My favorite Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank summarizes where our “leaders” are in responding to the global pandemic. No wonder the EU won’t allow Americans to enter its borders.
Sen. Rand Paul doesn’t much care what Anthony Fauci has to say. The Kentucky Republican gets his public health advice from Friedrich Hayek.
Hayek, the Austrian-born economist and libertarian hero, died in 1992. But Paul, an ophthalmologist before he took up politics, still takes medical guidance from the 20th-century philosopher.
“Hayek had it right!” Paul proclaimed at Tuesday’s Senate health committee hearing on the coronavirus pandemic.
“Only decentralized power and decision-making based on millions of individualized situations can arrive at what risks and behaviors each individual should choose.”
Paul focused his wrath on Fauci, the U.S. government’s top infectious-disease official. “Virtually every day we seem to hear from you things we can’t do,” Paul complained. “All I hear is, we can’t do this, we can’t do that, we can’t play baseball.”
Fauci assured Paul that “I never said we can’t play a certain sport.”
Unsatisfied, Paul demanded: “We just need more optimism.”
So that’s what we need. The United States is hitting new records for infection, largely because President Trump and allied governors across the South and Southwest ignored public health guidance. While other countries beat back the virus, we’re on course to have 100,000 new cases a day, Fauci said, and doing little about it. But we just need to be more upbeat!
Not for the first time, it feels as though 21st-century America is 14th-century Europe, reacting with all manner of useless countermeasures to the plague: balancing ill “humors” and dispelling evil “vapors” caused by planetary misalignment, religious marches and public self-flagellation, cures involving live chickens and unicorns, and the wearing of amulets and reciting of “abracadabra.”
Now, we have science to tell us how to beat the coronavirus — with face masks and social distancing. Yet our response is resolutely medieval.
The president ridicules mask wearing as politically correct and unmanly. His campaign staff tears down social distancing signs at his mass rally. Governors of hard-hit states tamper with data, sideline public health experts and blame the spread on Latino farmworkers, civil rights demonstrations and increased testing — anything but their reckless and premature relaxing of restrictions.
And then there’s Vice President Pence, head of the White House coronavirus task force. “I’d just encourage every American to continue to pray,” he said at Friday’s task force briefing.
I’m all for prayer. But prayer without face masks won’t defeat the virus.
“The attitude of pushing back from authority and pushing back on scientific data is very concerning,” Fauci told senators Tuesday, bemoaning a “lack of trust” in government. “We’re in the middle of a catastrophic outbreak and we really do need to be guided by scientific principles.”
A lack of urgency about the virus caused the testing debacle. A lack of regard for science caused the hydroxychloroquine debacle. A contempt for public health advice caused the reopening debacle. A president’s vanity caused the anti-face-mask debacle. An immunology debacle likely comes next: If Trump rushes out a vaccine before the election, would anybody believe it’s safe?
Belatedly, more than a dozen states have paused or scaled back their rash plans to reopen without heeding public health guidance. But we still have the White House proclaiming “remarkable progress” against the pandemic because the latest victims are younger — as though they won’t infect the old and the sick. Trump insists he wasn’t joking when he said he told health officials to “slow the testing down” to suppress the number of reported cases. He’s proceeding with plans for an in-person, mask-optional convention in Florida, now a virus hot spot.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis blames street protests (even though New York, Washington and Minneapolis experienced no such surge in cases) and “overwhelmingly Hispanic” workers, and as cases spiked last week, he claimed that “nothing has changed.” Like other GOP governors and the Trump administration, he also blames an increase in testing — which doesn’t explain the higher rate of positive tests.
Pence, too, rejects the obvious conclusion that “the reopening has to do with what we’re seeing” in the viral spread. (It’s the evil vapors!) He said Sunday that it’s a “good idea” to wear face masks — just after attending a church event at which half the 2,200 people, including the choir, eschewed masks.
At Tuesday’s committee hearing, Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), who is retiring, urged Trump to “occasionally wear a mask” so his admirers “would follow his lead and help end this political debate.”
But neither Alexander’s pleadings, nor those of the various health officials testifying, are likely to break down America’s medieval resistance to science. Paul, citing the successful reopening of schools in Europe, demanded U.S. schools reopen (ignoring that Europe has contained the virus). Invoking the superiority of Hayek’s theories to the findings of public health officials, Paul said “we shouldn’t presume that a group of experts somehow knows what’s best.”
Why would anyone want Trump?
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A 10% cut to the US military budget would help support struggling Americans | Bernie Sanders
Tue 30 Jun 2020
…I have been disturbed that for too long, Democrats and Republicans have joined together in passing outrageously high military budgets while ignoring the needs of the poorest people in our society. If we are serious about altering our national priorities, then there is no better place to begin with than taking a hard look at the bloated $740bn military budget that is coming up for a vote in the Senate this week…
If this horrific coronavirus pandemic has shown us anything, it is that national security involves a lot more than bombs, missiles, tanks, submarines, nuclear warheads and other weapons of mass destruction. National security also means doing all we can to improve the lives of the American people, many of whom have been abandoned by our government for decades.
In this extraordinary moment in the history of our country, now is the time for us to truly focus on what we value as a society and to fundamentally transform our national priorities. Cutting the military budget by 10% and investing that money into communities across the country is a modest but important way to begin that process.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2020/jun/30/a-10-budget-cut-to-the-us-military-budget-by-10-to-help-save-lives-in-this-pandemic
Rand Paul:
“Only decentralized power and decision-making based on millions of individualized situations can arrive at what risks and behaviors each individual should choose.”
Question: how does letting the market run by itself result in Decentralized power?
Jeff Bezos may be worth 1 trillion in a couple of years.
Free markets emd up concentrating wealth and that wealth is a source of highly concentrated power
And you answered your own point. There are no free markets never have been , never will be . Power will always determine how wealth is distributed.
“Politics, Who Determines Who Gets What When and How” Laswell 1936
Simply from the Hunter Gatherer to the Post Industrial Society decisions are made constantly that determine how the resources and labor to create those resources are distributed.
As the Stock Market has its best quarter in decades on the back of the Federal Reserve owning the means of production (Corporate Bonds/ debt ). While Cities lay off teachers and first res-ponders, Did Powell offer to buy Municipal debt?
Long live “socialism for the rich “
So you believe that successful people are inherently bad and should have the fruits of their work stolen by the government and given to those that the government has decreed are deserving?
Public School Teacher: “So you believe that successful people are inherently bad and should have the fruits of their work stolen by the government and given to those that the government has decreed are deserving?”
What kind of a comment is that? Above a certain level more money doesn’t make someone happier. Does Betsy DeVos really need 10 yachts when more people than ever are going to be evicted from their places? She and too many wealthy only care about getting more money. Prime example is Trump and his rotten off spring. Jared the Great is a slum lord in Baltimore. He doesn’t have any concern for those people.
Everyone deserves healthcare at a reasonable cost. Millions don’t have anything. Do you consider them undeserving if they can’t afford to go to the doctor?
It isn’t the government who decides who are deserving. The U.S. has fallen in the happiness meter for the world because we don’t care about those who are suffering.
It is common human decency that says we should give assistance to whose who need help. Give food to the needy. Provide decent low cost housing for the poor so that they don’t live in slums or on the street. Provide clean drinking water for all areas of the country, not just where the wealthy live. Have good transportation in areas where people can’t afford cars. MEDICARE FOR ALL!
As a public school teacher, surely you’ve seen poor children. Is it okay that they go home to homes that are insecure and don’t have food?
Here Is The Income Level At Which Money Won’t Make You Any Happier In Each State
By Kevin Short
Dec 06, 2017
Money can only buy happiness up to a point. But just how much you need to get to that threshold really depends on where you live, according to a new analysis by Doug Short, vice president of research at investment group Advisor Perspectives.
Short’s analysis found that if you live in a place like Hawaii, where the cost of living is relatively high, a household needs to make $122,175 per year before some extra cash doesn’t really translate into more happiness. In Mississippi, by comparison, the threshold at which more money stops making you happier is a lot lower: $65,850 per year.
How much money do you need to make in your state before more money doesn’t really make you all that happier? We created a map so you could find out…
Article: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/17/map-happiness-benchmark_n_5592194.html?ncid=engmodushpmg00000006
Public School Teacher
If that was directed to me, I will answer with a question. How much do successful people deserve for their success. So for instance Gilead Pharma who designed Remdesivir is going to charge something like 3500 dollars for a 5 day treatment for Covid19 . The drug probably cost $150 a treatment including research costs . They can do that because they have patent protection granted them by the Congress (picking winners and losers ) . Otherwise generic manufacturers would bring the costs down closer to the $150 .
But you say what was the incentive to do the research how about to add insult to injury the research was paid for during the Ebola crisis with a 70 million dollar grant from NIH. Free markets at there best ..
Want to talk about Bill Gates? …
Patents are Government granted monopolies. Yeah free markets .
But it is not just the corporate elite . How about a Teacher or a Union Construction worker in a Union friendly state. I am a union activist but in a free market neither would be making a fraction of their wage. And in Red States neither do.. Is a teacher in West Virginia less qualified than a teacher in NYC. One is on food stamps and ACA. Is an electrician in Orlando less skilled than one in NJ the guy in Orlando lives in a Trailer Park.
You don’t have to travel that far. There are plenty of Non Union Electricians and Teachers in NYC who make a fraction of the wage of an organized worker. `Organizing these workers is difficult at best.
As I tell those on trade pages; if an undocumented immigrant who was picking bananas Honduras a year ago can do your job; your skills are not the reason you get paid 100k.
The myth of meritocracy runs deep. And it is a myth!!!!
This myth you propagate and Joel explains so well why you are wrong, reminds me of the fables of the West, the myth of self-reliance. Today’s West is built as much or more by federal policies, taxes and public works than the popular views of the self-sufficient cowboy we might want to believe. As Jon Stewart pointed out in a recent interview, the federal government gave out parcels of land for free, for example, like the Oklahoma Sooners, which specifically prohibited Blacks from the land grants. At least 20% of the generational wealth of Westerners can be traced back to these land grants, more so if you include grazing rights. No one makes great wealth on their own. Not one.
Well, even Hayek, in his most famous book, The Road to Serfdom, said that one of the legitimate functions of government was to protect people from
a) natural disasters and from b) negative externalities (costs due to actions of private producers that are not incurred by the producer but passively by other people, such as contracting cancer because of the chemicals that a paper mill is dumping into the water).
So, in the current fashion of Republicans, Rand Paul is talking about something he clearly doesn’t understand because he hasn’t done the necessary reading/learning. The Moronavirus trumpnskii orangii is contagious.
“Nor can certain harmful effects of deforestation, or of some methods of farming, or of the smoke and noise of factories, be confined to the owner of the property in question or to those who are willing to submit to the damage for an agreed compensation. In such instances we must find some substitute for the regulation by the price mechanism. But the fact that we have to resort to the substitution of direct regulation by authority where the conditions for the proper working of competition cannot be created, does not prove that we should suppress competition where it can be made to function.” –Hayek, The Road to Serfdom
So, consider this part of the passage:
“[W]e have to resort to the substitution of direct regulation by authority where the conditions for the proper working of competition cannot be created”
Obviously, a natural disaster or a crisis like the invasion of a country by a foreign power, because of its immediacy and severity, cannot be addressed by competition in markets. There has to be immediate, coordinated, emergency response.
Now, ofc, Hayek would argue that in general, markets and competition solve the problem resulting from the fact that knowledge is not centralized but dispersed. But I’m not going to go into that. Don’t freaking get me started.
You ought to send these quotes to Paul.
Cultists are not persuaded by evidence.
No, but maybe there is some satisfaction in deflating his idol in his eyes. Sometimes people are so full of hot air, its a wonder they don’t pop.
Another way of putting this: even a minarchist, night-watchman theory of government recognizes that DEFENSE is a legitimate government function. Paul is a rabid ideologue. His is an adherence to cultish notions, not a respectable theory of government. It’s not even wrong. It’s utter nonsense.
AIDE: Mr. Paul, the Russians just launched a hypersonic nuclear missile at Washington, DC. It’s in the air.
PAUL: Well, I’m sure that the market will sort it out. Let’s see how GM and DuPont respond. People freely chose to live in Washington. They knew the risks. That’s their right.
AIDE: They have a right to be obliterated? Fortunately, there is a small chance that our anti-ballistic missiles will intercept the incoming. . . .
PAUL: Government is not the answer. We just need more optimism.
Medieval thinking emerges when the Tea Party or Freedom Caucus is in charge of the country. These people barely want the federal government to function at all. Medieval thinking explains why states are largely in charge of the pandemic response. It explains why states were competing with the fed to find PPP when the virus first exploded. It also explains the reluctance of certain governors to mandate the wearing of masks.
Meanwhile, Vietnam, a poor, third world country with a population of 97 million, hasn’t reported even its first death from COVID-19, because its leaders overreacted in January and followed the scientific and medical experts with a hard-core passion.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-52628283
thanks, Lloyd. Interesting.
Six months in, coronavirus failures outweigh successes
07/01/20
…Vietnam imposed mandatory quarantines on contacts, including international travelers, in government-run centers to stop the spread. Among its 95 million residents, Vietnam has confirmed 355 total cases since the outbreak began. Alabama, population 4.9 million, reported 358 cases on Sunday alone.
Those countries have begun loosening restrictions on their populations and their economies, with few signs of major flare-ups.
The United States has begun to open up too but without bending the curve downward, and the results have been disastrous. The number of daily confirmed cases has more than doubled in nine states over the past two weeks and has increased by more than half in 17 more…
https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/public-global-health/505353-six-months-in-coronavirus-failures-outweigh-successes
So all we need to do is humble ourselves and pray and “He’ll heal this land.”? Somehow, I believe more is needed. How about more testing, contact tracing and ultimately, the closing down of more states. We are way behind Canada, Europe and Australia because of NO leadership. Celebrating freedom seems hypocritical when Black Lives Matter and people are protesting centuries of injustices.
Somewhere I read that we are like an athlete who suffers a major injury. He does a lot of rehabilitation but enters the game too soon and has to start all over.
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CDC Says Singers Could Be Virus Superspreaders — But 100 Sang Unmasked With Pence
June 29, 2020
A choir of about 100 performers sang at a megachurch campaign event featuring Vice President Pence on Sunday. They did not wear masks while they sang.
Many epidemiologists and singing experts currently fear that singers may be superspreaders of COVID-19, due to aerosolization of the virus. Singing involves much more forceful and deep breathing than simple talking.
The choir was performing at the Celebrate Freedom Rally, which took place at Dallas’ First Baptist Church and was billed as an event “to celebrate our freedom as Americans and our freedom in Christ with you through worship.” …
In his Sunday remarks at the church, Pence said in part: “As we think about the challenges — the loss of more than 125,000 of our countrymen; when we think of the grief of those families; we think of those that are still struggling with this disease today; those who’ve endured economic hardship in the midst of the challenges we face — let’s claim that ancient promise that if His people who are called by His name will humble themselves and pray, He’ll do like he’s always done through the long and storied history of this nation. He’ll hear from heaven, and He’ll heal this land.”
Thoughts and prayers and rainbows and moonbeams and ponies and lollipops! And a big Hello from Mother.
Infantile
You forgot a chicken in every pot and oh my certainly apple pie.
Totally agreed re: the pie!!!!!
Annie Dillard writes somewhere about her favorite line, ever, from a trapper’s journal. Place: The Yukon: “Eight days through the ice and snow and I wish I had pie.”
LOL. I freaking love that.
Many of this site are probably not familiar with FASOLA singing. Reaching into the colonial period of American History, Singing by sight reading four shapes took hold during the Second Great Awakening just prior to the American revolution and spread throughout the country. Today the FASOLA society promotes this style of singing. It is the most moving religious experience a singer will ever have. It is primarily a singing of religious music. (Google FASOLA.org for information.
The people who do this are the most devoted group I have ever encountered. But the singings are canceled for the most part. They have listened to reason. Trust me, the singers of this tradition are not wild-eyed liberals.
Oh my, RT. Love me some Sacred Harp/Shape Note singing!!! I used to do this myself. For those here not familiar with the form, it’s a traditional form of American a cappella hymnody. People sit in a square, with the conductor in the middle (the hollow square) and the tenors facing the altos and the basses facing the trebles. The tenors typically carry the melody. The notes are rendered as shapes on the scores, corresponding to the pitches. This form of music goes all the way back to the seventeenth century in America. It originated in New England and became very popular in the South. The traditional songbook, called The Sacred Harp, is full of hymns with hilarious (to some of us) Calvinist lyrics about trembling virgins and gaping graves. Shape note is very organlike, and shape note singers make a joyful noise indeed. In recent years, it made something of a revival throughout the U.S., with lots of young people doing it for the sheer joy of the music, apart from any religious purpose.
TRUMPTY DUMPTY could have
Used his power (he likes to talk about his power) under the Defense Production Act to order companies to produce N95 respirator masks, ventilators, test kits, testing chemicals, face shields, hazmat suits, sufficient to test all Americans.
Ordered the construction by FEMA and military engineering and construction services of field hospitals throughout the country.
Ordered the creation of a robust contact tracing capability sufficient to do contact tracing of everyone infected.
Ordered the wearing of masks in public.
Directed states to close down all public meetings and to levy fines on people holding them.
Ordered the quarantining of all infected persons and of their contacts.
Directed states to issue moratoriums on foreclosures and evictions.
Worked with Congress to provide substantial relief to unemployed persons.
Ensured that money meant to go to small businesses affected by the pandemic went to small businesses by creating an effective watchdog function related to the relief bill(s).
And by doing this, he could have saved a lot of lives.
Instead, we got, “And again, when you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that’s a pretty good job we’ve done.” and “It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle. It will disappear.” and “One of my people came up to me and said, ‘Mr. President, they tried to beat you on Russia, Russia, Russia.’ That did not work out too well. They could not do it. They tried the impeachment hoax. . . .They tried anything. … And this is their new hoax.”
Donnie Death, wartime president
It almost makes me cry when I read what COULD have been done to save the lives of Americans.
Yeah, the Orange Virus can’t even lead in mask wearing. One day, if the numbers hit 100,000 new cases each day, he might even begin to notice that this Democratic ‘hoax’ is killing people.
Pence says to ‘pray it away’. Trump is ignoring it. WHAT GREAT LEADERS!
“And I like this stuff. You know, my uncle was a great person. He was at MIT. He taught at MIT I think for like a record number of years. He was a great super genius. Dr. John Trump. I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand. Everyone of these doctors they say, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have been that instead of running for President.” –IQ45, March 6
Trump missed his calling as the head of the MIT Media lab, which peddles scams and pedophiles.
“Peddles and Paedos R US” is the Media Lab motto
DeSantis is a mini-Trump.
Gov. DeSantis extends Florida’s evictions ban for one more month to July 1. Meanwhile, eviction fears are eating away at families who dread a knock on the door by a sheriff’s deputy.
The Republican governor said “social interactions” among younger Floridians — and not the state’s reopening — was driving the spike in coronavirus cases.
On April 29, Florida Governor DeSantis appeared on the Hannity program to tout his state’s triumph over the virus. “We know who the vulnerable populations are. We know, if you look at the statistics for people under 50 who don’t have chronic conditions, I mean, you have an extremely low chance of death from this virus and those situations. We know how to protect folks and social distance between those two groups, and so I think there’s a lot of things we’ve learned over the last six weeks. So I think we can take a step forward here in May, continue to build on that, and get America back.”
The New York Times reported Sunday that Florida’s COVID-19 cases had increased fivefold in just two weeks. The state reported 9,585 new cases on Friday ― a record-breaking daily tally. In all, more than 150,000 virus cases have been reported in the state.
Amid the spike, Florida officials on Friday barred the sale of alcohol in bars ― and both Miami-Dade and Broward counties shuttered their beaches for the Fourth of July weekend.
DeSantis said, however, that the state would otherwise be going ahead with its reopening plans.
“We’re open. We know who we need to protect. Most of the folks in those younger demographics ― although we want them to be mindful of what’s going on ― are just simply much, much less at risk than the folks who are in those older age groups. So, protecting the vulnerable, you know, really is significant,” he said.
Got heart disease? Don’t assume that cardiologists know best. Make sure to consult your friends on the Q-Anon blogs to get the real scoop. Oh, and
The Trump Republicans all purchased indulgences, absolving them is sins past, present and future, the problem is they purchased them from Trump …. as the ship continues to sink how many will decide to go down with the ship?
I hope all of them.
[Current occupant of the White House] Republicans? You mean Republicans don’t you?
Based on the ratio of infections to death in the U.S., if Fauci’s fear of 100,000 new cases per day, that would translate into about 4,800 deaths per day. To paraphrase Quint, we’re gonna need a bigger morgue.
Gee, if we could keep that up for a year, we would have 1,752,000 deaths.
“When you look at the kind of numbers that you’re seeing coming out of other countries, it’s pretty amazing when you think of it.”
–IQ45, March 12
Yeah, Donnie Death. Pretty amazing.
They’re just going to let public education collapse. I think a lot of them will celebrate, having never supported the idea in the first place.
Airlines have more and better advocates in DC than 50 million public school children and families do. Public schools are literally the last priority, after everyone and everything else has been bailed out.
It is now July, many schools open in mid August in the south and midwest, and no one in the federal government has gotten anything done towards opening schools. They just don’t care.
President Donald Trump tried to give himself a new nickname Tuesday on Twitter.
In an all-caps tweet, he called himself “the lone warrior,” complete with an exclamation point on the end.
One of his sons agreed: Eric Trump wrote on Twitter, “you truly are” but added, “it’s why America loves and appreciated you.”
?ref_src=twsrctfw|twcamptweetembed|twterm1277996553924489217|twgr&ref_url=https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-lone-warrior-nickname_n_5efbe81dc5b6acab28487fd9
?ref_src=twsrctfw|twcamptweetembed|twterm1278017776792170496|twgr&ref_url=https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-lone-warrior-nickname_n_5efbe81dc5b6acab28487fd9
Trump’s not a lone warrior, he’s got loyalists like John Ratcliffe, Director of National Intelligence, and Robert O’Brien, US National Security Advisor, to convince the public that Trump wasn’t told about the bounties on U.S. soldiers. Both Ratcliffe and O’Brien are religious conservatives and that’s how theocracy rolls.
“At Tuesday’s committee hearing, Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), who is retiring, urged Trump to “occasionally wear a mask””
Too little. Too late, Lamar. Why don’t you speak out against this administration? Why were you silent in the face of trump’s ridiculous campaign in all its hostility to humanity?
If the readers of this blog could just see the way the republician candidates for his seat are competing with one another for the vote of the distant right. “Are yu tired of being called a racist because you love law and order (pictures of black people protesting in front of noble policemen). I am too.”
That’s actually a good name that should stick as his legacy for posterity: Too Little Too Late Lamar.
There are people who get very rich coming up with names for drugs. You could do the same with pols, kid!
Dear Diane Ravitch, I saw a note somewhere that today is your birthday: please accept my congratulations and thanks for doing what you are doing and keeping on doing it. Your writing is invaluable, and I appreciate being able to read it and share it. Best wishes on your birthday and for many more to come. Carolyn Birden
> Begin forwarded message: > > From: Diane Ravitch’s blog > Subject: [New post] Dana Milbank: America Slides Back to the Medieval Era > Date: June 30, 2020 at 8:02:51 PM EDT > To: cmb170106@gmail.com > Reply-To: Diane Ravitch’s blog >
> >
Every public school in the country is reeling, and here’s the response from the ed reformers at the US Department of Education:
“Secretary DeVos Challenges Educators to Rethink Education Options for Rural High School Students Amid Coronavirus Pandemic
Department launches $600,000 competition to advance student-centered technology education
JUNE 30, 2020”
We’re all supposed to enter a contest to possibly win $1000.00 in 6 months.
The cluelessness is just stunning.
Call your Democratic congressperson. Ask the adults to intervene. Public schools are going to need some actual assistance. Perhaps Congress can cut out the US Department of Education completely and actually get some assistance to students directly.
Pence says to pray COVID-19 away and Health Secretary Alex Azar says it is our personal responsibility. All states can ‘open up’ and the numbers of cases that continue to increase are our own problem. OH my goodness, this is horrible. I don’t think that Canada, Japan, S. Korea, New Zealand, Germany or Australia left it up to individuals to decide what is responsible behavior.
How about some decent leadership?
………………………………………
This was ‘news’ from the WH:
Health Secretary Alex Azar said yesterday that personal responsibility will help America have a safe reopening for our workers. “We can continue to reopen—to get back to work, get back to school, get back to health care—but we have to act responsibly as individuals.” Read more from S.A. Miller in The Washington Times.
COVER YOUR FREAKIN’ FACE! – A Randy Rainbow Song Parody
Jun 29, 2020
Randy Rainbow
LOL!
I’m a person of religious faith, and I have prayed and fasted for this terrible plague to leave us and spare everyone. I have prayed for the healthcare workers and essential employees, and now we school workers. I have even prayed for the government to make the right decisions for all of us.
BUT, I also wear masks and social distance and try to stay home as much as possible. Science and faith don’t have to be diametrically opposed. Just because one believes in God doesn’t mean that one can’t also believe in science.
I just don’t understand the whole, “well, if I pray, then it will spare me” stuff. We have to use common sense, too.
Here’s another good op-ed by a doctor who’s fed up:
https://www.medpagetoday.com/blogs/working-stiff/87351
Numbers are rising in Indiana and Gov. Holcomb [R-in] gave in a little.
Wednesday, July 01, 2020 3:40 pm
Indiana delays lifting capacity limits on restaurants, bars
Rosa Salter Rodriguez | The Journal Gazette
Indiana won’t end its COVID-19 restrictions and move to Stage 5 on July 4, Gov. Eric Holcomb said this afternoon.
Instead, the governor proposed a “Stage 4.5” to his Back on Track plan — when some open-air events will be allowed under guidelines but bars, restaurants, event venues and some other indoor gathering spaces will need to continue Stage 4 restrictions.
The new stage will continue until July 18, the governor said.
Holcomb said said officials considered the experience of other areas around the country, including neighboring states, which have seen an upward trend in cases and hospitalizations — as well as “a slight uptick” in Indiana, in pushing the pause button.
rsalter@jg.net
Trump is the chosen one.
President Donald Trump did not appear overly concerned Wednesday about the resurging coronavirus pandemic. “I think we’re going to be very good with the Coronavirus. I think that at some point that’s going to sort of just disappear. I hope,” he told Fox Business.
Total U.S. coronavirus deaths reported each morning this week: Monday, 125,803. Tuesday, 126,141. Wednesday, 127,425. Thursday, 128,062.
The MAGA ChurchJan 9, 2020
The Lincoln Project
This is what it takes for a Republican governor to realize things aren’t going well AND require the public to wear masks…over 8,000 new cases in ONE day.
Axios:
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) issued an executive order Thursday requiring all Texans to wear a face covering in public in counties with 20 or more positive coronavirus cases.
Why it matters: It’s a stark reversal for the Republican governor that underscores the seriousness of the outbreak in Texas, which set a single-day record on Wednesday with more than 8,000 confirmed new cases. On June 3, Abbott issued an executive order banning local governments from imposing fines on people who don’t wear masks in public.
…………..
Change in lyrics:
Where have all the COVID’s gone, short time passing?
Where have all the COVID’s gone, short time ago?
Where have all the COVID’s gone?
Gone to graveyards, everyone.
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Florida again broke the single-day record for new coronavirus cases with 10,109.
No requirement to wear masks in Florida. How many will die because of DeSantis being a mini-Trump.