Tuesday.”</span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The
study, “conducted by epidemiologists and clinician-researchers at four
universities in conjunction with the nonprofit AIDS research organization amFar
and PATH’s Center for Vaccine Innovation and Access,” helped to fill in the gap
left by Trump’s CDC, which had failed to publish detailed demographic data
about COVID-19 deaths. (284)</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">“The
disproportionate toll on African Americans ‘calls for interventions like
considering emergency enrollment for </span><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2012/07/how-much-do-you-really-know-about.html"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">the Affordable Care Act</span></a><span style="background: white;">,’
said Dr. Patrick Sullivan, professor of epidemiology at Emory University. ‘And
in the longer-term Medicaid expansion in the South.’” As of the article
posting, the administration had yet to do anything to help expand healthcare to
impacted communities, even as </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/05/states-cut-medicaid-programs-239208"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">states were slashing Medicaid</span></a><span style="background: white;"> rolls
due to a lack of funding. (285)</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">The U.S. passed </span><a href="https://ummid.com/news/2020/may/06.05.2020/over-70000-dead-1-2-mln-ill-covid-19-ravage-continues-in-united-states.html"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">70,000 official deaths</span></a><span style="background: white;"> and </span><a href="https://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2020/05/05/coronavirus-latest-new-university-of-penn-model-predicts-350000-deaths-by-end-of-june-if-all-states-fully-reopen/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">further carnage</span></a> was predicted in a study conducted by the University
of Pennsylvania which projected that 350,000 Americans would die by the end of
June if social distancing measures were relaxed countrywide, 233,000 more than
were projected to die if social distancing was maintained. (<span style="color: red;">W27</span>)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In another jaw-dropping stat revealed that day, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/05/consumer-debt-hits-new-record-of-14point3-trillion.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">first quarter consumer debt hit an all-time
high</span></a>. (286)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Bad economic news continued on <b>Wednesday, May 6</b>,
as it was reported that <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/06/adp-private-payrolls-april-2020-drop-by-record-20point2-million.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the U.S. had lost over 20 million jobs in
April</span></a>, the most since records had started
in 2002: “‘Job losses of this scale are unprecedented,’ said Ahu Yildirmaz,
co-head of the ADP Research Institute, which compiles the report in conjunction
with Moody’s Analytics. ‘The total number of job losses for the month of April
alone was more than double the total jobs lost during the Great Recession.’”
(287)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Food insecurity was one of the ramifications of the economic
catastrophe made infinitely worse than it otherwise would have been by Trump’s
inaction in the first 10 weeks of the pandemic (see #254). According to <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/05/06/the-covid-19-crisis-has-already-left-too-many-children-hungry-in-america/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a study</span><span style="color: blue;"> </span></a>cited at the Brookings Institution
blog, children were “experiencing food insecurity to an extent unprecedented in
modern times” and “40.9 percent of mothers with children ages 12 and under
reported household food insecurity since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
(288)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Despite the obvious need to counteract food shortages among
millions of Americans, Republicans were <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/06/us/politics/coronavirus-hunger-food-stamps.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200507&instance_id=18281&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=26779&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">blocking</span></a> Democratic
proposals to increase food stamp benefits. (289)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At a time when people were anxious and steady, transparent,
and empathic leadership was more important than ever, Trump continued to blame
shift, scold, and brag. During an Oval Office meeting meant to honor
National Nurses Day, Sophia Thomas (<span style="background: white;">president of the American Association of Nurse
Practitioners) mentioned that she’d had to use the same N95 mask for three
weeks due to a shortage of PPE at her place of employment. Throwing Trump a
bone that he didn’t deserve, she softened her statement by adding that, “We’re
nurses, and we learn to adapt and do whatever, the best thing that we can do
for our patients.”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/coronavirus/ny-coronavirus-trump-nurse-oval-office-protective-gear-20200506-ldawejbkmzbe5fxb3kr27zceb4-story.html?fbclid=IwAR1Dlgg41XGtwkRBSR9Q_B5FvuYr3DPHdXiM8t7ALKE4sR6o3kuhK4ZwrB8"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">Trump’s response</span></a><span style="background: white;"> was
to talk over Thomas, toss out the baseless anecdotal claim that “I’ve heard the
opposite….I’ve heard that they’re loaded up with gowns now,” then blame Obama:
“Initially we had nothing, we had empty cupboards, we had empty shelves, we had
nothing because it wasn’t put there by the last administration.”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Asked by ABC’s David Muir why he hadn’t done anything to
shore up the national reserves of PPE in the first three years of his
administration, Trump <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/05/trump-ppe-coronavirus-blame-impeachment-russia.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">blamed</span></a> the
Mueller investigation of <a href="https://themoscowproject.org/collusion-timeline/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump campaign collusion with Russia</span></a> and the impeachment investigation, and said <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/06/trump-praises-his-coronavirus-response-239787"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the administration’s coronavirus response was
“maybe our best work</span></a>.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">More evidence of Trump’s “best work” was revealed on <b>Thursday,
May 7</b>, when it came out that <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-sustained-clip-of-new-covid-19.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the administration had “[buried] detailed CDC
advice on reopening</span></a>.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/07/admin-shelves-cdc-guide-to-reopening-country-242008"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">According to</span></a> Jason
Dearen and Mike Stobbe of the AP, the CDC had put together detailed safety
guidelines for public health officials around the country to follow, but the
administration had blocked the report from coming out. The likelihood is that
Trump’s people feared that a safe, slow opening could hinder the economic
rebound they felt was necessary for Trump to win a second term. (290)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump’s preference for spin over public health was <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-face-mask-fears-wearing-in-public-hurt-reelection-ap-2020-5"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">further reviewed</span></a> in “Trump won't wear a mask in public because he's
afraid he might look ridiculous and it will harm his reelection chances,
report says.” Though <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/2020/05/all-white-house-officials-will-now-wear-masks-when-close-to-trump-after-president-not-happy-his-valet-tested-positive/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=4480&recip_id=24770&list_id=1"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump was making his staff wear masks</span></a>, he refused to follow his own CDC’s guidelines in public
appearances because he felt that “<span style="background: white;">wearing a face mask would ‘send the wrong message’ that he is
more focused on health than reopening the economy, which aides think is key to
his winning in November.” (291)</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Though most federal GOP officials publicly agreed with
Trump’s re-opening death march, at least in part because of a fear of
reprisals, Republican senator Lamar Alexander <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/07/senate-reopen-coronavirus-243536"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">was willing to tell the truth</span></a> because he was about to retire. As reported by David
Lim of <i>Politico</i>, at a hearing of the Senate HELP Committee that day
(which he chaired), Alexander said that the U.S. had not done “nearly enough”
testing to safely reopen. Alexander also said, <span style="background: white;">“there is no safe
path forward to combat the novel coronavirus without adequate testing.” (</span><span style="background: white; color: red;">W28</span><span style="background: white;">)</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">The
article went on to state that “</span>The Harvard
Global Health Institute released new data Thursday that suggest more than 900,000
coronavirus tests need to be completed daily to consider safely relaxing
distancing measures, as a growing number of states are doing.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“That
number is significantly higher than the approximately 250,000 tests per day the
country is currently running, according to data from The COVID Tracking
Project. Premier Inc., a group purchasing organization, released a survey
Thursday that found health systems will need to at least triple the current
testing capacity to restore nonemergency services even partially.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Premier’s
survey found two factors that are major obstacles to increasing coronavirus
testing: not enough chemical reagents needed to perform tests and shortages of
swabs to take patient samples.” </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">The
shortage in reagents (292) and swabs was rooted in Trump’s unwillingness to order
a national testing plan and rev up the Defense Production Act to the extent
necessary. To most observers, this would’ve been seen as a major failure in
planning and execution with horrible human costs, but Trump told the press more
testing wasn’t necessarily the answer, as it would just increase the official
number of infections and deaths: “In a way, </span><a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/05/08/trump-blocks-national-testing-program--why-because-tests-make-us-look-bad/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">by doing all this testing we make ourselves
look bad</span></a><span style="background: white;">.” </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A real-world way in which the administration had made itself
look bad was explored on <b>Friday, May 8</b>, in “Coronavirus: US death
toll would have been halved had it acted 4 days sooner, study says.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/coronavirus-us-death-toll-halved-093000321.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">According to the article</span></a>, “The daily death toll from <a href="https://www.scmp.com/topics/coronavirus-pandemic-all-stories?utm_medium=partner&utm_campaign=contentexchange&utm_source=YahooFinance"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Covid-19</span></a> in
the United States could have been more than halved if authorities had acted
more swiftly in recommending self-isolation and the wearing of face masks,
according to a new study.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Several US states
began issuing stay-at-home orders in late March, while federal health
authorities began recommending the use of face masks for all in early April. However,
had such measures been implemented just four days earlier, the roughly 2,000
Covid-19 deaths currently being recorded each day would have been cut to less
than 1,000, the study said. (293)</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Furthermore, lifting
the measures in a bid to kick-start the economy would almost instantly increase
the daily death toll to more than 3,000…” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Despite the knowledge that not acting sooner had doubled
deaths, despite the knowledge that reopening too soon would increase the
daily death toll significantly, despite the feeling among 2/3rds of Americans (<a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article242593036.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">and 87% of Democrats/informed Americans</span></a>) that it wasn’t time to reopen, Trump continued to give
false assurances to the American public.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In “<a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/as-deaths-mount-trump-tries-to-convince-americans-it-s-safe-to-inch-back-to-normal/ar-BB13QL8U"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">As deaths mount, Trump tries to convince
Americans it’s safe to inch back to normal</span></a>,”
posted on <b>Saturday, May 9</b>, four <i>Washington Post</i> reporters
examined the administration’s campaign strategy:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“In a week when the novel coronavirus ravaged new
communities across the country and the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/national/coronavirus-us-cases-deaths/?itid=hp_rhp__hp-banner-low_web-gfx-death-tracker%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">number of dead</span><span style="color: blue;"> </span></a>soared past 78,000, President Trump
and his advisers shifted from hour-by-hour crisis management to what they
characterize as a long-term strategy aimed at reviving the decimated economy
and preparing for additional outbreaks this fall.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“But in doing so, the administration is effectively bowing to — and asking
Americans to accept — a devastating proposition: that a steady, daily
accumulation of lonely deaths is the grim cost of reopening the nation.” (294)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The article explained that the administration was telling
itself the country was more or less good to go because the worst was behind us
and hospitals could handle upcoming cases, though <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/04/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-death-toll.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the administration’s own models</span></a> and the multiple waves experienced during <a href="https://www.history.com/news/spanish-flu-second-wave-resurgence"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the Spanish Flu</span></a> indicated otherwise. Since the administration wasn’t
willing to set up national testing (see #292) or contact tracing (295), their
focus was on propaganda—convincing gullible Republicans (see #145, #204, #283)
and independents that it was safe to ease up on restrictions, even if it
wasn’t, even if 10,000+ Americans were dying every week.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Though the country wasn't ready to re-open, Trump applauded governors who put
their constituents at risk by <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1259153410756153350?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1259153410756153350%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.vox.com%2F2020%2F6%2F8%2F21242003%2Ftrump-failed-coronavirus-response"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">tweeting</span></a> the
slogan "TRANSITION TO GREATNESS." (296)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Sunday, May 10</b>,
as it came out that multiple members of the administration had <a href="https://www.thehour.com/news/article/White-House-aides-rattled-after-positive-15259298.php"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">contracted COVID-19</span></a>, Adam Cancryn of <i>Politico</i> documented <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/10/anthony-fauci-deborah-birx-withdrawal-246165"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the conspicuous disappearance of Trump’s top
public health officials</span></a>, Anthony
Fauci and Deborah Birx: “The Trump administration in recent weeks has clamped
down on messaging, largely shifting its focus to cheerleading a restart of the
nation’s economy even as states and businesses clamor for guidance on how to do
so safely.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Key health agencies remain relegated to the background. Some congressional
requests for health officials’ testimony are being rejected. (297) And though
the task force is still intact, it has not held a press briefing for 13 days —
the longest the public has gone without having Anthony Fauci or Deborah Birx at
the White House podium since the briefings began in late February. (298)<br />
<br />
“‘It’s a blind spot that the federal government doesn’t see this first and
foremost as a public health crisis,’ said Joshua Sharfstein, a public health
professor at Johns Hopkins University. ‘This is the public health crisis of the
century, and we’re sometimes treating it as anything but.’”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The next morning, <b>Monday, May 11</b>, Trump
continued to shut the pandemic from his mind and stay on message. Though the
coronavirus task force had <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/unreleased-white-house-report-shows-coronavirus-rates-spiking-heartland-communities-n1204751"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported spikes</span></a> in infection rates around the country just days
earlier, Trump claimed that Democratic governors were making the tough but
necessary choice to stay locked down <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-usa-election/trump-an-eye-on-re-election-accuses-democrats-of-reopening-us-states-too-slowly-idUSL1N2CT0Q7"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">in order to hurt his campaign</span></a>, even as <i>he</i> was making his absurd claim purely to
serve his campaign. (299)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">While the Trump administration devoted an ever-increasing
share of its time and attention to the upcoming election, it continued to fail
at the much more immediate task of governing. <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/11/coronavirus-vaccine-supply-shortages-245450"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">As reported</span></a> by
Sarah Owermohle for <i>Politico</i>, “Meeting the overwhelming demand for
a successful coronavirus vaccine will require a historic amount of coordination
by scientists, drug makers and the government.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The nation’s supply chain isn’t anywhere close to ready for such an effort.”
(300)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Despite this short-sightedness, and the administration’s long list of other
failures and shortcomings (see #1-#299), Trump met that day with reporters in
the White House Rose Garden to puff up his record and give the American public
more false assurances about the advisability of re-opening our economy.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Standing by signs that read “America leads the world in
testing,” which was true in total numbers—because of the country’s size and
number of infections—but <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104645/covid19-testing-rate-select-countries-worldwide/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">was false per capita</span></a>, Trump declared <span style="background: white;">“In every generation, through every challenge and
hardship and danger, America has risen to the task.” Despite over </span><a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/coronavirus-pandemic-more-than-80-000-dead-due-to-covid-19-in-us-report-2227170"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">80,000 deaths</span></a><span style="background: white;"> and
more than a million infections, many/most due to his administration’s gross
negligence, Trump added, “</span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/11/white-house-instructs-staff-wear-masks-249204?nname=politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition&nid=00000170-c000-da87-af78-e185fa700000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=2670445"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">We have met the moment and we
have prevailed</span></a><span style="background: white;">,” a false claim intended to create the dangerously ignorant
impression that COVID-19 was winding down and American life could return to
normal. (301)</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">As reported by Sheryl Gay Stolberg of <i>the New York Times</i> the next day, <b>Tuesday, May 12</b>, </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/at-senate-hearing-government-experts-paint-bleak-picture-of-the-pandemic/ar-BB13Zkwl?li%3DBBnb7Kz&source=gmail&ust=1603194856227000&usg=AFQjCNHfoko1NrTVDFeBy6WJlLl8gE7PHQ" href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/at-senate-hearing-government-experts-paint-bleak-picture-of-the-pandemic/ar-BB13Zkwl?li=BBnb7Kz" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #3d85c6;">there was still no evidence that the worst of the pandemic was behind us</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Stolberg’s “</span>At Senate Hearing, Government Experts Paint Bleak Picture of the Pandemic” discussed the testimony of top administration public health officials Anthony Fauci and Robert Redfield, who “<span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">predicted dire consequences if the nation reopened its economy too soon, noting that the United States still lacked critical testing capacity and the ability to trace the contacts of those infected.” (</span><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: red;">W29</span><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">)</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Fauci told the Republican-controlled Senate Committee on Health, Education, </span>Labor and Pensions that if “states reopen their economies too soon, ‘there is a real risk that you will trigger an outbreak that you may not be able to control,’ which could result not only in ‘some suffering and death that could be avoided, but could even set you back on the road to trying to get economic recovery.’”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…Dr. Redfield pleaded with senators to build up the nation’s public health infrastructure, even as he acknowledged that the C.D.C. had not filled 30 jobs authorized by Congress last year to expand its capacity to track outbreaks, and had yet to put in place a ‘comprehensive surveillance’ system to monitor outbreaks in nursing homes, which have been hard hit by the pandemic.” (302, 303)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Fauci and Redfield were barred by the administration from appearing before House committees controlled by Democrats who were guaranteed to ask more pointed—and relevant—questions. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">The war between Trump and public health officials who want to keep us safe was in the news again on <b>Wednesday, May 13.</b></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">“Trump deepens rift with top doctor Fauci on US reopening” looked at Trump and Fauci’s conflicting priorities, including </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.barrons.com/news/trump-deepens-rift-with-top-doctor-fauci-on-us-reopening-01589411110&source=gmail&ust=1603194856227000&usg=AFQjCNHXeitPDMPjhrPwT4fLAC2xT5AEAA" href="https://www.barrons.com/news/trump-deepens-rift-with-top-doctor-fauci-on-us-reopening-01589411110" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #3d85c6;">Trump’s insistence that schools re-open in the fall</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">, which Fauci felt would put children’s health in danger.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">In “</span>Team Trump Pushes CDC to Revise Down Its COVID Death Counts,” published at <i>the Daily Beast</i>, it came out that <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.thedailybeast.com/team-trump-pushes-cdc-to-dial-down-covid-death-counts&source=gmail&ust=1603194856227000&usg=AFQjCNHN0LC5DK9R50pv3REIuoi8s9HmjQ" href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/team-trump-pushes-cdc-to-dial-down-covid-death-counts" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump was badgering CDC officials to </span></a><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.thedailybeast.com/team-trump-pushes-cdc-to-dial-down-covid-death-counts&source=gmail&ust=1603194856227000&usg=AFQjCNHN0LC5DK9R50pv3REIuoi8s9HmjQ" href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/team-trump-pushes-cdc-to-dial-down-covid-death-counts" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #3d85c6;">obscure the scope of the pandemic</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> (and the scope of </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2020/03/anatomy-of-man-made-disaster-230-ways.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856227000&usg=AFQjCNG-Aj7iYxdDtiGl8PYyKlfXbasL-A" href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2020/03/anatomy-of-man-made-disaster-230-ways.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #3d85c6;">the administration’s failures</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">) by giving Americans bad data</span>, even as the CDC’s numbers were already <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2020/04/27/covid-19-death-toll-undercounted/?arc404%3Dtrue&source=gmail&ust=1603194856227000&usg=AFQjCNFYmAFcmrG9WXHAdbzlwqELIfDrWA" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2020/04/27/covid-19-death-toll-undercounted/?arc404=true" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">an underestimate</span></a>. (304)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">One CDC official told <i>the Daily Beast</i>, “The system can always get better. But if we’ve learned anything it’s that we’re seeing some of these individuals who have died of the virus slip through the cracks….It’s not that we’re overcounting.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Millions more were at risk of slipping through the cracks due to <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-foodstamps/trumps-usda-fights-court-ruling-protecting-food-benefits-during-pandemic-idUSKBN22P33J&source=gmail&ust=1603194856227000&usg=AFQjCNEIZVkrKrURzTRaWFGsC5q7xN4OlQ" href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-foodstamps/trumps-usda-fights-court-ruling-protecting-food-benefits-during-pandemic-idUSKBN22P33J" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the Trump administration’s aggressive efforts to cut food stamp eligibility during the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression</span></a> (305). In December of 2019, the administration had imposed work requirements on food stamp recipients with the excuse that jobs were plentiful. In March, as the coronavirus surged, a district court judge put the rule on hold. Though children were going hungry (see #288), jobs were scarce, there was no sign of a rebound around the corner, and millions of Americans were forced to go to food banks, Trump’s Department of Agriculture vowed to challenge the court ruling.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Republicans were also making their constituents’ lives much more challenging than they needed to be by <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/13/vote-mail-poll-255281&source=gmail&ust=1603194856227000&usg=AFQjCNH-i3AClcD9a4mv77OieJif1sHEgQ" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/13/vote-mail-poll-255281" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">opposing vote-by-mail options</span></a> proposed by House Democrats. Three out of five voters supported Democratic efforts to “provide mail-in ballots to all voters for elections occurring during the coronavirus pandemic,” and the dangers of forcing voters to show up at polling places during a pandemic were obvious, but congressional Republicans saw a political advantage in suppressing the vote by keeping voters scared—especially in high-density Democratic cities—as low-turnout races are favorable to the GOP. (306)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Mail-in balloting has been shown to be <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/5/27/15701708/voting-by-mail&source=gmail&ust=1603194856227000&usg=AFQjCNF3kf90kDJH-XDlFo5nGXs1MFaUFQ" href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/5/27/15701708/voting-by-mail" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">safer, less expensive, and more secure</span></a>, and has worked like a charm in states in which it has been implemented, but Republican voters in the poll opposed the practice 48-42%, a reflection of the brute <span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">effectiveness of Trump’s hyper-partisan messaging, his GOP allies’ lockstep adherence to counterfactual talking points, and the negative impact of his base’s cult-like ignorance on public policy. (307)</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">The theme of </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.heraldmailmedia.com/news/nation/battle-over-coronavirus-rules-and-reopenings-across-us-is-increasingly-partisan-and-bitter/article_c1005f31-9887-5f8c-ac8e-91287c7b0e2d.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856227000&usg=AFQjCNFkoiyO6_tMJRhE5ovwzZ214LoePw" href="https://www.heraldmailmedia.com/news/nation/battle-over-coronavirus-rules-and-reopenings-across-us-is-increasingly-partisan-and-bitter/article_c1005f31-9887-5f8c-ac8e-91287c7b0e2d.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #3d85c6;">Republican disinformation campaigns</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> was revealed again in “</span>Battle over coronavirus rules and reopenings across US is increasingly partisan, and bitter,” a column by Melissa Etehad of <i>the Los Angeles Times</i> which dropped on <b>T<span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">hursday, May 14.</span></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Though </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/one-simple-chart-explains-how-social-distancing-saves-lives&source=gmail&ust=1603194856228000&usg=AFQjCNEy0IwFI3XvNsZZnT2j2ku_Siqlow" href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/one-simple-chart-explains-how-social-distancing-saves-lives" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #3d85c6;">social distancing had been proven to save lives</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> and the pandemic was still going strong—with 85,000 dead and 1.4 million infected—Republican politicians around the country were following Trump’s lead, forcing states and localities to open before it was safe to do so. In Wisconsin, Republicans on the state Supreme Court overturned the Democratic governor's shelter-in-place order, to which Trump tweeted “</span>The Great State of Wisconsin, home to Tom Tiffany’s big Congressional Victory on Tuesday, was just given another win. Its Democrat Governor was forced by the courts to let the State Open. The people want to get on with their lives. The place is bustling!” (308*) (*The state would go on to have a huge spike in infections directly tied to the premature re-opening.)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Unwilling to do what was necessary to slow down the pandemic, Trump fell back on his favored tool of deflection, claiming that the U.S. </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.vox.com/2020/5/15/21259888/trump-coronavirus-testing-very-few-cases&source=gmail&ust=1603194856228000&usg=AFQjCNG4tXe6DnKy3gbMOu_1W9cAcA6nTQ" href="https://www.vox.com/2020/5/15/21259888/trump-coronavirus-testing-very-few-cases" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #3d85c6;">had more cases</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> because we did more testing (309) and feigning reverence for the medical personnel whose lives had been made miserable by his inaction. At that day’s briefing, he said that </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.rawstory.com/2020/05/trump-horrifies-health-workers-by-saying-its-beautiful-to-watch-them-running-into-death/?utm_source%3D%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3D4540&source=gmail&ust=1603194856228000&usg=AFQjCNFzzdEqsy3Xxb5KIalPhVnG6JiLBw" href="https://www.rawstory.com/2020/05/trump-horrifies-health-workers-by-saying-its-beautiful-to-watch-them-running-into-death/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=4540" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #3d85c6;">the image of medical staff “</span></a><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.rawstory.com/2020/05/trump-horrifies-health-workers-by-saying-its-beautiful-to-watch-them-running-into-death/?utm_source%3D%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3D4540&source=gmail&ust=1603194856228000&usg=AFQjCNFzzdEqsy3Xxb5KIalPhVnG6JiLBw" href="https://www.rawstory.com/2020/05/trump-horrifies-health-workers-by-saying-its-beautiful-to-watch-them-running-into-death/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=4540" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">running into death just like soldiers run into bullets….is a beautiful thing to see</span></a>.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Friday, May 15</b>, the day after Trump waxed poetic about putting doctors and nurses in proximity to death and dying and horrible human suffering, two jaw-dropping statistics came out.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It was reported that “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/14/economy/low-income-layoffs-coronavirus/index.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856228000&usg=AFQjCNHbfiuCDqiLGsLtBdQvQaHtQ3WFDg" href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/14/economy/low-income-layoffs-coronavirus/index.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Nearly </span></a><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/14/economy/low-income-layoffs-coronavirus/index.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856228000&usg=AFQjCNHbfiuCDqiLGsLtBdQvQaHtQ3WFDg" href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/14/economy/low-income-layoffs-coronavirus/index.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #3d85c6;">40% of low-income workers lost their jobs in March</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">” (310) and </span>Robert Redfield announced that the U.S. would have <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/15/us-on-pace-to-pass-100-000-covid-19-deaths-by-june-1-cdc-director-says-261468&source=gmail&ust=1603194856228000&usg=AFQjCNFTw_hk_4DPwyLBplPov3CmaPTsRg" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/15/us-on-pace-to-pass-100-000-covid-19-deaths-by-june-1-cdc-director-says-261468" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">100,000 deaths</span></a> by June 1. Shocking as it was, the latter number was an underestimate, as the U.S. would actually reach 100,000 deaths well before the end of May, and the official numbers were far lower than the actual death tolls. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Though the administration’s own models showed <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/04/cdc-daily-deaths-coronavirus-234377&source=gmail&ust=1603194856228000&usg=AFQjCNFhW_NG4Jv-ILoAOFgvuuixeMAwng" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/04/cdc-daily-deaths-coronavirus-234377" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a doubling of cases with premature re-openings</span></a>, though <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/15/stay-at-home-order-coronavirus-259041&source=gmail&ust=1603194856228000&usg=AFQjCNGQuh81sD9VrtWluXkP-R33YhPjRw" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/15/stay-at-home-order-coronavirus-259041" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">only two states had met the CDC criteria to re-open</span></a>, though Dr. Fauci and most voters opposed it, Trump <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/19/trumps-push-to-reopen-schools-and-day-care-gets-chilly-reception-from-voters-269430&source=gmail&ust=1603194856228000&usg=AFQjCNEEjCMq1OeTGeuFsq1qIiuzKBltrA" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/19/trumps-push-to-reopen-schools-and-day-care-gets-chilly-reception-from-voters-269430" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">continued to push schools to re-open</span></a> in the fall, a move that would put children and teachers and their families at risk so that Trump’s failure to contain the pandemic wasn’t so evident at election time. (311)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />On <b>Saturday, May 16</b>, Trump received <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31140-5/fulltext&source=gmail&ust=1603194856228000&usg=AFQjCNHt33CYlu7LGjsAll-3WRYFKPQzjQ" href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31140-5/fulltext" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the honor</span> </a>of a write-up in one of the world’s oldest and most prestigious medical journals, <i>The Lancet</i>.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />The authors of “Reviving the US CDC” opened by referring to “the inconsistent and incoherent national response to the COVID-19 crisis,” as the U.S. had dozens if not hundreds of plans, depending on the location, and no broad national strategy. (312)<br /><br />Later on, the article read “only a steadfast reliance on basic public health principles, like test, trace, and isolate, will see the emergency brought to an end, and this requires an effective national public health agency,” but this wasn’t happening. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />In fact, the administration’s actions indicated that Trump was downright indifferent to the mass suffering of his constituents. The following day, <b>Sunday, May 17</b>, Burgess Everett of <i>Politico</i> reported that “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/17/congress-coronavirus-deal-unemployment-260737&source=gmail&ust=1603194856228000&usg=AFQjCNHuIsdOtLA01Rrs9xaFWTiMK1lP6Q" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/17/congress-coronavirus-deal-unemployment-260737" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Congress [was] nowhere close to a coronavirus deal as unemployment spikes</span></a>.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />Though Trump and his Republican allies had passed an enormous and totally unnecessary $2+ trillion tax cut <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/12/18/16791174/republican-tax-bill-congress-conference-tax-policy-center&source=gmail&ust=1603194856228000&usg=AFQjCNHJfhGaC0U89Ore6UcH8Ij9HjVelg" href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/12/18/16791174/republican-tax-bill-congress-conference-tax-policy-center" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">heavily tilted to the wealthy</span></a> and rammed through <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/18/senate-passes-700-billion-defense-policy-bill-backing-trump-call-for-steep-increase-in-military-spending.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856228000&usg=AFQjCNFRiCRlI1X12v6vG9ca-ISYAVNdDg" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/18/senate-passes-700-billion-defense-policy-bill-backing-trump-call-for-steep-increase-in-military-spending.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">huge increases</span></a> to the <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.pgpf.org/chart-archive/0053_defense-comparison&source=gmail&ust=1603194856228000&usg=AFQjCNFlt-5gf55kWgfo91v_pvQHUFgaJA" href="https://www.pgpf.org/chart-archive/0053_defense-comparison" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">already gargantuan defense budget</span></a>, the HEROES Act, a bill passed by House Democrats which <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.vox.com/2020/5/12/21254397/next-coronavirus-stimulus-package-democrats-heroes-act&source=gmail&ust=1603194856228000&usg=AFQjCNHiO3uDEWz3gL9wW43rzkHSh1Jq7Q" href="https://www.vox.com/2020/5/12/21254397/next-coronavirus-stimulus-package-democrats-heroes-act" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">extended vital aid to state and local governments, and provided money for unemployment benefits, business payrolls, mortgage relief, and front line medical workers</span></a>, was languishing in the Republican Senate, as Mitch McConnell and his ringmaster—Donald Trump—chose the worst possible moment to stonewall tens of millions of Americans.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">The top story on <b>Monday, May 18</b>, the day the U.S. </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://tekdeeps.com/the-united-states-rounds-90000-dead-and-1-5-million-infected-with-corona-2/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856228000&usg=AFQjCNHnxWM_4_XT3F7hjw1h64c_D2o81g" href="https://tekdeeps.com/the-united-states-rounds-90000-dead-and-1-5-million-infected-with-corona-2/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #3d85c6;">passed 90,000 deaths</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> due to administration negligence (see #1-#312), was </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/trump-hydroxychloroquine-e594e81b-c35a-47f8-878d-67f84ce421ea.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiospm%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856228000&usg=AFQjCNFGtXafH_YaKNYdsQC22qnfSAPByg" href="https://www.axios.com/trump-hydroxychloroquine-e594e81b-c35a-47f8-878d-67f84ce421ea.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiospm&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #3d85c6;">Trump’s claim that he was taking hydroxychloroquine</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">, despite health warnings from his own FDA and studies showing that use of </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/12/health/chloroquine-coronavirus-trump.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856228000&usg=AFQjCNGvoZ5RQWcxBYOqdjVdQ0pRe6YXZQ" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/12/health/chloroquine-coronavirus-trump.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #3d85c6;">the drug could be fatal</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">. Sure enough, Trump’s self-medication was later </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.thedailybeast.com/republicans-use-potentially-lethal-drug-hydroxychloroquine-as-trump-bait&source=gmail&ust=1603194856228000&usg=AFQjCNEEwkDRy0vY2KOPTDrNk95sWur5lA" href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/republicans-use-potentially-lethal-drug-hydroxychloroquine-as-trump-bait" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #3d85c6;">aped by Trumpanzees</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">. (313) </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Back in the real world, on <b>Tuesday, May 19</b>, a memo leaked from a Pentagon source </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://taskandpurpose.com/news/coronavirus-vaccine-pentagon-memo&source=gmail&ust=1603194856228000&usg=AFQjCNFj87-R1bIkwP1nqOJgyvmSZm6Z2A" href="https://taskandpurpose.com/news/coronavirus-vaccine-pentagon-memo" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #3d85c6;">put the lie to two of Trump’s repeated claims</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Written by Defense Secretary Mark Esper, the memo stated that contrary to Trump’s insistence that the worst of the pandemic was behind us, the U.S. armed forces had to maintain disaster readiness because </span>“<span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">We have a long path ahead, with the real possibility of a resurgence of COVID-19….Therefore, we must now re-focus our attention on resuming critical missions, increasing levels of activity, and making necessary preparations should a significant resurgence of COVID-19 occur later this year.</span>”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">And though Esper had told the media just days earlier that “</span>the Pentagon would ‘deliver by the end of this year a vaccine at scale to treat the American people and our partners abroad,’” his memo stated that “The Defense Department should prepare to operate in a ‘globally-persistent’ novel coronavirus (COVID-19) environment without an effective vaccine until ‘at least the summer of 2021.’” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">More evidence of the danger in reopening too soon was revealed <b>Wednesday, May 20</b>. A model from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School predicted that <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8340325/5million-Americans-infected-COVID-19-July-model-shows.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856228000&usg=AFQjCNHgA8Vs3Nf3U3p6JqfllG1IAOM3cg" href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8340325/5million-Americans-infected-COVID-19-July-model-shows.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a premature relaxation of social distancing guidelines around the country could lead to 5.4 million infections and 290,000 deaths by July 24</span></a>. (<span style="color: red;">W30</span>)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The CDC was the one agency whose actions could keep those death rates down, but the CDC had not been allowed to do its job. As reported by Robert Kuznia, Curt Devin, and Nick Valencia of <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://cnn.com&source=gmail&ust=1603194856228000&usg=AFQjCNGwhwnbn3UuXnWjV2m8CcURTknTEA" href="http://cnn.com/" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">cnn.com</a>, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/20/politics/coronavirus-travel-alert-cdc-white-house-tensions-invs/index.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856228000&usg=AFQjCNGQ0QkmjQLt2Wzi259yN2bhX-78Qg" href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/20/politics/coronavirus-travel-alert-cdc-white-house-tensions-invs/index.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">public health officials had been diminished from early in the pandemic</span></a>: “In the early weeks of the US coronavirus outbreak, staff members in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had tracked a growing number of transmissions in Europe and elsewhere, and proposed a global advisory that would alert flyers to the dangers of air travel.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“But about a week passed before the alert was issued publicly -- crucial time lost when about 66,000 European travelers were streaming into American airports <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2020/03/13/travelers-europe-will-face-additional-scrutiny/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856228000&usg=AFQjCNE7M07TSGJ3nu_fE-5FBwlVCItgJg" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2020/03/13/travelers-europe-will-face-additional-scrutiny/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">every day</span></a>.” (314)<br /><br />“…In interviews with CNN, CDC officials say their agency's efforts to mount a coordinated response to the Covid-19 pandemic have been hamstrung by a White House whose decisions are driven by politics rather than science. (315)<br /><br />“The result has worsened the effects of the crisis, sources inside the CDC say, relegating the 73-year-old agency that has traditionally led the nation's response to infectious disease to a supporting role.<br /><br />“‘We've been muzzled,’ said a current CDC official. ‘What's tough is that if we would have acted earlier on what we knew and recommended, we would have saved lives and money.’<br /><br />“…A senior official inside the CDC told CNN that the agency also alerted the White House to the virus's rapid spread across Europe, but that ‘the White House was extremely focused on China and not wanting to anger Europe ... even though that's where most of our cases were originally coming from.’” (see #43)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />The administration’s disregard for public health continued into the present, as <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/20/media/anthony-fauci-tv-interviews/index.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856228000&usg=AFQjCNFhIdncgUwkHw_2nYPASu4oYdEK6g" href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/20/media/anthony-fauci-tv-interviews/index.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Dr. Fauci had been taken off the air</span></a> (see #297) and Republicans were “recruiting ‘extremely pro-Trump’ doctors to go on television to prescribe reviving the U.S. economy as quickly as possible, without waiting to meet safety benchmarks proposed by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to slow the spread of the new coronavirus.” (316)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">While <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://apnews.com/4ee1a3a8d631b454f645b2a8d9597de7&source=gmail&ust=1603194856228000&usg=AFQjCNGY5XTsQdt5bhlx-pJDl5loWS0JZA" href="https://apnews.com/4ee1a3a8d631b454f645b2a8d9597de7" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">recruiting quack doctors to push fake news</span></a>, Trump continued <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election/article242863131.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856228000&usg=AFQjCNE6Gf8s9SgaQNiPbHENAmrbspI9hQ" href="https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election/article242863131.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the GOP’s campaign to suppress the Democratic vote</span></a> in the fall by “[threatening]<span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> over Twitter…to pull federal funding from Michigan and Nevada for mail-in-voting efforts.” (317)</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Another example of the fallout from the Trump administration’s shockingly inadequate response to COVID-19 and the economic shock waves it had created was reported by Jessica Menton at <i>USA Today</i> on <b>Thursday, May 21</b>. According to the dispatch, “<span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Mortgage delinquencies surged by 1.6 million in April, </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/05/21/coronavirus-mortgage-delinquencies-surge-1-6-m-april/5231835002/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856228000&usg=AFQjCNEm9nr5S5fCbbRGlZomMcFNoFBubQ" href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/05/21/coronavirus-mortgage-delinquencies-surge-1-6-m-april/5231835002/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #3d85c6;">the largest single-month jump in history</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">.” (318)</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">“…At 6.45%, the national delinquency rate nearly doubled from 3.06% in March, the largest single-month increase recorded, and nearly three times the prior record for a single month during the height of the financial crisis in late 2008.”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">“…The Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, passed in March, allows homeowners to suspend their mortgage payments for up to a year on federally backed mortgages. It doesn’t protect mortgages that aren’t backed by the government, which make up about half of all mortgages in the USA.”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Though the need for more government relief to homeowners, renters, and the unemployed couldn’t have been clearer, and <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/13/business/economy/fed-chair-powell-economy-virus-support.html?campaign_id%3D9%26emc%3Dedit_nn_20200514%26instance_id%3D18463%26nl%3Dthe-morning%26regi_id%3D126380121%26segment_id%3D27760%26te%3D1%26user_id%3Dd83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74&source=gmail&ust=1603194856228000&usg=AFQjCNEVddVU4sTKESVG7KKgrIV2r8q5qg" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/13/business/economy/fed-chair-powell-economy-virus-support.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200514&instance_id=18463&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=27760&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">was prescribed by none other than Trump’s own hand-picked Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell</span></a>, Trump ally Mitch McConnell continued to ignore the HEROES Act passed by House Democrats and made no counter proposals of his own that could be negotiated between the House and Senate, claiming there was “no immediate need” to address the desperation of tens of millions of Americans.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As of <b>Friday, May 22, </b>the U.S. had <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://apnews.com/900aa1955a82b7bbe2e028a8bc1a4be7&source=gmail&ust=1603194856228000&usg=AFQjCNGczwxW_I3_T_SB-1x9PkXcEuIqqw" href="https://apnews.com/900aa1955a82b7bbe2e028a8bc1a4be7" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">lost 39 million jobs</span></a> since the start of the pandemic. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In a misguided effort to reverse this slide, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2020/05/07/as-states-reopen-covid-19-is-spreading-into-even-more-trump-counties/?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dsendto_newslettertest%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856228000&usg=AFQjCNG5JMziI6HvQeuiDMzqSiOOdrSfJw" href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2020/05/07/as-states-reopen-covid-19-is-spreading-into-even-more-trump-counties/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=sendto_newslettertest&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">red states were opening up more aggressively than blue/purple states and seeing increases in infections</span></a>. As reported on the Brookings Institution blog, “for four weeks running, counties newly designated with a high prevalence of COVID-19 cases were more likely to have voted for Trump than for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…COVID-19’s spread is continuing southward and westward from its northeastern concentration at the end of March. Counties identified in the most recent week are heavily located in the South (80 counties) and Midwest (68). There is also a high representation in smaller areas, as 159 of the 176 newly identified high-prevalence counties lie in outer suburbs, small metropolitan areas, or outside of metropolitan areas.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…Among new high-prevalence counties from the week of May 11 to May 17, Trump won 151 of them in the 2016 election. Clinton was the victor in just 25.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…Over the four-week period between April 20 and May 17, 697 new high COVID-19 prevalence counties voted for Trump, compared with just 127 that voted for Clinton.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">One might think the direct connection between lax social distancing and an increase in infections would be obvious, and that the credibility of public health officials would be reinforced by this inescapable conclusion, but Trump’s months of misinformation had disconnected tens of millions of Americans from reality. <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2020/05/21/trust-in-medical-scientists-has-grown-in-u-s-but-mainly-among-democrats/?fbclid%3DIwAR0VujNUymHIMiIHFiBm7ARPQeHVnbSYob9Jhz36v_eKXT45lhDsVpBAASA&source=gmail&ust=1603194856228000&usg=AFQjCNFMbyGJF84ICH1UlYaIHDlkf7g1rQ" href="https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2020/05/21/trust-in-medical-scientists-has-grown-in-u-s-but-mainly-among-democrats/?fbclid=IwAR0VujNUymHIMiIHFiBm7ARPQeHVnbSYob9Jhz36v_eKXT45lhDsVpBAASA" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">A recent Pew poll</span></a> showed that Democrats were more likely than Republicans to trust scientists (319) and think scientists should have an active role in forming policy (320), much more likely to grasp the value in social distancing (321), much more likely to grasp the importance of testing in mitigating the damage of the virus (322), and much more likely to know that the U.S. had had far more cases than any other country.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Republican voters’ COVID-19 ignorance was also evident in an ABC poll published Friday which showed that <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/black-americans-latinos-times-died-covid-19-poll/story?id%3D70794789&source=gmail&ust=1603194856229000&usg=AFQjCNHPzHU9CmqQDuokMP208wYf0gqsZw" href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/black-americans-latinos-times-died-covid-19-poll/story?id=70794789" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">89% of Republicans approved of Trump’s handling of the coronavirus</span></a>, despite an endless and unceasing list of administration failures (see #1-#322).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The insidious impact of Trump’s lies was reviewed again on <b>Saturday, May 23 </b>in<b> </b><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.mediaite.com/politics/bill-gates-bioweapons-and-bad-data-poll-shows-fox-news-viewers-believe-covid-conspiracies-misinformation-in-big-numbers/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856229000&usg=AFQjCNHIyeiLGYTahsUiDJG1UvmhUS2rnQ" href="https://www.mediaite.com/politics/bill-gates-bioweapons-and-bad-data-poll-shows-fox-news-viewers-believe-covid-conspiracies-misinformation-in-big-numbers/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a <i>Mediaite</i> piece</span></a> by Caleb Howe. According to a Yahoo/YouGov poll, 50% of Fox News viewers thought Bill Gates wanted to use a COVID-19 vaccination campaign to implant a microchip in their heads as a tracking device, 65% thought the virus was “engineered in a lab in China,” 46% thought it was “intentionally created” as a “biowarfare weapon,” and 55% thought the official COVID-19 death tallies were too high. (323)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The impact of Trump’s appeals to lockstep stupidity on the right were also explored in “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/24/pennsylvania-election-nightmare-275410&source=gmail&ust=1603194856229000&usg=AFQjCNHzfLe1v_0VtoRAKyhmLmDxhNeDVw" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/24/pennsylvania-election-nightmare-275410" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Key swing state warns of November election nightmare</span></a>.” Because of the GOP’s refusal to help fund mail-in voting, Pennsylvania was facing a nightmare scenario for their upcoming primary, with thousands of voters not receiving ballots on time and districts lacking the staff to count the ballots when they came in. With Pennsylvania likely to be one of the central states in determining who would win the presidential election, there was a possibility that Republicans’ laser focus on suppressing the vote (served by not funding mail-in voting during a pandemic) could leave the world waiting days—if not weeks—to find out who won Pennsylvania, and therefore, the presidency itself. (324)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As Trump undermined the sacred process of voting, the administration continued to fail to govern. On <b>Sunday, May 24</b>, <span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Loveday Morris and Luisa Beck of <i>the Washington Post</i> </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/while-us-struggles-to-roll-out-coronavirus-contact-tracing-germany-has-been-doing-it-from-the-start/ar-BB14yvg1&source=gmail&ust=1603194856229000&usg=AFQjCNEMeDsrq0gSc8kV0wb-taO66wbjxw" href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/while-us-struggles-to-roll-out-coronavirus-contact-tracing-germany-has-been-doing-it-from-the-start/ar-BB14yvg1" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #3d85c6;">compared</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> </span>the responses of Germany and the United States in relation to contact tracing. While Germany had begun contract tracing since their first COVID-19 cases were confirmed, the U.S. still had no national system in place nearly five months after first being notified of COVID-19’s threat, creating predictably divergent results: “Epidemiologists say the effort [in Germany] has been essential to the country’s ability to contain its coronavirus outbreak and avoid the larger death tolls seen elsewhere, even with a less stringent shutdown than in other countries.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Because the administration had failed to get behind the practice of contact tracing, Republican voters were once again in the dark, showing a Pavlovian resistance to something they didn’t understand. On Memorial Day, <b>Monday, May 25</b>, Will Sommer of <i>the Daily Beast</i> posted “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.yahoo.com/news/trumpsters-already-revolting-against-covid-083852347.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856229000&usg=AFQjCNHNmDjRRWnuaZHGp3EW3XgMdqISSg" href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/trumpsters-already-revolting-against-covid-083852347.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trumpsters Are Already Revolting Against COVID Contact Tracing</span></a>”: (325)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><br />“Donald Trump’s allies in conservative media have a new villain in the coronavirus fight: contact tracing, the rigorous efforts to track the virus’s spread that public health experts say is essential to safely restarting society.” </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">“…A wide range of public health officials and experts have insisted that the country needs to vastly expand contact tracing, with one Johns Hopkins study calling for the hiring of at least 100,000 </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/our-work/pubs_archive/pubs-pdfs/2020/200410-national-plan-to-contact-tracing.pdf&source=gmail&ust=1603194856229000&usg=AFQjCNHm1TWI6HdOl7d7wBJkvi5Yv1tBaA" href="https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/our-work/pubs_archive/pubs-pdfs/2020/200410-national-plan-to-contact-tracing.pdf" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #3d85c6;">additional contact tracers</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-second-wave-fauci-4fea926c-485d-4ea4-8c63-ebae73c533fc.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856229000&usg=AFQjCNGPeBFguIOSCpSRmixzgv1h-InkxQ" href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-second-wave-fauci-4fea926c-485d-4ea4-8c63-ebae73c533fc.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #3d85c6;">said</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> earlier this month that coronavirus deaths will ‘of course’ increase without additional tracing and testing.”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">“…But much of the fearmongering about contact tracing seems to be driven by ignorance of what it actually is. Failed Republican congressional candidate and </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.thedailybeast.com/qanon-the-crazy-pro-trump-conspiracy-melts-down-over-oig-report&source=gmail&ust=1603194856229000&usg=AFQjCNGoEBnaMiwozl1RhAHQajWy3jMThg" href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/qanon-the-crazy-pro-trump-conspiracy-melts-down-over-oig-report" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #3d85c6;">QAnon conspiracy theorist</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> DeAnna Lorraine Tesoriero, whose call to ‘#FireFauci’ Trump retweeted in April, has urged her fans to not get tested for COVID-19. She also appears to misunderstand contact tracing, claiming that contact tracers go through phone ‘contact’ lists, rather than in-person contacts.” </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Dropping the ball on contact tracing was just one of the administration’s many failures of governance. The administration had also failed to provide the resources necessary for nursing home staff to be tested on a deadline recommended <i>by the administration itself</i>. According to Alan Suderman of the Associated Press, the “lack of testing and other resources <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://apnews.com/681479be1d9f1a0fea4d64b1a44d5b9e&source=gmail&ust=1603194856229000&usg=AFQjCNGWp_wStlikbQfOB6eWDlMEp6G3Rw" href="https://apnews.com/681479be1d9f1a0fea4d64b1a44d5b9e" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">have left [nursing homes] nearly powerless</span></a> to stop the virus from entering their facilities because they haven’t been able to identity silent spreaders not showing symptoms.” (326)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />During the day’s <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.ctpost.com/news/article/Memorial-Day-offers-contrasts-as-Biden-and-Trump-15293738.php&source=gmail&ust=1603194856229000&usg=AFQjCNHsyY-7vBawK77eydfzsy7N04hNUQ" href="https://www.ctpost.com/news/article/Memorial-Day-offers-contrasts-as-Biden-and-Trump-15293738.php" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">dueling Memorial Day events</span></a>, Joe Biden and his wife wore masks, while Trump did not. (327)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That evening, white Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin murdered African-American George Floyd over a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The details of the murder weren’t widely known the following day, <b>Tuesday, May 26</b>, so coronavirus continued to get a lot of news coverage. Among other stories, Trump once again displayed and encouraged ignorance among his fan base by calling a reporter “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-calls-mask-wearing-politically-correct-biden-calls-him-a-fool/2020/05/26/a58025e6-9f9c-11ea-81bb-c2f70f01034b_story.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856229000&usg=AFQjCNGy_VuWsSFb7kq1txW61tr7zu-ipg" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-calls-mask-wearing-politically-correct-biden-calls-him-a-fool/2020/05/26/a58025e6-9f9c-11ea-81bb-c2f70f01034b_story.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">politically correct</span></a>” for not removing his mask while asking a question. (328)<br /><br />Another one of Trump’s false talking points—that mail-in voting was rife with fraud—was finally called out by Twitter with a warning label about <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/26/twitter-fact-checks-trump-slaps-warning-labels-on-his-tweets-about-mail-in-ballots.html?fbclid%3DIwAR2k22JzR2l3NqPcpFQ24ZeRRgHis7I4KbdSTqTDI_dXhBCewtH-baRpxn8&source=gmail&ust=1603194856229000&usg=AFQjCNHyEN2jan5R02Iqox6yqG2u1caDtg" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/26/twitter-fact-checks-trump-slaps-warning-labels-on-his-tweets-about-mail-in-ballots.html?fbclid=IwAR2k22JzR2l3NqPcpFQ24ZeRRgHis7I4KbdSTqTDI_dXhBCewtH-baRpxn8" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">misinformation</span></a> attached to two of Trump’s tweets. (329)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The results of Trump’s months of lies and the parroting of his lies by Republican allies and media surrogates were reflected in a Gallup poll which again showed <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://news.gallup.com/poll/311408/republicans-skeptical-covid-lethality.aspx&source=gmail&ust=1603194856229000&usg=AFQjCNH8W5Ok-BskziSj5cBxmopN-9Pp7A" href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/311408/republicans-skeptical-covid-lethality.aspx" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the stone ignorance of Republican voters</span></a> (see #145, #204, #283, #307, #313, #s 319-323. #325). Only 40% of Republican voters (as opposed to 87% of Democrats) understood that COVID-19 was <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.livescience.com/new-coronavirus-compare-with-flu.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856229000&usg=AFQjCNElswYDSWDe5wdrzxKbDwafu9N8gQ" href="https://www.livescience.com/new-coronavirus-compare-with-flu.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">far more lethal</span></a> than seasonal flu (330). Half of Republicans falsely believed official death counts were overstated, <i>ten times</i>’ the number of Democrats.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The magical thinking of Trump supporters and other low-information citizens was evident in the huge crowds that came out on Memorial Day, despite the fact that coronavirus was still going strong. (331)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In the reality-based world, indications showed that the U.S. was still “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/05/26/862230065/as-the-u-s-heads-toward-100-000-covid-19-deaths-we-re-early-in-this-outbreak&source=gmail&ust=1603194856229000&usg=AFQjCNG0krnvhK5c3dwCiTDThWjf8ZDT6w" href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/05/26/862230065/as-the-u-s-heads-toward-100-000-covid-19-deaths-we-re-early-in-this-outbreak" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">early in this outbreak</span></a>,” hospitalizations were increasing across much of the U.S. (332), the World Health Organization was warning of <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.lmtonline.com/news/article/WHO-warns-of-second-peak-discourages-swift-15296366.php&source=gmail&ust=1603194856229000&usg=AFQjCNHnvv9gec0kSJ3seaX_aiu1KgMjkw" href="https://www.lmtonline.com/news/article/WHO-warns-of-second-peak-discourages-swift-15296366.php" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a second peak</span></a> resulting from a premature relaxation of safety guidelines, and millions of American children were going hungry because of the <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/26/us/coronavirus-live-updates.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856229000&usg=AFQjCNHwhXrM6XYs4Dh0QQGO5VMHurx8Ag" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/26/us/coronavirus-live-updates.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">slow rollout</span></a> of the Pandemic-EBT program (333) and the GOP’s resistance to expanding food stamps (see #289).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In addition to shortchanging children of basic human needs, in part because they refused to come up with a coordinated federal response to food insecurity (334), the administration was setting many states up to fail by not creating a coordinated federal testing program, even as the need for a national testing program was becoming clearer all the time. (335) </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.boston.com/news/coronavirus/2020/05/26/trump-coronavirus-testing-strategy&source=gmail&ust=1603194856229000&usg=AFQjCNHjiEAffZL2nzrTgaTTxHt8s5uh2A" href="https://www.boston.com/news/coronavirus/2020/05/26/trump-coronavirus-testing-strategy" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> by Apoorva Mandavilli and Catie Edmondson of <i>the New York Times</i>, the administration’s official “plan”—released in a report—was to outsource testing to the states, though states lacked the resources to test at a capacity necessary to keep citizens safe:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />“The [administration] proposal also says existing testing capacity, if properly targeted, is sufficient to contain the outbreak. But epidemiologists say that amount of testing is orders of magnitude lower than many of them believe the country needs.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The report cements a stance that has frustrated governors in both parties, following the administration’s announcement last month that the<span style="color: #3d85c6;"> </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/27/politics/white-house-testing-blueprint/index.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856229000&usg=AFQjCNGzfEhAsXathcEjYSNFqQDeHdVV6Q" href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/27/politics/white-house-testing-blueprint/index.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">federal government should be considered ‘the supplier of last resort</span>’</a> and that states should develop their own testing plans.”<br /><br />“[Scott Becker, executive director of the Association of Public Health Laboratories] and others said it’s reasonable to expect states to implement some aspects of the testing, such as designating test sites. But acquiring tests involves reliance on national and international supply chains — which are challenging for many states to navigate.<br /><br />“‘That’s our biggest question, that’s our biggest concern, is the robustness of the supply chain, which is critical,’ Becker said. ‘You can’t leave it up to the states to do it for themselves. This is not the Hunger Games.’”<br /><br />The administration’s report also greatly underestimated the number of tests necessary, pegging it at 300,000/day, roughly 1/10th of what the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard said was needed. (336)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/27/coronavirus-death-toll-100000-285043&source=gmail&ust=1603194856229000&usg=AFQjCNEybfdtnCsV9y50ts_NoKXN-PAKCQ" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/27/coronavirus-death-toll-100000-285043" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump passed his personal milestone of 100,000 dead Americans</span></a> on <b>Wednesday, May 27</b>. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />As incomprehensible as the number was, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/27/bad-state-coronavirus-data-trump-reopening-286143?nname%3Dpolitico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition%26nid%3D00000170-c000-da87-af78-e185fa700000%26nrid%3D00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000%26nlid%3D2670445&source=gmail&ust=1603194856229000&usg=AFQjCNGGKaMgq2l94Eq6gR9Rx9FICq7CAQ" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/27/bad-state-coronavirus-data-trump-reopening-286143?nname=politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition&nid=00000170-c000-da87-af78-e185fa700000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=2670445" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">it was an underestimate</span></a>, perhaps even a major underestimate, as many states were failing to report accurate death counts. Trump’s response to this horrible human tragedy of his own making was to <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/for-a-numbers-obsessed-trump-theres-one-he-has-tried-to-ignore-100000-dead/2020/05/27/0a9c58ee-9f63-11ea-9590-1858a893bd59_story.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856229000&usg=AFQjCNFksKqSXpoOAREe7JNyZh2pTyfqjQ" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/for-a-numbers-obsessed-trump-theres-one-he-has-tried-to-ignore-100000-dead/2020/05/27/0a9c58ee-9f63-11ea-9590-1858a893bd59_story.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">tweet-brag</span></a>: “For all of the political hacks out there, if I hadn’t done my job well, & early, we would have lost 1 1/2 to 2 Million People, as opposed to the 100,000 plus that looks like will be the number.”<br /><br />In other news, the United States, under Trump’s leadership, had had both 3X as many deaths as any other country and <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-effects-of-covid-19-on-international-labor-markets-an-update/?campaign_id%3D9%26emc%3Dedit_nn_20200528%26instance_id%3D18874%26nl%3Dthe-morning%26regi_id%3D126380121%26segment_id%3D29399%26te%3D1%26user_id%3Dd83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74&source=gmail&ust=1603194856230000&usg=AFQjCNExjTDF22943xO_MkkS66jnaThdaA" href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-effects-of-covid-19-on-international-labor-markets-an-update/?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200528&instance_id=18874&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=29399&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the biggest increase in unemployment</span></a> among comparable developed countries (337), which was about to lead to an “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/27/us/coronavirus-evictions-renters.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856230000&usg=AFQjCNG6lq0-G65H_eiZ2B3yIz6jA-4OrA" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/27/us/coronavirus-evictions-renters.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">avalanche of evictions</span></a>,” predominantly in red states with limited tenant protections. (338)<br /><br />Trump’s failures to ramp up testing, tracing, and PPE from early in the pandemic also exerted a toll on American citizens’ health and medical services. According to <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.kff.org/report-section/kff-health-tracking-poll-may-2020-health-and-economic-impacts/?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosvitals%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856230000&usg=AFQjCNEuOcTJE276xHqMRFOUixU-1vDPvg" href="https://www.kff.org/report-section/kff-health-tracking-poll-may-2020-health-and-economic-impacts/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a Kaiser Family Foundation study</span></a>, “Nearly half of adults (48%) say they or someone in their household have postponed or skipped medical care due to the coronavirus outbreak.” (see #152-#154)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Despite how much more gravely the impacts of COVID-19 were felt in the United States than other developed countries due to Trump’s failures of leadership, between 80-90% of Republicans continued to approve of his handling of coronavirus (339). A key to this steadfast support of a president who had so obviously failed us was discussed in a study released by two political scientists.<br /><br />In <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-effect-new-study-connects-white-american-intolerance-support-authoritarianism-ncna877886?fbclid%3DIwAR3DpjF9r7FZmV8mYe2FDyGbQJjoAgHKyQzdApxo6CZMcCrdX4WwLtszfVQ&source=gmail&ust=1603194856230000&usg=AFQjCNFOfIneKijq3yjWn9iYwJZ9v6O53w" href="https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-effect-new-study-connects-white-american-intolerance-support-authoritarianism-ncna877886?fbclid=IwAR3DpjF9r7FZmV8mYe2FDyGbQJjoAgHKyQzdApxo6CZMcCrdX4WwLtszfVQ" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">an article</span></a> titled “The Trump effect: New study connects white American intolerance and support for authoritarianism,” Noah Berlatsky discussed the findings, the key one being that “when intolerant white people fear democracy may benefit marginalized people, they abandon their commitment to democracy.”<br /><br />“…For instance, people who said they did not want to live next door to immigrants or to people of another race were more supportive of the idea of military rule, or of a strongman-type leader who could ignore legislatures and election results.”<br /><br />While racist Trump supporters cheered on their toxic strongman, the four Minneapolis police officers responsible for George Floyd’s death were fired and protests around the country continued to flare.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Thursday, May 28</b> was a bad day for America. It was reported that <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/28/us-economy-shrank-at-5-annual-rate-in-q1-287717&source=gmail&ust=1603194856230000&usg=AFQjCNGZ5h7Mz63aywxHN7O6ej8QrqDsOg" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/28/us-economy-shrank-at-5-annual-rate-in-q1-287717" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the economy had contracted by 5%</span></a> in the first quarter of 2020, and the second quarter was likely to be worse. 2.1 million Americans had lost their jobs and bankruptcies were “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/05/jobless-claims-bankruptcies-coronavirus-recession.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856230000&usg=AFQjCNEBDvYWsOu92sHcToR-trmt8iMUuw" href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/05/jobless-claims-bankruptcies-coronavirus-recession.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">soaring</span></a>.” (340) Millions of Americans who were unemployed and unlikely to find work any time soon were <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/28/business/economy/coronavirus-stimulus-unemployment.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856230000&usg=AFQjCNEWl0KiVo3t5A97is037Tw7ptZjCw" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/28/business/economy/coronavirus-stimulus-unemployment.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">fearing the end of their federal benefits</span></a>, as Trump’s Republican allies in the Senate continued to ignore the House Democrats’ stimulus bill, passed two weeks earlier, or come up with a counter bill.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/28/rising-icu-bed-use-red-flag-287552?nname%3Dpolitico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition%26nid%3D00000170-c000-da87-af78-e185fa700000%26nrid%3D00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000%26nlid%3D2670445&source=gmail&ust=1603194856230000&usg=AFQjCNHruEhEIG1L9FPX8834O2vveHk8rQ" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/28/rising-icu-bed-use-red-flag-287552?nname=politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition&nid=00000170-c000-da87-af78-e185fa700000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=2670445" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">ICU bed use was increasing</span></a> in hot spots around the country (341) and <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.vox.com/2020/5/28/21270515/coronavirus-covid-reopen-economy-social-distancing-states-map-data&source=gmail&ust=1603194856230000&usg=AFQjCNEjQUyTbrNa_BvhHmaefcMgpWCEoQ" href="https://www.vox.com/2020/5/28/21270515/coronavirus-covid-reopen-economy-social-distancing-states-map-data" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">only six states</span></a> met the minimum (which is not to say <i>adequate</i>) standards for re-opening, even as virtually the whole country had re-opened to one extent or another, largely at Trump’s prodding.<br /><br />As coronavirus and protests raged, Trump picked petty fights with imaginary foes. Though Trump had used Twitter for years as his primary source of messaging, Twitter’s 11th hour decision to fact-check Trump’s misleading tweets about mail-in voting gave the president a hissy fit and prompted him to sign a <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.wired.com/story/trump-social-media-executive-order/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856230000&usg=AFQjCNGvPwtfhP-UcciGZKUFf5rofAIb6Q" href="https://www.wired.com/story/trump-social-media-executive-order/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">legally void</span></a> executive order limiting social media companies’ practices while claiming to “defend free speech from one of the gravest dangers it has faced in American history.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Early on <b>Friday, May 29</b>, Trump got <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2020/05/28/twitter-fact-checks-trump-facebooks-mark-zuckberberg-disputes-move/5272584002/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856230000&usg=AFQjCNHnXP_R9efs0eRQYVUTWI6RkhpQEw" href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2020/05/28/twitter-fact-checks-trump-facebooks-mark-zuckberberg-disputes-move/5272584002/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">another rebuff from Twitter</span></a> when he expressed his feelings about the George Floyd protests by reviving a line uttered by <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/05/trump-looting-shooting-racist-history.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856230000&usg=AFQjCNGs1fixu8YO83_Vnr25dS3dkALwtQ" href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/05/trump-looting-shooting-racist-history.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a racist Miami police chief</span></a><span style="color: #3d85c6;"> </span>in 1967. Tweeting at 12:53 a.m. for some reason, Trump said “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” while threatening to send the military out to handle civilian affairs in Minneapolis. Twitter noted that the message violated their rules about “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/28/politics/trump-twitter-social-media-executive-order/index.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856230000&usg=AFQjCNE7wZNAhM7rM1kE9cFD2hVKeg758g" href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/28/politics/trump-twitter-social-media-executive-order/index.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">glorifying violence</span></a>.”<br /><br />At a news conference that day, Trump went after another imaginary foe, announcing that he would “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-says-u-s-will-be-terminating-relationship-who-n1218441?cid%3Dsm_npd_nn_fb_ma%26fbclid%3DIwAR1swxOwFnVeDUA50edmyGgQ4Wgv_lUHHiAyS2xuUfprFBL3scwCDkh2tTw&source=gmail&ust=1603194856230000&usg=AFQjCNHW1I4CJTTsVPB0m3fUXNXwWr6IYA" href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-says-u-s-will-be-terminating-relationship-who-n1218441?cid=sm_npd_nn_fb_ma&fbclid=IwAR1swxOwFnVeDUA50edmyGgQ4Wgv_lUHHiAyS2xuUfprFBL3scwCDkh2tTw" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">terminate</span></a> America’s relationship with the [World Health Organization].” (342) Trying to deflect attention from his own catastrophic failures of governance, Trump once again blamed China for the first-in-the-world rates of deaths and infections in the U.S., then blamed the WHO for not forcing China’s hand, though the organization had had no means to do so.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-a-us-exit-from-the-who-means-for-covid-19-and-global-health/?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dhealth%26utm_content%3Dlink%26utm_term%3D2020-06-01_top-&source=gmail&ust=1603194856230000&usg=AFQjCNGN3o7yVvQqs-C0QQaGDLB8HCUQpg" href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-a-us-exit-from-the-who-means-for-covid-19-and-global-health/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=health&utm_content=link&utm_term=2020-06-01_top-" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">According to</span></a> Amy Maxman of <i>Nature</i> magazine, due to Trump’s decision, “experts in health policy are contending with repercussions that could range from a resurgence of polio and malaria, to barriers in the flow of information on COVID-19. (343) Scientific partnerships around the world would also be damaged, and the United States could lose influence over global health initiatives, including those to distribute drugs and vaccines for the new coronavirus as they become available, say researchers.” (344)<br /><br />“...Proposals for new US-led initiatives for pandemic preparedness abroad do little to quell researchers’ concerns. Some say these efforts might even add incoherence to the world's response to COVID-19, and global health more generally, if they're not connected to a fully-funded WHO.”<br /><br />“…The rift is poorly timed, given the need for international coordination and cooperation to contend with the coronavirus. ‘In this pandemic, people have said we’re building the plane while flying,’ [Rebecca] Katz [director of the Center for Global Health Science and Security at Georgetown University] says. ‘This proposal is like removing the windows while the plane is mid-air.’” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That evening, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2020/04/wisconsin-republicans-make-mockery-of.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856230000&usg=AFQjCNEvXYe1f5Rf6XB16Xv1sc8TRCw_Ww" href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2020/04/wisconsin-republicans-make-mockery-of.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Wisconsin</span></a>, a state which had been forced to re-open by right-wing Republican judges on the state Supreme Court, announced that it had a <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.wisn.com/article/state-sets-new-record-for-most-coronavirus-cases-reported-in-one-day/32714669&source=gmail&ust=1603194856230000&usg=AFQjCNF2gMUTvBnmQ2NiG5_jclYr76sX9g" href="https://www.wisn.com/article/state-sets-new-record-for-most-coronavirus-cases-reported-in-one-day/32714669" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">record one-day spike</span></a> in reported cases.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Saturday, May 30</b>, David Pitt of the AP <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://apnews.com/54f1efe0afa71b0a939fda91cf917366&source=gmail&ust=1603194856230000&usg=AFQjCNHvD7LuypqORlbNuUHVicx9WPNt_g" href="https://apnews.com/54f1efe0afa71b0a939fda91cf917366" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that the U.S. had just experienced its largest monthly increase in food prices in 46 years. (345)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump wasn’t about to get distracted by trifling matters like food prices or the mass protests all across the country which were amplified by his divisive rhetoric. His attention instead went into gushing over the empty pageantry around Elon Musk’s spaceman vanity project and <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-republican-national-convention-north-carolina-coronavirus-masks-social-distancing-roy-cooper-a9540051.html?fbclid%3DIwAR1ymyAsoLDiB2QlbJd2Hbx0twehafTN8oZIk_6vb_7-PDXJ3NE6Gmm642g&source=gmail&ust=1603194856230000&usg=AFQjCNHPNWDzlL0RARzFHx4D3BMzD4j-Hw" href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-republican-national-convention-north-carolina-coronavirus-masks-social-distancing-roy-cooper-a9540051.html?fbclid=IwAR1ymyAsoLDiB2QlbJd2Hbx0twehafTN8oZIk_6vb_7-PDXJ3NE6Gmm642g" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">petulantly demanding</span></a> that North Carolina allow a GOP convention with no masks or social distancing. (346)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Sunday, May 31</b>, it was reported that Florida, a state whose Republican governor (Ron DeSantis) had been dismissive of the pandemic, was seeing a major increase in COVID-19 deaths, even as the reported numbers were an <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.thedailybeast.com/floridas-seen-a-statistically-significant-uptick-in-pneumonia-deaths-the-cdc-says-its-likely-covid?ref%3Dhome&source=gmail&ust=1603194856230000&usg=AFQjCNFH6q_rvQwzlp3cvXiG8GcqcS0KWg" href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/floridas-seen-a-statistically-significant-uptick-in-pneumonia-deaths-the-cdc-says-its-likely-covid?ref=home" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">undercount</span></a> masked by COVID deaths attributed to pneumonia or influenza. New deaths in Florida were overwhelmingly happening in <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/as-florida-reopens-the-deaths-quietly-keep-piling-up-in-nursing-homes/ar-BB14Qelu&source=gmail&ust=1603194856231000&usg=AFQjCNHccFHt3t0PX_O5M1CNc6YznI0TOg" href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/as-florida-reopens-the-deaths-quietly-keep-piling-up-in-nursing-homes/ar-BB14Qelu" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">nursing homes</span></a>.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A number of substantive pieces about COVID-19 dropped on <b>Monday, June 1</b>.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Sam Baker of <i>Axios</i> <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-lockdown-lessons-2f2e28cb-848b-42e2-a9da-b2d31fb8bda6.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosvitals%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856231000&usg=AFQjCNEmXBr6E_PYDgjYC2c96eLwyqRG4g" href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-lockdown-lessons-2f2e28cb-848b-42e2-a9da-b2d31fb8bda6.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">pointed out</span></a> that “The national lockdown is easing and the pandemic is no longer the single dominant storyline of our lives, but nothing has really changed — we didn’t develop a treatment and the virus didn’t get naturally weaker. It’s just as contagious as it ever was.” (<span style="color: red;">W31</span>)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A <i>Washington Post</i>-ABC poll found that <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/despite-widespread-economic-toll-most-americans-still-favor-controlling-outbreak-over-restarting-economy-post-abc-poll-finds/2020/06/01/3e052ec0-a27b-11ea-81bb-c2f70f01034b_story.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856231000&usg=AFQjCNF0HKkhmkmaLg2xmmHsFJj_c48_-w" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/despite-widespread-economic-toll-most-americans-still-favor-controlling-outbreak-over-restarting-economy-post-abc-poll-finds/2020/06/01/3e052ec0-a27b-11ea-81bb-c2f70f01034b_story.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump’s unceasing demagoguery had created sharp partisan divides in accepting this reality</span></a>: “<span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">57 percent of Americans overall and 81 percent of Democrats say trying to control the spread of the coronavirus is most important right now, even if it hurts the economy. A far smaller 27 percent of Republicans agree, while 66 percent of them say restarting the economy is more important, even if it hurts efforts to control the virus. Nearly 6 in 10 independents say their priority is trying to control the virus’s spread.” (347)</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In a rare interview, with the medical site statnews.com, Anthony Fauci said that his meetings with Donald Trump to discuss the federal COVID-19 response had “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.mediaite.com/trump/dr-fauci-says-his-meetings-with-trump-have-dramatically-decreased/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856231000&usg=AFQjCNEh0zlWFhYoIktxjv6xccZn44Ip7Q" href="https://www.mediaite.com/trump/dr-fauci-says-his-meetings-with-trump-have-dramatically-decreased/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">dramatically decreased</span></a>.” (348)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What was the president up to in the middle of a pandemic?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Threatening to <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://apnews.com/a2797b342b4fc509e43f404817a56aa9&source=gmail&ust=1603194856231000&usg=AFQjCNH6ByNrYoXu1-9FuwRSgrsaG84asw" href="https://apnews.com/a2797b342b4fc509e43f404817a56aa9" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">sic the military on protesters</span></a>, calling governors “fools” and “jerks” in a <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.mediaite.com/trump/trump-reportedly-berates-governors-as-fools-jerks-in-conference-call-demands-they-dominate-protesters-with-force/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856231000&usg=AFQjCNGQ8BjWqpZqJNuzhdt7BaE0s6iIdQ" href="https://www.mediaite.com/trump/trump-reportedly-berates-governors-as-fools-jerks-in-conference-call-demands-they-dominate-protesters-with-force/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">conference call</span></a> because they weren’t using force on protesters, and <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/06/police-tear-gas-protesters-before-a-trump-photo-op-with-a-bible/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856231000&usg=AFQjCNEN5_6mruwu_5u0WuQgzDhvDGcq_A" href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/06/police-tear-gas-protesters-before-a-trump-photo-op-with-a-bible/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">having demonstrators tear-gassed</span></a> so that he could walk across the street to St. John’s Church and hold a Bible for an awkward photo op.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Tuesday, June 2</b>, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/02/north-carolina-governor-rejects-gops-demand-for-full-fledged-convention-296566?nname%3Dplaybook%26nid%3D0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000%26nrid%3D00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000%26nlid%3D630318&source=gmail&ust=1603194856231000&usg=AFQjCNGUXqQVnoUFyWIrfI-MHPozQAXl8g" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/02/north-carolina-governor-rejects-gops-demand-for-full-fledged-convention-296566?nname=playbook&nid=0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=630318" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump had a temper tantrum</span></a> over the refusal of North Carolina’s Democratic governor to allow a GOP convention without COVID precautions on the same day that Deborah Birx <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/02/deborah-birx-coronavirus-outbreak-summer-296490&source=gmail&ust=1603194856231000&usg=AFQjCNHegjIUiAbbvu1uFjaTJzIWLe8OMA" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/02/deborah-birx-coronavirus-outbreak-summer-296490" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">warned</span></a> at a public event that <span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">"None of us can be lulled into this false sense of security that the cases may go down this summer." (349)</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">While Trump fixated on staging a <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/super-spreader-coronavirus/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856231000&usg=AFQjCNHFBA-Ec6mhMx7om0lEociGDgxxPg" href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/super-spreader-coronavirus/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">super-spreader</span></a> convention, it was reported that his inactions had contributed to <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/06/01/americans-are-delaying-medical-care-its-devastating-health-care-providers/?arc404%3Dtrue&source=gmail&ust=1603194856231000&usg=AFQjCNGgZOvuY7V1cKK_ffGeo02k6lQVsw" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/06/01/americans-are-delaying-medical-care-its-devastating-health-care-providers/?arc404=true" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the loss of 1.4 million healthcare jobs</span></a> in the U.S. (350) and that many of the most vulnerable Americans were not getting the COVID-related care they needed, in no small part because the administration had <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/02/emergency-health-aid-coronavirus-297701&source=gmail&ust=1603194856231000&usg=AFQjCNFk33Wu3E_GSKTczweRbNw8TyWMXA" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/02/emergency-health-aid-coronavirus-297701" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">failed to disburse emergency funds</span></a> approved by Congress. (351) The scale of the pandemic caused by Trump’s mismanagement had also left nearly a hundred million Americans to delay healthcare procedures in order to clear facilities for COVID-19 patients. (see #152-#154)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The vast impact of the administration’s failures to act sooner and more aggressively were revisited the following day, <b>Wednesday, June 3</b>, when Chris Arnold of NPR <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.npr.org/2020/06/03/867856602/millions-of-americans-skipping-payments-as-tidal-wave-of-defaults-and-evictions-&source=gmail&ust=1603194856231000&usg=AFQjCNEI_ppW-wIPv1i-7M6I-V2l_Lk8dQ" href="https://www.npr.org/2020/06/03/867856602/millions-of-americans-skipping-payments-as-tidal-wave-of-defaults-and-evictions-" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that “Millions Of Americans Skip Payments As Tidal Wave Of Defaults And Evictions Looms.” (352)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />Government aid was keeping many Americans afloat, but the administration had failed to get benefits out to millions (353), and even those who had received benefits were unlikely to be able to make the money stretch more than a couple months, at which time there would be no jobs available. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Another one of the Trump administration’s shortcomings was reported again on <b>Thursday, June 4 </b>in “CDC head apologizes for lack of racial disparity data on coronavirus.” Speaking to a House Appropriations subcommittee, Robert Redfield apologized for <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/04/coronavirus-robert-redfield-racial-disparity-cdc-301223&source=gmail&ust=1603194856231000&usg=AFQjCNG9A49G0vAsOr-qwTXs-v7aIj7fRQ" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/04/coronavirus-robert-redfield-racial-disparity-cdc-301223" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the CDC’s continued failure</span></a> (see #284) to collect race-related COVID-19 data, which was “[hampering] <span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">the public health response in communities of color disproportionately affected by the virus.”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">The administration and their Republican allies in Congress were also </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/cities-budgets-worsen-coronavirus-george-floyd-protests-4fed7c83-7436-4744-9a47-2937ffb1f90a.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856231000&usg=AFQjCNHhGlFp_UNTIvCHiKaCCZjpll5PAA" href="https://www.axios.com/cities-budgets-worsen-coronavirus-george-floyd-protests-4fed7c83-7436-4744-9a47-2937ffb1f90a.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #3d85c6;">shortchanging cities</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">. Due to a lack of tax revenue and federal aid, cities were being forced to make steep cuts to essential services (354). The situation was dire, but the GOP had no plans to act until July, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said any future stimulus bill would “</span>be narrow in scope and focus on short-term economic relief, not longer-term recovery.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">In addition to cities bleeding revenue, </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://apnews.com/44eacc05b3ceb43897418ccfe96645e2&source=gmail&ust=1603194856231000&usg=AFQjCNFsSh9uLeCENXaTM0fnaVaO41NMGQ" href="https://apnews.com/44eacc05b3ceb43897418ccfe96645e2" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #3d85c6;">food bank demand was still high</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> (355), as reported on <b>Friday, June 5</b>.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">But none of this concerned Trump, who seized on a better-than-expected jobs report to puff up his ego. At a press conference that day, Trump referred to the </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://cdn.newseum.org/dfp/pdf6/NY_NYT.pdf&source=gmail&ust=1603194856231000&usg=AFQjCNFhJ_eqJfhGty1MkSMBwOoDHNd1mA" href="https://cdn.newseum.org/dfp/pdf6/NY_NYT.pdf" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #3d85c6;">second worst</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> unemployment rate since the Great Depression as the “greatest comeback in American history,” a “great day” for George Floyd, and “a great, great day in terms of equality.” </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">While Trump and his Republican allies gushed about double digit unemployment and pretended that the virus was behind us—Trump </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/fauci-virus-task-force-vanish-with-trump-all-in-on-reopen/ar-BB154Otf&source=gmail&ust=1603194856231000&usg=AFQjCNEa2j8DbUHKkv3HuJlFruTwxC-kaQ" href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/fauci-virus-task-force-vanish-with-trump-all-in-on-reopen/ar-BB154Otf" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #3d85c6;">hadn’t allowed</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> the virus task force to brief reporters since April 27 (356)—</span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2020/are-coronavirus-cases-increasing-again/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856231000&usg=AFQjCNGkW94co5h0yIk_zbo8c00Wm6807Q" href="https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2020/are-coronavirus-cases-increasing-again/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #3d85c6;">20 states</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> had seen increases in cases over the prior five days, largely because of the premature economic re-opening Trump was celebrating. (357)</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />On <b>Saturday, June 6</b> the U.S. <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/live-blog/2020-06-06-coronavirus-news-n1226456&source=gmail&ust=1603194856232000&usg=AFQjCNHV-Z6PynQzAoMpaAIQGun4hMBLXg" href="https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/live-blog/2020-06-06-coronavirus-news-n1226456" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">passed 110,000</span></a> official deaths and it came out that Trump’s triumphalism on Friday over the jobs numbers had been premature, as the Bureau of Labor Statistics had <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/business/article/The-May-jobs-report-had-misclassification-error-15320999.php&source=gmail&ust=1603194856232000&usg=AFQjCNGpbv9hpyI9lZ15AENk_fGQMGVS9w" href="https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/business/article/The-May-jobs-report-had-misclassification-error-15320999.php" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">underestimated</span></a> the unemployment rate by at least three percentage points.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />Discussing the jobs report in an interview with Nancy Cook of <i>Politico</i>, former director of the National Economic Council Gene Sperling said, “Considering that this was a return of a small percentage of the jobs that were lost only due to Trump's inexplicably slow and weak response to the Covid crisis, he should be far more measured….Trump surely knows he is on track to be the first president since Herbert Hoover to lose net jobs during their presidency, and he may just be overcompensating.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />Republicans used the initial, overinflated job numbers—which received far more media attention than the corrected, real numbers—as <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://rollcall.com/2020/06/05/gop-renews-go-slow-approach-on-virus-aid-after-jobs-report/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856232000&usg=AFQjCNFu2Xvf_ajWVmmCy9JSUD342qEybA" href="https://rollcall.com/2020/06/05/gop-renews-go-slow-approach-on-virus-aid-after-jobs-report/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;">rhetorical cover</span></a> for continuing to stonewall on more stimulus. (358) The Democratic House had passed a stimulus bill on May 18. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />Within the job numbers was the news that African-American unemployment rates had actually gone up, something that Republicans didn’t talk about much. (359) African-Americans were also dying from COVID-19 in disproportionate numbers. A <b>Sunday, June 7</b> <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/voices/racism-not-genetics-explains-why-black-americans-are-dying-of-covid-19/?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dhealth%26utm_content%3Dlink%26utm_term%3D2020-06-08_featured-this-week&source=gmail&ust=1603194856232000&usg=AFQjCNEqSo79dgo3Ohlxbg_yIPIexL2Mlg" href="https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/voices/racism-not-genetics-explains-why-black-americans-are-dying-of-covid-19/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=health&utm_content=link&utm_term=2020-06-08_featured-this-week" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">post</span></a> at <i>Scientific American</i> showed that this was systemic, not genetic.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />According to author Clarence Gravlee, African-Americans were dying at 2.4X the rate of whites, one of the reasons it was so easy for Trump supporters in white-majority areas to ignore the crisis. Discussions around this disparity too often fell back on theories about a genetic disposition to hypertension and high blood pressure among African-Americans, while more convincing environmental factors didn’t get the attention they deserved: “The conditions in which we develop—including limited access to healthy food, exposure to toxic pollutants, the threat of police violence or the injurious stress of racial discrimination—influence the likelihood that any one of us will suffer from high blood pressure, diabetes or serious complications from COVID-19.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />The role of environmental factors in coronavirus transmission came up again on <b>Monday, June 8</b>. According to a <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/06/08/shutdowns-prevented-60-million-coronavirus-infections-us-study-finds/?utm_campaign%3Dwp_post_most%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26wpisrc%3Dnl_most&source=gmail&ust=1603194856232000&usg=AFQjCNEwCxTit6qFVGBsF9o-Y6rZrGjtLA" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/06/08/shutdowns-prevented-60-million-coronavirus-infections-us-study-finds/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">study</span></a> published in <i>Nature</i> magazine, shutdown orders in the United States had spared 60 million Americans from contracting COVID-19.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />One country which had addressed coronavirus early and aggressively, New Zealand, reported that they had <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://news.trust.org/item/20200608004114-98xz5&source=gmail&ust=1603194856232000&usg=AFQjCNEdv5BvO6cVogqZEGT4WR_7IAUo2g" href="https://news.trust.org/item/20200608004114-98xz5" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">no active cases</span></a>. By contrast, the U.S., who had acted slowly and inadequately, had almost <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.medicaleconomics.com/news/coronavirus-case-numbers-united-states-june-8-update&source=gmail&ust=1603194856232000&usg=AFQjCNHaJE-S4veqPg7kInWjGjwEQDpazw" href="https://www.medicaleconomics.com/news/coronavirus-case-numbers-united-states-june-8-update" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">two million infections and 104,400 deaths</span></a>.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />Having followed Trump’s lead of inaction and indifference to public health, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/08/texas-reports-a-record-high-number-of-hospitalized-coronavirus-patients-after-state-reopened-early.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856232000&usg=AFQjCNE-o-Xc4hZ-kj9-3JFjswdBtD6_jA" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/08/texas-reports-a-record-high-number-of-hospitalized-coronavirus-patients-after-state-reopened-early.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">red states</span></a> continued to be hit especially hard by coronavirus. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />And as had been the case all along, America’s first-in-the-world numbers were <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/cdc-wants-states-to-count-probable-coronavirus-cases-and-deaths-but-most-arent-doing-it/2020/06/07/4aac9a58-9d0a-11ea-b60c-3be060a4f8e1_story.html?utm_campaign%3Dwp_post_most%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26wpisrc%3Dnl_most&source=gmail&ust=1603194856232000&usg=AFQjCNE6KkA9HKozeDW-BgNq84BiPchjsg" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/cdc-wants-states-to-count-probable-coronavirus-cases-and-deaths-but-most-arent-doing-it/2020/06/07/4aac9a58-9d0a-11ea-b60c-3be060a4f8e1_story.html?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a significant undercount</span></a>, because thousands of Americans had died from COVID-19 before being diagnosed and only half of the states were following CDC guidelines in reporting.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />Trump continued to degrade the office of the presidency and act as if the pandemic was over, issuing an order to have 9,500 American troops removed from Germany (in retaliation for Angela Merkel’s refusal to attend a G7 summit with Trump and Vladimir Putin) and announcing that he would re-start crowded campaign rallies which were certain to be <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/super-spreader-coronavirus/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856232000&usg=AFQjCNGMFAY0AOxy2N5szrvnMsXFTkI-3A" href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/super-spreader-coronavirus/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">super-spreader events</span></a>. (360)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />The reality TV presidency continued full throttle the next day, <b>Tuesday, June 9</b>, when Trump <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.mediaite.com/trump/beyond-deranged-commentators-across-political-spectrum-condemn-trumps-claim-elderly-man-attacked-by-police-is-antifa/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856232000&usg=AFQjCNG4AkNWqsMEYmMCEBdtavFjC69ccw" href="https://www.mediaite.com/trump/beyond-deranged-commentators-across-political-spectrum-condemn-trumps-claim-elderly-man-attacked-by-police-is-antifa/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">tweeted</span></a> that Martin Gugino, a 75-year-old protester with cancer who had sustained a fractured skull after being pushed down by a Buffalo police officer, “could be an ANTIFA provocateur,” an assertion which was <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/09/nyregion/who-is-martin-gugino-buffalo-police.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856232000&usg=AFQjCNFhAABpYVlod7q3D8GiZYYVNmMz4w" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/09/nyregion/who-is-martin-gugino-buffalo-police.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">completely unfounded</span></a>.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />Back in the real world, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Coronavirus-hospitalizations-rise-sharply-in-15328752.php&source=gmail&ust=1603194856232000&usg=AFQjCNEqmJqMCuyEUOc07aKeiVkpTCmSSw" href="https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Coronavirus-hospitalizations-rise-sharply-in-15328752.php" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">premature re-openings</span></a> fueled by Trump's campaign strategy were contributing to spikes in cases around the country, with 12 states posting their biggest single-day increases. Texas, a state under complete Republican control for over two decades which had done little to combat COVID-19, had its <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/09/texas-reports-two-consecutive-days-of-record-coronavirus-hospitalizations-weeks-after-reopening.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856232000&usg=AFQjCNFHwBe6r8lYlvoLiDakrcw3kHOg3A" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/09/texas-reports-two-consecutive-days-of-record-coronavirus-hospitalizations-weeks-after-reopening.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">second consecutive day</span></a> of record hospitalizations. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />Farm laborers around the country were especially vulnerable to infection due to the administration’s <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/09/farm-workers-coronavirus-309897&source=gmail&ust=1603194856232000&usg=AFQjCNGrRPfw-OCARfLE_PHriFVkRLkFFg" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/09/farm-workers-coronavirus-309897" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">unwillingness</span></a><wbr></wbr> to enact adequate safety regulations or disburse money for testing. (361)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />People working long hours under the hot sun to harvest our food are invisible to most Americans, so their problems were easy for Trump to ignore as part of the administration’s tactic of pretending that COVID-19 didn’t matter anymore. On <b>Wednesday, June 10</b>, Dan Diamond of <i>Politico</i> <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/10/white-house-stops-talking-about-coronavirus-309993&source=gmail&ust=1603194856232000&usg=AFQjCNGYM7w8c31gls3ulfwUTZQBueylLg" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/10/white-house-stops-talking-about-coronavirus-309993" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reviewed</span></a> this P.R. thrust in “White House goes quiet on coronavirus as outbreak spikes again across the U.S.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />As revealed by Diamond, though cases continued to surge throughout much of the country, around 1,000 Americans were dying daily, and hospitalizations in Texas had gone up 42% since Memorial Day, the administration had largely stopped communicating with the public about the virus for over a month, since the last task force briefing (362). After being ever present in the media through March and April, Anthony Fauci had long since been sidelined. (see #297, #348) The CDC had mostly stopped providing guidance to state public health officials. (363) The FDA was turning back to lesser priorities, including tobacco regulations. (364)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition/2020/06/10/dont-call-it-a-second-wave-489488&source=gmail&ust=1603194856232000&usg=AFQjCNGDapSAuZdxkW8uaTgZdaDGU9dVPg" href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition/2020/06/10/dont-call-it-a-second-wave-489488" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">According</span></a> to reporter Ranuka Rasayasam, not only was COVID-19 not remotely through with us, we weren’t even out of the first wave. The U.S. was “uniquely vulnerable to Covid” due to the number of people without health insurance and the Trump administration’s handling of the pandemic, specifically the lack of a national strategy for dealing with coronavirus and the resistance to public health guidelines fueled by Trump’s anti-science rhetoric. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />Though the U.S. had only 4% of the world’s population, it accounted for more than a quarter of COVID 19-related deaths. Making matters worse, the administration’s unwillingness to force insurance companies’ hands was allowing major insurers such as BlueCross BlueShield and United Healthcare to <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-testing-payment-insurers-b5206ee2-3eff-4023-bfed-a33450113547.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosam%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856232000&usg=AFQjCNFsK5iM_23eAriPpv44QBNazitMBg" href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-testing-payment-insurers-b5206ee2-3eff-4023-bfed-a33450113547.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">deny full coverage</span></a> of testing unless it was deemed “medically necessary,” leaving millions of Americans untested, uncertain of whether or not they were infected, and likely to infect others. (365)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />Trump had more important things on his mind, including his <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/trump-confederate-generals-ecc596fe-5d37-4d8a-8a12-42656886446f.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiospm%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856232000&usg=AFQjCNES84fYvTzEl6KuaOpJA6DKuLovDw" href="https://www.axios.com/trump-confederate-generals-ecc596fe-5d37-4d8a-8a12-42656886446f.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiospm&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">opposition</span></a> to renaming military bases named after Confederate generals and planning for his first super-spreader campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The event was scheduled for Juneteenth (June 19), a holiday celebrating the freeing of the last slaves, in a town known for “the single worst incident of <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_racial_violence_in_the_United_States&source=gmail&ust=1603194856232000&usg=AFQjCNHW5Otdn-8YIUHNGNDjVTLYCcyjfg" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_racial_violence_in_the_United_States" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">racial violence in American history</span></a>.” In 1921, white mobs had killed hundreds of African-Americans, incarcerated thousands, left 10,000 African-Americans homeless, and destroyed 35 square blocks of “Black Wall Street”—one of the wealthiest black neighborhoods in the country at the time.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />Red, anti-science states that had followed Trump's lead continued to lead the pack in infections on <b>Thursday, June 11</b>.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article243452186.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856232000&usg=AFQjCNFtxnl6v-xruzvjhuVkOSKu0bmUtA" href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article243452186.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Florida</span></a> had its highest daily total of (reported) new cases and Arizona was <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.thedailybeast.com/covid-is-so-bad-in-arizona-theyre-running-out-of-beds&source=gmail&ust=1603194856232000&usg=AFQjCNEGOMTCd2jDqc88s4CXwoxwPxLsog" href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/covid-is-so-bad-in-arizona-theyre-running-out-of-beds" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">running out of hospital beds</span></a>. (366, 367)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />A doctor at the Harvard Global Health Institute was projecting <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8410159/100-000-people-die-coronavirus-September.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856232000&usg=AFQjCNHpwtRlOmr1s3brZlyztMpkKPRsWw" href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8410159/100-000-people-die-coronavirus-September.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">100,000 more deaths</span></a> in the U.S. by September 1 due to the premature re-opening of the economy and the surge in cases which was following. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />As the ranks of the unemployed increased, with <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/11/business/economy/unemployment-claims-coronavirus.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856232000&usg=AFQjCNHc8th1CUjTiR5lNoNFebxubS4bLw" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/11/business/economy/unemployment-claims-coronavirus.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">1.5 million new filings</span></a> (368), Trump’s Small Business Administration was <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.pressherald.com/2020/06/11/trump-administration-wont-say-who-got-511-billion-in-taxpayer-backed-coronavirus-loans/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856232000&usg=AFQjCNGRGbWRJHWIxFfFLQVq39LbSP8gvw" href="https://www.pressherald.com/2020/06/11/trump-administration-wont-say-who-got-511-billion-in-taxpayer-backed-coronavirus-loans/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">refusing</span></a> to meet their legal responsibility (under the Cares Act) to disclose how $660 billion of taxpayer money had been disbursed. Due to the administration’s lack of oversight of applicants, and lack of direction to the banks disbursing funds, big businesses had capitalized while many small businesses had been <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/21/big-banks-sued-putting-large-corporations-ahead-main-street-small-business-owners&source=gmail&ust=1603194856233000&usg=AFQjCNFtI6vZOoYKlccPmZ-DZjJs2JpHow" href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/21/big-banks-sued-putting-large-corporations-ahead-main-street-small-business-owners" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">left in the lurch</span></a>. (369)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />The administration and state officials were also <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/11/native-american-coronavirus-data-314527&source=gmail&ust=1603194856233000&usg=AFQjCNEPah0_XYgrz-tMMXIerzmYRBBgug" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/11/native-american-coronavirus-data-314527" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">ignoring requests</span></a> from Native American epidemiologists asking for “access to data showing how the coronavirus is spreading around their lands, potentially widening health disparities and frustrating tribal leaders already ill-equipped to contain the pandemic.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />“…The communication gaps threaten to hinder efforts to track the virus within Native populations that are more prone to illness, disability and early death and have fragile health systems. Tribal authorities say without knowing who's sick and where, they can't impose lockdowns or other restrictions or organize contact tracing on tribal lands (370). The lack of data also is weighing on epidemiologists who track public health for the nearly three-quarters of Native Americans who live in urban areas and not on reservations.” (371)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />“…Native American organizations have repeatedly run into roadblocks trying to get data from federal officials over the past month. The CDC has denied a series of requests from the nation’s 12 tribal epidemiology centers for raw coronavirus data — even though state health departments are allowed to freely access the information.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />“‘…If you can’t measure [the coronavirus,] you can’t manage it,’ said Stacy Bohlen, the executive director of the National Indian Health Board, which provides policy expertise to the 560 federally recognized Native American tribes. ‘It’s another chronic failing of what Indian people experience across the health system. We know it’s happening across the country.’”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />The administration was also pretending not to notice the public health necessity of universal access to mail ballots in the fall. During the recent Georgia primary, voters had waited up to <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/11/deep-partisan-divide-over-in-person-mail-in-voting-312290&source=gmail&ust=1603194856233000&usg=AFQjCNEix8nfJplgvOsSNb6xUDlAIsOVIg" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/11/deep-partisan-divide-over-in-person-mail-in-voting-312290" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">six hours</span></a> to vote, not unlike what had happened in Wisconsin in April, when Republican judges refused to extend deadlines for absentee ballots. Republicans looked the other way because voters of color (overwhelmingly Democrats) were disproportionately impacted in both instances. (372)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />Something that <i>was</i> a priority for the administration was avoiding legal accountability for its upcoming super-spreader campaign rally in Tulsa. As <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.westport-news.com/news/article/Trump-s-Tulsa-campaign-rally-sign-up-page-15334187.php&source=gmail&ust=1603194856233000&usg=AFQjCNGnfHK0u5BCPctuXvbCkh2lgkayGw" href="https://www.westport-news.com/news/article/Trump-s-Tulsa-campaign-rally-sign-up-page-15334187.php" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> by Felicia Sonmez of <i>the Washington Post</i>, “The sign-up page for tickets to President Donald Trump's campaign rally in Tulsa next week includes something that hasn't appeared ahead of previous rallies: a disclaimer noting that attendees ‘voluntarily assume all risks related to exposure to COVID-19’ and agree not to hold the campaign or venue liable should they get sick.” (373)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />It was a savvy legal decision by the Trump administration. The next day, <b>Friday, June 12</b>, it was reported that just a week before the rally, a Tulsa Whirlpool plant <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.tulsaworld.com/news/local/whirlpool-plant-in-tulsa-temporarily-shuttered-after-covid-19-outbreak/article_4909b32f-59bf-5d00-ab9a-c415c613ede9.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856233000&usg=AFQjCNE-jU6oV4SpjB2Y6bvhTNF4dgcdZA" href="https://www.tulsaworld.com/news/local/whirlpool-plant-in-tulsa-temporarily-shuttered-after-covid-19-outbreak/article_4909b32f-59bf-5d00-ab9a-c415c613ede9.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">had closed</span></a> due to a COVID-19 outbreak. It was also reported that “Tulsa County now has its highest seven-day average of coronavirus cases since the outbreak began in March.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />Holding the rally in a COVID-19 hot spot was of a piece with Trump’s strategy of pretending coronavirus was behind us. Trump’s economic advisor Lawrence Kudlow (see #70) stayed on message that day when he <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/12/larry-kudlow-coronavirus-second-wave-314904&source=gmail&ust=1603194856233000&usg=AFQjCNF3iAQ7oQ7kodvu7TbRlfTvp8A69w" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/12/larry-kudlow-coronavirus-second-wave-314904" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">told</span></a><span style="color: #3d85c6;"> </span>"Fox & Friends" that the virus was “contained” and “They are saying there is no second spike. Let me repeat that. There is no second spike.” (374)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />In the real world, Houston was on the “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://finance.yahoo.com/news/houston-precipice-disaster-virus-cases-210423072.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856233000&usg=AFQjCNHiyrJ2OGok9bUJyPMJgA882SmOGQ" href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/houston-precipice-disaster-virus-cases-210423072.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">precipice of disaster</span></a>” due to Republican governor Greg Abbott's lockstep following of Trump's edicts (375) and Florida had another daily <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article243482076.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856233000&usg=AFQjCNEiBMUSNIqJ-_lTnijh0j0YWexCAw" href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article243482076.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">record in infections</span></a>, a number that was a significant undercount, according to Florida’s “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://theweek.com/speedreads/919739/fired-florida-scientist-goes-rogue-publishes-covid19-data-grimmer-outlook-than-states&source=gmail&ust=1603194856233000&usg=AFQjCNFdPJ8vshlOnktdvG4vl3t54LVovw" href="https://theweek.com/speedreads/919739/fired-florida-scientist-goes-rogue-publishes-covid19-data-grimmer-outlook-than-states" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">top coronavirus data scientist</span></a>.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />At a briefing that day, the administration again demonstrated mixed messaging when CDC officials <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/12/cdc-warns-large-gatherings-315521&source=gmail&ust=1603194856233000&usg=AFQjCNEdzMWDEmBJ6PCoYclGebmUX4llUA" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/12/cdc-warns-large-gatherings-315521" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">suggested</span></a> that Americans maintain social distancing, wear masks when out in public, and “warned that large gatherings in confined places pose the highest risk for spreading the coronavirus, a day after President Donald Trump's campaign announced his first post-lockdown rally.” (376)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />Appearing on ABC News, Anthony Fauci said more or less the same thing: “The best way you can avoid either acquiring or transmitting infection is to avoid crowded places, to wear a mask whenever you’re outside and if you can do both, avoid the congregation of people and do the mask, that’s great.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />A <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.sfgate.com/science/article/Study-100-face-mask-use-could-crush-second-15333170.php&source=gmail&ust=1603194856233000&usg=AFQjCNE6GOxOAyfIRS1EBrCVLcqZyPCYXA" href="https://www.sfgate.com/science/article/Study-100-face-mask-use-could-crush-second-15333170.php" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">study</span></a> by Cambridge and Greenwich universities repeated this guidance, showing that the universal use of face masks could significantly mitigate the damage of a second or third wave of COVID-19.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Florida, one of the states that had most aggressively flouted public safety recommendations, had a record total of new cases for the <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article243513417.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856233000&usg=AFQjCNGrzawf7WKoct3DTomLT2ervuvSug" href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article243513417.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">third day in a row</span></a> on <b>Saturday, June 13</b>.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Oklahoma, another deep red state that had taken Trump's misinformation at face value, continued to experience a spike in infections (377). Deborah Birx and Anthony Fauci had both counseled against holding the rally, a feeling that was shared by Bruce Dart, the Tulsa County health director. As reported on <b>Sunday, June 14</b>, Dart <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/502640-tulsa-health-department-director-i-wish-we-could-postpone-trump-rally&source=gmail&ust=1603194856233000&usg=AFQjCNG0K8rYLiljiQV-tGXk-By4U59G_w" href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/502640-tulsa-health-department-director-i-wish-we-could-postpone-trump-rally" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">told</span></a> a local newspaper, “COVID is here in Tulsa, it is transmitting very efficiently….I wish we could postpone this to a time when the virus isn’t as large a concern as it is today.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">
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<!--[endif]--></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As of <b>Monday, June 15</b>, the United States had gone to hell in a handbasket, saddled with a pandemic, the worst economic decline since the Great Depression, and mass protests over systemic police brutality, all of which would have been far less pronounced with a competent and empathic leader. Trump’s breathtaking failures were reflected in a Gallup poll which showed that the number of Americans who were proud of their country was at <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://news.gallup.com/poll/312644/national-pride-falls-record-low.aspx&source=gmail&ust=1603194856233000&usg=AFQjCNGrAEVKh7tqr-ACYVxnTHKKehv2Zw" href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/312644/national-pride-falls-record-low.aspx" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a record low</span></a>.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Tuesday, June 16</b>, a separate poll, conducted by the University of Chicago, found that “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://apnews.com/0f6b9be04fa0d3194401821a72665a50&source=gmail&ust=1603194856233000&usg=AFQjCNGLhvjuIav4oCs0BNsKKn8VQ7olnA" href="https://apnews.com/0f6b9be04fa0d3194401821a72665a50" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Americans are the unhappiest they’ve been in 50 years</span></a>.” (378)<br /><br />Contributing to Trump’s dubious achievement of creating record amounts of unhappiness was the <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://apnews.com/8a490dd827bc37a655dd4c0f8a133253&source=gmail&ust=1603194856233000&usg=AFQjCNHGuw-5lVuAsimIiVlRJOsWex8zIg" href="https://apnews.com/8a490dd827bc37a655dd4c0f8a133253" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">stress of health workers</span></a> who felt the brunt of Trump’s failures most acutely, in the sheer scope of the pandemic in the States, the lack of PPE, the fear of getting sick themselves and getting their families sick (379), and the trauma of regular exposure to sickness and death. (380)<br /><br />Healthcare workers in Republican-led states which had downplayed public safety recommendations at Trump's behest were feeling his shortcomings as a leader and a human being daily. Cases in Alabama (381), South Carolina (382), Oklahoma (see #377), and Arizona were <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://news.trust.org/item/20200616101601-zwjb3&source=gmail&ust=1603194856233000&usg=AFQjCNGtNf7v0-bXffimBll6JRO01iEVdQ" href="https://news.trust.org/item/20200616101601-zwjb3" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">increasing rapidly</span></a>; Arizona’s spike was <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.rawstory.com/2020/06/health-experts-link-rise-in-arizona-covid-cases-to-end-of-stay-at-home-order/?utm_source%3D%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3D4785&source=gmail&ust=1603194856233000&usg=AFQjCNHnZTQ63h7ADl_Yn6zLqmr6WaaBEA" href="https://www.rawstory.com/2020/06/health-experts-link-rise-in-arizona-covid-cases-to-end-of-stay-at-home-order/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=4785" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">directly attributed</span></a> to Republican governor Doug Ducey’s decision to let a stay-at-home order expire. Texas had <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/503005-texas-hits-new-high-for-coronavirus-cases-hospitalizations&source=gmail&ust=1603194856233000&usg=AFQjCNFx07hHScqb6ipRkVCoUhMZOSVtRQ" href="https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/503005-texas-hits-new-high-for-coronavirus-cases-hospitalizations" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">new highs</span></a> in cases and hospitalizations.<br /><br />Trump continued his happy talk about the economy, but Jerome Powell, Trump’s appointed Fed chairman, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/16/powell-pandemic-trump-323312&source=gmail&ust=1603194856233000&usg=AFQjCNEa1J4Rr8Zugh0wVY5HR-A89BS6XQ" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/16/powell-pandemic-trump-323312" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">told</span></a> the Senate Banking Committee that “Significant uncertainty remains about the timing and strength of the recovery….Much of that economic uncertainty comes from uncertainty about the path of the disease and the effects of measures to contain it. Until the public is confident that the disease is contained, a full recovery is unlikely.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">June 17, 2020-August 16, 2020</span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>After a “slowdown” to 20,000 official infections/day, the premature re-opening of the economy causes a second spike to 77,000 infections/day and a high of 1,500 deaths. Against a backdrop of double-digit unemployment, the GOP abandons stimulus talks, allowing additional benefits to run out for millions. Though national plans to combat the virus have worked everywhere else in the developed world, the administration refuses to come up with a coordinated federal response, leaving states to flounder with inadequate testing, tracing, and PPE.</i><i></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Wednesday, June 17</b>, a model created by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (at the University of Washington) which had been previously used by the White House now forecast that the U.S. would have in excess of <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-white-house-model-prediction-200000-deaths-october/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856233000&usg=AFQjCNFUXfhG45GfcL4yyjXiRoM0jViNmw" href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-white-house-model-prediction-200000-deaths-october/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">200,000 deaths</span></a> by October 1.<br /><br />People of color, the vast majority of whom hadn’t voted for Trump, were being victimized by Trump’s inaction at inordinate rates. (383) An analysis done by the Brookings Institution showed that people of color ages 35-44 were dying at <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-racial-disparities-age-ea4730ce-52aa-4a17-a02c-5817da4245c5.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosam%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856233000&usg=AFQjCNExYox847GiXsLK5OJJvdZ589_B5g" href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-racial-disparities-age-ea4730ce-52aa-4a17-a02c-5817da4245c5.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">10X the rate</span></a> of Caucasians of the same age. The report’s authors wrote that “Race gaps in vulnerability to Covid-19 highlight the accumulated, intersecting inequities facing Americans of color (but especially Black people) in jobs, housing, education, criminal justice – and in health.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />Another group of color who was shortchanged by the Trump administration was Native American tribes who were waiting on $679 million promised in the congressional stimulus passed months earlier. The administration was <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/tribes-covid-relief-treasury-department-033604920.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856233000&usg=AFQjCNEvYZNxuTPcnVz9qTPkCocNvSQxWw" href="https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/tribes-covid-relief-treasury-department-033604920.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">holding up the funding</span></a> (384), compounding the administration’s earlier delays in disbursing money to tribes. (385) A federal judge ruled that the administration had to pay up within the week as “Continued delay in the face of an exceptional public health crisis is no longer acceptable.”<br /><br />Also on Trump’s pay-no-mind list was Anthony Fauci. (see #297, #348) Interviewed by NPR, Fauci revealed that he hadn’t spoken to Trump <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.mediaite.com/radio/dr-fauci-says-he-hasnt-spoken-to-trump-about-the-coronavirus-pandemic-for-two-weeks/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856233000&usg=AFQjCNHz6U6t3lyAbepoOEEZ-XHL1Om9ig" href="https://www.mediaite.com/radio/dr-fauci-says-he-hasnt-spoken-to-trump-about-the-coronavirus-pandemic-for-two-weeks/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">for two weeks</span></a>. (386) Asked if he would like to join thousands of Caucasian yahoos crammed together elbow-to-elbow with no masks in Tulsa, Fauci replied, “I’m in a high-risk category. Personally, I would not. Of course not.”<br /><br />The lack of masks was largely driven by Trump’s modeling. Despite the <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://theconversation.com/masks-help-stop-the-spread-of-coronavirus-the-science-is-simple-and-im-one-of-100-experts-urging-governors-to-require-public-mask-wearing-138507&source=gmail&ust=1603194856233000&usg=AFQjCNHtL_gDMzOQYyUzKGbJlneIkSjNxQ" href="https://theconversation.com/masks-help-stop-the-spread-of-coronavirus-the-science-is-simple-and-im-one-of-100-experts-urging-governors-to-require-public-mask-wearing-138507" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">clear scientific basis</span></a> for wearing a mask during a pandemic, despite the fact that Trump’s own surgeon general had <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/14/health/us-surgeon-general-coronavirus-masks/index.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856233000&usg=AFQjCNGsEF7GhfnGJBV-ZrzhCSDMdH3ZVg" href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/14/health/us-surgeon-general-coronavirus-masks/index.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">recommended</span></a> that Americans wear masks, despite the threat that not wearing a mask posed to their families, co-workers, and others in their communities, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/necessary-or-needless-three-months-pandemic-americans-are-divided-wearing-n1231191&source=gmail&ust=1603194856233000&usg=AFQjCNH4TYHDBkTNSaRklcZl3FpW30aMtQ" href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/necessary-or-needless-three-months-pandemic-americans-are-divided-wearing-n1231191" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">many Republicans</span></a> refused to use masks out of a misguided solidarity to Trump and a desire to “stick it to the libs.” (387)<br /><br />Trump's influence in seeding opposition to masks and other aspects of the administration's COVID-19 failures were explored in depth in “With the Federal Health Megaphone Silent, States Struggle With a Shifting Pandemic,” which focused on <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/17/us/politics/coronavirus-pandemic-federal-response.html?campaign_id%3D9%26emc%3Dedit_nn_20200618%26instance_id%3D19492%26nl%3Dthe-morning%26regi_id%3D126380121%26segment_id%3D31211%26te%3D1%26user_id%3Dd83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74&source=gmail&ust=1603194856233000&usg=AFQjCNHsPxL7lgc6uw3BYBtSCTpgDdf1_Q" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/17/us/politics/coronavirus-pandemic-federal-response.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200618&instance_id=19492&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=31211&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the administration’s abandonment of a federal response</span></a>.<br /><br />The piece looked at the contradiction between the increasing rate of infections through much of the country and the administration’s messaging, including Mike Pence’s claim in a recent <i>Wall Street Journal</i> editorial that concern about a second wave was “overblown” (388) and Trump’s comment to Sean Hannity the night before that COVID-19 was “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.foxnews.com/media/trump-hannity-coronavirus-fading-away-tulsa-rally&source=gmail&ust=1603194856233000&usg=AFQjCNFhcm_TrImiyj4VGFz3BxlMJ2nPlw" href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/trump-hannity-coronavirus-fading-away-tulsa-rally" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">fading away</span></a>.” (389)<br /><br />Former CDC acting director Dr. Richard Besser, who had done regular briefings in 2009 during the H1N1 pandemic, pointed out that “As states are moving to reopen the economy, as people are increasing their social activities, it becomes even more important that the public understand the critical value in following public health guidance — wearing masks, social distancing, washing hands, staying home if you’re sick….without that daily reinforcement, you have what is happening around the country — people not believing the pandemic is real, cases rising in some places and the possibility that some communities’ health care systems will get overwhelmed.” (390)<br /><br />The coronavirus task force was no longer speaking publicly, which “has left the country with no singular public voices updating citizens, businesses and state and local governments on best practices. Where once there were voices, now there are just echoes — a promising study in Britain about a steroid that may save the lives of the sickest patients, new evidence of the benefits of staying outdoors. But there is no clarion federal guidance. (391)<br /><br />“Past pandemics, and simulations conducted by the federal government to prepare for new ones, all teach the same lesson: Having clear, consistent and regular communication with the public is essential to managing any infectious disease outbreak. The C.D.C. has a <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://emergency.cdc.gov/cerc/manual/index.asp&source=gmail&ust=1603194856233000&usg=AFQjCNEwfJ2dW3a5dNsK0Rk-98w4HQK7Xw" href="https://emergency.cdc.gov/cerc/manual/index.asp" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">462-page manual</span></a> for crisis communications, which it uses to <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://emergency.cdc.gov/cerc/training/index.asp&source=gmail&ust=1603194856233000&usg=AFQjCNELNSCelnZzqEevUYbJt0kCUHQE6A" href="https://emergency.cdc.gov/cerc/training/index.asp" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">train state and local health officials</span></a>.<br /><br />“’It’s a great guide, and it’s just been tossed out the window,’ said Joshua M. Sharfstein, an expert in public health communications at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: normal; margin: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Even as Trump appeared indifferent to the impact of COVID-19 on the people he was supposed to serve, the pain was real. As <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.wsj.com/articles/americans-skip-millions-of-loan-payments-as-coronavirus-takes-economic-toll-11592472601&source=gmail&ust=1603194856233000&usg=AFQjCNGVfSFenLBahJi-KOX3xufCWfWNqg" href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/americans-skip-millions-of-loan-payments-as-coronavirus-takes-economic-toll-11592472601" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;">reported</span></a> by AnnaMaria Andriotis of <i>the Wall Street Journal</i>, on <b>Thursday, June 18</b>, “Americans have skipped payments on more than 100 million student loans (392), auto loans (393) and other forms of debt since the coronavirus hit the U.S., the latest sign of the toll the pandemic is taking on people’s finances.”<br /><br />Trump was more focused on himself, telling <i>the Wall Street Journal</i> that some people wore masks just to “signal disapproval of him.”<br /><br />Meanwhile, Oklahoma, the site of Trump’s upcoming rally, was among the handful of hot spots in the country, showing a <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-pandemic-south-arizona-oklahoma-trump-dbd813f7-52a8-4474-872d-624212bd257c.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856234000&usg=AFQjCNHvmccjo3u4_wX3MszuQDRlX1Cupw" href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-pandemic-south-arizona-oklahoma-trump-dbd813f7-52a8-4474-872d-624212bd257c.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">91% increase</span></a> in cases in the past week.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Friday, June 19</b>, The Republican-controlled states of Texas, Florida, and Arizona continued to lead the way, posting <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/503588-arizona-texas-florida-again-report-record-high-covid-19-cases&source=gmail&ust=1603194856234000&usg=AFQjCNHVIezMi9bPuNDBhHYOEEOcQP64-A" href="https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/503588-arizona-texas-florida-again-report-record-high-covid-19-cases" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">record numbers of infections</span></a>. By contrast, Democratic governors and mayors were pushing constituents to <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://news.trust.org/item/20200619003042-1a2ye&source=gmail&ust=1603194856234000&usg=AFQjCNHvWaHG4CHBFYi4RElSSJn7fdtM5A" href="https://news.trust.org/item/20200619003042-1a2ye" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">wear masks</span></a> through laws or public recommendations.<br /><br />Trump again showed his contempt for democracy, saying in an interview that mail-in voting (high turnout) was the <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/03/trump-2020-election-legal-battle-coronavirus-162152&source=gmail&ust=1603194856234000&usg=AFQjCNGTvLovqE4k1Z6KZEHvLSKCEEjATg" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/03/trump-2020-election-legal-battle-coronavirus-162152" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">biggest threat</span></a> to winning a second term and <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/19/trump-threatens-protesters-the-day-before-his-tulsa-rally.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856234000&usg=AFQjCNFXDHnNbOZqds9JsnmvTbzUcmH2oA" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/19/trump-threatens-protesters-the-day-before-his-tulsa-rally.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">tweeting</span></a> that “Any protesters, anarchists, agitators, looters or lowlifes who are going to Oklahoma please understand, you will not be treated like you have been in New York, Seattle, or Minneapolis. It will be a much different scene!”<br /><br />The psychological impact of the chaos Trump lives and breathes and had inflicted on American life was reflected in <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.studyfinds.org/land-of-the-worried-83-of-americans-very-stressed-over-nations-future/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856234000&usg=AFQjCNH-XhEbJscuK-ABwG20Qf6TII186A" href="https://www.studyfinds.org/land-of-the-worried-83-of-americans-very-stressed-over-nations-future/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">polling</span></a> done by the American Psychological Association which found that 72% of Americans polled “believe <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.studyfinds.org/political-polarization-peaking-in-america-voters-embrace-all-or-nothing-mentality-along-party-lines/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856234000&usg=AFQjCNGywOCplBkSBSXUSYCEtqB8R1Pl6A" href="https://www.studyfinds.org/political-polarization-peaking-in-america-voters-embrace-all-or-nothing-mentality-along-party-lines/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">this is the lowest point</span></a> in the country’s history that they’ve ever been alive to see.” Another key finding was that “66% of respondents say that the government’s ongoing response to the coronavirus continues to stress them out on a daily basis. Among that group, 84% are mostly worried about the federal government’s response.” (394)<br /><br />The anemic federal response was mind-boggling to public health experts overseas, whose countries had handled the pandemic much more aggressively, resulting in a fraction of the deaths and infections seen in the United States. <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/06/19/countries-keeping-coronavirus-bay-experts-watch-us-case-numbers-with-alarm/?utm_campaign%3Dwp_post_most%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26wpisrc%3Dnl_most&source=gmail&ust=1603194856234000&usg=AFQjCNHmjtOcvsvmHe4fiX0RqrEy0KIQiA" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/06/19/countries-keeping-coronavirus-bay-experts-watch-us-case-numbers-with-alarm/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">According to</span></a> Rick Noack of <i>the Washington Post</i>, “As coronavirus cases surge in states across the South and West of the United States, health experts in countries with falling case numbers are watching with a growing sense of alarm and disbelief, with many wondering why virus-stricken U.S. states continue to reopen and why the advice of scientists is often ignored.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />“‘It really does feel like the U.S. has given up,” (395) said Siouxsie Wiles, an infectious-diseases specialist at the University of Auckland in New Zealand - a country that has confirmed only three new cases over the last three weeks and where citizens have now largely returned to their pre-coronavirus routines.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />A <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.statnews.com/2020/06/19/faster-response-prevented-most-us-covid-19-deaths/?utm_source%3Dpocket%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dpockethits&source=gmail&ust=1603194856234000&usg=AFQjCNEgH3zWVRpK5BOOkaBU8h2Voe0OUQ" href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/06/19/faster-response-prevented-most-us-covid-19-deaths/?utm_source=pocket&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pockethits" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">piece</span></a> at statnews.com looked at how things could have gone differently in the U.S. if a competent leader—say, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/10/178-reasons-hillary-clinton-is.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856234000&usg=AFQjCNGxVixSKkXsL_TCntRLepJDeYasJg" href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/10/178-reasons-hillary-clinton-is.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Hillary Clinton</span></a>—had been president when COVID struck:<br /><br />“Had American leaders taken the decisive, early measures that several other nations took when they had exactly the same information the U.S. did, at exactly the same time in their experience of the novel coronavirus, how many of these Covid-19 deaths could have been prevented?<br /><br />“That isn’t a hypothetical question. And the answer that emerges from a direct comparison of the fatalities in and policies of the U.S. and other countries — South Korea, Australia, Germany, and Singapore — indicates that between 70% and 99% of the Americans who died from this pandemic might have been saved by measures demonstrated by others to have been feasible.” (396)<br /><br />Based on a study by Oxford University students, “14 days from the date of the 15th confirmed case in each country — a vital early window for action — the U.S. response to the outbreak lagged behind the others by miles.” (397)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>“…</b>Due to exponential viral spread, [America’s] delay in action was devastating. In the wake of the U.S. response, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856234000&usg=AFQjCNFmpxFMQtqD4Pz67eq560bDGDvggg" href="https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">117,858 Americans</span></a> died in the four months following the first 15 confirmed cases. After an equivalent period, Germany suffered only <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/germany/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856234000&usg=AFQjCNHZKeDOZnJOXCK6rwjjpoBB1KjamA" href="https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/germany/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">8,863</span></a> casualties. Scaling up the German population of 83.7 million to America’s 331 million, a U.S.-sized Germany would have suffered 35,049 Covid-19 deaths. So if the U.S. had acted as effectively as Germany, 70% of U.S. coronavirus deaths might have been prevented.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Seventy percent, though, is the most conservative estimate. Scaled-up versions of South Korea, Australia, and <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/23/singapore-teach-united-states-about-covid-19-response/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856234000&usg=AFQjCNElDUEmKxRj3ArtMt4K_FtRPod-gA" href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/23/singapore-teach-united-states-about-covid-19-response/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Singapore</span></a> would have experienced 1,758, 1,324, and 1,358 deaths, respectively, in the four months after 15 cases were confirmed in each country. Had we handled the coronavirus as effectively as any of these three countries, roughly 99% of the 117,858 U.S. Covid-19 deaths might have been averted.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump’s mis-governance had impacted state governments too:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Often <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/04/politics/republican-governors-stay-at-home-orders-coronavirus/index.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856234000&usg=AFQjCNHs_NZFBsMeYyHPQtkkIniYD6lQJw" href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/04/politics/republican-governors-stay-at-home-orders-coronavirus/index.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">taking cues</span></a> from the president’s words, state by state measures were rolled out <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.npr.org/2020/03/12/815200313/what-governors-are-doing-to-tackle-spreading-coronavirus&source=gmail&ust=1603194856234000&usg=AFQjCNGLts1fnK1YS4Ub2u2aSAQ-OGX8XA" href="https://www.npr.org/2020/03/12/815200313/what-governors-are-doing-to-tackle-spreading-coronavirus" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">piecemeal</span></a>. Florida and Georgia, for example, waited until April 3 to issue stay-at-home orders while South Carolina held off until April 7.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />Late Friday night, an opportune time to bury important news, Trump <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.thehour.com/news/article/Barr-says-at-his-request-Trump-has-removed-15354618.php&source=gmail&ust=1603194856234000&usg=AFQjCNEC0SN86NwWeGN9K3BYYPTL7fwipw" href="https://www.thehour.com/news/article/Barr-says-at-his-request-Trump-has-removed-15354618.php" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">fired Geoffrey Berman</span></a>, the U.S. Attorney of the Southern District of New York. Not coincidentally, Berman was the top federal prosecutor in a number of sticky cases involving Trump and his associates. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />On <b>Saturday, June 20</b>, it was reported that the U.S. had <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/20/us-reports-his-number-of-daily-coronavirus-cases-since-may-1.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856234000&usg=AFQjCNGvN5WyXQvc3t9IMDazgyqW3F6ndg" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/20/us-reports-his-number-of-daily-coronavirus-cases-since-may-1.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">30,000 new COVID-19 cases</span></a>, the biggest one-day totals since May 1. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump had a <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000007202247/trump-tulsa-rally.html?campaign_id%3D9%26emc%3Dedit_nn_20200621%26instance_id%3D19590%26nl%3Dthe-morning%26regi_id%3D126380121%26segment_id%3D31491%26te%3D1%26user_id%3Dd83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74&source=gmail&ust=1603194856234000&usg=AFQjCNFv3WXPc4MsaHKMhMH39dhLsm51AA" href="https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000007202247/trump-tulsa-rally.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200621&instance_id=19590&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=31491&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">super-spreader rally</span></a> in Tulsa, Oklahoma (398) to an arena that was two-thirds empty. During his speech, Trump said “I have done a phenomenal job” managing COVID-19 and stated emphatically that he had asked underlings to “slow the testing down” (399) because increasing infection numbers made him look bad. He also called coronavirus the “kung flu” as a dog whistle to his racist supporters. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />On <b>Sunday, June 21</b>, Trump reached his personal milestone of <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/u-s-coronavirus-death-toll-surpasses-120-000-china-south-n1231663&source=gmail&ust=1603194856234000&usg=AFQjCNE3MEYB-s7H26hfCMhYAhg167-e-w" href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/u-s-coronavirus-death-toll-surpasses-120-000-china-south-n1231663" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">120,000 dead Americans</span></a>, a staggering number which was 5X higher than the death totals of any other developed country—and yet still a significant undercount of actual COVID-related deaths.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />Among the most vulnerable victims of Trump’s failures were residents and employees (400) of nursing homes, particularly residents with limited financial resources.<br /><br /><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/21/business/nursing-homes-evictions-discharges-coronavirus.html?smid%3Dnytcore-ios-share%26utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosvitals%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856234000&usg=AFQjCNEktUTMzPW1LCRwQ93hdl_cemRUlQ" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/21/business/nursing-homes-evictions-discharges-coronavirus.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">As reported</span></a> by Jessica Silver-Greenberg and Amy Julia Harris of <i>the New York Times</i>, “More than 51,000 residents and employees of nursing homes and long-term care facilities have died (401), representing more than 40 percent of the total death toll in the United States.” In order to boost profits, nursing homes were taking in lucrative COVID-19-infected patients (covered by Medicare or private plans) while “kicking out old and disabled residents [covered by Medicaid] — among the people most susceptible to the coronavirus — and shunting them into homeless shelters, rundown motels and other unsafe facilities, according to 22 watchdogs in 16 states, as well as dozens of elder-care lawyers, social workers and former nursing home executives.” (402)<br /><br />Medicaid recipients in nursing homes were far from alone in feeling the devastation wrought by the Trump administration’s grossly inadequate response to COVID-19. As reported on <b>Monday, June 22</b>, companies providing mental health and addiction services were flooded with new patients but were being <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/22/coronavirus-bailout-mental-health-334588&source=gmail&ust=1603194856234000&usg=AFQjCNGrsfELQ2DrvJXbax4yB3mmWe3bPA" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/22/coronavirus-bailout-mental-health-334588" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">shortchanged</span></a> by the administration’s Health and Human Services Department, who had failed to disburse stimulus money which could keep operations going. Three months after the CARES Act had been passed, a third of providers had not received their money, forcing them to get rid of staff (403) and leaving them short of PPE (404), and many didn’t know how long they would be able to stay open, potentially leading to even greater shortfalls in services down the road. (405)<br /><br />Countrywide, new cases increased 24% from the week before, primarily in red states who had death-marched along with Trump's election plans. The failures of the Republican leadership of Arizona and Texas to heed the power of the pandemic were increasingly obvious, as the Children’s Hospital in Houston <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.khou.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/texas-childrens-hospital-admitting-adult-patients-as-covid-19-cases-continue-to-rise/285-5aa0a132-a318-4a41-81b3-6659086c2ef7&source=gmail&ust=1603194856234000&usg=AFQjCNEBaetf86K3i0R2XRFBBnhe_9l9bQ" href="https://www.khou.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/texas-childrens-hospital-admitting-adult-patients-as-covid-19-cases-continue-to-rise/285-5aa0a132-a318-4a41-81b3-6659086c2ef7" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">opened up</span></a> space for COVID-infected adults (406) and Arizona <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/22/coronavirus-hospitalizations-grow-in-arizona-and-texas.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856234000&usg=AFQjCNEb3uVsr_qJflGR6P_ik4N30iQDiw" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/22/coronavirus-hospitalizations-grow-in-arizona-and-texas.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that “83% of inpatient beds and 85% of intensive-care unit beds were in use.” (407)<br /><br />As bad as things were, the administration’s Health and Human Services Department was making matters worse by <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://finance.yahoo.com/news/dems-trump-sitting-billions-coronavirus-221008162.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856234000&usg=AFQjCNEP9nJhmF27RdZ5mHEgWMnPdwwriA" href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/dems-trump-sitting-billions-coronavirus-221008162.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">holding up</span></a> billions of dollars for testing (408) and contact tracing (409), perhaps because Trump had ordered them to “slow the testing down.”<br /><br />Though COVID-19 cases were skyrocketing in the U.S., the impact of the virus had been blunted in continental Europe. The reasons for this stark contrast were reviewed by Dan Diamond and Sarah Wheaton in “‘The U.S. has hamstrung itself’: <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/22/united-states-italy-traded-places-coronavirus-333122&source=gmail&ust=1603194856234000&usg=AFQjCNHlt1R4KRJmepHmnxYOwhVP7aFKYw" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/22/united-states-italy-traded-places-coronavirus-333122" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">How America became the new Italy on coronavirus</span></a>.”<br /><br />The key distinction between the U.S. response and the response in Europe was that Europe had focused on public health (mandatory masks, leaving lockdowns in place longer) rather than short-term campaign considerations. Italy, the first epicenter in Europe, had had just 264 new cases on Sunday. Spain and France had had under 500 new cases per day. The U.S. was seeing over 30,000 new cases per day, a number that was rising sharply.<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump’s politicization of the virus had contributed to Republican leaders in individual states failing to protect their constituents and Trump’s decision to outsource the COVID-19 response had left states to fight a pandemic with woefully inadequate resources. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Texas outdid itself on <b>Tuesday, June 23</b>, with over <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://dfw.cbslocal.com/2020/06/23/texas-surpasses-5k-new-cases-coronavirus-spreading/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856234000&usg=AFQjCNHoeTZdydCDSve3XTT7aStZ4fej3g" href="https://dfw.cbslocal.com/2020/06/23/texas-surpasses-5k-new-cases-coronavirus-spreading/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">5,000 new infections</span></a>, a record. Right-wing libertarian governor Greg Abbott, who had dismissed the virus in the recent past, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.dallasnews.com/news/public-health/2020/06/23/spread-is-so-rampant-texas-hits-all-time-high-of-more-than-5k-new-covid-19-cases-gov-greg-abbott-says/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856234000&usg=AFQjCNGJsoft9AgWuknQdQAMRJ51E-LWFA" href="https://www.dallasnews.com/news/public-health/2020/06/23/spread-is-so-rampant-texas-hits-all-time-high-of-more-than-5k-new-covid-19-cases-gov-greg-abbott-says/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">increased regulations</span></a> for childcare centers and “gave local officials more powers to limit public gatherings during the upcoming Fourth of July weekend.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />Arizona, the sight of Trump’s second super-spreader rally that day (410), reported a <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/23/arizona-reports-record-single-day-increase-in-coronavirus-cases-ahead-of-trumps-visit.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856234000&usg=AFQjCNHvTVe-SNcNTcsTuA-r-4pRB_85ow" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/23/arizona-reports-record-single-day-increase-in-coronavirus-cases-ahead-of-trumps-visit.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">record single-day increase</span></a> in coronavirus cases ahead of Trump’s visit. The rally itself had no public health requirements; people sat next to each other with barely a mask in sight (411) and Trump said COVID-19 was “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewsolender/2020/06/23/its-going-away-trump-plays-down-coronavirus-at-arizona-rally-as-cases-surge-in-the-state/%236070e6a42b3b&source=gmail&ust=1603194856234000&usg=AFQjCNHvHqrKiIAW9pZQE0BC6DgRHNMC6Q" href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewsolender/2020/06/23/its-going-away-trump-plays-down-coronavirus-at-arizona-rally-as-cases-surge-in-the-state/#6070e6a42b3b" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">going away</span></a>.” (412)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />Things were so bad in the States that the European Union was considering <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/23/world/europe/coronavirus-EU-American-travel-ban.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiospm%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856234000&usg=AFQjCNEKjjHjzoFQaO1q8gVA-ZPRWfjjjQ" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/23/world/europe/coronavirus-EU-American-travel-ban.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiospm&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a ban on travelers from America</span></a>. (413) The direct connection between the administration’s poor policy-making and the uniquely horrible results in the States were revealed again when Anthony Fauci told a House Energy and Commerce committee hearing that the administration had given an order for the National Institutes of Health to <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/23/fauci-nih-white-house-bat-study-336452&source=gmail&ust=1603194856234000&usg=AFQjCNHvCGTF0UAXFoyDPIhuXZF1AQifGw" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/23/fauci-nih-white-house-bat-study-336452" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">cancel a study</span></a> looking at the transmission of viruses from bats to humans, which is likely <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/05/anthony-fauci-no-scientific-evidence-the-coronavirus-was-made-in-a-chinese-lab-cvd/%23close&source=gmail&ust=1603194856234000&usg=AFQjCNFFdfLgTnCBm_Rqrh5wG0u26avfYg" href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/05/anthony-fauci-no-scientific-evidence-the-coronavirus-was-made-in-a-chinese-lab-cvd/#close" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">how COVID-19 had started</span></a>. (see #22)<br /><br />Trump fiddled while the U.S. burned, focusing on campaigning rather than governing. Topmost in Trump’s mind was finding ways to deflect his COVID-19 failures onto other entities, including <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/23/trump-cdc-overhaul-coronavirus-335039&source=gmail&ust=1603194856235000&usg=AFQjCNGV3pUl8IoU7lJuQ1nWN5rLiLDi_A" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/23/trump-cdc-overhaul-coronavirus-335039" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">his own CDC</span></a> and <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/23/trump-governors-2020-328085&source=gmail&ust=1603194856235000&usg=AFQjCNENaR0qOi85aZKWYKu4FcR_X-r4WQ" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/23/trump-governors-2020-328085" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">governors</span></a> who lacked the resources and information that the federal government had had to mitigate the virus. He made a visit to the border wall to show his commitment to <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.westport-news.com/news/article/Trump-visits-border-wall-to-drive-immigration-15361294.php&source=gmail&ust=1603194856235000&usg=AFQjCNFcAfk96baNig2WNu4dw2rGvszGwg" href="https://www.westport-news.com/news/article/Trump-visits-border-wall-to-drive-immigration-15361294.php" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">keeping brown-skinned people out of the country</span></a>, went to the mat for monuments of <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://news.trust.org/item/20200623133258-dobya&source=gmail&ust=1603194856235000&usg=AFQjCNEoHVMVEwagIes5hxj5kX3whgOgsA" href="https://news.trust.org/item/20200623133258-dobya" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">despicable men from our ugly past</span></a>—including Civil War traitors—and received a <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/twitter-flags-trump-tweet-for-violating-rules-on-abusive-behavior-726d9326-9f6b-4008-be15-ffae9ac3b87b.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiospm%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856235000&usg=AFQjCNEPq_wlB78HIc9Nxq6dBrysf-dNFw" href="https://www.axios.com/twitter-flags-trump-tweet-for-violating-rules-on-abusive-behavior-726d9326-9f6b-4008-be15-ffae9ac3b87b.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiospm&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">warning</span></a> from Twitter after threatening D.C. protesters with “serious force.”<br /><br />While Trump raged against the feeling that he was losing control of the country, COVID-19 surged. On <b>Wednesday, June 24</b>, the U.S. had a <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/24/us-hits-highest-single-day-of-coronavirus-cases-at-36358-breaking-april-record.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856235000&usg=AFQjCNE34s-N1X0fTRFPv2tUtNK_0lYnnQ" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/24/us-hits-highest-single-day-of-coronavirus-cases-at-36358-breaking-april-record.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">one-day record</span></a> of new cases, 36,358, which was forcing state and local officials to <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/virus-surges-across-us-throwing-reopenings-into-disarray/ar-BB15SSck?li%3DBBnb7Kz&source=gmail&ust=1603194856235000&usg=AFQjCNEa6kMJ909qmxgyqob99m14eU9hqQ" href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/virus-surges-across-us-throwing-reopenings-into-disarray/ar-BB15SSck?li=BBnb7Kz" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">consider shutting down again</span></a>.<br /><br />Among the many, many victims of the administration’s mishandling of COVID-19 were Americans who were having long-term medical complications, including kidney failure and heart and lung damage, from coronavirus. The administration had vowed to keep medical costs down for these patients, but was <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/24/trump-pay-coronavirus-symptoms-338924&source=gmail&ust=1603194856235000&usg=AFQjCNGcru8F9QFMcCZHkXfN4BgXDAsyNw" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/24/trump-pay-coronavirus-symptoms-338924" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">failing to do so</span></a>, leading to staggering medical bills. (414)<br /><br />According to Susannah Luthi of <i>Politico</i>, “A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services declined to say whether the administration is talking to health plans about a solution. The government hasn't issued guidance on billing for post-virus conditions, citing ongoing research and the many unknowns about the long-term effects of Covid-19.”<br /><br />As much damage as the administration had already done, they were far from finished, announcing that they were about to <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/24/trump-administration-drive-through-coronavirus-testing-338217&source=gmail&ust=1603194856235000&usg=AFQjCNF61LOU-Pi625dKTa_NW0Ej1x9ypQ" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/24/trump-administration-drive-through-coronavirus-testing-338217" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">close drive-through testing sites</span></a> even as cases spiked. (415)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The insidious impact of Trump’s months of lies, and right-wing media’s propaganda offensive on his behalf, were weighed by Christopher Ingraham of <i>the Washington Post</i> on <b>Thursday, June 25</b>.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Ingraham <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/06/25/fox-news-hannity-coronavirus-misinformation/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856235000&usg=AFQjCNF3_K-wbyfIVbfJ6LY9I71BMT1tfg" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/06/25/fox-news-hannity-coronavirus-misinformation/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">looked at</span></a> “three studies…focused on conservative media’s role in fostering confusion about the seriousness of the coronavirus. Taken together, they paint a picture of a media ecosystem that amplifies misinformation, entertains conspiracy theories and discourages audiences from taking concrete steps to protect themselves and others.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The end result, according to one of the studies, is that infection and mortality rates are higher in places where one pundit who initially downplayed the severity of the pandemic — Fox News’s Sean Hannity — reaches the largest audiences.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Another study “found that people who got most of their information from mainstream print and broadcast outlets tended to have an accurate assessment of the severity of the pandemic and their risks of infection. But those who relied on conservative sources, such as Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, were more likely to believe in conspiracy theories or unfounded rumors, such as the belief that taking vitamin C could prevent infection, that the Chinese government had created the virus, and that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention exaggerated the pandemic’s threat ‘to damage the Trump presidency.’”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In whole, the studies went a long way toward explaining the startling ignorance of many/most Republicans (see #145, #204, #283, #307, #313, #319-323, #325, #330, #339, #347, #387) and the ramifications of that ignorance—no masks, no social distancing, increased infection rates, and the chaos, death, and disruption associated with those higher rates. (416)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As bad as things seemed on the surface, they were even worse in reality, as Trump’s CDC estimated that COVID-19 had infected <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-cases/coronavirus-may-have-infected-10-times-more-americans-than-reported-cdc-says-idUSKBN23W2PU&source=gmail&ust=1603194856235000&usg=AFQjCNE33sT-5OTwJE2FShNy4kzrVbz92Q" href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-cases/coronavirus-may-have-infected-10-times-more-americans-than-reported-cdc-says-idUSKBN23W2PU" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">10X as many Americans as had been reported</span></a>. (417)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump’s response was continued indifference. <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-ignores-virus-spike-as-us-cases-surge-toward-records/ar-BB15YpgG&source=gmail&ust=1603194856235000&usg=AFQjCNEq_wc0vQt6GMAV31jYqp0zfh-VYQ" href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-ignores-virus-spike-as-us-cases-surge-toward-records/ar-BB15YpgG" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">According to</span></a> reporter Josh Wingrove, “President Donald Trump has paid little heed to a resurgence in U.S. coronavirus cases -- which on Thursday hit a record level -- announcing no new steps to curb the outbreak and continuing with a normal schedule of meetings and travel as hospitals fill with sick patients.” (418) Trump that day tweeted that cases were “way down,” though the opposite was true. (419) For good measure, Trump’s Department of Justice sided with the plaintiffs in a <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.blogger.com/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856235000&usg=AFQjCNELwIQn0NtBXbujIOTU7YOwQ-NphQ" href="https://www.blogger.com/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">lawsuit</span></a> against Hawaii’s quarantine on out-0f-state travelers. (420)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The administration showed just how much they cared again on <b>Friday, June 26</b>.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Since the pandemic had begun, enrollments in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/aca-enrollment-coronavirus-b94f8171-d9ad-4070-99cf-c9259fd92c74.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosam%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856235000&usg=AFQjCNG4LRnqe6Zzw8-af5VJN550TTibEA" href="https://www.axios.com/aca-enrollment-coronavirus-b94f8171-d9ad-4070-99cf-c9259fd92c74.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">had increased 46%</span></a> from 2019 due to mass job losses. In all, 23,000,000 Americans had coverage through the ACA and 130,000,000 were protected by the pre-existing condition clause. Ignoring the potential fate of more than half of the U.S. population, the administration filed a brief with the Supreme Court to <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/us/politics/obamacare-trump-administration-supreme-court.html?campaign_id%3D9%26emc%3Dedit_nn_20200626%26instance_id%3D19769%26nl%3Dthe-morning%26regi_id%3D126380121%26segment_id%3D31917%26te%3D1%26user_id%3Dd83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74&source=gmail&ust=1603194856235000&usg=AFQjCNFTVkK_csy-svzzxjiXZa1-Tc_lQg" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/us/politics/obamacare-trump-administration-supreme-court.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200626&instance_id=19769&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=31917&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">overturn the ACA</span></a>. (421)<br /><br />Though Trump was unconcerned about trifling matters like healthcare security, he was happy to go to bat for his political allies. When Texas’s Republican governor and senators complained about the administration’s plan to stop funding drive-through testing sites, Trump’s HHS <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/26/trump-texas-coronavirus-testing-sites-341795&source=gmail&ust=1603194856235000&usg=AFQjCNF56V78daPUFXG9L-8e7Tf62BfKMw" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/26/trump-texas-coronavirus-testing-sites-341795" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">extended the money</span></a> for two more weeks for five of Texas’s seven sites. Drive-through sites in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Colorado, and Illinois were left to close as scheduled.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The spike in cases brought The Coronavirus Task Force out of hiding for the first time in two months. Unfortunately, Mike Pence treated the important public health gathering as a campaign event. While the U.S. posted a record number of new infections for the third day in a row, Pence gave a <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/26/coronavirus-task-force-returns-341675&source=gmail&ust=1603194856235000&usg=AFQjCNEbvqCypbNuhzJtqp4tYcpK0krk-A" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/26/coronavirus-task-force-returns-341675" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">rose-colored-glasses</span></a> <wbr></wbr>presentation, claiming that the increases were limited to “specific communities,” (422) that “We have made truly remarkable progress in moving our nation forward,” that “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.businessinsider.com/first-coronavirus-task-force-briefing-in-two-months-pence-national-accomplishment-flatten-the-curve-2020-6?amp%26utmSource%3Dtwitter%26utmContent%3Dreferral%26utmTerm%3Dtopbar%26referrer%3Dtwitter%26__twitter_impression%3Dtrue%26fbclid%3DIwAR08ClISR9RmjVTPAxNiXcWhHm8M_sKdewdXAhTjTjiJs1YfmDPNbuuuO1Q&source=gmail&ust=1603194856235000&usg=AFQjCNHwyTizZz-Bjp4Mxn6uPGlCWxYJXA" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/first-coronavirus-task-force-briefing-in-two-months-pence-national-accomplishment-flatten-the-curve-2020-6?amp&utmSource=twitter&utmContent=referral&utmTerm=topbar&referrer=twitter&__twitter_impression=true&fbclid=IwAR08ClISR9RmjVTPAxNiXcWhHm8M_sKdewdXAhTjTjiJs1YfmDPNbuuuO1Q" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">We flattened the curve</span></a>. (423) We saved lives.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The vice president put far more energy into rhetoric than reality. <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/26/coronavirus-task-force-returns-341675&source=gmail&ust=1603194856235000&usg=AFQjCNEbvqCypbNuhzJtqp4tYcpK0krk-A" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/26/coronavirus-task-force-returns-341675" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">According to</span></a> David Lim and Alice Miranda Ollstein of <i>Politico</i>, “Pence did not announce any new initiatives, resources or strategies in response to the new outbreaks — or even recommend the public wear masks. (424) Instead, he emphasized that the federal government stood ready to assist states if they ask for help on anything from hospital capacity to protective equipment and generally urged Americans to remain vigilant, pray and exercise ‘personal responsibility.’”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />Pence couldn’t sustain his lies for more than a single sleep cycle.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As of <b>Saturday, June 27</b>, the daily tally of new infections had <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/27/world/coronavirus-updates.html?campaign_id%3D9%26emc%3Dedit_nn_20200628%26instance_id%3D19825%26nl%3Dthe-morning%26regi_id%3D126380121%26segment_id%3D32064%26te%3D1%26user_id%3Dd83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74%23link-3631c3c5&source=gmail&ust=1603194856235000&usg=AFQjCNGAU6Hv6kycT2FqPFXyqdQ4nIUPag" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/27/world/coronavirus-updates.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200628&instance_id=19825&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=32064&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74#link-3631c3c5" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">climbed 65%</span></a> in the span of two weeks. (425) As mind-blowing as this number was, it likely <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/27/health/coronavirus-antibodies-asymptomatic.html?campaign_id%3D9%26emc%3Dedit_nn_20200628%26instance_id%3D19825%26nl%3Dthe-morning%26regi_id%3D126380121%26segment_id%3D32064%26te%3D1%26user_id%3Dd83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74&source=gmail&ust=1603194856235000&usg=AFQjCNHn5QNCJ9iC-dP4Vek-W9H60uNtvw" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/27/health/coronavirus-antibodies-asymptomatic.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200628&instance_id=19825&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=32064&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">undercounted</span></a> infections by 90%, according to Trump’s own CDC. In response, Pence <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/watch/pence-cancels-trips-to-arizona-florida-due-to-concerns-over-spike-in-coronavirus-cases-86142021953?cid%3Dsm_npd_ms_fb_ma%26fbclid%3DIwAR18RF5oYGjPGvaX7ev4BsJyNTcIELmWVsVhutzRg78H4DYOULcdkrdHbqw&source=gmail&ust=1603194856235000&usg=AFQjCNGs0RCVd-MP2SQsG0LD-XDvj8gxuQ" href="https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/watch/pence-cancels-trips-to-arizona-florida-due-to-concerns-over-spike-in-coronavirus-cases-86142021953?cid=sm_npd_ms_fb_ma&fbclid=IwAR18RF5oYGjPGvaX7ev4BsJyNTcIELmWVsVhutzRg78H4DYOULcdkrdHbqw" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">cancelled campaign events</span></a> in Florida and Arizona he had defended at the previous day’s press conference.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />The gulf between actions and words was even more pronounced with Donald Trump. Though he had been coaxing Americans to risk their health by consistently minimizing the severity of COVID-19 in public, holding super-spreader rallies, refusing to wear a mask, lying to reporters when asked about the pandemic, and pressuring states to re-open their economies prematurely, behind the scenes Trump was taking extraordinary precautions.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/26/politics/donald-trump-coronavirus-protocols/index.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856235000&usg=AFQjCNE7aakeO7nRegaYmtTVa0N4KxAfSg" href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/26/politics/donald-trump-coronavirus-protocols/index.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">According to</span></a> Kevin Liptak and Kaitlin Collins of <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://cnn.com&source=gmail&ust=1603194856236000&usg=AFQjCNFCySoFphWlhpVCcxvLaF9YV6C0dA" href="http://cnn.com/" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">cnn.com</a>, “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.cnn.com/specials/politics/president-donald-trump-45&source=gmail&ust=1603194856236000&usg=AFQjCNF3ar3s6xGOef3qRl7aPg6ZOay6vg" href="http://www.cnn.com/specials/politics/president-donald-trump-45" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">President Donald Trump</span></a> appears ready to move on from a still-raging <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.cnn.com/2020/02/06/health/wuhan-coronavirus-timeline-fast-facts/index.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856236000&usg=AFQjCNHCLr7ZgrS7yIcCSCxxbjc56_2axQ" href="http://www.cnn.com/2020/02/06/health/wuhan-coronavirus-timeline-fast-facts/index.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">coronavirus pandemic</span></a> -- skipping the <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.cnn.com/2020/06/26/politics/mike-pence-trump-rallies-coronavirus/index.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856236000&usg=AFQjCNGItO8hRrV8Js2uYSRer1Vk9PSjhQ" href="http://www.cnn.com/2020/06/26/politics/mike-pence-trump-rallies-coronavirus/index.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">first White House task force briefing</span></a> in months (426) and moving the event out of the White House itself. But the measures meant to protect him from catching the virus have scaled up dramatically.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />“…When he travels to locations where the virus is surging, every venue the President enters is inspected for potential areas of contagion by advance security and medical teams, according to people familiar with the arrangements. Bathrooms designated for the President's use are scrubbed and sanitized before he arrives. Staff maintain a close accounting of who will come into contact with the President to ensure they receive tests.<br /><br />“While the White House phases out steps such as temperature checks and required mask-wearing in the West Wing -- changes meant to signal the country is moving on -- those around the President still undergo regular testing.”<br /><br />“…After Trump told aides at the beginning of the outbreak he must avoid getting sick at all costs, efforts to prevent him from contracting the virus have progressively become more intensive and wide-ranging. Early steps such as keeping more hand sanitizer nearby eventually evolved into an intensive safety apparatus, including the testing regimen requiring dozens of staffers.”<br /><br />Though he’d been successful to date at avoiding infection, Trump’s failures to keep millions of his constituents safe were becoming more and more obvious to the U.S. public. The connection between the administration’s incompetence and the increase in infections <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/with-trump-leading-the-way-america-s-coronavirus-failures-exposed-by-record-surge-in-new-infections/ar-BB162SAS?li%3DBBnb4R7&source=gmail&ust=1603194856236000&usg=AFQjCNFiXmdr2cCtGMbCZQaS1K2y3hpe8g" href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/with-trump-leading-the-way-america-s-coronavirus-failures-exposed-by-record-surge-in-new-infections/ar-BB162SAS?li=BBnb4R7" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">was reviewed</span></a> in “With Trump leading the way, America’s coronavirus failures exposed by record surge in new infections” by Toluse Olorunnipa, Josh Dawsey, and Yasmeen Abutaleb of <i>the Washington Post</i>.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Among the key points: “Trump’s public mentions of the coronavirus <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-coronavirus-pandemic-jobs-law-and-order/2020/06/05/3248ce5e-a747-11ea-b619-3f9133bbb482_story.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856236000&usg=AFQjCNEDqBYw5zuSUiOcOA869JuqFxGEtw" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-coronavirus-pandemic-jobs-law-and-order/2020/06/05/3248ce5e-a747-11ea-b619-3f9133bbb482_story.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">declined by two-thirds</span></a> between April and early June. (427) When he did discuss the pandemic, it was often to float misinformation about treatments, masks and testing — science-defying views that have been embraced by his supporters and top Republican lawmakers.” (428)<br /><br />Anthony Fauci had been blocked from public appearances because he had trouble “staying on message” (see #297, #348) and the administration had had weeks of internal debate over whether to hold Friday’s task force briefing or pretend infections weren’t increasing.<br /><br />Max Skidmore of the University of Missouri at Kansas City pointed out that Trump’s decision to ignore public health in service to his campaign was unique: “We’re the only country in the world that has politicized the approach to a pandemic.” (429)<br /><br />Despite the surge in infections, “The president has dramatically scaled back the number of coronavirus meetings on his schedule in recent weeks, instead holding long meetings on polling and endorsements, his reelection campaign, the planned Republican National Convention in Jacksonville, Fla., the economy and other topics, according to two advisers, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.” (430)<br /><br />Lacking any direction or directives from the top due to Trump’s focus on the campaign to the exclusion of all else, the administration continued to fail states: “Some states are still struggling to procure testing kits and supplies for the kits, including swabs, and have pleaded for the federal government to play a larger role in coordinating purchases, resolving supply shortages and distributing the tests. Doctors and health-care facilities are still grappling with shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE), including private doctors’ offices that cannot perform routine procedures safely because they do not have the necessary equipment, according to the American Medical Association.” (431)<br /><br />As before (see #237), what limited federal resources <i>were</i> being allocated were given out based on pull, not need: “More than five months after the first test for the coronavirus was conducted in the United States, testing equipment is still being doled out based on which states manage to get federal officials on the phone to press their case. After a recent weekend that saw demand for testing outstrip capacity, the governor’s office in Arizona placed a call to the White House and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Daniel Ruiz, Ducey’s chief operating officer. Within 24 hours, they had secured expedited access to a rapid Roche testing machine, he said.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />Ironically, Trump’s shortcomings continued to be felt most acutely by <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/27/southern-states-coronavirus-surge-342267&source=gmail&ust=1603194856236000&usg=AFQjCNHFq-Vu7Zwm21VBie9uQpqai_bqTQ" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/27/southern-states-coronavirus-surge-342267" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">his fan base in the Superstition Belt</span></a>. Four states with Republican control of the governor’s mansion and the legislature recorded their highest totals of new infections: Georgia, South Carolina, Florida, and Arizona, and as of <b>Sunday, June 28</b>, “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/28/health/us-coronavirus-sunday/index.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856236000&usg=AFQjCNHuXclMKBJKQTQKl73ybT0r1A3M3g" href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/28/health/us-coronavirus-sunday/index.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">only two US states</span></a> [were] reporting a decline in new coronavirus cases.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The Trump campaign’s lack of concern for the safety of their sheep-like supporters was looked at in <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/27/politics/social-distancing-stickers-trump-campaign-tulsa-rally/index.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856236000&usg=AFQjCNFZ2Jdo3YWfg8mcqDsJHD1zJrwDHA" href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/27/politics/social-distancing-stickers-trump-campaign-tulsa-rally/index.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a cnn.com story</span></a> about the super-spreader rally in Tulsa. Before the event, Bank of Oklahoma Center employees had placed thousands of stickers stating “Do Not Sit Here, Please!” throughout the arena to encourage social distancing. Trump campaign staff swept in before the rally and removed the stickers. (432) As could be expected, Trump supporters sat next to each other without masks, setting in motion a <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://tulsaworld.com/news/local/connect-the-dots-tulsa-county-covid-19-cases-soaring-weeks-after-trump-rally-large-scale/article_7c6dfef3-230a-5314-94bc-bab491189960.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856236000&usg=AFQjCNFdcLpsrpQzrsfVNh89WVrVaO0ZVQ" href="https://tulsaworld.com/news/local/connect-the-dots-tulsa-county-covid-19-cases-soaring-weeks-after-trump-rally-large-scale/article_7c6dfef3-230a-5314-94bc-bab491189960.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">record-breaking</span></a> batch of new infections for the other citizens of Tulsa.<br /><br />That evening, “60 Minutes” ran a <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-antibody-testing-inaccurate-data-60-minutes-2020-06-28/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856236000&usg=AFQjCNFYHJ7PDjlbfO_26ZZzejpvXpBKcQ" href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-antibody-testing-inaccurate-data-60-minutes-2020-06-28/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">segment</span></a> which showed that the Trump administration had taken “the unprecedented step of allowing COVID antibody tests to flood the market without review.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…Over the course of a three-month investigation, 60 Minutes has learned that federal officials knew many of the antibody tests were seriously flawed but continued to allow them to be sold anyway. Now, as Coronavirus surges in parts of the country, that government failure is complicating efforts to know the reach of the Coronavirus.”<br /><br />“60 minutes” interviewed Robert Castañeda, a clinic owner in Laredo, Texas. Castañeda told of buying 20,000 test kits which were flawed, leaving the community uncertain of true infection rates. This scenario was playing out around the country due to the administration’s unwillingness to regulate the sale of antibody tests. (433)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Earlier in the day, Trump had shown just how seriously he took leaving a little ol' Laredo clinic owner out of <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.theeagle.com/news/state-and-regional/a-laredo-er-spent-500-000-on-coronavirus-tests-health-officials-say-they-re-unreliable/article_5c14fba3-9deb-5565-bf2e-cf573e516c1f.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856236000&usg=AFQjCNE-JyzwemQB8dTcBNI0-nbNbVqnkg" href="https://www.theeagle.com/news/state-and-regional/a-laredo-er-spent-500-000-on-coronavirus-tests-health-officials-say-they-re-unreliable/article_5c14fba3-9deb-5565-bf2e-cf573e516c1f.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">half a million dollars</span></a> by tweeting a video of a Trump supporter yelling “White Power” before he went golfing with Lindsey Graham.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">COVID-19 continued to wreak havoc in anti-science Republican states on <b>Monday, June 29</b>.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition/2020/06/29/covid-swamps-trump-country-489670&source=gmail&ust=1603194856236000&usg=AFQjCNFdHREdO50lpQBkflYuXFyDo56dgg" href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition/2020/06/29/covid-swamps-trump-country-489670" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">According to</span></a> Patterson Clark and Ryan Heath of <i>Politico</i>, “On the pandemic’s first peak in early April, the states that voted for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton accounted for 67 percent of new Covid-19 cases. For the newest peak, which we’re still climbing, the states that voted for President Donald Trump have an even larger share: They accounted for 73 percent of new cases on June 28.”<br /><br />States and local jurisdictions were being forced to backtrack. Arizona Republican governor Doug Ducey, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/national/coronavirus/arizona-governor-orders-shutdown-of-bars-pools-gyms-as-covid-19-spreads-through-state&source=gmail&ust=1603194856236000&usg=AFQjCNHX1iHBhlnNqWgcz6ysyMdNMn3JzQ" href="https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/national/coronavirus/arizona-governor-orders-shutdown-of-bars-pools-gyms-as-covid-19-spreads-through-state" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a Trump ally who had re-opened to soon</span></a>, “ordered bars, gyms, movie theaters, water parks, and tubing operators to close for at least 30 days.”<br /><br />Another Trump ally who’d failed to take COVID-19 seriously was Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida. On May 20, in an event with Mike Pence, DeSantis had declared victory over the virus with the words “we succeeded.” (434) Now, as Florida set records for new infections almost daily, there was some question as to whether Trump would be able to have his dreamed-of, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/floridas-coronavirus-outbreak-complicates-republican-convention-trumps-reelection-bid/ar-BB167QTS&source=gmail&ust=1603194856236000&usg=AFQjCNEtqgUKFAIouztyKNIssfxaTOg_hg" href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/floridas-coronavirus-outbreak-complicates-republican-convention-trumps-reelection-bid/ar-BB167QTS" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">public safety-free Republican convention</span></a> in Jacksonville, his backup choice after North Carolina’s Democratic governor had refused to allow a super-spreader convention in his state.<br /><br />In news that actually mattered, the pandemic’s ripples were being felt far and wide. As had been foreseen many months earlier by <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://theintercept.com/2020/05/07/coronavirus-whistleblower-hhs-n95-ppe/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856236000&usg=AFQjCNHq9Q2xigCbs79n9NWIrEuR5FU03w" href="https://theintercept.com/2020/05/07/coronavirus-whistleblower-hhs-n95-ppe/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">public health officials who were ignored</span></a>, hospitals were <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-latest-news-06-29-2020-11593420521&source=gmail&ust=1603194856236000&usg=AFQjCNG3PNt-dDvlfu91S6ORwJ39ytstmg" href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-latest-news-06-29-2020-11593420521" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">getting slammed</span></a> (435). The pandemic had also “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/29/pandemic-unleashes-a-spike-in-overdose-deaths-345183&source=gmail&ust=1603194856236000&usg=AFQjCNF6xlYkXQUn1x6yoCr3D0e22gnBMA" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/29/pandemic-unleashes-a-spike-in-overdose-deaths-345183" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">put on hold</span></a> a billion-dollar research program focused on new forms of addiction treatment” (436) and contributed to an increase in overdose deaths brought on by “anxiety, social isolation and depression.” (437) The administration had done virtually nothing to offset the loss of treatment options for many addicts, and the potential death of the Affordable Care Act at the hands of the administration (see #421) would only make matters worse.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The steep economic slump <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/29/nearly-half-the-us-population-is-without-a-job-showing-how-far-the-labor-recovery-has-to-go.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856236000&usg=AFQjCNGNEn2zBsOXeWC0fH7NvJsbb5HvzQ" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/29/nearly-half-the-us-population-is-without-a-job-showing-how-far-the-labor-recovery-has-to-go.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">continued</span></a>—just 52.8% of American adults were working, a decrease from 61.2% before the pandemic (438)—but Trump ally Mitch McConnell had yet to lift a finger to negotiate a new stimulus deal with the Democrats, who had <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/29/schumer-pelosi-to-mcconnell-move-on-coronavirus-relief-344211&source=gmail&ust=1603194856236000&usg=AFQjCNFcyIvvK2EegADdPh4LeLhBObJRnA" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/29/schumer-pelosi-to-mcconnell-move-on-coronavirus-relief-344211" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">passed a relief bill</span></a> in the House of Representatives 45 days earlier “which included over $3 trillion in aid for states and local governments, hospitals and front-line workers.” McConnell said he wouldn’t address the matter until after the Senate’s two-week July 4th vacation.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">While Mitch McConnell enjoyed a lengthy vacation at taxpayers’ expense, millions of Americans waited for tax refunds or stimulus checks from his allies in the Trump administration (439), <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/irs-tax-refund-millions-waiting/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856236000&usg=AFQjCNGszeFDGOfhj4o0DKneQ6SKpNIz_A" href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/irs-tax-refund-millions-waiting/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">as revealed</span></a> by <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://cbsnews.com&source=gmail&ust=1603194856236000&usg=AFQjCNGzHYm8k3H1-V29DZYHKCufvFHmiA" href="http://cbsnews.com/" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">cbsnews.com</a> on <b>Tuesday, June 30</b>.<br /><br />Amid widespread economic desperation, COVID-19 continued to surge. And as high as infection rates were, they were destined to climb further, potentially much higher. Dr. Fauci told a Senate committee that the States could soon have <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/fauci-senate-testimony-coronavirus-9d0204a8-f8e5-4deb-a8f7-07dcbd41d11c.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856236000&usg=AFQjCNG7zerdRvgskFcNpCLi9Q_TnD3X2Q" href="https://www.axios.com/fauci-senate-testimony-coronavirus-9d0204a8-f8e5-4deb-a8f7-07dcbd41d11c.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">up to 100,000 new infections</span></a> daily.<br /><br />Soaring infection rates had prompted many high-ranking Republican public officials, including Mike Pence and congressional leaders Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy, to <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/republican-leaders-now-say-everyone-should-wear-a-mask--even-as-trump-refuses-and-mocks-those-who-do/2020/06/30/995a32d0-bae9-11ea-80b9-40ece9a701dc_story.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856236000&usg=AFQjCNEadvH3Cnk4zYv7E-uNJH_2M-16Kw" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/republican-leaders-now-say-everyone-should-wear-a-mask--even-as-trump-refuses-and-mocks-those-who-do/2020/06/30/995a32d0-bae9-11ea-80b9-40ece9a701dc_story.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">wear masks</span></a> and to advocate mask usage in public statements. Trump continued to hold out, and many of his followers mimicked his stupidity, as reflected in an Axios-Ipsos poll which showed that Democrats were twice as likely as Republicans to wear a mask “at all times,” (440) though the science behind masks was clear—the World Health Organization had concluded that masks alone could <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.livescience.com/face-masks-eye-protection-covid-19-prevention.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856236000&usg=AFQjCNEUOnHqYXBtuXf4kh4gic4hAmgSgA" href="https://www.livescience.com/face-masks-eye-protection-covid-19-prevention.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reduce infections by 85%</span></a>.<br /><br />To this end, the federal government had started an “America Strong” project in which they would send “reusable cotton face coverings to critical infrastructure sectors, companies, healthcare facilities, and faith-based and community organizations across the country to help slow the spread of COVID-19.” Unfortunately, due to <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://news.yahoo.com/federal-government-runs-out-of-free-face-masks-tsa-also-faces-shortage-215241857.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856236000&usg=AFQjCNHgd237nHEeRKlv9bWRQ9iit7y6JQ" href="https://news.yahoo.com/federal-government-runs-out-of-free-face-masks-tsa-also-faces-shortage-215241857.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">poor planning and a lack of follow through</span></a>, the administration could no longer accept new requests. (441)<br /><br />In addition, “the Transportation Security Administration, whose agents oversee security checkpoints at the nation’s airports, also faces a potential shortfall in face coverings” and other PPE due to “strain and unreliability [in] the supply chain.” (442)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />Amid a national disaster for which the fixes were obvious but unaddressed, the bulk of the U.S. public was fed up with the administration’s dithering. According to Pew polls, only 12% of Americans felt “satisfied with the way things are going in the country” and <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2020/06/30/publics-mood-turns-grim-trump-trails-biden-on-most-personal-traits-major-issues/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856236000&usg=AFQjCNG3F6zXTF0iiHHLYxRcaRv12tkzyw" href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2020/06/30/publics-mood-turns-grim-trump-trails-biden-on-most-personal-traits-major-issues/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">just 17% were proud of “the state of the country</span></a>.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-poll/americans-concerns-about-coronavirus-jump-as-cases-surge-reuters-ipsos-poll-shows-idUSKBN2425B8&source=gmail&ust=1603194856236000&usg=AFQjCNFY64cnxRGR45OE6-_jEWCTEItqow" href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-poll/americans-concerns-about-coronavirus-jump-as-cases-surge-reuters-ipsos-poll-shows-idUSKBN2425B8" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Reuters/Ipsos poll</span></a> reported the following day, on <b>Wednesday, July 1</b>, “found that 81% of American adults said they are ‘very’ or ‘somewhat’ concerned about the pandemic, the most since a similar poll conducted May 11-12.” Nine of out of ten Democrats were concerned, seven out of ten Republicans.<br /><br />Americans had good cause to be concerned, as the U.S. had had <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/01/coronavirus-live-updates-us/?fbclid%3DIwAR3LQd0H8-ylryv7eBh8HUGrZy6x1SYJCpY5jQjCGO5hOP1uIvQppJB7o_E&source=gmail&ust=1603194856236000&usg=AFQjCNHl9GtyYu3Uc4XlYH1QFgnyetlNVg" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/01/coronavirus-live-updates-us/?fbclid=IwAR3LQd0H8-ylryv7eBh8HUGrZy6x1SYJCpY5jQjCGO5hOP1uIvQppJB7o_E" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">over 50,000 new daily infections</span></a> for the first time. 45 states had seen an increase in weekly infections. And as high as the totals of new infections were, they were being undercounted by about 90%, according to Trump’s former FDA head, Scott Gottlieb (see <span style="color: red;">W20</span>, #265), who pegged actual new daily infections at <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/scott-gottlieb-fda-coronavirus-infections-117194af-bd6e-4c92-8d96-3f9253a76d2f.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiospm%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856236000&usg=AFQjCNFcq8yrS6hNHpx5Z6u6yfBrcVSPFA" href="https://www.axios.com/scott-gottlieb-fda-coronavirus-infections-117194af-bd6e-4c92-8d96-3f9253a76d2f.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiospm&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">half a million</span></a>.<br /><br />Deaths were being undercounted too. According to a Yale study, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.france24.com/en/20200701-pandemic-caused-18-pc-rise-in-deaths-in-us-study&source=gmail&ust=1603194856236000&usg=AFQjCNEh0z02hz1KeGF2jcIobsIkRuA9wg" href="https://www.france24.com/en/20200701-pandemic-caused-18-pc-rise-in-deaths-in-us-study" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">122,000 more Americans had died from COVID-19</span></a> than had been reported.<br /><br />As cases escalated along with Americans’ anxiety, Trump continued to <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/trump-hole-digs-deeper-racial-200758877.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856236000&usg=AFQjCNFTaizBGH32Rtv-Q0kKy-teumthgw" href="https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/trump-hole-digs-deeper-racial-200758877.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">divide America</span></a>, calling a Black Lives Matter stencil scheduled to be inscribed in front of Trump Tower in Manhattan a “symbol of hate,” threatening to veto measures to remove the names of Confederate generals from military bases, and threatening to get rid of anti-segregation housing rules. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Thursday, July 2</b>, it was reported that the U.S. had had its <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/02/us-coronavirus-cases-soar-by-more-than-50600-in-record-single-day-jump.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856236000&usg=AFQjCNE-P9sTP8Zk6hWNU8KryjfgBY4gMA" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/02/us-coronavirus-cases-soar-by-more-than-50600-in-record-single-day-jump.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">biggest single-day jump</span></a> in infections. COVID-19 cases were “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-map-cases-rising-most-states-1d3ec8d8-af4c-418e-8f9b-2360b917f91a.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosam%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856237000&usg=AFQjCNHZOwnUljcLzLvpdDt2CFJR6qZAKA" href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-map-cases-rising-most-states-1d3ec8d8-af4c-418e-8f9b-2360b917f91a.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">flat or growing in 48 states</span></a>.” Cases in Republican-run Florida had <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://news.trust.org/item/20200702133857-sz3ql&source=gmail&ust=1603194856237000&usg=AFQjCNEJc5pPYk5bmkZLKGER-4Wn00qxFQ" href="https://news.trust.org/item/20200702133857-sz3ql" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">increased 109%</span></a> over the prior week and Thursday hit a record, with over 10,000 new (reported) infections.<br /><br />Republican-controlled Texas continued to bear horrible human costs because of governor Greg Abbott’s earlier indifference to the COVID threat, reaching new highs of daily infections. Texas was such a mess that the far-right, anti-science, anti-government Abbott was <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/texas-governor-face-masks-order-fed3a449-b9fa-4439-9c39-38676da43b0c.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiospm%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856237000&usg=AFQjCNFktCVkwmDJDBoESCCjUCl8X4hMiw" href="https://www.axios.com/texas-governor-face-masks-order-fed3a449-b9fa-4439-9c39-38676da43b0c.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiospm&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">requiring</span></a> that face masks be worn in any county with 20 or more confirmed infections.<br /><br />State and local governments were feeling the brunt of the coronavirus, but were getting little help from the federal government. As revenue dried up, public sector jobs <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/state-local-government-workers-budget-coronavirus-e58846e4-18c5-4144-8f5e-960b4dac1358.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axioscities%26stream%3Dcities&source=gmail&ust=1603194856237000&usg=AFQjCNEjVTTU-fxWRxin-cIW4HWG0m9crA" href="https://www.axios.com/state-local-government-workers-budget-coronavirus-e58846e4-18c5-4144-8f5e-960b4dac1358.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axioscities&stream=cities" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">were being slashed</span></a> (443), with many more public employees susceptible to layoffs in the future. Trump ally Mitch McConnell’s delays were making matters worse, leaving state and local leaders in limbo as the new fiscal year started July 1. (444)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />At a briefing with reporters that day, Trump <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-jobs-numbers-report-2/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856237000&usg=AFQjCNGbcdf-nOsmHpW4TnQI25NHfH9KPA" href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-jobs-numbers-report-2/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">said</span></a> the States was getting the coronavirus “under control.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It was reported on <b>Friday, July 3</b> that the U.S. had achieved <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://news.yahoo.com/u-reports-55-000-covid-035453811.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856237000&usg=AFQjCNGTvGmRTqE7GorTpJn1kwUOLzy6iw" href="https://news.yahoo.com/u-reports-55-000-covid-035453811.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a global high</span></a> of 55,000 new cases on Thursday, with 37 of 50 states seeing an increased rate of infections. (445)<br /><br />Rather than try to mitigate the growing public health crisis stemming directly from Trump’s refusal to take the pandemic seriously for 70 days (see #254) and then pushing states to re-open prematurely, the administration’s new message was, in effect, “Learn to live with it.” (446)<br /><br /><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/we-need-live-it-white-house-readies-new-message-nation-n1232884&source=gmail&ust=1603194856237000&usg=AFQjCNFc9CCijHOJdrqFSARcCMbsGt7HTg" href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/we-need-live-it-white-house-readies-new-message-nation-n1232884" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">According to</span></a> Carol E. Lee, Kristen Welker, and Monica Alba of <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://nbcnews.com&source=gmail&ust=1603194856237000&usg=AFQjCNHV5-3MASDpGb54yRUvhSj_NfsK1g" href="http://nbcnews.com/" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">nbcnews.com</a>, “Administration officials are planning to intensify what they hope is a sharper, and less conflicting, message of the pandemic next week, according to senior administration officials, after struggling to offer clear directives amid a crippling surge in cases across the country.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“...At the crux of the message, officials said, is a recognition by the <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/unreleased-white-house-report-shows-coronavirus-rates-spiking-heartland-communities-n1204751&source=gmail&ust=1603194856237000&usg=AFQjCNFgV9OtiYhBzVR9MDdVDYrwDd9wcg" href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/unreleased-white-house-report-shows-coronavirus-rates-spiking-heartland-communities-n1204751" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">White House</span></a> that the virus is not going away any time soon — and will be around through the November election.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />Key to the messaging would be minimizing the sky-high infection rates by highlighting the low death rates among recent infections relative to April infections (a result of young people contracting the disease) and emphasizing quack medical fixes (447). </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As administration campaign hacks crafted their latest snake oil P.R. strategy, Trump held <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://apnews.com/e4725ee4f6c777273a4b5dc83ab57823&source=gmail&ust=1603194856237000&usg=AFQjCNEQrSZQtQGx23gvkAjtsmefP6KpOw" href="https://apnews.com/e4725ee4f6c777273a4b5dc83ab57823" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">another super-spreader campaign rally</span></a>. Though he was considered the <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-worst-president-presidential-greatness-survey-presidents-day-obama-george-washington-a8218721.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856237000&usg=AFQjCNFYeOIm9chVdvY86ohKIsU8YeArAQ" href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-worst-president-presidential-greatness-survey-presidents-day-obama-george-washington-a8218721.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">worst president in American history</span></a><span style="color: #3d85c6;"> </span>by 200 political scientists in 2018, Trump chose Mount Rushmore, located on land stolen from Native Americans. As with Trump’s other rallies, no social distancing or masks were required (448), and Trump <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://chicago.suntimes.com/columnists/2020/7/9/21319147/mona-charen-donald-trump-mount-rushmore-speech-racism&source=gmail&ust=1603194856237000&usg=AFQjCNHYUv3GT7hyiEUTV1Khd9K-0z93nw" href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/columnists/2020/7/9/21319147/mona-charen-donald-trump-mount-rushmore-speech-racism" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">aimed low</span></a>, playing to his followers’ racism and decrying attacks on monuments to false idols.<br /><br />While the clown show continued on high beam, the Biden campaign hired <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/07/02/joe-biden-600-lawyers-ready-battle-trump-election-chicanery/5362546002/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856237000&usg=AFQjCNG0DQC1ysig4nZCNuOGLyoBy6LdPQ" href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/07/02/joe-biden-600-lawyers-ready-battle-trump-election-chicanery/5362546002/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">600 lawyers</span></a> to pre-empt the Trump campaign’s aggressive attempts to keep Democrats from voting.<br /><br />America celebrated Independence Day, <b>Saturday, July 4</b>, by <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-07-covid-cases-hours-tracker.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856237000&usg=AFQjCNFmyIM4PZQ4TGjwJVTvHUYJUoYZmQ" href="https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-07-covid-cases-hours-tracker.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">setting a record</span></a> for new daily infections: 57,683. <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/505889-texas-hits-new-record-of-coronavirus-cases&source=gmail&ust=1603194856237000&usg=AFQjCNGuBglsYvzaRWH5u_zawN-eIHGPzw" href="https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/505889-texas-hits-new-record-of-coronavirus-cases" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Texas</span></a> and <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://news.trust.org/item/20200704142842-m73rh&source=gmail&ust=1603194856237000&usg=AFQjCNFfcl7y4LZzqnylUXTt274r9Nfm3A" href="https://news.trust.org/item/20200704142842-m73rh" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Florida</span></a> <wbr></wbr>continued to serve as cautionary tales of what not to do in the middle of a pandemic; both states reported daily records.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Meanwhile, every other developed country around the world was seeing a fraction of the number of cases of the U.S., the <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/do-americans-understand-how-badly-they-re-doing/ar-BB16fK5n&source=gmail&ust=1603194856237000&usg=AFQjCNGVAWg_ozGtHboYzPSlE6aXKdy7gA" href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/do-americans-understand-how-badly-they-re-doing/ar-BB16fK5n" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">laughingstock of the first world</span></a>. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump hit his milestone of <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/jul/06/coronavirus-live-news-india-sees-record-new-cases-as-texas-warns-of-overwhelmed-hospitals&source=gmail&ust=1603194856237000&usg=AFQjCNG0RknjQl9f9SuT0IJi_w7CwNwqNQ" href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/jul/06/coronavirus-live-news-india-sees-record-new-cases-as-texas-warns-of-overwhelmed-hospitals" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">130,000 dead Americans</span></a> on <b>Monday, July 6</b>. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/states-mandate-masks-begin-to-shut-down-again-as-coronavirus-cases-soar-and-hospitalizations-rise/ar-BB16pmw8?li%3DBBnb7Kz&source=gmail&ust=1603194856237000&usg=AFQjCNG86buXsVTWfUrhbpnk0W4-AkjHIQ" href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/states-mandate-masks-begin-to-shut-down-again-as-coronavirus-cases-soar-and-hospitalizations-rise/ar-BB16pmw8?li=BBnb7Kz" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">In just the first few days of July</span></a>, America had had over 300,000 new infections. 12 states had seen new highs in seven-day infection totals. Arizona’s ICU beds were 89% full. Miami-Dade County was shutting back down. West Virginia was requiring face masks in public buildings. Jared Kushner's claim that the U.S. would be “really rocking again” in July (see #273) had taken on a whole new meaning.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump and other administration figures attributed the steep rise in infections to increased testing, but the data proved otherwise. (449) As <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-cases-testing-growth-62d6256b-33e2-491d-b94e-91110a74bc85.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosam%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856237000&usg=AFQjCNFyaW_AHIm2QynFn0_VPEx8QpSm5Q" href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-cases-testing-growth-62d6256b-33e2-491d-b94e-91110a74bc85.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">shown</span></a> by Caitlin Owens and Andrew Witherspoon of <i>Axios</i>, areas such New York and D.C. actually had more new tests than new cases, while Florida had 9X the number of new cases as tests, a pattern that played out throughout the country in areas that had failed to take the virus seriously.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />As tens of millions of Americans struggled to pay their bills, facing eviction and worse as government benefits were set to expire at the end of the month, Brian Slodysko of the AP <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://apnews.com/2edf8670a491a702ecfb7312f507f83a&source=gmail&ust=1603194856237000&usg=AFQjCNF0RkmpuEo0sBMiw4RdXD9WIurPkw" href="https://apnews.com/2edf8670a491a702ecfb7312f507f83a" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported that</span></a> “Forty lobbyists with ties to President Donald Trump helped clients secure more than $10 billion in federal coronavirus aid, among them five former administration officials whose work potentially violates Trump’s own ethics policy, according to a report.” (450)<br /><br />Mike Tanglis, one of the authors of the report, said “The swamp is alive and well in Washington, D.C…..These (lobbying) booms that these people are having, you can really attribute them to their connection to Trump.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Uninterested in the swamp he’d made far more pestilent, Trump continued to deflect from issues that mattered to everyday Americans’ lives (451) with <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/06/us/politics/trump-bubba-wallace-nascar.html?action%3Dclick%26campaign_id%3D9%26emc%3Dedit_nn_20200707%26instance_id%3D20070%26module%3DTop%2BStories%26nl%3Dthe-morning%26pgtype%3DHomepage%26regi_id%3D126380121%26segment_id%3D32782%26te%3D1%26user_id%3Dd83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74&source=gmail&ust=1603194856237000&usg=AFQjCNFhkHq80MDSI0Qx7g6eob1HQb7baA" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/06/us/politics/trump-bubba-wallace-nascar.html?action=click&campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200707&instance_id=20070&module=Top+Stories&nl=the-morning&pgtype=Homepage&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=32782&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">racist tweets</span></a> showing his displeasure with the renaming of the Washington Redskins, making a dog whistle reference to the “China virus,” attacking NASCAR for removing the confederate flag from race tracks, and suggesting that Bubba Wallace—the only black NASCAR driver—should apologize for inheriting “the only garage pull out of 1,684 stalls at 29 inspected NASCAR tracks to be fashioned as a noose.”<br /><br />The impact Trump’s racist demagoguery was having on the U.S psyche was reflected in polling. <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://news.gallup.com/poll/313454/trump-job-approval-rating-steady-lower-level.aspx&source=gmail&ust=1603194856237000&usg=AFQjCNG8gWDEMoZwNfFaKnWaIffIZe1clg" href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/313454/trump-job-approval-rating-steady-lower-level.aspx" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">A Gallup poll</span></a> showed “the largest partisan gap Gallup has ever measured for a presidential approval rating in a single survey.” The same poll showed that Trump’s approval rating among Republicans had gone up several points to 91% in the past month as the resident of the United States had poured gasoline on the fire lit by George Floyd’s murder.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Partisan divides in critical thinking skills (see #145, #204, #283, #307, #313, #s 319-323. #325, #330, #339, #347, #387, #440) were <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/axios-ipsos-poll-coronavirus-index-15-weeks-e4eb53cc-9bc8-4cac-8285-07e5e5ef6b2b.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosam%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856237000&usg=AFQjCNFoVsEBnHbPLWdHPgKE9AQbptOdZg" href="https://www.axios.com/axios-ipsos-poll-coronavirus-index-15-weeks-e4eb53cc-9bc8-4cac-8285-07e5e5ef6b2b.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">further reviewed</span></a> on <b>Tuesday, July 7</b>, by Margaret Talev of <i>Axios</i>. Based on four months of data, Talev <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/axios-ipsos-poll-coronavirus-index-15-weeks-e4eb53cc-9bc8-4cac-8285-07e5e5ef6b2b.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856237000&usg=AFQjCNFmZa-TSUD4opVhKK0vjsDv38zXaQ" href="https://www.axios.com/axios-ipsos-poll-coronavirus-index-15-weeks-e4eb53cc-9bc8-4cac-8285-07e5e5ef6b2b.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">found</span></a> that young Republican men without degrees took the pandemic “the least seriously” of all demographic groups (452) and that Republicans were half as likely as Democrats to wear a mask “at all times,” in no small part because of Trump’s messaging.<br /><br />The latest example of Trump’s brainwashing had come out that morning when he’d tweeted that “We have the lowest Mortality Rate in the World. The Fake News should be reporting these most important of facts, but they don’t!” As Anthony Fauci <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/fauci-coronavirus-death-rate-c763343d-15d2-4bef-bd7f-38109926c229.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiospm%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856237000&usg=AFQjCNE6vz4b5vGEz71vbZtOxJZSocMnTw" href="https://www.axios.com/fauci-coronavirus-death-rate-c763343d-15d2-4bef-bd7f-38109926c229.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiospm&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">said</span></a> at a public event later in the day, “it's a false narrative to take comfort in a lower rate of death….There’s so many other things that are dangerous and bad about the virus. Don’t get into false complacency." </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Fauci was proven right, again, when the U.S. <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.barrons.com/news/us-posts-new-daily-virus-case-record-of-60-209-johns-hopkins-01594169104&source=gmail&ust=1603194856237000&usg=AFQjCNHPuqIfpR72K0Rlgd8pWcCaYE3onw" href="https://www.barrons.com/news/us-posts-new-daily-virus-case-record-of-60-209-johns-hopkins-01594169104" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">set a record</span></a> of new infections that day, hitting 60,209. At the rate things were going, the University of Washington projected that the U.S. would have over <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cnn.com/webview/world/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic-07-07-20-intl/h_c5c9c0b1f6e8db4ffbd3dc5dcca35387&source=gmail&ust=1603194856237000&usg=AFQjCNF3f1jbDMwdt27pQX5JEw_-TpkmzQ" href="https://www.cnn.com/webview/world/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic-07-07-20-intl/h_c5c9c0b1f6e8db4ffbd3dc5dcca35387" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">208,000 COVID-related deaths</span></a> by November due to the administration’s colossal incompetence.<br /><br />Other victims of the administration’s failures included millions of Americans who were <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-food-aid-exclusive-idUSKBN248184&source=gmail&ust=1603194856237000&usg=AFQjCNFJRkPgcD3__zBSvkEJ5M60xwtrJA" href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-food-aid-exclusive-idUSKBN248184" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">being shortchanged</span></a> in the Farmers to Families Food Bank program.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The program “aimed to take food from farmers typically produced for restaurants and deliver it to the millions of people who lost their jobs or were otherwise hit by the coronavirus lockdown,” but the delivery targets weren’t being met because Trump’s USDA had chosen inexperienced contractors who weren’t up to the task. According to reporter Christopher Walljasper, as of early June, rates of food insecurity had doubled since the beginning of the pandemic, but only 63% of the money allocated for the program had been used, shortchanging food banks and the struggling Americans who rely on them. (453)<br /><br />Trump was more focused on imaginary foes than starving constituents. As part of his ongoing effort to remove attention from his COVID-19 failures (see #1-#453), shift the blame to China, and blame the World Health Organization (WHO) for China’s lack of transparency, the administration <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/07/07/888186158/trump-sets-date-to-end-who-membership-over-its-handling-of-virus&source=gmail&ust=1603194856237000&usg=AFQjCNE1gONHlYHACC7S0zHAjeZgmTTiAA" href="https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/07/07/888186158/trump-sets-date-to-end-who-membership-over-its-handling-of-virus" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">officially notified</span></a> the WHO that the U.S. would be leaving the organization—and the billions of people who benefit from it—high and dry.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Wednesday, July 8</b>, America’s public health crisis continued to escalate.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump reached his personal milestone of <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/07/08/covid-19-us-3-million-cases-florida-new-jersey/5391309002/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856238000&usg=AFQjCNE67LpNOPG_02H-kiOAWo9acKLLtA" href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/07/08/covid-19-us-3-million-cases-florida-new-jersey/5391309002/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">three million official infections</span></a> as his adopted home state of Florida continued to be the poster boy for mis-governance, with <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.newsbreak.com/news/0PXriWxO/live-updates-dozens-of-fla-hospitals-run-out-of-icu-beds-as-us-approaches-3-million-coronavirus-cases&source=gmail&ust=1603194856238000&usg=AFQjCNEpmisdSjgBEsuFrHgIhEMlykQNAA" href="https://www.newsbreak.com/news/0PXriWxO/live-updates-dozens-of-fla-hospitals-run-out-of-icu-beds-as-us-approaches-3-million-coronavirus-cases" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">56 ICUs at full capacity</span></a> and cases increasing.<br /><br />As high as the numbers were, they weren’t capturing the true extent of the pandemic because the U.S. still wasn’t testing at an adequate capacity. “‘<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://apnews.com/52e57911691a332630a3c93a6e76612a&source=gmail&ust=1603194856238000&usg=AFQjCNErpOwtArWMZk7bd3s5ebnqVpCSOQ" href="https://apnews.com/52e57911691a332630a3c93a6e76612a" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">A hot mess’: Americans face testing delays as virus surges</span></a>” by Christopher Weber and Acacia Coronado of the AP looked at America’s continued testing shortcomings, six months after the administration was first notified of the virus.<br /><br />According to Weber and Coronado, “Four months, 3 million confirmed infections and over 130,000 deaths into the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S., Americans confronted with a resurgence of the scourge are facing long lines at testing sites in the summer heat or are getting turned away. (454) Others are going a week or more without receiving a diagnosis. (455)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Some sites are running out of kits, while labs are reporting shortages of materials and workers to process the swabs. (456, 457)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Some frustrated Americans are left to wonder why the U.S. can’t seem to get its act together, especially after it was given fair warning as the virus wreaked havoc in China and then Italy, Spain and New York.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Dr. Ashish Jha of Harvard’s Global Health Institute pinpointed the culprit: “I am stunned that as a nation, six months into this pandemic, we still can’t figure out how to deliver testing to the American people when they need it….It is an abject failure of leadership and shows that the federal government has not prioritized testing in a way that will allow us to get through this pandemic.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The abject failures at the federal level extended to PPE. Six months after the administration had become aware of the virus, the U.S. was still shortchanging the brave men and women at the front lines of the crisis.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/07/08/ppe-shortage-masks-gloves-gowns/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856238000&usg=AFQjCNFcYO8UiDTutfXZWbMLGlJKLy_d6w" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/07/08/ppe-shortage-masks-gloves-gowns/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">According to</span></a> William Wan of <i>the Washington Post</i>, “Nurses say they are reusing N95 masks for days and even weeks at a time. (458) Doctors say they can’t reopen offices because they lack personal protective equipment. (459) State officials say they have scoured U.S. and international suppliers for PPE and struggle to get orders filled. (460). Experts worry the problem could worsen as coronavirus infections climb, straining medical systems.<br /><br />“‘A lot people thought once the alarm was sounded back in March surely the federal government would fix this, but that hasn’t happened,’ said Deborah Burger, a California nurse and president of National Nurses United, a union representing registered nurses. Like many health-care workers, Burger blamed the Trump administration for the lack of equipment, noting the administration has insisted the responsibility falls to state and local officials, with the federal government playing only a supporting role.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The specter of equipment shortages comes as other issues that plagued the country’s early response to the pandemic return: surging cases, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/as-coronavirus-rebounds-more-patients-are-being-hospitalized-thats-a-bad-sign/2020/07/02/62f60720-bc4f-11ea-80b9-40ece9a701dc_story.html?itid%3Dlk_inline_manual_8&source=gmail&ust=1603194856238000&usg=AFQjCNFWOwxJ3uRueC_RMy_TZtBSrzZIQw" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/as-coronavirus-rebounds-more-patients-are-being-hospitalized-thats-a-bad-sign/2020/07/02/62f60720-bc4f-11ea-80b9-40ece9a701dc_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_8" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">overwhelmed hospitals</span></a>, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/as-cases-surge-lines-for-covid-19-tests-sometimes-stretch-miles-in-the-summer-heat/2020/07/01/f0951586-ba4b-11ea-80b9-40ece9a701dc_story.html?itid%3Dlk_inline_manual_8&source=gmail&ust=1603194856238000&usg=AFQjCNEiSPpnEMfE6Mi5pilOhGOeM87GGg" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/as-cases-surge-lines-for-covid-19-tests-sometimes-stretch-miles-in-the-summer-heat/2020/07/01/f0951586-ba4b-11ea-80b9-40ece9a701dc_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_8" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">lagging testing</span></a> and contradictory <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/06/25/trumps-dumbfounding-refusal-encourage-wearing-masks/?itid%3Dlk_inline_manual_8&source=gmail&ust=1603194856238000&usg=AFQjCNFZFC7mSsAoUqqyA05cqHEOQeFGIg" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/06/25/trumps-dumbfounding-refusal-encourage-wearing-masks/?itid=lk_inline_manual_8" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">public health messages</span></a>. But the inability to secure PPE is especially frustrating, health-care workers say, because it is their main defense against catching the virus.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />Because of the federal government’s unwillingness to regulate vendors or provide adequate assistance to the states, private for-profit companies were gouging businesses and local and state governments which were already dealing with huge budget shortfalls: “Demand for protective equipment has soared, but unlike in March, when efforts focused on getting PPE for major hospitals — especially in New York, Detroit and Chicago — supplies now are desperately needed by primary care offices, nursing homes, prisons and psychiatric and disability facilities. As many states continue to reopen their economies, demand has also surged from the construction industry and other sectors. With soaring demand, prices have skyrocketed.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The big story of the day was Trump’s <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/08/trump-reopen-schools-353245?nname%3Dpolitico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition%26nid%3D00000170-c000-da87-af78-e185fa700000%26nrid%3D00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000%26nlid%3D2670445&source=gmail&ust=1603194856238000&usg=AFQjCNEbvBSU3waUgoCmRfYz5LWY6CFwtg" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/08/trump-reopen-schools-353245?nname=politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition&nid=00000170-c000-da87-af78-e185fa700000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=2670445" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">insistence that schools open</span></a> in the fall so that America could play a game of charades in which we pretend we aren’t in the middle of a pandemic during the height of campaign season in order to help Donald Trump win a second term.<br /><br />Trump cited school re-openings in other developed countries, but those countries had a tiny fraction of the infection rates the U.S. would likely have this fall.<br /><br />And as Caitlin Owens and Marisa Fernandez of <i>Axios</i> <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/trump-schools-coronavirus-reopen-67467f4b-bd63-4c3b-b1d9-6097bf3282e2.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosam%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856238000&usg=AFQjCNEmxAyP-Y0x3BYCYdSjAZFdaQs2zg" href="https://www.axios.com/trump-schools-coronavirus-reopen-67467f4b-bd63-4c3b-b1d9-6097bf3282e2.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">pointed out</span></a>, maintaining social distancing and consistent usage of masks in schools across the country would require resources that struggling local governments lacked, and the administration had yet to offer up the scale of federal aid needed to bridge the gap. Forcing schools to re-open without these measures in place would lead to millions of children around the country serving as vectors of infection to older and more vulnerable Americans. (461)<br /><br />Trump’s real incentive to open schools was to prime the pump so he could campaign on his “management of the economy” (a.k.a. his <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjones/2020/02/17/obamas-2009-recovery-act-kicked-off-over-10-years-of-economic-growth/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856238000&usg=AFQjCNGjdA0xtd0Qm7JC0iMf4GcTgU4kcw" href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjones/2020/02/17/obamas-2009-recovery-act-kicked-off-over-10-years-of-economic-growth/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">inheritance of Barack Obama’s record sustained growth</span></a>). Lily Eskelsen García, president of the National Education Association, said “He's hoping some indicator goes up that people are going back to work….and he is saying, ‘Sacrifice your children, sacrifice their teachers, sacrifice their families that they could infect, because I need something to sell in November.’” (462)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">The administration was playing chicken with peoples’ lives by </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/08/trump-schools-reopening-federal-funding-352311&source=gmail&ust=1603194856238000&usg=AFQjCNGg5NTCKLrSuIlfED3_byYZnycCyg" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/08/trump-schools-reopening-federal-funding-352311" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">threatening to withhold federal money</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> to schools which refused to play along (463), and Trump’s advocacy </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/08/trump-white-house-reopening-schools-352236&source=gmail&ust=1603194856238000&usg=AFQjCNHDHX3upPk21QAlW2Hx7YJjRtltrQ" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/08/trump-white-house-reopening-schools-352236" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">directly contradicted</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> the safety guidelines put out by his own CDC (464). To narrow the gulf between Trump’s selfish desires and public safety, Mike Pence vowed to </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/07/pence-cdc-change-school-guidelines-after-trump-complaint.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856238000&usg=AFQjCNEdcjIl6YSko0AqeoNE1dp3mAVo8Q" href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/07/pence-cdc-change-school-guidelines-after-trump-complaint.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #3d85c6;">water down</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> the CDC’s guidelines. (465)</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Part of Trump’s challenge in convincing schools to follow his lead was that he had no credibility when it came to COVID-19. He’d recently said that 99% of coronavirus cases were “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.factcheck.org/2020/07/trumps-false-claim-on-coronavirus-harm/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856238000&usg=AFQjCNFbcOOv61gCPO1Gwvc_pP-3hT2aDA" href="https://www.factcheck.org/2020/07/trumps-false-claim-on-coronavirus-harm/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">totally harmless</span></a>” though 4.5% of people who caught the disease died, “14% of confirmed coronavirus cases led to hospitalizations — including 2% in intensive care units,” and even those who weren’t hospitalized were subject to serious <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://news.yahoo.com/brain-problems-linked-even-mild-virus-infections-study-102940044.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856238000&usg=AFQjCNHmvm2pZnIHvWKoBmQDeviCVR7DeA" href="https://news.yahoo.com/brain-problems-linked-even-mild-virus-infections-study-102940044.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">brain degeneration</span></a>. (466)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">He had demanded that churches re-open and <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/white-house-and-cdc-remove-coronavirus-warnings-about-choirs-in-faith-guidance/2020/05/28/5d9c526e-a117-11ea-9590-1858a893bd59_story.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856238000&usg=AFQjCNH_hZgMJdrMkUI7nfWICertYPQCSQ" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/white-house-and-cdc-remove-coronavirus-warnings-about-choirs-in-faith-guidance/2020/05/28/5d9c526e-a117-11ea-9590-1858a893bd59_story.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">rescinded limitations</span></a> on crowded church choirs in order to kowtow to his evangelical base, which was contributing to the <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://dnyuz.com/2020/07/08/churches-were-eager-to-reopen-now-they-are-a-major-source-of-coronavirus-cases/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856238000&usg=AFQjCNEKwz4J7WL0aMjX2qXxWXl1G5adVQ" href="https://dnyuz.com/2020/07/08/churches-were-eager-to-reopen-now-they-are-a-major-source-of-coronavirus-cases/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">spikes</span></a> around the country. (467) </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">He had insisted on a rally in Tulsa even as the city’s main public health official had warned against it, which was leading to <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/08/tulsa-trump-rally-coronavirus-353708&source=gmail&ust=1603194856238000&usg=AFQjCNF7qvL0YYNA00XChYTOdsPbG0uL5A" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/08/tulsa-trump-rally-coronavirus-353708" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a surge in cases</span></a> there. (468)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Miraculously, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/coronavirus-polls/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856238000&usg=AFQjCNFtbvprxf5UDjaTKS6H-KSLXdrFoQ" href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/coronavirus-polls/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">80% of Republicans</span></a> still approved of Trump’s “handling” of the coronavirus. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump continued to build on his record of failure the following day, <b>Thursday, July 9</b>, as the U.S. hit a new record of daily infections—<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.barrons.com/news/us-posts-new-record-daily-virus-caseload-of-more-than-65-000-johns-hopkins-01594341905&source=gmail&ust=1603194856238000&usg=AFQjCNGBS6feTsmPRwHfFD1G3muFp2OQdQ" href="https://www.barrons.com/news/us-posts-new-record-daily-virus-caseload-of-more-than-65-000-johns-hopkins-01594341905" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">over 65,000</span></a>—shattering the record set earlier in the week. 42 states were showing an increasing number of infections.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />The missteps of Trump’s political allies in the sun belt were especially obvious, as hospitals across the South and Southwest were swamped with new cases. Laz Gamio of <i>the New York Times</i> presented <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/09/us/coronavirus-cases-reopening-trends.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosam%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856238000&usg=AFQjCNFqUI4WC5MpNcS4qHFuhpp5WWJlkw" href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/09/us/coronavirus-cases-reopening-trends.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the hard data</span></a>. Since prematurely re-opening their economies with Trump’s prompting, Florida had seen a 7-day increase in infections of 1,393% (469), South Carolina a 999% increase (470), Arizona an 858% increase (471), Texas a 680% increase (472), and Georgia a 245% increase (473). New York, which had ignored Trump’s bad advice, had seen a decrease of 52% in the same time frame.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The spike in infections caused by the Trump administration’s anti-science rhetoric and astonishing failures of governance continued to depress the economy. 1.3 million more Americans had <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://news.trust.org/item/20200709134449-nkejb&source=gmail&ust=1603194856238000&usg=AFQjCNHJOZyGo6xulS14_lbAABQolZsDog" href="https://news.trust.org/item/20200709134449-nkejb" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">filed for unemployment</span></a> (474). Long term, the pandemic was <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/07/09/after-covid-19-giant-corporations-chains-may-be-only-ones-left/?arc404%3Dtrue%26utm_campaign%3Dwp_post_most%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26wpisrc%3Dnl_most&source=gmail&ust=1603194856239000&usg=AFQjCNFLj6FI_5wcWGD8dIvMeyTMsR0vWw" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/07/09/after-covid-19-giant-corporations-chains-may-be-only-ones-left/?arc404=true&utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">accelerating the trend</span></a> of small businesses going under and being replaced by corporations and soulless, faceless chains with minimal concern for their customers and no connections to the communities they operated in, a process certain to lead to increasing concentrations of wealth at the top, fewer choices for consumers, and lower wages for workers. (475-477)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At the root in the spike of infections was <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.msn.com/en-us/finance/other/americans-are-bewildered-by-patchwork-of-social-distancing-rules/ar-BB16wRvc&source=gmail&ust=1603194856239000&usg=AFQjCNEW2VHrgjR3Tu-B1-pg7u-KInDWaA" href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/finance/other/americans-are-bewildered-by-patchwork-of-social-distancing-rules/ar-BB16wRvc" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">mixed messaging</span></a> from Trump and his state-level allies, who had spent months contradicting public health officials, which had led to tens of millions of scientifically-illiterate Americans ignoring guidelines and infecting others in the process.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The Centers for Disease Control had the resources and know-how to educate the public, but were being handcuffed by Trump. As reported in <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/trump-sidelines-public-health-advisers-in-growing-rift-over-coronavirus-response/2020/07/09/ad803218-c12a-11ea-9fdd-b7ac6b051dc8_story.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856239000&usg=AFQjCNGz0kBeEPxiojU_mqWpynncR_E94Q" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/trump-sidelines-public-health-advisers-in-growing-rift-over-coronavirus-response/2020/07/09/ad803218-c12a-11ea-9fdd-b7ac6b051dc8_story.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a deep dive</span></a> (“CDC feels pressure from Trump as rift grows over coronavirus response”) by Lena Sun and Josh Dawsey of <i>the Washington Post</i>, the agency’s use of evidence-based practices was creating friction with Trump’s political handlers, who were largely rendering the agency “invisible.”<br /><br />As Tom Frieden (Obama’s CDC head) put it, the CDC was “not being allowed to guide policy, not being allowed to develop, standardize, and post information that would give, by state and county, the status of the epidemic and of our control measures.” (478)<br /><br />In one example of many, Sun and Dawsey cited an instance were senior adviser Paul Alexander had sent a rage email to CDC principals accusing the agency of “undermining the President”—because they’d had the audacity to publish <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6925a1.htm&source=gmail&ust=1603194856239000&usg=AFQjCNHAm2ofhywpNNUtQPPDClt29lHbKA" href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6925a1.htm" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a report</span></a> showing the risks COVID-19 posed to pregnant women. (479) </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />Trump’s war on science was in the news again on <b>Friday, July 10</b>, as it came out that Dr. Fauci <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://theweek.com/speedreads/924772/fauci-says-hasnt-briefed-trump-covid19-2-months&source=gmail&ust=1603194856239000&usg=AFQjCNEvCdpEl9lP6_hiCHoeRSSS4AFMJA" href="https://theweek.com/speedreads/924772/fauci-says-hasnt-briefed-trump-covid19-2-months" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">hadn’t briefed Trump in two months</span></a> (480) and <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/10/politics/donald-trump-anthony-fauci-coronavirus/index.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856239000&usg=AFQjCNG-oPOGXfB-eWxqeg9AdPmvnqqc9A" href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/10/politics/donald-trump-anthony-fauci-coronavirus/index.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">hadn’t seen him since June 2</span></a> (481). Fauci told <i>the Financial Times</i>, “I have a reputation, as you probably have figured out, of speaking the truth at all times and not sugar-coating things….And that may be one of the reasons why I haven’t been on television very much lately.”* (*Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, had not been physically present at that week’s coronavirus task force briefing with reporters, having been asked to dial in by phone instead, 482)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />Asked on Wednesday about Fauci’s comment that the U.S. was “knee-deep in the first wave” of the virus, Trump had said, “I think we are in a good place. I disagree with him.” Two days after Trump’s “good place” comment, the U.S. notched a new record of daily infections—<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/10/coronavirus-live-updates-us/?utm_campaign%3Dwp_post_most%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26wpisrc%3Dnl_most&source=gmail&ust=1603194856239000&usg=AFQjCNE-sTlSaXvuR4sh0VB_YJmY1JKXCA" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/10/coronavirus-live-updates-us/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">over 67,000</span></a>—and an increase in the weekly death toll. (483)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Infections were spread all over, but <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition/2020/07/10/its-everywhere-489766&source=gmail&ust=1603194856239000&usg=AFQjCNFmluiuulgcTrNADCE5-bodFxEvhA" href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition/2020/07/10/its-everywhere-489766" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">states which had re-opened too soon</span></a>, or never taken the virus seriously, continued to have most of the hot spots. Wisconsin, which had been forced to open up when Republican judges overruled the Democratic governor’s stay-at-home order, had seen a doubling in positive tests over the prior two weeks and a record number of new infections on Thursday and Friday.<br /><br />The five biggest hospitals in <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://ballotpedia.org/Mississippi_state_executive_offices&source=gmail&ust=1603194856239000&usg=AFQjCNFnWdasq8zwP1JzSyJnrxGO1YqkZA" href="https://ballotpedia.org/Mississippi_state_executive_offices" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">far-right</span></a> Mississippi were <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8510917/Mississippis-five-largest-hospitals-run-ICU-beds-infections-soar-state.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856239000&usg=AFQjCNFKDr6nl3pSJSf7Ovc-iLXk2HyV5Q" href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8510917/Mississippis-five-largest-hospitals-run-ICU-beds-infections-soar-state.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">full up</span></a> and four other hospitals had only 5% of their beds left.<br /><br /><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.thedailybeast.com/south-carolinas-coronavirus-outbreak-is-worse-than-most-countries&source=gmail&ust=1603194856239000&usg=AFQjCNEZsFvyiRk2dQX35wnNgwr68njjJA" href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/south-carolinas-coronavirus-outbreak-is-worse-than-most-countries" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">75% of the hospital beds</span></a> in South Carolina (a state <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://ballotpedia.org/South_Carolina_state_executive_offices&source=gmail&ust=1603194856239000&usg=AFQjCNE47Na4lmXYchWoTEDBUGNDkk1Bkg" href="https://ballotpedia.org/South_Carolina_state_executive_offices" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">without a single statewide Democratic officeholder</span></a>) were full, even as infections were on the way up. According to a <i>New York Times</i> analysis, South Carolina had the third worst outbreak rate per capita <i>in the world</i>, behind only Florida and Arizona, two other states under complete Republican control.<br /><br />One district in Phoenix—the location of Trump’s June 23 super-spreader rally—had so many deaths that the <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.abc15.com/news/coronavirus/phoenix-mayor-abrazo-nearly-out-of-morgue-space-may-be-requesting-refrigerated-trucks&source=gmail&ust=1603194856239000&usg=AFQjCNHHfwZo1WzEU2zE3Sg4qJ50Y_v8NA" href="https://www.abc15.com/news/coronavirus/phoenix-mayor-abrazo-nearly-out-of-morgue-space-may-be-requesting-refrigerated-trucks" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">morgues were at 96% of capacity</span></a> and the city was looking to rent refrigerated trucks. (484)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Because of the administration’s failures to act in a timely fashion, or in an adequate fashion, or to even give a shit, the U.S. was moving toward a herd immunity strategy “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-herd-immunity-united-states-4fa3a3bd-f92f-4619-b0ec-06182521186f.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosam%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856239000&usg=AFQjCNGwzlDaqAYFKDgTTtAuoz0f35wH8w" href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-herd-immunity-united-states-4fa3a3bd-f92f-4619-b0ec-06182521186f.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">by default</span></a>.” Yet the country wasn’t ready for that either (485): </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Letting the virus spread while minimizing human loss is doable, in theory. But it requires very strict protections for vulnerable people, almost none of which the U.S. has established. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />“Cases are skyrocketing, with hospitalizations and deaths following suit in hotspots. Not a single state has ordered another lockdown, even though per capita cases in Florida and Arizona have reached levels similar to New York and New Jersey’s in April.”<br /><br />“…Separating older, sicker people from younger, healthier ones while the virus burns through the latter group could be a way to achieve herd immunity — assuming immunity exists — without hundreds of thousands of people dying.<br /><br />“But the U.S. hasn’t adopted such a strategy with any planning or foresight. Although younger people make up a larger portion of coronavirus cases now than they did earlier in the pandemic, vulnerable people still go to work or live with non-vulnerable people.”<br /><br />All told, the U.S. was looking at 250,000 dead by the end of the year, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/zeke-emanuel-covid-deaths-250000-americans/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856239000&usg=AFQjCNGjktMvBrDWFUmm4fY9bXtXewbJZQ" href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/zeke-emanuel-covid-deaths-250000-americans/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">according to</span></a> Dr. Zeke Emanuel, a bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Most human beings who had brought horrible suffering on millions of people through their own actions (and inactions) would feel a degree of remorse, or maybe even humility, but Trump fell back on self-pity. In “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.thehour.com/news/article/Trump-the-victim-President-complains-in-private-15398859.php&source=gmail&ust=1603194856239000&usg=AFQjCNFbJaWG9OfRLtjUUE7Au3F0YsjUtQ" href="https://www.thehour.com/news/article/Trump-the-victim-President-complains-in-private-15398859.php" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump the victim: President complains in private</span></a>,” by Ashley Parker, Philip Rucker, and Josh Dawsey of <i>the Washington Post</i>, it came out that “Callers on President Donald Trump in recent weeks have come to expect what several allies and advisers describe as a ‘woe-is-me’ preamble.<br /><br />“The president rants about the deadly coronavirus destroying ‘the greatest economy,’ one he claims to have personally built. He laments the unfair ‘fake news’ media, which he vents never gives him any credit. And he bemoans the ‘sick, twisted’ police officers in Minneapolis, whose killing of an unarmed black man in their custody provoked the nationwide racial justice protests that have confounded the president.”<br /><br />“…The president has cast himself in the starring role of the blameless victim - of a deadly pandemic, of a stalled economy, of deep-seated racial unrest, all of which happened to him rather than the country.”<br /><br />“‘…We had the greatest economy in the world,’ Trump said in an Oval Office meeting last month, talking about how good the statistics were before the coronavirus, said one adviser. An outside adviser in frequent touch with the White House offered a similar recollection, saying that Trump simply keeps on repeating, ‘I had this great economy and they made me shut it down.’”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />“…Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a history professor at New York University and author of the forthcoming book, Strongmen, a history of authoritarian leaders, said Trump's victimization complex fits a pattern of authoritarian leaders past and present.<br /><br />“They have no empathy, and they only see the world through how things affect them personally,’ Ben-Ghiat said. ‘They're not there to govern. They're there to enrich themselves, they're there to plunder the nation, and they're there to be world historical.’” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />On <b>Saturday, July 11</b>, while Trump wallowed in self-pity, it was reported that the U.S. had a record number of new cases—<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://news.trust.org/item/20200711041631-sbox5&source=gmail&ust=1603194856239000&usg=AFQjCNF3NjriYnWUuf6u3pcdlNgSi-mvkg" href="https://news.trust.org/item/20200711041631-sbox5" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">over 69,000</span></a>—for the third day in a row.<br /><br />Saddled with bad news of their own making, the administration targeted the one official under the Trump umbrella who actually had any integrity, Anthony Fauci. As reported by <i>the Washington Post</i>, administration officials <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-white-house-made-a-list-of-all-the-times-fauci-has-been-wrong-on-the-coronavirus&source=gmail&ust=1603194856239000&usg=AFQjCNHFpWFVsTcYXGam3EDtIkPxSBAI3w" href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-white-house-made-a-list-of-all-the-times-fauci-has-been-wrong-on-the-coronavirus" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">circulated</span></a> “a list of all the times he ‘has been wrong on things,’” hoping to damage his public credibility as he undermined Trump’s propagandistic talking points with factual analysis. (486)<br /><br />Someone who had swallowed Trump’s propagandistic talking points whole was Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor of Florida. DeSantis’s failures led news on <b>Sunday, July 12</b>, as infections continued to skyrocket in Florida, with a one-day total of <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2020/07/12/florida-reports-15k-new-cases-smashing-national-record-1299981?nname%3Dplaybook%26nid%3D0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000%26nrid%3D00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000%26nlid%3D630318&source=gmail&ust=1603194856239000&usg=AFQjCNEZd9zAaOBGhIl4nszf4kzaj_52aw" href="https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2020/07/12/florida-reports-15k-new-cases-smashing-national-record-1299981?nname=playbook&nid=0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=630318" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">over 15,000</span></a> official cases. As <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://twitter.com/GloriaFallon123/status/1282637847590305793&source=gmail&ust=1603194856240000&usg=AFQjCNEO1UuGHDpqjsacryT274Y6AkvYug" href="https://twitter.com/GloriaFallon123/status/1282637847590305793" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> at <i>Axios</i>, “NBC Nightly News’ pointed out that if Florida were a country, it would have the world's fourth-highest tally of new COVID-19 cases (a record 15,300) for the 24 hours ending yesterday, after the U.S. (66,281), Brazil (45,048) and India (28,637).”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In competition with Florida for the least effective response to COVID-19 were the Republican-run states of Texas and Arizona; Arizona's situation was deemed “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/arizona-coronavirus-cases-worst-in-united-states/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856240000&usg=AFQjCNFfGXTKJuPIOgK7NlhAKdejKCsWTw" href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/arizona-coronavirus-cases-worst-in-united-states/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the worst in the entire country</span></a>” by a top public health official. On <b>Monday, July 13</b>, it came out that Texas—like Arizona—was <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.fox5ny.com/news/refrigerated-trucks-requested-in-arizona-texas-as-morgues-reach-capacity-amid-covid-19-surge&source=gmail&ust=1603194856240000&usg=AFQjCNFQP2qnL6RdClzs7Otw86rRvbovbw" href="https://www.fox5ny.com/news/refrigerated-trucks-requested-in-arizona-texas-as-morgues-reach-capacity-amid-covid-19-surge" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">renting refrigerated trucks</span></a> to handle the overflow of deaths from morgues. (487)<br /><br />Many Americans who got infected but didn’t end up on the wrong side of a meat truck would be susceptible to long-term heart damage, according to <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.newsweek.com/scans-reveal-heart-damage-over-half-covid-19-patients-study-1517293&source=gmail&ust=1603194856240000&usg=AFQjCNEsCdgiUK_Ga6DFYNMLTJLlUXb9iw" href="https://www.newsweek.com/scans-reveal-heart-damage-over-half-covid-19-patients-study-1517293" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a study</span></a> co-authored by Marc Dweck of the University of Edinburgh. As many Americans were facing heart damage, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.healthline.com/health-news/lifelong-lung-damage-the-serious-covid-19-complication-that-can-hit-people-in-their-20s&source=gmail&ust=1603194856240000&usg=AFQjCNHUfJoIy6YY3rfHxSFjH-7tNW5htA" href="https://www.healthline.com/health-news/lifelong-lung-damage-the-serious-covid-19-complication-that-can-hit-people-in-their-20s" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">lung damage</span></a>, and <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-brain-damage/a-54111054&source=gmail&ust=1603194856240000&usg=AFQjCNGdf71TEhbGsB_Q07oVNeiz4T2ZMw" href="https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-brain-damage/a-54111054" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">brain degeneration</span></a> which could have been avoided with a competent federal response, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/13/world/coronavirus-updates.html?action%3Dclick%26module%3DTop%2520Stories%26pgtype%3DHomepage&source=gmail&ust=1603194856240000&usg=AFQjCNE-8FodJ7TiLC9V3q7YKwHxgE9r3g" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/13/world/coronavirus-updates.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">5.4 million Americans had lost their health insurance</span></a> (488), a fraction of the number who could lose coverage if the administration’s legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. (see #421) Many of those who had lost health insurance were out of work and <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.greenwichtime.com/business/article/Workers-are-pushed-to-the-brink-as-they-continue-15403810.php&source=gmail&ust=1603194856240000&usg=AFQjCNGkDS1_8kVGWpUhiUCiBkDPVqv7iQ" href="https://www.greenwichtime.com/business/article/Workers-are-pushed-to-the-brink-as-they-continue-15403810.php" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">still waiting</span></a> for their unemployment benefits. All told, 18 million Americans were on unemployment and <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2020/07/09/nearly-50-million-americans-have-filed-for-unemployment-heres-whats-really-happening/%234dc714b827d3&source=gmail&ust=1603194856240000&usg=AFQjCNHCSzJtr5lWWPzhRqX4BhLDI8kzgw" href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2020/07/09/nearly-50-million-americans-have-filed-for-unemployment-heres-whats-really-happening/#4dc714b827d3" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">50 million</span></a> had applied since the virus began. (489)<br /><br />Overwhelmed by the waves of bad and totally objective news, Trump <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/13/trump-questions-public-health-experts-twitter-359388?nname%3Dpolitico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition%26nid%3D00000170-c000-da87-af78-e185fa700000%26nrid%3D00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000%26nlid%3D2670445&source=gmail&ust=1603194856240000&usg=AFQjCNGF-YTq2I0_AcTYR-mUzR5k3k0jsA" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/13/trump-questions-public-health-experts-twitter-359388?nname=politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition&nid=00000170-c000-da87-af78-e185fa700000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=2670445" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">shared a tweet</span></a> (490) from former game show host Chuck Woolery that read “Everyone is lying. The CDC, Media, Democrats, our Doctors, not all but most, that we are told to trust. I think it’s all about the election and keeping the economy from coming back, which is about the election. I’m sick of it.” Just days later it would come out that Woolery’s son had <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/16/us/chuck-woolery-son-covid-19/index.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856240000&usg=AFQjCNFz33uBnO1AdeM_MfaKtEFq8RTGTA" href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/16/us/chuck-woolery-son-covid-19/index.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">contracted COVID-19</span></a>, prompting the game show host to deactivate his Twitter account.<br /><br />While Woolery accused the CDC, the media, Democrats, and doctors of lying, Trump reached another personal milestone by having made <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/07/13/president-trump-has-made-more-than-20000-false-or-misleading-claims/?utm_campaign%3Dwp_post_most%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26wpisrc%3Dnl_most&source=gmail&ust=1603194856240000&usg=AFQjCNFFucz2xSCVJCBHOd2XbKb9bqH-Ug" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/07/13/president-trump-has-made-more-than-20000-false-or-misleading-claims/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">20,000 “false or misleading claims</span></a>.”<br /><br />As of <b>Tuesday, July 14</b>, the United States had what Helen Branswell of <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://statnews.com&source=gmail&ust=1603194856240000&usg=AFQjCNGCaYZy_pBGZau8HIKcMIDBMV_5eQ" href="http://statnews.com/" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">statnews.com</a> called “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.statnews.com/2020/07/14/fix-covid-19-dumpster-fire-us/?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosvitals%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856240000&usg=AFQjCNHCP-ZnSXCOBqONgnb1SyxLr8yf9g" href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/07/14/fix-covid-19-dumpster-fire-us/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a raging dumpster fire</span></a>”:<br /><br />“Where a number of countries in Asia and Europe have managed to dampen spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus to the point where they can consider returning to a semblance of normalcy…many international borders remain closed to Americans. (see #413)<br /><br />“On Sunday, Florida reported more than 15,000 cases — in a single day. South Korea hasn’t registered 15,000 cases in the entire pandemic to date.”<br /><br />“…The website <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.covidexitstrategy.org/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856240000&usg=AFQjCNFfZWzlCu15tR5RrMIAwq5oYOA8JQ" href="https://www.covidexitstrategy.org/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Covidexitstrategy.org</span></a> <wbr></wbr>has updated its previously tri-colored U.S. map, which showed states as either green, signifying they are trending better; yellow, making progress; or red, trending poorly. A fourth designation, called ‘bruised red,’ signals states with uncontrolled spread; criteria for this category includes hospitals nearing capacity both in terms of overall beds and ICU space. Already 17 states are wearing bruised red.” (491)<br /><br />This was an ugly reality that Trump wanted to obscure, so his henchman (trade adviser Peter Navarro) went after the one official willing to tell it like it is in <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/todaysdebate/2020/07/14/anthony-fauci-wrong-with-me-peter-navarro-editorials-debates/5439374002/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856240000&usg=AFQjCNGRmk5_DcQ4RsxgYGATOgDcKpE75Q" href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/todaysdebate/2020/07/14/anthony-fauci-wrong-with-me-peter-navarro-editorials-debates/5439374002/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">an op-ed in <i>USA Today</i></span></a> which claimed that “Fauci has been wrong about everything I have interacted with him on.” (492)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />Trump’s contempt for science was also demonstrated that day by the news that the administration’s CDC would no longer be in control of collecting and disseminating coronavirus death and infection information.<br /><br /><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/us/politics/trump-cdc-coronavirus.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856240000&usg=AFQjCNEXj008zDXKRlsZAC3p0Sk6vlq4SA" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/us/politics/trump-cdc-coronavirus.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">According to</span></a> Sheryl Gay Stolberg of <i>the New York Times</i>: “The Trump administration has ordered hospitals to bypass the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and send all Covid-19 patient information to a central database in Washington beginning on Wednesday. The move has alarmed health experts who fear the data will be politicized or withheld from the public.<br /><br />“The new instructions were posted recently in a <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/covid-19-faqs-hospitals-hospital-laboratory-acute-care-facility-data-reporting.pdf&source=gmail&ust=1603194856240000&usg=AFQjCNFOWKlQpi3H7h-sqlh6d8YhutBk0Q" href="https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/covid-19-faqs-hospitals-hospital-laboratory-acute-care-facility-data-reporting.pdf" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">little-noticed document</span></a> on the Department of Health and Human Services website. From now on, the department — not the C.D.C. — will collect daily reports about the patients that each hospital is treating, the number of available beds and ventilators, and other information vital to tracking the pandemic.”<br /><br />The move was designed to withhold information from the public: “…the Health and Human Services database that will receive new information is not open to the public, which could affect the work of scores of researchers (493), modelers and health officials who rely on <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cdc.gov/nhsn/covid19/report-patient-impact.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856240000&usg=AFQjCNERKFMKBdLjDscBcduSxAV7g8g4NQ" href="https://www.cdc.gov/nhsn/covid19/report-patient-impact.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">C.D.C. data</span> </a>to make projections and crucial decisions. (494)<br /><br />“‘Historically, C.D.C. has been the place where public health data has been sent, and this raises questions about not just access for researchers but access for reporters (495), access for the public to try to better understand what is happening with the outbreak,’ (496) said Jen Kates, the director of global health and H.I.V. policy with the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.”<br /><br />“…Centralizing control of all data under the umbrella of an inherently political apparatus is dangerous and breeds distrust,” said Dr. Nicole Lurie, who served as assistant secretary for preparedness and response under former President Barack Obama. “It appears to cut off the ability of agencies like C.D.C. to do its basic job.” (497)<br /><br />Cutting off the ability of the CDC to do its job had been the administration’s practice from early in Trump’s presidency. A bipartisan group of four former CDC directors explained <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/07/14/cdc-directors-trump-politics/?utm_campaign%3Dwp_post_most%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26wpisrc%3Dnl_most&source=gmail&ust=1603194856240000&usg=AFQjCNGngCEimYMqfwxE_ujIhzu60piDqw" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/07/14/cdc-directors-trump-politics/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the damage this had done</span></a><span style="color: #3d85c6;"> </span>in “We ran the CDC. No president ever politicized its science the way Trump has” for <i>the Washington Post</i>.<br /><br />The opening line told the tale: “…The four of us led the CDC over a period of more than 15 years, spanning Republican and Democratic administrations alike. We cannot recall over our collective tenure a single time when political pressure led to a change in the interpretation of scientific evidence.”<br /><br />Politicization had caused confusion, division, and ultimately, more infections: “…Unfortunately, [the CDC’s] sound science is being challenged with partisan potshots, sowing confusion and mistrust at a time when the American people need leadership, expertise and clarity. These efforts have even fueled a backlash against public health officials across the country: Public servants have been <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.dispatch.com/news/20200615/first-came-pandemic-then-came-politics-why-amy-acton-quit&source=gmail&ust=1603194856240000&usg=AFQjCNF2jisx7XlnvOw8y1MgxcFTU6NJYA" href="https://www.dispatch.com/news/20200615/first-came-pandemic-then-came-politics-why-amy-acton-quit" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">harassed</span></a>, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/amid-threats-and-political-pushback-public-health-officials-leaving-posts/2020/06/22/6075f7a2-b0cf-11ea-856d-5054296735e5_story.html?itid%3Dlk_inline_manual_8&source=gmail&ust=1603194856240000&usg=AFQjCNGIXlozCYDhkBCsscZksCJrUBVxnA" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/amid-threats-and-political-pushback-public-health-officials-leaving-posts/2020/06/22/6075f7a2-b0cf-11ea-856d-5054296735e5_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_8" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">threatened</span></a> and <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2020/06/09/2-wisconsin-health-dept-officials-resign-in-middle-of-covid-19-pandemic/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856241000&usg=AFQjCNHqX0gd7Sn4_DzMhAtCTpZ4XjWZYw" href="https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2020/06/09/2-wisconsin-health-dept-officials-resign-in-middle-of-covid-19-pandemic/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><wbr></wbr>forced to resign</span></a> <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.ctpost.com/news/coronavirus/article/CT-health-official-resigns-in-midst-of-15172791.php&source=gmail&ust=1603194856241000&usg=AFQjCNEGZEqa24wwHSibS8dTcQ5Dro-9dA" href="https://www.ctpost.com/news/coronavirus/article/CT-health-official-resigns-in-midst-of-15172791.php" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">when</span></a> we need them most. (498) This is unconscionable and dangerous.<br /><br />“We’re seeing the terrible effect of undermining the CDC play out in our population. Willful disregard for public health guidelines is, unsurprisingly, leading to a sharp rise in infections and deaths. America now stands as a global outlier in the coronavirus pandemic…The United States is home to a quarter of the world’s reported coronavirus infections and deaths, despite being home to only 4.4 percent of the global population.<br /><br />“Sadly, we are not even close to having the virus under control. Quite the opposite, in fact.”<br /><br />One of the main reasons the virus wasn’t even close to being under control in the U.S. was the Trump administration’s decentralization of the COVID-19 response to states that were unprepared to handle a pandemic. <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/14/states-look-to-trump-for-a-national-plan-to-fight-coronavirus-361906?nname%3Dpolitico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition%26nid%3D00000170-c000-da87-af78-e185fa700000%26nrid%3D00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000%26nlid%3D2670445&source=gmail&ust=1603194856241000&usg=AFQjCNEh2TDpq1hbtHVS1YQ-a9zlOTyfjA" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/14/states-look-to-trump-for-a-national-plan-to-fight-coronavirus-361906?nname=politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition&nid=00000170-c000-da87-af78-e185fa700000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=2670445" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">As reported</span></a> by Dan Goldberg and Alice Miranda Ollstein, “Leaving the nation's coronavirus fight to individual states has created gaping holes in the public health response that have allowed the infection rate to soar and death rates to rise once again. (499)<br /><br />“While countries like New Zealand and Germany have taken a unified national approach to fighting the virus — and are enjoying the fruits of a successful mitigation strategy — the Trump administration’s federalist philosophy has helped create chaos across the South and West.<br /><br />“Cash-strapped cities and states trying to create their own testing, tracing and public awareness campaigns from scratch are desperate for federal support as they grapple with questions about whether it’s safe for people to return to school and work, along with bars and beaches.” (see #391)<br /><br />Cash-strapped cities and states were again being forced to compete against each other for supplies (see #173) because the administration had refused to ramp up the Defense Production Act to the extent necessary, and the lack of a national contact tracing plan was leaving us with only one-third the number of tracers needed to get COVID-19 under control.<br /><br />David Eisenman of the UCLA Center for Public and Health Disasters summed up the lack of planning and execution that brought us to this point: “We shut down the country for three months and we could have used that time for all kinds of planning and preparing, and we did not use it at all.” (500)<br /><br />Planning, preparation, and thinking ahead were clearly not the Trump administration’s forte, as several stories on <b>Wednesday, July 15</b> showed.<br /><br />Maggie Severns of <i>Politico</i> reported that the administration had <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/15/coronavirus-nursing-homes-361510&source=gmail&ust=1603194856241000&usg=AFQjCNFlKP_KsXk5O977JA2fS99BzqwdsQ" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/15/coronavirus-nursing-homes-361510" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reduced training requirements</span></a> for caregivers in nursing homes <i>after</i> the pandemic had made its way to American shores. Previously, nurses’ aides had been required to have 75 hours of training. Acting on the wishes of the nursing home industry, the administration had lowered the requirement significantly, allowing nursing homes to hire people whose sum total of training was eight hours online. (501)<br /><br />And the online training wasn’t actually eight hours long. According to Severns, “There is no requirement that students watch the required videos or download the assignments during the training, and there is only one untimed assessment. A POLITICO reporter was able to register for the eight-hour program and obtain a temporary nurse’s aide certificate, using the internet to look up test answers, in less than 40 minutes.”<br /><br />As a result, inexperienced workers were being put in charge of eldercare during the middle of a pandemic. Jesse Martin (the SEIU vice president in Connecticut) told Severns, “Working in nursing homes is complicated….You have PPE, you have infection control procedures. Putting someone brand new into the care setting with Covid is a recipe for disaster." (502)<br /><br />Other victims of the administration’s short-term thinking included constituents of Republican governors who had taken Trump’s advice. Writing for <i>the Hill</i>, James Zirin reviewed the <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/507398-listening-to-trump-gave-sunbelt-governors-a-new-covid-19-headache&source=gmail&ust=1603194856241000&usg=AFQjCNEKqH2XB8Lj_IFX4Zy_HX5JcCetkQ" href="https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/507398-listening-to-trump-gave-sunbelt-governors-a-new-covid-19-headache" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">red state missteps</span></a>:<br /><br />“The temperatures are <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/07/13/heat-wave-south-coronavirus/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856241000&usg=AFQjCNEH0SDpaYFRiu6r1cWULv-Gjf6omw" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/07/13/heat-wave-south-coronavirus/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">soaring this week</span></a> in seven Sunbelt states of Florida, Georgia, Arizona, Texas, South Carolina, Arkansas and Tennessee. So are the number of <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/14/us/coronavirus-united-states.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856241000&usg=AFQjCNGlymWkdQRXfZjaTCBSh9OOHxQRhw" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/14/us/coronavirus-united-states.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">new cases of COVID-19</span></a>, and the pro-Trump Republican governors of these states have much to answer for.<br /><br />“In the spring, when the weather was more temperate, the spread figures seemed to be under control in these states. And the governors, all Trump loyalists, largely <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/southern-governors-who-initially-downplayed-coronavirus-threat-ease-into-reopening-of-their-states/2020/04/29/92d9d122-8a3d-11ea-9dfd-990f9dcc71fc_story.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856241000&usg=AFQjCNFNXeEs4iIi_LnsyXYrT1GDY-V_aQ" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/southern-governors-who-initially-downplayed-coronavirus-threat-ease-into-reopening-of-their-states/2020/04/29/92d9d122-8a3d-11ea-9dfd-990f9dcc71fc_story.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">followed the president’s lead</span></a> in suggesting that once the weather got warmer, the coronavirus would, as Trump put it, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/505487-trump-maintains-coronavirus-will-just-disappear-at-some-point&source=gmail&ust=1603194856241000&usg=AFQjCNE4J89Fo1vaoqhKPbPljmmVSq5FNQ" href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/505487-trump-maintains-coronavirus-will-just-disappear-at-some-point" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">‘<span style="color: #3d85c6;">disappear…like a miracle.’”</span></a><br /><br />Far from disappearing like a miracle, daily infections were hitting <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://news.yahoo.com/coronavirus-cases-fatalities-continue-rise-across-us-001801216.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856241000&usg=AFQjCNFiAVcLU1IZ1HcY_yoOySXM2HENKA" href="https://news.yahoo.com/coronavirus-cases-fatalities-continue-rise-across-us-001801216.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a record national high</span></a> of 67,632.<br /><br />Renuka Rayasam reviewed <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition/2020/07/15/how-scared-should-you-be-489808&source=gmail&ust=1603194856241000&usg=AFQjCNF-qHGTcQo_StnlQPvcYJkbqyM9SQ" href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition/2020/07/15/how-scared-should-you-be-489808" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the frazzled state of the nation</span></a> in “How scared should you be?”:<br /><br />“Halfway through July, the situation is actually worse in many parts of the country than at the start of the pandemic…”<br /><br />“…About 7 to 9 percent of the population, or 23 million people, have been infected to date, estimates Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease researcher at the University of Minnesota. He said transmission won’t slow until at least half of the population becomes infected. If cases continue growing at today’s pace, even with a lower death rate, he projects that about 800,000 people will die before any sort of herd immunity kicks in.”<br /><br />“…Unlike <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.eu/article/commission-summer-is-for-coronavirus-second-wave-prep-not-vacation-travel-restrictions-borders/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856241000&usg=AFQjCNFGvAu_vXCVp2dwob4A6zq8mnRC-g" href="https://www.politico.eu/article/commission-summer-is-for-coronavirus-second-wave-prep-not-vacation-travel-restrictions-borders/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">other countries</span></a> now comfortably opening businesses and schools, the U.S. wasted valuable time during its lockdown (503), said Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. The positive test rate is in double digits in many states, a sign that the virus is spreading faster than it can be controlled through testing and contact tracing. ‘What I am continually seeing in these states is that they keep making the same mistake in not being able to do the core elements of public health,’ he said. The problem, in his view: Testing supplies are limited, test results are too slow to be useful in guiding behavior, there are still too few contact tracers and many states don’t have a handle on who is actually infected. Until state or federal officials can fix those problems, hotspots will continue to emerge around the country.”<br /><br />Because of these countless failures, the U.S. was looking at a projection of <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://news.yahoo.com/us-covid-19-epidemic-projected-worsen-151435022.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856241000&usg=AFQjCNEhWanh1qwrxkpCjMSx-kZPbKNCXA" href="https://news.yahoo.com/us-covid-19-epidemic-projected-worsen-151435022.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">224,000 dead</span></a> by election day.<br /><br />In addition to a staggering, first-in-the-world death toll, the Trump virus was causing headaches for elections workers. As of <b>Thursday, July 16</b>, New York had <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/07/new-york-primary-results-still-waiting.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856241000&usg=AFQjCNF28YnvnDICTzO1c5qODW-K1JvTAg" href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/07/new-york-primary-results-still-waiting.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">yet to finish</span></a> counting the vote from the June 23rd primary because of the volume of mail ballots.<br /><br />Due to the lack of a vigorous national testing and tracing system, this scenario was likely to play out again in the presidential election, as many of those who could would avoid voting in person. <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/national-covid-19-testing-and-tracing-action-plan/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856241000&usg=AFQjCNE6WR4mjwtn9AL7M9QKTGNNeAzHhQ" href="https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/national-covid-19-testing-and-tracing-action-plan/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">As reported</span></a> by the Rockefeller Foundation, the U.S. was doing just a fraction of the amount of testing necessary to counteract the coronavirus, a problem which promised to get worse with the flu season. The keys to containing COVID-19 were more and cheaper testing, faster test results, widespread contact tracing, and targeted isolation. The foundation’s plan being ignored by the White House could be implemented for $75 billion, roughly 1/30th of the amount the GOP had spent on <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/28/tax-cuts-trump-gop-analysis-430781&source=gmail&ust=1603194856241000&usg=AFQjCNG0tlwbataguoBoEtKAy_neFMFKWg" href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/28/tax-cuts-trump-gop-analysis-430781" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump’s tax cut for the rich</span></a>.<br /><br />Making up for the mistakes of the past was not a priority for the administration, which was engaged in a full-court press to force schools to re-open in the fall. As cases were <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-cases-increase-map-37-states-pandemic-b5e91376-1543-40a0-99fb-556c535c0842.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosam%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856241000&usg=AFQjCNEbvDaCL-yRCVrDcrDeG2oPWxoTDg" href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-cases-increase-map-37-states-pandemic-b5e91376-1543-40a0-99fb-556c535c0842.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">increasing in 37 states</span></a> and 45% of counties nationwide were experiencing “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8529781/Data-map-shows-45-counties-seeing-epidemic-spread-COVID-19.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856241000&usg=AFQjCNGnve81KZdTBlWKrU9Rw2aCpUNV1Q" href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8529781/Data-map-shows-45-counties-seeing-epidemic-spread-COVID-19.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">uncontrollable spread</span></a>,” White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8531199/White-House-vows-not-let-science-stand-way-Donald-Trumps-push-reopen-schools.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856241000&usg=AFQjCNF2v0jnjtCZ3EXrW2YKcQGRm6turA" href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8531199/White-House-vows-not-let-science-stand-way-Donald-Trumps-push-reopen-schools.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">told reporters</span></a> that the administration would not “let the science [public health concerns] stand in the way” of prying schools open. (504)<br /><br />Putting children and teachers in harm’s way was seen as necessary in order to goose the economy as unemployment filings increased “by more than 1 million for <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/16/weekly-jobless-claims.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856241000&usg=AFQjCNFscJJEFTNugm7Tpnz8ILvSICao2g" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/16/weekly-jobless-claims.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">[the] 17th straight week</span></a>.” (505)<br /><br />Coronavirus refused to cooperate with Trump’s artificial timeline. On <b>Friday, July 17</b>, it was reported that the U.S. had hit <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://news.trust.org/item/20200717011211-17cr2&source=gmail&ust=1603194856241000&usg=AFQjCNEJAf46gOUYNvJGRWOnkL2LG-tL6Q" href="https://news.trust.org/item/20200717011211-17cr2" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a new high of daily infections</span></a>—77,217. 969 Americans died in the same time frame, the biggest one-day totals since June 10. Though the administration wasn’t saying it publicly (506), a Coronavirus Task Force report obtained by the Center of Public Integrity recommended that 18 states with the highest infection rates should <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/17/politics/white-house-states-hot-spots-task-force/index.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856241000&usg=AFQjCNFXtlGIaCKk_xW4XzWz9HwfEaw9sA" href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/17/politics/white-house-states-hot-spots-task-force/index.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reverse their re-openings</span></a>.<br /><br />Among the troubling data points in the rising numbers was a <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-16/childhood-covid-19-infections-mount-with-schools-eyeing-openings&source=gmail&ust=1603194856242000&usg=AFQjCNFkYZCR7yG1T84RwK00Igast-j-OA" href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-16/childhood-covid-19-infections-mount-with-schools-eyeing-openings" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">big increase</span></a> in infections among Americans under 18, which made up around 6.4% of cases nationally, including nearly 10% of the total cases in California and Mississippi. In Florida, 31% of children tested positive for COVID-19. The increase in infections among children made the danger of opening schools prematurely even clearer.<br /><br />Though these concerns were at the forefront of public dialogue, the administration continued to censor public health officials who’d been asked to provide guidance for school officials. As reported by Bianca Quilantan, CDC head Robert Redfield (or a “designee”) had been invited by Bobby Scott (the Democratic chair of the Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education Subcommittee) “to discuss the immediate needs of K-12 public schools as many districts look to reopen in the fall.” Redfield <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/17/education-democrats-cdc-director-congress-367935&source=gmail&ust=1603194856242000&usg=AFQjCNHXTbGTgJIjITCu6glAiu69_W8HDg" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/17/education-democrats-cdc-director-congress-367935" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">had been blocked</span></a> from appearing even as the CDC was delaying safety guidelines for schools. In a statement, Scott said, “It is alarming that the Trump Administration is preventing the CDC from appearing before the Committee at a time when its expertise and guidance is so critical to the health and safety of students, parents, and educators….This lack of transparency does a great disservice to the many communities across the country facing difficult decisions about reopening schools this fall.”<br /><br />While the administration took a libertarian approach to protecting American children and their families from the pandemic, Trump ordered an <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/17/us/portland-protests.html?action%3Dclick%26module%3DTop%2520Stories%26pgtype%3DHomepage&source=gmail&ust=1603194856242000&usg=AFQjCNEyNtK0TPcuGNmvGI2HoQhcSmCCqQ" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/17/us/portland-protests.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">authoritarian crackdown</span></a> in Portland, unleashing soldiers from the Department of Homeland Security on unsuspecting protesters.<br /><br />On <b>Saturday, July 18</b>, it was reported that the U.S. had had its second consecutive day of over <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/18/us-reports-more-than-70000-new-coronavirus-infections-for-second-day-in-a-row.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856242000&usg=AFQjCNHZbRiIo2J1tAOIJVopZH31PvmKKg" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/18/us-reports-more-than-70000-new-coronavirus-infections-for-second-day-in-a-row.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">70,000 new infections</span></a> and Trump reached his personal milestone of 140,000 dead Americans. Coinciding with this startling—<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/01/official-us-coronavirus-death-toll-is-a-substantial-undercount-of-actual-tally-new-yale-study-finds.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856242000&usg=AFQjCNFDPAgW1Uw2zqMiZ072a_C5hMp4qg" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/01/official-us-coronavirus-death-toll-is-a-substantial-undercount-of-actual-tally-new-yale-study-finds.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">and yet still lowball</span></a>—number, an all-star team of reporters at <i>the New York Times</i> <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/18/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-response-failure-leadership.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856242000&usg=AFQjCNEwJwp1uO5f5ay_4w6GGlBwGkdL7A" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/18/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-response-failure-leadership.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">published</span></a> “Inside Trump’s Failure: The Rush to Abandon Leadership Role on the Virus,” a long read explaining why the U.S. had had by far the steepest human costs of any developed country.<br /><br />The piece revealed that even in April, as 2,000 Americans were dying daily from COVID-19, the administration was secretly planning on pawning the problem off onto state governments which were ill-equipped to handle the pandemic (507). According to the authors, “Over a critical period beginning in mid-April, President Trump and his team convinced themselves that the outbreak was fading, that they had given state governments all the resources they needed to contain its remaining ‘embers’ and that it was time to ease up on the lockdown.<br /><br />“In doing so, he was ignoring warnings that the numbers would continue to drop only if social distancing was kept in place, rushing instead to restart the economy and tend to his battered re-election hopes.<br /><br />“…Mr. Trump’s bet that the crisis would fade away proved wrong. But an examination of the shift in April and its aftermath shows that the approach he embraced was not just a misjudgment. Instead, it was a deliberate strategy that he would stick doggedly to as evidence mounted that, in the absence of strong leadership from the White House, the virus would continue to infect and kill large numbers of Americans.” (508)<br /><br />The administration’s virus response had been a comedy of errors, the blind leading the blind: “Key elements of the administration’s strategy were formulated…by aides who for the most part had no experience with public health emergencies and were taking their cues from the president.” (509)<br /><br />When the administration <i>did</i> seek scientific advice, they relied on the rosy assessments of Deborah Birx rather than the hard-headed (and accurate) views of Dr. Fauci, as Birx’s advice would enable Trump to do what he already wanted to do—re-open the economy (510). On April 16, voluntary public safety guidelines had been issued and Trump had told governors, “You’re going to call your own shots,” effectively allowing state leaders to re-open prematurely.<br /><br />Around the same time, there was a marked shift in Birx’s communications with the University of Washington, which was providing data models: “‘We made clear that to get the epidemic under control and bring it down to effectively zero transmission required the social distancing mandates to be in place,’ said Christopher J. L. Murray, the director of the modeling program. ‘April 22 — somewhere around that period. That’s when the tone shifted. They started to ask questions about what will be the trajectory and where with the lifting of mandates?’” (511)<br /><br />Birx predicted that cases would peter out, but “Dr. Birx’s belief that the United States would mirror Italy turned out to be disastrously wrong. The Italians had been almost entirely compliant with stay-at-home orders and social distancing, squelching new infections to negligible levels before the country slowly reopened. Americans, by contrast, began backing away by late April from what social distancing efforts they had been making, egged on by Mr. Trump.<br /><br />“The difference was critical. As communities across the United States raced to reopen, the number of daily cases barely dropped below 20,000 in early May. The virus was still circulating across the country.”<br /><br />“…Other nations had moved aggressively to employ an array of techniques that Mr. Trump never mobilized on a federal level, including national testing strategies and contact tracing to track down and isolate people who had interacted with newly diagnosed patients.<br /><br />“‘These things were done in Germany, in Italy, in Greece, Vietnam, in Singapore, in New Zealand and in China,’ said Andy Slavitt, a former federal health care official who had been advising the White House.<br /><br />“‘They were not secret,’ he said. ‘Not mysterious. And these were not all wealthy countries. They just took accountability for getting it done. But we did not do that here.’”<br /><br />The administration’s lack of accountability—specifically their fear of a more accurate accounting of the true extent of deaths and infections—showed up again in negotiations with Congress over the relief package. As <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-administration-pushing-to-block-new-money-for-testing-tracing-and-cdc-in-upcoming-coronavirus-relief-bill/ar-BB16UnyK?li%3DBBnb7Kz&source=gmail&ust=1603194856242000&usg=AFQjCNGiks9OdUSDqHLtutzzsjE1D3a7Ww" href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-administration-pushing-to-block-new-money-for-testing-tracing-and-cdc-in-upcoming-coronavirus-relief-bill/ar-BB16UnyK?li=BBnb7Kz" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> by Erica Werner and Jeff Stein of <i>the Washington Post</i>, “The Trump administration is trying to block billions of dollars for states to conduct testing (512) and contact tracing (513) in the upcoming coronavirus relief bill, people involved in the talks said Saturday.<br /><br />“The administration is also trying to block billions of dollars that GOP senators want to allocate for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (514), and billions more for the Pentagon and State Department to address the pandemic at home and abroad, the people said. (515)<br /><br />“…One person involved in the talks said Senate Republicans were seeking to allocate $25 billion for states to conduct testing and contact tracing [1/3rd the amount sought by House Democrats], but that certain administration officials want to zero out the testing and tracing money entirely.”<br /><br />Administration resistance was tied to their P.R. effort to shirk responsibility for the crisis: “Trump and other White House officials have been pushing for states to own more of the responsibility for testing and <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-plays-down-coronavirus-testing-as-us-falls-far-short-of-level-scientists-say-is-needed/2020/05/08/d9241454-913f-11ea-a9c0-73b93422d691_story.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856242000&usg=AFQjCNElTPjygzXjEOsqcorSTlwVwIpi2w" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-plays-down-coronavirus-testing-as-us-falls-far-short-of-level-scientists-say-is-needed/2020/05/08/d9241454-913f-11ea-a9c0-73b93422d691_story.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">have objected to creating national standards</span></a>, at times seeking to minimize the federal government’s role.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">More results of the administration’s abdication of duty were reported on <b>Sunday, July 19</b>.<br /><br />As bad as Trump’s official unemployment numbers were, they only told part of the story. Four to seven million Americans had experienced cuts in wages (516), several million had seen their wages capped (517), and millions more had seen their hours cut back (518). Overall, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/19/wage-cuts-economy-crisis-368508&source=gmail&ust=1603194856242000&usg=AFQjCNH8t0nZgqGCNl1JT-ulQt2vXhMuzw" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/19/wage-cuts-economy-crisis-368508" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">one in eight employed Americans were coping with reduced incomes</span></a>, which meant less spending, which impacted revenues for already-struggling businesses.<br /><br />This was just one way in which the U.S. population, under Trump’s mis-leadership, continued to feel the pandemic far more acutely than the citizens of other developed countries. The failure of the U.S. federal government to effectively mobilize its vast financial and medical resources was<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/health-news/the-crisis-that-shocked-the-world-americas-response-to-the-coronavirus/ar-BB16WaBS?li%3DBBnb7Kz&source=gmail&ust=1603194856242000&usg=AFQjCNFS9iCoo9EvONsQ8o6sxDn6Yom0GA" href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/health-news/the-crisis-that-shocked-the-world-americas-response-to-the-coronavirus/ar-BB16WaBS?li=BBnb7Kz" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"> <span style="color: #3d85c6;">probed</span></a> in “The crisis that shocked the world: America’s response to the coronavirus.”<br /><br />The disaster movie vibe was unique to the United States: “Many countries have rigorously driven infection rates nearly to zero. In the United States, coronavirus transmission is out of control. The national response is fragmented, shot through with <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/the-battle-over-masks-in-a-pandemic-an-all-american-story/2020/06/19/3ad25564-b245-11ea-8f56-63f38c990077_story.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856242000&usg=AFQjCNFVvP70Oh6PK3kIFBVnCms-DUd8Vw" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/the-battle-over-masks-in-a-pandemic-an-all-american-story/2020/06/19/3ad25564-b245-11ea-8f56-63f38c990077_story.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">political rancor and culture-war divisiveness</span></a>. Testing shortcomings that revealed themselves in March have become acute in July, with week-long waits for results leaving the country blind to real-time virus spread and rendering contact tracing nearly irrelevant.”<br /><br />America's failings could be tied directly to core elements of Trump’s governance:<br /><br />“The fumbling of the virus was not a fluke: The American coronavirus fiasco has exposed the<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-coronavirus-pandemic-no-plan/2020/07/15/7581bea4-c5df-11ea-a99f-3bbdffb1af38_story.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856242000&usg=AFQjCNEIYJQ5YHVv5qz_xma1K7hFMrWckQ" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-coronavirus-pandemic-no-plan/2020/07/15/7581bea4-c5df-11ea-a99f-3bbdffb1af38_story.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"> <span style="color: #3d85c6;">country’s incoherent leadership</span></a>, self-defeating <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/01/16/trump-is-most-polarizing-president-record-almost-nobodys-opinion-him-is-changing/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856242000&usg=AFQjCNFaLM4ui88aHGCM2rbJfVkS5tTxNA" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/01/16/trump-is-most-polarizing-president-record-almost-nobodys-opinion-him-is-changing/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">political polarization</span></a>, a <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://thenationshealth.aphapublications.org/content/50/2/1.2&source=gmail&ust=1603194856242000&usg=AFQjCNHG8hAdZTEdUYoFuP9hRa1mXcCMwg" href="https://thenationshealth.aphapublications.org/content/50/2/1.2" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">lack of investment</span></a> in public health, and persistent socioeconomic and racial inequities that have left millions of people vulnerable to disease and death.<br /><br />“…While other countries endured some of the same setbacks, few have suffered from all of them simultaneously and catastrophically. If there was a mistake to be made in this pandemic, America has made it.”<br /><br />The “single biggest miscalculation was rushing to reopen the economy while the virus was still spreading at high rates through much of the country” and the “death rate from covid-19 in the United States looks like that of countries with vastly lower wealth, health-care resources and technological infrastructure.”<br /><br />The key takeaway: “…Future historians will not treat kindly Trump’s efforts to divide (519) and confuse, said James Grossman, executive director of the American Historical Association.<br /><br />“‘You look at the Great Depression and how Roosevelt made a concerted effort to unite the country — the fireside chats, the New Deal. That is the instinctive reaction of almost every president in crisis. Even if you don’t succeed, you try to convince people that they’re all in this together,’ Grossman said. ‘This presidency is the exception and anomaly.’”<br /><br />Dan Primack and Nicholas Johnston of <i>Axios</i> picked up this theme again on <b>Monday, July 20</b>, with “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-america-blew-it-b3d84ea3-78b3-4fe0-8dce-1c4ed0ec0a4c.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosam%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856242000&usg=AFQjCNEygp6Fga46Fto2kfmETGcigeXK0A" href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-america-blew-it-b3d84ea3-78b3-4fe0-8dce-1c4ed0ec0a4c.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">We blew it</span></a>.”<br /><br />Due to the Trump administration’s lack of foresight and execution, test results were taking a week and longer, allowing asymptomatic carriers to continue to transmit the virus (520), and since the U.S. had little contact tracing in place, test results would be late and often not followed up on to the extent they should be (521). Stimulus funds dedicated to K-12 education had been just enough to cover basic costs; the U.S. had yet to pony up anything approaching the amount of money necessary to keep schools safe. Stimulus money to keep millions of Americans afloat was about to run out due to the failure of Trump and his GOP Senate allies to respond to a second stimulus bill passed by the Democratic House on May 15. The Paycheck Protection Program, intended to help small businesses, was also about to run out due to GOP negligence, and the administration still hadn’t even disbursed all of the funds authorized by the original bill.<br /><br />Nowhere were the human consequences of this <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://news.trust.org/item/20200720140811-wyc7i&source=gmail&ust=1603194856242000&usg=AFQjCNHi0x47ZHcypHtvPxaxD1dZDqh7Fw" href="https://news.trust.org/item/20200720140811-wyc7i" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">hyper-partisan stupidity and recklessness</span> </a>more evident than Florida, which had more than 10,000 official infections for the sixth consecutive day, part of a national trend showing that America’s 7-day average had increased for <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/20/covid-live-updates-us/?utm_campaign%3Dwp_post_most%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26wpisrc%3Dnl_most&source=gmail&ust=1603194856242000&usg=AFQjCNHiMsksZVMCWRydLkJMb6G97R-73g" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/20/covid-live-updates-us/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">41 consecutive days</span></a>. (522)<br /><br />Despite the costs of his divisive and dishonest tactics, Trump <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/07/trump-interview-chris-wallace-cognitive-dementia-fox-news.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856242000&usg=AFQjCNG9kQ8sRa3J1Ut_t_6PKlu35M0Ybg" href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/07/trump-interview-chris-wallace-cognitive-dementia-fox-news.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">doubled down on lies and distortions</span></a> in an interview with Fox’s Chris Wallace. In the space of just 40 minutes, Trump made false claims that increased testing explained the rise in cases (523), that the U.S. had “the best testing in the world,” that mail-in voting would “rig” the 2020 election, that the U.S. had the lowest COVID-19 mortality rates in the world (524), that the administration wasn’t trying to discredit Anthony Fauci (see #492), that masks “cause problems,” (525) and that Democrats opposed re-opening schools just to hurt him politically. (526)<br /><br />One of the major impacts of Trump’s months of disinformation was explored on <b>Tuesday, July 21</b>. In “Why masks are (still) politicized in America,” Anna North of <i>Vox</i> examined just how <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.vox.com/2020/7/21/21331310/mask-masks-trump-covid19-rule-georgia-alabama?utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3DSentences%252072120%26utm_content%3DSentences%252072120%2BCID_89812755617cb793e8aecddf38c0f6c0%26utm_source%3Dcm_email%26utm_term%3DHow%2520Trump%2520started%2520the%2520culture%2520war%2520over%2520masks&source=gmail&ust=1603194856242000&usg=AFQjCNG28lcoancfxVsBK2OWeNw6n40Mbw" href="https://www.vox.com/2020/7/21/21331310/mask-masks-trump-covid19-rule-georgia-alabama?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Sentences%2072120&utm_content=Sentences%2072120+CID_89812755617cb793e8aecddf38c0f6c0&utm_source=cm_email&utm_term=How%20Trump%20started%20the%20culture%20war%20over%20masks" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">out of step</span></a> the U.S. was with other developed countries:<br /><br />“More than five months into the <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.vox.com/coronavirus-covid19&source=gmail&ust=1603194856243000&usg=AFQjCNFmseZEDrZ-pWziY1LjRAHBk9MB0A" href="https://www.vox.com/coronavirus-covid19" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Covid-19</span></a> pandemic, the evidence for masks keeps getting stronger.<br /><br />“<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://ftp.iza.org/dp13319.pdf&source=gmail&ust=1603194856243000&usg=AFQjCNE_qWalV8QVhqix4TLgCkjU_muQfw" href="http://ftp.iza.org/dp13319.pdf" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">One study in Germany</span></a> found that mask mandates reduced the growth of infections by about 40 percent. <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2020.00818&source=gmail&ust=1603194856243000&usg=AFQjCNGEBUKY6ddV43Ci_-HGgG4ux39Brg" href="https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2020.00818" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Another</span></a> estimated that mask rules in 15 US states and Washington, DC, may have prevented as many as 230,000 to 450,000 cases.”<br /><br />Despite the obvious public health necessity of wearing a mask, “The words of Trump and other [Republican] public figures appear to be having an impact on the behavior of ordinary people, whose mask-wearing habits break down along party, racial, and gender lines. The result is that one of the cheapest and simplest ways to curb the spread of Covid-19 has been turned into a political football — and it’s costing people their lives.” (527)<br /><br />“…The effects of this politicization can be seen in recent polling on mask use. In a <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/06/23/most-americans-say-they-regularly-wore-a-mask-in-stores-in-the-past-month-fewer-see-others-doing-it/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856243000&usg=AFQjCNGTjEmIXJ_pT25q-Zf1OBaXZmfF3Q" href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/06/23/most-americans-say-they-regularly-wore-a-mask-in-stores-in-the-past-month-fewer-see-others-doing-it/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Pew poll</span></a> conducted June 4 to 10, 76 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters said they wear a mask in stores all or most of the time. Just 53 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning voters said the same. Men are also less likely to prioritize mask-wearing than women — in <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2020/06/25/republicans-democrats-move-even-further-apart-in-coronavirus-concerns/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856243000&usg=AFQjCNGQBfCNdX7itG0L4bWsQ_bJ5nKKXQ" href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2020/06/25/republicans-democrats-move-even-further-apart-in-coronavirus-concerns/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">another Pew poll</span></a>, conducted in mid-June, 42 percent of men said people in their community should wear masks in public places, while 53 percent of women said the same. The disconnect could reflect the fact that more men identify as Republican, as well as the fact that Trump and others have implicitly or explicitly linked <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.vox.com/2020/5/12/21252476/masks-for-coronavirus-trump-pence-honeywell-covid-19&source=gmail&ust=1603194856243000&usg=AFQjCNEK2hYOM760ijcnZ_ODxSer5ZBrAg" href="https://www.vox.com/2020/5/12/21252476/masks-for-coronavirus-trump-pence-honeywell-covid-19" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a refusal to wear a mask</span></a> with toughness and masculinity.<br /><br />“White Americans are also less likely than other racial groups to routinely wear masks, according to the early June Pew data. In that poll, 78 percent of white people said they wear masks in stores at least some of the time, compared with 86 percent of Black respondents, 87 percent of Latinx respondents, and 89 percent of those of Asian descent. While there are many possible reasons for the racial gaps, including party affiliation and the fact that many Black and Latinx communities have been especially hard hit by Covid-19, racist rhetoric by Trump and others may play a role in convincing some white people not to wear masks.”<br /><br />Murtaza Akhter of the University of Arizona College of Medicine summed up just how out of touch anti-maskers were with the rest of the civilized world: “We just really need a cultural shift….This isn’t even a debate in other places.”<br /><br />Due in no small part to self-centered young people and <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/axios-ipsos-coronavirus-index?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosam%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856243000&usg=AFQjCNGQfA9_jK4WoCe9JzOuPPjcrIRK0Q" href="https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/axios-ipsos-coronavirus-index?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">low-information Republicans</span></a> ignoring public health guidelines, the U.S. saw <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-deaths-thousand-may-a10e174a-9cdc-4148-93e1-dfe55c1f03e4.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856243000&usg=AFQjCNE7qNAVgrUIRJOnkYBoKScY_6wuSg" href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-deaths-thousand-may-a10e174a-9cdc-4148-93e1-dfe55c1f03e4.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">over 1,000 reported deaths</span></a> for the first time in nearly two months.<br /><br />As high as the official death and infection totals were, they were a major undercount. Trump’s own CDC estimated that infection rates could be anywhere from <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/cdc-coronavirus-cases-could-be-13-times-higher-5354be41-bc97-43c4-adbf-eab4bb54b14a.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiospm%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856243000&usg=AFQjCNFe3kqlp3--PUkujx6xwICI-cz6sg" href="https://www.axios.com/cdc-coronavirus-cases-could-be-13-times-higher-5354be41-bc97-43c4-adbf-eab4bb54b14a.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiospm&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">six to 24 times higher than reported</span></a>.<br /><br />One of the reasons we didn’t have better data was continued delays in getting test results. As <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://apnews.com/969fbbf44dd2ba1acea130f95b21ef62&source=gmail&ust=1603194856243000&usg=AFQjCNFPc50DC4qrl5llna5DaoMbSmN-XQ" href="https://apnews.com/969fbbf44dd2ba1acea130f95b21ef62" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> on <b>Wednesday, July 22</b>, “Laboratories across the U.S. are buckling under a surge of coronavirus tests, creating long processing delays that experts say are undercutting the pandemic response.<br /><br />“With the U.S. tally of confirmed infections at nearly 4 million Wednesday and new cases surging, the bottlenecks are creating problems for workers kept off the job while awaiting results (528), nursing homes struggling to keep the virus out (529) and for the labs themselves as they deal with a crushing workload.<br /><br />“Some labs are taking weeks to return COVID-19 results, exacerbating fears that people without symptoms could be spreading the virus if they don’t isolate while they wait.<br /><br />Tom Frieden, who had led the CDC under Barack Obama, told reporters “There’s been this obsession with, ‘How many tests are we doing per day?’ but ‘The question is how many tests are being done with results coming back within a day, where the individual tested is promptly isolated and their contacts are promptly warned.’”<br /><br />Public health experts pointed out that “Test results that come back after two or three days are nearly worthless…because by then the window for tracing the person’s contacts to prevent additional infections has essentially closed.”<br /><br />As with the administration’s many other failures, the lack of a national testing program (or sufficient aid to states to run their own tests) was <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/white-neighborhoods-have-more-access-to-covid-19-testing-sites/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856243000&usg=AFQjCNHFL46QVK24giT2wvY-cW5hEeALOA" href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/white-neighborhoods-have-more-access-to-covid-19-testing-sites/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">hitting people of color the hardest</span></a>. According to Soo Rin Kim, Matthew Vann, Laura Bronner and Grace Manthey of <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://538.com&source=gmail&ust=1603194856243000&usg=AFQjCNGP64E4DxLeSkVyJQG-gX1gCsd4eg" href="http://538.com/" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">538.com</a>, “[testing] sites in communities of color in many major cities face higher demand than sites in whiter or wealthier areas in those same cities. The result of this disparity is clear: Black and Hispanic people are more likely to experience longer wait times and understaffed testing centers. (530)<br /><br />“…An assessment of city and state health department websites also revealed, over and over, fewer testing sites in areas primarily inhabited by racial minorities.”<br /><br />People of color were also <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cbpp.org/research/full-employment/the-impact-of-the-covid19-recession-on-the-jobs-and-incomes-of-persons-of&source=gmail&ust=1603194856243000&usg=AFQjCNF0R_AaJUWlee84LaHfKJkZXd6Jxg" href="https://www.cbpp.org/research/full-employment/the-impact-of-the-covid19-recession-on-the-jobs-and-incomes-of-persons-of" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">disproportionately impacted</span></a> by the economic collapse resulting from Trump’s failures to contain the pandemic. The latest jobs numbers were grim. On <b>Thursday, July 23</b>, it came out that <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/23/unemployment-claims-numbers-coronavirus-379729&source=gmail&ust=1603194856243000&usg=AFQjCNF9cL-ixTFPQqSVEs9_-30zd4PQpw" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/23/unemployment-claims-numbers-coronavirus-379729" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">1.4 million new unemployment claims</span></a> had been filed in the prior week, an increase of 100,000 from the week before, bringing the total to <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/07/23/business/stock-market-today-coronavirus&source=gmail&ust=1603194856243000&usg=AFQjCNHEe2RlfwEmDFE3mQ-4FAzeeTnrkw" href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/07/23/business/stock-market-today-coronavirus" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">30 million Americans without work</span></a>. As one example of many, Yelp estimated that “more than half of the restaurants temporarily closed are now <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://mashable.com/article/yelp-restaurants-temporary-permanent-closures/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856243000&usg=AFQjCNGPpIkGy73N6pj7QQ3bk-_NkK7Qxw" href="https://mashable.com/article/yelp-restaurants-temporary-permanent-closures/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">permanently shuttered</span></a>.” (531)<br /><br />Against a backdrop of mass misery, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/22/congress-unemployment-aid-cliff-378871?nname%3Dpolitico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition%26nid%3D00000170-c000-da87-af78-e185fa700000%26nrid%3D00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000%26nlid%3D2670445&source=gmail&ust=1603194856243000&usg=AFQjCNHDg_6JkKr1LuLruIV9yxTGfOfs-A" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/22/congress-unemployment-aid-cliff-378871?nname=politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition&nid=00000170-c000-da87-af78-e185fa700000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=2670445" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the GOP continued to play games with peoples’ lives</span></a>. As reported by Sarah Ferris and Andrew Desiderio, “Tens of millions of unemployed Americans are about to lose their economic lifeline during the worst recession in 80 years, with eviction protections set to expire (see #338) at the same time.” (532)<br /><br />“…Without quick action from Congress, the still-growing ranks of America’s unemployed will receive their final round of an extra $600 benefit within days, with no certainty about when more help might arrive.”<br /><br />The benefits were about to expire because Trump’s key congressional ally, Republican Mitch McConnell, hadn’t bothered to address the issue until more than <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.vox.com/2020/5/15/21258854/house-three-trillion-stimulus-bill&source=gmail&ust=1603194856243000&usg=AFQjCNFgUtLxnpfamuhZHNQx4cdT-tF5Og" href="https://www.vox.com/2020/5/15/21258854/house-three-trillion-stimulus-bill" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">two months</span></a> after House Democrats—who had been thinking ahead—had passed a stimulus bill. Due to McConnell’s delay, even fast-tracked negotiations would leave millions hanging, as states tasked with administering the benefits would take weeks to catch up with the likely changes to federal policy.<br /><br /><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/23/gap-unemployment-heres-why-379267&source=gmail&ust=1603194856243000&usg=AFQjCNHeRtdL1UO15HEeRxuUlQdW0B7jRg" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/23/gap-unemployment-heres-why-379267" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">According to</span></a> the reporters, thanks to the uncertainty caused by McConnell’s delay, “Any changes could create an accounting disaster for the state systems, which are still struggling to keep up as the number of new workers applying for unemployment benefits each week remains at nearly two times the peak seen during the Great Recession.”<br /><br />While Mitch McConnell single-handedly screwed tens of millions of Americans, Ron DeSantis, Republican governor of Florida, proved that he thoroughly deserved the COVID-19 dunce cap. That day, it was reported that Florida had had <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article244430452.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856243000&usg=AFQjCNESCDqWUsoBJDPRQ1loam1NO6ZDCg" href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article244430452.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">173 coronavirus deaths</span></a>, a new record, which amounted to <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://news.yahoo.com/covid-19-death-every-8-044632133.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856243000&usg=AFQjCNFfMBZtkNjrWt0x4FmOnai8B3zeFg" href="https://news.yahoo.com/covid-19-death-every-8-044632133.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">one death every 11 and ½ minutes</span></a>. <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://news.yahoo.com/a-public-health-employee-predicted-floridas-coronavirus-catastrophe-then-she-was-fired-this-is-everything-i-was-trying-to-warn-184810565.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856243000&usg=AFQjCNHYv93rx7RkflDanZKlTJ2mNS5OFw" href="https://news.yahoo.com/a-public-health-employee-predicted-floridas-coronavirus-catastrophe-then-she-was-fired-this-is-everything-i-was-trying-to-warn-184810565.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">DeSantis had been warned</span></a> of the threat of resurgence months earlier by Rebekah Jones (then-manager of Florida’s coronavirus dashboard), but the data she was presenting didn’t align with his Trumpian desire to re-open the economy, so he fired her and had underlings rig the data to undercount deaths and infections once she was gone. DeSantis’s maneuvers were proving shortsighted, and ironically, hurt his mentor; Trump announced that infection rates were so severe in Florida that he would have to <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/23/trump-moves-to-cancel-parts-of-gop-convention-set-for-florida-citing-coronavirus.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856243000&usg=AFQjCNFKXaz4LwNCbJMjJVfPgFMG17aGyA" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/23/trump-moves-to-cancel-parts-of-gop-convention-set-for-florida-citing-coronavirus.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">cancel</span></a> his dreamt-of super-spreader convention.<br /><br />And there weren’t many other spots around the country he could move the event to. Nationwide, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://news.trust.org/item/20200723091312-956hb&source=gmail&ust=1603194856243000&usg=AFQjCNEcDHbnmwP5xLeD7KRIFSEmeldObA" href="https://news.trust.org/item/20200723091312-956hb" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">2,600 new infections</span></a> were being discovered on the hour, “the highest rate in the world.”<br /><br />One thing Trump wouldn’t budge on was his insistence that American children go back to school in the fall so that the severity of the pandemic (and his colossal failures to mitigate it) wouldn’t be quite so obvious in the crucial weeks before the election. Bowing to Trump’s perception of his short-term political interests, the CDC <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/cdc-guidelines-school-reopening-puts-heavy-emphasis-having-students-back-n1234770&source=gmail&ust=1603194856243000&usg=AFQjCNFJAvmXmoxUXEcOLk0QkNZoBjdCRg" href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/cdc-guidelines-school-reopening-puts-heavy-emphasis-having-students-back-n1234770" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">released safety guidelines</span></a> which placed more emphasis on the costs of keeping children out of school than the far grimmer consequences of forcing them into classrooms with insufficient public safety resources. (533)<br /><br />And the truth was that we weren’t prepared. As pointed out by reporters Ryan Heath and Myah Ward, “most schools in most countries are still closed” and the U.S., due to structural factors and infection rates, was <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition&source=gmail&ust=1603194856243000&usg=AFQjCNFYkDRrIZlaTq15gQqd6svECioY0A" href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">unsuited to re-open</span></a>: “the administration is missing key context when it points to European countries with open schools as a model to follow.<br /><br />“A combination of three factors exist in Europe, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.instagram.com/p/CC9mu7gAKEp/?igshid%3Dunhnw4xwmotp&source=gmail&ust=1603194856243000&usg=AFQjCNGkkdLEmqoom7qOga2t1E5Q9E-nNA" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CC9mu7gAKEp/?igshid=unhnw4xwmotp" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">New Zealand</span></a>, Australia and other countries, which enabled them to re-open their schools.<br /><br />1. The virus is under control because of widely adhered nationwide pandemic rules. We’re talking daily deaths in the single digits.<br /><br />2. They have functional safety nets of universal health care and public schools with enough funds to adapt to hybrid learning or other teaching models.<br /><br />3. Teachers unions have typically been involved in planning from the get-go. That’s essential, because teachers are the only viable enforcers of new safety rules.<br /><br />Everywhere else is missing at least one of these ingredients, and in the U.S. all three ingredients are missing in most states and at the federal level.”<br /><br />Most Americans grasped this in part or in whole, but many Republicans, unable to see through Trump's self-serving rhetoric, continued to demonstrate <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://apnews.com/b133f482b2eba88f8bd733e2d15d13ae&source=gmail&ust=1603194856243000&usg=AFQjCNEhM-RZMjwZCx0pP5Ks7cV4pV0srA" href="https://apnews.com/b133f482b2eba88f8bd733e2d15d13ae" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">ignorance of the human stakes</span></a>, as shown in polling done by the AP in conjunction with the NORC Center for Public Affairs. (534)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />Forty-three percent of Republicans felt that K-12 schools could “open as usual” or “open with minor adjustments,” while only six percent of Democrats believed this. Forty-four percent of Democrats said schools should “not open at all,” while only 14% of Republicans felt this way. Nine of ten Democrats knew that re-opening should be contingent on students and teachers wearing masks, while half of Republicans didn’t think masks were necessary. Twice as many Democrats as Republicans understood that “schools should use a mix of in-person and virtual instruction to reduce the number of students in buildings.”<br /><br /><b>Friday, July 24</b>, marked the <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://twitter.com/COVID19Tracking/status/1286793355742126080?s%3D20&source=gmail&ust=1603194856243000&usg=AFQjCNGEqRvK8FPdlCJZbOAyumNUgDE9YQ" href="https://twitter.com/COVID19Tracking/status/1286793355742126080?s=20" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">4th consecutive day</span></a> that the U.S. officially posted over 1,000 deaths from COVID-19. <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html?campaign_id%3D9%26emc%3Dedit_nn_20200724%26instance_id%3D20585%26nl%3Dthe-morning%26regi_id%3D126380121%26segment_id%3D34251%26te%3D1%26user_id%3Dd83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74&source=gmail&ust=1603194856243000&usg=AFQjCNFHG3azdmayuYOgPMgl6dHp-zTQsQ" href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200724&instance_id=20585&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=34251&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Thirty-seven states</span></a> had experienced increases in infections over the prior two weeks and Trump reached his personal milestone of four million infections nationally. <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://twitter.com/mlitwack/status/1286617475765993473/photo/1&source=gmail&ust=1603194856243000&usg=AFQjCNHwa0cp8sF3SMTWOi5dGHNmIKgbPg" href="https://twitter.com/mlitwack/status/1286617475765993473/photo/1" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">A graphic</span></a> flashed on CNN showed that “It took the U.S. a little more than three months to get to 1 million coronavirus cases, then two weeks to add the most recent 1 million.”<br /><br />The rapid increase was coming primarily from Republican-led states whose governors had <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-surveymonkey-republican-governors-75a1f938-754d-4144-a1ba-56d3b1ec891b.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosam%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856243000&usg=AFQjCNGU_ODgfGDRiovHrtVg3LzsANm_YQ" href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-surveymonkey-republican-governors-75a1f938-754d-4144-a1ba-56d3b1ec891b.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">marched in lockstep with Trump's commands</span></a>. Trump allies were encouraging him to <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/24/trump-backers-plead-virus-plan-381316&source=gmail&ust=1603194856243000&usg=AFQjCNHxyk1gy3nMLaS5OLKRlF9YyElrfQ" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/24/trump-backers-plead-virus-plan-381316" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">come up with a national strategy</span></a> to combat COVID-19, but all they were getting was mechanical news conferences and a lot of spin.<br /><br />While Trump was focused on his campaign to the exclusion of all else, small businesses were struggling. According to a survey done by the National Federation of Small Businesses, 45% of the businesses that had gotten loan approval through the $360 billion Economic Injury Disaster Loan program (EIDL) <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.propublica.org/article/thousands-of-small-business-owners-have-not-gotten-disaster-loans-the-government-promised-them?utm_source%3Dsailthru%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dmajorinvestigations%26utm_content%3Driver&source=gmail&ust=1603194856244000&usg=AFQjCNFMnx3Xeg47zxEpWc-ZYBsCwVfP_w" href="https://www.propublica.org/article/thousands-of-small-business-owners-have-not-gotten-disaster-loans-the-government-promised-them?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=majorinvestigations&utm_content=river" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">had yet to receive their money</span></a> from Trump’s Small Business Administration (535). And the $660 billion Payment Protection Program (PPP), established by Congress to prop up small businesses, was running out of money, leading to a wave of closures and an increase in unemployment (536). <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.adn.com/nation-world/2020/07/23/a-band-aid-on-a-bullet-wound-workers-are-getting-laid-off-anew-across-us-as-ppp-program-runs-out/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856244000&usg=AFQjCNH6RJTt1BtXe0ff88MdAcEtq-QlTg" href="https://www.adn.com/nation-world/2020/07/23/a-band-aid-on-a-bullet-wound-workers-are-getting-laid-off-anew-across-us-as-ppp-program-runs-out/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">As detailed</span></a> by Eli Rosenberg of <i>the Washington Post</i>, “A recent report from Goldman Sachs found that only about one in six businesses that received loans said they felt confident they could pay their employees without further assistance.”<br /><br />Western Europe “had used a different model: universal payroll aid that saw governments paying as much as 80 percent of workers' salaries to keep them on payroll for a longer time, which has kept more businesses afloat and less people out of work.”<br /><br />Europe’s success was based not only on the stimulus model they chose, but on their ability to contain the virus so much more effectively than Trump had.<br /><br />Robert Reich, Labor Secretary under Bill Clinton, told <i>the Post</i> that the failure of the PPP to achieve long-term success “basically says the same thing as our outlier status in the numbers of death and infections: We blew it….Other countries managed to both contain the coronavirus after three months, and also keep large numbers of workers on payrolls. We didn't do either.”<br /><br />As much as Trump had screwed things up so far, he was far from finished. Looming on the horizon was potentially the most chaotic and hazardous American election since the Civil War. Garrett Graff <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/07/24/2020-election-disaster-perfect-storm-372778&source=gmail&ust=1603194856244000&usg=AFQjCNGJfsr3CWWaSVVAaWqkO6iBZcT9aQ" href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/07/24/2020-election-disaster-perfect-storm-372778" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">previewed the horror show</span></a> in “8 Big Reasons Election Day 2020 Could Be a Disaster.”<br /><br />Graff went through election highlights from 2020 so far—vote tally failures at the Iowa caucuses, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2020/04/wisconsin-republicans-make-mockery-of.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856244000&usg=AFQjCNHwcUqhs_1l1neLXBr0biie0w_zsA" href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2020/04/wisconsin-republicans-make-mockery-of.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">mass confusion</span></a> in the Wisconsin primary due to GOP lawsuits, the long lines in Georgia—and pointed out that use of the analogy of a perfect storm to describe the upcoming election was misplaced, as just about all of the problems expected in the presidential election could be predicted (and prevented) in advance.<br /><br />The threats to a functional election included the lack of safety for elections workers and Americans who were voting in person, confusion and long lines as a result of the reduction in and relocation of polling places, onerous requirements for the use and validation of absentee ballots, a lack of staff to respond to absentee ballot requests, slow delivery times for the ballots due to the struggles of the U.S. Postal Service, and 50,000 “poll watchers” hired to harass voters, particularly voters of color in inner cities.<br /><br />The common thread in these scenarios was Republican malfeasance or negligence. In order to reduce turnout, Republicans had filed lawsuits across the country to oppose mail-in balloting and force voters to <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/03/trump-2020-election-legal-battle-coronavirus-162152&source=gmail&ust=1603194856244000&usg=AFQjCNHcwLSYNYqSMAOIUWj8mBaHsg4uhQ" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/03/trump-2020-election-legal-battle-coronavirus-162152" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">risk their health</span></a> by voting in person (537). The lack of resources for local elections officials was a result of Senate Republicans <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/senate-stimulus-package-includes-400-million-to-help-run-elections-amid-the-pandemic/2020/03/25/4d0db91e-6ebe-11ea-b148-e4ce3fbd85b5_story.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856244000&usg=AFQjCNEY39liky5mNr_v7x-XTAFcuQwmGA" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/senate-stimulus-package-includes-400-million-to-help-run-elections-amid-the-pandemic/2020/03/25/4d0db91e-6ebe-11ea-b148-e4ce3fbd85b5_story.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">only agreeing to $400 million</span></a> in funding after House Democrats had asked for 9X as much money, then refusing to negotiate in good faith (538). The 50,000 poll watchers were <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/18/us/Voting-republicans-trump.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856244000&usg=AFQjCNFt8wbtDTJX_ZIMAWTqHLx-hCB8hQ" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/18/us/Voting-republicans-trump.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">hired by the GOP</span></a> after harassment of voters was deemed legal by Republican Supreme Court judges who gutted a key section of the Voting Rights Act in the 2013 <i>Shelby County v. Holder</i> decision. The sorry state of the U.S. Postal Service stemmed from years of Republican budget cuts and the actions of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a former Trump donor who was <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://apnews.com/59c25efd4d325c4895f8ba85517f9bfd?utm_source%3DTwitter%26utm_medium%3DAP%26utm_campaign%3DSocialFlow&source=gmail&ust=1603194856244000&usg=AFQjCNHgyNb3yOfB-xn3hU9EfcjMpv9fFw" href="https://apnews.com/59c25efd4d325c4895f8ba85517f9bfd?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=AP&utm_campaign=SocialFlow" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">dismantling the agency</span></a> without regard for how it would <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.marketwatch.com/story/expect-mail-delays-as-trumps-new-postal-service-chief-pushes-cost-cutting-2020-07-15&source=gmail&ust=1603194856244000&usg=AFQjCNFlaUvGM7Vqs-cCtj1T4pjfDErvSw" href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/expect-mail-delays-as-trumps-new-postal-service-chief-pushes-cost-cutting-2020-07-15" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">impact service</span></a> (539).<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Saturday, July 25</b>, the U.S. had <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://abcnews.go.com/US/coronavirus-updates-hundreds-texas-bar-owners-pledge-defiance/story?id%3D71982262&source=gmail&ust=1603194856244000&usg=AFQjCNHO-ifvNnJDvsV4e7KbHgq6MNE5WA" href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/coronavirus-updates-hundreds-texas-bar-owners-pledge-defiance/story?id=71982262" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">over 1,000 official deaths</span></a> for the fifth consecutive day. Hospitals were jammed in Florida and Texas, leading to <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.chron.com/news/article/Houston-Miami-other-cities-face-mounting-health-15433996.php&source=gmail&ust=1603194856244000&usg=AFQjCNE1vQYM3zgUJo1xFnn-hrMh1nthCg" href="https://www.chron.com/news/article/Houston-Miami-other-cities-face-mounting-health-15433996.php" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">shortages</span></a> in key medical staff.<br /><br /><i>The Washington Post</i> had a <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.thehour.com/news/article/Coronavirus-ravaged-Florida-as-Ron-DeSantis-15434450.php&source=gmail&ust=1603194856244000&usg=AFQjCNEjO1XlJeYLSOrW2WWkeU02X3Iz8Q" href="https://www.thehour.com/news/article/Coronavirus-ravaged-Florida-as-Ron-DeSantis-15434450.php" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">lengthy feature</span></a> about the policies of Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida, whose COVID-19 response had been driven by the short-term interests of Donald Trump, with “decision-making…increasingly shaped by politics and divorced from scientific evidence.”<br /><br />Florida had been used by Trump to drive other states off the cliff:<br /><br />“…the crisis in Florida has been particularly acute, infectious-disease specialists say, because politics have dictated the response at crucial junctures - never more so than with the state's reopening, which was cast by the governor as a return to normal rather than as a new and even more precarious phase of the pandemic.<br /><br />“Trump told aides that Florida's early success gave other states a justification to reopen, according to three administration officials. Meanwhile, DeSantis quickly turned presidential rhetoric into gubernatorial orders, all while rejecting measures, including a statewide mask mandate and an extended stay-at-home order, that helped other states contain their outbreaks.”<br /><br />The results were in: “One out of every 52 Floridians has been infected with the virus. The state's intensive care units are being pushed to the brink, with some overcapacity. Florida's unemployment system is overwhelmed and its tourism industry is in shambles.”<br /><br />Asked about DeSantis’s response to the pandemic, a spokesman for Trump told <i>the Post</i> “Ron DeSantis is doing a great job and will go down in history as a great governor of Florida.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />Ron Desantis’s failures of leadership were demonstrated again on <b>Sunday, July 26</b> when <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://news.trust.org/item/20200726135648-ec1xb&source=gmail&ust=1603194856244000&usg=AFQjCNGeVQg9rd77vhAPy4tXkiMFaDk96w" href="https://news.trust.org/item/20200726135648-ec1xb" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Florida passed New York</span></a> for total number of COVID-19 infections, making it second only to California, a state twice its size. Due to Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo’s competent and aggressive response to the coronavirus, New York now had the pandemic <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2020/08/03/gov-andrew-cuomo-touts-new-lows-in-coronavirus-hospitalizations-icu-admittance-and-deaths-the-progress-is-even-better-than-we-expected/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856244000&usg=AFQjCNFgxGkLdSXV0REKVkejkoUnh17LrA" href="https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2020/08/03/gov-andrew-cuomo-touts-new-lows-in-coronavirus-hospitalizations-icu-admittance-and-deaths-the-progress-is-even-better-than-we-expected/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">under control</span></a>. Florida was among the states on <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://coronavirus.health.ny.gov/covid-19-travel-advisory&source=gmail&ust=1603194856244000&usg=AFQjCNGj6pVk996JqCGpPk17LekjmycSng" href="https://coronavirus.health.ny.gov/covid-19-travel-advisory" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">New York’s travel advisory list</span></a>. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />Across the country, the U.S. had over <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/26/health/us-coronavirus-sunday/index.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856244000&usg=AFQjCNFFfPy5qHJa17NjbNcmw6Ff_VL0OA" href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/26/health/us-coronavirus-sunday/index.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">1,000 official deaths for a 4th consecutive day</span></a>, contributing to Trump posting his <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/26/support-for-trumps-coronavirus-strategy-dips-381509&source=gmail&ust=1603194856244000&usg=AFQjCNEFODs_jIHcN9vchZBhqugI7tqE4Q" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/26/support-for-trumps-coronavirus-strategy-dips-381509" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">lowest COVID-19 approval ratings</span></a> to date—32%.<br /><br />On <b>Monday, July 27</b>, Ashley Parker and Philip Rucker of <i>the Washington Post</i> <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.chron.com/news/article/One-question-still-dogs-Trump-Why-not-try-harder-15436174.php&source=gmail&ust=1603194856244000&usg=AFQjCNHX_FdDFI_631_XDrfCZZUi0avSIw" href="https://www.chron.com/news/article/One-question-still-dogs-Trump-Why-not-try-harder-15436174.php" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">asked the obvious question</span></a>. Given that Trump’s election hopes were tied to getting the pandemic under control, or at least <i>appearing</i> to get the pandemic under control, "Why not try harder to solve the coronavirus crisis?”<br /><br />Based on the far lower death and infection rates in the rest of the developed world, the route to success was obvious: channeling America’s vast resources through a coordinated federal response. Yet Trump continued to dither and impose sickness, death, and misery on tens of millions because of his personal shortcomings:<br /><br />“People close to Trump, many speaking anonymously to share candid discussions and impressions, say the president's inability to wholly address the crisis is due to his almost pathological unwillingness to admit error; a positive feedback loop of overly rosy assessments and data from advisers and Fox News; and a penchant for magical thinking that prevented him from fully engaging with the pandemic.” (540)<br /><br />Former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci elaborated further:<br /><br />“‘His operating style is to double- and triple-down on positions and to never, ever admit he's wrong about anything….His 50-year track record is to bulldog through whatever he's doing, whether it's Atlantic City, which was a failure, or the Plaza Hotel, which was a failure, or Eastern Airlines, which was a failure. He can never just say, ‘I got it wrong and let's try over again.’”<br /><br />Trump had shown little concern for the mass suffering he had unleashed until it had impacted Republicans: “In the past couple of weeks, senior advisers began presenting Trump with maps and data showing spikes in coronavirus cases among ‘our people’ in Republican states, a senior administration official said. They also shared projections predicting that virus surges could soon hit politically important states in the Midwest - including Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin.”<br /><br />The results of Trump’s pathologies manifested in <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8564627/New-COVID-19-cases-hit-fresh-highs-DOZEN-states.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856244000&usg=AFQjCNHlCNT5rid6zkdUTdiNxHVJeCWZxg" href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8564627/New-COVID-19-cases-hit-fresh-highs-DOZEN-states.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">over a dozen states</span></a> reporting record numbers of infections, which was taking a toll on small businesses. Already shortchanged by the administration’s slow disbursement of money from the EIDL program (see #535) and indifference to replenishing funds for the Payment Protection Program (see #536), small businesses were “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/small-business-coronavirus-expenses-87b59746-7a44-45e8-b1d9-3c6e56735b1a.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosam%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856244000&usg=AFQjCNEK6lG14uCKVJT9bLEP7jwEIpH3rA" href="https://www.axios.com/small-business-coronavirus-expenses-87b59746-7a44-45e8-b1d9-3c6e56735b1a.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">drowning in</span></a>” expenses tied to COVID-19 safety features that would not be necessary if the coronavirus were under control. (541)<br /><br />But Trump was unwilling to acknowledge the severity of the pandemic. Incredibly, he <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic-07-27-20-intl/h_fe7a6127cb063cdb9414b3fb1d5a0fe7&source=gmail&ust=1603194856244000&usg=AFQjCNElsfvGlArBAVxCzFqG15e_4Hdaow" href="https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic-07-27-20-intl/h_fe7a6127cb063cdb9414b3fb1d5a0fe7" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">advocated that more states re-open</span></a> their economies fully (542) and took to Twitter to share a video from <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.thedailybeast.com/stella-immanuel-trumps-new-covid-doctor-believes-in-alien-dna-demon-sperm-and-hydroxychloroquine&source=gmail&ust=1603194856244000&usg=AFQjCNF20ypbjc9404qYxQGyXSEJSB0rDw" href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/stella-immanuel-trumps-new-covid-doctor-believes-in-alien-dna-demon-sperm-and-hydroxychloroquine" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">right-wing quack doctor</span></a> Stella Immanuel (543), known for pimping hydroxychloroquine, dismissing the irrefutable science behind wearing masks, and other bizarre claims. The video was <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8566907/Donald-Trump-goes-Twitter-binge-retweets-posts-praising-hydroxychloroquine.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856244000&usg=AFQjCNGPtWPOwYP0U9K8otDrcyarG9Awsw" href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8566907/Donald-Trump-goes-Twitter-binge-retweets-posts-praising-hydroxychloroquine.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">removed</span></a> from Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.<br /><br />Grim realities made it all too clear why Trump wanted to hide behind his Twitter account. Despite Trump’s <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/28/world/coronavirus-covid-19.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856244000&usg=AFQjCNHhxKNecLIZ0Cj33so1XnjcgR_wIw" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/28/world/coronavirus-covid-19.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">assertion</span></a> that much of the country was “corona-free,” on <b>Tuesday, July 28</b> it was reported that 21 states (an increase from the week prior) <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/28/world/coronavirus-covid-19.html?campaign_id%3D9%26emc%3Dedit_nn_20200729%26instance_id%3D20734%26nl%3Dthe-morning%26regi_id%3D126380121%26segment_id%3D34620%26te%3D1%26user_id%3Dd83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74%23link-1e0e9a70&source=gmail&ust=1603194856244000&usg=AFQjCNEQ1xcOx-Ux7DcYsJ7EXCnuRgsifw" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/28/world/coronavirus-covid-19.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200729&instance_id=20734&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=34620&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74#link-1e0e9a70" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">were still in the red zone</span></a>, with more than 100 new cases per 100,000 people.<br /><br />Infection spread caused by a premature re-opening of the economy and a lack of federal response was continuing to hamper the economy. <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://apnews.com/f7141aab14400d4fcd7f47a88e3b8e44&source=gmail&ust=1603194856244000&usg=AFQjCNGrlkPGWLPCDlKaXJrVEJWhXh-wmQ" href="https://apnews.com/f7141aab14400d4fcd7f47a88e3b8e44" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Consumer confidence dropped</span></a> even further from the low numbers in June. (544)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />Most of this damage could have been avoided with a competent federal effort. As pointed out in a paper by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, “More than 117,000 Americans had died of COVID-19 by mid-June. If our response had been as effective as Germany’s, estimates show that we would have had only 36,000 COVID-19 deaths in that period in the United States. If our response had been as effective as South Korea, Australia, or Singapore’s, fewer than 2,000 Americans would have died. We <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://uspirg.org/resources/usp/shut-it-down-start-over-do-it-right&source=gmail&ust=1603194856244000&usg=AFQjCNENDaK1_egyMWGlf0-IUiJDvh1rCQ" href="https://uspirg.org/resources/usp/shut-it-down-start-over-do-it-right" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">could have prevented 99%</span></a> of those COVID-19 deaths. But we didn’t.” (see #397)<br /><br />The contrast between the focused pandemic responses overseas and the indifference of the U.S. federal government was highlighted again on <b>Wednesday, July 29</b>, when Trump reached his personal milestone of <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-latest-news-07-29-2020-11596011647&source=gmail&ust=1603194856244000&usg=AFQjCNHbdsE8eqXL4pZF86FLcuvKJqXp4w" href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-latest-news-07-29-2020-11596011647" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">150,000 dead Americans</span></a>. As mind-blowing as the number was, it was <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/01/official-us-coronavirus-death-toll-is-a-substantial-undercount-of-actual-tally-new-yale-study-finds.html%23:~:text%3DAt%2520least%2520127%252C425%2520have%2520died,excess%2520deaths%2520varied%2520by%2520states.&source=gmail&ust=1603194856244000&usg=AFQjCNHAxa_sAjFTr0yk4d7CxYRnVxAYyQ" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/01/official-us-coronavirus-death-toll-is-a-substantial-undercount-of-actual-tally-new-yale-study-finds.html#:~:text=At%20least%20127%2C425%20have%20died,excess%20deaths%20varied%20by%20states." style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a significant undercount</span></a>. Included in this total were <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://twitter.com/COVID19Tracking/status/1288603954985578498?s%3D20&source=gmail&ust=1603194856244000&usg=AFQjCNF_xrXN6r77uN9fadQhYXrWn6y_2Q" href="https://twitter.com/COVID19Tracking/status/1288603954985578498?s=20" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">1,400 deaths that day</span></a>, the most since May.<br /><br />Despite the premature re-opening of the economy, it came out that the second quarter contraction of America’s gross domestic product showed “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/29/trump-v-shape-rebound-gone-387425&source=gmail&ust=1603194856244000&usg=AFQjCNG0NLvCAI0BHALlZE6h4bW2RnMoaA" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/29/trump-v-shape-rebound-gone-387425" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the biggest drop</span></a> in more than seven decades of records.”<br /><br />The combination of the <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/us-is-about-to-unveil-the-ugliest-gdp-report-ever-recorded/ar-BB17jsXO&source=gmail&ust=1603194856244000&usg=AFQjCNEee7igSSuyPB9aNhQY0hCgMFOMEA" href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/us-is-about-to-unveil-the-ugliest-gdp-report-ever-recorded/ar-BB17jsXO" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">worst economy in seven decades</span></a> and the administration’s refusal to increase SNAP benefits (see #289) was leaving the richest country in history “with almost <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.msn.com/en-us/finance/markets/almost-30-million-in-us-didn-e2-80-99t-have-enough-to-eat-last-week/ar-BB17ldBN&source=gmail&ust=1603194856244000&usg=AFQjCNHtks8yh-oRRpkfTAUUYkdl0ig1PQ" href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/finance/markets/almost-30-million-in-us-didn-e2-80-99t-have-enough-to-eat-last-week/ar-BB17ldBN" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">30 million Americans</span></a> reporting that they’d not had enough to eat at some point in the seven days through July 21.”<br /><br />Absent federal action, high levels of food insecurity (see #288, #289, #305, #333, #334, #345, #355, #453) were guaranteed to continue, as roughly <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/07/29/almost-half-of-all-jobs-lost-during-coronavirus-may-be-gone-permanently/112446072/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856244000&usg=AFQjCNGaJNH71S04NKOZQsebA_oFhwu6Bg" href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/07/29/almost-half-of-all-jobs-lost-during-coronavirus-may-be-gone-permanently/112446072/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">half of the jobs</span></a> lost during the pandemic were unlikely to return. (545)<br /><br />The economic devastation was causing a <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://apnews.com/f84604913630146a6e4d174e581ae615&source=gmail&ust=1603194856245000&usg=AFQjCNHm-dxG-IUMETgv6zYCPn2hz58HCA" href="https://apnews.com/f84604913630146a6e4d174e581ae615" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">rise in crime</span></a> around the country (546). Remarkably, though the state of the economy and the rise in crime were directly tied to the administration’s failure to combat COVID-19, Trump tried to <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://apnews.com/344477113461be394548f8ce775313dc&source=gmail&ust=1603194856245000&usg=AFQjCNHzPdLpfQ4EJcn11OkROW4oVKxSew" href="https://apnews.com/344477113461be394548f8ce775313dc" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">scare gullible white people</span></a> into believing that crime would be even worse if Joe Biden were president. Robert Spitzer of the State University of New York College at Cortland told the AP, “Irony is way down the list of things that President Trump worries about.”<br /><br />One of the biggest ironies was that with all of Trump’s concern for the economy, he apparently exerted no pressure on his Republican Senate ally Mitch McConnell to keep federal stimulus flowing to his constituents. On <b>Thursday, July 30</b>, in the midst of an <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/30/weekly-jobless-claims.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856245000&usg=AFQjCNEjRpwpllCNZ_r1fVOvadYIkKtnYA" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/30/weekly-jobless-claims.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">increase in unemployment filings</span></a> to 1.4 million—the 19th straight week with one million or more new filings—all signs showed that $600 of additional weekly unemployment benefits for 30,000,000 Americans and an eviction moratorium protecting the 25-33% of Americans who were short of rent would expire because of <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.salon.com/2020/07/31/republicans-would-rather-destroy-the-country-than-ease-up-on-brutal-class-war/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856245000&usg=AFQjCNELfjqe36J-M0oGflbNgv_T2XrS4A" href="https://www.salon.com/2020/07/31/republicans-would-rather-destroy-the-country-than-ease-up-on-brutal-class-war/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">months of inaction by McConnell</span></a>. (547)<br /><br />Another result of McConnell’s delay was that K-12 schools starting in-person instruction in August <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/30/stimulus-schools-restart-387420&source=gmail&ust=1603194856245000&usg=AFQjCNFRUYUCVg25gEaIFVp8McCQxrAFTA" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/30/stimulus-schools-restart-387420" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">wouldn’t have</span></a> anywhere near the amount of money and resources needed to open safely (548). And federal assistance in the Republican stimulus plan (when or if it was ever acted on) was predicated on school districts maintaining the same level of funding they’d had previously, an impossibility given <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.ncsl.org/research/fiscal-policy/coronavirus-covid-19-state-budget-updates-and-revenue-projections637208306.aspx&source=gmail&ust=1603194856245000&usg=AFQjCNExc_gfNFthir0_VCHeuCkEC_gppw" href="https://www.ncsl.org/research/fiscal-policy/coronavirus-covid-19-state-budget-updates-and-revenue-projections637208306.aspx" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">revenue reductions</span></a> due to the contraction of the economy.<br /><br />Few governors were more gung-ho about <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2020/08/10/in-florida-a-coronavirus-showdown-as-desantis-rejects-tampa-area-schools-plan-1306786&source=gmail&ust=1603194856245000&usg=AFQjCNGbw4qijLdtGGOoYl9GBGz0BIiWEQ" href="https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2020/08/10/in-florida-a-coronavirus-showdown-as-desantis-rejects-tampa-area-schools-plan-1306786" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">marching schoolchildren into the buzz saw</span></a> of the pandemic than Ron DeSantis of Florida, whose state had had a record of <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/florida-reports-217-more-people-have-died-from-covid-19-the-highest-of-pandemic/ar-BB17l3VS&source=gmail&ust=1603194856245000&usg=AFQjCNE5cFRBR5vnR42p5SOB89qgeo_IVQ" href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/florida-reports-217-more-people-have-died-from-covid-19-the-highest-of-pandemic/ar-BB17l3VS" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">217</span></a> official COVID-19 deaths the day prior—the <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://news.trust.org/item/20200730134919-dqydg&source=gmail&ust=1603194856245000&usg=AFQjCNGlxBfoBHpoI_Mm3HuXf8KcLbeHCg" href="https://news.trust.org/item/20200730134919-dqydg" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">third consecutive day</span></a> of record fatalities—and whose ICUs in Miami-Dade County were at <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://news.yahoo.com/miami-dade-ic-us-at-146-percent-capacity-with-coronavirus-patients-151222876.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856245000&usg=AFQjCNHFNibV8vDXsROWuBxqb_vxYt4OcA" href="https://news.yahoo.com/miami-dade-ic-us-at-146-percent-capacity-with-coronavirus-patients-151222876.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">146% of capacity</span></a>.<br /><br />Florida's failures were extreme, but deaths were trending upward across the country. <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://twitter.com/COVID19Tracking/status/1288970515344842753?s%3D20&source=gmail&ust=1603194856245000&usg=AFQjCNGhjN3YaX1_2kizPpjbIKT1hX3bsA" href="https://twitter.com/COVID19Tracking/status/1288970515344842753?s=20" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">1,529 Americans died</span></a> from COVID-19 on Thursday, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://news.trust.org/item/20200730001802-03zgs&source=gmail&ust=1603194856245000&usg=AFQjCNGpO3dDBI8NAED2Q5eFL_ebeq-hPA" href="https://news.trust.org/item/20200730001802-03zgs" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">one every minute</span></a>. Public health guidelines put out by Harvard University’s Global Health Institute and Edmond J. Safra Center recommended that <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://news.yahoo.com/these-are-the-13-states-that-need-to-lock-down-now-according-to-harvard-coronavirus-experts-162201179.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856245000&usg=AFQjCNG23JTKOe_Se-S4gxiBtHMWxFHh5g" href="https://news.yahoo.com/these-are-the-13-states-that-need-to-lock-down-now-according-to-harvard-coronavirus-experts-162201179.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">13 states lock down immediately</span></a>; all but Nevada were red states which had voted for Trump. The institute found that infections in 22 other states were at “dangerous levels” and said that “stay-at-home orders are advised.” (<span style="color: red;">W32</span>)<br /><br />Asked how it was that infections and deaths were so much worse in the United States than in every other developed country, Anthony Fauci said, “Other, certainly Asian countries, and certainly the European Union, when they so-called locked down — shut down, shelter in place, whatever you want to call it — they did it to about 95 percent of their countries….Some countries got hit badly, but once they locked down and turned things around, they came down to a very low baseline — down to tens or hundreds of new cases a day, not thousands. They came down and they stayed down.<br /><br />“Now, in the United States, when we shut down, even though it was a stress and a strain for a lot of people, we only did it to the tune of about 50 percent of the country shutting down….Our curve goes up and starts to come down. But we never came down to a reasonable baseline. We came down to about 20,000 new infections per day, and we stayed at that level for several weeks in a row. Then we started to open up — getting America ‘back to normal’ — and started to see the cases go from 20,000 a day to 30,000, 40,000. We even hit that one point last week of 70,000 new cases a day.”<br /><br />Trump’s response to the crisis of his own making was largely window dressing. As reported by Alayna Treene and Jacob Knutson of <i>Axios</i>, the administration had concocted a P.R.-based “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/trump-ember-strategy-coronavirus-hotspots-bf80b55a-889a-4d61-985c-fae3b57b1a10.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosam%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856245000&usg=AFQjCNHJaAFnWmcKDk2n-YVfHre_4kd4bA" href="https://www.axios.com/trump-ember-strategy-coronavirus-hotspots-bf80b55a-889a-4d61-985c-fae3b57b1a10.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Embers Strategy</span></a>” in which they focused on hot spots (while ignoring infections in the vast majority of the country, 549) and Trump hyped vaccines that wouldn’t arrive until early 2021 under the best-case scenario.<br /><br />The shortcomings of a targeted (as opposed to a comprehensive) federal approach to fighting the pandemic were <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/7/30/21331369/london-breed-coronavirus-covid-san-francisco-california-trump&source=gmail&ust=1603194856245000&usg=AFQjCNGO6rNii8UswHV0aFJBliY9AjMbTw" href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/7/30/21331369/london-breed-coronavirus-covid-san-francisco-california-trump" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reviewed</span></a> by German Lopez of <i>Vox</i> in “San Francisco’s lonely war against Covid-19.”<br /><br />As reported by Lopez, San Francisco had had one of the most aggressive responses to the pandemic in the country. San Francisco mayor London Breed had declared a state of emergency on February 25, the day Trump <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-press-conference-4/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856245000&usg=AFQjCNFntInDgwTvZtzdY9CIYwVOqh6cIg" href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-press-conference-4/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">told reporters</span></a> “You may ask about the coronavirus, which is very well under control in our country. We have very few people with it, and the people that have it are…getting better. They’re all getting better….As far as what we’re doing with the new virus, I think that we’re doing a great job.”<br /><br />The city had closed down even before the state of California, which had been the first state to shut down, and had stayed closed after the state re-opened. Residents had tended to wear masks and follow social distancing guidelines. Relative to other American cities its size, San Francisco had kept infections low, but there was no guarantee this would continue due to the Trump administration’s failure to provide local governments with adequate PPE and testing resources.<br /><br />Grant Colfax, who heads San Francisco’s Department of Public Health, told <i>Vox</i>, “We are not isolated; we are interconnected….The virus exploits that very interconnectedness of our society. Without a consistent, robust, and sustained federal response that is driven by science … eventually things cannot be sustained.”<br /><br />The U.S. could have had a robust and sustained federal response, and had been working on one in March and April, but the effort was aborted for short-sighted political reasons, as revealed in “How Jared Kushner’s Secret Testing Plan ‘Went Poof Into Thin Air,’” <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/07/how-jared-kushners-secret-testing-plan-went-poof-into-thin-air&source=gmail&ust=1603194856245000&usg=AFQjCNGCp1tnNOYrphFoh2pF7aip3x4Weg" href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/07/how-jared-kushners-secret-testing-plan-went-poof-into-thin-air" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a</span> <span style="color: #3d85c6;">blockbuster <i>Vanity Fair</i> piece</span></a> by Katherine Eban. (550)<br /><br />According to Eban, on March 31, the administration secretly acquired one million COVID-19 tests for a task force headed by Jared Kushner, part of “a secret project to devise a comprehensive plan that would have massively ramped up and coordinated testing for COVID-19 at the federal level.”<br /><br />“…Inside the White House, over much of March and early April, Kushner’s handpicked group of young business associates, which included a former college roommate, teamed up with several top experts from the diagnostic-testing industry. Together, they hammered out the outline of a national testing strategy.”<br /><br />“…Rather than have states fight each other for scarce diagnostic tests and limited lab capacity, the plan would have set up a system of national oversight and coordination to surge supplies, allocate test kits, lift regulatory and contractual roadblocks, and establish a widespread virus surveillance system by the fall, to help pinpoint subsequent outbreaks.”<br /><br />“…The plan crafted at the White House, then, set out to connect the dots. Some of those who worked on the plan were told that it would be presented to President Trump and likely announced in the Rose Garden in early April. ‘I was beyond optimistic,’ said one participant. ‘My understanding was that the final document would make its way to the president over that weekend’ and would result in a ‘significant announcement.’”<br /><br />The turning point came when “the effort ran headlong into shifting sentiment at the White House. Trusting his vaunted political instincts, President Trump had been downplaying concerns about the virus and spreading misinformation about it—efforts that were soon amplified by Republican elected officials and right-wing media figures. Worried about the stock market and his reelection prospects, Trump also feared that more testing would only lead to higher case counts and more bad publicity. Meanwhile, Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, was reportedly sharing models with senior staff that optimistically—and erroneously, it would turn out—predicted the virus would soon fade away.<br /><br />“Against that background, the prospect of launching a large-scale national plan was losing favor, said one public health expert in frequent contact with the White House’s official coronavirus task force.<br /><br />“Most troubling of all, perhaps, was a sentiment the expert said a member of Kushner’s team expressed: that because the virus had hit blue states hardest, a national plan was unnecessary and would not make sense politically. ‘The political folks believed that because it was going to be relegated to Democratic states, that they could blame those governors, and that would be an effective political strategy.’”<br /><br />All these months later, as red states were getting hit harder by COVID-19 than blue states, the catastrophic miscalculation couldn’t be more obvious. Dr. Rajiv Shah of the Rockefeller Foundation told <i>Vanity Fair</i>, “We know what has to be done: broad and ubiquitous testing tied to broad and effective contact tracing….It takes about five minutes for anyone to understand that is the only path forward to reopening and recovering.” Without testing and tracing, “Our country is going to be stuck facing a series of rebound epidemics that are highly consequential in a really deleterious way.”<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Friday, July 31</b>, the bills for the administration’s strategy to let blue states suffer came due as it was reported that there had been <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://news.trust.org/item/20200801004545-71yqc&source=gmail&ust=1603194856245000&usg=AFQjCNEOhU0d46mTekELNhD59tVAECRLMQ" href="https://news.trust.org/item/20200801004545-71yqc" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">25,000 COVID-19 deaths</span></a> in July, a record number of monthly infections, and a <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://twitter.com/COVID19Tracking/status/1289327679666188288?s%3D20&source=gmail&ust=1603194856245000&usg=AFQjCNHDDrWI2ZHpgGYtHQeDxxnAhMBT0g" href="https://twitter.com/COVID19Tracking/status/1289327679666188288?s=20" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">record number of hospitalizations</span></a>. Leading the way, as usual, was Florida, with a record <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2020-07-31/florida-daily-coronavirus-death-toll-jumps-40-in-four-days&source=gmail&ust=1603194856245000&usg=AFQjCNFDpEJRgnhexEs2rnBXJahee0gwOQ" href="https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2020-07-31/florida-daily-coronavirus-death-toll-jumps-40-in-four-days" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">257 deaths</span></a> on Friday.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump’s “economic miracle” continued to disintegrate, with economic contraction projected to be <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/newsletters/global-translations/2020/07/31/tanking-economies-tanking-reputations-489936&source=gmail&ust=1603194856245000&usg=AFQjCNH7xnp6PZmYBZMwKxeJ2I6NULsKIA" href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/global-translations/2020/07/31/tanking-economies-tanking-reputations-489936" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">more severe this year than in 1932</span></a>, during the lowest point of the Great Depression. The failures of the administration to control the pandemic had “[wiped] out five years of economic growth,” <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/07/31/nytfrontpage/scannat.pdf&source=gmail&ust=1603194856245000&usg=AFQjCNEN3wI-cXA5PWnv0tRTRp-3XQoikg" href="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/07/31/nytfrontpage/scannat.pdf" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">according to</span></a> <i>the New York Times </i>(551), and Fitch Ratings “revised its outlook on the country’s credit score to negative from stable, citing a “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/united-states-outlook-revised-to-negative-from-stable-by-fitch/ar-BB17qy05&source=gmail&ust=1603194856245000&usg=AFQjCNGF9MkzKxb7H8qApeqw3xIeixmXZQ" href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/united-states-outlook-revised-to-negative-from-stable-by-fitch/ar-BB17qy05" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">deterioration in the U.S. public finances</span></a> and the absence of a credible fiscal consolidation plan.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />Among the many, many victims of the economic collapse were small businesses who were <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/small-business-owners-are-leaning-on-credit-cards-to-survive/ar-BB17q2Mg&source=gmail&ust=1603194856245000&usg=AFQjCNEt34rmQxOmSZsK_UK68V9rRw_u5Q" href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/small-business-owners-are-leaning-on-credit-cards-to-survive/ar-BB17q2Mg" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">running up credit card debt</span></a> just to stay alive (552) and medical non-profits who were <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.statnews.com/2020/07/31/jdrf-medical-nonprofits-pandemic-fundraising/?utm_source%3DSTAT%2BNewsletters%26utm_campaign%3D7a30ec45b3-Daily_Recap%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_term%3D0_8cab1d7961-7a30ec45b3-152815530&source=gmail&ust=1603194856245000&usg=AFQjCNE9zQNsiuPDc8A_lq_wv7Y-6CcPGw" href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/07/31/jdrf-medical-nonprofits-pandemic-fundraising/?utm_source=STAT+Newsletters&utm_campaign=7a30ec45b3-Daily_Recap&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8cab1d7961-7a30ec45b3-152815530" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">in the red</span></a> because donations had slowed down and they were unable to have the fundraisers they normally relied on. (553)<br /><br />Further nightmares were on the horizon. A graphic shared by <i>the New York Times</i> showed that most of the Southern half of the United States—and especially Trump’s bedrock of support, the Deep South—<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/31/us/coronavirus-school-reopening-risk.html?campaign_id%3D9%26emc%3Dedit_nn_20200731%26instance_id%3D20861%26nl%3Dthe-morning%26regi_id%3D126380121%26segment_id%3D34885%26te%3D1%26user_id%3Dd83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74&source=gmail&ust=1603194856245000&usg=AFQjCNEVbgp5rby-v3sVPxEkOmFz9yjOFg" href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/31/us/coronavirus-school-reopening-risk.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200731&instance_id=20861&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=34885&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">wasn’t ready to re-open schools</span></a>, though the traditional start of K-12 classes was just weeks away. And Pilar Melendez of <i>the Daily Beast</i> <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.thedailybeast.com/a-summer-camp-took-almost-every-precaution-the-majority-of-kids-still-got-covid-19&source=gmail&ust=1603194856245000&usg=AFQjCNEFEoH2R4XJI59Pz5r_2lQl7f_Lkw" href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/a-summer-camp-took-almost-every-precaution-the-majority-of-kids-still-got-covid-19" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> on a summer camp in Georgia where “76 percent of campers who were tested came back positive” after just one week, “despite the organizers following most state guidelines set by the governor and the CDC.”<br /><br />Another nightmare-to-come was the November election. Trump <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/31/trump-greatest-election-disaster-2020-389712&source=gmail&ust=1603194856245000&usg=AFQjCNFthzDagfTCurm368oV6huuc73tSQ" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/31/trump-greatest-election-disaster-2020-389712" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">said</span></a> we were facing “the greatest election disaster in history” due to the avalanche of mail-in ballots that would be cast. This was likely true, but the disaster was directly tied to Trump’s policies, from <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/april-may-june-2019/congress-is-sabotaging-your-post-office/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856245000&usg=AFQjCNFyQN7b6xY17s1ycwrpa834pkGGxA" href="https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/april-may-june-2019/congress-is-sabotaging-your-post-office/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">underfunding</span></a> the post office (see #539) to <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/31/us/politics/trump-usps-mail-delays.html?campaign_id%3D9%26emc%3Dedit_nn_20200802%26instance_id%3D20914%26nl%3Dthe-morning%26regi_id%3D126380121%26segment_id%3D35036%26te%3D1%26user_id%3Dd83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74&source=gmail&ust=1603194856245000&usg=AFQjCNGWUdJldwmq_8tF2zymQ0kCByCY4A" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/31/us/politics/trump-usps-mail-delays.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200802&instance_id=20914&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=35036&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">blocking overtime for carriers</span></a> (leading to <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-postoffice/u-s-postal-service-reorganization-sparks-delays-election-questions-idUSKCN258197&source=gmail&ust=1603194856245000&usg=AFQjCNFUK-1VGvZg-yFoFmf-Fbo2fUnyBg" href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-postoffice/u-s-postal-service-reorganization-sparks-delays-election-questions-idUSKCN258197" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">delays</span></a> in service) to failing to fund state and local governments who would be severely short of elections workers due to the reluctance of elderly volunteers to come out in the middle of a pandemic. <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/31/coronavirus-election-worker-shortage-389831?nname%3Dpolitico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition%26nid%3D00000170-c000-da87-af78-e185fa700000%26nrid%3D00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000%26nlid%3D2670445&source=gmail&ust=1603194856246000&usg=AFQjCNH5SQXYhGrLJwGEyitmQcUNxO3wXA" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/31/coronavirus-election-worker-shortage-389831?nname=politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition&nid=00000170-c000-da87-af78-e185fa700000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=2670445" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">A lack of volunteers</span></a>—and a lack of federal aid to make up for those lost volunteers—was certain to lead to the relocation and reduction of polling places, causing chaos and long lines at the polls, particularly in cities, just as Republicans hoped. (554)<br /><br />The folly of sending children back to school prematurely was revealed again on <b>Saturday, August 1</b>. <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/01/us/schools-reopening-indiana-coronavirus.html?campaign_id%3D9%26emc%3Dedit_nn_20200802%26instance_id%3D20914%26nl%3Dthe-morning%26regi_id%3D126380121%26segment_id%3D35036%26te%3D1%26user_id%3Dd83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74&source=gmail&ust=1603194856246000&usg=AFQjCNE_ESvIQV8mXPHgAvT_E6aNTwWmIQ" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/01/us/schools-reopening-indiana-coronavirus.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200802&instance_id=20914&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=35036&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">As reported</span></a> in <i>the New York Times</i>, “Just hours into the first day of classes… a call from the county health department notified Greenfield Central Junior High School in Indiana that a student who had walked the halls and sat in various classrooms had tested positive for the coronavirus.<br /><br />“Administrators began an emergency protocol, isolating the student and ordering everyone who had come into close contact with the person, including other students, to quarantine for 14 days.”<br /><br />A history teacher at Greenfield-Central High School told <i>the Times</i>, “I most definitely felt like we were not ready….Really, our whole state’s not ready. We don’t have the virus under control. It’s just kind of like pretending like it’s not there.”<br /><br />These feelings were mirrored by Jeff Gregorich, a superintendent of public schools in Arizona for 20 years who was <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/08/01/schools-reopening-coronavirus-arizona-superintendent/?arc404%3Dtrue%26utm_content%3Dcon_TzB_Enterprise_ArizonaSuperintendent%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dacquisition%26utm_campaign%3Dpw_acq_con_080520&source=gmail&ust=1603194856246000&usg=AFQjCNHq7FUAstVjwxpzfatEADW9AN7yhw" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/08/01/schools-reopening-coronavirus-arizona-superintendent/?arc404=true&utm_content=con_TzB_Enterprise_ArizonaSuperintendent&utm_medium=email&utm_source=acquisition&utm_campaign=pw_acq_con_080520" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">profiled by Eli Saslow</span></a> for <i>the Washington Post</i>. Gregorich oversees a district where 90% of the children receive free or reduced lunch; in Gregorich’s words, “these kids need every dollar we can get.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />But infection rates in the community, and among staff, were so high that it didn’t make sense to re-open, certainly not when they weren’t being provided the resources to re-open safely—as just one example, Gregorich mentioned having to rely on shower curtains because Plexiglass barriers hadn’t been received. And Arizona’s Republican governor, Trump ally Doug Ducey, had effectively ransomed Arizona’s public schools, telling them they would lose 5% of their funding if they didn’t do in-person learning. As Gregorich told Saslow, “it feels like there’s a gun to my head.” Gregorich desperately wanted to re-open, but it wasn’t safe. Claims to the contrary were “a fantasy.”<br /><br />In effect, Trump’s failure to contain the virus had created <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://apnews.com/1bd44b60f9bb9ea769146c97e5fcd0f1&source=gmail&ust=1603194856246000&usg=AFQjCNGPLMy3P8tYHoQ-9OR_2dCoqV_HLw" href="https://apnews.com/1bd44b60f9bb9ea769146c97e5fcd0f1" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a lose-lose situation</span></a> for parents of school-aged children (555). Keep kids out of school and they would miss out on in-person instruction, school lunches, and other resources, and one of their parents would have to stay home or send them to daycare, draining the family income. Send the kids to school and risk infection and death.<br /><br />As much as many Americans wanted to go back to normal, as much as Trump wanted to pretend that we could go back to normal, the pandemic wasn’t cooperating. Over 450,000 new infections had been reported in the past week and 37 states were projected to see an uptick in deaths. <br /><br />And the spread was all over. Ohio’s Republican governor Mike DeWine told a <i>Washington Post</i> reporter, “There are fewer and fewer places where anybody can assume the virus is not there….It's in our most rural counties. It's in our smallest communities. And we just have to assume <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.expressnews.com/news/article/Coronavirus-threat-rises-across-U-S-We-just-15451292.php&source=gmail&ust=1603194856246000&usg=AFQjCNGEgbiK3SryItIYXrqGsKDcllR1HA" href="https://www.expressnews.com/news/article/Coronavirus-threat-rises-across-U-S-We-just-15451292.php" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the monster is everywhere</span></a>.”<br /><br /><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.aamc.org/covidroadmap&source=gmail&ust=1603194856246000&usg=AFQjCNH8vcJyox1Ln8Kns6OeQuvA6YcRgA" href="https://www.aamc.org/covidroadmap" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">A report</span></a> from the Association of American Medical Colleges said that “If the nation does not change its course - and soon - deaths in the United States could be well into the multiple hundreds of thousands.” (<span style="color: red;">W33</span>)<br /><br />On <b>Sunday, August 2</b>, it was <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/state-coronavirus-infection-records-dacd090e-3fa3-4e1b-9aa7-76e1a2690418.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosvitals%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856246000&usg=AFQjCNH3ffAz3RKoGypG_dU_F43iePpAJg" href="https://www.axios.com/state-coronavirus-infection-records-dacd090e-3fa3-4e1b-9aa7-76e1a2690418.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that nine states had seen record single-day infection records in the week that ended on July 31.<br /><br />Following in the footsteps of their Republican brethren in Texas and Arizona, who had relied on Donald Trump for public safety guidance, morgues in beet-red Mississippi were at capacity, forcing the state to utilize public refrigeration units (556). Other than Arizona, Mississippi had the highest per capita COVID-19 death rate in the country. Due to a woeful lack of resources in Mississippi—“just <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.thedailybeast.com/amid-a-mississippi-coronavirus-surge-morgues-are-overflowing-and-coroners-are-scared&source=gmail&ust=1603194856246000&usg=AFQjCNGLJ0t_1UQvu6YYxFF7WHkhnjgq3w" href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/amid-a-mississippi-coronavirus-surge-morgues-are-overflowing-and-coroners-are-scared" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">two medical examiners</span></a> and a single tech statewide”—coroners would be certain to miss COVID-related causes of death among many of the deceased.<br /><br />In the middle of a pandemic that had exploded because of the administration’s push to re-open the economy prematurely, Trump’s economic advisor Stephen Moore again put short-term economic growth and political considerations over public safety, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/510131-trump-economist-calls-for-no-more-lockdowns-no-more-shutting-down&source=gmail&ust=1603194856246000&usg=AFQjCNGvtGZZozIJhPmiY7LrkCzKb5YTqA" href="https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/510131-trump-economist-calls-for-no-more-lockdowns-no-more-shutting-down" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">telling a radio interviewer</span></a>, “We’ve got to get America back up and running….No more lockdowns. No more shutting down businesses.” (557)<br /><br />Among the consequences of the administration’s focus on short-term economic growth at the expense of public health was an increase in psychiatric disorders. As reported on <b>Monday, August 3</b>, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://news.trust.org/item/20200803145104-mqgw9&source=gmail&ust=1603194856246000&usg=AFQjCNFHj7aeguH13MK_G4yqMu2jVrlURQ" href="https://news.trust.org/item/20200803145104-mqgw9" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a study</span></a> done in Italy showed that “COVID-19 survivors suffer higher rates of psychiatric disorders including post-traumatic stress (PTSD), anxiety, insomnia and depression.” The numbers were grim: “physicians found PTSD in 28% of cases, depression in 31%, anxiety in 42% of patients and insomnia in 40%, and finally obsessive-compulsive symptoms in 20%.” (558-562)<br /><br />Stress and anxiety were rational responses to a pandemic that continued to rage. Even Trump toady Deborah Birx <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/02/politics/birx-coronavirus-new-phase-cnntv/index.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856246000&usg=AFQjCNFLrYZrjquq7LOTmE-cDSlPUHn6wQ" href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/02/politics/birx-coronavirus-new-phase-cnntv/index.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">told CNN</span></a> that “What we are seeing today is different from March and April….It is extraordinarily widespread. It's into the rural as equal urban areas.”<br /><br />On cue, Trump took to Twitter to <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-criticizes-health-adviser-deborah-birx-after-her-coronavirus-warning-11596469424&source=gmail&ust=1603194856246000&usg=AFQjCNH_A1ApQHlhsbXA3QkHAQLDCAnOeg" href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-criticizes-health-adviser-deborah-birx-after-her-coronavirus-warning-11596469424" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">deride Birx for her flash of honesty</span></a>, but his craven lies (563) and distortions were no match for reality. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the dollar had lost <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.msn.com/en-us/finance/markets/dollar-e2-80-99s-slide-is-a-warning-that-us-has-lost-grip-on-virus/ar-BB17uloo&source=gmail&ust=1603194856246000&usg=AFQjCNHPD1PLUg-J1C9XozsZCV6M1cyteQ" href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/finance/markets/dollar-e2-80-99s-slide-is-a-warning-that-us-has-lost-grip-on-virus/ar-BB17uloo" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">10% of its value</span></a> (564) and Trump’s premature re-opening had only led to more infections, which was causing the economy to stall. Neel Kashkari, a self-described “free-market Republican” and president of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank, penned a <i>New York Times</i> op-ed which said that the only way to revamp the economy, long term, was to do what public health officials had long advocated: <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/07/opinion/coronavirus-lockdown-unemployment-death.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856246000&usg=AFQjCNF0kFZRcybtFZItEcQoq-rYqSI1Tg" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/07/opinion/coronavirus-lockdown-unemployment-death.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">shut the economy down</span></a> until the virus was under control. (<span style="color: red;">W34</span>)<br /><br />Trump had no interest in long-term thinking. As reported by Alice Miranda Ollstein, Trump reauthorized money for the National Guard to assist states with COVID-19 responses, but he <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/03/trump-national-guard-coronavirus-mission-391085&source=gmail&ust=1603194856246000&usg=AFQjCNGXCiPW9cwOUvlLFL6adUwoO-28Fw" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/03/trump-national-guard-coronavirus-mission-391085" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">slashed aid by 25%</span></a>, creating reductions in funding for “running testing sites, assisting with contact tracing, building field hospitals, sanitizing nursing homes and stocking food banks as the virus surges across more states.” (565)<br /><br />Though Trump shortchanged 48 states of badly-needed assistance, he left full funding in place for his <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/04/trump-texas-florida-national-guard-funds-391535&source=gmail&ust=1603194856246000&usg=AFQjCNEMPe6JcOzc0LpZchh5W6ptQfowWg" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/04/trump-texas-florida-national-guard-funds-391535" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">political allies in Texas and Florida</span></a>. The director of the Democratic Governors Association, Noam Lee, told <i>Politico</i>, “While the coronavirus doesn't discriminate between ‘red’ states or ‘blue’ states, it is disturbingly clear that our president does.”<br /><br />Trump’s soft spot for Florida came up again on <b>Tuesday, August 4</b>.<br /><br />Though Trump (<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/06/every-trump-ally-who-has-voted-by-mail-list.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856246000&usg=AFQjCNHikUtIlW0Jnt3a4n4JC__cRQwwmQ" href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/06/every-trump-ally-who-has-voted-by-mail-list.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">who votes by mail</span></a>) had spent months attacking mail voting, months suing to force Americans to vote in person during a pandemic, and was doing everything in his power to ensure that the U.S. Postal Service would fail to get ballots out to constituents or return them in time to be counted, on Tuesday he tweeted “Whether you call it Vote by Mail or Absentee Voting, in Florida the election system is Safe and Secure, Tried and True.” There was no concrete evidence that Florida’s system was safer than any other, but the president and his political hacks were concerned that his months of attacks on voting by mail had created a <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://apnews.com/19ade6dafb5b6f82f324e4be9b12a7a0&source=gmail&ust=1603194856246000&usg=AFQjCNGFlQcGGjeACpj_pO3ijDszPLrHcA" href="https://apnews.com/19ade6dafb5b6f82f324e4be9b12a7a0" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">big disparity</span></a> in absentee ballot requests in Florida: Democrats had requested 1.9 million ballots, while Republicans had requested just 1.3 million ballots.<br /><br />The incident showed how gullible many of Trump’s followers were and are, both how <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/05/voting-by-mail-elections-poll-391318&source=gmail&ust=1603194856246000&usg=AFQjCNHo7PwwvtZBIMpFd4ytyKJagdwGWg" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/05/voting-by-mail-elections-poll-391318" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">willing they were to believe</span></a> Trump's baseless claims that mail balloting was somehow corrupt and that voting in person during a pandemic was perfectly safe (566). This bedrock ignorance (see #145, #204, #283, #307, #313, #s 319-323. #325, #330, #339, #347, #387, #440, #452, #534) and the denial of most Republican voters about the extent of the coronavirus and Trump's role in it were also reflected in <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://apnews.com/4d27d2b01e6e4bb3c9dd2050e5afd70e&source=gmail&ust=1603194856246000&usg=AFQjCNHmAuO-FOUoNlqHQuyq86O7IbmyQQ" href="https://apnews.com/4d27d2b01e6e4bb3c9dd2050e5afd70e" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a study</span></a> done by Gallup and the Knight Foundation which found that Trump had succeeded in making the mere act of reporting the news hyper-partisan.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />According to the study, “71% of Republicans have a ‘very’ or ‘somewhat’ unfavorable opinion of the news media, while 22% of Democrats feel the same way.” The distrust of the media was rooted in conservatives’ belief that a president who had lied <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/07/13/president-trump-has-made-more-than-20000-false-or-misleading-claims/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856246000&usg=AFQjCNFuIeLh_8ItwcSTXkM1CkHbT32h_Q" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/07/13/president-trump-has-made-more-than-20000-false-or-misleading-claims/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">over 20,000 times</span></a> was more trustworthy than a press corps that is consistently adversarial to presidents of both parties. It manifested in tens of millions of conservatives flouting public safety measures and helping the virus spread several months after the dangers of transmission had been obvious. (567) </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />Emboldened by the fact that his base never held him accountable, Trump made a number of misstatements in <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.mediaite.com/tv/you-cant-do-that-watch-the-most-stunning-exchanges-from-president-trumps-interview-with-axios-jonathan-swan/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856246000&usg=AFQjCNGgn2TWyYTmXuxdm-vIgt7t9LONKg" href="https://www.mediaite.com/tv/you-cant-do-that-watch-the-most-stunning-exchanges-from-president-trumps-interview-with-axios-jonathan-swan/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">an interview</span></a> with Jonathan Swan of <i>Axios</i>. Asked about the wisdom of having held his super-spreader rally in Tulsa during a spike in cases there (see #373), a rally which was “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/08/us/politics/coronavirus-tulsa-trump-rally.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856246000&usg=AFQjCNGSXV_sgJ6R8VkVOp-zb8PesIqSKw" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/08/us/politics/coronavirus-tulsa-trump-rally.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">likely</span></a>” shown to have made community spread worse in the area, Trump bragged about the ratings the rally produced at Fox. Asked when Americans could have testing with same-day results, as he had promised, Trump said, “there are those that say you can test too much. You do know that.” (568) Asked about the state of the pandemic in the U.S., Trump said it was under control; when Swan pointed out that over a thousand Americans were dying daily, Trump said, “They are dying, that’s true, it is what it is.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />In the real world, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://twitter.com/zubakskees/status/1290664357123194885?s%3D20&source=gmail&ust=1603194856246000&usg=AFQjCNHnMDgfnnlaS0n3Q9EAYYjVZPwOOA" href="https://twitter.com/zubakskees/status/1290664357123194885?s=20" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">23 states</span></a> (18 of which had supported Trump in 2016) were in the red zone, Americans were being hit with the <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/personalfinance/for-the-unemployed-rising-grocery-prices-stretch-budgets-even-more/ar-BB17z6H8&source=gmail&ust=1603194856246000&usg=AFQjCNElpBR3JQx1IIbIYx2w7461LC1u0w" href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/personalfinance/for-the-unemployed-rising-grocery-prices-stretch-budgets-even-more/ar-BB17z6H8" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">steepest increase</span></a> in grocery prices in decades (see #345), millions of low-income Americans were <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/low-income-families-energy-bills-pandemic-8f6dbddf-26c6-4fb7-9807-50b91440c76f.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axioscities%26stream%3Dcities&source=gmail&ust=1603194856246000&usg=AFQjCNFVAqUBSyKwrR6SEF2UU4B3pV2SOQ" href="https://www.axios.com/low-income-families-energy-bills-pandemic-8f6dbddf-26c6-4fb7-9807-50b91440c76f.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axioscities&stream=cities" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">unable to pay their energy bills</span></a> (569), 40% of Americans were <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/census-americans-delayed-medical-care-coronavirus-99913086-58d5-4200-9fc3-6fab08030aba.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856246000&usg=AFQjCNEPY2N9PT5Ml-E2eS_uf3RCmZomrQ" href="https://www.axios.com/census-americans-delayed-medical-care-coronavirus-99913086-58d5-4200-9fc3-6fab08030aba.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">delaying medical care</span></a>, and <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.propublica.org/article/nobody-accurately-tracks-health-care-workers-lost-to-covid-19-so-she-stays-up-at-night-cataloging-the-dead?utm_source%3Dsailthru%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dmajorinvestigations%26utm_content%3Dfeature&source=gmail&ust=1603194856246000&usg=AFQjCNHy5n7W2KR1BrXzqM2LKXX2XY5s7Q" href="https://www.propublica.org/article/nobody-accurately-tracks-health-care-workers-lost-to-covid-19-so-she-stays-up-at-night-cataloging-the-dead?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=majorinvestigations&utm_content=feature" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">200,000 or more medical workers</span></a>—including one of every four nursing home employees—had contracted the virus because of Trump’s failure to get a handle on the pandemic. (570)<br /><br />As much damage as he had already inflicted on his constituents, Trump was far from done. His desire to force schools open (so the extent of the pandemic wasn’t so obvious during the crucial final two months of the election) received a failing grade when Gwinnett County Public Schools in Georgia <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/08/04/school-outbreaks-reopening-georgia/?utm_campaign%3Dwp_post_most%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26wpisrc%3Dnl_most&source=gmail&ust=1603194856246000&usg=AFQjCNHvoSOuSh-jfiyfHpOYM2KhBMl6aQ" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/08/04/school-outbreaks-reopening-georgia/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">sent 260 employees home</span></a> in the first week because they had tested positive for COVID-19 or been exposed to someone who had.<br /><br />As <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/children-coronavirus-community-spread-ec749389-9873-4a95-9ab1-de87c3c0cd98.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosvitals%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856246000&usg=AFQjCNHYiw_DcUev9_0We3rLXUsK1ZLoVg" href="https://www.axios.com/children-coronavirus-community-spread-ec749389-9873-4a95-9ab1-de87c3c0cd98.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> by Caitlin Owens at <i>Axios</i>, “The more we learn about kids and the coronavirus, the riskier reopening schools for in-person learning appears to be, at least in areas with high caseloads,” which is why Deborah Birx herself <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/08/04/daily-202-birx-argues-privately-against-trumps-push-reopening-schools-major-coronavirus-flashpoint/?utm_campaign%3Dwp_post_most%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26wpisrc%3Dnl_most&source=gmail&ust=1603194856246000&usg=AFQjCNGuPANlbDYZR8msHVhoZBnUHtBalw" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/08/04/daily-202-birx-argues-privately-against-trumps-push-reopening-schools-major-coronavirus-flashpoint/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">had advocated</span></a> for online education in communities with a “high caseload and active community spread.”<br /><br />Trump <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/510246-trump-criticizes-birx-over-pelosi-covid-19-remarks-pathetic&source=gmail&ust=1603194856246000&usg=AFQjCNF8fe8kbEb435OxKG5A68fWHc_ICA" href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/510246-trump-criticizes-birx-over-pelosi-covid-19-remarks-pathetic" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">referred</span></a> to Birx’s comments as “pathetic” and continued to double down on dangerous lies. On <b>Wednesday, August 5</b>, the Trump campaign posted claims that children were “virtually immune” to the coronavirus on Facebook and Twitter. Both posts were considered <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/05/facebook-removes-trump-post-for-spreading-misinformation-on-coronavirus-392014&source=gmail&ust=1603194856247000&usg=AFQjCNFIFlVh7zt-jlXUYlNoj4ZNWAcLvw" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/05/facebook-removes-trump-post-for-spreading-misinformation-on-coronavirus-392014" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">misinformation</span></a> and forced down. (571)<br /><br />That same day, Trump praised Arizona’s response to COVID-19 as <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/05/trump-arizona-coronavirus-doug-ducey-392019&source=gmail&ust=1603194856247000&usg=AFQjCNHoRgGO8LDipJCuBKHISuhX2zI3dw" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/05/trump-arizona-coronavirus-doug-ducey-392019" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a “model” approach</span></a> though Arizona had “the fifth-highest number of current hospitalizations in the country, the fifth-highest number of new cases in the last week, and the fifth-highest rate of tests that come back positive” and a “positivity rate of about 18 percent — far higher than the 5 percent that the CDC says indicates sufficient testing and control of the virus.” (572)<br /><br />Trump also <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-says-surging-virus-e2-80-98will-go-away-like-things-go-away-e2-80-99/ar-BB17BcbL&source=gmail&ust=1603194856247000&usg=AFQjCNEa__L_331fKN7iUba0GSxREvpePQ" href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-says-surging-virus-e2-80-98will-go-away-like-things-go-away-e2-80-99/ar-BB17BcbL" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">told Fox News</span></a> that the U.S. was in “very good shape” and that “This thing’s going away. It will go away like things go away.” (573)<br /><br />One state where COVID-19 wasn’t going away was Florida, which officially passed <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/96dd742462124fa0b38ddedb9b25e429?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosvitals%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856247000&usg=AFQjCNHO2Jm02CM6yHg60hvlXzKmgZAHVQ" href="https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/96dd742462124fa0b38ddedb9b25e429?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">half a million infections</span></a>, more than any developed country outside the U.S. Elderly nursing home residents were <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.wsj.com/articles/floridas-elder-care-facilities-buckle-as-virus-deaths-climb-11596628812&source=gmail&ust=1603194856247000&usg=AFQjCNHqEGHC-LRjGfDVnJSdD3419_ZAIA" href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/floridas-elder-care-facilities-buckle-as-virus-deaths-climb-11596628812" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">hit especially hard</span></a>.<br /><br />Republican stonewalling on the stimulus negotiations figured prominently in news coverage on <b>Thursday, August 6</b>.<br /><br />Having ignored the House Democrats’ stimulus bill from its passage on May 15 until well into July, thereby intentionally missing the deadlines for both the eviction moratorium and the expiration of additional unemployment benefits (574), Republicans were now severely low-balling necessary funding.<br /><br /><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook/2020/08/05/you-admit-you-dont-know-what-youre-talking-about-489987&source=gmail&ust=1603194856247000&usg=AFQjCNGYISncWeVYlaUiqADS27d61p4UZw" href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook/2020/08/05/you-admit-you-dont-know-what-youre-talking-about-489987" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Sticking points</span></a> included aid for strapped cities and states, money for the struggling U.S. Postal Service, funding for childcare, and a resumption of enhanced unemployment benefits that had died as a result of Republican inaction. In all instances, Republicans were far less generous than Democrats to Americans in need, even as the figures being discussed were a fraction of the two trillion-dollar tax cut (<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/12/18/16791174/republican-tax-bill-congress-conference-tax-policy-center&source=gmail&ust=1603194856247000&usg=AFQjCNFk_dJxXLO3sSv0_GPPoYRkZjZpNg" href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/12/18/16791174/republican-tax-bill-congress-conference-tax-policy-center" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">which went overwhelmingly to millionaires</span></a>) Republicans had passed two years earlier on <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/republicans-pass-historic-tax-cuts-without-a-single-democratic-vote-1515110718-8cdf005c-c1c9-481a-975b-72336765ebe4.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856247000&usg=AFQjCNGGePNlemsaDJNIYRLg5kthpFh0tw" href="https://www.axios.com/republicans-pass-historic-tax-cuts-without-a-single-democratic-vote-1515110718-8cdf005c-c1c9-481a-975b-72336765ebe4.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a party-line vote</span></a>.<br /><br /><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/06/trump-economic-recovery-election-392497?nname%3Dpolitico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition%26nid%3D00000170-c000-da87-af78-e185fa700000%26nrid%3D00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000%26nlid%3D2670445&source=gmail&ust=1603194856247000&usg=AFQjCNGgZMCXSvEp2lYYN1LPPDxSQuh9EQ" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/06/trump-economic-recovery-election-392497?nname=politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition&nid=00000170-c000-da87-af78-e185fa700000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=2670445" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Economic numbers</span></a> only magnified the GOP’s moral leprosy in shortchanging their constituents during a time of national desperation. More than a million Americans had filed new unemployment claims for 20 straight weeks. Thirty-two million Americans were receiving either state or federal unemployment, an increase of eleven million from pre-pandemic levels. Several million Americans’ jobs had simply vanished, never to return; a study in May projected that <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/06/coronavirus-permanent-unemployment-392022&source=gmail&ust=1603194856247000&usg=AFQjCNGd1lt96FukI-sgMT34nzxxg3nV0w" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/06/coronavirus-permanent-unemployment-392022" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">42% of the jobs lost would be gone permanently</span></a>. Just 167,000 new jobs had been created in July, a fraction of the expected rebound, and the U.S. leapt ahead of 25 other countries in the annual <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.bloombergquint.com/global-economics/misery-ranking-will-show-u-s-getting-worse-versus-rest-of-world&source=gmail&ust=1603194856247000&usg=AFQjCNH5EwIoSpm_YUgkOS5zYLqstd-kew" href="https://www.bloombergquint.com/global-economics/misery-ranking-will-show-u-s-getting-worse-versus-rest-of-world" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Bloomberg Misery Index</span></a>.<br /><br />Mark Zandi, an economist for Moody’s Analytics, told <i>Politico</i>, “The economy has largely gone sideways since mid-June, as the re-intensification of the virus has forced about half the nation’s states to either backtrack or pause their business re-openings….It is critical that lawmakers agree to another substantial fiscal rescue package before Congress goes away on its August recess for the fragile economy to avoid backsliding into recession.”<br /><br />Unlikely to help the sluggish economy was news that the U.S. had recorded <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.barrons.com/news/us-tops-2-000-deaths-in-24-hours-for-first-time-in-three-months-johns-hopkins-01596761106?tesla%3Dy&source=gmail&ust=1603194856247000&usg=AFQjCNHjVidtvPZ1by_zn9BAHxyAOlR1dw" href="https://www.barrons.com/news/us-tops-2-000-deaths-in-24-hours-for-first-time-in-three-months-johns-hopkins-01596761106?tesla=y" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">over 2,000 deaths</span></a> in a day for the first time since May 7. As high as these numbers were, as always, they were an undercount. Data was poor due to state systems being overwhelmed, a lack of consistency in how the data was collected and reported among states and local governments, insufficient testing and contact tracing, slow test results, and the Trump administration’s decision to hide the data from the public (see #493-497).<br /><br />The lack of accurate real-time data was robbing public health officials, schools, and businesses of the information they needed to drive sound policy and contain the virus. <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2020/8/5/21351766/covid-19-testing-tracking-hospitalizations-schools-reopening&source=gmail&ust=1603194856247000&usg=AFQjCNGUleTJGIregdyYPQ9oO168HT06Vg" href="https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2020/8/5/21351766/covid-19-testing-tracking-hospitalizations-schools-reopening" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">As reported</span></a> by Brian Resnick of <i>Vox</i>, “The best data we have on community spread of Covid-19 is weeks out of date when it arrives. And schools won’t necessarily be able to monitor the consequences of their decisions in real time. With a virus capable of exponential growth, these lags in data can result in catastrophe.” (575)<br /><br />The lags in test data were one of the many factors looked at in a <i>New York Times</i> deep dive by David Leonhardt titled “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.boston.com/news/coronavirus/2020/08/07/the-unique-u-s-failure-to-control-the-virus&source=gmail&ust=1603194856247000&usg=AFQjCNGg5SrHjH3O1n-LjlMms404a4Gr6w" href="https://www.boston.com/news/coronavirus/2020/08/07/the-unique-u-s-failure-to-control-the-virus" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">The Unique U.S. Failure to Control the Virus</span></a>.” Drawing on a trove of data, Leonhardt explored why it was that the U.S. was “the only affluent nation to have suffered a severe, sustained outbreak for more than four months.”<br /><br />The contrasts to the rest of the developed world were startling: “Over the past month, about 1.9 million Americans have tested positive for the virus…That’s more than five times as many as in all of Europe, Canada, Japan, South Korea and Australia, combined.” Spain’s 50,000 new infections were high by European standards, yet Florida—with half of Spain’s population—had had 300,000 infections in the same time frame.<br /><br />Despite America’s vast resources, “When it comes to the virus, the United States has come to resemble not the wealthy and powerful countries to which it is often compared but instead far poorer countries, like Brazil, Peru and South Africa, or those with large migrant populations, like Bahrain and Oman.” (576)<br /><br />America’s failures were due in part to a national emphasis on individualism and libertarian economic philosophies, the former leading to millions unwilling to follow public health guidelines, the latter allowing for a healthcare system that often fails people on the lower rungs of the economic ladder, particularly people of color who are impacted by COVID-19 at <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/covid-19-crisis-continues-have-uneven-economic-impact-race-and-ethnicity&source=gmail&ust=1603194856247000&usg=AFQjCNHcLj6qsr5FbfZmQwJ6HXc_83W15A" href="https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/covid-19-crisis-continues-have-uneven-economic-impact-race-and-ethnicity" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">inordinate rates</span></a>.<br /><br />But the main reason the U.S. had vastly more deaths and infections than every other developed country was Donald Trump’s failures of leadership (see #1-#576): “In no other high-income country — and in only a few countries, period — have political leaders departed from expert advice as frequently and significantly as the Trump administration. President Trump has said the virus was not serious; predicted it would disappear; spent weeks questioning the need for masks; encouraged states to reopen even with large and growing caseloads; and promoted medical disinformation.”<br /><br />Trump’s tack had been mimicked by many of his Republican political allies around the country, with devastating results, and the U.S. had never had a federal plan to clean up the mess. Caitlin Rivers of the John Hopkins Center for Health Security told <i>the Times</i>, “In many of the countries that have been very successful they had a much crisper strategic direction and really had a vision….I’m not sure we ever really had a plan or a strategy.”<br /><br />The numbers told the story: “the American death toll is of a different order of magnitude than in most other countries. With only 4 percent of the world’s population, the United States has accounted for 22 percent of coronavirus deaths. Canada, a rich country that neighbors the United States, has a per capita death rate about half as large. And these gaps may worsen in coming weeks, given the lag between new cases and deaths.”<br /><br />Not only were deaths significantly higher in the U.S., but “the normal activities of life — family visits, social gatherings, restaurant meals, sporting events — may be more difficult in the United States than in any other affluent country” (577) and the U.S. had vastly more COVID-19 survivors, leading to millions who would be subject to a whole host of physiological problems (<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/07/brain-fog-heart-damage-covid-19-s-lingering-problems-alarm-scientists&source=gmail&ust=1603194856247000&usg=AFQjCNEk-BvdXL_D4FW4BX8fPurTJWOT-Q" href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/07/brain-fog-heart-damage-covid-19-s-lingering-problems-alarm-scientists" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">heart damage</span></a>, kidney damage, lung scarring, blood clots, strokes, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/07/health/chronic-fatigue-syndrome-covid-19-survivors-wellness/index.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856247000&usg=AFQjCNFM3K-W9TQ9A4y60fkN6JtOUSQhMQ" href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/07/health/chronic-fatigue-syndrome-covid-19-survivors-wellness/index.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">chronic fatigue</span></a>, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://news.yahoo.com/freaking-covid-19-survivors-hair-153850699.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856247000&usg=AFQjCNHAtTfT4Vt4oNCokclfAQi05DrLCg" href="https://news.yahoo.com/freaking-covid-19-survivors-hair-153850699.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">hair loss</span></a>) and <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.statnews.com/2020/08/12/after-covid19-mental-neurological-effects-smolder/?utm_source%3DSTAT%2BNewsletters%26utm_campaign%3D7cc248a320-Daily_Recap%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_term%3D0_8cab1d7961-7cc248a320-152815530&source=gmail&ust=1603194856247000&usg=AFQjCNGSUfc_-Sa8wVEs7RdMoWuZcqilmQ" href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/08/12/after-covid19-mental-neurological-effects-smolder/?utm_source=STAT+Newsletters&utm_campaign=7cc248a320-Daily_Recap&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8cab1d7961-7cc248a320-152815530" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">neurological</span></a> problems (<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/07/brain-fog-heart-damage-covid-19-s-lingering-problems-alarm-scientists&source=gmail&ust=1603194856247000&usg=AFQjCNEk-BvdXL_D4FW4BX8fPurTJWOT-Q" href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/07/brain-fog-heart-damage-covid-19-s-lingering-problems-alarm-scientists" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">brain fog</span></a>, headaches, insomnia, lack of mood regulation, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://nypost.com/2020/07/31/covid-19-survivors-may-lose-hearing-sense-of-smell-and-taste/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856247000&usg=AFQjCNFqaLk1U9qebl57zzv-imrQLaGFdQ" href="https://nypost.com/2020/07/31/covid-19-survivors-may-lose-hearing-sense-of-smell-and-taste/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">loss of taste</span></a>, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://nypost.com/2020/07/31/covid-19-survivors-may-lose-hearing-sense-of-smell-and-taste/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856247000&usg=AFQjCNFqaLk1U9qebl57zzv-imrQLaGFdQ" href="https://nypost.com/2020/07/31/covid-19-survivors-may-lose-hearing-sense-of-smell-and-taste/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">loss of smell</span></a>). (578)<br /><br />Policy failures included loopholes in the China travel ban that had allowed <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-trump-china-travel-ban-45a2da12-8063-4ad9-ba28-61cdeb1ce0b3.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856247000&usg=AFQjCNGr-vikEZCy9qX6kTX6O-clLgWSIw" href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-trump-china-travel-ban-45a2da12-8063-4ad9-ba28-61cdeb1ce0b3.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">40,000 people</span></a> into the country in February and March, delays in banning travel from Europe until March, after which travel was still allowed from the U.K. (which had high infection rates, 579), and a lax approach to quarantining people who entered the country (580). Australia, which had had rigorous regulations around travel, had less than 300 official COVID-19 deaths—total—not much more than Florida had recently had <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2020-07-31/florida-daily-coronavirus-death-toll-jumps-40-in-four-days&source=gmail&ust=1603194856247000&usg=AFQjCNGICp3quV4L1oG-p_XKVW8Kszzjsw" href="https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2020-07-31/florida-daily-coronavirus-death-toll-jumps-40-in-four-days" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">in a single day</span></a>.<br /><br />The U.S. had insisted on developing its own tests, rather than use WHO tests that were ready to go, but created flawed tests which had to be fixed, leaving the U.S. with very limited testing well into March, creating the false impression that infections were low and allowing the virus to spread.<br /><br />Months later, a lack of federal investment was forcing many Americans to wait in <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/07/11/covid-19-test-results-delayed-labs-struggle-cases-surge/5406936002/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856248000&usg=AFQjCNEaJq6hsA_U8vPjIb8LMk8oduFxzg" href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/07/11/covid-19-test-results-delayed-labs-struggle-cases-surge/5406936002/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">long lines</span></a> to be tested and wait up to two weeks for a test result. By contrast, “In Belgium recently, test results have typically come back in 48 to 72 hours. In Germany and Greece, it is two days. In France, the wait is often 24 hours.”<br /><br />The failure of U.S. officials to advocate for masks early and often was also a major contributor to the pandemic’s death grip on America. Due to the anti-mask messaging of Trump, Fox, Sinclair Broadcasting, and many other anti-science Republican politicians and media outlets, masks became just another victim of political polarization: “Throughout much of the [Democratic] Northeast and the West Coast, more than 80 percent of people wore masks when within six feet of someone else. In more conservative areas, like the Southeast, the share was closer to 50 percent.” (see #452)<br /><br />Europe had waited until infection rates were low before re-opening their economy, but most of the U.S. had barged ahead while the pandemic was still active, largely at Trump’s urging. America had seen a brief uptick in job growth, but ultimately this led to an upsurge in infections and an economy that was little better than before the re-openings, with states that opened earliest seeing the biggest spikes in new cases. Georgia, led by hard-right Republican Brian Kemp, was one of the first states to re-open: “In June and July, Georgia reported more than 125,000 new virus cases, turning it into one of the globe’s new hot spots. That was more new cases than Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Australia combined during that time frame.”<br /><br />By contrast, New York, which had been the COVID-19 epicenter early on, brought infections way down through the aggressive mitigation efforts of Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo. New York’s experience showed that America’s failures were caused by a lack of leadership, not a lack of resources or know-how. Dr. Thomas Frieden, who headed the CDC under Barack Obama, told <i>the Times</i>, “This isn’t actually rocket science….We know what to do, and we’re not doing it.”<br /><br />The failures of Trump and his state-level Republican allies continued to drive the pandemic on <b>Friday, August 7</b>. <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-testing-positivity-midwest-64e2dcc9-c969-4831-b0c2-235fb75bcffe.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosam%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856248000&usg=AFQjCNGSvhkJsSxPofviNlB4cSoPs8E1vA" href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-testing-positivity-midwest-64e2dcc9-c969-4831-b0c2-235fb75bcffe.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">A 13% reduction in testing</span></a> over the prior week had obscured infection numbers nationally, but as reported by Caitlin Owens and Andrew Witherspoon of <i>Axios</i>, “A cluster of states in the Midwest are seeing more of their coronavirus tests coming back positive — potentially an early indicator of a growing outbreak.” States outside of the Midwest continued to have high rates of positive tests too, including Nevada and the Republican-run states of Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Arizona, and Florida.<br /><br />Countrywide, the U.S. was projected to <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://news.trust.org/item/20200806221829-76we1&source=gmail&ust=1603194856248000&usg=AFQjCNGhCp67ht5oUgcOer_T1fb8cwXAkQ" href="https://news.trust.org/item/20200806221829-76we1" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">lose 300,000 citizens</span></a> to COVID-19 by December 1.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The following day, <b>Saturday, August 8</b>, the 300,000 projection—based on the official death tally of 162,000—was shown to be an underestimate as <i>the New York Times</i> <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/05/us/coronavirus-death-toll-us.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856248000&usg=AFQjCNGxmfpU7edWlpCi6ZefFWMOfmdJaA" href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/05/us/coronavirus-death-toll-us.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that “there have been 200,700 excess deaths in the United States during the coronavirus pandemic, much higher than the current total of 161,000 confirmed deaths.”<br /><br />With stimulus negotiations stalled because of chief of staff Mark Meadows’ lack of concern for tens of millions of Americans in need, Trump signed executive orders. Trump’s action looked good to Republicans and other low-information voters, but was <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/09/business/trump-executive-orders-unemployment.html?campaign_id%3D9%26emc%3Dedit_nn_20200810%26instance_id%3D21130%26nl%3Dthe-morning%26regi_id%3D126380121%26segment_id%3D35682%26te%3D1%26user_id%3Dd83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74&source=gmail&ust=1603194856248000&usg=AFQjCNFIPS5IQZt6j6iUZc1BN1dlLYuCyg" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/09/business/trump-executive-orders-unemployment.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200810&instance_id=21130&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=35682&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">insufficient to the moment</span></a> and problematic on legal grounds, as <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-attempts-to-wrest-tax-and-spending-powers-from-congress-with-new-executive-actions/ar-BB17JjQI&source=gmail&ust=1603194856248000&usg=AFQjCNGdpip-ZGGZQJxvOhVpdIgCeB9cnQ" href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-attempts-to-wrest-tax-and-spending-powers-from-congress-with-new-executive-actions/ar-BB17JjQI" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Congress typically disburses funds</span></a>. Trump low-balled unemployment extensions from the $600 of additional weekly funding Democrats had proposed to $400 (581) and pawned 25% of this benefit off onto states which were already deep in debt (582). Even if the measures withstood court challenges, it could take months for state unemployment systems to adjust to the funding reduction. Payroll taxes were set to be deferred from September through December, but there was no guarantee that employers would comply and if they did comply, revenue for Medicare and Social Security would be cut.<br /><br />The other issues Democrats had brought up in stimulus negotiations—money for testing, election security, small businesses, the U.S. Postal Service, state and local governments, childcare assistance, and public safety funds for schools about to re-open—were left unaddressed. (583-589)<br /><br />Trump’s abdication of duty was a consistent theme. Philip Rucker, Yasmeen Abutaleb, Josh Dawsey, and Robert Costa of <i>the Washington Post</i> looked at the administration’s <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.adn.com/nation-world/2020/08/08/a-lost-summer-how-trump-fell-short-in-confronting-the-virus/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856248000&usg=AFQjCNFCJuw9PfwfY4NodzUOcw6PYq0A8w" href="https://www.adn.com/nation-world/2020/08/08/a-lost-summer-how-trump-fell-short-in-confronting-the-virus/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">indifference to the human costs</span></a> of the pandemic in “A lost summer: How Trump fell short in confronting the virus.”<br /><br />The administration had nothing to show for the month of June and had only acted when they felt it was in their political interest to do so: “Under mounting pressure to improve the president's reelection chances as his poll numbers declined, the White House had what was described as a stand-down order on engaging publicly on the virus through the month of June, part of a deliberate strategy to spotlight other issues even as the contagion spread wildly across the country (590). A senior administration official said there was a desire to focus on the economy in June.<br /><br />“It was only in July, when case counts began soaring in a trio of populous, Republican-leaning states - Arizona, Florida and Texas - and polls showed a majority of Americans disapproving of Trump's handling of the pandemic, that the president and his top aides renewed their public activity related to the virus.”<br /><br />Mark Meadows was in charge of coordinating the executive branch response to the coronavirus. Meadows’ libertarian mindset had torpedoed the stimulus talks and undermined public health experts inside the administration: “Meadows no longer holds a daily 8 a.m. meeting that includes health professionals to discuss the raging pandemic. Instead, aides said, he huddles in the mornings with a half-dozen politically oriented aides - and when the virus comes up, their focus is more on how to convince the public that President Donald Trump has the crisis under control, rather than on methodically planning ways to contain it.” (591)<br /><br />The pandemic was not remotely under control, and administration projections showed that things would only get worse, but they weren’t sharing this information with the public: “the virus rages coast to coast, making the United States the world leader, by far, in the number of confirmed coronavirus cases and deaths. An internal model by Trump's Council on Economic Advisers predicts a looming disaster, with the number of infections projected to rise later in August and into September and October in the Midwest and elsewhere.” (592)<br /><br />On <b>Sunday, August 9</b>, Trump hit his personal milestone of over five million infections.<br /><br /><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://apnews.com/2a03a4e685316eb7d5a6e7181000fbfe&source=gmail&ust=1603194856248000&usg=AFQjCNF1So9KqN2OUctdFhoh1vPDN2fI-Q" href="https://apnews.com/2a03a4e685316eb7d5a6e7181000fbfe" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">According to</span></a> Nicole Winfield and Lisa Marie Paine of the AP, “With confirmed coronavirus cases in the U.S. hitting 5 million Sunday, by far the highest of any country, the failure of the most powerful nation in the world to contain the scourge has been met with astonishment and alarm in Europe.”<br /><br />The differences between the extent of the pandemic in America and Europe were especially shocking considering the timing of initial infections and respective resources: “…Much of the incredulity in Europe stems from the fact that America had the benefit of time, European experience and medical know-how to treat the virus that the continent itself didn’t have when the first COVID-19 patients started filling intensive care units.<br /><br />“Yet, more than four months into a sustained outbreak, the U.S. reached the 5 million mark, according to the running count kept by Johns Hopkins University. Health officials believe the actual number is perhaps 10 times higher, or closer to 50 million, given testing limitations and the fact that as many as 40% of all those who are infected have no symptoms.”<br /><br />Dr. David Ho, from Columbia University’s Irving Medical Center, summed up America’s sorry state of affairs:<br /><br />“There’s no national strategy, no national leadership, and there’s no urging for the public to act in unison and carry out the measures together….That’s what it takes, and we have completely abandoned that as a nation.” (593)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />Another thing the administration had abandoned was federal aid to help schools open safely (see#461), a consequence of the failed stimulus talks. And though over 97,000 children had <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/09/world/coronavirus-covid-19.html?action%3Dclick%26module%3DTop%2520Stories%26pgtype%3DHomepage&source=gmail&ust=1603194856248000&usg=AFQjCNH2PTJMv7qLxJVznN7MIBZlt8uAvw" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/09/world/coronavirus-covid-19.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">tested positive</span></a> for coronavirus in the last two weeks of July, studies showed that children were <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.wsj.com/articles/latest-research-points-to-children-carrying-transmitting-coronavirus-11596978001&source=gmail&ust=1603194856248000&usg=AFQjCNG_jseUuzrsmA6ipstii_KUI9ugag" href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/latest-research-points-to-children-carrying-transmitting-coronavirus-11596978001" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">vectors of transmission</span></a>, and polls reflected that a majority of Americans <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/12/growing-number-of-voters-oppose-trump-demand-to-fully-reopen-schools-393962&source=gmail&ust=1603194856248000&usg=AFQjCNF2aFCqnfRefR-J90t-CzsRcuWWOA" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/12/growing-number-of-voters-oppose-trump-demand-to-fully-reopen-schools-393962" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">opposed</span></a> full in-person instruction, Trump continued to push schools to re-open.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.chron.com/news/article/School-year-like-no-other-launches-with-chaos-15470902.php&source=gmail&ust=1603194856248000&usg=AFQjCNH7xPEudgLFJlcoiJgE3V0tpnt8ig" href="https://www.chron.com/news/article/School-year-like-no-other-launches-with-chaos-15470902.php" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">17 out of 20</span></a> of the biggest K-12 school districts in the country were opening up with remote learning, and many of the schools that <i>were</i> re-opening were running into <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/hundreds-quarantined-in-schools-that-followed-trump-s-advice/ar-BB17TmHt?ocid%3Duxbndlbing&source=gmail&ust=1603194856248000&usg=AFQjCNE3lKXd7cweH-CZtjEoMxykW2cR0w" href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/hundreds-quarantined-in-schools-that-followed-trump-s-advice/ar-BB17TmHt?ocid=uxbndlbing" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">easily foreseeable</span></a> problems. A high school in Georgia <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.marketwatch.com/story/students-get-suspended-for-posting-pictures-of-schools-crowded-halls-now-several-people-have-been-infected-2020-08-09&source=gmail&ust=1603194856248000&usg=AFQjCNFghDr9EWHyjdDeJYxqiP27pUJILQ" href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/students-get-suspended-for-posting-pictures-of-schools-crowded-halls-now-several-people-have-been-infected-2020-08-09" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">suspended</span></a> two students after they took photos of hallways jam-packed with students, most of whom weren’t wearing masks; the school had to close down for a couple days after nine children were found to be infected.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Education Secretary Betsy Devos took to Fox to <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/hundreds-quarantined-in-schools-that-followed-trump-s-advice/ar-BB17TmHt?ocid%3Duxbndlbing&source=gmail&ust=1603194856248000&usg=AFQjCNE3lKXd7cweH-CZtjEoMxykW2cR0w" href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/hundreds-quarantined-in-schools-that-followed-trump-s-advice/ar-BB17TmHt?ocid=uxbndlbing" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">minimize</span></a> the public safety threat (594), claiming that opposition to re-opening schools was a “coordinated effort and a campaign to sow fear.”<br /><br />What was actually sowing fear was the pace of new COVID-19 infections. Though rates had come down from the astronomical numbers in July, on <b>Monday, August 10</b>, it was reported that <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://digifolktimes.com/tag/axios/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856248000&usg=AFQjCNFmxwatFo60A7JyDV1KCBX54RssHw" href="https://digifolktimes.com/tag/axios/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">five states</span></a> (ND, WI, KY, MO, AL) had had a record number of cases in the prior week. All five states had supported Trump in 2016.<br /><br />While other first world countries had daily death tolls in the single digits, the U.S. was experiencing over 1,000 COVID-19 deaths every day, and many of these people were dying lonely deaths. A <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.studyfinds.org/people-dying-alone-covid-19/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856248000&usg=AFQjCNFBCwJm59Li5JUeo-EfP8PJUVAuRw" href="https://www.studyfinds.org/people-dying-alone-covid-19/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">study</span></a> done by Northwestern University showed that “Patients with COVID-19 this year are 12 times more likely to die in a medical facility than patients dying of any cause in 2018” and “From Feb. 1 through May 23, a staggering 91 percent of all COVID-19 deaths occurred in a medical facility or nursing home.”<br /><br />Due to the infectiousness of the coronavirus, record numbers of Americans were dying alone, which was horrible for patients (see #233) and family (595) alike. Dr. Sadiya Khan of Northwestern said, “A loved one dying alone takes a huge mental toll on families….It impairs the family’s ability to grieve and cope with the loss. For patients, we’ve all thought about how terrible it would be to have to die alone. This is the horror happening to thousands of people in medical facilities where no family member or loved one is able to be present with them during their final moments on earth.”<br /><br />More consequences of the administration’s failures of governance were reported on <b>Tuesday, August 11</b>.<br /><br />Business bankruptcies were at a <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-bankruptcies-on-track-for-10-year-high-with-more-than-100-consumer-companies-already-filing-2020-08-11&source=gmail&ust=1603194856248000&usg=AFQjCNHM5PZUUPPoJx2K028eAV4LtJ-VMw" href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-bankruptcies-on-track-for-10-year-high-with-more-than-100-consumer-companies-already-filing-2020-08-11" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">10-year high</span></a> (596) and individuals—and families—were stuck with a long list of hardships, in no small part because Republicans had killed the stimulus talks (for the time being) by delaying their response to the Democratic house bill, then negotiating in bad faith.<br /><br />As <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.axios.com/consumer-financial-health-coronavirus-dad215e6-33f7-4e84-921b-0b2a320b1cb2.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosvitals%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856248000&usg=AFQjCNEq0gXX6ipA7oZX3xv7nYVp0eXvwg" href="http://www.axios.com/consumer-financial-health-coronavirus-dad215e6-33f7-4e84-921b-0b2a320b1cb2.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> by Jennifer Kingson of <i>Axios</i>, unemployment rates were “alarmingly high,” complaints to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau were at record levels (597), homelessness was growing (598), and food bank usage was up 60% (599). Separate stories revealed a food line in Dallas which stretched for <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://dfw.cbslocal.com/2020/08/11/car-line-stretches-mile-fair-park-food-giveaway/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856249000&usg=AFQjCNHR8DEOMTwq2nEvml5ki_T6ni4sTQ" href="https://dfw.cbslocal.com/2020/08/11/car-line-stretches-mile-fair-park-food-giveaway/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a mile</span></a>, and that “almost 20% of Americans with kids at home <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.wsj.com/articles/more-americans-go-hungry-amid-coronavirus-pandemic-census-shows-11597570200&source=gmail&ust=1603194856249000&usg=AFQjCNGfc5VNLuI8gbtLGWUsjWv9R4LjUQ" href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/more-americans-go-hungry-amid-coronavirus-pandemic-census-shows-11597570200" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">couldn’t afford</span></a> to give their children enough food.” (600)<br /><br />Rising violence was another toll of the economic devastation caused by Trump’s failure to get the pandemic under control. As <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://dnyuz.com/2020/08/11/in-the-wake-of-covid-19-lockdowns-a-troubling-surge-in-homicides/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856249000&usg=AFQjCNFFjEahhGAmURVpcwPEvV7GXLROFQ" href="https://dnyuz.com/2020/08/11/in-the-wake-of-covid-19-lockdowns-a-troubling-surge-in-homicides/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> at <i>the New York Times</i>, “Across 20 major cities, the murder rate at the end of June was on average 37 percent higher than it was at the end of May.” (601)<br /><br />Unsurprisingly, the unceasing horror show created by Trump and his appointees was wearing on the American psyche. A <i>Washington Post</i> piece by ace reporters Brady Dennis, Jeremy Duda, and Joel Achenbach <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.lmtonline.com/news/article/With-no-end-to-the-pandemic-in-sight-coronavirus-15475104.php&source=gmail&ust=1603194856249000&usg=AFQjCNF5pJnJLu3987gEzAQSho0w5Jm1Tw" href="https://www.lmtonline.com/news/article/With-no-end-to-the-pandemic-in-sight-coronavirus-15475104.php" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">captured</span></a> this moment vividly:<br /><br />“Parents lie awake, their minds racing with thoughts of how to balance work with their newfound role as home-schoolers. Frontline health workers are bone tired, their nerves frayed by endless shifts and constant encounters with the virus and its victims. Senior citizens have grown weary of isolation. Unemployed workers fret over jobs lost, benefits that are running out, rent payments that are overdue. Minority communities continue to shoulder the disproportionate burden of the contagion's impact, which in recent weeks has killed an average of about 1,000 people a day.<br /><br />“The metaphor of a marathon doesn't capture the wearisome, confounding, terrifying and yet somehow dull and drab nature of this ordeal for many Americans, who have watched leaders fumble the pandemic response from the start. Marathons have a defined conclusion, but 2020 feels like an endless slog - uphill, in mud.<br /><br />“Recent opinion polls hint at the deepening despair. A Gallup survey in mid-July showed 73% of adults viewed the pandemic as growing worse - the highest level of pessimism recorded since Gallup began tracking that assessment in early April. Another Gallup Poll, published Aug. 4, found only 13% of adults are satisfied with the way things are going overall in the country, the lowest in nine years.<br /><br />“A July Kaiser Family Foundation poll echoed that, finding that a majority of adults think the worst is yet to come. Fifty-three percent said the crisis has harmed their mental health.”<br /><br /><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/08/12/coronavirus-covid-live-updates-us/?utm_campaign%3Dwp_post_most%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26wpisrc%3Dnl_most&source=gmail&ust=1603194856249000&usg=AFQjCNHkitdB032_ftvf7AehsIUg6q5ENw" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/08/12/coronavirus-covid-live-updates-us/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump’s failures</span></a> were being directly felt in Florida and Georgia, which posted a record number of COVID-19 deaths on <b>Wednesday, August 12</b> because their Republican governors had followed Trump’s lead by not taking the coronavirus seriously.<br /><br />The loyalty was one-sided. Despite the position he’d put his red state allies in in terms of COVID-related deaths and infections and the concomitant economic decline, Trump continued to <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://twitter.com/markknoller/status/1293576355007942658?s%3D20&source=gmail&ust=1603194856249000&usg=AFQjCNGZrxsfU4JJdJiodXoAfsZY6d_y1A" href="https://twitter.com/markknoller/status/1293576355007942658?s=20" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">refuse</span></a> to provide aid to states (<span style="color: #3d85c6;">and </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/the-pandemic-is-hitting-city-budgets-harder-than-the-great-recession-0156574a-c5f9-454d-b579-1292595abdca.html%23:~:text%3DWhat%2520they're%2520saying%253A%2520%2522,League%2520of%2520Cities%2520research%2520director.&source=gmail&ust=1603194856249000&usg=AFQjCNEHkkSZ6e91kABXilNNOgfET_ip4Q" href="https://www.axios.com/the-pandemic-is-hitting-city-budgets-harder-than-the-great-recession-0156574a-c5f9-454d-b579-1292595abdca.html#:~:text=What%20they're%20saying%3A%20%22,League%20of%20Cities%20research%20director." style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">cities</span></a>) who were deep in the red and unable to provide basic services, a move which was certain to <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-hit-state-budgets-create-a-drag-on-u-s-recovery-11597224600&source=gmail&ust=1603194856249000&usg=AFQjCNFA4jzUqBLULzVdUgzfl5cIkJNSIQ" href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-hit-state-budgets-create-a-drag-on-u-s-recovery-11597224600" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">hurt economic growth</span></a>. (602)<br /><br />The administration was also shortchanging states of important COVID-related data since having shifted the reporting of hospital data from the CDC to Health and Human Services (see #493-497). As <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/hhs-hospital-data-coronavirus-9256f863-f5d4-4371-a658-bbdec4690709.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856249000&usg=AFQjCNHSyRQplCgewA8Xgy0aL3rrd6HSHQ" href="https://www.axios.com/hhs-hospital-data-coronavirus-9256f863-f5d4-4371-a658-bbdec4690709.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">explained</span></a> by Caitlin Owens of <i>Axios</i>, “A month after the Trump administration changed how hospital data is reported, the public release of this data ‘has slowed to a crawl.’”<br /><br />“…Testing and case data — which tell the story of where people are getting sick — have been a problem for the last six months. This latest fiasco blurs the picture of how many people are getting very sick at a given time, which until now has been a more reliable measure of the pandemic.”<br /><br />For example, “important data, like the number of beds occupied by coronavirus patients, is lagging by a week or more.” Moreover, “The implications go beyond tracking the virus. Hospitalization data is also used by agencies to determine where to send remdesivir and personal protective equipment.”<br /><br />Dr. Jeffrey Engel of the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists called the hand-off from the CDC to Health and Human Services “a disaster.”<br /><br />Two data points the administration couldn’t hide were America’s COVID-19 death toll and infection rates. On <b>Thursday, August 13</b>, it was reported that the U.S. had had 1,500 deaths the day prior, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-53730372&source=gmail&ust=1603194856249000&usg=AFQjCNF53vuGnOawQxERDN8Ry_EAHMXEqA" href="https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-53730372" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the most</span></a> since the middle of May. Though down from recent highs of 75,000 cases per day, infection totals of <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-cases-infections-us-map-florida-texas-arizona-fae7f4d9-967a-47e7-b2c7-0c7919a32a76.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosam%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856249000&usg=AFQjCNE1sV6YN0fheqTzpxNnQ26uFejpxw" href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-cases-infections-us-map-florida-texas-arizona-fae7f4d9-967a-47e7-b2c7-0c7919a32a76.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">50,000 per day</span></a> were still higher than the number of cases Switzerland, Greece, Ireland, Australia, Austria, and Denmark had had since the pandemic had begun.<br /><br />More grim data came from Trump’s own CDC, who had conducted a survey which showed that <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/13/cdc-mental-health-pandemic-394832&source=gmail&ust=1603194856249000&usg=AFQjCNETx_tb_E5otQjNstzWFk6YSCmnQQ" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/13/cdc-mental-health-pandemic-394832" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;">one of every four</span></a> adults aged 18 to 24 had “considered suicide in the past month because of the pandemic.” (603) The same survey found that “more than 40 percent of those surveyed [had] experienced a mental or behavioral health condition connected to the Covid-19 emergency.” The psychological toll of the pandemic disproportionately impacted essential workers, unpaid caregivers, and people of color.<br /><br />While the administration and the public discourse should have been focused on ways to get the pandemic under control and heal the populace, much of the oxygen in the room was being taken up by Trump’s moves to cheat in the fall election by <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/08/trump-admits-starving-usps-sabotage-voting-by-mail.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856249000&usg=AFQjCNE4vbOdeCeSS93ZfXXXkn8iTVvhNg" href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/08/trump-admits-starving-usps-sabotage-voting-by-mail.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">undermining</span></a> the U.S. postal service (USPS) as the country was expecting a record number of mail ballots. Speaking to the Fox News Network, Trump <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://apnews.com/14a2ceda724623604cc8d8e5ab9890ed&source=gmail&ust=1603194856249000&usg=AFQjCNGz-lsqhTRkfUUt42fqFvSgcTQPQw" href="https://apnews.com/14a2ceda724623604cc8d8e5ab9890ed" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">said</span></a> that stonewalling the Democrats during stimulus negotiations (which had included money for the USPS) would help his campaign:<br /><br />“Now, they need that money in order to make the Post Office work, so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots….If they don’t get those two items, that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting, because they’re not equipped.”<br /><br />This was just one of Trump’s tactics to block mail-in voting. In addition to previous budget cuts and <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://nbcmontana.com/news/local/dozens-of-montana-usps-drop-boxes-removed&source=gmail&ust=1603194856249000&usg=AFQjCNHNKvBV-sOwZtjWAR9cnqUtnHyNXg" href="https://nbcmontana.com/news/local/dozens-of-montana-usps-drop-boxes-removed" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">removal of collection boxes</span></a> that could be used for absentee ballots (604), Trump’s postmaster general, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/08/how-postal-service-preparing-election/615271/?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Datlantic-daily-newsletter%26utm_content%3D20200817%26silverid-ref%3DNjY0NzQxMzgxNDkxS0&source=gmail&ust=1603194856249000&usg=AFQjCNEAEy9E6SyY3eLSaAQTkYaLg-nMGg" href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/08/how-postal-service-preparing-election/615271/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=atlantic-daily-newsletter&utm_content=20200817&silverid-ref=NjY0NzQxMzgxNDkxS0" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Louis DeJoy</span></a>, had limited overtime (605), even as thousands of employees were out due to COVID-19, and instructed carriers to<span style="color: #3d85c6;"> </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.npr.org/2020/08/11/901219097/how-are-postmaster-general-dejoys-changes-affecting-workers&source=gmail&ust=1603194856249000&usg=AFQjCNGed3gfYG4Rl7Nkl9N4htiRBrI5ww" href="https://www.npr.org/2020/08/11/901219097/how-are-postmaster-general-dejoys-changes-affecting-workers" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">let mail pile up</span></a> at distribution centers if they couldn’t get to it on their regular shift (606). As <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://theweek.com/articles/930312/donald-trump-trying-steal-election&source=gmail&ust=1603194856249000&usg=AFQjCNF-T5TM_0a48C-Qbx3uSqbrMTWlbA" href="https://theweek.com/articles/930312/donald-trump-trying-steal-election" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> by Ryan Cooper:<br /><br />“In cities like <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.wbaltv.com/article/baltimore-mail-delays-continue-no-mail-in-weeks/33535355&source=gmail&ust=1603194856249000&usg=AFQjCNHevLZtBQdNod8V4oQoqMv5lVyppg" href="https://www.wbaltv.com/article/baltimore-mail-delays-continue-no-mail-in-weeks/33535355" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Baltimore</span></a>, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/minneapolis-mail-ballot-delays/2020/08/08/6ecf9978-d8ea-11ea-930e-d88518c57dcc_story.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856249000&usg=AFQjCNHJmprGXbI3OrWZJnCxdPWk3kmdmA" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/minneapolis-mail-ballot-delays/2020/08/08/6ecf9978-d8ea-11ea-930e-d88518c57dcc_story.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Minneapolis</span></a>, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://patch.com/illinois/chicago/no-mail-weeks-post-service-falling-apart-chicago&source=gmail&ust=1603194856249000&usg=AFQjCNFuNJ_Mbfvp_5Dcu6XdTzfU-Ag-Dw" href="https://patch.com/illinois/chicago/no-mail-weeks-post-service-falling-apart-chicago" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">C<wbr></wbr>hicago</span></a>, and <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia/usps-tracking-in-transit-late-mail-delivery-philadelphia-packages-postal-service-20200802.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856249000&usg=AFQjCNGJpCDhHxalEj0fx0Tz1ajIMbR3tA" href="https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia/usps-tracking-in-transit-late-mail-delivery-philadelphia-packages-postal-service-20200802.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Philadelphia</span></a>, residents report that they have not gotten mail for weeks. People are not getting checks, bills, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/rosalindadams/post-office-delay-prescription-medicine?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosvitals%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856249000&usg=AFQjCNHb-cudZ2kSWv9LsWXg4oCKCh0w1g" href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/rosalindadams/post-office-delay-prescription-medicine?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">medicines</span></a>, or other vital necessities, and it only seems to be getting worse.”<br /><br />DeJoy was pushing another change that would directly hurt mail balloting. In the past, mail ballots had been billed at non-profit bulk rates but treated like first-class mail, with delivery times of 2-5 days. The USPS was now <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/7032485-USPS-July-31-2020-letter-to-Wyman.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856250000&usg=AFQjCNEbO6Ckm6xGkeqMBdCs6_eE1EQVpQ" href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/7032485-USPS-July-31-2020-letter-to-Wyman.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">warning</span></a> states that they might have to use first-class postage—<i>at three times’ the cost</i>—to guarantee that ballots would be mailed in the same time frame. Absent the first-class postage and higher costs to states, ballots would be subject to the same delivery times as marketing mail (3-10 days), potentially suppressing the vote in 34 states (including the key swing states of MI, WI, PA, AZ, and NH) that invalidate ballots received after election day.<br /><br />Executive VP of the Postal Service, Thomas J. Marshall, said as much when he penned letters to <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/usps-states-delayed-mail-in-ballots/2020/08/14/64bf3c3c-dcc7-11ea-8051-d5f887d73381_story.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856250000&usg=AFQjCNFLo4faQQDu0T3u1Fkxq7imkTLa_A" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/usps-states-delayed-mail-in-ballots/2020/08/14/64bf3c3c-dcc7-11ea-8051-d5f887d73381_story.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">46 states</span></a> notifying them that the USPS “cannot guarantee all ballots cast by mail for the November election will arrive in time to be counted.” As reported by <i>the Washington Post</i>, “The letters sketch a grim possibility for the tens of millions of Americans eligible for a mail-in ballot this fall: Even if people follow all of their state’s election rules, the pace of Postal Service delivery may disqualify their votes.”<br /><br />Trump’s assault on the USPS was a win-win proposition: it undermined mail-in balloting and would neatly dovetail with his false narrative about the fraudulence of mail voting (see #226) if the expected days-long mail ballot counts after election day produced a victory for Joe Biden, a possibility given the <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/bidens-supporters-appear-way-more-likely-to-vote-by-mail-than-trumps-that-could-make-for-a-weird-election-night/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856250000&usg=AFQjCNGpaGSYQnod_dTGMmsGgZmqqd0SrA" href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/bidens-supporters-appear-way-more-likely-to-vote-by-mail-than-trumps-that-could-make-for-a-weird-election-night/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">partisan split</span></a> on mail-in balloting. Facebook executives were discussing a “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://dnyuz.com/2020/08/21/facebook-braces-itself-for-trump-to-cast-doubt-on-election-results/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856250000&usg=AFQjCNEXWcJN1YIFE2-CktCEwnmWfhE55w" href="https://dnyuz.com/2020/08/21/facebook-braces-itself-for-trump-to-cast-doubt-on-election-results/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">kill switch</span></a>” option in case Trump and his <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/17/technology/indictment-russian-tech-facebook.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856250000&usg=AFQjCNFIGkc5cH2-jsCXL1KMvk07K4FzaQ" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/17/technology/indictment-russian-tech-facebook.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">online troll army</span></a> pushed this toxic and dangerous line of propaganda during the mail count.<br /><br />Hobbling the postal service was just one part of Trump’s strategy for cheating in the 2020 election. Stalled stimulus negotiations had robbed local officials around the country of billions of dollars in aid to help administer elections and make up for certain shortfalls in elections volunteers. Running smooth elections would seem to be an essential priority for any democracy, but the administration treated it as a partisan issue. Asked about the money for elections officials on CNBC, Trump economic adviser Larry Kudlow <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/13/kudlow-money-voting-rights-liberal-left-wish-list-394715&source=gmail&ust=1603194856250000&usg=AFQjCNHBZeJtNYHPuGDkNVtiVVIQGflvww" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/13/kudlow-money-voting-rights-liberal-left-wish-list-394715" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">dismissed</span></a> the aid as part of the “really liberal left wish list.” (607)<br /><br />While doing what they could to guarantee election day chaos at the polls during a pandemic, Trump’s lawyers were systematically attempting to disenfranchise voters through the courts. In Pennsylvania, the GOP was trying to get absentee ballot drop-off sights <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.courthousenews.com/federal-judge-orders-trump-campaign-to-provide-proof-of-mail-in-voting-fraud/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856250000&usg=AFQjCNHPmHXGn5IzXqJv0jW6TVnkw7GXHg" href="https://www.courthousenews.com/federal-judge-orders-trump-campaign-to-provide-proof-of-mail-in-voting-fraud/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">removed</span></a>, forcing voters to walk their ballots into (possibly crowded) voting precincts (608). In Minnesota, the GOP was <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.courthousenews.com/trump-campaign-fights-waiver-of-minnesota-ballot-witness-rule/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856250000&usg=AFQjCNFfHq89aJT3SmiyOJx8yfFOX2WW9A" href="https://www.courthousenews.com/trump-campaign-fights-waiver-of-minnesota-ballot-witness-rule/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">opposing</span></a> a relaxation of the requirement that each absentee ballot contain a witness signature (609) and a measure to mail absentee ballots 30 days before the election (to ensure they would be returned in time to be counted, 610). In <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.courthousenews.com/trump-campaign-sues-nevada-over-mail-in-ballot-plans/?relatedposts_hit%3D1%26relatedposts_origin%3D594879%26relatedposts_position%3D2&source=gmail&ust=1603194856250000&usg=AFQjCNH31kh1usXBOAAqsRSHbLLIO-CBqg" href="https://www.courthousenews.com/trump-campaign-sues-nevada-over-mail-in-ballot-plans/?relatedposts_hit=1&relatedposts_origin=594879&relatedposts_position=2" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Nevada</span></a> and <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.courthousenews.com/trump-campaign-sues-to-block-mailing-of-ballots-in-new-jersey/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856250000&usg=AFQjCNFdA1h5Nfu83qGSCapTXE_K_SYcrw" href="https://www.courthousenews.com/trump-campaign-sues-to-block-mailing-of-ballots-in-new-jersey/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">New Jersey</span></a>, the GOP was trying to kill universal mail balloting outright. (611, 612)<br /><br />The GOP’s utter lack of concern for public safety or the economic struggles of tens of millions of Americans was laid plain on <b>Friday, August 14</b>. Unwilling to negotiate a stimulus bill more than three weeks after enhanced unemployment benefits had expired, Mitch McConnell <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/13/where-stimulus-talks-stand-now-that-senate-has-adjourned-for-august.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856250000&usg=AFQjCNFFWKGOVh5HRgyRCZ6Dfg3ENukj0A" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/13/where-stimulus-talks-stand-now-that-senate-has-adjourned-for-august.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">adjourned</span></a> the Senate until after Labor Day. Also put on hold were aid for state and local governments, money for food assistance, and funding for more testing.<br /><br />House Democrats had included $75 billion for new testing in the stimulus bill they had passed on May 15; Republicans had countered with a <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/15/us/coronavirus-testing-decrease.html?auth%3Dlogin-google%26campaign_id%3D9%26emc%3Dedit_nn_20200816%26instance_id%3D21323%26nl%3Dthe-morning%26regi_id%3D126380121%26section_index%3D1%26section_name%3Dbig_story%26segment_id%3D36229%26te%3D1%26user_id%3Dd83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74&source=gmail&ust=1603194856250000&usg=AFQjCNF3uAubVhrSjL7dxe8BZZFfDxJ7qQ" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/15/us/coronavirus-testing-decrease.html?auth=login-google&campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200816&instance_id=21323&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&section_index=1&section_name=big_story&segment_id=36229&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">meager $16 billion</span></a> during negotiations, but even that was held up now. The administration’s lack of attention to this vital national priority got another look on <b>Saturday, August 15</b> in “‘We’re Clearly Not Doing Enough’: Drop in Testing Hampers Coronavirus Response.”<br /><br /><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/15/us/coronavirus-testing-decrease.html?auth%3Dlink-dismiss-google1tap%26campaign_id%3D9%26emc%3Dedit_nn_20200816%26instance_id%3D21323%26nl%3Dthe-morning%26regi_id%3D126380121%26section_index%3D1%26section_name%3Dbig_story%26segment_id%3D36229%26te%3D1%26user_id%3Dd83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74&source=gmail&ust=1603194856250000&usg=AFQjCNFw1tJmRjwVDxDLcJP7kAJ6pFt7_Q" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/15/us/coronavirus-testing-decrease.html?auth=link-dismiss-google1tap&campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200816&instance_id=21323&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&section_index=1&section_name=big_story&segment_id=36229&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">The article</span></a> stated that an effective response to COVID-19 would require several million tests per day. Because of the Trump administration’s unwillingness to create and fund a national testing plan, the U.S. was falling far short of this goal—with just 750,000 tests/day on average—and testing was actually decreasing at the worst possible time: “Now, the number of tests being given has slowed just as the nation braces for the possibility of another surge as schools reopen and cooler weather drives people indoors.” (613)<br /><br />Until a vaccine was rolled out, testing was our only hope:<br /><br />“Without a vaccine or a highly successful treatment, widespread testing is seen as a cornerstone for fighting a pandemic in which <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/06/health/coronavirus-asymptomatic-transmission.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856250000&usg=AFQjCNFA5nGV9ouk4AfK8Fxjo1y4nLmHXg" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/06/health/coronavirus-asymptomatic-transmission.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">as many as 40 percent of infected people</span></a> do not show symptoms and may unknowingly spread the virus. Testing a lot of people is crucial to seeing where the virus is going and identifying hot spots before they get out of hand. Experts see extensive testing as a key part of safely reopening schools, businesses and sports.”<br /><br />The U.S. wasn’t conducting remotely enough tests, and <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/15/forty-percent-of-us-covid-19-tests-come-back-too-late-to-be-clinically-meaningful-data-show.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856250000&usg=AFQjCNG19jWsZR_zC-89kJz5wM4PKIrV7g" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/15/forty-percent-of-us-covid-19-tests-come-back-too-late-to-be-clinically-meaningful-data-show.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">up to 40% of the tests</span></a> were of minimal value because of delays in processing the results; in many cases the delays were so long that people had stopped quarantining by the time they found out they were infected, having passed their infection on to others. Dr. Ashish Jha of Harvard told a reporter, “It’s really clear that if tests take more than 48 hours, you’ve lost the window for contact tracing….I think, basically, beyond 72 hours, the test is close to useless.” (614)<br /><br />Some states were turning tests around quickly, but others weren’t. The solution to this problem was obvious, but not being acted on. According to Jha, “It would take a national testing strategy to make sure that, if there’s excess capacity in Massachusetts, but long lines in Florida, that Massachusetts could help Florida out….Largely we have not had a national testing strategy. The strategy out of the White House has been for every state to figure this out on their own.”<br /><br />What testing was being done highlighted the danger in forcing children back into in-person learning. New CDC data showed that the number of children infected with COVID-19 had been “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/15/health/us-coronavirus-saturday/index.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856250000&usg=AFQjCNHAwt4YEcTnP90EgA9FO0kJ0x2Z4A" href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/15/health/us-coronavirus-saturday/index.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">steadily increasing</span></a>” (615) and that Trump’s assurances about the minimal risk to children was a lie: “the new CDC guidance notes children can develop severe illness and complications, even if that risk is lower compared to adults. The rate of hospitalizations among children is increasing, the guidance says, and among those hospitalized, one in three children is admitted to intensive care -- the same as adults.” (616)<br /><br />This complicated the already-dicey situation of children attending school in the middle of a pandemic. Because of the Trump administration’s failure to get a handle on the coronavirus, the least-worst option for many children was remote learning, which was <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-education-special-needs-online-20176c9e-5905-4eb7-ab44-b0ea8a2c6e89.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosdeepdives%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856250000&usg=AFQjCNE1Uw8LxRHHQ2BjoLiohk2bW75d-g" href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-education-special-needs-online-20176c9e-5905-4eb7-ab44-b0ea8a2c6e89.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosdeepdives&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">insufficient</span></a> for America’s seven million high-needs students (617), <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/08/virtual-learning-when-you-dont-have-internet/615322/?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Datlantic-daily-newsletter%26utm_content%3D20200818%26silverid-ref%3DNjY0NzQxMzgxNDkxS0&source=gmail&ust=1603194856250000&usg=AFQjCNHnq_XK3z1MGUq2uSs3y2cBaPQMsQ" href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/08/virtual-learning-when-you-dont-have-internet/615322/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=atlantic-daily-newsletter&utm_content=20200818&silverid-ref=NjY0NzQxMzgxNDkxS0" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">inaccessible</span></a> to at-risk children with limited financial resources (618), and <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/kindergartener-virtual-education/615316/?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Datlantic-daily-newsletter%26utm_content%3D20200818%26silverid-ref%3DNjY0NzQxMzgxNDkxS0&source=gmail&ust=1603194856251000&usg=AFQjCNG2Tk9xozadnE9Jm8Kl316X3-xj-Q" href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/kindergartener-virtual-education/615316/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=atlantic-daily-newsletter&utm_content=20200818&silverid-ref=NjY0NzQxMzgxNDkxS0" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">inferior</span></a> in educational quality. (619)<br /><br />Kim Hart and Alyson Snyder looked at the <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-education-virtual-remote-school-765d00a0-e456-495b-acec-0c5945a77d1e.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosdeepdives%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856251000&usg=AFQjCNH_mSrcfykTFGiuLduhTo1r0nv8Bw" href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-education-virtual-remote-school-765d00a0-e456-495b-acec-0c5945a77d1e.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosdeepdives&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">long-term consequences</span></a> of not being able to safely conduct in-personal learning:<br /><br />“As millions of students are about to start the school year virtually, at least in part, experts fear students may fall off an educational cliff — missing key academic milestones, falling behind grade level and in some cases dropping out of the educational system altogether.”<br /><br />Remote learning could <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/06/how-quarantine-will-affect-kids-social-development/613381/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856251000&usg=AFQjCNF9VEZ09i0nVg5HsLI7HV__fNcxoQ" href="https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/06/how-quarantine-will-affect-kids-social-development/613381/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">stunt social development</span></a> and hurt students’ future economic prospects: “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-and-social-sector/our-insights/covid-19-and-student-learning-in-the-united-states-the-hurt-could-last-a-lifetime&source=gmail&ust=1603194856251000&usg=AFQjCNGR748jbF0RSK120qDKWSd1R_26qg" href="https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-and-social-sector/our-insights/covid-19-and-student-learning-in-the-united-states-the-hurt-could-last-a-lifetime" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">McKinsey estimates</span></a> the average K-12 student in the U.S. could lose $61,000 to $82,000 in lifetime earnings — or the equivalent of a year of full-time work, as a result of learning losses related to COVID-19.” (620)<br /><br />Children of color would be inordinately impacted: “Losses are expected to be even greater for Black, Hispanic and low-income students, widening the existing achievement gaps by 15%-20%, per McKinsey.” (621)<br /><br />Since <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/what-weve-stolen-our-kids/615211/?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Datlantic-daily-newsletter%26utm_content%3D20200818%26silverid-ref%3DNjY0NzQxMzgxNDkxS0&source=gmail&ust=1603194856251000&usg=AFQjCNHao3SjNr3WTE9ANHFvTVYIJK2PsQ" href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/what-weve-stolen-our-kids/615211/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=atlantic-daily-newsletter&utm_content=20200818&silverid-ref=NjY0NzQxMzgxNDkxS0" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump had failed America’s children</span></a>, parents would have to pick up the slack. Keri Rodrigues of the National Parents Union told <i>Axios</i>, “Now we have this continual conversation about how this is going to devastate our children….That puts everyone in the mindset that our children are broken. It is our job as the adult to push on and persevere to figure this out for them.”<br /><br />Stats reported at <i>Axios</i> on <b>Sunday, August 16</b>, showed that six states had had their highest 7-day totals of infections. All six states had voted for Trump in 2016.<br /><br />Even as national daily infections had come down from late July, the U.S. was still <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/rich-countries-coronavirus-data-united-states-cc412dd5-ef7d-4dc9-a891-e300712860e7.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856251000&usg=AFQjCNGaC2A0czqdfVap7WUJGdlittZIkA" href="https://www.axios.com/rich-countries-coronavirus-data-united-states-cc412dd5-ef7d-4dc9-a891-e300712860e7.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">greatly underperforming</span></a> all other developed world nations in its response to COVID-19. From July 1 to August 13, the U.S. had recorded 2.5 million new infections, 8X the rate of other first world countries, and 37,000 deaths, 6X the rate of other first world countries.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><span style="color: blue;">August 17, 2020-present</span></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Official cases come down to 40,000-50,000/day, more than the total number of infections many developed countries have experienced during the whole pandemic. The Republican Party engages in four days of collective amnesia at their convention, lauding Dear Leader’s management of the pandemic. Trump settles on a campaign strategy of pretending that tens of thousands of new cases and 1,000 deaths a day is hunky dory while trying to convince white swing state voters that their personal safety is threatened by occasional looting in faraway cities.</i><i></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /><br /><br />The failures of the administration to act in January or February, before the virus had spread across the country, had been deadly to America (see #254), but the U.S. could have corrected its course, as every other industrialized country had done. The possible reasons for the GOP's willful indifference to the pandemic were examined by Ezra Klein on <b>Monday, August 17</b> in “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/8/17/21368234/trump-republicans-covid-19-2020-democrats-senate-relief-stimulus-polls&source=gmail&ust=1603194856251000&usg=AFQjCNHjrerlUdWynOyrGVeUMURCyGADhg" href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/8/17/21368234/trump-republicans-covid-19-2020-democrats-senate-relief-stimulus-polls" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Why Republicans are failing to govern</span></a>.”<br /><br />Klein’s key takeaways were that the GOP’s collective failure to act at the federal level was based on three things: 1) fear among congressional Republicans of crossing a president who had 91% approval ratings among Republican voters; 2) philosophical opposition to government intervention, no matter the cost; and 3) concern that more stimulus money, no matter how necessary to alleviate mass human suffering, would offend Tea Party extremists.<br /><br />Resigned to allow the pandemic to ravage the country until a vaccine was rolled out, all that the GOP had left was a strategy of vote suppression and misinformation. As <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/17/trump-scott-atlas-coronavirus-doctor-396741&source=gmail&ust=1603194856251000&usg=AFQjCNHJ9LUM--rkTzaXtH0Y-64Qaextow" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/17/trump-scott-atlas-coronavirus-doctor-396741" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> by Nancy Cook of <i>Politico</i>, Trump was done with the bad—if accurate—news presented by Dr. Fauci, and sometimes Deborah Birx. Stepping in to become Trump’s top public health toady was Dr. Scott Atlas, an academic from Stanford whom Trump had discovered on Fox News. (622)<br /><br />According to Cook, Atlas had gotten the president’s ear by minimizing the fierceness of the pandemic and the threat to children, advocating for the re-opening of schools and sports, keeping his mouth shut about the need for more testing, and opposing home saliva tests which could be easily accessible to millions of Americans. His hands-off approach to the pandemic was perfectly suited to Trump’s P.R. campaign to pretend that American life could go on as usual:<br /><br />“With the virus showing no sign of letting up — the U.S. <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856251000&usg=AFQjCNFh_M7iVjk4SOf6XJBChGpIwVgHZQ" href="https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">has recorded</span></a> roughly 5.4 million Covid-19 cases and 170,000 deaths — and with less than three months to go in an uphill reelection battle, the president is betting that a telegenic physician with a positive outlook, but no expertise in infectious diseases or epidemiology, can change his fortunes.<br /><br />“Atlas, upbeat and relentlessly on message that Americans should resume life as much as they can, is the living embodiment of the president’s Covid-is-not-that-big-of-a-<wbr></wbr>deal approach. Where school superintendents and football conference officials see a risk of the virus’ spread this fall, Atlas cautions against too-strict measures. During Fox News appearances, he has downplayed the need for students to wear face coverings or practice social distancing if schools do reopen.” (623)<br /><br />By telling Trump what he wanted to hear, rather than what he needed to hear, Atlas had “become the president’s go-to Covid-19 doctor, the anti-Fauci, even if he does not have a background in infectious diseases or epidemiology. Instead, his specialty lies in radiology and neuroradiology, subjects he taught for many years as a professor and chief of neuroradiology at the Stanford University Medical Center.”<br /><br />Juliette Kayyem, who had been involved in the Obama administration’s H1N1 response while working for the Department of Homeland Security, told <i>Politico</i> that Trump had “found someone who will take him back to 2019 who says, ‘Don’t wear masks. Open the schools…We are going through this. We’re not going back.” Kayyem added, “The strategy of see no evil may be working for Trump, but it is not working for America. This is just more of the same.”<br /><br />More of the same included Trump having another <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.rawstory.com/2020/08/trump-ripped-for-arizona-rally-look-at-this-super-spreader-event-happening-in-yuma/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856251000&usg=AFQjCNEqSsRDONKg1HZ5fhVKH9K8ge49yA" href="http://www.rawstory.com/2020/08/trump-ripped-for-arizona-rally-look-at-this-super-spreader-event-happening-in-yuma/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">super-spreader campaign rally</span></a> on <b>Tuesday, August 18</b>. The event took place in Yuma County, AZ, one of the counties with the highest rate of infections in one of the states with the highest rate of infections. The rally had no social distancing and photos revealed that only a fraction of the attendees wore masks. (624)<br /><br />On <b>Wednesday, August 19</b>, it was reported that Trump had taken to Twitter to respond to Michelle Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention. As he had done many times before, Trump <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://news.yahoo.com/trump-erupts-angrily-michelle-obamas-124758798.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856251000&usg=AFQjCNFBxLDnQL7phLmjJ2aHo5wEqZeE7Q" href="https://news.yahoo.com/trump-erupts-angrily-michelle-obamas-124758798.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">took credit</span></a> for inheriting <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjones/2020/02/17/obamas-2009-recovery-act-kicked-off-over-10-years-of-economic-growth/%2359d658bd68b7&source=gmail&ust=1603194856251000&usg=AFQjCNGjWAqAydb74XK9Fzkp16Turvkwbg" href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjones/2020/02/17/obamas-2009-recovery-act-kicked-off-over-10-years-of-economic-growth/#59d658bd68b7" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a growing economy</span></a> from Obama: “My Administration and I built the greatest economy in history, of any country, turned it off, saved millions of lives, and now am building an even greater economy than it was before. Jobs are flowing, NASDAQ is already at a record high, the rest to follow. Sit back & watch!”<br /><br />The truth was quite different. The “greater economy” was nowhere in sight, and Trump’s failure to get a handle on COVID-19 was crushing employers in a long list of ways. As <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-recession-double-whammy-8066e2d6-ba5d-4938-9f89-d52c63c16ad9.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosam%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856251000&usg=AFQjCNGBczaAytFVMRxkrRgyCKbMq5cQug" href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-recession-double-whammy-8066e2d6-ba5d-4938-9f89-d52c63c16ad9.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">detailed</span></a> in “How this recession is different,” by Felix Salmon, productivity was down 5-10% (625). As examples, Salmon mentioned that co-workers were collaborating (and coming up with creative ideas) less often in remote settings, nursing aides had to pay more attention to infections than caregiving, airlines still needed a basic number of crew members no matter how many people were on the flight, and teachers were distracted from instruction by having to put so much focus on public safety guidelines.<br /><br />According to Salmon, “Show me a business that involves individuals entering a building, and I'll show you a business where leaders are being urged to put significant new resources towards social distancing, ventilation, temperature checks, health attestations, contact-tracing databases, ubiquitous hand sanitizer stations, and myriad other COVID-related expenses.” (626)<br /><br />Between the increased costs of safety precautions and the drop in productivity, for-profit businesses were struggling, especially low-margin businesses like restaurants.<br /><br />Salmon’s key conclusion?<br /><br />“So long as COVID-19 continues to spread at a rate of more than 50,000 new cases per day, the virus will continue to act as a deadweight on the economy, depressing productivity — and total economic output — to well below pre-crisis levels.” (627)<br /><br />Also in the news on Wednesday was the latest fallout from Trump’s attempts to undermine the U.S. Postal Service and mail balloting. <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mail-ballot-worries/2020/08/19/d75d97fe-e238-11ea-b69b-64f7b0477ed4_story.html?utm_campaign%3Dwp_post_most%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26wpisrc%3Dnl_most&source=gmail&ust=1603194856251000&usg=AFQjCNF1HKDdNKRc2tAvWuzXGHKDnjq5zQ" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mail-ballot-worries/2020/08/19/d75d97fe-e238-11ea-b69b-64f7b0477ed4_story.html?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">As reported</span></a> by Amy Gardner, Erin Cox, and Michelle Ye Hee Lee of <i>the Washington Post</i>, “Election officials are racing to install more ballot drop boxes and secure large venues for Election Day voting, part of an urgent push to reassure Americans worried about trusting their ballots to a U.S. Postal Service engulfed in a political storm.<br /><br />“State and local election officials say they have been inundated with calls from residents who say they no longer trust voting by mail, given widespread reports of postal delays in recent weeks, as well as President Trump’s public hostility to voting by mail.” (628)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />Trump’s actions were sowing chaos in an already-challenging election season:<br /><br />“…The upheaval comes after months of planning by election administrators, who are expecting <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/politics/vote-by-mail-states/?itid%3Dlk_inline_manual_7&source=gmail&ust=1603194856251000&usg=AFQjCNFB6tBBS7NoF7UtkGEdV1eGZybwXQ" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/politics/vote-by-mail-states/?itid=lk_inline_manual_7" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">historic numbers of voters</span></a> to cast their ballots by mail to avoid risking exposure to the novel coronavirus. Now, officials are worried that legions of voters won’t choose to vote by mail after all, forcing them to reexamine their capacity to safely offer in-person voting and to provide other ways to drop off ballots.” (629)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />The administration had already stiffed election planners of money to adapt to the pandemic (see #607). Now they were forcing local governments to raid threadbare cupboards:<br /><br />“The onslaught of anxiety has prompted officials to scour for funds to install ballot drop boxes across their communities. Although states and local governments had already adopted plans for hundreds of drop boxes this year, those plans accelerated this week. (630)<br /><br />“There are now efforts to install or expand drop boxes for the November elections in Arizona, Iowa, Michigan, Kansas, Pennsylvania, Washington, California, Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Idaho, Georgia, South Carolina and more.”<br /><br />Unfortunately, “One thing many states can’t do is change deadlines set by statute for requesting a ballot. In the past month, the Postal Service has sent letters to 46 states informing them that their deadlines do not give the agency time to guarantee that completed ballots will arrive back with election officials in time to be counted.<br /><br />“Given that it’s too late in many states to consider changing those deadlines, some officials are instead considering whether to tell voters not to rely on the mail to return their ballots within two weeks of Nov. 3.”<br /><br />Ultimately, Trump’s months of lies were convincing previously unforeseen numbers of voters to risk their health by voting in person, making election officials “[seek] new, larger venues for in-person voting on Election Day in case an unexpectedly high volume of voters shows up.”<br /><br />More post office shenanigans came to light on <b>Thursday, August 20</b>. Despite Louis DeJoy’s statement earlier in the week that the USPS wouldn’t go through with his planned “reforms,” Aaron Gordon of Vice.com <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/n7wk9z/the-post-office-is-deactivating-mail-sorting-machines-ahead-of-the-election&source=gmail&ust=1603194856251000&usg=AFQjCNEeUMIwcjayLmJdN3HtPRwNubqwVA" href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/n7wk9z/the-post-office-is-deactivating-mail-sorting-machines-ahead-of-the-election" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that the “USPS instructed all maintenance managers around the country not to reconnect or reinstall any mail sorting machines they had already disconnected, according to emails obtained by Motherboard.” (631)<br /><br />While DeJoy did Trump’s dirty work and Trump trolled Biden by going to his home state (where he “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/20/politics/trump-false-claims-pennsylvania-speech-biden-fact-check/index.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856251000&usg=AFQjCNEQ5W1NiT6Bk5KAss5bRyBrIM3eAQ" href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/20/politics/trump-false-claims-pennsylvania-speech-biden-fact-check/index.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">delivered</span></a> a wild monologue that involved unscripted musings about sharks, boxing, dishwashers and the maintenance of forests”), a slew of coronavirus stories hit the web.<br /><br />Trump’s adopted home state of Florida, helmed by Trump protégé Ron DeSantis, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/florida-coronavirus-death-toll-10000-f3b16124-1b2e-48bd-914f-c00284d5551a.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856251000&usg=AFQjCNG5VIUHMBvga2E3pPmQRPWEr-r3Sw" href="https://www.axios.com/florida-coronavirus-death-toll-10000-f3b16124-1b2e-48bd-914f-c00284d5551a.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">passed 10,000 official COVID-19 deaths</span></a>.<br /><br />Tori Marsh <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.goodrx.com/blog/covid-19-testing-deserts-in-the-united-states/?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosvitals%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856251000&usg=AFQjCNGS3WUKBfjp1vLuzjHEH3bqwzN76g" href="https://www.goodrx.com/blog/covid-19-testing-deserts-in-the-united-states/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that the administration’s refusal to set up a national testing plan was shortchanging 67 million Americans who lived in “testing deserts,” contributing to increases in infections in those communities. (632)<br /><br />One study showed that despite the administration’s promises of assistance, one in every five nursing homes had “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://dnyuz.com/2020/08/20/1-in-5-nursing-homes-short-on-ppe-and-staff-in-virus-rebound/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856251000&usg=AFQjCNE3S4tsG9MIwwEkc9UcIRl-OshjnQ" href="https://dnyuz.com/2020/08/20/1-in-5-nursing-homes-short-on-ppe-and-staff-in-virus-rebound/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">severe shortages</span></a>” of PPE, which was contributing to staff turnover and poor patient care. (633)<br /><br />Another study concluded that “Not only are children quite capable of ‘silently spreading’ COVID-19, they appear to be <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.studyfinds.org/coronavirus-more-contagious-children-silently-spreading-covid-19/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856251000&usg=AFQjCNE1mI-lAlAy9V5g1Ib0A8bBIajVkA" href="https://www.studyfinds.org/coronavirus-more-contagious-children-silently-spreading-covid-19/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">significantly more contagious</span></a> than infected adults,” certain to spread infections, yet <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/20/us/schools-reopening-nurses-covid.html?campaign_id%3D9%26emc%3Dedit_nn_20200821%26instance_id%3D21485%26nl%3Dthe-morning%26regi_id%3D126380121%26section_index%3D2%26section_name%3Dfour_more_big_stories%26segment_id%3D36686%26te%3D1%26user_id%3Dd83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74&source=gmail&ust=1603194856251000&usg=AFQjCNFzuDBXepH6OzVM24g0SnHcexOP3A" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/20/us/schools-reopening-nurses-covid.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200821&instance_id=21485&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&section_index=2&section_name=four_more_big_stories&segment_id=36686&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">less than 40%</span> </a>of K-12 schools had a full-time nurse to handle medical issues and no federal relief was on the horizon to close this gap. (634)<br /><br />Louis DeJoy’s <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/21/dejoy-postal-service-hearing-399659?nname%3Dplaybook%26nid%3D0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000%26nrid%3D00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000%26nlid%3D630318&source=gmail&ust=1603194856252000&usg=AFQjCNEzCnpG0dJdsRKTpc7rw_n-hV0kYg" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/21/dejoy-postal-service-hearing-399659?nname=playbook&nid=0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=630318" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">virtual appearance</span></a> before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee led news on <b>Friday, August 21</b>.<br /><br />Though DeJoy’s policies had caused a <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://oversight.house.gov/sites/democrats.oversight.house.gov/files/PMG%2520Briefing%2520%25E2%2580%2593%2520Service%2520Performance%2520Management%252008-12-20.pdf&source=gmail&ust=1603194856252000&usg=AFQjCNHxtEKVcGCCCBDVfsqMpKSrq05PMA" href="https://oversight.house.gov/sites/democrats.oversight.house.gov/files/PMG%20Briefing%20%E2%80%93%20Service%20Performance%20Management%2008-12-20.pdf" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">clear decline</span></a> in service, and the USPS had warned states that they might not be able to get ballots through the mail in time to be counted—just as Trump wanted—DeJoy said the narrative that he was doing Trump’s bidding was an “outrageous claim.” He promised to put his “reforms” on hold until after the election, but refused to reverse his limits on overtime, or return the mailboxes and sorting machines the USPS had decommissioned, and said, with unintended irony, that “Managing the Postal Service in an efficient and effective manner cannot succeed if everything is politicized.”<br /><br />Not willing to take DeJoy at his word, attorneys general in 20 different states <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/postal-service-20-state-attorneys-general-sue-trump-administration/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856252000&usg=AFQjCNHfseHhYK2x4rLVhR7onus2wmwsXA" href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/postal-service-20-state-attorneys-general-sue-trump-administration/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">filed suit</span></a> to stop the changes.<br /><br />Jordan Weissman and Aaron Mak of Slate took <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://slate.com/business/2020/08/usps-mail-slowdown-dejoy-trump-election.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856252000&usg=AFQjCNG5uc0fwE0kcDm9xiFUgtYTu_hrTQ" href="https://slate.com/business/2020/08/usps-mail-slowdown-dejoy-trump-election.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a close look</span></a> at the state of the USPS since DeJoy had come in in July. Among the results of DeJoy’s changes were vets not receiving their medications on time (635) and big delays nationally (636):<br /><br />“<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://postalpro.usps.com/mnt/glusterfs/2020-08/AIM%2520Eastern%2520Area%2520Service.pdf&source=gmail&ust=1603194856252000&usg=AFQjCNEr_sCUkwm9sNlFJIwfwc3-ANxsZw" href="https://postalpro.usps.com/mnt/glusterfs/2020-08/AIM%20Eastern%20Area%20Service.pdf" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">In the Eastern region</span></a>, the share of first class letters and so-called flat mail, such as catalogs, delivered on time fell from over 91 percent to 79 percent. In subareas like Northern Ohio, it dropped as far as 68 percent.<br /><br />The on-time rate <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://postalpro.usps.com/mnt/glusterfs/2020-08/Pacific%2520Area%2520AIM%2520Meeting%2520Presentation%2520(August%252013,%25202020)_0.pdf&source=gmail&ust=1603194856252000&usg=AFQjCNHz57FwbzFPApJXiZAvht2CbIkQ-g" href="https://postalpro.usps.com/mnt/glusterfs/2020-08/Pacific%20Area%20AIM%20Meeting%20Presentation%20(August%2013,%202020)_0.pdf" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">also fell significantly</span></a> in the Pacific region, though not quite as steeply.”<br /><br />The USPS also had chosen an odd time—an election year—to increase the number of sorting machines removed many times over: “In 2018, the agency decommissioned 125 machines, which accounted for around 3 percent of the total. In 2019, it decommissioned 186 machines, around 5 percent. This year’s 671 machines account for about 13 percent.”<br /><br />Appearing before the Congressional Progressive Caucus on Thursday, Mark Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union, “said the timing of such a move seemed particularly ill-advised. Even though USPS should have the capacity to handle a flurry of ballots, taking away the machines would still limit its flexibility in an emergency.”<br /><br />An internal “Service Performance Measure” <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://oversight.house.gov/sites/democrats.oversight.house.gov/files/PMG%2520Briefing%2520%25E2%2580%2593%2520Service%2520Performance%2520Management%252008-12-20.pdf&source=gmail&ust=1603194856252000&usg=AFQjCNHxtEKVcGCCCBDVfsqMpKSrq05PMA" href="https://oversight.house.gov/sites/democrats.oversight.house.gov/files/PMG%20Briefing%20%E2%80%93%20Service%20Performance%20Management%2008-12-20.pdf" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">report</span></a> from the USPS released by Carolyn Maloney (the chair of the House Oversight Committee) on <b>Saturday, August 22</b> provided more damning data about the decline in service since DeJoy’s takeover.<br /><br />The documentation also put the lie to the Republican talking point that the Democrats’ concerns were overblown. As the House was getting ready to vote on a stand-alone bill to provide the USPS with $25 billion in aid, Maloney told the press, “To those who still claim there are ‘no delays’ and that these reports are just ‘conspiracy theories,’ I hope this new data causes them to re-think their position and support our urgent legislation today. We have all seen the headlines from every corner of our country, we have read the stories and seen pictures, we have heard directly from our constituents, and these new documents show that the delays are far worse than we were told.”<br /><br />While his ally worked to dismantle a cherished American institution on the sly and lied about doing so, Trump continued to try to shine the public on. As over 40,000 new cases were reported and Midwestern states got <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/08/22/coronavirus-covid-updates/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856252000&usg=AFQjCNFpbSmAXZXppEF4B5B0FDYIPosr8w" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/08/22/coronavirus-covid-updates/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">slammed</span></a> with infections—with seven-day increases in “the Dakotas, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Oklahoma and Wyoming”—Trump fell back on misinformation.<br /><br />Borrowing from the “embers strategy” plank of distracting the public from the horrors of the present by selling false hope with medical “fixes” that weren’t realistic now or any time soon (see #507), Trump Tweeted support, yet again, for hydroxychloroquine, which his own FDA had <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.fda.gov/drugs/drug-safety-and-availability/fda-cautions-against-use-hydroxychloroquine-or-chloroquine-covid-19-outside-hospital-setting-or&source=gmail&ust=1603194856252000&usg=AFQjCNGaoOWGsittTtjiYrkC2mly9pEcWQ" href="https://www.fda.gov/drugs/drug-safety-and-availability/fda-cautions-against-use-hydroxychloroquine-or-chloroquine-covid-19-outside-hospital-setting-or" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">ruled</span></a> was ineffective and risky (637), and made a completely unfounded claim that “The deep state, or whoever, over at the FDA is making it very difficult for drug companies to get people in order to test the vaccines and therapeutics. Obviously, they are hoping to delay the answer until after November 3rd.”<br /><br />Eric Topol, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/08/22/coronavirus-covid-updates/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856252000&usg=AFQjCNFpbSmAXZXppEF4B5B0FDYIPosr8w" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/08/22/coronavirus-covid-updates/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">described</span></a> as “a cardiologist and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute,” told <i>the Washington Post</i>, “This is really taking it to an unprecedented level….Every aspect of covid-19 — whether it’s diagnostic, therapeutic — every single aspect, through and through, is being overtaken by Trump….The whole idea is to promote human health and safety….and this is all steps to compromise that.” (638)<br /><br />Trump’s continual lies and misinformation during the public health crisis were disgraceful and destructive, as they helped convince millions of Americans to behave recklessly and spread the virus. At the same time, Trump’s lies were banal and predictable, given his obvious human limitations. As Saturday night wound to a close, the world got an up-close view of the twisted psychology of the leader of the free world when <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.startribune.com/in-secretly-recorded-audio-president-trump-s-sister-says-he-has-no-principles-and-you-can-t-trust-him/572196022/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856252000&usg=AFQjCNGQhZDXyxESw4IZblAKjn3lw479jg" href="https://www.startribune.com/in-secretly-recorded-audio-president-trump-s-sister-says-he-has-no-principles-and-you-can-t-trust-him/572196022/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">audio recordings</span></a> of Trump’s older sister Maryanne were leaked.<br /><br />The woman who had observed Trump since he had come out of the womb, who had babysat Trump as a toddler, who arguably knew Trump better than any living being, told her niece that her younger brother, “Has no principles. None.” She also referred to “His goddamned tweet and lying” and added, “I’m talking too freely, but you know. The change of stories. The lack of preparation. The lying. Holy shit.”<br /><br />While Trump was coasting on <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjones/2020/02/17/obamas-2009-recovery-act-kicked-off-over-10-years-of-economic-growth/%2322daa33968b7&source=gmail&ust=1603194856252000&usg=AFQjCNGmp_IvfaZsbgrt2a0fSZlrLTWzBw" href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjones/2020/02/17/obamas-2009-recovery-act-kicked-off-over-10-years-of-economic-growth/#22daa33968b7" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">Barack Obama’s extended economic boom</span></a>, these character defects were easy for millions to overlook, but in a time of national emergency they were at the root of a mass human tragedy projected to <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america&source=gmail&ust=1603194856252000&usg=AFQjCNF-6z_6X50fIFzKmd073RxYIqRy7w" href="https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">kill 310,000 Americans</span></a> by December 1. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />Knowing that the death toll on election day would be impossible to hide, Trump continued his effort to convince Americans that we were on the verge of a major medical breakthrough. On <b>Sunday, August 23</b>, Trump promised a big announcement.<br /><br />In what Trump’s press secretary had billed as “a major therapeutic breakthrough,” the FDA “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.statnews.com/2020/08/23/fda-under-pressure-from-trump-expected-to-authorize-blood-plasma-as-covid-19-treatment/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856252000&usg=AFQjCNEnMCeqPOdrOUOm_NZEvFbGqfjO-w" href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/08/23/fda-under-pressure-from-trump-expected-to-authorize-blood-plasma-as-covid-19-treatment/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">authorized</span></a><span style="color: #3d85c6;"> </span>the use of blood plasma from patients who have recovered from Covid-19 as a treatment for the disease.” At a press conference announcing the EAU (emergency use authorization), Trump claimed that “Today’s action will dramatically expand access to this treatment” (639) and that “convalescent plasma has been proven to reduce mortality by 35%.” (640)<br /><br />As ever with Trump, it was a case of overselling and underdelivering. <br /><br />Trump’s own staff at the National Institutes of Health had tried to block the authorization because test data on the treatment was insufficient, and as Nicholas Florko of <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://statnews.com&source=gmail&ust=1603194856252000&usg=AFQjCNH14mQZSkd4N9T2c7WY5Z66qp4oxA" href="http://statnews.com/" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">statnews.com</a><span style="color: #5b9bd5;"> </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.statnews.com/2020/08/23/fda-under-pressure-from-trump-expected-to-authorize-blood-plasma-as-covid-19-treatment/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856252000&usg=AFQjCNEnMCeqPOdrOUOm_NZEvFbGqfjO-w" href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/08/23/fda-under-pressure-from-trump-expected-to-authorize-blood-plasma-as-covid-19-treatment/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">pointed out</span></a>, the mortality numbers cited were questionable. Eric Topol of the Scripps Research Translational Institute tweeted that the FDA’s action was “outrageous” and “There’s no evidence to support any survival benefit. 2 days ago FDA’s website stated there was no evidence for an EUA.”<br /><br />Shilling magic plasma was Trump’s feeble attempt to convince the public that the administration was making progress against the coronavirus. In reality, COVID was still in control of the country, with reported cases in the <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/country/united-states?country%3D~USA&source=gmail&ust=1603194856252000&usg=AFQjCNEDhjysghFKB85nGhPxjm0HnHr_EQ" href="https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/country/united-states?country=~USA" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">tens of thousands daily</span></a> and deaths over a thousand per day because of Trump’s failure to do his job. <br /><br />Anyone with basic powers of observation could see that things weren’t going so well in the U.S., that we were far worse off than we’d been when Trump took office, that we were far worse off than most developed countries, and that Trump’s failures of governance (see #1-#640) had played a major hand in bringing us to this low point. Yet polling on the eve of the Republican National Convention once again showed the effectiveness of Trump’s pattern of consistent, pathological dishonesty (641) and the breathtaking stupidity and selfishness of most Republican voters. (See #145, #204, #283, #307, #313, #s 319-323. #325, #330, #339, #347, #387, #440, #452, #534, #566-567) <br /><br /><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/republicans-economy-coronavirus-opinion-poll-cbs-news-battleground-tracker/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856252000&usg=AFQjCNHR593VbuVyK-Nmw9kbPkyKKs2IaA" href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/republicans-economy-coronavirus-opinion-poll-cbs-news-battleground-tracker/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">According to</span></a> CBS news, 57% of Republicans found the deaths of 176,000 Americans due to COVID-19 “acceptable.” 73% of Republicans thought Trump’s handling of the coronavirus was “going well.” 64% of Republicans believed that the official number of deaths was an overcount; only 18% grasped that the total was a significant undercount, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/largest-seroprevalence-study-in-us-shows-vast-covid-19-undercount-67762&source=gmail&ust=1603194856252000&usg=AFQjCNHgVXKJL9InaMjXoJTbucbw7ZhFTg" href="https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/largest-seroprevalence-study-in-us-shows-vast-covid-19-undercount-67762" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">according to</span></a> Trump’s own CDC. 75% of Republicans believed America was better off than it had been four years prior, when there had been no pandemic, no mass protests, and a roaring economy. 67% of Republicans considered the worst economy since the Great Depression to be “good.”<br /><br />While Republicans turned reality on its head, Jacob Blake, an African-American from Kenosha, Wisconsin lay in a hospital bed after having been <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2020/08/27/questions-police-use-force-after-kenosha-shooting-answered/5645186002/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856252000&usg=AFQjCNHBlxpowHaVwYV_rKyDQRHSIaPkYg" href="https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2020/08/27/questions-police-use-force-after-kenosha-shooting-answered/5645186002/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">shot seven times in the back</span></a> by a white police officer as his three young sons sat in his car. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The ability of Republican voters to stick their heads in the sand was again on display on <b>Monday, August 24</b>. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />Florida, a state under full GOP control since 1999 which had largely <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://news.yahoo.com/ron-de-santis-sidelined-his-health-department-florida-paid-the-price-090031468.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856252000&usg=AFQjCNGw3j_096TxZHh9fQlTgqWPCf6dpg" href="https://news.yahoo.com/ron-de-santis-sidelined-his-health-department-florida-paid-the-price-090031468.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">ignored</span></a> public health guidelines, passed <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-florida-infections-milestone-a09da649-e7f0-4d49-9ce6-b8fb581f5ef5.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856252000&usg=AFQjCNFDbxifkJi6-sDE_MkyTeBvyQPtsQ" href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-florida-infections-milestone-a09da649-e7f0-4d49-9ce6-b8fb581f5ef5.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">600,000</span></a> official COVID-19 infections. The efforts of Trump ally, governor Ron DeSantis, to force school districts into re-opening for in-person instruction were <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/24/world/covid-19-coronavirus.html?campaign_id%3D9%26emc%3Dedit_nn_20200825%26instance_id%3D21584%26nl%3Dthe-morning%26regi_id%3D87101069%26section_index%3D1%26section_name%3Dbig_story%26segment_id%3D36872%26te%3D1%26user_id%3D1baa2c82b5fd57364c41fdc8e1f99240%23link-bd84ee2&source=gmail&ust=1603194856253000&usg=AFQjCNFaNlBZcqId9__IRjVaXDWuGttw0w" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/24/world/covid-19-coronavirus.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200825&instance_id=21584&nl=the-morning&regi_id=87101069&section_index=1&section_name=big_story&segment_id=36872&te=1&user_id=1baa2c82b5fd57364c41fdc8e1f99240#link-bd84ee2" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">blocked</span></a> by a judge who said that the order “arbitrarily [disregarded] safety.”<br /><br />The opening night of the Republican Convention would have none of these harsh realities. The day started off with Trump <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-24/trump-to-win-symbolic-republican-vote-to-jump-start-campaign&source=gmail&ust=1603194856253000&usg=AFQjCNH5JFfXVjQX0NpesZ86QTCgatHyuA" href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-24/trump-to-win-symbolic-republican-vote-to-jump-start-campaign" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">lying</span></a> about mail-in balloting (642) and followed up later with a St. Louis couple who played to <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/24/mccloskey-convention-speech-guns-suburbs-401297&source=gmail&ust=1603194856253000&usg=AFQjCNEIoNpQdCxL0Xnr_GT_FgyBhnb20g" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/24/mccloskey-convention-speech-guns-suburbs-401297" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">primal and irrational white grievances</span></a> and fear (643). The star attraction of the evening was Donald Trump, Jr., who <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/the-rnc-has-made-a-strong-case-for-americas-imminent-collapse/ar-BB18no9z&source=gmail&ust=1603194856253000&usg=AFQjCNF_Dh3nETmNIuDo9ESm6gJKYkRK8Q" href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/the-rnc-has-made-a-strong-case-for-americas-imminent-collapse/ar-BB18no9z" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">attacked</span></a> teachers’ unions for wanting to keep kids and school staff safe (644), <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-08-24/republican-convention-what-happened-day-one&source=gmail&ust=1603194856253000&usg=AFQjCNFPvTFVbxD2QxCDURwesT3a-GzcHg" href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-08-24/republican-convention-what-happened-day-one" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">dog-whistled</span></a> to white Republicans by blaming “the Chinese Communist Party” for the coronavirus’s transmission from bat to human (645), and <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/25/rnc-trump-covid-19-401387&source=gmail&ust=1603194856253000&usg=AFQjCNGemj-KrcgsQ8TV7GuSU8-DmzwkPw" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/25/rnc-trump-covid-19-401387" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">against all evidence</span></a>—including the fact the GOP was hosting a virtual convention due to public health concerns—presented his daddy as a president who had “marshaled resources, forcefully responded to the deadly threat, and ‘moved mountains’ to save American lives” from COVID-19.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">COVID-19 re-asserted its prominence in the reality-based world on <b>Tuesday, August 25</b>.<br /><br />Universities which had opened too soon were <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/08/25/college-coronavirus-cases/?utm_campaign%3Dwp_post_most%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26wpisrc%3Dnl_most&source=gmail&ust=1603194856253000&usg=AFQjCNECjkaYndUk0C_kfSbOwANCYLKKCQ" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/08/25/college-coronavirus-cases/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">getting slammed</span></a> with new infections (646), medical bills were <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.wsj.com/articles/for-many-pandemic-victims-lingering-effects-stress-insurance-coverage-11598347801&source=gmail&ust=1603194856253000&usg=AFQjCNGX5O5d0OKwD7f5q-kax7aK8Lg8cA" href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/for-many-pandemic-victims-lingering-effects-stress-insurance-coverage-11598347801" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">mounting</span></a> for Americans who weren’t recovering fully from COVID-19 (647), and mortgage delinquency rates <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/08212020_national_delinquency_survey.asp&source=gmail&ust=1603194856253000&usg=AFQjCNEF_4UgfuUplhsMt0dz-xUBiLzZMQ" href="http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/08212020_national_delinquency_survey.asp" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">continued to climb</span></a>. (648)<br /><br />The administration had no public plans to address these issues, but they <i>were</i> proactive in trying to reduce official infection rates—by signaling to asymptomatic Americans that they didn’t need to get tested, even if they had been exposed to people who had tested positive. (649)<br /><br />As <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/25/health/covid-19-testing-cdc.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosvitals%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856253000&usg=AFQjCNGEaTUR8GshaUNOg4MXqobnkUXJ7A" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/25/health/covid-19-testing-cdc.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">reported</span></a> by Katherine Wu of <i>the New York Times</i>, the CDC’s sudden policy change directly contradicted an initiative put out just weeks earlier by the National Institutes of Health which was focused on “[detecting] people who are asymptomatic.”<br /><br />The change was bound to cause confusion for state and local public health officials (650), as it was a radical shift from previous CDC policy:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Prior iterations of the C.D.C.’s testing guidelines struck a markedly different tone, explicitly stating that ‘testing is recommended for all close contacts’ of people infected with the coronavirus, regardless of symptoms. The agency also specifically emphasized ‘the potential for asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic transmission’ as an important factor in the spread of the virus.”<br /><br />The administration directive to ignore the 40% of infected people who manifest no symptoms was baffling to the medical community. Susan Butler-Wu, a microbiologist from the University of Southern California, told <i>the Times</i>, “Wow, that is a walk-back….We’re in the middle of a pandemic, and that’s a really big change.” She added that “If people are getting exposed, and they’re not getting tested, and they’re not isolating, that’s a huge problem.” <br /><br />That same day, following “an outcry from medical experts, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn…apologized for overstating the life-saving benefits of treating COVID-19 patients with convalescent plasma.” (see #639-640)<br /><br />As <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://apnews.com/a7f0e8aac34a860ad502912564681b7c&source=gmail&ust=1603194856253000&usg=AFQjCNE58nZiXVPS6w0v-P5j5Xas_cwWiA" href="https://apnews.com/a7f0e8aac34a860ad502912564681b7c" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">reported</span></a> by Matthew Perrone and Deb Riechmann of the Associated Press, “Hahn had echoed Trump in saying that 35 more people out of 100 would survive the coronavirus if they were treated with the plasma. That claim vastly overstated preliminary findings of Mayo Clinic observations.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Dr. Jesse Goodman from Georgetown mentioned that Hahn’s distortions had not only provided false hope, but did damage to the credibility of the FDA (651), which could hinder America’s future efforts to get citizens to take the COVID-19 vaccine:<br /><br />“I think the constant pressure, the name-calling, the perception that decisions are made under pressure is damaging….We need the American people to have full confidence that medicines and vaccines are safe.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">These transparently political moves fed the public view that Joe Biden was <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/axios-ipsos-poll-coronavirus-index-biden-trump-trust-3b11f3f6-27c0-4ddf-869f-a719fb99df32.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosam%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856253000&usg=AFQjCNGBA1XDUohNrVrqv_UgkkuT4QsfTQ" href="https://www.axios.com/axios-ipsos-poll-coronavirus-index-biden-trump-trust-3b11f3f6-27c0-4ddf-869f-a719fb99df32.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">more trustworthy</span></a> in dealing with the virus than Trump, but as ever, most Republican voters were blind to just how inadequate Trump’s response (see #1-#651) had been. <br /><br />This disconnect from reality showed up in night two of the Republican National Convention. As <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.vox.com/2020/8/26/21402124/rnc-coronavirus-past-tense-larry-kudlow?utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3DSentences%252082620%26utm_content%3DSentences%252082620%2BCID_89fd469ad8f939a82620aa126a127a29%26utm_source%3Dcm_email%26utm_term%3DVox%2520%2520Aaron%2520Rupar&source=gmail&ust=1603194856253000&usg=AFQjCNHLTe-lR4IBjfj944bXIE4CkXgGKg" href="https://www.vox.com/2020/8/26/21402124/rnc-coronavirus-past-tense-larry-kudlow?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Sentences%2082620&utm_content=Sentences%2082620+CID_89fd469ad8f939a82620aa126a127a29&utm_source=cm_email&utm_term=Vox%20%20Aaron%20Rupar" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">reported</span></a> by Aaron Rupar for <i>Vox</i>, speakers gave viewers a false sense of security by referring to the coronavirus in <i>the past tense</i> (652), even though jobless claims were increasing, over 36,000 new infections and 1,100 deaths were tallied that day, the fall flu season could easily lead to an uptick in cases, and the administration had no concrete plans to combat the pandemic anytime soon. <br /><br />As one example of many, Trump’s economic adviser Larry Kudlow said, “It was awful….Health and economic impacts were tragic. Hardship and heartbreak were everywhere. But presidential leadership came swiftly and effectively with an extraordinary rescue for health and safety to successfully fight the Covid virus.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Try as they might to normalize a pandemic, the GOP couldn’t stop legitimate news organizations from reporting the numerous ways the coronavirus was impacting Americans or the key role the administration had had (and was continuing to have) in enabling the pandemic’s spread. On <b>Wednesday, August 26</b>, more information came out about Trump’s latest attempt to reduce the number of tests administered in order to try to win a second term by keeping public infection totals artificially low. <br /><br />David Lim and Adam Cancryn of <i>Politico</i> <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/26/brett-giroir-coronavirus-testing-cdc-402524&source=gmail&ust=1603194856253000&usg=AFQjCNGV6p-CPz8oitrpXETlD8Pm7Q0dQw" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/26/brett-giroir-coronavirus-testing-cdc-402524" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">detailed</span></a> the administration’s inexplicable decision earlier in the week to give state and local governments the green light to reduce testing (see #649) in “Trump officials pressured CDC to change virus testing guidelines.”<br /><br />The opening paragraph cut to the heart of the matter:<br /><br />“Top Trump administration officials involved with the White House coronavirus task force ordered the Centers for Disease Control and Protection to stop promoting coronavirus testing for most people who have been exposed to the virus but aren't showing symptoms, according to two people with knowledge of the process.”<br /><br />The administration had tried to sneak the new guidelines past the eyes of the press and the public, and was abdicating responsibility to states and local governments, as they had done all along:<br /><br />“The revised testing guidelines, which CDC released late Monday with no public notice (653), say it is up to state and local public health officials and health providers to decide whether people without symptoms or underlying risk factors need a test after high-risk situations — such as coming into contact with an infected person for more than 15 minutes.<br /><br />“The agency also now says it is up to local public health experts to decide whether testing is needed for people who attend a public or private gathering of more than 10 individuals when masks are not worn and social-distancing guidelines are not followed.” (654)<br /><br />Susan Bailey, president of the American Medical Association, told <i>Politico</i>, “Suggesting that people without symptoms, who have known exposure to COVID-positive individuals, do not need testing is a recipe for community spread and more spikes in coronavirus.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Reducing the number of tests and official infections appeared to be directly tied to reducing Trump’s culpability at election time for America’s first-in-the-world infection rates. Another stunningly cynical tactic Trump was engaged in was his two-step on mail balloting; even as he <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/06/every-trump-ally-who-has-voted-by-mail-list.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856253000&usg=AFQjCNEFFBvmBeF2u6DO9iACqGYwT_nELA" href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/06/every-trump-ally-who-has-voted-by-mail-list.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">voted by mail</span></a>, and his son <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/26/donald-trump-jr-vote-mail-robocall-402503&source=gmail&ust=1603194856253000&usg=AFQjCNFqPLLO7TIVq211vLicP_5Rb2lV9Q" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/26/donald-trump-jr-vote-mail-robocall-402503" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">Don Jr.’s voice</span></a> was used in robocalls to swing states advocating mail voting, Trump continued to peddle the lie that voting by mail was rife with fraud. One of his <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1275024974579982336?ref_src%3Dtwsrc%255Etfw&source=gmail&ust=1603194856253000&usg=AFQjCNGRavUS5ybHssu-NpZyr7eTQYfgJw" href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1275024974579982336?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">claims</span></a>, that foreign powers would manipulate mail voting from abroad, was disputed by “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/26/intel-officials-contradict-trump-on-voting-by-mail-402470&source=gmail&ust=1603194856253000&usg=AFQjCNG6-8IruOBT4BGO9UeiNgPWKuzYGg" href="http://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/26/intel-officials-contradict-trump-on-voting-by-mail-402470" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">a top official</span></a>” in Trump’s own Office of the Director of National Intelligence. (655)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What little the administration <i>was</i> trying to do to combat the pandemic was dubious on policy grounds. As part of the CARES Act passed in March, the administration’s Education Department had been given $16 billion in aid to disburse to K-12 schools. Education Secretary Betsy Devos (who is married to a billionaire) took it upon herself to “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/26/judge-blocks-devos-plan-pandemic-relief-private-school-students-402900&source=gmail&ust=1603194856253000&usg=AFQjCNE4MsILY5lbADefNHLHp6SX6TE67w" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/26/judge-blocks-devos-plan-pandemic-relief-private-school-students-402900" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">rewrite the statutory formula</span></a>” for school aid (656) as an excuse to divert taxpayer money from public schools to private schools without regard for the economic need of the students, in effect shortchanging at-risk children across the country (657). Devos’ efforts to favor children of privilege was blocked in court on Wednesday, the <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2020/08/judge-devos-coronavirus-rule-injunction.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856253000&usg=AFQjCNHq2cm97kfrYJRAh0qNkZRrFVCXtA" href="https://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2020/08/judge-devos-coronavirus-rule-injunction.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">second time</span></a> this had happened in the prior week.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />Against a hellscape largely of Trump’s creation, Republicans did what they do best at the convention that night: <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/08/27/fact-checking-third-night-2020-republican-national-convention/?utm_campaign%3Dwp_post_most%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26wpisrc%3Dnl_most&source=gmail&ust=1603194856253000&usg=AFQjCNHwgE3KnCe8OBmN9Q_9831lEsCf7Q" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/08/27/fact-checking-third-night-2020-republican-national-convention/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">lie</span></a> about the coronavirus, paint <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.npr.org/2019/04/22/715875291/is-joe-biden-too-centrist-for-todays-democratic-party&source=gmail&ust=1603194856253000&usg=AFQjCNFE-QuS3F1uIsXIx0lZWrFoXV13xg" href="https://www.npr.org/2019/04/22/715875291/is-joe-biden-too-centrist-for-todays-democratic-party" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">lifetime centrist</span></a> Joe Biden as a radical leftist, and play to conservative white Americans’ <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.salon.com/test2/2015/04/10/white_americas_racial_illiteracy_why_our_national_conversation_is_poisoned_from_the_start_partner/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856254000&usg=AFQjCNEX_SLi11Qy0M0c2L6-2bMdjjjk0g" href="https://www.salon.com/test2/2015/04/10/white_americas_racial_illiteracy_why_our_national_conversation_is_poisoned_from_the_start_partner/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">denial about race</span></a>.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />Lee Zeldin, a representative from New York, said, “The administration delivered public, private and semi-automated lab testing approvals at blinding speed,” though the U.S. in actuality had failed to get tests out on any scale for over two months. Mike Pence gushed about the administration’s “seamless partnership” with governors, though many governors had begged for PPE they never received, and once again wheeled out the myth that Trump’s move to limit flights from China had been decisive and unprecedented, though 38 countries had done something similar and 40,000 people had come into the country from China after the ban had gone into effect.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />Manipulating lizard brain fear about localized events happening thousands of miles away, and ignoring the fact that a right-wing vigilante in Kenosha had <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://theintercept.com/2020/08/27/tucker-carlson-defends-kenosha-shooter/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856254000&usg=AFQjCNEfQqJ9G-8xYXZ7o5NDO4Wsks9BKw" href="https://theintercept.com/2020/08/27/tucker-carlson-defends-kenosha-shooter/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">gunned two people down</span></a> the night before, multiple speakers took the occasion of the looting and violence following Jacob Blake’s shooting to claim that Joe Biden would undermine law enforcement officials, who were not funded or overseen by the federal government. Mike Pence even claimed that “you won’t be safe in Biden’s America.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /><i>New Yorker</i> writer Susan Glasser summed up the evening’s staggering ironies with <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://twitter.com/sbg1/status/1298819585135779840?campaign_id%3D9%26emc%3Dedit_nn_20200827%26instance_id%3D21656%26nl%3Dthe-morning%26regi_id%3D87101069%26section_index%3D2%26section_name%3Dthree_more_big_stories%26segment_id%3D37015%26te%3D1%26user_id%3D1baa2c82b5fd57364c41fdc8e1f99240&source=gmail&ust=1603194856254000&usg=AFQjCNEsNRpLLTcZXWxD7yMuzzWON7ALDg" href="https://twitter.com/sbg1/status/1298819585135779840?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200827&instance_id=21656&nl=the-morning&regi_id=87101069&section_index=2&section_name=three_more_big_stories&segment_id=37015&te=1&user_id=1baa2c82b5fd57364c41fdc8e1f99240" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">a tweet</span></a>:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />“So America right now has: deadly pandemic, massive unemployment and recession, schools unable to open, protests over racial injustice, a killer hurricane bearing down on the South...</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />And I am watching Mike Pence talk about how bad things would be in Joe Biden’s America.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Pence and Trump’s failures of governance were looked at on <b>Thursday, August 27</b> in a <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/27/world/global-coronavirus-attitudes-pew-intl/index.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856254000&usg=AFQjCNHO17vpv1FYw_W-5Mae1bER7ig4Aw" href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/27/world/global-coronavirus-attitudes-pew-intl/index.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">Pew Research study</span></a> of 14 developed countries. Because of Trump’s hyper-politicization of the pandemic, America finished “dead last” in its ability to maintain unity throughout the pandemic (658). The U.S. also finished last—tied with the U.K., another developed country under conservative rule—in how well its government had handled the pandemic. 78% of Republicans in the survey believed that “the economic situation is good and the government is handling the crisis well.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />In the real world, the economic situation was not good, as in excess of a million Americans had <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.wsj.com/articles/unemployment-benefits-jobless-claims-08-27-2020-11598481716&source=gmail&ust=1603194856254000&usg=AFQjCNEXDMfrzJb8ZTmI6qOyPion2BBEVA" href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/unemployment-benefits-jobless-claims-08-27-2020-11598481716" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">filed</span></a> for unemployment benefits in the prior week (659), roughly 5X the rate people had been filing at before the pandemic, and the Commerce Department reported that America’s GDP had fallen by 31.7% in the second quarter of 2020. (660)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">House Democrats had passed the HEROES Act on May 15 to pump stimulus into the economy, help state and local governments which were deep in debt, and ensure that tens of millions of Americans struggling with unemployment would continue to receive enhanced benefits, but <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/13/where-stimulus-talks-stand-now-that-senate-has-adjourned-for-august.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856254000&usg=AFQjCNFdIY1wJOt7Ly39eRD4yCiv-2RrJA" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/13/where-stimulus-talks-stand-now-that-senate-has-adjourned-for-august.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">the GOP had sandbagged the negotiations</span></a>. Asked about this poorly-timed concern with fiscal discipline by Ben White of <i>Politico</i>, Trump economic adviser Larry Kudlow, who had been a key advocate for Trump’s $2 trillion tax cut which had gone <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/15/rich-would-get-1-trillion-tax-cut-under-trumps-tax-loophole.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856254000&usg=AFQjCNHBihOM2NYpxFsTO3j90MZO_54OWg" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/15/rich-would-get-1-trillion-tax-cut-under-trumps-tax-loophole.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">overwhelmingly</span></a> to the wealthy, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/27/kudlow-coronavirus-relief-spending-403736&source=gmail&ust=1603194856254000&usg=AFQjCNFeCeDOhi-EZ-gOtUQKS66NGMtFrw" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/27/kudlow-coronavirus-relief-spending-403736" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">claimed</span></a> that “At least a third, if not more” of the Democrats’ proposals were not “smart spending.” Cited as an example of unnecessary spending was the Democrats’ request for $25 billion for the U.S. Postal Service (USPS).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />As Julie Zauzmer of <i>the Washington Post</i> <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2020/08/27/usps-delayed-packages/?utm_campaign%3Dwp_post_most%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26wpisrc%3Dnl_most&source=gmail&ust=1603194856254000&usg=AFQjCNHeUnFO-POTzB8AIn-iGeZi25h6Sg" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2020/08/27/usps-delayed-packages/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">reported</span></a>, Kudlow’s talking point belied the experience of numerous USPS customers around the country who were receiving messages telling them that their packages were “being held at a post office ‘at the request of the customer.’” The message was leading to confusion—and potentially risky visits to the post office (661)—because in many cases the packages simply didn’t go out on time. (see #636)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">According to Zauzmer, “The packages are delayed because of broad changes Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has implemented to the nation’s mail delivery operations, including policies that slow down package delivery. When a mail carrier cannot deliver a package on the day it was scheduled because their shift is ending, postal workers say, the system sometimes generates a misleading ‘held at the request of the customer’ message.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />When pressed by Congress, DeJoy had refused to “reverse his ban on extra trips to deliver more mail,” leading to continued delays in delivery (662), a worrisome sign right before an election certain to have record amounts of mail ballots.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">But late mail was for little people. The big event of the day was Trump’s nomination speech at the Republican National Convention, which <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.chron.com/news/article/Trump-celebrates-at-crowded-party-mostly-devoid-15520959.php&source=gmail&ust=1603194856254000&usg=AFQjCNEmmarh3g69ztA_8F2Zs5boPrHsrw" href="https://www.chron.com/news/article/Trump-celebrates-at-crowded-party-mostly-devoid-15520959.php" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">flagrantly violated</span></a> the COVID-19 safety standards set by Trump’s own CDC. There were reportedly no pre-screenings for temperature and other symptoms of COVID-19 and few of the people were pre-tested (663). The crowd flouted regulations about public meetings, with 1,500 people crammed into a small space—the South Lawn of the White House (664). There was no social distancing; attendees sat right next to each other on folding chairs (665). Masks were few and far between (666). There was a distinct likelihood that Trump’s speech could become yet another one of his super-spreader events. (667)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />The lies came so fast and furious during Trump’s speech that MSNBC host Rachel Maddow performed real-time fact-checking at “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.mediaite.com/election-2020/watch-rachel-maddows-blistering-fact-check-of-trump-speech-delivered-at-auctioneer-speed/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856254000&usg=AFQjCNGXzZh3lXLn4tunEY-YfJBAO9OZ1g" href="https://www.mediaite.com/election-2020/watch-rachel-maddows-blistering-fact-check-of-trump-speech-delivered-at-auctioneer-speed/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">auctioneer speed</span></a>.” Despite the death of <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/08/12/us/covid-deaths-us.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856254000&usg=AFQjCNGLoxfSzA7eOuoM1eRnlJn5LGqn3w" href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/08/12/us/covid-deaths-us.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">over 200,000 Americans</span></a> from COVID-19, millions infected, six million jobs lost, and seven trillion dollars added to the national debt, Trump spoke of the “extraordinary progress” made under his presidency.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />Though African-Americans had been <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/05/30/865413079/what-do-coronavirus-racial-disparities-look-like-state-by-state&source=gmail&ust=1603194856254000&usg=AFQjCNE8kZCZncickSpMLC2Ynex0dxcyrg" href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/05/30/865413079/what-do-coronavirus-racial-disparities-look-like-state-by-state" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">disproportionately impacted</span></a> by both the pandemic he’d failed to control and the resulting economic collapse (668), Trump <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-presented-the-mother-of-all-fabrications-on-the-white-house-lawn/2020/08/28/a08c2fb8-e8d9-11ea-97e0-94d2e46e759b_story.html?utm_campaign%3Dwp_post_most%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26wpisrc%3Dnl_most&source=gmail&ust=1603194856254000&usg=AFQjCNH07DjITtQyKfwymxyrLXU4_741fw" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-presented-the-mother-of-all-fabrications-on-the-white-house-lawn/2020/08/28/a08c2fb8-e8d9-11ea-97e0-94d2e46e759b_story.html?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">claimed</span></a> to have “done more for the African American community than any president since Abraham Lincoln.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />As ever, his main focus was on triggering <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://apnews.com/74c29d2096afc272e7260b84654b8307&source=gmail&ust=1603194856254000&usg=AFQjCNHismboIiyReS09phqNkGgmEWMdeA" href="https://apnews.com/74c29d2096afc272e7260b84654b8307" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">white Republicans’ amygdalas</span></a>. Though Trump couldn’t bring himself to acknowledge Jacob Blake by name, he used the unrest that took place in downtown Kenosha, which had zero impact on 99.99999% of Americans, as a platform to float dog whistle statements about “law and order” and claim the Democrats would give “free rein to violent anarchists, agitators and criminals.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />When it came to the pandemic, Trump again played the race card by blaming China for his own failures (669) and advocated re-opening the economy further, though we weren’t ready to do so safely (670). He also <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/trump-rnc-speech-strategy-b2cbd308-6406-4308-a5d4-96c5a96dba49.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosam%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856254000&usg=AFQjCNHhudgELW-8x-VCMFegOtVnAov-EA" href="https://www.axios.com/trump-rnc-speech-strategy-b2cbd308-6406-4308-a5d4-96c5a96dba49.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">claimed</span></a> that Biden’s science-first, long-term plan was “a surrender to the virus,” (671) while in fact it was his largely hands-off, see-no-evil governance which had been the true surrender to the virus.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The next morning, <b>Friday, August 28</b>, German Lopez <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.vox.com/2020-presidential-election/2020/8/28/21405325/trump-rnc-speech-fact-check-cnn-daniel-dale&source=gmail&ust=1603194856254000&usg=AFQjCNHaWUmsqku6rSE8TU2x1OfnwpOkhA" href="https://www.vox.com/2020-presidential-election/2020/8/28/21405325/trump-rnc-speech-fact-check-cnn-daniel-dale" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">wrote</span></a> about CNN reporter Daniel Dale’s 3-minute fact check of Trump’s speech, which covered 21 false claims. As Zack Beauchamp of <i>Vox</i> put it, the Republicans had “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.vox.com/2020/8/28/21405144/trump-rnc-speech-fact-check-lies-hatch-act?utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3DSentences%252082820%26utm_content%3DSentences%252082820%2BCID_a6d7c26a7955ec9e7e1eb97ed24006cd%26utm_source%3Dcm_email%26utm_term%3DThe%2520RNC%2520weaponized%2520exhaustion&source=gmail&ust=1603194856254000&usg=AFQjCNFrMApo9EQGFdP7bbJXn5smmfL3cg" href="https://www.vox.com/2020/8/28/21405144/trump-rnc-speech-fact-check-lies-hatch-act?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Sentences%2082820&utm_content=Sentences%2082820+CID_a6d7c26a7955ec9e7e1eb97ed24006cd&utm_source=cm_email&utm_term=The%20RNC%20weaponized%20exhaustion" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">weaponized exhaustion</span></a>,” telling more lies on the first night of their convention than the Democrats had told in all four nights of their convention <i>combined</i>.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">They got away with it because most Republican voters were mis- or ill-informed (see #145, #204, #283, #307, #313, #s 319-323. #325, #330, #339, #347, #387, #440, #452, #534, #s 566-567, #641) and because the Republicans “have become so disdainful of the essentials of political practice in a democratic society — a baseline attachment to the rule of law and honesty in political discourse — that they mock the very idea of accountability on these questions. They count on the sheer volume of misinformation — ‘<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/1/16/20991816/impeachment-trial-trump-bannon-misinformation&source=gmail&ust=1603194856254000&usg=AFQjCNHP_g5WDj6xJTiYfb2kLroI8t3OZQ" href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/1/16/20991816/impeachment-trial-trump-bannon-misinformation" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">flooding the zone with shit</span></a>,’ in Steve Bannon’s memorable phrase — to overwhelm our political institutions’ ability to check their misbehavior.” (672)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Far less easy for Republicans to control than their sheep-like supporters were real world events. Consumer spending, already low, was <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-consumer-spending-rebound-cools-130322665.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856254000&usg=AFQjCNFRZoVJKKhiSyj2WT_7diOP2nyEUg" href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-consumer-spending-rebound-cools-130322665.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">slowing down</span></a> and likely to decrease even more due to the GOP’s <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/mcconnell-senate-recess-august-defaea3c-6f3c-4e39-964f-f63ef8ef2674.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856254000&usg=AFQjCNH6GlQ7DT3GaTT9yOUomrU-yKWWyQ" href="https://www.axios.com/mcconnell-senate-recess-august-defaea3c-6f3c-4e39-964f-f63ef8ef2674.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">abandonment</span></a> of stimulus talks. (673)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In Friday’s<span style="color: #4472c4;"> </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/08/28/coronavirus-covid-live-updates-us/?utm_campaign%3Dwp_post_most%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26wpisrc%3Dnl_most&source=gmail&ust=1603194856254000&usg=AFQjCNGFeWuvn-QD-zCdvR0N2J_spuQZvg" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/08/28/coronavirus-covid-live-updates-us/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">coronavirus news</span></a>, a man in Nevada was re-infected with COVID-19, the first reported instance in the U.S. America continued to lead the world with over 178,000 official COVID-19 deaths and 5.8 million infections, both <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/largest-seroprevalence-study-in-us-shows-vast-covid-19-undercount-67762&source=gmail&ust=1603194856254000&usg=AFQjCNEWb3FO0H9T-C_mP7SglST28LnQCw" href="https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/largest-seroprevalence-study-in-us-shows-vast-covid-19-undercount-67762" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">major undercounts</span></a>. Colleges which had opened prematurely continued to see huge spikes in infections.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">And national health organizations were in an uproar over the CDC’s tacit push to reduce testing. The National Association of County and City Health Officials and Big Cities Health Coalition sent a letter to the CDC which said, “Changing testing guidelines to suggest that close contacts to confirmed positives without symptoms do not need to be tested is inconsistent with the science and the data” and “these changes in testing guidelines may have broad impacts on our ability to fight covid-19.” (674) The American Academy of Pediatrics said the CDC’s new policy was a “dangerous step backward in our efforts to control this deadly virus.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">After months of terrible decisions which had killed hundreds of thousands of Americans, it was clear the administration didn’t much care about sound public health policy. The single and only goal was to confuse an electoral college majority’s worth of gullible (mostly white) voters into believing that the administration was on top of the crisis.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In service to this goal, the administration dumped Emily Miller, who had been the FDA spokesperson for a grand total of two weeks. <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/28/fda-top-spokesperson-leaves-404422&source=gmail&ust=1603194856254000&usg=AFQjCNFAcSpnO44-yDm2A2GQGhjLJ_zzPw" href="http://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/28/fda-top-spokesperson-leaves-404422" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">According to</span></a> Dan Diamond and Adam Cancryn of <i>Politico</i>, while the FDA spokesperson slot had generally been filled by “a career civil servant” who knew what they were talking about, the administration had chosen an extreme-right pseudo journalist with “no prior medical or science experience.” (675) A health official told<i> Politico</i> that Miller “couldn't even pronounce convalescent plasma.” Her sin in the administration’s eyes was not a lack of qualifications for her job or craven dishonesty about important public health matters, but making the president look bad during election season.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">More administration blunders came out on <b>Saturday, August 29</b>. In “Trump Program to Cover Uninsured Covid-19 Patients Falls Short of Promise,” Abby Goodnough of <i>the New York Times</i> <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/29/health/Covid-obamacare-uninsured.html?campaign_id%3D9%26emc%3Dedit_nn_20200830%26instance_id%3D21756%26nl%3Dthe-morning%26regi_id%3D87101069%26section_index%3D1%26section_name%3Dbig_story%26segment_id%3D37185%26te%3D1%26user_id%3D1baa2c82b5fd57364c41fdc8e1f99240&source=gmail&ust=1603194856255000&usg=AFQjCNFckL_YVCjBafsBhsN2TAI4waEg8Q" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/29/health/Covid-obamacare-uninsured.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200830&instance_id=21756&nl=the-morning&regi_id=87101069&section_index=1&section_name=big_story&segment_id=37185&te=1&user_id=1baa2c82b5fd57364c41fdc8e1f99240" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">reported</span></a> on the cracks in America’s coronavirus safety net.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In April, Trump had blocked a proposal to expand the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to cover Americans who were losing their coverage due to mass layoffs; he had also opposed the expansion of Medicaid. As <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/29/health/Covid-obamacare-uninsured.html?campaign_id%3D9%26emc%3Dedit_nn_20200830%26instance_id%3D21756%26nl%3Dthe-morning%26regi_id%3D87101069%26section_index%3D1%26section_name%3Dbig_story%26segment_id%3D37185%26te%3D1%26user_id%3D1baa2c82b5fd57364c41fdc8e1f99240&source=gmail&ust=1603194856255000&usg=AFQjCNFckL_YVCjBafsBhsN2TAI4waEg8Q" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/29/health/Covid-obamacare-uninsured.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200830&instance_id=21756&nl=the-morning&regi_id=87101069&section_index=1&section_name=big_story&segment_id=37185&te=1&user_id=1baa2c82b5fd57364c41fdc8e1f99240" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">reported</span></a> by <i>Politico</i> at the time, the administration instead had opted to pay “providers directly for coronavirus treatment,” rather than go through the ACA. According to the <i>Politico</i> article, “The uninsured will be able to seek treatment immediately, without worrying about first purchasing insurance coverage, [Health and Human Services Secretary Alex] Azar said. And hospitals will be reimbursed swiftly for their expenses, on the additional condition that they not stick their patients with surprise bills.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“‘In many respects, it’s better for those uninsured individuals,’” Azar had said. “‘What President Trump is doing here with this money is an unprecedented disease-specific support of care for individuals to make sure that people get treatment.’”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Time showed that Azar had made a false promise:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…a review by The New York Times of <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://data.cdc.gov/Administrative/Claims-Reimbursement-to-Health-Care-Providers-and-/rksx-33p3&source=gmail&ust=1603194856255000&usg=AFQjCNERhj9H9mzKg17lF4kx9LPvH6cjAg" href="https://data.cdc.gov/Administrative/Claims-Reimbursement-to-Health-Care-Providers-and-/rksx-33p3" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">payments made through</span></a> [the administration’s program], as well as interviews with hospital executives, patients and health policy researchers who have examined the payments, suggest the quickly concocted plan has not lived up to its promise. It has caused confusion at participating hospitals, which in some cases have mistakenly billed patients…who should be covered by it (676). Few patients seem to know the program exists, so they don’t question the charges (677). And some hospitals and other medical providers have <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Companies-take-millions-in-COVID-help-but-don-t-15429867.php&source=gmail&ust=1603194856255000&usg=AFQjCNEtOCOPUmOQ2M2OvvGEx2-Jt1kP6w" href="https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Companies-take-millions-in-COVID-help-but-don-t-15429867.php" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">chosen not to participate</span></a> in the program, which bars them from seeking any payment from patients whose bills they submit to it. (678)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Large numbers of patients have also been disqualified because Covid-19 has to be the primary diagnosis for a case to be covered (unless the patient is pregnant). (679) Since hospitalized Covid patients often have other serious medical conditions, many have other primary diagnoses. At Jackson Health in Miami, for example, only 60 percent of uninsured Covid-19 patients had decisively met the requirements to have their charges covered under the program as of late July, a spokeswoman said.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The failures of the administration showed that “Mr. Trump and his party have no vision for improving health coverage, and instead promote piecemeal solutions, even in a national health crisis. Mr. Trump had promised a plan to replace the Affordable Care Act by the beginning of August, but none has been announced and he and other Republicans barely mentioned health policy in their national convention last week.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As with all of the administration’s efforts, the program wasn’t remotely up to the scale necessary:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Health care providers in all 50 states had been reimbursed a total of $851 million from the fund as of last week — $267 million for testing and $584 million for treatment— with hospitals in Texas and New Jersey receiving the most.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“But the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan research organization, has estimated that hospital costs alone for uninsured coronavirus patients could reach between <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.kff.org/uninsured/issue-brief/estimated-cost-of-treating-the-uninsured-hospitalized-with-covid-19/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856255000&usg=AFQjCNFYr3WAyZ92YTqgYH6vBGnwSwpDlw" href="https://www.kff.org/uninsured/issue-brief/estimated-cost-of-treating-the-uninsured-hospitalized-with-covid-19/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">$13.9 billion and $41.8 billion</span></a>, far more than what the program has paid out so far.” (680)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Sara Rosenbaum, a professor at George Washington University, told <i>the Times</i>, “This is not the way you deal with uninsured people during a public health emergency.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Contrary to the rosy picture Republicans had painted all week, America’s public health emergency was far from over. A <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/29/coronavirus-cases-climb-in-the-midwest-as-more-states-report-growing-outbreaks.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856255000&usg=AFQjCNGcGUa4XaqtoPdw9Ujn8HUi6mKm2w" href="http://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/29/coronavirus-cases-climb-in-the-midwest-as-more-states-report-growing-outbreaks.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">CNBC analysis</span></a> showed that cases were rising by 5% or more in 21 states and the District of Columbia. Infection rates were especially high in “Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio and South Dakota.” Other than Minnesota, all of these states had supported Trump in 2016.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">While the pandemic spread through the Midwest, Trump’s years of extreme polarization bore fruit in Portland that night after the far-right Patriot Prayer group trolled Black Lives Matter protesters. In the melee that followed, a member of Patriot Prayer <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/30/us/portland-trump-rally-shooting.html?action%3Dclick%26module%3DTop%2520Stories%26pgtype%3DHomepage&source=gmail&ust=1603194856255000&usg=AFQjCNGFS3Ji3Z_zBEHTGt9fDZTuvKN6Cg" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/30/us/portland-trump-rally-shooting.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">lost his life</span></a>.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>The Washington Post</i> broke the big story on <b>Sunday, August 30</b>, “How Trump politicized another federal agency’s response to the pandemic.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/how-trump-politicized-another-federal-agencys-response-to-the-pandemic/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856255000&usg=AFQjCNFAx-4rRxYLv7UPS3Wwzn9MQHLlIQ" href="https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/how-trump-politicized-another-federal-agencys-response-to-the-pandemic/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">The long read</span></a> gave a fly-on-the-wall view of the administration’s snake oil sale of convalescent plasma a week earlier (see #s 639-640). The FDA hadn’t been ready to advocate for the treatment because the research data was inconclusive, but the White House fast-tracked the emergency use authorization anyway to boost Trump in the lead-in to his convention (681). The night before the announcement, Trump’s press secretary Kayleigh McEnany had tweeted that there was a “major therapeutic breakthrough on the China Virus.” Trump’s FDA head Stephen Hahn had rushed from his home in Colorado to be at the president’s side for the announcement.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Hahn knew Trump was grossly exaggerating at the press conference when he cited false data and called convalescent plasma a “very historic breakthrough,” but decided to lie to reporters rather than contradict his temperamental boss. (682)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">According to <i>the Post</i>, “The misrepresentations became a debacle for the FDA, shaking its professional staff to the core (683) and undermining its credibility as it approaches one of the most important and fraught decisions in its history (684) amid a divisive presidential election – deciding when a covid-19 vaccine is safe and effective. Yet again, the president had harnessed the machinery of government to advance his political agenda – with potentially corrosive effects on public trust in government scientists’ handling of the pandemic.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Hahn had backtracked from the claims he’d made on Monday, but “demoralized [FDA] employees felt he had allowed the agency to become a prop in the president’s re-election campaign – a bit player in a reality TV show scripted by political operatives, not scientists.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…What rankled agency insiders was the way a defensible FDA decision to authorize an incremental advance for a disease with few treatments was being described as a huge leap forward in an over-the-top White House rollout. How, they wondered, would the FDA have any credibility on a vaccine decision if it bungled something much simpler?”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Hahn’s poor judgment was of a piece with the FDA’s earlier back-and-forth on whether to regulate hydroxychloroquine, its decision not to regulate covid-19 antibodies (see #433), and the CDC’s recent moves to reduce testing. Hahn’s lack of government experience was also hobbling the agency:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The FDA’s situation is further complicated by an inexperienced commissioner who former agency leaders say failed at a critical task: to clearly explain the complicated ‘risk-benefit’ calculation that goes into every drug authorization or approval.” (685)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Adding to the confusion, Trump’s Health and Human Services Department (HHS) had been more concerned about public perceptions than public health reality, thus they were “angry that Hahn had publicly apologized for misstating plasma’s potential benefits without clearing that with HHS communications staff. Michael Caputo, assistant secretary for public affairs at HHS, argued that it muddled Trump’s and the administration’s message on the treatment, according to one former and one current official.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">These type of politically-driven policy decisions were out of the norm for previous administrations:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“HHS officials are ‘making clear what their expectations are in a way that is not traditional,’ said another individual familiar with the situation. ‘It doesn’t mean it’s illegal or wrong. … Generally speaking, you don’t have HHS leadership weigh in on specific drug approvals, an (emergency use authorization), or those sorts of things.’ The FDA does have ‘less and less autonomy.’” (686)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Jerome Avorn of Harvard Medical School told <i>the Post</i>, “I’ve been following health regulatory decisions for decades and have never seen this amount of White House arm twisting to force agencies like FDA and CDC to make decisions based on political pressure, rather than the best science.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump’s indifference to science and public health was reviewed again on <b>Monday, August 31</b> by reporters Yasmeen Abutaleb and Josh Dawsey in “New Trump pandemic adviser pushes controversial ‘herd immunity’ strategy, worrying public health officials.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.lmtonline.com/news/article/New-Trump-pandemic-adviser-pushes-controversial-15526711.php&source=gmail&ust=1603194856255000&usg=AFQjCNFt9BMBq6Tmfyi0Hv8bXP3Wm_OxvA" href="https://www.lmtonline.com/news/article/New-Trump-pandemic-adviser-pushes-controversial-15526711.php" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">According to</span></a> Abutaleb and Dawsey, Trump’s new favorite public health adviser, Scott Atlas (see #s 622-623) was “urging the White House to embrace a controversial ‘herd immunity’ strategy to combat the pandemic, which would entail allowing the coronavirus to spread through most of the population to quickly build resistance to the virus, while taking steps to protect those in nursing homes and other vulnerable populations. (687)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The administration has already begun to implement some policies along these lines, according to current and former officials as well as experts, particularly with regard to testing.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Atlas had pointed to Sweden as an example of herd immunity “success,” but “Sweden's handling of the pandemic has been heavily criticized by public health officials and infectious-disease experts as reckless - the country has among the highest infection and death rates in the world. It also hasn't escaped the deep economic problems resulting from the pandemic.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Public health experts in the U.S. were scratching their heads, again:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“That this approach is even being discussed inside the White House is drawing concern from experts inside and outside the government who note that a herd immunity strategy could lead to the country suffering hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of lost lives.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Atlas, “who does not have a background in infectious diseases or epidemiology,” had claimed that “an increased case count will move the nation more quickly to herd immunity and won't lead to more deaths if the vulnerable are protected. But infectious-disease experts strongly dispute that, noting that more than 25,000 people younger than 65 have died of the virus in the United States. In addition, the United States has a higher number of vulnerable people of all ages because of high rates of heart and lung disease and obesity, and millions of vulnerable people live outside nursing homes - many in the same households with children, whom Atlas believes should return to school.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Though the administration wouldn’t admit it publicly, in practice they were moving the U.S. in the direction of herd immunity by pushing schools to re-open, reducing testing guidelines, and not funding testing and tracing at anywhere near the level necessary, which was allowing infections to spread far and wide and often undetected.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That same day, Atlas <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2020/08/31/atlas-makes-florida-swing-backing-desantis-on-schools-and-sports-1314047?nname%3Dpolitico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition%26nid%3D00000170-c000-da87-af78-e185fa700000%26nrid%3D00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000%26nlid%3D2670445&source=gmail&ust=1603194856255000&usg=AFQjCNH-9GO9CH1Q_5bHYBCvaVpFC-dSxA" href="https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2020/08/31/atlas-makes-florida-swing-backing-desantis-on-schools-and-sports-1314047?nname=politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition&nid=00000170-c000-da87-af78-e185fa700000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=2670445" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">made an appearance</span></a> in Florida, where he appeared with Republican governor Ron DeSantis, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/coronavirus-ravaged-florida-as-ron-desantis-sidelined-scientists-and-followed-trump/2020/07/25/0b8008da-c648-11ea-b037-f9711f89ee46_story.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856255000&usg=AFQjCNGKh8qdVR0vgUrkRejt5MM5mpnkgw" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/coronavirus-ravaged-florida-as-ron-desantis-sidelined-scientists-and-followed-trump/2020/07/25/0b8008da-c648-11ea-b037-f9711f89ee46_story.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">the poster boy for coronavirus mismanagement</span></a>. Atlas parroted the administration talking point that healthy people didn’t need to be tested (688), suggested that college athletes should put their health on the line for the sake of other peoples’ entertainment, and dismissed the safety of Florida’s schoolchildren, telling reporters, “There is no need to fear at this point….We are the only country of our peer nations in the western world who are this hysterical about opening schools.” (689)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">But there was a reason many schools around the country weren’t open to in-person instruction: because the U.S. had by far the most infections in the world. That day, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/31/us-coronavirus-cases-pass-6m-406044&source=gmail&ust=1603194856255000&usg=AFQjCNHdrXCd5GtP0yq-lKyb1l9UGy0F1Q" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/31/us-coronavirus-cases-pass-6m-406044" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">Trump’s America passed 6,000,000 official infections</span></a>, more than 10X the total of any other developed country—and yet still a <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/largest-seroprevalence-study-in-us-shows-vast-covid-19-undercount-67762&source=gmail&ust=1603194856255000&usg=AFQjCNE2Yxo0dYMHHm1KVSfSes84QK79EQ" href="https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/largest-seroprevalence-study-in-us-shows-vast-covid-19-undercount-67762" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">significant undercount</span></a>.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">And daily infections were rising across much of the country. Will Feuer of CNBC.com reported that the new <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/31/coronavirus-cases-are-on-the-rise-again-across-more-than-half-of-the-us.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856255000&usg=AFQjCNHeqTGCxsjyYEmWuVJhglfJPIsuZw" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/31/coronavirus-cases-are-on-the-rise-again-across-more-than-half-of-the-us.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">7-day averages showed increases in 26 states</span></a>. Included in those totals were an increase in cases among children, whose official <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/08/31/us/coronavirus-cases-children.html?auth%3Dlink-dismiss-google1tap&source=gmail&ust=1603194856255000&usg=AFQjCNEDsARs1b8jd3OGU9h6a0MnN_XS6w" href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/08/31/us/coronavirus-cases-children.html?auth=link-dismiss-google1tap" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">infection numbers had gone up 720%</span></a> from May 21 to August 20. (690)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Misinformation coming from the White House had almost certainly played a role in that startling three-month increase among children. As reported by Alice Miranda Ollstein of <i>Politico</i>, the administration had danced <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/31/white-house-warned-red-zones-406211?nname%3Dpolitico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition%26nid%3D00000170-c000-da87-af78-e185fa700000%26nrid%3D00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000%26nlid%3D2670445&source=gmail&ust=1603194856255000&usg=AFQjCNHsoAKrHjUeGxgAWWiaXWO_Q9iaVw" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/31/white-house-warned-red-zones-406211?nname=politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition&nid=00000170-c000-da87-af78-e185fa700000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=2670445" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">a perilous two-step</span></a> during that time, issuing warnings to state public health officials in private while minimizing the pandemic publicly. (691)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">According to eight weeks’ worth of documents (from Trump’s coronavirus task force) released by The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, “Senior Trump administration officials in June privately warned seven states about dangerous coronavirus outbreaks that put them in the highest risk ‘red zone’ while publicly dismissing concerns about a second wave of Covid-19.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Despite the clear public health threat to millions of Americans, the administration stood idly by while state officials dithered:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“…several states have failed to implement public health recommendations the task force made more than two months ago — including mask mandates, closing bars and banning large gatherings” but “the administration has made little effort to enforce its guidance or make the same recommendations publicly.” (692)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Public dismissals had come straight from the top:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“In mid-June, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://coronavirus.house.gov/sites/democrats.coronavirus.house.gov/files/06-23-2020_Report.pdf&source=gmail&ust=1603194856256000&usg=AFQjCNHGfMCu4KeOkfyOyiNfid_m-a_Jcw" href="https://coronavirus.house.gov/sites/democrats.coronavirus.house.gov/files/06-23-2020_Report.pdf" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">documents showed</span></a> the task force confidentially alerted seven states where spikes in cases had put them in the ‘red zone’ of highest virus spread, just after Vice President Mike Pence, who led the task force, wrote an op-ed dismissing fears of a ‘second wave’ of the virus as ‘overblown.’ (see #388)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“By late June, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://coronavirus.house.gov/sites/democrats.coronavirus.house.gov/files/06-29-2020_Report.pdf&source=gmail&ust=1603194856256000&usg=AFQjCNGTtvCzFwhfGfu7mU1Zl1T_Zp7PeQ" href="https://coronavirus.house.gov/sites/democrats.coronavirus.house.gov/files/06-29-2020_Report.pdf" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">documents revealed</span></a> 10 states were in the red zone, and that cases had surged in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. But Pence at the time continued to say that ‘all 50 states are opening up safely and responsibly.’ (693)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“By mid-July, 19 states were in the ‘red zone’ and the task force was <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://coronavirus.house.gov/sites/democrats.coronavirus.house.gov/files/07-14-2020_Report.pdf&source=gmail&ust=1603194856256000&usg=AFQjCNGm-BI2cKGj4AnU-aar2qvt-Hgivg" href="https://coronavirus.house.gov/sites/democrats.coronavirus.house.gov/files/07-14-2020_Report.pdf" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">pleading</span></a> with them to increase testing. However, Trump <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/23/trump-joking-slowing-coronavirus-testing-335459&source=gmail&ust=1603194856256000&usg=AFQjCNEgaZQJcc3SKl61uwa3YIR2woSSwQ" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/23/trump-joking-slowing-coronavirus-testing-335459" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">repeatedly insisted</span></a> that the country was testing too much and claimed without evidence that the virus would soon ‘disappear.’</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“By early August, the task force document <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://coronavirus.house.gov/sites/democrats.coronavirus.house.gov/files/08-02-2020_Report.pdf&source=gmail&ust=1603194856256000&usg=AFQjCNF5GlFpszJ8NWQNfR0SGMiWgsrxXw" href="https://coronavirus.house.gov/sites/democrats.coronavirus.house.gov/files/08-02-2020_Report.pdf" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">listed 23 states</span></a> in the red zone — right around the time Trump in an Axios interview brushed off concerns of more than 1,000 people dying per day, saying, ‘It is what it is. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t doing everything we can. It’s under control as much as you can control it.’”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Jim Clyburn, head of the subcommittee, told <i>Politico</i>, “Rather than being straight with the American people and creating a national plan to fix the problem, the president and his enablers kept these alarming reports private….As a result of the president’s failures, more than 58,000 additional Americans have died since the Task Force first started issuing private warnings, and many of the Task Force’s recommendations still have not been implemented.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The 58,000 who had died since the task force warnings began were just a subset of the Americans whose lives could have been saved with a competent federal response. On <b>Tuesday, September 1</b>, in “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/01/briefing/coronavirus-kenosha-massachusetts-your-tuesday-briefing.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856256000&usg=AFQjCNE5BARqHCGYnhnt3tJWGNUtmu6YaQ" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/01/briefing/coronavirus-kenosha-massachusetts-your-tuesday-briefing.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">America’s death gap</span></a>,” journalist David Leonhardt compared the U.S. response to the performance of other developed countries with similar resources.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Leonhardt’s key conclusion?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“If the United States had done merely an average job of fighting the coronavirus — if the U.S. accounted for the same share of virus deaths as it did global population — how many fewer Americans would have died?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The answer: about 145,000.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“That’s a large majority of the country’s 183,000 confirmed coronavirus-related deaths.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“No other country looks as bad by this measure. The U.S. accounts for 4 percent of the world’s population, and for 22 percent of confirmed Covid-19 deaths. It is one of the many signs that the Trump administration has done a poorer job of controlling the virus than dozens of other governments around the world.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Results of this first-in-the-world failure were being felt in real time. Polling by Gallup showed just <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://news.gallup.com/poll/317948/fear-bankruptcy-due-major-health-event.aspx?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosvitals%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856256000&usg=AFQjCNFsnLkqzCdm2t-bAJdC8xlECEsskQ" href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/317948/fear-bankruptcy-due-major-health-event.aspx?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">how dire the healthcare situation was</span></a> for tens of millions of Americans due to a combination of the pandemic’s impact on the economy and the administration’s refusal to expand the Affordable Care Act (see #217) or Medicaid (see #285) for people who had lost their coverage.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Fifty percent of Americans feared going bankrupt over a “major health event,” including 64% of Americans of color. 28% of Americans in households earning less than $40,000/year were carrying long-term medical debt, and 26% of Americans said they would have to borrow money to pay a $500 medical bill. 14% of people with “likely COVID-19 symptoms” were foregoing medical care due to the costs. (694)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump’s failure to get the pandemic under control was also having <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-child-care-business-crisis-035a9fe2-0f8a-4563-bc34-9016f65c6c66.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosam%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856256000&usg=AFQjCNGaDunHJaoJag2Q9Z79OFZkh0RCBA" href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-child-care-business-crisis-035a9fe2-0f8a-4563-bc34-9016f65c6c66.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">a devastating economic impact on child care centers</span></a> (695)—50% of which would close without federal aid—and <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-college-town-businesses-608788e9-6936-4c95-8634-8ebc3fcc07d6.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosvitals%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856256000&usg=AFQjCNEN2c4yH5CuaMe8J-VuTolrwfRS3A" href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-college-town-businesses-608788e9-6936-4c95-8634-8ebc3fcc07d6.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">businesses that relied on college students</span></a> for their revenue (696). Data from Yelp showed that “Businesses in college towns are 24% more likely to shutter permanently than their counterparts in other towns,” guaranteeing further drags on the economy until colleges could re-open safely.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">For all of Trump’s claims that the worst recession since the Great Depression was on the mend due to his ill-defined “management of the economy,” the reality was that things were likely to get much worse. On <b>Wednesday, September 2</b>, Dion Rabouin of <i>Axios</i> reviewed our near-term economic future in “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/recession-within-recession-coronavirus-0bcb2af4-4c1a-4ded-9579-096214c5b2d6.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856256000&usg=AFQjCNElocU6_X6iq-XMu11_LEe7XPKAog" href="https://www.axios.com/recession-within-recession-coronavirus-0bcb2af4-4c1a-4ded-9579-096214c5b2d6.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">Here comes the real recession</span></a>.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">According to Rabouin, “Economists are warning that the economic downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic is now creating another recession: mass job losses, business failures and declines in spending even in industries not directly impacted by the virus.” (697)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">This “recession within a recession” was “likely to permanently push millions out of the labor force, lower wages and leave long-lasting scars on the economy.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Within these broader trends were a growing number of layoffs which had “gone from classified as temporary to classified as permanent” and an increase in long-term unemployment, both of which pointed to a recession settling in, rather than easing.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Constance Hunter, president of “the historically right-leaning National Association for Business Economics” told <i>Axios</i> that premature re-openings, pushed by Trump, had brought us to this point:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">"We had an uneven shutdown around the country and what that allowed the virus to do is really take hold and remain a force for economic outcomes.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">During the Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt had addressed Americans’ economic anxieties with a steady stream of progressive legislation aimed at countering the downturn and messages of hope (“the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”). Key to Roosevelt’s messaging were 30 “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fireside_chats&source=gmail&ust=1603194856256000&usg=AFQjCNEbnmZGl8Vh0lwj-vHims3UlQNJrQ" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fireside_chats" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">fireside chats</span></a>”—radio announcements explaining what he was doing and why which calmed the American public and helped him win four landslides.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">By contrast, Trump was doing everything in his power to exacerbate the horrible human suffering and anxiety caused by his mishandling of the pandemic by inflaming cultural and racial divisions (698). Convinced that a divide-and-conquer strategy was his route to a second term, Trump had played to his <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.salon.com/test2/2015/04/10/white_americas_racial_illiteracy_why_our_national_conversation_is_poisoned_from_the_start_partner/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856256000&usg=AFQjCNErxzS7E9hwbbsPVceKaUYx9OWxMg" href="https://www.salon.com/test2/2015/04/10/white_americas_racial_illiteracy_why_our_national_conversation_is_poisoned_from_the_start_partner/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">white supporters’ ignorance about institutional racism</span></a> (and the reasons for the protests) <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/02/trump-black-lives-matter-poll-407227&source=gmail&ust=1603194856256000&usg=AFQjCNF9pg48ZB_KXFi0r0i47F3dGmH4pw" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/02/trump-black-lives-matter-poll-407227" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">for months</span></a> by “[calling] the Black Lives Matter movement a ‘<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1278324681477689349&source=gmail&ust=1603194856256000&usg=AFQjCNE2-Erx4RrSmwHcY3G_ZCWxL7mnkg" href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1278324681477689349" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">symbol of hate</span></a>,’ ‘discriminatory,’ ‘<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/10/elections-republicans-black-lives-matterbacklash-389906&source=gmail&ust=1603194856256000&usg=AFQjCNEVNlTaQ9CZ6GZvzvtcxYO1oSNGEQ" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/10/elections-republicans-black-lives-matterbacklash-389906" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">Marxist</span></a>’ and ‘bad for Black people.’”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Since Jacob Blake had been shot by the police and paralyzed from the waist down Trump had gone into overdrive. In “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/02/briefing/ed-markey-jet-pack-khmer-rouge-your-wednesday-briefing.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856256000&usg=AFQjCNF53spX7ovz2J-a4dxskqTAQ40CwQ" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/02/briefing/ed-markey-jet-pack-khmer-rouge-your-wednesday-briefing.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">Trump, Unbound</span></a>,” <i>New York Times</i> columnist David Leonhardt gave a sampling of the president’s divisive statements over just the past few days.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">He had refused to “condemn the killings of two protesters in Kenosha, [Wisconsin],” “defended the 17-year-old charged in the shootings — a Trump supporter named Kyle Rittenhouse — saying he <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000007317812/trump-rittenhouse-teenager-peaceful-protest.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856256000&usg=AFQjCNHzgE0N9sKT2epiOrx7RnyyGGbmXA" href="https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000007317812/trump-rittenhouse-teenager-peaceful-protest.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">was acting in self-defense</span></a>,” and “promoted <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://twitter.com/Timcast/status/1299327274710437888&source=gmail&ust=1603194856256000&usg=AFQjCNGlmofP_NIE2GM06ICDuB8lHxDW2Q" href="https://twitter.com/Timcast/status/1299327274710437888" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">a Twitter post</span></a> that called Rittenhouse ‘a good example of why I decided to vote for Trump.’”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">He had “defended violence committed by his supporters in Portland, Ore., who <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/22/us/portland-protests.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856256000&usg=AFQjCNHTPBY3vuXlAsRlvG4t0TbFXyPnQQ" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/22/us/portland-protests.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">fired paintballs and pepper spray at Black Lives Matter protesters</span></a>.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">He had said “Democrats were trying to ‘destroy’ suburbs with ‘low-income housing, and with that comes a lot of other problems, including crime’ and “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1300622368918982664&source=gmail&ust=1603194856257000&usg=AFQjCNGxVeIT4O9WV-qm7oGSJIRCTIX2Ew" href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1300622368918982664" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">added that</span></a> Cory Booker — one of the highest-profile Black Democrats — would be ‘in charge of it.’”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">He had “said that protests against police brutality were actually <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-shares-oan-messages-calling-protests-a-coup-2020-8&source=gmail&ust=1603194856257000&usg=AFQjCNEUSCazUSkTO4_6XWpRTyoWXi8btQ" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-shares-oan-messages-calling-protests-a-coup-2020-8" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">a secret ‘coup attempt’</span></a> by anarchists ‘trying to take down the President.’”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">He had “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/01/us/politics/trump-fact-check-protests.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856257000&usg=AFQjCNEG69p7nxlRG9GVusUQSOj6oe2j2A" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/01/us/politics/trump-fact-check-protests.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">said that Biden</span></a>, at the Democratic National Convention, ‘didn’t even discuss law enforcement, the police. Those words weren’t mentioned.’ In fact, Biden held a discussion at the convention on policing, with a police chief.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Gallup polls showed that <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://news.gallup.com/poll/318851/perceptions-white-black-relations-sink-new-low.aspx?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosam%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856257000&usg=AFQjCNFuUP6HnpTQ4xji6iJJ0uKqq6nDZw" href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/318851/perceptions-white-black-relations-sink-new-low.aspx?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">Trump’s racist rhetoric had taken a huge toll on national unity</span></a><span style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: underline;"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;"> at a trying time</span></span>. Americans’ feelings about the state of race relations in the country were at a 20-year low. Views that Black-white relations were “very” or “somewhat good” had dropped 25% since 2014, when Barack Obama was president. (699)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Deep social discord was the inevitable result of Trump’s scorched-earth war on democratic norms and consistent appeals to the worst elements of humanity. His continued reliance on this strategy guaranteed that the weeks leading up to the election would be filled with distraction, division, violence, and a lethal lack of focus on the pandemic which ravaged America.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition/2020/09/02/its-been-six-months-what-now-490247&source=gmail&ust=1603194856257000&usg=AFQjCNGMRZtF_nV3x4JsN3mGt7S3vDjDhg" href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition/2020/09/02/its-been-six-months-what-now-490247" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">As of the six-month mark</span></a>, “<span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">only about a half-dozen [blue] states in the Northeast [had] contained the virus, with consistently low positive-test ratios of around 1 percent” as cases continued to spread in the South and Midwest. According to the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, the U.S. could face 3,000 deaths/day if public health measures were rolled back. </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Trump’s failure to get a handle on the pandemic was leaving parents of children who weren’t in school with nothing but bad choices in regards to childcare (700), as </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/on-parenting/covid-day-care-decisions/2020/09/02/03dde7ea-ea1b-11ea-970a-64c73a1c2392_story.html?utm_campaign%3Dwp_post_most%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26wpisrc%3Dnl_most&source=gmail&ust=1603194856257000&usg=AFQjCNHXUdGq8JqZxGSjcqnN_-YD7m3IBw" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/on-parenting/covid-day-care-decisions/2020/09/02/03dde7ea-ea1b-11ea-970a-64c73a1c2392_story.html?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #5b9bd5;">explored</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> in “</span>‘The most crushing, anxious parenting choice’: To return to day care or not?” by Caitlin Gibson of <i>the Washington Post</i>. Parents who sent their children to daycare in order to work put their family’s health at risk. Parents who kept their children home to avoid community spread would have to juggle remote work and child-rearing or not go to work, straining the family finances. And millions of Americans with lesser means lived in a “daycare desert,” locations where childcare wasn’t even available. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">Melissa Boteach of the </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://nwlc.org/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856257000&usg=AFQjCNEsYQJt6ryBcgNXsghEXRBtvwaKWQ" href="https://nwlc.org/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">National Women’s Law Center</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> told <i>the Post</i>, “There were child-care deserts before. Now we’re talking about the Sahara of child-care deserts….For low-income families, for families of color, and families in rural areas as well — in places where there is not a sufficient supply of affordable and high-quality child care — what it adds up to is that parents face bad choices. And providers face bad choices. This is disproportionately Black and Brown women and immigrant women. They’ve spent their entire lives caring for children, building up women- and minority-owned businesses, and they’re disappearing in the flash of an eye. Parents are seeing the house of cards fall down. There are a lot of tears.”<span style="color: #2a2a2a;"></span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">On <b>Thursday, September 3</b>, it came out that </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/03/briefing/trump-coronavirus-massachusetts-your-thursday-briefing.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856257000&usg=AFQjCNE15u3hh6C6mYlkP5oyOxOxu7DSqQ" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/03/briefing/trump-coronavirus-massachusetts-your-thursday-briefing.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">one in every eight Americans did not have enough to eat</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">, and that the psychological undertow of the coronavirus had spawned a public health crisis (“</span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/09/03/coronavirus-sleep-insomnia/?utm_campaign%3Dwp_post_most%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26wpisrc%3Dnl_most&source=gmail&ust=1603194856257000&usg=AFQjCNGeWg-XOLLj24JimODSk2pVHuNwPA" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/09/03/coronavirus-sleep-insomnia/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">Coronasomnia</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">”) within a public health crisis which was “creating a massive new population of chronic insomniacs grappling with declines in productivity (701), shorter fuses (702) and increased risks of hypertension (703, depression and </span><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">other health problems.” Alon Avidan of the UCLA Sleep Disorders Center told <i>the Washington Post</i>, “Patients who used to have insomnia, patients who used to have difficulty falling asleep because of anxiety, are having more problems. Patients who were having nightmares have more nightmares (704)….With covid-19, we recognize that there is now an epidemic of sleep problems.”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">As the relative success of every other developed country showed, there <i>were</i> policies aplenty to address what ailed us, but the administration had abdicated its duties. Renuka Rayasam of <i>Politico </i></span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition/2020/09/02/its-been-six-months-what-now-490247&source=gmail&ust=1603194856257000&usg=AFQjCNGMRZtF_nV3x4JsN3mGt7S3vDjDhg" href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition/2020/09/02/its-been-six-months-what-now-490247" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">took stock</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> of the state of the coronavirus on the six-month anniversary of the first reported death in the U.S. America’s 1,000 official daily deaths was down from April, but still “dangerous[ly] high.” The University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation was projecting that the U.S. would be back up to 2,000 deaths/day by November if current infection rates held. Eric Toner of the John Hopkins Center for Health Security told <i>Politico</i> “<span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">We have become used to this level of disease that is really pretty awful.”</span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">More human fallout from Trump’s failure to get the virus under control was reported on <b>Friday, September 4</b>.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">Due to infection spread among students, </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition/2020/09/04/the-old-college-try-fails-490257&source=gmail&ust=1603194856257000&usg=AFQjCNEhzgDob7Z3o5cuA3iK25U_Mqmm7g" href="http://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition/2020/09/04/the-old-college-try-fails-490257" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">180 colleges</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> had had to change their plans; 78 had backtracked to remote learning. </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/09/04/a-majority-of-young-adults-in-the-u-s-live-with-their-parents-for-the-first-time-since-the-great-depression/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856257000&usg=AFQjCNF36obiIjY2olEpbf__kAgmoOpRXw" href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/09/04/a-majority-of-young-adults-in-the-u-s-live-with-their-parents-for-the-first-time-since-the-great-depression/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">More than half</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> of young adults in the U.S. were living with their parents, which hadn’t happened since the Great Depression (705). </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.axios.com/mental-health-coronavirus-pandemic-depression-suicide-c09ad125-10a9-44b0-a91d-ca40656816aa.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856257000&usg=AFQjCNEFdchnskK_IcKnStNjFj19EH2HnQ" href="http://www.axios.com/mental-health-coronavirus-pandemic-depression-suicide-c09ad125-10a9-44b0-a91d-ca40656816aa.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">Rates of depression had tripled</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> since before the pandemic, leading to big increases in suicide. An alarming number of American hotels were sliding into bankruptcy, </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.axios.com/hotel-crisis-coronavirus-economy-travel-556b1f8d-9a12-4555-8a94-a790d78f9bd3.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856257000&usg=AFQjCNGw-R7LjQ-BMiPX-2-uzqfVpyqSjA" href="http://www.axios.com/hotel-crisis-coronavirus-economy-travel-556b1f8d-9a12-4555-8a94-a790d78f9bd3.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">jeopardizing up to two million jobs</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">; research showed that “the American hotel industry is projected to shrink by 45% in 2020.” (706)</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">Because of the administration’s lack of long-term thinking, all of these trends were guaranteed to continue. Trump had rolled the dice with American lives by re-opening the country too quickly and the short-term economic boost he’d gotten was petering out. Temporary census employees had helped to bring August unemployment numbers down, but “an increasing number of people…</span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/04/business/economy/jobs-report.html?campaign_id%3D9%26emc%3Dedit_nn_20200906%26instance_id%3D21961%26nl%3Dthe-morning%26regi_id%3D87101069%26section_index%3D1%26section_name%3Dbig_story%26segment_id%3D37533%26te%3D1%26user_id%3D1baa2c82b5fd57364c41fdc8e1f99240&source=gmail&ust=1603194856257000&usg=AFQjCNGLHJQ2FQ_WDCw36HgpAz3g_S_o5w" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/04/business/economy/jobs-report.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200906&instance_id=21961&nl=the-morning&regi_id=87101069&section_index=1&section_name=big_story&segment_id=37533&te=1&user_id=1baa2c82b5fd57364c41fdc8e1f99240" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">had lost their jobs permanently</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">,” (707) a more telling metric. No relief was in sight, as the GOP had sabotaged stimulus talks and failed to renew the Paycheck Protection Program (see #536) to bolster struggling businesses.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">Absent control of the virus, no sustained economic recovery would be possible. And the U.S. was </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/04/us/coronavirus-briefing-a-summer-of-lost-opportunity.html?campaign_id%3D9%26emc%3Dedit_nn_20200906%26instance_id%3D21961%26nl%3Dthe-morning%26regi_id%3D87101069%26section_index%3D1%26section_name%3Dbig_story%26segment_id%3D37533%26te%3D1%26user_id%3D1baa2c82b5fd57364c41fdc8e1f99240&source=gmail&ust=1603194856257000&usg=AFQjCNH07N3z5IpEdmTQLGv1g5FLUgBuQw" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/04/us/coronavirus-briefing-a-summer-of-lost-opportunity.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200906&instance_id=21961&nl=the-morning&regi_id=87101069&section_index=1&section_name=big_story&segment_id=37533&te=1&user_id=1baa2c82b5fd57364c41fdc8e1f99240" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">nowhere near</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> to containing the virus. In fact, the U.S. was on target to lose </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/04/key-coronavirus-forecast-predicts-over-410000-total-us-deaths-by-jan-1.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856257000&usg=AFQjCNEvWq3RDUocllKxg7qjDnk-qH856Q" href="http://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/04/key-coronavirus-forecast-predicts-over-410000-total-us-deaths-by-jan-1.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">410,000 citizens</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> by the beginning of 2021. A whole summer had gone by where the administration had done next to nothing, leading to </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/09/08/coronavirus-covid-live-updates-us/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856257000&usg=AFQjCNGAc5tZVb663h5np7xdFXbZx5g45A" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/09/08/coronavirus-covid-live-updates-us/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">a quadrupling of cases</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> (708), and fall—and a potentially </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.washingtonpost.com/health/coronavirus-fall-projections-second-wave/2020/09/04/6edb3392-ed61-11ea-99a1-71343d03bc29_story.html?utm_campaign%3Dwp_post_most%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26wpisrc%3Dnl_most&source=gmail&ust=1603194856257000&usg=AFQjCNFxs-HO6yNaongEMUxu6DQmOH_-Sw" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/health/coronavirus-fall-projections-second-wave/2020/09/04/6edb3392-ed61-11ea-99a1-71343d03bc29_story.html?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">deadly flu season</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">—was coming up.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">More human consequences of Trump’s failure to get the coronavirus under control were reported on <b>Monday, September 7</b>. Due to the state of the economy and the GOP’s unwillingness to bargain in good faith on stimulus talks, “</span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.axios.com/coronavirus-worker-angst-94565e60-528c-4dff-a73b-79d400913676.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosam%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856257000&usg=AFQjCNHqqe0XVf3jDdQAfi-8MgtGyNZyXg" href="http://www.axios.com/coronavirus-worker-angst-94565e60-528c-4dff-a73b-79d400913676.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">worker malaise</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">” was increasing (709) and charities around the country were </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/515154-charities-scramble-to-plug-revenue-holes-during-pandemic&source=gmail&ust=1603194856258000&usg=AFQjCNEFvnlV4XoVrahu3kgndO-8GhJMgA" href="https://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/515154-charities-scramble-to-plug-revenue-holes-during-pandemic" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">cutting</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> staff (710) and services. (711)</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">The continued high rate of infection was also creating a lose-lose situation in the upcoming election. In order to avoid contracting the virus, a record number of Americans were planning to vote by mail, but up to 1/3<sup>rd</sup> of swing state voters using mail ballots would potentially be </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-ap-top-news-oh-state-wire-az-state-wire-mi-state-wire-881c098ab2847dea9d87604bab9568d6&source=gmail&ust=1603194856258000&usg=AFQjCNHsjibxY9l_Q55mUzZ8iK-IGd-qWw" href="https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-ap-top-news-oh-state-wire-az-state-wire-mi-state-wire-881c098ab2847dea9d87604bab9568d6" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">disenfranchised</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> (712), not least because of Trump’s assault on the U.S. Postal Service, which was likely to make many ballot submissions late (713). People of color (Democrats) would be disproportionately impacted, exactly as the administration hoped.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">The administration’s coronavirus mitigation strategy, such as it was, was limited to bringing down deaths in nursing homes by shipping out antigen tests<span style="color: #5b9bd5;"> </span></span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/08/nursing-homes-coronavirus-testing-mandate-410229&source=gmail&ust=1603194856258000&usg=AFQjCNH5lb5waWIw-8j3JLAYbYBeU-R7Uw" href="http://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/08/nursing-homes-coronavirus-testing-mandate-410229" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">known to produce false negatives</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> (714). By contrast, keeping children safe was not a major concern. On <b>Tuesday, September 8</b>, Sarah Kliff and Margot Sanger-Katz of <i>the New York Times</i> </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/08/upshot/children-testing-shortfalls-virus.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosvitals%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856258000&usg=AFQjCNGCKtX0uiTupkEZF89W0K6GjATgbQ" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/08/upshot/children-testing-shortfalls-virus.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">reported</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> that even as Trump had badgered schools into re-opening, the administration was doing nothing to counteract the limits on testing of children. (715)</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">This was a big problem. As reported on <b>Wednesday, September 9</b>, over 513,000 children had tested positive for coronavirus, with the numbers </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.axios.com/us-children-diagnosed-coronavirus-88ab5157-3190-44c8-8f5f-08ce600fc7c4.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856258000&usg=AFQjCNHlmuRWd3ATohjG0Uy1dZ8TgW1YNw" href="http://www.axios.com/us-children-diagnosed-coronavirus-88ab5157-3190-44c8-8f5f-08ce600fc7c4.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">increasing 16%</span></a><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">in the final week of August/beginning of September. Despite the clear and present danger to American children and those who lived and interacted with them, Dr. Paul Alexander, a key adviser at Trump’s National Institutes of Health was trying to </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-official-preventing-fauci-discussing-210330893.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856258000&usg=AFQjCNFmdN2kJDzz5GPU_0_jNnBNksqOrg" href="http://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-official-preventing-fauci-discussing-210330893.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">handcuff Dr. Fauci</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> by suggesting that he shouldn’t propose that children wear masks or get tested regularly in an interview with MSNBC. (716) </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">The administration’s effort to convince an electoral college majority’s worth of gullible, low-information voters that COVID-19 was under control also manifested in an announcement that enhanced screening of international passengers would no longer be required at American airports, which </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/report-white-house-orders-end-to-covid-19-airport-screenings-for-foreign-travelers/ar-BB18RZJm&source=gmail&ust=1603194856258000&usg=AFQjCNE8FDU1b3-Z5MHBDb7Wj8ntEmbY_A" href="http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/report-white-house-orders-end-to-covid-19-airport-screenings-for-foreign-travelers/ar-BB18RZJm" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">jeopardized public safety</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> (717) and robbed public health officials of crucial contact tracing data (718).</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">The big story of the day were the revelations of veteran reporter Bob Woodward, who had interviewed Trump 18 times for his new book, <i>Rage</i>. As </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.chron.com/news/article/Trump-says-he-knew-coronavirus-was-deadly-and-15553997.php&source=gmail&ust=1603194856258000&usg=AFQjCNElsSlcB15QElDINgx2SDaKf8jSfw" href="https://www.chron.com/news/article/Trump-says-he-knew-coronavirus-was-deadly-and-15553997.php" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">reported</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> by Robert Costa and Phillip Rucker of <i>the Washington Post</i>, on February 7, even as he was publicly downplaying the virus—claiming it was little different than seasonal flu—and holding big, crowded super-spreader rallies, Trump had told Woodward that the coronavirus was “deadly stuff” and that it was significantly “more deadly than even your strenuous flu.” On March 19, Trump had admitted to Woodward that young people could be impacted by COVID-19, in direct contradiction to his public stance, and said that “I always wanted to play [the pandemic] down.” Dr. Fauci, the one honest public official connected to the administration, had at various times said Trump was “on a separate channel,” that his “attention span is like a minus number,” that his leadership during the pandemic was “rudderless,” that “his sole purpose is to get re-elected.”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">The gap between what Trump knew to be true and what he was saying publicly had contributed to big portions of Americans not taking the virus seriously (719), which ultimately had led to the States doing “</span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/9/9/21429166/trump-woodward-rage-coronavirus-covid-19-pandemic?utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3DSentences%25209920%26utm_content%3DSentences%25209920%2BCID_ba93bd6a5e706bfb7c38374a83132053%26utm_source%3Dcm_email%26utm_term%3DVox%2520%2520German%2520Lopez&source=gmail&ust=1603194856258000&usg=AFQjCNFn2n83wBOs7aKk-nqhkQKJnMvVtQ" href="http://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/9/9/21429166/trump-woodward-rage-coronavirus-covid-19-pandemic?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Sentences%209920&utm_content=Sentences%209920+CID_ba93bd6a5e706bfb7c38374a83132053&utm_source=cm_email&utm_term=Vox%20%20German%20Lopez" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">seven times worse than the median developed country</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">” at containing the coronavirus. A study by Our World in Data showed that </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/9/9/21428769/covid-19-coronavirus-deaths-statistics-us-canada-europe?utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3DSentences%25209920%26utm_content%3DSentences%25209920%2BCID_ba93bd6a5e706bfb7c38374a83132053%26utm_source%3Dcm_email%26utm_term%3DVox%2520%2520German%2520Lopez&source=gmail&ust=1603194856258000&usg=AFQjCNEMJcxQcE8v3fb4hCtahRuN1mTSsg" href="http://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/9/9/21428769/covid-19-coronavirus-deaths-statistics-us-canada-europe?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Sentences%209920&utm_content=Sentences%209920+CID_ba93bd6a5e706bfb7c38374a83132053&utm_source=cm_email&utm_term=Vox%20%20German%20Lopez" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">109,000 fewer Americans would have died</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> if the U.S. had been as effective as Canada at fighting the virus.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">News on <b>Thursday, September 10</b>, showed that the U.S. was seeing </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/us-coronavirus-infections-cases-improving-0fc7bfd1-026a-40ef-8459-a3b6f4379f76.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosam%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856258000&usg=AFQjCNG04KgKmDrZgwShVxu_FhSzmNTLhg" href="https://www.axios.com/us-coronavirus-infections-cases-improving-0fc7bfd1-026a-40ef-8459-a3b6f4379f76.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">37,000 infections/day</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">, though testing was going down (720). Included in these deaths were </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/coronavirus/teacher-deaths-raise-alarms-as-new-school-year-begins/2610242/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856258000&usg=AFQjCNHOIuqgYvZGdkfQBuv7zpXg88iN_A" href="http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/coronavirus/teacher-deaths-raise-alarms-as-new-school-year-begins/2610242/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">teachers</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> (721) and front-line </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://apnews.com/02a0542e8a05176bd5d79757134bc277&source=gmail&ust=1603194856258000&usg=AFQjCNGgSDHOkNnbxm_AGM2JE0C1ThAkZQ" href="https://apnews.com/02a0542e8a05176bd5d79757134bc277" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">medical workers who <i>still</i> had inadequate resources</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> more than eight months after the administration had been notified of the virus (722). Not surprisingly, </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.statnews.com/2020/09/10/trust-cdc-fauci-evaporating/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856258000&usg=AFQjCNGFUVRxOzUU6XmiR_TbWBBtiwSbQg" href="http://www.statnews.com/2020/09/10/trust-cdc-fauci-evaporating/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">public trust in Trump’s CDC had plummeted</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">The distrust was fully earned. On <b>Friday, September 11</b>, Dan Diamond of <i>Politico</i> </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/11/exclusive-trump-officials-interfered-with-cdc-reports-on-covid-19-412809&source=gmail&ust=1603194856258000&usg=AFQjCNGkSuuet7vUXnesh1ItSB_yFHmOKA" href="http://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/11/exclusive-trump-officials-interfered-with-cdc-reports-on-covid-19-412809" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">reported</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> that “<span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">politically appointed communications aides” from Trump’s Health and Human Services Department (HHS) had “demanded the right to review and seek changes to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s weekly scientific reports charting the progress of the coronavirus pandemic, in what officials characterized as an attempt to intimidate the reports’ authors and water down their communications to health professionals. (723)</span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“In some cases, emails from communications aides to CDC Director Robert Redfield and other senior officials openly complained that the agency’s reports would undermine President Donald Trump's optimistic messages about the outbreak…”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Though the reports had not been politicized in the past, and were “the main vehicle for the agency to inform doctors, researchers and the general public about how Covid-19 is spreading and who is at risk,” the CDC had “increasingly agreed to allow the political officials to review the reports and, in a few cases, compromised on the wording.” </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 17.12px;">The manipulations of important public information had become especially aggressive since May, after the arrival of Michael Caputo, “a former Trump campaign official with no medical or scientific background (724)” had become the spokesman for HHS. (After being outed by <i>Politico</i>, Caputo would </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.chron.com/news/article/Health-and-Human-Services-spokesman-warns-of-15567068.php&source=gmail&ust=1603194856258000&usg=AFQjCNFLOgdWR6EFqXiyvmqkbg4Ys6P9Sw" href="https://www.chron.com/news/article/Health-and-Human-Services-spokesman-warns-of-15567068.php" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">accuse CDC scientists of “sedition”</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 17.12px;"> for undermining Trump’s talking points and </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/top-trump-health-spokesman-deletes-twitter-account-after-rant/ar-BB191SLV?ocid%3Duxbndlbing&source=gmail&ust=1603194856258000&usg=AFQjCNEwu7RmjHdM-G6ndt1PKJUwXehPzw" href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/top-trump-health-spokesman-deletes-twitter-account-after-rant/ar-BB191SLV?ocid=uxbndlbing" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">suggest reporters should be tear-gassed</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 17.12px;"> before deleting his Twitter account and taking a leave of absence from his post.)</span><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">One administration official who hadn’t drank the Kool-Aid was National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins. Asked that night at a CNN town hall what he thought about Trump’s rally in Michigan, which had featured thousands of people, no social distancing, and few masks (725), Collins </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/11/nih-official-disheartened-by-trump-rally-412312&source=gmail&ust=1603194856258000&usg=AFQjCNEIrUlk7pYfdBU9n3J9rSlf79nlfg" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/11/nih-official-disheartened-by-trump-rally-412312" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">said</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">, “How did we get here? Imagine you were an alien who landed on planet Earth, and you saw that our planet was afflicted by an infectious disease and that masks were an effective way to prevent the spread…”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">“…And yet, when you went around, you saw some people not wearing them and some people wearing them. And you tried to figure out why, and it turned out it was their political party. And you would scratch your head and think, ‘This is just not a planet that has much promise for the future, if something that is so straightforward can somehow get twisted into decision-making that really makes no sense.’”</span><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">Trump could care less about the health of his sheep-like followers or the people they interacted with. On <b>Saturday, September 12</b>, he had </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/13/opinions/trump-risky-hunger-games-rallies-obeidallah/index.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856258000&usg=AFQjCNHhs9P6IKHXix-Se76uw8ok0eI4RQ" href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/13/opinions/trump-risky-hunger-games-rallies-obeidallah/index.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">another outdoor super-spreader rally</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">, this time in Nevada, a state with an increasing infection rate and an exceptionally high positive test rate of 9.5%. World Health Organization guidance suggested that locations which had positivity rates of 5% and higher close down, but the rally followed no public health guidelines, violating state laws on crowd sizes and mask mandates (726). Speaking to reporters at the event, Trump said the U.S. was “rounding a corner.”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">Data that came out on <b>Sunday, September 13</b>, showed otherwise. Eleven states were showing case </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/13/coronavirus-cases-are-growing-in-11-us-states.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856258000&usg=AFQjCNFR3c0CaCSZWjmiyc6VqcwcdCAMyA" href="http://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/13/coronavirus-cases-are-growing-in-11-us-states.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">increases of 5% and higher</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">. Dr. Fauci called the trend “disturbing,” as the administration had clearly failed to get a handle on the virus and was refusing to allocate the resources necessary, even as the fall flu season was approaching.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump consigned more Americans to infection and/or death by ignoring public health regulations in Nevada with a second rally, this one indoors, which featured <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://apnews.com/5d306f8176972692ce700b569b01cd73&source=gmail&ust=1603194856258000&usg=AFQjCNGJ5c3U9wWK-rXpC8dglBjcd34euA" href="https://apnews.com/5d306f8176972692ce700b569b01cd73" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">no social distancing and few masks</span></a>—other than the people sitting behind Trump, who were required to wear masks to give a false impression for the news cameras (727). Against all evidence, Trump said the U.S. was “making the last turn” against the virus.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That evening, Bob Woodward (see #719) appeared on “60 Minutes.” Woodward revealed that Deputy National Security Advisor Matt Pottinger had warned Trump on January 28 that “This [pandemic] is going to be like the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic that killed 675,000 people in this country.” Two days later at a public speech Trump had said, “We think we have it very well under control. We have very little problem in this country at this moment — five. And those people are all recuperating successfully. But we're working very closely with China and other countries, and we think it's going to have a very good ending for us. So that I can assure you.” (see #36).</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Despite the clear connection between Trump’s lies and inactions and America’s first-in-the-world totals in deaths and infections, Trump had told Woodward “Nothing more could have been done.”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">One of the things that could have been done was a second stimulus package. House Democrats had passed </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/6800&source=gmail&ust=1603194856259000&usg=AFQjCNGM34W3SvttsfXuLTZgxtPBVcVFrw" href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/6800" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">the Heroes Act</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> on May 15, 2020, but Senate Republicans had ignored the bill for three months, then </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.vox.com/2020/9/10/21429678/senate-stimulus-vote&source=gmail&ust=1603194856259000&usg=AFQjCNGA55_bBIFRsS-QcBLQDl5ry0tjZQ" href="https://www.vox.com/2020/9/10/21429678/senate-stimulus-vote" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">sabotaged negotiations</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> by low-balling the amount of aid to businesses, citizens, states, and schools. As reported on <b>Monday, September 14</b>, people of color—whose unemployment rates were in double digits—had been </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.vox.com/21433055/congresss-failure-second-stimulus-devastating-effect-on-minorities-unemployment-covid-bill?utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3DSentences%252091420%26utm_content%3DSentences%252091420%2BCID_a3836c66cd912a90b355c890cef70f7d%26utm_source%3Dcm_email%26utm_term%3DVox%2520%2520Aaron%2520Ross%2520Coleman&source=gmail&ust=1603194856259000&usg=AFQjCNFgh0oArdImeyD_tm38c7KTWZJPOQ" href="http://www.vox.com/21433055/congresss-failure-second-stimulus-devastating-effect-on-minorities-unemployment-covid-bill?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Sentences%2091420&utm_content=Sentences%2091420+CID_a3836c66cd912a90b355c890cef70f7d&utm_source=cm_email&utm_term=Vox%20%20Aaron%20Ross%20Coleman" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">disproportionately impacted</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> by the GOP’s tactics. Nationally, thirty million Americans were on unemployment and one million were applying each week. Three out of ten Americans had been forced to </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/14/americans-are-forced-to-raid-retirement-savings-during-the-pandemic.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856259000&usg=AFQjCNEKjsxnGg9_Oh_mLS_M5SluvmPI7A" href="http://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/14/americans-are-forced-to-raid-retirement-savings-during-the-pandemic.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">deplete their retirement accounts</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> just to make ends meet. (728)</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">Trump’s failures to contain the virus had also taken a steep toll on America’s image abroad. A Pew poll of 13 developed countries reported on <b>Tuesday, September 15</b> showed that only “15 percent of respondents said the United States had handled the pandemic well, while </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/09/15/global-views-united-states-trump-coronavirus-pew-poll/?utm_campaign%3Dwp_post_most%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26wpisrc%3Dnl_most&source=gmail&ust=1603194856259000&usg=AFQjCNF9tB3_tkB9o9lFGm2aXMuvf4H1zA" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/09/15/global-views-united-states-trump-coronavirus-pew-poll/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">85 percent said the country had responded poorly</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">” and America’s reputation had fallen to a “new low.” Trump had the lowest marks of any of the leaders, falling below President Xi of China and Vladimir Putin, with only 16% of international respondents expressing confidence in his leadership.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">Fortunately for Trump, tens of millions of Americans—Republican voters in particular (</span><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">see #145, #204, #283, #307, #313, #s 319-323. #325, #330, #339, #347, #387, #440, #452, #534, #s 566-567, #641</span><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">)—failed to grasp what was obvious to the vast majority of adults overseas. First and foremost, they failed to grasp how badly Trump had played them for suckers. Audio recordings released by Bob Woodward revealed a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.vox.com/2020/9/15/21437802/trump-woodward-audio-coronavirus-killer?utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3DSentences%252091520%26utm_content%3DSentences%252091520%2BVersion%2BA%2BCID_e11ff3e6bc667e03a626eec756d2876c%26utm_source%3Dcm_email%26utm_term%3DVox%2520%2520Aaron%2520Rupar&source=gmail&ust=1603194856259000&usg=AFQjCNGr5PoOkNuL3w_R5wN1o2XQPdMG4w" href="https://www.vox.com/2020/9/15/21437802/trump-woodward-audio-coronavirus-killer?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Sentences%2091520&utm_content=Sentences%2091520+Version+A+CID_e11ff3e6bc667e03a626eec756d2876c&utm_source=cm_email&utm_term=Vox%20%20Aaron%20Rupar" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">vast gulf</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> between what Trump had told Woodward on the phone on April 13 (“this thing is a killer if it gets you. If you’re the wrong person, you don’t have a chance.”) and the false assurances he had given to his 86 million Twitter followers (729) just three days earlier (“The Invisible Enemy is in full retreat!”). Four days after the conversation with Woodward, Trump had cheered on right-wing protesters in Minnesota, Virginia, and Michigan who were opposed to public health guidelines. (see #249)</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">Months had gone by since the grim days of April, but the lies continued. In an interview with Michael Caputo (see #723-#724) for a taxpayer-funded Health and Human Services Department podcast, </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.statnews.com/2017/05/11/mental-health-trump-nomination/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856259000&usg=AFQjCNEaWOpWM3qZA91WsQvztj97qLE6Zw" href="https://www.statnews.com/2017/05/11/mental-health-trump-nomination/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">Elinore McCance-Katz</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> (the head of Trump’s <span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration) </span></span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.statnews.com/2020/09/15/top-health-official-echoes-trumps-covid-19-views-drawing-accusations-of-politicizing-u-s-mental-health-agency/?utm_source%3DSTAT%2BNewsletters%26utm_campaign%3D24da08bb43-Daily_Recap%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_term%3D0_8cab1d7961-24da08bb43-152815530&source=gmail&ust=1603194856259000&usg=AFQjCNFip7zTovnm6FqCAwTa1y899QCCcg" href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/09/15/top-health-official-echoes-trumps-covid-19-views-drawing-accusations-of-politicizing-u-s-mental-health-agency/?utm_source=STAT+Newsletters&utm_campaign=24da08bb43-Daily_Recap&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8cab1d7961-24da08bb43-152815530" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">parroted administration talking points</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 17.12px;">. Though the U.S. hadn’t done remotely enough to stop the virus, she claimed that the U.S. “had used a sledgehammer when [we we] needed a scalpel.” (730) McCance-Katz seconded Caputo’s ridiculous claim that the media—who had tried to hold the administration accountable—didn’t care about public health information. She also doubled down on the administration’s effort to push schoolchildren into harm’s way (731). Regina LaBelle, who had worked for Barack Obama at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, told a reporter “It’s so blatantly political and cynical, and it breaks my heart to see this….Families are suffering and they deserve to be treated with respect by their government.”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 17.12px;">Trump’s appearance at an ABC town hall that evening, on a day in which over 1,000 Americans died from COVID-19, showed that treating American families with respect was very low on the administration’s list of priorities. While Americans needed straight talk in the face of a pandemic, a steep recession, and levels of anxiety unparalleled in the modern era, Trump gave them </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.vox.com/2020/9/16/21439460/trump-abc-town-hall-stephanopoulos?utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3DSentences%252091620%26utm_content%3DSentences%252091620%2BCID_2a04c8dea9b50d8a436f1665f4dba4f3%26utm_source%3Dcm_email%26utm_term%3DTrumps%2520ABC%2520town%2520hall%2520revealed%2520a%2520president%2520disconnected%2520from%2520reality&source=gmail&ust=1603194856259000&usg=AFQjCNFOqvWH4UjrQUW3iYlw-DU0xj5EQA" href="https://www.vox.com/2020/9/16/21439460/trump-abc-town-hall-stephanopoulos?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Sentences%2091620&utm_content=Sentences%2091620+CID_2a04c8dea9b50d8a436f1665f4dba4f3&utm_source=cm_email&utm_term=Trumps%20ABC%20town%20hall%20revealed%20a%20president%20disconnected%20from%20reality" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">lie after lie</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 17.12px;"> for 90 minutes.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 17.12px;">Among other things, Trump blamed Democrats for not imposing a national mask mandate (though they lacked the power to do so), claimed that “a lot of people think that masks are not good,” </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/more-testing-more-cases-covid-19/?utm_campaign%3DSnopes%2520Debunker%2520-%2520Saturday%252C%2520September%252026%252C%25202020%2520-%2520Is%2520the%2520US%2520COVID-19%2520Case%2520Total%2520Highest%2520Globally%2520Due%2520to%2520%25E2%2580%2598Great%2520Testing%25E2%2580%2599%253F%2520%2528RLUBgP%2529%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3DSnopes%2520Debunker%2520-%2520Saturday%2520Edition%26_ke%3DeyJrbF9lbWFpbCI6ICJiZW5ib3NpdHlAZ21haWwuY29tIiwgImtsX2NvbXBhbnlfaWQiOiAiTFdUYkhmIn0%253D&source=gmail&ust=1603194856259000&usg=AFQjCNHjw75dspsowxp-edDLNlQ9-iZpNQ" href="https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/more-testing-more-cases-covid-19/?utm_campaign=Snopes%20Debunker%20-%20Saturday%2C%20September%2026%2C%202020%20-%20Is%20the%20US%20COVID-19%20Case%20Total%20Highest%20Globally%20Due%20to%20%E2%80%98Great%20Testing%E2%80%99%3F%20%28RLUBgP%29&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Snopes%20Debunker%20-%20Saturday%20Edition&_ke=eyJrbF9lbWFpbCI6ICJiZW5ib3NpdHlAZ21haWwuY29tIiwgImtsX2NvbXBhbnlfaWQiOiAiTFdUYkhmIn0%3D" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">falsely claimed</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;"> </span><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 17.12px;">our first-in-the-world numbers in death and infections were driven by our relatively high amount of testing, minimized America’s mortality rates, and denied downplaying the pandemic, even as he had admitted to Bob Woodward that he had purposely downplayed the pandemic. </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">The lies continued on <b>Wednesday, September 16</b>, a day in which the U.S. had </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-latest-news-09-16-2020-11600244664&source=gmail&ust=1603194856259000&usg=AFQjCNFNbPGZm65IGhqb0e0N7iTJp35b_Q" href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-latest-news-09-16-2020-11600244664" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #5b9bd5;">40,000 new reported infections</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">, the highest totals in the past month, and it came out that the already-high official death toll failed to account for </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/16/dementia-deaths-coronavirus-nursing-homes-416530&source=gmail&ust=1603194856259000&usg=AFQjCNGVFzYjdc4G6c1l8WqeATfb-83VKQ" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/16/dementia-deaths-coronavirus-nursing-homes-416530" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #5b9bd5;">tens of thousands of COVID-related dementia deaths</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">. After allowing CDC head Robert Redfield to speak before the Republican-controlled Senate Appropriations Committee earlier in the day (while </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/18/white-house-blocked-fda-hahn-417831&source=gmail&ust=1603194856259000&usg=AFQjCNHx5pwfXQ6YjzB0L5v9qRUzmeEk9g" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/18/white-house-blocked-fda-hahn-417831" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #5b9bd5;">blocking</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn from testifying before a Democratic-led House committee, 732), Trump </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/16/trump-contradicts-his-cdc-director-over-masks-vaccine-timeline-416475&source=gmail&ust=1603194856259000&usg=AFQjCNHSqSH1JOhI2EZHzjEEDpxUixdn6g" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/16/trump-contradicts-his-cdc-director-over-masks-vaccine-timeline-416475" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #5b9bd5;">contradicted</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> Redfield at a press conference. Redfield had told the committee that wearing a face mask could do a better job of protecting an individual than the vaccine; Trump said Redfield had “made a mistake.” (733) Trump also said that Redfield had been “confused” when he’d said that vaccines wouldn’t be rolled out until the summer or fall of 2021.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">The administration’s </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.statnews.com/2020/09/17/trump-redfield-back-and-forth-messaging/?utm_source%3DSTAT%2BNewsletters%26utm_campaign%3D78ebfbcd05-Daily_Recap%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_term%3D0_8cab1d7961-78ebfbcd05-152815530&source=gmail&ust=1603194856259000&usg=AFQjCNHWMaNvOaDz5kfvQOZ5M8UTcQLRXQ" href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/09/17/trump-redfield-back-and-forth-messaging/?utm_source=STAT+Newsletters&utm_campaign=78ebfbcd05-Daily_Recap&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8cab1d7961-78ebfbcd05-152815530" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #5b9bd5;">months of mixed messaging</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">, which had confused the public and led to higher infection and death rates (734), was an inevitable result of the disregard for science at the top. Nowhere was this better exemplified than the recent flameout of Michael Caputo, the Health and Human Services spokesman. (see #723-724, #730-731)</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">As </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/16/how-michael-caputo-shook-up-hhs-416632?nname%3Dplaybook%26nid%3D0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000%26nrid%3D00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000%26nlid%3D630318&source=gmail&ust=1603194856259000&usg=AFQjCNGJVThB9axsvL_SyEJ_4sol4LcK9w" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/16/how-michael-caputo-shook-up-hhs-416632?nname=playbook&nid=0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=630318" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #5b9bd5;">reported</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> by Dan Diamond, Adam Cancryn, and Sarah Overmohle of <i>Politico</i>, Caputo had been hired to conceal the work of the Health and Human Services (HHS) Department from the American public: </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Trump’s calculation seemed clear: If he couldn’t easily move aside the health professionals who led the agencies, he could dramatically alter what the public learned about their work on the coronavirus.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Caputo immediately began supplanting career public affairs staff with his own loyalists and Trump veterans — political appointees who often knew little or nothing about health care.” (735)</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Caputo “also plucked an unpaid, part-time professor from obscurity inside a<b> </b>Canadian university to be his science adviser — and used him to challenge and intimidate the scores of highly credentialed scientists in the CDC and other government agencies.” (736)</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Caputo was on leave for the time being, but morale was low at HHS:</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Interviews with more than 30<b> </b>current and former health officials painted a picture of a health department laid low by its own press spokesman in the midst of the worst pandemic in a century. (737) They recounted how Caputo succeeded in installing his own loyalists in positions even outside the communications realm, ordered a $250 million, taxpayer-funded PR campaign that he himself promised would counter grim official predictions about the coronavirus threat, and sought to stifle experts from the FDA to CDC to the<b> </b>National Institutes of Health.”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Speaking about Caputo’s role in the administration’s pandemic response, one HHS official told <i>Politico</i>, “It didn’t add, it didn’t subtract….It just created a public relations nightmare.”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">No amount of public relations could cover up the human impact of Trump’s failures to contain the coronavirus. On <b>Thursday, September 17</b>, it was reported that </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.axios.com/coronavirus-map-new-cases-infections-united-states-6aee486c-d136-47c7-a865-052f90426316.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosam%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856259000&usg=AFQjCNGAvGqvbs7AvfNbUEZbeYN7gOA-Qg" href="http://www.axios.com/coronavirus-map-new-cases-infections-united-states-6aee486c-d136-47c7-a865-052f90426316.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #5b9bd5;">infections had increased in 17 states</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> over the prior week even as testing had gone down 6%. A leaked FEMA memo showed that COVID-19 </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://abcnews.go.com/Health/live-updates/coronavirus/?id%3D73065540%26cid%3Dsocial_twitter_abcn%2373067281&source=gmail&ust=1603194856259000&usg=AFQjCNGlRvm4irHr6D4ax7D9V346b7kvYA" href="https://abcnews.go.com/Health/live-updates/coronavirus/?id=73065540&cid=social_twitter_abcn#73067281" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #5b9bd5;">deaths had increased 17%</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> over the past week. Helped along by the GOP’s unwillingness to negotiate a stimulus deal in good faith, the job market was </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN2681Y1?il%3D0&source=gmail&ust=1603194856259000&usg=AFQjCNHP7IG-YEuNfBZ8oIXP2Em064tJFQ" href="http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN2681Y1?il=0" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #5b9bd5;">stalling</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">, leading to the “</span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/09/17/new-unemployment-claims-september/?utm_campaign%3Dwp_post_most%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26wpisrc%3Dnl_most&source=gmail&ust=1603194856259000&usg=AFQjCNGBa8socE5ylaRO6p7uybtSh9-DUw" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/09/17/new-unemployment-claims-september/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">26th-straight week of record-level unemployment claims</span></a>.” (738)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The administration didn’t let reality intrude on their daily messaging. Trump told a <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.rawstory.com/2020/09/donald-trump-mocked-for-95-minute-slurring-campaign-speech-before-crowd-packed-in-like-sardines-in-wisconsin/?utm_source%3D%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3D5497&source=gmail&ust=1603194856259000&usg=AFQjCNE50Lj3r6moqUOYQQYzkJpOAQYbPQ" href="https://www.rawstory.com/2020/09/donald-trump-mocked-for-95-minute-slurring-campaign-speech-before-crowd-packed-in-like-sardines-in-wisconsin/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=5497" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">crowded and near-maskless campaign rally</span></a> in rural Wisconsin that “we are doing an incredible job on the virus.” Speaking at Hilldale College the same day, Attorney General Bill Barr <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/17/william-barr-coronavirus-lockdowns-slavery-416776&source=gmail&ust=1603194856260000&usg=AFQjCNGt-nbdG6ckhc6uJDF7bPF01sexcA" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/17/william-barr-coronavirus-lockdowns-slavery-416776" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">fed the ignorance</span></a> and recklessness of Trump supporters (739) by likening the lockdowns which <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/06/09/872441984/modelers-suggest-pandemic-lockdowns-saved-millions-from-dying-of-covid-19&source=gmail&ust=1603194856260000&usg=AFQjCNHu53F93is9ouugBhaJN9PZmt2zsQ" href="https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/06/09/872441984/modelers-suggest-pandemic-lockdowns-saved-millions-from-dying-of-covid-19" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">had kept hundreds of thousands of Americans from contracting COVID-19</span></a> to slavery and saying politicians should make public health decisions, not scientists: <span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">“The person in the white coat is not the ‘grand seer’ who can come up with a right decision for society. A free people makes its decision through its elected representative.”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">The administration’s focus on propaganda, in place of sound public health policy, convinced Olivia Troye—a lifelong Republican who had been Mike Pence’s top staffer on the coronavirus task force—to very </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/17/politics/former-pence-aide-coronvirus-task-force-slams-trump/index.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856260000&usg=AFQjCNHDVcRrpvgeql-F0215rrKbO-TJHA" href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/17/politics/former-pence-aide-coronvirus-task-force-slams-trump/index.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #5b9bd5;">publicly endorse Joe Biden</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">. According to Troye:</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">“Towards the middle of February, we knew it wasn't a matter of if Covid would become a big pandemic here, it was a matter of when….But the President didn't want to hear that, because his biggest concern was that we were in an election year, and how was this going to affect what he considered to be his record of success?”</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In a two-minute video that accompanied her endorsement, Troye <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/pence-s-former-top-aide-says-trump-called-coronavirus-a-good-thing-because-he-didn-t-like-shaking-hands-with-disgusting-supporters/ar-BB199CZw&source=gmail&ust=1603194856260000&usg=AFQjCNGNyFa4VzKgHU7Mf73-lpCnFquokA" href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/pence-s-former-top-aide-says-trump-called-coronavirus-a-good-thing-because-he-didn-t-like-shaking-hands-with-disgusting-supporters/ar-BB199CZw" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">said</span></a>, “When we were in a task-force meeting, the president said, ‘Maybe this COVID thing is a good thing — I don't like shaking hands with people. I don't have to shake hands with these disgusting people’….Those disgusting people are the same people he claims to care about. These are the people who are still going to his rallies today, who have complete faith in who he is.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Troye told <i>the Washington Post</i> that Trump’s pandemic response reflected a “flat-out disregard for human life” and that his “<span style="background: white;">rhetoric and his own attacks against people in his administration trying to do the work, as well as the promulgation of false narratives and incorrect information of the virus have made this ongoing response a failure.”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">One of the results of that failure was an increase in medical debt (740). As reported by Jessica Menton of <i>USA Today </i>on <b>Friday, September 18</b>, <span style="background: white;">“</span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/09/18/unemployment-americans-face-45-b-worth-medical-debt-collections/3480192001/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856260000&usg=AFQjCNG554D7p3h_nCKWkalN70vNpRYsWA" href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/09/18/unemployment-americans-face-45-b-worth-medical-debt-collections/3480192001/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;">Medical debt has been growing further during the pandemic</span></a><span style="background: white;">, rising 7% from the end of last year and just over 3% from when the pandemic started” and “Experts expect it to continue to rise in the coming months.”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Another result of that failure was that over 50,000 U.S. Postal Service employees had been forced to take time off, because of COVID-related illness to themselves or their family members. As <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.propublica.org/article/poorly-protected-postal-workers-are-catching-covid-19-by-the-thousands-its-one-more-threat-to-voting-by-mail?utm_source%3Dsailthru%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dmajorinvestigations%26utm_content%3Dfeature&source=gmail&ust=1603194856260000&usg=AFQjCNER8W1F_Sgs5eVJF3DJDLn-pogMGQ" href="https://www.propublica.org/article/poorly-protected-postal-workers-are-catching-covid-19-by-the-thousands-its-one-more-threat-to-voting-by-mail?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=majorinvestigations&utm_content=feature" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">reported</span></a> by Maryam Jameel and Ryan McCarthy of <i>ProPublica</i>, “The total number of postal workers testing positive has more than tripled from about 3,100 cases in June to 9,600 in September, and at least 83 postal workers have died from complications of COVID-19, according to USPS (741). Moreover, internal USPS data shows that about 52,700 of the agency’s 630,000 employees, or more than 8%, have taken time off at some point during the pandemic because they were sick, or had to quarantine or care for family members.” (742)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In conjunction with Trump donor/Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s service cuts (see #539), significant reductions in staff could lead to many votes—especially Democrats, who were voting by mail in larger numbers—not being counted:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> <span style="background: white;">“High rates of absence could slow ballot delivery in key states, especially if there’s a second wave of the coronavirus, as some epidemiologists predict. Twenty-eight states, i</span><span style="background: white;">ncluding Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Florida, require mail-in ballots to arrive by Election Day to be counted.”</span><span style="background: white;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">On <b>Saturday, September 19</b>, NBC reported that </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/u-s-covid-19-death-toll-surpasses-200-000-n1240034&source=gmail&ust=1603194856260000&usg=AFQjCNEecxBZpME9ZAW-M9_WAZOwBd-Isg" href="https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/u-s-covid-19-death-toll-surpasses-200-000-n1240034" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">Trump had reached his milestone of 200,000 official COVID-19 deaths</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">, more than 5X the total of any other developed country. As high as the number was, it was a significant undercount from the real total, which was </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/05/us/coronavirus-death-toll-us.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosvitals%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856260000&usg=AFQjCNEXfCmuSMDJTIm70G1txoSSPEnvPw" href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/05/us/coronavirus-death-toll-us.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">in excess of 260,000 and climbing</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">A competent president with any concern for his constituents would have tried to soften the blow of the pandemic, but the Trump administration was making matters worse with needless last-minute changes to the Pandemic-EBT program which had been set up to help struggling parents feed their children. As </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/19/children-coronavirus-food-aid-states-trump-rules-417871&source=gmail&ust=1603194856260000&usg=AFQjCNE8tcasbElIqNHIS6GaaWmx0ALn8A" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/19/children-coronavirus-food-aid-states-trump-rules-417871" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">reported</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> by Helena Bottemiller Evich of <i>Politico</i>, <span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">“Millions of low-income children are likely to miss out on special benefits that help their families buy groceries this month because the Trump administration has imposed eligibility requirements that prevent some states from getting the payments out before the money expires.”</span> (743)</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">Monday, September 21</span></b><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> brought news that yet another administration official tasked with protecting public health had been </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.thedailybeast.com/redstate-covid-troll-streiff-is-actually-bill-crews-and-he-actually-works-for-dr-anthony-fauci&source=gmail&ust=1603194856260000&usg=AFQjCNGmyI9qb7sYzkdtyN6tkOdbWv4rSg" href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/redstate-covid-troll-streiff-is-actually-bill-crews-and-he-actually-works-for-dr-anthony-fauci" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">aggressively undermining public health</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">. As reported by Lachlan Markay at <i>the Daily Beast</i>, William B. Crews, a press officer at <span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, had been anonymously posting disinformation about the coronavirus for months on RedState, a right-wing website. (744)</span><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"></span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 17.12px;">While technically working under Dr. Fauci, Crews had referred to Fauci as a “mask Nazi,” made reference to the “attention-grubbing and media-whoring Anthony Fauci,” and “[intimated] </span><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">that government officials responsible for the pandemic response should be executed.”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In June, a month in which tens of thousands of Americans died from COVID-19, Crews had written that <span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">“I think we’re at the point where it is safe to say that the entire Wuhan virus scare was nothing more or less than a massive fraud perpetrated upon the American people by ‘experts’ who were determined to fundamentally change the way the country lives and is organized and governed.”</span><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"></span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 17.12px;">Many of Crews’ posts went live during business hours, indicating that he was using taxpayer money to spread dangerous propaganda.</span><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 17.12px;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 17.12px;">Another person using taxpayer money to spread dangerous propaganda was Donald Trump. At a super-spreader rally (745), in Swanton, Ohio, Trump </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.mediaite.com/news/trump-says-coronavirus-affects-virtually-nobody-as-death-toll-set-to-hit-200000/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856260000&usg=AFQjCNF1PfmcI_AN63p0iYnH016_v-sncw" href="http://www.mediaite.com/news/trump-says-coronavirus-affects-virtually-nobody-as-death-toll-set-to-hit-200000/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">repeated the myth</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 17.12px;"> that the coronavirus “[affected] virtually nobody” other than “</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 17.12px;">elderly people with heart problems and other problems,” (746) despite what he’d </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/09/trump-coronavirus-woodward-young-people-risk.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856260000&usg=AFQjCNGgzlC1P4F0V7zGq2aWZA6QRKuoig" href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/09/trump-coronavirus-woodward-young-people-risk.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">told reporter Bob Woodward</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 17.12px;"> on March 19:</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 17.12px;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“It’s turning out it’s not just old people….Just today and yesterday, some startling facts came out. It’s not just old—older. Young people, too. Plenty of young people.”<span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"></span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"></span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 17.12px;">Back in the real world, </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/22/briefing/schools-supreme-court-china-your-tuesday-briefing.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856260000&usg=AFQjCNFFAMLvzIJzLx2P_z4F41_SpyNUfg" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/22/briefing/schools-supreme-court-china-your-tuesday-briefing.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">infections had gone up more than 15%</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 17.12px;"> over the prior ten days.</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 17.12px;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 17.12px;">As </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.wvgazettemail.com/news/health/rising-coronavirus-case-numbers-in-many-states-spur-warning-of-autumn-surge/article_fcdd4926-2a4e-5889-b8e0-47c7d69c280b.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856260000&usg=AFQjCNEtwCrNll4R0EdH0fenz1fSPTcCgw" href="https://www.wvgazettemail.com/news/health/rising-coronavirus-case-numbers-in-many-states-spur-warning-of-autumn-surge/article_fcdd4926-2a4e-5889-b8e0-47c7d69c280b.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">reported</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 17.12px;"> on <b>Tuesday, September 22</b> by Joel Achenbach and Karen Brulliard of <i>the Washington Post</i>, “Twenty-seven states and Puerto Rico have shown an increase in the seven-day average of new confirmed cases since the final week of August” and “Minnesota, Montana, Oklahoma, Utah, Wisconsin, Wyoming and Puerto Rico set record highs Monday for seven-day averages.”</span><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 17.12px;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 17.12px;">The spike was widespread:</span><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 17.12px;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 17.12px;">“Disease trackers are watching the virus’ reproductive number — the amount of people infected, on average, by each infected person. When that number goes over one, exponential viral spread results. Columbia University epidemiologist Jeffrey Shaman said Monday that his team’s coronavirus model showed that 579 counties in the United States, many of them in the Midwest and the Mississippi Valley, had a reproductive number over one as of Sunday.”</span><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 17.12px;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 17.12px;">The increase in infections was especially concerning in light of the surge of cases expected with the fall flu season. Michael Osterholm, an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota, told <i>the Post</i>: “</span><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">I think we’re just in the beginning of what’s going to be a marked increase in cases in the fall. And it won’t be just a testing artifact, either. This is real.”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">So undeniably real to even minimally-observant Americans that Trump knew he would have no chance of winning a free and fair election. His only route to victory was the mass disenfranchisement of Democratic voters. To this end, his legal team was advancing lawsuits all across the country. As reported by David Leonhardt of <i>the New York Times</i> on <b>Wednesday, September 23</b>, a lawsuit in Pennsylvania—the state most likely to decide the election—produced a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/23/briefing/president-trump-mitt-romney-louisville-your-wednesday-briefing.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856260000&usg=AFQjCNF2pcO9QC-17SknuGCEZojJF4wi_A" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/23/briefing/president-trump-mitt-romney-louisville-your-wednesday-briefing.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">gratuitous but potentially fateful court decision</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> that absentee ballots which weren’t inside a “secrecy envelope,” <i>within the regular envelope</i>, would be tossed out. An elections official estimated that this could disenfranchise over 100,000 voters, most of them Democrats, more than twice Trump’s margin of victory in 2016.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">If refusals to give elections officials the resources they needed to run safe, efficient elections, months of bogus attacks on mail balloting, assaults on the U.S. Postal service’s delivery times, lawsuits, tens of thousands of </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/18/us/Voting-republicans-trump.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856260000&usg=AFQjCNEeTyZxx_nE_A0XELqOsqgjuhaLWw" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/18/us/Voting-republicans-trump.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">“election security” thugs harassing voters</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">, the insidious vote suppression efforts of his Republican state allies, and mass technical challenges to mail-in ballots after election day weren’t enough for Trump to cheat his way to an illegitimate, razor-thin electoral college win, the administration had a plan to bypass the voters altogether.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">As detailed by Barton Gellman in “</span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/what-if-trump-refuses-concede/616424/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856260000&usg=AFQjCNFGU1v9wot3ppin48efgMrHxbw1-A" href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/what-if-trump-refuses-concede/616424/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">The Election That Could Break America</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">,” the U.S. could face a constitutional crisis of Trump’s making if Biden didn’t win overwhelmingly and quickly. Given the volume of mail ballots cast because of Trump’s failure to get the coronavirus under control, there was a possibility that it would take several days, maybe even weeks, to determine the winners in crucial states such as Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, which don’t count absentee ballots until election day.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">This lag time would play into Trump’s false narrative about the fraudulence of mail ballots and give him public cover to file lawsuits challenging vote totals in swing states. If Trump were to succeed in tying up the courts until December 8—the date states were expected to choose their electors—Republican legislators in Pennsylvania (and other vital swing states, all of which are Republican-controlled) could legally ignore the will of the voters and give Trump their state’s electoral college votes—and a second term.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">GOP efforts to undermine mail balloting were in the news again on <b>Thursday, September 24</b>. As reported by Eric Larson for Bloomberg News, when ordered by a judge to reverse the harmful changes he had made to U.S. Postal Service operations, Trump donor and Postmaster General Louis DeJoy claimed that the mail-sorting machines he’d decommissioned couldn’t be reassembled. Not surprisingly, </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/dejoy-tells-judge-mail-sorting-machines-cant-be-reassembled/ar-BB19nX71&source=gmail&ust=1603194856260000&usg=AFQjCNG_aMQI-uzX80df8TuPJ37-buGiyQ" href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/dejoy-tells-judge-mail-sorting-machines-cant-be-reassembled/ar-BB19nX71" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">72% of the machines pulled out of service just happened to be in districts won by Hillary Clinton in 2016</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">Between DeJoy’s efforts to sabotage mail voting, aggressive Republican challenges to accepting mail ballots before and after the election, the far higher number of Democrats opting to use mail ballots, and the fact that mail ballots are </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.npr.org/2020/08/22/904693468/more-than-550-000-primary-absentee-ballots-rejected-in-2020-far-outpacing-2016&source=gmail&ust=1603194856260000&usg=AFQjCNG0xHBVK4uFw3vDtbW4xSjH-pH1-Q" href="https://www.npr.org/2020/08/22/904693468/more-than-550-000-primary-absentee-ballots-rejected-in-2020-far-outpacing-2016" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">rejected in higher numbers</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> than in-person ballots—especially mail ballots submitted by young voters and voters of color—some Democratic officials and organizations were starting to suggest to voters that they cast ballots </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/democrats-mail-voting-pivot-838522b7-8dac-42b4-a566-1ba93818654d.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosam%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856260000&usg=AFQjCNGdy44G-4EpDS4F0_O6zTXCrFN-pw" href="https://www.axios.com/democrats-mail-voting-pivot-838522b7-8dac-42b4-a566-1ba93818654d.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">in person</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">. This was risky, but Trump had put voters in a lose-lose situation by failing to contain the coronavirus: vote in person and risk your health, or vote by mail and have a greater chance of a Republican lawyer stealing your franchise over a technicality. (747)</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">With the fall flu season coming up, this decision was bound to get more fraught with time. Most world leaders would have tried to do something to counteract the combination of COVID-19 and the annual flu season, but Trump had no strategy other than to let his constituents suffer until a vaccine was developed and distributed (748). Unfortunately, Trump was screwing that up too.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">As </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/24/trump-undermining-vaccine-race-421487?nname%3Dplaybook%26nid%3D0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000%26nrid%3D00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000%26nlid%3D630318&source=gmail&ust=1603194856260000&usg=AFQjCNE2nzVZ2317TZh8gLxJPhFeH8nvhw" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/24/trump-undermining-vaccine-race-421487?nname=playbook&nid=0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=630318" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">reported</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> by Adam Cancryn, while speaking to a Senate panel on Wednesday, FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn had promised not to rush a vaccine, saying “science will guide our decisions” and the <span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">“FDA will not permit any pressure from anyone to change that.”</span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Waiting until a safe vaccine was developed didn’t sync with Trump’s desire to wheel any vaccine out—no matter how safe or effective—in time for election day. According to Cancryn, “<span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Hours [after Hahn’s testimony], President Donald Trump sought to do just that. Incensed over the prospect the new guidelines could slow the process, Trump blew up the FDA’s carefully laid plans – vowing to have final say over his administration’s procedures for authorizing a long-sought Covid-19 vaccine. The White House has since demanded that Hahn submit a fuller justification of his bid to set stricter standards, two administration officials said, a directive that could halt the proposal indefinitely. (749)</span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The move put health officials in a torturous but familiar position – reeling from a presidential statement undermining their work, while senior officials try to pretend nothing is amiss.”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump’s political interference and lack of credibility on all things related to the coronavirus was causing public confidence in a vaccine to plunge, which would undermine the public health response when a vaccine <i>did </i>come:</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 17.12px;">“Just over half of Americans now say they would take a vaccine if it were available today, polling </span><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 17.12px;">shows, a 21-point drop from earlier this year. That’s alarming from a public health point of view, since having fewer people take the vaccine dilutes its effectiveness.” (750)</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">An official in Trump’s Health and Human Services Department told <i>Politico</i> “People’s short-term political agendas have incredibly long-lasting potential negative impacts….We need science to be the place of trust.”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 17.12px;">The </span><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">pitched battle </span><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 17.12px;">between Trump’s short-term political interests and the sworn duties of public health officials to keep Americans safe was discussed again at cnn.com </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 17.12px;">on </span><b><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 17.12px;">Friday, September 25</span></b><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 17.12px;">.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 17.12px;">The opening paragraph showed that once again, </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/25/politics/redfield-trump-cdc-morale/index.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856261000&usg=AFQjCNFNhEnl0hTwNlV3jF_dtqn3Woc7cQ" href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/25/politics/redfield-trump-cdc-morale/index.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">Trump saw science as an obstacle</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 17.12px;">, rather than a signpost:</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">“President Donald Trump</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 17.12px;"> has lost patience with the head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Robert Redfield, as well as with the other public health experts on his coronavirus team because their sober messaging on the future of the pandemic clashes with his rosy assessments.”</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 17.12px;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 17.12px;">Tired of waiting for a magic scientific breakthrough that could get him out of the political jam he’d created for himself, Trump was taking his frustrations out on Redfield. Trump’s antics were also impacting the people who worked under Redfield:</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 17.12px;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 17.12px;">“…Trump's public undermining of the CDC chief and Redfield's tendency to fold to the White House are taking a toll on CDC staff, from top to bottom, employees say. Some have questioned whether their work is making a difference and others have even considered resigning -- and whether the sagging spirits may be hampering pandemic response.</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: 17.12px;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Eight current and former public health officials described for CNN a crushing environment at the agencies charged with the coronavirus response brought on by a President intent on contradicting critical public health messaging and downplaying the threat of the virus, politically motivated pressure from the White House and baseless allegations from political appointees that government scientists are part of a disloyal ‘deep state.’</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“‘The morale is as low as I've ever seen it (751) and we have no confidence in our leadership,’ (752) a CDC official said. ‘People are miserable and it's a shame because this pandemic is still flying away and we still need a robust public health response.’”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">According to CNN, the CDC’s “unforced errors, undermining by the White House and what some referred to as Redfield's ‘ineffective’ leadership are taking a practical toll, making some CDC officials reluctant to rotate into the agency's incident management structure for the coronavirus response -- previously a coveted rotation -- because of concerns about how the response is being handled and a sense of futility…” (753)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As one CDC official put it, “Why spend a lot of time trying to do something that the government isn't going to listen to or pay attention to.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">While Trump and his political operatives dismantled and demoralized the one government agency most able to mitigate damage from the coronavirus, the U.S. passed <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://whdh.com/news/the-us-just-topped-more-than-7-million-coronavirus-cases-as-23-states-report-rising-numbers/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856261000&usg=AFQjCNGZ2PAunnV1ITO5jfa2ViVcNfWOEg" href="https://whdh.com/news/the-us-just-topped-more-than-7-million-coronavirus-cases-as-23-states-report-rising-numbers/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">seven million official infections</span></a>, a significant undercount from the actual totals. America was just one of four countries with over a million cases; the other three—India, Russia, and Brazil—were governed by authoritarian allies of Donald Trump.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Within those numbers, 23 states had seen increases over the prior week, as America’s daily average increased 9% to 43,000 reported infections/day—more cases than Austria, Ireland, Australia, Denmark, Greece, Norway, South Korea, Finland, Hong Kong, Iceland, or New Zealand had had <i>in total</i>, since the pandemic had begun.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Unwilling to take the elementary public health steps that had helped the leaders of Austria, Ireland, Australia, Denmark, Greece, Norway, South Korea, Finland, Hong Kong, Iceland, and New Zealand keep the vast majority of their citizens safe, the administration fell back on their favored strategy whenever they were backed into a corner: misinformation and distraction.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At a super-spreader, masks-optional rally in Jacksonville, Florida (754) the day before, Trump had played to <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://whdh.com/news/the-us-just-topped-more-than-7-million-coronavirus-cases-as-23-states-report-rising-numbers/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856261000&usg=AFQjCNGZ2PAunnV1ITO5jfa2ViVcNfWOEg" href="https://whdh.com/news/the-us-just-topped-more-than-7-million-coronavirus-cases-as-23-states-report-rising-numbers/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">his audience’s ignorance and wishful thinking</span></a> with words of reminiscence: <span style="background: white;">“Normal life. O! I love normal life. We want to get back to normal life.” On Friday, Trump protégé Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor who had already sent more than 14,000 of his constituents—vulnerable elderly Floridians in particular—to an early death by re-opening the economy prematurely, granted Trump his wish.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As reported by Marc Caputo of <i>Politico</i>, DeSantis “[cancelled] all state coronavirus restrictions Friday without warning, catching local governments and epidemiologists off-guard amid their own strategies to keep the coronavirus contained.”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The executive order nullified fines used to enforce a very necessary mask mandate in Miami-Dade County:</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">“…Florida slowly began the process of reopening </span><span style="background: white;">earlier this month, but DeSantis’ decision Friday accelerated it at warp speed. It also blindsided Republican allies like Carlos Gimenez, a congressional candidate and mayor of Miami-Dade, the state’s most-populous county, and home to the most coronavirus cases in the state.”</span><span style="background: white;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">The sudden, consequential actions made no sense on public health grounds, as the state was not seeing a decline in cases and the flu season was right around the corner; Florida had 120 deaths and 2,847 new infections that day alone, both </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/%23countries&source=gmail&ust=1603194856261000&usg=AFQjCNHGqut-kKLT1p8kCO05_x0zj1TfSg" href="https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;">more than New Zealand had had in total since the beginning of the pandemic</span></a><span style="background: white;">. DeSantis’ decision to make guinea pigs of his constituents appeared to be taken solely for the purpose of boosting Trump’s flagging campaign (755):</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">“DeSantis’ unilateral action capped a week of headline-grabbing announcements – from a crackdown on rioters</span><span style="background: white;"> to protections for college kids partying during a pandemic </span><span style="background: white;">– that aligned neatly with president’s campaign messaging around putting the coronavirus behind us. The burst of activity, including the Jacksonville MAGA rally DeSantis attended with Trump on Thursday, coincided with the first batch of domestic absentee ballots being mailed out to Florida voters.”</span><span style="background: white;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Terry Rizzo, the chairwoman of Florida’s Democratic Party, told <i>Politico</i> “We all desperately want things to return back to normal, but that can't happen when DeSantis and Trump have no plan to get us out of this public health crisis.”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">Trump was hoping the crisis would just go away, </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.courant.com/coronavirus/ct-nw-nyt-trump-quotes-covid-19-20201002-4gdxkic4gra7pccvqap2llp54a-story.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856261000&usg=AFQjCNHTbszA-dKckzcx3Ox7yBHXE9FIeQ" href="https://www.courant.com/coronavirus/ct-nw-nyt-trump-quotes-covid-19-20201002-4gdxkic4gra7pccvqap2llp54a-story.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;">like a miracle</span></a><span style="background: white;">, but infections were on the rise. On </span><b>Sunday, September 27, </b>Lisa Shumaker of Reuters reported that <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN26I10Y&source=gmail&ust=1603194856261000&usg=AFQjCNG9W6399m41-GVxH-T7ZztfBErNiA" href="https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN26I10Y" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">positive rates had increased up to 25%</span></a> in the Midwest.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Remarkably,<span style="background: white;"> this wasn’t the worst news Trump would get on Sunday. Trump’s years-long effort to be the only modern president to hide his tax returns from his constituents came to an end with </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/27/us/donald-trump-taxes.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856261000&usg=AFQjCNH-yZ4p_vlbGrZYd_MdT8Og4WvJXg" href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/27/us/donald-trump-taxes.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;">a bombshell scoop</span></a><span style="background: white;"> from <i>the New York Times</i>: “Long-concealed records show Trump’s chronic losses and years of tax avoidance.”</span><span style="background: white;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">While millions of Americans struggled to feed their families, pay their utility bills, or keep a roof over their heads, it came out that Trump had paid no federal taxes in 11 of the 18 years examined and taken a $75,000 tax write-off for hair care. In 2017, his first year as president, Trump had paid only $750 in federal taxes, roughly the same amount a single filer with no children and an annual income of $18,000 would’ve paid. Contrary to the claim Trump had staked his candidacy on—that he could transfer his </span><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;">financial savvy </span><span style="background: white;">to the White House—records showed that Trump’s businesses had lost $174 million in the period audited and that he personally </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://theweek.com/articles/940021/trump-literally-cant-afford-lose-election&source=gmail&ust=1603194856261000&usg=AFQjCNHz9eLBz6FxT18c2pUZRnzi9BX-wQ" href="https://theweek.com/articles/940021/trump-literally-cant-afford-lose-election" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;">owed up to $421 million</span></a><span style="background: white;"> over the next few years to the IRS and undisclosed creditors. As <i>the Times</i> put it, “</span><span style="background: white;">Ultimately, Mr. Trump has been more successful playing a business mogul than being one in real life.”</span><span style="background: white;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">On <b>Monday, September 28</b>, as news of Trump’s tax-dodging exploded across the web, more stories about the administration’s interference with public health officials popped up. Monica Alba of NBC News </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://news.yahoo.com/redfield-voices-alarm-over-influence-090057649.html?guccounter%3D1%26guce_referrer%3DaHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8%26guce_referrer_sig%3DAQAAAGYnxkJTn0sfr7OLmxnFB9HN2Zn4Oc8T-dLo81W6mgaTM4qoAGj64Oaj2z_f5b94Mxgbn7A64x-so4BsnnB-mpOBjZP3BR2VoAiKrg4oJOTavCUADfGa-a8GKZuSnJ56yDGskEpWsb_E9R2RqNU6t-AOVFRJdRqEaqIWXgUFK07Z&source=gmail&ust=1603194856261000&usg=AFQjCNEbYXPvPUUBoOzVMu3q4jLhYO-FPQ" href="https://news.yahoo.com/redfield-voices-alarm-over-influence-090057649.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAGYnxkJTn0sfr7OLmxnFB9HN2Zn4Oc8T-dLo81W6mgaTM4qoAGj64Oaj2z_f5b94Mxgbn7A64x-so4BsnnB-mpOBjZP3BR2VoAiKrg4oJOTavCUADfGa-a8GKZuSnJ56yDGskEpWsb_E9R2RqNU6t-AOVFRJdRqEaqIWXgUFK07Z" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background: white; color: #5b9bd5;">reported</span></a><span style="background: white;"> on a candid conversation Trump’s CDC head (Robert Redfield) had had on a commercial flight.</span><span style="background: white;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">According to Alba, </span>“The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has grown increasingly concerned that President Donald Trump, pushed by a new member of his coronavirus task force, is sharing incorrect information about the pandemic with the public.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The new member of the task force was Scott Atlas (see #622-623, #687-689), “<span style="background: white; color: #1d2228;">a neuroradiologist with no background in infectious diseases or public health” whom Trump had plucked from Fox News. In the overheard convers</span><span style="background: white;">ation, Redfield had “</span><span style="background: white;">suggested…that Dr. Scott Atlas is arming Trump with misleading data about a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/masks-bring-help-bring-down-covid-19-cases-governors-state-n1240448&source=gmail&ust=1603194856261000&usg=AFQjCNFq0DBUkIyWHCqCTuuKu9aTrZ_CpQ" href="https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/masks-bring-help-bring-down-covid-19-cases-governors-state-n1240448" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background: white;">range of issues</span></a><span style="background: white;">, including questioning the </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/16/cdc-director-says-face-masks-may-provide-more-protection-than-coronavirus-vaccine-.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856261000&usg=AFQjCNECpFrlPtiihdkEKzUtItv9SUM7qA" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/16/cdc-director-says-face-masks-may-provide-more-protection-than-coronavirus-vaccine-.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background: white;">efficacy of masks</span></a><span style="background: white;">, whether young people are susceptible to the virus and the potential benefits of </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/fauci-paul-clash-over-covid-19-herd-immunity-senate-hearing-n1240858&source=gmail&ust=1603194856261000&usg=AFQjCNFUmHi0E9DiU8tEHyvxIvhGuAFhAQ" href="https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/fauci-paul-clash-over-covid-19-herd-immunity-senate-hearing-n1240858" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background: white;">herd immunity</span></a><span style="background: white;">.”</span><span style="background: white;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">As one example, “when Redfield testified last week that 90 percent of Americans remain susceptible to the coronavirus, Atlas directly contradicted him and claimed that he had ‘misstated’ that fact under oath. Atlas argued that Redfield was using ‘old’ data, even though Redfield cited information from July and August when answering lawmakers' questions on Capitol Hill.” (756)</span><span style="background: white;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: white;">With cases having increased by 22% over the prior two weeks, Trump had made an unqualified quack doctor his top public health official, likely because Atlas told him what he wanted to hear. (757) Referring to Atlas on the flight, Redfield said, “Everything he says is false.”</span><span style="background: white;"></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/by/mark-mazzetti&source=gmail&ust=1603194856261000&usg=AFQjCNG49r6d-ez8sL-lKS0JIXNUN3NAuw" href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/mark-mazzetti" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; letter-spacing: 0.25pt; padding: 0in;">Mark Mazzetti</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">, </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/by/noah-weiland&source=gmail&ust=1603194856261000&usg=AFQjCNH3h1FHQlfdDyoEnvAI4ccnl_PKyQ" href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/noah-weiland" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; letter-spacing: 0.25pt; padding: 0in;">Noah Weiland</span></a>,<span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; letter-spacing: 0.25pt;"> and </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/by/sharon-lafraniere&source=gmail&ust=1603194856261000&usg=AFQjCNE9jqZqsBMjXY4JDDz3KFfSu9TbXQ" href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/sharon-lafraniere" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; letter-spacing: 0.25pt; padding: 0in;">Sharon LaFraniere</span></a> of <i>the New York Times</i> looked at another instance of <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/28/us/politics/white-house-cdc-coronavirus-schools.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosam%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856261000&usg=AFQjCNHZBRF2Rc3Nzs5eFezrIxJ_OVjVug" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/28/us/politics/white-house-cdc-coronavirus-schools.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">the administration’s manipulation of data and betrayal of the public trust</span></a> in “Behind the White House Effort to Pressure the C.D.C. on School Openings.”</span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">According to the opening paragraph, “<span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Top White House officials pressured the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this summer to play down the risk of sending children back to school, a strikingly political intervention in one of the most sensitive public health debates of the pandemic, according to documents and interviews with current and former government officials.” (758)</span><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">The administration’s dangerous propaganda offensive “included Dr. Deborah L. Birx, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, and officials working for Vice President Mike Pence, who led the task force. It left officials at the C.D.C., long considered the world’s premier public health agency, alarmed at the degree of pressure from the White House.”</span><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Since sound data showed that opening schools was potentially very risky, “White House officials…tried to circumvent the C.D.C. in a search for alternate data showing that the pandemic was weakening and posed little danger to children.”</span><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">“…The White House seized on a bar chart the C.D.C. distributed…to other agencies, which showed that 60 percent of coronavirus deaths were people over the age of 75. Officials asked the C.D.C. to provide a new chart to show people 18 and under as a separate group — rather than including them as normal in an under-25 category — in an effort to demonstrate that the risk for school-age children was relatively low.”</span><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Birx also tried to “push the C.D.C. to incorporate work from a little-known agency inside the Department of Health and Human Services, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration [SAMHSA],” into official CDC guidance, even though “C.D.C. scientists pointed out numerous errors in the document and raised concerns that it appeared to minimize the risk of the coronavirus to school-age children.”</span><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Ultimately, the disinformation from SAMHSA minimizing the risks to school staff, school children, and their parents was included in the official CDC guidance, over the wishes of CDC staff.</span><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Olivia Troye, a former aide to Mike Pence who had witnessed the manipulations of public health information, told <i>the Times</i>, “You’re impacting people’s lives for whatever political agenda. You’re exchanging votes for lives, and I have a serious problem with that.”</span><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The state of the union was perilous on<b> Tuesday, September 29. </b>A record number of <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-retail-bankruptcies-store-closures-hit-record-in-first-half-11601371800&source=gmail&ust=1603194856262000&usg=AFQjCNGcFG5gNOmBb33nqO2e60PJbXXtMg" href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-retail-bankruptcies-store-closures-hit-record-in-first-half-11601371800" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">retail stores were going under</span></a>. (759) Disney announced that it would be <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.wsj.com/articles/disneylands-reopening-date-remains-unclear-11601413802?mod%3Dhp_lead_pos1&source=gmail&ust=1603194856262000&usg=AFQjCNGWrb-rLSdjE5u1ZRgyOj-SkihZkw" href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/disneylands-reopening-date-remains-unclear-11601413802?mod=hp_lead_pos1" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">laying off 28,000 employees</span></a>. (760) Infections were on the way up, in the neighborhood of <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/country/united-states?country%3D~USA&source=gmail&ust=1603194856262000&usg=AFQjCNE4ML51ETTvK2ASfMWsRAjsD7tX8A" href="https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/country/united-states?country=~USA" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">50,000 daily</span></a>.</span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Against this backdrop, it came out that the White House had <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.axios.com/scoop-white-house-overruled-cdc-cruise-ships-florida-91442136-1b8e-442e-a2a1-0b24e9a39fb6.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosvitals%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856262000&usg=AFQjCNFzESdtZ7yhLqwnEWWUAutueD2RCg" href="http://www.axios.com/scoop-white-house-overruled-cdc-cruise-ships-florida-91442136-1b8e-442e-a2a1-0b24e9a39fb6.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">overruled Robert Redfield’s proposal</span></a> to extend a ban on cruise ships into next year (likely because the industry is vital to Florida’s economy, 761) and a bi-partisan group of seven former FDA commissioners published an op-ed discussing <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/09/29/former-fda-commissioners-coronavirus-vaccine-trump/?utm_campaign%3Dwp_main%26utm_source%3Dtwitter%26utm_medium%3Dsocial%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856262000&usg=AFQjCNFuhsd08UVe2N4tJ5c8Fud51Chp4w" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/09/29/former-fda-commissioners-coronavirus-vaccine-trump/?utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">the destructive impact of the administration’s interference</span></a> with the FDA’s public health mission.</span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Naturally, Trump had no intention of addressing his constant assaults on public health officials in the name of short-term political interests, his catastrophic failure to control the coronavirus (see #1-#761), or the grim economic situation this failure had put tens of millions of Americans in during that night’s presidential debate.</span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">So Trump chose distraction and disruption instead.</span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">He boorishly <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-joe-biden-donald-trump-chris-wallace-campaigns-04ee2e8d54f456ee6cafdc5fe53a5d28&source=gmail&ust=1603194856262000&usg=AFQjCNHJkmGXzxk7nMnTyeikAH_FAm5edw" href="https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-joe-biden-donald-trump-chris-wallace-campaigns-04ee2e8d54f456ee6cafdc5fe53a5d28" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">interrupted Biden or moderator Chris Wallace 71 times</span></a> to try to force a handful of fallacious right-wing talking points into the debate. He levelled multiple attacks on Biden’s son Hunter. <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/30/fact-check-debate-423228&source=gmail&ust=1603194856262000&usg=AFQjCNFG4HfWtI73kjpC_3HLP1dHjf0Xaw" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/30/fact-check-debate-423228" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">He lied repeatedly and flagrantly</span></a>, about how much he had paid in taxes, about Biden’s stance on law and order, about his healthcare policy, about mail ballots. He also lied numerous times about COVID-19-related items, claiming his packed and largely mask-less rallies weren’t spreading infection and that a coronavirus vaccine would soon be available. Not surprisingly, many members of his entourage <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://news.yahoo.com/future-presidential-debates-unclear-trump-151225591.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856262000&usg=AFQjCNGi3_qGUc-2Op6j2Uue042dNSY9LQ" href="https://news.yahoo.com/future-presidential-debates-unclear-trump-151225591.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">refused to wear masks</span></a> at the debate, despite the rules of laid out in advance, a selfish ideological gesture with consequences for others.</span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Rather than advocate for mask usage during a pandemic, as any responsible president would have done, he mocked it (762). In one exchange that would become particularly ironic by the end of the week, Trump said, “I think masks are OK. You have to understand, if you look — I mean, I have a mask right here. I put a mask on when I think I need it. Tonight, as an example, everybody’s had a test, and you’ve had social distancing and all of the things that you have to….When needed, I wear masks. I don’t wear masks like [Joe Biden]….Every time you see him, he’s got a mask. He could be speaking 200 feet away from them, and he shows up with the biggest mask I’ve ever seen.”</span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Wednesday, September 30</b><b> </b>the impact of the administration’s lack of concern for public safety in K-12 schools got another look in “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/30/new-york-los-angeles-chicago-miami-broward-schools-reopening-423767?nname%3Dpolitico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition%26nid%3D00000170-c000-da87-af78-e185fa700000%26nrid%3D00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000%26nlid%3D2670445&source=gmail&ust=1603194856262000&usg=AFQjCNFpvJewLev5BeRY9zid8jOoL2wtqg" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/30/new-york-los-angeles-chicago-miami-broward-schools-reopening-423767?nname=politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition&nid=00000170-c000-da87-af78-e185fa700000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=2670445" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">Children have become acceptable carnage</span></a>.” A team of journalists at <i>Politico</i> reviewed four of the country’s biggest school systems—New York, L.A., Chicago, and Miami-Dade County.</span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Among the challenges school administrators had to deal with: <span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">“Children can spread the virus, rapidly, even if they may suffer less if they have it themselves. One in three U.S. public school teachers is 50 or order</span><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">, putting them at greater risk of developing a severe form of the illness.”</span></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">While struggling to keep students socially distanced and staff safe, administrators “lack clear guidance they can trust from the federal government</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">”</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: georgia;">to help them make decisions on reopening schools.” (763) Dan Domenech, head of the School Superintendents Association, told <i>Politico</i> that schools were “‘on their own’…because the credibility of CDC guidance is in question amid allegations of White House meddling.” Domenech added that “It's ridiculous that, with something as serious and as vital as what we're facing right now, that children have become acceptable carnage.”</span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The CDC was also dropping the ball on collecting data about infection rates among children, which could “track the spread of Covid-19 in schools and help researchers develop best safety practices to successfully continue reopening schools for in-person classes.” To date, the CDC had left tracking to local school districts, guaranteeing that much less information and guidance would be shared from district to district. (764)</span></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers told reporters that CDC guidelines were a “patchwork mess” with “</span>no consistent message.”</span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Leading the charge to force children into harm’s way was Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida (see #434, #689). DeSantis threatened to withhold funding to Miami-Dade schools if they didn’t open on his—and Trump’s—preferred/accelerated timeline, though Miami-Dade had the highest numbers of infections in the state which had been the world epicenter this summer. Of DeSantis’ forced death march, Dan Domenech said “<span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">it’s like the kids are the pawns in this whole process….You know, let’s just throw ‘em out, just like cannon fodder. No regard to their safety. No regard to their welfare. It’s just to make sure that schools are open and parents can go to work.”</span></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">The lack of guidance from the CDC came up again on <b>Thursday, October 1</b>. Even as cases were surging again, with </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-cases-increasing-america-states-texas-d87186d3-ce1a-415a-b3ac-bec8a8e09df3.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856262000&usg=AFQjCNEXBkIr67sccsM4SFN9S8QmLXgYog" href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-cases-increasing-america-states-texas-d87186d3-ce1a-415a-b3ac-bec8a8e09df3.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #5b9bd5;">25 states showing increases</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">, the CDC had failed to release any new coronavirus information for a whole week (765). As </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/cdc-places-moratorium-releasing-coronavirus-health-guidance/story?id%3D73351190&source=gmail&ust=1603194856262000&usg=AFQjCNHWqmIwUI7oXfICpTuAt84u5WYbsw" href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/cdc-places-moratorium-releasing-coronavirus-health-guidance/story?id=73351190" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #5b9bd5;">reported</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> by Dr. Mark Abdelmalek, Dr. Jay Bhatt, and John Santucci for abcnews.com, “</span>The type of information that has been withheld has previously been vital to hospitals, health officials and local leaders on the front lines providing updated guidance on how to treat, test and slow the spread of the illness, which has claimed over 200,000 American lives. A source told ABC News that includes additional ‘guidance on who should be tested and when,’ adding, ‘That stuff won't get updated.’”</span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">According to ABC News, a source said that “‘We know we have new science, but updates based on new and emerging science are not updated or able to be shared,’ including CDC ‘recommendations on best practices and guidance on how to protect yourself and others from getting and spreading COVID.’”</span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Dr. Richard Besser, who headed the CDC under Barack Obama, told ABC, “[the CDC’s] <span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">leadership has been prevented from communicating directly with the American people….Without this direct communication, it is impossible to develop and maintain trust. As a result, thousands of American lives have been lost -- particularly in communities of color, which have been hit the hardest -- and trust in our nation's scientific and public health institutions has eroded.”</span></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">While the number of lives lost was shocking considering the unparalleled amount of resources at Trump’s disposal, tens of millions of living-and-breathing Americans were silently struggling because of Trump’s failure to get a handle on the coronavirus. Thanks to the state of the economy and the long-term consequences of permanent job losses, up to half of Americans 55 and over could <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.marketwatch.com/story/half-of-americans-over-55-may-retire-poor-2020-10-01&source=gmail&ust=1603194856262000&usg=AFQjCNGwH_Dxf1J_p2PgWDDyQi5EMOIpNA" href="http://www.marketwatch.com/story/half-of-americans-over-55-may-retire-poor-2020-10-01" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">face poverty when they retired</span></a> (766). The GOP’s sabotaging of stimulus talks was putting up to 179,000,000 Americans <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/10/01/power-water-gas-bills/?utm_campaign%3Dwp_post_most%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26wpisrc%3Dnl_most%26carta-url%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fs2.washingtonpost.com%252Fcar-ln-tr%252F2be1d1f%252F5f75fcaa9d2fda0efb3ac48c%252F597420fc9bbc0f1cdcfbd42b%252F42%252F72%252F0a33cfd8923c5e66c2850894011b9e34&source=gmail&ust=1603194856262000&usg=AFQjCNF1Fc1NwpjTLUBvwK79PPmNYLwKgA" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/10/01/power-water-gas-bills/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F2be1d1f%2F5f75fcaa9d2fda0efb3ac48c%2F597420fc9bbc0f1cdcfbd42b%2F42%2F72%2F0a33cfd8923c5e66c2850894011b9e34" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">at risk of losing access to water or power</span></a> (767). Americans with diabetes were <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.statnews.com/2020/10/01/why-people-with-diabetes-are-being-hit-so-hard-by-covid-19/?utm_source%3DSTAT%2BNewsletters%26utm_campaign%3D1b7f6d7974-Daily_Recap%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_term%3D0_8cab1d7961-1b7f6d7974-152815530&source=gmail&ust=1603194856262000&usg=AFQjCNH5ER1vh0-2_8gfy1FDnzR6KLfdLA" href="http://www.statnews.com/2020/10/01/why-people-with-diabetes-are-being-hit-so-hard-by-covid-19/?utm_source=STAT+Newsletters&utm_campaign=1b7f6d7974-Daily_Recap&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8cab1d7961-1b7f6d7974-152815530" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">suffering at inordinate rates</span></a> (768), and many who survived COVID-19 would experience <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.axios.com/coronavirus-organ-damage-975f146b-563c-482e-a812-82980652e288.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosvitals%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856262000&usg=AFQjCNH9kdoBT3HbgaVJPpJCKslKMdKHqQ" href="http://www.axios.com/coronavirus-organ-damage-975f146b-563c-482e-a812-82980652e288.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">damage</span></a> to their lungs, kidneys, gastrointestinal tracts, or hearts while also being more susceptible to strokes, brain hemorrhages, and memory loss. (769)</span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That night, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-guests-al-smith-dinner/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856262000&usg=AFQjCNHPgjNsYI31tcInbFmRBo3KH3oa4w" href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-guests-al-smith-dinner/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">speaking</span></a> virtually to the Al Smith dinner, Trump said, <span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">“I just want to say that the end of the pandemic is in sight, and next year will be one of the greatest years in the history of our country.”</span></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">At 12:54 a.m. on <b>Friday, October 2</b>, Trump <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook/2020/10/02/president-trump-and-melania-have-covid-19-what-now-490505&source=gmail&ust=1603194856262000&usg=AFQjCNGisDLEhWov39psc9aNCQYugNyq2Q" href="http://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook/2020/10/02/president-trump-and-melania-have-covid-19-what-now-490505" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">announced</span></a> to the world that he had contracted COVID-19.</span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">News of Trump’s infection revealed that Trump had likely exposed numerous people to COVID-19 because of his unwillingness to socially distance, wear a mask, or require those around him to wear masks (770). He could have infected Chris Wallace and Joe Biden at the Tuesday presidential debate, supporters at a rally he attended in Minnesota on Wednesday, and people who’d been exposed to him at a fundraiser early Thursday.</span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The fundraiser happened <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-went-ahead-with-golf-club-fundraiser-after-hicks-tested-positive&source=gmail&ust=1603194856262000&usg=AFQjCNGl-7lZCMpgTlfQ82Hhuy-07LEfYA" href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-went-ahead-with-golf-club-fundraiser-after-hicks-tested-positive" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><i><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">after</span></i><span style="color: #5b9bd5;"> Trump had found out that close aide Hope Hicks had been infected</span></a>. Unconcerned that he might spread infection, Trump wore no mask and concealed this information at a meet-and-greet with dozens of supporters; New Jersey officials <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/states/new-jersey/story/2020/10/02/trump-looked-100-percent-normal-during-bedminster-fundraiser-attendee-says-1319744?nname%3Dpolitico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition%26nid%3D00000170-c000-da87-af78-e185fa700000%26nrid%3D00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000%26nlid%3D2670445&source=gmail&ust=1603194856262000&usg=AFQjCNEh62I1y1WXNyr5R_T0-AJ87TIdYA" href="https://www.politico.com/states/new-jersey/story/2020/10/02/trump-looked-100-percent-normal-during-bedminster-fundraiser-attendee-says-1319744?nname=politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition&nid=00000170-c000-da87-af78-e185fa700000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=2670445" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">feared</span></a> that Trump had unleashed yet another super-spreader event (771). Trump’s spokeswoman, Kayleigh McEnany, neglected to tell reporters about Hicks’ infection at that day’s press conference, which potentially exposed the press to infection, as McEnany had spent time with Hicks in the past couple days. (772)</span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Then there were secret service personnel, Air Force personnel, members of Congress and their aides, reporters, and hordes of fan boys and girls in half a dozen states he’d held rallies in. Depending on when he had contracted the virus, Trump could have passed the coronavirus on to hundreds if not thousands of people, creating <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/02/trump-campaign-contact-tracing-425622&source=gmail&ust=1603194856262000&usg=AFQjCNEE94nVg57GsWeUL5KYxCfatb0yrQ" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/02/trump-campaign-contact-tracing-425622" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">a contact tracing nightmare</span></a>.</span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Georges Benjamin, the executive director of the American Public Health Association, told <i>Politico</i>, “They’re way behind the curve in trying to catch all the folks that the president has been around….The fact that he’s been around so many people and that he doesn’t wear a mask, he could be a superspreader, we just don’t know yet.”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">Making tracing even harder, it was impossible to know when Trump had gotten infected because of the lax culture around the White House. Former Mike Pence aide </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-trumps-washington/it-was-all-about-the-election-the-ex-white-house-aide-olivia-troye-on-trumps-narcissistic-mishandling-of-covid-19&source=gmail&ust=1603194856263000&usg=AFQjCNH6pI8rXvBxmz3mgMwQQWLO5fG-SA" href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-trumps-washington/it-was-all-about-the-election-the-ex-white-house-aide-olivia-troye-on-trumps-narcissistic-mishandling-of-covid-19" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">Olivia Troye</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> described the atmosphere as </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Trump-seemed-to-defy-the-laws-of-science-and-15617686.php&source=gmail&ust=1603194856263000&usg=AFQjCNELXlDj220QENWItUaDGnY4xEEkiw" href="https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Trump-seemed-to-defy-the-laws-of-science-and-15617686.php" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">a “petri dish”</span></a><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">and told<i> the Washington Post</i> <span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #111111;">“The fact of the matter was, 75 percent did not walk around with masks. Maybe 85 percent…It was a very small percentage of people who wore the masks all the time.” (773)</span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">Despite Trump’s illness, and the clear connection between Trump’s infection and the reactionary, anti-science mindset that spawned it, an administration official said that face coverings would still not be mandatory at the White House, as masks were “</span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://twitter.com/AP_Politics/status/1312103720750989313&source=gmail&ust=1603194856263000&usg=AFQjCNGCQEKRFwnB_8icCMYIlg6nF-7-oQ" href="https://twitter.com/AP_Politics/status/1312103720750989313" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">a personal choice</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">.” (774).</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">On <b>Saturday, October 3</b>, it was reported that the U.S. had had over 54,000 new infections on Friday. 33 states were now showing increases in cases.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">The White House </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/white-house-covid-contact-tracing/2020/10/03/2a6b8e2a-05a1-11eb-897d-3a6201d6643f_story.html?itid%3Dhp-top-table-high&source=gmail&ust=1603194856263000&usg=AFQjCNHJfR55nZt07uK0yVSmRcBa6bKJOA" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/white-house-covid-contact-tracing/2020/10/03/2a6b8e2a-05a1-11eb-897d-3a6201d6643f_story.html?itid=hp-top-table-high" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">hadn’t bothered</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> to initiate contact tracing to protect the thousands of people who could have gotten COVID from Trump and other administration officials, but one of the key super-spreader events was coming to light. As </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.statnews.com/2020/10/03/hugs-handshakes-and-few-masks-rose-garden-supreme-court-announcement-packed-with-covid19-red-flags/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856263000&usg=AFQjCNF5C4kZw258aChR6gBTI2MCbaKuCQ" href="http://www.statnews.com/2020/10/03/hugs-handshakes-and-few-masks-rose-garden-supreme-court-announcement-packed-with-covid19-red-flags/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">reported</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> by Andrew Joseph of <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://statnews.com&source=gmail&ust=1603194856263000&usg=AFQjCNHFj-IbZ1OFnrR8bl6tdBvqjirsrw" href="http://statnews.com/" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">statnews.com</a>, the official Rose Garden announcement of the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court one week prior appeared to have set off a wave of infections.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 17.12px;">In a karmic boomerang for the ages, a celebration of the extreme right’s imminent control of the Supreme Court for decades to come, a move certain to lead to mass human suffering for everyday Americans—from the loss of healthcare for tens of millions to assaults on unions to the gutting of environmental protections to the desecration of voting rights for people of color to further corporate corrosion of our political system—had triggered a ripple of infections. A number of privileged (white) elite who had gloated in the misery they were about to inflict while shaking hands, not social distancing, and not wearing masks had contracted the virus, including right-wing senators Thom Tillis and Mike Lee, the president’s former aide Kellyanne Conway, and Chris Christie, the president’s designated propagandist on Sunday morning talk shows.</span><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 17.12px;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 17.12px;">While sociopaths got their comeuppance, the administration </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/03/trump-hospital-covid-health-425840&source=gmail&ust=1603194856263000&usg=AFQjCNFb6U-KYrZRY9NNEM2j2JZictgL8Q" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/03/trump-hospital-covid-health-425840" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">delivered yet more mixed messages</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 17.12px;">, this time about the state of Trump’s health. Early in the day, Trump’s physician (Dr. Sean Conley) had addressed reporters assembled outside of the Walter Reed Medical Center, where Trump was getting care. Conley put on a happy face, dodged media questions about Trump’s use of oxygen, and claimed (while citing little relevant data) that Trump was “doing very well.” Conley also said that Trump had been diagnosed <i>72</i> hours earlier, which indicated that Trump had been aware of his infection on Wednesday, not Thursday, as the White House had originally said, and had knowingly infected many more people than previously known. (The administration later claimed that Conley had misspoken). </span><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 17.12px;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Just minutes after Conley’s presentation, once the official event was over, Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows painted a radically different picture, telling reporters that “The president’s vitals over the last 24 hours were very concerning and the next 48 hours will be critical in terms of his care” and “We’re still not on a clear path to a full recovery.” It also came out that Trump had needed oxygen Friday, contrary to the statement from Dr. Conley.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 17.12px;">Saturday evening, Trump released a video on Twitter which contradicted Meadows. In the video, Trump minimized his transfer to Walter Reed, </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/10/04/trump-claims-that-he-had-no-choice-risk-his-own-health-americans-disagree/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856263000&usg=AFQjCNFnbpK1L0zyC9vD6wPdj80uTj8J4Q" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/10/04/trump-claims-that-he-had-no-choice-risk-his-own-health-americans-disagree/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">dubiously claiming</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 17.12px;"> he could just as easily have convalesced at the White House, but hadn’t wanted to be isolated:</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“I just didn’t want to stay in the White House. I was given that alternative….Stay in the White House, lock yourself in, don’t ever leave, don’t even go to the Oval Office, just stay upstairs and enjoy it. Don’t see people, don’t talk to people and just be done with it, and I can’t do that.”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Scott Jennings, an official in the W. Bush administration, told <i>Politico</i>, “The world has to know whether the president of the United States is in good health….You cannot have inconsistent reports about the president’s health.”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/04/us/politics/trump-virus.html?campaign_id%3D9%26emc%3Dedit_nn_20201005%26instance_id%3D22811%26nl%3Dthe-morning%26regi_id%3D87101069%26section_index%3D2%26section_name%3Dthe_latest_news%26segment_id%3D39842%26te%3D1%26user_id%3D1baa2c82b5fd57364c41fdc8e1f99240&source=gmail&ust=1603194856263000&usg=AFQjCNEOXYlbjmaWf-3dwcfS3_MJMAlgkg" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/04/us/politics/trump-virus.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20201005&instance_id=22811&nl=the-morning&regi_id=87101069&section_index=2&section_name=the_latest_news&segment_id=39842&te=1&user_id=1baa2c82b5fd57364c41fdc8e1f99240" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">Inconsistent reports</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> were exactly what the public was getting. On <b>Sunday, October 4</b>, Trump left Walter Reed hospital to be chauffeured around in an SUV, giving the impression that he was mobile and doing ok, yet he was taking steroids intended for severe COVID patients and medical information indicated that he’d had a high fever on Friday and that his blood oxygen levels had fallen off twice since he had been publicly diagnosed. Of Trump’s photo op, Dr. James Phillips, a physician at Walter Reed, tweeted “Every single person in the vehicle during that completely unnecessary Presidential ‘drive-by’ just now has to be quarantined for 14 days. They might get sick. They may die. For political theater. Commanded by Trump to put their lives at risk for theater. This is insanity.” (775)</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">As Trump’s illness held center stage in the national political drama, more came out about the spreading trail of infection left in Trump’s wake due to his callous disregard for public health guidelines. </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/10/trump-reckless/616610/?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Datlantic-daily-newsletter%26utm_content%3D20201005%26silverid-ref%3DNjY0NzQxMzgxNDkxS0&source=gmail&ust=1603194856263000&usg=AFQjCNGAeVmxeQvJTwYx9pWwpeD6Sq5Jow" href="http://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/10/trump-reckless/616610/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=atlantic-daily-newsletter&utm_content=20201005&silverid-ref=NjY0NzQxMzgxNDkxS0" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">Trump had routinely shown no concern for the safety of his aides</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> and </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/04/biden-still-at-risk-for-covid-426086&source=gmail&ust=1603194856263000&usg=AFQjCNEu3thZ6hlIhFdB-de-rw6GfNIbCQ" href="http://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/04/biden-still-at-risk-for-covid-426086" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">could have infected</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> Joe Biden at the Tuesday debate. Trump’s Wednesday rally in Duluth, Minnesota had been a cautionary tale of “</span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/04/duluth-is-still-recovering-from-trumps-visit-426119&source=gmail&ust=1603194856263000&usg=AFQjCNGi1X-udURsIzrtZHJSa9BWQcetiw" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/04/duluth-is-still-recovering-from-trumps-visit-426119" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">worst pandemic practices</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">” which would result in </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/09/trump-minnesota-rally-coronavirus-cases-428425&source=gmail&ust=1603194856263000&usg=AFQjCNG15FBijm0Ahml484H4C7qXDjQRTQ" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/09/trump-minnesota-rally-coronavirus-cases-428425" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">multiple infections</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> (776). Trump covered up a positive rapid test earlier in the day on Thursday when he went to a fundraiser in New Jersey, </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.politico.com/states/new-jersey/story/2020/10/04/officials-racing-to-contact-206-guests-who-attended-trumps-new-jersey-fundraiser-1320897&source=gmail&ust=1603194856263000&usg=AFQjCNGVykRRLFdqQQEsiU3UXtWDl0plAg" href="http://www.politico.com/states/new-jersey/story/2020/10/04/officials-racing-to-contact-206-guests-who-attended-trumps-new-jersey-fundraiser-1320897" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">potentially infecting 206 people</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> (777). Trump also covered up his rapid test result when speaking to Sean Hannity Thursday night and </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.rawstory.com/2020/10/dont-tell-anyone-trump-tried-to-hide-positive-19-tests-spreading-through-the-white-house/?utm_source%3D%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3D5604&source=gmail&ust=1603194856263000&usg=AFQjCNFunrvXhm9Hdcqp9dDS31EnsX0d2Q" href="https://www.rawstory.com/2020/10/dont-tell-anyone-trump-tried-to-hide-positive-19-tests-spreading-through-the-white-house/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=5604" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">asked an adviser</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> not to tell the press of his infections or any of the other infections plaguing White House staff. (778)</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">The co-chair of the right-wing super PAC Great America told <i>the Washington Post</i> that the slew of infections to Trump, his allies, and his aides </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/as-virus-spreads-across-gop-ranks-some-republicans-say-party-will-pay-price-for-stupid-approach/ar-BB19FM3f&source=gmail&ust=1603194856263000&usg=AFQjCNHyyKcQvc91wR7obdp1saW22Yp53w" href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/as-virus-spreads-across-gop-ranks-some-republicans-say-party-will-pay-price-for-stupid-approach/ar-BB19FM3f" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">showed the GOP to be “the stupid party</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">,” but the Trump campaign wasn’t letting reality get in the way of their messaging. Appearing on “This Week” Sunday morning, Trump’s adviser Jason Miller </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/top-trump-campaign-official-ridicules-joe-biden-s-mask-wearing-n1242041&source=gmail&ust=1603194856263000&usg=AFQjCNHSOutgP1snjxMSjXhwWcK2Y5Guxg" href="http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/top-trump-campaign-official-ridicules-joe-biden-s-mask-wearing-n1242041" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">lied</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> about the lack of precautions around the White House and accused Joe Biden of wearing a mask as “a prop.” (779)</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">One of the White House officials who didn’t much care for “props” was Kayleigh McEnany, Trump’s spokeswoman. On <b>Monday, October 5</b>, it came out that <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.mediaite.com/trump/breaking-white-house-press-secretary-kayleigh-mcenany-tests-positive-for-coronavirus/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856263000&usg=AFQjCNGuJqwEF8rE_9EC089DEigiECJ1xw" href="http://www.mediaite.com/trump/breaking-white-house-press-secretary-kayleigh-mcenany-tests-positive-for-coronavirus/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">McEnany’s cavalier attitude about masks had given her the coronavirus</span></a>. McEnany was <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/02/trump-campaign-manager-tests-positive-for-covid-19-425722&source=gmail&ust=1603194856263000&usg=AFQjCNGbjC2TwpZd20bSguob-4O1Et-cmQ" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/02/trump-campaign-manager-tests-positive-for-covid-19-425722" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">one of 20 people</span></a> who’d been at the super-spreader announcement of Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme Court nine days earlier, yet the administration<span style="color: #5b9bd5;"> </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/05/health/contact-tracing-white-house.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856263000&usg=AFQjCNFxHADUlrsV35ek-RKakC92ZAPcHg" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/05/health/contact-tracing-white-house.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">had yet to initiate any contact tracing of the event</span></a> (780). This attempt to pretend the coronavirus didn’t exist was one with the administration’s catastrophic non-response nationally and <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://theweek.com/speedreads/941938/white-house-residence-staffers-who-caught-coronavirus-reportedly-told-keep-quiet&source=gmail&ust=1603194856263000&usg=AFQjCNGxP6KMlhaSX4LDDO25iPwDzuO9Zw" href="https://theweek.com/speedreads/941938/white-house-residence-staffers-who-caught-coronavirus-reportedly-told-keep-quiet" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">the cover up of infections among housekeepers</span></a> at the White House a few weeks earlier. (781)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">No one demonstrated the administration’s denial more blatantly than Donald Trump. Though the state of his physical condition was questionable, he announced that he would be <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/05/meadows-trump-hospital-monday-426394&source=gmail&ust=1603194856263000&usg=AFQjCNHAV19wyleVEG5Cv6DKsVfu7PF-Ag" href="http://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/05/meadows-trump-hospital-monday-426394" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">returning</span></a> to the White House Monday evening. Of the virus that had killed 270,000 Americans and infected millions, Trump told his constituents “Don’t be afraid of Covid” and “Don’t let it dominate your life.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In the real world, COVID-19 <i>was</i> dominating Americans’ lives because Trump had failed to contain the virus, or even <i>try</i> to contain the virus. The country was logging <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-trump-america-failure-150de3e7-ce72-48c4-a7cf-50f735a461ac.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosam%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856263000&usg=AFQjCNFBELhPjSRX5_xRCXlP9IMxMITaSw" href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-trump-america-failure-150de3e7-ce72-48c4-a7cf-50f735a461ac.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">over 40,000 new infections daily</span></a>; thirty-four states had seen <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-10-05/covid-19-is-making-a-dangerous-comeback-in-most-parts-of-america?campaign_id%3D9%26emc%3Dedit_nn_20201006%26instance_id%3D22849%26nl%3Dthe-morning%26regi_id%3D87101069%26section_index%3D1%26section_name%3Dbig_story%26segment_id%3D39939%26te%3D1%26user_id%3D1baa2c82b5fd57364c41fdc8e1f99240&source=gmail&ust=1603194856263000&usg=AFQjCNEw7dqL325p3oALbyVAesRaPHCeyg" href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-10-05/covid-19-is-making-a-dangerous-comeback-in-most-parts-of-america?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20201006&instance_id=22849&nl=the-morning&regi_id=87101069&section_index=1&section_name=big_story&segment_id=39939&te=1&user_id=1baa2c82b5fd57364c41fdc8e1f99240" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">an increase in 7-day averages</span></a> from a month earlier.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As detailed by Alice Miranda Ollstein and Dan Goldberg of <i>Politico</i>, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/05/midwest-reopening-coronavirus-cases-426593?nname%3Dpolitico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition%26nid%3D00000170-c000-da87-af78-e185fa700000%26nrid%3D00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000%26nlid%3D2670445&source=gmail&ust=1603194856263000&usg=AFQjCNFi0DdqUgJAYtHvV2r2xiLN_WJpdQ" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/05/midwest-reopening-coronavirus-cases-426593?nname=politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition&nid=00000170-c000-da87-af78-e185fa700000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=2670445" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">the Midwest was getting slammed</span></a>: Nebraska had recently had a 7-day record, Iowa was recording more than 1,000 new cases/day, North Dakota’s infection rates had doubled in September, and Wisconsin was logging more than 2,000 infections/day while its hospitals were near capacity, forcing the state to build a field hospital in Milwaukee.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Despite the ravages of the pandemic, Republican office holders in the Midwest were doubling down on Trumpian ignorance. Iowa governor Kim Reynolds had loosened quarantine rules, allowed student bars to re-open, and refused to issue a statewide mask mandate. Wisconsin Republicans had supported a lawsuit to overturn the Democratic governor’s mask mandate, though the state was one of the world’s pandemic epicenters. North Dakota’s Republican governor “<span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">bowed to public pressure and rescinded an order that required close contacts of infected patients to quarantine.”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Dr. Ashish Jha (from Brown University’s School of Public Health) told <i>Politico</i>, “We can’t seem to learn our lesson….We touch the stove, it’s hot, we burn ourselves, but we think if we touch it again, we’ll be fine.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">More Trump-related infections were reported on <b>Tuesday, October 6</b>. A <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.rawstory.com/2020/10/trail-of-wreckage-cnn-graphic-shows-all-the-people-infected-by-trumps-super-spreader-administration/?utm_source%3D%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3D5610&source=gmail&ust=1603194856264000&usg=AFQjCNEZopusq5iTYpkEEmLq08tymPbiqQ" href="https://www.rawstory.com/2020/10/trail-of-wreckage-cnn-graphic-shows-all-the-people-infected-by-trumps-super-spreader-administration/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=5610" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">growing number</span></a> of Trump loyalists, including adviser <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.axios.com/stephen-miller-tests-positive-coronavirus-0ba1ac28-66ec-47b6-a341-abd7057128d7.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856264000&usg=AFQjCNFOJgOUnEJSxIUYNBPEk4QZOBFD4g" href="http://www.axios.com/stephen-miller-tests-positive-coronavirus-0ba1ac28-66ec-47b6-a341-abd7057128d7.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">Stephen Miller</span></a>, had contracted COVID-19. “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://theweek.com/speedreads/942048/least-1-trumps-military-aides-tasked-carrying-nuclear-football-reportedly-coronavirus&source=gmail&ust=1603194856264000&usg=AFQjCNElaw1xwzQip616wu8CfBWdTPwQhQ" href="https://theweek.com/speedreads/942048/least-1-trumps-military-aides-tasked-carrying-nuclear-football-reportedly-coronavirus" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">At least one</span></a>” of the military aides who followed Trump around with the nuclear briefcase had caught COVID-19. Several White House reporters <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/white-house-coronavirus-cases-reporters-316b4da7-8f98-4973-87fd-0b42561f870a.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856264000&usg=AFQjCNEQv5ww1jduDf_79ycB2RF-ckvtNA" href="https://www.axios.com/white-house-coronavirus-cases-reporters-316b4da7-8f98-4973-87fd-0b42561f870a.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">caught the disease</span></a> (as did, potentially, their family members). (782)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Not content with the damage they had already done, the Trump administration stayed stuck on stupid. <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/06/trump-coronavirus-flu-comparison-426712&source=gmail&ust=1603194856264000&usg=AFQjCNH0KWj74twkB4JsgMGBV739jGGbJw" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/06/trump-coronavirus-flu-comparison-426712" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">Trump tweeted a lie</span></a> that had been one of his favorite talking points in February and March:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Flu season is coming up! Many people every year, sometimes over 100,000, and despite the Vaccine, die from the Flu. Are we going to close down our Country? No, we have learned to live with it, just like we are learning to live with Covid, in most populations far less lethal!!!” (783)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump also sent the markets into freefall by <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8811961/Roid-rage-Trump-crashes-markets-tweeting-NO-stimulus-election.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856264000&usg=AFQjCNHZCfT7woZTxsbTLyjNR-yOBEmJSw" href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8811961/Roid-rage-Trump-crashes-markets-tweeting-NO-stimulus-election.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">unilaterally announcing via tweet</span></a> that he was ending stimulus negotiations, leaving cities, states, small businesses, and millions of Americans in the lurch.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In a much less public but potentially devastating move, Alex Azar (head of Trump’s Health and Human Services) and Scott Atlas (see #622-623, #687-689, #756-757) “<span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">met Monday with a trio of scientists who back the controversial theory that the United States can quickly and safely achieve widespread immunity to the coronavirus by allowing it to spread unfettered among healthy people.</span>”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/06/trump-herd-immunity-scientists-426911&source=gmail&ust=1603194856264000&usg=AFQjCNFDSOscJeo5_ALZk0FZ-UNGmwKhCA" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/06/trump-herd-immunity-scientists-426911" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">reported</span></a> by Sarah Overmohle and David Lim of <i>Politico</i>, the doctors Azar and Atlas were meeting with were outliers in the scientific community who “[favored] <span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">moving aggressively to reopen the economy while sidelining broad testing and other fundamental public health measures.” </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The known results of this strategy were grim:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Mainstream medical and public health experts say that seeking widespread, or herd, immunity in the manner the scientists prescribe could result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands or even millions more U.S. residents.”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Jeremy Konyndyk, who had managed disaster preparedness in the Obama administration, told <i>Politico</i>, “They are putting out a half-baked policy proposal that is not grounded in science, but aligns very well with the political direction that the administration wants to take and that the president wants to take and that he sees as being most consistent with his reelection prospects.”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Not surprisingly, </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/axios-ipsos-coronavirus-index?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosvitals%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856264000&usg=AFQjCNHtVNPW8EZLrNrWWVroYnaqglmfxA" href="http://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/axios-ipsos-coronavirus-index?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #5b9bd5;">70% of Americans</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> said they trusted Trump either “not at all” (54%) or “not very much” (16%) when it came to the coronavirus.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The news on <b>Wednesday, October 7</b> was unlikely to increase public trust in Trump.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Updated information showed that </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/34-people-connected-white-house-previously-infected-coronavirus/story?id%3D73487381&source=gmail&ust=1603194856264000&usg=AFQjCNHbiEbYAAWJc4dMcrX55YkTuVWztw" href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/34-people-connected-white-house-previously-infected-coronavirus/story?id=73487381" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #5b9bd5;">34 people</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> with connections to the White House were infected with the coronavirus.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">A <i>Daily Beast</i> scoop </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.thedailybeast.com/white-house-quietly-told-vets-group-it-might-have-exposed-them-to-covid&source=gmail&ust=1603194856264000&usg=AFQjCNGUGDPhhImqepFK-EWIAYWY5zTt7g" href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/white-house-quietly-told-vets-group-it-might-have-exposed-them-to-covid" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #5b9bd5;">revealed</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> that the administration had “quietly informed” a veteran’s group that Gold Star families who had been at the White House on September 27 could have been infected. The indoor event had lacked social distancing and very few attendees had worn masks. (784)</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Due to the economic collapse tied to Trump’s failure to contain the coronavirus, long-term unemployment surged to a modern record. As </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://thehill.com/policy/finance/519878-long-term-jobless-figures-rise-underscoring-economic-pain&source=gmail&ust=1603194856264000&usg=AFQjCNF8UyV4zI5YhcUOYdu70ZEjSI00aQ" href="https://thehill.com/policy/finance/519878-long-term-jobless-figures-rise-underscoring-economic-pain" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #5b9bd5;">reported</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> by Niv Ellis of <i>the Hill</i>, “According to the Labor Department, the number of people out of work for more than 27 weeks increased to 2.4 million in September, an increase of 32.5 percent from the previous month. There are 4.9 million people who have been unemployed between 15 and 26 weeks.”</span><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Worse yet, “Workers who have been separated from their jobs for more than 6 months typically have a more difficult time getting back to work even once the economy improves.” (785)</span><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Thanks to Trump’s sabotaging of the stimulus negotiations, the pain was likely to spread to even more Americans: “The number of long-term unemployed workers is expected to rise in the months ahead, something likely to be exacerbated by President Trump's </span><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">decision to scrap talks with Democrats on a COVID-19 economic relief bill before the elections.”</span><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Sam Baker of <i>Axios</i> </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/cost-washington-coronavirus-failure-e7cbd25e-84fa-4e0c-81c7-ff7babe84e80.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosam%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856264000&usg=AFQjCNF-KY-moEIrsZoGKxuXyf-QpFz5Lg" href="https://www.axios.com/cost-washington-coronavirus-failure-e7cbd25e-84fa-4e0c-81c7-ff7babe84e80.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #5b9bd5;">highlighted</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> another way Trump’s abandonment of the stimulus talks could exacerbate the coronavirus:</span><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">“</span>Heading into the winter months without a new round of stimulus in place will leave vulnerable workers without a financial safety net if they get sick — and because of that, experts say, it will likely make the pandemic itself worse.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The reasons are simple: If you can’t afford to miss work, and if there’s no temporary aid to make it feasible for you to miss work, then you’ll keep going to work — even if you’re infected. Those workers will infect others, and the virus will spread from there.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Also negatively impacted by Trump’s abandonment of stimulus talks were election workers—and ultimately, voters—around the country. As <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.thedailybeast.com/election-protection-officials-say-theyre-basically-broke-just-in-time-for-the-vote?via%3Dnewsletter%26source%3DPolitics&source=gmail&ust=1603194856264000&usg=AFQjCNFjvlY_Q8sn7oTiuXObCOKI9XL7cw" href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/election-protection-officials-say-theyre-basically-broke-just-in-time-for-the-vote?via=newsletter&source=Politics" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">detailed</span></a><span style="color: #5b9bd5;"> </span>by journalist Sam Brodey, elections workers were dealing with budget cut shortfalls due to the state of the economy, “<span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Yet there’s more work than ever for elections officials to do. They’re funding awareness campaigns to inform people how to vote, finding new spaces for in-person voting, expanding mail voting and tracking down personal protective equipment for election workers.” (786)</span><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">The Democratic House of Representatives had passed a stimulus bill on May 15 which had included $3.6 billion for elections workers, but the funding had died with the GOP’s bad faith stance in the negotiations. One state elections director told Brodey, “I feel like I’ve got democracy in a boat….and my staff is bailing water out while people are drilling holes in it.”</span><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">The big event of the day was the vice-presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Mike Pence. Like his boss, Pence </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/vice-presidential-debate-mike-pence-kamala-harris/%23post-update-4a7e19a2&source=gmail&ust=1603194856264000&usg=AFQjCNEopUEI7CjY-tTSRBJL8dQ4wAptLQ" href="https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/vice-presidential-debate-mike-pence-kamala-harris/#post-update-4a7e19a2" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #5b9bd5;">violated the agreed-upon rules</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">, interrupting Harris and going over his allotted time frequently, and </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/08/briefing/mike-pence-kamala-harris-nobel-prize-in-literature-your-thursday-briefing.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856264000&usg=AFQjCNHjWmcij7RNcmwHXuT79-VmOxgaFA" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/08/briefing/mike-pence-kamala-harris-nobel-prize-in-literature-your-thursday-briefing.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #5b9bd5;">lied constantly</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">. Pence’s lies about the administration’s coronavirus response </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/pences-alternative-pandemic-world-dee32cda-1ca4-4d8c-bc4b-0d13e251358f.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856264000&usg=AFQjCNG3G-PyQiwczb3twyBixkN3MCtm3A" href="https://www.axios.com/pences-alternative-pandemic-world-dee32cda-1ca4-4d8c-bc4b-0d13e251358f.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #5b9bd5;">were brazen</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">, especially considering they were delivered while he and Harris were separated by Plexiglass dividers.</span><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">As administration figures had done many times, Pence made a big deal of Trump’s decision to limit travel from China, though it had come after airlines were already cancelling flights to and from China and Trump would take another six weeks to ban travel from Europe, allowing thousands of infected travelers to flood the U.S. Pence mischaracterized Harris’s attacks on the administration’s coronavirus failures (see #1-#786) as attacks on the American public who had been victimized by those failures (“</span>When you say what the American people have done over these last eight months hasn't worked, that's a great disservice to the sacrifices that the American people have made.”) <span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Pence minimized the undeniable impact of Amy Coney Barrett’s super-spreader event by mentioning that some of the people had been tested beforehand and the event was outside—while neglecting to mention that there was no social distancing and virtually no masks. Pence claimed that Biden’s plan to combat COVID was just a carbon copy of Trump’s, while in reality </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/joe-biden-coronavirus-response-52072778-bd60-4657-af48-32cf0dd567dc.html?stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856264000&usg=AFQjCNHvSoh-8YPwBRZAtQKb1i_yP-hGZg" href="https://www.axios.com/joe-biden-coronavirus-response-52072778-bd60-4657-af48-32cf0dd567dc.html?stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #5b9bd5;">Biden’s plan</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> was far more aggressive, better-funded, more reliant on science, and certain to be far more effective. (787)</span><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Pence had no option <i>but</i> to lie because Team Trump’s failures were producing consistently bad news for the administration. On <b>Thursday, October 8</b>, nine months after the administration had first been notified of the coronavirus, </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.gazettextra.com/news/nation_world/months-into-pandemic-ppe-shortage-persists/article_725af2e4-0f0c-5e61-b24b-2ea3c71945eb.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856264000&usg=AFQjCNEQmGfETuYDKXwXDTuybIjho5qIXA" href="https://www.gazettextra.com/news/nation_world/months-into-pandemic-ppe-shortage-persists/article_725af2e4-0f0c-5e61-b24b-2ea3c71945eb.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #5b9bd5;">medical providers still lacked adequate PPE</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">, forcing them to re-use limited supplies or go without (788). Coronavirus was now the </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/covid-19-is-now-the-third-leading-cause-of-death-in-the-u-s1/?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dweek-in-science%26utm_content%3Dlink%26utm_term%3D2020-10-09_featured-this-week%26spMailingID%3D68995654%26spUserID%3DNDIyMTA1NTc2ODI1S0%26spJobID%3D1981109864%26spReportId%3DMTk4MTEwOTg2NAS2&source=gmail&ust=1603194856264000&usg=AFQjCNGi2GmM0bm53VuO1jbKHUM3g6n46w" href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/covid-19-is-now-the-third-leading-cause-of-death-in-the-u-s1/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=week-in-science&utm_content=link&utm_term=2020-10-09_featured-this-week&spMailingID=68995654&spUserID=NDIyMTA1NTc2ODI1S0&spJobID=1981109864&spReportId=MTk4MTEwOTg2NAS2" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #5b9bd5;">third leading cause of death</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> in the U.S., and cases were up 6% from the week before: </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.axios.com/coronavirus-23-states-dc-e11cfce1-6c0b-4dd0-a118-8978f74ce303.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosam%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856264000&usg=AFQjCNGlWSuxaH23hcHKvbYFAs9-_-oEfg" href="http://www.axios.com/coronavirus-23-states-dc-e11cfce1-6c0b-4dd0-a118-8978f74ce303.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #5b9bd5;">only four states</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> had had a reduction in cases over the prior week. </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/08/health/us-coronavirus-thursday/index.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856264000&usg=AFQjCNEDwPQ46SBEoDVMrpmF01fWZODgow" href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/08/health/us-coronavirus-thursday/index.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #5b9bd5;">Hospitalizations were up</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">, with six states that supported Trump in 2016—M</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">ontana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Wyoming—setting records. The CDC was projecting that the official death toll could reach 233,000 by the end of the month. As staggering and tragic as the first-in-the-world number was, it was a major undercount from Trump’s actual death total.</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">The administration wasn’t doing anything to inspire confidence that things would get better. Trump was trampling on science again by pushing the FDA to </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/10/08/trump-regeneron-antibodies-covid/?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosvitals%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856264000&usg=AFQjCNFC7a-RxymP2uqGfYq006ofJqNY8g" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/10/08/trump-regeneron-antibodies-covid/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #5b9bd5;">fast track another miracle “cure”</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #5b9bd5;"> </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">and refusing to participate in a presidential debate which </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/08/second-presidential-debate-between-trump-and-biden-on-oct-15-will-be-virtual.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856264000&usg=AFQjCNEmQt9rpgUi_UOsDFhyIJ7xN5GYrg" href="http://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/08/second-presidential-debate-between-trump-and-biden-on-oct-15-will-be-virtual.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #5b9bd5;">had to be virtual because he’d failed to follow public safety guidelines</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">. After it came out that right-wing extremists had </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/michigan-gretchen-whitmer-kidnap-32d06af2-30d1-4a38-8474-ff98664e9161.html?utm_campaign%3Dorganic%26utm_medium%3Dsocialshare%26utm_source%3Dtwitter&source=gmail&ust=1603194856264000&usg=AFQjCNEhKoufdxN69kFQzy-xuua4yMeElw" href="https://www.axios.com/michigan-gretchen-whitmer-kidnap-32d06af2-30d1-4a38-8474-ff98664e9161.html?utm_campaign=organic&utm_medium=socialshare&utm_source=twitter" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #5b9bd5;">plotted</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> to kidnap and overthrow the Democratic governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, Whitmer pointed out that Trump’s public attacks on her lockdowns earlier in the year, and his refusal to condemn white supremacists at the presidential debate, had served as a “rallying cry” for extremists. Trump’s response was to </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/trump-gretchen-whitmer-kidnapping-plot-d6a62746-fdb0-44fd-a0f0-16bd15c55f3f.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856264000&usg=AFQjCNHUC28Qnmnc8MTXQMh0BcOtb9lqyg" href="https://www.axios.com/trump-gretchen-whitmer-kidnapping-plot-d6a62746-fdb0-44fd-a0f0-16bd15c55f3f.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #5b9bd5;">attack Whitmer</span></a><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> again for the necessary lockdowns in her state which had saved countless lives. (789)</span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Because of Trump’s months of dangerously dishonest messaging and other colossal failures, Joe Biden became the first presidential candidate to be endorsed by <i>the New England Journal of Medicine</i>. In a column titled “</span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2029812&source=gmail&ust=1603194856265000&usg=AFQjCNGiI-Iedh72mfHrYxwjtuXxSIjjMw" href="https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2029812" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #5b9bd5;">Dying in a Leadership Vacuum</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">,” the editors said that “The magnitude of this failure is astonishing,” pointing out that America had more cases and deaths than China, a country with 4X the population of the U.S., had 50X the death rate of Japan, and 2000X the death rate of Vietnam, considered a “lower-middle-income” nation.</span><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">America had come “into this crisis with enormous advantages,” yet the U.S. had “</span>failed at almost every step. We had ample warning, but when the disease first arrived, we were incapable of testing effectively and couldn’t provide even the most basic personal protective equipment to health care workers and the general public. And we continue to be way behind the curve in testing. While the absolute numbers of tests have increased substantially, the more useful metric is the number of tests performed per infected person, a rate that puts us far down the international list, below such places as Kazakhstan, Zimbabwe, and Ethiopia, countries that cannot boast the biomedical infrastructure or the manufacturing capacity that we have. (790) Moreover, a lack of emphasis on developing capacity has meant that U.S. test results are often long delayed, rendering the results useless for disease control. (791)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Although we tend to focus on technology, most of the interventions that have large effects are not complicated. The United States instituted quarantine and isolation measures late and inconsistently, often without any effort to enforce them, after the disease had spread substantially in many communities. Our rules on social distancing have in many places been lackadaisical at best, with loosening of restrictions long before adequate disease control had been achieved. And in much of the country, people simply don’t wear masks, largely because our [Republican] leaders have stated outright that masks are political tools rather than effective infection control measures.”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The conclusion:</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Anyone else who recklessly squandered lives and money in this way would be suffering legal consequences. Our leaders have largely claimed immunity for their actions. But this election gives us the power to render judgment. Reasonable people will certainly disagree about the many political positions taken by candidates. But truth is neither liberal nor conservative. When it comes to the response to the largest public health crisis of our time, our current political leaders have demonstrated that they are dangerously incompetent. We should not abet them and enable the deaths of thousands more Americans by allowing them to keep their jobs.”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">More evidence of the administration’s enabling of infections and deaths was </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/09/health/coronavirus-covid-masks-cdc.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856265000&usg=AFQjCNHgXVBGcLWHMMTtBZXKjjaI3Wml-Q" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/09/health/coronavirus-covid-masks-cdc.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">revealed</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> on <b>Friday, October 9</b>. As reported by Sheila Kaplan for <i>the New York Times</i>, “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention drafted a sweeping order last month requiring all passengers and employees to wear masks on all forms of public and commercial transportation in the United States, but it was blocked by the White House.”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The measure, which “would have required face coverings on airplanes (792), trains (793), buses (794) and subways (795), and in transit hubs such as airports (796), train stations (797) and bus depots (798),” was supported by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, but killed by Mike Pence, head of the Coronavirus Task Force.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Peter DeFazio, the Oregon Democrat who heads the House of Representatives committee on transportation and infrastructure, told <i>the Times</i> the administration’s moves were “especially outrageous because the science is so clear: masks save lives….The millions of Americans who work in and use our transportation systems every day — from bus drivers, train conductors and flight attendants, to the frontline workers who rely on public transit — deserve to know their president is relying on experts’ best advice and doing everything possible to keep them safe.”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Indifferent to science, reason, or experts, Trump continued to follow his narrow self-interest as he saw it. On <b>Saturday, October 10</b>, it was reported that Trump had received a sign-off from his doctor to do campaign events again, though he had yet to test negative for COVID-19. Trump’s first rally was held outside the White House with <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.cnn.com/2020/10/10/politics/donald-trump-covid-white-house-event/index.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856265000&usg=AFQjCNFMrvzq6DxWLbadHQB98mSeCvVVRA" href="http://www.cnn.com/2020/10/10/politics/donald-trump-covid-white-house-event/index.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">no social distancing and few masks</span></a> (799). In addition to the usual lies about Joe Biden wanting to defund the police and take peoples’ guns, Trump claimed that the coronavirus was “disappearing” and that we would have a vaccine “very, very soon.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In the real world, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://news.trust.org/item/20201010090727-mn0ok&source=gmail&ust=1603194856265000&usg=AFQjCNE9fdTS2kdmkgXzSkOtg4GjEZiPdw" href="https://news.trust.org/item/20201010090727-mn0ok" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">cases in the U.S. were increasing rapidly</span></a>. 58,000 new infections—the highest daily total in two months—had been tabulated on Friday, hospitalizations in the Midwest were at record levels for a fifth consecutive day, and ten states had recorded their highest one-day increase on Friday.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As the pandemic surged across the U.S. due to Trump’s failures of governance, <i>the New York Times</i> posted “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/10/10/us/trump-properties-swamp.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856265000&usg=AFQjCNFtKny7_LseBtXQRSkgm3M2UInfdw" href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/10/10/us/trump-properties-swamp.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">The Swamp That Trump Built</span></a>,” an exhaustive accounting of the ways</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trump had used his presidency to enrich himself and his family, primarily by “<span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">turning his own hotels and resorts into the Beltway’s new back rooms, where public and private business mix and special interests reign.”</span><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">The <i>Times</i> “found over 200 companies, special-interest groups and foreign governments that patronized Mr. Trump’s properties while reaping benefits from him and his administration.” Conducting private business on public time, Trump had spent one of every four days away from the White House, raking in over $12 million alone in just the first two years of his presidency.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><a name="m_8858188046359962881__Hlk53768196"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 16.8667px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span lang="EN" style="line-height: 18.4px;">As of <b>Sunday, October 11</b>, </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8828981/CDC-forecasts-coronavirus-death-toll-hit-233-000-end-month.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856265000&usg=AFQjCNFXITOT2L_SoLnnmXstl5JgmCCBYg" href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8828981/CDC-forecasts-coronavirus-death-toll-hit-233-000-end-month.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span lang="EN" style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 18.4px;">CDC estimates</span></a><span lang="EN" style="line-height: 18.4px;"> showed that the U.S. could be back up to 1,000 deaths/day by the end of the month.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">Eager to bury this news, the administration </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.mediaite.com/tv/jon-karl-says-white-house-wouldnt-allow-fauci-other-medical-experts-to-appear-on-abcs-this-week/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856265000&usg=AFQjCNEGQDqQAy6HR2lh3BnUBrpm2EzC7A" href="http://www.mediaite.com/tv/jon-karl-says-white-house-wouldnt-allow-fauci-other-medical-experts-to-appear-on-abcs-this-week/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">blocked Dr. Fauci</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> (800) and everyone else on their public health team (801) from appearing on ABC’s “This Week.” Speaking to the cameras, the show's host (George Karl) said, “We had hoped to talk to Dr. Fauci about both the outbreak at the White House and across the country. He was more than willing to join us, but the White House wouldn’t allow you to hear from the nation’s leading expert on coronavirus. In fact, they wouldn’t allow any of the medical experts on the president’s own coronavirus task force to appear on this show.”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">An administration official who <i>was</i> allowed to appear on the Sunday talk shows was senior economic adviser Larry Kudlow, one of Trump’s top snake oil salesmen (see #70, #374, #607, #652, #661). True to form, Kudlow minimized the economic desperation of tens of millions of Americans and claimed that “We are learning to deal with the virus in a targeted, safe, prevented way.” Kudlow’s statement was so patently ridiculous that CNN host Jake Tapper </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.thedailybeast.com/jake-tapper-literally-laughs-when-larry-kudlow-says-were-safely-dealing-with-covid&source=gmail&ust=1603194856265000&usg=AFQjCNFGqVxA_vdKYoVIw-dghEauDJN4sQ" href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/jake-tapper-literally-laughs-when-larry-kudlow-says-were-safely-dealing-with-covid" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">laughed and replied</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> “We are not learning to live with the virus, Larry. We had four days in a row of 50,000 infections and the death rate is the highest in the world.”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">One public health official who couldn’t be censored was Republican Scott Gottlieb, who had led the FDA in the first two years of Trump’s presidency before returning to the private sector. Trump had recently raved about an antibody drug he’d been given after getting COVID-19, and claimed he would get it distributed to hospitals free of charge, but this was nowhere near to becoming a reality. As Gottlieb told host Margaret Brennan on “Face the Nation,” the administration had been advised to “ramp up” manufacturing of therapeutic drugs numerous times in February and March, but had dropped the ball. Even without accounting for likely increases in infection rates, the U.S. needed between 300,000-400,000 doses of the antibody per month; at present, the manufacturer had 50,000 doses <i>total</i>. As with so many other vital aspects of their pandemic response, the administration had in Gottlieb’s words “</span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.axios.com/fda-trump-antibody-drug-7f37cf30-1bca-4694-a7e5-d760bb383478.html?utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Dnewsletter_axiosvitals%26stream%3Dtop&source=gmail&ust=1603194856265000&usg=AFQjCNFbIkZ2gNutn-GWQm1owUBIxaHWQw" href="http://www.axios.com/fda-trump-antibody-drug-7f37cf30-1bca-4694-a7e5-d760bb383478.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">definitely missed the window</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">.” (802)</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 17.12px;">Bad news continued on <b>Monday, October 12</b>. </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://news.trust.org/item/20201012182911-m9vye&source=gmail&ust=1603194856265000&usg=AFQjCNHMwFBRQKCesXUGeX9HM9ol2S4x3g" href="https://news.trust.org/item/20201012182911-m9vye" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">According to</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 17.12px;"> Lisa Shumaker of Reuters, infections had risen 11% in the past week, “Twenty-nine out of 50 states have seen cases rise for at least two weeks in a row, up from 21 states in the prior week,” and “</span><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">The percentage of tests that came back positive for the virus rose to 5.0% from 4.6% the prior week.” Shumaker added that “The World Health Organization considers rates above 5% concerning because it suggests there are more cases in the community that have not yet been uncovered.”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">The five states with the biggest increases </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/covid-19-soars-in-red-states-as-trump-restarts-rallies/ar-BB19X2p2?ocid%3Duxbndlbing&source=gmail&ust=1603194856265000&usg=AFQjCNF1z8gqmZFS16YRU3SRygEqtMonZA" href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/covid-19-soars-in-red-states-as-trump-restarts-rallies/ar-BB19X2p2?ocid=uxbndlbing" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">had supported Trump</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> in 2016. Some of the states at the very heart of Trump’s pandemic would soon host a Trump campaign rally. As Dr. Fauci </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-rallies-raise-concern-about-spread-of-virus-fauci-says/ar-BB19X8Rt?ocid%3Duxbndlbing&source=gmail&ust=1603194856265000&usg=AFQjCNHacic4KV3y9FHPoKUrbJjTTH-VzQ" href="http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-rallies-raise-concern-about-spread-of-virus-fauci-says/ar-BB19X8Rt?ocid=uxbndlbing" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">told CNN</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">, “We know that that is asking for trouble when you do that. We’ve seen that when you have situations of congregant settings where there are a lot of people without masks, the data speak for themselves.”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">Though the Trump campaign was only too happy to use Fauci’s words—and his integrity—out of context, for misleading campaign ads that the non-partisan Fauci </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/10/12/dr-fauci-says-trump-ad-featuring-him-should-taken-down/5972629002/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856265000&usg=AFQjCNEakKNoD0PB2e9cZEdaEvis-wULVA" href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/10/12/dr-fauci-says-trump-ad-featuring-him-should-taken-down/5972629002/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">wanted pulled off the air</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">, they continued to show no concern for his public health advice. Major news organizations were </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/12/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-journalists.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856265000&usg=AFQjCNESGYEA40KYwaI4el62vVpH_wo7JQ" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/12/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-journalists.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">refusing</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> to send reporters on Trump’s campaign planes for fear that they would get infected, an unprecedented pass on what had historically been a highly-coveted assignment. </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">Trump’s first major super-spreader rally since he’d contracted COVID-19 was held before thousands of </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-virus-outbreak-donald-trump-sanford-health-42f306cf95d0a7337b818f89770cf539&source=gmail&ust=1603194856265000&usg=AFQjCNGmP-z7woxm0KVhEBndrjBGHXz6bw" href="https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-virus-outbreak-donald-trump-sanford-health-42f306cf95d0a7337b818f89770cf539" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">tightly-packed and mostly mask-less</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> (803) fans in Sanford, Florida. Even as the virus was surging due to his administration having led the most incompetent pandemic response in the developed world (see #1-#803), Trump told the crowd, “Under my leadership, we’re delivering a safe vaccine and a rapid recovery like no one can even believe.” He even had the chutzpah to say, “If you look at our upward path, no country in the world has recovered the way we have recovered.”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The United States had “recovered” its way into <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/10/15/us/coronavirus-cases-us-surge.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856265000&usg=AFQjCNF8OtPRPH3xXGZbCJu6UlvCojUgvQ" href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/10/15/us/coronavirus-cases-us-surge.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">a third major spike in cases</span></a>. <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/13/health/us-coronavirus-tuesday/index.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856265000&usg=AFQjCNH63Ez3iwdSmZ-MrIALQPBARQHbhQ" href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/13/health/us-coronavirus-tuesday/index.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">As of</span></a><span style="color: #5b9bd5;"> </span><b>Tuesday, October 13</b>, 30 states had seen increases in the past week, 13 states (12 of whom had supported Trump in 2016) were seeing positive test rates of 10% and higher, child infections had increased 13% over the prior two weeks, and 10 states had reported record numbers of hospitalizations on Monday.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The U.S. was also <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.axios.com/united-states-coronavirus-death-rate-a40eb02b-bf8c-4146-8ef2-3cfd6b22de5b.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856265000&usg=AFQjCNH6fahhjOtwHRY_Eu7lKDpvDtlRFQ" href="http://www.axios.com/united-states-coronavirus-death-rate-a40eb02b-bf8c-4146-8ef2-3cfd6b22de5b.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">failing</span></a> in terms of its coronavirus death rate. Early in the pandemic, other developed countries had had higher death rates—at least in part due to having higher concentrations of elderly residents—but those countries had learned from their mistakes and gotten the virus under control. By contrast, the States had continued to post high death rates months into the pandemic. Since June 7, the U.S. had had 3X the death rate of the next-worst developed nations and up to 27X the rate of some developed countries. (804)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Thanks to the Trump campaign, those numbers were unlikely to improve anytime soon. On Tuesday, Mike Pence <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/10/13/mike-pences-campaign-rally-weldall-manufacturing-waukesha/5977194002/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856265000&usg=AFQjCNEDPoIumt9iE7sN_Ym2mUSgBk5orQ" href="https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/10/13/mike-pences-campaign-rally-weldall-manufacturing-waukesha/5977194002/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">spoke in Wisconsin</span></a>, which was experiencing <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/health-med-fit/as-wisconsin-again-sets-records-for-covid-19-deaths-and-cases-gov-tony-evers-calls/article_da1bad86-ec76-5194-84e2-7bcc6adf8c15.html%23tracking-source%3Dhome-breaking&source=gmail&ust=1603194856265000&usg=AFQjCNH5TC5f7HtHVCTbHKGsLaPA6K8fnQ" href="https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/health-med-fit/as-wisconsin-again-sets-records-for-covid-19-deaths-and-cases-gov-tony-evers-calls/article_da1bad86-ec76-5194-84e2-7bcc6adf8c15.html#tracking-source=home-breaking" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">record numbers of infections</span></a>, while Trump campaigned in Pennsylvania. Neither rally featured <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly/2020/10/13/whats-missing-at-trumps-new-rallies-490590&source=gmail&ust=1603194856265000&usg=AFQjCNE71zEOH5kxkXC6j09uKSqOfsFdNg" href="http://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly/2020/10/13/whats-missing-at-trumps-new-rallies-490590" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">social distancing or mandatory mask usage</span></a> (805, 806). A study done by Zach Nayer for <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://statnews.com&source=gmail&ust=1603194856265000&usg=AFQjCNFqmqPRdcBsrvysRzaJhchl8QkhUw" href="http://statnews.com/" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">statnews.com</a> showed that at least half of Trump’s coronavirus-era rallies <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.statnews.com/2020/10/16/trump-campaign-rallies-leave-a-trail-of-community-outbreaks/?utm_source%3DSTAT%2BNewsletters%26utm_campaign%3D7bfa41a1c6-Daily_Recap%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_term%3D0_8cab1d7961-7bfa41a1c6-152815530&source=gmail&ust=1603194856265000&usg=AFQjCNEVpbH4sRX5zZzhdcXNdtU9UQ_JwA" href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/10/16/trump-campaign-rallies-leave-a-trail-of-community-outbreaks/?utm_source=STAT+Newsletters&utm_campaign=7bfa41a1c6-Daily_Recap&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8cab1d7961-7bfa41a1c6-152815530" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">had led to community outbreaks</span></a>.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-virus-outbreak-joe-biden-donald-trump-georgia-53ed788ba411c6446be4edb40e046dee&source=gmail&ust=1603194856266000&usg=AFQjCNG611GVZs19yuYJb7UkKeBseBZUBw" href="https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-virus-outbreak-joe-biden-donald-trump-georgia-53ed788ba411c6446be4edb40e046dee" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">super-spreader rallies continued</span></a> on <b>Wednesday, October 14</b>, as Trump campaigned in Iowa, a Republican state where the virus was “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.statnews.com/2020/10/13/trump-iowa-covid-19-out-of-control/?utm_source%3DSTAT%2BNewsletters%26utm_campaign%3D6e46fe1415-Daily_Recap%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_term%3D0_8cab1d7961-6e46fe1415-152815530&source=gmail&ust=1603194856266000&usg=AFQjCNEz_1zUeu5so_MK6vs1BY5e-Z4pGA" href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/10/13/trump-iowa-covid-19-out-of-control/?utm_source=STAT+Newsletters&utm_campaign=6e46fe1415-Daily_Recap&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8cab1d7961-6e46fe1415-152815530" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">out of control</span></a>,” with record numbers of hospitalizations and a positive test rate of 9.5%. (807)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">While <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america?view%3Ddaily-deaths%26tab%3Dtrend&source=gmail&ust=1603194856266000&usg=AFQjCNHZIsznglwV7v94EFllvXS7qUvlHQ" href="https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america?view=daily-deaths&tab=trend" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">death rates were climbing back toward 1000/day</span></a> nationally and many U.S. hospitals were <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://finance.yahoo.com/news/shaky-u-hospitals-risk-bankruptcy-133423429.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856266000&usg=AFQjCNE8sy9p2QEa2VxqW1OOkgjZQhcfTA" href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/shaky-u-hospitals-risk-bankruptcy-133423429.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">facing bankruptcy</span></a> (808) in the near future due to Trump’s failure to contain the virus, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/as-coronavirus-spread-early-on-reports-of-trump-administration-briefings-fueled-sell-off/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856266000&usg=AFQjCNGtn-jwpellkG0GB6utc5l4MISUag" href="https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/as-coronavirus-spread-early-on-reports-of-trump-administration-briefings-fueled-sell-off/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">the depth of the administration’s dishonesty was reinforced yet again</span></a> by Mark Mazzetti and Kate Kelly of <i>the New York Times</i>.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Mirroring Bob Woodward’s discovery (see #719, #729) that the administration had lied to the American people about the danger of the coronavirus in February, Mazzetti and Kelly reported on curious happenings from February 24 and February 25. On February 24, Trump tweeted that the virus was “very much under control” and on February 25, Trump’s top economic adviser, Larry Kudlow (see #70, #374, #607, #652, #661) claimed on CNBC that control of the virus was “pretty close to airtight.” While covering up the known threat from the public, Trump economic officials—including Kudlow—had disclosed the true state of the pandemic to board members from the Hoover Institution (a right-wing think tank run out of Stanford University) on those same days. (809)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">This private information “quickly spread through parts of the investment world. U.S. stocks were already spiraling because of a warning from a federal public health official that the virus was likely to spread, but traders spotted the immediate significance: The president’s aides appeared to be giving wealthy party donors an early warning of a potentially impactful contagion at a time when Trump was publicly insisting that the threat was nonexistent.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Information from the meetings “provide a glimpse of how elite traders had access to information from the administration that helped them gain financial advantage during a chaotic three days when global markets were teetering.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Despite the blatantly contradictory nature of his public and private statements in February, Kudlow told <i>the Times</i> <span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">“</span>There was never any intent on my part to misinform.<span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">”</span><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Eight months after Kudlow’s deliberate attempt to deceive the public on CNBC, the lid on the coronavirus was anything <i>but </i>airtight. On <b>Thursday, October 15</b>, the U.S. reported </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.axios.com/us-coronavirus-63000-cases-4228347d-4427-4acc-a033-ad73e5b0cde6.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856266000&usg=AFQjCNFN8_BMn1Y9Q9PpCHfi4Yk0BB5hxg" href="http://www.axios.com/us-coronavirus-63000-cases-4228347d-4427-4acc-a033-ad73e5b0cde6.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #5b9bd5;">over 63,000 infections</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">, the most since July 31. Total infections in the States were up 17%. 44 states were showing increasing case numbers and 30 states were seeing </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-netherlands-italy-france-czech-republic-987993953a51f39a861c0f481c0e38f8&source=gmail&ust=1603194856266000&usg=AFQjCNGI77s0AdZ_Sc6uxYwR1lnHZH-pxg" href="https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-netherlands-italy-france-czech-republic-987993953a51f39a861c0f481c0e38f8" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #5b9bd5;">rising COVID-related deaths</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">. Trump’s failure to contain the virus was so pronounced that even our friendly neighbors to the north, Canada, announced that they would likely </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/news/2020/10/15/justin-trudeau-canada-us-border-not-reopening-covid-19/3661758001/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856266000&usg=AFQjCNHZBCEsQOJM-JFSe6BB0afF1nGQMg" href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/news/2020/10/15/justin-trudeau-canada-us-border-not-reopening-covid-19/3661758001/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #5b9bd5;">keep the shared U.S.-Canada border closed</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">.</span><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">As the coronavirus ravaged America, a new jobs report indicated that the economic rebound Trump had promised </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-business-jobless-claims-united-states-economy-f904abdb3bc24f01e757915eb01a377a&source=gmail&ust=1603194856266000&usg=AFQjCNH8mF53sEr-4QtIetk78OB7hweVBQ" href="https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-business-jobless-claims-united-states-economy-f904abdb3bc24f01e757915eb01a377a" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #5b9bd5;">was a mirage</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">. New unemployment filings hit their highest numbers in two months (810) as the U.S. was 11 million jobs short of its pre-pandemic employment rates. Between the administration’s failure to contain the virus—which was the one thing which could allow the economy to fully re-open—and their unwillingness to negotiate in good faith with House Democrats on further stimulus, </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/careers-finance/sns-nyt-millions-in-poverty-after-federal-aid-gone-20201015-acpwxebb2zaf5kiyuxoivl4r6m-story.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856266000&usg=AFQjCNE79-qXf9VwXQ6bWJnqlGBgDW6ygg" href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/careers-finance/sns-nyt-millions-in-poverty-after-federal-aid-gone-20201015-acpwxebb2zaf5kiyuxoivl4r6m-story.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #5b9bd5;">six-eight million Americans had fallen below the poverty line since May</span></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">. (811)</span><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">Trump had an opportunity to address constituent concerns at an NBC town hall Thursday evening, but chose to lie instead. Asked by host Savannah Guthrie when his last negative test had been before he tested positive, and if he had been tested the day he debated Joe Biden, Trump </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.rawstory.com/2020/10/fast-talking-trump-stumbles-at-town-hall-cant-or-wont-say-when-he-last-tested-negative-before-testing-positive/?utm_source%3D%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3D569&source=gmail&ust=1603194856266000&usg=AFQjCNF07mr4qh3qdslVRo2Q34SJB0BmKw" href="https://www.rawstory.com/2020/10/fast-talking-trump-stumbles-at-town-hall-cant-or-wont-say-when-he-last-tested-negative-before-testing-positive/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=569" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">claimed he couldn’t remember</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">. Asked about masks, Trump </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.vox.com/2020/10/15/21518760/trump-biden-town-hall-top-highlights&source=gmail&ust=1603194856266000&usg=AFQjCNETvqoJZD-Oqp9BdT8rvD0b9EF9Iw" href="https://www.vox.com/2020/10/15/21518760/trump-biden-town-hall-top-highlights" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">mistakenly claimed</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> that 85% of people who wore masks got the coronavirus (812); the data he was referring to showed that people <i>who dined out</i> were much more likely to get coronavirus, even when wearing masks, presumably because they had to remove their masks to eat and drink. When Guthrie mentioned the high death rate in the States (see #804), Trump cut her off with<span style="color: #5b9bd5;"> </span></span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.axios.com/trump-biden-abc-nbc-town-hall-e8c987f5-fcd5-47bb-8708-f936ecf62731.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856266000&usg=AFQjCNG0W-3RELn3JFstDtj44jnnCvFWJQ" href="https://www.axios.com/trump-biden-abc-nbc-town-hall-e8c987f5-fcd5-47bb-8708-f936ecf62731.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">the nonsensical statement</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> “Excess mortality! Excess mortality, we’re a winner.” He later claimed the U.S. was “rounding the corner” in handling the virus. Expectations were so low that his stumbling performance was considered a victory among members of his campaign team. One adviser </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.thedailybeast.com/the-biden-and-trump-shows-its-mr-rogers-vs-someones-crazy-uncle?via%3Dnewsletter%26source%3DPolitics&source=gmail&ust=1603194856266000&usg=AFQjCNH40t59SPKzyVf5F8_ddQDQrpEeRQ" href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/the-biden-and-trump-shows-its-mr-rogers-vs-someones-crazy-uncle?via=newsletter&source=Politics" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">told</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> <i>the Daily Beast</i>, “He didn’t spend the whole time yelling, he didn’t piss himself…so this was as best as we could have hoped for.”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">Numbers reported on <b>Friday, October 16</b> showed that the U.S. wasn’t even closer to “rounding the corner.” For the second day in a row, America </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/10/16/coronavirus-covid-live-updates-us/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856266000&usg=AFQjCNGGdZDAoNDA1REAViYCzOgW45e_dQ" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/10/16/coronavirus-covid-live-updates-us/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">had over 60,000 new infections</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">. 44 states had higher caseloads than a month earlier; </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/16/briefing/amy-coney-barrett-qanon-mexico-your-friday-briefing.html&source=gmail&ust=1603194856266000&usg=AFQjCNHLvrTQI4OelsSJeAxPnNXCasWuUA" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/16/briefing/amy-coney-barrett-qanon-mexico-your-friday-briefing.html" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">17 had record highs</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">. Trump reached his personal milestone of over eight million official infections, the most in the world, and yet still </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.statnews.com/2020/07/21/cdc-study-actual-covid-19-cases/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856266000&usg=AFQjCNEuAIpvTT4SA3z_RdMpbhpZKv8XvQ" href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/07/21/cdc-study-actual-covid-19-cases/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">a major undercount of the true number</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">. The pandemic was so severe in the Midwest that eight Kansas City hospitals “</span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/10/16/coronavirus-covid-live-updates-us/&source=gmail&ust=1603194856266000&usg=AFQjCNGGdZDAoNDA1REAViYCzOgW45e_dQ" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/10/16/coronavirus-covid-live-updates-us/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">had to temporarily stop accepting ambulances Wednesday night</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">.” (813)</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">As </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/16/pandemic-states-virus-rebound-429753?nname%3Dplaybook%26nid%3D0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000%26nrid%3D00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000%26nlid%3D630318&source=gmail&ust=1603194856266000&usg=AFQjCNEl-4LI2M09M-lLZ8-aQPLAIqL-sg" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/16/pandemic-states-virus-rebound-429753?nname=playbook&nid=0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=630318" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">reported</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> by Dan Goldberg of <i>Politico</i>, hospitals all around the country were in dire straits because of the administration’s failure to contain the virus and unwillingness to provide necessary resources to state and local governments. According to Goldberg, the ICU at the University of Utah Health System was 95% full (814). Indiana had “critical ICU bed shortages along with personnel shortages” (815) which was forcing the state to “<span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">put out a call for volunteers to help fill staffing shortages in hard-hit facilities near the Michigan and Kentucky borders.” Julie Willems Van Dijk, a deputy secretary in Wisconsin’s state health department, told <i>Politico</i>, “M</span>any of our ICUs are strained….Every region of our state has one or more hospitals reporting current and imminent staff shortages (816).” Texas Governor Greg Abbott had to send 75 medical professionals to the El Paso area, as the city of 700,000 was down to 10 ICU beds (817). In Albuquerque, New Mexico, “two out of three major hospitals…are at, or exceeding, capacity (818).” Hospitals in Missouri were “reaching capacity,” (819) while Integris, referred to as “Oklahoma’s largest health system,” had just one ICU bed left (820). Bismarck, the state capital of North Dakota, also had just one ICU bed left. (821)</span></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Since the administration had no interest in ameliorating the mass misery it had unleashed, the next best option was to cover up their abdication(s) of duty by censoring unflattering information. Jason Dearen, Mike Stobbe, and Richard Lardner of the AP looked at <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-virus-outbreak-pandemics-public-health-new-york-e321f4c9098b4db4dd6b1eda76a5179e&source=gmail&ust=1603194856266000&usg=AFQjCNGLo5NYv9B5iUNXAP-wiGH1iTluuQ" href="https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-virus-outbreak-pandemics-public-health-new-york-e321f4c9098b4db4dd6b1eda76a5179e" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">one branch of the administration’s COVID propaganda mill</span></a> in “White House puts ‘politicals’ at CDC to try to control info.”</span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">According to the opening paragraph, “The Trump White House has installed two political operatives at the nation’s top public health agency to try to control the information it releases about the coronavirus pandemic as the administration seeks to paint a positive outlook, sometimes at odds with the scientific evidence.</span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The two appointees assigned to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Atlanta headquarters in June have no public health background (822, 823). They have instead been tasked with keeping an eye on Dr. Robert Redfield, the agency director, as well as scientists…”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Sources told the AP that “When the two appointees showed up in Atlanta, their roles were a mystery to senior CDC staff…They had not even been assigned offices. Eventually one, Nina Witkofsky, became acting chief of staff, an influential role as Redfield’s right hand. The other, her deputy Chester ‘Trey’ Moeller, also began sitting in on scientific meetings…”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Witkofsky had no qualifications for the job:</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Witkofsky seemed a particularly strange fit for the nation’s top public health agency. She studied finance and business administration in college and graduate school, and at one point worked as a publicist and talent booker for Turner Broadcasting’s Cartoon Network. Her political work included being an events director during the George W. Bush 2000 presidential campaign. As a State Department official, she developed an international engagement program for U.S. athletes and coaches.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Her lack of familiarity with the CDC, and how it worked, quickly became clear in meetings, according to multiple agency officials. At one, Witkofsky expressed surprise that the CDC had a supporting foundation, one agency official recalled.” (824)</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">Witkofsky had worked closely with Michael Caputo (see #s 723-724, #s730-731, #s 735-737), the extreme-right political operative installed at Health and Human Services who had had a spectacular public flameout after </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/11/exclusive-trump-officials-interfered-with-cdc-reports-on-covid-19-412809&source=gmail&ust=1603194856266000&usg=AFQjCNF6RNWK2i9_j4Gq-VVjfl0PaZrkKQ" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/11/exclusive-trump-officials-interfered-with-cdc-reports-on-covid-19-412809" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5; line-height: 17.12px;">his efforts to manipulate the CDC’s MMWR</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report) had been outed by <i>Politico</i>.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The Democratic-led House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis was “seeking to interview [Witkofsky and Moeller] as part of a probe…into allegations the Trump administration blocked the CDC from publishing accurate scientific reports during the pandemic.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“The subcommittee’s investigators want to know more about Witkofsky and Moeller’s roles in reported attempts by Caputo and administration officials to gain editorial control over the MMWR and other CDC publications. The investigators are also interested in whether Witkofsky and Moeller were involved in making changes to CDC COVID-19 guidance for schools, as well as agency information that has been changed multiple times on how the virus spreads through the air.” (825)</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Dr. Rick Bright (see #26, #s29-30, #50, #s260-261, <span style="color: red;">W16</span>, <span style="color: red;">W18</span>, <span style="color: red;">W23</span>), a whistleblower who’d been demoted because of a lack of enthusiasm for Trump’s quack drug hydroxychloroquine, then left the administration, told the AP that the administration’s interference was “absolutely frightening….(It) leads to the mixed signals to the public. And I think that is increasing the magnitude and duration of this entire pandemic.” (826)</span></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Bright was hardly alone in his concerns. An <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://medium.com/@eis1984/open-letter-by-epidemic-intelligence-service-officers-past-and-present-in-support-of-cdc-759cdc0666c3&source=gmail&ust=1603194856266000&usg=AFQjCNFG2a4MmrHSGUPenGf7JTracC9fQQ" href="https://medium.com/@eis1984/open-letter-by-epidemic-intelligence-service-officers-past-and-present-in-support-of-cdc-759cdc0666c3" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #5b9bd5;">open letter</span></a> attacking the administration’s rampant politicization (and dismantling) of the CDC and advocating for a competent national pandemic response had amassed signatures from over one thousand current and former CDC epidemic intelligence officers. Pre-Trump, the CDC had been tailor made for the coronavirus:</span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“In previous public health crises, CDC provided the best available information and straightforward recommendations directly to the public. It was widely respected for effectively synthesizing and applying scientific evidence from epidemiologists and biomedical researchers at CDC and worldwide.”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Unfortunately, the Trump administration had gutted the agency, leaving it ineffective and unable to rise to the occasion:</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“[CDC’s] historic credibility was based on incomparable expertise and 70+ years of institutional memory. That focus and organization is hardly recognizable today.” (827)</span></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Referring to the Trump administration’s mishandling of the coronavirus (see #1-#827), the letter said “The absence of national leadership on COVID-19 is unprecedented and dangerous.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In sum, we have the absolute worst leader at the absolute worst time. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Amid the greatest crisis this country has faced since World War II, America is rudderless, our fate in the hands of a hollow, ignorant, self-centered, mercurial (828) man with no empathy (829) or sense of honor (830) who has neutered or fired the experts who could mitigate the impacts of the pandemic while empowering sycophants and political hacks. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Because of the Trump administration's colossal dereliction of duty, human misery will continue in the United States for the foreseeable future as the informed-and-sensible quarantined continue to suffer separation anxiety from friends and family, as the still-employed (and anyone buying groceries) risk contracting the virus every time they step out their door, as mass un- or under-employment continues and tens of millions are unable to meet basic financial and food security needs, as hospitals overflow, as cities and states slash social services to procure supplies and tests the feds should have provided, as millions of Americans get infected and hundreds of thousands die horrible and premature deaths, often alone, away from home. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Human beings are fallible. No presidential administration is perfect. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">But it didn’t have to be this way. Had the Trump administration heeded <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Once-again-government-is-caught-unprepared-15179581.php&source=gmail&ust=1603194856267000&usg=AFQjCNFJDVkqqYvrJWqFHNthd1sQ-L4qXQ" href="https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Once-again-government-is-caught-unprepared-15179581.php" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">advice from the outgoing Obama administration</span></a>, or kept a competent disaster management team in place, or acted aggressively from the moment they were notified of the virus on January 3, or used World Health Organization test kits, or recommended social distancing sooner, or maintained consistent and transparent messaging, or leveraged the formidable resources of the federal government, or put public health ahead of campaign concerns, or formed anything resembling a coherent national response, or had even a modicum of concern for the human impact of their decisions, we would be in a radically better situation, as seen in Germany, South Korea, and every other developed country, all of whom have a fraction of the deaths and infections the U.S. has experienced.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.npr.org/2020/03/12/814881355/white-house-knew-coronavirus-would-be-a-major-threat-but-response-fell-short&source=gmail&ust=1603194856267000&usg=AFQjCNFtSRdCSmZ-u5DG0J5EkeHNemo9fg" href="https://www.npr.org/2020/03/12/814881355/white-house-knew-coronavirus-would-be-a-major-threat-but-response-fell-short" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Asked</span></a> by NPR’s Terry Gross what went wrong with the test kits, <i>Politico</i> reporter Dan Diamond quoted an administration official whose answer could apply to all of Trump’s failures: </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">“Terry, the question might not be what went wrong; it's what went right?”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;">Follow Dan Benbow on </span><a href="https://twitter.com/danbenbow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Twitter </span></a><span style="color: #222222;"> </span></span></i></b><br style="font-family: "Times New Roman";" /></span></p><div class="MsoNormal"><div style="text-align: center;"><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><br /></b></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>More political writing by Dan Benbow:</b></span><br /><div style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-master-of-low-expectations-666.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>The Master of Low Expectations</b></span></a><span style="color: #3d85c6;">: 666 reasons sentient citizens</span></span></span></span><br /><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> are still celebrating </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the long overdue departure of George W. Bush</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-breathtaking-stupidity-of_16.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The <b>breathtaking stupidity</b> of #BernieOrBust</span></a></span></span></span></div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Death of a President in the <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2018/12/death-of-president-in-united-states-of.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>United States of Amnesia</b></span></a></span></span><br /><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> (<i>a review of the public life of George H.W. Bush</i>)</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Aliens, unicorns, and <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2018/10/spoilerparty.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>the narcissism</b></span></a> </span></span><br /><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">of voting Green</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2017/01/ten-reasons-barack-obama-is-clearly.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">10 reasons</span></a> </b></span>Barack Obama is clearly</span></span><br /><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the best president in my lifetime</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/10/178-reasons-hillary-clinton-is.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>178 reasons</b></span></a> Hillary Clinton is infinitely better</span></span><br /><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">than Donald Trump (even on her worst day)</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div><div><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/09/colin-kaepernick-is-right.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Colin Kaepernick is right</span></a></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span></div><div><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/04/stephen-colbert-delivers-best-political.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Stephen Colbert delivers the best political roast of all time</span></a></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2014/12/GaryWebbrailroaded.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Justice Delayed: "Kill the Messenger" vindicates Gary Webb</span></a></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2014/04/21st-century-republicans-part-iv.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">21st Century Republicans, Part IV</span></a></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/10/inequality-for-all-and-elephant-in-room.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"Inequality for All" and the Elephant in the Room</span></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/05/memorial-day-in-united-states-of-amnesia.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Memorial Day in the United States of Amnesia</span></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2012/10/romney-ryans-road-to-perdition.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Romney-Ryan's Road to Perdition</span></a></div></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">
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Dan Benbowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02258556216655283390noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3869308843623818842.post-6652557781021290492020-06-08T16:11:00.000-07:002020-06-08T16:40:04.838-07:00This is still Trump's election to lose<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLEs0B3SBrot-hUuUDjJ4oSWtgbLNQeujJN8UGfJa_Bwq2JlX3Mic4_lI1egzdC1nTSjEysI8F0mFG9eruEcjXtN0pcZ_0jlm6IHBn7bpqGo1vDIk7KzOelSSQus4hYXtXGouKcDfIgbU/s1600/1000x-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="666" data-original-width="1000" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLEs0B3SBrot-hUuUDjJ4oSWtgbLNQeujJN8UGfJa_Bwq2JlX3Mic4_lI1egzdC1nTSjEysI8F0mFG9eruEcjXtN0pcZ_0jlm6IHBn7bpqGo1vDIk7KzOelSSQus4hYXtXGouKcDfIgbU/s400/1000x-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>The Washington Post</i>'s latest poll of the presidential race was released last weekend. The poll of registered voters was eye-popping, showing a double-digit lead for Joe Biden, 53%-43%. <br /><br />On Facebook, many fellow liberals shared and commented on the poll with a sense of triumph which has been mirrored by media figures in <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8346807/Clinton-adviser-James-Carville-says-Trump-going-fat-beat-scathing-interview.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">partisan Democratic circles</span></a> and <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/trump/george-will-says-republicans-will-forget-trump-fairly-fast-when-he-loses-election-trump-i-dont-recognize-the-name/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the Republican never-Trump camp</span></a>. The gloating was based on the assumption that Donald Trump will be stuck in a downward spiral through election day due to the state of the economy and his <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2020/05/trumpliedthousandsdied.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">colossal mishandling of COVID-19</span></a> and the George Floyd protests. <br /><br />Don’t count on it. <br /><br />Five months is an eternity in a presidential election cycle and Trump’s luck could improve. The economy is <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/6/5/21281388/us-economy-jobs-added-may" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">rebounding, albeit slowly</span></a>, daily rates of (reported) COVID-19 deaths countrywide are still high but <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/coronavirus-deaths-united-states-each-day-2020-n1177936" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">down from April</span></a>, and swing voters are fickle creatures with remarkably short memories. <br /><br />And the polling data isn’t conclusive. Returning to the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/biden-leads-trump-in-post-abc-poll-as-presidents-coronavirus-rating-slips/2020/05/29/37c0dac8-a1d1-11ea-9590-1858a893bd59_story.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><i>Post</i> poll</span></a>, the ten-point lead was among <i>registered</i> voters, but turnout is not guaranteed, particularly during a pandemic. Among likely voters, Biden’s lead was just five points. <br /><br />Moreover, national polls are of limited value because presidents are chosen by the antiquated electoral college, not the popular vote. Trump and Biden are within a few points of each other in the states which will decide the election—Florida, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. <br /><br />Biden’s pathways to the presidency would be to win Florida and one other swing state or Michigan, Pennsylvania, and either Arizona or Wisconsin. <br /><br />Of the six swing states, Florida and North Carolina are the most conservative. Democrats like to flirt with North Carolina, but the state is a long shot at best. It has voted Democratic in just two presidential elections over the last 50 years: conservative Southern Democrat Jimmy Carter won the state in 1976, and <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2017/01/ten-reasons-barack-obama-is-clearly.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Barack Obama</span></a> squeaked through by 14,000 votes in 2008 because of his strength among black voters and huge financial advantage over John McCain. In 2012, Obama lost North Carolina by 100,000 votes despite pouring resources into the state and having the Democratic convention in Charlotte. Hillary Clinton lost North Carolina by 180,000 votes in 2016 while <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/hillary-clinton-slated-spend-53-times-donald-trump/story?id=42230361" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">outspending Trump many times over</span></a>. <br /><br />Florida could break Biden’s way if his lead with <a href="https://www.axios.com/biden-polling-seniors-trump-2ff44e93-290f-4bb2-995c-c944e54a2464.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">women over 65</span></a> holds, but it’s a crapshoot; though it has been competitive in presidential elections, Florida is a red state which has been under Republican control since 1999. During the blue wave of 2018, in which Democrats won <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">ten million more votes</span></a> nationwide, Florida voters elected a <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/09/desantis-spoke-at-conference-organized-by-david-horowitz.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">far-right Republican</span></a> gubernatorial candidate and ousted an incumbent Democratic senator. <br /><br />Of the other four swing states—Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Arizona—Biden appears strongest in Michigan and Pennsylvania. Trump barely won Michigan in 2016, Democrats had <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/11/how-democrats-won-big-michigan-midterms/576043/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">commanding wins</span></a> up and down the ticket in the 2018 midterm, and a strong union presence will help get out the vote for Biden. Pennsylvania is Biden’s home state. It went deep blue in 2018 and Biden has had consistent leads there among quality pollsters. Without both of these states, it would be virtually impossible for him to win the election. <br /><br />If Biden wins Michigan and Pennsylvania, but loses North Carolina and Florida, he would have to win Arizona or Wisconsin to become president. Biden is ahead in poll averages, but the margins are <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/az/arizona_trump_vs_biden-6807.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">small</span></a> and both states present challenges. <br /><br />Arizona is trending toward the Democrats due to the growing Latino vote and a shift to the center among some suburban voters. But winning the state is a tall order for Democrats, as </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Republicans have passed a number of bills designed to disenfranchise native Americans, Latinos, and African-Americans, including voter ID laws, <a href="https://cronkitenews.azpbs.org/2020/02/06/arizona-early-voting-bill/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">restrictions on early voting</span></a>, and a gratuitous measure to <a href="http://www.jackcentral.org/news/law-deemed-voter-suppression-by-court-remains-in-effect/article_1b0a0014-9d7e-5558-aedf-0dba1283d757.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">disqualify ballots submitted in the wrong precinct</span></a>. D</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">emocrats have won Arizona </span><a href="https://www.270towin.com/states/Arizona" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">just once</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> in 70 years, when Bill Clinton narrowly beat Bob Dole thanks to the presence of right-leaning third party candidate Ross Perot. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Which could leave the fate of American democracy in the hands of Wisconsin, </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/19/wisconsin-coronavirus-supreme-court-failed-state" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a dicey proposition</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />Other than Madison, Milwaukee, and a handful of small and medium-sized towns that are light blue, Wisconsin tends to be rural, white, and beet red. In addition to his demographic edge, Trump will again be helped along by Republican allies who will do everything in their power to <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2020/04/wisconsin-republicans-make-mockery-of.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">rig the election</span></a> in his favor. <br /><br />A voter ID law passed by the Wisconsin GOP, one of the <a href="https://www.courthousenews.com/wisconsin-voter-id-law-enjoined-as-restrictive/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">most draconian</span></a> in the country, <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/10/voter-suppression-wisconsin-election-2016/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">handed the state to Trump</span></a> in 2016 and could disenfranchise tens of thousands of (overwhelmingly Democratic) voters in 2020. The Wisconsin GOP will further suppress Democratic turnout by <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/04/voter-purges-wisconsin-republican-election/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">purging 130,000 citizens</span></a> from the voting rolls, a move that will exacerbate election day chaos and make voting lines in blue areas even longer than they would already be, <a href="https://madison.com/ct/news/local/govt-and-politics/voter-id-linked-to-lower-turnout-in-wisconsin-other-states/article_ee2115f3-d2ad-5223-a1f9-e19a8dcd862f.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">disenfranchising</span></a> Democratic students and people of color in Madison and Milwaukee in large numbers. <br /><br />Trump could disenfranchise voters <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/06/04/donald-trump-election-disruption-2020-294721" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">at the national level</span></a> by allowing the postal service to die—which would impose on tens of millions of Americans the terrible choice of voting in person during a pandemic or not at all—or declaring a national quarantine before the election (if reported cases of COVID-19 spike with the flu season), which would limit voting to people who receive absentee ballots before election day. Furthermore, Republican operatives plan to systematically send "poll watchers" into inner cities and tribal areas to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/18/us/Voting-republicans-trump.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">harass and intimidate voters of color</span></a> out of exercising their franchise.<br /><br />Incumbency also gives Trump a number of significant advantages over Joe Biden. <br /><br />He has <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/16/politics/trump-biden-enthusiasm-2020-analysis/index.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a more enthusiastic base</span></a> whom he has been feeding a steady diet of red meat for five years. <br /><br />He has a <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/05/20/858347477/money-tracker-how-much-trump-and-biden-have-raised-in-the-2020-election" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">big financial advantage</span></a>, which translates into more negative ads and more field offices in swing states to support his ground game. <br /><br />His digital operation is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/29/opinion/trump-digital-campaign-2020.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">light years ahead of Biden’s</span></a>, and he has <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/mark-zuckerberg-believes-only-in-mark-zuckerberg/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the backing</span></a> of Mark Zuckerberg, who decided that Facebook will go after penny-ante offenders of community rules rather than vast propaganda merchants who fill Facebook’s coffers with advertising revenue. <br /><br />Most important of all, Trump has Vladimir Putin. <br /><br />As revealed in <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Cyberwar-Russian-Hackers-Trolls-President/dp/0190058838/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Cyberwar&qid=1591542683&sr=8-1" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Cyberwar</span></a></i>, a 2018 masterwork of research and analysis by Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Russia’s efforts on behalf of Trump in 2016 were extensive and brutally effective. Among other operations, Russian intelligence created <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-found-more-russian-bots-trump-interacted-with-many-2018-1" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">over fifty THOUSAND fake Twitter accounts</span></a> to artificially trend pro-Trump/anti-Clinton talking points and push them into the media dialog, fed stolen Democratic Party emails <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/through-email-leaks-and-propaganda-russians-sought-to-elect-trump-mueller-finds/2019/04/18/109ddf74-571b-11e9-814f-e2f46684196e_story.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">through Wikileaks</span></a> at strategic moments to shape the news cycles in the crucial final month of the campaign, and manipulated social media to dissuade <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/17/us/politics/russia-2016-influence-campaign.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">black voters</span></a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-the-russian-effort-to-target-sanders-supporters--and-help-elect-trump/2019/04/11/741d7308-5576-11e9-8ef3-fbd41a2ce4d5_story.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Sanders supporters</span></a> in swing states from voting for Clinton, which worked like a charm. Jamieson, the non-partisan co-founder of factcheck.org, concluded that <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/01/how-russia-helped-to-swing-the-election-for-trump" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Russia probably chose our president</span></a>, and there’s no doubt <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/06/putin-american-democracy/610570/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">they will try to do so again in 2020</span></a>. <br /><br />Even if a big financial advantage, a superior digital campaign enabled by Mark Zuckerberg’s boundless greed, the feral enthusiasm of his <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-effect-new-study-connects-white-american-intolerance-support-authoritarianism-ncna877886?fbclid=IwAR3DpjF9r7FZmV8mYe2FDyGbQJjoAgHKyQzdApxo6CZMcCrdX4WwLtszfVQ" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">lizard-brained base</span></a>, the <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2020/04/wisconsin-republicans-make-mockery-of.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">aggressive vote suppression efforts</span></a> of Trump and his allies, and the support of Russia’s best hackers and army of troll farms aren’t enough to win the election for Trump at the ballot box, there’s the possibility that he could <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2012/06/yes-bush-v-gore-did-steal-the-election.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">“win” in the courts</span></a> if the election is close, as George W. Bush did in 2000, or refuse to recognize the election results, which would leave control of the presidency up to the U.S. military. <br /><br />In other words, confidence among Democrats at this point is naive and misplaced. It’s a long way to November and this is still Trump’s race to lose. <br /><br />Democrats’ only hope is to mobilize women, Gen X and Gen Y, people of color, enviros, labor, the LGBTQ community, and any American with rudimentary critical thinking skills to beat Trump by a large enough margin that he can’t steal the election in the courts. <br /><br />Barring a Biden landslide, we can kiss our democracy goodbye. </span><b style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;"> </span></span></i></b><br />
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<b style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;"> Follow Dan Benbow on </span><a href="https://twitter.com/danbenbow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Twitter </span></a><span style="color: #222222;"> </span></span></i></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><br /></b></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>More political writing by Dan Benbow:</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-master-of-low-expectations-666.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>The Master of Low Expectations</b></span></a><span style="color: #3d85c6;">: 666 reasons sentient citizens</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> are still celebrating </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the long overdue departure of George W. Bush</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-breathtaking-stupidity-of_16.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The <b>breathtaking stupidity</b> of #BernieOrBust</span></a></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Death of a President in the <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2018/12/death-of-president-in-united-states-of.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>United States of Amnesia</b></span></a></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> (<i>a review of the public life of George H.W. Bush</i>)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Aliens, unicorns, and <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2018/10/spoilerparty.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>the narcissism</b></span></a> </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">of voting Green</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2017/01/ten-reasons-barack-obama-is-clearly.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">10 reasons</span></a> </b></span>Barack Obama is clearly</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the best president in my lifetime</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/10/178-reasons-hillary-clinton-is.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>178 reasons</b></span></a> Hillary Clinton is infinitely better</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">than Donald Trump (even on her worst day)</span><br />
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/09/colin-kaepernick-is-right.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Colin Kaepernick is right</span></a></div>
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/04/stephen-colbert-delivers-best-political.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Stephen Colbert delivers the best political roast of all time</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2014/12/GaryWebbrailroaded.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Justice Delayed: "Kill the Messenger" vindicates Gary Webb</span></a></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2014/04/21st-century-republicans-part-iv.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">21st Century Republicans, Part IV</span></a></div>
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/10/inequality-for-all-and-elephant-in-room.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"Inequality for All" and the Elephant in the Room</span></a></div>
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/05/memorial-day-in-united-states-of-amnesia.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Memorial Day in the United States of Amnesia</span></a></div>
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2012/10/romney-ryans-road-to-perdition.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Romney-Ryan's Road to Perdition</span></a></div>
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<br />Dan Benbowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02258556216655283390noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3869308843623818842.post-71399052105635898312020-05-09T02:58:00.003-07:002020-05-11T16:28:59.314-07:00Trump to constituents: shut up and die already<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgirYXYhIKRUbtuXCcYs9TgJjgwNN5fZ_zPWZNtbGna7sJKlTTOLMe9XWH9cEldoRZ_R36ui_xGZA4lcMXy_Gw46U-2e4586KGS7aPs7IznS58kuDF76nCf0-XO1UGyn7VIksTCagF5jac/s1600/AP_20107810622700-1500x1000.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1500" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgirYXYhIKRUbtuXCcYs9TgJjgwNN5fZ_zPWZNtbGna7sJKlTTOLMe9XWH9cEldoRZ_R36ui_xGZA4lcMXy_Gw46U-2e4586KGS7aPs7IznS58kuDF76nCf0-XO1UGyn7VIksTCagF5jac/s320/AP_20107810622700-1500x1000.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">The sustained daily clip of new COVID-19 infections (29,162) and
deaths (1,687) </span><a href="https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">continued</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"> in the
United States yesterday, but the Trump administration refuses to let inconvenient
statistics impact their public health decisions.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/07/admin-shelves-cdc-guide-to-reopening-country-242008"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">According</span></span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> to the
Associated Press, Trump’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was set
to release a 17-page report (“<span style="background: white; color: black;">Guidance
for Implementing the Opening Up America Again Framework”) last weekend. The
report was intended to give public health officials around the country direction on how to lift
stay-at-home orders safely:<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“The guidance contained detailed
advice for making site-specific decisions related to reopening schools,
restaurants, summer camps, churches, day care centers and other institutions.
It had been widely shared within CDC, and included detailed ‘decision trees,’
flow charts to be used by local officials to think through different scenarios.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Among the suggestions, “restaurants
and bars should install sneeze guards at cash registers and avoid having
buffets, salad bars and drink stations” and “as restaurants start seating
diners again, they should space tables at least 6 feet apart and try to use
phone app technology to alert a patron when their table is ready to avoid
touching and use of ‘buzzers.’”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The need “for scientifically
valid information with which to make informed decisions” was so urgent that
state and county health departments were contacting the CDC daily for advice,
yet the administration blocked the release and CDC officials were told the
report “would never see the light of day.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A White House official claimed
that the report was spiked because it hadn’t been cleared at the upper level of
the CDC and re-opening strategies varied from state to state, but the more
likely explanation is that the administration sees Trump’s re-election as a much higher priority than public safety. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;">Even as </span><a href="https://www.mediaite.com/news/dr-fauci-condemns-protesters-clamoring-for-end-to-lockdown-premature-reopening-will-backfire/"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Anthony Fauci</span></span></a><span style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"> and
CDC head Robert Redfield have recently </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/04/21/coronavirus-secondwave-cdcdirector/"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">cautioned against a premature relaxation</span></span></a><span style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"> of social distancing guidelines, Trump has been </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-cheers-on-governors-as-they-ignore-white-house-coronovirus-guidelines-in-race-to-reopen/2020/05/04/bedc6116-8e18-11ea-a0bc-4e9ad4866d21_story.html"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a cheerleader</span></span></a><span style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"> for
the governors who’ve chosen to ignore sound scientific and public health advice
and the </span><a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/493701-trump-support-for-protests-threatens-to-undermine-social-distancing"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">flat earth protesters</span></span></a><span style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"> who
egg them on. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;">The administration’s own models
show that re-opening the economy early will lead to “</span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/04/cdc-daily-deaths-coronavirus-234377"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">dramatically more U.S. deaths</span></span></a><span style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;">,” a doubling between now and August of what
would be expected if stay-at-home orders were maintained, but as <i>the
Washington Post</i> recently reported, </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/34-days-of-pandemic-inside-trumps-desperate-attempts-to-reopen-america/2020/05/02/e99911f4-8b54-11ea-9dfd-990f9dcc71fc_story.html"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump has more important things on his mind</span></span></a><span style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;">. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Guidelines could convince state
and local officials to be careful (and slow) in re-opening
businesses. This would protect Americans from contracting COVID-19, but could
pose challenges to Trump’s re-election campaign. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Over the last century, only three
incumbent presidents have lost re-election:</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Herbert Hoover, Jimmy Carter, and George Bush Sr. The common denominator
in all three cases was a weak economy. Americans vote their pocketbooks.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">Trump <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/25/politics/2020-election-trump-favorability/index.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">can’t run on his likeability</span></a>, or his competence,
as his response to COVID-19 has been </span><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2020/03/anatomy-of-man-made-disaster-230-ways.html"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a clear and colossal failure</span></span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">, so he’s putting all his chips on <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/07/trump-campaign-to-unload-on-biden-with-negative-ad-onslaught-242976" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">sliming Joe Biden</span></a> and overseeing an economic rebound. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Trump’s message to the tens or hundreds
of thousands of Americans who will get lethal infections to serve his short-term
political ambitions?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;">Shut up and die already.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: white;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><b style="line-height: 18px; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;"> Follow Dan Benbow on </span><a href="https://twitter.com/danbenbow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Twitter </span></a><span style="color: #222222;"> </span></span></i></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>More political writing by Dan Benbow: </b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; text-align: start;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">ANATOMY OF A MAN-MADE DISASTER: <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2020/03/anatomy-of-man-made-disaster-230-ways.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>281 ways Donald Trump failed</b> </span></a></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; text-align: start;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">to protect us from the coronavirus</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-master-of-low-expectations-666.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>The Master of Low Expectations</b></span></a><span style="color: #3d85c6;">: 666 reasons sentient citizens</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> are still celebrating </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the long overdue departure of George W. Bush</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-breathtaking-stupidity-of_16.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The <b>breathtaking stupidity</b> of #BernieOrBust</span></a></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Death of a President in the <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2018/12/death-of-president-in-united-states-of.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>United States of Amnesia</b></span></a></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> (<i>a review of the public life of George H.W. Bush</i>)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Aliens, unicorns, and <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2018/10/spoilerparty.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>the narcissism</b></span></a> </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">of voting Green</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2017/01/ten-reasons-barack-obama-is-clearly.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">10 reasons</span></a> </b></span>Barack Obama is clearly</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the best president in my lifetime</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/10/178-reasons-hillary-clinton-is.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>178 reasons</b></span></a> Hillary Clinton is infinitely better</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">than Donald Trump (even on her worst day)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/09/colin-kaepernick-is-right.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Colin Kaepernick is right</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span></div>
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/04/stephen-colbert-delivers-best-political.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Stephen Colbert delivers the best political roast of all time</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2014/12/GaryWebbrailroaded.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Justice Delayed: "Kill the Messenger" vindicates Gary Webb</span></a></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2014/04/21st-century-republicans-part-iv.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">21st Century Republicans, Part IV</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/10/inequality-for-all-and-elephant-in-room.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"Inequality for All" and the Elephant in the Room</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/05/memorial-day-in-united-states-of-amnesia.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Memorial Day in the United States of Amnesia</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
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Dan Benbowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02258556216655283390noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3869308843623818842.post-8682005397681386822020-04-26T06:24:00.000-07:002020-05-03T05:26:06.131-07:00Wisconsin Republicans make a mockery of democracy<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9gKBHkoCDpRga2v0dq0kCmukS0asAtgsy4Co2nvuL18kThIXZbs8pXKIPlaRZf-t5_phyphenhypheno1-NkiB8PBidmbAqC0FFvefhpF38HgX9cG76AYn5QG6n4STrADtbthNEBXn5qEjBQDEAHrI/s1600/Vos.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="789" data-original-width="812" height="309" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9gKBHkoCDpRga2v0dq0kCmukS0asAtgsy4Co2nvuL18kThIXZbs8pXKIPlaRZf-t5_phyphenhypheno1-NkiB8PBidmbAqC0FFvefhpF38HgX9cG76AYn5QG6n4STrADtbthNEBXn5qEjBQDEAHrI/s320/Vos.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Republican Robin Vos, who sued to force voters to show up<br />
at the polls during a pandemic, tries to tell a reporter<br />
that it's safe, all appearances to the contrary.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Wisconsin is certain to be <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/all-eyes-are-on-wisconsin-the-state-thats-gearing-up-to-define-the-presidential-election/2019/11/04/abf643dc-f40d-11e9-a285-882a8e386a96_story.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">one of the most important states</span></a> in the 2020 presidential election. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Throughout the ’90s and ’00s, Wisconsin was a purple state. More often than not, voters in minority-majority Milwaukee, deep blue Madison, and progressive pockets throughout the state gave Democrats an edge over Republicans who clustered in rural areas, small towns, and white-flight suburbs.</span><br />
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<span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk38705952;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As of January, 2008,
Democrats had won Wisconsin in six straight presidential elections. Democrats
held the governor’s mansion, the state Senate, a majority on the state Supreme
Court, both federal Senate seats, and five of eight House seats.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk38705952;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The first major
crack in the purple wall came on April 1, 2008. Armed with special interest
money and <a href="https://urbanmilwaukee.com/2017/06/20/murphys-law-why-gableman-is-stepping-down/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">deceptive, race-baiting ads</span></a> accusing the African-American Democratic
incumbent of "legislating from the bench" and helping a child molester go free, white Republican Michael Gableman narrowly won a 10-year term to the state Supreme
Court. The support of 51% of the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/04/15/834037566/in-the-end-the-voters-responded-surprising-takeaways-from-wisconsin-s-election" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">35% of eligible voters</span></a> who showed up—less than
one in five eligible voters statewide—gave Republicans a 4-3 majority on the
state Supreme Court. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk38705952;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk38705952;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">At the time, the
significance of this race wasn’t fully appreciated. In November of that year, when Barack Obama won Wisconsin by 14 points, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_United_States_presidential_election_in_Wisconsin" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">turnout was 71%</span></a>, twice as high and far more indicative of the will of the people across
the state. It was easy to see the
Supreme Court election as an anomaly. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk38705952;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk38705952;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">2010 proved that it
was actually a sign of things to come.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk38705952;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk38705952;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In reaction to the
Democratic waves of 2006 and 2008 and passage of <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2012/07/how-much-do-you-really-know-about.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the Affordable Care Act</span></a>, which gave the GOP conniption fits, Republicans
had a wave of their own in Wisconsin. It was a small wave in terms of voter participation
(<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Wisconsin_gubernatorial_election" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">turnout was just 49.7%</span></a>), and disproportionately white, but the power accorded
was complete and total. The support of one in four eligible voters made
Republican Scott Walker governor, flipped the state Senate to the GOP, and helped
Republicans gain control of all three branches of state government. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk38705952;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk38705952;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Acting as if they had
a mandate, Republicans turned Wisconsin into Wississippi with a years-long, scorched-earth assault on 20th
Century progress, <a href="https://urbanmilwaukee.com/2020/03/11/urban-mke-flashback-was-act-10-necessary/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">killing unions</span></a> and <a href="https://urbanmilwaukee.com/2019/05/02/murphys-law-how-walker-wrecked-states-prisons/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">morale</span></a> among state employees, <a href="https://onewisconsinnow.org/scott-walker/social-services/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">slashing social services</span></a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2018/10/16/wisconsin-gov-scott-walkers-assault-public-education-could-be-coming-back-bite-him/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">public education</span></a> while showering business interests and the wealthy with <a href="https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/11-taxpayers-making-more-than-35-million-to-reap-21-5-million-from-tax-credit/article_1a86e890-033b-5b4d-a2eb-3e2bcb487dde.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">tax cuts</span></a>, <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/wisconsin-abortion-20-weeks-not-legal-scott-walker-120370" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">limiting a woman’s right to choose</span></a>, <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-scott-walker-dismantled-wisconsin-s-environmental-legacy/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">gutting environmental protections</span></a>, and <a href="https://madison.com/ct/news/local/govt-and-politics/national-report-half-of-wisconsins-major-roads-are-in-poor-or-mediocre-condition/article_01841742-0cf0-55ea-85d6-3e4d7c3dbe65.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">allowing roads to fall into disrepair</span></a>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk38705952;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Republicans also
implemented some of the <a href="https://madison.com/ct/news/local/govt-and-politics/voter-id-linked-to-lower-turnout-in-wisconsin-other-states/article_ee2115f3-d2ad-5223-a1f9-e19a8dcd862f.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">most restrictive voter ID measures</span></a> in the country, laws
which <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/10/voter-suppression-wisconsin-election-2016/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">disenfranchise African-Americans at twice the rate of whites</span></a>, after which
they made it harder to obtain IDs by <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/after-signing-law-disenfranchising-id-less-voters-wisconsin-gov-scott-walker-closes-10-dmv-offices-36cf08160637/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">closing DMV offices in Democratic districts</span></a>—even as they increased hours at DMV offices in Republican districts. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk38705952;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk38705952;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In addition to
attacks on working Wisconsinites, the poor, <a href="https://madison.com/ct/news/local/govt-and-politics/disability-advocates-question-changes-to-long-term-care-in-scott/article_005d6ee3-0a3a-5e3f-ba02-f5f2330836f9.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the disabled</span></a>, women, people of
color, and the public interest was a move that would give the GOP <a href="https://www.gq.com/story/republican-gerrymandering-wisconsin" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a voter-resistant lock on the state legislature for years, if not decades, to come</span></a>:
Wisconsin Republicans’ redrawing of the election maps. Through gerrymandering,
Republicans were able to guarantee themselves control of the state legislature
unless Democrats drew over 60% of the vote, a mathematical impossibility in a
state that is 86% white and heavily rural. As Walker signed bills, Republicans
on the state Supreme Court legislated from the bench, serving as a rubber stamp
for GOP-passed items which were challenged in court. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk38705952;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">On the strength of two
extremely narrow election wins, including one in which <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Kathy_Nickolaus" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the Republican elections clerk</span></a> in the most right-wing county in the state <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2011/4/13/966091/-" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">magically discovered 14,000 ballots</span></a>
the day after a Republican judge (and her former boss) had appeared to lose by
200 votes, Wisconsin Republicans have been able to hold the state Supreme Court
majority and keep the gerrymander in place. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk38705952;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The distorting
effect of the gerrymander on the democratic process was demonstrated most
clearly in 2018. In an election with <a href="https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/elections/2018/11/07/wisconsin-election-record-setting-turnout-2018-mid-term/1894552002/https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/elections/2018/11/07/wisconsin-election-record-setting-turnout-2018-mid-term/1894552002/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">record midterm turnout</span></a>, Democrats won the
federal Senate race by eleven points and swept statewide offices (governor,
attorney general, secretary of state, treasurer), but gained just one seat in
the state Assembly and actually <i>lost</i> a state Senate seat. After winning Assembly races <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Wisconsin_State_Assembly_election" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">53-45%</span></a> across the state, Democrats finished with 36 seats to Republicans' 63. Democrats <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections_in_Wisconsin" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">won almost 200,000 more votes</span></a> in House races, yet Republicans kept five of eight
seats. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk38705952;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Following Tony Evers</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> defeat of Scott Walker, Republican legislators held an
unprecedented extraordinary session to limit Evers’ powers. They also tried to
</span><a href="https://madison.com/ct/news/local/govt-and-politics/what-happened-while-you-slept-a-guide-to-wisconsin-s/article_2b2bb8a3-9166-5ada-9a0a-be3e7deb4486.html" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">suppress the Democratic vote by restricting early voting</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">, a move which was later </span><a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/01/federal-court-blocked-wisconsin-republican-early-voting/" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">blocked</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> by a federal court. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk38705952;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk38705952;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Republicans’ desire
to maintain their state Supreme Court majority was behind the GOP’s recent
maneuvers to make the state hold a primary in the middle of the COVID-19
pandemic.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk38705952;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Several days before the scheduled election, Governor Evers proposed mailing ballots to all voters so they wouldn’t
have to vote in person, but <a href="https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/tony-evers-calls-in-legislature-on-saturday-to-enact-all-mail-in-spring-election-gop/article_3bb5b43f-2cc1-5491-b690-64c00cf5e1cf.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Republicans balked</span></a>. Lacking any other options due to Republican intransigence, Evers
signed an executive order <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/wisconsin-gov-evers-suspends-person-voting-tuesday-primary-amid-coronavirus-n1177746" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">postponing the primary</span></a> the day before the election.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/2020-campaign-primary-calendar-coronavirus.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">16 other states and territories</span></a> had done the same thing, but Wisconsin Republicans put partisan
considerations over public safety by successfully appealing Evers' order to the GOP-controlled state Supreme Court. They knew the pandemic would inordinately
impact turnout in Madison and Milwaukee, since residents in Wisconsin’s two
biggest cities would face a greater risk of infection and <a href="https://twitter.com/asteadwesley/status/1247502615430209541?s=11" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">far longer lines</span></a> at
polling places due to higher population density. Milwaukee, which typically has 180 polling stations, had only five
polling stations, <a href="https://twitter.com/ClintSmithIII/status/1247525096555565056" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">one for every 120,000 people</span></a>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk38705952;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Republicans also
sued to block a court-approved measure giving voters an additional week to turn
in absentee ballots; the extension had been granted because thousands of voters
throughout the state had not received requested absentee ballots. Republicans
on the federal Supreme Court sided with Wisconsin’s GOP on election eve,
<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/04/supreme-courts-hypocrisy-going-get-americans-killed/609598/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">forcing anyone who didn’t have an absentee ballot to vote at the last minute, in person, safety be damned</span></a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk38705952;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk38705952;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Despite these
tactics, which put the health of the 450,000 people who voted in person in
jeopardy and <a href="https://www.wuwm.com/post/40-coronavirus-cases-milwaukee-county-linked-wisconsin-election-health-official-says" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">infected voters</span></a> who otherwise wouldn’t have
gotten COVID-19, Republicans lost the state Supreme Court race by double digits. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk38705952;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk38705952;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It was a moral
victory for Democrats, but strategically hollow, as Republicans will have a
4-3 majority on the state Supreme Court once the new Democratic justice is seated and are almost certain to pad the GOP’s
structural advantage further in the near future.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk38705952;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Two months ago, an
appeals court <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/midwest/ct-wisconsin-voter-purge-20200228-iniql4y3gjcgdopayhz7twoz6a-story.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">unanimously rejected</span></a> a circuit court ruling by a Republican judge
to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/13/politics/wisconsin-judge-remove-voter-rolls/index.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">kick over 200,000 Wisconsin voters off of the voter rolls</span></a>. The lower court judge
claimed to be protecting election integrity, but his true motivation was to suppress Democratic turnout, as zip codes with high concentrations of
students and voters of color—especially prevalent in the Democratic strongholds
of Madison and Milwaukee—had twice as many names on the list as average zip
codes. According to a study done by <i>the Guardian</i>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/06/wisconsin-voter-purges-black-student-populations-risk" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">12% of voters in black-majority districts would be removed</span></a> from the voting rolls were the purge
to go through.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk38705952;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk38705952;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Republican lawyers have
appealed the case to Wisconsin’s state Supreme Court. Based on past history, we
can reliably guess how the Republican majority will vote.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk38705952;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk38705952;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Come the
presidential election this November, Republicans will have thrown up multiple
barriers for Democratic voters, from <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/02/15/do-voter-identification-laws-suppress-minority-voting-yes-we-did-the-research/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Jim Crow-like voter ID laws</span></a> to a massive
voter purge of Madison and Milwaukee to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/us/politics/republicans-vote-by-mail.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">blocking the vote-by-mail option favored by public health advocates</span></a>, which will (again) force hundreds of
thousands of Wisconsinites who don’t vote absentee to risk their health, and
the health of their loved ones, if they want to exercise their franchise. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk38705952;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk38705952;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">With all of these sinister
and undemocratic forces at his back, as well as <a href="https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/report-russian-linked-facebook-ads-targeted-wisconsin-in-the-campaign/article_28a6d5f0-e64b-5511-9e6c-9be1c70e18e0.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Russian cyberwarfare</span></a>, Donald Trump
has a better-than-even chance of winning the swingiest of swing states this
fall</span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">—</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">regardless of the true intentions of Wisconsin voters. </span><br />
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk38705952;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk38705952;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Until or unless
Democrats win the next state Supreme Court race <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Supreme_Court" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">in 2023</span></a>, Wisconsin Republicans will continue to make a mockery of democracy.</span></span><br />
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk38705952;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b>More political writing by Dan Benbow:</b></i></span><br />
<div style="background-color: white;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-master-of-low-expectations-666.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>The Master of Low Expectations</b></span></a><span style="color: #3d85c6;">: 666 reasons sentient citizens</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> are still celebrating </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the long overdue departure of George W. Bush</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-breathtaking-stupidity-of_16.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The <b>breathtaking stupidity</b> of #BernieOrBust</span></a></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Death of a President in the <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2018/12/death-of-president-in-united-states-of.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>United States of Amnesia</b></span></a></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> (<i>a review of the public life of George H.W. Bush</i>)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Aliens, unicorns, and <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2018/10/spoilerparty.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>the narcissism</b></span></a> </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">of voting Green</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2017/01/ten-reasons-barack-obama-is-clearly.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">10 reasons</span></a> </b></span>Barack Obama is clearly</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the best president in my lifetime</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/10/178-reasons-hillary-clinton-is.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>178 reasons</b></span></a> Hillary Clinton is infinitely better</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">than Donald Trump (even on her worst day)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/09/colin-kaepernick-is-right.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Colin Kaepernick is right</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span></div>
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/04/stephen-colbert-delivers-best-political.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Stephen Colbert delivers the best political roast of all time</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2014/12/GaryWebbrailroaded.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Justice Delayed: "Kill the Messenger" vindicates Gary Webb</span></a></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2014/04/21st-century-republicans-part-iv.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">21st Century Republicans, Part IV</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/10/inequality-for-all-and-elephant-in-room.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"Inequality for All" and the Elephant in the Room</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/05/memorial-day-in-united-states-of-amnesia.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Memorial Day in the United States of Amnesia</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2012/10/romney-ryans-road-to-perdition.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Romney-Ryan's Road to Perdition</span></a></div>
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk38705952;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><b style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;"> Follow Dan Benbow on </span><a href="https://twitter.com/danbenbow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Twitter </span></a><span style="color: #222222;"> </span></span></i></b></span></div>
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Dan Benbowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02258556216655283390noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3869308843623818842.post-4775585037978612872020-03-29T18:13:00.000-07:002020-06-23T10:29:20.185-07:00ANATOMY OF A MAN-MADE DISASTER: 370 ways Donald Trump failed to protect us from the coronavirus<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6g-li7UPUNvQSk23e7QGkxx_tSOVf1Mr71REclQMqqLkbiyCL4qQnHxlUN5TLMy91Nsm01gG-5WSxExGEe9MCZlwC46vR6zipks4pMcRvVG8VXT5TEMzxoPkxAEbws2Yws9HGFJBoIbo/s1600/5e750596c4854015951dd912.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="1200" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6g-li7UPUNvQSk23e7QGkxx_tSOVf1Mr71REclQMqqLkbiyCL4qQnHxlUN5TLMy91Nsm01gG-5WSxExGEe9MCZlwC46vR6zipks4pMcRvVG8VXT5TEMzxoPkxAEbws2Yws9HGFJBoIbo/s400/5e750596c4854015951dd912.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Crises have a way of sorting the good presidents from the bad.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Historians consistently <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_presidents_of_the_United_States" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">rank</span></a> Abraham Lincoln and Franklin
Delano Roosevelt among the top three presidents for their handling of the
Civil War, the Great Depression, and World War II.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">By contrast, the string of catastrophes that trailed <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-master-of-low-expectations-666.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">George W. Bush</span></a>, from <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2020/03/bloodbathiniraq.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Iraq</span></a> to <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/08/hurricane-katrina-george-w-bush-new-orleans" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Hurricane Katrina</span></a> to his <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/business/21admin.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">obliviousness</span></a> to warning
signs in the housing market before the 2008 crash guarantee that he will
have a permanent place in the bottom tier of presidents. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Also certain to be at or near the bottom of that list is
Donald Trump. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Trump has been able to maintain 40% approval ratings by riding
his predecessor’s <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjones/2020/02/17/obamas-2009-recovery-act-kicked-off-over-10-years-of-economic-growth/#798915aa68b7" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">economic coattails</span></a> and effectively manipulating the <a href="https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/12/15/16781222/trump-racism-economic-anxiety-study" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">lizard brains</span></a> of white Republicans, but even before the coronavirus hit, Trump
was considered one of <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-worst-president-presidential-greatness-survey-presidents-day-obama-george-washington-a8218721.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the worst</span></a> presidents in the two surveys of scholars done
in 2018. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Trump’s attention to the coronavirus crisis since declaring a
national emergency on March 13 has helped mitigate the damage, but his failures
of governance from <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/3/21/21189179/coronavirus-trump-intelligence-reports-warned-pandemic" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">January 3</span></a> (when the administration first became aware of the
virus) until March 13 made the situation exponentially worse than it should
have been. With <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/11/health/us-coronavirus-updates-saturday/index.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">two thousand</span></a> Americans dying every day and <a href="https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported cases</span></a> in the States increasing by a hundred thousand each week, we are only now beginning to grasp the
depths of human misery unleashed by Trump’s inattention to the coronavirus for those ten long weeks. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">This story starts, as many tales of Republican incompetence
do, with sheer ignorance and lack of curiosity. Ronald Reagan was able to <a href="https://lithub.com/ronald-reagan-presided-over-89343-deaths-to-aids-and-did-nothing/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">ignore</span></a> the AIDS crisis for years because it was “a gay disease” and didn’t
impact anyone close to him until his old Hollywood acquaintance Rock Hudson
begged for—but <a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/nancy-reagan-rejected-rock-hudson-plea-aids-article-1.2101827" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">did not receive</span></a>—his help in 1985. Despite having spent months manipulating
post-9/11 public fear with <a href="https://publicintegrity.org/politics/search-the-935-iraq-war-false-statements/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">an orchestrated campaign of lies</span></a> about fictitious
WMDs, George W. Bush <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/views/2007/06/15/what-every-american-should-know-about-iraq" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">still didn’t understand</span></a> the historical friction between
Sunnis and Shias in Iraq when he invited Iraqi guests of mixed faiths
to a super bowl party two months before the invasion. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">History repeated itself with Donald Trump, like Reagan and
Bush a P.R.-centric empty suit lacking intellectual curiosity, policy chops, or
any interest in the mechanics of governing.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 107%;">It was <a href="https://www.healio.com/infectious-disease/emerging-diseases/news/online/%7B85a3f9c0-ed0a-4be8-9ca2-8854b2be7d13%7D/fauci-no-doubt-trump-will-face-surprise-infectious-disease-outbreak" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">common knowledge</span></a> before Trump took office that an
infectious outbreak of some kind was likely to occur during his presidency; there
were concerns that he <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/12/outbreaks-trump-disease-epidemic-ebola/511127/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">wasn’t up to the task</span></a> because of his lack of knowledge of
the subject and indifference to getting up to speed with this crucial part of
his job. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/02/trump-response-coronavirus/606610/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">According</span></a> to Peter Nicholas of <i>the Atlantic</i>, “When a
senior White House aide would brief President Donald Trump in 2018 about an
Ebola-virus outbreak in central Africa, it was plainly evident that hardships
roiling a far-flung part of the world didn’t command his attention. He was
zoning out. ‘It was like talking to a wall,’ a person familiar with the matter
told me.” (1)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">This indifference manifested with Trump’s first budget to Congress.
Though the administration found money for big increases in the already-<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/27/us/politics/trump-budget-military.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">bloated defense budget</span></a> and passed a $1.5 trillion tax cut <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/12/18/16791174/republican-tax-bill-congress-conference-tax-policy-center" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">overwhelmingly tilted to the 1%</span></a> later that year, Trump’s minions <a href="https://www.apha.org/news-and-media/news-releases/apha-news-releases/2017/trump-budget-cuts" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">cut funding</span></a> (2) for the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the agency tasked with protecting public
health in the face of the opiate epidemic, AIDS, flu, and infectious outbreaks. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 107%;">Within the tax cut bill were <a href="https://www.the-scientist.com/daily-news/cuts-to-prevention-and-public-health-fund-puts-cdc-programs-at-risk-30298" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">steep cuts</span></a> to the Prevention and
Public Health Fund (called “the core of public health programs” by Tom Frieden,
who headed the CDC under <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2017/01/ten-reasons-barack-obama-is-clearly.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Barack Obama</span></a>). (3)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Appointed to head the CDC, in <b>July 2017</b>, was Brenda
Fitzgerald, a right-wing Republican from Georgia who replaced interim director
<a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/anne-schuchat-interim-cdc-director_n_5886a37de4b096b4a2344cd4" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Anne Schuchat</span></a>, a highly-experienced, long-time public health advocate (4). Fitzgerald’s time at the CDC was brief:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>she resigned on January 31, 2018 when it came
out that she had owned stocks in a tobacco company even as she ran an agency
dedicated to anti-smoking campaigns (5). <i>Politico</i> <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/30/cdc-director-tobacco-stocks-after-appointment-316245" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that “one day
after Fitzgerald purchased stock in Japan Tobacco, she toured the CDC's Tobacco
Laboratory, which studies tobacco's toxic effects.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">On <b>February 1, 2018</b>, <i>the Washington Post</i>
<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/02/01/cdc-to-cut-by-80-percent-efforts-to-prevent-global-disease-outbreak/?utm_term=.ff3917c3c439" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that “CDC to cut by 80 percent efforts to prevent global disease
outbreak” (6):<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“<span style="color: #3d85c6;">The </span></span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/02/01/cdc-to-cut-by-80-percent-efforts-to-prevent-global-disease-outbreak/"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">global health section of the CDC</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> was
so drastically cut in 2018 that much of its staff was laid off (7) and the
number of countries it was working in was reduced from 49 to merely 10. (8) Meanwhile, throughout 2018, the U.S. Agency for International Development and
its director, Mark Green, came repeatedly </span><a href="https://www.devex.com/news/white-house-opens-new-front-in-war-on-us-aid-budget-93310?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWXpNeFpEaG1ZbU5rT0dNNCIsInQiOiJka0JEdVNGY1FIM2hhTzZkUVpNNmdSOEdVWEk2RVFyVkltN0JuWUlRdTZpRFhPdFBYS0lGUFZhQ2F1K0FuOWxMOSs4TkRlc1h3QW1xeWt4a3NLMTFQcWhTM20xaXpndGVUNnpCVGRaNjg1ZnVEalpvT0ptcU5cL2lGeEdtTlpYdVMifQ%3D%3D&utm_campaign=newswire&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">under fire</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> from both the </span><a href="https://khn.org/news/religious-conservatives-ties-to-trump-officials-pay-off-in-aids-policies-funding/?utm_campaign=KHN%3A%20First%20Edition&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=65367866&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_1qQIODfqXazw2GSe4Qlnu7d7Jc08ArhvTSjMcfE-EdcLTKmuO-lEFhK6ZZZA-DKjsPSM7SLOz15tkBmI-9Ziu7bkAQpExQVDONqf4rZUMPool0bI&_hsmi=65367866"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">White House</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"> </span>and Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo. (9) And though Congress has so far managed to block Trump
administration plans to cut the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps
by </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/white-house-announces-proposed-revamp-of-federal-government-including-a-consolidation-of-social-safety-net-programs/2018/06/21/64fdb8ca-756a-11e8-9780-b1dd6a09b549_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">40 percent</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="line-height: 107%;"> (10)</span></span><span style="line-height: 107%;">, the disease-fighting cadres have steadily
eroded as retiring officers go unreplaced.” (11)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">On <b>April 10, 2018</b>, Trump hired John Bolton, one of the
architects of George W. Bush’s <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2020/03/bloodbathiniraq.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">invasion of Iraq</span></a>, as his National Security
Adviser. Bolton in turn <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/tom-bossert-trump-s-homeland-security-adviser-resign-n864321" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">fired</span></a> Homeland Security advisor Tom Bossert (12), whom <i>the
Washington Post</i> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/05/10/top-white-house-official-in-charge-of-pandemic-response-exits-abruptly/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> “had called for a comprehensive biodefense
strategy against pandemics and biological attacks.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">On <b>April 27, 2018</b>, at the Malaria Summit in London, Bill
Gates discussed the federal government’s lack of readiness for the
“significant probability of a large and lethal modern-day pandemic occurring in
our lifetimes.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Gates’s message fell on deaf ears inside the Trump
administration. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">In the second week of May, 2018</span></b><span style="line-height: 107%;">, “the
White House </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/05/10/top-white-house-official-in-charge-of-pandemic-response-exits-abruptly/"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">pushed</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> Congress to cut funding for Obama-era
disease security programs, proposing to eliminate $252 million in previously
committed resources for rebuilding health systems in Ebola-ravaged Liberia,
Sierra Leone, and Guinea. (13) Under fire from both sides of the aisle,
President Donald Trump dropped </span><span style="line-height: 107%;">the proposal to eliminate Ebola funds a
month later. But other White House efforts included reducing </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/trump-calls-on-congress-to-pull-back-15-billion-in-spending-including-on-childrens-health-insurance-program/2018/05/07/9427de18-5216-11e8-a551-5b648abe29ef_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">$15 billion</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> in national health spending
(14) and cutting the global disease-fighting operational budgets of the CDC,
NSC, DHS, and HHS. (15) And the government’s </span><a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/05/09/ebola-is-back-and-trump-is-trying-to-kill-funding-for-it/"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">$30 million</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> Complex Crises Fund was
eliminated. (16)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“The White House proposal ‘is threatening to claw back funding
whose precise purpose is to help the United States be able to respond quickly
in the event of a crisis,’ said Carolyn Reynolds, a vice president at PATH, a
global health technology nonprofit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“Collectively, warns Jeremy Konyndyk, who led foreign disaster
assistance at the U.S. Agency for International Development during the Obama
administration, ‘What this all adds up to is a potentially really concerning
rollback of progress on U.S. health security preparedness.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“‘It seems to actively unlearn the lessons we learned through
very hard experience over the last 15 years,’ said Konyndyk….‘These moves make
us materially less safe. It’s inexplicable.’”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="line-height: 107%;">That same week, on <b>May 9, 2018</b>, “Luciana Borio,
director of medical and biodefense preparedness at the [National Security Council], spoke at a
symposium at Emory University to mark the 100th anniversary of the 1918
influenza pandemic. That event killed an estimated 50 million to 100 million
people worldwide.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">‘The threat of pandemic
flu is the number one health security concern,’ she told the audience. ‘<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/05/10/top-white-house-official-in-charge-of-pandemic-response-exits-abruptly/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Are we ready to respond? I fear the answer is no</span></a>.’”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">On <b>May 10, 2018</b>, Trump’s national security adviser John
Bolton “re-organized” the National Security Council (NSC), or more accurately “<a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/31/coronavirus-china-trump-united-states-public-health-emergency-response/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">fired the government’s entire pandemic response chain of command</span></a>, including the White
House management infrastructure” which had been set up by the Obama
administration after the Ebola crisis, by collapsing the NSC’s Office of Global
Security (17). In the wake of Bolton’s action, the top official tasked with
coordinating a response to a pandemic, Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer from the
National Security Council, resigned on <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/05/10/top-white-house-official-in-charge-of-pandemic-response-exits-abruptly/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the same day</span></a> that a new Ebola outbreak
was reported in the Congo. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">The Office of Global Security had been a comprehensive crisis
response team which brought together principals from the National Institutes of
Health, the CDC, the National Security Council, and the Department of Homeland
Security; the Trump administration replaced neither Ziemer nor the command
infrastructure (18). <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">In <b>September of 2019</b>, a "</span><a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Mitigating-the-Impact-of-Pandemic-Influenza-through-Vaccine-Innovation.pdf"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">study by the Council of Economic Advisers</span></a> ordered by the National Security Council <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/2020/04/trump-ignored-white-house-economists-warning-of-devastating-impact-of-pandemic-months-ago-report/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">predicted</span></a> that a pandemic similar to the 1918 Spanish flu or the 2009 swine flu could lead to a half-million deaths and cost the economy as much as $3.8 trillion." </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">That same month, <a href="https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2020-04-02/coronavirus-trump-pandemic-program-viruses-detection" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the Trump administration ended PREDICT</span></a>, a "</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">pandemic early-warning program aimed at training scientists in China and other countries to detect and respond to such a threat." The program "</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">gathered specimens from more than 10,000 bats and 2,000 other mammals in search of dangerous viruses. They detected about 1,200 viruses that could spread from wild animals to humans, signaling pandemic potential. More than 160 of them were novel coronaviruses, much like SARS-CoV-2." (see #133)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">In their fiscal year 2020 budget, the Trump administration proposed a <a href="https://inkstickmedia.com/budget-cuts-have-made-the-us-less-ready-for-coronavirus/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">20% cut</span></a> to the
CDC budget (19). On <b>November 18, 2019</b>, “an independent, bipartisan panel
formed by the Center for Strategic and International Studies </span><a href="https://healthsecurity.csis.org/final-report/?utm_campaign=KFF-2018-Daily-GHP-Report&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=79793549&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8HgwTDqeSUbA_EHRDOE3KL1aGBFeH4zjEJexxgVfmkTZC-B8TqCB1McjhjEOkNhdpC0RVP5Nuu3yr8YInPmfooPQxRjMRUUwP2xuQuwxLHAk_05OA&_hsmi=79793549"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">concluded</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"> </span>that lack of preparedness was so acute
in the Trump administration that the ‘United States must either pay now and
gain protection and security or wait for the next epidemic and pay a much
greater price in human and economic costs.’” (20)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Robert Redfield, the head of CDC, was <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/3/21/21189179/coronavirus-trump-intelligence-reports-warned-pandemic" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">first informed</span></a> of the coronavirus
on <b>January 3, 2020</b>. Intelligence services began putting information about coronavirus in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2020/04/04/coronavirus-government-dysfunction/?arc404=true" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump's Daily Brief</span></a>. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">On <b>January 8</b>, the American public was made aware when
the <i>the Washington Post</i> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/specter-of-possible-new-virus-emerging-from-central-china-raises-alarms-across-asia/2020/01/08/3d33046c-312f-11ea-971b-43bec3ff9860_story.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> an outbreak of an “‘unidentified and
possibly new viral disease in central China’ that was sending alarms across
Asia in advance of the Lunar New Year travel season.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Already, “Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Thailand and the
Philippines were contemplating quarantine zones and scanning travelers from
China for ‘signs of fever or other pneumonia-like symptoms that may indicate a
new disease possibly linked to a wild animal market in Wuhan.’”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">In response, the CDC <a href="https://emergency.cdc.gov/han/han00424.asp" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">issued</span></a> a public health alert. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Rather than address the new potential public health crisis,
Trump tried to score cheap partisan points by <a href="https://www.politifact.com/article/2020/jan/08/fact-checking-donald-trumps-speech-after-iran-miss/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">lying</span></a> about Barack Obama's <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2018-08-13/how-we-got-iran-deal" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Iran peace deal</span></a> at that day’s press conference (21). <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Health and Human Services (HHS)
Secretary Alex Azar wasn't able to get Trump’s ear about the coronavirus until </span><b style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">January 18</b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">, fifteen days after the administration had been notified (22). </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/us-intelligence-reports-from-january-and-february-warned-about-a-likely-pandemic/2020/03/20/299d8cda-6ad5-11ea-b5f1-a5a804158597_story.html" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">According to</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">the Washington Post</i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">, Trump was more concerned about short-term
political pressure than public health:</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“When [Azar] reached Trump by phone, the
president interjected to ask about [a proposed ban on] vaping and when flavored vaping products
would be back on the market.” (23) </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="line-height: 107%;">On <b>January 20</b>, the first coronavirus case in the U.S.
was confirmed by the CDC. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">On <b>January 22</b>, though the U.S. had yet to do
large-scale testing to determine rates of infection, Trump told an
interviewer on CNBC, “We have it totally under control. It's one person coming
in from China, and we have it under control. <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/22/trump-on-coronavirus-from-china-we-have-it-totally-under-control.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">It’s going to be just fine</span></a>.” (24)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">On <b>January 24</b>, one day after China had <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/28/politics/trump-coronavirus-prepared-national-security/index.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">shut down</span></a> Wuhan
and other cities, Trump <a href="https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1220818115354923009?lang=en" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">tweeted</span></a> that “It will all work out well.” (25) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">On <b>January 27</b>, “White House aides huddled with
then-acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney in his office, trying to get senior officials
to pay more attention to the virus, according to people briefed on the meeting.
Joe Grogan, the head of the White House Domestic Policy Council, argued that
<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/us-intelligence-reports-from-january-and-february-warned-about-a-likely-pandemic/2020/03/20/299d8cda-6ad5-11ea-b5f1-a5a804158597_story.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the administration needed to take the virus seriously</span></a> or it could cost the
president his reelection, and that dealing with the virus was likely to
dominate life in the United States for many months.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“Mulvaney then began convening more regular meetings. In early
briefings, however, officials said Trump was dismissive because he did not
believe that the virus had spread widely throughout the United States.” (26)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">On <b>January 28</b>, twenty five days after the administration
had become aware of coronavirus, on the day that China’s president met with the
Director-General of the World Health Organization to map out responses to the
virus, CNN <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/28/politics/trump-coronavirus-prepared-national-security/index.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that “Trump has not…named a single official within
the White House responsible for coordinating the administration's response. (27) That has some wondering whether enough is being done in advance of a potential
crisis, particularly since the role of the National Security Council under
Trump has shifted away from leading a response to a health crisis to merely
coordinating between agencies.” (see #17)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Trump’s indifference was <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/31/coronavirus-china-trump-united-states-public-health-emergency-response/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a direct contrast to Barack Obama</span></a>,
who had “</span><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/01/now-trump-needs-deep-state-fight-coronavirus/605752/"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">anointed</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> a former vice presidential staffer,
Ronald Klain, as a sort of ‘epidemic czar’ inside the White House, clearly
stipulated the roles and budgets of various agencies, and placed incident
commanders in charge in each Ebola-hit country and inside the United States.”</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">On <b>January 29</b>, Peter Navarro, an economic adviser to Donald Trump, sent a memo to the White House warning that <a href="https://www.axios.com/exclusive-navarro-deaths-coronavirus-memos-january-da3f08fb-dce1-4f69-89b5-ea048f8382a9.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">coronavirus could kill up to 543,000 Americans</span></a>. Despite Navarro's memo, and the fact that </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the U.S. had yet to take any significant actions to counteract the coronavirus (28), Trump continued his narrative of false assurances with a tweet that he had “Just received a briefing on the Coronavirus in China from all of our GREAT agencies, who are also working closely with China. We will continue to monitor the ongoing developments. We have the best experts anywhere in the world, and they are on top of it 24/7!” (29) </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">On Thursday, <b>January 30, </b>World Health Organization (WHO) director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus
declared a global health emergency while praising China’s efforts to contain
the virus. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Writing in <i>Foreign Policy, </i>Laurie Garrett posed an important question:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“The
epidemic control efforts unfolding today in China—including placing some 100
million citizens on lockdown, shutting down a national holiday, building
enormous quarantine hospitals in days’ time, and ramping up 24-hour manufacturing
of medical equipment—are indeed gargantuan. It’s impossible to watch them
without wondering, ‘What would we do? <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/31/coronavirus-china-trump-united-states-public-health-emergency-response/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">How would my government respond if this virus spread across my country</span></a>?’”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Her government was asleep at the switch. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Speaking in front of Michigan auto workers the day the WHO
declared a global health emergency, the day the CDC <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020/p0130-coronavirus-spread.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> the first
person-to-person transmission in the U.S., Trump said, “We think we have it
very well under control. We have very little problem in this country at this
moment — five. And those people are all recuperating successfully. But we’re
working very closely with China and other countries, and we think it’s going to
have a very good ending for it. So that I can assure you.” (30)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross doubled down on Trump’s denial,
<a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/wilbur-ross-says-coronavirus-will-help-to-accelerate-the-return-of-jobs-to-north-america-2020-01-30" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">telling</span></a> <i>Fox Business News</i> that the virus “will help to accelerate the
return of jobs to North America." (31)<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Though Ross thought the virus would increase job growth, and
Trump was confident that the U.S. had “very little problem” with the virus, the
Trump Administration delivered one of a string of mixed messages (32) when they
announced the formation of a Coronavirus Task Force on the same day. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">In contrast to the efficient and responsive crisis management model
Obama had set up, where Ron Klain coordinated actions among diverse agencies,
Trump’s commission had confusing lines of authority, where “<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/07/trump-coronavirus-management-style-123465" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">at least three different people</span></a>—[Health and Human Services head Alex] Azar, Vice President
Mike Pence and coronavirus task force coordinator Debbie Birx—can claim
responsibility.” (33) In a crisis where immediate, decisive action was
needed, the administration chose a slow-moving model choked with discussion and
deliberation which focused on closing off borders <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2020/04/04/coronavirus-government-dysfunction/?arc404=true" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">rather than</span></a> test kits or medical supplies (34). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Posting in <i>the Atlantic Monthly</i> that day, Klain offered
a prescient prognosis of what was to come:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“The U.S. government has the tools, talent, and team to help fight the
coronavirus abroad and minimize its impact at home. But the combination of
Trump’s paranoia toward experienced government officials (who lack ‘loyalty’ to
him), inattention to detail, opinionated rejection of science and evidence, and
isolationist instincts may prove toxic when it comes to managing a
global-health security challenge. <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/01/now-trump-needs-deep-state-fight-coronavirus/605752/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">To succeed, Trump will have to trust the kind of government experts he has disdained to date, set aside his own terrible instincts, lead from the White House, and work closely with foreign leaders and global institutions—all things he has failed to do in his first 1,200 days in office</span></a>.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The next day, <b>January 31</b>, Health and Human Services
Secretary Alex Azar declared <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2020/01/31/secretary-azar-declares-public-health-emergency-us-2019-novel-coronavirus.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a public health emergency</span></a> and restricted Americans who had been in China over the past two weeks from re-entering the country. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Speaking to Fox’s Sean Hannity on <b>February 2</b>, two days
after the declaration of a public health emergency, Trump said, “We pretty much
shut it down coming from China.”(35) In fact, as Ron Klain would mention to
Congress a few days later, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/14/tracking-trumps-false-or-misleading-coronavirus-claims/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">over 100,000 people</span><span style="color: black;">*</span></a> had come to the States from
China in the month before the ban, so “the horse is already out of the barn.” (*<i>the Washington Post</i> put this number even higher, at <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2020/04/04/coronavirus-government-dysfunction/?arc404=true" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">300,000</span></a>)<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Trump would go on to brag about the China ban as an example of a gutsy leadership move repeatedly, but he wouldn't restrict travel from Europe, which would provide <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/science/new-york-coronavirus-cases-europe-genomes.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the bulk of New York's cases</span></a>, for six more weeks. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">In a <b>February 3</b> interview with Amy Goodman on <i>Democracy
Now</i> (see #27), Laurie Garrett explained that John Bolton’s dissolution of
the pandemic response office (see #17) was done out of spite:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“it was a big mistake by the Trump
administration to obliterate the entire infrastructure of pandemic response
that the Obama administration had created. Why did he do it? Well, it certainly
wasn’t about the money, because it wasn’t a heavily-funded program. It was
certainly because it was Obama’s program.” (36)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Pressed by Goodman to provide more detail about the Global Security Office, Garrett
continued:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="line-height: 107%;">“It was a special division
inside the National Security Council, a special division inside of the
Department of Homeland Security…and collaborating centers in HHS,
headquarters in Washington, the Office of Global Health Affairs, and the
Commerce Department, Treasury Department. But what Obama understood, dealing
with Ebola in 2014, is that any American response had to be an
all-of-government response, that there were so many agencies overlapping, and
they all had a little piece of the puzzle in the case of a pandemic….</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">"...What the
Obama administration realized was that you can’t corral multiple agencies and
things from private sector as well as public sector to come to the aid of
America, unless you have some one person in charge who’s really the manager of
it all. And in his case, it was Ron Klain, who had worked under Vice President
Biden. And he was designated, with an office inside the White House, to give
orders and coordinate all these various things….Well, that was all eliminated.
It’s gone. And now they’re hastily trying to recreate something.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Garrett touched on the confusing lines of authority on Trump’s
task force (see #33):<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“…there were many names tossed around about
who he was going to appoint as head of the response. He had previously gone on
the record, President Trump, saying, ‘I have great faith in Secretary Azar, and
my HHS secretary will be in charge.’ And we’re told, from multiple
sources, that right up until they got on stage for that press briefing, Azar
thought he was in charge. And then the president says, ‘And here’s my good
friend Mike Pence, and he’s taking charge.’” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">On <b>February 4</b>, <i>the Wall Street Journal</i> posted an
<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/stop-a-u-s-coronavirus-outbreak-before-it-starts-11580859525" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">op-ed</span></a> by Trump’s former FDA commissioner, Scott Gottlieb, titled “Stop a U.S.
Coronavirus Outbreak Before It Starts,” in which he stressed the importance of
ramping up testing for the virus so that public health officials would know
where to focus their efforts. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">That same day, the administration rolled out new regulatory guidelines.
Any lab that wanted to test needed to meet strict criteria to get an Emergency
Use Authorization (EUA). Though Trump had <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/climate/trump-environment-rollbacks.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">gutted every environmental regulation</span></a>
in sight, and <a href="https://prospect.org/economy/trump-s-assault-financial-reform/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">scaled back</span></a> oversight of Wall Street, his FDA over-regulated
this crucial public health function (37), <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2020/03/the-fda-is-forcing-the-cdc-to-waste-time-double-testing-some-coronavirus-cases/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">forcing public health labs to re-run their tests</span></a>, which would delay reporting of the number of confirmed cases (38),
robbing public health officials of vital information about the spread of
infection in their areas. The EUA also slowed down private labs by demanding
that they get CDC approval before using their tests (39). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">On <b>February 5</b>, <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/senator-says-white-house-turned-down-emergency-coronavirus-funding-in-early-february/ar-BB11OvE1" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Democratic senators met with administration officials and proposed emergency funding</span></a> “for essential
preventative measures, including hiring local screening and testing staff,
researching a vaccine and treatments and the stockpiling of needed medical
supplies.” </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">HHS secretary Azar declined the funding, claiming it wasn’t
needed (40). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">After the meeting, Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut <a href="https://twitter.com/chrismurphyct/status/1244640034386579457" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">tweeted</span></a>
“Just left the Administration briefing on Coronavirus. Bottom line:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>they aren’t taking this seriously enough.
Notably no request for ANY emergency funding, which is a big mistake. Local
health systems need supplies, training, screening staff etc. And they need it
now.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">On <b>February 6</b>, the CDC shipped out <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2020/04/04/coronavirus-government-dysfunction/?arc404=true" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">90 test kits</span></a>. The World Health Organization shipped out 250,000.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">On <b>February 7</b></span><span style="line-height: 107%;">, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted about </span></span><span style="background-color: white;">“the transportation of nearly 17.8 tons of donated medical supplies...including masks, gowns, gauze, respirators, and other vital materials"</span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">—</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.ourquadcities.com/news/local-news/u-s-sent-17-8-tons-of-masks-respirators-other-ppe-to-china-in-february/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">to China</span></a>. (These shipments represented just a fraction of the vital medical supplies, now desperately needed inside our borders, which were exported from the U.S. in January-March due to the Trump administration's <a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/04/01/coronavirus-medical-supplies-export/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">failure to plan ahead</span></a> and ban exports, as Germany, South Korea, and twenty-two others countries did, 41). </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">On <b>February 9</b>, "</span>a group of governors in town for a black-tie gala at the White House secured a private meeting with </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">[</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14.124px;">Dr. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Anthony] </span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Fauci and [CDC head Robert] Redfield. The briefing rattled many of the governors, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2020/04/04/coronavirus-government-dysfunction/?arc404=true" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">bearing little resemblance</span></a> to the words of the president.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">On <b>February 10</b>, Trump repeated a false
talking point multiple times. “Trump </span><a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-interview-trish-regan-fox-business-february-10-2020" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">said</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"> on Fox Business: ‘You know
in April, supposedly, it dies with the hotter weather.’” (42) He </span><a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-remarks-business-meeting-governors-february-10-2020" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">told state governors</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">: </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">‘</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">You
know, a lot of people think that goes away in April with the heat — as the heat
comes in. Typically, that will go away in April.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"> (43) And he </span><a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-speech-kag-rally-manchester-new-hampshire-february-10-2020" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">told supporters</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"> at
a campaign rally: </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">‘</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a
little warmer, it miraculously goes away. I hope that’s true.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">” (44)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">On <b>February 11</b>, Federal Reserve chairman Jay Powell
contradicted Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross (see #31) when he said that the
coronavirus would “very likely” impact America’s economy. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">On <b>February 12,</b> <i>the New York Times</i> reported that
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/12/health/coronavirus-test-kits-cdc.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump’s CDC had sent state labs flawed test kits</span></a>, further slowing down the
testing process (45).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">HHS secretary Alex Azar appeared before a Senate committee on <b>February
13</b> and said, “As of today, I can announce that the CDC has begun working
with health departments in five cities to use its flu surveillance network to
begin testing individuals with flu-like symptoms for the Chinese
coronavirus….This effort will help see whether there is broader spread than we
have been able to detect so far.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">The statement gave the impression that the Trump
administration was making progress in combating the virus, which was false, as the cities still lacked functional tests and the surveillance systems
weren’t in place. Azar knew this, but was desperate to create positive spin for
the administration (46).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">On <b>Valentine’s Day</b>, as deaths from the virus were at
1,000 and climbing, Trump spoke before the National Border Control Council. He
again wheeled out the false assertion that warm weather would douse the virus (47)
and said, “We have a very small number of people in the country, right now,
with it. It’s like around 12. Many of them are getting better. Some are fully
recovered already. So we’re in very good shape.” (48) Even as his
administration was clearly fumbling the response (see #1-#46), he said, “And 61
percent of the voters approve of Trump’s handling of the coronavirus. And, you
know, we did a very early move on that. We did a — I was criticized by a lot of
people at the beginning because we were the first. We’d never done it before.”
(49)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">On <b>February 18</b>, <i>Atlantic </i>contributor Peter
Nicholas <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/02/trump-response-coronavirus/606610/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">offered</span></a> perceptive summations of the Trump Administration’s failures
of governance so far and the challenges ahead:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“He has hollowed out federal agencies (see #7 and #10) and belittled
expertise (50), prioritizing instead his own intuition and the demands of his
political base. But he’ll need to rely on a bureaucracy he’s maligned to stop
the virus’s spread.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">The article cited the ramifications of Trump’s allergy to bad
news:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“‘We have a president who doesn’t
particularly care about competent administration, and who created a culture in
which bad news is shut down,’ (51) says Democratic Senator Brian Schatz of
Hawaii, whose state is home to one of multiple airports screening passengers
for the coronavirus. ‘And when you’re dealing with a potential pandemic, you
need to know all the bad news. If this disease ends up not overwhelming us,
that would be a blessing. But it would not be because the Trump administration
was ready. They were not.’”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Nicholas also addressed Trump’s continual lies and distortions
about the scope of the virus:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Since
Trump’s first upbeat assessment, the number of people sickened by the virus has
spiraled. At the time of the CNBC interview (see #24), 17 people in China had
died from the virus and about 540 were infected. Today, the death toll is about
1,900 and the number of infections tops 73,000. At least 15 cases have been
reported in the U.S., and </span><a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/fourteen-americans-headed-home-from-coronavirus-cruise-ship-test-positive-11581931972"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">an additional 14 Americans</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> infected with the
virus arrived yesterday following their evacuation from a cruise ship in
Japan.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Undeterred by scientific facts, Trump pushed the warm weather myth
again on <b>February 19</b>:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I think
it’s going to work out fine. I think when we get into April, in the warmer
weather, that has a very negative effect on that and that type of a virus. So
let’s see what happens, but I think it’s going to work out fine.” (52)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">On <b>February 20</b>, <i>Politico</i> <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/20/cdc-coronavirus-116529" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> on the flawed
test kits the CDC had sent out (see #45) and mentioned that the cost of the
kits was so high ($250/each) that Trump’s Health and Human Services department was
starting to run out of money (53)—which could have been avoided if Azar had
accepted additional congressional funding proposed on February 5 (see #40).<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Early on the morning of <b>February 23</b>, Michael Mina, an
epidemiologist and professor at Harvard, <a href="https://twitter.com/michaelmina_lab/status/1231503805159813121?lang=en" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">tweeted</span></a> that “the US remains extremely
limited in </span><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/COVID19?src=hash" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">#COVID19</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"> testing. Only 3 of 100 public health labs
have </span><a href="https://twitter.com/cdc" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">@CDC</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"> test
kits working (54) and CDC is not sharing what went wrong with the kits. (55) How to know if COVID19 is spreading here if we are not looking for it.” (56)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">On Monday, </span><b style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">February 24</b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">, trying to make up for previous
short-sighted budget cuts (57), the administration “<a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/02/what-we-know-about-the-trump-admins-response-to-coronavirus.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">asked Congress for $2.5 billion in emergency funds</span></a> to handle coronavirus in the United States. (To
compare to a recent health crisis, the Obama administration requested $6
billion in emergency funding for the 2014 Ebola outbreak and eventually
received $5.4 billion.) Though Democrats in Congress have pushed the
administration to call for emergency coronavirus funding since early
February, </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Politico</i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> states that ‘White House officials have
been hesitant to press Congress for additional funding, with some hoping that
the virus would burn itself out by the summer.’” (58) </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The $2.5 billion request
was a pittance, approximately 1/600th the
size of Trump’s tax cut (59), <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/12/18/16791174/republican-tax-bill-congress-conference-tax-policy-center" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">most of which went</span></a> to the wealthiest 1% of Americans. Azar knew the funding was inadequate, but was hamstrung by administration officials who <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2020/04/04/coronavirus-government-dysfunction/?arc404=true" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">didn't grasp</span></a> the seriousness of the virus and lacked pull with Trump to override them in favor of the public interest. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Even as the news grew worse, Trump continued to give false
assurances, tweeting “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA….Stock
Market starting to look very good to me!” (60). In fact, Trump had no idea if
things were “under control” because his administration had failed to get functional
test kits out. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">That same day, the stock market had its <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/trump-stock-market-starting-look-very-good-plunging-1000-points-2020-2-1028933348" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">second biggest drop</span></a> in
its history. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">The following day, <b>February 25</b>, the stock market cratered
for the fourth consecutive day, losing 879 points to end at 27,081. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">While the Dow Jones tanked, Nancy Messonier, the director for
the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, <a href="https://www.aappublications.org/news/2020/02/25/preparedness022520" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">made the case for community mitigation</span></a> and told reporters that the virus would cause “severe”
disruptions in American’s lives. Trump <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/us-intelligence-reports-from-january-and-february-warned-about-a-likely-pandemic/2020/03/20/299d8cda-6ad5-11ea-b5f1-a5a804158597_story.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">complained</span></a> to Alex Azar that Messonier
was hurting the stock market (61) and ignored Messonier’s recommendations about
the need for social distancing for three more weeks (62). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">At a time when bipartisan harmony was more important than
ever, Trump trolled Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer on Twitter for
pointing out that $2.5 billion wasn’t remotely adequate to the task:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Cryin’ Chuck Schumer is complaining, for
publicity purposes only, that I should be asking for more money than $2.5
Billion to prepare for Coronavirus. If I asked for more he would say it is too
much. He didn’t like my early travel closings. I was right. He is incompetent!”
(63) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">And even as it was <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-cuts-programs-responsible-for-fighting-coronavirus-2020-2" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that “Trump spent the past 2 years
slashing the government agencies responsible for handling the coronavirus
outbreak,” Trump </span><span style="line-height: 107%;">tweeted
that “CDC and my Administration are doing a GREAT job of handling Coronavirus.”</span>
<span style="line-height: 107%;">(64)</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">While in India that day, Trump told reporters, “You may ask
about the coronavirus, which is very well under control in our country. We have
very few people with it, and the people that have it are…getting better.
They’re all getting better….As far as what we’re doing with the new virus, I
think that we’re doing a great job.” (65)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Trump’s economic adviser Larry Kudlow <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/larry-kudlow-claims-america-has-contained-coronavirus-says-its-pretty-close-to-airtight" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">echoed Trump’s lies</span></a> and
contradicted CDC officials when he told CNBC, “We have contained this, I won’t
say airtight but pretty close to airtight.” (66)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Meanwhile, <i>the Washington Post</i> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/shortages-confusion-and-poor-communication-complicate-coronavirus-preparations/2020/02/25/d9e56396-575d-11ea-9b35-def5a027d470_story.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> on the severe
shortage of N95 masks American hospitals were facing due to onerous federal
regulations (67) and a lack of support from the Trump administration (68), and
the administration’s lack of a plan going forward, which was causing confusion
and panic among state and local officials (69). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">The next day, <b>February 26</b>, <i>Politico</i> <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/26/coronavirus-cdc-117779" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a>
that the “U.S. isn’t ready to detect stealth coronavirus spread” due to poor
coordination among crisis management staff, the administration’s failure to get
functional test kits out in a timely fashion, and needlessly strict test
criteria (see #37):<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Just 12 of more
than 100 public health labs in the U.S. are currently able to diagnose the
coronavirus because of problems with a test developed by the CDC, potentially
slowing the response if the virus starts taking hold here. The faulty test has also
delayed a plan to widely screen people with symptoms of respiratory illness who
have tested negative for influenza to detect whether the coronavirus may be
stealthily spreading.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Only six states were testing for the virus and the testing was
limited to people who had been to China or were experiencing symptoms, which
was allowing the virus to spread undetected. Harvard epidemiology professor
Mark Lipsitch told <i>Politico</i>, “China tested 320,000 people in Guangdong
over a three-week period. This is the scale we need to be thinking on.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Meanwhile, Trump continued to compare coronavirus to the flu,
though the virus has approximately <a href="https://www.sciencealert.com/the-new-coronavirus-isn-t-like-the-flu-but-they-have-one-big-thing-in-common" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">20 times</span></a> the mortality rate (70), and told
White House reporters, “Because of all we’ve done, the risk to the American people
remains very low….<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-vice-president-pence-members-coronavirus-task-force-press-conference/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">When you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero</span></a>. That’s a pretty good job we’ve
done." (71) In reality, the States had 60 cases at the time, the number
was increasing, and the real number was far greater but undetected due to the
administration’s failure to get functional test kits out. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The poor communication among officials overseeing the coronavirus
response continued, as “[Health and Human Services Secretary Alex] Azar didn’t know
until late in the afternoon that Vice President Mike Pence would be </span><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-says-coronavirus-risk-americans-very-low-administration-effectively-handling-n1143756" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">in control</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> of the process. The
HHS secretary was reportedly ‘</span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-downplays-risk-places-pence-in-charge-of-coronavirus-outbreak-response/2020/02/26/ab246e94-58b1-11ea-9000-f3cffee23036_story.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">blindsided</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">’ by the news.” (72)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">In picking Pence to lead the administration's response to coronavirus, Trump referred to his
vice president as an “expert” and someone with “a certain talent for this,” though Pence’s reluctance to support needle exchange and steep cuts to Planned
Parenthood (which provides HIV testing in addition to birth control) as
governor of Indiana <a href="https://www.factcheck.org/2020/02/pence-moved-slowly-in-combating-hiv-outbreak/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">had contributed to an HIV outbreak</span></a> there (73).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">With Pence’s ascension, FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn was
finally brought into the coronavirus committee. For weeks the FDA’s powers to
work with private companies to increase production of test kits, PPE, and other
necessities <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-coronavirus-response-squandered-time/2020/03/07/5c47d3d0-5fcb-11ea-9055-5fa12981bbbf_story.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">had been ignored</span></a> (74). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">As of <b>February 27</b>, 2,800 people had died from the
virus, while 82,000 cases had been reported worldwide. <i>Business Insider</i>
had <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/trump-defends-cuts-cdc-budget-federal-government-hire-doctors-coronavirus-2020-2-1028946602" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the following headline</span></a>:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Trump
defends huge [19%] cuts to the CDC's budget (75) by saying the government can
hire more doctors 'when we need them' during crises.” (76) Trump responded to
criticisms of the budget cuts by saying, "I'm a businessperson. I don't
like having thousands of people around when you don't need them….When we need
them, we can get them back very quickly." (77)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Despite the increasing gloom, Trump continued to play pretend.
He told an audience attending an African American History Month event at the
White House, “It's going to disappear. One day it's <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/28/trump-coronavirus-misleading-claims" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">like a miracle, it will disappear</span></a>.” (78) He tweeted “Only a very small number in U.S., & China
numbers look to be going down. All countries working well together!” (79)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">On Friday, <b>February 28</b>, nearly two months after the
administration had first been informed of the coronavirus, NBC <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/after-missteps-cdc-says-its-coronavirus-test-kit-ready-primetime-n1145206" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that
the U.S. had done fewer than 500 tests, even as China had done over 300,000 and
South Korea was doing 10,000 or more/day (80).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></i>
<i><span style="line-height: 107%;">ProPublica</span></i><span style="line-height: 107%;"> offered one of many post-mortems
to come, highlighting<a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/cdc-coronavirus-covid-19-test" target="_blank"> <span style="color: #3d85c6;">the grave error the administration had made in bypassing World Health Organization test kits</span></a> which were ready to go (81) in favor of CDC
test kits, which weren’t:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">“The CDC announced on Feb. 14</span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> that surveillance testing
would begin in five key cities, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco
and Seattle. That effort has not yet begun. (see #46)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“Until the middle of this week, only the CDC and the six state
labs — in Illinois, Idaho, Tennessee, California, Nevada and Nebraska — were
testing patients for the virus, according to Peter Kyriacopoulos, APHL’s senior
director of public policy. Now, as many more state and local labs are in the
process of setting up the testing kits, this capacity is expected to increase
rapidly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“There are other ways to expand the country’s testing
capacity. Beyond the CDC and state labs, hospitals are also able to develop
their own tests for diseases like COVID-19 and internally validate their
effectiveness, with some oversight from the federal Centers for Medicare and
Medicaid Services. But because the CDC declared the virus a public health
emergency, it triggered a set of federal rules that raises the bar for all
tests, including those devised by local hospitals.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“So now, hospitals must validate their tests with the FDA —
even if they copied the CDC protocol exactly. Hospital lab directors say the
FDA validation process is onerous and is wasting precious time when they could
be testing in their local communities.” (82)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">As Margaret Hamburg (Obama’s FDA commissioner from 2009-2015)
would later tell Olga Khazan of <i>the Atlantic</i>, “<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/03/why-coronavirus-testing-us-so-delayed/607954/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the [FDA] could have proactively reached out to different national and international labs to see whether their tests could be approved for use in the U.S.,” but there’s no evidence that they did</span></a> (83), and in fact the FDA “told one Seattle infectious-disease
expert, Helen Chu, </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/10/us/coronavirus-testing-delays.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">to stop testing</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> for the coronavirus
entirely….Chu was not alone. Dozens of labs in the U.S. were eager to make
tests and willing to test patients, but they were hamstrung by regulations for
most of February, even as the virus crept silently across the nation.” </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Uncertainty over the virus contributed to the markets having
</span><a href="https://www.nbcboston.com/news/business/stocks-tumble-on-virus-fears-wall-street-plunge/2083133/" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">their worst week</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> since the crash of 2008.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Later that night, even as other countries had started social
distancing in response to the virus, Trump put thousands of his supporters at
risk of exposure with a political rally in North Charleston, South Carolina. It was one of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2020/04/04/coronavirus-government-dysfunction/?arc404=true" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">eight campaign events</span></a> Trump would have after being notified of coronavirus. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Asked
about administration efforts to combat coronavirus before the rally, Trump told
Sinclair Broadcasting, “<a href="https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-interview-sinclair-media-group-eric-bolling-february-28-2020" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">I think it’s really going well</span></a>. We did something very
fortunate: we closed up to certain areas of the world very, very early — far
earlier than we were supposed to. I took a lot of heat for doing it. It turned
out to be the right move, and we only have 15 people and they are getting
better, and hopefully they’re all better. There’s one who is quite sick, but
maybe he’s gonna be fine….We’re prepared for the worst, but we think we’re
going to be very fortunate." (84) During the rally, Trump accused
Democrats of politicizing the coronavirus and said <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/02/29/at_sc_rally_trump_blames_dems_for_stoking_virus_fears_142533.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">concern over the issue was a “hoax</span></a>.” (85)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Trump’s chief of staff Nick Mulvaney used the same talking
point that night, telling reporters at the Conservative Political Action
conference, "The reason you're seeing so much attention to it [the
coronavirus] today is [Democrats] think this is going to be what brings down
the president….That's what this is all about….I got a note today from a
reporter saying, 'What are you going to do today to calm the markets?' I'm
like, really, what I might do to calm the markets is tell people to turn their
televisions off for 24 hours." (86)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">The next day, <b>Saturday February 29</b>, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/29/health/us-coronavirus-saturday/index.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the first American death at the hand of the coronavirus “hoax” was reported</span></a>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Appearing on CBS’s “Face the Nation” the next day, <b>March 1</b>,
Alex Azar <a href="https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/03/11/fact-check-a-list-of-28-ways-trump-and-his-team-have-been-dishonest-about-the-coronavirus/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">claimed</span></a> that, “‘In terms of testing kits, we've already tested over
3,600 people for the virus. We now have the capability in the field to test
75,000 people, and within the next week or two we'll have a radical expansion
even beyond that." Like most of the Trump administration’s public
messaging, this was false (87). At the time, less than 1,000 tests had been completed.
By comparison, South Korea, a country 1/6th the size of the U.S., which had
discovered the virus within its borders on the same day—January 20—<a href="https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/mar/25/donald-trump/trumps-boast-about-us-south-korea-coronavirus-test/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">had done over 80,000 tests</span></a>.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">As of <b>Monday March 2</b>, U.S. coronavirus deaths were up
to six; globally over 90,000 cases had been reported. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Dr. Matt McCarthy, a physician at New York-Presbyterian, told
CNBC that he still didn’t have any test kits (88):<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“‘This is not good. We know that there are 88
cases in the United States. There are going to be hundreds by the middle of the
week. There’s going to be thousands by next week. And this is a testing issue.’
McCarthy added, ‘<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/02/coronavirus-new-york-city-doctor-has-to-plead-to-test-people.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">They’re testing 10,000 a day in some countries, and we can’t get this off the ground</span></a>….I’m a practitioner on the firing line, and I don’t have
the tools to properly care for patients today.’”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">At a campaign rally the same day in Charleston, North
Carolina, Trump said, “We had a great meeting today with a lot of the great
companies and they’re going to have vaccines, I think relatively soon. And
they’re going to have something that makes you better and that’s going to
actually take place, we think, even sooner.” <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/public-global-health/484702-health-official-says-coronavirus-vaccine-will-take-at" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">This was patently false</span></a> (89), as Dr. Anthony
Fauci, </span><span style="line-height: 107%;">the chief medical expert on the coronavirus task force, had told Trump earlier that day.
Fauci estimated that it would take a year-and-a-half for a vaccine to emerge. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">A</span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">fter solid gains on Monday, the Dow lost 800 points on </span><b style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Tuesday,
March 3</b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">, bringing it down to 25,917 at day’s close. Speaking to reporters,
Trump continued to minimize the virus, claiming, “There’s only one hot spot,
and that’s also pretty much in a very — in a home, as you know, in a nursing
home.” In fact, the nursing home in Washington state wasn’t the only cluster of
known coronavirus activity, as California and Oregon had both reported areas of
community contagion (90).</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">On <b>Wednesday, March 4</b>, the death toll in the U.S.
reached ten and New York reported an infected community. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Speaking to airline executives at the White House, Trump
<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-vice-president-pence-coronavirus-briefing-airline-ceos/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">continued to downplay the extent of the crisis</span></a>, saying, “Some people will have
this at a very light level and won’t even go to a doctor or hospital, and
they’ll get better. There are many people like that.” (91) He also blamed the
Obama administration for the lag in testing, claiming an Obama regulation had
slowed the administration down, which was false (92).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Trump’s lies and blame shifting continued in an interview with
Sean Hannity which appeared later that day. Trump <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/04/politics/donald-trump-obama-testing-lamar-alexander/index.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">falsely claimed</span></a> that the
Obama administration “didn’t do anything about” swine flu and that based purely
on his intuition, science-based coronavirus fatality rates were flawed—"I
think the 3.4 percent is really a false number — and this is just my hunch —
but based on a lot of conversations with a lot of people that do this, because
a lot of people will have this and it's very mild, they'll get better very
rapidly. They don't even see a doctor. They don't even call a doctor. You never
hear about those people." (93)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">On <b>Friday, March 6</b>, reported cases in the U.S. passed
300 and deaths were up to 17, including the first on the East Coast. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><i>The Atlantic </i>ran </span><span style="line-height: 107%;">a post-mortem about <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/03/how-many-americans-have-been-tested-coronavirus/607597/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the administration’s failure to get functional test kits out</span></a> called “The
Strongest Evidence Yet That America Is Botching Coronavirus Testing.” </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Two
months after the Trump administration had first been notified of the
coronavirus and one month after a task force had been formed (see #34), only
1,895 tests could be verified, a fraction of the 10,000-20,000 tests South
Korea was performing daily. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">According to the authors, "The figures we gathered
suggest that the American response to the coronavirus and the disease it
causes, COVID-19, has been shockingly sluggish, especially compared with that
of other developed countries….The net effect of these choices is that the
country’s true capacity for testing has not been made clear to its residents. (94) This level of obfuscation is unexpected in the United States, which has long
been </span><a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Global_Health_and_the_Future_Role_of_the/aaA4DwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=united+states+leader+public+health+disease+surveillance&printsec=frontcover" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">a global leader in public-health transparency</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">." <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Earlier in the day, Trump had appeared at a signing ceremony
for the Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act, which would
dedicate $8.3 billion to fighting the coronavirus. The funding was more than three times what the administration had requested (see #57) and yet still a pittance relative to the
scope of the virus, roughly <span style="color: #3d85c6;"><a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/12/18/16791174/republican-tax-bill-congress-conference-tax-policy-center" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">1/180th of the amount Trump spent on his tax cut, the bulk of which went to the upper 1%</span></a> </span>(95).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Many public health officials felt the appropriations came a
month too late (96), shortchanging localities of crucial resources for testing
and personal protective equipment. (see #40)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">At the signing, Trump offered false assurances and minimized
the scope of the public health disaster that he was spending $8.3 billion on,
saying, “And in terms of deaths, I don’t know what the count is today. Is it eleven? Eleven people? And in terms of cases, it’s very, very few.” (97) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">After the signing, Trump visited CDC headquarters in Atlanta,
where <a href="https://www.inquirer.com/health/coronavirus/trump-coronavirus-test-fact-check-20200312.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">he continued to lie about test kits</span></a>:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Anybody that needs a test can have a test. They are all set. They have
them out there. In addition to that they are making millions more as we speak
but as of right now and yesterday anybody that needs a test that is the
important thing and the test are all perfect like the letter was perfect.” (98)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Asked about the passengers on the Grand Princess cruise ship
docked in San Francisco who were forced to stay on the ship for the time being,
Trump expressed concern that allowing them onshore, where they would be added
to the number of confirmed cases, would make him look bad:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I would rather — because I like the numbers
being where they are. I don’t need to have the numbers double because of one
ship. That wasn’t our fault, and it wasn’t the fault of the people on the ship,
either. OK? It wasn’t their fault either. And they’re mostly Americans, so I
can live either way with it. I’d rather have them stay on, personally.” (99)<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Trump also said “I hear the numbers are getting much better in
Italy,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/09/world/coronavirus-news.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">though the country was entering a lockdown</span></a> and would experience two
hundred more deaths over the weekend to come. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">On <b>Saturday, March 7</b>, <i>Politico</i> led with “<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/07/trump-coronavirus-management-style-123465" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump's mismanagement helped fuel coronavirus crisis</span></a>,” an in-depth feature by Dan
Diamond exploring the impact of the Trump administration’s internal dysfunctions
on their crisis management response. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Diamond’s </span><span style="background: white; color: black; line-height: 107%;">exposé </span><span style="line-height: 107%;">revealed
that Mike Pence and other administration officials had wanted to evacuate the
Grand Princess cruise ship (see #99) in order to keep the passengers who didn’t
have coronavirus from getting it from those who did, but that Trump had
overruled his advisors because he didn’t want the number of reported cases to
increase. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The article stated that “As the outbreak has grown, Trump has
become attached to the daily count of coronavirus cases and how the United
States compares to other nations, reiterating that he wants the U.S. numbers
kept as low as possible. Health officials have found explicit ways to oblige
him by highlighting the most optimistic outcomes in briefings (100), and their
agencies have tamped down on promised transparency. The CDC has stopped detailing
how many people in the country have been tested for the virus (101), and
its </span><a href="http://cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-in-us.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">online dashboard</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> is
running well behind the number of U.S. cases </span><a href="https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">tracked</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> by Johns Hopkins and
even lags the European Union’s </span><a href="https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/geographical-distribution-2019-ncov-cases" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">own estimate</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> of
U.S. cases.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">The article confirmed that onerous regulations (see #37) and
Trump’s lack of policy engagement (see #1) were key elements in the test delays
and that “Trump’s aides discouraged [HHS Secretary Alex] Azar from briefing the
president about the coronavirus threat back in January” (see #22) because Trump
“rewards those underlings who tell him what he wants to hear while shunning
those who deliver bad news.” (see #51)<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“…The pressure to earn Trump’s approval can be a distraction
at best and an obsession at worst: Azar, having just survived a bruising clash
with a deputy [Seema Verma, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
Services] and sensing that his job was on the line [see #59], spent part of January
making appearances on conservative TV outlets and taking other steps to shore
up his anti-abortion bona fides and win approval from the president, even as
the global coronavirus outbreak grew stronger.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“Around the same time, Azar had concluded that the new
coronavirus posed a public health risk and tried to share an urgent message
with the president: The potential outbreak could leave tens of thousands of
Americans sickened and many dead.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“The jockeying for Trump’s favor was part of the cause of
Azar’s destructive feud with Verma, as the two tried to box each other out of
events touting Trump initiatives. Now, officials including Azar, Verma and
other senior leaders are forced to spend time shoring up their positions with
the president and his deputies at a moment when they should be focused on a
shared goal: stopping a potential pandemic. (102)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">"'The boss has made it clear, he likes to see his people fight,
and he wants the news to be good,' said one adviser to a senior health official
involved in the coronavirus response. 'This is the world he’s made.'” (103)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">The closing paragraph read “‘If this sort of dysfunction
exists as part of the everyday operations—then, yes, during a true crisis the
problems are magnified and exacerbated,’ said a former Trump HHS official. ‘And
with extremely detrimental consequences.’”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">The following day, <b>March 8, </b>as international cases had
passed 100,000 and the importance of social distancing was becoming increasingly obvious, HUD secretary Ben Carson was asked by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos
about the advisability of Trump holding rallies where thousands of people were
crammed together. Carson, a neurosurgeon who knew better, <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/week-transcript-20-sen-bernie-sanders-dr-ben/story?id=69465733" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">chose Trump’s favored talking point over public safety</span></a>:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“…going to a rally, if you’re a healthy individual and you’re taking the
precautions that have been placed out there, there's no reason that you
shouldn't go. However, if you belong to one of those categories of high risk,
obviously, you need to think twice about that.” (104)<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As of </span><b style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Monday, March 9</b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">, the tally in the U.S. was over 700 cases reported and 26 deaths. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 17.12px;">The Dow lost 2,000 points that day, <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/us-markets-march-9-2020" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the biggest one-day loss in history</span></a>. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Former Republican senator and governor <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/486533-judd-gregg-trump-sails-into-the-perfect-political-storm" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Judd Gregg offered a sober appraisal</span></a> of Trump’s handling of the coronavirus:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“The budget he recently submitted to Congress savaged the
BioShield account (105). This is the program that was set up after the SARS
epidemic and anthrax events well over a decade ago to allow the federal
government to fund research on pharmaceutical responses to biological attacks
or a pandemic outbreak.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“The program was needed because this type of research is
extremely expensive and has little commercial upside. The drugs developed are
unique and narrowly targeted.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“Thus, in order to get this research up and running, Congress
and the prior administrations created the program. In this instance, Congress
actually anticipated a serious issue and began addressing it effectively.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“But the president and his people got it wrong. In their usual
naive and uninformed style, they have tried to eviscerate the program.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“This action came in the face of significant warnings from the
intelligence community that a biological attack is one of the primary threats
we face from terrorists. And now we know a pandemic is also a primary threat.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Gregg’s key takeaway:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“The president and his people also have an abysmal track record when it
comes to preparing for pandemics.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">While the virus spread undetected, testing continued to move
at a glacial pace, and the Dow was in freefall, Trump kept busy attacking imagined
foes on Twitter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">One tweet read “This is your daily reminder that it took
Barack Obama until October of 2009 to declare Swine Flu a National Health
Emergency. It began in April of ’09 but Obama waited until 20,000 people in the
US had been hospitalized & 1,000+ had died. Where was the media hysteria
then?” In actuality, Obama had declared a public health emergency <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/news/2009/04/26/press-briefing-swine-influenza" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">two days</span></a>
after the first swine flu death (106).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">A second tweet read “The Fake News Media and their partner, the
Democrat Party, is doing everything within its semi-considerable power (it used
to be greater!) to inflame the CoronaVirus situation, far beyond what the facts
would warrant. Surgeon General, ‘The risk is low to the average American.’”
(107)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Trump also tweeted his mistaken talking point about
coronavirus being akin to the flu, not for the first time:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“So last year 37,000 Americans died from the
common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut
down, life & the economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed
cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!” (108)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">By <b>Tuesday, March 10</b>, over 113,000 coronavirus cases
had been reported globally and more than 4,000 people had died. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">At a hearing about Trump’s 2021 budget proposal, Russ Vought,
the administration’s director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB),
<a href="https://thehill.com/policy/finance/486817-trump-budget-chief-holds-firm-on-cdc-cuts-amid-virus-outbreak" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">defended a 15% proposed cut to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention</span></a> (109)
and a steep cut to the annual contribution to the Infectious Diseases Rapid
Response Reserve Fund (110). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">In partnership with Brianna Ehley, David Lim of <i>Politico</i>
had <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/10/coronavirus-testing-lab-materials-shortage-125212" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a big scoop</span></a> called “U.S. coronavirus testing threatened by shortage of
critical lab materials.” The piece detailed how a shortage of lab materials (111)
was exacerbating America’s already-slow pace of testing, thereby jeopardizing
public safety (112) by keeping public health officials from having accurate
data about the number of cases and the areas with high concentration. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">The article pointed out that seven weeks after the first case
was discovered in the U.S., just over 5,000 people had been tested, though “HHS
Secretary Alex Azar had told lawmakers [one week earlier] that U.S. labs’
capacity could grow to 10,000-20,000 people per day by the end of the week.” (113)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">All evidence to the contrary, Donald Trump continued to blame
his predecessor and pitch the case that his administration was doing a good job
of crisis management. During a briefing at the capital, Trump said, “As you
know, it’s about 600 cases, it’s about 26 deaths, within our country. And had
we not acted quickly, that number would have been substantially more.” (114) He
added that “…I think the U.S. has done a very good job on testing. We had to
change things that were done that were nobody’s fault, perhaps, they wanted to
do something a different way, but it was a much slower process from a previous
administration and we did change them.” (115) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">The next day, <b>Wednesday, March 11</b>, the U.S. had over 1,000 reported cases and 32 deaths. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the
coronavirus a pandemic. The Dow lost over 1,000 points for the second time in
three days, ending at 23,553. The National Basketball Association suspended its
season.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">CNN posted <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/12/us/coronavirus-testing-problems-nationwide-invs/index.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">an investigative piece</span></a> entitled “Confusion over the
availability and criteria for coronavirus testing is leaving sick people
wondering if they're infected.” </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">The article noted that though Mike Pence had
recently said on CNN’s “New Day” that anyone with a doctor’s order could get a
test, this was not the case in practice, as the U.S. was woefully unprepared to
provide tests on this scale (116). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">People were also not getting tests due to strict CDC
criteria:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“In order to be prioritized
for testing, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advises that one
must have a fever, cough or difficulty breathing as well as have been in close
contact with a person known to have coronavirus. Or, they had to ‘have a
history of travel from affected geographic areas within 14 days of their
symptom onset.’”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">As the article noted, “only 11,079 specimens [have] been
tested in the U.S., paling in comparison to the </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/12/asia/coronavirus-south-korea-testing-intl-hnk/index.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">more than 230,000 people</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> tested
in South Korea, which has about one sixth the US population.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Dr. Rod Hochman, the CEO of Providence St. Joseph Health, told
<i>Politico</i>, "Testing is so critically important because it helps us
as clinicians figure out the extent of the spread. It has implications for how
we care for patients and where we put them….It's unraveling the detective story
of how the virus spreads but we are trying to do it now with no data." <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">On Rachel Maddow’s show that evening, Ron Klain, who had been
Obama’s Ebola czar (see #33 and #35), pointed out that one of the Trump
administration’s biggest mistakes was to privatize testing. <a href="https://buzzflash.com/articles/privatization-may-be-killing-us-mystery-of-why-the-trump-administration-still-hasnt-sent-out-promised-million-cv-tests-as-delay-is-facilitating-transmission-of-the-virus-by-undetected-carriers" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">As related</span></a> by
journalist Thom Hartmann, “Instead of taking the World Health Organization
(WHO) test kits which are cheap and widely available all over the planet, and
having them distributed across the country back in December, or January, or
February when we knew this disease was spreading in the United States, Klain
said that Trump has outsourced the testing to two big American companies, Quest
and Labcorp.” (see #81)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Trump’s public appearances on Wednesday didn’t inspire
confidence. During a press conference with Ireland’s prime minister, Trump again
minimized the threat by saying, “It goes away….It’s going away. We want it to
go away with very, very few deaths.” (117)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Though the virus was supposedly going away, Wednesday’s
1,000-point drop in the Dow convinced Trump to address the nation in a prime-time
speech that was <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-coronavirus-teleprompter-speech/2020/03/12/81bc8a3a-647a-11ea-acca-80c22bbee96f_story.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">roundly panned</span></a>. Again he minimized the threat (claiming
coronavirus had a “very, very low risk” for most Americans, 118), cast blame
on China and Europe for having the disease before the U.S. (119), gave
confusing information while ad-libbing that contradicted administration policy (120),
and again lied about the slow pace of testing when he said, “Testing and
testing capabilities are expanding rapidly, day by day. We are moving very
quickly.” (121) The address was meant to reassure the American public and
stabilize the markets, but Trump’s ill-prepared speech <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/12/investing/premarket-stocks-trading/index.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">sent stock futures tumbling in real time</span></a>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Republican journalist and former W. Bush speechwriter David
Frum <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/trump-ensuring-worst-possible-outcome-coronavirus-crisis/607867/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">summed up the historical moment with uncanny precision</span></a>: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“More people will get sick because of his presidency than if
somebody else were in charge. More people will suffer the financial hardship of
sickness because of his presidency than if somebody else were in charge. The
medical crisis will arrive faster and last longer than if somebody else were in
charge. So, too, the economic crisis. More people will lose their jobs than if
somebody else were in charge. More businesses will be pushed into bankruptcy
than if somebody else were in charge. More savers will lose more savings than
if somebody else were in charge. The damage to America’s global leadership will
be greater than if somebody else were in charge.” (#122-128)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">On <b>Thursday, March 12</b>, the day after Trump’s prime time
address meant to reassure the nation and calm the stock market, the Dow Jones
lost almost 1,000 points, ending at 21,200.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">The magnitude of the Trump administration’s failure to get
test kits out was so obvious that even Republicans were starting to grumble, <a href="https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/In-Congress-bipartisan-complaints-to-Trump-15126672.php" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">as detailed in</span></a> “Testing lag ignites political uproar as Trump insists process is
'very smooth.'”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Cutting against Trump’s consistently self-serving narrative,
Anthony Fauci, Trump’s key coronavirus advisor, said, “The system is not geared
toward what we need right now, what you are asking for….<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/it-failing-let-s-admit-it-fauci-says-coronavirus-testing-n1157036" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">It is a failing. Let’s admit it</span></a>.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">The piece pointed out that more than two months after the
administration first became aware of the virus, “only about 11,000 people have
been tested, according to figures shared with members of Congress on Thursday.
According to statistics compiled by the American Enterprise Institute,
nationwide capacity to process the test kits being distributed has so far
ramped up only to about 20,000 people per day - meaning it could be weeks
before any tested patient gets results.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“Lawmakers of both parties reached for the same touchstone -
South Korea, which has managed to treat hundreds of thousands of its people,
allowing it to avoid the rapid spread seen in China, Italy and other countries….‘South
Korea is able to process tests in an hour, and in the U.S. it takes more than
two days - that's not adequate,’ said Ben Sasse, a Republican senator from
Nebraska.” The article pointed out that South Korea tests in a single day the
number of people the U.S. has tested in over two months, with drive-up exams
which aren’t possible in the U.S. due to strict testing guidelines (129).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Burdensome and deadly regulations were further discussed at <i>ProPublica</i>,
which revealed that an FDA directive “requires that the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, a sister agency, re-test every positive coronavirus
test run by a public health lab to confirm its accuracy. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“The result, experts say, is <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/cdc-coronavirus-covid-19-test" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">wasting limited resources at a time when thousands of Americans are waiting in line to get tested for COVID-19</span></a>.” (130)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Duplicate tests were just one element of a failed operation. <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/03/12/814881355/white-house-knew-coronavirus-would-be-a-major-threat-but-response-fell-short" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">The Trump administration’s key mistakes</span></a> were summarized by <i>Politico</i> reporter
Dan Diamond (see #99-#103) in an interview with NPR’s Terry Gross:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“The Trump administration and health officials knew back in
January that this coronavirus was going to be a major threat. They knew that
tests needed to be distributed across the country to understand where there
might be outbreaks. But across the month of February, as my colleague David Lim
at Politico first reported, the tests that they sent out to labs across the
country simply did not work. They were coming back with errors.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“The CDC, the Centers for Disease Control, recognized that and
promised that new tests would be distributed soon. But one day turned into two
days turned into three days turned into several weeks, and in the meantime, we
know now coronavirus was silently spreading in different communities, like
Seattle. By the time that the Trump administration made a decision to allow new
tests to be developed by hospitals by clinical laboratories, it was a step that
was seen as multiple weeks late.” (131)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“…I don't use this word lightly, Terry, but I'd say that this
testing failure and the broader response to the coronavirus has been a
catastrophe. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“…the Trump administration failed to plan for this moment.
There were leadership failures, like failing to think through the implications
of not having a testing strategy in place. (132) There were leadership failures
in allowing feuds to fester for months and months that - in the middle of a
crisis, those cracks have widened and caused delays in making simple decisions.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“He cut funding for a program that predicted when viruses
could jump from animals to humans basically around the same time that this new
coronavirus appears to have jumped from animals to humans in China.” (133)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Amid the disaster unfolding all around and because of him,
Trump continued to lie to the American public. Asked about the lack of testing
at a White House briefing, Trump said, "over the next few days, they're
going to have four million tests out” (134) and “Frankly, the testing has been
going very smooth….If you go to the right agency, if you go to the right area,
you get the test." (135)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">He even found a way to brag about the administration’s
response:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“It’s going to go away….The United States, because of what I
did and what the administration did with China, we have 32 deaths at this
point…when you look at the kind of numbers that you’re seeing coming out of
other countries, it’s pretty amazing when you think of it.” (136)<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">The administration did one thing right on March 12: its Health and Human Services Department placed its first order for N95 masks. Unfortunately, the order came far too late and <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/u-s-wasted-months-before-preparing-for-virus-pandemic?fbclid=IwAR0O6BHcxnjIWRK3V6fqrbC7z_TSMI_YmV998CaEObXypNQFB1CXgiohrMQ" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">wouldn't be filled until the end of April</span></a>, long after the pandemic had started to ravage America's emergency rooms. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Friday the 13th</span></b><span style="line-height: 107%;"> was again all about the
test kits. Where were they?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="line-height: 107%;">Raw Story</span></i><span style="line-height: 107%;"> reported that <span style="color: #3d85c6;"><a href="https://www.rawstory.com/2020/03/were-weeks-into-this-cnn-reporter-crushes-trump-for-just-now-appointing-coronavirus-testing-czar/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the Trump Administration’s Health and Human Services agency had finally named a testing czar—ten weeks after being notified of the virus</span></a> </span>(137).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Caitlin Owens of<i> Axios</i> pointed out that “<a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-testing-labs-delay-a3868ece-a2e5-4ed2-8822-44d20c73774d.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">less than a dozen academic labs” were doing tests because of strict administration guidelines</span></a>. Medical directors discussed how their requests to test had been
delayed or denied until it was too late (138). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-51836898" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">According to</span></a> the BBC, testing capacity in the U.S. was just 22,000 people/day while South Korea, which is 1/6th the size of the U.S., was testing up to 20,000 people/day. And the 22,000 projection was very optimistic, according to Andy Slavitt, Barack Obama’s acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, who <a href="https://twitter.com/ASlavitt/status/1238304906219528192" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">tweeted</span></a>, “We can at best do 10,000 tests/day. We should be able to do millions” and “All of this could have been ramped up and solved in January & February and right now we would be talking about containment.”</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="line-height: 107%;">The Atlantic </span></i><span style="line-height: 107%;">reported
that <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/03/why-coronavirus-testing-us-so-delayed/607954/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">less than 14,000 tests had been done in the ten weeks since the administration had first been notified of the virus</span></a>, though Mike Pence had
promised the week prior that 1.5 million tests would be available by this time
(139). <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">The article’s key takeaway? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“Getting out lots of tests for a new disease is a major
logistical and scientific challenge, but it can be pulled off with the help of
highly efficient, effective government leadership. In this case, such
leadership didn’t appear to exist.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Speaking to one of the prime causes of that failure in leadership, Beth Cameron, who ran Obama’s pandemic office in the National
Security Council, explained <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/nsc-pandemic-office-trump-closed/2020/03/13/a70de09c-6491-11ea-acca-80c22bbee96f_story.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the disastrous operational vacuum caused by John Bolton’s closing of the Global Security Office</span> (</a>see #17):<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“In a health security crisis, speed is essential.
When this new coronavirus emerged, there was no clear White House-led structure
to oversee our response, and we lost valuable time…<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“…The job of a White House pandemics office would have been to
get ahead: to accelerate the response, empower experts, anticipate failures,
and act quickly and transparently to solve problems.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“Our team reported to a senior-level response coordinator on
the National Security Council staff who could rally the government at the
highest levels, as well as to the national security adviser and the homeland
security adviser. This high-level domestic and global reporting structure
wasn’t an accident. It was a recognition that epidemics know no borders and
that a serious, fast response is crucial.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“A directorate within the White House would have been
responsible for coordinating the efforts of multiple federal agencies to make
sure the government was backstopping testing capacity, devising approaches to
manufacture and avoid shortages of personal protective equipment, strengthening
U.S. lab capacity to process covid-19 tests, and expanding the health-care
workforce. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">“The office would galvanize resources </span><a href="https://www.nti.org/analysis/atomic-pulse/united-states-must-lead-fight-against-coronavirus/"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">to coordinate a robust and seamless</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> domestic
and global response. It would identify needs among state and local officials,
and advise and facilitate regular, focused communication from federal health
and scientific experts to provide states and the public with fact-based tools
to minimize the virus’s spread. The White House is uniquely positioned to take
into account broader U.S. and global security considerations associated with
health emergencies, including their impact on deployed citizens, troops and
regional economies, as well as peace and stability. A White House office would
have been able to elevate urgent issues fast, so they didn’t linger or devolve
to inaction, as with coronavirus testing in the United States.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security director, piggybacked
on these criticisms with a look at <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/white-house-set-fail/607960/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the culture of mis-governance Trump bred and embodied</span></a>, and Trump’s fixation on his 2020 campaign to the exclusion of all else:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“As the first COVID-19 cases began to spread with alarming
speed and lethality in China, President Trump evidently did not choose to make
the issue a priority. Based on his public comments and Twitter feed, the
incoming information that consumed his attention was more likely to come from
cable television or political gossip than deep inside his intelligence
briefings. (140) Presumably, he also had a certain view of what he’d be doing
in early 2020—chiefly, preparing the ground for his reelection campaign—and
veering off course to prepare for a pandemic would have undermined those plans.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A simple presidential communication of
interest in a subject can set the government in motion, but in this case, that
signal apparently never came.” (141)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“…Instead of seeing U.S. government expertise as a resource,
Trump has routinely derided career experts as “deep state” operatives,
insufficiently loyal to him and his agenda. (142) Well into the COVID-19
outbreak, he said things such as ‘A lot of people think that it goes away in
April with the heat,’ or ‘This is a flu.’ I doubt that any government expert
would suggest that Trump say those things. The statements, instead, suggest a president
either making things up or cherry-picking things he’s heard from non-experts to
offer false reassurance to the public.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“…By constantly trying to get himself through the news cycle,
Trump has done irreparable damage to the long-term objective of ensuring that
he’s a credible voice on the COVID-19 crisis.” (143)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">That night, spooked by another 1,000-point loss in the Dow, Trump
finally declared a national emergency. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">At a press conference announcing the
news, Trump failed to model coronavirus safety protocols, shaking hands and
standing cheek-by-jowl with other administration officials (144). Trump also made
a <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/3/15/21180518/coronavirus-google-verily-website-testing-trump" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">false claim</span></a> about Google constructing a testing center (145) and reality
aside, claimed that “…the administration expects 1.4 million tests in the next
week and 5 million within the month.” (<i>ten </i>days later, less than 300,000
tests would be completed; <i>one month</i> later, <a href="https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">less than three million</span></a> would be completed, 146)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Asked if he took responsibility for the lag in testing, Trump
said, "<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-vice-president-pence-members-coronavirus-task-force-press-conference-3/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">I don't take responsibility at all</span></a> because we were given a set of circumstances,
and we were given rules, regulations, and specifications from a different time
that wasn't meant for this kind of an event with the kind of numbers that we're
talking about." (147) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Asked by PBS reporter Yamiche Alcindor how he could say he had
no responsibility for the testing failures despite his appointee’s elimination
of the Global Security Office (see #17), <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2020/mar/13/coronavirus-trump-slams-reporter-for-nasty-question-over-pandemic-response-team-video" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump again ducked responsibility</span></a>, saying
“That’s a nasty question…When you say me, I didn’t do it. We have a group of
people [in the administration].” (148)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">That night, after stocks rebounded on news of the declaration,
Trump “sent a note to supporters that included a chart showing the Dow Jones
Industrial Average dramatically rising roughly at the time he </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/13/politics/donald-trump-emergency/index.html" target="_blank"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">began a news conference declaring a national
emergency over coronavirus</span>.</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> The President signed the chart.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">On the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/13/politics/trump-stock-market-gains-signed-photo/index.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">chart</span></a> were the words “<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13.2px;">'</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The President would like to share
the attached image with you, and passes along the following message: From
opening of press conference, biggest day in stock market history!'</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">” (149)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Trump’s triumphalism
would prove premature, as the Dow would drop 4,000 points the following week,
to 19,173, nearly 700 points lower than it was on the day <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2017/01/ten-reasons-barack-obama-is-clearly.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Barack Obama</span></a> left
office and bequeathed Trump with <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjones/2020/02/01/trumps-economic-growth-is-slower-than-obamas-last-3-years/#7fdf67924fed" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a vibrant economy</span></a>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Peter Wehner, a conservative Republican who had served under
multiple Republican administrations, summed up Trump’s mistakes in an <i>Atlantic</i> post:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“…<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/peter-wehner-trump-presidency-over/607969/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the president and his administration are responsible for grave, costly errors</span></a>, most especially
the epic manufacturing failures in diagnostic testing, the decision to test too
few people, the delay in expanding testing to labs outside the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, and problems in the supply chain. These
mistakes have left us blind and badly behind the curve, and, for a few crucial
weeks, they created a false sense of security. (150) What we now know is that
the coronavirus silently spread for several weeks, without us being aware of it
and while we were doing nothing to stop it. Containment and mitigation efforts
could have significantly slowed its spread at an early, critical point, but we
frittered away that opportunity.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">On <b>Saturday, March 14</b>, in “From complacency to emergency: How
Trump changed course on coronavirus,” Gary Orr and Nancy Cook of <i>Politico</i>
<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/14/how-trump-changed-course-on-coronavirus-129528" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> on Donald Trump’s 180-degree turn. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Just three days before he declared
a national emergency, Trump had said the coronavirus “will go away” (151) and
that his administration’s “response was ‘really working out.’” (152) In fact, Trump’s
indifference to the crisis had forced city and state leaders to step up before a coordinated federal response had taken shape. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Though he was purportedly now focused on helping the American
people get through an economic crisis, Trump continued to advocate <a href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/coronavirus-payroll-tax-cut-trump-economics-skepticism" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a payroll tax</span></a>
which would give more money in real dollars to the wealthy and upper-middle
class, doing little for the people who need the money most (153). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">The following <b>Monday, March 16</b>, <i>the Washington Post</i>
led with, “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/03/16/cdc-who-coronavirus-tests/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">How U.S. coronavirus testing stalled</span></a>: Flawed tests, red tape and
resistance to using the millions of tests produced by the WHO.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">The key stat-line in the piece was that “From mid-January
until Feb. 28, fewer than 4,000 tests from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention were used out of more than 160,000 produced.” (154)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">The CDC had come up with a test quickly, by January 17, but “From
there…U.S. efforts fell quickly behind, especially when compared with the
efforts of the [World Health Organization], which has distributed more than 1
million tests to countries around the world based in part on the method
developed by the German researchers….As early as Feb. 6, four weeks after the
genome of the virus was published, the WHO had shipped 250,000 diagnostic tests
to 70 laboratories around the world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“By comparison, the CDC at that time was shipping about
160,000 tests to labs across the nation — but then the manufacturing troubles
were discovered, and most would be deemed unusable because they produced
confusing results. Over the next three weeks, only about 200 of those tests sent
to labs would be used.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">“…U.S. efforts to distribute a working test stalled until Feb.
28, when federal officials </span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/02/27/coronavirus-testing-california/?tid=lk_inline_manual_40&itid=lk_inline_manual_40" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">revised the CDC test</span></a> </span></span><span style="line-height: 107%;">and began
loosening up </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/02/29/new-fda-policy-will-expand-coronavirus-testing/?tid=lk_inline_manual_40&itid=lk_inline_manual_40" target="_blank"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">FDA rules</span> </span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">that had
limited who could develop coronavirus diagnostic tests.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Due to the flawed test kits and CDC regulations, as of February
21, “Health officials across the country began pleading for a test that worked,
or at least the authorization to use another test.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Interviewed for the article was Alex Greninger of the
University of Washington. “His lab had developed its own test and began seeking
approval to use it on patients on Feb. 18. But that test, along with others
that had been developed in various academic centers and hospitals, could not be
used on patients until the FDA relaxed its testing rules.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“[Greninger] noted that many of the state public health labs
had also figured out how to use the CDC test properly — by tossing one of its
components — but were not allowed to actually do so until the FDA approved the
workaround that same day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“We had all these state public health labs that had a
perfectly good [test] on their hands, and they knew it, they were upset,”
Greninger said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“…As late as Feb. 27, only 203 specimen tests had been run out
of state labs; another 3,125 had been run out of the CDC.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Even as earlier stumbling blocks to mass testing had been
overcome, new hurdles that had been overlooked by the administration (155) were
appearing, as <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/16/coronavirus-testing-glitch-cotton-swabs-132692" target="_blank"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;">reported</span></a> by David Lim at <i>Politico</i>:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“A potential shortage
of cotton swabs and other basic supplies needed for coronavirus testing is
emerging as a new threat to the Trump administration’s plans to roll out
high-volume testing to 2,000 sites across the country by the end of the week.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“…The materials in question include swabs that medical workers
use to collect samples of patients’ phlegm and saliva for testing, and
disposable plastic tips for the pipettes that lab technicians use to transfer
liquids. Testing labs say they’re also concerned about the availability of
personal protective equipment for their staff.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Asked at a press conference that day how he’d rate his
response to the crisis, Trump said, “I’d rate it a ten.” (156)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The following day, <b>Tuesday, March 17</b>, <i>the Washington
Post</i> published an <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/covid-19-hits-doctors-nurses-emts-threatening-health-system/2020/03/17/f21147e8-67aa-11ea-b313-df458622c2cc_story.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">article</span></a> about another disastrous facet of the pandemic
which the administration had failed to prepare for (157):<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Covid-19 hits doctors, nurses and EMTs,
threatening health system.”</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">In addition to the concern about hospital overcrowding and a lack of beds, the virus was now threatening the health and lives of the clinicians tasked with administering to the sick, putting yet another strain on
the system:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“Dozens of health-care workers have fallen ill with covid-19,
and more are quarantined after exposure to the virus, an expected but worrisome
development as the U.S. health system girds for an anticipated surge in
infections.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">“From hotspots such as the Kirkland, Wash., </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/nursing-home-with-the-biggest-cluster-of-covid-19-deaths-to-date-in-the-us-thought-it-was-facing-an-influenza-outbreak-a-spokesman-says/2020/03/16/c256b0ee-6460-11ea-845d-e35b0234b136_story.html?tid=lk_inline_manual_3&itid=lk_inline_manual_3" title="www.washingtonpost.com"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">nursing home</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> where
nearly four dozen staffers tested positive for the </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/02/28/what-you-need-know-about-coronavirus/?tid=lk_inline_manual_3&itid=lk_inline_manual_3" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">coronavirus</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">, to outbreaks in
Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, California and elsewhere, the virus is picking off
doctors, nurses and others needed in the rapidly expanding crisis.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“They have been put at risk in the United States not only by
the nature of their jobs, but by shortages of protective equipment such as N95 face
masks and government bungling of the testing program, which was delayed for
weeks while the virus spread around the country undetected.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“Because testing has lagged, health-care workers often have no
way to know whether people walking through the door with respiratory symptoms
are suffering from the flu or covid-19, providers said. Even when precautions
are taken, the virus has found its way into health-care facilities.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">As clinicians in the trenches struggled with shortages of
protective gear, swabs, and their own illnesses thanks to Trump’s indifference
to the virus for ten weeks, Trump <span style="color: #3d85c6;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/us/politics/trump-coronavirus.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">said</span></a> </span>at a press conference, “This is a
pandemic…I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.” (158) One
week earlier he had said that the coronavirus “will go away.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Though the president had changed his tune, many of his
followers still thought the virus was a hoax (see #85). After two months in
which Trump had minimized and dismissed the seriousness of the virus with a
steady stream of propaganda, polling showed that 79% of Democrats understood that
“the worst is yet to come,” while <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/me-worry-coronavirus-it-depends-your-politics-n1160256" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">only 40% of Republicans grasped the obvious</span></a> (159).
Despite Trump’s numerous failures to protect the public from the virus, 81% of Republicans approved of Trump’s management of the crisis. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">On <b>Wednesday, March 18</b>, <i>New York</i> magazine’s
Jonathan Chait discussed <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/03/coronavirus-surge-hospitals-trump-beds-respirators-ventilators-fema-cdc.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">imminent, devastating human consequences</span></a> which could
have been significantly reduced with proper planning in “The Hospital Deluge Is
Coming. Washington Has Done Almost Nothing to Prepare.” His opening paragraph summarized
why America found itself in such a disastrous situation:</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">“The most efficient first step would have been to prevent the coronavirus</span><span style="line-height: 107%;"> pandemic from spreading in
the first place. As many reports have widely documented, that first step never
took place because the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention failed to
deploy an effective coronavirus test. ‘This is such a rapidly moving infection
that losing a few days is bad, and losing a couple of weeks is terrible,’
Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, tells </span><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-17/coronavirus-testing-shortage-u-s-called-private-sector-too-late"><span style="color: #6fa8dc; line-height: 107%;">Bloomberg News</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">. ‘Losing 2 months is close to
disastrous, and that’s what we did.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“The loss of those two months deprived the government of any
chance to prevent the pandemic from sweeping across the entire country.
Officials have been forced into reaction mode (160), deploying blunt measures
of closing public spaces to try to slow down the spread. Even so, it is highly
likely that, within a few weeks, the number of infected patients will exceed
the capacity of the hospital system to treat them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“Washington has had weeks and weeks to prepare for this surge.
The three most obvious and foreseeable shortages are hospital beds (161),
respirator masks to protect medical staff (162), and ventilators (the machines
that are needed to pump air into the lungs of patients with the most serious
coronavirus symptoms). (163)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“You would think the government would have spent the last two
months scrambling to produce more of all three. There is no evidence this has
happened, and a great deal of evidence it has not.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">The answer to the supply shortage was clear:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Trump needed to invoke the Defense Production
Act, which would marshal the resources of the federal government to
mass-produce the medical supplies needed by American hospitals.
Fifty-seven House Democrats had sent <a href="https://andylevin.house.gov/media/press-releases/57-house-members-urge-president-invoke-defense-production-act-authority" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">an open letter</span></a> to Trump on March 13, asking
him to trigger the act. Though the situation was clearly about to become
desperate, Trump told a reporter, “Well, we’re able to do that if we have to.
Right now, we haven’t had to, but it’s certainly ready. If I want it, we can do
it very quickly. We’ve studied it very closely over two weeks ago, actually.
We’ll make that decision pretty quickly if we need it. We hope we don’t need
it. It’s a big step.” (164)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The scale of the administration’s negligence to help prepare
states and localities was laid out with grim statistics:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">“Oregon </span><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/11JLocjh05rPY-1cUnr2X4KSuHDYWHZKD/view"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">sent a letter</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> to Vice President Mike
Pence on March 3 asking for 400,000 N95 masks. For days, it got no response,
and only by March 14 received its first shipment, of 36,800 masks. But there
was a problem. Most of the equipment they got was well past the expiration date
and so ‘wouldn’t be suitable for surgical settings,’ the state said. (165)<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“New York City also put in a request for more than 2 million
masks and only received 76,000; all were expired, said Deanne Criswell, New
York City’s emergency management commissioner.” (166)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Over at <i>Axios, </i>Bob Herman<i> </i><a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-hospital-bed-crunch-capacity-18e22c81-006b-4654-a74c-40ff86488431.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">focused</span></a> on just one
aspect of the coming shortage in “No part of the U.S. has enough hospital beds
for a coronavirus crisis.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Herman reported that, “Every corner of the U.S. is at risk for
a severe shortage of hospital beds as the coronavirus outbreak worsens…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“…Why it matters: Total nationwide capacity for health
care supplies doesn't always matter, because hospitals in one area can help out
neighboring systems when they're overwhelmed by a crisis. But these projections
indicate that won't be an option with the coronavirus — everybody will be
hurting at the same time. (167)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“By the numbers: Harvard's projections show if 50% of all
currently occupied hospital beds were emptied and sizable percentages of
Americans were infected, the country would need at least three times more beds
to care for everyone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“Those models line up with James Lawler, an infectious
disease doctor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center who forecasted in a
recent presentation to hospital insiders that the U.S. may eventually have as
many as 96 million cases, resulting in
4.8 million hospitalizations. He told Axios he stands by those
projections.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">“The U.S. has </span><a href="https://www.aha.org/statistics/fast-facts-us-hospitals" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; line-height: 107%;">924,000</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;"> total hospital beds, or less than three
beds for every 1,000 people. Roughly 5% of those beds are in standard intensive
care units, where the sickest coronavirus patients would need to go.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Due to the expected shortage
in hospital beds, medical facilities were delaying heart surgeries,
“slow-growing or early-stage cancers,” and cancer screenings such as mammograms
and co</span><span style="line-height: 107%;">lonoscopies</span>
<span style="line-height: 107%;">(168).</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">On <b>Thursday March 19</b>, as the full scale of the disaster
was coming into clearer focus, <i>the New York Times</i> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/19/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-outbreak.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">documented the Trump administration’s failures</span></a> to act on information that was readily available in
“Coronavirus Outbreak: A Cascade of Warnings, Heard but Unheeded.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">The piece revealed that Trump’s Health and Human Services
department had run a series of simulations (called “Crimson Contagion”) about
responding to a hypothetical respiratory virus from China from January to
August of 2019. The simulations “drove home just how underfunded, underprepared
and uncoordinated the federal government would be for a life-or-death battle
with a virus for which no treatment existed.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Further, “The draft report, marked ‘not to be disclosed,’ laid
out in stark detail repeated cases of ‘confusion’ in the exercise. Federal
agencies jockeyed over who was in charge. State officials and hospitals
struggled to figure out what kind of equipment was stockpiled or available.
Cities and states went their own ways on school closings.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“Many of the potentially deadly consequences of a failure to
address the shortcomings are now playing out in all-too-real fashion across the
country. And it was hardly the first warning for the nation’s leaders. Three
times over the past four years the U.S. government, across two administrations,
had grappled in depth with what a pandemic would look like, identifying likely
shortcomings and in some cases recommending specific action.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“…Asked at his news briefing on Thursday about the
government’s preparedness, Mr. Trump responded: ‘Nobody knew there would be a
pandemic or epidemic of this proportion. Nobody has ever seen anything like
this before.’ <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“The work done over the past five years, however, demonstrates
that the government had considerable knowledge about the risks of a pandemic
and accurately predicted the very types of problems Mr. Trump is now scrambling
belatedly to address. <o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">(169)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“But the planning and thinking happened many layers down in
the bureaucracy. The knowledge and sense of urgency about the peril appear
never to have gotten sufficient attention at the highest level of the executive
branch or from Congress."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Just as Republicans did when </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/09/28/katrina.brown/" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">George W. Bush failed New Orleans</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
after Hurricane Katrina and contributed to the deaths of <a href="https://www.insurancejournal.com/blogs/corelogic/2015/08/03/374178.htm" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">1,800 Americans</span></a>
through sheer incompetence, Trump passed the buck to state governments. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">At a press conference that day, Trump said, “Governors are supposed
to be doing a lot of this work…the federal government is not supposed to be out
there buying vast amounts of items and then shipping. We’re not a shipping
clerk.” (170)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">As <i>New York Magazine</i>’s Jonathan Chait <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/03/trump-coronavirus-governors-hospitals-ventilators-respirators.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">pointed out</span></a>, “It
is absolutely astonishing that Trump believes state and local governments
should have primary responsibility for handling a national pandemic. Those
governments lack the bargaining power and national scale to take control of
industrial processes that lie outside their borders.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">At the same press conference, a <i>Washington Post</i>
photographer noticed that Trump had made one change to the notes he was using
while speaking to the press—crossing out the word “coronavirus” and writing the
words “Chinese virus” above it, <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/19/washington-post-photographer-spots-crossed-out-coronavirus-favor-chinese-virus-trump" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a dog whistle to his racist supporters</span></a> (171).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">As of <b>Friday, March 20, </b><i>eleven weeks</i> after
administration officials were first notified of the coronavirus, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/20/coronavirus-tests-states-138426" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">states and localities were still waiting for tests</span></a> so that they could know where outbreaks were concentrated. (172)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">According to reporters Dan Goldberg, Brianna Ehley, and David
Lim of <i>Politico</i>:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“…governors and public health officials say they are still
being forced to dramatically ration the tests, while labs are confronting
daunting backlogs that delay the results….governors have been on the phone with
Vice President Mike Pence and other federal officials, begging for additional
supplies, testing kits, swabs, reagents and protective equipment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“The shortage of tests means that in many states people who
believe they might have contracted the virus can’t know for sure and are told
to stay home for weeks. (173) It means health care workers don’t know whether
they've contracted the illness even as they treat infected patients and tend to
members of high-risk groups, such as the elderly, who might be in the hospital
for other reasons. (174) And it means public health officials are left guessing
where they should direct resources because they can’t be certain whether there
are clusters of cases.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“….That’s left states to impose strict criteria on who can be
tested, frustrating people across the country who are showing symptoms, worried
but were told to wait and see if their cases worsen. In several states,
only those who are hospitalized or at high risk, including those with
underlying conditions, can be tested.” (175)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Karen Weise and Mike Baker of <i>the New York Times </i>gave a
preview of <a href="https://www.boston.com/news/health/2020/03/20/chilling-plans-who-gets-care-when-washington-state-hospitals-reach-their-max" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the severe rationing American hospitals would soon face</span></a>:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“Medical leaders in
Washington state, which has the highest number of U.S. coronavirus deaths, have
quietly begun preparing a bleak triage strategy to determine which patients may
have to be denied complete medical care in the event that the health system
becomes overwhelmed by the coronavirus in the coming weeks.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“Fearing a critical shortage of supplies, including the
ventilators needed to help the most seriously ill patients breathe, state
officials and hospital leaders held a conference call Wednesday night to
discuss the plans, according to several people involved in the talks. The
triage document, still under consideration, will assess factors such as age,
health and likelihood of survival in determining who will get access to full
care and who will merely be provided comfort care, with the expectation that
they will die.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Not only were hospitals likely to have shortages in beds, but
clinicians would be hampered from doing their jobs because of the Trump
administration’s failure to help states get adequate surgical masks and other
personal protective equipment. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In “<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/going-war-butter-knife/608428/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Where are the Masks?</span></a>,” Wajahat Ali revealed that to date the U.S. had tested only 82,000 people (by comparison to 270,000 tested in South Korea, 1/6th America’s size), leaving clinicians in the dark about whether their patients had the virus, and that “2,629 health workers had been infected” in Italy, giving a preview of what medical workers in the States had to look forward to if stocks of protective gear weren’t ramped up quickly. If clinicians get sick, “no one else will be left, especially in small communities, to take care of patients as the coronavirus exponentially spreads.” (see #157)</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Trump had committed to using the Defense Production Act to
address this issue two days earlier, but had changed his mind later that night,
<a href="https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1240391871026864130" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">tweeting</span></a> that he would only invoke the Act “in a worst-case scenario in the
future.” (176)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Ali reported that “Almost every health-care professional I
interviewed criticized the government’s lack of preparedness. ‘The biggest
mistake we’ve made is that we awakened to this problem too late,’ said [a] New
York emergency-room doctor. ‘We had three months of warning from China and then
Europe, and we didn’t take it seriously.’”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Another New York physician told Ali, “We have known for six
weeks, and there was literally zero response and preparedness….The entire health-care
system is a massive failure on a federal level.’”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Clinicians “also voiced frustration toward the CDC and its
changing guidelines on personal protective equipment. A few weeks ago the CDC
said physicians needed N95 masks. Later, it said surgical masks would suffice.
This week, it said bandanas and scarves can be used as a last resort. The
physicians said they believe these shifting guidelines are driven by equipment
shortages, and not the actual safety of health-care workers.” (177)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">With cities and some states shutting down, reported cases
increasing by the day, widespread testing still not happening, hospitals
overburdened and expecting worse, adequate PPE nowhere in sight, and a record
number of Americans about to file for unemployment in no small part due to
administration inaction from January 3 until March 13 (178), Peter Alexander of NBC asked Trump at that day’s
daily coronavirus briefing, "What do you say to Americans who are watching
you right now who are scared?"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Trump’s <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattperez/2020/03/20/trump-rages-over-simple-question-id-say-that-youre-a-terrible-reporter/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">response</span></a> to this reasonable question was, “I
say that you're a terrible reporter, that's what I say. I think it's a very
nasty question, and I think it's a very bad signal that you're putting out to
the American people." (179)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Saturday, March 21</span></b><span style="line-height: 107%;"> featured
an autopsy of executive branch failures from <i>Politico</i>’s resident expert
on the Trump administration’s response, Dan Diamond (see #100 and #131).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Diamond pointed out that while Trump’s sudden shift to
publicly acknowledging the coronavirus with regular briefings and promises of
federal assistance was assuaging gullible and uninformed Americans, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/21/short-term-thinking-trump-coronavirus-response-140883" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">behind the scenes the failures were evident</span></a>:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“…no one in the White House had devised a national strategy
for obtaining and distributing the necessary supplies in the likely months-long
fight against the pandemic that lies ahead, said three people with knowledge of
the planning efforts. Those supply-planning efforts are only now underway.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">As a result of 10 weeks of inaction from the administration,
Seattle and New York City “have effectively abandoned efforts to conduct broad
testing on residents, instead urging them to stay home given the shortages — an
acknowledgment that efforts to contain coronavirus have failed and they need to
prioritize limited supplies (180). Local officials also are making unusual
crowdsourcing appeals. (181)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">“‘We need companies to be creative to supply the crucial gear
our healthcare workers need. NY will pay a premium and offer funding,’ New York
Gov. Andrew Cuomo tweeted on Friday. ‘If you have any of these unused supplies,
please email </span><a href="mailto:COVID19supplies@esd.ny.gov" target="_blank"><span style="line-height: 107%;">COVID19supplies@esd.ny.gov</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">.’<o:p></o:p></span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Not only was the Trump administration not using the Defense
Production Act, they were actively competing with states for equipment (182), robbing
states of supplies in order to build up national reserves.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Supply-chain shortages would not only negatively impact
coronavirus victims, people who couldn’t get surgeries due to the flood of
coronavirus victims into hospitals (183), and the clinicians who serve them,
but women having babies (184). According to <i>ProPublica</i>, “Over the next
three months, nearly a million women in the United States will give birth to
nearly a million babies — a huge influx of mostly healthy, highly vulnerable
patients into a hospital system that’s about to come under unprecedented
strain. Pregnant women, not surprisingly, are anxious. Those in their third
trimester, looking to deliver during an epidemic, are close to frantic.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">As the crisis in our hospitals became clearer, Trump
continued to blame his predecessors. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Though the Obama administration had <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/488069-obama-officials-walked-trump-aides-through-global-pandemic-exercise-in-2017" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">briefed</span></a> the incoming Trump
administration on the importance of pandemic planning and left highly competent
officials in charge of the CDC and the NSC’s Office of Global Security, when
asked about the shortage of masks in his daily briefing, Trump said, “Many
administrations preceded me — for the most part they did very little, in terms
of what you’re talking about…We’re making much of the stuff now, it’s being
delivered now.” (185). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">On <b>Sunday, March 22</b>, ABC <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/coronavirus-live-updates-us-now-highest-globally-covid/story?id=69733219&cid=social_fb_abcn&fbclid=IwAR0DNxBtaHYTbxapeU-_kvqBDNavfe56QqnlC0gpl58jQ4JfJ2iv05tRozU" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that the U.S. “now
has the third most cases worldwide,” over 31,000. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Appearing on CNN, Bronx/Queens representative Alexandra-Ocasio
Cortez said, “The fact that the president has not really invoked the Defense
Production Act for the purpose…of emergency manufactur[ing] <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/22/ocasio-corteztrump-going-to-cost-lives-141701" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">is going to cost lives</span></a>.” (186)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Because the Trump administration had failed to think ahead and was refusing to invoke the Defense Production Act—while <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-trump-outbid-states-on-medical-supplies-2020-3" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">stealing supplies from states</span></a> to stock the national reserves—administration officials were tasked
with coming up with contingency plans for hospitals as they run out of PPE,
ventilators, and vital medical supplies. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">As reported by <i>the Washington Post</i>, “Most disturbing
for some people is the idea that the wealthiest nation in the world is leaving
its caregivers unprotected in this crisis because it did not plan for it and
<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/government-scrambling-to-advise-hospitals-that-run-out-of-basic-supplies/2020/03/21/d9c36702-6b88-11ea-abef-020f086a3fab_story.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">wasted precious weeks</span></a> before responding.” (187)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Further into the piece, the authors looked at the Trump
administration’s original sin:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“CDC Director Robert Redfield heard from Chinese counterparts
on Jan. 3 that a spreading respiratory illness could be caused by a novel
coronavirus. Redfield told Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, who
sought to immediately notify the White House National Security Council,
according to four senior administration officials who spoke on the condition of
anonymity to discuss internal government actions. Azar briefed Trump on Jan. 18
about the virus, but the president was said to be quickly disinterested. (188) The
CDC, HHS, National Institutes of Health, State Department, National Security
Council and other agencies and aides began meeting to discuss the virus in
January.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“Yet Trump and several of his aides were reluctant to take the
virus seriously until the first confirmed U.S. case surfaced on Jan. 21,
according to two senior administration officials. (189) Trump continued to
downplay the threat of the virus until this month.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“Not until the first week of March did the administration and
Congress agree to an $8.3 billion supplemental spending bill to address the
outbreak, wasting weeks that could have been used to respond to equipment
shortages…”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“…Lauren Sauer, director of operations for the Johns Hopkins
Office of Critical Event Preparedness and Response, said, ‘Lack of clarity from
the White House has been frustrating….It feels like every decision that is
being made from the administration is the first decision they’ve had to make on
this.’”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Not only was the administration failing to provide clear guidance
to hospitals as to how to cope with the manmade disaster that awaited them, but
due to the shortages—which were exacerbated by the administration outbidding
states—states were competing with one another and even against other countries.
As Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker told CNN, “<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/22/wild-west-states-pritzker-says-141580" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">It‘s a wide Wild West…out there</span></a>.
And, indeed, we’re overpaying, I would say, for [personal protective equipment]
because of that competition.” (190)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Trump’s response to Pritzker’s criticism of the grossly
inadequate federal response, in the middle of a pandemic he had made infinitely
worse than it needed to be </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">(see #1-#190)</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">, was to spend his precious time </span><a href="https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1241760294776561667?lang=en" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">trolling Pritzker on Twitter</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> (191).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">When he wasn’t using Twitter to attack public officials who
tried to hold him accountable, Trump added to the chaos and suffering he’d
already caused by tweeting that “HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE & AZITHROMYCIN,
taken together, have a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in
the history of medicine. The FDA has moved mountains - Thank You!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">As <i>ProPublica</i> <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/lupus-patients-cant-get-crucial-medication-after-president-trump-pushes-unproven-coronavirus-treatment?utm_source=pardot&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=majorinvestigations" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a>, “Trump’s push to use
hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 has triggered a run on the drug. Healthy
people are stocking up just in case they come down with the disease. That has
left lupus patients…and those with rheumatoid arthritis suddenly confronting a
lack of medication that safeguards them, and not only from the effects of those
conditions.” (192)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">This despite the fact that there was no concrete evidence that
the combination was effective. As Trump’s top medical coronavirus advisor, Anthony
Fauci, told an interviewer, "The information that you're referring to is
anecdotal. It wasn't done in a controlled clinical trial, so you can't make a
definitive statement about it." (193)</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Fauci’s inability to keep Trump focused on facts popped up
again on <b>Monday, March 23</b>, in an interview with <i>Science Magazine</i>.
Asked about Trump’s dubious statements about the strategic effectiveness of closing the
border (194) and the timing of China’s disclosures (195), Fauci said, “I know,
but what do you want me to do? I mean, <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/i-m-going-keep-pushing-anthony-fauci-tries-make-white-house-listen-facts-pandemic#" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">seriously Jon, let’s get real, what do you want me to do</span></a>?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Fauci’s lack of sway was again evident in Trump’s messaging at
that day’s briefing. Despite all available information that the impact of the
virus was increasing dramatically, with the country now at over 42,000 cases
and 100 deaths in a day, and the warnings of health officials that a shutdown
was <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/23/coronavirus-economy-trump-restart-145222" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">necessary to flatten the curve</span></a>, Trump minimized the scope of the pandemic
by mentioning the number of fatal auto accidents annually (196), again
compared the coronavirus to the flu (197), and said he would <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-says-he-may-soon-lift-restrictions-to-reopen-businesses-defying-the-advice-of-coronavirus-experts/2020/03/23/f2c7f424-6d14-11ea-a3ec-70d7479d83f0_story.html?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">review</span></a> his
decision to shut the country down once the initial 15-day order was up, potentially
re-opening parts of the country while the pandemic continued to spread (198). He
even claimed that there would be more suicides from social isolation than
deaths from the virus itself (199). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">That same day, Michael Poznansky of <i>the Washington Post</i>
<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/23/apparently-trump-ignored-early-coronavirus-warnings-that-has-consequences/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that the administration had had access to “repeated” intelligence
warnings since the beginnings of the virus, but it was unclear if Trump was
aware of the information in real time because “Trump reportedly does not read
intelligence assessments (see #140), does not ask probing questions of his
intelligence advisers (200), and does not schedule intelligence briefings
nearly as often as his predecessors.” (201)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-china-cdc-exclusiv/exclusive-u-s-axed-cdc-expert-job-in-china-months-before-virus-outbreak-idUSKBN21910S" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Another major (and unforced) administration error</span></a> was revealed
by journalist Marisa Taylor, who reported that “Several months before the
coronavirus pandemic began, the Trump administration eliminated a key American
public health position in Beijing intended to help detect disease outbreaks in
China.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">According to Taylor, “the American disease expert, a
medical epidemiologist embedded in China’s disease control agency, left her
post in July [2019]…The first cases of the new coronavirus may have emerged as
early as November, and as cases exploded, the Trump administration in February
chastised China for censoring information about the outbreak and keeping U.S.
experts from entering the country to help.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“‘It was heartbreaking to watch,’ said Bao-Ping Zhu, a Chinese
American who served in that role, which was funded by the U.S. Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, between 2007 and 2011. ‘If someone had been
there, public health officials and governments across the world could have
moved much faster.’ (202)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“As an American CDC employee, they said, Quick was in an ideal
position to be the eyes and ears on the ground for the United States and other
countries on the coronavirus outbreak, and might have alerted them to the
growing threat weeks earlier.” </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">(A follow-up </span><a href="https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/03/26/trump-administration-slashed-cdc-staff-inside-china-prior-to-coronavirus-outbreak/" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">article</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> by Taylor would reveal that the disease expert was just one of many health officials in Beijing who were pulled out by the administration, which had eliminated 33 of 47 positions at that location.)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Asked about the story at a press conference, Trump said the
report was “100 percent wrong” but offered no factual rebuttal of the
information provided (203).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Seeking to mitigate the unfolding disaster that Trump had created, Congress was at work on a time-sensitive stimulus bill. As ever,
Republican Mitch McConnell <a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-the-wrong-coronavirus-stimulus-20200323-h6erlkfgvjg5vlmrizphmgpdb4-story.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">played chicken with the Democrats</span></a>, crafting a Senate
bill that shortchanged everyday people and desperate medical facilities while
directing enormous sums of taxpayer subsidies to business interests with no strings attached. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">When Democrats refused to play ball, McConnell blamed the
Democrats for the delay, a dishonest rhetorical thrust <a href="https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1242293340151873536" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">echoed by the president</span></a>
(204) which forced Nancy Pelosi to step in and shape a stimulus package that would at
least try to strike a balance between public needs and private interests. With
no thanks to the president, Pelosi molded a bill that spent more money on hospitals,
unemployment benefits, and federal disaster management, included progressive tax
cuts (in place of the regressive tax cuts Trump/McConnell wanted), and made airlines
getting huge infusions of taxpayer money follow green practices. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><span style="line-height: 107%;">Tuesday, March 24</span></b><span style="line-height: 107%;"> offered
another post-mortem on <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/24/dhs-pandemic-coronavirus-146884" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the Trump administration’s failures</span></a> to act on the
coronavirus with “DHS wound down pandemic models before coronavirus struck” by
Daniel Lippman at<i> Politico</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">The opening paragraphs tell the crux of the story:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“The Department of Homeland Security stopped updating its
annual models of the havoc that pandemics would wreak on America’s critical
infrastructure in 2017, according to current and former DHS officials with
direct knowledge of the matter. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“From at least 2005 to 2017, an office inside DHS, in tandem
with analysts and supercomputers at several national laboratories, produced
detailed analyses of what would happen to everything from transportation
systems to hospitals if a pandemic hit the United States.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“But the work abruptly stopped in 2017 amid a bureaucratic
dispute over its value, two of the former officials said, leaving the
department flat-footed as it seeks to stay ahead of the impact the COVID-19
outbreak is having on vast swaths of the U.S. economy. (205) Officials at other
agencies have requested some of the reports from the pandemic modeling unit at DHS
in recent days, only to find the information they needed scattered or hard to
find quickly.” (206)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Former Obama DHS official Juliette Kayyem said the
administration’s blindness to the value of the models could be attributed to its
singular focus on <a href="https://time.com/4473972/donald-trump-&/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">scapegoating Mexicans</span></a>:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“We should not be surprised that a department that has for the
last 3½ years viewed itself solely as a border enforcement agency seems
ill-equipped to address a much greater threat to the homeland.” (207) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">This short-sightedness robbed crisis management officials of
information that could have helped them from the outset of the virus’s
expansion into the U.S.:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“The former DHS
officials said if the pandemic models had been maintained properly, the
administration might have had an earlier understanding of where shortages might
occur, and acted accordingly to address them…(208)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“‘A lot of what we’re doing now is shooting in the dark, and
there’s going to be secondary impacts to infrastructure that are going to be
felt in part because we didn’t maintain these models,’ (209) said one of the
former DHS officials. ‘Our ability to potentially foresee where the impacts are
or may manifest is a result of the fact that we don’t have the capabilities
anymore.’”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">The impact of not having these models in the present was grim,
as states strained under the weight of <a href="https://www.politico.com/states/new-jersey/story/2020/03/24/governors-beg-for-cash-as-unemployment-claims-crush-states-1268856" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">medical supply shortages and record numbers of unemployment claims</span></a>. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Nowhere was this felt
more acutely than New York, which was now “the U.S. epicenter of the pandemic,
with 25,665 cases,” and facing a disastrous shortage of ventilators and other crucial medical equipment. The state had 7,000 ventilators and needed 30,000. The
administration had thus far sent just 400 ventilators (210).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Addressing the shortage, New York governor Andrew Cuomo <a href="https://www.axios.com/andrew-cuomo-coronavirus-ventilators-bfbd9ef5-a03f-4c52-b5c9-48905ba6f2b8.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiospm&stream=top" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">said</span></a>, "I understand
the federal government's point that many companies have come forward
and said we want to help, and General Motors and Ford and people
are willing to get into the ventilator business. It does us no good
if they start to create a ventilator in three weeks or four weeks or
five weeks. We're looking at an apex of 14 days….The [Defense
Production Act] can actually help companies, because the federal government can
say, 'Look, I need you to go into this business. I will contract with you today
for x number of ventilators. Here's the startup capital you need….Not to
exercise that power is inexplicable to me.’”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Bridling, as he always does, at criticism—even when it is
well-deserved—Trump <a href="https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/mar/25/donald-trump/donald-trump-misses-key-facts-claim-new-york-gover/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">falsely accused</span></a> Cuomo of creating death panels during a Fox
News virtual town hall that day (211) and continued to refuse to activate the
Defense Production Act. This was of a piece with the administration’s pattern
of delay and obfuscation, as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/24/us/politics/coronavirus-ventilators.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> in “Slow Response to the Coronavirus
Measured in Lost Opportunity” at <i>the New York Times</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Had the administration called on its potential industrial power
in January, when they knew about the virus's destructive power overseas, or even early February, when Democratic senators proposed emergency funding (see #40), hospitals could have had sufficient stocks of equipment when the first big wave of cases came in, </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">but due to administration delays, the proposed partnership between GE and
General Motors wouldn’t produce equipment until June (212). The
administration’s promise to send out 60,000 test kits fell well short of the
“tens of millions needed.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Even as the administration failed to get ventilators out (despite having an awareness of ventilator shortages in Chinese hospitals <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/u-s-wasted-months-before-preparing-for-virus-pandemic?fbclid=IwAR0O6BHcxnjIWRK3V6fqrbC7z_TSMI_YmV998CaEObXypNQFB1CXgiohrMQ" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">two months earlier</span></a>),<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>even as public health officials recommended a
shutdown of up to “<a href="https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2020/3/17/21181694/coronavirus-covid-19-lockdowns-end-how-long-months-years" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a year or more</span></a>,” even as the spokesperson for the World
Health Organization had said that very day that the U.S. could be <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/25/united-states-coronavirus-pandemic-new-epicenter/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the next epicenter</span></a> of the coronavirus, Trump told Fox viewers that he wanted the country
to be “<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/24/politics/trump-easter-economy-coronavirus/index.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">opened up and just raring to go by Easter</span></a>.” (213)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">While identified cases spiraled from 7,800 to 53,268 in just
one week, one of the <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/25/trump-coronavirus-national-security-council-149285" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">root causes of the public health disaster</span></a> was explored the
next day, <b>Wednesday, March 25</b>, by <i>Politico </i>reporters Nahal Toosi
and Dan Diamond (see #100, #131, and #181) in “Trump team failed to follow
NSC’s pandemic playbook.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">According to the piece, <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2017/01/ten-reasons-barack-obama-is-clearly.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Barack Obama</span></a>’s National Security
Council had a plan for just these kinds of situations, but the Trump
administration had ignored the playbook for the past twelve weeks, thereby
enabling the catastrophe that was unfolding in New York City and other parts of
the country. (214)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">One excerpt from the playbook read “‘Is there sufficient
personal protective equipment for healthcare workers who are providing medical
care?’ the playbook instructs its readers, as one early decision that officials
should address when facing a potential pandemic. ‘If YES: What are the triggers
to signal exhaustion of supplies? Are additional supplies available? If NO:
Should the Strategic National Stockpile release PPE to states?’”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">The plan consisted of “hundreds of tactics and key policy
decisions laid out in a 69-page National Security Council playbook on fighting
pandemics….Other recommendations include that the government move swiftly to
fully detect potential outbreaks, secure supplemental funding and consider
invoking the Defense Production Act — all steps in which the Trump
administration lagged behind the timeline laid out in the playbook.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“….The guide further calls for a ‘unified message’ on the
federal response, in order to best manage the American public's questions and
concerns. ‘Early coordination of risk communications through a single federal
spokesperson is critical,’ the playbook urges.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“However, the U.S. response to
coronavirus has featured a rotating cast of spokespeople and conflicting
messages (215); Trump already is discussing loosening government
recommendations on coronavirus in order to ‘open’ the economy by Easter,
despite the objections of public health advisers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“A former Obama official said, ‘These are recommended
discussions to be having on all levels, to ensure that there’s a structure to
make decisions in real-time.’” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Though briefed on the playbook (officially titled the Playbook
for Early Response to High-Consequence Emerging Infectious Disease Threats and
Biological Incidents) by outgoing Obama administration officials, Trump’s NSC
never followed through on its recommendations (216).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Another example of <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/internal-emails-show-how-chaos-at-the-cdc-slowed-the-early-response-to-coronavirus" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">how not to handle a coronavirus crisis</span></a> ap</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">peared o</span>n <i>ProPublica</i>’s website t</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">he following day, <b>Thursday, March 26</b>. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“Internal Emails Show How Chaos at the CDC Slowed the Early Response to Coronavirus” gave examples of the Trump administration's miscommunications with state health officials in Nevada and failures to gather accurate data about the number of coronavirus cases (217).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Among the key findings:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>1) the CDC gave contradictory information about test guidelines to public health officials (218); 2) the CDC intended to outsource testing to state
health departments, but this was slowed down because of delays with the test
kits; 3) the CDC asked states to use DCIPHER, a web platform, but provided no
training on how to use the platform until February 24 (219); and 4) the CDC
protocol for screening passengers at Los Angeles airport returning from China
was unclear and ineffective (220).</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Returning to the present, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/26/health/coronavirus-hospitals-do-not-resuscitate-bn/index.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">hospitals were weighing universal do not resuscitate orders</span></a> in order to keep clinicians safe:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“The conversations are driven by the
realization that the risk to staff amid dwindling stores of protective
equipment — such as masks, gowns and gloves — may be too great to justify the
conventional response when a patient “codes,” and their heart or breathing
stops.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">“‘…It’s extremely dangerous in terms of infection risk because
it involves multiple bodily fluids,’ explained one ICU physician in the
Midwest, who did not want her name used because she was not authorized to speak
by her hospital.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">One New York nurse who died from COVID-19 worked on a unit
where <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/kious-kelly-hospital-nurse-dies-trash-bags-2020-3" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">clinicians had to wear garbage bags due to a shortage of PPE</span></a> (221).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">That evening, it was reported that <a href="https://www.inquirer.com/health/coronavirus/coronavirus-jobs-unemployment-20200327.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">3.3 million Americans had applied for unemployment</span></a>, a record number, and Trump told Sean Hannity "I don't
believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators. <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/26/trump-ventilators-coronavirus-151311" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">You go into major hospitals sometimes, and they'll have two ventilators</span></a>. And now all of a sudden they're
saying, 'Can we order 30,000 ventilators?’" (222*)(*<i>The New York Times</i>
would <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/26/health/coronavirus-ventilator-sharing.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">report</span> </a>the next day that the state of New York was so short of
ventilators that patients were actually <i>sharing</i> ventilators)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Trump’s minimizing of the crisis extended to his daily
briefing, where he talked about classifying areas of the country based on known infection
rates and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-pushes-to-open-up-the-country-as-governors-in-hard-hit-states-warn-more-needs-to-be-done-to-combat-pandemic/2020/03/26/6f426042-6fa5-11ea-b148-e4ce3fbd85b5_story.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">opening up the spots with lower rates</span></a>, even though testing had been limited,
the extent of the virus was unknown and had been underestimated in the past,
and there were no guarantees of safety. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Trump’s false narratives prompted a discussion at <i><a href="https://www.axios.com/trump-coronavirus-briefings-media-22d51064-ec2a-468d-b248-b3722d956a8c.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Axios</span></a>, </i>“Trump's
coronavirus briefings see big audiences. Some argue that's bad.” The piece
explored the inability of networks to factcheck Trump’s claims in real time,
allowing the president’s inaccurate and often unscientific statements to
confuse millions of viewers with poor critical-thinking skills (223).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">As just one example, one month earlier, Trump had <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-vice-president-pence-members-coronavirus-task-force-press-conference/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">told reporters</span></a>,
“when you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be
down to close to zero, that’s a pretty good job we’ve done.” (see #71) As of
March 26, the United States had over 1,000 deaths, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/26/usa-now-has-more-coronavirus-cases-than-either-china-or-italy.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the most reported cases of any country</span></a>, and the numbers were increasing significantly every day. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Stories detailing Trump’s denial about the scope of the crisis
continued on <b>Friday, March 27</b>. Aaron
Blake and William Wan of <i>The Washington Post</i> reported that Trump’s
steady stream of public lies and misstatements had been <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/03/27/coronavirus-models-politized-trump/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">taken at face value by many of his supporters and other low-information voters</span></a> (224), contributing to most
Republican governors refusing to order shelter-in-place edicts, thereby
endangering public safety (225). Further, the variance in individual states’
commitments to combating the virus was making it hard to create sound
epidemiology models, keeping public health officials from knowing true risk levels (226), which
should be the driver of public policy. As was pointed out, the cities that
lifted shelter-in-place orders too soon during the 1918 Spanish flu paid a steep price. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">The same day that it
was reported that the number of cases had passed 100,000, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/27/us-coronavirus-cases-top-100000-doubling-in-three-days.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">twice what they had been three days earlier</span></a> (and yet still a major underestimate due to test delays),
Jonathan Swan at <i>Axios</i> <a href="https://www.axios.com/donald-trump-coronavirus-easter-timeline-cb04697d-d7ab-4efb-a58d-b251f2cd78a2.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span> </a>that “weaning Trump from setting a
date for millions of Americans to get back to work is a delicate, ongoing
process.” One administration official said, "I don’t think he feels in any
way that his messaging was off….He feels more convinced than ever that America
needs to get back to work." (227)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">To his credit, Trump did take some productive actions Friday
the 27th</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">—</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">nearly three months after the administration had first been informed of coronavirus. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Earlier in the day, he signed the two trillion-dollar stimulus
bill with no Democrats present, as he couldn’t help being <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-03-27/house-to-hold-voice-vote-on-coronavirus-rescue-package-sending-to-trumps-desk" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">petty</span></a> and
partisan (228) in this moment of national crisis. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">Friday evening he finally invoked the
Defense Production Act to have General Motors produce ventilators, <a href="https://www.lmtonline.com/news/article/The-U-S-was-beset-by-denial-and-dysfunction-as-15179067.php" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">more than two months</span></a> after Robert Kadlec (an Air Force physician and the assistant secretary </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">for preparedness and response at Health and Human Services) </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">had started readying the process. The
ventilator request was too little, too late (see #212), and didn't extend to any other badly-needed
medical supplies or personal protective equipment (229), but it’s better than
what the administration had done so far, which was close to nothing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 17.12px;">The ventilators wouldn’t be ready anytime soon, and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/27/nyregion/coronavirus-new-york-update.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiospm&stream=top" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">according</span></a> to <i>the New York Times</i>, New York was estimated to need "20 million N-95 masks, 30 million surgical masks, 45 million exam gloves, 20 million gowns and 30,000 ventilators, all astronomical amounts compared to New York’s current stockpile.” </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">On <b>Saturday, March 28</b>, the U.S. passed 2,000 COVID-19 deaths and David Atkins of <i>Washington Monthly</i> wrote about the administration's penchant for <a href="https://washingtonmonthly.com/2020/03/28/is-trump-using-critical-medical-supplies-to-blackmail-blue-state-governors/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">giving or withholding medical supplies</span></a> based on whether governors publicly challenged Trump's false and self-serving narratives about his response to coronavirus. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">On </span><b>Sunday, March 29, </b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">as the scale of the crisis and Trump's central role in it was </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">becoming more evident to the public, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/29/trump-campaign-joe-biden-ron-klain-153056" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Republicans reverted to deflection and character assassination</span></a>, attacking Ron Klain (see #27, #33, #35) for having the audacity to publicly call the administration out for its lackluster response to coronavirus (see #1-#230).</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">GOP blameshifting continued on <b>Monday, March 30</b>, as Republicans alleged that <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/2020/03/panicked-republicans-now-want-to-blame-impeachment-for-bungling-the-coronavirus-response-report/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=4139" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Democrats bore some responsibility for the administration’s failures</span></a> because of their impeachment drive, though Democratic senator Chuck Schumer had “urged the Department of Health and Human Services on Jan. 26 to declare coronavirus a public health emergency, which would free up $85 million in funding to control the outbreak,” Democratic senator Chris Murphy had made a similar request on February 5 (see #40), and an ability to walk and chew gum at the same time is a basic requirement of any competent administration.<br /><br />As medical workers across the country panicked due to a shortage of ventilators, <i>ProPublica</i> reported that a company in Pennsylvania which had received taxpayer money to design a ventilator—the Trilogy Evo—<a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/taxpayers-paid-millions-to-design-a-low-cost-ventilator-for-a-pandemic-instead-the-company-is-selling-versions-of-it-overseas-?utm_source=pardot&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=majorinvestigations" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">had yet to ship a single unit to the national stockpile</span></a>—even as they sold units abroad. The administration could have blocked exports of vital medical equipment to help its own citizens, as Germany, South Korea, and 22 other countries had done (see #41), but chose to side with business interests instead.<br /><br /><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/30/coronavirus-masks-trump-administration-156327" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Another thing the administration wasn’t doing</span></a> was recommending masks, a common practice worldwide and an oversight they would have to correct later. (231)<br /><br />On <b>Tuesday, March 31</b>, <i>Politico</i> opened with “What they told us about the coronavirus,” a list of <a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook/2020/03/31/what-they-told-us-about-the-coronavirus-488757" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">contradictions in the administration’s messaging</span></a> about whether or to what extent they had control over the situation, how much exposure one needed to get the virus (232), who was susceptible to the virus (233), when we would be able to ease up on social distancing, whether or not we should cover our mouths, the accessibility of tests, and the availability of ventilators. (234)<br /><br />Later that day, the White House Coronavirus Task Force predicted that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/03/31/coronavirus-latest-news/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">there would be 100,000-240,000 deaths</span></a> in the U.S. due to COVID-19. Though this number was potentially an underestimate, and was far higher than it would have been if the administration had responded in a competent fashion, Trump said at that day’s briefing that if "<a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/04/how-donald-trump-plans-on-spinning-200000-coronavirus-deaths-as-a-win/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">we have between 100 and 200,000...we altogether have done a very good job</span></a>.”<br /><br />On <b>Wednesday, April 1 </b><a href="https://www.thepoke.co.uk/2020/04/03/5-reactions-to-trump-boasting-about-his-facebook-ratings/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump bragged about his Facebook ratings</span></a> and Mike Pence tried to play an April Fool’s joke on CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. In response to Blitzer’s comment about Trump’s consistent dismissal of COVID-19’s destructive potential through January, February, and the first two weeks of March, Pence <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/2020/04/wolf-blitzer-spars-with-pence-it-would-have-been-good-if-the-president-wasnt-belittling-the-pandemic/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=4170" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">said</span></a>, “Well, Wolf, respectfully, I’d take issue with two things that you just said. I don’t believe the president has ever belittled the threat of the coronavirus.”<br /><br />Back in the real world, <i>the Washington Post</i> reported that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/coronavirus-protective-gear-stockpile-depleted/2020/04/01/44d6592a-741f-11ea-ae50-7148009252e3_story.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiospm&stream=top" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the national stockpile of protective gear was “nearly depleted</span>”</a> due to the Trump administration’s lack of foresight (235) and Margaret Talev of <i>Axios</i> reported that coronavirus was further exacerbating <a href="https://www.axios.com/axios-ipsos-coronavirus-index-rich-sheltered-poor-shafted-9e592100-b8e6-4dcd-aee0-a6516892874b.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the yawning levels of inequality helped along by Trump’s tax cut and reverse-Robin Hood budget priorities</span></a>. While nearly half of upper-middle class Americans and 39% of the wealthy were able to work remotely and stay safe, only 17% of middle-class Americans and single digits of lower middle- and poor Americans could work remotely, forcing our most economically-vulnerable citizens to risk infection or go broke.<br /><br />And as millions were losing their healthcare, <i>Raw Story</i> <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/2020/04/fanatical-cruelty-as-pandemic-rages-trump-refuses-to-reopen-affordable-care-act-enrollment-to-help-uninsured/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that Trump was ignoring requests by “advocacy groups and more than 100 members of Congress” to re-open the Affordable Care Act marketplace. (236)<br /><br />Human desperation continued to dominate news stories on <b>Thursday, April 2</b>.<br /><br />Matthew Yglesias of <i>Vox</i> reported that unemployment filings for the previous week reached 6.6 million, <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/4/2/21203850/unemployment-initial-claims-march-28" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">smashing the record set the week before</span></a>.<br /><br />Ina Fried looked at <a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-domestic-violence-de98b402-51f2-49ec-919c-c70052e29eef.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the uptick of domestic violence in Seattle</span></a> (near the first reported infection in the U.S.), a sign of things to come, while Nadja Popovich of <i>the New York Times</i> showed <span style="color: #3d85c6;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/01/us/coronavirus-covid-19-symptoms-data.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">how far behind the U.S. was in diagnosing the disease</span></a> </span>due to the administration’s lag time in getting functional test kits out.<br /><br /><i>ProPublica</i> <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/terrified-pregnant-health-care-workers-at-risk-for-coronavirus-are-being-forced-to-keep-working?utm_source=pardot&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=majorinvestigations" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that New York State, the epicenter of the pandemic in the U.S., was being forced to pay “Up to 15 Times the Normal Prices for Medical Equipment” and looked at <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/in-desperation-new-york-state-pays-up-to-15-times-the-normal-price-for-medical-equipment?utm_source=pardot&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=majorinvestigations" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the anxieties of pregnant medical workers</span></a> on the front lines who lacked PPE (or clear safety guidelines from the CDC, 237).<br /><br />In this grave national moment, Trump did what he does best (publicly trolling political opponents) with <a href="https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000171-3f7b-d6b1-a3f1-fffb5e270000&nname=playbook&nid=0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=630318" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">an open letter</span></a> to Democratic senator Chuck Schumer of New York.<br /><br />As of <b>Friday, April 3</b>, over 7,000 Americans had died from COVID-19 and the U.S. had <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/04/03/coronavirus-latest-news/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">its biggest single-day bump in cases</span></a>—30,000. <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/early-data-shows-african-americans-have-contracted-and-died-of-coronavirus-at-an-alarming-rate?utm_source=pardot&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=majorinvestigations" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">African-Americans were being hit particularly hard</span></a>.<br /><br />In “How Trump surprised his own team by ruling out Obamacare,” Adam Cancryn, Nancy Cook, and Susannah Luthi of <i>Politico </i>provided a behind-the-scenes account of<i> </i><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/03/trump-obamacare-coronavirus-164285" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump’s decision not to open the Affordable Care Act (see #236) to people who’d lost their health insurance</span></a>: </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“[Opening Affordable Care Act enrollment] made sense to many in both the industry and Trump’s own administration, because Americans who lose their health insurance as a result of losing their job are already eligible to sign up for Obamacare outside the traditional monthlong enrollment period. With the coronavirus pandemic straining hospitals and the administration’s projections growing increasingly dire, health officials began signaling to insurers that it was preparing to give the broader pool of uninsured Americans a fresh shot at getting coverage…</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />“And by late March, administration officials sent word to insurers that the call would soon be official: They were reopening Obamacare, an unprecedented move that would have recognized the depth of the public health emergency.<br /><br />“Major health insurance groups prepped news releases in anticipation of an announcement as soon as March 28, two people with knowledge of the arrangements said.”<br /><br />Loathe to expand a program they had long wanted to kill, or to spend more money later if further funding was needed to maintain coverage, the administration instead opted for the much narrower and wholly inadequate policy of helping hospitals defray the costs of infected patients.<br /><br />One Republican “close to the administration” told a reporter, “You have a perfectly good answer in front of you, and instead you’re going to make another one up….It’s purely ideological.”<br /><br />The administration’s failure to get functional test kits out in a timely fashion was again put under a microscope on <b>Saturday, April 4</b> in “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2020/04/03/coronavirus-cdc-test-kits-public-health-labs/?arc404=true" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Inside the coronavirus testing failure</span></a>: Alarm and dismay among the scientists who sought to help.”<br /><br />The piece reported that “On Jan. 10, CDC scientists received an important break when the Chinese government published the pathogen’s genetic sequence. The sequence, a long string of letters representing the RNA structure of SARS-CoV-2 described a coronavirus never before seen in humans. It also gave scientists a path to create a precise diagnostic test that could detect the virus.”<br /><br />On January 15, a top scientist at the CDC told health officials from around the country that they would have test kits soon.<br /><br />The CDC test wasn’t approved until February 4, but the model sent out to states and localities was flawed, leading to further delays. Due to FDA regulations, public health labs weren’t allowed to use their own tests unless they jumped through an inordinate number of bureaucratic hoops. As minimum requirements, labs were required to complete a 28-page application and spend two weeks testing their kits. Alex Greninger, a scientist at the University of Washington (see #154), reported being denied (after having spent 100 hours on testing and documentation) because he'd submitted his application via email.<br /><br />On February 27, “CDC Director Robert R. Redfield [testified] to the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific and nonproliferation that the ‘CDC believes that the immediate risk of this new virus to the American public is low.’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">”</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />This contradicted what Redfield knew to be true (238), as “Privately, the CDC concluded that a ‘much broader’ effort to testing is needed. An internal memo titled, ‘A Plan to Increase Covid-19 testing in the U.S.,’ frankly acknowledged the approach was not working. The spread of the virus was ‘leading to significant impact on healthcare systems and causing social disruption,’ it said. ‘A much broader interagency approach is needed to fill the greater need for diagnostics by commercial manufacturers and laboratories capable of developing their own tests.’”<br /><br />The CDC didn’t loosen regulations until February 29, six weeks after they had promised health officials that they’d have test kits "soon," leaving state and local public health officials in the dark about infection rates and allowing COVID-19 to spread in the shadows.<br /><br />On the <b>Sunday, April 5</b> edition of “Meet the Press,” Surgeon General Jerome Adams told host Chuck Todd, "The next week is going to be our Pearl Harbor moment. It's going to be our 9/11 moment. It's going to be the hardest moment for many Americans in their entire lives, and we really need to understand that if we want to flatten that curve and get through to the other side, everyone needs to do their part. Ninety percent of Americans are doing their part, even in the states where, where they haven't had a shelter in place. But if you can't give us 30 days, governors, give us, give us a week, give us what you can, so that we don't overwhelm our healthcare systems over this next week. And then let's reassess at that point. We want everyone to understand you've got to be Rosie The Riveter you've got to do your part."<br /><br />The next day, <b>Monday, April 6</b>, Republican judges ensured that Wisconsin would be the one state to hold a primary during the height of a pandemic (16 other states and territories had <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/2020-campaign-primary-calendar-coronavirus.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">postponed primaries</span></a>).<br /><br /><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/10/wisconsin-primary-coronavirus-republican-voting-by-mail" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Knowing that COVID-19 would disproportionately impact turnout in the Democratic strongholds of Madison and Milwaukee</span></a>, where people would be at greater risk of catching the virus and would have to wait longer to vote due to population density, state Republicans appealed Democratic governor Tony Evers’ executive order to postpone the election. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Republican majority on the state Supreme Court forced the vote in order to give an advantage to the Republican Supreme Court candidate backed by Trump, then the Republican majority on the federal Supreme Court killed a Democratic request to extend the deadline for absentee ballots by six days, leaving tens of thousands of voters who hadn't received absentee ballots in time with two terrible options (staying home and not voting or risking their health by voting in person). </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />Despite putting hundreds of thousands of Wisconsinites’ safety at risk for partisan advantage and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/13/us/wisconsin-election-voting-rights.html?auth=login-google&campaign_id=9&emc=edit_NN_p_20200414&instance_id=17621&nl=morning-briefing&regi_id=126380121&section=topNews&segment_id=25091&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">purposely disenfranchising</span></a> thousands or tens of thousands of Democrats, <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Wisconsin_Supreme_Court_elections,_2020" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Republicans lost the state Supreme Court race by almost eleven points</span></a>.<br /><br />Asked about the Supreme Court contest at a briefing on <b>Tuesday, April 7</b>, Trump claimed Tony Evers had sought to move the election because he (Trump) had endorsed the Republican candidate, though Democrats had filed a lawsuit trying to move the election back <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-coronavirus-conspiracy-wisconsin-election_n_5e8cfd39c5b6e1d10a6b590c" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">before Trump issued his endorsement</span></a>. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And though vote-by-mail elections are <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/5/23/17383400/vote-by-mail-home-california-alaska-nebraska" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">less expensive, more secure, and more convenient</span></a> than in-person elections, and <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/491674-trump-defends-his-mail-in-ballot-after-calling-vote-by-mail-corrupt" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump had mailed <i>his</i> ballot in</span></a>, Trump signaled that he would suppress the Democratic vote in the upcoming presidential election with a baseless attack on mail voting: “Mail ballots are a very dangerous thing for this country because they’re cheaters,” the president said, adding, “They collect them, and they get people to go in and sign them, and then they have forgeries in many cases. It’s a horrible thing.” (239)<br /><br />Further negative impacts on working-class Americans were reported in “<a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-public-transportation-subway-bus-ridership-9f039bd9-459b-45f9-954c-b26380a037dc.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Public transit’s death spiral</span></a>” on <b>Wednesday, April 8</b>. While 36% of essential workers across the country used public transportation, transit lines were operating “at only 10% capacity” due to funding shortages and workers getting sick. Transport managers were faced with the challenge of keeping service running despite cash shortages while maintaining safety for riders and employees alike, and there was no telling when or if vital transportation systems would be fully functioning again.<br /><br />As public transit strained under budget shortfalls, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/08/trump-coronavirus-aid-oversight-176160" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the Trump administration was handing out billions of dollars with scant oversight</span></a>, in violation of the terms of the bipartisan stimulus bill.<br /><br />According to reporter Kyle Cheney, Trump diminished government oversight by dismissing the chairman of one of the watchdog boards tasked with overseeing stimulus fund disbursement, choosing a highly partisan White House loyalist likely to generate Democratic opposition as one of the inspector generals, and “issuing a signing statement that said it would be unconstitutional to require Executive Branch watchdogs to report any obstruction in their investigations, unless Trump himself approves.” The result was that taxpayer money would be sent out to banks, hospitals, and small businesses with little attention to where those funds were needed most. (240)<br /><br />On <b>Thursday, April 9</b>, as the number of reported infections in the U.S. continued to skyrocket, with record tallies of daily deaths just a few days out, Jonathan Swan <a href="https://www.axios.com/some-trump-aides-eye-may-1-start-to-coronavirus-reopening-edde842d-e3f7-4722-96ab-c93190a9893b.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that “Some Trump aides eye May 1 start to coronavirus reopening.”<br /><br />One official told Swan, “We are looking at when the data will allow the opportunity to reopen” the economy, in hopes that Trump wouldn’t have to run for a second term during a steep recession. (241) An official at Health and Human Services said, “Talk of reopening the American economy — when we don’t fully understand the virus, and can’t even crank our own domestic assembly lines to make diagnostic tests, respirators and ventilators — isn't just myopic, it's flat out ridiculous.”<br /><br />Stuck with the reality that even targeted re-openings which put citizens in danger would do little to improve <a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-unemployment-filings-6cb04d2d-9cc4-45b4-a473-9acbf4c99d43.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiospm&stream=top" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the deep economic slump he had contributed to</span></a>, Trump continued to <a href="https://apnews.com/58f1b869354970689d55ccae37c540f3" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">shift the blame to others</span></a>, from the Obama administration to Democratic governors to China to the World Health Organization.<br /><br />As for his own administration’s response, when asked by a reporter if he could have done more, Trump said, “I couldn’t have done it any better,” part of a pattern of <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/trump/you-should-be-saying-congratulations-here-are-116-times-trump-has-praised-his-own-coronavirus-response/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">116 times Trump had congratulated himself or his administration</span></a>.<br /><br /><b>Friday, April 10</b>, marked the two-year anniversary of Trump’s elevation of John Bolton to head the National Security Council (NSC). Bolton had fired the head of Homeland Security, Tom Bossert (see #12), <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/05/10/top-white-house-official-in-charge-of-pandemic-response-exits-abruptly/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">who had</span></a> “called for a comprehensive biodefense strategy against pandemics and biological attacks,” and disbanded the Global Security Office inside the NSC (see #17), effectively <a href="https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-fire-pandemic-team/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">gutting the administration’s main pandemic response unit</span></a>.<br /><br />Unconcerned with these relevant but inconvenient facts, the Republican National Committee (RNC) announced that they would be running digital ad spots <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/10/rnc-trump-coronavirus-ad-178625" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><i>praising</i> Trump’s response</span></a> to the coronavirus.<br /><br />While the RNC tried to re-write history, Mike Pence quietly <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/10/trump-pence-easter-coronavirus-178677" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">cleaned up one of Trump’s messes</span></a>, according to Gabby Orr of <i>Politico</i>. To make sure that houses of worship connected to the White House knew that Trump wasn’t serious when he’d said that he wanted churches open on Easter (see #213), and wouldn’t embarrass the administration with public services on Easter, Pence and his staff called allies in the faith community and made the case for social distancing.<br /><br /><i>ProPublica</i> <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/rationing-protective-gear-means-checking-on-coronavirus-patients-less-often-this-can-be-deadly?utm_source=pardot&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=majorinvestigations" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> on another one of the messes caused by Trump's incompetence—due to a shortage of PPE, hospital clinicians were having to ration time with patients to avoid infection, leading to shortfalls in patient care, patients being alone for hours at a time (242), and patients dying alone. (243)<br /><br />On <b>Saturday, April 11</b>, America passed 20,000 known deaths, making the U.S. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/04/11/coronavirus-latest-news/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">#1 in the world</span></a>.<br /><br />Dave Jamieson of <i>Huffington Post</i> <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/osha-labor-department-coronavirus-cases-at-work_n_5e91cc70c5b6f7b1ea8218bf" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that the administration had used Friday afternoon—a great time to dump damning information—to announce that “employers outside of the health care industry generally won’t be required to record coronavirus cases among their workers, a decision that left some workplace safety advocates incredulous.<br /><br />“…if employers don’t have to try to figure out whether a transmission happened in the workplace, it could leave both them and the government in the dark about emerging hotspots in places like retail stores or meatpacking plants.” (244)<br /><br />“Debbie Berkowitz, a worker safety expert at the National Employment Law Project, told HuffPost in an email that the implications of the guidance are larger than they seem. She said it would lead employers outside of health care to ‘not consider any of these [infections] work-related and therefore something they can prevent.’<br /><br />“‘This is despicable and will lead to more cases among workers and the public,’ (245) she said in an email. ‘[OSHA] should be requiring employers to keep workers six feet apart, provide double cotton layer masks, hand sanitizers throughout facilities, [and] time to wash hands with soap and water.’”<br /><br /><b>Sunday, April 12</b>, Katie Thomas and Knvul Sheikh of <i>the New York Times</i> reported that Chloroquine, a drug very similar to Hydrochloroquine, falsely billed by Trump as a miracle cure for COVID-19 (see #192), was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/12/health/chloroquine-coronavirus-trump.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">causing irregular heartbeats in test subjects</span></a>.<br /><br />On <b>Monday, April 13</b>, <i>Politico</i> led with “States still baffled over how to get coronavirus supplies from Trump.”<br /><br /><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/13/states-baffled-coronavirus-supplies-trump-179199?nname=playbook&nid=0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=630318" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Fourteen weeks after CDC head Robert Redfield was first informed of the virus, the administration was still failing states</span></a>. Pleas from Jared Polis (the Democratic governor of Colorado) to FEMA were ignored. Messages from Polis to Mike Pence were ignored. Miraculously, when Republican Senator Cory Gardner made a request to the administration, ventilators were sent out the next day, but even that shipment was far short of what was needed—only 100 units. (246)<br /><br />The lack of a formal process was creating chaos:<br /><br />“The federal government’s haphazard approach to distributing its limited supplies has left states trying everything — filling out lengthy FEMA applications, calling Trump, contacting Pence, sending messages to Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, and trade adviser Peter Navarro, who are both leading different efforts to find supplies, according to local and states officials in more than a half-dozen states. They’re even asking mutual friends to call Trump or sending him signals on TV and Twitter.<br /><br />“Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t.” (247)<br /><br />“…The confusion is indicative more broadly of how Trump and his administration have responded to a number of crises. The president often bounces from one issue to the next, reacting to the headlines of the day. Record turnover rates and competing power centers have hampered long-term planning. The result has been rotating strategies that are hard to fully chronicle.” (248)<br /><br />Allocations were based not on need, but on public flattery of Trump:<br /><br />“‘Right now, you have more discretion at the White House, and we have prized our relationship in order to secure some of the ventilators and other supplies,’ said an aide to one governor, who asked that even the state not be named for fear of jeopardizing the supplies. ‘We operate within the world we live in. We made the decision to have a very constructive and amicable relationship.’” (249)<br /><br />Trump’s megalomania was again a topic of discussion on <b>Tuesday, April 14</b>.<br /><br />Amanda Marcotte of <i>Salon</i> opined on the previous evening’s daily presser, <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/04/14/trump-says-his-authority-is-total--while-he-blames-everyone-else-for-his-failures/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">which was even more bizarre than usual</span></a>. In addition to making White House reporters watch a propaganda video claiming against all available evidence (see #1-#249) that the administration had done a good job of handling coronavirus, Trump said that he alone would decide when states opened back up: “When somebody's the president of the United States, the authority is total, and that's the way it's got to be.”<br /><br />When a reporter questioned this, Trump barked back, “Enough!”<br /><br />While Trump’s attacks on reporters were boorish and unpresidential, his temper tantrums took much more consequential forms. In his continuing effort to deflect blame, Trump froze U.S. funding to the World Health Organization (WHO) for 60 days, claiming—with no evidence—that the WHO was covering up for China, who had become Trump’s key scapegoat for the administration’s failures. (250)<br /><br />As <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/15/world-health-organization-trump-funding-cuts-187615" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> by Quint Forgey and Nahal Toosi on <b>Wednesday, April 15</b>, the move caught overseas allies and Trump’s own staff off-guard: “The order was just the latest example of officials seeking to fill in the details of a lurching policy shift by the president, who is prone to the bureaucratic equivalent of shooting first and asking questions later.”<br /><br />“Josep Borrell Fontelles, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, <a href="https://twitter.com/JosepBorrellF/status/1250356625803599875"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">said</span></a> there was ‘no reason justifying this move’ by the American president ‘at a moment when [WHO’s] efforts are needed more than ever to help contain & mitigate the #coronavirus pandemic.’”<br /><br />The abrupt funding cut-off came after the administration’s 2021 budget proposal had <a href="https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/FY-2021-CBJ-Final-508compliant.pdf" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">slashed America’s contribution by 50%</span> </a>(251), while the U.S. was still $99 million in arrears to the organization.<br /><br />Chaos within the administration was further detailed by James Hohmann of <i>the Washington Post</i> in “Leaked CDC and FEMA plan warns of ‘significant risk of resurgence of the virus’ with phased reopening.”<br /><br /><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2020/04/15/daily-202-leaked-cdc-and-fema-plan-warns-of-significant-risk-of-resurgence-of-the-virus-with-phased-reopening/5e9688d288e0fa101a763033/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Directly undermining Trump’s advocacy for re-opening the economy</span></a>, a “draft national strategy to reopen the country in phases, developed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, emphasizes that even a cautious and phased approach ‘will entail a significant risk of resurgence of the virus.’<br /><br />“The internal document, obtained by The Washington Post, warns of a ‘large rebound curve’ of novel coronavirus cases if mitigation efforts are relaxed too quickly before vaccines are developed and distributed or broad community immunity is achieved.<br /><br />“The framework lays out criteria that should be in place before a region can responsibly ease guidelines related to public gatherings: a ‘genuinely low’ number of cases; a ‘well-functioning’ monitoring system capable of ‘promptly detecting’ spikes of infections; a public health system able to react robustly to new cases and local health systems that have enough inpatient beds to rapidly scale up in the event of a surge in cases.”<br /><br />As Hohmann pointed out, the administration was nowhere near to meeting these criteria—in fact, <span style="color: #3d85c6;"><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/14/coronavirus-testing-delays-186883" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">commercial testing plummeted 30% that week</span></a> </span>(252)—and Trump hadn’t committed to following the guidelines because he was “fearful of the potential damage to his reelection chances.”<br /><br />Re-opening the economy to help the 2020 campaign, consequences be damned, was a foregone conclusion within Trump's inner circle, putting his appointees in pre-emptive damage control mode: “Trump’s advisers are trying to shield the president from political accountability should his move to reopen the economy prove premature and result in lost lives, and so they are trying to mobilize business executives, economists and other prominent figures to buy into the eventual White House plan, so that if it does not work, the blame can be shared broadly.” (253)<br /><br />On <b>Thursday, April 16</b>, <i>the Washington Post</i> reported that all of the job gains of the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjones/2020/02/17/obamas-2009-recovery-act-kicked-off-over-10-years-of-economic-growth/#4681b5368b77" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">lengthy Obama recovery</span></a> were gone and coronavirus was becoming America’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/04/16/coronavirus-leading-cause-death/?arc404=true&utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">leading cause of death</span></a>.<br /><br />At that day’s briefing, Trump gave governors the authority to decide when to re-open their states, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/16/trump-plan-for-reopening-economy-191073" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">contradicting his statement earlier in the week</span></a> that he had “total authority” over state-by-state re-opening.<br /><br /><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/17/trump-states-stay-at-home-orders-192386" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Friday Trump contradicted Thursday Trump</span></a> on <b>April 17</b> when he Tweeted support for fringe-right extremists in Michigan, Virginia, and Minnesota who were protesting stay-at-home orders, even as the U.S. had experienced <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-surges-in-some-asian-countries-that-had-been-lightly-hit-11587031743" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a record number of deaths</span></a> (4,591) the day before, twice the record set earlier in the week. (254)<br /><br />Asked at a press conference if he was recommending the orders be lifted, Trump contradicted himself yet again: “No, but elements of what they’ve done are too much....It’s too tough.”<br /><br />In a public statement, Washington governor Jay Inslee said, “I hope someday we can look at today’s meltdown as something to be pitied, rather than condemned. But we don’t have that luxury today. There is too much at stake.”<br /><br />An AP feature on <b>Saturday, April 18</b> looked at the danger of re-opening before adequate testing had been done.<br /><br />According to the authors, “…<a href="https://apnews.com/9983363b779562ec9ebaaf6303922ecb" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">more than a month after [Trump] declared, ‘Anybody who wants a test, can get a test,’ the reality has been much different</span></a>. People report being unable to get tested. Labs and public officials say critical supply shortages are making it impossible to increase testing to the levels experts say is necessary to keep the virus in check.<br /><br />“‘There are places that have enough test swabs, but not enough workers to administer them. There are places that are limiting tests because of the CDC criteria on who should get tested,’ said Dr. Megan Ranney, an emergency physician and associate professor at Brown University. ‘There’s just so many inefficiencies and problems with the way that testing currently happens across this country.’” (255)<br /><br />The piece went on to mention that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/17/us/coronavirus-testing-states.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200419&instance_id=17774&nl=morning-briefing&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=25500&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">testing would have to increase three-fold</span></a> to give public officials the data they needed to make safe and informed decisions and that Trump was pawning responsibility for testing off on the states, though he knew states didn’t remotely have the resources necessary due to “shortages of swabs, protective gear and highly specialized laboratory chemicals needed to analyze the virus’ genetic material.” (256)<br /><br />The delays in getting functional test kits out, the biggest factor in <a href="https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">America’s first-in-the-world totals in infections and deaths</span></a>, was the subject of two <i>Washington Post</i> articles, one focused on <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/contamination-at-cdc-lab-delayed-rollout-of-coronavirus-tests/2020/04/18/fd7d3824-7139-11ea-aa80-c2470c6b2034_story.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the CDC’s failure to follow agency protocols</span></a>, which contributed to contaminated kits being sent out (257), as well as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2020/04/18/timeline-coronavirus-testing/?arc404=true" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a detailed timeline of all of the Trump administration’s test kit errors</span></a>.<br /><br /><i>The Post</i>’s key conclusion: “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2020/04/04/coronavirus-government-dysfunction/?arc404=true"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">it took 70 days from [China's initial notification t0 CDC head Robert Redfield] for President Trump to treat the coronavirus pandemic seriously</span>.</a>" (258)</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">David S. Cloud, Paul Pringle, and Eli Stokols of <i>the Los Angeles Times</i> continued this thread the following day, <b>Sunday, April 19</b>, in “<a href="https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-04-19/coronavirus-outbreak-president-trump-slow-response" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">How Trump let the U.S. fall behind the curve on coronavirus threat</span></a>.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The piece looked at chronic dysfunction within the top tiers of the administration and the central role Trump’s fixation on the Senate impeachment trial and re-election (i.e. his inability to pivot from political combat to governing, see #141) played in the confusion and inaction:<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“Trump's unwillingness to take the health threat seriously and disagreements among his top aides effectively sidelined the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, leaving key responders without direction from a White House that was focused on the president's impeachment trial in the Senate.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“…‘In an ideal world, there would have been a structure and someone with vision empowered in the White House,’ said J. Stephen Morrison, a health policy expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank. ‘Everything was seen through the impeachment and reelection process.’”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“…At the White House, Trump and his close advisors, consumed by his impending impeachment trial in the Senate, rebuffed attempts by Redfield's boss, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, to alert them about the threat, according to a former federal official with knowledge of the communications.” (259)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“...The conflicts inside the White House along with the impeachment trial underway in the Senate kept the health threat barely on Trump’s radar.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“‘You have Trump as the lone-wolf operator,’ said Anthony Scaramucci, who served briefly as Trump's director of communications and has recently been critical of the president. ‘What happens is everybody gets immobilized. They don't know what their marching orders are … so that's caused them to be very slow-footed in the midst of this crisis.’”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“…The federal government had an array of options to prevent the predictions from becoming a reality, experts said, including invoking the Defense Production Act to require private companies <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-03-18/coronavirus-stimulus-bill-trump-treasury"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">to address shortages</span></a> of medical masks, ventilators and other equipment; mobilizing the military <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-03-20/u-s-military-can-help-in-responding-to-the-coronavirus-outbreak-within-limits"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">to construct field hospitals</span></a> and organize testing centers around the country; and <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-27/mercy-hospital-ship-with-1-000-beds-arrives-in-l-a-to-help-with-coronavirus"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">dispatching Navy hospital ships</span></a> to New York and Los Angeles sooner.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“But there was little urgency to the government response.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“‘It was one failure after another, piling up on each other,’ said Dr. Ashish Jha, faculty director of the Harvard Global Health Institute. ‘When that happens, it usually means it wasn’t a priority. It was a lack of leadership.’”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The lack of leadership was (again) evident that day when <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/19/trump-dpa-testing-swabs-reported-shortages-195721" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump finally triggered the Defense Production Act to increase production of testing swabs</span></a>, “weeks after reported shortages” and months after easily-foreseen shortages (260), supply shortages that were being exacerbated by <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/hospitals-face-a-white-house-blockade-for-coronavirus-ppe.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the administration’s blockade of supplies ordered by the states</span></a> themselves. (261)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">On <b>Monday, April 20</b>, the gulf between vital public health imperatives and the Trump administration’s self-serving political agenda widened. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Interviewed that morning by George Stephanopolous, Anthony Fauci <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/news/dr-fauci-condemns-protesters-clamoring-for-end-to-lockdown-premature-reopening-will-backfire/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">stressed the danger of re-opening the economy too soon</span></a>: “If you jump the gun and go into a situation where you have a big spike, you’re going to set yourself back….So as painful as it is to go by the careful guidelines of gradually phasing into a reopening, it’s going to backfire [if you reopen prematurely]. That’s the problem.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Despite his awareness of the public health dangers and his <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/16/trump-plan-for-reopening-economy-191073" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">public statement</span></a> four days earlier that governors should decide when to end or modify statewide shelter-in-place laws, behind the scenes Trump was pushing governors—particularly Republican allies—to re-open the economy prematurely for fear that mass unemployment could doom his re-election bid (262).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As reported in “<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/20/trump-revs-up-state-fight-coronavirus-shutdowns-195443" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump revs up for a state-by-state fight over coronavirus shutdowns</span></a>":</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“Over the next two weeks at the urging of the Trump administration, the map of the U.S. will start to resemble a patchwork quilt, with some states open for business while others remain locked down because of the spread of the virus.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Trump was only too happy to exploit divisions between the majority of Americans who grasped the threat of the virus and the vocal minority of rabid ideologues who didn’t: </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“Senior administration officials and Trump advisers say the level of hostility between the president and governors will probably only increase in the coming days, in part because Trump sees so much political opportunity in stoking those divisions during his reelection campaign. Governors have become his latest political foil, along with China and the World Health Organization, and he’s trying to bully and scapegoat them amid his administration’s response to the pandemic. (263)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“Small protests over the weekend in Texas, North Carolina, Michigan and New Hampshire only highlighted the frustration of some Americans about the shuttering of huge swaths of the economy. Trump aides and advisers are closely monitoring those protests because they think the demonstrations give momentum to the president’s argument to reopen the economy as soon as possible — not to mention a potential source of energy heading into the fall election.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Though governors had nowhere near the purchasing/negotiating power and resources of the federal government, and could neither afford nor realistically be expected to get hold of the amount of supplies necessary, “The White House has been setting itself up for weeks now to blame governors for the response to the coronavirus, including any failure to procure medical equipment and resources, or problems that arise from restarting businesses and resuming public life.” (264)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">While the administration sought to deflect attention from their failure to plan ahead, statnews.com reported on <b>Tuesday, April 21</b>, that <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/21/rick-bright-out-at-barda/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump’s allergy to science and reasoned disagreement was continuing to hamper the administration’s COVID-19 response</span></a>: </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“Rick Bright, one of the nation’s leading vaccine development experts and the director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, is no longer leading the organization, officials told STAT.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“The shakeup at the agency, known as BARDA, couldn’t come at a more inopportune time for the office, which invests in drugs, devices, and other technologies that help address infectious disease outbreaks and which has <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/06/barda-coronavirus-response/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">been at the center of the government’s coronavirus pandemic respons</span>e</a>.” (265)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“…BARDA was expected to play an even larger role in the coming months; Congress more than tripled BARDA’s budget in the most recent coronavirus stimulus package. Already, the office has a role in some of the splashiest Covid-19 projects, including partnerships with Johnson & Johnson and Moderna Therapeutics, both of which are developing potential Covid-19 treatments.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Appearing on “Face the Nation” a few days later, Trump’s former FDA head Scott Gottlieb said, "I think <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/494734-gottlieb-says-reassigning-vaccine-chief-is-going-to-set-us-back" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">changing leadership in that position right now certainly is going to set us back</span></a>….It's hard to argue that that's not going to have some impact on the continuity and also make businesses, companies that need to collaborate with BARDA, a little bit more reluctant now to embrace BARDA now that there's a cloud hanging over it and some uncertainty about the leadership."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It would come out later that Bright (see #23) was demoted because he had <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/22/rick-bright-trump-hydroxychloroquine-coronavirus" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">disagreed with Trump’s focus on the pie-in-the-sky cure-all of hydroxychloroquine</span></a>, part of Trump’s consistent pattern of punishing public health officials who didn’t parrot his ill-informed talking points.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The same day, <i>the National Review</i>, a conservative publication, put the lie to one of Trump’s favorite talking points in February and early March (see #70, #108, #197) with “<a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/04/coronavirus-kills-more-americans-in-one-month-than-the-flu-kills-in-one-year/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Coronavirus Kills More Americans in One Month Than the Flu Kills in One Year</span></a>.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The theme of Trump’s <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-coronavirus-timeline-dismissed-969381/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">blatant lies and bad advice</span></a> came up again at that day’s briefing when PBS reporter Yamiche Alcindor related an anecdote about a family who’d gotten infected (after taking Trump’s misinformation at face value) and asked the president, “Are you concerned downplaying the virus maybe got some people sick?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The president of the United States said that <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/2020/04/trump-shows-a-total-inability-to-have-empathy-remorse-when-confronted-with-the-consequences-of-his-actions/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the infections he caused in effect didn’t matter</span></a> because “a lot of people love Trump, right?,” because he’d won an election, because he’d probably win another one. Though the amount of testing and detection was still <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/22/coronavirus-testing-problem-america-201372" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">not remotely adequate</span></a> almost four months after the administration had first been notified of the virus, and the desperate and chaotic situation in America due to Trump's failures was likened to “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/apr/22/top-economist-us-coronavirus-response-like-third-world-country-joseph-stiglitz-donald-trump" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a third world country</span></a>,” Trump then told Alcindor that his single action of closing off travel from China—even as <a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/04/12/u-s-got-more-confirmed-index-cases-of-coronavirus-from-europe-than-from-china/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">he allowed infected travelers to stream in from Europe for another six weeks</span></a>—proved that he had taken COVID-19 seriously.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Just how seriously the administration had taken the pandemic was again revealed the following day, <b>Wednesday, April 22</b>, when Aram Roston and Marisa Taylor of <i>Reuters</i> reported that a “<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-hhschief-speci/special-report-former-labradoodle-breeder-was-tapped-to-lead-us-pandemic-task-force-idUSKCN2243CE" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Former Labradoodle breeder was tapped to lead U.S. pandemic task force</span></a>.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The piece explained how Alex Azar had put the day-to-day operations of the Coronavirus Task Force in the hands of Brian Harrison, a 37-year-old with a background in dog breeding. Harrison “was an unusual choice, with no formal education in public health, management, or medicine and with only limited experience in the fields.” (266)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">At that day’s press briefing, the lies continued when Trump <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/22/trump-downplays-risk-of-coronavirus-rebound-202325" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">said</span></a>, “If [coronavirus] comes back though, it won’t be coming back in the form that it was, it will be coming back in smaller doses that we can contain….it’s also possible it doesn’t come back at all.” This <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/04/21/coronavirus-secondwave-cdcdirector/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">flatly contradicted CDC head Robert Redfield’s statement the day before</span></a> that the second wave of COVID-19 could be worse than the first and represented yet another example of the mixed messaging the administration was putting out to the public. (267)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As of <b>Thursday, April 23</b>, <a href="https://apnews.com/e928d091f81f75b9bc8830c7370f41fb" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">U.S. unemployment rates had reached Depression-era levels</span></a>. Trump continued to push misinformation, claiming that <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/23/trump-coronavirus-sunlight-205969" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">sunlight could wipe out coronavirus</span></a>: “‘The whole concept of the light, the way it kills it in one minute, that’s pretty powerful,’ Trump said during a White House press briefing. He raised the possibility of hitting a human body </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">‘</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">with a tremendous — whether it's ultraviolet or just very powerful light.’” (268)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">He also sang the praises of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/04/24/disinfectant-injection-coronavirus-trump/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the miracle cure of injecting disinfectants</span></a>: “Then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute, one minute. Is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside, or almost a cleaning?" (269)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The next day, <b>Friday, April 24</b>, COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. passed 50,000, more than twice the number of deaths in any other country.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As media wheels spun over Trump’s off-the-wall comments from the day before, he tried to shake off bad press by falsely claiming he was being sarcastic. His comments were no laughing matter, as <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertglatter/2020/04/25/calls-to-poison-centers-spike--after-the-presidents-comments-about-using-disinfectants-to-treat-coronavirus/#4556ea211157" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a rash of disinfectant-related accidents</span></a> would prove. (270)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Another one of Trump’s coronavirus quick fixes was revealed as quackery when Trump’s own “<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/id/10000889"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Food and Drug Administration</span></a> warned consumers…against taking malaria drugs chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine to treat Covid-19 outside a hospital or formal clinical trial setting after deaths and poisonings were reported.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">That weekend, on <b>Sunday, April 26</b>, Helena Bottemiller Evich of <i>Politico</i> reported on <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/26/food-banks-coronavirus-agriculture-usda-207215" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the incompetence of Trump’s Agriculture Department</span></a> in “USDA let millions of pounds of food rot while food-bank demand soared.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">According to Evich: “Tens of millions of pounds of American-grown produce is rotting in fields as food banks across the country scramble to meet a massive surge in demand, a two-pronged disaster that has deprived farmers of billions of dollars in revenue while millions of newly jobless Americans struggle to feed their families. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“While other federal agencies quickly adapted their programs to the coronavirus crisis, the Agriculture Department took more than a month to make its first significant move to buy up surplus fruits and vegetables — despite repeated entreaties.” <o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">(271)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“….Images of farmers destroying tomatoes, piling up squash, burying onions and dumping milk shocked many Americans who remain fearful of supply shortages. At the same time, people who recently lost their jobs lined up for miles outside some food banks, raising questions about why there has been no coordinated response at the federal level to get the surplus of perishable food to more people in need, even as commodity groups, state leaders and lawmakers repeatedly urged the Agriculture Department to step in.” (272)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">On <b>Monday, April 27</b>, with the U.S. death toll over 55,000, Greg Miller and Ellen Nakashima of <i>the Washington Post</i> reported that <a href="https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/President-s-intelligence-briefing-book-repeatedly-15229783.php" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump had received “more than a dozen [intelligence] warnings” about the coronavirus</span></a> in his January and February Presidential Daily Brief (PDB), even as he publicly dismissed concerns about COVID-19. (273) It was unclear if Trump ignored the warnings or never heard them because he “routinely skips reading the PDB and has at times shown little patience even for the oral summary he now takes two or three times per week.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">When asked on <b>Tuesday, April 28</b>, about his non-response to more than a dozen intelligence briefings about COVID-19, Trump claimed that “<a href="https://twitter.com/jeffmason1/status/1255165563632062477?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1255165563632062477&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rawstory.com%2F2020%2F04%2Ftrump-lies-about-dire-intel-he-received-on-virus-and-says-most-people-thought-it-would-blow-over%2F" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">most people thought earlier this year that the coronavirus was going to blow over</span></a>.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As of <b>Wednesday, April 29</b>, the U.S. had passed 60,000 official deaths and one million infections, far more than any other country; there were <a href="https://www.barrons.com/news/us-records-2-502-coronavirus-deaths-in-past-24-hours-tracker-01588207503" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">2,502 deaths that day alone</span></a>. Trump announced that he w</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">ould not be extending social distancing recommendations past Thursday. Jared Kushner </span>“predicted that by July the country will be '<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/29/coronavirus-latest-updates.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">really rocking again</span></a>.'”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">AP reported that <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/29/us-economy-coronavirus-220441" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the U.S. economy had contracted 4.8%</span></a> in the first quarter of 2020, the biggest drop since the economy lost 8.4% of its value in the final quarter of 2008, as <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-master-of-low-expectations-666.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">George W. Bush</span></a>’s presidency was winding down. Forecasters predicted that the second quarter of 2020 would be even worse.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Eager to shift attention away from the grim human toll of the administration’s failure to get ahead of COVID-19, senior administration officials were pressuring intelligence agencies to find a link between coronavirus and state-run labs in China, as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/30/us/politics/trump-administration-intelligence-coronavirus-china.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> in <i>the New York Times</i> on <b>Thursday, April 30</b>. (274)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This theory—<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/24/gop-memo-anti-china-coronavirus-207244" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">part of a coordinated Republican response</span></a> to change the subject—had <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/18/us/politics/trump-china-virus.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">floated around the right-wing echo chamber for a while</span></a>, but “Most intelligence agencies remain skeptical that conclusive evidence of a link to a lab can be found, and scientists who have studied the genetics of the coronavirus say that the overwhelming probability is that it leapt from animal to human in a nonlaboratory setting, as was the case with H.I.V., Ebola and SARS.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“….In a statement released earlier on Thursday, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said that the intelligence community ‘will continue to rigorously examine emerging information and intelligence to determine whether the outbreak began through contact with infected animals or if it was the result of an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“Intelligence agencies, the statement said, concur ‘with the wide scientific consensus that the Covid-19 virus was not man-made or genetically modified.’”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">On <b>Friday, May 1</b>, Courtenay Brown and Kyle Daly of <i>Axios</i> <a href="https://www.axios.com/creaky-unemployment-systems-plague-jobless-americans-b5244634-f72b-4b33-a65d-dbc2f0f5492a.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> on the inability of many states to keep up with unemployment claims. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“One out of every five working Americans” (30,000,000) had filed for unemployment over the prior six weeks, but this was an undercount. The true number could be as high as 44,000,000, but was hard to determine because understaffed state agencies couldn’t keep up with the applications.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As millions of Americans and their families struggled to get by, the administration continued to try to conceal its gross negligence by <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/white-house-blocking-fauci-testifying-congress-about-coronavirus-response-n1198276" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">blocking</span></a> Anthony Fauci from appearing before a Democratic-led House Appropriations Committee investigating the administration’s COVID-19 response—at the same time as it was announced that Fauci would be allowed to speak to a Republican-led Senate Health Committee hearing. (275)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Later that day, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/01/us/politics/trump-health-department-watchdog.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">in another act of petty revenge</span></a>, the administration replaced Christi Grimm, a Health and Human Services deputy inspector general who had authored an unflattering but objective report: (276)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“<a href="https://oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/oei-06-20-00300.asp"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Her report, released last month</span></a> and based on extensive interviews with hospitals around the country, identified critical shortages of supplies, revealing that hundreds of medical centers were struggling to obtain test kits, protective gear for staff members and ventilators. Mr. Trump was embarrassed by the report at a time he was already under fire for playing down the threat of the virus and not acting quickly enough to ramp up testing and provide equipment to doctors and nurses.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The administration announced the move Friday evening so that the story would be buried.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The next day, </span><b>Saturday, May 3</b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">, it was reported that <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/02/who-us-just-reported-deadliest-day-for-coronavirus.html?fbclid=IwAR3Y5JDL1sXSdK0beExlE1ESFI-hnqFY2xAR20JZq-OeuP5lE_Sg-RgIO6I" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the U.S. had just had its most reported deaths in a single day</span></a>: 2,909. A few hours later, </span><i>the Washington Post</i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> published a blockbuster </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">exposé</span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> entitled “</span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/34-days-of-pandemic-inside-trumps-desperate-attempts-to-reopen-america/2020/05/02/e99911f4-8b54-11ea-9dfd-990f9dcc71fc_story.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">34 days of pandemic: Inside Trump’s desperate attempts to reopen U.S.</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The article revealed that despite the warnings of public health officials of a second wave of infections, Trump had been obsessed with re-opening the economy for the sole purpose of helping his re-election bid.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">To this end, the administration had formed a “small team led by Kevin Hassett - a former chairman of Trump's Council of Economic Advisers with no background in infectious diseases (277)….[who] quietly built an econometric model to guide response operations.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“…senior administration officials said [Hassett’s] presentations characterized the count as lower than commonly forecast - and that it was embraced inside the West Wing by the president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and other powerful aides helping to oversee the government's pandemic response. It affirmed their own skepticism about the severity of the virus and bolstered their case to shift the focus to the economy, which they firmly believed would determine whether Trump wins a second term.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“For Trump - whose decision-making has been guided largely by his reelection prospects - the analysis, coupled with Hassett's grim predictions of economic calamity, provided justification to pivot to where he preferred to be: cheering an economic revival rather than managing a catastrophic health crisis.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“…By the end of April - with more Americans dying in the month than in all of the Vietnam War - it became clear that the Hassett model was too good to be true. ‘A catastrophic miss,’ as a former senior administration official briefed on the data described it. The president's course would not be changed, however. Trump and Kushner began to declare a great victory against the virus, while urging America to start reopening businesses and schools.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“‘It's going to go. It's going to leave. It's going to be gone. It's going to be eradicated,’ the president said Wednesday, hours after his son-in-law claimed the administration's response had been ‘a great success story.’” (278, 279)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“…And though Trump was fixated on reopening the economy, he and his administration fell far short of making that a reality. The factors that health and business leaders say are critical to a speedy and effective reopening - widespread testing, contact tracing and coordinated efforts between Washington and the states - remain lacking.” (280)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Two stories on <b>Monday, May 4</b>, made it clearer than ever that Trump was willing to sacrifice tens or hundreds of thousands of American lives to win a second term.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "georgia" , serif;">“</span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/04/cdc-daily-deaths-coronavirus-234377"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Models shift to predict dramatically more U.S. deaths as states relax social distancing</span></a><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "georgia" , serif;">” revealed that “A key model of the coronavirus pandemic </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/24/trump-coronavirus-model-207582"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , serif;">favored by the White House</span></a><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "georgia" , serif;"> nearly doubled its prediction Monday for how many people will die from the virus in the U.S. by August – primarily because states are reopening too soon.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "georgia" , serif;">“The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington’s School of Medicine is now projecting 134,000 coronavirus-related fatalities, up from a previous prediction of 72,000. Factoring in the scientists’ margin of error, the new prediction ranges from 95,000 to 243,000.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "georgia" , serif;">“Dr. Christopher Murray, the director of IHME, told reporters on a call Monday the primary reason for the increase is many states’ ‘premature relaxation of social distancing.’”</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Even as the White House knew relaxing social distancing and other stay-at-home measures would kill tens of thousands more Americans (at a minimum), and up to 3,000 people daily, later that day it was reported that “</span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-cheers-on-governors-as-they-ignore-white-house-coronovirus-guidelines-in-race-to-reopen/2020/05/04/bedc6116-8e18-11ea-a0bc-4e9ad4866d21_story.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Trump cheers on governors as they ignore White House coronavirus guidelines in race to reopen</span></a><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "georgia" , serif;">.” (281) </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">One state that followed Trump’s lead was the Republican enclave of Texas. As reported on <b>Tuesday, May 5</b>, Texas saw its <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/texas-sees-highest-single-day-jumps-coronavirus-cases-since-outbreak-began-within-two-days-1502061" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">biggest single-day infection totals</span></a> two days after throwing off social distancing guidelines.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "georgia" , serif;">The circumstances in Texas were predictable, given the state of the pandemic. As reported by <i>the New York Times</i> that day, “Any notion that the coronavirus threat is fading away appears to be <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/05/us/coronavirus-deaths-cases-united-states.html?auth=login-email&campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200506&instance_id=18254&login=email&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=26699&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">magical thinking</span></a>, at odds with what the latest numbers show.”</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Despite the clear connection between premature re-openings and increased infections, Trump faced no political repercussions among his base because <a href="https://www.axios.com/axios-ipsos-coronavirus-week-8-5a1947d5-9850-4e58-9583-9b617e6fdc1b.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">most Republican voters were in the dark about COVID-19</span></a> due to poor critical thinking skills and/or a resistance to valid sources of information. A poll reported by Margaret Talev of <i>Axios</i> showed that 76% of Republicans didn’t realize that <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/coronavirus-deaths/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the official death tallies were undercounts</span></a> due to under-reporting in many states and a large number of people who weren’t counted because they died before being diagnosed with COVID-19. Forty percent of Republicans actually thought the official numbers <i>were too high</i>. (282)</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Some of the Republican ignorance was attributable to the fact that communities of color had so far been hit at far higher rates than the white-majority communities many conservatives lived in. <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/05/black-counties-disproportionately-hit-by-coronavirus-237540" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">As reported in <i>Politico</i></span></a>, “</span><span style="background: white;">Counties across the country with a disproportionate number of African American residents accounted for 52 percent of diagnoses and 58 percent of coronavirus deaths nationally, according to a new study released Tuesday.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The study, “conducted by epidemiologists and clinician-researchers at four universities in conjunction with the nonprofit AIDS research organization amFar and PATH’s Center for Vaccine Innovation and Access,” helped to fill in the gap left by Trump’s CDC, which had failed to publish detailed demographic data about COVID-19 deaths. (283)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background: white;">“The disproportionate toll on African Americans ‘calls for interventions like considering emergency enrollment for <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2012/07/how-much-do-you-really-know-about.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the Affordable Care Act</span></a>,’ said Dr. Patrick Sullivan, professor of epidemiology at Emory University. ‘And in the longer-term Medicaid expansion in the South.’” As of the article posting, the administration had yet to do anything to help expand healthcare to impacted communities (see #236), even as <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/05/states-cut-medicaid-programs-239208" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">states were slashing Medicaid</span></a> rolls due to a lack of funding. (284)</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2020/05/05/coronavirus-latest-new-university-of-penn-model-predicts-350000-deaths-by-end-of-june-if-all-states-fully-reopen/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Further carnage</span></a> was predicted in a study conducted by the University of Pennsylvania which projected that 350,000 Americans would die by the end of June if social distancing measures were relaxed countrywide, 233,000 more than were projected to die if social distancing was maintained.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">In another jaw-dropping stat revealed that day, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/05/consumer-debt-hits-new-record-of-14point3-trillion.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">first quarter consumer debt hit an all-time high</span></a>. (285)</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Bad economic news continued on <b>Wednesday, May 6</b>, as it was reported that <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/06/adp-private-payrolls-april-2020-drop-by-record-20point2-million.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the U.S. had lost over 20 million jobs in April</span></a>, the most since records had started in 2002: “</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">‘Job losses of this scale are unprecedented,’ said Ahu Yildirmaz, co-head of the ADP Research Institute, which compiles the report in conjunction with Moody’s Analytics. ‘The total number of job losses for the month of April alone was more than double the total jobs lost during the Great Recession.’” (286)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Food insecurity was one of the ramifications of the economic catastrophe made infinitely worse than it otherwise would have been by Trump’s inaction in the first 10 weeks of the pandemic (see #258). According to <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/05/06/the-covid-19-crisis-has-already-left-too-many-children-hungry-in-america/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a study</span> </a>cited at the Brookings Institution blog, children were “</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">experiencing food insecurity to an extent unprecedented in modern times” and “40.9 percent of mothers with children ages 12 and under reported household food insecurity since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.” (287)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Despite the obvious need to counteract food shortages among millions of Americans, Republicans were <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/06/us/politics/coronavirus-hunger-food-stamps.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200507&instance_id=18281&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=26779&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">blocking</span></a> Democratic proposals to increase food stamp benefits. (288)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">At a time when people were anxious and steady, transparent, and empathic leadership was more important than ever, Trump continued to blameshift, scold, and brag. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">During an Oval Office meeting meant to honor National Nurses Day, Sophia Thomas (</span><span style="background: white;">president of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners) mentioned that she’d had to use the same N95 mask for three weeks due to a shortage of PPE at her place of employment. Throwing Trump a bone that he didn’t deserve, she softened her statement by adding that, “We’re nurses, and we learn to adapt and do whatever, the best thing that we can do for our patients.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/coronavirus/ny-coronavirus-trump-nurse-oval-office-protective-gear-20200506-ldawejbkmzbe5fxb3kr27zceb4-story.html?fbclid=IwAR1Dlgg41XGtwkRBSR9Q_B5FvuYr3DPHdXiM8t7ALKE4sR6o3kuhK4ZwrB8" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump’s response</span></a> was to talk over Thomas, toss out the baseless anecdotal claim that “I’ve heard the opposite….I’ve heard that they’re loaded up with gowns now,” then blame Obama: “Initially we had nothing, we had empty cupboards, we had empty shelves, we had nothing because it wasn’t put there by the last administration.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Asked by ABC’s David Muir why he hadn’t done anything to shore up the national reserves of PPE in the first three years of his administration, Trump <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/05/trump-ppe-coronavirus-blame-impeachment-russia.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">blamed</span></a> the Mueller investigation of Trump campaign collusion with Russia and the impeachment investigation, and said <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/06/trump-praises-his-coronavirus-response-239787" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the administration’s coronavirus response was “maybe our best work</span></a>.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">More evidence of Trump’s “best work” was revealed on <b>Thursday, May 7</b>, when it came out that <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-sustained-clip-of-new-covid-19.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the administration had “[buried] detailed CDC advice on reopening</span></a>.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/07/admin-shelves-cdc-guide-to-reopening-country-242008" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">According to</span></a> Jason Dearen and Mike Stobbe of the AP, the CDC had put together a detailed plan of safety guidelines for public health officials around the country to follow, but the administration had blocked the report from coming out. The likelihood is that Trump’s people feared that a safe, slow opening could hinder the economic rebound they felt was necessary for Trump to win a second term. (289)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Trump’s preference for spin over public health was <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-face-mask-fears-wearing-in-public-hurt-reelection-ap-2020-5" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">further reviewed</span></a> in “Trump won't wear a mask in public because he's afraid he might look ridiculous and it will </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">harm his reelection chances, report says.” Though <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/2020/05/all-white-house-officials-will-now-wear-masks-when-close-to-trump-after-president-not-happy-his-valet-tested-positive/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=4480&recip_id=24770&list_id=1" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump was making his staff wear masks</span></a>, he refused to follow his own CDC’s guidelines in public appearances because he felt that “</span><span style="background: white;">wearing a face mask would ‘send the wrong message’ that he is more focused on health than reopening the economy, which aides think is key to his winning in November.” (290)</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Though most federal GOP officials publicly agreed with Trump’s re-opening death march, at least in part because of a fear of reprisals, Republican senator Lamar Alexander <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/07/senate-reopen-coronavirus-243536" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">was willing to tell the truth</span></a> because he was about to retire. As reported by David Lim of <i>Politico</i>, at a hearing of the Senate HELP Committee that day (which he chaired), Alexander said that the U.S. had not done “nearly enough” testing to safely reopen. Alexander also said, </span><span style="background: white;">“there is no safe path forward to combat the novel coronavirus without adequate testing.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background: white;">The article went on to state that “</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">The Harvard Global Health Institute released new data Thursday that suggest more than 900,000 coronavirus tests need to be completed daily to consider safely relaxing distancing measures, as a growing number of states are doing.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“That number is significantly higher than the approximately 250,000 tests per day the country is currently running, according to data from The COVID Tracking Project. Premier Inc., a group purchasing organization, released a survey Thursday that found health systems will need to at least triple the current testing capacity to restore nonemergency services even partially.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“Premier’s survey found two factors that are major obstacles to increasing coronavirus testing: not enough chemical reagents needed to perform tests and shortages of swabs to take patient samples.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background: white;">The shortage in reagents and swabs was rooted in Trump’s resistance to ordering a national testing plan and revving up the Defense Production Act to the extent necessary. (291) To most observers, this would appear to be a major failure in planning and execution with horrible human costs, but Trump told the press more testing wasn’t necessarily the answer, as it would just increase the official number of infections and deaths: </span><span style="background: white;">"In a way, <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/05/08/trump-blocks-national-testing-program--why-because-tests-make-us-look-bad/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">by doing all this testing we make ourselves look bad</span></a>." (292)</span><span style="background: white;"></span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A real world way in which the administration had made itself look bad was explored on <b>Friday, May 8</b>, in “Coronavirus: US death toll would have been halved had it acted 4 days sooner, study says.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/coronavirus-us-death-toll-halved-093000321.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">According to the article</span></a>, “</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">The daily death toll from </span><a href="https://www.scmp.com/topics/coronavirus-pandemic-all-stories?utm_medium=partner&utm_campaign=contentexchange&utm_source=YahooFinance" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Covid-19</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"> in the United States could have been more than halved if authorities had acted more swiftly in recommending self-isolation and the wearing of face masks, according to a new study.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">“Several US states began issuing stay-at-home orders in late March, while federal health authorities began recommending the use of face masks for all in early April. However, had such measures been implemented just four days earlier, the roughly 2,000 Covid-19 deaths currently being recorded each day would have been cut to less than 1,000, the study said. (293)</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">“Furthermore, lifting the measures in a bid to kick-start the economy would almost instantly increase the daily death toll to more than 3,000…” (294)</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Despite the knowledge that not acting sooner had doubled deaths, despite the knowledge that </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">reopening too soon would increase the daily death toll significantly, despite the feeling among 2/3rds of Americans (<a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article242593036.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">and 87% of Democrats/informed Americans</span></a>) that it wasn’t time to reopen, Trump continued to give false assurances to the American public.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">In “<a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/as-deaths-mount-trump-tries-to-convince-americans-it-s-safe-to-inch-back-to-normal/ar-BB13QL8U" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">As deaths mount, Trump tries to convince Americans it’s safe to inch back to normal</span></a>,” posted on <b>Saturday, May 9</b>, four <i>Washington Post</i> reporters examined the administration’s campaign strategy:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“In a week when the novel coronavirus ravaged new communities across the country and the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/national/coronavirus-us-cases-deaths/?itid=hp_rhp__hp-banner-low_web-gfx-death-tracker%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">number of dead</span> </a>soared past 78,000, President Trump and his advisers shifted from hour-by-hour crisis management to what they characterize as a long-term strategy aimed at reviving the decimated economy and preparing for additional outbreaks this fall.<br /><br />“But in doing so, the administration is effectively bowing to — and asking Americans to accept — a devastating proposition: that a steady, daily accumulation of lonely deaths is the grim cost of reopening the nation.” (295)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The article explained that the administration was telling itself the country was more or less good to go because the worst was behind us and hospitals could handle upcoming cases, though <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/04/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-death-toll.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the administration’s own models</span></a> and the multiple waves experienced during <a href="https://www.history.com/news/spanish-flu-second-wave-resurgence" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the Spanish Flu</span></a> indicated otherwise. Since the administration wasn’t willing to set up national testing (see #291), or contact tracing (296), their focus was on propaganda—convincing gullible Republicans and independents that it was safe to ease up on restrictions, even if it wasn’t, even if 10,000+ Americans were dying every week.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Sunday, May 10</b>, as it came out that multiple members of the administration had <a href="https://www.thehour.com/news/article/White-House-aides-rattled-after-positive-15259298.php"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">contracted COVID-19</span></a>, Adam Cancryn of <i>Politico</i> documented <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/10/anthony-fauci-deborah-birx-withdrawal-246165"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the conspicuous disappearance of Trump’s top public health officials</span></a>, Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx: “The Trump administration in recent weeks has clamped down on messaging, largely shifting its focus to cheerleading a restart of the nation’s economy even as states and businesses clamor for guidance on how to do so safely.<br /><br />“Key health agencies remain relegated to the background. Some congressional requests for health officials’ testimony are being rejected. (297) And though the task force is still intact, it has not held a press briefing for 13 days — the longest the public has gone without having Anthony Fauci or Deborah Birx at the White House podium since the briefings began in late February. (298)<br /><br />“‘It’s a blind spot that the federal government doesn’t see this first and foremost as a public health crisis,’ said Joshua Sharfstein, a public health professor at Johns Hopkins University. ‘This is the public health crisis of the century, and we’re sometimes treating it as anything but.’”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The next morning, <b>Monday, May 11</b>, Trump continued to block the pandemic from his mind and stay on message, claiming that Democratic governors were making the tough but necessary choice to stay locked down <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-usa-election/trump-an-eye-on-re-election-accuses-democrats-of-reopening-us-states-too-slowly-idUSL1N2CT0Q7" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">in order to hurt his campaign</span></a>, even as he was making his absurd claim purely to serve his campaign.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">While the Trump administration devoted an ever-increasing share of its time and attention to the upcoming election, it continued to fail at the much more immediate task of governing. <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/11/coronavirus-vaccine-supply-shortages-245450" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">As reported</span></a> by Sarah Owermohle for <i>Politico</i>, “</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Meeting the overwhelming demand for a successful coronavirus vaccine will require a historic amount of coordination by scientists, drugmakers and the government.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“The nation’s supply chain isn’t anywhere close to ready for such an effort.” (299)</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />Despite this short-sightedness, and the administration’s long list of other failures and shortcomings (see #1-#298), Trump met that day with reporters in the White House Rose Garden to puff up his record and give the American public more false assurances about the advisability of reopening our economy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Standing by signs that read “America leads the world in testing,” which was true in total numbers—because of the country’s size and number of infections—but <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104645/covid19-testing-rate-select-countries-worldwide/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">was false per capita</span></a>, Trump declared </span><span style="background: white;">“In every generation, through every challenge and hardship and danger, America has risen to the task.” Despite 81,000 deaths and more than a million infections, many/most due to his administration’s gross negligence, Trump added, “<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/11/white-house-instructs-staff-wear-masks-249204?nname=politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition&nid=00000170-c000-da87-af78-e185fa700000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=2670445" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">We have met the moment and we have prevailed</span></a>.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As reported by Sheryl Gay Stolberg of <i>the New York Times</i> the next day, <b>Tuesday, May 12</b>, <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/at-senate-hearing-government-experts-paint-bleak-picture-of-the-pandemic/ar-BB13Zkwl?li=BBnb7Kz" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">there was still no evidence that the worst of the pandemic was behind us</span></a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background: white;">Stolberg’s “</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI";">At Senate Hearing, Government Experts Paint Bleak Picture of the Pandemic” discussed the testimony of top administration public health officials Anthony Fauci and Robert Redfield, who “<span style="background: white;">predicted dire consequences if the nation reopened its economy too soon, noting that the United States still lacked critical testing capacity and the ability to trace the contacts of those infected.”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background: white;">Fauci told the Republican-controlled Senate Committee on Health, Education, </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Labor and Pensions that if “states reopen their economies too soon, ‘there is a real risk that you will trigger an outbreak that you may not be able to control,’ which could result not only in ‘some suffering and death that could be avoided, but could even set you back on the road to trying to get economic recovery.’”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“…Dr. Redfield pleaded with senators to build up the nation’s public health infrastructure, even as he acknowledged that the C.D.C. had not filled 30 jobs authorized by Congress last year to expand its capacity to track outbreaks, and had yet to put in place a ‘comprehensive surveillance’ system to monitor outbreaks in nursing homes, which have been hard hit by the pandemic.” (300, 301)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Fauci and Redfield were barred by the administration from appearing before House committees controlled by Democrats who were guaranteed to ask more pointed—and relevant—questions. (see #275)</span><b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI";"><o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background: white;">The war between Trump and public health officials who want to keep us safe was in the news again on </span><b><span style="background: white;">Wednesday, May 13.<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background: white;">“</span><span style="background: white;">Trump deepens rift with top doctor Fauci on US reopening” looked at Trump and Fauci’s conflicting priorities, including <a href="https://www.barrons.com/news/trump-deepens-rift-with-top-doctor-fauci-on-us-reopening-01589411110" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump’s insistence that schools re-open in the fall</span></a>, which Fauci felt would put children’s health in danger.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background: white;">In “</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Team Trump Pushes CDC to Revise Down Its COVID Death Counts,” published at <i>the Daily Beast</i>, it came out that <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/team-trump-pushes-cdc-to-dial-down-covid-death-counts" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump was badgering CDC officials to </span></a></span><span style="background: white;"><a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/team-trump-pushes-cdc-to-dial-down-covid-death-counts" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">obscure the scope of the pandemic</span></a> (and the scope of <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2020/03/anatomy-of-man-made-disaster-230-ways.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the administration’s failures</span></a>) by giving Americans bad data</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">, even as the CDC’s numbers were already <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2020/04/27/covid-19-death-toll-undercounted/?arc404=true" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">an underestimate</span></a>. (302)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">One CDC official told <i>the Daily Beast</i>, “The system can always get better. But if we’ve learned anything it’s that we’re seeing some of these individuals who have died of the virus slip through the cracks….It’s not that we’re overcounting.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Millions more were at risk of slipping through the cracks due to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-foodstamps/trumps-usda-fights-court-ruling-protecting-food-benefits-during-pandemic-idUSKBN22P33J" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the Trump administration’s aggressive efforts to cut food stamp eligibility during the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression</span></a> (303). In December of 2019, the administration had imposed work requirements on food stamp recipients with the excuse that jobs were plentiful. In March, as the coronavirus surged, a district court judge put the rule on hold. Though children were going hungry (see #287), jobs were scarce and there was no sign of a job market rebound around the corner, and millions of Americans were forced to go to food banks, Trump’s Department of Agriculture vowed to challenge the court ruling.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Republicans were also making their constituents’ lives much more challenging than they needed to be by <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/13/vote-mail-poll-255281" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">opposing vote-by-mail options</span></a> proposed by House Democrats. Three out of five voters supported Democratic efforts to “provide mail-in ballots to all voters for elections occurring during the coronavirus pandemic,” and the dangers of forcing voters to show up at polling places during a pandemic were obvious, but congressional Republicans saw a political advantage in suppressing the vote by keeping voters scared—especially in high-density Democratic cities—as low-turnout races are favorable to the GOP. (304)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Mail-in balloting has been shown to be <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/5/27/15701708/voting-by-mail" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">safer, less expensive, and more secure</span></a>, and has worked like a charm in states in which it has been implemented, but Republican voters in the poll opposed the practice 48-42%, a reflection of the brute </span><span style="background: white;">effectiveness of Trump’s hyper-partisan messaging and his GOP allies’ lockstep adherence to counterfactual talking points. (305)</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background: white;">The theme of <a href="https://www.heraldmailmedia.com/news/nation/battle-over-coronavirus-rules-and-reopenings-across-us-is-increasingly-partisan-and-bitter/article_c1005f31-9887-5f8c-ac8e-91287c7b0e2d.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Republican disinformation campaigns</span></a> was revealed again in “</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Battle over coronavirus rules and reopenings across US is increasingly partisan, and bitter,” a column by Melissa Etehad of <i>the Los Angeles Times</i> which dropped on <b>T</b></span><b><span style="background: white;">hursday, May 14.</span></b><b><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background: white;">Though <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/one-simple-chart-explains-how-social-distancing-saves-lives" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">social distancing had been proven to save lives</span></a> and the pandemic was still going strong—with 85,000 dead and 1.4 million infected—Republican politicians around the country were following Trump’s lead, forcing states and localities to open before it was safe to do so. (306)</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background: white;">Unwilling to do what was necessary to slow down the pandemic, Trump fell back on his favored tool of deflection, feigning reverence for the medical personnel whose lives had been made miserable by his inaction. At that day’s briefing, he said that <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/2020/05/trump-horrifies-health-workers-by-saying-its-beautiful-to-watch-them-running-into-death/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=4540" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the image of medical staff “</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><a href="https://www.rawstory.com/2020/05/trump-horrifies-health-workers-by-saying-its-beautiful-to-watch-them-running-into-death/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=4540" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">running into death just like soldiers run into bullets….is a beautiful thing to see</span></a>.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">On <b>Friday, May 15</b>, the day after Trump waxed poetic about putting doctors and nurses in proximity to death and dying and horrible human suffering, two jaw-dropping statistics came out.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">It was reported that “<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/14/economy/low-income-layoffs-coronavirus/index.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Nearly </span></a></span><span style="background: white;"><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/14/economy/low-income-layoffs-coronavirus/index.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">40% of low-income workers lost their jobs in March</span></a>” (307) and </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Robert Redfield announced that the U.S. would have <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/15/us-on-pace-to-pass-100-000-covid-19-deaths-by-june-1-cdc-director-says-261468" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">100,000 deaths</span></a> by June 1. Shocking as it was, the latter number was an underestimate, as the U.S. would actually reach 100,000 deaths well before the end of May. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Though the administration’s own models showed <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/04/cdc-daily-deaths-coronavirus-234377" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a doubling of cases with premature re-openings</span></a>, though <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/15/stay-at-home-order-coronavirus-259041" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">only two states had met the CDC criteria to re-open</span></a>, though Dr. Fauci and most voters opposed it, Trump <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/19/trumps-push-to-reopen-schools-and-day-care-gets-chilly-reception-from-voters-269430" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">continued to push schools to reopen</span></a> in the fall, a move that would put children and teachers and their families at risk so that Trump’s failure to contain the pandemic wasn’t so evident at election time. (308)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">On <b>Saturday, May 16</b>, Trump received <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31140-5/fulltext" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the honor</span> </a>of getting a write-up in one of the world’s oldest and most prestigious medical journals, <i>The Lancet</i>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The authors of “Reviving the US CDC” opened by referring to “the inconsistent and incoherent national response to the COVID-19 crisis,” as the U.S. had dozens if not hundreds of plans, depending on the location, and no broad national strategy. (309)<br /><br />Later on, the article read “only a steadfast reliance on basic public health principles, like test, trace, and isolate, will see the emergency brought to an end, and this requires an effective national public health agency,” but this wasn’t happening. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In fact, the administration’s actions indicated that Trump was downright indifferent to the mass suffering of his constituents. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The following day, </span><b>Sunday, May 17</b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">, Burgess Everett of </span><i>Politico</i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> reported that “</span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/17/congress-coronavirus-deal-unemployment-260737" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Congress [was] nowhere close to a coronavirus deal as unemployment spikes</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">.” </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Though Trump and his Republican allies had passed an enormous and totally unnecessary $1.5 trillion tax cut </span><a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/12/18/16791174/republican-tax-bill-congress-conference-tax-policy-center" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">heavily tilted to the wealthy</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> and rammed through </span><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/18/senate-passes-700-billion-defense-policy-bill-backing-trump-call-for-steep-increase-in-military-spending.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">huge increases</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> to the </span><a href="https://www.pgpf.org/chart-archive/0053_defense-comparison" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">already gargantuan defense budget</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">, the HEROES Act, a bill passed by House Democrats which </span><a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/5/12/21254397/next-coronavirus-stimulus-package-democrats-heroes-act" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">extended vital aid to state and local governments, and provided money for unemployment benefits, business payrolls, mortgage relief, and front line medical workers</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">, was languishing in the Republican Senate, as Mitch McConnell and his ringmaster—Donald Trump—chose the worst possible moment to stonewall tens of millions of Americans. (310)</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white;">The top story on <b>Monday, May 18</b> was <a href="https://www.axios.com/trump-hydroxychloroquine-e594e81b-c35a-47f8-878d-67f84ce421ea.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiospm&stream=top" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump’s claim that he was taking hydroxychloroquine</span></a>, despite health warnings from his own FDA and studies showing that use of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/12/health/chloroquine-coronavirus-trump.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the drug could be fatal</span></a>. Sure enough, Trump’s self-medication was later <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/republicans-use-potentially-lethal-drug-hydroxychloroquine-as-trump-bait" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">aped by Trumpanzees</span></a>. (311)</span></span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white;">Back in the real world, on <b>Tuesday, May 19</b>, a memo leaked from a Pentagon source <a href="https://taskandpurpose.com/news/coronavirus-vaccine-pentagon-memo" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">put the lie to two of Trump’s repeated claims</span></a>.</span></span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background: white;">Written by Defense Secretary Mark Esper, the memo stated that contrary to Trump’s insistence that the worst of the pandemic was behind us, the U.S. armed forces had to maintain disaster readiness because </span></span><span style="background: white;">"We have a long path ahead, with the real possibility of a resurgence of COVID-19….Therefore, we must now re-focus our attention on resuming critical missions, increasing levels of activity, and making necessary preparations should a significant resurgence of COVID-19 occur later this year."</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background: white;">And though Esper had told the media just days earlier that “</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">the Pentagon would ‘deliver by the end of this year a vaccine at scale to treat the American people and our partners abroad,’” his memo stated that “The Defense Department should prepare to operate in a ‘globally-persistent’ novel coronavirus (COVID-19) environment without an effective vaccine until ‘at least the summer of 2021.’” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">More evidence of the danger in reopening too soon was revealed <b>Wednesday, May 20</b>. A model from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School showed that <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8340325/5million-Americans-infected-COVID-19-July-model-shows.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a premature relaxation of social distancing guidelines around the country could lead to 5.4 million infections and 290,000 deaths by July 24</span></a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">The CDC was the one agency whose actions could keep those death rates down, but the CDC had not been allowed to do its job. As reported by Robert Kuznia, Curt Devin, and Nick Valencia </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">of CNN.com, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/20/politics/coronavirus-travel-alert-cdc-white-house-tensions-invs/index.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">public health officials had been diminished from early in the pandemic</span></a>: “</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">In the early weeks of the US coronavirus outbreak, staff members in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had tracked a growing number of transmissions in Europe and elsewhere, and proposed a global advisory that would alert flyers to the dangers of air travel.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“But about a week passed before the alert was issued publicly -- crucial time lost when about 66,000 European travelers were streaming into American airports <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2020/03/13/travelers-europe-will-face-additional-scrutiny/"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">every day</span></a>.” (312)<br /><br />“…In interviews with CNN, CDC officials say their agency's efforts to mount a coordinated response to the Covid-19 pandemic have been hamstrung by a White House whose decisions are driven by politics rather than science. (313)<br /><br />“The result has worsened the effects of the crisis, sources inside the CDC say, relegating the 73-year-old agency that has traditionally led the nation's response to infectious disease to a supporting role.<br /><br />“‘We've been muzzled,’ said a current CDC official. ‘What's tough is that if we would have acted earlier on what we knew and recommended, we would have saved lives and money.’<br /><br />“…A senior official inside the CDC told CNN that the agency also alerted the White House to the virus's rapid spread across Europe, but that ‘the White House was extremely focused on China and not wanting to anger Europe ... even though that's where most of our cases were originally coming from.’” </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">The administration’s disregard for public health continued into the present, as </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/20/media/anthony-fauci-tv-interviews/index.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Dr. Fauci had been taken off the air</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"> (314) and Republicans were “recruiting ‘extremely pro-Trump’ doctors to go on television to prescribe reviving the U.S. economy as quickly as possible, without waiting to meet safety benchmarks proposed by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to slow the spread of the new coronavirus.” (315)</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">While <a href="https://apnews.com/4ee1a3a8d631b454f645b2a8d9597de7" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">recruiting quack doctors to push fake news</span></a>, Trump continued <a href="https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election/article242863131.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the GOP’s campaign to suppress the Democratic vote</span></a> in the fall by “[threatening]<span style="background: white;"> over Twitter…to pull federal funding from Michigan and Nevada for mail-in-voting efforts.” (316)</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Another example of the fallout from the Trump administration’s shockingly inadequate response to COVID-19 (see #1-#316) and the economic shock waves it had created was reported by Jessica Menton at <i>USA Today</i> on <b>Thursday, May 21</b>. According to the dispatch, “<span style="background: white;">Mortgage delinquencies surged by 1.6 million in April, <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/05/21/coronavirus-mortgage-delinquencies-surge-1-6-m-april/5231835002/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the largest single-month jump in history</span></a>.” (317)</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background: white;">“…At 6.45%, the national delinquency rate nearly doubled from 3.06% in March, the largest single-month increase recorded, and nearly three times the prior record for a single month during the height of the financial crisis in late 2008.”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background: white;">“…The Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, passed in March, allows homeowners to suspend their mortgage payments for up to a year on federally backed mortgages. It doesn’t protect mortgages that aren’t backed by the government, which make up about half of all mortgages in the USA.”</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Though the need for more government relief to homeowners, renters, and the unemployed couldn’t have been clearer, and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/13/business/economy/fed-chair-powell-economy-virus-support.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200514&instance_id=18463&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=27760&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">was prescribed by none other than Trump’s own hand-picked Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell</span></a>, Trump ally Mitch McConnell continued to ignore the HEROES Act passed by House Democrats and made no counter proposals of his own that could be negotiated between the House and Senate, claiming there was “no immediate need” to address the desperation of tens of millions of Americans.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As of <b>Friday, May 22, </b>the U.S. had <a href="https://apnews.com/900aa1955a82b7bbe2e028a8bc1a4be7" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">lost 39 million jobs</span></a> since the start of the pandemic. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In a misguided effort to reverse this slide, <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2020/05/07/as-states-reopen-covid-19-is-spreading-into-even-more-trump-counties/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=sendto_newslettertest&stream=top" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">red states were opening up more aggressively than blue/purple states and seeing increases in infections</span></a>. As reported on the Brookings Institution blog, “for four weeks running, counties newly designated with a high prevalence of COVID-19 cases were more likely to have voted for Trump than for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“…COVID-19’s spread is continuing southward and westward from its northeastern concentration at the end of March. Counties identified in the most recent week are heavily located in the South (80 counties) and Midwest (68). There is also a high representation in smaller areas, as 159 of the 176 newly identified high-prevalence counties lie in outer suburbs, small metropolitan areas, or outside of metropolitan areas.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“…Among new high-prevalence counties from the week of May 11 to May 17, Trump won 151 of them in the 2016 election. Clinton was the victor in just 25.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“…Over the four-week period between April 20 and May 17, 697 new high COVID-19 prevalence counties voted for Trump, compared with just 127 that voted for Clinton.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Though one might think the direct connection between lax social distancing and an increase in cases would be obvious, and that the credibility of public health officials would be reinforced by this inescapable conclusion, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2020/05/21/trust-in-medical-scientists-has-grown-in-u-s-but-mainly-among-democrats/?fbclid=IwAR0VujNUymHIMiIHFiBm7ARPQeHVnbSYob9Jhz36v_eKXT45lhDsVpBAASA" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a recent Pew poll</span></a> showed that Democrats were more likely than Republicans to trust scientists and think scientists should have an active role in forming policy, much more likely to grasp the value in social distancing, much more likely to grasp the importance of testing in mitigating the damage of the virus, and much more likely to know that the U.S. had had far more cases than any other country.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Republican voters’ disconnect from reality was also evident in an ABC poll published Friday which showed that <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/black-americans-latinos-times-died-covid-19-poll/story?id=70794789" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">89% of Republicans approved of Trump’s handling of the coronavirus</span></a>, despite an endless and unceasing list of administration failures (see #1-#317).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The insidious impact of Trump’s lies was reviewed again on <b>Saturday, May 23 </b>in<b> </b><a href="https://www.mediaite.com/politics/bill-gates-bioweapons-and-bad-data-poll-shows-fox-news-viewers-believe-covid-conspiracies-misinformation-in-big-numbers/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a <i>Mediaite</i> piece</span></a> by Caleb Howe. According to a Yahoo/YouGov poll, 50% of Fox News viewers thought Bill Gates wanted to use a COVID-19 vaccination campaign to implant a microchip in their heads as a tracking device, 65% thought the virus was “engineered in a lab in China,” 46% thought it was “intentionally created” as a “biowarfare weapon,” and 55% thought the official COVID-19 death tallies were too high. (318)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">The impact of Trump’s appeals to lockstep stupidity on the right were also explored in “</span><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/24/pennsylvania-election-nightmare-275410" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Key swing state warns of November election ‘nightmare</span></a>.” Because of the GOP’s refusal to help fund mail-in voting, Pennsylvania was facing a nightmare scenario for their upcoming primary, with thousands of voters not receiving ballots and districts lacking the staff to count the ballots when they came in. With Pennsylvania likely to be one of the central states in determining who would win the presidential election, there was a possibility that Republicans’ laser focus on suppressing the vote (served by not funding mail-in voting during a pandemic) could leave the world waiting days—if not weeks—to find out who won Pennsylvania, and therefore, the presidency itself.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">As Trump undermined the sacred process of voting, the administration continued to fail to govern. On <b>Sunday, May 24</b>, </span><span style="background: white; line-height: 17.12px;">Loveday Morris and Luisa Beck of <i>the Washington Post</i> <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/while-us-struggles-to-roll-out-coronavirus-contact-tracing-germany-has-been-doing-it-from-the-start/ar-BB14yvg1" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">compared</span></a> the responses of Germany and the United States in relation to contact tracing. While Germany had begun contract tracing since their first COVID-19 cases were confirmed, the U.S. still had no system in place nearly five months after first being notified of COVID-19’s threat, with predictable results: “</span><span style="background: white; line-height: 17.12px;">Epidemiologists say the effort [in Germany] has been essential to the country’s ability to contain its coronavirus outbreak and avoid the larger death tolls seen elsewhere, even with a less stringent shutdown than in other countries.</span><span style="background: white; line-height: 17.12px;">”</span><span style="background: white; line-height: 17.12px;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Because the administration had failed to get behind the practice of contact tracing, Republican voters were once again in the dark, showing a Pavlovian resistance to something they didn’t understand. On Memorial Day, <b>Monday, May 25</b>, Will Sommer of <i>the Daily Beast</i> posted “<a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/trumpsters-already-revolting-against-covid-083852347.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trumpsters Are Already Revolting Against COVID Contact Tracing</span></a>”: </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“Donald Trump’s allies in conservative media have a new villain in the coronavirus fight: contact tracing, the rigorous efforts to track the virus’s spread that public health experts say is essential to safely restarting society.” (319)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background: white; line-height: 17.12px;">“…A wide range of public health officials and experts have insisted that the country needs to vastly expand contact tracing, with one Johns Hopkins study calling for the hiring of at least 100,000 </span><a href="https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/our-work/pubs_archive/pubs-pdfs/2020/200410-national-plan-to-contact-tracing.pdf" target="_blank"><span style="background: white; line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">additional contact tracers</span></span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 17.12px;">. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, </span><a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-second-wave-fauci-4fea926c-485d-4ea4-8c63-ebae73c533fc.html" target="_blank"><span style="background: white; line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">said</span></span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 17.12px;"> earlier this month that coronavirus deaths will ‘of course’ increase without additional tracing and testing.”</span><span style="background: white; line-height: 17.12px;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background: white; line-height: 17.12px;">“…But much of the fearmongering about contact tracing seems to be driven by ignorance of what it actually is. Failed Republican congressional candidate and </span><a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/qanon-the-crazy-pro-trump-conspiracy-melts-down-over-oig-report" target="_blank"><span style="background: white; line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">QAnon conspiracy theorist</span></span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 17.12px;"> DeAnna Lorraine Tesoriero, whose call to ‘#FireFauci’ Trump retweeted in April, has urged her fans to not get tested for COVID-19. She also appears to misunderstand contact tracing, claiming that contact tracers go through phone ‘contact’ lists, rather than in-person contacts.” </span><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Dropping the ball on contact tracing was just one of the administration’s many failures of governance. The administration had also failed to provide the resources necessary for nursing home staff to be tested on a deadline recommended <i>by the administration itself</i>. According to Alan Suderman of the Associated Press, the “lack of testing and other resources <a href="https://apnews.com/681479be1d9f1a0fea4d64b1a44d5b9e" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">have left [nursing homes] nearly powerless</span></a> to stop the virus from entering their facilities because they haven’t been able to identity silent spreaders not showing symptoms.” (320)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">During the day’s <a href="https://www.ctpost.com/news/article/Memorial-Day-offers-contrasts-as-Biden-and-Trump-15293738.php" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">dueling Memorial Day events</span></a>, Joe Biden and his wife wore masks, while Trump did not. (321)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">That evening, white Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin murdered African-American George Floyd over a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The details of the murder weren’t widely known the following day, <b>Tuesday, May 26</b>, so coronavirus continued to get a lot of news coverage. Among other stories, Trump once again displayed and encouraged ignorance among his fan base by calling a reporter “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-calls-mask-wearing-politically-correct-biden-calls-him-a-fool/2020/05/26/a58025e6-9f9c-11ea-81bb-c2f70f01034b_story.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">politically correct</span></a>” for not removing his mask while asking a question. (322)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Another one of Trump’s false talking points—that mail-in voting was rife with fraud—was finally called out by Twitter with a warning label about <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/26/twitter-fact-checks-trump-slaps-warning-labels-on-his-tweets-about-mail-in-ballots.html?fbclid=IwAR2k22JzR2l3NqPcpFQ24ZeRRgHis7I4KbdSTqTDI_dXhBCewtH-baRpxn8" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">misinformation</span></a> attached to two of Trump’s tweets.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">The results of Trump’s months of lies and the parroting of his lies by Republican allies and media surrogates were reflected in a Gallup poll which again showed <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/311408/republicans-skeptical-covid-lethality.aspx" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the stone ignorance of Republican voters</span></a> (<span style="background: white;">see #159, #224, #282, #305, #311, #318, and #319).</span></span><span style="background: white; line-height: 17.12px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">Only 40% of Republican voters (as opposed to 87% of Democrats) understood that COVID-19 was far more lethal than seasonal flu. Half of Republicans falsely believed official death counts were overstated, ten times’ the number of Democrats.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The magical thinking of Trump supporters and other low-information citizens was evident in the huge crowds that came out on Memorial Day, despite the fact that coronavirus was still going strong. (323)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In the reality-based world, indications showed that the U.S. was still </span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">“<a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/05/26/862230065/as-the-u-s-heads-toward-100-000-covid-19-deaths-we-re-early-in-this-outbreak" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">early in this outbreak</span></a>,”</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">hospitalizations were increasing across much of the U.S. (324), the World Health Organization was warning of <a href="https://www.lmtonline.com/news/article/WHO-warns-of-second-peak-discourages-swift-15296366.php" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a second peak</span></a> resulting from a premature relaxation of safety guidelines, and millions of American children were going hungry because of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/26/us/coronavirus-live-updates.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">slow rollout</span></a> of the Pandemic-EBT program (325) and the GOP’s continued resistance to an expansion of food stamps (see #288).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In addition to shortchanging children of basic human needs, in part because they refused to come up with a coordinated federal response to food insecurity (326), the administration was setting many states up to fail by refusing to create a coordinated federal testing program. (327)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As <a href="https://www.boston.com/news/coronavirus/2020/05/26/trump-coronavirus-testing-strategy" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> by Apoorva Mandavilli and Catie Edmondson of <i>the New York Times</i>, the administration’s official “plan”—released in a report—was to outsource testing to the states, though states lacked the resources to test at a capacity necessary to keep citizens safe:<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“The [administration] proposal also says existing testing capacity, if properly targeted, is sufficient to contain the outbreak. But epidemiologists say that amount of testing is orders of magnitude lower than many of them believe the country needs.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 17.12px;">“The report cements a stance that has frustrated governors in both parties, following the administration’s announcement last month that the </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/27/politics/white-house-testing-blueprint/index.html" target="_blank"><span style="background: white; line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">federal government should be considered ‘the supplier of last resort</span></span><span style="background: white; color: #1878bc; line-height: 17.12px;">’</span></a><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> [328] </span><span style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 17.12px;">and that states should develop their own testing plans.”</span><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“[Scott Becker, executive director of the Association of Public Health Laboratories] and others said it’s reasonable to expect states to implement some aspects of the testing, such as designating test sites. But acquiring tests involves reliance on national and international supply chains — which are challenging for many states to navigate.<br /><br />“‘That’s our biggest question, that’s our biggest concern, is the robustness of the supply chain, which is critical,’ Becker said. ‘You can’t leave it up to the states to do it for themselves. This is not the Hunger Games.’”<br /><br />The administration’s report also greatly underestimated the number of tests necessary, pegging it at 300,000/day, roughly 1/10th of what the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard said was needed. (329)</span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/27/coronavirus-death-toll-100000-285043" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump passed his milestone of 100,000 dead Americans</span></a> on <b>Wednesday, May 27</b>. </span></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As incomprehensible as the number was, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/27/bad-state-coronavirus-data-trump-reopening-286143?nname=politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition&nid=00000170-c000-da87-af78-e185fa700000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=2670445" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">it was an underestimate</span></a>, perhaps even a major underestimate, as many states were failing to report accurate death counts. Trump’s response to this horrible human tragedy of his making was to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/for-a-numbers-obsessed-trump-theres-one-he-has-tried-to-ignore-100000-dead/2020/05/27/0a9c58ee-9f63-11ea-9590-1858a893bd59_story.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">tweet-brag</span></a>: <span style="background: white;">“For all of the political hacks out there, if I hadn’t done my job well, & early, we would have lost 1 1/2 to 2 Million People, as opposed to the 100,000 plus that looks like will be the number.” (330)</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In other news, the United States, under Trump’s leadership, had had not only 3X as many deaths as any other country, but <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-effects-of-covid-19-on-international-labor-markets-an-update/?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200528&instance_id=18874&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=29399&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the biggest increase in unemployment</span></a> among comparable developed countries (331), which was about to lead to an “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/27/us/coronavirus-evictions-renters.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">avalanche of evictions</span></a>,” predominantly in red states with limited tenant protections. (332)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Trump’s failures to ramp up testing, tracing, and PPE from early in the pandemic also exerted a toll on American citizens’ health and medical services. According to <a href="https://www.kff.org/report-section/kff-health-tracking-poll-may-2020-health-and-economic-impacts/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a Kaiser Family Foundation study</span></a>, “Nearly half of adults (48%) say they or someone in their household have postponed or skipped medical care due to the coronavirus outbreak.” (see #168)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Despite how much more gravely the impacts of COVID-19 were felt in the United States than other developed countries due to Trump’s failures of leadership, between 80-90% of Republicans continued to approve of his handling of coronavirus. A key to this steadfast support of a president who had so obviously failed us (see #1-#332) was discussed in a study released by two political scientists.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-effect-new-study-connects-white-american-intolerance-support-authoritarianism-ncna877886?fbclid=IwAR3DpjF9r7FZmV8mYe2FDyGbQJjoAgHKyQzdApxo6CZMcCrdX4WwLtszfVQ" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">an article</span></a> titled “The Trump effect: New study connects white American intolerance and support for authoritarianism,” Noah Berlatsky discussed the findings, the key one being that “<span style="background: white;">when intolerant white people fear democracy may benefit marginalized people, they abandon their commitment to democracy.”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background: white; line-height: 17.12px;">“…For instance, people who said they did not want to live next door to immigrants or to people of another race were more supportive of the idea of military rule, or of a strongman-type leader who could ignore legislatures and election results.”</span><span style="background: white; line-height: 17.12px;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">While racist Trump supporters cheered on their toxic strongman, the four Minneapolis police officers responsible for George Floyd’s death were fired and protests around the country continued to flare.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">Thursday, May 28</span></b><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"> was a bad day for America. It was reported that <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/28/us-economy-shrank-at-5-annual-rate-in-q1-287717" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the economy had contracted by 5%</span></a> in the first quarter of 2020, and the second quarter was likely to be worse. 2.1 million Americans had lost their jobs and bankruptcies were “<a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/05/jobless-claims-bankruptcies-coronavirus-recession.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">soaring</span></a>.” Millions of Americans who were unemployed and unlikely to find work any time soon were <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/28/business/economy/coronavirus-stimulus-unemployment.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">fearing the end of their federal benefits</span></a>, as Trump’s Republican allies in the Senate continued to ignore the House Democrats’ stimulus bill, passed two weeks earlier, or come up with a counter bill. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/28/rising-icu-bed-use-red-flag-287552?nname=politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition&nid=00000170-c000-da87-af78-e185fa700000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=2670445" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">ICU bed use was increasing</span></a> in hot spots around the country (333) and <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/5/28/21270515/coronavirus-covid-reopen-economy-social-distancing-states-map-data" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">only six states</span></a> met the minimum (which is not to say <i>adequate</i>) standards for re-opening, even as virtually the whole country had re-opened to one extent or another, largely at Trump’s prodding.<br /><br />As coronavirus and protests raged, Trump picked petty fights with imaginary foes. Though Trump had used Twitter for years as his primary source of messaging, Twitter’s 11th hour decision to fact-check Trump’s misleading tweets about mail-in voting gave the president a hissy fit and prompted him to sign a legally void executive order limiting social media companies’ practices while claiming to "defend free speech from one of the gravest dangers it has faced in American history."</span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Early on <b>Friday, May 29</b>, Trump got <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2020/05/28/twitter-fact-checks-trump-facebooks-mark-zuckberberg-disputes-move/5272584002/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">another rebuff from Twitter</span></a> when he expressed his feelings about the protests by reviving a line uttered by <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/05/trump-looting-shooting-racist-history.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a racist Miami police chief</span></a> in 1967. Tweeting at 12:53 a.m. for some reason, Trump said “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” while threatening to send the military out to handle civilian affairs in Minneapolis. Twitter noted that the message violated their rules about “<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/28/politics/trump-twitter-social-media-executive-order/index.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">glorifying violence</span></a>.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">At a news conference that day, Trump went after another imaginary foe, announcing that he would “<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-says-u-s-will-be-terminating-relationship-who-n1218441?cid=sm_npd_nn_fb_ma&fbclid=IwAR1swxOwFnVeDUA50edmyGgQ4Wgv_lUHHiAyS2xuUfprFBL3scwCDkh2tTw" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">terminate</span></a> America’s relationship with the [World Health Organization].” Trying to deflect attention from his own catastrophic failures of governance, Trump once again dragged out the China boogeyman (see #274). Sidestepping the likelihood that China’s lack of transparency may have had some connection to his administration’s own actions, from pulling scientists out of China (see #133 and #202) to engaging in an endless trade war, Trump blamed the WHO for not forcing China’s hand, though the organization had had no means to do so.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-a-us-exit-from-the-who-means-for-covid-19-and-global-health/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=health&utm_content=link&utm_term=2020-06-01_top-" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">According to</span></a> Amy Maxman of <i>Nature</i> magazine, due to Trump’s decision, “experts in health policy are contending with repercussions that could range from a resurgence of polio and malaria, to barriers in the flow of information on COVID-19. Scientific partnerships around the world would also be damaged, and the United States could lose influence over global health initiatives, including those to distribute drugs and vaccines for the new coronavirus as they become available, say researchers.” (334)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“Proposals for new US-led initiatives for pandemic preparedness abroad do little to quell researchers’ concerns. Some say these efforts might even add incoherence to the world's response to COVID-19, and global health more generally, if they're not connected to a fully-funded WHO.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">“…The rift is poorly timed, given the need for international coordination and cooperation to contend with the coronavirus. ‘In this pandemic, people have said we’re building the plane while flying,’ [Rebecca] Katz [director of the Center for Global Health Science and Security at Georgetown University] says. ‘This proposal is like removing the windows while the plane is mid-air.’” (335)</span><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">That evening, <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2020/04/wisconsin-republicans-make-mockery-of.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Wisconsin</span></a>, a state which had been forced to re-open by right-wing Republican judges on the state Supreme Court, announced that it had a <a href="https://www.wisn.com/article/state-sets-new-record-for-most-coronavirus-cases-reported-in-one-day/32714669#" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">record one-day spike</span></a> in reported cases.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">On <b>Saturday, May 30</b>, David Pitt of the AP <a href="https://apnews.com/54f1efe0afa71b0a939fda91cf917366" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that the U.S. had just experienced its largest monthly increase in food prices in 46 years. (336)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Trump wasn’t about to get distracted by trifling matters like starvation or the mass protests all across the country which were amplified by his divisive rhetoric. His attention instead went into gushing over the empty pageantry around Elon Musk’s spaceman vanity project and <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-republican-national-convention-north-carolina-coronavirus-masks-social-distancing-roy-cooper-a9540051.html?fbclid=IwAR1ymyAsoLDiB2QlbJd2Hbx0twehafTN8oZIk_6vb_7-PDXJ3NE6Gmm642g" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">petulantly demanding</span></a> that North Carolina allow a GOP convention with no masks or social distancing. (337)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">Sunday, May 31</span></b><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">, it was reported that Florida, a state whose Republican governor had been dismissive of the pandemic, was seeing a major increase in COVID-19 deaths, even as the reported numbers were an <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/floridas-seen-a-statistically-significant-uptick-in-pneumonia-deaths-the-cdc-says-its-likely-covid?ref=home" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">undercount</span></a> masked by COVID deaths attributed to pneumonia or influenza. New deaths in Florida were overwhelmingly happening in <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/as-florida-reopens-the-deaths-quietly-keep-piling-up-in-nursing-homes/ar-BB14Qelu" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">nursing homes</span></a>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A number of substantive pieces about COVID-19 dropped on <b>Monday, June 1</b>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">Sam Baker of <i>Axios</i> <a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-lockdown-lessons-2f2e28cb-848b-42e2-a9da-b2d31fb8bda6.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">pointed out</span></a> that “</span><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">The national lockdown is easing and the pandemic is no longer the single dominant storyline of our lives, but nothing has really changed — we didn’t develop a treatment and the virus didn’t get naturally weaker. It’s just as contagious as it ever was.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">A <i>Washington Post</i>-ABC poll found that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/despite-widespread-economic-toll-most-americans-still-favor-controlling-outbreak-over-restarting-economy-post-abc-poll-finds/2020/06/01/3e052ec0-a27b-11ea-81bb-c2f70f01034b_story.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump’s unceasing demagoguery had created sharp partisan divides in accepting this reality</span></a>: “</span><span style="background: white; line-height: 17.12px;">57 percent of Americans overall and 81 percent of Democrats say trying to control the spread of the coronavirus is most important right now, even if it hurts the economy. A far smaller 27 percent of Republicans agree, while 66 percent of them say restarting the economy is more important, even if it hurts efforts to control the virus. Nearly 6 in 10 independents say their priority is trying to control the virus’s spread.” (338)</span><span style="background: white; line-height: 17.12px;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In a rare interview, with the medical site statnews.com, Anthony Fauci said that his meetings with Donald Trump to discuss the federal COVID-19 response had “<a href="https://www.mediaite.com/trump/dr-fauci-says-his-meetings-with-trump-have-dramatically-decreased/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">dramatically decreased</span></a>.” (339)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What was the president up to in the middle of a pandemic?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Threatening to <a href="https://apnews.com/a2797b342b4fc509e43f404817a56aa9" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">sic the military on protesters</span></a>, calling governors “fools” and “jerks” in a <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/trump/trump-reportedly-berates-governors-as-fools-jerks-in-conference-call-demands-they-dominate-protesters-with-force/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">conference call</span></a> because they weren’t using force on protesters, and <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/06/police-tear-gas-protesters-before-a-trump-photo-op-with-a-bible/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">having demonstrators tear-gassed</span></a> so that he could walk across the street to St. John’s Church and hold a Bible for an awkward photo op.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">On <b>Tuesday, June 2</b>, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/02/north-carolina-governor-rejects-gops-demand-for-full-fledged-convention-296566?nname=playbook&nid=0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000&nrid=00000166-11bf-d9ac-a967-93bfa7030000&nlid=630318" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trump had a temper tantrum</span></a> over the refusal of North Carolina’s Democratic governor to allow a GOP convention without COVID precautions on the same day that Deborah Birx <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/02/deborah-birx-coronavirus-outbreak-summer-296490" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">warned</span></a> at a public event that <span style="background: white;">"None of us can be lulled into this false sense of security that the cases may go down this summer."<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">While Trump fixated on staging his convention, it was reported that his inactions had contributed to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/06/01/americans-are-delaying-medical-care-its-devastating-health-care-providers/?arc404=true" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the loss of 1.4 million healthcare jobs</span></a> in the U.S. (340) and that many of the most vulnerable Americans were not getting the COVID-related care they needed, in no small part because the administration had <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/02/emergency-health-aid-coronavirus-297701" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">failed to disburse emergency funds</span></a> approved by Congress. (341) The scale of the pandemic caused by Trump’s mis-governance had also left nearly a hundred million Americans to delay healthcare procedures in order to clear facilities for COVID-19 patients.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The vast impact of the administration’s failures to act sooner and more aggressively were revisited the following day, <b>Wednesday, June 3</b>, when Chris Arnold of NPR <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/06/03/867856602/millions-of-americans-skipping-payments-as-tidal-wave-of-defaults-and-evictions-" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> that “Millions Of Americans Skip Payments As Tidal Wave Of Defaults And Evictions Looms.” Government aid was keeping many Americans afloat, but the administration had failed to get benefits out to millions, and even those who had received benefits were unlikely to be able to make the money stretch more than a couple months, at which time there would be no jobs available.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">Another one of the Trump administration’s shortcomings was reported again on <b>Thursday, June 4 </b>in “</span><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">CDC head apologizes for lack of racial disparity data on coronavirus.” Speaking to a House Appropriations subcommittee, Robert Redfield apologized for <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/04/coronavirus-robert-redfield-racial-disparity-cdc-301223" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the CDC’s continued failure</span></a> (see #283) to collect race-related COVID-19 data, which was “[hampering] </span><span style="background: white; line-height: 17.12px;">the public health response in communities of color disproportionately affected by the virus.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background: white; line-height: 17.12px;">The administration and their Republican allies in Congress were also <a href="https://www.axios.com/cities-budgets-worsen-coronavirus-george-floyd-protests-4fed7c83-7436-4744-9a47-2937ffb1f90a.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">shortchanging cities</span></a>. Due to a lack of tax revenue, cities were being forced to make steep cuts to essential services. The situation was dire, but the GOP had no plans to act until July, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said any future stimulus bill would “</span><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">be narrow in scope and focus on short-term economic relief, not longer-term recovery.”</span><span style="background: white; line-height: 17.12px;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background: white; line-height: 17.12px;">In addition to cities bleeding revenue, <a href="https://apnews.com/44eacc05b3ceb43897418ccfe96645e2" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">food bank demand was still high</span></a> (see #271), as reported on <b>Friday, June 5</b>.</span><span style="background: white; line-height: 17.12px;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 17.12px;">But none of this concerned Trump, who seized on a better-than-expected jobs report to puff up his ego. At a press conference that day, Trump referred to the <a href="https://cdn.newseum.org/dfp/pdf6/NY_NYT.pdf" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">second worst</span></a> unemployment rate since the Great Depression as </span><span style="background: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 17.12px;">the “greatest comeback in American history,” a “great day” for George Floyd, and “a great, great day in terms of equality.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background: white; line-height: 17.12px;">While Trump and his Republican allies gushed about double digit unemployment and pretended that the virus was behind us—Trump <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/fauci-virus-task-force-vanish-with-trump-all-in-on-reopen/ar-BB154Otf" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">hadn’t allowed</span></a> the virus task force to brief reporters since April 27 (342)—<a href="https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2020/are-coronavirus-cases-increasing-again/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">20 states</span></a> had seen increases in cases over the prior five days. </span><span style="background: white; line-height: 17.12px;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It came out on <b>Saturday, June 6</b> that Trump’s triumphalism on Friday over the jobs numbers had been premature, as the Bureau of Labor Statistics had <a href="https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/business/article/The-May-jobs-report-had-misclassification-error-15320999.php" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">underestimated</span></a> the unemployment rate by at least three percentage points.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Discussing the jobs report in an interview with Nancy Cook of <i>Politico</i>, former director of the National Economic Council Gene Sperling said, <span style="background: white;">“Considering that this was a return of a small percentage of the jobs that were lost only due to Trump's inexplicably slow and weak response to the Covid crisis, he should be far more measured….Trump surely knows he is on track to be the first president since Herbert Hoover to lose net jobs during their presidency, and he may just be overcompensating.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Congressional Republicans used the initial, overinflated job numbers—which received far more media attention than the corrected, real numbers—as <a href="https://rollcall.com/2020/06/05/gop-renews-go-slow-approach-on-virus-aid-after-jobs-report/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">rhetorical cover</span></a> for continuing to stonewall on more stimulus. The Democratic House had passed a stimulus bill on May 18. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Within the job numbers was the news that African-American unemployment rates had actually <i>gone up</i>, something that Republicans didn’t talk about much. (343) African-Americans were also dying from COVID-19 in disproportionate numbers. A <b>Sunday, June 7</b> <a href="https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/voices/racism-not-genetics-explains-why-black-americans-are-dying-of-covid-19/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=health&utm_content=link&utm_term=2020-06-08_featured-this-week" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">post</span></a> at <i>Scientific American</i> showed that this was systemic, not genetic.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background: white;">According to author Clarence Gravlee, African-Americans were dying at 2.4X the rate of whites, one of the reasons it was so easy for Trump supporters in white-majority areas to ignore the crisis. Discussions around this disparity too often fell back on theories about a genetic disposition to hypertension and high blood pressure among African-Americans, while more convincing environmental factors didn’t get the attention they deserved: “The conditions in which we develop—including limited access to healthy food, exposure to toxic pollutants, the threat of police violence or the injurious stress of racial discrimination—influence the likelihood that any one of us will suffer from high blood pressure, diabetes or serious complications from COVID-19.”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background: white;">The role of environmental factors in coronavirus transmission came up again on <b>Monday, June 8</b>. According to a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/06/08/shutdowns-prevented-60-million-coronavirus-infections-us-study-finds/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">study</span></a> published in <i>Nature</i> magazine, shutdown orders in the United States had spared 60 million Americans from contracting COVID-19. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background: white;">One country which had addressed coronavirus early and aggressively, New Zealand, reported that they had <a href="https://news.trust.org/item/20200608004114-98xz5" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">no active cases</span></a>. By contrast, the U.S., who had acted slowly and inadequately, had almost<span style="color: #3d85c6;"> <a href="https://www.medicaleconomics.com/news/coronavirus-case-numbers-united-states-june-8-update" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">two million infections and 104,400 deaths</span></a></span>.</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Having followed Trump’s lead of inaction and indifference to public health, <span style="color: #3d85c6;"><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/08/texas-reports-a-record-high-number-of-hospitalized-coronavirus-patients-after-state-reopened-early.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">red states</span></a> </span>continued to be hit especially hard by coronavirus. (344)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And as had been the case all along, America’s first-in-the-world numbers were <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/cdc-wants-states-to-count-probable-coronavirus-cases-and-deaths-but-most-arent-doing-it/2020/06/07/4aac9a58-9d0a-11ea-b60c-3be060a4f8e1_story.html?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a significant undercount</span></a>, because only half of the states were following CDC guidelines in reporting.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background: white;">Trump continued to degrade the office of the presidency and act as if the pandemic was over, issuing an order to have 9,500 American troops removed from Germany (in retaliation for Angela Merkel’s refusal to attend a G7 summit with Trump and Vladimir Putin) and announcing that he would re-start crowded campaign rallies which were certain to turn into <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/super-spreader-coronavirus/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">super-spreader events</span></a>. (345)</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background: white;">The reality TV presidency continued on high-beam the next day, <b>Tuesday, June 9</b>, when Trump <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/trump/beyond-deranged-commentators-across-political-spectrum-condemn-trumps-claim-elderly-man-attacked-by-police-is-antifa/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">tweeted</span></a> that Martin Gugino, a 75-year-old protester with cancer who had sustained a fractured skull after being pushed down by a Buffalo police officer, </span>“could be an ANTIFA provocateur,” an assertion which was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/09/nyregion/who-is-martin-gugino-buffalo-police.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">completely unfounded</span></a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Back in the real world, <a href="https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Coronavirus-hospitalizations-rise-sharply-in-15328752.php" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">premature re-openings</span></a> were contributing to spikes in cases around the country, with 12 states posting their biggest single-day increases. Texas, a state under complete Republican control for over two decades which had done little to combat COVID-19, had its <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/09/texas-reports-two-consecutive-days-of-record-coronavirus-hospitalizations-weeks-after-reopening.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">second consecutive day</span></a> of record hospitalizations. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Farm laborers around the country were especially vulnerable to infection due to the administration’s <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/09/farm-workers-coronavirus-309897" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">unwillingness</span></a> to enact adequate safety regulations or disburse money for testing. (346)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">People working long hours under the hot sun to harvest our food are invisible to most Americans, so their problems were easy for Trump to ignore as part of the administration’s tactic of pretending that COVID-19 didn’t matter anymore. On <b>Wednesday, June 10</b>, Dan Diamond of <i>Politico</i> (see #100, #131, and #181) <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/10/white-house-stops-talking-about-coronavirus-309993" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reviewed</span></a> this P.R. thrust in “White House goes quiet on coronavirus as outbreak spikes again across the U.S.”<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As revealed by Diamond, though cases continued to surge throughout much of the country, around 1,000 Americans were dying daily, and hospitalizations in Texas had gone up 42% since Memorial Day, the administration had largely stopped communicating with the public about the virus for over a month, since the last task force briefing. After being ever present in the media through March and April, Anthony Fauci had long since been sidelined. (see #298) The CDC had mostly stopped providing guidance to state public health officials. (347) The FDA was turning back to lesser priorities, including tobacco regulations. (348)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition/2020/06/10/dont-call-it-a-second-wave-489488" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">According</span></a> to reporter Ranuka Rasayasam, not only was COVID-19 not remotely through with us, we weren’t even out of the first wave. The U.S. was “uniquely vulnerable to Covid” due to the number of people without health insurance and the Trump administration’s handling of the pandemic, specifically the lack of a national strategy for dealing with coronavirus and the resistance to public health guidelines fueled by Trump’s anti-science rhetoric.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Though the U.S. had only 4% of the world’s population, it accounted for more than a quarter of COVID 19-related deaths. Making matters worse, the administration’s unwillingness to force insurance companies’ hands was allowing major insurers such as BlueCross BlueShield and United Healthcare to <a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-testing-payment-insurers-b5206ee2-3eff-4023-bfed-a33450113547.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">deny full coverage</span></a> of testing unless it was deemed “medically necessary,” leaving millions of Americans untested and uncertain of whether or not they were infected and likely to infect others. (349)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Trump had more important things on his mind, including his <a href="https://www.axios.com/trump-confederate-generals-ecc596fe-5d37-4d8a-8a12-42656886446f.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiospm&stream=top" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">opposition</span></a> to renaming military bases named after Confederate generals and planning for his first super-spreader campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The event was scheduled for Juneteenth (June 19), a holiday celebrating the freeing of the last slaves, in a town known for “t</span><span style="background: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">he single worst incident of </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_racial_violence_in_the_United_States" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;" title="Mass racial violence in the United States"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">racial violence in American history</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">.” In 1921, white mobs had killed hundreds of African-Americans, incarcerated thousands, left 10,000 African-Americans homeless, and destroyed 35 square blocks of “Black Wall Street”—one of the wealthiest black neighborhoods in the country at the time.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Red, anti-science states continued to lead the pack in infections on <b>Thursday, June 11</b>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article243452186.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Florida</span></a> had its highest daily total of (reported) new cases and Arizona was <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/covid-is-so-bad-in-arizona-theyre-running-out-of-beds" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">running out of hospital beds</span></a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A doctor at the Harvard Global Health Institute was projecting <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8410159/100-000-people-die-coronavirus-September.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">100,000 more deaths</span></a> in the U.S. by September 1.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As the ranks of the unemployed increased, with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/11/business/economy/unemployment-claims-coronavirus.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">1.5 million new filings</span></a> (350), Trump’s Small Business Administration was <a href="https://www.pressherald.com/2020/06/11/trump-administration-wont-say-who-got-511-billion-in-taxpayer-backed-coronavirus-loans/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">refusing</span></a> to meet their legal responsibility (under the Cares Act) to disclose how $660 billion of taxpayer money had been disbursed. (351) Due to the administration’s lack of oversight of applicants, and lack of direction to the banks disbursing funds, big businesses had capitalized while many small businesses had been <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/21/big-banks-sued-putting-large-corporations-ahead-main-street-small-business-owners" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">left in the lurch</span></a>. (352)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The administration and state officials were also<span style="color: #3d85c6;"> <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/11/native-american-coronavirus-data-314527" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">ignoring requests</span></a></span> from Native American epidemiologists asking for “<span style="background: white;">access to data showing how the coronavirus is spreading around their lands, potentially widening health disparities and frustrating tribal leaders already ill-equipped to contain the pandemic.” (353)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“…The communication gaps threaten to hinder efforts to track the virus within Native populations that are more prone to illness, disability and early death and have fragile health systems. Tribal authorities say without knowing who's sick and where, they can't impose lockdowns or other restrictions or organize contact tracing on tribal lands. The lack of data also is weighing on epidemiologists who track public health for the nearly three-quarters of Native Americans who live in urban areas and not on reservations.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“…Native American organizations have repeatedly run into roadblocks trying to get data from federal officials over the past month. The CDC has denied a series of requests from the nation’s 12 tribal epidemiology centers for raw coronavirus data — even though state health departments are allowed to freely access the information.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background: white;">“‘…If you can’t measure [the coronavirus,] you can’t manage it,’ said Stacy Bohlen, the executive director of the National Indian Health Board, which provides policy expertise to the 560 federally recognized Native American tribes. ‘It’s another chronic failing of what Indian people experience across the health system. We know it’s happening across the country.’”</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The administration was also pretending not to notice the public health necessity of universal access to mail ballots in the fall. During the recent Georgia primary, voters had waited up to </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/11/deep-partisan-divide-over-in-person-mail-in-voting-312290" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">six hours</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> to vote, not unlike what had happened in Wisconsin in April, when Republican judges refused to extend deadlines for absentee ballots</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">. Republicans looked the other way because voters of color (overwhelmingly Democrats) were disproportionately impacted in both instances. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Something that <i>was</i> a priority for the administration was avoiding legal accountability for its upcoming super-spreader campaign rally in Tulsa. As <a href="https://www.westport-news.com/news/article/Trump-s-Tulsa-campaign-rally-sign-up-page-15334187.php" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> by Felicia Sonmez of <i>the Washington Post</i>, “<span style="background: white;">The sign-up page for tickets to President Donald Trump's campaign rally in Tulsa next week includes something that hasn't appeared ahead of previous rallies: a disclaimer noting that attendees ‘voluntarily assume all risks related to exposure to COVID-19’ and agree not to hold the campaign or venue liable should they get sick.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It was a savvy legal decision by the Trump administration. The next day, <b>Friday, June 12</b>, it was reported that just a week before the rally, a Tulsa Whirlpool plant <a href="https://www.tulsaworld.com/news/local/whirlpool-plant-in-tulsa-temporarily-shuttered-after-covid-19-outbreak/article_4909b32f-59bf-5d00-ab9a-c415c613ede9.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">had closed</span></a> due to a COVID-19 outbreak. It was also reported that “<span style="background: white;">Tulsa County now has its highest seven-day average of coronavirus cases since the outbreak began in March.”</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Holding the rally in a COVID-19 hot spot was of a piece with Trump’s strategy of pretending coronavirus was behind us. Trump’s economic advisor Lawrence Kudlow (see #66) stayed on message that day when he <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/12/larry-kudlow-coronavirus-second-wave-314904" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">told</span></a> "Fox & Friends" that the virus was “contained” and “<span style="background: white;">They are saying there is no second spike. Let me repeat that. There is no second spike.” (354)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In the real world, Houston was on the “<a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/houston-precipice-disaster-virus-cases-210423072.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">precipice of disaster</span></a>” and Florida had another daily <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article243482076.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">record in infections</span></a>, a number that was a significant undercount, according to Florida’s “<a href="https://theweek.com/speedreads/919739/fired-florida-scientist-goes-rogue-publishes-covid19-data-grimmer-outlook-than-states" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">top coronavirus data scientist</span></a>.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">At a briefing that day, CDC officials <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/12/cdc-warns-large-gatherings-315521" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">suggested</span></a> that Americans maintain social distancing, wear masks when out in public, and “<span style="background: white;">warned that large gatherings in confined places pose the highest risk for spreading the coronavirus, a day after President Donald Trump's campaign announced his first post-lockdown rally.” (355)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Appearing on ABC News, Anthony Fauci said more or less the same thing: “The best way you can avoid either acquiring or transmitting infection is to avoid crowded places, to wear a mask whenever you’re outside and if you can do both, avoid the congregation of people and do the mask, that’s great.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background: white;">A <a href="https://www.sfgate.com/science/article/Study-100-face-mask-use-could-crush-second-15333170.php" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">study</span></a> by Cambridge and Greenwich universities repeated this guidance, showing that the universal use of face masks could significantly mitigate the damage of a second or third wave of COVID-19.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Florida, one of the states that had most aggressively flouted public safety recommendations, had a record total of new cases for the <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article243513417.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">third day in a row</span></a> on <b>Saturday, June 13</b>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Oklahoma, another deep red state that had largely ignored public health recommendations, continued to experience a spike in infections. Deborah Birx and Anthony Fauci had both counseled against holding the rally, a feeling that was shared by Bruce Dart, the Tulsa County health director. As reported on </span><b style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Sunday, June 14</b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">, Dart <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/502640-tulsa-health-department-director-i-wish-we-could-postpone-trump-rally" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">told</span></a> a local newspaper, “</span><span style="background: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">COVID is here in Tulsa, it is transmitting very efficiently….I wish we could postpone this to a time when the virus isn’t as large a concern as it is today.”</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As of <b>Monday, June 15</b>, the United States had gone to <span style="background: white;"><span style="color: #202124;">hell in a handbasket, saddled with a pandemic, the worst economic decline since the Great Depression, and mass protests over systemic police brutality, all of which would have been far less pronounced with a competent and empathic leader. Trump’s breathtaking failures were reflected in a Gallup poll which showed that the number of Americans who were proud of their country was at </span><a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/312644/national-pride-falls-record-low.aspx" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a record low</span></a><span style="color: #202124;">.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #202124;">On </span><b style="color: #202124;">Tuesday, June 16</b><span style="color: #202124;">, a separate poll, conducted by the University of Chicago, found that “</span><a href="https://apnews.com/0f6b9be04fa0d3194401821a72665a50" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Americans are the unhappiest they’ve been in 50 years</span></a><span style="color: #202124;">.” (356)<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background: white; color: #202124;">Contributing to </span><span style="background: white;">Trump’s dubious achievement of creating record amounts of unhappiness was the <a href="https://apnews.com/8a490dd827bc37a655dd4c0f8a133253" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">stress of health workers</span></a> who </span><span style="background: white; color: #202124;">felt the brunt of Trump’s failures most acutely, in the sheer scope of the pandemic in the States, the lack of PPE, the fear of getting sick themselves and getting their families sick, and the trauma of regular exposure to sickness and death. (357)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Healthcare workers in Republican-led states which had ignored public safety recommendations were feeling Trump’s shortcomings as a leader and a human being daily. Cases in Alabama, South Carolina, Oklahoma, and Arizona were <a href="https://news.trust.org/item/20200616101601-zwjb3" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">increasing rapidly</span></a>; Arizona’s spike was <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/2020/06/health-experts-link-rise-in-arizona-covid-cases-to-end-of-stay-at-home-order/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=4785" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">directly attributed</span></a> to Republican governor Doug Ducey’s decision to let a stay-at-home order expire. Texas had <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/503005-texas-hits-new-high-for-coronavirus-cases-hospitalizations" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">new highs</span></a> in cases and hospitalizations.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background: white;"><span style="color: #202124;">Trump continued his happy talk about the economy, but Jerome Powell, Trump’s appointed Fed chairman, </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/16/powell-pandemic-trump-323312" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">told</span></a><span style="color: #202124;"> the Senate Banking Committee that </span></span><span style="background: white;">“Significant uncertainty remains about the timing and strength of the recovery….Much of that economic uncertainty comes from uncertainty about the path of the disease and the effects of measures to contain it. Until the public is confident that the disease is contained, a full recovery is unlikely.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background: white;">More grim news came the next day, <b>Wednesday, June 17</b>. A model created by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (at the University of Washington) which had been previously used by the White House now forecast that the U.S. would have in excess of <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-white-house-model-prediction-200000-deaths-october/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">200,000 deaths</span></a> by October 1.</span><span style="background: white; color: #101010;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background: white; color: #101010;">People of color, most of whom hadn’t voted for Trump, were being victimized by Trump’s </span><span style="background: white;">inaction at inordinate rates. (358) An analysis done by the Brookings Institution showed that people of color ages 35-44 were dying at <a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-racial-disparities-age-ea4730ce-52aa-4a17-a02c-5817da4245c5.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">10X the rate</span></a> of Caucasians of the same age. The report’s authors wrote that </span>"Race gaps in vulnerability to Covid-19 highlight the accumulated, intersecting inequities facing Americans of color (but especially Black people) in jobs, housing, education, criminal justice – and in health.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Another group of color who was shortchanged by the Trump administration was<span style="color: #00b0f0;"> </span>Native American tribes who were waiting on $679 million promised in the congressional stimulus passed months earlier. The administration was <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/tribes-covid-relief-treasury-department-033604920.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">holding up the funding</span></a> (359), compounding the administration’s earlier delays in disbursing money to tribes. (360) A federal judge ruled that the administration had to pay up within the week as <span style="background: white;">“Continued delay in the face of an exceptional public health crisis is no longer acceptable.”</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background: white;">Also on Trump’s pay-n0-mind list was Anthony Fauci. (see #339) Interviewed by NPR, Fauci revealed that he hadn’t spoken to Trump <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/radio/dr-fauci-says-he-hasnt-spoken-to-trump-about-the-coronavirus-pandemic-for-two-weeks/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">for two weeks</span></a>. Asked if he would like to join 19,000 Caucasian yahoos crammed together elbow-to-elbow with no masks in Tulsa, Fauci replied, </span><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254);">“I’m in a high-risk category. Personally, I would not. Of course not.”</span><u><span style="background: rgb(254, 254, 254); color: #00b0f0;"><o:p></o:p></span></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background: white;">The lack of masks was largely driven by Trump’s modeling. Despite the <a href="https://theconversation.com/masks-help-stop-the-spread-of-coronavirus-the-science-is-simple-and-im-one-of-100-experts-urging-governors-to-require-public-mask-wearing-138507" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">clear scientific basis</span></a> for wearing a mask during a pandemic, despite the fact that Trump’s own surgeon general had <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/14/health/us-surgeon-general-coronavirus-masks/index.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">recommended</span></a> that Americans wear masks, despite the threat that not wearing a mask posed to their families, co-workers, and others in their communities, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/necessary-or-needless-three-months-pandemic-americans-are-divided-wearing-n1231191" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">many Republicans</span></a> refused to use masks out of a misguided solidarity to Trump and a desire to “stick it to the libs.” (361)</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background: white;">Seeding opposition to masks and other aspects of the administration's COVID-19 failures were explored in depth in “W</span><span style="color: #121212;"><span style="color: #121212;">ith the Federal Health Megaphone Silent, States Struggle With a Shifting Pandemic,” which focused on </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/17/us/politics/coronavirus-pandemic-federal-response.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200618&instance_id=19492&nl=the-morning&regi_id=126380121&segment_id=31211&te=1&user_id=d83df742c3b67c9afcdc1a7c3e05db74" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the administration’s abandonment of a federal response</span></a><span style="color: #121212;">. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #121212;">The piece looked at the contradiction between the increasing rate of infections through much of the country and the administration’s messaging, including Mike Pence’s claim in a recent </span><i>Wall Street Journal</i> editorial that concern about a second wave was “overblown” (362) and Trump’s comment to Sean Hannity the night before that COVID-19 was “fading away.” (363)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Former CDC acting director Dr. Richard Besser, who had done regular briefings in 2009 during the H1N1 pandemic, pointed out that “As states are moving to reopen the economy, as people are increasing their social activities, it becomes even more important that the public understand the critical value in following public health guidance — wearing masks, social distancing, washing hands, staying home if you’re sick….without that daily reinforcement, you have what is happening around the country — people not believing the pandemic is real, cases rising in some places and the possibility that some communities’ health care systems will get overwhelmed.” (364)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The coronavirus task force was no longer speaking publicly, (see #298) which “<span style="background: white;">has left the country with no singular public voices updating citizens, businesses and state and local governments on best practices. Where once there were voices, now there are just echoes — a promising study in Britain about a steroid that may save the lives of the sickest patients, new evidence of the benefits of staying outdoors. But there is no clarion federal guidance.</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“Past pandemics, and simulations conducted by the federal government to prepare for new ones, all teach the same lesson: Having clear, consistent and regular communication with the public is essential to managing any infectious disease outbreak. The C.D.C. has a <a href="https://emergency.cdc.gov/cerc/manual/index.asp" target="_blank"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: #3d85c6; padding: 0in;">462-page manual</span></a> for crisis communications, which it uses to <a href="https://emergency.cdc.gov/cerc/training/index.asp" target="_blank"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: #3d85c6; padding: 0in;">train state and local health officials</span></a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“’It’s a great guide, and it’s just been tossed out the window,’ said Joshua M. Sharfstein, an expert in public health communications at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Even as Trump appeared indifferent to the impact of COVID-19 on the people he was supposed to serve, the pain was real. As <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/americans-skip-millions-of-loan-payments-as-coronavirus-takes-economic-toll-11592472601" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">reported</span></a> by AnnaMaria Andriotis of <i>the Wall Street Journal</i>, on <b><span style="color: #333333;">Thursday, June 18</span></b>, “Americans have skipped payments on more than 100 million student loans, auto loans and other forms of debt since the coronavirus hit the U.S., the latest sign of the toll the pandemic is taking on people’s finances.” (365)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Trump was more focused on himself, telling <i>the Wall Street Journal</i> that some people wore masks just to “signal disapproval of him.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #121212;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #121212;">Meanwhile, Oklahoma, the site of Trump’s upcoming rally, was among the handful of hot spots in the country, showing a </span><a href="https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-pandemic-south-arizona-oklahoma-trump-dbd813f7-52a8-4474-872d-624212bd257c.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">91% increase</span></a><span style="color: #121212;"> in cases in the past week.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #121212;">On <b>Friday, June 19</b>, Texas, </span>Florida, and Arizona continued to lead the way, posting <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/503588-arizona-texas-florida-again-report-record-high-covid-19-cases" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">record numbers of infections</span></a>. By contrast, Democratic governors and mayors were pushing constituents to <a href="https://news.trust.org/item/20200619003042-1a2ye" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">wear masks</span></a> through <span style="color: #121212;">laws or public recommendations.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Trump showed his contempt for democracy, saying in an interview that mail-in voting (high turnout) was the <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/03/trump-2020-election-legal-battle-coronavirus-162152" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">biggest threat</span></a> to winning a second term and <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/19/trump-threatens-protesters-the-day-before-his-tulsa-rally.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">tweeting</span></a> that “Any protesters, anarchists, agitators, looters or lowlifes who are going to Oklahoma please understand, you will not be treated like you have been in New York, Seattle, or Minneapolis. It will be a much different scene!”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #121212;"><span style="color: #121212;">The psychological impact of the chaos Trump lives and breathes and has brought to American life was reflected in </span><a href="https://www.studyfinds.org/land-of-the-worried-83-of-americans-very-stressed-over-nations-future/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">polling</span></a><span style="color: #121212;"> done by the </span></span>American Psychological Association which found that 72% of Americans polled “believe<span style="color: #3d85c6;"> <a href="https://www.studyfinds.org/political-polarization-peaking-in-america-voters-embrace-all-or-nothing-mentality-along-party-lines/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">this is the lowest point</span></a></span> in the country’s history that they’ve ever been alive to see.” Another key finding was that “66% of respondents say that the government’s ongoing response to the coronavirus continues to stress them out on a daily basis. Among that group, 84% are mostly worried about the federal government’s response.” (366)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The anemic federal response was mind-boggling to public health experts overseas, whose countries handled the pandemic much more aggressively, resulting in a fraction of the deaths and infections seen in the United States. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/06/19/countries-keeping-coronavirus-bay-experts-watch-us-case-numbers-with-alarm/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">According to</span></a> Rick Noack of <i>the Washington Post</i>, <span style="background: white;">“As coronavirus cases surge in states across the South and West of the United States, health experts in countries with falling case numbers are watching with a growing sense of alarm and disbelief, with many wondering why virus-stricken U.S. states continue to reopen and why the advice of scientists is often ignored.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“‘It really does feel like the U.S. has given up,” (367) said Siouxsie Wiles, an infectious-diseases specialist at the University of Auckland in New Zealand - a country that has confirmed only three new cases over the last three weeks and where citizens have now largely returned to their pre-coronavirus routines.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In short, we have the absolute worst leader at the absolute worst time. Amid the greatest crisis this country has faced since World War II, America is rudderless, our fate in the hands of a hollow, ignorant, self-centered, mercurial man with no empathy (368) or sense of honor (369) who has gelded or fired the experts who could mitigate the impacts of the pandemic while empowering sycophants and political hacks. (370)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background: white;">Because of the Trump administration's colossal dereliction of duty, human misery is sure to continue in the United States in the months to come as the informed-and-sensible quarantined continue to suffer separation anxiety from friends and family, as the still-employed (and anyone buying groceries) risk contracting the virus every time they step out their door, as record levels of unemployment continue and millions are unable to meet basic financial needs, as hospitals overflow, as cities and states slash social services to get supplies the feds should have provided, as </span><a href="https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries" target="_blank"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">2,300,000 plus-and-counting</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"> </span><span style="background: white;">Americans get infected and hundreds of thousands die horrible and premature deaths.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "georgia" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><br /></span><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"><br /></span><span style="background: white;">Human beings are fallible. No presidential administration is perfect.</span><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"><br /><br />But it didn’t have to be this way. Had the Trump administration heeded </span><a href="https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Once-again-government-is-caught-unprepared-15179581.php"><span style="background: white; color: #3d85c6;">advice from the outgoing Obama administration</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">, </span><span style="background: white;">or kept a competent disaster management team in place, or acted aggressively from the moment they were notified of the virus on January 3, or used World Health Organization test kits, or recommended social distancing sooner, or maintained consistent and transparent messaging, or leveraged the formidable resources of the federal government early and often, or formed anything resembling a coherent national response, or put public health ahead of campaign concerns, or had even a modicum of concern for the human impact of their decisions, we would be looking at a radically better future, as seen in Germany, South Korea, and every other developed country, all of whom have a fraction of the deaths and infections the U.S. has experienced.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background: white;"><br /></span><a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/03/12/814881355/white-house-knew-coronavirus-would-be-a-major-threat-but-response-fell-short"><span style="background: white;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Asked</span></span></a><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"> by NPR’s Terry Gross what went wrong with the test kits, <i>Politico</i> reporter Dan Diamond quoted an administration official whose answer could apply to all of Trump’s failures:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />“Terry, the question might not be what went wrong; it's what went right?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b>More political writing by Dan Benbow:</b></i></span><br />
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Lingering <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2019/09/lingering-myths-of-2016-presidential.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>Myths</b></span></a> of the 2016 presidential election:</span></div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Bernie was robbed by the DNC!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-master-of-low-expectations-666.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>The Master of Low Expectations</b></span></a><span style="color: #3d85c6;">: 666 reasons sentient citizens</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> are still celebrating </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the long overdue departure of George W. Bush</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-breathtaking-stupidity-of_16.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The <b>breathtaking stupidity</b> of #BernieOrBust</span></a></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Death of a President in the <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2018/12/death-of-president-in-united-states-of.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>United States of Amnesia</b></span></a></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> (<i>a review of the public life of George H.W. Bush</i>)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Aliens, unicorns, and <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2018/10/spoilerparty.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>the narcissism</b></span></a> </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">of voting Green</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2017/01/ten-reasons-barack-obama-is-clearly.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">10 reasons</span></a> </b></span>Barack Obama is clearly</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the best president in my lifetime</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/10/178-reasons-hillary-clinton-is.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>178 reasons</b></span></a> Hillary Clinton is infinitely better</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">than Donald Trump (even on her worst day)</span><br />
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/09/colin-kaepernick-is-right.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Colin Kaepernick is right</span></a></div>
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/04/stephen-colbert-delivers-best-political.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Stephen Colbert delivers the best political roast of all time</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2014/12/GaryWebbrailroaded.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Justice Delayed: "Kill the Messenger" vindicates Gary Webb</span></a></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2014/04/21st-century-republicans-part-iv.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">21st Century Republicans, Part IV</span></a></div>
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/10/inequality-for-all-and-elephant-in-room.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"Inequality for All" and the Elephant in the Room</span></a></div>
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/05/memorial-day-in-united-states-of-amnesia.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Memorial Day in the United States of Amnesia</span></a></div>
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2012/10/romney-ryans-road-to-perdition.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Romney-Ryan's Road to Perdition</span></a></div>
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<b style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;"> Follow Dan Benbow on </span><a href="https://twitter.com/danbenbow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Twitter </span></a><span style="color: #222222;"> </span></span></i></b></div>
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<br />Dan Benbowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02258556216655283390noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3869308843623818842.post-44377883802383670242020-03-19T10:09:00.000-07:002020-03-19T18:08:47.316-07:00The Iraq War turns 17; America sleeps<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf5NnsPWTkVwTDU5HD1ISXlm0ZQQeXgF03IwQkJQH1TRsBD7gxE_sDn1AYP6fFpxluIHVb9gUztGP-Y4I8vVnZ5z1n4g5DEnV1oWVj0qz_hvpUubyIh80o0JMgY-VGGT4yiPwe9j8odeY/s1600/bloodonherhands.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="206" data-original-width="274" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf5NnsPWTkVwTDU5HD1ISXlm0ZQQeXgF03IwQkJQH1TRsBD7gxE_sDn1AYP6fFpxluIHVb9gUztGP-Y4I8vVnZ5z1n4g5DEnV1oWVj0qz_hvpUubyIh80o0JMgY-VGGT4yiPwe9j8odeY/s400/bloodonherhands.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Protester: Condoleezza Rice has blood on her hands</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Seventeen years ago today, the United States military invaded Iraq on <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/3/20/18274228/ari-fleischer-iraq-lies-george-w-bush-wmds" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">false pretenses</span></a> to </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/mar/20/iraq-war-oil-resources-energy-peak-scarcity-economy" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">steal their oil</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />Many Americans are reflexively allergic to looking back, but we can't progress as a country if we fail to absorb the lessons of the past. For all the flag-waving and military fetishism injected into the media bloodstream by the right wing and Democrats who pander to the lowest common denominator, there is little public discussion of how to best serve veterans once their deployments are over and close to zero examination of <i>why </i>we now have so many wounded and dislocated vets.<br /><br />When assessing the challenges of veterans, from homelessness to PTSD to traumatic brain injuries to healthcare accessibility to <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/24/veteran-suicides-military-_n_3332231.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">suicide</span></a>, the elephant in the room is the invasion of Iraq, a unilateral war of choice that eclipsed and then prolonged the more limited (and justifiable) multilateral effort against the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan.<br /><br />Apologists for the Iraq invasion often claim that <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-master-of-low-expectations-666.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">George W. Bush/Dick Cheney</span></a> didn't really want to invade Iraq, that they were convinced of the necessity by flawed pre-war intelligence which inflated Saddam Hussein's WMD threat. But the evidence clearly shows that Bush, Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld had their eyes on Iraq well before 9/11, which gave them the political capital (and cover) they needed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Even before becoming president, in 1999, candidate Bush <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1028-01.htm" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">told</span></a> interviewer Mickey Herskowitz, <span style="background-color: white;">“One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief. <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2018/12/death-of-president-in-united-states-of.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">My father</span></a> had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it. If I have a chance to invade, if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it." </span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Waste it he did not. Bush’s first Treasury Secretary, Paul O’Neill, said the administration began planning an invasion of Iraq </span><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/01/10/oneill.bush/" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">within days</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> of W’s inauguration, in January of 2001, a claim which was seconded by a </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Vanity Fair</i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> feature entitled "US Was Targeting Saddam 'Just Days after 9/11,'" among many other sources. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In March of 2001, Dick Cheney's secret Energy Task Force met and discussed ways to <a href="https://www.projectcensored.org/8-secrets-of-cheneys-energy-task-force-come-to-light/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">divert</span></a> more of Iraq's oil supply to the U.S., as revealed in the "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts" <a href="https://www.judicialwatch.org/oldsite/IraqOilFrgnSuitors.pdf" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">documents</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">. (Cheney's lawyers spent years afterward successfully keeping the public from seeing notes from those meetings.)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">On the night of 9/11, according to Richard Clarke, Bush's key counter-terrorism adviser at the time, “....Rumsfeld came over and the others, and the president finally got back, and we had a meeting. And Rumsfeld said, ‘You know, we’ve got to do Iraq,’ and everyone looked at him—at least I looked at him and Powell looked at him—like, ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ And he said—I’ll never forget this—There </span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">just aren’t enough targets in Afghanistan. We need to bomb something else to prove that we’re, you know, big and strong and not going to be pushed around by these kind of attacks...And I made the point certainly that night, and I think Powell acknowledged it, that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. That didn’t seem to faze Rumsfeld in the least.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /><a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/blair-told-us-was-targeting-saddam-just-days-after-911-54527.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Just nine days after 9/11</span></a>, Bush asked British Prime Minister Tony Blair for his support in removing Saddam Hussein from power.<br /><br />As early as February of 2002, more than a year before the supposedly reluctant invasion, special operations personnel and Predator drones were <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/02/bush-oral-history200902?printable=true&currentPage=all"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">secretly being moved</span></a> from Afghanistan to Iraq.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In July of 2002, while George W. Bush and Tony Blair were publicly claiming that they wanted weapons inspections in Iraq to run their course before taking military action, British officials had the infamous meeting captured in <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/The_secret_Downing_Street_memo,_July_23,_2002" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the Downing Street memo</span></a>, in which "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy [of invasion]."<br /><br />That fall, the Bush Administration preyed on the American public's post-9/11 fear and vulnerability with an <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/12/AR2006061200932_pf.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">orchestrated media campaign</span></a> to manufacture a case for war. <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-nov-28-na-warvote28-story.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Not coincidentally</span></a>, this campaign began in the run-up to congressional elections in which the Republicans sought to regain control of the Senate by turning the media focus to national security issues. Asked why the administration had waited until September to make their case for pre-emptive war, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/07/nyregion/quotation-of-the-day-766518.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">told</span></a> <i>the New York Times</i>, “From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August."<br /><br />The next day, the Bush Administration's principals fanned out to media outlets to parrot lines about the purported threat posed by Saddam Hussein.<br /><br />The propaganda effort culminated on February 5, 2003, when Colin Powell made a long list of false accusations about Saddam Hussein's fictitious WMD ambitions and connections to al Qaeda in <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/27/AR2006092700106_pf.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a speech to the United Nations</span></a>. Though much of the intelligence cited was based on questionable sources—including single sources who hadn’t even been interviewed by U.S. intelligence—Powell told the world, "every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we are giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence." Powell’s Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson, who had helped craft the speech, later referred to Powell's U.N. presentation as "the lowest moment of my life."<br /><br />A study of the media offensive by the non-partisan Center for Public Integrity <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2008/01/23/5641/false-pretenses"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">found</span></a> that key members of the administration (Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Condi Rice, Paul Wolfowitz) had</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">made 935 false statements to the press. In the words of Scott McLellan, the second White House press secretary, the administration's p.r. campaign was nothing but "<a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/ex-aide-scott-mcclellan-rips-bush-iraq-propaganda-article-1.332727"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">propaganda</span></a>.”<br /><br />After ignoring the February 14 statement (to the U.N.) of Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic Agency, that "We have found to date no evidence of ongoing prohibited nuclear or nuclear-testing activities in Iraq," and last-minute <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/05/international/worldspecial/05CND-INTEL.html?ei=5007&en=fd803917a4f41612&ex=1383454800&partner=USERLAND&pagewanted=print&position="><span style="color: #3d85c6;">peace offerings from Iraqi officials</span></a>, the Bush Administration got their war on. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The campaign of fear and fabrication which was the Iraq invasion's original sin was compounded by dire consequences, including but not limited to:<br /><br />-The transmogrification of the rare national unity and near-universal international support the U.S. had after 9/11 into raw divisiveness domestically and ill will internationally<br /><br />-The <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/4710/chalmers_johnson_on_robbing_the_cradle_of_civilization"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">destruction</span></a> of some of the the world’s oldest, most precious antiquities throughout Iraq<br /><br />-Astonishing human suffering (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanitarian_crises_of_the_Iraq_War"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">four-five million refugees</span></a>, two million civilians <a href="http://www.digitaljournal.com/news/world/this-is-my-sacrifice-thousands-maimed-in-iraq-protests/article/562092" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">injured or disabled</span></a>, and up to [and maybe over] <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2007/sep/14/world/fg-iraq14"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">one million dead civilians</span></a>)<br /><br />-The abandonment of Afghanistan at the very moment when the U.S. had a big coalition (and could have built on the military victory there to help create a safe, civil society), which revived the Taliban when they were on the ropes and dragged the conflict out to the present and beyond<br /><br />-<a href="http://icasualties.org/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">4,580 dead American troops</span></a> and <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/rebeccaruiz/2013/11/04/report-a-million-veterans-injured-in-iraq-afghanistan-wars/#39c9d4576810" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">tens or hundreds of thousands</span></a> injured physically and/or psychologically (not to mention the negative impact on those troops' parents, siblings, spouses, children, grandparents, and close friends)<br /><br />-The over-extension and diminution of the American military through multiple tours and deployment of National Guard members for combat purposes (which <a href="http://www.fpif.org/articles/hurricane_katrina_and_the_war_in_iraq"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">robbed</span></a> New Orleans of badly-needed Guardsmen after Hurricane Katrina)<br /><br />-An exacerbation of tension with Muslims worldwide and increase in terrorist recruitment (including <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2016/08/12/middleeast/here-is-how-isis-began/index.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the founding of ISIS</span></a>), the very thing the Bush Administration was claiming to counteract in Iraq<br /><br />-The replacement of a Sunni strongman who provided a check on the Iranians with a Shiite leader who is allied with Iran</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">-Poisoning of the environment in Iraq from the ammunition used, resulting in an <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10661-016-5491-0" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">increase in birth defects and cancer</span></a> and a host of neurological, respiratory, and cancerous conditions for <a href="https://veteran.mobilehealth.va.gov/AHBurnPitRegistry/index.html#page/home" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">85,000+ veterans</span></a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />The long-term costs of the Iraq invasion—which was initiated not long before the U.S. treasury was starting to absorb the staggering costs of Baby Boomer retirement—are up to <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/14/us-iraq-war-anniversary-idUSBRE92D0PG20130314"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">six trillion dollars</span></a>.<br /><br />The opportunity costs of the invasion of Iraq are less quantifiable but immense. Every dollar spent on this ill-conceived adventure robbed us of a dollar for the elemental priorities of a civilized society back home and now Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell (who supported the invasion) use the budget deficit caused by the invasion and occupation as an excuse to take the ax to programs for both those who need assistance most—the poor, elderly, and disabled—and for the struggling, shrinking middle-class.<br /><br />Though the trauma and loss caused by the U.S. invasion remains fresh for the people of Iraq, most Americans sleepwalk through their days with video games, Netflix, Hulu, and the soporific of cable TV, </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">oblivious to the mass human suffering their country unleashed in its insatiable greed for oil. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />Such is life in the United States of Amnesia.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b>More political writing by Dan Benbow:</b></i></span><br />
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Lingering <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2019/09/lingering-myths-of-2016-presidential.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>Myths</b></span></a> of the 2016 presidential election:</span></div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Bernie was robbed by the DNC!</span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-master-of-low-expectations-666.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>The Master of Low Expectations</b></span></a><span style="color: #3d85c6;">: 666 reasons sentient citizens</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> are still celebrating </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the long overdue departure of George W. Bush</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-breathtaking-stupidity-of_16.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The <b>breathtaking stupidity</b> of #BernieOrBust</span></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Death of a President in the <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2018/12/death-of-president-in-united-states-of.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>United States of Amnesia</b></span></a></span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> (<i>a review of the public life of George H.W. Bush</i>)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Aliens, unicorns, and <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2018/10/spoilerparty.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>the narcissism</b></span></a> </span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">of voting Green</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2017/01/ten-reasons-barack-obama-is-clearly.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">10 reasons</span></a> </b></span>Barack Obama is clearly</span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the best president in my lifetime</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/10/178-reasons-hillary-clinton-is.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>178 reasons</b></span></a> Hillary Clinton is infinitely better</span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">than Donald Trump (even on her worst day)</span><br />
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/09/colin-kaepernick-is-right.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Colin Kaepernick is right</span></a></div>
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/04/stephen-colbert-delivers-best-political.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Stephen Colbert delivers the best political roast of all time</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2014/12/GaryWebbrailroaded.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Justice Delayed: "Kill the Messenger" vindicates Gary Webb</span></a></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2014/04/21st-century-republicans-part-iv.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">21st Century Republicans, Part IV</span></a></div>
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/10/inequality-for-all-and-elephant-in-room.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"Inequality for All" and the Elephant in the Room</span></a></div>
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/05/memorial-day-in-united-states-of-amnesia.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Memorial Day in the United States of Amnesia</span></a></div>
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2012/10/romney-ryans-road-to-perdition.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Romney-Ryan's Road to Perdition</span></a></div>
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<b style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;"> Follow Dan Benbow on </span><a href="https://twitter.com/danbenbow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Twitter </span></a><span style="color: #222222;"> <span style="font-size: 13px;"> </span></span></span></i></b></div>
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Dan Benbowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02258556216655283390noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3869308843623818842.post-42531399701721442352020-01-06T17:22:00.002-08:002020-01-12T04:28:43.273-08:00Democrats should ditch the Iowa caucuses by 2024<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijVYtb7m0iLTztFtOkDMUwK5tvC5GUb_5dePFx9QXGV4VMPMZFgjar8GZwruT5UZ_kuq1IulK_AfOGco2apT1lKHL9hKQ3avOX1KZNkS7SN7QzB7hRgcJ_sqW0JF9CFTPjLXbdFtZE37Q/s1600/b57f4996-5409-4bb7-b42a-e0031e2f9ed5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="340" data-original-width="665" height="162" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijVYtb7m0iLTztFtOkDMUwK5tvC5GUb_5dePFx9QXGV4VMPMZFgjar8GZwruT5UZ_kuq1IulK_AfOGco2apT1lKHL9hKQ3avOX1KZNkS7SN7QzB7hRgcJ_sqW0JF9CFTPjLXbdFtZE37Q/s320/b57f4996-5409-4bb7-b42a-e0031e2f9ed5.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Why does Iowa still have such a prominent place in Democratic Party politics?<br /><br />Every four years, Democratic presidential candidates set up field offices, recruit armies of volunteers, and crisscross the state for months, courting voters at fish fries, corn roasts, vet halls, anywhere they can shake hands and make a pitch. <br /><br />In a more representative democracy, candidates would spend the time leading up to primary season traveling around <i>the whole country</i>, introducing their policy ideas to <i>all</i> voters, but in the current primary schedule Democratic candidates are stuck in Iowa for six months to a year. The vast majority of states—including California, which has ten times</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Iowa’s population—get shortchanged, receiving drive-by campaign stops and limited exposure to the candidates. <br /><br />Thanks to the inertia of the Democratic National Committee’s primary commission, which sets the schedule, the Iowa caucus has far more importance than the primaries that come after. Since 2000, the winner of the Iowa caucus has gone on to become the Democratic nominee in every open election cycle. <br /><br />The flaws in this model are many. On the most basic level, caucuses are at odds with the Democratic Party’s core belief in voting rights and the power of the franchise. </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Turnout at the caucuses is very low; 2008 was a record year, yet <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/11/13/20953263/what-it-takes-to-win-iowa-caucuses-explained" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">only 16%</span></a> of eligible voters participated in the process. </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Delegates in Iowa aren’t awarded based on a one-person, one-vote standard, but on a candidate’s ability to pack as many supporters as possible into each of Iowa’s </span><a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iowa_caucuses" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">1,681 precincts</span></a><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> on election night. The candidate who best manipulates this system gets the most delegates, regardless of their level of support among Democratic voters statewide, and wins loads of positive media coverage (and momentum) for the primaries that follow. </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />The fundamentally undemocratic nature of the Iowa caucuses aside, why would a party which has embraced urban America, inclusion, and diversity for several decades give its most important primary slot to one of the whitest, most rural states in the country? <br /><br />Democrats have long dominated vote totals in cities and among people of color. In <a href="https://www.people-press.org/2018/03/20/1-trends-in-party-affiliation-among-demographic-groups/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a 2018 Pew survey</span></a>, African-Americans supported Democrats over Republicans 84-8%, Asians supported Democrats over Republicans 65-27%, and Latinos supported Democrats over Republicans 63-28%. Nationwide, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/06/26/facts-about-democrats/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">39% of Democrats are people of color</span></a>, a number which will increase as the U.S. continues on its path to becoming a minority-majority country. <br /><br />By contrast, Iowa has no real cities and homogeneous demographics. The largest town in Iowa is Des Moines, which tops out at a population of 217,000, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">101st</span></a> biggest in America. <a href="http://worldpopulationreview.com/states/iowa-population/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Iowa’s demographics</span></a> are what one would expect in a typical red state: 90% white, 3% black, 2% Asian. <br /><br />Not surprisingly, considering its demographics, Iowa <i>is</i> a red state. From 1988-2012 Iowa voted Democratic in six out of seven presidential elections, but the good people of the Hawkeye state warmed to Donald Trump’s red-white-and-blue racist fury in 2016, giving Trump a lopsided ten-point victory. In 2018, Democrats beat Republicans by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">nine million votes</span></a> in House races, and nearby swing states Wisconsin and Michigan elected Democrats at the statewide level, but <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Iowa_elections" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Iowa voters</span></a> kept Republicans in control of both houses of the legislature and gave incumbent Republican governor Kim Reynolds four more years. Iowa also has a Republican-controlled state supreme court, leaving Democrats with no levers of power in the state. <br /><br />If Iowa were still a swing state, one could argue that the national Democratic Party should try to correct this power imbalance, but election results and polling indicate that Iowa’s lurch to the right has settled in. Despite Trump’s low approval ratings, current polls show him <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/Iowa.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">beating</span></a> all Democratic candidates in Iowa, including front-runner Joe Biden, without having run a single negative ad. Theoretically the Democratic nominee might win Iowa in the general election if they invested heavily in TV ads and made several pit stops in the fall of 2020, but time and money are finite and Iowa has just six electoral college votes; it would make little sense to rob bigger, more competitive states of the resources. <br /><br />In sum, a rural, overwhelmingly white Republican stronghold with an undemocratic caucus system and six electoral college votes has a better-than-even chance at choosing the next Democratic presidential nominee. The upshot is that Democratic candidates are forced to spend the bulk of their time before February 3rd in Iowa, though they have no incentive to return to Iowa for the rest of the campaign. <br /><br />2024 is a long way off. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) has plenty of time to fix this systems error. The solution is simple: move Iowa to the back of the 2024 schedule and pick for the opening primary a state that will be contested in the general election. Possibilities include <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/Michigan.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Michigan</span></a>, <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/Wisconsin.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Wisconsin</span></a>, or <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/Pennsylvania.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Pennsylvania</span></a>, states with urban centers and more electoral college votes than Iowa that Democrats have to win (which is why the DNC chose Milwaukee for this summer’s convention). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />At one time, there may have been a sound strategic reason to lead the Democratic primary season with the populist politics of swing state Iowa, but history has moved on and much of the rest of America has evolved. If the Democratic Party is true to its progressive principles in 2024, it will seize the future, rather than cling to the past.</span><br />
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<b style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="color: #222222;"> </span><a href="https://twitter.com/danbenbow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Follow</span></a><span style="color: #222222;"> Dan Benbow on Twitter</span></span></span></i></b></span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><br />
<i style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><b>More political writing by Dan Benbow:</b></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Lingering <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2019/09/lingering-myths-of-2016-presidential.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>Myths</b></span></a> of the 2016 presidential election:</span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Bernie was robbed by the DNC!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">The Iraq War turns 16;</span> <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2019/03/bushliedpeopledied.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>America sleeps</b></span></a></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-master-of-low-expectations-666.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>The Master of Low Expectations</b></span></a><span style="color: #3d85c6;">: 666 reasons sentient citizens</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> are still celebrating </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the long overdue departure of George W. Bush</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Death of a President in the <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2018/12/death-of-president-in-united-states-of.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>United States of Amnesia</b></span></a></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> (<i>a review of the public life of George H.W. Bush</i>)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Aliens, unicorns, and <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2018/10/spoilerparty.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>the narcissism</b></span></a> </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">of voting Green</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2017/01/ten-reasons-barack-obama-is-clearly.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">10 reasons</span></a> </b></span>Barack Obama is clearly</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the best president in my lifetime</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/10/178-reasons-hillary-clinton-is.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>178 reasons</b></span></a> Hillary Clinton is infinitely better</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">than Donald Trump (even on her worst day)</span><br />
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/09/colin-kaepernick-is-right.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Colin Kaepernick is right</span></a></div>
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/04/stephen-colbert-delivers-best-political.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Stephen Colbert delivers the best political roast of all time</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2014/12/GaryWebbrailroaded.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Justice Delayed: "Kill the Messenger" vindicates Gary Webb</span></a></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2014/04/21st-century-republicans-part-iv.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">21st Century Republicans, Part IV</span></a></div>
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/10/inequality-for-all-and-elephant-in-room.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"Inequality for All" and the Elephant in the Room</span></a></div>
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/05/memorial-day-in-united-states-of-amnesia.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Memorial Day in the United States of Amnesia</span></a></div>
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2012/10/romney-ryans-road-to-perdition.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Romney-Ryan's Road to Perdition</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d85c6;"><b style="font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> </b><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-breathtaking-stupidity-of_16.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The breathtaking stupidity of #BernieOrBust</span></a></span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;"> </span><span style="color: #222222;"> </span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> <b style="font-weight: bold;"> </b></span></i> </span></div>
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Dan Benbowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02258556216655283390noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3869308843623818842.post-81909480269642338592019-12-04T06:50:00.001-08:002021-08-23T16:24:11.086-07:00Janis Joplin & Tom Jones sing "Raise Your Hand"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It certainly is an odd pairing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The pint-sized, self-described ugly duckling, considered one
of if not <i>the</i> best rock vocalists, who bled her soul out every time she stepped
onstage opposite the tall and handsome hambone, long considered an archetype of
cheese, best known for having women’s underwear thrown at him onstage.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And yet somehow it works. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Written by Memphis soul musicians Al Bell, Eddie Floyd, and
Steve Cropper (of Booker T & the MGs), “Raise Your Hand” was part of Janis
Joplin’s concert repertoire at the time. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Recorded fifty years ago today on Tom
Jones’ variety show, the one-off performance embedded below is full of period
details—Janis’s satin bellbottoms and flowing tie-dye tunic, Tom Jones’ black
silk Nehru shirt with billowing sleeves, surrounding them huge collars, a buckskin
jacket with fringe, the Technicolor fashions of the time.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Better yet, the music hums, from Janis’ thunderous vocals to
Tom Jones’ husky baritone to the uptown horn section to the smoking sax solo,
everyone and their neighbor infected by the groove. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">1970 was just four weeks out, making this cultural artifact
a fitting capstone to the Swinging Sixties.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></div>
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<b style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;"> Follow Dan Benbow on </span><a href="https://twitter.com/danbenbow" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Twitter </span></a><span style="color: #222222;"> </span></span></i></b></span></b><br />
<b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></b><br />
<b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Other "Truth and Beauty" vocalist profiles:</span></b><br />
<b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="color: #222222;"> </span><a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2018/08/angelic-voices-4-aretha-franklin.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Angelic voices, #4</span></a><span style="color: #222222;">: Aretha Franklin performs </span></i></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i> before Barack Obama and Carole King </i></span></span><br />
<b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13px; font-weight: bold;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="color: #222222;">There must be something in the water: </span><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/11/there-must-be-something-in-water-magic.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the magic of "Muscle Shoals"</span></a></i></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13px; font-weight: bold;"> </span></span><br />
<b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="color: #3d85c6;"> </span><span style="color: #222222;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2015/04/strangefruit.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">A look back at "Strange Fruit"</span></a><span style="color: #222222;"> on the 100th anniversary of Billie Holiday's birth</span></span></i></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span></span></i></span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="color: #222222;"> </span><a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/01/ella-sings-summertime.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Angelic voices, #1</span></a><span style="color: #222222;">: Ella sings "Summertime"</span></span></i></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span></span></i></span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="color: #222222;"> </span><a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/07/angelic-voices-2-marvin-gaye-sings-star.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Angelic voices, #2</span></a><span style="color: #222222;">: Marvin Gaye sings "The Star-Spangled Banner"</span></span></i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2014/01/janisjoplinsings.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Angelic voices, #3</span></a>: Janis Joplin sings "Cry Baby" </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2019/04/angelic-voices-5-princes-darling-nikki.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Angelic voices, #5</span></a>: Prince's "Darling Nikki" </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> More music appreciation on "Truth and Beauty":</span></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="color: #222222;"> Click </span><a href="http://www.benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-second-coming-stevie-ray-vaughan.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">here</span></a></i><i style="color: #222222;"> for "The Second Coming: Stevie Ray Vaughan," </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i style="color: #222222;">a first-hand account of Vaughan's final concert</i></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/06/great-guitar-solos-10-prince-attacks.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">here</span></a><span style="color: #222222;"> for</span><b style="color: #222222;"> </b><span style="color: #222222;">"</span></span></i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: start;"><i>Great Guitar Solos, #10: Prince attacks 'Whole Lotta Love'"</i></span></span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><br /></b></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-underappreciated-ingenuity-of-robby.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">here</span></a><span style="color: #222222;"> for </span><span style="color: #222222;">"The underappreciated ingenuity of Robbie Krieger"</span></span></i></div>
</div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><br /></b></span></i></div>
<i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2015/05/freddiekingsanhozay.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">here</span></a><span style="color: #222222;"> for </span><span style="color: #222222;">"Great Guitar Solos, #8: Freddie King's 'San-Ho-Zay'"</span></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><span style="color: #888888;"> </span></span></i><br /><i><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><span style="color: #888888;"> </span><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2012/11/link-wrays-rumble.html" style="color: #888888;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">here</span></a></span> for "Link Wray's 'Rumble'"</i><br /> </span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 18px;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><i><a href="http://www.benbosophy.blogspot.com/2012/08/great-guitar-solos-1-eddie-hazel.html" style="color: #888888;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">here</span></a> for "Great Guitar Solos, #1: Eddie Hazel (Funkadelic)"</i></i><br /><i><i><br /></i></i></span></div>
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<i><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://www.benbosophy.blogspot.com/2012/11/great-guitar-solos-3-hiram-bullock.html" style="color: #888888;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">here</span></a> for "Great Guitar Solos, #3: Hiram Bullock" </span></i></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><i><br /></i></b></span><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://www.benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/03/great-guitar-solos-5-alvin-lee.html" style="color: #888888;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">here</span></a> for "Great Guitar Solos, #5: Alvin Lee"</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i><i style="color: black; line-height: normal; text-align: start;"><span style="color: #222222;"> </span><a href="http://www.benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/11/great-guitar-solos-6-neil-youngs-hey.html" style="color: #888888;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">here</span></a><span style="color: #222222;"> for </span><span style="color: #222222;">"Great Guitar Solos, #6: Neil Young's 'Hey Hey, My My'"</span></i></span></div>
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Dan Benbowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02258556216655283390noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3869308843623818842.post-9359273853569555712019-11-24T10:28:00.000-08:002021-08-23T16:27:55.113-07:00"Raise Hell: The Life & Times of Molly Ivins" <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhERWDDQkOCvmQxW-vapW4wdrItSrVco_OJgPInkVH1NlE16YWCL1v7Lj16G7P_E7Vup2ypVkKEmRgOaQLKzCgSErNfXP3EHQZEkOBl8PIrSvO89ClB0R3KiE1mAQUKHAGHajMfneKObv4/s1600/98880.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="308" data-original-width="358" height="273" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhERWDDQkOCvmQxW-vapW4wdrItSrVco_OJgPInkVH1NlE16YWCL1v7Lj16G7P_E7Vup2ypVkKEmRgOaQLKzCgSErNfXP3EHQZEkOBl8PIrSvO89ClB0R3KiE1mAQUKHAGHajMfneKObv4/s320/98880.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: black;">Watching the
documentary <i>Raise Hell: The Life & Times of Molly Ivins</i> was
like stumbling into a fond old friend I hadn’t seen in many years and having a
90-minute coffee klatch. Like millions of other Americans, I spent countless
hours through the years reading Ivins’ political columns without knowing much
of her back story. <i>Raise Hell</i> fills in Ivins’ history so that we see the
human being behind the singular writing voice.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: black;">Born in 1944, Ivins grew up in the
affluent River Oaks neighborhood of Houston, Texas. Patterns manifested early
on that would become a template for Ivins’ life. From a young age she was a
bookworm with a special appreciation of the written word. By age 12, she was six feet tall, making her self-conscious about her appearance and something of
an outsider at school. In her teen years, Ivins first challenged authority when
butting heads with her father, a patriarchal right-wing oil executive who felt
that children should be seen and not heard.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: black;">Like many in her
generation, Ivins’ interest in politics was sparked by the civil rights movement, helped along by the
temper tantrum her father threw when he came home from work to find Ivins and a
black male friend hanging out by the family pool. Unlike many women in her
generation, Ivins had no desire to stay </span>home and raise children. After high school, she earned
a Bachelor’s Degree from Smith College in Massachusetts, then a Master’s from
the Columbia Journalism School in Manhattan.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: black;">While at </span>Smith, Ivins crashed the
male-dominated field of journalism, interning for the <i>Houston Chronicle</i>.
In 1967, after completing graduate school, she worked <span style="color: black;">for
the<i> Star </i></span></span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Tribune</i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> (later the</span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> Minneapolis Star-Tribune). </i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Most
female journos of the time were shunted out to “food, fluff, and fashion,” but
Ivins reported on the intersection of poverty </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">and race, the young radicals, and
police brutality. From the</span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> Tribune</i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Ivins went to </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">The Texas Observer</i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">,
which she described as “the only liberal publication in Texas.” While serving
as an editor for the </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Observer</i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">, Ivins published occasional op-ed columns
at the </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Washington Post</i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> and </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">The New York Times</i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Ivins’ op-eds and
work for the <i>Chronicle</i>, <i>Star Tribune</i>, and <i>Texas Observer</i>
catapulted her to a full-time position at <i>The New York </i><i>Times</i> in 1976. Working at the <i>Times</i> would be the peak of most journalists’
careers, but it was just a weigh station for Ivins. Ivins’ Southern background
helped her land the plum assignment of writing <a href="http://movies2.nytimes.com/books/99/01/03/specials/presley-obit.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Elvis Presley’s obituary</span></a>, but it
put her at cultural odds with the stuffy East Coast newsroom and the hard-nosed
executive editor, Abe Rosenthal. Following a spell in the Manhattan
headquarters, Ivins’ outspokenness got her exiled to an isolated office in
Colorado, where she raised Rosenthal’s ire by playfully using the words “gang pluck”
to describe an all-day chicken slaughter she was reporting on (as explained in the video below).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Ivins truly hit her
stride in 1982 when she returned home to Texas to write for the <i>Dallas Times Herald</i>. At the <i>Herald</i>, Ivins was given
creative control, which allowed her voice to flower. Her
popularity continued to grow in the ’90s, when she switched to the <i>Fort
Worth Star Telegram</i>. Ivins’ first book (<i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/169707.Molly_Ivins_Can_t_Say_That_Can_She_" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Molly Ivins Can’t Say That, Can She?</span></a>,</i> 1992) made <i>The New York Times</i> bestseller list and her work was
syndicated by Creator’s Syndicate, which spread her columns to a peak of 400 newspapers, an exceptional level
of success in the field. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A populist with a social
conscience, <span style="color: black;">Ivins consistently advocated for the
underdog—women, the poor, people of color, labor—and the public interest, showi</span>ng
a distinct distaste for the parasitic machinations of the Washington and Texas
elite. Referring <span style="color: black;">to rising inequality and the
increasing economic struggles of the lower and middle classes, Ivins said,
“shit flows downhill and the people at the bottom are drowning in it.”</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: black;">The most </span>unique aspect of Ivins’ writing
voice was her humor. Though she had spent several years out of state, in
Massachusetts, Paris, Manhattan, Colorado, and the Twin Cities, at heart <span style="color: black;">Ivins was a down-to-earth Texas girl who liked (in her own
words) to hunt, cuss, and drink. As an </span>unabashed liberal living in an
ultra-conservative state, she learned to buffer right-wing pestilence with laughter,
mocking transparently appalling Republican actions—and the lies they con<span style="color: black;">cocted to justify their actions—with a dry wit. Of Pat
Buchanan’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2olwuAy3_og" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">hateful culture war speech</span></a> at the 1992 Republican convention, in
which he denigrated LGBTQ Americans, feminists, and environmentalists, Ivins
said, “It was better in the original German.”</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: black;">Texas governor George
W. Bush’s ascendance to the White House following his <a href="http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2016/10/the-rigged-2000-florida-recount-and-the-path-to-trump.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">theft of </span></a></span><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><a href="http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2016/10/the-rigged-2000-florida-recount-and-the-path-to-trump.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the 2000 election</span></a> </span>elevated Ivins to a rarefied rank
in the commentariat. Having covered Texas politics off-and-on for three decades
at that point, Ivins was able to laser in on Bush’s
<a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/bushisms/2000/03/the_complete_bushisms.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">personal shortcomings</span></a>, <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Bush_administration_scandals" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">corruption</span></a>, and <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-master-of-low-expectations-666.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">devious policy decisions</span></a> with a color
and precision that eluded the legions of journalists covering the Bush Administration.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Right before the <span style="color: black;">2000 presidential election, Ivins (with Lou Dubose) warned
voters of exactly what they could expect by documenting </span>the actions <span style="color: black;">of Governor (and then-presidential candidate) Bush in <i style="color: black;"><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/169710.Shrub" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Shrub: the Short but Happy Political Life of George W. Bush</span></a></i>. A few years later, as
President Bush was in the process of running for a second term, she and Dubose
teamed up again. Their new collaboration was considered such a threat to the
administration that Ivins’ house was broken into and her laptop stolen. <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/169708.Bushwhacked" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Bushwhacked</span></a> </i>came out in 2004.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: black;">Bush gave Ivins
endless amounts of material, both as a humorist and a concerned </span>citizen. A 1st
Amendment absolutist, Ivins wrote eloquently of the Bush Administration's assaults
on civil liberties (The Patriot Act, warrantless wiretapping, torture) and the
mistaken belief among many Americans that expansive government snooping was necessary
to keep us safe. Unlike the vast majority of mainstream American opinion writers of
the time, Ivins foresaw the folly of invading Iraq; two months before the
invasion, Ivins presciently wrote of the imminent operation “<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2019/03/bushliedpeopledied.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">can you say horrible three-way civil war</span></a>?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Speaking truth to
power came at a cost for Ivins. Her acerbic wit and unwillingness to sugarcoat <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-master-of-low-expectations-666.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the grimness of the Bush years</span></a> got her blackballed by the <i>Houston Chronicle </i>and other
publications who’d published her previously.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: black;">In 2005, Ivins’
breast cancer came out of remission. Never married and something of a </span>loner, she spent the last two years of her life doing what she had
always done—writing up a storm. At the
time she passed away (in January of 20o7), Ivins was publishing two columns a
week and working on a book about the fragile state of the Bill of Rights. Her
estate included a major gift to the ACLU, which is receiving a portion of the proceeds from <i>Raise Hell: The Life & Times of Molly Ivins </i>(trailer below).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/fh4RTjYd-Yg/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fh4RTjYd-Yg?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="color: black;">Raise Hell</span></i><span style="color: black;"> is not a standout documentary. The film provides a broad
life retrospective rather than a close-up of the remarkable body of work Ivins
produced over decades of reporting and opinion writing. Ivins’ significance can
only be fully appreciated by those of us who had the good fortune to read each
new column in real time, nodding along with the keen insights and throwing our
heads back in laughter at the sharp one-liners, even (especially) when the
subject matter was hard to digest. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">All the same, director Janice
Engel should be applauded for rescuing Ivins from obscurity and creating the
first and only film tribute to one of the best—and most humane—political
columnists America has ever seen.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
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<b style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;"> Follow Dan Benbow on </span><a href="https://twitter.com/danbenbow" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Twitter </span></a><span style="color: #222222;"> </span></span></i></b></span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="background-color: white;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b>More political writing by Dan Benbow:</b></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Lingering <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2019/09/lingering-myths-of-2016-presidential.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>Myths</b></span></a> of the 2016 presidential election:</span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Bernie was robbed by the DNC!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">The Iraq War turns 16;</span> <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2019/03/bushliedpeopledied.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>America sleeps</b></span></a></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-master-of-low-expectations-666.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>The Master of Low Expectations</b></span></a><span style="color: #3d85c6;">: 666 reasons sentient citizens</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> are still celebrating </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the long overdue departure of George W. Bush</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Death of a President in the <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2018/12/death-of-president-in-united-states-of.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>United States of Amnesia</b></span></a></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> (<i>a review of the public life of George H.W. Bush</i>)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Aliens, unicorns, and <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2018/10/spoilerparty.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>the narcissism</b></span></a> </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">of voting Green</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2017/01/ten-reasons-barack-obama-is-clearly.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">10 reasons</span></a> </b></span>Barack Obama is clearly</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the best president in my lifetime</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/10/178-reasons-hillary-clinton-is.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>178 reasons</b></span></a> Hillary Clinton is infinitely better</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">than Donald Trump (even on her worst day)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/09/colin-kaepernick-is-right.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Colin Kaepernick is right</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/04/stephen-colbert-delivers-best-political.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Stephen Colbert delivers the best political roast of all time</span></a></div>
</div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white;">
<span style="color: #3d85c6;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2014/12/GaryWebbrailroaded.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Justice Delayed: "Kill the Messenger" vindicates Gary Webb</span></a></span></span></div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2014/04/21st-century-republicans-part-iv.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">21st Century Republicans, Part IV</span></a></div>
</div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
</div>
</div>
<div style="background-color: white;">
<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/10/inequality-for-all-and-elephant-in-room.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"Inequality for All" and the Elephant in the Room</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
</div>
</div>
<div style="background-color: white;">
<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/05/memorial-day-in-united-states-of-amnesia.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Memorial Day in the United States of Amnesia</span></a></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
</div>
</div>
<div style="background-color: white;">
<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2012/10/romney-ryans-road-to-perdition.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Romney-Ryan's Road to Perdition</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
</div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b style="font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-weight: bold;"> </b><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-breathtaking-stupidity-of_16.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The breathtaking stupidity of #BernieOrBust</span></a></span><i><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;"> </span><span style="color: #222222;"> </span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> <b style="font-weight: bold;"> </b></span></i></span></span><br />
<b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
<b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"Truth and Beauty" film reviews:</span></b></div>
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<div style="color: #222222; line-height: 18.48px; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="line-height: 18px;"><i><br /></i></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 18px;"><i> "<span style="color: #3d85c6;"><a href="http://www.benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/11/there-must-be-something-in-water-magic.html" style="color: #888888;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">There must be something in the water: the magic of 'Muscle Shoals</span></a></span>"'</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: #222222; line-height: 18.48px; text-align: center;">
<i style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"<a href="http://www.benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/04/truth-is-in-eye-of-interpreter-review.html" style="color: #888888;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Truth is in the Eye of the Interpreter: a Review of 'Room 237</span></a>'"</span></i></div>
<div style="color: #222222; line-height: 18.48px; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i style="text-align: start;"><br /></i><i style="text-align: start;"><span style="color: #222222;">"</span><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2014/12/GaryWebbrailroaded.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Justice Delayed: 'Kill the Messenger' vindicates Gary Webb</span></a><span style="color: #222222;">"</span></i></span></div>
<div style="color: #222222; line-height: 18.48px; text-align: center;">
<i style="text-align: start;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div style="line-height: 18.48px; text-align: center;">
<div style="color: #222222;">
<i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"<a href="http://www.benbosophy.blogspot.com/2012/06/errol-morris-strikes-again.html" style="color: #888888;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Errol Morris Strikes Again</span></a>" (about "Tabloid")</span></i></i></i></div>
<div style="color: #222222;">
<i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></i></i></i></div>
<i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;">"</span><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-visual-0dyssey-of-loving-vincent.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">The Visual Odyssey of 'Loving Vincent</span></a><span style="color: #222222;">'"</span></span></i></i></i></div>
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<div style="color: #222222;">
<i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></i></i></i><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: start;">"</span><a href="http://www.benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/07/a-spoiler-free-review-of-mud.html" style="color: #888888;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">A spoiler-free review of 'Mud</span><span style="color: #222222;">'</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: start;">" </span></span></i></i></i></div>
<div style="color: #222222;">
<i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: start;"><br /></span></span></i></i></i></div>
<i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;">"'</span><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2019/07/do-right-thing-turns-30.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Do the Right Thing' Turns 30</span></a><span style="color: #222222;">"</span></span></span></i></i></i></div>
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<i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></i></i></i></div>
<div style="line-height: 18.48px; text-align: center;">
<i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;">"</span><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2015/02/richard-linklaters-boyhood.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Richard Linklater's 'Boyhood</span></a><span style="color: #222222;">'" </span></span></i></i></i></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"<a href="http://www.benbosophy.blogspot.com/2012/08/first-glance-master.html" style="color: #888888;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">First Glance: 'The Master</span></a>'"<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: start;"> </span></span></i></i></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"<a href="http://www.benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/02/searching-for-sugarman.html" style="color: #888888;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Searching for Sugar Man</span></a>"</span></i></i></i></i><br />
<i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></i></i></i></i><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;">"</span><a href="http://www.benbosophy.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-wolf-of-wall-street.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">The Wolf of Wall Street</span></a><span style="color: #222222;">"</span></span></i></i></i></i></i></div>
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<i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span></span></i></i></i></i></i></div>
<i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-wrecking-crew.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">The Wrecking Crew</span></a>"</span></i></i></i></i></i></div>
<div style="line-height: 18.48px; text-align: center;">
<div style="color: #222222;">
<i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;"> </span></span></i></i></i></i></i></div>
<i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2017/10/battle-of-sexes.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Battle of the Sexes</span></a>"</span></i></i></i></i></i></div>
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<br />
<i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"<a href="http://www.benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/10/inequality-for-all-and-elephant-in-room.html" style="color: #888888;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Inequality for All</span></a><span id="goog_957586860"></span><span id="goog_957586861"></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/" style="color: #888888;"></a>"</span></i></i></i></i></i></div>
</div>
<span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><i style="color: #222222; text-align: center;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></i></i></i></i><i style="color: #222222; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 18.48px; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #222222;">"</span><a href="http://www.benbosophy.blogspot.com/2014/01/american-hustle.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">American Hustle</span></a><span style="color: #222222;">"</span></i><br />
<i style="color: #222222; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 18.48px; text-align: center;"><br /></i><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 18.48px; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #222222;"> "</span><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2018/09/blackkklansman.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">BlacKkKlansman</span></a><span style="color: #222222;">"</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br />
<div style="line-height: 18.48px; text-align: center;">
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<i style="line-height: 18.48px;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: normal; line-height: normal;"><i>"<a href="http://www.benbosophy.blogspot.com/2015/09/love-and-taxes.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Love and Taxes</span></a>"</i></span></span></i></div>
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<i style="line-height: 18.48px;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: normal; line-height: normal;"><i><br /></i></span></span></i></div>
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<i style="line-height: 18.48px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: normal; line-height: normal;"><i><span style="color: #222222;"> "</span><a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2015/12/americanprimitivism.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trumbo</span></a><span style="color: #222222;">"</span></i></span></i><b style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;"> </span></span></i></b><i style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><b> </b></span></i></div>
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Dan Benbowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02258556216655283390noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3869308843623818842.post-71703581563546515642019-09-15T14:06:00.002-07:002019-12-04T06:32:20.567-08:00Lingering Myths of the 2016 presidential election: Bernie was robbed by the DNC!!!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEMg2uz-QXu-4moL71llR0oRFhUjjmZq_YgrqPCu1oBXc8ZW03EJDRKMLo6_0-S-CM4IvooxSpBEsN5DCS9BdsP3iuG_B1DjWE5ZpoY4RHhRXvVFG8l9YGsXkzg1-86b6YdpC6flR_8Xc/s1600/5c0e8fa69d860a502441b7b4-750-375.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="750" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEMg2uz-QXu-4moL71llR0oRFhUjjmZq_YgrqPCu1oBXc8ZW03EJDRKMLo6_0-S-CM4IvooxSpBEsN5DCS9BdsP3iuG_B1DjWE5ZpoY4RHhRXvVFG8l9YGsXkzg1-86b6YdpC6flR_8Xc/s400/5c0e8fa69d860a502441b7b4-750-375.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The 2020
presidential election is more than a year away and America’s left is already
eating its own.</span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Apoplectic at the Trump
presidency and fearful of the horrifying long-term consequences of a potential
second Trump term, Democratic voters are involved in a heated debate over which
candidate to put up in 2020. The three candidates who are <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/2020_democratic_presidential_nomination-6730.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">running away from the pack</span></a> in opinion polling have been subjected to withering criticism—<i>by Democrats</i>. According
to whichever sect of armchair critic you’re interacting with at the moment, Joe
Biden is too old and too cozy with corporate interests, Bernie Sanders isn’t
really a Democrat and besides, we need a female candidate, but Elizabeth Warren
is too far left and can’t win a general election. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">The level of engagement is
healthy and necessary, but the debate is riddled with false
narratives from 2016 that threaten to keep Donald Trump in the White House
until January of 2025:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the Dems lose
when they don’t go left, Trump should be easy to beat, the Dems have abandoned working-class voters, and the most persistent myth of all, that
Bernie Sanders would have beaten <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/10/178-reasons-hillary-clinton-is.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Hillary Clinton</span></a> in the 2016 Democratic primary
if not for the actions of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://beta.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-the-russian-effort-to-target-sanders-supporters--and-help-elect-trump/2019/04/11/741d7308-5576-11e9-8ef3-fbd41a2ce4d5_story.html" style="color: black;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Pushed aggressively</span></a> on
social media by Russian bots, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jun/11/democrat-primary-elections-need-reform" style="color: black;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the Bernie-was-robbed talking point</span> </a>split the
American left wide open in 2016 and helped convince a decisive number of swing
state Sanders supporters to stay home on election day, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2017/08/24/545812242/1-in-10-sanders-primary-voters-ended-up-supporting-trump-survey-finds?fbclid=IwAR1W26_xLR13thk8SuP3y4hdxmTXtsjUUYtcnyTZF8_Exx-D0t_NIMlwzXU" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">vote for Trump</span></a>, or waste
their vote on Green Party candidate and <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2018/10/spoilerparty.html" style="color: black;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Putin darling Jill Stein</span></a>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Amazingly, this myth
continues to linger in the minds of many well-intentioned but misinformed people,
poisoning their attitude toward the Democratic Party, frontrunner Joe Biden
(disdainfully referred to as “the DNC’s candidate”), and even the act of voting
itself. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif;">The particulars of
the Bernie-was-robbed theory are that Sanders would have won the primary if not
for the Clinton campaign’s control of DNC strategy and resources, debate
scheduling, closed primaries, registration challenges faced by new voters, and
the allotment of delegates and superdelegates.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">The charge that Clinton’s
control of DNC strategy and resources played a key role in her primary victory
is a classic example of the <a href="https://psychology.wikia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation#targetText=The%20opposite%20belief%2C%20correlation%20proves,this%22)%20and%20false%20cause." target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">correlation-proves-causation logical fallacy</span></a>. Deep
in debt in 2015, the DNC cut a deal with Clinton that gave her an unusual level
of power over party decisions in exchange for her fundraising assistance. <span style="color: black;"><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/memo-reveals-details-hillary-clinton-dnc-deal-n817411" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">The arrangement</span></a> was unsavory, and leaked emails showed that
DNC members wanted Clinton to win, but Sanders supporters never provided
concrete data showing precisely <i style="color: black;">how </i>the wishes of a relatively small
number of powerful people made a major difference </span>in a year-long
campaign spread over 50 states and multiple U.S. territories that drew 30
million votes. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Flowing from this broad charge were a number of grievances. Sanders supporters had conniption fits when the DNC blocked the Sanders campaign's access to the party's shared voter database, but the block was initiated because a Sanders staffer <a href="https://www.govtech.com/security/Whats-the-Deal-with-the-SandersClinton-Campaign-Breach.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">hacked the Clinton campaign's voter data</span></a>, and the issue was resolved quickly. Sanders supporters complained about Clinton's access to DNC financial resources, but this funding made up just a fraction of Clinton's total primary outlays and Sanders <a href="https://www.npr.org/2016/04/29/476047822/sanders-campaign-has-spent-50-percent-more-than-clinton-in-2016" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">spent twice as much money</span></a> as Clinton in 2016, so the impact was minimal. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Sanders supporters claimed that their candidate was </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">hurt by the DNC
decision to schedule a <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/is-six-democratic-debates-too-few/" style="color: black;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">limited number</span></a> of party-sanctioned primary debates, and few debates
<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/12/20/sanders-says-dncs-timing-of-saturday-nights-debate-was-meant-to-protect-clinton/" style="color: black;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">during prime time hours</span></a>. But the presumption that Sanders would have
significantly benefited from more exposure is purely speculative and ignores
Clinton’s razor sharp performance in all of the debates she was in in both 2008 and
2016. No public figure in the modern era has been more consistently prepared
and <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/10/19/13340828/hillary-clinton-debate-trump-won" style="color: black;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">on-point</span></a> in this format than Clinton, and there’s little evidence that
Sanders gained ground from the debates that <i style="color: black;">were</i> held in 2016. In fact,
other than the first 2012 debate between <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2017/01/ten-reasons-barack-obama-is-clearly.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Barack Obama</span></a> and <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2012/10/romney-ryans-road-to-perdition.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Mitt Romney</span></a>, in which
Obama was uncharacteristically sluggish and on the defensive, no political
debate from the past couple decades moved public opinion other than around the
margins. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Since Sanders beat
Clinton among independents, his supporters cried foul over the number of
primary races that were closed, i.e. primaries that only allowed registered
Democrats to vote. Whatever the merits of giving non-Democrats a role in choosing
the Democratic candidate, the primary rules were decided at the state level,
not by the DNC, and were in place well before the 2016 primary. While
criticizing the closed primaries on “Face the Nation,” Sanders himself said, “</span><span style="background: white;"><a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/the-democratic-primary-wasnt-rigged/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">I wouldn’t use the word ‘rigged</span></a>,’ because we knew what
the rules were.”</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif;">A third piece of the
theory that the 2016 primary was “rigged” was the contention that the challenges
faced by new voters and voters who were purged from voter rolls was the work of—or
done at the bidding of—the DNC. One could claim that the rules regarding
registration of new voters and the purging of voter rolls hurt Sanders more
than Clinton, as he did well among first-time voters, but the guidelines were
made by state and local government officials (many of them Republicans), not
the DNC. And some of these practices disproportionately disenfranchised people
of color—Clinton’s strongest constituency. Far from defending voter
suppression, Clinton proposed <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/hillary-clintons-bold-plan-voting-rights/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">major reforms</span></a> to increase access to the ballot while her campaign <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/04/us/politics/democrats-voter-rights-lawsuit-hillary-clinton.html" style="color: black;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">sued</span></a> to overturn voting restrictions in multiple
states. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Sanders supporters also made a
lot of noise about delegates and superdelegates. The attacks on the<b> </b>allotment
of delegates among Sanders supporters could be seen as legitimate in those
states where Clinton received a higher proportion of delegates than she had won
in the popular vote, but Sanders’ supporters lacked such outrage when their
candidate benefited from other states’ <a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/5/2/11535648/bernie-sanders-closed-primaries-caucuses" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">undemocratic caucus systems</span></a>, in which
delegates parceled out weren’t proportional to the popular vote. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As to superdelegates, Clinton’s
broad support from the beginning of the primary process <i>may</i> have given
her a psychological advantage (in convincing people to vote for Clinton because
they thought her candidacy was inevitable), but her superdelegate lead over
Barack Obama in the beginning of the 2008 primary had no impact on <i>that</i> race,
and for all of the sound and fury about delegates and superdelegates in 2016,
delegates and superdelegates had virtually nothing to do with the results of
the primary. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif;">If one believes that
the party nominee should be chosen by the popular vote, as Sanders supporters
said when it came to the disbursement of delegates and superdelegates, then
Clinton won the primary easily, by 3.7 million votes, a 56%-44% margin.
(Ironically, once the votes were cast and it was clear that Clinton would win
the nomination, Sanders told NBC news that the superdelegates “have a very
important choice to make,” insinuating that they should consider flipping to
his side and making him the nominee, though he had lost the popular vote
overwhelmingly.)</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif;">A close look at <a href="http://graphics.wsj.com/elections/2016/how-clinton-won/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the composition of primary voters</span></a> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">removes any
mystery <span style="color: black;">as to why Clinton won by a landslide. Sanders
did well among young voters, independents, and rural voters, but these blocs
make up a small share of the Democratic primary electorate. Clinton won or tied
all economic and educational strata and dominated bigger voting blocs:
older voters, moderate Democrats, registered Democrats as a whole, as well as
suburban and urban voters—African-Americans in particular. Today’s Democratic
Party is diverse and increasingly urban; it’s mathematically impossible to become
the Democratic nominee solely by winning independents who aren’t allowed to
vote in many primaries, rural and white voters who are shrinking as a
percentage of the total, and the 18-27-year-old demographic, who vote in the
smallest numbers.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">For all of the hostility leveled
at Clinton from the left, and the constant claim that she felt entitled to “a
coronation,” the simple fact is that she worked much longer and harder for the
nomination than Sanders. Starting <span style="color: black;">in 1972, when she
<a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2015/05/16/clintons-take-texas-1972/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">registered voters of color</span></a> in Texas for the upcoming presidential race between
George McGovern and Richard Nixon, Clinton spent decades campaigning for
Democratic candidates, raising money for Democratic candidates, going to party
events and planning meetings, holding policy forums and town hall meetings,
networking with party functionaries, and cultivating key constituencies. And
unlike Sanders, she didn’t change her registration at the last minute to run in
the primary; she had been a registered Democrat for 48 years when she ran in
2016. Decades of grunt work created a loyal foundation in the Democratic base
that Bernie didn’t have.</span><i><span style="color: magenta;"> </span></i></span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">In short, Hillary Clinton won
the nomination the old-fashioned way—by <i>earning</i> it—but the anger and
indignation spawned by the demonstrably false “rigged primary” talking point
drove a crucial number of Sanders supporters away from Clinton and helped to
give us President Trump. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Those who continue to peddle
this noxious myth in 2019 (or cart out the DNC whipping boy yet again to sneer
at Joe Biden’s consistent lead in the polls) only fuel baseless rancor and
splinter the anti-Trump vote, just as Vladimir Putin planned it. The bottom
line is that there are more of us than there are of them, and winning at the
presidential level is very, very straightforward: united we stand,
divided we fall.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b>More political writing by Dan Benbow:</b></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">The Iraq War turns 16;</span> <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2019/03/bushliedpeopledied.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>America sleeps</b></span></a></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-master-of-low-expectations-666.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>The Master of Low Expectations</b></span></a><span style="color: #3d85c6;">: 666 reasons sentient citizens</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> are still celebrating </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the long overdue departure of George W. Bush</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Death of a President in the <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2018/12/death-of-president-in-united-states-of.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>United States of Amnesia</b></span></a></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> (<i>a review of the public life of George H.W. Bush</i>)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Aliens, unicorns, and <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2018/10/spoilerparty.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>the narcissism</b></span></a> </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">of voting Green</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2017/01/ten-reasons-barack-obama-is-clearly.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">10 reasons</span></a> </b></span>Barack Obama is clearly</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the best president in my lifetime</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/10/178-reasons-hillary-clinton-is.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>178 reasons</b></span></a> Hillary Clinton is infinitely better</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">than Donald Trump (even on her worst day)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/09/colin-kaepernick-is-right.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Colin Kaepernick is right</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span></div>
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/04/stephen-colbert-delivers-best-political.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Stephen Colbert delivers the best political roast of all time</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2014/12/GaryWebbrailroaded.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Justice Delayed: "Kill the Messenger" vindicates Gary Webb</span></a></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2014/04/21st-century-republicans-part-iv.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">21st Century Republicans, Part IV</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/10/inequality-for-all-and-elephant-in-room.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"Inequality for All" and the Elephant in the Room</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/05/memorial-day-in-united-states-of-amnesia.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Memorial Day in the United States of Amnesia</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2012/10/romney-ryans-road-to-perdition.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Romney-Ryan's Road to Perdition</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-breathtaking-stupidity-of_16.html" target="_blank">The breathtaking stupidity of #BernieOrBust</a></span></div>
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<b style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;"> Follow Dan Benbow on </span><a href="https://twitter.com/danbenbow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Twitter </span></a></span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> </span></span></i></b></div>
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Dan Benbowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02258556216655283390noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3869308843623818842.post-48976990294229097252019-07-06T11:19:00.000-07:002021-08-23T16:28:10.857-07:00"Do the Right Thing" turns 30<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I re-watched Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing" last Sunday, on the 30th anniversary of its release.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">On some levels, the movie is a time capsule. It <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=739XYgoA-x8" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">opens</span></a> with Rosie Perez—dressed in a series of bodysuits, sporting a classic ’80s hairdo—dancing to Public Enemy as the credits roll. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />At the same time, the film is still fresh and all too relevant.<br /><br />The story takes place in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood on a scorching summer day; as morning breaks, local DJ Mr. Señor Love Daddy (Samuel L. Jackson) announces that the temperature will get up to 100 degrees.<br /><br />Lee, who grew up in Brooklyn, expertly captures the dense urban energy of blunt, fast-paced dialogue, steady foot traffic on the brownstone-fronted sidewalks, and the racial tension that runs through the ethnic polyglot of white, Korean, black, and Puerto Rican residents.<br /><br />Mookie (Spike Lee) straddles the main fault line in the plot and the tricky feelings around race that drive the movie. He is a delivery man at Sal’s Pizzeria, the only black employee at an Italian-run business. The owner (Sal, played by Danny Aiello) and his youngest son are at peace with the local black community, but the older son Pino (John Torturro) is filled with rage and prejudice that Mookie can’t abate in one of the many pointed discussions of race in the movie.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />Things heat up when Mookie’s friend Buggin’ Out (Giancarlo Esposito) throws a fit because Sal’s walls have photos of famous Italian-Americans but no African-Americans, though the clientele are overwhelmingly black. Seeking to form a boycott of Sal’s, he finds an ally in Radio Raheem, a towering figure who struts through the neighborhood cranking “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PaoLy7PHwk" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Fight the Power</span></a>” by Public Enemy on his 20-battery boombox.<br /><br />While this plotline simmers, Lee gives us a series of vignettes of street life—kids running to the ice cream truck, people bathing in an open fire hydrant, three middle-aged locals sitting on the sidewalk light-heartedly ribbing each other while going nowhere in particular, a boombox face-off, and the wanderings of Da Mayor (Ossie Davis), a benign drunk with a ruffled dignity who tells Mookie, “Doctor, always do the right thing.”<br /><br />The question is: with an issue as complicated as race, what is the right thing?<br /><br />Mookie is torn between the pacifist message of love and universal brotherhood espoused by <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/01/martin-luther-king-jrs-road-to.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Martin Luther King, Jr.</span></a> and the message of self-reliance and self-defense “<a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2015/5/19/by_any_means_necessary_remembering_malcolm" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">by any means necessary</span></a>” voiced by Malcolm X. Radio Raheem has four gold rings on his right hand that spell L-O-V-E and four on his left that spell H-A-T-E (see video below). Toward the end of the movie, when a shouting match at Sal’s ends in a fatal act of police brutality, Mookie has to choose between the two.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The explosive finale is both shocking and inevitable. As happened in Lee’s most recent movie, “<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2018/09/blackkklansman.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">BlacKkKlansman</span></a>,” sudden violence disturbs the audience and forces them to think about a subject that most—white Americans in particular—would rather ignore. Donald Trump’s ascendance shows how little the United States has evolved over the past three decades, but the lack of progress isn’t limited to<span style="color: #3d85c6;"> <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/3/19/18236247/dying-of-whiteness-trump-politics-jonathan-metzl" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">openly racist Republicans</span></a></span>. Just as the edgy, urgent “Do the Right Thing” lost in the Oscar race to a safe, crowd-pleasing melodrama (“Rain Man”), the edgy, urgent “BlacKkKlansman” was bypassed by left-leaning (mostly white) Academy voters for a safe, crowd-pleasing melodrama (“Green Book”), showing that America’s dominant fallback on race continues to be full-blown denial. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><b style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 13.2px;"> </span></span></i></b></span></b><br />
<b style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span></span></i></b></span></b>
<b style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;"> Follow Dan Benbow on </span><a href="https://twitter.com/danbenbow" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Twitter </span></a><span style="color: #222222;"> </span></span></i></b></span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></div>
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<b style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; text-align: center;">More civil rights writing by Dan Benbow:</b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><a href="http://www.benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/01/martin-luther-king-jrs-road-to.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Road to the Mountaintop</span></a> (about the speech King gave on the last night of his life)</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2015/04/strangefruit.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">A look back at "Strange Fruit"</span></a> on the 100th anniversary of Billie Holiday's birth</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><a href="http://www.benbosophy.blogspot.com/2012/12/honest-abe-makes-sausage.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Honest Abe Makes Sausage</span></a> (a review of Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln")</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i> <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2014/05/brown-v-board-and-three-dog-nights.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Brown v. Board and Three Dog Night's "Black and White</span></a>"</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></div>
<i style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"> </span><a href="https://www.kotorimag.com/post/actions-not-words" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Actions, Not Words</span></a> (a life review of Ollie Matson, an Olympic medal </i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i> winner, NFL Hall-of-Famer, civil rights trailblazer, and good citizen)</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i> <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/09/colin-kaepernick-is-right.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Colin Kaepernick is right</span></a></i></span><br />
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<b style="line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b><b style="line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"Truth and Beauty" film reviews:</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="line-height: 18px;"><i><br /></i></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 18px;"><i> "<span style="color: #3d85c6;"><a href="http://www.benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/11/there-must-be-something-in-water-magic.html" style="color: #888888;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">There must be something in the water: the magic of 'Muscle Shoals</span></a></span>"'</i></span></span></div>
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<i style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"<a href="http://www.benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/04/truth-is-in-eye-of-interpreter-review.html" style="color: #888888;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Truth is in the Eye of the Interpreter: a Review of 'Room 237</span></a>'"</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i style="text-align: start;"><br /></i><i style="text-align: start;"><span style="color: #222222;">"</span><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2014/12/GaryWebbrailroaded.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Justice Delayed: 'Kill the Messenger' vindicates Gary Webb</span></a><span style="color: #222222;">"</span></i></span></div>
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<i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"<a href="http://www.benbosophy.blogspot.com/2012/06/errol-morris-strikes-again.html" style="color: #888888;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Errol Morris Strikes Again</span></a>" (about "Tabloid")</span></i></i></i></div>
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<i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></i></i></i></div>
<i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;">"</span><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-visual-0dyssey-of-loving-vincent.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">The Visual Odyssey of 'Loving Vincent</span></a><span style="color: #222222;">'"</span></span></i></i></i></div>
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<i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></i></i></i><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: start;">"</span><a href="http://www.benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/07/a-spoiler-free-review-of-mud.html" style="color: #888888;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">A spoiler-free review of 'Mud</span><span style="color: #222222;">'</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: start;">" </span></span></i></i></i></div>
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<i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></i></i></i></div>
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<i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;">"</span><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2015/02/richard-linklaters-boyhood.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Richard Linklater's 'Boyhood</span></a><span style="color: #222222;">'" </span></span></i></i></i></i></div>
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<i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"<a href="http://www.benbosophy.blogspot.com/2012/08/first-glance-master.html" style="color: #888888;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">First Glance: 'The Master</span></a>'"<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: start;"> </span></span></i></i></i></div>
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<i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"<a href="http://www.benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/02/searching-for-sugarman.html" style="color: #888888;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Searching for Sugar Man</span></a>"</span></i></i></i></i><br />
<i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></i></i></i></i><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;">"</span><a href="http://www.benbosophy.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-wolf-of-wall-street.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">The Wolf of Wall Street</span></a><span style="color: #222222;">"</span></span></i></i></i></i></i></div>
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<i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span></span></i></i></i></i></i></div>
<i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-wrecking-crew.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">The Wrecking Crew</span></a>"</span></i></i></i></i></i></div>
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<i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;"> </span></span></i></i></i></i></i></div>
<i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2017/10/battle-of-sexes.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Battle of the Sexes</span></a>"</span></i></i></i></i></i></div>
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<i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"<a href="http://www.benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/10/inequality-for-all-and-elephant-in-room.html" style="color: #888888;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Inequality for All</span></a><span id="goog_957586860"></span><span id="goog_957586861"></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/" style="color: #888888;"></a>"</span></i></i></i></i></i></div>
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<span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><i style="color: #222222; text-align: center;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></i></i></i></i><i style="color: #222222; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 18.48px; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #222222;">"</span><a href="http://www.benbosophy.blogspot.com/2014/01/american-hustle.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">American Hustle</span></a><span style="color: #222222;">"</span></i><br />
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<i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 18.48px; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #222222;"> "</span><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2018/09/blackkklansman.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">BlacKkKlansman</span></a><span style="color: #222222;">"</span></i><br />
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<i style="line-height: 18.48px;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: normal; line-height: normal;"><i>"<a href="http://www.benbosophy.blogspot.com/2015/09/love-and-taxes.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Love and Taxes</span></a>"</i></span></span></i></div>
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<i style="line-height: 18.48px;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: normal; line-height: normal;"><i><br /></i></span></span></i></div>
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<i style="line-height: 18.48px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: normal; line-height: normal;"><i><span style="color: #222222;"> "</span><a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2015/12/americanprimitivism.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Trumbo</span></a><span style="color: #222222;">"</span></i></span></i><b style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;"> </span></span></i></b></div>
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Dan Benbowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02258556216655283390noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3869308843623818842.post-77001460849377121512019-04-20T13:48:00.000-07:002019-04-24T19:16:25.094-07:00Angelic voices, #5: Prince's "Darling Nikki"<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3FURDggq34oWlikFuhaFf3LRkHT0exeytpkyp5Zqe9-DASUBUcWapGrE0hGlYx75AFL91JTApmtZnw_d0vCRPP5-wROANDIO3rhctCR5UV9JGy2hMUbP1Rprz9P9MlfXivQ558REXnU8/s1600/princeheader1440.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1440" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3FURDggq34oWlikFuhaFf3LRkHT0exeytpkyp5Zqe9-DASUBUcWapGrE0hGlYx75AFL91JTApmtZnw_d0vCRPP5-wROANDIO3rhctCR5UV9JGy2hMUbP1Rprz9P9MlfXivQ558REXnU8/s400/princeheader1440.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Back in 1984, when Prince was at the height of his
commercial stardom with the blockbuster album/movie “<a href="http://www.princevault.com/index.php?title=Album:_Purple_Rain" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Purple Rain</span></a>,” the song "Darling Nikki" was best known for its <a href="https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/prince/darlingnikki.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">lyrics</span></a>. The opening words
about a woman caught masturbating in a hotel lobby turned heads and fed the
reactionary, right-wing hysteria that led to the creation of the Parents’ Music
Resource Center, <a href="https://ultimateclassicrock.com/rockers-testify-pmrc/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">congressional hearings</span></a>, and <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/04/25/prince-purple-rain-darling-nikki-censorship-lyrics-tipper-gore-column/83466774/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">content labels</span></a> on records.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Overlooked amid the sound and fury was the potency
of the song, including Prince’s vocal.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“Nikki” begins with a mischievous keyboard-and-guitar
harmony that saunters along with the drumbeat, happy to take its time. The
first verse’s spare instrumentation—a lone percussion line—gives Prince’s voice
space to breathe and puts the story front and center. Once the lyrics trail
off, a balls-out funk riff and crashing drums come in, as if foreshadowing,
before quieting back down for the next verse. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The song upshifts at the conclusion of the fourth verse as
Prince lifts his voice into the upper registers, culminating at 2:38 in one of the most
spectacular shrieks of ecstasy ever recorded.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Most songwriters would have finished with the hyped
up drum-keys-guitar jam outro that follows, but Prince had the compositional
chutzpah to go further. Rather than simply fade out, Prince closed the song
with a counterintuitive segue into a gospel chorus singing backward over rain
and a howling wind, making “Nikki” a symbolic nod to his two favorite subjects,
sin and salvation.</span></div>
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<b style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 13.2px;"> </span><span style="color: #222222;">Follow Dan Benbow on </span><a href="https://twitter.com/danbenbow" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Twitter </span></a><span style="color: #222222;"> </span></span></i></b></span></b><br />
<b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></b><br />
<b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Other "Truth and Beauty" vocalist profiles:</span></b><br />
<b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="color: #222222;"> </span><a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2018/08/angelic-voices-4-aretha-franklin.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Angelic voices, #4</span></a><span style="color: #222222;">: Aretha Franklin performs </span></i></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i> before Barack Obama and Carole King </i></span></span><br />
<b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13px; font-weight: bold;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="color: #222222;">There must be something in the water: </span><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/11/there-must-be-something-in-water-magic.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the magic of "Muscle Shoals"</span></a></i></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13px; font-weight: bold;"> </span></span><br />
<b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="color: #3d85c6;"> </span><span style="color: #222222;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2015/04/strangefruit.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">A look back at "Strange Fruit"</span></a><span style="color: #222222;"> on the 100th anniversary of Billie Holiday's birth</span></span></i></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span></span></i></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="color: #222222;"> </span><a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/01/ella-sings-summertime.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Angelic voices, #1</span></a><span style="color: #222222;">: Ella sings "Summertime"</span></span></i></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span></span></i></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="color: #222222;"> </span><a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/07/angelic-voices-2-marvin-gaye-sings-star.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Angelic voices, #2</span></a><span style="color: #222222;">: Marvin Gaye sings "The Star-Spangled Banner"</span></span></i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2014/01/janisjoplinsings.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Angelic voices, #3</span></a>: Janis Joplin sings "Cry Baby" </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> More music appreciation on "Truth and Beauty":</span></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="color: #222222;"> Click </span><a href="http://www.benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-second-coming-stevie-ray-vaughan.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">here</span></a></i><i style="color: #222222;"> for "The Second Coming: Stevie Ray Vaughan," </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i style="color: #222222;">a first-hand account of Vaughan's final concert</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/06/great-guitar-solos-10-prince-attacks.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">here</span></a><span style="color: #222222;"> for</span><b style="color: #222222;"> </b><span style="color: #222222;">"</span></span></i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: start;"><i>Great Guitar Solos, #10: Prince attacks 'Whole Lotta Love'"</i></span></span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><br /></b></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-underappreciated-ingenuity-of-robby.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">here</span></a><span style="color: #222222;"> for </span><span style="color: #222222;">"The underappreciated ingenuity of Robbie Krieger"</span></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><br /></b></span></i></div>
<i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2015/05/freddiekingsanhozay.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">here</span></a><span style="color: #222222;"> for </span><span style="color: #222222;">"Great Guitar Solos, #8: Freddie King's 'San-Ho-Zay'"</span></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><span style="color: #888888;"> </span></span></i><br /><i><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><span style="color: #888888;"> </span><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2012/11/link-wrays-rumble.html" style="color: #888888;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">here</span></a></span> for "Link Wray's 'Rumble'"</i><br /> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><i><a href="http://www.benbosophy.blogspot.com/2012/08/great-guitar-solos-1-eddie-hazel.html" style="color: #888888;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">here</span></a> for "Great Guitar Solos, #1: Eddie Hazel (Funkadelic)"</i></i><br /><i><i><br /></i></i></span></div>
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<i><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://www.benbosophy.blogspot.com/2012/11/great-guitar-solos-3-hiram-bullock.html" style="color: #888888;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">here</span></a> for "Great Guitar Solos, #3: Hiram Bullock" </span></i></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><i><br /></i></b></span><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://www.benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/03/great-guitar-solos-5-alvin-lee.html" style="color: #888888;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">here</span></a> for "Great Guitar Solos, #5: Alvin Lee"</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i><i style="color: black; line-height: normal; text-align: start;"><span style="color: #222222;"> </span><a href="http://www.benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/11/great-guitar-solos-6-neil-youngs-hey.html" style="color: #888888;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">here</span></a><span style="color: #222222;"> for </span><span style="color: #222222;">"Great Guitar Solos, #6: Neil Young's 'Hey Hey, My My'"</span></i></span></div>
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Dan Benbowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02258556216655283390noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3869308843623818842.post-18035696644651768412019-03-20T17:58:00.001-07:002019-03-24T12:18:25.569-07:00The Iraq War turns 16; America sleeps<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">“I think they had a plan from day one; they wanted to do something about Iraq. While the World Trade Center was still smoldering, while they were still digging bodies out, people in the White House were thinking: ‘Ah! This gives us the opportunity we have been looking for to go after Iraq.’”</i><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">-Richard Clarke, George W. Bush's counterterrorism adviser</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Sixteen years ago today, the United States military invaded Iraq. <br /><br />Many Americans are reflexively allergic to looking back, but we can't progress as a country if we fail to absorb the lessons of the past. For all the flag-waving patriotism and military fetishism injected into the media bloodstream by the right wing, there is little public discussion of how to best serve veterans once their deployments are over and close to zero examination of <i>why </i>we now have so many wounded and dislocated vets. <br /><br />When assessing the challenges of veterans, from homelessness to PTSD to brain injuries to healthcare accessibility to <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/24/veteran-suicides-military-_n_3332231.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009">suicide</a>, the elephant in the room is the invasion of Iraq, a unilateral war of choice that eclipsed and then prolonged the more limited (and justifiable) multilateral effort against the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan. <br /><br />Apologists for the Iraq invasion often claim that <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-master-of-low-expectations-666.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Bush/Cheney</span></a> didn't really want to invade Iraq, that they were convinced of the necessity by flawed pre-war intelligence which inflated Saddam Hussein's WMD threat. But the evidence clearly shows that Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld had their eyes on Iraq well before 9/11, which gave them the political capital (and cover) they needed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Even before becoming president, in 1999, candidate Bush <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1028-01.htm" target="_blank"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;">told</span></a> interviewer Mickey Herskowitz, <span style="background-color: white;">“One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief. My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it. If I have a chance to invade, if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it." </span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Waste it he did not. Bush’s first Treasury Secretary, Paul O’Neill, said the administration began planning an invasion of Iraq </span><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/01/10/oneill.bush/" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">within days</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> of W’s inauguration, in January of 2001, a claim which was seconded by a </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Vanity Fair</i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> feature entitled "US Was Targeting Saddam 'Just Days after 9/11,'" among many other sources. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In March of 2001, Dick Cheney's secret Energy Task Force met and discussed "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts," shown </span><a href="http://www.judicialwatch.org/bulletins/maps-and-charts-of-iraqi-oil-fields/" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">here</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">. (Cheney's lawyers spent years afterward successfully keeping the public from seeing notes from those meetings.)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">On the night of 9/11, according to Richard Clarke, “....Rumsfeld came over and the others, and the president finally got back, and we had a meeting. And Rumsfeld said, ‘You know, we’ve got to do Iraq,’ and everyone looked at him—at least I looked at him and Powell looked at him—like, ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ And he said—I’ll never forget this—There</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0tTnhb2_TVgIPMEmq9QOrJx3mnGeMM8M1t1kx5b57y7pjJKpRB9XleS7q8bjet8RrPxs3bTB7AVRH2AT6wa1bY7loQnx4iRvt7oHT2GXUhTefvMihvqXa-DGXVZRNjAISFrbsWGif-XU/s1600/scummy+Rummy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="358" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0tTnhb2_TVgIPMEmq9QOrJx3mnGeMM8M1t1kx5b57y7pjJKpRB9XleS7q8bjet8RrPxs3bTB7AVRH2AT6wa1bY7loQnx4iRvt7oHT2GXUhTefvMihvqXa-DGXVZRNjAISFrbsWGif-XU/s320/scummy+Rummy.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> just aren’t enough targets in Afghanistan. We need to bomb something else to prove that we’re, you know, big and strong and not going to be pushed around by these kind of attacks...And I made the point certainly that night, and I think Powell acknowledged it, that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. That didn’t seem to faze Rumsfeld in the least.”<br /><br /><a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/blair-told-us-was-targeting-saddam-just-days-after-911-54527.html">Just nine days after 9/11</a>, Bush asked British Prime Minister Tony Blair for his future support in removing Saddam Hussein from power. <br /><br />As early as February of 2002, more than a year before the supposedly reluctant invasion, special operations personnel and Predator drones were <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/02/bush-oral-history200902?printable=true&currentPage=all">secretly being moved</a> from Afghanistan to Iraq. <br /><br />In July of 2002, while George W. Bush and Tony Blair were publicly claiming that they wanted weapons inspections in Iraq to run their course before taking military action, British officials had the infamous meeting captured in <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/The_secret_Downing_Street_memo,_July_23,_2002" target="_blank"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;">the Downing Street memo</span></a>, in which "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy [of invasion]."<br /><br />That fall, the Bush Administration preyed on the American public's post-9/11 fear and vulnerability with an <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/12/AR2006061200932_pf.html">orchestrated media campaign</a> to manufacture a case for war. <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-nov-28-na-warvote28-story.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;">Not coincidentally</span></a>, this campaign began in the run-up to congressional elections in which the Republicans sought to regain control of the Senate by turning the media focus to national security issues. Asked why the administration had waited until September to make their case for pre-emptive war, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/07/nyregion/quotation-of-the-day-766518.html">told</a> <i>the New York Times</i>, “From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August." <br /><br />The next day, the Bush Administration's principals fanned out to media outlets to parrot lines about the purported threat posed by Saddam Hussein.<br /><br />The effort culminated on February 5, 2003, when Colin Powell made a long list of false accusations about Saddam Hussein's fictitious WMD ambitions and connections to al Qaeda in <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/27/AR2006092700106_pf.html">a speech to the United Nations</a>. Though much of the intelligence cited was based on questionable sources—including single sources who hadn’t even been interviewed by U.S. intelligence—Powell told the world, "every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we are giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence." Powell’s Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson, who had helped craft the speech, later referred to Powell's U.N. presentation as "the lowest moment of my life."<br /><br />A study of the media offensive by the non-partisan Center for Public Integrity <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2008/01/23/5641/false-pretenses">found</a> that key members of the administration (Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Condi Rice, Paul Wolfowitz) had</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAvERPhz0Xgti68sg-0iKLXqf6og98hHLCYBnsKM_i5_D7u2Qz8N6WH0L3VNnoB7irA5d1f0p4PyS9cbGYxW3hz5YwmVUHKJieF6rgFO5FjYo0fan8hwSJNsu12bhyphenhyphenBvLXWmdzFmvE0EI/s1600/CHENEY.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="227" data-original-width="358" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAvERPhz0Xgti68sg-0iKLXqf6og98hHLCYBnsKM_i5_D7u2Qz8N6WH0L3VNnoB7irA5d1f0p4PyS9cbGYxW3hz5YwmVUHKJieF6rgFO5FjYo0fan8hwSJNsu12bhyphenhyphenBvLXWmdzFmvE0EI/s320/CHENEY.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> made 935 false statements to the press. In the words of Scott McLellan, the second White House press secretary, the administration's p.r. campaign was nothing but "<a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/ex-aide-scott-mcclellan-rips-bush-iraq-propaganda-article-1.332727">propaganda</a>.” <br /><br />After ignoring the February 14 statement (to the U.N.) of Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic Agency, that "We have found to date no evidence of ongoing prohibited nuclear or nuclear-testing activities in Iraq," and last-minute <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/05/international/worldspecial/05CND-INTEL.html?ei=5007&en=fd803917a4f41612&ex=1383454800&partner=USERLAND&pagewanted=print&position=">peace offerings from Iraqi officials</a>, the Bush Administration got their war on. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The campaign of fear and fabrication which was the Iraq invasion's original sin was compounded by dire consequences, including but not limited to:<br /><br />-The transmogrification of the rare national unity and near-universal international support the U.S. had after 9/11 into raw divisiveness domestically and ill will internationally<br /><br />-The <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/4710/chalmers_johnson_on_robbing_the_cradle_of_civilization">destruction</a> of some of the the world’s oldest, most precious antiquities throughout Iraq<br /><br />-Astonishing human suffering (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanitarian_crises_of_the_Iraq_War">four-five million refugees</a> and up to [and maybe over] <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2007/sep/14/world/fg-iraq14">one million dead civilians</a>) <br /><br />-The abandonment of Afghanistan at the very moment when the U.S. had a big coalition and could have built on the military victory there to help create a safe, civil society, which re-empowered the Taliban when they were on the ropes and dragged the conflict out to the present and beyond<br /><br />-<a href="http://icasualties.org/">4,884 </a><a href="http://icasualties.org/">dead American troops</a> and many times that injured physically and/or psychologically <br /><br />-The over-extension and diminution of the American military through multiple tours and deployment of National Guard members for combat purposes (which <a href="http://www.fpif.org/articles/hurricane_katrina_and_the_war_in_iraq">robbed</a> New Orleans of badly needed Guardsmen after Hurricane Katrina)<br /><br />-An exacerbation of tension with Muslims worldwide and increase in terrorist recruitment (including <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2016/08/12/middleeast/here-is-how-isis-began/index.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;">the founding of ISIS</span></a>), the very thing the Bush Administration was claiming to counteract in Iraq<br /><br />-The replacement of a Sunni strongman who provided a check on the Iranians with a Shiite leader who is allied with Iran<br /><br />The long-term costs of the Iraq invasion—which was initiated not long before the U.S. treasury was starting to absorb the staggering costs of Baby Boomer retirement—are up to <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/14/us-iraq-war-anniversary-idUSBRE92D0PG20130314">six trillion dollars</a>. <br /><br />The opportunity costs of the invasion of Iraq are less quantifiable but still immense. Every dollar spent on this ill-conceived adventure robbed us of a dollar for the elemental priorities of a civilized society back home and now Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell (who supported the invasion) use the budget deficit as an excuse to take the ax to programs for both those who need assistance most—the poor, elderly, and disabled—and for the struggling, shrinking middle-class. <br /><br />As the civil war triggered by the invasion continues, <a href="https://www.iraqinews.com/iraq-war/bomb-blast-kills-two-iraqi-children-in-iraqs-diyala/">killing two more children today</a>, back here in the States I scanned a dozen TV screens at the gym to see if the 16th anniversary of this major event in U.S. history would get any coverage. <br /><br />What I saw instead was a banal sitcom, reality TV shows about ghost hunters, blonde, siliconed bimbos with double-digit IQs, and the daily struggles of a 600-lb. woman, breathless analysis of college basketball, and ads for overpriced gas guzzlers and "Truck Night" on the so-called History Channel. What political coverage there was consisted of a horse race story about Beto O'Rourke's recent fundraising haul and an interview with a talking head about the deep implications of an opinion poll showing that 87% of Americans believe the Mueller report should be released to the public. <br /><br />In the America of 2019, it's as if the invasion never happened unless you're a vet or the loved one of a vet. <br /><br />Such is life in the United States of Amnesia. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b>More political writing by Dan Benbow:</b></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Death of a President in the <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2018/12/death-of-president-in-united-states-of.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>United States of Amnesia</b></span></a></span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> (<i>a review of the public life of George H.W. Bush</i>)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Aliens, unicorns, and <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2018/10/spoilerparty.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>the narcissism</b></span></a> </span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">of voting Green</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2017/01/ten-reasons-barack-obama-is-clearly.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">10 reasons</span></a> </b></span>Barack Obama is clearly</span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the best president in my lifetime</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/10/178-reasons-hillary-clinton-is.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>178 reasons</b></span></a> Hillary Clinton is infinitely better</span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">than Donald Trump (even on her worst day)</span><br />
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/09/colin-kaepernick-is-right.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Colin Kaepernick is right</span></a></div>
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/04/stephen-colbert-delivers-best-political.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Stephen Colbert delivers the best political roast of all time</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2014/12/GaryWebbrailroaded.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Justice Delayed: "Kill the Messenger" vindicates Gary Webb</span></a></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2014/04/21st-century-republicans-part-iv.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">21st Century Republicans, Part IV</span></a></div>
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/10/inequality-for-all-and-elephant-in-room.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"Inequality for All" and the Elephant in the Room</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/05/memorial-day-in-united-states-of-amnesia.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Memorial Day in the United States of Amnesia</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2012/10/romney-ryans-road-to-perdition.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Romney-Ryan's Road to Perdition</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-breathtaking-stupidity-of_16.html" target="_blank">The breathtaking stupidity of #BernieOrBust</a></span></div>
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<b style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;"> Follow Dan Benbow on </span><a href="https://twitter.com/danbenbow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Twitter </span></a><span style="color: #222222;"> <span style="font-size: 13px;"> </span></span></span></i></b></div>
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Dan Benbowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02258556216655283390noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3869308843623818842.post-58657856569277720702019-03-08T17:50:00.001-08:002019-09-21T05:38:57.861-07:00The Master of Low Expectations: 666 reasons sentient citizens are still celebrating the long overdue departure of George W. Bush<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG8meDBVoL_1-9_Gjvhb-Pl1xBwA13AK5O4h8-RWm3w6FOeYfZJmqWpgH_Gey8qo0sYV4tlP-4F4jd543rR5mAyk8ISb0y8m__LqY9aKzGwDsgdm_ukdgACbYcPDksKJMEZMMqSn3aP24/s1600/Bush.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="625" height="204" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG8meDBVoL_1-9_Gjvhb-Pl1xBwA13AK5O4h8-RWm3w6FOeYfZJmqWpgH_Gey8qo0sYV4tlP-4F4jd543rR5mAyk8ISb0y8m__LqY9aKzGwDsgdm_ukdgACbYcPDksKJMEZMMqSn3aP24/s320/Bush.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(As a corrective to CNN’s new <span style="background: white; color: #1d2129;">docuseries "The
Bush Years: Family, Duty, Power," a sycophantic whitewashing of the cynicism
and entitlement of a family with a history of greed, corruption, and crimes
against humanity, I am re-posting my feature below, originally published at
kotorimagazine.com on 1/31/09) </span><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">"<i>I'm the master of low expectations</i>."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-George W. Bush, aboard Air Force One, June 4, 2003<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><b>THE ACCIDENTAL CANDIDATE</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(1) As a young man, George W. Bush <a href="http://www.all-creatures.org/aip/nl-3nov2000-frogs.html">got his jollies
by shooting frogs or blowing them up with firecrackers</a>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(2) During the Vietnam War, Bush received academic
deferments to avoid service, then ducked combat by getting into the National
Guard, though there was a nationwide waiting list of 100,000. While
in the Guard he <a href="http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/09/08/bush_fell_short_on_duty_at_guard/">dodged
signed commitments</a> but faced no consequences.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(3) After losing a congressional race and heading a
series of failed business enterprises funded by men with connections to his
father, George W. Bush returned to Texas in 1988 (after Bush Sr.’s successful
presidential campaign) and used his connections to buy the Texas Rangers,
though he put up only 2% of the money. Once the deal went through, the
Rangers owners <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0706-22.htm">used
eminent domain</a> and a regressive sales tax increase to get a new stadium
built, mostly on the public dime. [In 1998, Bush received <a href="http://www.iht.com/articles/2000/12/14/george.2.t.php">$14.9 million</a> from
the sale of the Rangers after putting in just over $600,000 initially.]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(4) In 1989, GOP movers asked George W. Bush to run for
governor of Texas, but he was more interested in baseball, and as one
strategist told him, “<a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2000/10/bush200010?printable=true&currentPage=all">You
haven’t done shit</a>.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(5) <a href="http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message242977/pg1">According</a> to <i>Rolling
Stone</i>, “On June 22nd, 1990, when Harken's stock price was unusually strong
[Bush was serving as director of Harken at the time]…Bush sold 212,140 shares
of Harken stock at $4 a share, for $848,560. On August 2nd, Iraq invaded Kuwait
and Harken's stock dropped to $3 a share. On June 30th, Harken had released a
quarterly report disclosing a $23.2 million loss for the second quarter, which
Bush had known about before he sold his stock, since he was on Harken's audit
committee.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(6) “Bush waited until March 1991--eight months later--to file the required insider-trader forms with the SEC. When he was
subsequently accused of insider trading, Bush justified his lateness by saying
that the proper paperwork had been filed on time but lost by the
SEC.” The head of the S.E.C., George Bush Sr.’s former aide Richard
Breeden, filed no charges. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(7) In 1993, George W. Bush began a campaign to become
the governor of Texas when he wasn’t chosen Commissioner of Major League
Baseball. To keep things simple, Bush strategist Karl Rove "<a href="http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message242977/pg1">put together</a> a
winning strategy: Bush would campaign on four issues-- reform of the
education, welfare, tort and juvenile-justice systems--and nothing else.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(8) During the campaign, Bush’s surrogates conducted a
whisper campaign against his opponent, then-governor Ann Richards, <a href="http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2004/08/28/moore_rove_swift_boat/print.html">insinuating
that the unmarried Richards was a lesbian</a>, while Bush publicly claimed to
take the high road with an issues-based campaign.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(9) Bush won the race and quickly established his
hostility to the environment as governor of Texas. According to Bob
Herbert of <i>The New York Times</i>, “In early 1995 Houston and Dallas began
emissions programs to deal with their smog-choked air. Upon coming into
office, <a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DEED71F3FF933A25757C0A9669C8B63">Governor
Bush signed legislation killing these programs</a>, and when the lead
contractor (emissions tester) sued Texas, Bush used $130 million of money from
environmental protection funds to pay the lawsuit.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(10) Bush’s first appointment to the state's
environmental protection agency, the Texas Natural Resources Conservation
Commission, was Ralph Marquez, an executive who had spent 30 years with the
Monsanto Chemical Company. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(11) <a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9503E5D7153FF935A35757C0A9669C8B63">On Bush's
lackadaisacal watch</a>, Houston won the distinction of being the smoggiest
city in the U.S.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(12) Texas as a whole had more smog alerts in 1999 than
any other state, and was number one in the discharge of carcinogens into
the air (13), the number of factories violating clean water
standards (14), and the injection of toxic waste into underground
wells (15).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(16) Governor Bush’s right-wing priorities were equally clear in
other policy areas. In 1995, he <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A50163-2004Apr4?language=printer">vetoed
an HMO reform measure</a>. In 1997, the law passed without his signature
[Bush later falsely took credit for the measure when he ran for president.]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(17) Despite his own history of substance abuse, <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/feature/1999/08/24/texas/">Bush increased
penalties for youthful drug offenders</a>, (18) “ok’d the housing of
16-year-olds in adult correctional facilities,” and (19) slashed
funding for inmate substance-abuse programs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(20) Governor Bush signed a death warrant <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/feature/1999/08/07/death/print.html">every two
weeks</a> and even lowered the time he spent reviewing death penalty cases
from thirty minutes to fifteen.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(21) In 1995, Governor Bush “<a href="http://pearlyabraham.tripod.com/htmls/myth-bush.html">signed</a> an
NRA-backed bill to allow private citizens to carry concealed handguns in Texas,
ending a 125-year ban on concealed weapons,” and in 1997 "Bush signed a
bill that allowed Texans to <a href="http://pearlyabraham.tripod.com/htmls/myth-bush.html">bring their guns
into churches and synagogues</a> (22) unless a sign specifically
barred them from doing so.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(23) In another sop to the gun industry, Bush <a href="http://pearlyabraham.tripod.com/htmls/myth-bush.html">opposed mandatory
child safety locks</a> in favor of voluntary safety locks.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(24) In June 1998, James Byrd Jr., a black man, was “<a href="http://dir.salon.com/story/politics/feature/2000/10/16/byrds/">chained to
a truck and dragged three miles to his death</a>.” When the Texas
Legislature introduced a hate crimes bill in Byrd’s name, Bush opposed
it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(25) Bush did, however, support a law that gave the
state of Texas permission to “take adopted children away from gay and lesbian
couples and give them to straight couples” (<i>Salon</i>, 10/12/00) and (26) a
gays-only sodomy law that criminalized private consensual sex (<i>New Republic</i>,
10/13/00), and (27) opposed laws protecting gays and lesbians from
employment discrimination.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(28) Governor Bush <a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A02E1DB1031F934A1575BC0A9669C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print">fought
to limit access to CHIP</a> (Children’s Health Insurance Program) to
children who were up to 150% of the poverty rate, though the federal government
would match funding up to 200%. Bush’s move would have denied health
coverage to 200,000 underprivileged children.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(29) Bush did, however, show compassion for one of his
friends in the embalming business, by <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/feature/1999/08/09/bush/">sending a letter to
investigators</a> asking them to spike an investigation of shady
dealings.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(30) Despite running for president on the issue of
education, “<a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2000/10/bush200010?printable=true&currentPage=all">Texas
had over 40,000 classrooms without permanent teachers to start the 2000 school
year</a>.” Bush’s chief of staff, Clay Johnson, <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2000/10/bush200010?printable=true&currentPage=all">told</a> Gail
Sheehy of <i>Vanity Fair</i>, "I don't think there's any correlation at all
between pay of teachers and quality of education…There might even be a negative
correlation."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(31) In a portent of things to come countrywide,
Governor Bush tried to establish his bonafides as a "limited government
conservative" by suggesting a decrease in property taxes, even as he
proposed an increase in the sales tax and introduced a new tax on business.
The Texas legislature passed a tax cut after some modifications, and “…these
tax cuts turned out to be a sham. After they kicked in, school districts across
the state boosted local tax rates to compensate for the loss of revenue. A 1999
analysis in <i>the Dallas Morning News</i> found that 'many [taxpayers] are
still paying as much as they did in 1997, or more.’” Republican Lieutenant
Governor Rick Perry [Bush’s future successor as governor of Texas] called the
cuts "<a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/other-lies-george-bush">rather
illusory</a>."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(32) Presidential candidate Bush chose as his (Vice)
President <a href="http://truthspring.info/2007/06/23/the-curse-of-dick-cheney/">Dick Cheney</a>,
a right-wing extremist whose "public service" had included votes <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2004/10/6/a_look_at_how_cheney_opposed">against
the creation of the Martin Luther King holiday</a>, sanctions on <a href="http://archive.salon.com/news/col/cona/2000/08/01/south_africa/print.html">the
brutal South African regime</a>, and a nonbinding resolution urging the release
of Nelson Mandela from prison. Cheney had also been <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/news2000/0725-06.htm">one of only 13 members</a> of
the House of Representatives to oppose a landmark 1988 bill that initiated
federal funding for AIDS testing and counseling. Colin Powell’s Chief of
Staff Lawrence Wilkerson would later <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/02/bush-oral-history200902">say</a> of
Cheney, "He became vice president well before George Bush picked
him…And he began to manipulate things from that point on, knowing that he was
going to be able to convince this guy to pick him, knowing that he was then
going to be able to wade into the vacuums that existed around George Bush—personality vacuum, character vacuum, details vacuum, experience vacuum."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(33) While campaigning for president, Bush stopped
at <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/views/020900-101.htm">Bob Jones
University</a> in South Carolina, which had a ban on interracial dating,
and (34) said that the issue of flying a confederate flag in the
capital was “<a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F03E2D7103AF936A25752C0A9669C8B63">up
to the people of South Carolina</a>.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(35) Though he was running to become the most powerful
person in the world, Governor Bush exhibited a work ethic that would make any
slacker proud. According to <i>Vanity Fair</i>, “Even today, <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2000/10/bush200010?printable=true&currentPage=all">nothing
engages Bush's attention for more than a half-hour, an hour max—more like 10 or 15
minutes</a>. His workday as governor of Texas is ‘two hard half-days,’ as his
chief of staff, Clay Johnson, describes it. He puts in the hours from 8 to
11:30 a.m., breaking it up with a series of 15-minute meetings, sometimes
10-minute meetings, but rarely is there a 30-minute meeting, says Johnson. At
11:30 he's ‘outta here.’ He tries everything possible to have at least two
hours of what he calls private time in the middle of the day to go over to the
University of Texas track or run a hard three to five miles on a concrete path
at a pace of 7.5 minutes a mile, then relax and return to the office at 1:30,
where he'll play some video golf or computer solitaire until about three, and
then it's back to the second ‘hard half-day’ until 5:30.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(36) Preferring to dodge questions about his lack of
qualifications or stances on important issues beyond predigested platitudes,
Bush and his surrogates ran an empty presidential campaign that “<a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E06E4D71131F934A15753C1A9669C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print">questioned
the integrity, courage and moral character of Vice President Al Gore</a>,”
future global citizen and Nobel prize-winner. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(37) “Bo” Polk, described as “an old family friend” of
the Bushes, said of the man that wanted to be president, "<a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2000/10/bush200010?printable=true&currentPage=all">it's
an accident that [George W. Bush] got into politics</a>." <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><b>W. & JEB RIG THE VOTE IN FLORIDA AND STEAL AN ELECTION</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i>“Even if he loses, his friends say, he doesn’t lose.
He’ll just change the score, or change the rules, or make his opponent play
until he can beat him.”</i></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-from “<a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2000/10/bush200010?printable=true&currentPage=all">The
Accidental Candidate</a>,” October 2000<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">(38) In the run-up to the 2000 presidential election,
George W. Bush’s brother Jeb, governor of Florida–in concert with the
Republican-controlled Florida legislature--used a corrupt mayoral election in
Miami as an excuse to exhume a Florida law from 1868 to outlaw voting by
Florida felons, </span><a href="http://www.thenation.com/doc/20010430/lantigua" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">a
move guaranteed to disenfranchise 17% of Florida’s voting-age black males</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(39) The State of Florida chose a private company with
Republican ties, Database Technologies (now ChoicePoint Inc.), to create a
database of Florida felons that grew to <a href="http://www.thenation.com/doc/20010430/lantigua">174,583</a> people.
When Database Technologies became concerned that their list was including too
many non-felons (by ensnaring individuals with the same name, or a name similar
to a felon), Emmett Mitchell, the assistant general counsel to the Florida
Division of Elections, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A99749-2001May30">told</a> them
“Obviously, we want to capture more names that possibly aren’t matches and let
the [county elections] supervisors make a final determination rather than
exclude certain matches altogether.” [Mitchell was later <a href="http://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/PrintFriendly?oid=oid%3A15849">rewarded</a> for
his voter suppression efforts with a position in the Bush Administration’s Education Department].<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(40) The purge lists were very flawed, erroneously
including <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A99749-2001May30?language=printer">8,000</a> people
who had committed misdemeanors in Texas prior to moving to Florida, people who
had committed felonies in states that restored voting rights (after the
convicted had served their sentence) prior to moving to Florida, and people who
were accused of committing felonies in <i>the future</i>. Yet state Republican
election officials dictated that people on the list were guilty until proven
innocent: local election officials were instructed to not call
those on the list (though this had been an original stipulation of the
"electoral reform" legislation that justified the purge), but to
simply send them a letter. Some voters received letters, some didn’t.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(41) According to <a href="http://www.thenation.com/doc/20010430/lantigua"><i>The Nation</i></a>, “The
lists targeted black voters in extremely disproportionate numbers. In
Hillsborough County, which includes Tampa, where only 15 percent of voters are
black, 54 percent of the names on the purge list were African-Americans. In
Miami-Dade, where blacks make up 20 percent of the population, a list of 5,762
people contained the names of 3,794 blacks, or 66 percent. In Leon County,
which includes Tallahassee, the state capital, 29 percent of the people are
black, but 55 percent of the purge list names were African-Americans.”
This targeted disenfranchisement was guaranteed to help candidate Bush,
as Al Gore would go on to receive 93% of Florida’s black vote on election
day. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(42) After reviewing a list with 690 names, Ion Sancho,
the Elections Supervisor for Leon County, <a href="http://www.thenation.com/doc/20010430/lantigua/print">found so many
errors</a> that he sent just 33 letters. Other county officials were
not so careful.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(43) Even after the flaws became obvious, the State of
Florida asked Database Technologies to loosen standards further, for
example <a href="http://www.thenation.com/doc/20010430/lantigua/print">expanding
the list</a> to include voters whose names (the letters in their name)
matched a felon by 80%, down from the original 90% standard.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(44) To have one’s voting rights reinstated, those on
the list had to jump through onerous bureaucratic hoops such as having to
retrieve old court records and appeal to a State Office of Executive Clemency,
with a 6-month wait. The Clemency office was chaired by Jeb
Bush. State literature on the subject <a href="http://www.thenation.com/doc/20010430/lantigua/print">included</a> outstanding
child support, traffic tickets, and drug/alcohol dependence as justifications
for denying petition. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(45) While the purge was going on, county supervisors
sent long lists of new voters to the state to be processed, particularly
black voters, but Republican state election officials lagged on processing the
new names and made no preparations for a predictably large turnout. In
fact, Katherine Harris (Florida’s then-Secretary of State and co-chair of
Bush’s presidential campaign in the state) and Clay
Roberts (the Division of Elections chief) later told the Federal Civil Rights
Commission that they never even talked about the contingencies of high voter
turnout. A post-election lawsuit by The NAACP listed voters who couldn’t
vote because of the state’s delays. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(46) “$100,000 requested by county elections supervisors
for voter education--which would have helped voters use the punch-card system
and decipher confusing ballots--was <a href="http://www.thenation.com/doc/20010430/lantigua">deleted</a> from the
Division of Elections budget.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(47) Seminole County elections chief Sandra Goard “<a href="http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/112700-02.htm">allowed</a> two
GOP operatives [to come into her office ten days before the election and] add
voter identification to more than 4,000 flawed [Republican] absentee ballot
applications that had been rejected before the election. The workers were
then allowed to resubmit the corrected applications, in violation of a 1998 law
that [said that ] only the voter, an immediate family member or legal guardian
may fill out an application for an absentee ballot.” Technically, these
actions constituted a third-degree felony. No such action was taken on
behalf of disqualified Democratic ballots. A post-election lawsuit to
invalidate these ballots was rejected.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(48) According to <i>the Palm Beach Post</i> article
“<a href="http://www.knowthecandidates.org/ktc/ElectionIrregularities.htm#breakLawflorida">Breaking
Florida Law</a>,” Peggy Robbins, a County Elections Supervisor in Martin
County, did the same with 500 Republican applications in her county. “The
result in both counties was a windfall in a ratio of 2-1 for Texas Gov. George
W. Bush in absentee votes. That represents more than 5,000 Bush votes that were
cast illegally.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(49) On election day 2000, Florida was in chaos.
Among many other problems, numerous polling places with large Latino and
Haitian populations lacked proper bilingual assistance as required by the
Voting Rights Act, <a href="http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/vote2000/florida.htm">disenfranchising</a> thousands
of voters. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(50) Black voters were hit the hardest, making up 54% of
disenfranchised voters according to a post-election analysis by the federal
Civil Rights Commission, and were <a href="http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/3798.html">five times as likely as white
voters to have their votes disqualified</a>, with one in ten votes being tossed
statewide. Many new voters weren’t on voting lists and their polling
sites lacked the computer resources to verify eligibility (comparable
shortcomings did not typically exist in white-majority districts). Black
voters were also far more prone to having their ballots disqualified because
urban areas tended to use outdated punchcard voting machines that lacked a
verification mechanism (updated electronic voting machines in many
majority-white districts allowed voters to check their ballot for errors before
submission). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(51) In Palm Beach, on the infamous butterfly ballot, Al
Gore’s name was listed second, but his punchhole was placed third,
resulting in Gore losing 6,600 votes (more than ten times Bush's official margin
of victory), according to <i>the Palm Beach Post</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">After election day, a mandatory recount narrowed Bush’s lead
in Florida to a few hundred votes. According to an exhaustive
post-election <i>New York Times</i> investigation, “<a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9507E0D8133BF936A25754C0A9679C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print">How
Bush Took Florida: Mining the Overseas Absentee Vote</a>,” Bush lawyers in
Florida then conducted a ruthless campaign to drive Bush’s lead up to a more
comfortable margin. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">From the article:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“By 4 p.m. the day after the election, the Bush campaign had
begun a pre-emptive strike, faxing a letter to each of Florida's election
supervisors. Under Florida law, candidates and parties can obtain the addresses
of overseas voters. But to make it difficult for Mr. Gore's campaign to track
those voters, Bush aides wanted the supervisors to reject any post-election
requests for the identities of voters who had not yet sent in ballots (52).”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“But elsewhere, the Bush team was itself exploring the
legality of late voting--not by Floridians in Israel [mainly Democrats] but
by members of the military, who, according to its internal memorandums, were
‘presumed’ to ‘represent conservative electors.’”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(53) “The Republicans decided they had to make sure as
many military ballots as possible arrived in Florida in time to be counted on
Nov. 17…The Pentagon soon faced pressure from the Bush campaign. Leading
Republicans in Congress wrote letters and made calls.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“When the ballots arrived, Republican lawyers (54) cajoled
county elections officials in Republican counties to bend state law to accept
illegal overseas absentee ballots even as they pushed elections officials in
Democratic counties to apply exceptionally strict standards, in violation of
the Equal Protection clause of the U.S. Constitution.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">According to <i>the Times</i> (55), “The effectiveness of
the Republican effort [was] demonstrated by striking disparities in how
different counties treated ballots with similar defects. For instance, counties
carried by Mr. Gore accepted 2 in 10 ballots that had no evidence they were
mailed on or before Election Day. Counties carried by Mr. Bush accepted 6 in 10
of the same kinds of ballots. Bush counties were four times as likely as Gore
counties to count ballots lacking witness signatures and addresses.” Gary
King, “a Harvard expert on voting patterns and statistical models,” estimated that
Bush picked up 245 votes in the process. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Even after the initial (mis)count of overseas ballots provided
Bush with an additional cushion, “the Bush campaign (56) unleashed a
full-scale legal and public relations offensive with a single aim: persuading
selected Bush counties to reconsider hundreds of overseas military ballots
rejected the night before.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“As a legal matter…not a single judge agreed with the Bush
campaign's argument that Florida's postmarking requirements were invalid,” yet
“By the end of the week, canvassing boards in about a dozen Republican-leaning
counties had reconvened for a second round of counting. In each place,
longstanding election rules were bent and even ignored (57). Boards
counted ballots postmarked as many as seven days after the election.” 288
ballots that had been rejected just days before were then counted, helping Bush
further pad his narrow lead by 109 votes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Bush’s Florida campaign co-chair and Florida Secretary of
State Katherine Harris (58) certified the vote totals (and thus, the
election) for Bush, and ignored Palm Beach supervisors’ request for
additional time to conduct a hand recount. When Florida’s Supreme Court
refused to shut down the vote count, Republican operatives (59) <a href="http://www.slate.com/id/94131/">staged a riot</a> in Miami-Dade
county that convinced election officials to stop counting votes there (Bush
called the rioters afterward to thank them). In addition, Bush’s recount
spokesman James Baker <a href="http://www.villagevoice.com/content/printVersion/162478">twice</a> (60) threatened
to do an end run around the vote-counting process and simply have Florida’s
Republican legislature declare Bush the winner, vote tallies be damned.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Ultimately, a Republican-majority federal appeals court in
Atlanta refused to block the recount, but five Republican appointees on the
federal Supreme Court previously steadfast in their ideological aversion to
federal encroachment on state rights overruled (61) the Florida
Supreme Court and shut down the vote count as being a violation of the Equal
Protection clause.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Post-game analysis of the votes by <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A53804-2001Jan26">the Washington
Post</a>, <a href="http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/3798.html">Alan Lichtman</a> of
the federal Civil Rights Commission, investigate journalist <a href="http://www.gregpalast.com/florida-by-the-numbersal-gore-won-florida-in-2000-by-77000-votes/">Greg
Palast</a>, and University of Michigan professor <a href="http://www-personal.umich.edu/~wmebane/mebane.pop2004.pdf">Walter Mebane</a> showed
that had the “<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-beinhart/corrections-in-which-the_b_103588.html">clear
indication of the intent of the voter</a>” carried the day in Florida, as per
state law, Al Gore would’ve won Florida by tens of thousands of votes, as exit
polls had indicated. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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</div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Instead, George W. Bush became president (62) despite
losing the popular count by over half a million votes, a distinction carried by
no other president-elect since 1888.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><b>W. CAMPAIGNS AS A UNITER, GOVERNS AS A DIVIDER</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><i>“What we need is to be able to reach across the aisle. Put
together coalitions of Republicans and Democrats and build the kinds of
coalitions that will get something done in Washington. George Bush is a man of
great integrity that will make a first-rate president.”</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-Dick Cheney, in <a href="http://www.debates.org/pages/trans2000d.html">the 2000 Vice Presidential
debate</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />
<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><i>“America has a long tradition of uniting once elections are
over…Secretary Cheney and I will do everything in our power to unite the
nation, to call upon the best, to bring people together after one of the most
exciting elections in our nation’s history.”</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-George W. Bush, after winning the presidency on a party-line 5-4 Supreme
Court decision</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Promises to the contrary, George W. Bush governed as a
hyper-partisan Republican from moment one. Immediately upon taking office
Bush’s chief of staff, Andrew Card, put a large assortment of Bill Clinton's
labor, consumer, and environmentally-friendly regulations on ice (63).
Not long after, Bush let his patrons at Enron </span><a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2006/5/26/enron_played_central_role_in_california" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">bleed
California</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by refusing (64) to re-authorize a cap on energy
prices put in place by Bill Clinton, while falsely claiming in public that the
spike in energy costs was a result of California’s prohibitions on construction
of new power plants. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">With rare exceptions, Bush’s appointments were right-wing
Republicans that had no intention of carrying out their department’s historic
missions. Bush made Larry Thompson --a director of Providian, which had
paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars for fraud--a <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0713-02.htm">watchdog over
corporate crime</a> (65), Harvey Pitt, a lawyer who had specialized in
ensuring that his corporate clients would not pay the price for their
negligence, head of the Securities and Exchange Commission (66), and
John Ashcroft (67), a right-wing extremist that had made his name in
Missouri politics by opposing integrated busing, the nation's top law
enforcement official.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">As one example of many of Ashcroft’s theocratic <i>modus
operandi</i>, he appointed two members of the “Independent Women's Forum”--Margot
Hill (68) and Nancy Pfonhauer (69)--to a domestic violence
advisory committee, though they had both opposed the Violence Against Women
Act, a measure Bill Clinton had signed into law in 1994. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Bush appointed Gale Norton (70) head of the
Department of Interior, the agency that oversees federal land use. Norton
was known for suing the state of Colorado for enforcing environmental
regulations. Among her career highlights was a comment that the Southern
states “<a href="http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0111-01.htm">lost too
much</a>” in the Civil War and her threat to sue the federal government over
ADA (Americans With Disabilities Act) requirements that the Colorado statehouse
add a wheelchair ramp that she said was “a really ugly addition to the state
capitol.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Bush’s pick for the Department of Energy (71) was
Spencer Abraham, who had supported abolishing the Department of Energy just a
few years prior, while in Congress. Abraham was perfectly representative
of Bush’s preference for people who were ill-intentioned, ethically-challenged,
or just plain incompetent, as were David Hager (72), a highly
controversial doctor who had written that women should use prayer to reduce the
symptoms of PMS, to the FDA's Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Commission,
and Rod Paige (73), a Secretary of Education that called the National
Education Association a “<a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2004/11/16/head_of_teachers_union_labeled_terrorist">terrorist
organization</a>.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Among Bush’s judicial choices were:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(74) Jay Bybee (who defended employment discrimination
against gays in the Department of Defense)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(75) Dennis Shedd (a protégé of arch-segregationist Strom
Thurmond)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(76) Peter Keisler (a former clerk for the notorious
Robert Bork, who had been one of the rare Supreme Court appointments so extreme
that he was deep-sixed by the Senate)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(77) Terry Boyle (a former staff member of the virulently racist senator Jesse Helms)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(78) Priscilla Owen (the most extreme member of Texas's
far right Supreme Court)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(79) Jeffrey Sutton (who had earned his Republican street
cred by fighting protections for the disabled)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(80) Brett Kavanaugh (an author of the salacious Starr
Report)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(81) Bill Pryor (an Alabama attorney general who had
filed a brief in defense of an anti-sodomy law which was later overturned by
the Supreme Court)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(82) Charles Pickering (a Mississippi judge who had
tried to convince a jury to be more lenient in its treatment of defendants who had
burned a cross on a black family's lawn)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The partisan juggernaut was also evidenced in Bush’s tax and
budget priorities. As encapsulated by Nobel Prize-winner Joseph
Stiglitz: “[in Bush’s first tax cut, (83)] <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/12/bush200712">Those with
incomes over a million got a tax cut of $18,000—more than 30 times larger than
the cut received by the average American</a>. The inequities were compounded by
a second tax cut (84), in 2003, this one skewed even more heavily toward
the rich. Due to these tax cuts, in 2012 the average annual reduction for an
American in the bottom 20 percent will be $45, while those with incomes of more
than $1 million will see their tax bills reduced by an average of
$162,000.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Moreover, Bush lied repeatedly about his tax plan (85),
saying <a href="http://www.thenation.com/doc/20031013/corn">during the
campaign</a>,"The vast majority of my [proposed] tax cuts go to the bottom
end of the spectrum," and claiming that the estate tax phaseout portion of
his plan would “keep family farms in the family," though <i>The New York
Times</i> couldn’t find a single instance of this being true (86). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“<a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/worst_president_in_history/page/2">Bush's
tax policies</a> have (87) necessitated hikes in federal fees,
state and local taxes, and co-payment charges to needy veterans and families
who rely on Medicaid, along with cuts in loan programs to small businesses and
college students, and in a wide range of state services.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">At the same time that he lowered the tax burden on the
well-off, Bush reduced IRS enforcement of rich tax cheats (88) and
increased IRS investigations of the working poor (89), enacted <a href="http://tpzoo.wordpress.com/2008/11/22/defense-spending-reaganbush-i-vs-clinton-vs-bush-ii/">steroidal
increases to America’s already-bloated defense budget</a> (90), and
proposed decidedly un-Christian budget cuts to a whole host of important
government services, including but not limited to libraries (91),
advanced pediatric training for doctors (92), worker re-training (93),
public housing (94), the Women and Infants Nutrition program (95),
the Childcare and Development grant (96), money used to investigate cases
of child abuse and neglect (97), Americorps (98), <a href="http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0309.wallace-wells.html">community
policing programs</a> (99), cuts to payments to people suffering from
cancer and other illnesses as a result of cold war atomic weapons
projects (100), the Veteran’s Administration (101), <a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C03E6D91739F932A05750C0A9629C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print">childcare
for needy children</a> (102), Medicaid (103), Headstart (104),
school lunches (105), youth opportunity grants for at-risk children (106),
HUD community development block grants (107), the Low Income Energy
Assistance Program (108), and training schools for teachers at children's
hospitals (109).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">As additional aspects of his compassionate conservative
agenda, Bush<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(110) convinced Congress to nullify ergonomic rules put
in place by Bill Clinton that would have helped workers with repetitive stress
injuries<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(111) proposed a re-working of overtime laws that would
have allowed employers to base overtime on an 80-hour cycle, instead of the
current 40, and allow employers to replace overtime with comp time for any
employees loosely classified as management<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(112) repealed a Clinton rule that allowed states to use
unemployment money to help people claim family leave to have babies or adopt
children<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(113) <a href="http://lateline.muzi.net/news/ll/english/1070662.shtml?cc=19821&ccr=23528&q=">sought</a> the
dismissal of a class-action lawsuit filed in the United States against Japan by
Asian women forced to work as sex slaves in World War II<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(114) signed a “Bankruptcy Reform” bill (which had been vetoed by
Clinton) that punishes the working poor and anyone else with out-of-control
medical bills<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(115) sold and signed a prescription drug plan written by
pharmaceutical lobbyists that prohibited the federal government from
negotiating with pharmaceutical companies for more reasonable prices or
allowing cheaper generic drugs from Canada, leaving enrollees with limited
coverage and the highest prices in the world<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(116) <a href="http://www.huliq.com/36698/bush-vetoes-childrens-health-insurance-bill">vetoed</a> an
expansion of CHIPS (Children’s Health Insurance Program) that extended
insurance to children with no coverage<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(117) <a href="http://www.civilrights.org/library/features/budget-plans-interfere-with-promises-of-no-child-left-behind.html">cut
funding for schools</a> that was necessary to help them meet the tough new
academic standards mandated in his No Child Left Behind Act<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Bush did, however, find enough money in the budget to give his
Attorney General John Ashcroft over $8,000 so that a blue robe could be
thrown over the </span><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/1/27/13716/3019" style="font-size: 12pt;">nude statue</a><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> of
lady justice during Ashcroft's press conferences (118).</span> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><b>W. GUTS EVERY ENVIRONMENTAL LAW IN SIGHT</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><i>“<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20Jcrk6jGfo">I know that the human being
and fish can co-exist peacefully</a>.”</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-George W. Bush, September 29,
2000<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Arguably Bush’s biggest stamp in
domestic policy was in the area of environmental policy. While
Bush’s first opponent, Al Gore, has become a Global Citizen and Nobel-winning
environmentalist, President Bush took a distinctly different tack. Not
months after seizing office, President Bush <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2001/mar/30/usnews.comment">abandoned</a> (119) the
Kyoto Protocol to regulate greenhouse gases, which Gore had
negotiated. (Documents later emerged that indicated “that the
decision to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, in 2001, <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/02/bush-oral-history200902?printable=true&currentPage=all">was
influenced by the Global Climate Coalition</a>, an industry group with ties to
Exxon.”)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Bush’s environmental appointments
shared consistently destructive impulses. He appointed Gail Norton
(see #70) as Secretary of Interior; <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=J._Steven_Griles">Steven
Griles</a>, an oil and coal lobbyist, as Deputy Secretary of the Interior (120); <a href="http://www.oldamericancentury.org/bushco/cronyism.htm">Lynn Scarlett</a>,
a global warming denier and opponent of clean air regulations, as
Undersecretary of the Interior (121); <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Bennett_Raley">Bennett Raley</a>,
who had supported the repeal of the Endangered Species Act, as Assistant
Secretary of the Interior for Water and Science (122); and <a href="http://www.allbusiness.com/government/government-bodies-offices/9198201-1.html">Monsanto
executive Linda Fisher</a> as deputy administrator of the Environmental
Protection Agency (123).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Among Bush’s achievements in
environmental policy:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(124) The administration
immediately suspended the hallmark of Clinton's environmental legacy, his rule
against development in big portions of publicly-owned forests<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(125) The
administration <a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE3D61E30F937A35757C0A9629C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print">replaced
Clinton's strict New Source Review policy</a>, which forced old coal-fired
plants to upgrade to cleaner burning technologies, with the "Clear
Skies" plan, which relied on the facade of voluntary compliance and
actually increased the net amount of allowable pollutants, and
stonewalled (126) on handing over documents to Senate Environmental
Works head Jim Jeffords about the polluter-friendly rewrite of New Source
review<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(127) The administration
lifted a strengthened standard for arsenic in drinking water drawn up in the
Clinton presidency and lied about why they were doing it: they said the
proposal had been rushed, though in fact it had been the result of lengthy scientific deliberations. According to a former Bush speechwriter, the
move was really a <a href="http://www.alternet.org/story/16832/?page=1">ploy</a> to
try to win the swing state of New Mexico, which had high naturally occurring
levels of arsenic in its water<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(128) The administration
cut the EPA enforcement budget to weaken the EPA, tried to hand enforcement off
to ill-equipped state regulatory agencies, and supported (129) a
technique used by West Virginia coal companies called mountaintop removal,
whereby mountaintops are sheared open to get to the seams, dumping pollutants
and debris into surrounding forests and streams<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(130) Where the Clinton EPA
had continued the traditional practice of defending environmental laws in
court, the Bush EPA preferred to settle out of court, giving polluters a slap
on the wrist<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(131) The administration
nullified a Clinton rule protecting wetlands, another rule that regulated run
off from big industrial farms (132), and (133) weakened
energy-saving standards set by Clinton for air conditioners and heat pumps<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(134) The administration
declared a moratorium on expansions of the National Park system, pushed (135) proposals
to eliminate environmental impact statements and public participation when
private companies wanted to drill, log, mine or develop publicly-owned lands,
abandoned (136) a plan to change the Missouri River flow to
avoid the extinction of endangered fish and birds, reversed (137) a
Clinton rule banning mining for copper, gold, zinc and lead on public lands,
and issued (138) a legal opinion allowing Glamis Gold Ltd., a Nevada
company, to dig an open-pit gold mine near El Centro, California, <a href="http://www.hcn.org/issues/217/10917">a desert considered sacred</a> by the local Quechan Indian tribe (Clinton had opposed the mine) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In addition, the Bush
Administration extended (139) amnesty to livestock producers from the
Clean Water Act, slashed (140) funding for the cleanup of Superfund
sites and shifted (141) the cost of Superfund cleanups from chemical
companies to the taxpayers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Moving along, the administration:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(142) Allowed snowmobiles
back into the Yellowstone and Grand Teton parks in Wyoming<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(143) Gutted a regulation
mandating public notification of sewer spills<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(144) Overturned
regulations against personal watercraft in eight national parks<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(145) Backed away from a
Clinton plan to create a national seashore just north of Santa Barbara<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(146) Lifted wildlife
protections on federal lands<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(147) Reversed a Clinton
policy blocking construction of a geothermal plant in the Modoc
National Forest, a sacred Indian ground<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(148) Published a rule in
the federal register delaying a measure to force oil and gas industries to
follow water pollution standards at drilling sites<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(149) Put off Hudson river
dredging (of PCBs) until 2006<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(150) Forced conservation
groups to sue in court to protect Clinton's long-negotiated Northwest Forest
Plan<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(151) Ignored Clinton's
plan to restore salmon and steelhead habitat in the Snake River<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(152) Gutted Clinton's
Sierra Nevada plan and Clinton's sand dune protections (from dune buggies) in southeastern
California (153)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(154) Ended the
environmental fellowship program for students pursuing environmental sciences<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(155) Tried to pry other innumerable publicly-owned natural
treasures to commercial exploitation<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(156) Declined to tighten regulations
on annual emissions of soot<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(157) Extended tax credits
to SUV buyers<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(158) Said that carbon dioxide <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0829-02.htm">could not be
'regulated as a pollutant</a>,' reversing a Clinton policy<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(159) Supported drilling in
the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(160) “White House Minimized
the Risks of Mercury in Proposed Rules, Scientists Say”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(161) “<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A55870-2004Apr6?language=printer">Interior
Dept. Is Denounced</a>”: “A court-appointed investigator has resigned
from his job probing the federal government's management of hundreds of
millions of dollars owed Native Americans, and charged that the Department of the
Interior blocked his work in a bid to conceal its deals to enrich energy
companies and cheat American Indians.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(162) “<a href="http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P1-93276839.html">Challenge to Alaska
Wolf Control Rejected</a>”: “The Interior Department has rejected a
national wildlife group's challenge of an Alaska wolf control program that
allows hunting from airplanes.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(163) “<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/17/opinion/17wed1.html?_r=1&ei=5070&emc=eta1&pagewanted=print">Earl
Devaney</a>, currently the [Interior] department’s inspector general, reported
to Congress that on 15 separate occasions the department’s political appointees
had weakened protections for endangered species against the advice of the
agency’s scientists, whose work they either ignored or distorted.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(164) “<a href="http://harpers.org/archive/2009/01/0082319">Number of total additions
made to the U.S. endangered-species list under Bush: 61; Average number made
yearly under Clinton: 65</a>”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(165) In June 2003 a climate
change report put out by the EPA was doctored. 60% of EPA scientists
claimed to have “<a href="http://harpers.org/archive/2009/01/0082319">experienced
political interference with their work since 2002</a>.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The Bush Administration’s War on
Science and Empiricism was so extreme that the Union of Concerned Scientists
sent a public letter (signed by sixty top-notch scientists, including twenty
Nobel prize winners) that said of the administration: "When
scientific knowledge has been found to be in conflict with its political goals,
the administration has often manipulated the process through which science
enters into its decisions…”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This onslaught took its toll on
career employees at the EPA, producing a record number of departures, voluntary
and otherwise: Forest Service head Michael Dombeck (166); Eric Schaeffer,
head of EPA's Office of Regulatory Enforcement (167); EPA ombudsman Robert
Martin (168), along with his partner Hugh Kaufman (169); James
Furnish (170), a self-described evangelical Christian disappointed with
what he termed the Bush administration's "strident pro-development
policy"; Martha Hahn, state director of Bureau of Land Management in
Idaho (171); Sylvia Lowrance, former acting head of the office of
enforcement and compliance (172); and David Mihalic, superintendent of
Yosemite National Park (173).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The Bush Administration’s negligence also crossed into the
area of public safety: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(174) “Michael Baroody, who was <a href="http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2007/03/cpsc_baroody.html">Executive
Vice President of the National Association of Manufacturers</a>…was nominated
by Bush on March 1, 2007 to head the Consumer Products Safety Commission.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(175) Bush proposed cuts to the National Center for
Disease Control and Prevention in the middle of the SARS epidemic<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(176) Despite serious concerns in the air about security
at chemical plants and nuclear facilities, Bush and congressional
Republicans <a href="http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0803/080703nj3.htm">caved
to the chemical lobby</a> and passed over a Democratic plan for strict
safety guidelines in favor of voluntary compliance <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(177) On Dick Cheney's suggestion, Bush fought to bring
nuclear energy back from the dead; Bush’s Chief of Staff Andrew Card
shrugged off public concern by explaining that "apart from Chernobyl
and <a href="http://www.nukefree.org/node/168">Three Mile Island</a>"
nuclear energy had had a bright track record (178)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(179) The administration also downgraded the safety
standards for radioactive leaks so that they could push for a nuclear waste
repository in the earthquake zone of Yucca Mountain, not far from one of the
fastest-growing parts of the country <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(180) Bush's FDA reversed a Clinton requirement
that drugmakers test their products to determine whether they are safe and
effective for children and (181) stacked the Center for Disease
Control's Advisory Committee on Childhood Lead Poisoning with people
sympathetic to the lead industry, including two people with direct lead
industry ties <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(182) To help his good friends at the Pentagon, Bush put
a gag order on a risk health assessment of perchlorate (a rocket fuel component
that has seeped into the groundwater in many states which has been known to
cause neurological damage)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(183) “<a href="http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=1670">Bush
Administration Violates Law in Attempt to Keep Auto Safety Information from the
Public</a>” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(184) Bush made steep cuts to mining enforcement not long
before 12 miners died in a Sago, West Virginia mineshaft in January 2006. Before that, Bush had
nominated former mining company executive <a href="http://www.foxriverwatch.com/nrda/bush_record.html">Dan Lauriski</a> as
Assistant Secretary of Labor for Mine Safety and Health (185), and had
suspended federal rules aimed at making it easier for coal miners with black
lung disease to be properly compensated (186), which was overturned in
court. After the mineshaft tragedy the following headlines appeared: “<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sirota/-bush-ignored-explicit-wa_b_13297.html" title="Permalink">Bush </a><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sirota/-bush-ignored-explicit-wa_b_13297.html" title="Permalink">Ignored Explicit Warnings In 2002 About Mine Safety</a>” and “<a href="http://wvgazette.com/News/200801260595">Mine fines routinely ignored</a>," in
which it came out that Bush's Department of Labor's Mine Safety and Health
Administration failed to levy fines for 4,000 violations over a six-year span (187).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Even after the Sago disaster, Bush <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/08/15/mine-safety-czar-richard-_n_60581.html">appointed</a> Richard
Stickler, a former mining industry executive with a spotty record on
mining safety (188) to be his mine safety czar. Stickler’s
appointment was so inappropriate that he couldn’t even pass a vote in a
Republican Senate, so Bush appointed him during a congressional recess (189).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">As reported in “<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/12/29/ST2008122900346.html">Under
Bush, OSHA Mired in Inaction</a>,” “…during the Bush administration…political
appointees ordered the withdrawal of dozens of workplace health regulations,
slow-rolled others, and altered the reach of its warnings and rules in response
to industry pressure (190).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“The result is a legacy of unregulation common to several
health-protection agencies under Bush: From 2001 to the end of 2007, OSHA
officials issued 86 percent fewer rules or regulations termed economically
significant by the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/U.S.+Office+of+Management+and+Budget?tid=informline">Office
of Management and Budget</a> than their counterparts did during a similar
period in President <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Bill+Clinton?tid=informline">Bill
Clinton</a>'s tenure, according to <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/The+White+House?tid=informline">White
House</a> lists.” (191)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b>W. DYNAMITES THE WALL BETWEEN CHURCH & STATE</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">When it wasn’t rooted in quid-pro-quos with industries that
were major contributors, Bush’s War on Science often stemmed from a desire to
kowtow to his evangelical base. When Bush first ran for office (and many
times thereafter), he said that </span><a href="http://www.slate.com/id/1006378/" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">the
jury was still out on evolution</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> (192), though, as a friend told <i>New
York Times</i> columnist Nicholas Kristof, “he doesn’t really care about that
kind of thing.”</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Bush also <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4136690.stm">supported</a> the
teaching of the pseudo science Intelligent Design in schools (193),
had information about the effectiveness of condoms (194) and a study
showing the lack of a link between abortion and breast cancer (195) removed
from federal agency websites, overruled FDA scientists’ recommendation that
emergency contraception become available over the counter (196), greatly
increased funding for abstinence-only education (197), replaced his first
top adviser on AIDS, Scott Evertz, <a href="http://www.laweekly.com/2004-06-24/news/condom-wars">because
conservatives complained about Evertz's support for condoms in AIDS prevention
workshops</a> (198), appointed Jerry Thacker, who had called AIDS the
"gay plague,” to serve on the Presidential Advisory Commission on HIV and
AIDS (199), and gave the United States the <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/headlines04/0330-01.htm">unique
distinction</a> of being one of the only first world countries to oppose
international family planning (200).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Bush’s decision to handcuff stem-cell research (201) could
prove fatal to many people in the future that suffer from diabetes,
Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, spinal cord injuries, and heart disease. Not
only did Bush stifle potentially life-saving research, he lied (202) about
the number of existing lines that did exist:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“<a href="http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0307.thompson.html">At the
time of Bush's announcement</a>, most scientists working in the field knew that
although 60 lines might exist in some form somewhere, the number of robust and
usable lines was much lower. Indeed, the NIH had published a report in July
2001 that…estimated the total number of available lines at 30. Because that
initial figure wasn't enough for the administration, according to Time magazine,
Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson asked the NIH to see if more
lines ‘might conceivably exist.’ When NIH representatives met with Bush a week
before his speech with an estimate of 60 lines scattered around the world in
unknown condition, the White House thought it had what it wanted. In his
announcement, Bush proclaimed, without qualification, that there were ‘more
than 60 genetically diverse stem cell lines.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Within days, basic inquiries from reporters revealed that
there were far fewer than 60 viable lines. The National Institutes of Health
(NIH) has so far confirmed only 11 available lines.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Moreover, Bush stacked (203) his Council on
Bioethics with people opposed to stem cell research, who covered Bush’s tracks
by overemphasizing (204) the “<a href="http://dir.salon.com/story/tech/feature/2004/03/25/stem_cells/print.html">promise
of adult stem cells</a> (cells that can be obtained without the
destruction of embryos)” while downplaying the potential of embryonic stem
cells. Elizabeth Blackburn, one of the rare dissenting voices on Bush’s
Council, was the lone member not to be re-appointed (205). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Bush also blocked (206) forward motion on
therapeutic (as distinct from human) cloning and showed his disregard for
science by (207) taking “<a href="http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0307.thompson.html">seven
months to choose a White House science adviser</a> for the Office of
Science and Technology Policy,” then “[demoting] the rank of the position,
[moving] the office out of the White House, and [cutting] the number of
associate directors from four to two.” Bush took even longer to
name (208) an FDA director --20 months--and a director (209) for
the National Institute of Health, 14 months. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Among many other examples, Bush also catered to the
evangelical minority by stirring up a media circus by trying to intervene (210) in
the case of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terri_Schiavo">Terri
Schiavo</a>, a Florida woman who had been in a vegetative state for fifteen
years following cardiac arrest, and trying to overturn (211) the
right of Oregon residents to die with dignity, a right that had twice been
confirmed at the ballot box.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">And then there were many examples of good old gay-bashing,
including but not limited to <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/headlines01/0125-01.htm">asking</a> applicants
for governmental positions their sexual orientation (212), <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/06/07/MN243223.DTL">killing</a> an
annual Pride celebration of gay employees in the Justice Department (213),
proposing that religious groups receive federal housing aid even if they
discriminate against employees on the basis of religion or sexual
orientation (214), and pushing a constitutional amendment to ban gay
marriage (215) in the lead-up to the 2004 election, though, <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/02/bush-oral-history200902?printable=true&currentPage=all">according</a> to
the deputy director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community
Initiatives, David Kuo: “After the 2004 election they cut the White House
faith-based staff by 30 percent, 40 percent, because it became clear that it
had served its purpose.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><b>W. IGNORES MOUNTAINS OF INTELLIGENCE, TAKES A MONTH-LONG VACATION, & ALLOWS THE BIGGEST NATIONAL SECURITY FAILURE IN U.S. HISTORY</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><i>"I don't think anybody could have predicted that they
would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a
missile."</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, on 5/16/02<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><i>"Had I known that the enemy was going to use airplanes to
kill on that fateful morning, I would have done everything in my power to
protect the American people."</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-George W. Bush, on 5/17/02<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><i>“[Bush] failed to act prior to September 11 on the threat from
al Qaeda despite repeated warnings and then harvested a political windfall for
taking obvious yet insufficient steps after the attacks.”</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-Richard Clarke, George W. Bush’s counterterrorism czar on
9/11<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">According to "Truth and Consequences," a lengthy, fully-sourced report by the Center for American Progress, quoted
hereafter: “The federal government was rapidly increasing its
counter-terrorism efforts at the time President Bush took office. As <i>the New
York Times</i> reported, Attorney General Janet Reno ended her tenure as ‘<a href="http://www.criminology.fsu.edu/transcrime/articles/How%20Sept_%2011%20Changed%20Goals%20of%20Justice%20Dept.htm">perhaps
the strongest advocate</a>’ of counterterrorism spending. Similarly, <a href="http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m4PRN/2002_May_19/86021397/p3/article.jhtml?term="><i>Newsweek</i></a> and
<i>the <a href="http://www.library.cornell.edu/colldev/mideast/terclrk.htm">Washington
Post</a></i> reported National Security Adviser Sandy Berger was ‘totally
preoccupied’ with the prospect of a domestic terror attack, telling his
replacement that they [needed] to be ‘spending more time on this issue’ than on
any other.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“<a href="http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/kfiles/b43926.html">In January of
2001</a>, the U.S. Government's bipartisan Commission on National Security gave
the White House a report that warned of an attack on the homeland and urged the
new Administration to implement its specific recommendations to prevent acts of
domestic terrorism.” Instead, the Bush administration decided to come up
with their own plan, a task force to be run by Dick Cheney. The task
force wasn’t announced until May 2001 and didn’t meet once before 9/11. (216) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-In early 2001, “The new Bush Treasury Department
disapproved (217) of the Clinton Administration's approach to money
laundering issues, which had been an important part of the drive to cut off the
money flow to bin Laden. Specifically, the Bush Administration opposed
Clinton Administration-backed efforts by the G-7 and the Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development that targeted countries with ‘loose
banking regulations’ being abused by terrorist financiers.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“…in the spring of 2001, the [Bush’s] attorney general [John
Ashcroft] had an extraordinary confrontation with then FBI Director Louis Freeh
at an annual meeting of special agents…Ashcroft laid out his priorities (218) for
Freeh: ‘basically violent crime and drugs,’ recalls one participant. Freeh
replied bluntly that those were not his priorities, and began to talk about
terror and counterterrorism. ‘Ashcroft didn't want to hear about it,’ says a
former senior law-enforcement official."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-On April 23, 2001, “The Bush Administration released the
government's annual report on terrorism, but unlike previous administrations,
it decided to specifically omit (219) an ‘extensive mention of
alleged terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden. A senior State Department official
told CNN the U.S. government made a mistake in focusing so much energy on bin
Laden.’”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">By the summer of 2001, “A rash of intelligence [was coming
in], including reports entitled ‘Bin Laden planning multiple operations,’ ‘Bin
Laden’s network’s plans advancing,’ and ‘Bin Laden threats are real.’ The
intelligence mentioned potential hijackings and hostage plots, and the CIA
warned that the attacks could occur ‘on a catastrophic level, indicating that
they would cause the world to be in turmoil.’”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">During this period, Bush’s main anti-terrorism adviser Richard
Clarke <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/they-knew-but-did-nothing/2008/03/07/1204780065676.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap9">sent
e-mails</a> to Condoleezza Rice with the following titles: “Bin
Laden Public Profile May Presage Attack” (May 3), “Terrorist Groups Said
Co-operating on US Hostage Plot” (May 23), “Bin Laden’s Networks’ Plans
Advancing” (May 26), “Bin Laden Attacks May Be Imminent” (June 23), “Bin Laden
and Associates Making Near-Term Threats” (June 25), “Bin Laden Planning High-Profile
Attacks” (June 30),” and “Planning for Bin Laden Attacks Continues, Despite
Delays” (July 2). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/02/bush-oral-history200902?printable=true&currentPage=all">According</a> to
Clarke: “We went into a period in June where the tempo of intelligence
about an impending large-scale attack went up a lot, to the kind of cycle that
we’d only seen once or twice before. And we told Condi that. She didn’t do
anything (220). She said, ‘Well, make sure you’re coordinating with the
agencies,’ which, of course, I was doing. By August, I was saying to Condi and
to the agencies that the intelligence isn’t coming in at such a rapid rate
anymore as it was in the June-July time frame. But that doesn’t mean the attack
isn’t going to happen. It just means that they may be in place.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-On July 20, 2001, when senators "sent a copy of draft
legislation on counterterrorism and homeland defense to Cheney's office…<a href="http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/kfiles/b43926.html/print.html">they
were told by Cheney's top aide</a> ‘that it might be another six months before
he would be able to review the material.’” (221) </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">With all this scary intelligence coming in, what did President
Bush do? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">He went on “<a href="http://www.avatara.com/operationignore0.html">the longest presidential
vacation in 32 years</a>” (222), “after signing off on a plan to
cut funding for programs guarding unsecured or ‘loose’ nukes in the former
Soviet Union (223)." (Bush would eventually sent the record for
the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/03/04/BL2008030401392.html">most
vacation days of any president</a>, 224)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">On August 6, 2001, while Bush vacationed in Crawford, Texas,
the CIA sent a briefer out who gave the president an intelligence memo titled “<a href="http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB116/pdb8-6-2001.pdf">Bin Laden
Determined To Strike in US</a>” that mentioned the possibility of
hijackings. According to "The One Percent Doctrine" by Ron
Suskind, after reading the memo Bush told (225) the briefer “All
right. You’ve covered your ass now.” [The White House would later
stonewall requests for the August 6th document, 226] <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Three days later, on August 9, “<a href="http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/kfiles/b43926.html/print.html">the
Administration distributed</a> a strategic plan to the Justice Department
highlighting its new goals from a list of Clinton Administration goals. The
item that referred to intelligence and investigation of terrorists was left
un-highlighted (227).” In the time before 9/11, the Justice
Department also “curtailed a highly classified program called 'Catcher's Mitt'
to monitor Al Qaeda suspects in the United States (228)," and
Attorney General John Ashcroft “proposed a $65 million cut for a program that
gives states and localities counterterrorism grants for equipment, including
radios and decontamination suits and training (229)."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Despite firing off scores of frantic e-mails, <a href="http://www.avatara.com/operationignore0.html">Richard Clarke wasn’t able
to get a meeting with Bush and Cheney until September 4th</a>(230), and at that
meeting, Clarke couldn’t convince the White House to send an armed predator
drone to find and attack bin Laden (who had been spotted three times in 2000 by
an earlier model of unarmed drone) because the Pentagon and the CIA couldn’t
agree on a plan (231). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“On September 9…<a href="http://www.avatara.com/operationignore0.html">Congress proposed a boost
of $600 million for antiterror programs</a>. The money was to come from
[Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld's beloved missile defense program, the
eventual price tag of which was estimated by the Congressional Budget Office at
between $158 billion and $238 billion. Congress's proposal to shift $0.6
billion over to counterterror programs incurred Rummy's ire, and he
threatened (232) a presidential veto.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">On September 10, <a href="http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/kfiles/b43926.html/print.html">Ashcroft
denied</a> (233) FBI requests for “$58 million for 149 new
counterterrorism field agents, 200 intelligence analysts and 54 additional
translators” and “sent his Justice Department budget request to Bush. It
included spending increases in sixty-eight different programs…[none of which]
dealt with terrorism (234). Ashcroft passed around a memo listing his
seven top priorities. Again, terrorism didn't make the list (235).”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">On September 11, 2001, George W. Bush was
struggling. According to the administration’s own internal polls
(which <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/02/bush-oral-history200902?printable=true&currentPage=all">didn’t
ask “a single question…about foreign policy, terrorism, national
security</a>”), Bush’s approval rating was hovering around 50%, and he was
on the defensive on a host of issues, as he’d lost control of the Senate a few
months earlier when Senator Jim Jeffords had bolted the GOP because of Bush’s
right-wing agenda (and perhaps his Rovian tactics as well, such as <a href="http://archive.salon.com/politics/feature/2001/05/31/jeffords/print.html">punishing</a> Jeffords
for his occasional dissent by not inviting him to a White House ceremony
honoring the Teacher of the Year, from Vermont, Jeffords’ home state). </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">As <i>Newsweek</i> would later report, the administration had received
"as many as 10 to 12 [terror] warnings" up to this point, more than
two of which “mentioned the possibility of hijackings," yet terrorism was
the topic in only two of the roughly one hundred meetings (236) Bush’s
national security team had had before September 11. On the morning of
September 11, Bush’s National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice was set to give
a big national security speech--on the imminent need for national missile
defense (237). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/02/bush-oral-history200902?printable=true&currentPage=all">According</a> to
Richard Clarke, “That night, on 9/11, Rumsfeld came over and the others, and
the president finally got back, and we had a meeting. And Rumsfeld said, ‘You
know, we’ve got to do Iraq,’ and everyone looked at him—at least I looked at
him and Powell looked at him—like, ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ And
he said—I’ll never forget this—There just aren’t enough targets in Afghanistan.
We need to bomb something else to prove that we’re, you know, big and strong
and not going to be pushed around by these kind of attacks...And I made the
point certainly that night, and I think Powell acknowledged it, that Iraq had
nothing to do with 9/11. That didn’t seem to faze Rumsfeld in the least.” (238)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Also in the days after 9/11, the White House made the EPA
issue “<a href="http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/headlines04/0407-10.htm">false
assurances</a> on [the] air quality” at Ground Zero, which has
resulted in respiratory and other illnesses for thousands of rescue workers and
other citizens in the area. (239)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It soon came out that fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers were from
Saudi Arabia, a U.S. ally that Bush had been particularly close to--because of
lucrative financial ties his inner circle had with Saudi Arabian royalty and
businessmen, despite known Saudi connections to al Qaeda. After 9/11,
President Bush repeated the mantra that "if you aid a terrorist, if you
hide terrorists, <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010925-1.html">you're
just as guilty as the terrorists</a>," yet Bush “was going ‘<a href="http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101030915/">out of his way to compliment
the Saudis</a>.’” (240) <i>The Los Angeles Times</i> would later
report that the "Saudi government not only provided significant money and
aid to the suicide hijackers but also allowed potentially hundreds of millions
of dollars to flow to al Qaeda and other terrorist groups." (241)
Moreover, according to investigative journalist Greg Palast, <a href="http://www.gregpalast.com/khan-job-bush-spiked-probe-of-pakistan%E2%80%99s-dr-strangelove-bbc-reported-in-2001/">reporting
for the BBC</a>, “after Bush took office, ‘There was a major policy shift’ at
the National Security Agency. Investigators were ordered to ‘back off’ from any
inquiries into Saudi Arabian financing of terror networks, especially if they
touched on Saudi royals and their retainers.” (242) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Similar privileges were <a href="http://dir.salon.com/story/books/feature/2004/03/11/unger_1/">extended</a> to
Saudi Arabian kin of Osama bin Laden, who were allowed to fly out of the United
States immediately after 9/11, though air travel was officially in
lockdown (243). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">On September 13, 2001, Bush said, “The most important thing is
for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not
rest until we find him," yet when the United States had a chance to
capture bin Laden, Bush <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/11/29/politics/main5818292.shtml?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+CBSNewsPolitics+(CBS+News:+Politics)&utm_content=Google+Reader">botched</a> (244) it
by relying on Afghan militia and Pakistan frontier forces sympathetic to the
Taliban, against the advice of military commanders. Bin Laden escaped. Six months later, on March 13, 2002, Bush said, "I don't know where bin Laden is. I have
no idea and really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our
priority." (245)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Rather than harness the unique upsurge of good will after 9/11
to unite the country, as Bush had promised to do during the presidential
campaign, the administration leveraged the fear spawned by 9/11 to seize
executive power and trample civil liberties with the Patriot Act (246),
warrantless wiretaps (247), secret military commissions (248), a
detention center at Guantanamo Bay (249), and the authorization of
torture (250). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In April 2002, amid calls for an independent investigation to
study the biggest national security failure in U.S. history on continental soil, Bush said that the
investigation into 9/11 should be confined to (a Republican-controlled)
Congress (251). Vice President Dick Cheney followed suit in May of
that year in an appearance on Fox (252).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">When the administration did give in to an independent
investigation after many months of public pressure, they appointed war
criminal-cum-cover-up artist Henry Kissinger to head up the committee (253).
When Kissinger stepped down for being politically radioactive, Bush chose
Philip Zelikow, a close friend of Condoleezza Rice and the man who had written
their official <a href="http://merln.ndu.edu/whitepapers/USnss2002.pdf">policy
paper justifying pre-emptive war</a> on Iraq, to be the chairman (254).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In June 2002, after opposing the creation of a Department of
Homeland Security, the Bush Administration reversed itself with a very public
pronouncement on the <a href="http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0206/08/rs.00.html">same day</a> that
FBI employee Coleen Rowley was set to testify about the FBI’s gross
incompetence in the run-up to 9/11 (255). After Bush agreed to
the creation of the Homeland Security department, he fought Democrats over
unionization of department employees, and Bush's Republican Senate candidate of
choice in Georgia, who had avoided service Vietnam with a bad knee, ran <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKFYpd0q9nE">a smear ad</a> accusing
Georgia's Democratic senator Max Cleland (who had been wheelchair-bound
since getting a Purple Heart in Vietnam) of being unpatriotic for supporting
unionization (256). Cleland lost his seat.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In 2003, as the congressional investigation of 9/11 was about
to be made public, the Administration <a href="http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/kfiles/b43926.html/print.html">classified</a> 27
pages of the report that "<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="OLE_LINK3"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null">examined
interactions between Saudi businessmen and the royal family that may have
intentionally</a> or unwittingly aided al Qaeda or
the suicide hijackers." (257) “<a href="http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/kfiles/b43926.html"><i>The LA Times</i>
reported</a> that ‘the 27 classified pages…depict a Saudi government that
not only provided significant money and aid to the suicide hijackers but also
allowed potentially hundreds of millions of dollars to flow to Al Qaeda and
other terrorist groups through suspect charities and other fronts.’ (258) In
addition, according to <i>Newsweek</i>, “thousands of dollars in charitable gifts
from Princess Haifa, the wife of Prince Bandar [an “<a href="http://whitehouse.georgewbush.org/ask/bandar.asp">Executive Policy
Advisor</a> to Bush], "ended up in the hands
of two of the September 11 hijackers," (259) and George Bush
Sr.’s former Secretary of State James Baker's law firm <a href="http://www.islamdaily.net/EN/Contents.aspx?AID=6720">represented</a> the Saudi
Arabian government in a trillion-dollar lawsuit filed against them by families
of 9/11 victims (260). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Despite heated rhetoric about protecting the homeland, Bush
opposed government regulation of chemical plant security (see #176)
and <a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A04E6D81739F932A05750C0A9629C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print">shunted</a> an
IRS plan to increase investigations of terror financing (261) in
March of 2004.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Also in 2004, the Administration opposed requests from the
9/11 independent commission for testimony from Condoleezza Rice (262) until
avoidance became politically untenable. As Colin Powell’s former Chief of
Staff Lawrence Wilkerson <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/02/bush-oral-history200902?printable=true&currentPage=all">put
it</a> recently to <i>Vanity Fair</i>: “John [Bellinger] and I had to
work on the 9/11-commission testimony of Condi. Condi was not gonna do it, not
gonna do it, not gonna do it, and then all of a sudden she realized she better
do it. That was an appalling enterprise. We would cherry-pick things to make it
look like the president had been actually concerned about al-Qaeda…They didn’t
give a shit about al-Qaeda. They had priorities. The priorities were lower
taxes, ballistic missiles, and the defense thereof.” (263)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Condoleezza’s incompetence was seconded by David Kay (the
chief weapons inspector in Iraq), who referred to Rice as “<a href="http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/09/01/america/rice.1-126019.php">probably
the worst national security adviser since the office was created.</a>” (264)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">When the president agreed to speak to the commission, the
administration set out very restrictive conditions:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(265) Bush <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A60661-2004Apr8?language=printer">would
only do an off-the-record interview</a> with select commissioners in the
Oval Office--with Dick Cheney (266) at his side.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(267) Neither Bush nor Cheney would have to take an
oath.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(268) The testimony would not be recorded or
transcribed, and notes of the meeting would not be public information. (269)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Meanwhile, according to <i>New York Times</i> reporter
Philip Shenon, Bush’s hand-picked committee chairman Philip Zelikow not only
had four phone conversations with Bush’s strategist Karl Rove during the
election season (270), but ran interference for Condoleezza Rice on the
commission, by “[making] it clear to the team’s investigators that [Richard]
Clarke should not be believed, <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/they-knew-but-did-nothing/2008/03/07/1204780065676.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap9">that
his testimony would be suspect</a>.” (271)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Also from Shenon: “When 9/11 Commission historian Warren
Bass uncovered a smoking gun email from Clarke to Rice written on September 4,
2001, which asked, ‘Are we serious about dealing with the al-Qaeda threat?,’
Zelikow reverted to defending Condi…Months later, Bass threatened to resign
over what Shenon calls Zelikow’s repeated “attempts at interference”…Bass felt
the White House was trying to sabotage his work by its efforts to limit his
ability to see certain documents from the NSC [National Security Council]
files (272) and take useful notes from them…”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Even as the Bush Administration did everything it could to
cover up its failures to protect the country before 9/11, Bush ran for a second
term as the person that could keep America safe (273) and his surrogates,
the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, questioned the honor of Bush’s
opponent (274), John Kerry, a decorated war veteran, claiming he had given
“aid and comfort to the enemy” by protesting the Vietnam War after he had served with honor in Vietnam. While Kerry was on the defensive from
these <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngjUkPbGwAg">highly deceptive and
brutally effective ads</a>, the GOP held their 2004 convention in New
York City, and even made the convention unusually late, so that it would
coincide with the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks (275). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Worse yet, as veteran journalist Jack Newfield pointed out at
the time, “The Bush Administration [had] treated New York City like a
battered wife who [is] displayed for photo-ops and state dinners.” <a href="http://www.thenation.com/doc/20040419/newfield/print">In detail</a>,
Newfield listed the ways in which the Bush Administration had used and abused
New York City:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-In the time between 9/11 and the 2004 election, Bush and a
Republican Congress cut homeland security money for New York City by
two-thirds, doling out big sums of money to red state cities and towns with virtually no risk of being attacked (276). “On a per capita basis, New York State ranks
forty-ninth among the states in antiterrorist funding, far below rural,
sparsely populated Wyoming, Montana and North Dakota.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“Or consider the Bush Administration's treatment of first
responders. It has recently eliminated (277) its only program
providing funds for upgrading police and fire department radio communications.
On 9/11 the FDNY's radios did not function. Warnings over police radios to
evacuate the towers immediately were not received by the firefighters trying to
rescue trapped office workers. On that one day, 343 New York City firefighters
died, and about 120 of these deaths have been attributed to the futile radio
transmissions.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“[Bush’s] Homeland Security Department has killed (278) a
federal program to integrate police and fire communications systems; New York
will lose $6 million. Bush and [Homeland Security head Tom] Ridge have
announced a $200 million cut in similar programs for next year, and a cut of 33
percent in the Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program (279).”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“The FDNY [New York fire department] has requested $250
million from the Bush Administration for the next three years for antiterrorist
equipment and technology. The NYPD [police department] has requested $261 million. But according to
NYPD testimony last November, the city has received less than $60 million so
far--for all first-responder agencies.” (280)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“The FDNY has only one dedicated hazardous materials unit for
the entire city of 8 million (281). Meanwhile, the fire department in
Zanesville, Ohio (population 25,600), has federally-funded thermal imaging
technology to find victims in dense smoke and a test kit for lethal nerve
gases. The FDNY is still asking for radios that work in a crisis.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-[Bush’s prescription drug bill] “is especially damaging to
New York, where poor people depend on teaching hospitals for care. The law's
funding formulas give preferential treatment to rural hospitals and to states
with less dense population patterns (282)…“The bill made a 15 percent cut
in payments to teaching hospitals (283), which are concentrated in New
York City. In practice, this is a 15 percent cut in healthcare services for the
poor and elderly, who depend on Medicare.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“New York City is the biggest recipient of Title I funds in the
country--Title I being the largest federal program put under the NCLB [No Child
Left Behind] umbrella--with 900 out of 1,200 schools eligible…A study released
by New York City Representative Anthony Weiner showed that Title I schools in
New York City lost $657 million (284), disabled pupils lost $513
million (285) and teacher-training programs lost $39 million (286).
There was $17.5 million less for computers in poor communities (287), and
$12 million for programs that include school nurses and counselors (288).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“Bush's proposed budget for 2005 does add (at least on paper)
about $1 billion for the poorest schools. But at the same time, in a bit of
fiscal flim-flam, his budget cuts or eliminates dozens of other education
programs that help all cities. Among the programs being cut are those for drug
treatment, guidance counselors, childcare, dropout prevention, increased
parental involvement in low-income communities and a national writing project (289).”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“Buried in Bush's $2.4 trillion budget for 2005 is another
battering blow: The budget provides $2 billion less than the Congressional
Budget Office estimates is needed to fund Section 8 housing vouchers for the 2
million impoverished, elderly or disabled people already enrolled in this
rent-subsidy program nationally. With 80,000 New Yorkers now in the Section 8
program, this means up to 10,000 New York families are now in jeopardy of
losing their vouchers and their homes (290).”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><b>W. EXPLOITS FEAR & THE PUBLIC FAITH GIVEN TO HIM AFTER 9/11 TO LIE US INTO A WAR OF CHOICE, WITH CATASTROPHIC RESULTS</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><i>Q: Do you think the U.S., or U.N. forces, should have moved
into Baghdad? [in the first Gulf War, when Dick Cheney had been Secretary of
Defense]<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><i>A: No.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><i>Q: Why not?<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><i>A: Because if we'd gone to Baghdad we would have been all
alone. There wouldn't have been anybody else with us. There would have been a
U.S. occupation of Iraq. None of the Arab forces that were willing to fight
with us in Kuwait were willing to invade Iraq.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><i>Once you got to Iraq and took it over, took down Saddam
Hussein's government, then what are you going to put in its place? That's a
very volatile part of the world, and if you take down the central government of
Iraq, you could very easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off: part of it,
the Syrians would like to have to the west, part of it--eastern Iraq-- the
Iranians would like to claim, they fought over it for eight years. In the north
you've got the Kurds, and if the Kurds spin loose and join with the Kurds in
Turkey, then you threaten the territorial integrity of Turkey.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><i>It's a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-Dick Cheney, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BEsZMvrq-I">asked in 1994 if the U.S.
should have invaded Baghdad in the first Gulf War</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><i>“If we're an arrogant nation, they'll resent us; if we're a
humble nation, but strong, they'll welcome us. And our nation stands alone
right now in the world in terms of power, and that's why we've got to be
humble, and yet project strength in a way that promotes freedom.”</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-George W. Bush, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9SOVzMV2bc">in a 2000 presidential debate</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><i>“I think they had a plan from day one they wanted to do
something about Iraq. While the World Trade Center was still
smoldering, while they were still digging bodies out, people in the White House
were thinking: ‘Ah! This gives us the opportunity we have been
looking for to go after Iraq.’”</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-Bush counterterrorism adviser Richard Clarke<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Though he had campaigned in 2000 on a “humble” foreign policy,
George W. Bush made it clear early on that under his leadership, the United
States would do whatever it wanted in international affairs. The
administration dropped out of, sabotaged, or forced a heavy hand on a
whole host of international agreements: the 1972 ABM Treaty (291);
the world tobacco treaty (292); the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (293);
the 1972 treaty on germ warfare (294); the <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/july01/2001-07-27-bush-treaties-usat.htm">Biological
Weapons treaty</a> (295); the UN meeting on racism (296); a treaty
that banned exportation of diamonds mined and sold illegally (297); a UN
vote on an international torture convention (298); the <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0810-05.htm">Convention on Elimination
of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women</a> (299); a War Crimes
Court (300); the World Summit on Sustainable Development (301); a
U.N. pact to stem the illegal flow of small arms (302); and the 1993 START
II nuclear disarmament treaty with Russia pushed by Bush’s father (303).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">As counterproductive as all of these decisions were, the Bush
Administration’s fixation on an invasion of Iraq was far more irresponsible,
destructive, and damaging to America’s standing abroad. Though the
decision to go to war was publicly presented as something that had to be done
for America’s safety, ample evidence and testimony from administration officials show that Bush had made his
mind up long before the invasion and that the motives for the invasion were oil and geopolitical hegemony. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-In 1999, George W. Bush <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/headlines04/1028-01.htm">told</a> interviewer Mickey
Herskowitz, “One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a
commander-in-chief. My father had all this political capital built up when he
drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it. If I have a chance to invade,
if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it (304).” [Bush also
told Herskowitz, “…that as a leader, you can never admit to a mistake. That was
one of the keys to being a leader."]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-According to Bush’s first Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill,
the administration began planning an invasion of Iraq <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/01/10/oneill.bush/">within days</a> of
Bush’s inauguration (305).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“<a href="http://www.muckrakerreport.com/id298.html#_ftn4">In
March 2001</a>, Vice President Dick Cheney met with oil company executives in
what has been described as the Cheney Energy Task Force. Cheney has
refused to reveal who attended the Energy Task Force meetings (306) or
who provided energy policy recommendations to the task force...Lawsuits by
Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club were unsuccessful at obtaining the records
related to the task force players…However, Judicial Watch was able to obtain
through the Freedom of Information Act process, maps of Iraqi oil fields as
well as documents that list foreign suitors for Iraqi oilfield contracts, both
of which were elements of the Cheney Energy Task Force meetings (307).”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-<a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/03/19/60minutes/printable607356.shtml">According</a> to
Richard Clarke, immediately after 9/11, "The president dragged me into a
room with a couple of other people, shut the door, and said, 'I want you to
find whether Iraq did this.' Now he never said, 'Make it up.' But the entire
conversation left me in absolutely no doubt that George Bush wanted me to come
back with a report that said Iraq did this. I said, 'Mr. President. We've done
this before. We have been looking at this. We looked at it with an open mind.
There's no connection.' He came back at me and said, 'Iraq! Saddam! Find out if
there's a connection'. And in a very intimidating way. I mean that we should
come back with that answer. We wrote a report. It was a serious look. We got
together all the FBI experts, all the CIA experts. We wrote the report. We sent
the report out to CIA and found FBI and said, 'Will you sign this report?' They
all cleared the report. And we sent it up to the president and it got bounced
by the National Security Adviser or Deputy. It got bounced and sent back
saying, 'Wrong answer…Do it again (308).’"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“[Tony] <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/headlines04/0404-02.htm">Blair
Told U.S. Was Targeting Saddam ‘Just Days After 9/11</a>'” (309)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-Bob Graham, a retired Democratic senator from Florida
recently <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/02/bush-oral-history200902?printable=true&currentPage=all">told</a> <i>Vanity
Fair</i>, “In February of ‘02, I had a visit at Central Command, in Tampa, and the
purpose was to get a briefing on the status of the war in Afghanistan. At the
end of the briefing, the commanding officer, Tommy Franks, asked me to go into
his office for a private meeting, and he told me that we were no longer
fighting a war in Afghanistan and, among other things, that some of the key
personnel, particularly some special-operations units and some equipment,
specifically the Predator unmanned drone, were being withdrawn in order to get
ready for a war in Iraq (310).”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">- On June 1, 2002, Bush gave a speech to the graduating class
at West Point wherein he <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/02/bush-oral-history200902?printable=true&currentPage=all">said</a> that
the U.S. had the right to respond to threats pre-emptively. “Preparations
for war with Iraq [were] not yet publicly acknowledged, but earlier in the
spring, as Condoleezza Rice [discussed] diplomatic initiatives involving Iraq
with several senators, Bush [poked] his head into the room and [said], “Fuck
Saddam. We’re taking him out (311).”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“<a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/02/bush-oral-history200902?printable=true&currentPage=all">July
23, 2002</a>: Senior British defense, diplomatic, and intelligence
officials meet in London to discuss the American position on war with Iraq. An
account of the meeting, known as the Downing Street Memo, is drawn up by one of
the participants, but remains secret for several years. In the meeting, Sir
Richard Dearlove, the head of British intelligence, gives an assessment of his
recent talks in Washington: ‘Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military
action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. <a href="http://downingstreetmemo.com/">But the intelligence and facts were being
fixed around the policy</a> (312).’”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“In July 2002, [Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld had a
one-word answer for reporters who asked whether Iraq had relationships
with Al Qaeda terrorists: ‘Sure.’ <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/02/bush-oral-history200902?printable=true&currentPage=all">In
fact</a>, an assessment issued that same month by the Defense Intelligence
Agency (and confirmed weeks later by CIA Director [George] Tenet) found an
absence of ‘compelling evidence demonstrating direct cooperation between the
government of Iraq and Al Qaeda.’ What's more, an earlier DIA assessment said
that ‘the nature of the regime's relationship with Al Qaeda is unclear’, a finding
later echoed by the independent 9/11 commission and the U.S. military (which
the administration <a href="http://blogs.abcnews.com/rapidreport/2008/03/pentagon-report.html">successfully
kept off the worldwide web</a>, 313).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Rumsfeld’s disregard for factual reality was shared throughout
the administration. As <a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C05EFD8113BF934A25753C1A9629C8B63">reported</a> by
journalist Ron Suskind: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in
<i>Esquire</i> that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications
director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He
expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at
the time I didn't fully comprehend--but which I now believe gets to the very
heart of the Bush presidency.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“The aide said that guys like me were ‘in what we call the
reality-based community,’ which he defined as people who ‘believe that
solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.’ I nodded
and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me
off. ‘That's not the way the world really works anymore,’ he continued. ‘We're
an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're
studying that reality--judiciously, as you will--we'll act again, creating
other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort
out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just
study what we do.’''<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“On August 26, 2002, in an address to the national convention
of the Veteran of Foreign Wars, Cheney flatly <a href="http://projects.publicintegrity.org/WarCard/">declared</a>: ‘Simply
stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass
destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends,
against our allies, and against us.’ In fact, former CIA Director George Tenet
later recalled, Cheney's assertions went well beyond his agency's assessments
at the time.” Another CIA official, referring to the same speech, told
journalist Ron Suskind, “Our reaction was, 'Where is he getting this stuff
from?'" (314) This skepticism was <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/02/bush-oral-history200902?printable=true&currentPage=all">shared</a> by
Sir Jeremy Greenstock, a former British ambassador to the United Nations and
British special representative in Iraq, who told <i>Vanity Fair</i>, “When I arrived
in New York, in July 1998, it was quite clear to me that all the members
of the Security Council, including the United States, knew well that there
was no current work being done on any kind of nuclear-weapons capability
in Iraq."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Cheney’s speech dovetailed with the administration’s <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/12/AR2006061200932_pf.html">strategy</a> to
beat the war drums right before congressional elections in which the
Republicans sought to regain control of the Senate by turning the media focus
to national security issues (315). Asked why they had waited
until September to make their case, White House Chief of Staff <a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9404E2D9103EF934A3575AC0A9649C8B63&scp=9&sq=%60%60From%20a%20marketing%20point%20of%20view,%20you%20don%27t%20introduce%20new%20products%20in%20August.&st=cse&scp=4&sq=%22don%27t%20introduce%20new%20products%20in%25">told</a> <i>the New
York Times</i>, “From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products
in August." The next day, all the media faces of the
Bush Administration began parroting lines about the purported threat
posed by Saddam Hussein. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">As another part of the strategy, the administration cajoled
the Democratic leader of the Senate, Tom Daschle, to hold a vote on
the use of force in Iraq--before the mid-term election (316). <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2005/nov/28/nation/na-warvote28">According to
Daschle</a>, “I asked directly if we could delay this so we
could depoliticize it. I said: ‘Mr. President, I know this is urgent, but
why the rush? Why do we have to do this now?’ He looked at Cheney and
he looked at me, and there was a half-smile on his face. And he said:
‘We just have to do this now.’ ” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Former Florida senator Bob Graham <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/02/bush-oral-history200902?printable=true&currentPage=all">seconded</a> Daschle’s
suspicion of the timing: “Unlike the first George Bush, who had
purposefully put off the vote on the Persian Gulf War until after the
elections of 1990—we voted in January of 1991—here they put the vote in October
of 2002, three weeks before a congressional election. I think there were
people who were up for election who didn’t want, within a few days of meeting
the voters, to be at such stark opposition with the president.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/02/bush-oral-history200902?printable=true&currentPage=all">September
15, 2002</a>: “In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, the
assistant to the president for economic policy, Lawrence Lindsey,
estimate[d] the cost of a war with Iraq to be in the neighborhood of $100
billion to $200 billion. Mitch Daniels, the director of the Office of
Management and Budget, quickly revise[d] the figure downward to $50 billion to
$60 billion, and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld call[ed] Lindsey’s estimate ‘baloney.’
Lindsey was fired in December…Years later, an analysis by Nobel-laureate economist
Joseph E. Stiglitz and Harvard professor Linda J. Bilmes will estimate the cost
of the Iraq war to be $3 trillion (319) .” An analysis by the news organization Reuters put the cost at $6 trillion.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“In the closing days of September 2002, with a congressional
vote fast approaching on authorizing the use of military force in Iraq,
Bush <a href="http://projects.publicintegrity.org/WarCard/">told</a> the
nation in his weekly radio address: ‘The Iraqi regime possesses biological
and chemical weapons, is rebuilding the facilities to make more and, according
to the British government, could launch a biological or chemical attack in as
little as 45 minutes after the order is given. . . . This regime is seeking a
nuclear bomb, and with fissile material could build one within a year.’ A few
days later, similar findings were also included in a much-hurried National
Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction--an analysis that
hadn't been done in years, as the intelligence community had deemed it
unnecessary and the White House hadn't requested it (320).”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In October of 2002, the chief U.N. weapons inspector, Hans
Blix, went to the White House: “<a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/02/bush-oral-history200902?printable=true&currentPage=all">The
most remarkable thing</a> was the talk that we had with the vice president
before we were taken to Mr. Bush…Much of it was a fairly neutral
discussion, but at one point he [Dick Cheney] suddenly said that you must
realize that we will not hesitate to discredit you in favor of disarmament (321).”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The fear-mongering in September and October worked wonders for
the administration. Helped by Democratic Senator Paul Wellstone’s fatal
plane crash, Max Cleland’s defeat in Georgia (see #256), a successful
phone-jamming operation in New Hampshire (see #566), and a one-point win in the
Missouri Senate Race, Bush won back narrow control of the United States Senate
(and was applauded by the media, including <i>Washington Post</i> writer David Von Drehle, for his <a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/200611210010">tactical brilliance</a>.) Not
long after, Dick Cheney proposed another round of tax cuts for the rich (see
#84). When Bush questioned giving the well-off another windfall,
Cheney reportedly said, "We won the midterms. This is our due (322)."
When Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill publicly questioned the second round
of tax cuts, he was forced out. O’Neill would later say that Bush
was “<a href="http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0109-07.htm">like a blind
man in a room full of deaf people</a>.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">On December 2, 2002, “Donald Rumsfeld sign[ed] off on a memo
from the Defense Department’s legal counsel, Jim Haynes, <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/02/bush-oral-history200902?printable=true&currentPage=all">permitting
the use of aggressive interrogation techniques</a> at Guantánamo Bay, including
stress positions, isolation, and sleep deprivation. Rumsfeld [wrote] on
the memo, ‘I stand for 8–10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to 4
hours?’” (323)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In January 2003, two months before the invasion, “Bush
was <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/print/22948">startled</a> to
learn…that there was a difference between Sunni and Shiite Muslims.
Responding to the three Iraqi exiles whom he had invited as guests to the
Super Bowl, Bush looked at them and said, ‘You mean...they're not, you
know, there, there's this difference. What is it about?’” (324) <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In his State of the Union address on January 28, 2003, Bush
said, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein
recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa,” though the CIA
had made it clear that this assertion was dubious. (325) [In
July 2003, Joseph Wilson, who had been sent to investigate, penned <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0706-02.htm">a <i>New York Times</i> op-ed</a> in
which he said that the uranium claim was bogus. In retaliation, the
administration outed Wilson’s wife as a CIA agent (326). In the
firestorm that followed, Bush said he would <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/18/AR2005071800689.html">fire</a> anyone
who had leaked the identity of a CIA agent, but after Dick Cheney’s Chief of
Staff Scooter Libby was found to have done just that, and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/06/washington/06cnd-libby.html">convicted
of lying to a grand jury</a>, Bush <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/03/washington/03libby.html">commuted</a> Libby’s
sentence (327).]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/02/bush-oral-history200902?printable=true&currentPage=all">On
January 31, 2003 Bush met with Tony Blair</a>. “A secret account of the
meeting, written by Sir David Manning, Blair’s chief foreign-policy adviser and
later ambassador to Washington, [became] public three years later. The
administration’s public stance [was] that it hope[d] to avoid war with Iraq. In
the meeting, however, Bush and Blair agree[d] on a start date for the war,
irrespective of the outcome of U.N. inspections: March 10. Bush propose[d] that
a pretext for war might be provided if an aircraft were painted with U.N.
colors and sent in low over Iraq, in the hope that it would draw fire.
According to the memo, Bush also ‘thought it unlikely that there would be
internecine warfare between the different religious and ethnic groups’ in Iraq
once Saddam was removed from power (328).”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Also in late January, Bush <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/27/AR2006092700106_pf.html">told</a> Secretary
of State Colin Powell, "We've really got to make the case" against
Hussein…"and I want you to make it." Only Powell had the “credibility
to do this," Bush said. "Maybe they'll believe you." (329)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">On February 5, 2003 Colin Powell appeared before the United
Nations Security Council. “<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/27/AR2006092700106_pf.html">A
nationwide poll</a> released just that morning had found that ‘when it
comes to U.S. policy toward Iraq,’ Americans trusted Powell more than Bush by
63 to 24 percent.” Powell proceeded to make a long list of false
accusations about Saddam Hussein’s WMD ambitions and connections to
al-Qaeda (330). Though much of the intelligence Powell used was based
on questionable sources, sometimes single sources (331) that hadn’t
even been interviewed by U.S. intelligence, Powell told the world, "every
statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not
assertions. What we are giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid
intelligence." Powell’s Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson, who had
been in the middle of writing the speech, later referred to the affair as
"the lowest moment of my life."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/27/AR2006092700106_pf.html">The
next day</a>, opinion polls indicated that national opinion had shifted
literally overnight; most Americans surveyed said they believed an invasion was
justified to protect the nation.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">On February 25, 2003 “General Eric Shinseki, the army chief of
staff, <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/02/bush-oral-history200902?printable=true&currentPage=all">tells</a> a
congressional hearing that ‘something on the order of several hundred thousand
soldiers’ will be required to mount a successful occupation of Iraq. Deputy
Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz publicly rebukes Shinseki, stating that the
general’s estimate is ‘wildly off the mark.’ Shinseki is forced to retire
early (332).”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Also in February 2003, “<a href="http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/headlines04/1016-06.htm">the
Army War College prepared a report</a> saying that ‘the possibility of the
United States winning the war and losing the peace in Iraq is real and serious
... The United States may find itself in a radically different world over the
next few years, a world in which the threat of Saddam Hussein seems like a pale
shadow of new problems of America's own making.’” Similar predictions
were made by the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency and Join Staff, the
State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, and the CIA's National
Intelligence Council.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In early March, “an influential adviser to the Pentagon
[neocon Richard Pearle] received a secret message from a Lebanese-American
businessman: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/05/international/worldspecial/05CND-INTEL.html?ei=5007&en=fd803917a4f41612&ex=1383454800&partner=USERLAND&pagewanted=print&position=">Saddam
Hussein wanted to make a deal</a>…Iraqi officials, including the chief of the
Iraqi Intelligence Service, had told the businessman that they wanted
Washington to know that Iraq no longer had weapons of mass destruction,
and they offered to allow American troops and experts to conduct an independent
search." <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">"<a href="http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/06/15/1896">Iraq submitted a
report to the UN</a>, as required, indicating that it possessed no weapons of
mass destruction. The Bush administration immediately and definitively asserted
that Saddam was lying," but <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/02/bush-oral-history200902">according</a> to
Hans Blix, the inspections were bearing Iraq’s claims out: “What you can
do is to say that we have performed 700 inspections in some 500 different
sites, and we have found nothing, and we are ready to continue…If we had been
allowed to continue a couple of months, we would have been able to go to all of
the some hundred sites suggested to us, and since there weren’t any weapons of
mass destruction, that’s what we would have reported.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Around the same time, Dick Cheney <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A10272-2004Sep9?language=printer">appeared</a> on
Meet the Press. When asked by host Tim Russert about the possibility of
an insurgency after the invasion and a drawn out war, Cheney responded “I
don't think it's likely to unfold that way, Tim, because I really do believe we
will be greeted as liberators." (333) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Two days before the invasion, Bush gave Saddam Hussein two
days to leave, said "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments
leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of
the most lethal weapons ever devised," and again conveyed the false impression
that he was threatening war as a last resort: "Should Saddam Hussein
choose confrontation, the American people can know that every measure has been
taken to avoid war and every measure will be taken to win it."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Soon after a lightning quick attack and occupation, Iraq’s
National Museum was looted in full sight of the U.S. military, who did nothing
to stop the pillaging (334). When asked about this negligence,
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld shrugged it off with the words, “Stuff
happens.” The initial looting would be only the first example of a
major <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/4710/chalmers_johnson_on_robbing_the_cradle_of_civilization">assault</a> on
some of the world’s oldest, most precious antiquities and archeological digs
throughout Iraq.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">On March 30, Rumsfeld claimed of Iraq’s WMDs: “We know
where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west,
south and north somewhat (334).”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In early April, with its nuclear program still nascent, Iran “<a href="http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?articleId=11539">offered</a> a
dramatic set of specific policy concessions [to the Bush Administration,
including] an overall bargain on its nuclear program, its policy toward
Israel, and al-Qaeda.” The proposal was ignored by the Bush
Administration (335).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">On May 1, 2003, George W. Bush clambered aboard the U.S.S.
Abraham Lincoln in a flight suit, then gave a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFijzDyJnVE">speech</a> in which he
said that “major combat operations in Iraq have ended” while he stood
under a banner that read “Mission Accomplished (336).” In the middle of
that same month Bush’s people in the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA)
banned members of the Baath Party (Saddam Hussein’s party) that had constituted
the bulk of Iraq’s government bureaucracy from serving in significant positions
in Iraq’s reconstituted government (337) and <a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2173554/">disbanded</a> the Iraqi army,
which “put 250,000 young Iraqi men out of a job, out on the streets, angry, and
armed—and all but guaranteed the violent chaos to come (338).”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Moreover, “Most of the Americans sent to staff the Coalition
Provisional Authority (CPA) had <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/06/15/1896">no technical or
professional training</a> or experience in the work to which they were
assigned. Rather, they were chosen because they were Republican Party
loyalists (339).” </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">And, "in one of his last official acts before leaving
Baghdad, </span><a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/10/iraq_billions200710?printable=true&currentPage=all" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Bremer
issued</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> an order (340)—prepared by the Pentagon, he says—declaring
that all coalition-force members 'shall be immune from any form of arrest or
detention other than by persons acting on behalf of their Sending States.'
Contractors also got the same get-out-of-jail-free card. According to Bremer's
order, 'contractors shall be immune from Iraqi legal process with respect to
acts performed by them pursuant to the terms and conditions of a Contract or
any sub-contract thereto.' The Iraqi people, who had had no say over Saddam
Hussein's illegal conduct during his dictatorship, would have no say over
illegal conduct by Americans in their new democracy."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">These early decisions were harbingers of the many mistakes
the Bush Administration’s agents in Iraq would make in the nation-building
enterprise Bush had said he didn’t believe in as a candidate. According
to a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/14/world/middleeast/14reconstruct.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=print">thorough
recounting</a> of the Iraq reconstruction efforts in <i>the New York
Times</i>:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“An <a href="http://projects.nytimes.com/reconstruction">unpublished
513-page federal history</a> of the American-led reconstruction of Iraq
[written by a Republican lawyer] depicts an effort crippled before the invasion
by Pentagon planners who were hostile to the idea of rebuilding a foreign
country (341).” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-The plan became “a $100 billion failure [beset] by
bureaucratic turf wars, spiraling violence and ignorance of the basic elements
of Iraqi society and infrastructure (342).”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“…when the reconstruction began to lag—particularly in the
critical area of rebuilding the Iraqi police and army—the Pentagon simply put
out inflated measures (343) of progress to cover up the failures.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“In one passage, for example, former Secretary of State <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/colin_l_powell/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More articles about Colin L. Powell.">Colin L. Powell</a> is quoted
as saying that in the months after the 2003 invasion, the Defense Department
‘kept inventing numbers of Iraqi security forces—the number would jump 20,000
a week! We now have 80,000, we now have 100,000, we now have 120,000.’”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“In an illustration of the hasty and haphazard planning, a
civilian official at the United States Agency for International Development was
at one point given four hours to determine how many miles of Iraqi roads would
need to be reopened and repaired. The official searched through the agency’s
reference library, and his estimate went directly into a master plan (344).” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">While the Bush administration made a hash of things in Iraq,
they were covering their mistakes up back home, among other examples by <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1102-08.htm">banning</a> the
photographing of the coffins of returning soldiers (345).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">But Bush still appeared to have no second thoughts about his decision.
Four months after the invasion of Iraq, at an Israeli-Palestinian summit,
according to Nabil Shaath (then a Palestinian foreign minister), Bush said “I
am driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, 'George go and fight
these terrorists in Afghanistan.’ And I did. And then God would tell me
'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq.’ And I did (346)." And
according to <i>Washington Post</i> reporter Bob Woodward, “During a
December 2003 interview with Bush, I read to him a quote from his closest ally,
British Prime Minister <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Tony+Blair?tid=informline">Tony
Blair</a>, about the experience of receiving letters from family members of
slain soldiers who had written that they hated him. ‘And don't believe anyone
who tells you when they receive letters like that, they don't suffer any
doubt,’ Blair had said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">‘Yeah,’ Bush replied. ‘I haven't suffered doubt.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">‘Is that right?’ I asked. ‘Not at all?’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">‘No,’ he said.” (347)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/02/bush-oral-history200902?printable=true&currentPage=all">On
January 23, 2004</a>, “David Kay, the chief U.S. weapons inspector, resigns his
position, affirming his belief that no W.M.D. stockpiles will be found in Iraq;
the following week he discusses his conclusions at the White House. Nine months
later his successor, Charles Duelfer, will conclude officially that Iraq not
only did not possess W.M.D. but did not have an active program in place to
develop them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F02EED61230F935A15750C0A9629C8B63">On
March 25, 2004</a>, at the annual Radio and Television Correspondents
Association gathering, Bush “displayed a series of photos that showed him
searching the Oval Office, peering behind curtains and looking under the
furniture. A mock caption had Mr. Bush saying: ‘Those weapons of mass
destruction have got to be somewhere (348).” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In December of 2004, by which time it was common knowledge
that the war was not going well and had been sold to the public with false
claims, Bush awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to three of the war’s
architects, George Tenet, L. Paul Bremer, and Gen. Tommy Franks. (349)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The folly of the decision to go to war would become ever more
obvious in 2005 and 2006, with the onset of a civil war unleashed by the
invasion. Even as administration officials and other Republicans branded
their critics as “cut-and-run Defeatacrats” or appeasers that weren’t
“supporting the troops,” it was clear that the invasion was not improving
America’s security. In June 2006, Matthew Yglesias <a href="http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/38013/#comments">reported</a> in
the <i>American Prospect</i> eleven much more fundamental ways the Bush Administration
could’ve kept the U.S. safe with the money spent on Iraq and on 9/24/06, a
headline read “Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terrorism Threat.” (350)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Bush’s troop surge, initiated in early 2007, has brought
relative calm to Iraq, but even so, Iraq is a mess. Iraqis struggle with
50% unemployment (351), a lack of access to electricity (352) and
clean water (353), and a breakdown in institutions--including schools--
and basic public services (354), in part due to the <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26592174/">brain drain</a> (355) of
middle-class professionals precipitated by the invasion and subsequent civil
war. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Among the many other casualties of the Iraq War have been:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-Anywhere between 100,000 and one million-plus dead Iraqi
civilians and many times that injured (356), and four million
refugees (357)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-Over four thousand dead American troops (358), and
many times that injured, physically and psychologically (359)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-The U.S. military’s readiness <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/08/war-demands-strain-us-mil_n_85797.html">abroad</a> and <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/31/AR2008013101833.html">at
home</a> (360) and <a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2182752/">recruitment
standards</a> (361) are down<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-The gratuitous invasion of a muslim country has boosted
terrorist recruitment around the globe, coincided with <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/04/18/ST2008041800913.html">increased
suicide bombings</a>, and ruined our image abroad (362), though Barack
Obama’s ascension to office is certain to repair this to a degree. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-The opportunity costs of the war are immense. The money
spent on the war has <a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/loans/article/105909/States-That-Can%27t-Pay-for-Themselves">bled
the elemental priorities of a civilized society</a> back home (363),
translating into budget cuts for <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS156474+11-Feb-2008+PRN20080211">hospitals</a>,
shuttered libraries, collapsing bridges, closed nursing homes, and education
cuts, including pink slips for teachers. The time and energy sapped by
the Iraq excursion diverted the United States from far more pressing matters in
Afghanistan, where the Taliban are resurgent (364), Iran (365), which
is now as powerful as ever, swimming in oil revenues and moving toward a
nuclear program that could re-calibrate the whole balance of power in the Middle
East, and Pakistan (366), a nuclear-armed country that is <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22274">teetering on the brink of all-out
civil war</a> that threatens to engulf the whole region. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">As Ahmed Rashid put it in his recent book <i>Descent into Chaos</i>,
"the US-led war on terrorism has left in its wake a far more unstable world
than existed on that momentous day in 2001" and “Rather than diminishing,
the threat from al Qaeda and its affiliates has grown, engulfing new regions of
Africa, Asia, and Europe and creating fear among peoples from Australia to
Zanzibar. The US invasions of two Muslim countries...[has] so far failed to
contain either the original organization or the threat that now comes from its
copycats...in British or French cities who have been mobilized through the
Internet.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Not only has the war been a disaster, but it’s
crystal clear that the American public was lied into it.
Approximately one year ago, the Center for Public Integrity <a href="http://projects.publicintegrity.org/WarCard/">reported</a> on the
“orchestrated campaign” the administration deployed to lead “the nation to war
under decidedly false pretenses.” The Center found that key members of
the administration had made 935 false statements, including 260 from Bush (367),
254 from Colin Powell (368), 109 each from Donald Rumsfeld (369) and
the first White House spokesman Ari Fleischer (370), 86 from Deputy
Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz (371) , 56 from Condoleezza
Rice (372), and 14 from the second White House spokesman Scott
McLellan (373), who later admitted that the administration’s p.r. campaign
in defense of an invasion was “propaganda.” And yet, despite the
overwhelming evidence that the invasion was unnecessary, ill-advised, and
driven from moment one by Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld’s ulterior motives, Bush’s
sole regret in one of his exit interviews was that he “Wishes the intelligence
had been correct (374). ”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><b>W. WINS A SECOND TERM BY ATTACKING HIS OPPONENT (A DECORATED VETERAN) AS WEAK ON NATIONAL SECURITY & SYSTEMATICALLY SUPPRESSING THE DEMOCRATIC VOTE IN THE KEY STATE OF OHIO</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><i>“Nothing is more central to a functioning democracy than free
and fair elections.”</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-George W. Bush, in a <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-09-24-2439710439_x.htm">statement</a> to
the Iraqi Parliament (9/24/08)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><i>[Republican Congressman] <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dV67u370Pg">Peter King</a>: “It’s
already over. The election’s over. We won.”<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><i>Reporter: “How do you know that?”<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><i>King: “It’s all over but the counting, and we’ll take
care of the counting.”</i><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(<a href="http://www.solarbus.org/election/cd/test/videos.html">quoted
just over one year before the 2004 election at a White House event)</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><i>[Ohio Secretary of State and Bush campaign co-chair Kenneth]
“…Blackwell apparently seeks to accomplish the same result in Ohio in 2004 that
occurred in Florida in 2000.”</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-Federal Judge James Carr, commenting on Blackwell’s decision
to allow poll workers to determine whether or not voters not on the voter rolls
could receive provisional ballots<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Ohio was the pivotal
battleground state in the 2004 presidential election. As the lack of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq
and absence of a connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda became public knowledge,
the Bush Administration shifted the rationale of the war to a desire to
democratize the Middle East. At the same time, the Bush Administration
and its surrogates did everything they could to rig the election in Ohio. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Fortunately for George W. Bush, once again he had friends in
the right places: as had been the case in the deciding swing state of Florida in 2000,
Bush’s campaign co-chair in Ohio in 2004 just happened to be the Secretary of
State, the state’s top elections official. Going according to a familiar
script, Ohio’s Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell--whose personal
motto was "<a href="http://freepress.org/columns/display/3/2005/1049">A
passion for truth, a quest for excellence</a>”--made one decision after
another to benefit Bush (quoted text below is from “<a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/was_the_2004_election_stolen">Was
the 2004 Election Stolen</a>?” from <i>Rolling Stone</i>):<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-Prior to the 2004 election, Blackwell tried to mandate
electronic voting machines with no paper trail statewide, to be purchased from
Diebold, a machine manufacturer whose CEO Wally O'Dell had said in a 2003 Bush
fundraiser invitation that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its
electoral votes to the president next year (375)." [Republicans
backed down from this scheme, but they did succeed at getting Issue 1 (a
divisive constitutional amendment to force cities and universities to end
domestic partner benefits) on the Ohio ballot (376).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“Against a backdrop of record Democratic voter registrations
drives…Blackwell cited an arcane elections regulation to make it harder to
register new voters. In a now-infamous decree, Blackwell announced on September
7th [2004]—less than a month before the filing deadline—that election
officials would process registration forms only if they were printed on
eighty-pound unwaxed white paper stock, similar to a typical postcard (377)…He
further specified that any valid registration cards printed on lesser paper
stock that miraculously survived the shredding gauntlet at the post office were
not to be processed; instead, they were to be treated as applications for a
registration form, requiring election boards to send out a brand-new card (378)…Under
the threat of court action, Blackwell ultimately revoked his order on September
28th—six days before the registration deadline…But by then, the damage was
done. Election boards across the state, already understaffed and backlogged
with registration forms, were unable to process them all in time. According to
a statistical analysis conducted in May by the nonpartisan Greater Cleveland
Voter Coalition...a total of 72,000 voters were disenfranchised through
avoidable registration errors (379),” most of them Democrats. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“To stem the tide of new registrations, the Republican
National Committee and the Ohio Republican Party attempted to knock tens of
thousands of predominantly minority and urban voters off the rolls through illegal
mailings known in electioneering jargon as ‘caging (380).’ During the
Eighties…[the GOP] was forced to sign two separate court orders agreeing to
abstain from caging. But during the summer of 2004, the GOP targeted minority
voters in Ohio by zip code, sending registered letters to more than 200,000
newly registered voters in sixty-five counties…Notices to challenged voters
were not only sent out impossibly late in the process, they were mailed to the
very addresses that the Republicans contended were faulty (381).”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“On October 27th, ruling that the effort likely violated both
the ‘constitutional right to due process and constitutional right to vote,’
U.S. District Judge Susan Dlott put a halt to the GOP challenge—but not
before tens of thousands of new voters received notices claiming they were
improperly registered. Some election officials in the state illegally ignored
Dlott's ruling (382), stripping hundreds of voters from the rolls. In
Columbus and elsewhere, challenged registrants were never notified that the
court had cleared them to vote (383).”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“Republicans in Ohio also worked to deny the vote to citizens
who had served jail time for felonies. Although rehabilitated prisoners are
entitled to vote in Ohio, election officials in Cincinnati demanded that former
convicts get a judge to sign off before they could register to vote (384).”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“[Bush’s state campaign co-chair Kenneth] Blackwell permitted
election officials in Cleveland, Cincinnati and Toledo to conduct a massive
purge of their voter rolls, summarily expunging the names of more than 300,000
voters who had failed to cast ballots in the previous two national
elections (385). In Cleveland, which went five-to-one for Kerry, nearly
one in four voters were wiped from the rolls between 2000 and 2004.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">-“Blackwell worked from the beginning to curtail the
availability of provisional ballots. (The ballots are most often used to
protect voters in heavily Democratic urban areas who move often, creating more
opportunities for data-entry errors by election boards.) Six weeks before the
vote, Blackwell illegally decreed that poll workers should make on-the-spot
judgments as to whether or not a voter lived in the precinct, and provide
provisional ballots only to those deemed eligible (386).” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-Though Blackwell had allowed provisional ballots cast in
the wrong precinct to be counted in the 2004 Ohio primary, in the months just
prior to the 2004 presidential election he ruled that provisional ballots cast
in the wrong precinct would be invalidated (387). This move guaranteed
that Kerry votes (minorities and students in particular) would be disqualified
at a high rate, as city precincts were much more likely to have changed in the
2000 Census redistricting, low-income voters move with far greater frequency
than those further up the economic ladder, and some polling places had multiple
precincts within the same building. “On October 14th, Judge [James] Carr
overruled the order, but Blackwell appealed…[Blackwell] enjoyed the backing of
Attorney General John Ashcroft, who filed an amicus brief in support of
Blackwell's position—marking the first time in American history that the
Justice Department had gone to court to block the right of voters to vote (388).
The Sixth Circuit, stacked with four judges appointed by George W. Bush, sided
with Blackwell.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“A federal judge also invalidated a decree by Blackwell that
denied provisional ballots to absentee voters who were never sent their ballots
in the mail (389). But that ruling did not come down until after 3 P.M. on
the day of the election, and likely failed to filter down to the precinct level
at all—denying the franchise to even more eligible voters.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">George W. Bush also greatly benefited by the shortage of
voting machines in Democratic precincts, which produced unusually long
lines: “The long lines were not only foreseeable— they were actually
created by GOP efforts. Republicans in the state legislature, citing new
electronic voting machines that were supposed to speed voting, authorized local
election boards to reduce the number of precincts across Ohio. In most cases,
the new machines never materialized—but that didn't stop officials in twenty
of the state's eighty-eight counties, all of them favorable to Democrats, from
slashing the number of precincts by at least twenty percent (390).”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Also, as just one example of many, months before the 2004
election William Anthony (the chair of the Franklin County Board of Elections,
which includes Columbus, Ohio) had publicly requested more voting machines--due to a study showing that Franklin would need 5,000 voting machines (at the
time, Franklin had barely more than half that) to accommodate the county's 25%
increase in voter registration--but was turned down by Matt Damshroder, the
Republican head of the Franklin County Board of Elections (391).
Also, “According to <i>The Columbus Dispatch</i>, precincts that had gone seventy
percent or more for Al Gore in 2000 were allocated seventeen fewer machines in
2004, while strong GOP precincts received eight additional machines. An
analysis by voter advocates found that all but three of the thirty wards with
the best voter-to-machine ratios were in Bush strongholds; all but one of the
seven with the worst ratios were in Kerry country (392).”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“According to an investigation by <i>the Columbus Free Press</i>,
white Republican suburbanites, blessed with a surplus of machines, averaged
waits of only twenty-two minutes; black urban Democrats averaged three hours
and fifteen minutes.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This pattern generally held across the state: “Would-be
voters in Dayton and Cincinnati routinely faced waits as long as three
hours (393). Those in inner-city precincts in Columbus, Cleveland and
Toledo—which were voting for Kerry by margins of ninety percent or more—often waited up to seven hours . At [liberal] Kenyon College, students were
forced to stand in line for eleven hours before being allowed to vote, with the
last voters casting their ballots after three in the morning (394)…At
[Kenyon], where students had registered in record numbers, local election
officials provided only two voting machines to handle the anticipated surge of
up to 1,300 voters. Meanwhile, fundamentalist students at nearby Mount Vernon
Nazarene University had one machine for 100 voters and faced no lines at all.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“A five-month analysis of the Ohio vote conducted by the
Democratic National Committee concluded in June 2005 that three percent of
all Ohio voters who showed up to vote on Election Day were forced to leave
without casting a ballot (395). That's more than 174,000 voters. ‘The vast
majority of this lost vote,’ concluded the [the senior Democratic member of the
House Judiciary Committee John] Conyers <a href="http://www.academychicago.com/conyers.html">report</a>, ‘was concentrated
in urban, minority and Democratic-leaning areas.’”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“By midmorning, when it became clear that voters were dropping
out of line rather than braving the wait, precincts appealed for the right to
distribute paper ballots to speed the process. Blackwell denied (396) the
request, saying it was an invitation to fraud…As day stretched into evening,
U.S. District Judge Algernon Marbley issued a temporary restraining order
requiring that voters be offered paper ballots. But it was too late: According
to bipartisan estimates published in <i>the Washington Post</i>, as many as
15,000 voters in Columbus had already given up and gone home.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“The median turnout in Franklin County precincts won by Kerry
was fifty-one percent, compared to sixty-one percent in those won by Bush.
Assuming sixty percent turnout under more equitable conditions, Kerry would
have gained an additional 17,000 votes in the county.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Electronic voting machines around the state also magically
defaulted to Bush (397): “In heavily Democratic areas around
Youngstown, where nearly 100 voters reported entering ‘Kerry’ on the touch
screen and watching ‘Bush’ light up, at least twenty machines had to be
recalibrated in the middle of the voting process for chronically flipping Kerry
votes to Bush” and “an electronic machine at a fundamentalist church in the
town of Gahanna recorded a total of 4,258 votes for Bush and 260 votes for Kerry.
In that precinct, however, there were only 800 registered voters.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In other Bush-friendly oddities, in Coshocton County, write-in
votes for Kerry defaulted to Bush when run through voting machines (398),
in Trumbull County, voters testified that they had received punchcard ballots
with Bush's name already punched in (399), and in Mahoning County, 25-30
electronic voting machines had to be recalibrated following numerous reports of
votes hopping from Kerry to Bush (400).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Moreover, “some 95,000 ballots in Ohio recorded no vote for
president at all—most of them on punch-card machines. Even accounting for the
tiny fraction of voters in each election who decide not to cast votes for
president—generally in the range of half a percent, according to Ohio State
law professor and respected elections scholar Dan Tokaji—that would mean that
at least 66,000 votes were invalidated by faulty voting equipment…Most of the
uncounted ballots occurred in Ohio's big cities,” treasure troves of votes for
John Kerry (401). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“On the evening of the vote, reporters at each of the major
networks were briefed by pollsters at 7:54 P.M. Kerry, they were informed, had
an insurmountable lead and would win by a rout: at least 309 electoral votes to
Bush's 174, with fifty-five too close to call…Based on exit polls, CNN had
predicted Kerry defeating Bush in Ohio by a margin of 4.2 percentage points.
Instead, election results showed Bush winning the state by 2.5 percent…The
greatest disparities between exit polls and the official vote count came in
Republican strongholds. In precincts where Bush received at least eighty
percent of the vote, the exit polls were off by an average of ten percent. By
contrast, in precincts where Kerry dominated by eighty percent or more, the
exit polls were accurate to within three tenths of one percent—a pattern that
suggests Republican election officials stuffed the ballot box in Bush country.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(402) “…in twelve sparsely populated counties scattered
across southern and western Ohio: Auglaize, Brown, Butler, Clermont, Darke,
Highland, Mercer, Miami, Putnam, Shelby, Van Wert and Warren…John Kerry's
numbers were suspiciously low in each of the twelve counties—and George
Bush's were unusually high…Kerry tallied 667,000 more votes for president than
[Democratic candidate Ellen] Connally did for chief justice, outpolling her by
a margin of thirty-two percent [statewide]. Yet in these twelve off-the-radar
counties, Connally somehow managed to outperform the best-funded Democrat in
history, thumping Kerry by a grand total of 19,621 votes.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">At the same time, “Statewide, the president outpolled Thomas
Moyer, the Republican judge who defeated Connally, by twenty-one percent. Yet
in the twelve questionable [Republican] counties, Bush's margin over Moyer was
fifty percent—a strong indication that the president's certified vote total
was inflated. If Kerry had maintained his statewide margin over Connally in the
twelve suspect counties, as he almost assuredly would have done in a clean
election, he would have bested her by 81,260 ballots. That's a swing of 162,520
votes from Kerry to Bush—more than enough to alter the outcome.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“In Clermont County…sworn affidavits by election observers
given to the House Judiciary Committee describe ballots on which marks for Kerry
were covered up with white stickers, while marks for Bush were filled in to
replace them (403).”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“In Miami County, where [Democratic State Supreme Court
candidate Ellen] Connally outpaced Kerry, one precinct registered a turnout of
98.55 percent—meaning that all but ten eligible voters went to the polls on
Election Day. An investigation by <i>the Columbus Free Press</i>, however, collected
affidavits from twenty-five people who swear they didn't vote (404).”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Ohio, like several other states, had an initiative on the
ballot in 2004 to outlaw gay marriage. Statewide, the measure proved far more
popular than Bush, besting the president by 470,000 votes. But in six of the
twelve suspect counties—as well as in six other small counties in central
Ohio—Bush outpolled the ban on same-sex unions by 16,132 votes. To trust the
official tally, in other words, you must believe that thousands of rural
Ohioans voted for both President Bush and gay marriage (405).”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Immediately after the polls closed on Election Day, GOP
officials—citing the FBI—declared that [Warren] county was facing a
terrorist threat that ranked ten on a scale of one to ten. The county
administration building was hastily locked down, allowing election officials to
tabulate the results without any reporters present…In fact, there was no
terrorist threat. The FBI declared that it had issued no such warning (406),
and an investigation by<i> The Cincinnati Enquirer</i> unearthed e-mails showing that
the Republican plan to declare a terrorist alert had been in the works for
eight days prior to the election. Officials had even refined the plot down to
the language they used on signs notifying the public of a lockdown (407).”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“A review of the available data reveals that in Ohio alone, at
least 357,000 voters, the overwhelming majority of them Democratic, were
prevented from casting ballots or did not have their votes counted in 2004…In
what may be the single most astounding fact from the election, one in every
four Ohio citizens who registered to vote in 2004 showed up at the polls only
to discover that they were not listed on the rolls, thanks to GOP efforts to
stem the unprecedented flood of Democrats eager to cast ballots.” (408)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">***<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Late on election night, Kenneth Blackwell stepped before the
cameras and said "<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/11/03/ohio.blackwell/index.html">This
has been a good day for Ohio</a>." Not long after the election,
the Green and Libertarian Party presidential candidates filed for a recount in
Ohio. Kenneth Blackwell issued two orders: 1) that ballots had to be locked
up/could not be examined by public interest groups until the recount, which 2)
would not begin until the electoral votes had been certified for Bush (409).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">On the same day that electors cast their votes for Bush, a
lawsuit was filed in federal court alleging that Kerry would have won in a
fairly administered, fully-funded election. Richard Hayes Phillips, a PHD in
Geomorphology, filed a suit in which he tabulated projected vote losses for
Kerry in uncounted ballots (16,650), provisional ballots (5,370), Cleveland
(17,500), Columbus (17,000), Toledo (7,000), Butler/Clermont/Warren counties
(27,154), Miami County (6,000), and Mahoning (2,200), among other counties,
totaling 101, 020 votes. An addendum at the bottom of the filing added
possibilities of extra Bush votes in Butler County, to the tune of over 20,000
votes, enough in combination with the other projections to have handed the
presidency to Kerry.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Under state law, county boards of election were required to
randomly select three percent of their precincts and recount the ballots both
by hand and by machine…But election officials in Ohio worked outside the law to
avoid hand recounts. According to charges brought by a special prosecutor in
April [2006], election officials in Cleveland fraudulently and secretly
pre-counted precincts by hand to identify ones that would match the machine
count (410)…’If it didn't balance, they excluded those precincts,’ said
the prosecutor, Kevin Baxter, who has filed felony indictments against three
election workers in Cleveland. ‘They screwed with the process and increased the
probability, if not the certainty, that there would not be full, countywide
hand count.’”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“In Hocking County, deputy elections director Sherole Eaton
caught an employee of Triad— which provided the software used to count
punch-card ballots in nearly half of Ohio's counties—making unauthorized
modifications to the tabulating computer before the recount. Eaton told the
[Democrat John] Conyers committee that the same employee also provided county
officials with a ‘cheat sheet’ so that ‘the count would come out perfect and we
wouldn't have to do a full hand-recount of the county (411).’ After
Eaton blew the whistle on the illegal tampering, she was fired (412).”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“The same Triad employee was dispatched to do the same work in
at least five other counties. Company president Tod Rapp—who contributed to
Bush's campaign—has confirmed that Triad routinely makes such tabulator
adjustments to help election officials avoid hand recounts. In the end, every
county serviced by Triad failed to conduct full recounts by hand (413) .”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">George W. Bush officially won Ohio by 118,000 votes. In
the time since, the following things have happened:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“<a href="http://www.truthout.org/article/ohios-2004-presidential-election-records-are-destroyed-or-missing">On
Sept. 11, 2006</a>, U.S. District Judge Algenon Marbley ordered the election
boards ‘to preserve all ballots from the 2004 Presidential election, on paper
and in any other format, including electronic data, unless and until such time
otherwise instructed by this Court.’”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-In January of 2007, M.R. Kropko <a href="http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2007/Ohio-Election-Workers24jan07.htm">reported</a> that
“Two election workers were convicted Wednesday of rigging a recount of the 2004
presidential election to avoid a more thorough review in Ohio’s most populous
county.” (See #410 above)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-In July of 2007, Steven Rosenfeld of <i>Alternet</i> <a href="http://www.alternet.org/story/58328/?page=3">revealed</a> that
“Two-thirds of Ohio counties have destroyed or lost their 2004 presidential
ballots and related election records (414), according to letters from
county election officials to the Ohio Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner…The
lost records violate Ohio law, which states federal election records must be
kept for 22 months after Election Day, and a U.S. District Court order issued
last September that the 2004 ballots be preserved while the court hears a civil
rights lawsuit alleging voter suppression of African-American voters in
Columbus…The destruction of the election records also frustrates efforts by the
media and historians to determine the accuracy of Ohio's 2004 vote count,
because in county after county the key evidence needed to understand vote count
anomalies apparently no longer exists.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-On December 14, 2007, Greg Gordon of <i>McClatchy</i> <a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/130/story/23160.html">reported</a> that,
“The Justice Department's voting rights chief [John Tanner] stepped down Friday
amid allegations that he'd used the position to aid a Republican strategy to
suppress African-American votes (415)…Tanner has been enmeshed for months
in congressional investigations over his stewardship of the unit that was
established to protect minority-voting rights. He drew increased focus this
fall after he told a Latino group: ‘African-Americans don't become elderly the
way white people do. They die (416).’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-Earlier that year, Stephen Rosenfeld and Bob Fitrakis
had <a href="http://www.alternet.org/story/50941/network_hosting_attorney_scandal_e-mails_also_hosted_ohio%27s_2004_election_results/">reported</a> on
Alternet.com that “There is more than ample documentation to show that on
Election Night 2004, Ohio's ‘official’ Secretary of State website--which gave
the world the presidential election results-- was <a href="http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=http://election.sos.state.oh.us">redirected</a> from
an Ohio government server to a group of servers that contain scores of
Republican web sites, including the secret White House e-mail accounts that
have emerged in the scandal surrounding Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's
firing of eight federal prosecutors (see # 587)…The software created for the
Ohio secretary of state's Election Night 2004 website was created by GovTech
Solutions, a firm co-founded by longtime <a href="http://scoop.epluribusmedia.org/story/2007/4/2/6328/14926">GOP computing
guru</a> Mike Connell.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">-Late last year, Connell was in the hot seat over these
machinations, and was about to be grilled by election fraud attorneys if Bush’s
surge in Ohio on election night 2004 (which overperformed exit polls by over
six percentage points) had been tied to GOP control of official vote count
servers, but the answer to this question may never be known, as Connell </span><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/25/the-intriguing-death-of-t_n_153518.html" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">died
in a plane crash</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> on December 19th, 2008.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b>W. RUINS FEMA, SLASHES ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS FUNDING, IGNORES STORM WARNINGS, & LETS NEW ORLEANS DROWN</b></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><i>“...<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/02/opinion/02krugman.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print">make
appointments based on loyalty first and expertise second</a>.”</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-a message from the Heritage Foundation (a right-wing think
tank) to the incoming Bush Administration after the 2000 election<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><i>“I think we’ll look back on this period as one of the most
destructive periods in American public life . . . both in terms of policy and
process.”</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-Thomas E. Mann, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Brookings
Institution<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“The Federal Emergency Management Agency [FEMA] <a href="http://archive.salon.com/politics/war_room/2005/08/31/warnings/print.html">issued
a report</a> in early 2001 that identified the three catastrophes most
likely to hit the United States: a terrorist attack on New York, an earthquake
in San Francisco and a hurricane in New Orleans.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">And yet, despite this warning, “In 2002 the [Army] corps' [of Engineers]
chief <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0902-22.htm">resigned</a>,
reportedly under threat of being fired, after he criticized the [Bush]
administration's proposed cuts in the corps' budget, including flood-control
spending (417).”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">These cuts became even steeper after the Bush Administration invaded Iraq in 2003:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“<a href="http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0831-04.htm">The
Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in
Iraq</a>, as well as homeland security--coming at the same time as federal
tax cuts--was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the [New
Orleans] <i>Times-Picayune</i> from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost
of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars…In
early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed
spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed (418) for
Lake Pontchartrain [which borders New Orleans], according to a Feb. 16, 2004,
article, in <i>New Orleans City Business</i>.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“<a href="http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0831-04.htm">On
June 8, 2004</a>, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson
Parish, Louisiana, told the <i>Times-Picayune</i>: "It appears that the
money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and
the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy
that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make
the case that this is a security issue for us."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“The 2004 hurricane season was the worst in decades. In spite
of that, the federal government came back this spring [of 2005] with <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0831-04.htm">the steepest
reduction in hurricane and flood-control funding for New Orleans in history</a> (419).”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“The effects of the budget cuts at the Army Corps of Engineers
were severe.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In 2004, the Corps essentially stopped major work on the
now-breached levee system that had protected New Orleans from flooding. <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/headlines05/0901-01.htm">It
was the first such stoppage in 37 years, the <i>Times-Picayune</i> reported</a> (420).” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“The Army Corps' New Orleans office, facing a $71 million
cut, also <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/headlines05/0901-01.htm">eliminated
funds to pay for a study on how to protect the Crescent City from a Category 5
storm</a>, <i>New Orleans City Business</i> reported in June (421).” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">As George W. Bush was slashing funds that could’ve helped
protect New Orleans, his appointees were busy ruining the Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA). FEMA had been a well-oiled machine under Bill
Clinton appointee James Lee Witt, who had had disaster experience in
Arkansas, but Bush replaced Witt with Joe Allbaugh (422), who had no
disaster experience–though Allbaugh had served with distinction in his role
as a white collar thug in the successful GOP effort to shut down a vote recount
in Miami-Dade county in the 2000 election battle (see #59). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Allbaugh <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0908-03.htm">lowered expectations</a> of
what Bush’s FEMA could do as early as May 2001 when speaking before a Senate
appropriations subcommittee: “Many are concerned that federal disaster
assistance may have evolved into both an oversized entitlement program and a
disincentive to effective state and local risk management…Expectations of when
the federal government should be involved and the degree of involvement may
have ballooned beyond what is an appropriate level (423)." <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“At FEMA, Allbaugh <a href="http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/02/10/femas_unholy_trinity.php">launched</a> a
purge, forcing out many of the most experienced officials (424).
Allbaugh…also abandoned a recent agency tradition of hiring experienced
professionals and filled high FEMA positions with political operatives lacking
familiarity with emergency disaster management (425).” In addition, “FEMA
changed the way in which the agency handled contracts, awarding them to
numerous firms with political connections but little in the way of corporate
infrastructure to handle the work. Some of these recipients were merely
Enron-style shell corporations that subcontracted all the work to others,
keeping a sizable share of the profits (426).”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">On November 25, 2002, the Department of Homeland Security
(DHS) was formed. As part of the organization of DHS, FEMA was downgraded
from the cabinet status it had under Bill Clinton (427) and crowded
under DHS along with 22 other departments (428). Once under the DHS
umbrella, FEMA was underfunded (429) and disaster planning shifted from
natural disasters to terrorist attacks. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br />
On March 1, 2003 Michael Brown was appointed to replace Allbaugh as head of
FEMA. Brown had once been the commissioner of the International
Arabian Horse Association, but like Allbaugh, he had no disaster relief
experience (430). Meanwhile, Allbaugh “<a href="http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/02/10/femas_unholy_trinity.php">immediately
began setting up a network of lobbying interests</a> to benefit from his
connections. His clients quickly won major contracts from several government
agencies, notably the Brown-led FEMA (431).”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-<a href="http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/headlines05/0901-01.htm">In
2004</a>, “FEMA spent $250,000 to conduct an eight-day hurricane drill for a
mock killer storm hitting New Orleans. Some 250 emergency officials attended.
Many of the scenarios [that would happen after Hurricane Katrina], including a
helicopter evacuation of the Superdome, were discussed in that drill for a
fictional storm named Pam….[In 2005], the group was to design a plan to fix
such unresolved problems as evacuating sick and injured people from the
Superdome and housing tens of thousands of stranded citizens…Funding for that
planning was cut, said [Eric] Tolbert, the former FEMA disaster response
director (432).”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-In 2004, “James Lee Witt, who won bipartisan praise for his
leadership of the agency during the Clinton years, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/02/opinion/02krugman.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print">said</a> at
a Congressional hearing: ‘I am extremely concerned that the ability of our
nation to prepare for and respond to disasters has been sharply eroded. I hear
from emergency managers, local and state leaders, and first responders nearly
every day that the FEMA they knew and worked well with has now disappeared.’”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-In February 15, 2005, Michael Chertoff became Michael Brown’s
boss when he became the second head of the Department of Homeland
Security. Chertoff had no experience in disaster relief (433).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">***</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Hurricane_Katrina:_Weather_Warnings" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">On
Friday, August 26th, 2005</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">, “weather forecasters at </span><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=CNN" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;" title="CNN">CNN</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> predicted
that Katrina was aiming for Mississippi and Louisiana, which CNN </span><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/08/26/tropical.weather/" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;" title="http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/08/26/tropical.weather/">posted</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> online,
along with the weather warning that a ‘Deadly hurricane could hit again Monday
as a Category 4.’” That day, “a veteran FEMA employee arrived at the
newly activated Washington headquarters for the storm. Inside, </span><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/03/AR2005090301653_pf.html" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">there
was surprisingly little action</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">. ‘It was like nobody's turning the key to
start the engine,’ the official recalled (434).” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=FEMA" title="FEMA">FEMA</a>'s National Situation <a href="http://www.fema.gov/emanagers/2005/nat082705.shtm" title="http://www.fema.gov/emanagers/2005/nat082705.shtm">Update</a> for
Saturday, August 27, 2005, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Hurricane_Katrina:_FEMA">reported</a> that
Katrina had already become a Category 3 hurricane and that in
"anticipation of a possible landfall, Mississippi Governor <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Haley_Barbour" title="Haley Barbour">Haley Barbour</a> and Louisiana Governor <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Kathleen_Babineaux_Blanco&action=edit" title="Kathleen Babineaux Blanco">Kathleen Babineaux Blanco</a> declared
States of Emergency Friday.” George W. Bush stayed on vacation in
Crawford, Texas (435).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Hurricane_Katrina:_Weather_Warnings">At
4:00 PM on Sunday, August 28th</a>, ‘National Hurricane Center Meteorologist
Chris Lauer said Katrina was still on track to hit the New Orleans area as
a devastating Category 5 hurricane as its eye comes ashore’ on Monday morning,”
as reported by Gordon Russell for the [New Orleans] Times-Picayune.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">On the night of the 28th disaster officials had a video
conference with President Bush, who was still at his ranch in Crawford. <a href="http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002114558">According
to the AP</a>, “In dramatic and sometimes agonizing terms, federal disaster
officials warned President Bush and his homeland security chief before
Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees, put lives at risk
in New Orleans' Superdome and overwhelm rescuers, according to confidential
video footage,” yet “Bush's confidence on Aug. 28 starkly contrasts with the
dire warnings his disaster chief and a cacophony of federal, state and local
officials provided during the four days before the storm (436).”<br />
<br />
"Bush didn't ask a single question during the final briefing before
Katrina struck on Aug. 29 (437), but he assured soon-to-be-battered state
officials: 'We are fully prepared (438).'" [And stayed on
vacation, 439.]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">On Monday August 29th Katrina made landfall and the first
reports of water breaching levees came out. Rather than head to New
Orleans, Bush flew to Arizona to meet John McCain on an airport tarmac to <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/24/mccain-and-katrina-ravage_n_98470.html">grip
and grin over John McCain’s birthday cake</a> (440), then went to two
different stops to <a href="http://jrwebbproductions.com/shadow-media/Article850.html">plug</a> his
prescription drug plan (441).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">On Tuesday August 30th, “as New Orleans was drowning and DHS
[Department of Homeland Security] officials were still hours away from invoking
the department's highest crisis status for the catastrophe, some department
contractors </span><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/03/AR2005090301653_pf.html" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">found
an important e-mail</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> in their inboxes…Attached were two documents…that
spelled out in numbing, acronym-filled detail the planned ‘national
preparedness goal.’ The checklist, called a Universal Task List, appeared to
cover every eventuality in a disaster, from the need to handle evacuations to
speedy urban search and rescue to circulating ‘prompt, accurate and useful’
emergency information…But the documents were not a menu for action in the
devastated Gulf Coast. They were drafts, not slated for approval and release
until October, more than four years after 9/11 (442).”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/04/opinion/04rich.html">Meanwhile,
in California</a>, “After dispatching Katrina with a few sentences of sanctimonious
boilerplate (‘our hearts and prayers are with our fellow citizens’), [Bush]
turned to his more important task. The war in Iraq is World War II. George W.
Bush is F.D.R. And anyone who refuses to stay his course is soft on terrorism
and guilty of a pre-9/11 ‘mind-set of isolation and retreat (443).’"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">"Yet even as Mr. Bush promised ‘victory’ (a word used
nine times in this speech on Tuesday), he was standing at the totemic scene of
his failure. It was along this same San Diego coastline that he declared
‘Mission Accomplished’ (see #336) in Iraq on the aircraft carrier Abraham
Lincoln more than two years ago. For this return engagement, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/30/AR2005083001078.html"><i>the Washington
Post</i> reported</a>, the president's stage managers made sure he was
positioned so that another hulking aircraft carrier nearby would stay
off-camera, lest anyone be reminded of that premature end of ‘major combat
operations (444).’”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Later that day, as New Orleans was suffering the worst natural
disaster since the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, Bush seized
another <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-corn/hurricane-katrina-and-bus_b_6618.html">fanciful
photo op</a> as he strapped a guitar on with country star Mark Wills at
his back (445). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Though the levees had been breached on Monday, Bush’s Homeland
Security Chief Michael Chertoff told the media, “It was on Tuesday that the
levee–may have been overnight Monday to Tuesday–that the levee started to
break. And it was midday Tuesday that I became aware of the fact that there was
no possibility of plugging the gap and that essentially the lake was going to
start to drain into the city (446).”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">On Wednesday, August 31st, “Even military resources in the
right place weren't ordered into action. ‘On Wednesday,’ said an editorial in
<i>The Sun Herald</i> in Biloxi, Miss., ‘reporters listening to horrific stories
of death and survival at the Biloxi Junior High School shelter looked north
across Irish Hill Road and saw Air Force personnel playing basketball and performing
calisthenics. <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views05/0902-22.htm">Playing
basketball and performing calisthenics!’</a> (447)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">That same day, George W. Bush made his first appearance at the
scene of the hurricane, 48 hours after the hurricane had made landfall (448).
Arianna Huffington <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/the-flyover-presidency-of_b_6566.html">spoke</a> for
many: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“The president's 35-minute Air Force One <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050831/pl_afp/usweatherbush_050831202845">flyover</a> of
Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama was the perfect metaphor for his entire
presidency: detached, disconnected, and disengaged. Preferring to take in
America's suffering--whether caused by the war in Iraq or Hurricane Katrina--from a distance. In this case, 2,500 feet.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Also on Wednesday, Karl Rove sent a message to Louisiana
Governor Kathleen Blanco suggesting she declare </span><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/04/AR2005120400963.html" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">martial
law</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> (449), Michael Chertoff said "We are extremely pleased with
the response of every element of the federal government (and) all of our
federal partners have made to this terrible tragedy" at a D.C. news
conference (450), and </span><a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=gxNlbTCdr5kC&pg=RA1-PA440&lpg=RA1-PA440&dq=%22Rice%22+AND+%22Katrina%22+AND+%22Broadway%22+AND+%22Spamalot%22&source=web&ots=cyVpx61RWJ&sig=eWWllogeDtW0LHlypQLYRUcNQ04&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=3&ct=result#PRA1-PA440" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> was spotted shopping at Salvatore Ferragama
on Fifth Avenue in New York, and </span><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/05/AR2005090500482.html" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">attended
the Broadway comedy Spamalot</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> that evening (451).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">On Thursday, September 1st, The Institute for Public Accuracy
put out a </span><a href="http://www.accuracy.org/newsrelease.php?articleId=1124&pf=yes" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">news
release</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> that provided another example of how the war of choice on Iraq
was contributing to the disaster in New Orleans. Nancy Lessin of Military
Families Speak Out said, “The numbers we have are that there are 11,000
National Guard personnel from Louisiana, of whom about 3,000 (452) are
in Iraq with most of the heavy equipment. This included generators and
high-water and other vehicles which could assist with the rescue effort (453)."
Lessin then lasered in on the human cost: “My daughter is in New Orleans
in a hotel with no plumbing and no electricity. Meanwhile, the residents of New
Orleans--particularly working and/or poor people--do not appear to be
having the rescue attempts that they desperately need right now."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">That same day, in a reprise of his purported astonishment that
anyone could use airplanes as a weapon, George W. Bush told an ABC interviewer
“I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees,” though this
possibility had been long known (454). Diane Sawyer later reported
that Bush had assured her after this appearance that despite the decimation of
a major American city, "There won't have to be tax increases (455)."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Also on the 1st, Dick Cheney came back from his
vacation. “[When] asked by reporter Roger Simon "why he did not
return from his vacation earlier than three days after the hurricane hit, the
vice president <a href="http://www.usnews.com/usnews/opinion/articles/050912/12simon.htm">replied</a>:
'I came back four days early (456).'”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Department of Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff “<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/04/opinion/04rich.html?pagewanted=2">told
NPR</a> that he had ‘not heard a report of thousands of people in the
convention center who don't have food and water’-- even though every television
viewer in the country had been hearing of those 25,000 stranded refugees for at
least a day (457) .”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">On Friday, September 2nd:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-President Bush’s allies at Fox News <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,168112,00.html">reported</a> that
“Evacuees who had taken refuge in the Superdome were waiting hours to get onto
buses that were taking them 350 miles away to the Houston Astrodome, which can
hold 27,000 people. Conditions in the Superdome had become horrendous: There
was no air conditioning, the toilets were backed up, and the stench was so bad
that medical workers wore masks as they walked around (458).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-Terry Ebbert, head of New Orleans' emergency operations,
warned that the slow evacuation at the Superdome had become an "incredibly
explosive situation," and he bitterly complained that FEMA was not
offering enough help. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">"</span><a href="http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,168112,00.html" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">This
is a national emergency. This is a national disgrace</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">," he said.
"FEMA has been here three days, yet there is no command and control (459).
We can send massive amounts of aid to tsunami victims, but we can't bail out the
city of New Orleans."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-Newt Gingrich, former Republican attack dog and Speaker of
the House <a href="http://politicalwire.com/archives/2005/09/02/gingrich_criticizes_bush_homeland_security.html">said</a> of the
federal government’s handling of Katrina, “I think it puts into question all of
the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Department_of_Homeland_Security" title="Department of Homeland Security">Homeland Security</a> and <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=U.S._Northern_Command" title="U.S. Northern Command">Northern Command</a> planning for the last
four years, because if we can't respond faster than this to an event we
saw coming across the Gulf for days, then why do we think we're prepared to
respond to a nuclear or biological attack (460)?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">President Bush finally made a visit to the disaster scene in
person four days after landfall (461), but it didn’t go so well. Dan
Froomkin, a blogger for <i>the Washington Post</i>, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/09/06/BL2005090600864_pf.html">provided</a> some
details: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“From a <a href="http://landrieu.senate.gov/releases/05/2005903E12.html">statement</a> by
[Louisiana] Sen[ator Mary] Landrieu about Bush's trip to New Orleans on Friday:
‘[P]erhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th Street
levee. Touring this critical site yesterday with the President, I saw what I
believed to be a real and significant effort to get a handle on a major cause
of this catastrophe. Flying over this critical spot again this morning, less
than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily
prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity; and the
desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single,
lonely piece of equipment (462).’”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“And <a href="http://www.nola.com/weblogs/print.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_Times-Picayune/archives/print076556.html">Michelle
Krupa</a> writes in <i>the New Orleans Times-Picayune</i>: ‘Three tons of
food ready for delivery by air to refugees in St. Bernard Parish and on Algiers
Point <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2005/09/07/bushs-visit-stopped-th_n_6976.html">sat</a> on
the Crescent City Connection bridge Friday afternoon as air traffic
was halted because of President Bush's visit to New Orleans, officials
said (463).’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Though FEMA Director Michael Brown had clearly made a <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/05/AR2005090501590_pf.html">mess</a> of
the federal government’s hurricane response to much human misery, and while
doing so had even “<a href="http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/1103051fema1.html">sent</a> a
series of embarrassing e-mails to colleagues discussing his appearance, the
care of his dog, and, as the storm was making landfall, his desire to
‘quit’ and ‘go home (464),’ Bush told Brown at a public appearance,
“"<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RO2xi0uLnj8">Brownie, you're
doing a heck of a job</a> (465).”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">***</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">The Monday following, September 5th, Bush “</span><a href="http://jrwebbproductions.com/shadow-media/Article850.html" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">skipped</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> the
hardest-hit coastal areas entirely (466), choosing instead to visit
Baton Rouge, the state capital about 80 miles northwest of New Orleans,
which sustained no damage. He also went to Poplarville, Miss., to walk the
streets of a middle-class neighborhood that seemed to suffer little more than
snapped trees, a couple off-kilter carport roofs and a downed power line or
two,” while his mother, Barbara Bush, </span><a href="http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001054719" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">said</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> of
the thousands of refugees stranded at the Houston Astrodome, “And so many of
the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them (467)."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Meanwhile, not happy with reality, the administration once
again attempted to contort perception with a full-court public relations blitz
in which they tried to keep the media from photographing </span><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/09/10/katrina.media/" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">the dead</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> (468),
sent administration principals out to disaster-stricken areas after the fact,
and </span><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/03/AR2005090301680.html" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">attempted
to shift the blame</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> (469) to state and local officials for the
catastrophe. Michael Brown did his part by resigning as head of
FEMA. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">As <i>New York Times</i> columnist Frank Rich <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/18/opinion/18rich.html">noted</a>, Bush
put his political strategist, Karl Rove, who had zero disaster experience,
“officially…in charge of the reconstruction effort (470). The two top
deputies at FEMA remaining after Michael Brown's departure, one of them a
former local TV newsman, are not disaster relief specialists but experts in
P.R., which they'd practiced as advance men for various Bush campaigns (471).”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In addition, Rich pointed out that, “<a href="http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_3004197"><i>The Salt Lake Tribune</i> discovered a
week after the hurricane</a> that some 1,000 firefighters from Utah and
elsewhere were sent not to the Gulf Coast but to Atlanta, to be trained as
‘community relations officers for FEMA’ rather than used as emergency workers
to rescue the dying in New Orleans. When 50 of them were finally dispatched to
Louisiana, the paper reported, their first assignment was ‘to stand beside
President Bush’ as he toured devastated areas (472).”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">But the <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views05/0917-20.htm">spinmeisters
couldn't save the day</a>: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“On Thursday night [ September 15,2005] , Mr. Bush wanted to
appear casually in charge as he waged his own Battle of New Orleans in Jackson
Square. Instead, he looked as if he'd been dropped off by his folks in front of
an eerie, blue-hued castle at Disney World. (Must be Sleeping Beauty's Castle,
given the somnambulant pace of W.'s response to Katrina.)”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“All Andrew Jackson's horses, and all the Boy King's men could
not put Humpty Dumpty together again. His gladiatorial walk across the darkened
greensward, past a St. Louis Cathedral bathed in moon glow from White House
klieg lights, just seemed to intensify the sense of an isolated, out-of-touch
president clinging to hollow symbols as his disastrous disaster agency
continues to flail.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“In a ruined city--still largely without power, stinking with
piles of garbage and still 40 percent submerged; where people are foraging in
the miasma and muck for food, corpses and the sentimental detritus of their
lives; and where unbearably sad stories continue to spill out about hordes of
evacuees who lost their homes and patients who died in hospitals without either
electricity or rescuers--isn't it rather tasteless, not to mention a waste of
energy, to haul in White House generators just to give the president a
burnished skin tone and a prettified background?” (473)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The catastrophic scale of the Bush Administration’s failure
was so obvious that post-mortems were going to press less than a week after
Katrina made landfall. From “<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/03/AR2005090301653.html">Storm
Exposed Disarray at the Top</a>,” printed in <i>the Washington Post</i> on
Sunday September 4th:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Despite four years and tens of billions of dollars spent preparing
for the worst, the federal government was not ready (474) when it
came at daybreak on Monday, according to interviews with more than a dozen
current and former senior officials and outside experts.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“…[Department of Homeland Security Head Michael] Chertoff
waited a crucial, unexplained 36 hours before declaring Katrina an ‘incident of
national significance,’ the trigger needed for federal action (475).”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“…several current and former senior officials charged that
[concerns about natural disasters] were never accorded top priority--either
by FEMA's management or their superiors in DHS…[DHS] emphasized terrorism at
the expense of other threats (476).”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“New leaders such as [Joe] Allbaugh were critical of FEMA's
natural disaster focus and lectured senior managers about the need to adjust to
the post-9/11 fear of terrorism.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“’Allbaugh's quote was 'You don't get it,' recalled the senior
FEMA official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. ‘If you brought
up natural disasters, you were accused of being a pre-9/11 thinker (477).’
The result, the official said, was that ‘FEMA was being taxed by the
department, having money and slots taken. Because we didn't conform with the
mission of the agency.’"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">"We are so much less than what we were in 2000,"
added another senior FEMA official. "We've lost a lot of what we were able
to do then."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“’What we were afraid of, and what is coming to pass, is that
FEMA has basically been destroyed as a coherent, fast-on-its-feet, independent
agency,’ said Rep. David E. Price (D-N.C.).”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Other officials said they were warned well before Monday [the
day the levees were breached] about what could happen. For years, said another
senior FEMA official, he had sat at meetings where plans were discussed to send
evacuees to the Superdome…But DHS did not ask the U.S. military to assist in
pre-hurricane evacuation efforts, despite well-known estimates that a major
hurricane would cause levees in New Orleans to fail (478).”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Others who went out of their way to offer help were turned
down, such as Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, who told reporters his city had
offered emergency, medical and technical help as early as last Sunday to FEMA
but was turned down. Only a single tank truck was requested, Daley said (479).”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Red tape kept the American Ambulance Association from sending
300 emergency vehicles from Florida to the flood zone, according to former
senator John Breaux (D-La.) They were told to get permission from the General
Services Administration. ‘GSA said they had to have FEMA ask for it,’ Breaux
told CNN. ‘As a result they weren't sent.’” (480)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">At the time, Republicans in Congress did the White House’s
bidding by stonewalling an independent investigation of the governmental
failures of Hurricane Katrina (481), but even <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/headlines06/0213-05.htm">the
report put out by Bush’s servants in the Republican Congress</a> was
unflattering to the White House:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“The response to Hurricane Katrina was ‘a national failure’
and ‘an abdication of the most solemn obligation to provide for the common
welfare.’”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“The report, entitled A Failure of Initiative…criticizes the
homeland security chief, Michael Chertoff, saying his detachment from events
led him to implement federal emergency response measures ‘late, ineffectively
or not at all.’”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“It adds that the White House did not ‘substantiate, analyze
and act on the information at its disposal.’ It also questions why the
‘untrained’ Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) chief, Michael Brown,
was selected to lead the response to the disaster, noting that he and the US
military set up rival chains of command.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Meanwhile, disgraced FEMA head Michael Brown <a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/28/fema_director_turns_pro/">opened
a disaster preparedness consulting business</a>. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><b>W. SETS NEW STANDARDS FOR GOVERNMENT INCOMPETENCE</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Unfortunately for the United States, George W. Bush’s
calamitous mishandling of Katrina was the administration’s <i>modus operandi</i>.
In September 2007, <i>Washington Post</i> blogger Dan Froomkin reported that
Pew Research Center public opinion polls in 2006 and 2007 showed that <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/09/24/BL2007092400717.html">the
number one word associated with Bush was "incompetent</a>.” (482)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">A thorough study (“<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/broken_government/articles/entry/1022/">Broken
Government</a>”) recently released by the non-partisan Center for Public
Integrity bore the public instinct out. In what is certainly an abbreviated
list, the study listed dozens of instances of the Bush Administration’s failure
of governance:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/broken_government/articles/entry/936/" title="45 million Americans">45 million Americans</a> without health
care (483)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/broken_government/articles/entry/1040/" title="1,273 whistleblower complaints">1,273 whistleblower complaints</a> filed
from 2002-2008 (484); 1,256 were dismissed (485)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/broken_government/articles/entry/914/" title="190,000 U.S.-supplied weapons">190,000 U.S.-supplied weapons</a> missing
in Iraq (486)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/broken_government/articles/entry/960/" title=" $212.3 million">$212.3 million</a> in overcharges by Halliburton
for Iraq oil reconstruction work (487)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/broken_government/articles/entry/978/" title="$9.91 billion">$9.91 billion</a> allocated for government secrecy in 2007—a
record (488)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/broken_government/articles/entry/1008/" title="809 government laptops">809 government laptops</a> with sensitive
information lost by the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, and Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (489)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/broken_government/articles/entry/1044/" title="30 million pounds of beef">30 million pounds of beef</a> recalled
in 2007 (490)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/broken_government/articles/entry/973/" title="$300 billion">$300 billion</a> over budget for Department of
Defense weapons acquisitions (491)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/broken_government/articles/entry/1003/" title="Less than 3 percent of U.S. electricity needs">Less than 3 percent of
U.S. electricity needs</a> met by alternative energy (492)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/broken_government/articles/entry/999/" title="2,145 troops killed and 21,000 injured">2,145 troops killed and 21,000
injured</a> in Iraq from March 2003 through November 1, 2008, by IEDs
(improvised explosive devices) and other explosives—many while troops awaited body
armor (493) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/broken_government/articles/entry/1002/" title="34.8 percent of oil used in America">34.8 percent of oil used in America</a> imported
during Nixon administration; 42.2 percent during first Gulf War; 59.9 percent
in 2006 (494)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/broken_government/articles/entry/1015/" title="$100 million">$100 million</a> for failed FBI computer
network (495)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/broken_government/articles/entry/979/" title="$100 billion in federal tax revenues">$100 billion in federal tax
revenues</a> lost annually to corporations using off-shore tax
shelters (496)<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/broken_government/articles/entry/940/" title="2.5 million toxic toys">2.5 million toxic toys</a> recalled in
summer of 2007 (497)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/broken_government/articles/entry/950/" title="$12.5 billion">$12.5 billion</a> spent on a defective National
Polar-Orbiting Environmental Satellite System (498)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/broken_government/articles/entry/1026/" title="$4 billion">$4 billion</a> spent to upgrade National Security Agency
computers that often crash, have trouble talking to each other, and lose key
intelligence (499)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/broken_government/articles/entry/1001/" title="60,000 flights">60,000 flights</a> made by 46 Southwest Airline
jets in violation of FAA safety directives due to lax FAA enforcement (500)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/broken_government/articles/entry/971/" title="12.8 percent job turnover">12.8 percent job turnover</a> at
Department of Homeland Security in 2006—double that of any other
cabinet-level agency (501)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/broken_government/articles/entry/985/" title="730,000 backlogged patent applications">730,000 backlogged patent
applications</a> (502)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/broken_government/articles/entry/1005/" title="20,000 U.S. deaths annually">20,000 U.S. deaths annually</a> from
lack of pollution controls on diesel vehicles and power plants (503)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/broken_government/articles/entry/1062/" title="60,000 newborns a year">60,000 newborns a year</a> at risk for
neurological problems due to mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants (504)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/broken_government/articles/entry/986/" title="Two-thirds fewer clean ups">Two-thirds fewer clean ups</a> of EPA
Superfund toxic waste sites during 2001-2006 than in previous six years (505)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-At least <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/broken_government/articles/entry/1011/" title="$500 million">$500 million</a> for FEMA trailers contaminated by
formaldehyde occupied by thousands displaced after Hurricane Katrina (506)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/broken_government/articles/entry/1050/" title="558 detainees">558 detainees</a> at Guantanamo detention facility
reduced to 255 after court-ordered case reviews (507)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/broken_government/articles/entry/1009/" title="26 percent of corporations holding at least $250 million in assets">26
percent of corporations holding at least $250 million in assets</a> audited
in 2006; percent audited in 1990: more than 70 percent (508). IRS audit
staff slashed by 30 percent (509)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/broken_government/articles/entry/1022/" title="$9 billion">$9 billion</a> in federal oil and gas royalties
mismanaged by agency linked to drug-and-sex scandal (510)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/broken_government/articles/entry/1052/" title="275 largest U.S. corporations">275 largest U.S. corporations</a> pay,
on average, about 17 percent in taxes in 2007, half the standard corporate tax
rate (511)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/broken_government/articles/entry/1055/" title=" $45 trillion">$45 trillion</a> in credit-default swaps, without
federal oversight, in 2007 (512)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/broken_government/articles/entry/1046/" title="760,800 disability claims">760,800 disability claims</a> backlogged,
awaiting hearings at Social Security Administration as of October 2008 (513)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/broken_government/articles/entry/1046/" title="806,000 Veterans Affairs disability claims">806,000 Veterans Affairs
disability claims</a> in 2006, up 39 percent since 2000; backlog reached
400,000 claims by February 2007 (514)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-<a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/broken_government/articles/entry/1043/" title="2,640 days">2,640 days</a> Osama bin Laden at large since September
11, 2001 (as of December 10, 2008) (515)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">As the report said, “Many of the failings are tied to Bush
appointees who appear to have been selected primarily on the basis of ideology
and loyalty, rather than competence. Every administration has its share of
political cronies, of course, but the examples of the past eight years seem
especially stark:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-a National Aeronautics and Space Administration inspector
general who blocked multiple investigations—conservative Republican Senator Charles
Grassley said of his leadership: “I thought he’d be gone by now. . . . You’d
like to have him get the message.” (516)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-a secretary of Housing and Urban Development who openly
encouraged his staff to consider political affiliation when awarding
contracts. (517)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-a team leading the Department of the Interior whose involvement in partisan political activity was so flagrant that the department’s own inspector
general noted that ‘short of a crime, anything goes at the highest levels of
the Department of the Interior.’ (518)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“The administration has also displayed what’s at best a
lukewarm interest in independent oversight, often siding with business over
consumers and special interests over the public. The results have had dramatic
consequences in a variety of sectors. Among the examples:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-an Environmental Protection Agency that largely ignored and
underutilized its own office and task force on children’s health, leaving the
governmental entity responsible for air quality and other regulations without
any “high-level infrastructure or mandate” to protect children. (519)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-a Food and Drug Administration unable to guarantee food and
drug safety—causing far-right Republican Congressman Joe Barton of Texas
to repeatedly blast the agency for “stonewalling, slow-rolling, and plain
incompetency.” (520)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-a Federal Labor Relations Board that in the past year has
been without a general counsel and the required quorum necessary to handle
hundreds of complaints regarding unfair labor practices. (521)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-Much of the function of the federal government shifted from
public employees to private contractors, as federal spending on contractors
nearly doubled from FY 2001 to FY 2006, jumping from $234.8 billion to $415
billion. These contracts often lacked competitive bidding processes and
effective oversight and suffered from cost overruns and poor execution. (522)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b>W. PROMISES TO RESTORE HONOR AND DIGNITY TO THE WHITE HOUSE AND INSTEAD ENGAGES IN BANANA REPUBLIC LEVELS OF CORRUPTION & GOVERNMENT SECRECY</b></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><i>“During the year and a half that I covered George W. Bush's
2000 presidential campaign, I must have heard his stump speech a thousand
times. The lines changed little over the months, and the ending almost never
changed--Bush would raise his hand, as if taking an oath, and promise to
restore honor and dignity to the White House.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><i>He also vowed to restore civility to the poisonous atmosphere
of the nation's capital, declaring at a GOP fundraiser in April 2000 that
"it's time to clean up the toxic environment in Washington, D.C."<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><i>A few months later, Bush told voters at a campaign event in
Pittsburgh that his administration would "ask not only what is legal but
what is right, not what the lawyers allow but what the public deserves."</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-<i>Washington Post</i> reporter Terry Neal, in “<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/18/AR2005101800410_pf.html">Bush
Should Live Up to 2000 Pledge</a>”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><i>"A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's
no question about it."</i><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-George W. Bush, <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/jul2001/nf20010730_347.htm"><i>Business
Week</i>, July 30, 2001</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Despite what he promised on the campaign
trail, George W. Bush quickly established his administration’s
penchant for secrecy and being above the law. Early in the administration,
Bush reversed Clinton policy on the Freedom of Information Act to narrow the
circumstances under which documents would be open to the public (539).
In a similar vein, Bush rewrote the Presidential Records Act by executive
fiat: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“<a href="http://jonathanturley.org/2007/08/22/bush-presidential-records-act-and-history/">President
Bush became intimately familiar with this position</a> [the national
Archivist] when the Archivist sent him a little notice that he was preparing to
release the presidential papers of President Ronald Reagan on January 20, 2001.
This was done under the Presidential Records Act, which mandates the release of
unclassified records at the end of a twelve-year period. Not only do some of
these documents involve President Bush’s father, George H.W. Bush, but they
also involve over a dozen current high-ranking officials, including
Vice-President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Colin Powell. Historians are
particularly interested in the material to shed further light on the Iran-Contra
scandal as well as other controversies that led to the conviction of various
Reagan Administration officials…After a series of delays (540)to review
the material, President Bush responded with an executive order that effectively
rewrites <a href="http://jonathanturley.org/2007/08/22/bush-presidential-records-act-and-history/">the
Presidential Records Act</a> in its inverse image (541), converting
the Act from a measure guaranteeing public access to one that blocks such
access. The order strips the Archivist of authority to give the public access
to these papers and gives a former president the ability to indefinitely delay
their release.” [Bush also requested a Freedom of Information exemption for the
Department of Homeland Security (542)]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Also, “[the Bush] administration <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0419-06.htm">has asserted that
the president is perfectly free to violate federal laws</a> on such
matters as domestic surveillance and the torture of detainees. When Congress
has passed legislation to limit those assertions, Bush has resorted to issuing
constitutionally dubious ‘signing statements,’ which declare, by fiat, how he
will interpret and execute the law in question, even when that interpretation
flagrantly violates the will of Congress (543).” ["Minimum number of
laws that Bush signing statements have <a href="http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/01/0082319">exempted</a> his
administration from following: 1,069"]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">As late as December of 2008, Bush was still at it, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stanley-kutler/bushs-11th-hour-bid-for-s_b_147494.html">trying
to keep records of his administration’s activities from the public</a> (544):
“…the Bush administration may be determined to make one last play for secrecy
by taking its records and storing them in a Dallas warehouse, pending a Bush
library. In these waning weeks, a group of us is locked in legal combat with
Vice President Dick Cheney and his corps of unseen advisers, seeking an
injunction to prevent them from leaving office with their e-mail
records...Cheney and his team are resisting at every turn, following a strategy
of running out the clock and thereby implicitly admitting their intention to
destroy or take their records.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">At the same time as the Bush Administration fought government
transparency tooth and nail, it leveled a major assault on civil liberties,
first and foremost with the Patriot Act of 2001 (545), which “[<a href="http://www.aclu.org/safefree/resources/17343res20031114.html">gave] the
government the power to access to your medical records, tax records,
information about the books you buy or borrow without probable cause, and the
power to break into your home and conduct secret searches without telling you
for weeks, months, or indefinitely</a>.” According to the ACLU, the
Patriot Act violates half of the amendments in the Bill of Rights. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Not several weeks after the Patriot Act was passed, Bush’s
Attorney General John Ashcroft <a href="http://www.slate.com/?id=2059538">told</a> the
Senate Judiciary Committee: "To those who scare peace-loving people
with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid
terrorists—for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve.
They give ammunition to America's enemies and pause to America's friends (546)."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In addition, Bush <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/16/politics/16program.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print">authorized</a> secret
spying on citizens without court orders (547). Roughly two years later, “On
the night of March 10, 2004, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/15/AR2007051500864.html">as
Attorney General John D. Ashcroft lay ill in an intensive-care unit</a>, his
deputy, James B. Comey, received an urgent call…White House Counsel
Alberto R. Gonzales and President Bush’s chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr.,
were on their way to the hospital to persuade Ashcroft to reauthorize Bush's
domestic surveillance program, which the Justice Department [over which
Ashcroft had purview] had just determined was illegal (548)."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“In vivid testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee
yesterday, Comey said he alerted FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and raced,
sirens blaring, to join Ashcroft in his hospital room, arriving minutes
before Gonzales and Card. Ashcroft, summoning the strength to lift his head and
speak, refused to sign the papers they had brought. Gonzales and Card, who had
never acknowledged Comey's presence in the room, turned and left.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Later, when the Bush Administration discovered that <i>The New
York Times</i> was going to out their domestic spying, they tried to kill the
story and told the editor of <i>the New York Times</i> “You’ll have blood on
your hands” when it became obvious that freedom of the press would win the
day (549). At the time the story came out, “Bush said in a statement
that only people in the United States who were talking with terrorists overseas
would have been targeted for surveillance,” but on Obama’s first day in office
a whistleblower <a href="http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/01/nsa-whistleblow.html">revealed</a> that
“in truth, the spying involved a dragnet of all communications”…‘The National
Security Agency had access to all Americans' communications,’ he said. ‘Faxes,
phone calls and their computer communications…They monitored all
communications.’”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Bush’s people also proposed the The Terrorism Information and
Prevention System (TIPS), a program that, as the normally staid <i>Boston Globe</i>
put it, “<a href="http://www.villagevoice.com/2002-08-06/news/ashcroft-s-master-plan-to-spy-on-us/1">is
a scheme that Joseph Stalin would have appreciated</a>. Plans for its pilot
phase, to start in August, have Operation TIPS recruiting a million letter
carriers, meter readers, cable technicians, and other workers with access to
private homes as informants to report to the Justice Department any activities
they think suspicious (550)." To run TIPS, Bush <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2002/12/09/021209ta_talk_hertzberg">exhumed</a> John
Poindexter, who had been at the center of the Iran-Contra scandal in the
eighties (551). [TIPS was later abandoned when even many Republicans
said it went too far.]</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>
W., SELF-PROCLAIMED CHRISTIAN, PRACTICES TORTURE & LIES ABOUT IT</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Though he famously told Katie Couric “<a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/09/06/eveningnews/main1979106.shtml">We
don’t torture</a>,” among the things George W.
Bush will be best known for is his administration’s plunge into the draconian
policy of torture (552). In June of 2006, in the case of <i>Hamdan v.
Rumsfeld</i>, the Supreme Court ruled that George W. Bush’s policy of indefinite
detention of enemy combatants was unconstitutional. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Eager to reverse this rare limitation on <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19092">Bush’s expansive executive power</a> and
milk their “toughness on terrorism” theme to the max just before the
upcoming congressional elections, the Republican Congress drew up a bill (The
Military Commissions Act of 2006) which opened the way for the steamrolling of
the Geneva Conventions, the gold standard of international human rights, by
allowing the government to inflict “serious pain”--though they drew
the line at “severe pain.” The bill also gutted Habeas Corpus (553),
the <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0928-20.htm">800 year-old
legal principle</a> that the government must bring charges against someone
under arrest or let them go, denied the right to appeal in the federal courts,
allowed the gathering of evidence without a warrant, and gave retroactive
immunity to members of the CIA who had engaged in torture (during the 200 or
more <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2008/03/disappearing-act.html">extraordinary
renditions</a> of prisoners to foreign countries with more lenient laws),
though CIA director Porter Goss had <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/11/21/politics/main1063381.shtml">said</a> a
year earlier that the CIA didn’t engage in torture. [In 2008, the
Republican-dominated Supreme Court voided the bill’s provisions on Habeas
Corpus.] <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">On December 13th, 2008, Scott Horton <a href="http://harpers.org/archive/2008/12/hbc-90004012">reported</a> in
<i>Harper’s</i> that the Senate Armed Services Committee had released a report--that
had the unanimous backing of all committee members, Republican and
Democrat--which “concluded that Donald Rumsfeld and other high-level officials
of the administration consciously adopted a policy for the torture and abuse of
prisoners held in the war on terror” and “enlisted ethics-challenged lawyers to
craft memoranda designed to give torture ‘the appearance of
legality’ (554) as part of a scheme to create the torture program
despite internal opposition.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Among other findings, the report “[looked] into the use of
psychotropic drugs which were, with Donald Rumsfeld’s approval, routinely
administered to prisoners in order to facilitate their interrogation” and
“torture techniques…[that] were reverse engineered from the SERE program—used
to prepare American pilots to resist interrogation techniques used by the Soviets,
North Koreans, Chinese and North Vietnamese. By ‘reverse engineering,’ we mean
[the United States] was adopting the techniques used by the nation’s Communist
adversaries in prior generations.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Moreover, “…when photos and other evidence of abuse first
surfaced, the Bush Administration firmly denied any connection between their
policies and the abuse (555), then attempted to scapegoat a group of more
than a dozen young recruits (556).”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">While the administration had claimed all along that torture
was necessary to keep us safe, the bipartisan report said that “The
administration’s policies concerning [torture] and the resulting controversies
damaged our ability to collect accurate intelligence that could save lives,
strengthened the hand of our enemies, and compromised our moral authority (557).”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<b style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">THE MOST CORRUPT ADMINISTRATION IN U.S. HISTORY?</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Torture was only one of the most visible malignancies that
grew from the Bush Administration’s cancerous core. As Bush was about to
start a second term, <i>Salon</i> posted <a href="http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2005/01/18/scandal/print.html">a
lengthy scandal sheet from just Bush’s first term</a> which included the
following, as quoted from the original:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">-Memogate: The Senate Computer Theft (558)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The scandal: From 2001 to 2003, Republican staffers on the
Senate Judiciary Committee <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A31803-2004Mar4?language=printer">illicitly
accessed</a> nearly 5,000 computer files containing confidential Democratic
strategy memos about President Bush's judicial nominees. The GOP used the memos
to shape their own plans and leaked some to the media.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The problem: The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act states it is
illegal to obtain confidential information from a government computer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-Halliburton's No-Bid Bonanza (559)<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The scandal: In February 2003, Halliburton [Vice President
Dick Cheney’s former employer] received a five-year, $7 billion no-bid contract
for services in Iraq.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The problem: The Army Corps of Engineers' top contracting
officer, Bunnatine Greenhouse, objected to the deal, saying the contract should
be the standard one-year length, and that a Halliburton official should not
have been present during the discussions.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The outcome: The FBI is <a href="http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20041029/news_1n29halli.html">investigating.</a> The
$7 billion contract was halved and Halliburton won one of the parts in a public
bid. For her troubles, Greenhouse has been forced into <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/10/28/national/main652183.shtml">whistle-blower
protection.</a> [Alan Grayson, a Washington, D.C., lawyer for
whistle-blowers who have worked for American contractors in Iraq, says simply
that during that first year under the Coalition Provisional Authority (see #s
337-340) Iraq <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/10/iraq_billions200710?printable=true&currentPage=all">was
turned into "a free-fraud zone."</a>]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-Halliburton: Pumping Up Prices (560)<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The scandal: In 2003, Halliburton <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1220-07.htm">overcharged the army</a> for
fuel in Iraq. Specifically, Halliburton's subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root
hired a Kuwaiti company, Altanmia, to supply fuel at about twice the going
rate, then added a markup, for an overcharge of at least $61 million, according
to a December 2003 Pentagon audit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The problem: That's not the government's $61 million, it's our
$61 million.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-Halliburton's Vanishing Iraq Money (561)<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The scandal: In mid-2004, Pentagon auditors determined that
$1.8 billion of Halliburton's charges to the government, about 40 percent of
the total, <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/10/25/national/main651124.shtml">had
not been adequately documented.</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The problem: That's not the government's $1.8 billion, it's
our $1.8 billion.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-Money Order: Afghanistan's Missing $700 Million Turns Up in
Iraq (562)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The scandal: According to Bob Woodward's “Plan of Attack,” the
Bush administration diverted <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/074325547X/104-9041385-1182366?v=glance">$700
million in funds</a> from the war in Afghanistan, among other places, to
prepare for the Iraq invasion.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The problem: Article I, Section 8, Clause 12 of the U.S.
Constitution specifically gives Congress the power "to raise and support
armies." And the emergency spending bill passed after Sept. 11, 2001,
requires the administration to notify Congress before changing war spending
plans. That did not happen.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The outcome: [a Republican] Congress declined to investigate.
The administration's main justification for its decision has been to claim the
funds were still used for, one might say, Middle East anti-tyrant-related
program activities.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-Iraq: More Loose Change (563)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The scandal: The inspector general of the Coalition
Provisional Authority in Iraq <a href="http://www.cpa-ig.com/audit_reports.html">released a series of reports</a> in
July 2004 finding that a significant portion of CPA [Coalition Provisional
Authority, the governing body the Bush Administration established in Iraq after
the invasion] assets had gone missing -- 34 percent of the materiel controlled
by Kellogg, Brown & Root -- and that the CPA's method of disbursing $600
million in Iraq reconstruction funds "did not establish effective controls
and left accountability open to fraud, waste and abuse."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The problem: As much as $50 million of that money was
disbursed without proper receipts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-Wiretapping the United Nations (564)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The scandal: Before the United Nations' vote on the Iraq war,
the United States and Great Britain developed an eavesdropping operation
targeting diplomats from several countries.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">T</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">he problem: U.N. officials say the practice is illegal
and </span><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/3490924.stm" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">undermines
honest diplomacy,</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> although some observers claim it is business as
usual on East 42nd Street.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-The Medicare Bribe Scandal (565)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The scandal: According to former Rep. Nick Smith (R-Mich.), on
Nov. 21, 2003, with the vote on the administration's Medicare bill hanging in
the balance, <a href="http://www.democrats.org/blog/comment/00010407.html">someone
offered</a> to contribute $100,000 to his son's forthcoming congressional
campaign, if Smith would support the bill. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The problem: Federal law prohibits the bribery of elected
officials.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-Busy, Busy, Busy in New Hampshire (566)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The scandal: In 2002, with a tight Senate race in New
Hampshire, Republican Party officials paid a Virginia-based firm, GOP
Marketplace, to enact an Election Day scheme meant to depress Democratic
turnout by "jamming" the Democratic Party phone bank with continuous
calls for 90 minutes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The problem: Federal law prohibits the use of telephones to
"annoy or harass" anyone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The outcome: Chuck McGee, the former executive director of the
New Hampshire GOP, pleaded guilty in July 2004 to a felony charge, while Allen
Raymond, former head of GOP Marketplace, pleaded guilty to a similar charge in
June. In December, James Tobin, former New England campaign chairman of
Bush-Cheney '04, <a href="http://www.boston.com/news/local/new_hampshire/articles/2004/12/14/former_bush_campaign_official_indicted_for_phone_jamming/">was
indicted for conspiracy</a> in the case. [AP would later report that “<a href="http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0411-01.htm">Phone-Jamming
Records Point to White House</a>”]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-The Medicare Money Scandal (567)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The scandal: Thomas Scully, Medicare's former
administrator, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A6339-2004Mar18?language=printer">supposedly
threatened</a> to fire chief Medicare actuary Richard Foster to prevent
him from disclosing the true cost of the 2003 [Republican prescription drug]
Medicare bill.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The problem: Congress voted on the bill believing it would
cost $400 billion over 10 years. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The program is more likely to cost $550
billion.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-The Bogus Medicare "Video News Release" (568)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The scandal: To promote its Medicare bill, the Bush
administration <a href="http://www.gao.gov/decisions/appro/302710.htm">produced
imitation news-report videos</a> touting the legislation. About 40 television
stations aired the videos. More recently, similar videos promoting the
administration's education policy have come to light.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The problem: The administration broke two laws: One forbidding
the use of federal money for propaganda, and another forbidding the
unauthorized use of federal funds.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The outcome: In May 2004, the GAO concluded the administration
acted illegally, but the agency lacks enforcement power.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-Pundits on the Payroll: The Armstrong Williams Case (569)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The scandal: The Department of Education <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-01-06-williams-whitehouse_x.htm">paid
conservative commentator</a> Armstrong Williams $240,000 to promote its
educational law, No Child Left Behind.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The problem: Williams did not disclose that his support was
government funded until the deal was exposed in January 2005.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Bush’s second term provided more of the same:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“<a href="http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0502/S00178.htm">A
Gay Prostitute Inside Bush's Inner Media Circle</a>” (570)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“<a href="http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/headlines05/0920-07.htm">Ex-White
House Aide Charged in Corruption Case</a>”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“A senior White House budget official who resigned abruptly
last week was arrested Monday on charges of lying to investigators (571) and
obstructing a federal inquiry involving Jack Abramoff (572), the
Republican lobbyist who has been under scrutiny by the Justice Department for
more than a year.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/10/AR2006031002328.html">Former
Top Bush Aide Accused of Md. Thefts</a>: Refund Scam Netted $5,000,
Police Say (573)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“<a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aDEFglvTOtRc&refer=home">Abramoff,
Associates Claimed 485 White House Contacts</a>”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Though the administration had tried to downplay their
closeness to him, Lobbyist Jack Abramoff [who had received </span><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4856470.stm" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">70 months in prison in
March of 2006 for conspiracy, fraud, tax evasion, and bribery</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">] “claimed in
billing records that he and his associates had at least 485 contacts with White
House officials during President George W. Bush's first term (574),
according to a report by a U.S. House panel.” [the White House would later </span><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2007/10/31/white-house-withholds-600-pages-of-abramoff-docs/" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">stonewall</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> (575) on
600 pages relating to the administration’s contacts with Abramoff]</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/11/AR2006101101050.html">Report
Criticizes Ex-ATF Chief: Justice Dept. Inspector General Says Truscott
Violated Ethics Rules</a>”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“The former director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
Firearms and Explosives violated ethics rules by requiring 20 employees to help
his teenage nephew prepare a high school video project, part of a wide-ranging
pattern of questionable expenditures on a new ATF headquarters, personal
security and other items, according to a report issued yesterday (576).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-<a href="http://www.villagevoice.com/2002-08-06/news/ashcroft-s-master-plan-to-spy-on-us/1">Number</a> of
times FDA officials met with consumer and patient groups as they revised
drug-review policy in 2006: 5; Number of times they met with [pharmaceutical]
industry representatives: 113 (577)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">On November 6, 2006 <i>Salon</i> <a href="http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2006/11/06/scandal/">reprised</a> a
second scandal sheet, just as American voters were about to overwhelmingly
reject the Republican Party at the polls. Among the findings:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-Trumped-up Terror Busts (578)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The scandal: It wasn't just the <a href="http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2003/05/19/buffalo_6/index.html">"Lackawanna
Six"</a> who got the Kafka treatment after 9/11. In February 2006
director of national intelligence John Negroponte warned Congress about "a
network of Islamic extremists" in Lodi, Calif. Two men there were charged--Umer Hayat, an ice cream truck driver, and his son, Hamid--but the cases,
riddled with faulty intelligence and coerced testimony, crumbled in court. FBI
agents had pushed the two men into separate accounts about a training camp in
Pakistan, but the confessions didn't square. "You can hear the agents
literally dictate to [Hayat] what it is that they thought he was involved
in," <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/enemywithin/etc/synopsis.html">James
Weddick,</a> a 35-year FBI veteran who reviewed the interrogation tapes,
told "Frontline" this fall. "And then he mimics back to them
what he thinks that they want to hear."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">"Then there was the highly publicized bust by the feds in
Miami this summer: A group calling itself the <a href="http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7117914">"Seas
of David"</a> stupidly dreamed out loud of blowing up the Sears Tower-- but lacked weapons, means of transportation and the al-Qaida "uniforms"
they hoped to purchase from a terrorist-cum-FBI operative. FBI deputy director
John Pistole admitted the group was "aspirational" rather than
"operational." And then there were the three Arab-Americans <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/08/21/michigan_terror/index.html">locked
up this year</a> for the menacing act of buying a bunch of cheap
cellphones at Wal-Mart." <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-Pat Tillman: The Hero Myth, the Ugly Truth (579)<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The scandal: Attempting to deceive the American public about
the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was nothing new from the P.R. department of
Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon-- think back to <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views03/0905-09.htm">the
Jessica Lynch fable</a> (580) or the various <a href="http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2005/03/08/night_flights/index.html">Pentagon
efforts to hide U.S. casualties</a> (581)--but the Pat Tillman
affair perhaps stands as the Bush administration's most craven and cynical
attempt to bury a painful truth while maximizing political spin. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">When the
former football star and Army Ranger was killed in Afghanistan in 2004, the
Pentagon put out a press release implying that he'd died while courageously
taking "the fight to the enemy forces." It wasn't until long after
Tillman was awarded a Silver Star and his memorial service was televised
nationally that the truth came out: he'd accidentally been killed by his fellow
soldiers. In June 2005, columnist Robert Scheer <a href="http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2005/06/15/tillman2/index.html">reported</a> that
files from an internal military investigation given to him by Tillman's mother
made it "unmistakably clear that the true cause of Tillman's death was
known in the field shortly after he was killed and reported as fratricide up
through the military command. Yet those facts were systematically kept from the
family (582)--including Pat's brother and fellow Army Ranger, Kevin
Tillman, who was serving in the same unit in Afghanistan--while a markedly
inaccurate story played itself out in the world's media."<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The problem: The campaign of deception went all the way to the
heart of the White House. According to a memo included in the Army's investigation,
in late April 2004--right as the Abu Ghraib torture scandal was sending shock
waves around the world--a White House speechwriter requested information on
Tillman ahead of the president's appearance at the upcoming White House
correspondents dinner. There, Bush declared: "Corporal Tillman asked for
no special attention. He was modest because he knew there were many like him,
making their own sacrifices." By then the White House had already told the
press that Tillman was among those who had "made the ultimate sacrifice in
the war on terror."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-Bush's Unethical Judges<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The scandal: With the appointment of Justices John Roberts and
Samuel Alito, the Supreme Court got most of the attention over the last year--but the White House has also worked to stack the nation's appellate courts with
right-wing, corporate-friendly judges, some of them a little too
corporate-friendly. As <i>Salon</i> and the Center for Investigative
Reporting uncovered earlier this year, two Bush nominees to the U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals, <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/01/23/payne/index.html">Judge
James H. Payne</a> and <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/05/01/boyle/index.html">Judge
Terrence W. Boyle,</a> broke federal ethics law by ruling in numerous cases
involving corporations in which they owned stock (583). Meanwhile, a <i>Salon</i>/CIR
exposé published just last week revealed that <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/10/31/money_trail/">at least two
dozen federal judges confirmed under Bush</a> made political contributions
to leading Republicans who were influential in their appointments, or to the
president himself, while under consideration for their judgeships (584).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-Hushed Up about Corporate Media<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The scandal: In September 2006, <i>the Los Angeles Times</i> reported
that during Michael Powell's tenure as chairman of the Federal Communications
Commission, two internal draft reports exposing the ill effects of corporate
media consolidation were <a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-fcc15sep15,1,7906761.story">quashed</a> [because
the Bush administration favored media consolidation, 585]. What the agency
prevented from getting any airtime: A 2004 report that found locally owned TV
stations did a better job covering local news and issues, and a 2003 report
pointing out a decrease in the number of radio station owners.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The problem: Powell and his aides denied knowing about the
studies (586)--but clearly his corporate-friendly agenda would
necessitate flipping the channel on such troublesome findings. Both Powell and
his successor, Kevin J. Martin, supported reduced restrictions on television
station ownership and the lifting of a ban preventing companies from owning a
newspaper and a television or radio station in the same market.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Barely a month later, on December 7, 2006, </span><a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/02/bush-oral-history200902?printable=true&currentPage=all" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Bush’s
Justice Department fired “seven United States attorneys without explanation</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> (587).
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales calls the controversy an ‘overblown personnel
matter (588),’ but the legal battle over the firings plays out to this day
as it becomes clear that the attorneys were fired for having insufficient
partisan zeal. Harriet Miers, the White House counsel, and Karl Rove are cited
for contempt of Congress when they refuse a summons by the House Judiciary
Committee to discuss the firings (589).”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">When Bush’s Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was brought
before Congress to explain these transparently partisan maneuvers, he suffered
serial amnesia (590) and later resigned in disgrace, but in a recent
interview he whined that he was “one of the many casualties of the war on
terror (591).”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The scandals continued apace in 2007 and 2008:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/16/AR2007051602529.html">Commerce
Inspector General Broke Whistle-Blower Law, Report Finds</a>” (592)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/09/us/09loans.html">Federal
Student Loan Official Is Resigning</a>” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Under criticism that it has been lax in policing the $85
billion <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/s/student_loans/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="More articles about student loans.">student loan</a> industry (593),
the Education Department announced yesterday that the chief official
responsible for overseeing the loan program was stepping down.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The resignation of the official, Theresa S. Shaw, was made
public two days before Education Secretary Margaret Spellings is to testify to
a Congressional committee. Ms. Spellings is expected to face tough questions
about the oversight of lenders’ practices and her department’s enforcement of
policies against conflicts of interest. “<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/17/AR2007051700216.html">Ending
Battle, Wolfowitz Resigns From World Bank</a>”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Paul+Wolfowitz?tid=informline">World
Bank President Paul D. Wolfowitz</a> resigned yesterday, effective June
30, yielding </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">to demands from governments around the world that he leave to
end the ethics controversy (594) that has consumed the institution.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“<a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19431557/">Former #2 at
Interior gets 10 months in prison</a>”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Former Deputy Interior Secretary James Steven Griles [see
#121]--who pleaded guilty in March to a single felony charge of obstructing
justice by lying to a Senate committee about his relationship with convicted
lobbyist Jack Abramoff (595)--was sentenced Tuesday in U.S. District
Court to 10 months in prison and a fine of $30,000.00.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“<a href="http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/7/17/22358/0349">Drug
Czar John Walters Used Taxpayer Funds to Campaign for Republicans</a>”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“At the request of Sara Taylor, the former White House
Director of Political Affairs, John Walters, the nation’s drug czar, and his
deputies traveled to 20 events with vulnerable Republican members of Congress
in the months prior to the 2006 elections. The trips were paid for by federal
taxpayers (596) and several were combined with the announcement of
federal grants or actions that benefited the districts of the Republican
members.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/17/AR2007021701172.html">Soldiers
Face Neglect, Frustration At Army's Top Medical Facility</a>” (597)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Behind the door of Army Spec. Jeremy Duncan's room, part of
the wall is torn and hangs in the air, weighted down with black mold. When the
wounded combat engineer stands in his shower and looks up, he can see the
bathtub on the floor above through a rotted hole. The entire building,
constructed between the world wars, often smells like greasy carry-out. Signs
of neglect are everywhere: mouse droppings, belly-up cockroaches, stained
carpets, cheap mattresses… The common perception of Walter Reed [the medical
facility] is of a surgical hospital that shines as the crown jewel of military
medicine. But 5 1/2 years of sustained combat have transformed the venerable
113-acre institution into something else entirely--a holding ground for
physically and psychologically damaged outpatients. Almost 700 of them--the
majority soldiers, with some Marines--have been released from hospital beds
but still need treatment or are awaiting bureaucratic decisions before being
discharged or returned to active duty.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-<a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/homepageCrisis/idUSN27419813._CH_.2400">U.S.
aid official linked to call-girl ring resigns</a> (598)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“A senior State Department official in charge of foreign aid
who had used an escort service owned by a woman charged with running a
prostitution operation abruptly resigned on Friday, ABC News reported.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“<a href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/washingtonpostinvestigations/2008/12/report_interior_office_meddled.html">Julie
MacDonald</a>, a former deputy assistant secretary for fish and wildlife and
parks, resigned last year after an earlier report found that she had run
roughshod over agency scientists and violated federal rules by giving internal
documents to industry lobbyists (599).” [Minimum <a href="http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/01/0082319">number</a> of Bush
appointees who have regulated industries they used to represent as lobbyists:
98] (600)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/18/AR2007091800799.html">State
IG Accused of Averting Probes</a>”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Howard J. Krongard, the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/U.S.+Department+of+State?tid=informline">State
Department</a>'s inspector general, has repeatedly thwarted investigations into
contracting fraud in <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Iraq?tid=informline">Iraq</a> and <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Afghanistan?tid=informline">Afghanistan</a>,
including construction of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad (601), and censored
reports (602) that might prove politically embarrassing to the Bush
administration, the chairman of the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/U.S.+House+Committee+on+Oversight+and+Government+Reform?tid=informline">House
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform</a> charged yesterday in a
13-page letter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“<a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/americasCrisis/idUSN26619054">US disaster
agency apologizes for fake 'reporters'</a>”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“The main U.S. disaster-response agency apologized on Friday
for having its employees pose as reporters in a news briefing on California's
wildfires that no journalists attended (603).<br />
<br />
The Federal Emergency Management Agency, still struggling to restore its image
after the bungled handling of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, issued the apology
after the Washington Post published details of the Tuesday briefing.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/03/31/hud.resignation/index.html">HUD
chief resigns amid ethics investigations</a>” (604)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“<a href="http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iGnGXHon3CxiSw6WqirgD0UkV2tQ">Top
Bush adviser resigns under cloud of scandal</a>”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">A top aide to President George W. Bush has resigned over
allegations that he misused US government money (605), the White House
said Friday.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“<a href="http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/former_doj_official_pleads_gui.php">Former
DOJ Official Pleads Guilty to Abramoff-Related Charge</a>”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Robert Coughlin admitted in federal court Tuesday that he
accepted meals, concert tickets and luxury seats at sporting events from a
lobbyist. He pleaded guilty to a single conflict-of-interest charge (606) and
faces up to 10 months in prison under a plea deal with the government.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/02/opinion/02fri3.html">The Lurita Doan
Story</a>”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“It has been 11 months since investigators found that Lurita
Doan, chief of the General Services Administration, violated the Hatch Act’s
ban on politicking on the job, asking her staff how they could “help our
candidates (607).” This week, the White House finally got around to
ousting Ms. Doan from the government’s principal agency for awarding rich
contracts in goods and services…She denied any violation, but she made her
philosophy of government clear early on in trying to cut the funding of her
agency’s inspector general office. Inspector generals are supposed to track
complaints of waste and fraud. She called them bureaucratic “terrorists (608).”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="7229245600465403700"></a><a href="http://thepoliticalcarnival.blogspot.com/2008/05/ex-cia-official-dusty-foggo-indicted.html">Ex-CIA
Official Dusty Foggo Indicted Over Agency Job for Mistress</a>” (609)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/washington/11royalty.html">Sex, Drug
Use and Graft Cited in Interior Department</a>”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“In three reports delivered to Congress on Wednesday, the
department’s inspector general, Earl E. Devaney, found wrongdoing by a dozen
current and former employees of the Minerals Management Service, which collects
about $10 billion in royalties annually and is one of the government’s largest
sources of revenue other than taxes.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">According to the report, “officials accepted gifts (610),
steered contracts to favored clients (611) and engaged in drugs and
sex with oil company employees (612).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Short of a crime,” Mr. Devaney said, “anything goes at the
Department of the Interior.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-<a href="http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/01/0082319">Percentage
change</a> since 2001 in U.S. government spending on paper shredding:
+466 (613)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“<a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/washingtondc/la-na-bush9-2008dec09,0,4145069.story">Bush
Memo To Officials: Say I Had "Honor And Dignity</a>”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“In case any Bush administration officials have trouble
summing up the boss' record, the White House is providing a few helpful
suggestions.<br />
<br />
A two-page memo that has been sent to Cabinet members and other high-ranking
officials offers a guide for discussing Bush's eight-year tenure during their
public speeches.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Titled "Speech Topper on the Bush Record," the
talking points state that Bush "kept the American people safe" after
the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, lifted the economy after 2001 through tax cuts,
curbed AIDS in Africa and maintained "the honor and the dignity of his
office."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><b>W. LETS WALL STREET REGULATE ITSELF, IGNORES OVERHEATED HOUSING MARKET, USHERS IN WORST RECESSION IN 80 YEARS</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">After presiding over the biggest national security failure in
sixty years on 9/11, abandoning Afghanistan, where our foes were, for
Iraq, where they weren’t, and unleashing chaos there, and failing the city of
New Orleans in its moment of need, it would seem that one president couldn’t
possibly birth another grand-scale debacle, but George W. Bush once again
proved to be exceptional. In an epic piece entitled “</span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/business/21admin.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">White
House Philosophy Stoked Mortgage Bonfire</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">,” <i>New York Times</i> reporters
Jo Becker, Sheryl Gay Stolberg, and Stephen Labaton detailed the Bush
Administration’s contribution to the mortgage crisis that was central to the
worst economic downturn in decades:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">-“As early as 2006, top advisers to Mr. Bush dismissed
warnings from people inside and outside the White House that housing prices
were inflated and that a foreclosure crisis was looming (614). And
when the economy deteriorated, Mr. Bush and his team misdiagnosed the reasons
and scope of the downturn (615); as recently as February, for example, Mr.
Bush was still calling it a “rough patch.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">As Bush’s Treasury Secretary John W. Snow put it, “The Bush
Administration took a lot of pride that homeownership had reached historic
highs…But what we forgot in the process (616) was that it has to be
done in the context of people being able to afford their house. We now
realize there was a high cost.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Along the way “Bush’s second SEC [Securities and Exchange
Commission] chairman was removed after he was found to be too aggressive by
[the mortgage] industry.” (617)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“When states tried to use consumer protection laws to crack
down on predatory lending, the comptroller of the currency blocked the effort,
asserting that states had no authority over national banks.” (618)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“…in early 2003, Arnando Falcon Jr, head of the Federal
Housing Enterprise Oversight agency overseeing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac wrote
a report which ‘outlined a worst-case situation in which Fannie and Freddie
could default on debt, setting off…a financial meltdown…He also raised red
flags about the companies’ soaring use of derivatives, the complex financial
instruments that economic experts now blame for spreading the housing
collapse.’ The White House tried to fire Mr. Falcon on the day he issued
his report (619), at least in part because Franklin Raines, Fannie CEO,
didn’t like the criticism.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“The president did push rules aimed at forcing lenders to
more clearly explain loan terms. But the White House shelved them in
2004, after industry-friendly members of Congress threatened to block
confirmation of his new housing secretary.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“in March 2008, right before Bear Sterns collapsed, in a
speech at the Economic Club in New York [Bush] cautioned against Washington’s
temptation ‘to say that anything short of a massive government intervention in
the housing market amounts to inaction,’ and added that ‘government action
could make it harder for the markets to recover.’” (620) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“[Bush Administration Director of the Oversight Board of the
Federal Housing Finance Agency James] Lockhart in July on CNBC said that ‘the
companies [Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac] were well managed and ‘worsts were not
coming to worst’…not long after the companies’ stocks “lost half their value in
a single day.” (621)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">After stubbornly resisting governmental intervention when it
could’ve helped out of a misplaced ideological rigidity, Bush supported a
massive bailout--but only after it became a stone-obvious
necessity (622).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"><b>AS THE ECONOMY BLEEDS HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF JOBS PER MONTH, W. FINISHES HIS PRESIDENCY WITH A FINAL TOXIC BURST OF ASSAULTS ON THE ENVIRONMENT, PUBLIC SAFETY, CONSUMER PROTECTION, THE POOR, AND WORKERS' RIGHTS</b></span></div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">As the economy tanked late in his term, Bush appropriately closed
his presidency with a long list of going away presents--signed off with
little or no public participation or consultation with Congress--for industry
groups that had paid his way:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">-A measure to “</span><a href="http://www.commondreams.org/print/35443" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">allow power companies to build
coal-fired power stations nearer to national parks</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">.” (623)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-Another that would “<a href="http://www.commondreams.org/print/35443">allow coal-fired stations to
increase their emissions without installing new anti-pollution equipment</a>.” (624)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“a rule that <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/print/35443">opens up millions of acres of
land to oil shale extraction</a>, which environmental groups say is highly
pollutant.” (625)<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-A rule that “<a href="http://www.commondreams.org/print/35443">surrenders
government control of rerouting the rail transport of hazardous materials</a> around
densely populated areas and gives it to the rail companies.” (626)<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> -A rule that "<a href="http://www.commondreams.org/print/35443">transfers assessment of the
impact of ocean-fishing away from federal inspectors to advisory groups linked
to the fishing industry</a>." (627)<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-A rule that “<a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/24991066/bushs_final_fu/print">would
exempt factory farms from reporting air pollution from animal waste</a>.” (628)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“On Election Day, the Bush administration announced it
would <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/14/opinion/14egan.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print">open
360,000 acres of public land in Utah to oil and gas leasing</a> (629),
including about 100,000 acres near Arches and Canyonlands National Parks, and
Dinosaur National Monument.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“a rule that largely <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/14/opinion/14egan.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print">frees
federal agencies from having to consult independent biologists before
constructing something that could lead to the extinction of birds, fish or
other endangered species</a>.” (630)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-A rule that would <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/24991066/bushs_final_fu/print">allow
uranium mining near Grand Canyon</a> (631)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-A rule that ensures that “<a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/24991066/bushs_final_fu/print">many
injured consumers would no longer be able to sue negligent manufacturers in
state courts</a>.” (632)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“In October, two weeks after consulting with industry
lobbyists, <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/24991066/bushs_final_fu/print">the
White House exempted more than 100 major polluters from monitoring their
emissions of lead, a deadly neurotoxin</a>.” (633)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“the administration will also <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/24991066/bushs_final_fu/print">allow
industry to treat 3 billion pounds of hazardous waste as ‘recycling’ each year</a> (634),
and to "<a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/24991066/bushs_final_fu/print">burn
another 200 million pounds of hazardous waste reclassified as ‘fuel,’
increasing cancer-causing air pollution</a>." (635)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“Under Bush, the Labor Department issued only one major
workplace-safety rule in eight years—and that was under a court order. But
now the Labor Department is finalizing a rule openly opposed by Obama that
would <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/24991066/bushs_final_fu/print">hamper
the government's ability to protect workers from exposure to toxic chemicals</a>.” (636)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“In another last-minute shift, the administration has <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/24991066/bushs_final_fu/print">rewritten
rules to make it harder for workers to take time off for serious medical
conditions under the Family and Medical Leave Act</a>.” (637)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-In addition, the administration has <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/24991066/bushs_final_fu/print">upped
the number of hours that long-haul truckers can be on the road</a>. The new
rule—nearly identical to one struck down by a federal appeals court last year—allows trucking companies to put their drivers behind the wheel for 11 hours
a day, with only 34 hours of downtime between hauls. The move is virtually
certain to kill more motorists: Large-truck crashes already kill 4,800 drivers
and injure another 76,000 every year. (638)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“In a rule that went into effect on December 8th, the
administration also <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/24991066/bushs_final_fu/print">limited
vision and dental care for more than 50 million low-income Americans who rely
on Medicaid</a>. ‘This means the states are going to have to pick up the tab or
cut the services at a time when a majority of states are in a deficit
situation,’ says [Gary] Bass of OMB Watch. ‘It's a horrible time to do
this.’ (639)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“To make matters worse, <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/24991066/bushs_final_fu/print">the
administration has also raised co-payments for Medicaid, forcing families on
poverty wages to pay up to 10 percent of the cost for doctor visits and
medicine</a>. [One study suggests that co-payments could cause Medicaid
patients to skip nearly a fifth of all prescription-drug treatments.]” (640)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-“The administration is <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/24991066/bushs_final_fu/print">seeking
to lock in the domestic spying it began even before 9/11</a>. One rule under
consideration would roll back Watergate-era prohibitions barring state and
local law enforcement from spying on Americans and sharing that information
with U.S. intelligence agencies.” (641)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Moreover, “<a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/24991066/bushs_final_fu/print">To
protect the new rules against repeal</a>, the Bush administration began amping
up its last-gasp regulatory process back in May [of 2008]. The goal was to have
all new regulations finalized by November 1st, providing enough time to
accommodate the 60-day cooling-off period required before major rule changes—those that create an economic impact greater than $100 million—can be
implemented.” (642)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Now, however, the administration has fallen behind schedule—so it's <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/24991066/bushs_final_fu/print">gaming
the system to push through its rules</a> (643). In several cases, the
Office of Management and Budget has fudged the numbers to classify rules that
could have billion-dollar consequences as ‘non-major’—allowing any changes
made through mid-December to take effect in just 30 days, before Obama is
inaugurated. The administration's determination of what constitutes a major
change is not subject to review in court, and the White House knows it:
Spokesman Tony Fratto crowed that the 60-day deadline is ‘irrelevant to our
process.’”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Once a rule is published in the Federal Register, the Obama
administration will have limited options for expunging it. It can begin the
rule-making process anew, crafting Obama rules to replace the Bush rules, but
that approach could take years, requiring time-consuming hearings, scientific
fact-finding and inevitable legal wrangling. Or, if the new rules contain legal
flaws, a judge might allow the Obama administration to revise them more
quickly. <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/24991066/bushs_final_fu/print">Bush's
push to gut the Endangered Species Act, for example, was done in laughable haste,
with 15 employees given fewer than 36 hours to review and process more than
200,000 public comments</a>.” (644)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><b>W.'S ACCOMPLISHMENTS</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Lest we be too hard on George W. Bush, we must give credit
where credit is due. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">On January 8, 2009, <i>Salon</i> posted “<a href="http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/01/08/damage/">W. and the damage
done</a>,” which summarized some of the legacies of the Bush presidency:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-"’An average recession is one in which we lose about 3
percent of GDP. Three percent of GDP is about $500 billion," <a href="http://www.econ.ucla.edu/people/faculty/Ohanian.html">UCLA economist Lee
Ohanian</a> told <i>Salon</i>. ‘It's not inconceivable that this could be
twice as [bad], which would be close to a trillion.’" (645)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Expected shortfall of gross domestic product below normal
growth path in 2009: <a href="http://woodwardhall.wordpress.com/2008/12/08/options-for-stimulating-the-economy/">$900
billion</a>” (646)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Number of manufacturing jobs lost since 2000: <a href="http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/97xx/doc9749/12-23-Manufacturing.pdf">3.78
million</a>” (647)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Increase in number of unemployed workers from 2001 to
2008: <a href="http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm">4 million</a>,
a jump of 2.7 percent in the unemployment rate” (648)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Number of detainees who have died in U.S custody: Human
Rights First claimed that as of February 2006, <a href="http://www.humanrightsfirst.info/pdf/06221-etn-hrf-dic-rep-web.pdf">nearly
100 had died</a> (649), a figure the Pentagon disputes. In addition, Amnesty
International says that more than three dozen individuals believed to have been
in U.S. custody <a href="http://www.amnestyusa.org/document.php?id=ENGAMR511472008">have
essentially disappeared</a> (650).”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Discussing Hurricane Katrina, “W. and the damage done” said
that “Estimates vary greatly, but deaths directly caused by the August 2005
storm are generally believed to be in excess of 1,100, <a href="http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/general/lib/lib1/nhclib/mwreviews/2005.pdf">perhaps
about 1,500</a>, with total direct and indirect deaths in excess of
1,800.” (651)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The city's population is still <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-08-04-neworleans_N.htm">only at
72 percent</a> of its pre-Katrina level of 450,000. (652) Louisiana
and North Dakota are the only two states whose populations declined between
2000 and 2008.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">There has also been a financial impact on people who were
spared the wrath of Katrina, who have never heard of a levee and live far from
Louisiana and Mississippi. Home insurance has become more costly and/or more
difficult to procure. After the storm, many national insurers simply <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/05/28/eveningnews/main1663142.shtml">stopped
issuing policies</a> for homes that were too close to coastlines.” (653)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In addition, Bush made his mark by:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-pushing tax and budget policies that have led to the most
extreme income disparities since the years leading up to the Great Depression [<a href="http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/01/0082319">Portion</a> of all
U.S. income gains during the Bush Administration that have gone to the top 1
percent of earners: ¾ths (654) ; increase since 2000 in the number of
Americans living at less than half the federal poverty level: 3,500,000 (655)]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-turning the biggest surplus in American history (<a href="http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12931660">projected</a> to
be 5.6 trillion dollars over ten years when Bush took office) into the biggest
deficit (656) [Vice President Dick Cheney had at one point said that
“<a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2101829/">Reagan taught us that deficits
don’t matter</a>”; Reagan, incidentally, was the only other president to
have <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hale-stewart/ronald-reagan-fiscal-dis_b_82370.html">increased
the national debt more in eight years than all of his predecessors combined</a>]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-saddling future generations with a total debt (“the total new
debt combined with the total new accured obligations”) of $10.35 trillion, <a href="http://kelsocartography.com/blog/?p=1320">according</a> to Nobel
Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz (657)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-presiding over a loss of over 2,300 points in the Dow
Jones, <a href="http://www.bostonherald.com/business/general/view.bg?articleid=1146461">a
record</a> (658), and a wave of foreclosures (659) helped along
by his fixation on lax regulation (see numbers ), a record number of personal
bankruptcies (660), <a href="http://www.rediff.com/money/2008/dec/08bcrsisi-us-job-losses-steepest-since-1974.htm">the
worst job losses in over three decades</a> (661) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">As a result:<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-America’s prestige has plummeted, or, as <i>The Economist</i> (which
endorsed Bush in 2000) recently <a href="http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12931660">put
it</a>, Bush has “presided over the most catastrophic collapse in America’s
reputation since the second world war” (662)<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-Bush has the unique distinction of having gone from having
the highest approval ratings in recorded history to among the lowest (663)<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-92 “U.S. cities and towns…have passed <a href="http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/01/0082319">resolutions calling for
the impeachment of President Bush</a>” (664), and U.S. <a href="http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/01/0082319">emigration to Canada has
increase 79% since 2000</a>(665)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The verdict:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/01/11/sunday/main4712837.shtml">A
recent CBS news article</a> quoted Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist
Joseph Ellis, who said that Bush “might very well be the worst president in
U.S. history.” Ellis also said “He's unusual…Most two-term presidents
have a mixed record. Lyndon Johnson, one of the greatest achievements in the
20th century was civil rights legislation; on the other hand you have the
extraordinary tragedy of Vietnam. Even Richard Nixon opened the door to China
and had foreign policy credentials. Bush has nothing on the positive side,
virtually nothing."<br />
<br />
Going on, the same article pointed out that Ellis’s view was common among well-informed
citizenry: <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“In <a href="http://www.siena.edu/uploadedFiles/Home/Parents_and_Community/06_may_expert_bush_release.pdf">a
2006 Siena College survey of 744 history professors</a>, 82% rated President
Bush below average, or a failure” and “Last April [2008], in <a href="http://hnn.us/articles/47918.html">an informal poll by George Mason
University of 109 historians, Mr. </a>Bush fared even worse--98%
considered him a failed president. Sixty-one percent judged him, as Ellis does,
one of the worst in American history.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Given a chance to offer an apology, or at least a degree of
remorse, for the wreckage he had wrought in a going-away interview, George W.
Bush told Charles Gibson of ABC: “I don’t spend a lot of time really
worrying about short-term history. I guess I don’t worry about long-term
history, either, since I’m not going to be around to read it.” (666)<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Stepping into this accountability vacuum with a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/opinion/04rich.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print">column</a> on
January 3rd was former theater critic <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/frankrich/index.html">Frank
Rich</a>. One of the few mainstream journalists that didn’t blink during
the Bush years, Rich pulled back the curtain to reveal the naked truth: <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“The last <a href="http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/wsjpoll20081211.pdf">NBC
News/Wall Street Journal poll</a> on Bush’s presidency found that 79 percent
of Americans will not miss him after he leaves the White House. He is being
forgotten already, even if he’s not yet gone. You start to pity him until you
remember how vast the wreckage is. It stretches from the Middle East to Wall
Street to Main Street and even into the heavens, which have been a safe haven
for toxins under his passive stewardship. The discrepancy between the grandeur
of the failure and the stature of the man is a puzzlement. We are still trying
to compute it.” </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b>More political writing by Dan Benbow:</b></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span>
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Death of a President in the <a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2018/12/death-of-president-in-united-states-of.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>United States of Amnesia</b></span></a></span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> (<i>a review of the public life of George H.W. Bush</i>)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Aliens, unicorns, and <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2018/10/spoilerparty.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>the narcissism</b></span></a> </span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">of voting Green</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2017/01/ten-reasons-barack-obama-is-clearly.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">10 reasons</span></a> </b></span>Barack Obama is clearly</span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the best president in my lifetime</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/10/178-reasons-hillary-clinton-is.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>178 reasons</b></span></a> Hillary Clinton is infinitely better</span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">than Donald Trump (even on her worst day)</span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/09/colin-kaepernick-is-right.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Colin Kaepernick is right</span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/04/stephen-colbert-delivers-best-political.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Stephen Colbert delivers the best political roast of all time</span></a></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #3d85c6;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2014/12/GaryWebbrailroaded.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Justice Delayed: "Kill the Messenger" vindicates Gary Webb</span></a></span></span></div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2014/04/21st-century-republicans-part-iv.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">21st Century Republicans, Part IV</span></a></div>
</div>
</div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/10/inequality-for-all-and-elephant-in-room.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"Inequality for All" and the Elephant in the Room</span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/05/memorial-day-in-united-states-of-amnesia.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Memorial Day in the United States of Amnesia</span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2012/10/romney-ryans-road-to-perdition.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Romney-Ryan's Road to Perdition</span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-breathtaking-stupidity-of_16.html" target="_blank">The breathtaking stupidity of #BernieOrBust</a></span></div>
</div>
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<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;"> Follow Dan Benbow on </span><a href="https://twitter.com/danbenbow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Twitter </span></a><span style="color: #222222;"> <span style="font-size: 13px;"> </span></span></span></i></b></div>
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Dan Benbowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02258556216655283390noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3869308843623818842.post-61456491296468513472019-02-02T17:47:00.000-08:002020-08-23T18:35:48.696-07:00New Orleans in images<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXKzqYebkT5nDQnm_IlM3FVg2j49IjG8m9F3HA3JbkhphG5PaGsE_yOwIh9Qzl7bn9R4q4UWYYkeeVg-jMOnfP-yhkfUGw5e-euIpTBBwKNhNeMcDzGBSbzCn4vdTvXwlQ0novagirEZE/s1600/010919+NOLA+day+one+914.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXKzqYebkT5nDQnm_IlM3FVg2j49IjG8m9F3HA3JbkhphG5PaGsE_yOwIh9Qzl7bn9R4q4UWYYkeeVg-jMOnfP-yhkfUGw5e-euIpTBBwKNhNeMcDzGBSbzCn4vdTvXwlQ0novagirEZE/s400/010919+NOLA+day+one+914.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Twenty-two years ago this spring I had one of my first conversations about the impact of gentrification on San Francisco. The man I was chatting with was working a shift at <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2jvcbW5XNU" target="_blank"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;">the </span></a></span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2jvcbW5XNU" target="_blank"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;">Golden Eagle</span></a>, a roach-ridden residential hotel I lived in while on a hunt for a shared rental that dragged on for months due to the Dot.com housing crisis. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A long-time resident of the city, he talked about the ways the tech boom and its corollary (off-the-charts housing prices) were diluting unique aspects of San Francisco's character and culture. He cited <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/tennessee-williams" target="_blank"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;">Tennessee Williams</span></a>' famous statement (<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">“America has only three cities: New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">Everywhere else is Cleveland.”) by way of saying that the runaway greed of real estate interests could take San Francisco off of Williams' list. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">New to the city and excited to be there, I didn't feel the magnitude of what he was saying, but the quote stuck in my mind. In 2008, I spent a couple weeks in Manhattan, leaving me one trip shy of seeing all of America's Big Three up close. I finally crossed New Orleans off the list last month. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Over the course of just a few days, I caught an array of tasteful music: a Dixieland jazz band with five trumpets, two trombones, and a tuba; <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZ308aOOX04" target="_blank"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;">Django Rheinhardt</span></a>-like gypsy jazz propelled by a driving rhythm guitar and stand-up bass overlaid with violin and clarinet melodies; a pre-electric blues trio with slide guitar, harmonica, and a singer playing washboard percussion; and a bracing rock trio fronted by the dynamic vocalist/guitarist <a href="http://jacksledgemusic.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;">Jack Sledge</span></a>, who belted out classics such as "Long Tall Sally" and "Gloria" with the energy they deserve.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: center;">The food was consistently delicious. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: center;">I had beignets with café au lait,</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">pralines aplenty,</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the creole combination (jambalaya, shrimp creole, red beans and rice), </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">and chicken and andouille sausage gumbo,</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">a chorizo po' boy with Zapp's spicy Cajun crawtators,</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">a Grand Slam McMuffin (sage pork sausage, hash brown, griddled</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">onions, </span></span><i style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">fromage Americain</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">, and Heinz ketchup on an English muffin),</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFX-O9CYxJ3l9CN8sdDieTHZ9lPL3jiORMZrvNP9ogFX1lKFY3Phynj0Zf3uE4AfhpxcGgoLXQh2jc3BK_moKWe94zGjrzHhc7KJzra-azx6z32ybcSnjjEC8KlCXsVSa7lFELC8dI4iI/s1600/IMG_3342%252C+II.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1485" data-original-width="1600" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFX-O9CYxJ3l9CN8sdDieTHZ9lPL3jiORMZrvNP9ogFX1lKFY3Phynj0Zf3uE4AfhpxcGgoLXQh2jc3BK_moKWe94zGjrzHhc7KJzra-azx6z32ybcSnjjEC8KlCXsVSa7lFELC8dI4iI/s320/IMG_3342%252C+II.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">and the meal to end all meals at the</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">James Beard award-winning </span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.pecherestaurant.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;">Pêche</span></a><span style="color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.870588235294118);">, </span>which started</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">with shrimp bisque, shrimp toast, and baked mussels,</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">continued with smoked duck <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pappardelle" target="_blank"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;">pappardelle</span></a> and </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">pan-fried </span></span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">catfish </span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: left;">smothered in a fresh creole tomato sauce,</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">and finished with a divine slice of salted caramel cake with</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">a scoop of homemade Dulce de Leche ice cream.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIkCv71e8ZDjMjVLtUs0BNFTXoGXsCnBNoJyISZ9QMo0T2GlglxWN89W-wb8mx5V9QAt652b8TL3cM9SCc3M5aAIjGXEzYz8atmXpqpSjaljtxaKCAayAgoVCKUrDgCDLYqGfFTE0OQAQ/s1600/IMG_3328%252C+II.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1123" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIkCv71e8ZDjMjVLtUs0BNFTXoGXsCnBNoJyISZ9QMo0T2GlglxWN89W-wb8mx5V9QAt652b8TL3cM9SCc3M5aAIjGXEzYz8atmXpqpSjaljtxaKCAayAgoVCKUrDgCDLYqGfFTE0OQAQ/s400/IMG_3328%252C+II.jpg" width="280" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent;">In addition to having wonderful food and music,</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">New Orleans serves up an endless feast for the eyes. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Crossing through both the Mid City and Lakeview neighborhoods, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">City Park offers 1,300 acres of public parkland which includes the Bayou Saint John</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> here with swans, </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRTKp1dDnLYdelQPRgtynVDVPP58Mjowq48C1pEmMtdSeJsU5r7bCNfjzLdgndhMcws4BVZEjyeGAuFhb0rzQqFRYg-tHl8o_DBz_AiJolIiQ3aVIBaCpXG7xAqW9ahjwTyAFPCcGJLOM/s1600/010919+NOLA+day+THREE+037%252C+II.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1075" data-original-width="1600" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRTKp1dDnLYdelQPRgtynVDVPP58Mjowq48C1pEmMtdSeJsU5r7bCNfjzLdgndhMcws4BVZEjyeGAuFhb0rzQqFRYg-tHl8o_DBz_AiJolIiQ3aVIBaCpXG7xAqW9ahjwTyAFPCcGJLOM/s640/010919+NOLA+day+THREE+037%252C+II.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> the New Orleans Museum of Art, which looks out on this tree-lined promenade,</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBS4q2CqrgrhSil1vVD05cvP_JXhTDxr_MB2plqB7gS6nNvdPxzY_V2qC2ckKmZ_vvDaJIDR9GdmRq-Qd4l9So3Qqk6abkV1OewJ8JGBegFqjR3dMZhB-TPIsLhJ6l0K-Rj23oeGVOmQA/s1600/010919+NOLA+day+THREE+046.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1322" data-original-width="1600" height="528" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBS4q2CqrgrhSil1vVD05cvP_JXhTDxr_MB2plqB7gS6nNvdPxzY_V2qC2ckKmZ_vvDaJIDR9GdmRq-Qd4l9So3Qqk6abkV1OewJ8JGBegFqjR3dMZhB-TPIsLhJ6l0K-Rj23oeGVOmQA/s640/010919+NOLA+day+THREE+046.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">and just next to the museum, a sculpture garden, home</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">to "Monumental Head of Jean D'Aire" (1884-1886) </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">by <a href="http://www.musee-rodin.fr/en/collections/sculptures/thinker" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Auguste Rodin</span></a>, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">from up close,</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTYroAVFjdSId9N1w5vsUaKITdw9jN7js2ovRd9JTQ2EvT4NZ8iQft0bJeYPaGR8oJsvDMqeIkOh8VLU4IfAgqWTu5tsan1uh3xos9J5GCnuUH1vgCOuxRvRYLc-EqAEIUB6s837duNXg/s1600/010919+NOLA+day+THREE+049.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTYroAVFjdSId9N1w5vsUaKITdw9jN7js2ovRd9JTQ2EvT4NZ8iQft0bJeYPaGR8oJsvDMqeIkOh8VLU4IfAgqWTu5tsan1uh3xos9J5GCnuUH1vgCOuxRvRYLc-EqAEIUB6s837duNXg/s640/010919+NOLA+day+THREE+049.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> a step back,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd_-bZyb5RvsRhDOc29CS09K0LbqexlPDkafjdnPIi3ywjszBVyw0elNrnPVfQEGHdNpGHd1EvN7kWwOdHcyK2U7ihTZ3as1YS2GrTjQulZy_VA6j-rgHM3K1whUARC452iuZwbWt9Rbo/s1600/010919+NOLA+day+THREE+053%252C+II.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1090" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd_-bZyb5RvsRhDOc29CS09K0LbqexlPDkafjdnPIi3ywjszBVyw0elNrnPVfQEGHdNpGHd1EvN7kWwOdHcyK2U7ihTZ3as1YS2GrTjQulZy_VA6j-rgHM3K1whUARC452iuZwbWt9Rbo/s640/010919+NOLA+day+THREE+053%252C+II.jpg" width="436" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> "Hercules the Archer" (1909) by Antoine Bourdelle,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPJ6aji3vxskdlGLz4bYoY6FCMh6cKrqEsYEcQhvkjNizwFZIi5bE1Sjk5pocDitAscb8XSiBCrteEx83K1ozLaEGty9bsfG6sdVDcaKp6QA35DSKYMub2TJSwdOX-nzTEpcve7NQfKys/s1600/010919+NOLA+day+THREE+056.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPJ6aji3vxskdlGLz4bYoY6FCMh6cKrqEsYEcQhvkjNizwFZIi5bE1Sjk5pocDitAscb8XSiBCrteEx83K1ozLaEGty9bsfG6sdVDcaKp6QA35DSKYMub2TJSwdOX-nzTEpcve7NQfKys/s640/010919+NOLA+day+THREE+056.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> "Overflow" (2005) by Jaume Plensa,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBY3F18T0VzOkzuFmJvp9vu_St1A8cBuCMmzdz_akLQwzu2VxppUD5Cu0ptuzgfHoa_kEtrbUYNLDRswPGkHCo71h9cHK9ry2Ktymiu9zd2L7Gf5to_K-2ACeP4AoY4SWRTsQIAUmBkjU/s1600/010919+NOLA+day+THREE+063%252C+II.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1090" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBY3F18T0VzOkzuFmJvp9vu_St1A8cBuCMmzdz_akLQwzu2VxppUD5Cu0ptuzgfHoa_kEtrbUYNLDRswPGkHCo71h9cHK9ry2Ktymiu9zd2L7Gf5to_K-2ACeP4AoY4SWRTsQIAUmBkjU/s640/010919+NOLA+day+THREE+063%252C+II.jpg" width="433" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> and the sublime </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgnaUmdvz4dSF3Ws3TQD4oN8bKUPmM4fBiZFxQdFJMQ9LKpIr4FhIBPScId7gGiHErYqvrX1uw3_DIWOMMCGTMT-tYHR7iX9ZF-0t0UgvjXWm7NV7UYGhbr7TZkA7iBlCcwwbxttzY4FU/s1600/010919+NOLA+day+THREE+072%252C+II.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="965" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgnaUmdvz4dSF3Ws3TQD4oN8bKUPmM4fBiZFxQdFJMQ9LKpIr4FhIBPScId7gGiHErYqvrX1uw3_DIWOMMCGTMT-tYHR7iX9ZF-0t0UgvjXWm7NV7UYGhbr7TZkA7iBlCcwwbxttzY4FU/s640/010919+NOLA+day+THREE+072%252C+II.jpg" width="384" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> "Karma" (2011) by Do-Ho Su.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_ywqPVZDIsCNY9AP3zrcjXU8Ao0oMFs1iDBm3wLTzUjfrf4AXcOxveXewkZcklkvaPk27qRjci3Ck0eALQq5PA2IJ2QVQOOSs1tOQG18DCijGI2syBFOHqbRHkh6Y6ZvdSsn5uvY_n4A/s1600/010919+NOLA+day+THREE+069.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_ywqPVZDIsCNY9AP3zrcjXU8Ao0oMFs1iDBm3wLTzUjfrf4AXcOxveXewkZcklkvaPk27qRjci3Ck0eALQq5PA2IJ2QVQOOSs1tOQG18DCijGI2syBFOHqbRHkh6Y6ZvdSsn5uvY_n4A/s640/010919+NOLA+day+THREE+069.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Returning to earth, and a sidewalk vantage point, New Orleans is a </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">very walkable city with </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">a seemingly endless supply of eye-catching </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">architecture. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A few blocks from the hotel I </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">stayed in is the Hotel </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Monteleone, </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">a luxury hotel built in 1886 in a Beaux-Arts style.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzgSPXULIoUg6DWoU4hmdTE49Jq40CPHHKGsp13jnZPy4I47z4oEn4hrow_BNQoWROu4DTZmu_MF23k5b2UvTflhLrzu9uEM77dOCIcjFiDDaiXp2Jf0XjhHLQ9IqPWeTLTPH2c-sHdW0/s1600/010919+NOLA+day+one+894.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzgSPXULIoUg6DWoU4hmdTE49Jq40CPHHKGsp13jnZPy4I47z4oEn4hrow_BNQoWROu4DTZmu_MF23k5b2UvTflhLrzu9uEM77dOCIcjFiDDaiXp2Jf0XjhHLQ9IqPWeTLTPH2c-sHdW0/s640/010919+NOLA+day+one+894.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> The Monteleone is eight stories high, one of the taller buildings in the French Quarter.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgngh3xvNxQ1O9ppla683qXjLdsw_Q5235UYAkAvI7hvoH7sdoeFqaZs8AMQsSN3p1QFgRrMi7D45dBey-5J-a0ruwBc4UkATDIWJoMp0eBkHTqpA78WCyJsvNmF7DIY_zpJBMgaF-oUzU/s1600/010919+NOLA+day+one+895.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgngh3xvNxQ1O9ppla683qXjLdsw_Q5235UYAkAvI7hvoH7sdoeFqaZs8AMQsSN3p1QFgRrMi7D45dBey-5J-a0ruwBc4UkATDIWJoMp0eBkHTqpA78WCyJsvNmF7DIY_zpJBMgaF-oUzU/s640/010919+NOLA+day+one+895.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Not far from the Monteleone is another Beaux-Arts beauty. The </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Maison Blanche building, constructed in 1908, is home to the </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Ritz-Carlton, </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">here viewed from the nearby trolley line,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">here from the side, as seen at Canal and Dauphine streets, </span></span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiedRofn9CH6Z1hgrK5Z4KDELwRq0iwtD4sUc3_SFjJtEXBVvhv2S-IKXGWZaouZTNIBWeenzPC4Nnw_wjoCcLf-XbCw96LAhyphenhyphennLOBGDMD8DKnQ05bybJ2Lo_7hThmS1FAfXTNcyiGcUvc/s1600/010919+NOLA+day+THREE+019.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiedRofn9CH6Z1hgrK5Z4KDELwRq0iwtD4sUc3_SFjJtEXBVvhv2S-IKXGWZaouZTNIBWeenzPC4Nnw_wjoCcLf-XbCw96LAhyphenhyphennLOBGDMD8DKnQ05bybJ2Lo_7hThmS1FAfXTNcyiGcUvc/s640/010919+NOLA+day+THREE+019.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">here a close-up of some of the many embellishments: the symmetrical towers </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">with roots in elaborate Hellenic architecture, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rustication_(architecture)" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">rustication</span></a> of the stones, bands </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">of </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-a-dentil-molding-177507" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">dentils</span></a> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">strung both below the eaves and under the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festoon" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">festoons</span></a> which are connected by </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">by </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">medallions, </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">in between the sets of double windows which fill the bottom of the frame.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihOTchM0kW0bz2qR2wo9FC0qrci3WRcnYQKfY5Hh_8CA7XVIcb7HUg6jz9K84IxaWi2ihygsBaDt2T3aCW_NTc92R83zhqjevt5YvhmQqXK-9XUj9kvMVwkQkfHC98Jxnq_lWBKJf1llo/s1600/010919+NOLA+day+THREE+004%252C+II.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1126" data-original-width="1600" height="450" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihOTchM0kW0bz2qR2wo9FC0qrci3WRcnYQKfY5Hh_8CA7XVIcb7HUg6jz9K84IxaWi2ihygsBaDt2T3aCW_NTc92R83zhqjevt5YvhmQqXK-9XUj9kvMVwkQkfHC98Jxnq_lWBKJf1llo/s640/010919+NOLA+day+THREE+004%252C+II.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Around the corner is the Roosevelt Room (the Waldorf-Astoria), </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">a </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Renaissance Revival</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #1d2129;">building with </span><a href="https://charlessaumarezsmith.com/2016/04/10/terracotta-detailing/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;">terracotta detailing</span></a><span style="color: #1d2129;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">in the facade </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">and a canopy of glass and metal, </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">as seen from across the street,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgykVAq0Q2DjMz8LhVISA4bjqkqMyzzcHEYH8cFhiCDP919oj7Cu4mekg0wBY5vpU70qILLMkhsIxLP831oPUrrt9JEXJYYKuugUzWMMBg3YvYX36hadqIvVQu_JUHTEnLfjfkYv6sgDe4/s1600/010919+NOLA+day+THREE+021.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgykVAq0Q2DjMz8LhVISA4bjqkqMyzzcHEYH8cFhiCDP919oj7Cu4mekg0wBY5vpU70qILLMkhsIxLP831oPUrrt9JEXJYYKuugUzWMMBg3YvYX36hadqIvVQu_JUHTEnLfjfkYv6sgDe4/s640/010919+NOLA+day+THREE+021.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">or up close, while</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5QM7hV-Ru8CyvV69ALTSV8KrghCap4MNXAcDX8GII8CqU2BrOC5owyNYGXf8Wg2X16kaAzXXBIgX982r4nTTcTkXosWSDjg421NwrJJwUMyBoUbwjgzusOHjCccEHHk14drqZsQ8wg7Y/s1600/010919+NOLA+day+THREE+017.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5QM7hV-Ru8CyvV69ALTSV8KrghCap4MNXAcDX8GII8CqU2BrOC5owyNYGXf8Wg2X16kaAzXXBIgX982r4nTTcTkXosWSDjg421NwrJJwUMyBoUbwjgzusOHjCccEHHk14drqZsQ8wg7Y/s640/010919+NOLA+day+THREE+017.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">next to the French Quarter, in the Central Business District, </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">is the lovely neoclassical archway of the Poyndras </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Street branch of Hancock-Whitney and </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUDaHHWfhBpC37_zfLzKR4SCSo2EnKz3eDj51NiqNmBVQ38LCF9i62rSIF8aiAJP5IUAXOmUjJoAsCi07U1FviPyebBSZD3toEOyV6xrhh51mz-iNuyJb-YHokIy6SMV3_T4V5oLCtgGI/s1600/010919+NOLA+day+FOUR+025.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUDaHHWfhBpC37_zfLzKR4SCSo2EnKz3eDj51NiqNmBVQ38LCF9i62rSIF8aiAJP5IUAXOmUjJoAsCi07U1FviPyebBSZD3toEOyV6xrhh51mz-iNuyJb-YHokIy6SMV3_T4V5oLCtgGI/s640/010919+NOLA+day+FOUR+025.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">this Italianate gem, the Norman Mayer Memorial Building.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-OvHjFmB3FWTr3KkuQoLNelAxGPSUiwg6XkN7EDVdE1t36MX1WixO-nWC5B1yrSxViLhkjHDOCGvwRx8aUdnYcu1Fz2ZZtwUiBcK5qwna1xHNXJ25GAIsHZ3O3uPzVmQUtcyAWj0eX3Q/s1600/010919+NOLA+day+FOUR+017.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-OvHjFmB3FWTr3KkuQoLNelAxGPSUiwg6XkN7EDVdE1t36MX1WixO-nWC5B1yrSxViLhkjHDOCGvwRx8aUdnYcu1Fz2ZZtwUiBcK5qwna1xHNXJ25GAIsHZ3O3uPzVmQUtcyAWj0eX3Q/s640/010919+NOLA+day+FOUR+017.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The large-scale classic architecture continues with </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://www.stlouiscathedral.org/our-history" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">St. Louis Cathedral</span></a><span style="color: #1d2129;"> in the</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">French Quarter. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Built from 1789-1794 (after the Great New Orleans Fire of 1788 </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">destroyed the original structure) </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">and </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">restored in 1850 in a Gothic Revival style, </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">it is </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the oldest cathedral </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">in </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">North America, viewed</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">here from the front,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimcxHG8wSqgiMN5qI25fO7ho45kYNK3Qp0i6ioYzEaJx6Ep9TDK1YSDX8oa_47CscLYkKN8_sBKFBPm85cuSCX0and05y-nwkuWUPBYLsezbhPWqVl8sRWhI9GBw-BTeTSpyeKopbyaEs/s1600/010919+NOLA+day+one+902.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimcxHG8wSqgiMN5qI25fO7ho45kYNK3Qp0i6ioYzEaJx6Ep9TDK1YSDX8oa_47CscLYkKN8_sBKFBPm85cuSCX0and05y-nwkuWUPBYLsezbhPWqVl8sRWhI9GBw-BTeTSpyeKopbyaEs/s640/010919+NOLA+day+one+902.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">up close,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLv4sVMqjduY9Fp50RMSAuCijdJoWlm1eIX6hxuXyVQoLQq0oDaVNefKQ9_4JwbTk5NLqLi5DENgn5jack4XExKNN7EHxMweuLdXKuLcvBmJ-FHkZuIkt_LMBpCWRD9EAR37PHGrJQBEo/s1600/010919+NOLA+day+one+901.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLv4sVMqjduY9Fp50RMSAuCijdJoWlm1eIX6hxuXyVQoLQq0oDaVNefKQ9_4JwbTk5NLqLi5DENgn5jack4XExKNN7EHxMweuLdXKuLcvBmJ-FHkZuIkt_LMBpCWRD9EAR37PHGrJQBEo/s640/010919+NOLA+day+one+901.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">from the side, where one can see its triple steeples.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOvY0wxbrvKFPqKgUU69zkbGDHaE7aFIwrAGm0aY0OQrp33KfLbTtg1dkCBNL31sg8K_Zl4O1L-xJ1xhW4fZD1stN1tljIMAy2ipL1Fm5RMxkM9vhhON2MH6uBVKNjg-tbtF_vSRLAj48/s1600/010919+NOLA+day+one+905.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOvY0wxbrvKFPqKgUU69zkbGDHaE7aFIwrAGm0aY0OQrp33KfLbTtg1dkCBNL31sg8K_Zl4O1L-xJ1xhW4fZD1stN1tljIMAy2ipL1Fm5RMxkM9vhhON2MH6uBVKNjg-tbtF_vSRLAj48/s640/010919+NOLA+day+one+905.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Also in the Quarter are a statue of the</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; letter-spacing: 0.2px; text-align: left;">Maid of Orléans</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">, </span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Joan of Arc, from up</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIBsBBeLsEohnvJNDJEmPDPw1nAiDCO-1mpsRATgzj0SHQxjnLyBc4WcRdEudVbzjzr9GwjixGYYZ_TJsyjjrOrVwExSxduaEUZdYSgjr_CmXjQT2wiDEmPf9cemj1Gqgl4f32clgNFH4/s1600/010919+NOLA+day+one+917.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIBsBBeLsEohnvJNDJEmPDPw1nAiDCO-1mpsRATgzj0SHQxjnLyBc4WcRdEudVbzjzr9GwjixGYYZ_TJsyjjrOrVwExSxduaEUZdYSgjr_CmXjQT2wiDEmPf9cemj1Gqgl4f32clgNFH4/s640/010919+NOLA+day+one+917.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">and under, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0KcdjA4gNozRXazGUMpBf2NPNJ2qTqCadLxwflnLYf0Ca2R6yZ7zs9KvJXbjH_p4S3tTtGmNFHY4LP0pOQSLeM6V0c6bxgFSY1iDaicONCwq9p05YEGDmQjSq9ZE-tdMEQ0FvsOGw0Lo/s1600/010919+NOLA+day+one+921.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0KcdjA4gNozRXazGUMpBf2NPNJ2qTqCadLxwflnLYf0Ca2R6yZ7zs9KvJXbjH_p4S3tTtGmNFHY4LP0pOQSLeM6V0c6bxgFSY1iDaicONCwq9p05YEGDmQjSq9ZE-tdMEQ0FvsOGw0Lo/s640/010919+NOLA+day+one+921.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">black Victorian carriage lamps, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5NQNx-LvC92PeiQuahewnn8GL5JFTvlaQdVANtUHGr2bmpOplvTj6PpJvPTV9pVdzbfA0GnxEu5iRGFU5eQGKn0C8SELDUg4bQc09kHCb__o6uNLGCHJfKNcUv3loReKf057bNnVgKOo/s1600/010919+NOLA+day+FOUR+037.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="831" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5NQNx-LvC92PeiQuahewnn8GL5JFTvlaQdVANtUHGr2bmpOplvTj6PpJvPTV9pVdzbfA0GnxEu5iRGFU5eQGKn0C8SELDUg4bQc09kHCb__o6uNLGCHJfKNcUv3loReKf057bNnVgKOo/s640/010919+NOLA+day+FOUR+037.jpg" width="332" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">and ferns hanging from wrought iron porches with lace-like columns here,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcaps2A7U99Ycn2DvHyRgCSgpu4JiAzdtT3BACtT-8jPhBPPA3op0LmFKnctTNV_6WObq07cEfrBOj3sAKkLZtyHNkJgcxYw5QIa5utMO5PFih-XVZYaMpUs_EV1HFo3mE6tQDrXUm3eI/s1600/010919+NOLA+day+FOUR+042%252C+II.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1185" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcaps2A7U99Ycn2DvHyRgCSgpu4JiAzdtT3BACtT-8jPhBPPA3op0LmFKnctTNV_6WObq07cEfrBOj3sAKkLZtyHNkJgcxYw5QIa5utMO5PFih-XVZYaMpUs_EV1HFo3mE6tQDrXUm3eI/s640/010919+NOLA+day+FOUR+042%252C+II.jpg" width="472" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">there,</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifBy0QCT_sDZrhNl-OQOWWuax8LkSiQobUUBhlPB5pvb7C4zamVSHlYI-nmsnKWgBOC4WViMQx1P3rKNpEIkSy7Kpcm4exaOfd7CCa22U9gy8avJnbFFzG7bIveUJ1gBVV7y8VRUpTsDk/s1600/010919+NOLA+day+FOUR+054.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifBy0QCT_sDZrhNl-OQOWWuax8LkSiQobUUBhlPB5pvb7C4zamVSHlYI-nmsnKWgBOC4WViMQx1P3rKNpEIkSy7Kpcm4exaOfd7CCa22U9gy8avJnbFFzG7bIveUJ1gBVV7y8VRUpTsDk/s640/010919+NOLA+day+FOUR+054.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">and everywhere.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP-_gLWERwy25EzOpi2bmISTqjZLvT1J6yd3rF9ymHuhtDf2drTUPxtum5VQ7GaIqMlx7zKenqzAOtrxERJ9L0YG8cb1B7dtZbYcMX9mMaHiSfXuYrZ5a6gjNOssS8QzZnonz5muegxps/s1600/010919+NOLA+day+one+899.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP-_gLWERwy25EzOpi2bmISTqjZLvT1J6yd3rF9ymHuhtDf2drTUPxtum5VQ7GaIqMlx7zKenqzAOtrxERJ9L0YG8cb1B7dtZbYcMX9mMaHiSfXuYrZ5a6gjNOssS8QzZnonz5muegxps/s640/010919+NOLA+day+one+899.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Next door to the French Quarter is the Marigny, </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">a funky neighborhood </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">filled with restaurants, music venues, murals big</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkS4QD7l6GjOMDnEoV0sXvvlFUrUFyC5wTsBPjD3sulZBeyx-Zra8Zwe0v3hxsuku4EaFZ3-2dXUH5W5YwUl0bFwQ2JrPRWp7stYJUgwYJPQJCJxXGGh5UrlE92qziuL-n3cHR5xrRbQQ/s1600/010919+NOLA+day+one+942.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkS4QD7l6GjOMDnEoV0sXvvlFUrUFyC5wTsBPjD3sulZBeyx-Zra8Zwe0v3hxsuku4EaFZ3-2dXUH5W5YwUl0bFwQ2JrPRWp7stYJUgwYJPQJCJxXGGh5UrlE92qziuL-n3cHR5xrRbQQ/s640/010919+NOLA+day+one+942.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">and small,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbL0ROJuoDor3SBFh70Yg33XDQPYe9ybvEdo3O0n3-Ncm5SV1XuthbyNM1vCOa3Vy5vROgtnrSecAi6W-6dE1A83GZ170cmahJC5SzEBubjfo684n1Vm33wsyBtzxqLL6nngIa336ZIkM/s1600/010919+NOLA+day+one+936.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbL0ROJuoDor3SBFh70Yg33XDQPYe9ybvEdo3O0n3-Ncm5SV1XuthbyNM1vCOa3Vy5vROgtnrSecAi6W-6dE1A83GZ170cmahJC5SzEBubjfo684n1Vm33wsyBtzxqLL6nngIa336ZIkM/s400/010919+NOLA+day+one+936.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">and modest but ornate homes,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUePuA4mPU9R9hpBsJh3LJfecVaS7nelrRG2ML899oEIqI6a-Y-Q9tyT0uKvf8Rx5e6TcfINvSCUuWUGeYIKV6KCyjY-F4z7vRBzpLn4ibQEzPZ69YGPr08nzUV8bEoDtO0r_Vzvazd6I/s1600/010919+NOLA+day+THREE+113.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUePuA4mPU9R9hpBsJh3LJfecVaS7nelrRG2ML899oEIqI6a-Y-Q9tyT0uKvf8Rx5e6TcfINvSCUuWUGeYIKV6KCyjY-F4z7vRBzpLn4ibQEzPZ69YGPr08nzUV8bEoDtO0r_Vzvazd6I/s640/010919+NOLA+day+THREE+113.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">many of them shotguns,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrnldCNxYMhTGZUJylN7Wyc5FP9Ze0aubb7GJ3iLfvueAVAuEgAatOPMCe2HyfwIDUkD_gmUpdGGTkljPLjGpWf4Gd8CNiZmyEmM6TEBSsCjecuvMiCTfc-ZlH3kvAU4FI0lyQRoAmFDA/s1600/010919+NOLA+day+THREE+110%252C+II.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="893" data-original-width="1600" height="355" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrnldCNxYMhTGZUJylN7Wyc5FP9Ze0aubb7GJ3iLfvueAVAuEgAatOPMCe2HyfwIDUkD_gmUpdGGTkljPLjGpWf4Gd8CNiZmyEmM6TEBSsCjecuvMiCTfc-ZlH3kvAU4FI0lyQRoAmFDA/s640/010919+NOLA+day+THREE+110%252C+II.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">often combining gingerbread detail</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimXxIhqYVnlDNYR7b29AjOx8fA9E4PlibNs9LMyZJX7l81kRMfArPkfzc3r8zqLptVPfkFcvtnWtGBoiWFHLg1AVE_6kYu5aQe2C_6OMVHESPOop8j1zpp0kG4Yqs2vi0OEdM9QVXFFvg/s1600/010919+NOLA+day+THREE+111.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimXxIhqYVnlDNYR7b29AjOx8fA9E4PlibNs9LMyZJX7l81kRMfArPkfzc3r8zqLptVPfkFcvtnWtGBoiWFHLg1AVE_6kYu5aQe2C_6OMVHESPOop8j1zpp0kG4Yqs2vi0OEdM9QVXFFvg/s640/010919+NOLA+day+THREE+111.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">and fun </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7Zb0augt0Dmyou4TwHaBKwkQ4NDsaPjUZAVrogFZTjB5egI1uCLWi_PTf2IxSqJ62aV47Nuw2jmeXEF6wMtplPt0ck4hnX3rN5gIP9XS8dnnq6x7Hgq-pNCwb9aGfbI7z-Ph3a3U3EM0/s1600/010919+NOLA+day+THREE+125.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7Zb0augt0Dmyou4TwHaBKwkQ4NDsaPjUZAVrogFZTjB5egI1uCLWi_PTf2IxSqJ62aV47Nuw2jmeXEF6wMtplPt0ck4hnX3rN5gIP9XS8dnnq6x7Hgq-pNCwb9aGfbI7z-Ph3a3U3EM0/s640/010919+NOLA+day+THREE+125.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">color</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9c0wTHrAqKCeOj10OhSScr85WECUPsUHLtp0bH5jRuQgAIXxdeLKGr0knq_v2A7dbNyGm6R-36pNmQJykc_k61qFizElJ_QxIBt_qcTkTOyDc9xAJgolHwsW6tgkmnC92zLL6xUYiL4Y/s1600/010919+NOLA+day+THREE+095%252C+II.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1229" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9c0wTHrAqKCeOj10OhSScr85WECUPsUHLtp0bH5jRuQgAIXxdeLKGr0knq_v2A7dbNyGm6R-36pNmQJykc_k61qFizElJ_QxIBt_qcTkTOyDc9xAJgolHwsW6tgkmnC92zLL6xUYiL4Y/s640/010919+NOLA+day+THREE+095%252C+II.jpg" width="488" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">combinations</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1E9ZhxgswCGe8T4e73Ctxwq6fl-i_jakMRW7dsi3kuZ_tWiwbTppiyhF6rM51dR10mP2x-Qp9OyFuXxW6LW-SBe9w6E6pguuUEZSijZMnHPDNyvVoJXX3OOYWDFLTlzcrgRf0LnmbDa0/s1600/010919+NOLA+day+THREE+115%252C+II.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1421" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1E9ZhxgswCGe8T4e73Ctxwq6fl-i_jakMRW7dsi3kuZ_tWiwbTppiyhF6rM51dR10mP2x-Qp9OyFuXxW6LW-SBe9w6E6pguuUEZSijZMnHPDNyvVoJXX3OOYWDFLTlzcrgRf0LnmbDa0/s640/010919+NOLA+day+THREE+115%252C+II.jpg" width="568" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">which reminded me of </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">housing stock in <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/search/label/photo%20essay" target="_blank"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;">San Francisco</span></a>. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">biggest treat of all, visually, was the Garden District. I </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">had the good fortune of visiting on a nice day, sunny and in the 60s.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqvUgGg3G80WXbOi479R9bDs-HKJkEXFQy-VgFnij4w0D0eUXoyIw-AaHG6RPSvhi427scSJTq34dqbyAeFc6k3MW5e2DzIqbDGjepehtrdSBulhT4-ZxD_MSu_z8oPSgGVdKawRH-Kq0/s1600/010919+NOLA+day+one+065.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqvUgGg3G80WXbOi479R9bDs-HKJkEXFQy-VgFnij4w0D0eUXoyIw-AaHG6RPSvhi427scSJTq34dqbyAeFc6k3MW5e2DzIqbDGjepehtrdSBulhT4-ZxD_MSu_z8oPSgGVdKawRH-Kq0/s640/010919+NOLA+day+one+065.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I saw single family homes with decorative flourishes similar </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">to </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">what one finds in the Marigny, including these camelbacks </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">(shotgun properties with a single floor in front and two stories in back).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ8Kn574NloHLEfislMaIlZvTr7lhcY38qLOlGcZyTt1cDmmOOURweyW4jIdzipz6XLWwnVYgFGSQtKgOCdywFhyTW_OZEGTTIRyKxqx3rhKSbk5T0FSvEZIP3bILu3qPrdUwNUzk7iWM/s1600/010919+NOLA+day+one+053%252C+II.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1467" data-original-width="1600" height="585" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ8Kn574NloHLEfislMaIlZvTr7lhcY38qLOlGcZyTt1cDmmOOURweyW4jIdzipz6XLWwnVYgFGSQtKgOCdywFhyTW_OZEGTTIRyKxqx3rhKSbk5T0FSvEZIP3bILu3qPrdUwNUzk7iWM/s640/010919+NOLA+day+one+053%252C+II.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Common to many of these houses are brackets </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">hanging from eaves, here individually,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX5QL5ilImyzxL4oQ-IOVaCl4Ki_kDV2oXvQ7bISTiCftu9TcobcFjKjPQP_SbAAVtpUhrLN-YoJ57Xwf4TungPkPBVUkmiHwBl9YPHvZofSY7dBlRnyVhlkAPsPHJkvyBz60qA3IkCSA/s1600/010919+NOLA+day+one+045.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX5QL5ilImyzxL4oQ-IOVaCl4Ki_kDV2oXvQ7bISTiCftu9TcobcFjKjPQP_SbAAVtpUhrLN-YoJ57Xwf4TungPkPBVUkmiHwBl9YPHvZofSY7dBlRnyVhlkAPsPHJkvyBz60qA3IkCSA/s640/010919+NOLA+day+one+045.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">here in a row, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx6b2feBYMSYJGnByq3bdx7dIhh-_liTmMCQHmpCrDUsIPEXuNf0RHDfkbQIWMSvkVmXCXtkA_Kghy-Touhi1_GHTo-WXM03nCWA4B7Ah6tUuUwPlzO31zeJ8OVdTtw-ybjqlH8RHny0s/s1600/010919+NOLA+day+one+076.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx6b2feBYMSYJGnByq3bdx7dIhh-_liTmMCQHmpCrDUsIPEXuNf0RHDfkbQIWMSvkVmXCXtkA_Kghy-Touhi1_GHTo-WXM03nCWA4B7Ah6tUuUwPlzO31zeJ8OVdTtw-ybjqlH8RHny0s/s640/010919+NOLA+day+one+076.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">and floor-to-ceiling windows, originally designed </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">before the advent of air conditioning to cool</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">homes </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">during long, hot summers.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBEy6jcYDlW9f9Rk5XRKiWPFLQ0d8U6zT_ScL8z4TFcHcAMS1MuiD0vKeQ12tGIulPhNrhvgaTGlSmGYsXyqQKZqq0iNkqNtaLtaYIdMRGWVsI39nZZmezwtUSPR2omTAa68x0bjf2wkc/s1600/010919+NOLA+day+one+090%252C+II.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1151" data-original-width="1600" height="459" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBEy6jcYDlW9f9Rk5XRKiWPFLQ0d8U6zT_ScL8z4TFcHcAMS1MuiD0vKeQ12tGIulPhNrhvgaTGlSmGYsXyqQKZqq0iNkqNtaLtaYIdMRGWVsI39nZZmezwtUSPR2omTAa68x0bjf2wkc/s640/010919+NOLA+day+one+090%252C+II.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Porches were another way to cope with the heat, here </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">seen in wrap around fashion on a Colonial structure,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ62O8XDDBL89L8s9SGCjDAkFh-wZgmxmhbstjSRPcghd5YJCC-KXhIgP8x7GkM73VBQ4S7JXld740lXOdrWGcZVTHFz2sDwd8IPzmHszuOuOQKhOVujNWDOFgqk9pNMe7uBygDWW7DNc/s1600/010919+NOLA+day+one+013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ62O8XDDBL89L8s9SGCjDAkFh-wZgmxmhbstjSRPcghd5YJCC-KXhIgP8x7GkM73VBQ4S7JXld740lXOdrWGcZVTHFz2sDwd8IPzmHszuOuOQKhOVujNWDOFgqk9pNMe7uBygDWW7DNc/s640/010919+NOLA+day+one+013.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">here in the clean lines and balanced symmetry of Federalist architecture, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBJ36iPjKgplQlTyxdi6KftK79xgcwpqw1Cncwf5AkeCKgeUR8D-M28e1gD7SqoRx2IsYDkWNjSfjHbVoQsnmTHfG-btWzjYy8LT9x69XkQqQ_X9lY68a_kfzzHrvU94u236WEnGLIzLU/s1600/010919+NOLA+day+one+022.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBJ36iPjKgplQlTyxdi6KftK79xgcwpqw1Cncwf5AkeCKgeUR8D-M28e1gD7SqoRx2IsYDkWNjSfjHbVoQsnmTHfG-btWzjYy8LT9x69XkQqQ_X9lY68a_kfzzHrvU94u236WEnGLIzLU/s640/010919+NOLA+day+one+022.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">here in an Edwardian double-decker.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIIQ_ooNd5_3wl6wV2G4pY_ApWhta3mE6m7Bp1FYu6zABpGHMsyAp0L277vethdREuvY40dghrsXNtJ_-o61slKPtqR0us5h3HGKVWIfgNWx4YuHT8F2Wq1D77SrxTyKvbevSydPgCiiw/s1600/010919+NOLA+day+one+014%252C+II.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="875" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIIQ_ooNd5_3wl6wV2G4pY_ApWhta3mE6m7Bp1FYu6zABpGHMsyAp0L277vethdREuvY40dghrsXNtJ_-o61slKPtqR0us5h3HGKVWIfgNWx4YuHT8F2Wq1D77SrxTyKvbevSydPgCiiw/s640/010919+NOLA+day+one+014%252C+II.jpg" width="348" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Moving upscale I found fluted Doric columns, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4dhbfQYclHStn1RMHwE7zS2nYSz21_R-KJ3EELnkHqDLeT6iQOVaO5xWhocSdZeTGa5KY-B2HDnf6oAu5q1j-WfbR6WMt0Dbq_n9oLUGBQt6POM8d6p6IO28TPxcdjQNcIEtW2VTd73U/s1600/010919+NOLA+day+one+007.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4dhbfQYclHStn1RMHwE7zS2nYSz21_R-KJ3EELnkHqDLeT6iQOVaO5xWhocSdZeTGa5KY-B2HDnf6oAu5q1j-WfbR6WMt0Dbq_n9oLUGBQt6POM8d6p6IO28TPxcdjQNcIEtW2VTd73U/s640/010919+NOLA+day+one+007.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Ionic columns supporting a wondrous home with frieze </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">work </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">on </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the balcony topped by gabled dormers with Gothic windowpanes,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixmYgstU3zQn2ygDI90OGL8mDLh0j6wKU3I3lf2wR0zj6AV1s3ixDGRjVq7mRClVV5JADCuSE4xhOyqOIZiQlpzv-RhicdHr9jMgzPy0czYHAnividRV86Eo0vZ6eeItYuEsiLtgrOxPU/s1600/010919+NOLA+day+one+035.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixmYgstU3zQn2ygDI90OGL8mDLh0j6wKU3I3lf2wR0zj6AV1s3ixDGRjVq7mRClVV5JADCuSE4xhOyqOIZiQlpzv-RhicdHr9jMgzPy0czYHAnividRV86Eo0vZ6eeItYuEsiLtgrOxPU/s640/010919+NOLA+day+one+035.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">wrought iron gates with elaborate scrollwork opening</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">onto a two-story, wrought iron lacework facade,</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd0UtspXMnZ70Jly_MvFGYFVBo88XV2j2V36-sj7G15rOyU2u8O_PjsrYUa6nSya8VKnW9eUcESYasCzXGLsGhPYUes-OgSEfyVjvACE7-r7OjBaIHQ9Q3E7L2pwWzD6e7hOgzyRb4DY8/s1600/010919+NOLA+day+one+010.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd0UtspXMnZ70Jly_MvFGYFVBo88XV2j2V36-sj7G15rOyU2u8O_PjsrYUa6nSya8VKnW9eUcESYasCzXGLsGhPYUes-OgSEfyVjvACE7-r7OjBaIHQ9Q3E7L2pwWzD6e7hOgzyRb4DY8/s640/010919+NOLA+day+one+010.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">and this <a href="http://www.hancockcountyhistoricalsociety.com/preservation/styles_doublegallery.htm" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">double gallery</span></a> home, rumored to belong </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">to John Goodman, </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">with a three-bay window, double </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">brackets, </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">dentil work, </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">overhanging eaves, and tall, narrow windows.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzJlQ2-8IksYnZ_qsO0QB0LAk-kszvc7tB88q2dn-W0OTCTRJ-ouT3t4A6nc_YQv6joqFZMPtpQFn1FcNunVjiG3FeFY-luqBjUrQaOA_eH2yg62atQIVVA3YwdrJRpNMkl09WRd2X7qc/s1600/010919+NOLA+day+one+025%252C+II.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1354" data-original-width="1600" height="540" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzJlQ2-8IksYnZ_qsO0QB0LAk-kszvc7tB88q2dn-W0OTCTRJ-ouT3t4A6nc_YQv6joqFZMPtpQFn1FcNunVjiG3FeFY-luqBjUrQaOA_eH2yg62atQIVVA3YwdrJRpNMkl09WRd2X7qc/s640/010919+NOLA+day+one+025%252C+II.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Most amazing of all was that these earthly delights were feeding my soul <i>during the winter</i>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As I strolled around </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">taking in the sights, a conversation played in my head. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I thought about</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG8KCZu1yMYSPf5BiaYHY0xNRMZiJv4zAdFVSRy6zpZBz7hzsmtXQpcNUgefWWjZlO7QMM-ldHh6XMi0hXgBxFN3YbHK9Jr9RFVp6Rqtmg97ctXntvjXUn6RGkjk6NbYiOglKgCWZYwBU/s1600/010919+NOLA+day+one+898.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG8KCZu1yMYSPf5BiaYHY0xNRMZiJv4zAdFVSRy6zpZBz7hzsmtXQpcNUgefWWjZlO7QMM-ldHh6XMi0hXgBxFN3YbHK9Jr9RFVp6Rqtmg97ctXntvjXUn6RGkjk6NbYiOglKgCWZYwBU/s320/010919+NOLA+day+one+898.jpg" width="240" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">how </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">verdant New Orleans would be during July or August, when everything is in bloom, the flower beds, the gardens, the ferns, the vines, the trees fuller, brighter, in high color, the sweet scents of summer in the air...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">...I calculated my future vacation time. Coming back to New Orleans before traveling anywhere else was out of the question on principle, but couldn't I shoot down for a few days, a Thursday-night-into-Sunday stay, just about anytime? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The thoughts went around on a loop through my trip, one foot in the present, grooving on the architecture, the food, the music, the aesthetic, one foot projecting into the future, imagining all of the other things I could get to with a few more days. When I </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">got to the airport to head home, </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I was already imagining my next trip to The Big Easy. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman"; line-height: 18.48px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> More<i> Truth and Beauty </i>photo essays<i>:</i></span></b></span><br />
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<i style="text-align: start;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"<a href="http://www.benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/02/photo-essay-random-san-francisco.html" style="color: #888888;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Random San Francisco</span></a>" has 46 photos which range from </span></i></i></div>
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<i style="text-align: start;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">ornate architecture to vistas to murals to sidewalk messaging</span></i></i></div>
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<i style="text-align: start;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></i></i></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i style="text-align: start;"><i><span style="color: #222222;">"</span><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/09/on-clear-day-you-can-see-forever.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">On a clear day you can see forever</span></a><span style="color: #222222;">." </span></i></i><i style="color: #222222; text-align: start;"><i>explores Noe Valley, Ashbury Heights, </i></i></span><br />
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<i style="text-align: start;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the Inner Sunset district, microclimates, and street art on a pristine September day </span></i></i></div>
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<i style="text-align: start;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></i></i></div>
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<i style="color: black; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="color: #222222; line-height: normal;">"</span><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2014/12/crystal-blue-persuasion-san-francisco.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><span class="il" style="line-height: normal; text-align: start;">Crystal</span><span style="line-height: normal; text-align: start;"> </span><span class="il" style="line-height: normal; text-align: start;">Blue</span></span></a><span style="line-height: normal; text-align: start;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2014/12/crystal-blue-persuasion-san-francisco.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"> Persuasion</span></a><span style="color: #222222;">" is a walking photo tour of San Francisco </span></span></i></div>
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<i style="color: black; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="line-height: normal; text-align: start;"><span style="color: #222222;">from the Bay to the Ocean (and a golden sunset) </span></span></i></div>
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<i style="line-height: 18px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;">"</span><a href="http://www.benbosophy.blogspot.com/2014/02/it-starts-with-your-heart-and-radiates.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">It starts with your heart and radiates out</span></a><span style="color: #222222;">"</span><b style="color: #222222;"> </b></span></i><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>includes street art, </i></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>head-turning architecture, and miscellaneous city scenes </i></span></span></div>
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<i style="color: #222222; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 18.48px;">in a stroll </i><i style="color: #222222; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 18.48px;">from the Mission District to South of Market to downtown</i></div>
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<i style="line-height: 18px; text-align: start;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"<a href="http://www.benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/02/gone-but-not-forgotten.html" style="color: #888888;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Gone but not Forgotten</span></a>" is a tribute to a friend who left this world all too soon </span></i></i></div>
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<i style="text-align: start;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"<a href="http://www.benbosophy.blogspot.com/2012/07/a-sunny-monday-in-san-francisco.html" style="color: #888888;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">A Sunny* Monday in San Francisco</span></a>" is a day tour </span></i><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">of the city, </span></i></i></div>
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<i style="text-align: start;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">from Mission Street to the Pacific Ocean</span></i></i></div>
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<i style="text-align: start;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"<a href="http://www.benbosophy.blogspot.com/2012/12/california-in-november.html" style="color: #888888;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">California in November</span></a>" captures deep fall natural splendor</span></i></i></div>
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<i style="text-align: start;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></i></i></div>
<i style="text-align: start;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;">"</span><a href="https://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2015/07/back-in-time.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Back in Time</span></a><span style="color: #222222;">" documents my return in the height of summer to an upper </span></span></i></i><br />
<i style="text-align: start;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;">Midwest town I hadn't been to </span></span></i></i><i style="text-align: start;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;">since moving away, 33 years earlier</span></span></i></i><br />
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<i style="color: #222222; line-height: 18px;"><i><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"<a href="http://www.benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-golden-gate-bridge-as-seen-from.html" style="color: #888888;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">The Golden Gate Bridge as seen from the Marin Headlands</span></a>" </span></i></i></i><br />
<i style="color: #222222; line-height: 18px;"><i><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></i></i></i><span style="line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="color: #222222;">"</span><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/06/vintage-cars.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Vintage Cars</span></a><span style="color: #222222;">" </span></i></span></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="color: #222222;"><br /></b></span></span>
<span style="line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="color: #222222;">Follow Dan Benbow on</b><i style="color: #222222;"> </i><a href="https://twitter.com/danbenbow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><i>Twitter</i></span></a></span></span></div>
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Dan Benbowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02258556216655283390noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3869308843623818842.post-28269416781313683452018-12-15T07:40:00.003-08:002018-12-25T17:54:50.356-08:00Death of a President in the United States of Amnesia<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaTGjkLWolOGz6hNMbqfWLJ8jlE76VChlH0lfXnA8aapsSKNoNrEaWgzh68Gj5sV7U5sGClqOEWcS1plDtSOyRD06FE6svgT9aYIY02Xcc8IxbWwh2QcDg5_KcyeOu-9Wns-boMkr-vcg/s1600/kerry_bush1a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1368" data-original-width="1368" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaTGjkLWolOGz6hNMbqfWLJ8jlE76VChlH0lfXnA8aapsSKNoNrEaWgzh68Gj5sV7U5sGClqOEWcS1plDtSOyRD06FE6svgT9aYIY02Xcc8IxbWwh2QcDg5_KcyeOu-9Wns-boMkr-vcg/s320/kerry_bush1a.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Nothing so perfectly reflects the hyper-phoniness of
America’s mainstream political dialogue </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">as the recent major media narrative of
George H.W. Bush as a devoted public servant and </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">model of civility.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Not speaking ill of the dead around the family of the deceased
is proper social etiquette, but presidents’ legacies are public property.
Presidents are elected by the people (<a href="https://www.salon.com/2015/12/19/george_w_bush_vs_al_gore_15_years_later_we_really_did_inaugurate_the_wrong_guy/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">usually</span></a>), they are entrusted with the
public interest, their decisions impact millions and ripple for decades. If we
value democracy, we owe it to ourselves—and especially to future generations—to
trade in false praise for an honest examination of Bush’s legacy. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The cold, hard fact is that when H.W. Bush’s record was freshest
in our minds, during the 1992 presidential election, he received <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_elections_by_popular_vote_margin" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the lowest percentage</span></a> of votes of any major party candidate since Republican Alf Landon in
1936. Running while millions of Americans were suffering through a recession,
he was seen as an out-of-touch patrician who was unfamiliar with grocery scanners and gazed impotently over the wreckage of inner-city Los Angeles after
the Rodney King riots. Not long after Bush lost, news titan Walter Cronkite
told an interviewer that the country had lightened its step with the election
of Bill Clinton because we knew that we would soon have a president who
actually cared about everyday people. Those of us who had been paying attention
during the long national nightmare that was 12 years of Reagan-Bush <i>couldn’t
wait</i> for Bush to leave office.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In the days after Bush’s death, one of the common
refrains among <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/01/opinion/george-hw-bush-death-jon-meacham.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">corporate toadies posing as journalists</span></a> was that Bush
consistently put the interests of the country over the interests of his party.
In reality, most of his policy positions as vice president and president were
<a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/12/01/george-hw-bush-legacy-222730" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">narrowly partisan</span></a>, none more so than his choice of Dan Quayle as vice president
in the run-up to the 1988 presidential election. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Quayle was billed as a vibrant new voice on the national
political scene, a view to the future, but the truth was that Quayle was a
reactionary and a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1988/08/25/opinion/dan-quayle-s-slender-senate-career.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">supreme lightweight</span></a>, a child of privilege who had won a
Senate seat through dumb luck—family control of the media throughout much of
Indiana and the Ronald Reagan landslide of 1980. Like Sarah Palin after him,
<a href="http://mentalfloss.com/article/64689/never-forget-time-dan-quayle-misspelled-potato" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Quayle was a national embarrassment</span></a>, an airhead with minimal experience and
little policy knowledge who often assaulted the English language when he went
off-script. Like Sarah Palin after him, Quayle’s presence on the ticket was a
craven appeasement of right-wing knuckle-draggers in the Republican Party base
that reflected very poorly on the judgment of the candidate at the top of the
ticket.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Another common refrain among <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/george-hw-bush-symbol-decency-politics-column/story?id=54859816" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">corporate toadies posing as journalists</span></a> is that Bush was civil, humble, a fundamentally decent man, a claim
that is contradicted by Bush's actions overseas and here at home. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As CIA director in 1976, Bush oversaw <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3185071?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Operation Condor</span></a>, in
which the U.S. covertly supported anti-communist regimes in South America
(Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil, Bolivia) that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/04/george-bushs-legacy-isnt-so-peaceful" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">tortured and butchered</span></a> tens of thousands of dissidents and jailed hundreds of thousands
more. When American Ronni Moffett and Chilean diplomat/dissident Orlando
Letelier were killed in a Washington D.C. car bomb explosion, Bush’s CIA <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2016/09/21/george-h-w-bush-the-cia-and-a-case-of-state-terrorism/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">purposely misdirected the FBI investigation</span></a> with a public assessment which
covered up the role of Chilean intelligence in the political assassination.
After four years in which the GOP was out of power, Bush rekindled his working
relationships with Latin American dictators backed by <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/george-h-w-bush-icon-of-the-wasp-establishment-and-of-brutal-us-repression-in-the-third-world/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">right-wing death squads</span></a> as Ronald
Reagan’s vice president.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Domestically, the Bush-was-a-fundamentally-decent-man
talking point is exploded by Bush’s campaign for president, in 1988. At the
time, many Americans had had enough of the selfish and mean-spirited Republican
policies that had predominated for the eight years prior. Bush, a blue blood
who lacked the charisma of Reagan, was generally not seen as a sympathetic
figure. Presidential nominee Michael Dukakis came out of the Democratic
convention in the summer of 1988 with a double-digit lead over Bush.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">To overcome his deficit in the polls, Bush ran <a href="https://www.pennlive.com/opinion/2018/12/before-he-was-kinder-gentler-george-hw-bush-pioneered-tv-ad-lies-dick-polman.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">one of the most empty, loathsome, and dishonest campaigns in U.S. political history</span></a>. In place of
issues that actually mattered in peoples’ lives, Bush political adviser Lee
Atwater expertly manipulated the lizard brains of undecided voters with a
series of distractions. As election day neared, voters were subjected to ads
about Dukakis’s veto of a measure mandating that Massachusetts teachers lead
their students in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1988/08/25/us/bush-intensifies-debate-on-pledge-asking-why-it-so-upsets-dukakis.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">an absurd non-issue that Bush hammered Dukakis on repeatedly</span></a>. Bush also made the suspect claim that
Dukakis, who had a better environmental record than Bush, was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1988/10/18/opinion/mr-bush-sinks-the-truth-in-boston-harbor.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">responsible for</span></a>
the pollution in the Boston Harbor, rather than the notoriously
regulation-averse <a href="https://grist.org/article/griscom-reagan/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Reagan Administration EPA</span></a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Most disgraceful of all was the Bush campaign’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTdUQ9SYhUw" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Willie Horton ad</span></a>. During the ’70s and </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">’80s</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">, some felons were eligible for weekend furloughs. A
part of the prison reform movement, </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1988/06/24/most-states-allow-furloughs-from-prison/ad22836e-111b-4f09-aa6d-6651d2e9a04e/?utm_term=.8f78c6649fb2" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the policy was common in both Republican- and Democrat-run states</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">; Ronald Reagan had <a href="https://www.apnews.com/44e295f15c5e56be773f215eff2ed96e" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">supported the policy</span></a> as governor of
California, even after two furloughed inmates were accused of murder.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Willie Horton was a black felon serving a life sentence in
Massachusetts for a 1974 murder. Given a weekend release in 1986, Horton
stabbed a man and tied up and raped his fiancée. The Bush campaign capitalized
on this horrific incident by running a series of ads introducing Willie Horton to the
American public. On the surface, the ads presented Dukakis as weak on crime,
but <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTdUQ9SYhUw&t=110s" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the deeper motive</span></a> was to play to the racism and fear of black men among
white voters. The campaign was so ugly that Atwater <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1991/01/13/us/gravely-ill-atwater-offers-apology.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">apologized</span></a> to Michael
Dukakis on his deathbed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Once elected, Bush washed the dirt from his hands and did
some good things. Many historians credit Bush with an adept response to the end
of the Cold War. Bush said that his administration would be a “kinder, gentler”
version of Ronald Reagan’s domestically, and in some instances this was true.
He signed the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act and broke with anti-tax
extremists in his party to negotiate a budget deal with congressional Democrats
that kept <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26402-2004Jun8.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the skyrocketing Reagan-Bush deficit</span></a> at bay with budget cuts and a
small tax increase on the wealthy. He also worked with Congressional Democrats
to update and renew the Clean Air Act and appointed the highly-qualified moderate Republican David Souter to the Supreme Court. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But as could be expected of a politician in a party run by
and appealing to people with <a href="https://washingtonmonthly.com/2018/04/09/authoritarianism-and-the-identity-politics-of-the-republican-party/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">authoritarian personality types</span></a>, Bush for the most
part hewed to Republican orthodoxy. After 15 years of no large-scale American
interventions overseas following the horrors of Vietnam, Bush made militarism
cool again by unilaterally invading former ally Manuel Noriega’s Panama under <a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2014/12/15/the-invasion-of-panama/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">false pretenses</span></a>, killing <a href="https://www.hrw.org/legacy/campaigns/iraq/panama91_appen.htm" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">3,000 civilians and destroying thousands of homes in the poverty-stricken El Chorrillo neighborhood of Panama City</span></a>. One year later, after Bush’s
ambassador April Glaspie <a href="https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/glaspie.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">had given Saddam Hussein a green light</span></a> to go into
Kuwait by saying that the U.S. “[has] no opinion on Arab-Arab conflicts,” <a href="https://billmoyers.com/2014/06/27/the-first-iraq-war-was-also-sold-to-the-public-based-on-a-pack-of-lies/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Bush invaded Kuwait under false pretenses</span></a> to expel the military of former ally
Hussein. Often hailed as a successful intervention, the operation <a href="https://www.hrw.org/reports/1991/gulfwar/CHAP4.htm" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">laid waste to both human and military infrastructure</span></a>, leading to <a href="https://theintercept.com/2018/12/01/the-ignored-legacy-of-george-h-w-bush-war-crimes-racism-and-obstruction-of-justice/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the death of over 150,000 Iraqi civilians</span></a>. The war also elevated the profile of Dick Cheney, whom Bush
had plucked from relative obscurity to become Defense Secretary, putting Cheney
on a path to become <a href="https://www.kotorimag.com/post/worstpresidentever" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">one of the most destructive leaders in American history</span></a>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Though Bush was hot to trot when it came to war, he was
<a href="http://theconversation.com/george-bush-sr-could-have-got-in-on-the-ground-floor-of-climate-action-history-would-have-thanked-him-108050" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">lukewarm at best in dealing with the biggest threat civilization faced</span></a>, forcing
negotiators to water down the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change because
“the American way of life is not up for negotiations.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Domestically, Bush vetoed the Family and Medical Leave Act
(later signed by Bill Clinton) multiple times. He reversed his earlier support
for a woman’s right to choose, appointing mostly anti-choice judges to the lower courts and
sustaining the Reagan Administration's “gag rule,” which stipulated that clinics receiving foreign aid from
the United States couldn’t perform abortions <i>with their own money</i> or even
provide counseling about abortion. He <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/george-hw-bush-world-aids-day-obit/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">fell short</span></a> in responding to the AIDS
crisis that was terrorizing America’s gay community and showed scant concern
for working-class Americans who were suffering through an economic downturn
when he vetoed the Emergency Unemployment Compensation Act of 1991, which would
have extended unemployment benefits to the long-term unemployed. Though he was
found wanting on these vital issues, Bush somehow made time in his busy
schedule to hawk <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1989-06-28/news/mn-4162_1_flag-desecration-american-flag-unique-national-symbol" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a purely token Constitutional amendment to outlaw flag burning</span></a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Another one of the common refrains among <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2018/12/05/jennifer-rubin-patriot/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">corporate toadies posing as journalists</span></a> was that Bush, like John McCain, was “a patriot.”
The assertion in its most basic formulation is that military combat +
occasional departures from party orthodoxy = “patriot,” no matter what else the person in question has done in their public life. The problem with
this claim is that an objective analysis of the public record shows that Bush,
<a href="http://beyondchron.org/the-honest-republican/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">like McCain</span></a>, was more often than not an opportunistic conservative Republican,
the furthest thing imaginable from a patriot.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Nothing demonstrates this more clearly than Bush’s record on
race issues. <a href="http://www.ontheissues.org/Celeb/George_Bush_Sr__Civil_Rights.htm" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">In 1959</span></a>, when Bush moved from the East Coast to Jim Crow-era
Texas, his family house had a covenant which read "No part of the property
in the said Addition shall ever be sold, leased, or rented to, or occupied by
any person other than of the Caucasian race, except in the servants' quarters."
<a href="http://www.ontheissues.org/Celeb/George_Bush_Sr__Civil_Rights.htm" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">As a candidate for Senate in 1964</span></a>, Bush criticized the Civil Rights Act for
undermining state’s rights (i.e. undermining individual states’ “rights” to
discriminate on the basis of race) and leveled the spurious claim that the bill
was unconstitutional. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">After getting into the White House with <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2018/12/03/how-george-h-w-bush-exploited-racism-to-win-the-oval-office/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.6eaa5355e168" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">the virulently racist Willie Horton ad</span></a>, President Bush <a href="https://www.vox.com/2014/9/5/6106169/george-hw-bush-war-on-drugs-25-year-anniversary" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">doubled down on Ronald Reagan’s War on Drugs</span></a>, which was putting record numbers of black men behind bars, and even had the DEA lure (and entrap) a teenage African-American drug dealer to the park across from the White House so Bush could <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bush-white-house-war-on-drugs_us_5c02c98be4b04fb211688aef" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">stage a photo op</span></a> on the evils of crack-cocaine. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Bush vetoed
the Motor Voter Bill (which made it easier for people of color to register to
vote), the Civil Rights Bill re-write, and the Voting Rights re-write. After congressional Democrats weakened protections against discrimination to suit Bush's demands, he signed versions of the latter two bills, but even as he
did so, his hatchet man C. Boyden Gray appealed to the worst instincts of prejudiced
white voters by </span><a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1991-11-23/news/mn-58_1_civil-rights-policies" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">pushing an executive order</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> to end Affirmative Action in
federal contracting.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Bush’s contempt for black Americans was most obvious in his
decision to appoint Clarence Thomas to fill Thurgood Marshall’s seat on the
Supreme Court. On the surface, Bush was appointing one black judge to replace
another, giving the appearance of offering African-Americans a place at the
table, but the reality was the complete opposite. Where Marshall had spent his
adult life working on behalf of civil rights and civil liberties, Thomas had
pimped himself out to the Reagan Administration, which was <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2007/11/reagans-race-record/46875/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">hostile</span></a> to both.
Bush maintained his support for the appointee even after it came out that
Thomas had likely sexually harassed Anita Hill, whom he had supervised at the
Department of Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, <a href="https://www.salon.com/2010/10/27/anita_hill_clarence_thomas/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">and other women</span></a> who weren’t called to testify in Senate hearings. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Since Thomas squeaked through Senate confirmation, he has
proven to be perhaps Bush’s worst legacy, both in terms of his lack of legal
chops (he went <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/01/us/politics/supreme-court-clarence-thomas.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">ten years</span></a> at one point without making a single comment in Supreme
Court hearings) and in his 19th Century belief system. Thomas has not
only voted with the GOP majority on all of the most undemocratic,
precedent-shattering decisions—including <i>Bush v. Gore</i> and <i>Citizens United</i>—but
has consistently sided against the interests of the black community. <a href="https://www.creators.com/read/daily-editorials/05/17/clarence-thomas-benefited-from-affirmative-action-he-now-disdains" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Though he clearly benefited from Affirmative Action</span></a>, Thomas voted to
kill it in <i>Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Pena</i>. In <i>Shelby County v. Holder</i>
Thomas joined the white Republican judges who decided to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/26/us/supreme-court-ruling.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">gut the Voting Rights Act</span></a>, under the false pretense that it was no longer necessary, which paved the way
for <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/02/15/do-voter-identification-laws-suppress-minority-voting-yes-we-did-the-research/?utm_term=.9560acd5c911" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Republican voter ID laws designed to disenfranchise voters of color</span></a>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">One year after the Thomas appointment, Bush ran for
re-election. Though he had been considered a shoe-in after Gulf War I, his
approval ratings had fallen precipitously as the economy started to stagnate.
Worse yet, he was facing Bill Clinton, a fresh face with uncanny political
skills backed by a party eager to win after 12 years out of the White House.
Unable to exploit Clinton’s womanizing due to <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ireland-mistress-of-influence-bushs-other-wife-9lndbmpx88s" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">his own infidelities</span></a>, seen as out
of touch by Americans struggling through the recession, and saddled with
positions on most issues that were to the right of the average citizen, Bush
fell back on the lowest trick in the book: <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1992/10/08/bush-hits-clintons-patriotism/8df31e41-5d8e-4964-a8ee-fe14d557804a/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">attacking Clinton’s patriotism</span></a>. As a young man, Clinton had organized protests of the Vietnam War
while living abroad. Though organizing the protests actually showed that
Clinton had been on the right side of history, and though the
protests had happened two decades earlier and had little to no relevance to
1992, Bush engaged in the typical Republican tactic of throwing shit at the wall,
hoping it would stick.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It didn’t. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Clinton won in a landslide. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As a parting gift, right before leaving office, <a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/06/29/reviews/iran-pardon.html?_r=1" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Bush pardoned</span></a> six Republican officials who had committed felonies in the Iran-Contra
scandal, in which the Reagan Administration had <a href="https://irancontrascandal.weebly.com/boland-amendment.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">broken federal law</span></a> by secretly
funding the Contras, a CIA-backed mercenary force seeking to overturn the
communist leadership in Nicaragua. The pardons wiped away six years of work by
independent counsel Lawrence Walsh, flushed tens of millions of taxpayer
dollars down the toilet, and conveniently guaranteed that <a href="https://theintercept.com/2018/12/07/george-h-w-bush-iran-contra/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Bush would never be held accountable for his direct role in the scandal</span></a> and the lies he had told
investigators.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Unfortunately, George H.W. Bush’s legacy didn’t end in 1992.
In 2001, Bush’s oldest son took office after stealing a presidential election
through a long list of sleazy tactics engineered by <a href="http://buzzflash.com/commentary/http-www-truth-out-org-buzzflash-commentary-don-t-forget-jeb-bush-played-key-role-in-stealing-the-presidency-for-his-brother" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Bush’s second son</span></a>, chief
among them the disenfranchisement of thousands of black Floridians with <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/floridas-disappeared-voters-disfranchised-gop/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">a knowingly-flawed scrub list</span></a> of the voting rolls. The whiff of scandal
surrounding Bush Sr. would be eclipsed by the <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Bush_administration_scandals" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">staggeringly-corrupt</span></a> W, who
manipulated the fear caused by 9/11 and the public trust invested in him to <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/12/leadup-iraq-war-timeline/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">lie us into a war of choice</span></a> that fractured Iraq along ethnic fault lines, created
millions of refugees, left hundreds of thousands of civilians dead, and cost
taxpayers trillions of dollars—while actually making the region less stable. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">W’s rigid adherence to right-wing ideology and <a href="https://www.kotorimag.com/post/worstpresidentever" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">string of colossal fuck-ups</span></a> (the security failure of 9/11, Iraq, Katrina, the economic
collapse of 2008) made Bush Sr. look benign and competent by comparison. Unlike
W—and Reagan, and Donald Trump—H.W. Bush had both the intelligence and
qualifications for the job and an interest in the process of governing. Also by
contrast to Reagan, W, and Trump, H.W. Bush served his country in uniform and
had some sense of <i>noblesse oblige</i>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But by choosing the Republican Party as his home, H.W. Bush signed
a deal with the devil in which he did the bidding of the most toxic forces in
American life more often than not. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Favorably comparing Bush by temperament and experience to
the surreally-infantile and inexperienced Trump gives <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/01/opinion/george-hw-bush-kindler-gentler.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">corporate toadies posing as journalists</span></a> the feeling that they are being “fair-minded” and
“non-partisan,” but since when is being less awful than other Republican
presidents an endorsement of one’s humanity, decency, or service to the
republic?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Until the United States reckons honestly with its past, we
will be stuck with fraudulent national narratives believed by a critical mass
of credulous, politically-illiterate citizens who are ill-equipped in the
voting booth, steadily perpetuating <a href="https://qz.com/879092/the-us-doesnt-look-like-a-developed-country/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">America’s downward spiral to the fate of ancient Rome</span></a>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b>More political writing by Dan Benbow: </b></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span>
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Aliens, unicorns, and <a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2018/10/spoilerparty.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>the narcissism</b></span></a> </span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">of voting Green</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2017/01/ten-reasons-barack-obama-is-clearly.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">10 reasons</span></a> </b></span>Barack Obama is clearly</span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the best president in my lifetime</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/10/178-reasons-hillary-clinton-is.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>178 reasons</b></span></a> Hillary Clinton is infinitely better</span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">than Donald Trump (even on her worst day)</span><br />
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/09/colin-kaepernick-is-right.html"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Colin Kaepernick is right</span></a></div>
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/04/stephen-colbert-delivers-best-political.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Stephen Colbert delivers the best political roast of all time</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2014/12/GaryWebbrailroaded.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Justice Delayed: "Kill the Messenger" vindicates Gary Webb</span></a></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2014/04/21st-century-republicans-part-iv.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">21st Century Republicans, Part IV</span></a></div>
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/10/inequality-for-all-and-elephant-in-room.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"Inequality for All" and the Elephant in the Room</span></a></div>
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2013/05/memorial-day-in-united-states-of-amnesia.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Memorial Day in the United States of Amnesia</span></a></div>
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2012/10/romney-ryans-road-to-perdition.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Romney-Ryan's Road to Perdition</span></a></div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Master of Low Expectations: <a href="https://www.kotorimag.com/post/worstpresidentever" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>666 Reasons</b></span></a> Sentient Citizens </span></div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">are Still Celebrating the Long Overdue Departure of George W. Bush</span></div>
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<a href="http://benbosophy.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-breathtaking-stupidity-of_16.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The breathtaking stupidity of #BernieOrBust</span></a></div>
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<b style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;"> Follow Dan Benbow on </span><a href="https://twitter.com/danbenbow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Twitter </span></a><span style="color: #222222;"> <span style="font-size: 13px;"> </span></span></span></i></b></div>
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Dan Benbowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02258556216655283390noreply@blogger.com2