Real Resistance Is Not To Republican Rule, But To Donor Class Rule, And Devastation By Both Parties...,

downwithtyranny  | 1. Black Activists to Biden: If You Pick Klobuchar, We May Not Support You

On May 23, Politico wrote that "more than a dozen black and Latino strategists and activists warned in interviews that selecting Klobuchar would not help Biden excite black voters — and might have the opposite effect. Klobuchar would “risk losing the very base the Democrats need to win,” said Aimee Allison, founder of She the People, which promotes women of color in politics."

The reason given was two-fold. High in the article, in the first sentence in fact, the writer announced, "Sen. Amy Klobuchar performed abysmally among black voters in the Democratic primary."

Later, in the third paragraph, the writer said that the Black activists "pointed to Klobuchar’s poor performance among nonwhite voters during the presidential primary as well as her record as a prosecutor in Minnesota."

Adrianne Shropshire of the Clinton-connected BlackPAC is quoted in the sixth paragraph as saying, “It [the activists’ concerns about Klobuchar] comes from her performance in the primary,” and Al Sharpton is quoted as offering this explanation: “It is not her [Klobuchar’s] fault, but she is in the middle of an ongoing battle from the last few presidential races.”

The writer herself helpfully adds, "Klobuchar symbolizes a strategic division within the Democratic Party: whether to focus on winning back white, Midwestern voters who flipped to Donald Trump in 2016, or on activating voters of color who were not excited to vote."

But the article is ostensibly about "Black activists" and their rejection of Klobuchar — it says so even the headline — not about Shropshire and Sharpton's ground-cover explanation.

The writer waits until the eleventh paragraph, a place few readers will get to, before she explains the real reason the activists are concerned — namely, that Klobuchar "would risk losing the very base the Democrats need to win" — and to explain the activists' comment "as well as her record as a prosecutor in Minnesota." There the writer references a Washington Post op-ed penned by those same activists, who write:

A choice such as Sen. Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), who failed to prosecute controversial police killings and is responsible for the imprisonment of Myon Burrell, will only alienate black voters.

(Read this AP story to see all of what’s wrong with both the Myon Burrell case and Klobuchar’s handling of it.)

Despite all the obfuscation and Klobuchar-protection by Politico, the bottom line is clear: "Black activists" remember Klobuchar's record as a "tough prosecutor" of blacks and are threatening to fail to support her (and thus Biden) in November if Biden picks her for VP — a clear and open threat to his electoral chances.

In other words, progressive black activists are threatening to abandon the Democrat, Trump or no Trump, over this issue.

The Unspoken Goal Has Always Been Herd Immunity

project-syndicate |  Science cannot determine what the correct COVID-19 response should have been for each country. A model may be considered validated if its predictions correspond to outcomes in real life. But in epidemiology, we can have confidence that this will happen only if a virus with known properties is allowed to run its natural course in a given population, or if there is a single intervention like a vaccine, the results of which can be accurately predicted.

Too many variables – including, say, medical capacity or cultural characteristics – scrambles the model, and it starts spewing out scenarios and predictions like a demented robot. Today, epidemiologists cannot tell us what the effects of the current COVID-19 policy mix will be. “We will know only in a year or so,” they say.

The outcome will therefore depend on politics. And the politics of COVID-19 are clear enough: governments could not risk the natural spread of infection, and thought it too complicated or politically fraught to try to isolate only those most at risk of severe illness or death, namely the 15-20% of the population aged over 65.

The default policy response has been to slow the spread of natural immunity until a vaccine can be developed. What “flattening the curve” really means is spacing out the number of expected deaths over a period long enough for medical facilities to cope and a vaccine to kick in.

But this strategy has a terrible weakness: governments cannot keep their populations locked down until a vaccine arrives. Apart from anything else, the economic cost would be unthinkable. So, they have to ease the lockdown gradually.

Doing this, however, lifts the cap on non-exposure gained from the lockdown. That is why no government has an explicit exit strategy: what political leaders call the “controlled easing” of lockdowns actually means controlled progress toward herd immunity.

Governments cannot openly avow this, because that would amount to admitting that herd immunity is the objective. And it is not yet even known whether and for how long infection confers immunity. Much better, then, to pursue this goal silently, under a cloud of obfuscation, and hope that a vaccine arrives before most of the population is infected.

Democrat Party Racism - Black And Brown Quarantine Violation Beatdowns

dailymail |  New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo have been pushing for enforcement instead of education, leading to heavy-handedness and a 'business as usual' attitude within the NYPD which has long been accused of marginalizing communities of color.  

'We were told we were getting a mayor who was going to change this,' Williams said. 'That's what makes some of this so difficult to swallow.' 

The mayor claims that police have actually shown restraint during the lockdown period.

'We do not accept disparity, period,' de Blasio said during a coronavirus briefing. 'On the arrests and summonses, the thing to focus on first, is the sheer fact that we're looking at numbers across a city of 8.6 million people and across a time span I believe is six weeks, the numbers of arrests and summonses are extraordinarily low.

'So, I don't, for a moment, misunderstand folks who raise alarms and concerns, or project forward concerns,' said de Blasio. 'But I say, "Hey, start with these sheer facts, that we're talking about very few people have been arrested and very few people have been summonsed." 

'And there's been a huge amount of restraint by the NYPD. That's just factually obvious from the numbers, and we intend to keep it that way only using summons and arrest when needed.

'We're dealing with something absolutely unprecedented, and there's no way in hell we are going to be able to keep people safe if we don't use the strongest, best public safety organization in this country.' 

Police Commissioner Dermot Shea also stressed that arrests are down 50 percent  across the city and believes overall social distancing enforcement has gone smoothly.

'We have been doing it with an extremely light touch,' he said. 

'We have been interacting with millions of people and given out only a handful of violations, summonses and arrests, and that's the way it should be,' Shea said. 'I don't want the NYPD to be the morality police.' 

The viral videos of black people and other people of color getting violently arrested across the city stand in sharp contrast to photos and video tweeted by the NYPD showing friendly officers handing out face masks and gently reminding people to stay 6 feet apart.

Knowing He Couldn't Dance A Lick, Joe Biden STILL Thought He Was Daddy Long Legs...,

caitlinjohnstone |  I’ve been avoiding writing much about Tara Reade, for a lot of reasons. Firstly I’m a survivor of multiple rapes and it brings up a lot of ouch for me, especially since whenever I write about rape as a problem I always get a deluge of highly triggered men (and sometimes one or two highly traumatized women) calling me a man-hater and saying all kinds of nasty things to me. Secondly I’ve been trying not to spend too much time on the details of an election we all know is fake anyway between two establishment candidates we already know are deeply depraved.

But mostly I avoid the subject because it’s just so goddamn gross. It’s gross to watch liberals going around pretending they believe that Handsy Uncle Hair Sniffer would never dream of shoving his fingers into a woman without her consent. It’s gross watching the language of leftism being borrowed to defend pure, relentless victim smearing. It’s gross watching people who’ve built their political identities around pretending to care about women try to spin these allegations as Reade being dishonest for partisan reasons, when in reality that’s exactly what they themselves are doing.

Due to my experiences with and sensitivity to the subject matter, going through this stuff feels kind of like getting punched in the privates over and over again. There are smears everywhere, from the establishment narrative managers to their brainwashed rank-and-file herd. Yesterday some “KHive” asshole told me that Reade is mentally ill and talking about her experience will probably drive her to suicide, citing a baseless smear by McResistance pundit Sally Albright as his evidence. There’s a Twitter thread with thousands of shares going around right now where some liberal combed through all Reade’s old tweets highlighting typos she made and claiming they show Reade tweeting “in a Russian accent”.

It sucks because if we’re to build a healthy world we’re going to have to get rid of all the people who shouldn’t be in power, and the very first lot we should eliminate are the ones who abuse their power to assault the sexuality of other human beings. If you use your power to rape people, you will with absolute certainty use it to do other unconscionable things as well, so eliminating those who do so is the first step toward health. That’s step one, and we can’t even get there, because blind partisan hackery turns pussyhat-wearing liberals into a bunch of snarling male supremacists.

Mitch, Go Head On And Ninja Turtle SCHLAP The Taste Out Of Andrew Cuomo's Mouth

CTH  |  The biggest of all the bigger financial issues around the economic shut-down will ultimately come down to a battle this spring/summer over a massive bailout for state governments to replace their missing revenue.  States like California, New Jersey, Illinois, Connecticut & New York have been struggling with financial issues for years.

“You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.”  ~ Rahm Emanuel

Long before the Wuhan Virus those states were near financial collapse.  The only thing keeping them afloat was as expanding economy, and new revenue as a result of President Trump’s economic policies (making bigger pies).

The economic shut-down in those specific states makes their preexisting financial trouble exponentially worse.

Not only will CA, NJ, IL, CT and New York demand a bailout, a very massive bailout to cover their revenue shortfall, but they will almost certainly use the wuhan virus as an excuse to cover and bail-out preexisting budget deficits.  Governor Andrew Cuomo hinted toward his intention weeks ago.  He sees this as an opportunity to get federal money.

So when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell throws a bucket of ice water in the face of blue state governors who were anticipating to “make money” by forcing the country to subsidize their overindulgent spending habits, obviously Cuomo is apoplectic.

For several decades, and particularly since 2008, the issue of unfunded liabilities has been a growing problem for the Blue State governors.  One reason Obamacare was created was to address this issue on the union and healthcare side. However, the underlying over-spending by state legislators/governors was never addressed.

The solution of allowing states to declare bankruptcy has been a part of that discussion for years. However, every Blue state governor knows if they declare bankruptcy they will never sell another bond again…. which means no investment… which means they will implode.

If the laws changed allowing states to declare bankruptcy, internally the blue states would collapse… there would be a massive exodus… people would flee the rust and collapse…. housing values would plummet overnight in Blue states…. business would leave… unemployment would skyrocket…. it would be statewide chaos.

The ultimate result would be smaller populations within the Blue state misery zones.

Now The Show Me State Tryna Sue China For Reparations

npr  |  The state of Missouri is suing China for that country's handling of the coronavirus outbreak. It's the first such lawsuit brought by a state, and it relies on an unusual interpretation of federal law. 

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, a Republican, blames China for letting the coronavirus spread. So he's suing China, three government ministries, two local governments, two laboratories and the Chinese Communist Party in U.S. District Court. They all "engaged in misrepresentations, concealment, and retaliation to conceal the gravity and seriousness of the COVID-19 outbreak from the rest of the world," according to Schmitt. 

"There's been untold suffering across the globe, including here in Missouri, and we want to hold them accountable for that," Schmitt says.

China, however, is protected by sovereign immunity.

"A sovereign is not supposed to sue a sovereign, and that's what's going on here," says Lea Brilmayer, professor of international law at Yale Law School.

Brilmayer says that the case is highly unusual and that most judges would find that they don't have jurisdiction over a matter between a U.S. state and a sovereign nation.

"This is a last-ditch effort to do something to respond to the political situation," she says.

While Missouri might have a hard time moving forward with a lawsuit against China, Schmitt says there are workarounds. For instance, Schmitt says there's an exception for commercial activity and alleges that labs and hospitals are commercial ventures. He's also counting the Chinese Communist Party as a nonstate actor, which he says fortifies his legal argument.

Brilmayer says that if the case does move forward or if it works its way up the appeals process, the U.S. State Department would normally be expected to weigh in, perhaps with a letter to the judge explaining its position on the case.

In the meantime, other Republicans also are moving to try to hold China — not U.S. officials — accountable for American coronavirus deaths and economic damage. Last week, Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley introduced legislation to strip China of its sovereign immunity.

Controlavirus Politics And Media On The 25th Anniversary Of The Oklahoma City Bombing

NYTimes |  The bombing’s 25th anniversary arrives on Sunday, and both historians and those who experienced the attack directly worry that the memory is fading even as the violent ideology that inspired Mr. McVeigh grows ever more prevalent.

“In today’s political environment, I hear echoes of the kind of rhetoric that I think inspired the perpetrators of the bombing,” David F. Holt, 41, the mayor of Oklahoma City, said. “I think that we all have an obligation to look at Oklahoma City — to look at that scar we have in our downtown — and remember where this all leads when you call other people your enemy, when you try to foster division and difference.”

Most events marking the anniversary were canceled because of the coronavirus outbreak. The annual reading of the names was prerecorded, along with brief remarks by various political figures. Local television stations planned to broadcast the hourlong remembrance video, which is also available online, on Sunday morning.

Homegrown terrorism is the main factor setting Oklahoma City apart.

“Americans forgot it pretty fast,” said David Neiwert, whose book “Alt-America” chronicles the spread of far-right extremism. “It is a difficult story to tell. It runs up against the whole narrative of American exceptionalism because that was an American terrorist, and Americans like to think that they don’t do that sort of thing, only guys in turbans do that.”

 Convicted of murder and other crimes in federal court in 1997, Mr. McVeigh was executed three months before the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

Mr. McVeigh, 26 at the time of the bombing, grew up a skinny, bullied kid in a typical middle-class home outside Buffalo. He joined the Army at 20, earning a Bronze Star as a gunnery sergeant in the Persian Gulf war.

While in the military, Mr. McVeigh grew increasingly obsessed with guns and hostile toward the U.S. government. Washing out of an audition for the Special Forces set him on the path toward the paramilitary wing of the white power movement.

Lacking a girlfriend or a promising job, he penned bitter letters. “Is a Civil War imminent?” he wrote to one newspaper. “Do we have to shed blood to reform the current system? I hope it doesn’t come to that. But it might.”

Basement Dwelling Gamma Ovaryman Birthed A Bellyfull Of Feminized Resentiment

riverfronttimes |  How fucking dare you, Wendy. Last I checked this is America, and my fellow Americans and I have the right to go wherever we want and do whatever we please. Your proposal to restrict my movement in and out of your dumb online group is nothing short of tyranny and will be met with revolution! The Tree of Facebook must, from time to time, be watered with the blood of patriots!

Listen, we could go all day here. The sad fact is these folks have already made up their minds, and their actions are going to get more people sick, and ironically enough are definitely, definitely going to mean that lockdowns will stay in place longer than if you just sat still and chilled the fuck out while the medical professionals get a handle on this thing. You are that group of kids that won't stop talking during a grade-school timeout and thereby keep getting the timeout extended. Fucking stop it!

I get that people are losing their livelihoods. Hell, the RFT itself was near-decimated in the last month as lockdowns cost us our advertisers and forced almost everyone on the editorial side to be laid off. (That whole "this is all a media conspiracy" trope is a pretty dumb one when you actually look at how it actually plays out for newsrooms, isn't it?) I genuinely feel your pain — so many people I know are out of work right now. It's scary as hell.

But your anger is misdirected. Instead of targeting the media organizations that are trying to keep you informed, or the politicians that are trying to keep the death tolls of their constituents down, maybe direct your ire toward the segments of our society that have eroded anything even remotely resembling a robust social safety net over the last 40 years, making us unimaginably vulnerable in a crisis like this while simultaneously funneling all the country's wealth upward to the nation's richest.

And I know this is going to fall on deaf ears, but please know I'm trying to look out for your safety here — not to mention the safety of my nurse fiancée, my 60-plus-year-old parents and my diabetic sister.

Please, just please reconsider this shit and stay home?

Can You Build An Architecture Of Oppression Without A Totally Debased Political Class?

medium |  This isn’t the first time Gillum has been accused of poor behavior as a public official; I recall him being subjected to an ethics inquiry after he accepted tickets to the Broadway show Hamilton from an undercover FBI agent. Granted, there’s a hell of a gap between free tickets and whatever this shit with the drugs and escorts is (allegedly), but a pattern emerges: Even when Gillum has a good thing going for him, he may do something that could jeopardy his ambition — ambition he no longer shares just with himself, but with so many others.

That’s why I continue to struggle. Andrew Gillum already knew what it was like to have a target on his back. He knew that his professional prospects, as well as the people in his life — his wife, his children — could all be jeopardized by something like this. I just don’t understand the carelessness — down to the type of people he allegedly was associating with that night.

As bad as I feel bad for him, Black men also need to hold a mirror up to each other when need be. Not to induce shame; not to make them feel lower as we feign being better; simply to say, you need to look at yourself and how you move. You need to see how that shit impacts you.

Yes, as Black men there are a lot of people against us. Yes, there is a conservative media complex designed to take out politicians like you, and the mainstream media has enough suckers in it to magnify whatever those crazy folks on the right dredge up — but why give them material?

People have their secrets; some just keep them better than others. That’s not an endorsement of lying — merely speaking to the point that Andrew Gillum has long been a man of great promise who, like many men of great promise, fell short out of ego. This man was moving like someone who had nothing to lose. I don’t hate this man the way they do. I just hope this man becomes a better one because this has brought pain to people. I understand the factors why, but patterns must be broken. We all should do our part.

Gillum says he has voluntarily entered rehab for what he described as “alcohol abuse” and “depression.” Additionally, he “will be stepping down from all public facing roles for the foreseeable future.”

Gynocracy: Nominating A Demented Rapist Puts Democrat Contempt For Wymyn #MeToo On Fleek

jacobin |  When it first became clear that Joe Biden was launching a 2020 campaign for president, a lot of us were amazed that centrist Democrats would, in the #MeToo era, be stupid enough to back his candidacy. But we shouldn’t have been surprised: their feminism is fleeting and opportunistic.

This week, Tara Reade, a former Biden aide, detailed her 1993 experience of sexual assault on “The Katie Halper Show” after trying for years to get someone to listen. Reade has, predictably, been smeared as a Russian agent, because that’s how mainstream Democrats respond to anything they don’t want to hear. But she’s just one of seven women who have accused Biden of horrible behavior, charges that have been public for years.

Democratic elites have known for years about Biden’s shabby, boorish treatment of Anita Hill, the dignified law professor who accused Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment in 1991. Hill brought workplace sexual harassment into the public eye years before #MeToo. Biden was chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee at the time. He has since said that he “wished he could have done something” to ensure that her claims got a fair hearing, a pretty inept apology considering he was in charge of the proceedings.

From mainstream feminists, we’re hearing little about Biden’s #MeToo problems. In fact, some have flatly declined to be involved. As the Intercept reported this week, the feminist legal group Time’s Up had refused to take Reade’s case. In a twist, Anita Dunn, a top Biden adviser, is managing director of Time’s Up’s PR firm, SKDKnickerbocker. In another twist, Dunn also advised big Democratic donor (now convicted rapist) Harvey Weinstein on how to handle his own rape allegations. Another partner in SKDKnickerbocker, Hilary Rosen, has also been advising Biden’s presidential campaign.

The allegations aren’t getting much play in the mainstream media either. Sure, it’s a busy news cycle. And everything about Biden is boring, even his sexual assault allegations. But the day Reade’s charges went public, CNN ran an “analysis” by Chris Cillizza about Biden and gender. Its theme? “The Top 10 Women Joe Biden Might Pick as VP.”

By contrast, we’ve heard for years from these same quarters about the supposed mean, sexist tweets of the Bernie Bros, and about Bernie Sanders’s alleged tone-deafness on gender issues. But Sanders is the only candidate now running for president with no sexual assault or harassment charges against him. That’s obviously a low bar, and it’s unfortunate we have to mention it. But, perhaps relatedly, Sanders is also the only one in the race who has always been pro-choice, has always been committed to full abortion access regardless of income, and has been fighting for universal childcare for decades, as well as for advancements that benefit working-class women even more than men, like the $15 minimum wage and Medicare for All. Yet if you relied on the mainstream media for information, you’d assume that Biden was the feminist candidate in the primary, while Sanders was “problematic” for women.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer Reverses Her Politically Motivated Hydroxychloroquine Ban

Last week, I told you about some political butter biscuit chasing in Michigan - what a difference a week makes...,

washingtontimes |  Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has asked the federal government for hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, days after her administration came under criticism for a statewide crackdown on the drugs touted by President Trump for the novel coronavirus.

The request from the Michigan Health and Human Services Department was made after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an emergency-use authorization Monday for the drugs, which have long been approved for treating malaria, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.

“Based on the FDA’s Emergency Use Authorization to allow the use of hydroxychloroquine sulfate and chloroquine phosphate products donated to the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) for certain patients with COVID-19, we are pursuing a request for hydroxychloroquine/chloroquine from SNS,” said Lynn Sutphin, Michigan HHS spokesperson, in an email.

The request, first reported by the nonprofit Bridge Michigan, came after the state Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs warned doctors against prescribing the drugs, citing lack of evidence about their efficacy against COVID-19 and reports of stockpiling, adding that reports of such conduct “may be further investigated for administrative action.”

Pharmacists were also instructed not to fill prescriptions if they believed they could be used for reasons “other than legitimate medical purposes” or “cause harm to a patient,” adding that medical providers had an obligation to report “inappropriate prescribing practices.”

washingtontimes |  Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has come under criticism for a statewide order cracking down on prescriptions of hydroxychloroquine, a drug touted by President Trump to treat the novel coronavirus.

The Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs issued an order Wednesday warning physicians against writing prescriptions “without a legitimate medical purpose” and instructing pharmacists to evaluate the “legitimacy” of hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine prescriptions.

The department cited concerns about stockpiling amid “multiple allegations” of doctors writing prescriptions for family and friends, adding that reports of such conduct “may be further investigated for administrative action” and that other health professionals are required to report “inappropriate prescribing practices.”

Michigan isn’t the first state to restrict the use of the drug — Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak issued an emergency order last week over concerns about “bad actors” creating a shortage — but the moves have fueled allegations on the right that Democrats and media outlets are seeking to play politics with the drug.

Kathy Hoekstra, who previously worked for Republican businessman Herman Cain, accused Ms. Whitmer of putting patients at risk with her administration’s “knee-jerk scare tactics.”

Why Is Democratic Presidential Candidate Joltin Joe Obidenbama Missing In Action?

jacobinmag |  Let’s look at the state of things for a second. The world is currently grappling with a deadly global pandemic, one that has already led to cities across the world being placed into lockdown, and looks to be leading to an unprecedented economic crisis. Despite bungling the response in a way that could be called criminal, the president has now gotten out in front, holding daily press briefings that have allowed him to feed misinformation directly to the public, and taking steps that, while grossly inadequate for the moment, have already outstripped the Obama administration’s economic response in 2008 — with the result that, for the moment at least, a large majority of Americans now approves of Trump’s handling of the crisis.

Being an election year, there are several things a Democratic challenger should be doing. One is exuding a sense of calm, stability, and competence, to convey “presidentialness” and contrast with Trump’s chaotic behavior. Being the Democratic Party’s prospective leader, they should be helping to set the legislative agenda and drive the party’s ideas about the response to this unprecedented emergency. And they should be communicating with the public as much as possible, providing reassurance and guidance while denying the president a monopoly of the airwaves.

Biden, like Sanders, first held a press conference on March 12, the day the crisis first became real for many people, which started half an hour late due to technical difficulties. He then held a virtual town hall the day after, which saw Biden falsely claim credit for the Endangered Species Act before wandering off camera, an event so marred by technical difficulties that the “disjoined effort,” in Biden’s words, had to be ended early. Then came the debate, in which Biden was allowed by the moderators to brazenly lie about almost every aspect of his record, a contrast from debates in the past.

In the lead up to the last Tuesday’s elections — even as the coronavirus death toll climbed, cities went into lockdown, and health and government officials urged people to stay inside at all costs — Biden’s campaign encouraged voters to turn out, falsely assuring them it was safe. The result was a day of chaos and confusion that almost certainly assisted the virus’s continued spread. Biden then gave a brief victory speech that ended in another odd moment that quickly went viral, now par for the course for the campaign.

And until today, that was the last almost anyone saw of the Democratic frontrunner. For almost a whole week, as the crisis has exponentially worsened by day, Biden seemed to have vanished off the face off the earth, surfacing only last Friday in a call with the press. He was “desperately” trying to “be in daily or at least, you know, significant contact with the American people and communicate what I would be doing,” he told reporters, as if regular, successful livestreaming hadn’t already been accomplished by both his opponent and millions of teenagers.

Gov. Cuomo Overplayed His Hand And In The Process Badly Played Himself

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo blasted FEMA during a press conference for sending 400 medical ventilators when his state needs 30,000. 

However, in 2015 the New York State Department of Health specifically studied the issue, warned about a critical lack of ventilators during a pandemic, and the New York Governor made a specific decision NOT to order them: [pdf link here]

sicsempertyrannis |   For the past week it appeared that NY Governor Cuomo realized it was more important to be an adult and eschew partisan politics. That was then. He is now in full partisan panic pandemonium. He is now accusing the Feds of dragging their feet in getting NYC 30,000 ventilators. 

Here is the quote:

"What are you doing sending 400 when I need 30,000 ventilators," Cuomo said. "You're missing the magnitude of the problem."

No Cuomo, you do not understand. For starters, you do not have 10,000 patients on a ventilator now. The number of patients who test positive does not mean that all will require a ventilator. The numbers available so far indicate most who test positive for corona virus are not being hospitalized. That means the numbers for ventilators are not going to skyrocket and immediately outstrip the existing capability.

But Cuomo is missing a more important point. Shame on him. He has a duty to help educate his constituency. Let us start with the production reality--you cannot magically produce ventilators overnight. The existing manufacturers have limited, not UNLIMITED, capabilities to expand production. Bringing other companies, like GM on line, will require about a month to retool and repurpose machinery and quality control techs.

Producing the machines is the easy part. It is the human infrastructure that is the problem. If there are 30,000 ventilators up and running then you need an additional 45,000 ICU qualified nurses and an additional 22,500 Respiratory Therapy Technicians. (I am assuming one ICU nurse can handle two patients per shift. There are three eight hour shifts per day. I am assuming that one Respiratory Therapy Tech can handle 8 ventilators per shift and there are three eight hour shifts per day).  

 

Shouldn't Gov. Cuomo Be Managing and Solving The Rikers Island Coronavirus Nexus?

Tulsi For Biden - Poor Jimmy Dore, Surprised His Head Didn't Explode

CTH |  Predictably odd, generally sketchy, and Tucker Carlson favorite, Representative Tulsi Gabbard, suspended her campaign for the 2020 democrat presidential nomination today while endorsing Joe Biden.  According to her brother posting on Facebook, Bernie Sanders refused the accept an endorsement.  Go figure.

Announcement – “[T]oday, I’m suspending my presidential campaign, and offering my full support to Vice President Joe Biden in his quest to bring our country together.”

 

I will continue to advocate for a 21st century foreign policy. One based on mutual respect and cooperation instead of confrontation, where we as a community of nations can work together to overcome the challenges that our people face — preventing and stopping pandemics like the coronavirus that is now affecting all of us, tackling climate change, combating terrorism, and removing the existential threat of nuclear war which hangs over the heads of all of us.

[…] “I want to extend my best wishes to my friends Senator Bernie Sanders, his wife Jane, Nina Turner and their many supporters for the work they’ve done. I have a great appreciation for Senator Sanders’ love for our country and the American people and his sincere desire to improve the lives of all Americans.” (link)

This Kneegrow's DNC Annointed and Protected Operative Status Still Very Much Intact

turcopelier |  Why does the name of Joe Biden's former Internet Technology guru, Warren Flood, appear in the meta data of documents posted on the internet by Guccifer 2.0? In case you do not recall, Guccifer 2.0 was identified as someone tied to Russian intelligence who played a direct role in stealing emails from John Podesta. The meta data in question indicates the name of the person who actually copied the original document. We have this irrefutable fact in the documents unveiled by Guccifer 2.0--Warren Flood's name appears prominently in the meta data of several documents attributed to "Guccifer 2.0." When this transpired, Flood was working as the CEO of his own company, BRIGHT BLUE DATA. (brightbluedata.com). Was Flood tasked to masquerade as a Russian operative?

Give Flood some props if that is true--he fooled our Intelligence Community and the entire team of Mueller prosecutors into believing that Guccifer was part of a Russian military intelligence cyber attack. But a careful examination of the documents shows that it is highly unlikely that this was an official Russian cyber operation.

Here's what the U.S. Intelligence Community wrote about Guccifer 2.0 in their very flawed January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment:

We assess with high confidence that the GRU used the Guccifer 2.0 persona, DCLeaks.com, and WikiLeaks to release US victim data obtained in cyber operations publicly and in exclusives to media outlets.

• • Guccifer 2.0, who claimed to be an independent Romanian hacker, made multiple contradictory statements and false claims about his likely Russian identity throughout the election. Press reporting suggests more than one person claiming to be Guccifer 2.0 interacted with journalists.
  • Content that we assess was taken from e-mail accounts targeted by the GRU in March 2016 appeared on DCLeaks.com starting in June.

The laxity of the Intelligence Community in dealing with empirical evidence was matched by a disturbing lack of curiosity on the part of the Mueller investigators and prosecutors.

What Bernie Has That Biden Doesn't

jonathanturley |  Biden is being portrayed as the effective nominee after last Tuesday and at least one Democrat is suggesting the cancelation of the remaining primaries. However, polls show a distinct lack of excitement about Biden as a candidate. His express selling point is that he is better situated to defeat Trump. That leaves an obvious vacuum on positive passion that was so evident at the Sanders rally that I attended.

Here is the column:

Standing in front of the library of the University of Michigan on Sunday, Bernie Sanders could be excused if he paused a moment to reflect on the estimated ten thousands of cheering supporters.

It was 60 years ago at the University of Chicago that Sanders began what he later described as “the major period of intellectual ferment in my life”.

Sanders joined the Young People’s Socialist League and other organisations and organised his first protest. He could only marshal a force of 32 students to occupy the administration building, but he ultimately prevailed. Sanders spent much of his life fighting for big ideas with small crowds.

Now, he has not just the numbers but the movement that he always dreamt of. Indeed, he is the movement. While some might not want socialism, everyone in this crowd desperately wants Sanders.

Speaking Of Boggled Minds...,

realclearpolitics |  Joe Biden’s status as the frontrunner in the Democratic presidential race highlights the party’s hypocrisy when it comes to striking down Donald Trump, SKY News Australia "Outsiders" host Rita Panahi says.

Ms Panahi said it’s surprising the candidate, who is “so confused that he has trouble remembering where he is and why he’s there,” has not been discounted.

“Biden's cognitive issues have been evident for some time but just watch the same media who for four years have been declaring Donald Trump mentally and physically unfit for office have a collective meltdown when Biden's mental faculties are questioned,” she said.

“Can you imagine that man in a presidential debate with Donald Trump? There's not enough popcorn in the world.”

Meanwhile, Back At The Ranch...,

Cancelled Games and Empty Stadiums Might Move Trumps Big Ass Off the Pot!

WSJ  |   The NCAA tournament. Major League Baseball opening day. The Masters golf tournament. The NFL draft, the NBA and NHL playoffs, the Boston Marathon and Olympic qualifiers all over the U.S.

The busiest time of the American sports calendar is coming—if the coronavirus doesn’t come first.

As the global economy braces for the potentially devastating effects of a novel coronavirus that is spreading around the world, few businesses are at greater risk of being impacted than sports. 

This is a multibillion-dollar industry built on live entertainment, easy travel and mass gatherings, and that makes it especially vulnerable if major cities begin to embrace social distancing, as they have in countries where the virus has already disrupted everyday life. The problem is that there is no work-from-home in sports. The NBA season can’t be played on Slack. 

Should games be canceled? Can they be delayed? Will they be played in empty arenas? These are the questions that leagues and governing bodies are scrambling to answer as they size up potentially the biggest disruption to the sports calendar since World War II, and they are constrained by uncertainty as they make contingency plans to keep up with this mysterious pathogen. Their behavior will be dictated by the virus’s. 

“It will give March Madness a new meaning,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University.