covid politics

[JohnRoberts]

You might be more cynical than me... congrats...  8)

JR

 

[crazydoc]

The image of top American leadership has become a kayfabe, and Trump is no slouch when it comes to acting out the prewritten parts necessary to sell tickets and rile the crowd.

Interesting conspiracy theory, but it presupposes the stupidity of a lot of people (a given, unfortunately) and that Trump is able to stay focused on and act a part - not likely. Of course, he could have been chosen for the part just to  be himself, without even knowing what is going on.

  the next 'Evil Manager' will be acting out the part of the 'Good Manager'

OK by me - give him/her two terms.

 

[CJ]

In Hun­gary, the prime min­is­ter can now rule by decree. In Britain, min­is­ters have what a crit­ic called “eye-water­ing” pow­er to detain peo­ple and close bor­ders. Israel’s prime min­is­ter has shut down courts and begun an intru­sive sur­veil­lance of cit­i­zens. Chile has sent the mil­i­tary to pub­lic squares once occu­pied by pro­test­ers. Bolivia has post­poned elec­tions.

As the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic brings the world to a jud­der­ing halt and anx­ious cit­i­zens demand action, lead­ers across the globe are invok­ing exec­u­tive pow­ers and seiz­ing vir­tu­al­ly dic­ta­to­r­i­al author­i­ty with scant resis­tance.

Gov­ern­ments and rights groups agree that these extra­or­di­nary times call for extra­or­di­nary mea­sures. States need new pow­ers to shut their bor­ders, enforce quar­an­tines and track infect­ed peo­ple. Many of these actions are pro­tect­ed under inter­na­tion­al rules, con­sti­tu­tion­al lawyers say.

But crit­ics say some gov­ern­ments are using the pub­lic health cri­sis as cov­er to seize new pow­ers that have lit­tle to do with the out­break, with few safe­guards to ensure that their new author­i­ty will not be abused.

The laws are tak­ing swift hold across a broad range of polit­i­cal sys­tems — in author­i­tar­i­an states like Jor­dan, fal­ter­ing democ­ra­cies like Hun­gary, and tra­di­tion­al democ­ra­cies like Britain. And there are few sun­set pro­vi­sions to ensure that the pow­ers will be rescind­ed once the threat pass­es.

“We could have a par­al­lel epi­dem­ic of author­i­tar­i­an and repres­sive mea­sures fol­low­ing close if not on the heels of a health epi­dem­ic,” said Fion­nu­ala Ni Aolain, the Unit­ed Nations Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on coun­tert­er­ror­ism and human rights.

As the new laws broad­en state sur­veil­lance, allow gov­ern­ments to detain peo­ple indef­i­nite­ly and infringe on free­doms of assem­bly and expres­sion, they could also shape civic life, pol­i­tics and economies for decades to come.

The pan­dem­ic is already redefin­ing norms. Inva­sive sur­veil­lance sys­tems in South Korea and Sin­ga­pore, which would have invit­ed cen­sure under nor­mal cir­cum­stances, have been praised for slow­ing infec­tions. Gov­ern­ments that ini­tial­ly crit­i­cized Chi­na for putting mil­lions of its cit­i­zens under lock­down have since fol­lowed suit.

Israel’s prime min­is­ter, Ben­jamin Netanyahu, has autho­rized his country’s inter­nal secu­ri­ty agency to track cit­i­zens using a secret trove of cell­phone data devel­oped for coun­tert­er­ror­ism. By trac­ing people’s move­ments, the gov­ern­ment can pun­ish those who defy iso­la­tion orders with up to six months in prison.

And by order­ing the clos­ing of the nation’s courts, Mr. Netanyahu delayed his sched­uled appear­ance to face cor­rup­tion charges.

In some parts of the world, new emer­gency laws have revived old fears of mar­tial law. The Philip­pine Con­gress passed leg­is­la­tion last week that gave Pres­i­dent Rodri­go Duterte emer­gency pow­ers and $5.4 bil­lion to deal with the pan­dem­ic. Law­mak­ers watered down an ear­li­er draft law that would have allowed the pres­i­dent to take over pri­vate busi­ness­es.

“This lim­it­less grant of emer­gency pow­ers is tan­ta­mount to autoc­ra­cy,” a Philip­pine rights group, the Con­cerned Lawyers for Civ­il Lib­er­ties, said in a state­ment. The lawyers not­ed that Mr. Duterte had once com­pared the country’s Con­sti­tu­tion to a “scrap of toi­let paper.”

Some states are using the pan­dem­ic to crack down on dis­sent. In Jor­dan, after an emer­gency “defense law” gave wide lat­i­tude to his office, Prime Min­is­ter Omar Raz­zaz said his gov­ern­ment would “deal firm­ly” with any­one who spreads “rumors, fab­ri­ca­tions and false news that sows pan­ic.”

Prime Min­is­ter Prayuth Chan-ocha of Thai­land has assumed the author­i­ty to impose cur­fews and cen­sor the news media. Jour­nal­ists there have been sued and intim­i­dat­ed for crit­i­ciz­ing the government’s response to the out­break.

While the virus itself may have cooled pro­test­ers’ will to crowd pub­lic squares, Chile’s dec­la­ra­tion of a “state of cat­a­stro­phe” and the military’s pres­ence on city streets has mut­ed rag­ing dis­sent that rocked the nation for months.

The pan­dem­ic has also dis­rupt­ed planned elec­tions. This month, Bolivia sus­pend­ed a much antic­i­pat­ed pres­i­den­tial elec­tion that had been sched­uled for ear­ly May. A dis­put­ed elec­tion last year set off vio­lent protests and forced Pres­i­dent Evo Morales to resign.

The inter­im pres­i­dent, who promised to serve only as a care­tak­er, has since con­sol­i­dat­ed pow­er and announced her plan to run for an elect­ed term. The country’s elec­tion tri­bunal said on Thurs­day that it would hold the elec­tions some­time between June and Sep­tem­ber.

In the Unit­ed States, the Jus­tice Depart­ment asked Con­gress for sweep­ing new pow­ers, includ­ing a plan to elim­i­nate legal pro­tec­tions for asy­lum seek­ers and detain peo­ple indef­i­nite­ly with­out tri­al. After Repub­li­cans and Democ­rats balked, the depart­ment scaled back and sub­mit­ted a more mod­est pro­pos­al.

Rights groups say gov­ern­ments may con­tin­ue to absorb more pow­er while their cit­i­zens are dis­tract­ed. They wor­ry that peo­ple may not rec­og­nize the rights they have ced­ed until it is too late to reclaim them.

Some emer­gency bills were waved through so quick­ly that law­mak­ers and rights groups had no time to read them, let alone debate their neces­si­ty. Rights advo­cates have also ques­tioned the speed with which states have draft­ed lengthy leg­is­la­tion.

Cer­tain gov­ern­ments have a set of desired pow­ers “ready to go” in case of emer­gency or cri­sis, said Ms. Aolain, the Unit­ed Nations spe­cial rap­por­teur. They draft laws in advance and wait “for the oppor­tu­ni­ty of the cri­sis to be pre­sent­ed,” she said.

It is far from clear what will become of the emer­gency laws when the cri­sis pass­es. In the past, laws enact­ed in a rush, like the Patri­ot Act that fol­lowed the Sept. 11 attacks, have out­lived the crises they were meant to address.

Over time, emer­gency decrees per­me­ate legal struc­tures and become nor­mal­ized, said Dou­glas Rutzen, the pres­i­dent of the Inter­na­tion­al Cen­ter for Not-for-Prof­it Law in Wash­ing­ton, which is track­ing new leg­is­la­tion and decrees dur­ing the pan­dem­ic.

“It’s real­ly easy to con­struct emer­gency pow­ers,” Mr. Rutzen said. “It’s real­ly dif­fi­cult to decon­struct them.”

The pan­dem­ic may be a boon to gov­ern­ments with an auto­crat­ic bent.

“A Real Dic­ta­tor­ship”

In Hun­gary, a new law has grant­ed Prime Min­is­ter Vik­tor Orban the pow­er to side­step Par­lia­ment and sus­pend exist­ing laws. Mr. Orban, who declared a state of emer­gency this month, now has the sole pow­er to end the emer­gency. Par­lia­ment, where two-thirds of the seats are con­trolled by his par­ty, approved the leg­is­la­tion on Mon­day.

Crit­ics say the new leg­is­la­tion could allow Mr. Orban’s gov­ern­ment to fur­ther erode demo­c­ra­t­ic insti­tu­tions and per­se­cute jour­nal­ists and mem­bers of the oppo­si­tion. The law will per­ma­nent­ly amend two arti­cles of the crim­i­nal code that will fur­ther lim­it free­dom of expres­sion and penal­ize peo­ple for breach­ing quar­an­tine orders. It will also sus­pend all elec­tions and ref­er­en­dums.

Under one mea­sure, any­one who dis­sem­i­nates infor­ma­tion that could hin­der the government’s response to the epi­dem­ic could face up to five years in prison. The leg­is­la­tion gives broad lat­i­tude to the pub­lic pros­e­cu­tor to deter­mine what counts as dis­tort­ed or false infor­ma­tion.

“The draft law is alarm­ing,” said Daniel Kar­sai, a lawyer in Budapest who said the new leg­is­la­tion had cre­at­ed “a big fear” among Hun­gar­i­ans that “the Orban admin­is­tra­tion will be a real dic­ta­tor­ship.”

“There is not enough trust in the gov­ern­ment in this respect,” he said.

Oth­ers point­ed to the government’s track record of pro­long­ing emer­gency leg­is­la­tion long after a cri­sis. One such decree, issued at the height of Europe’s migra­tion cri­sis five years ago, is still in effect.

 

[CJ]

Ear­li­er this week, the Eliz­a­beth, New Jer­sey police depart­ment gave res­i­dents a look at one of the drones offi­cials there will use to help mon­i­tor res­i­dents and enforce social dis­tanc­ing mea­sures aimed at slow­ing the spread of the nov­el coro­n­avirus. “These drones will be around the City with an auto­mat­ed mes­sage from the May­or telling you to STOP gath­er­ing, dis­perse and go home,” the depart­ment said.

The city, which has seen close to 1,500 con­firmed COVID cas­es, is one of a grow­ing num­ber of com­mu­ni­ties in the Unit­ed States that is either deploy­ing or con­sid­er­ing the use of unmanned drones to sup­port their shel­ter-in-place directives—a prac­tice that has been used, seem­ing­ly with suc­cess, in coun­tries like France and Chi­na. But on Wednes­day, the Eliz­a­beth police depart­ment was forced to clar­i­fy in a sec­ond video empha­siz­ing that the drones were only there to spread “an auto­mat­ed notice about keep­ing your social dis­tance.”

“We are just try­ing to save lives, not try­ing to be big broth­er,” the depart­ment said on Face­book. “There is no record­ing and no pic­tures being tak­en, it is a tool of encour­age­ment to fol­low the rules.”

The episode under­scores the loom­ing ten­sions for fed­er­al and local gov­ern­ments between civ­il lib­er­ties and efforts to com­bat a dead­ly pan­dem­ic that has par­a­lyzed the coun­try. The U.S. gov­ern­ment was caught flat-foot­ed by the pub­lic health cri­sis, thanks to Don­ald Trump ignor­ing months of warn­ings and rely­ing on wish­ful think­ing rather than action. But with Amer­i­ca now the epi­cen­ter of the pan­dem­ic, the admin­is­tra­tion is try­ing to play catch-up, with Jared Kushner—the president’s unqual­i­fied son-in-law and senior advis­er—lead­ing a coro­n­avirus response team that has float­ed a num­ber of poten­tial mea­sures, includ­ing a nation­al sur­veil­lance sys­tem to mon­i­tor out­breaks. That has raised pri­va­cy con­cerns, with crit­ics liken­ing it to the Patri­ot Act put into place fol­low­ing 9/11. “This is a gen­uine crisis—we have to work through it and do our best to pro­tect people’s health,” Jes­si­ca Rich, a for­mer direc­tor of the Fed­er­al Trade Commission’s con­sumer pro­tec­tion bureau, told Politi­co. “But doing that doesn’t mean we have to destroy pri­va­cy.”

With­in the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment itself, there has been a clum­sy acknowl­edge­ment that there are lim­its to what the U.S. can do in its efforts to con­tain the virus. “We are not an author­i­tar­i­an nation,” Sur­geon Gen­er­al Jerome Adams said on Fox News last month, soon after the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion declared coro­n­avirus a pan­dem­ic. “So we have to be care­ful when we say, ‘Let’s do what Chi­na did, let’s do what South Korea did.’” (South Korea is a democ­ra­cy.) Still, actions by the Trump admin­is­tra­tion to loosen data shar­ing rules around health­care and the nation­al coro­n­avirus sur­veil­lance pro­pos­al from Kushner’s team have raised con­cerns from pri­va­cy advocates—particularly giv­en the long­stand­ing fears about how the Trump admin­is­tra­tion has used sur­veil­lance and tech­nol­o­gy in its immi­gra­tion enforce­ment and oth­er con­tro­ver­sial poli­cies, along with the president’s ero­sion of demo­c­ra­t­ic norms.

“We dealt with sim­i­lar issues in 9/11,” Rich said. “One rea­son that the gov­ern­ment doesn’t have all of this data is there’s a lot of con­cern about big broth­er main­tain­ing large data­bas­es on every con­sumer on sen­si­tive issues like health, and for good rea­son.” Indeed, for crit­ics, the pri­va­cy ques­tions extend beyond the present moment when gov­ern­ments are grap­pling with the dead­ly pan­dem­ic — what hap­pens when this cri­sis pass­es? Is it pos­si­ble to get the tooth­paste back in the tube? “My biggest con­cern is that tech will emerge more pow­er­ful than it was,” Bur­cu Kil­ic, who leads a dig­i­tal right pro­gram at con­sumer advo­ca­cy orga­ni­za­tion Pub­lic Cit­i­zen, told Politi­co. “When things get back to nor­mal, do you think they’ll want to reg­u­late them?”

Munic­i­pal­i­ties like Eliz­a­beth and Day­tona Beach, Flori­da that are mak­ing use of drones to enforce social dis­tanc­ing are get­ting a taste of what nor­mal might look like, thanks to the pan­dem­ic. As Thomas Gaulkin of the Bul­letin of the Atom­ic Sci­en­tists not­ed ear­li­er this month, many Amer­i­cans— often fierce in their objec­tions to per­ceived gov­ern­ment over­reach into their lives—might nor­mal­ly object to dystopi­an images of fly­ing robots polic­ing lock­downs. But these, of course, are not nor­mal times. “If drones do begin to hov­er over U.S. streets to help con­trol this pan­dem­ic,” Gaulkin wrote, “it will be yet anoth­er vis­i­ble reminder that we’ve entered a pub­lic health Twi­light Zone where Amer­i­cans have no bet­ter option than to embrace what was once only imag­in­able, and nev­er real.”

7b. The alpha preda­tor of the elec­tron­ic sur­veil­lance land­scape is Peter Thiel’s Palan­tir. They have land­ed two key gov­ern­ment con­tracts in con­nec­tion with the Covid-19 out­break: ” . . . . Palan­tir, the $20 bil­lion-val­ued Palo Alto tech com­pa­ny backed by Face­book-fun­der Peter Thiel, has been hand­ed a $17.3 mil­lion con­tract with one of the lead­ing health bod­ies lead­ing the charge against COVID-19. It’s the biggest con­tract hand­ed to a Sil­i­con Val­ley com­pa­ny to assist America’s COVID-19 response, accord­ing to Forbes’ review of pub­lic con­tracts, and comes as oth­er Cal­i­forn­ian giants like Apple and Google try to fig­ure out how best to help gov­ern­ments fight the dead­ly virus. . . . The mon­ey, from the fed­er­al government’s COVID-19 relief fund, is for Palan­tir Gotham licens­es, accord­ing to a con­tract record reviewed by Forbes. That tech­nol­o­gy is designed to draw in data from myr­i­ad sources and, regard­less of what form or size, turn the infor­ma­tion into a coher­ent whole. The ‘plat­form’ is cus­tomized for each client, so it meets with their mis­sion needs, accord­ing to Palan­tir. . . . Palan­tir Gotham is slight­ly dif­fer­ent to Foundry, a new­er prod­uct that’s aimed more at gen­er­al users rather than data sci­ence whizzes, with more automa­tion than Gotham. As Forbes pre­vi­ous­ly report­ed, Foundry is being used by the Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion (CDC) to ingest infor­ma­tion from all man­ner of hos­pi­tals across Amer­i­ca to see where best to pro­vide more or less resource. . . . Palan­tir is now work­ing with at least 12 gov­ern­ments on their respons­es to coro­n­avirus, accord­ing to two sources with knowl­edge of its COVID-19 work. That includes the U.K.’s Nation­al Health Ser­vice, which is using Foundry for sim­i­lar pur­pos­es as the CDC. . . .”

“Palan­tir, The Peter Thiel-Backed $20 Bil­lion Big Data Crunch­er, Scores $17 Mil­lion Coro­n­avirus Emer­gency Relief Deal” by Thomas Brew­ster; Forbes; 04/11/2020

Palan­tir, the $20 bil­lion-val­ued Palo Alto tech com­pa­ny backed by Face­book-fun­der Peter Thiel, has been hand­ed a $17.3 mil­lion con­tract with one of the lead­ing health bod­ies lead­ing the charge against COVID-19.

It’s the biggest con­tract hand­ed to a Sil­i­con Val­ley com­pa­ny to assist America’s COVID-19 response, accord­ing to Forbes’ review of pub­lic con­tracts, and comes as oth­er Cal­i­forn­ian giants like Apple and Google try to fig­ure out how best to help gov­ern­ments fight the dead­ly virus.

The deal was signed on April 10 with a Depart­ment of Health and Human Ser­vices (HHS) sub­sidiary agency, the Pro­gram Sup­port Cen­ter (PSC), which pro­vides “shared ser­vices across the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment.”

The mon­ey, from the fed­er­al government’s COVID-19 relief fund, is for Palan­tir Gotham licens­es, accord­ing to a con­tract record reviewed by Forbes. That tech­nol­o­gy is designed to draw in data from myr­i­ad sources and, regard­less of what form or size, turn the infor­ma­tion into a coher­ent whole. The “plat­form” is cus­tomized for each client, so it meets with their mis­sion needs, accord­ing to Palan­tir.

 

[CJ]

“G.O.P. Aim­ing To Make Chi­na The Scape­goat” by Jonathan Mar­tin and Mag­gie Haber­man; The New York Times; 4/19/2020; pp. A1-A6 [West­ern Edi­tion]

The strat­e­gy could not be clear­er: From the Repub­li­can law­mak­ers blan­ket­ing Fox News to new ads from Pres­i­dent Trump’s super PAC to the bit­ing crit­i­cism on Don­ald Trump Jr.’s Twit­ter feed, the G.O.P. is attempt­ing to divert atten­tion from the administration’s heav­i­ly crit­i­cized response to the coro­n­avirus by pin­ning the blame on Chi­na.

With the death toll from the pan­dem­ic already sur­pass­ing 34,000 Amer­i­cans and unem­ploy­ment soar­ing to lev­els not seen since the Great Depres­sion, Repub­li­cans increas­ing­ly believe that ele­vat­ing Chi­na as an arch­en­e­my cul­pa­ble for the spread of the virus, and har­ness­ing America’s grow­ing ani­mos­i­ty toward Bei­jing, may be the best way to sal­vage a dif­fi­cult elec­tion.

Repub­li­can sen­a­tors locked in dif­fi­cult races are prepar­ing com­mer­cials con­demn­ing Chi­na. Con­ser­v­a­tives with future pres­i­den­tial ambi­tions of their own, like Sen­a­tors Tom Cot­ton and Josh Haw­ley, are com­pet­ing to see who can talk tougher toward the coun­try where the virus first emerged. Par­ty offi­cials are pub­licly and pri­vate­ly bran­dish­ing polling data in hopes Mr. Trump will con­front Bei­jing.

Mr. Trump’s own cam­paign aides have endorsed the strat­e­gy, releas­ing an attack ad last week depict­ing Joseph R. Biden Jr., the pre­sump­tive Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­nee, as soft on Chi­na. The ad relied heav­i­ly on images of peo­ple of Asian descent, includ­ing for­mer Gov. Gary Locke of Wash­ing­ton, who is Chi­nese-Amer­i­can, and it was wide­ly viewed as fan­ning the flames of xeno­pho­bia. . . .

. . . . The strat­e­gy includes efforts to lever­age the U.S.-China rela­tion­ship against Mr. Biden, who Repub­li­cans believe is vul­ner­a­ble because of his com­ments last year play­ing down the geopo­lit­i­cal chal­lenge posed by Chi­na and what Repub­li­cans claim was high-pay­ing work that his son, Hunter, has done there. (A lawyer for the younger Mr. Biden said he was uncom­pen­sat­ed for his work.)

Mr. Biden, for his part, has crit­i­cized Mr. Trump’s warm words for Chi­na. On Fri­day, his cam­paign released a video assail­ing the pres­i­dent for not press­ing Mr. Xi to let the Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion into his coun­try and for being “more wor­ried about pro­tect­ing his trade deal with Chi­na than he was about the virus.”

On a con­fer­ence call with reporters, Antony J. Blinken, a senior Biden advis­er, not­ed that in Jan­u­ary and Feb­ru­ary “the pres­i­dent praised Chi­na and Pres­i­dent Xi more than 15 times.” He attrib­uted the flat­tery to the administration’s not want­i­ng to “risk that Chi­na pull back on imple­ment­ing” the ini­tial trade agree­ment the two coun­tries signed in Jan­u­ary. . . .

. . . . The president’s hopes for secur­ing a major trade agree­ment with Chi­na have been rein­forced by a coterie of his advis­ers, includ­ing Trea­sury Sec­re­tary Steven Mnuchin,who have often pre­vailed in inter­nal bat­tles over White House hard-lin­ers.

But with the coro­n­avirus death toll grow­ing and the econ­o­my at a stand­still, polls show that Amer­i­cans have nev­er viewed Chi­na more neg­a­tive­ly.

In a recent 17-state sur­vey con­duct­ed by Mr. Trump’s cam­paign, 77 per­cent of vot­ers agreed that Chi­na cov­ered up the extent of the coro­n­avirus out­break, and 79 per­cent of vot­ers indi­cat­ed they did not think Chi­na had been truth­ful about the extent of infec­tions and deaths, accord­ing to a Repub­li­can briefed on the poll. . . .

. . . . “At this moment in time a trade deal is not the right top­ic of dis­cus­sion,” said Sen­a­tor Steve Daines, Repub­li­can of Mon­tana, who said the pan­dem­ic had high­light­ed the country’s reliance on Chi­na in the same painful fash­ion that the oil cri­sis of the 1970s revealed how it was at the mer­cy of the Mid­dle East. “This has exposed our depen­den­cy on Chi­na for P.P.E. and for crit­i­cal drugs.”

Mr. Haw­ley, a first-term Mis­souri sen­a­tor has also denounced Chi­na, call­ing for a Unit­ed States-led inter­na­tion­al com­mis­sion to deter­mine the ori­gin of the virus and demand­ing that Amer­i­can vic­tims be allowed to sue the Chi­nese gov­ern­ment.

“This is the 9/11 of this gen­er­a­tion,” said Mr. Haw­ley, adding that he hopes Mr. Trump “keeps the pres­sure high.”

He said Repub­li­cans should make the issue cen­tral this fall and demon­strate “how are we going to come out of this stronger by actu­al­ly stand­ing up to the Chi­nese.”

Few Repub­li­cans have been more out­spo­ken than Mr. Cot­ton, an Arkansan who was warn­ing about the virus at the start of the year when few law­mak­ers were pay­ing atten­tion, and has been urg­ing Sen­ate can­di­dates to make Chi­na a cen­ter­piece of their cam­paigns.

“Chi­na unleashed this pan­dem­ic on the world and they should pay the price,” Mr. Cot­ton said. “Con­gress and the pres­i­dent should work togeth­er to hold Chi­na account­able.” . . .

9. Exem­plary, as well, of the bio-psy-op as syn­the­sis of covert oper­a­tion and polit­i­cal cru­sad­ing is the GOP’s cyn­i­cal manip­u­la­tion of emer­gency appro­pri­a­tions to achieve their long­stand­ing objec­tive of crip­pling state and local gov­ern­ments, as well as dri­ving the Postal Ser­vice into bank­rupt­cy. Pri­va­tiz­ing postal ser­vice has been a right-wing/­GOP objec­tive for a long time. ” . . . . Every­one, and I mean every­one, knows what is real­ly hap­pen­ing: McConnell is try­ing to get more mon­ey for busi­ness­es while con­tin­u­ing to short­change state and local gov­ern­ments. After all, “starve the beast” — forc­ing gov­ern­ments to cut ser­vices by depriv­ing them of resources — has been Repub­li­can strat­e­gy for decades. This is just more of the same. . . . Oh, and Trump per­son­al­ly has ruled out aid for the Postal Ser­vice. . . .”

“Starve the Beast, Feed The Depres­sion” by Paul Krug­man; The New York Times; 4/17/2020; p. A27 [West­ern Edi­tion].

. . . . Right now the econ­o­my is in the equiv­a­lent of a med­ical­ly induced coma, with whole sec­tors shut down to lim­it social con­tact and hence slow the spread of the coro­n­avirus. We can’t bring the econ­o­my out of this coma until, at min­i­mum, we have sharply reduced the rate of new infec­tions and dra­mat­i­cal­ly increased test­ing so that we can quick­ly respond to any new out­breaks. . . .

. . . . Since we’re nowhere close to that point — in par­tic­u­lar, test­ing is still far behind what’s need­ed — we’re months away from a safe end of the lock­down. This is caus­ing severe hard­ship for work­ers, busi­ness­es, hos­pi­tals and — last but not least — state and local gov­ern­ments, which unlike the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment must bal­ance their bud­gets. . . .

. . . . What pol­i­cy can and should do is mit­i­gate that hard­ship. And the last relief pack­age did, in fact, do a lot of the right things. But it didn’t do enough of them. . . .

. . . . It’s true that Sen­ate Repub­li­cans are try­ing to push through an extra $250 bil­lion in small-busi­ness lend­ing — and Democ­rats are will­ing to go along. But the Democ­rats also insist that the pack­age include sub­stan­tial aid for hos­pi­tals and for state and local gov­ern­ments. And Mitch McConnell, the Sen­ate major­i­ty leader, is refus­ing to include this aid.

McConnell claims that he would be will­ing to con­sid­er addi­tion­al mea­sures in lat­er leg­is­la­tion. But let’s get real. There is absolute­ly no rea­son not to include the mon­ey now.

Every­one, and I mean every­one, knows what is real­ly hap­pen­ing: McConnell is try­ing to get more mon­ey for busi­ness­es while con­tin­u­ing to short­change state and local gov­ern­ments. After all, “starve the beast” — forc­ing gov­ern­ments to cut ser­vices by depriv­ing them of resources — has been Repub­li­can strat­e­gy for decades. This is just more of the same.

This real­i­ty leaves Democ­rats with no choice except to stand firm while they still have lever­age. Bear in mind that McConnell could have the mon­ey he wants tomor­row if he were will­ing to meet them halfway. So far, how­ev­er, he isn’t. Oh, and Trump per­son­al­ly has ruled out aid for the Postal Ser­vice.

 

[JohnRoberts]

I am not going read that much cut and paste, but it is the nature of people in positions of authority to grab for more power.

Our founders recognized this principle of "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely". Thus our constitution's limitations on government power.

JR
[edit- coincidentally the mayor of my very small town just issued his first executive order #1 declaring a $500 fine for not wearing a mask in stores.  /edit]

 

[boji]

Palan­tir, The Peter Thiel-Backed $20 Bil­lion Big Data Crunch­er, Scores $17 Mil­lion Coro­n­avirus Emer­gency Relief Deal” by Thomas Brew­ster; Forbes; 04/11/2020

Eric in his podcast "The Portal" was going on about the need to get off this planet.  I think I get his motivations for saying that now, seeing that he works for Thiel, and they are friends despite their ostensible differences in politics.  Also Cambridge Analytica is looking somewhat benign compared to Palantir.  CJ, pass me the joint please, I need some escape.

 

[crazydoc]

I also note the horse's ass in chief (monkey see, monkey do) and his chief sycophant are requiring all white house staffers to wear masks to protect themselves (that's assuming he even knows the reason for the masks), but not wearing them themselves, showing they don't give a sh!t about anybody else, since a person can test negative (even the best tests initially have unreliable sensitivity, not to mention the crappy 15 minute tests they are using) and still be contagious to others.

Just thought I'd re-post this in light of more info on that great Abbott test WH is using (no quid pro quo there I'm sure), so when using the test as Abbott now recommends (swabs not in media but dry), the test missed half of the positives. Wow, I wonder how many WH staffers don't have the virus.

"Regardless of method of collection and sample type, Abbot ID NOWCOVID-19 missed a third of the samples detected positive by Cepheid Xpert Xpress when using NP swabs in VTM and over 48% when using dry nasal swabs."

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.11.089896v1.full.pdf

 

[fazer]

Eric in his podcast "The Portal" was going on about the need to get off this planet.  I think I get his motivations for saying that now, seeing that he works for Thiel, and they are friends despite their ostensible differences in politics.  Also Cambridge Analytica is looking somewhat benign compared to Palantir.  CJ, pass me the joint please, I need some escape.

I saw Eric on the portal about Kayfabe.  It’  takes me a while to digest Eric sometimes but this makes real  sense to me.  Eric goes all over the place sometimes like on Rogen where he goes from unified gravity theory to the best YouTube lindy hop dance movie from the 30’s and 40’s. He’s a trip, entertaining and thought provoking. Getting off this planet is a disturbing idea.  What does he know.  He’s a mathematician so he’s calculated the odds I guess.  7 billion and counting,  What could go wrong?

 

[CJ]

https://kfjc.org/player/#61939

 

[Gold]

I want to order a Jersey with:
Covfefe
      19

It looks like it’s a six piece minimum order at Custom Ink. Anyone in for a group buy?

 

[scott2000]

My Brother in law would love something like this....

His birthday is coming up in a couple of months....

It'll make up for the last birthday gift.... We gave him a nice tie and had him try it on while we took pictures.... Then told him to look at the tag....Ahahaha... it was a Trump tie.... We have some great pics.....  He hates him so much...lol

How much are they??

 

[Gold]

How much are they??

I haven't gone through the quote yet. My guess is in the $25-$40 but I can get a quote. Is XL okay? They all have to be the same size.

 

[Gold]

Yeah that's a bit too big....

I kind of figured everyone would need something different. If i get something together i'll let you know.

 

[hodad]

From an article in FT:

“Jared [Kushner] had been arguing that testing too many people, or ordering too many ventilators, would spook the markets and so we just shouldn’t do it,” says a Trump confidant who speaks to the president frequently.

https://www.ft.com/content/97dc7de6-940b-11ea-abcd-371e24b679ed

 

[JohnRoberts]

From an article in FT:

“Jared [Kushner] had been arguing that testing too many people, or ordering too many ventilators, would spook the markets and so we just shouldn’t do it,” says a Trump confidant who speaks to the president frequently.

https://www.ft.com/content/97dc7de6-940b-11ea-abcd-371e24b679ed

you guys keep missing opportunities to slam the right..  :

What about the Republican Senator (Burr-NC), whose phone was seized by FBI over an insider trading investigation?

JR 

 

[JohnRoberts]

Three conspiracy theorists walk into a bar, coincidence...? I think not.  :

JR

 

[crazydoc]

Telling quotes from the article:

dismisses anyone who claims to know more than him

Above all, you must never make him feel ignorant.

“In my view he is a sociopath and a malignant narcissist. When a person suffering from these disorders feels the world closing in on them, their tendencies get worse. They lash out and fantasise and lose any ability to think rationally.”

Yet without exception, everyone I interviewed, including the most ardent Trump loyalists, made a similar point to Conway. Trump is deaf to advice, said one. He is his own worst enemy, said another. He only listens to family, said a third. He is mentally imbalanced, said a fourth.

Definition:

In the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5), [1] NPD is defined as comprising a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), a constant need for admiration, and a lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by the presence of at least 5 of the following 9 criteria:

    A grandiose sense of self-importance

    A preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love

    A belief that he or she is special and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people or institutions

    A need for excessive admiration

    A sense of entitlement

    Interpersonally exploitive behavior

    A lack of empathy

    Envy of others or a belief that others are envious of him or her

    A demonstration of arrogant and haughty behaviors or attitudes

For me this pretty much says it - has nothing to do with dissing the right, except that they've caved.

 

[scott2000]

Sounds a lot like these World Organizations in some ways......

 

[fazer]

Sounds a lot like these World Organizations in some ways......

+1