Government Response to Coronavirus 4: The Reality Show From Hell

[Audrey2]

I'm so glad Katie is in Congress. I hope she has a long and successful career. I'd love to clone her!

[GreyhoundFan]

I didn't realize germs had brains. Of course, if they did, they'd be smarter than the Mango Moron.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Because it's all about him... "Trump casts himself as pandemic patron, personalizing the government’s spread of cash and supplies"

Spoiler

President Trump often speaks of federal payments coming to many Americans as an act of his own benevolence, calling the bipartisan stimulus legislation “a Trump administration initiative” and reportedly musing about printing his thick-and-jagged signature on the government checks.

Trump touts the deployment of the USS Comfort to New York Harbor in personal terms, saying it was his choice to allow the hulking Navy hospital ship to be used to for coronavirus patients — and even traveling to “kiss it goodbye” before its trek north.

And Trump talks about the Strategic National Stockpile of ventilators and medical equipment being shipped to hard-hit states as if it were his own storage unit, with governors saying they recognize that in turn they are expected to tread gingerly with him or risk jeopardizing their supply chain.

As Americans confront a pandemic and struggle to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, Trump has placed himself at the center as their patron. The president has sought to portray himself as singularly in charge — except for when things go wrong. In those instances, he has labored to blame others and avoid accountability.

Day after day, in his self-constructed role of wartime president, the task Trump seems to relish most is spreading cash and supplies across a beleaguered and anxious nation.

“Honestly, people should respect, because nobody has ever seen anything like what we’ve done,” Trump said this week, a point he has been making regularly.

Trump’s approach may be by design. With his reelection campaign all but paused during the country’s stay-at-home spring, Trump’s confidants and allies say he is trying to earn political points by taking credit in any way he can for his handling of the pandemic.

Trump’s efforts have personalized the humanitarian crisis mission of the federal government to a remarkable and perhaps unprecedented degree, yet another way in which this president has shattered norms about the use of executive power.

“Trump has cast himself in the role of generous monarch who is saying, ‘I have given you this, dear subjects’ — and it’s a remarkably selfish and self-referential performance,” historian Jon Meacham said. “It’s our money, for goodness sake,” he added, referring to taxpayers. “It’s not his money.”

Trump’s defenders say this characterization is unfair. They argue that he is not the first president to try to take credit for the actions of the government he was elected to lead — even if the 45th president is doing so on a scale beyond those of all of his predecessors.

“Come on. He’s the president,” said economist Arthur Laffer, a Trump ally who is close to several White House officials and previously advised President Ronald Reagan. “He’s the guy who makes the decisions. It’s not strange for him to be up there, being president. Every president in history has done what he’s doing at times like these.”

Trump makes no secret of his preoccupation with how the moment plays for him politically.

“Every poll says I’m going to win because, you know, you say he’s gotten good marks, but I’ve gotten great marks on what we’ve done with respect to this,” the president said last week on Fox News Channel, comparing himself to New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D).

In fact, nearly every public poll this year has shown Trump losing in a hypothetical matchup with former vice president Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

Trump has claimed personal credit for the historic $2.2 trillion stimulus plan, which will result in direct payments for tens of millions of Americans, even though it was negotiated largely by leaders in Congress, with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin acting as a proxy for the president.

As the president sat behind the Resolute Desk late last week to sign the stimulus bill, with lawmakers and administration officials arrayed behind him in the Oval Office, Trump lauded its size.

“I’ll sign the single-biggest economic relief package in American history and, I must say, or any other package, by the way,” Trump said. When he later picked up a pen, he quipped, “I’ve never signed anything with a ‘T’ on it. I don’t know if I can handle this one.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has since criticized the administration for not getting stimulus money to Americans more quickly. On Thursday, she told reporters, “They want their checks … without waiting for a fancy letter from the president to say, ‘Look what I just got for you.’ ”

The Cares Act, passed last month, authorized the Internal Revenue Service to make one-time payments of between $500 and $1,200 to millions of Americans to help flood the economy with money. Most people who qualify — those who earn less than $99,000 — will receive the money through a direct deposit to their bank accounts, but the government will also be mailing out checks to millions of other Americans.

Though some Democrats said they worried that Trump might try to place his signature on these checks, he is not an authorized signor of government payments, and his signature is not expected to be on the payments.

By providing daily updates on the resources his administration has doled out, Trump has tried to leave the impression that he is in control of the pandemic.

“We’ve set every record you can set,” Trump claimed on March 29. “The federal government has done something that nobody’s done anything like this, other than perhaps wartime. And that’s what we’re in: We’re in a war. My administration has mobilized our entire nation to vanquish the virus.”

Trump has also bragged about the relatively high ratings his news conferences receive on cable television, further underscoring his view of the federal pandemic response as a manifestation of himself.

In a tweet Friday, the president referred to his appearances in the White House press briefing room as “The People’s Voice!”

Laffer, to whom Trump awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom last year, argued that Trump’s demeanor — which critics bemoan as bragging and strewn with falsehoods and exaggerations that risk public trust at a fragile national moment — is refreshing and effective.

“Trump is Trump,” Laffer said. “He comes across as a normal person talking about these things. … That’s what throws everybody off. He doesn’t speak the language of the bureaucracy, which angers people who like the bureaucracy.”

Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, a senior White House adviser who is steering many of the coronavirus response efforts, stoked controversy last week when he referred to the Strategic National Stockpile as “our stockpile.”

“The notion of the federal stockpile was it’s supposed to be our stockpile,” Kushner said at the April 2 coronavirus news conference. “It’s not supposed to be states’ stockpiles that they then use.”

Kushner’s assertion was contradicted by the Department of Health and Human Services’ description on its website of the stockpile as “the nation’s largest supply of lifesaving pharmaceuticals and medical supplies for use in a public health emergency severe enough to cause local supplies to run out.” It continued to say that the supplies are available to states and localities that request them.

By the next morning, that language suddenly had disappeared from the site. It was replaced by language de-emphasizing the stockpile’s role in helping states, seemingly more in line with Kushner’s statement.

Personalizing the distribution of federal resources follows a familiar playbook for Trump, who in his business career prioritized marketing, even when some of his companies went bankrupt. He put his name on skyscrapers, casinos and golf courses, as well as clothing, wine, vodka, bottled water, steak, furniture, board games and even airplanes — anything to extend the Trump brand.

“Donald Trump has spent his life marketing himself and products associated with himself, so it’s not surprising that he would approach this the same way,” said David Axelrod, who served as a senior White House adviser under President Barack Obama.

Axelrod added, “Even the press briefings, the gist of his remarks every night is, here is what I am doing for you, and everybody is happy and nobody’s ever seen anything like it. He can’t help himself. He is a frenetic self-promoter.”

Timothy O’Brien, author of the biography “TrumpNation,” which chronicles Trump’s life in business, said Trump then was “a performance artist,” fixating on the cosmetics and atmospherics of a deal more than the details. O’Brien argued that this focus has carried through to the White House.

“He personalizes every moment he is in right now because that’s how he has always rolled for 73 of his 73 years, which is to say he’s the master of his domain, what’s on the playing field are his toys, and people who don’t comport with his goals are off base,” said O’Brien, a vocal Trump critic who advised former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg’s presidential campaign and is a senior columnist at Bloomberg Opinion.

Trump has received help from his lieutenants in perpetuating the narrative that he is personally responsible for whatever the federal government is doing to try to slow the spread of the coronavirus and save lives.

Vice President Pence and the array of Cabinet members and military officers who appear with Trump at daily briefings are quick to attribute government actions directly to the president’s leadership or the president’s direction. Even the pair of physicians guiding the White House coronavirus task force — Anthony S. Fauci and Deborah Birx — at times have joined the chorus.

But when things go awry, such as the drain on medical supplies in New York and other hot spots, Trump has been swift in shirking responsibility or claiming ignorance. In his telling, this and other problems are attributable to poor planning and weak leadership by state and local officials.

Asked by Sean Hannity this week on Fox News about the outcry from some states for federal help obtaining ventilators, Trump boasted about what he had already done for New York and New Jersey and pointed a finger instead at unnamed other states.

“You have some governors that are not doing a good job,” Trump told Hannity. “But, you see, this is where age and experience come in. Rather than naming them tonight on your show, I won’t bother.”

 

[GreyhoundFan]

From Max Boot: "Trump keeps hiring and firing. No wonder the pandemic response is such a mess."

Spoiler

More than 18,000 Americans have already died from covid-19 and more than 17 million have filed unemployment claims. Yet in the Trump administration, it’s been business as usual — which is to say utterly chaotic, thoroughly confused and characteristically disorganized. The pandemic has not tempered Trump’s eagerness to continue shuffling people in and out of key jobs with a head-spinning frequency that would impair governmental effectiveness even if most of his appointees weren’t so unqualified. You’ve heard of the “organization man”? Well, Trump is the disorganization man.

A week ago, on April 3, Trump fired Michael Atkinson, the inspector general of the intelligence community, for having forwarded to Congress a complaint from a whistleblower about Trump’s attempts to extort Ukraine. This adds to the turmoil in the intelligence community, our first line of defense against pandemics and other threats. The acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, was fired in February and replaced by yet another acting director — a Trump loyalist named Richard Grenell.

Four days after getting rid of Atkinson, Trump fired Glenn Fine, the acting Pentagon inspector general who was chairman of a new panel to oversee $2 trillion in stimulus spending. His temporary replacement, the inspector general of the Environmental Protection Agency, is supposed to act as inspector general of both departments until a permanent successor is confirmed for the Pentagon.

The same day that Fine was fired, acting Navy secretary Thomas Modly resigned after relieving and insulting the captain of an aircraft carrier who had demanded more aggressive action to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus aboard his ship. Modly acted so obnoxiously, it appears, because he was terrified of being fired like his predecessor for displeasing Trump. The Navy now has its second acting secretary in a row while other unconfirmed placeholders fill other critical Defense Department posts including the Pentagon comptroller and undersecretary for policy and the assistant secretaries for Asian affairs, special operations, international security affairs, manpower and readiness. All those vacancies hinder a military struggling to deal with an invisible enemy spreading rapidly through its ranks.

Yet both the intelligence community and the Pentagon are bastions of stability compared to the White House. This week, Trump removed Stephanie Grisham as press secretary and replaced her with Kayleigh McEnany, one of his most shameless defenders on television. (She insisted on Feb. 25 that “We will not see diseases like the coronavirus come here” because we are no longer afflicted by “the awful presidency of President Obama.”) McEnany’s ascension as Trump’s fourth press secretary doesn’t matter much per se; Grisham did not give a single press briefing during her 281 days on the job. But it is indicative of the changes being made by the new White House chief of staff — a job that matters a great deal.

Trump fired acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney on March 6. His replacement, Mark Meadows, waited until March 30 to resign from Congress and formally assume the post. What is often described as the second-most-important position in the entire government was effectively empty during the month when America became the world leader in confirmed coronavirus cases. Who was in charge of pandemic response? It’s hard to say since Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar, Vice President Pence and Trump’s unqualified son-in-law, Jared Kushner, have all been jostling for influence.

It doesn’t help that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) — which should play a major role in addressing this threat to the homeland — has fewer confirmed appointees than any other Cabinet department. According to a political appointee tracker from The Post and the Partnership for Public Service, while confirmed appointees fill 68 percent of the top jobs across the government (itself a low rate this late into a president’s term), at DHS it is only 35 percent.

It’s been a year since Kirstjen Nielsen was forced out as secretary and Elaine Duke as deputy secretary of DHS, and no one has been nominated to either post. Also lacking Senate-confirmed appointees are the undersecretary for management, the director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection. At least a new administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency was confirmed in January, but there is still no confirmed deputy administrator.

Even if Trump really were a “stable genius,” he would be hard-put to run the government effectively with so many appointees of dubious competence coming and going. Given that Trump is incompetent, ignorant and often irrational, his failure to surround himself with a strong, stable team exacerbates his own deficiencies and makes it nearly impossible to coordinate a sensible national response to the worst pandemic in a century. State and local leaders are largely on their own — and so are the rest of us.

 

[thoughtful]

Quote

“Trump is Trump,” Laffer said. “He comes across as a normal person talking about these things"

On what planet?

[Ozlsn]

5 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Why am I not surprised? The Mango Manboy and his spawn don't believe in giving to others:

He doesn't believe in paying people the agreed amount for work performed, charity is way out of his wheelhouse.

[Ozlsn]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I didn't realize germs had brains. Of course, if they did, they'd be smarter than the Mango Moron.

 

It's A Virus.

Antibiotics work on bacteria.

Fuckwit doesn't know what he is talking about in this context.

[Smee]

On 4/9/2020 at 10:34 PM, Becky said:

OK, I'm just spitballing here - - last week the administration announced that 100,000 - 200,000 could die just in the USA, even if we do the "social distance" thing perfectly.  That number is astounding, considering there have been fewer than 100,000 deaths worldwide up to this point. 

I suspect they are inflating those numbers, and can then claim that our illustrious leader is the reason we didn't have such an astronomical number of deaths.  I am not taking the virus lightly - this is a horrific public health crisis and the number of sick and dead is truly tragic, but do you think they are serious about the eventual death toll?  Or does anyone else smell a political ploy?  It would be truly terrible if they are inflating those predictions.  

I hate to be morbid or to frighten US members, but no, I think the opposite. We had articles here in Aus saying to expect between 20-60% of the population will be infected by the time this is “over” (at which point Covid-19 will likely stick around as a seasonal illness, infecting a small number of people without immunity each year like flu does), whether that’s next summer or 18 months from now or what. All the social distancing measures etc are about slowing things down so all those infections are spread over a longer period and the health system can cope - at this point, trying to eliminate the virus’s existence in our society is pointless, the worldwide spread is too great and it would just reappear the moment we re-open borders, so the focus is on flattening the curve until we can find a vaccine or cure.

So I take the conservative end of that number, 20%, and apply it to the 328 000 000 people in the USA and you get something like 65 million infections. IF the hospital system doesn’t completely collapse and you can maintain a death rate of 0.5% (though data seems to suggest a death rate closer to 1% or even 2%), that’s 300 000+ deaths in the US.

It’s true that the global death statistic has only just crossed 100 000. But we are still in very early days and I fear America is going to be a very different place in a year’s time. For Italy and Spain, who still can’t necessarily be said to be on the tail end, although I’m hopeful they’re over the peak, the deaths per 1 million population is somewhere around 330.  For argument’s sake, let’s say NO more Italians or Spanish die from here on out and that rate doesn’t grow. Then use that rate for the US (whose exponential growth of cases definitely mimics what happened in those countries, and whose healthcare system is arguably less equipped). 330 deaths per million people x 328 (using what google tells me is the US population) = 111 500 deaths. So no, 100-200 000 deaths in the USA is unlikely to be inflated.

[Ozlsn]

From this article looking at why predictions for NYC have so far been much worse than current numbers the modelling was initially based on data out of Wuhan, which may be unreliable, and is being adjusted to use data out of Italy/Spain. There was also variability in how models accounted for changes in human behaviour - so far lockdowns have worked better than some models predicted, at least in NYC. 

The projections were made on the best modelling available at the time, and not to scare people for political ends. To quote from the article:

And from the start of the coronavirus emergency, Mr. Cuomo has repeatedly taken the position that he would rather be prepared for a dire scenario that never came to pass than to blithely put his faith in optimistic forecasts. 

The numbers were/are plausible, but the models are evolving as more data becomes available. 

But Mr. Trump has also used them to revise expectations about his handling of the pandemic, saying he will consider himself to have succeeded if he holds the total death count to under the current predictions of around 100,000.

While I have no doubt that Trump will claim credit basically nothing is due to him. And states/people following his lead is a big part of why that death toll (or higher) is still entirely possible.

[Becky]

@Smee, thanks for the statistical breakdown.  In one way, I am glad that the experts like Dr. Birx are likely not purposely inflating numbers to give their boss something to crow about later.  On the other hand, thinking about 100,000 dead Americans and a corresponding percentage of mortality across the globe is simply too terrifying to contemplate.  

However this all shakes out, the current occupant of the White House is sure to take credit for any advances, and cast blame for any setbacks or poor outcomes.  

[fraurosena]

12 hours ago, Ozlsn said:

Fuckwit doesn't know what he is talking about in this context.

FTFY.

[fraurosena]

https://twitter.com/NYDailyNews/status/1248979991737622528?s=20

[Evil Feminist]

On 4/10/2020 at 1:24 AM, fraurosena said:

You can grow your own plants from leftover parts of many vegetables though. I’ve had lots of success with leeks and spring onions. Simply leave about two inches on the end (with rootlets) and put it in a glas of water and watch the roots and the plant grow. When the roots are good and long, you can plant them. They’re doing so well in my planter box that they’re now seeding themselves. I’ve had some middling success with Chinese cabbage and  lettuce. This year I’m going to attempt growing plants from the seeds of store bought tomatoes, bell peppers and cucumbers. If that works, I’m going for eggplants and zucchini’s too.

I've been playing around with saving my own seeds for years. Successfully grown seeds from store bought tomatoes and eggplant. Cucumbers, and zucchini need to be left on the plant until they are fully ripe, because we pick and eat them while the seeds are still immature. Peppers need to be colored, red, yellow, the green ones are immature as well. I'm experimenting with regrowing celery and happy to see some green leaves sprouting. Had not thought to try that with leeks! 

And if they want to close off aisles in stores, move the seeds to the grocery area. I'm so tired of hearing people scream about how its for control, not safety. I'm high risk and it makes me mad at how careless and stupid people are when I'm trying to be so careful.

[JMarie]

Schools in PA are closed for the rest of the year

[Howl]

Watched Cuomo -- not sure if it was live or from yesterday.  He's America's dad right now and certainly the voice of sanity and calm thoughtfulness about what's happening now and what lies ahead -- he can say because no one knows for sure what the future holds.  However, if we do what we can now, the future is a better place. 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

As is often the case, Chris sums up things nicely:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"James Comey: We know what good leadership in a crisis looks like. This isn’t it."

Spoiler

James B. Comey is a former director of the FBI and former deputy attorney general.

The Queen of England recently spoke to her people about the novel coronavirus pandemic and offered a master class in leadership.

She was calm, dignified, and above all, candid about the present, yet optimistic about the future. These are very hard times, she said, but we have been through hard times together in the past, and we will be okay if we unite around the values that have long sustained us.

“Using the great advances of science and our instinctive compassion to heal, we will succeed, and that success will belong to every one of us. We should take comfort that while we may have more still to endure, better days will return. We will be with our friends again. We will be with our families again. We will meet again.”

People crave leadership when they are afraid. But leading well during a crisis does not mean “faking it so people don’t freak out.” It doesn’t mean promising people all will be fine or lecturing them for being frightened.

Authenticity, honesty and relentless, reasoned optimism are the ingredients of leadership in a crisis. It means doing more of what you should already be doing as a leader — radiating calm, competence and compassion so the people being led are comforted by the leader’s presence and vision.

Like this horrible virus, fear and anxiety are contagious. People in crisis watch closely and over-interpret a leader’s every word, gesture and tone. They spot exaggeration or a lack of authenticity. Good leaders try to tell their people the truth always, but especially in crisis. They correct the inevitable misstatements during an emergency and they admit when they don’t know an answer. They are honest about the current crisis but clear-eyed about the path out of it.

Candor — as opposed to sugarcoating the situation — allows people to relax a bit, knowing the leader will always tell them what they need to know, when they need to know it. This allows them to shift some of their emotional burden to the leader’s shoulders, giving them the chance to find some normalcy in the storm.

U.S. presidents have long shown the way. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke to the country by radio on Dec. 9, 1941, two days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, he was blunt with a terrified nation: “We are now in this war. We are all in it — all the way. Every single man, woman and child is a partner in the most tremendous undertaking of our American history. We must share together the bad news and the good news, the defeats and the victories — the changing fortunes of war. So far, the news has all been bad.” With his candor established, the president then laid out a detailed plan for fighting the Axis powers.

That kind of honesty about the present is what makes possible reassurance about the future. Because the indispensable part of crisis leadership is this: No matter how pessimistic the leader is feeling about the present, the leader relentlessly communicates that we will be okay in the long run.

Roosevelt ended his bracing talk with a simple, sobering and ultimately uplifting message that he repeated for four years: “We are going to win the war, and we are going to win the peace that follows.” Americans believed him and were inspired to do what was necessary.

Even without effective national leadership, we will get through this pandemic crisis. We will meet again and, when we do, the United States will be a better country, with a much deeper appreciation for what leadership requires.

 

[Vivi_music]

Well here are the news from my necks of the woods.

Here in Quebec the situation seems to have started to ''stabilize'' if that is possible. We still have deaths and new cases everyday but the numbers are ''normal'' (I put all these words in quotes because I HATE SAYING it this way. Sounds so cold.)

Confirmed cases: 12 292

Hospitalized patients: 778 (amongst these: 211 are in intense care)

Deaths: 289

These numbers account for a total population of 8.4 million (similar to countries like Israel or Switzerland).

If we look at the positive, well the ratio of patients who need to be hospitalize is lower than expected and it seems the healthcare system will be able to make it through this crisis.

But since yesterday, the provincial government is paddling a bit fast to get out of a very ''hot'' situation. First of all, the Premier mentionned casually in a press conference that the gov. is considering reopening schools and daycares before the month of may. The public's reaction was very intense and I understand why. Today the Premier tried to backtrack but his respond was so vague. He said that schools will only reopen if it is safe for children. It's such a ''politically correct answer''. Even if it is deemed safe for children... the thing that seems to be forgotten is that: children don't live of closed-off bubbles. They will interact with their families, their teachers, their school bus drivers, their lunch ladies, their counselors, etc. who could easily be at risk.

It is just so incongruous with all the efforts we have been doing in the past month. I ended up having an argument with a friend of mine online, trying to explain my point of view (to be honest, it was a very respectful argument and that was refreshing). I was explaing how this situation will target and isolate the elderly even more than it already does. If I look at my own family, my mother and father-in-law (she remarried) are in their late 60's. My Mom is diabetic and her partner has COPD. Since day one, they have been respecting the rules of confinement perfectly (considering they are both a bit frigthen). My mother has 6 grand-children, ranging from age 10 to 2. If schools and daycares  reopen soon, she and her husband will be the only ones to stay isolated. In the meantime, her grandchildren and children (me and my siblings are in our 30's and 40's) will calmly start to live normally again. But won't be able to see her. That is a HUGE sacrifice to ask. Not just the children, for her as well. How harsh is it to see live start again will you are lonely. And we are quite lucky. Imagine the children being raised by their grandparents, or children with a younger parent, but suffering from a chronic disease. It is unthinkable.

If I look at my dad's situation, it is even worst. My father lives in a retirement home after having suffered two strokes. The patient care attendants (or I think they are sometimes called nurses' aid in the US?) who work in the retirement home have families, children, teens, etc.. If a child passes it on to his mother, who is pre-symptomatic and goes to work at the retirement home ... then that's it. The spread will start. The situation in seniors' residences is so dire right now in Quebec. It is where the biggest clusters are.

The pro-school opening arguments are all saying that, at one point, it will be necessary to learn how to live with COVID19, and this disease will need to become part of our new reality. Simply because a treatment or vaccine might be more than a year away. So opening schools now or in the fall won't make a difference because we will still have no vaccines available. Their argument is that we can't live a year confined. I understand that. Public health services belive reopening schools will create an immunity amongst children and teens. I agree that learning to live with the virus will become inevitable. But like ... it still sounds like a sacrifice if you ask me. And for many people, this sacrifice means: a father, a mother, a stepfather. It's like our government just said: ''Society will gradually resume normal life, and you must accept the risk to lose a loved one".

And that is brutal.

I'm not even mentionning the other atrocity that has been in the news today, because I'm already too mad. Maybe I'll write a longer post about it. It concerns a private long-term care facility (for elderly who are not autonomous anymore) where the workers simply stopped showing up to work in the past two weeks. The government was alerted of the situation this week and apprently healtcare inspectors entered the building and found elderly people who had passed away in their rooms, alone. They seemed to have been left there for a few days. It gives me chills just to imagine it. SO yeah, the government is not even able to control that, and mention reopening schools?

I'm mad.

Edited April 11, 2020 by Vivi_music

[fraurosena]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

More crooked Rs:

 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Because in his beady eyes, he's the only person who matters:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

What a surprise (Not), MoscowMitch and his band of nasties won't negotiate to help average Americans. "GOP leaders refuse Democrats’ coronavirus demands, won’t negotiate over small-business lending"

Spoiler

Top GOP leaders in Congress said Saturday they would not negotiate with Democrats and instead insisted that lawmakers approve more money for a small-business lending program for firms impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) released a joint statement Saturday morning saying they would not agree to any compromise with Democrats that changed their proposal to add $250 billion to the Paycheck Protection Program, which is being run by the Small Business Administration.

“Republicans reject Democrats’ reckless threat to continue blocking job-saving funding unless we renegotiate unrelated programs which are not in similar peril,” the joint statement said. “This will not be Congress’s last word on COVID-19, but this crucial program needs funding now. American workers cannot be used as political hostages.”

Their statement appeared to deepen a stalemate over Congress’s next steps to address the nation’s economic misery.

The small-business Paycheck Protection Program, initially funded at $350 billion, was part of the $2 trillion rescue bill Congress approved late last month to deal with the economic ravages of the coronavirus.

McConnell and McCarthy claimed in their statement that the program “burned through roughly half of its initial funding in the first week.” They didn’t provide more information about this claim, and it doesn’t appear to track with how the program was designed.

The program incentivizes banks to make loans to small businesses. Those loans are forgivable, meaning they don’t have to be repaid if the companies meet certain metrics such as job retention. But the government funding isn’t supposed to be used for the initial loans, and so the $350 billion in taxpayer money should still largely be intact unless the SBA and Treasury Department advanced the money to banks, which they have not announced they would do. Still, the fact that the White House now considers much of these funds to be “obligated” for future repayments to the banks is adding to their sense of urgency for updating the program.

The White House has said the program proved so popular in its first week that more money was needed for this purpose. It still appears just a fraction of the nation’s 30 million small businesses are participating in the program, and many firms have complained that banks aren’t cooperating enough or providing faster assistance.

Democrats don’t want to sign off on the $250 billion increase without also adding hundreds of billions for hospitals, cities, states and food stamp recipients. They also want to ensure that half of the increase goes through community banks, emergency grants and other programs aimed at underserved communities.

Democrats blocked an attempt by McConnell on Thursday to advance the $250 billion increase, while McConnell blocked an effort by Democrats to block a competing relief bill with money for the small-business program as well as other priorities.

The Paycheck Protection Program has been swamped by overwhelming demand, even as lenders have griped about confusing regulations and small businesses have complained about difficulties accessing the program and actually getting the money. Speaking on Fox Business on Friday, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said more than 660,000 loans have been approved for a total of $168 billion, meaning nearly half the money in the program already has been obligated.

He said the money was forecast to run out on April 17.

“Those are enormous numbers,” Kudlow said. “That’s why we would like the Congress to help us with an additional $250 billion.”

President Trump said at the daily briefing of his coronavirus task force Friday that he was open to Democrats’ demands, which include an additional $100 billion commitment for hospitals and health-care systems; $150 billion to help cities and states; and a 15 percent increase in food stamp benefits. But Trump suggested those should come in a later recovery package, perhaps along with a payroll tax cut and an infrastructure bill, two priorities he has been pushing for some time.

“I’m certainly okay with helping the states and helping the hospitals,” Trump said, but he added that the Paycheck Protection Program is getting “swamped.”

Republicans argue that the small-business loan program is the one piece of the $2 trillion Cares Act that is in immediate need of a cash infusion, since other portions of the bill — such as unemployment insurance and aid to hospitals, cities and states — are rolling out more slowly.

The statement from McConnell and McCarthy followed comments from Democratic leaders on Friday about the need for negotiations in response to the administration’s $250 billion request for the small-business loan program.

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said he had spoken with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on interim emergency relief legislation for coronavirus. "There’s no reason why we can’t come to a bipartisan agreement by early next week,” Schumer said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) also had a conversation with Mnuchin, according to her spokesman, Drew Hammill. Pelosi reiterated the Democrats’ contention that the small-business initiative “must not solidify the disparity in access to capital faced by many small businesses in underserved areas” and that any agreement also should include money for hospitals and state and local governments.

Despite the contention from McConnell and McCarthy that no negotiations were needed, some other Republicans were open to talks that could improve the program.

Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) said in an interview Friday with The Washington Post that while he supported McConnell’s effort to boost funding for the program, he is also seeking tweaks to how it is administered — citing concerns about some businesses, such as in the hospitality and tourism sectors, that already have laid off thousands of employees.

“I don’t think the legislation works as well for those kinds of businesses,” Portman said. “We agree there ought to be an increase in the cap. But also we think we should be looking at more flexibility to handle those kinds of businesses that really were required to let their people go because they were shut down by governmental action.”

Congressional negotiations are complicated by the fact that the House and Senate are both out of session because of health concerns, and although they are scheduled to reconvene in late April it’s uncertain whether they will actually do so. Without lawmakers physically present, the only way to move legislation is through unanimous consent or voice vote during one of the regularly scheduled and brief “pro forma” sessions that occur a couple of times a week in each chamber. That requires bipartisan consensus and gives any individual lawmaker the ability to block legislation from moving by raising an objection.

On Saturday morning, governors across the United States, through the National Governors Association, called upon lawmakers to shore up collapsing state budgets to the tune of $500 billion in the next relief package.

“In the absence of unrestricted fiscal support of at least $500 billion from the federal government, states will have to confront the prospect of significant reductions to critically important services all across this country, hampering public health, the economic recovery, and — in turn — our collective effort to get people back to work," wrote Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R), the NGA chair, and New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D), the vice chair, in a statement.

 

[thoughtful]

Kentucky:

Quote

For those who decide to participate in a mass gathering of any type of which the state is notified of, the license plates of those individuals will be recorded and given to health department officials. They will then visit the individuals home bringing with them an order to quarantine for 14 days.

https://www.newschannel5.com/news/april-10-kentucky-update-1-693-confirmed-covid-19-cases-90-deaths

[Ozlsn]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

McConnell and McCarthy claimed in their statement that the program “burned through roughly half of its initial funding in the first week.” They didn’t provide more information about this claim,

Yeah, I'd be wanting a lot more information frankly. Who was the money distributed to and in what amounts?

 

[Ozlsn]

5 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

More crooked Rs:

For the first time in my life I feel like the Persian king Cambyses might have had a point when he ordered the corrupt judge Sisamnes to be flayed alive. Not, you understand, that I am advocating this. Just that I can see how he might have come to that decision.