James.galbraith

Donald Trump’s personal valet has tested positive for COVID-19. So has Mike Pence’s press secretary, Katie Miller, who has not only been maskless at recent White House meetings but is married to top Trump staffer Stephen Miller. “It is scary to go to work,” top economic adviser Kevin Hassett said on CBS Sunday morning, adding an admission sure to be perceived as disloyal: “I think that I’d be a lot safer if I was sitting at home than I would be going to the West Wing.”

The appearance of coronavirus in the White House comes despite stringent measures to protect Trump and Pence, including daily testing for top aides and testing for outside visitors before they enter meetings with Trump. In other words, the White House is doing exactly what Trump has been saying the rest of the country doesn’t need to do to be safe—and it’s still not enough. Trump will have an opportunity to change his tune on testing in public remarks scheduled for Monday afternoon, but so far his stance has been that “by doing all of this testing, we make ourselves look bad.”

Pence “has tested negative every single day and plans to be at the White House tomorrow,” a spokesman said Sunday, despite Trump’s keen observation last week that Miller “tested very good for a long period of time and then all of a sudden today she tested positive.” Funny how that can work. By contrast, Centers for Disease Control director Dr. Robert Redfield and Food and Drug Administration head Dr. Stephen Hahn are self-quarantining, while Dr. Anthony Fauci will attend White House meetings only in a mask in what he’s calling a “modified quarantine.”

Redfield, Hahn, and Fauci are supposed to testify before a Senate committee on Tuesday and will do so by video conference. Committee Chair Lamar Alexander is also self-quarantining after a member of his staff tested positive. This is what it looks like among people who have access to testing and contact tracing. If it doesn’t look like that in other workplaces, how much of the reason is that the testing and contact tracing just aren’t being done?

Trump hasn’t abandoned his push to have states reopen businesses, but meanwhile The New York Times reports that the White House increased its call for its own staff to work remotely, “telling several lower-level aides in the press office, who had been coming into the White House, to work from home regardless of how they were feeling.”

We’re accustomed to Republican hypocrisy, but rarely does it have such an immediate life-or-death effect.

EyeEm/Getty Images

Hardware stores, peel-and-stick wallpaper, and windowsill gardens are all having a moment. No wonder.

It was only when, by order of the government, I was forced to stare all day long at the Ikea shelves on my living room floor that I figured I should probably get around to hanging them up. The hanging-up part took only a few minutes, though, and the achievement of having finally done so did not dramatically improve my mood or life. So I went on Etsy and bought a framed painting of a cat in hopes that might work instead. (Results TBD.)

Sheltering in place is a public good, but it’s also a recipe for becoming increasingly dissatisfied with what one’s shelter looks like. Almost everyone I know has experienced this kind of domestic restlessness: A friend has poured herself into refurbishing her wooden furniture; a co-worker created an impromptu accent wall using Drew Barrymore’s peel-and-stick wallpaper collection from Walmart. My editor’s boyfriend was suddenly overcome with a desire to paint one of his tables red, despite never having shown interest in either painting nor the color red. (He has not, as of press time, done so.)

Courtesy of Chasing Paper

Call it pandecorating: Amateur interior design has turned into one of quarantine’s most popular (and obvious) hobbies. If you’re lucky enough to be spending this time at home — though the coronavirus is not a vacation for anybody, and it is far worse for health care providers and other essential workers — and if you have the luxury of time, space, and money to do it, making your space feel a little bit better is among the more low-effort yet “productive” pandemic tasks.

Some people are rearranging their furniture, as the New York Times suggests, or redecorating, per the Wall Street Journal. (Sample advice: “Dust off that task lamp in the attic and bring in tabletop lights from a decidedly guest-less guest room,” as if everyone has attics and guest rooms). Others are turning their homes into pretend Airbnbs with Vox’s helpful advice, or embarking on DIY projects they wouldn’t normally have the time for.

This is what Gracie Stephenson, a 23-year-old photographer in Richmond, Virginia, did after temporarily moving back in with her parents, who owned an old wooden playhouse that her dad built in the early 2000s. It had fallen into disrepair after she and her sister grew up, so on March 24, she went to Lowe’s.

Stephenson, who had seen people online buying inflatable hot tubs on Amazon, realized she could transform the playhouse into an outdoor jacuzzi. Her father had always been a natural carpenter, and she was able to use tips she’d picked up from him (as well as a few YouTube videos) to begin the process of power-washing, replacing stairs, installing support beams, and staining and painting the wood.

On April 17, Stephenson posted a TikTok video of the transformation, complete with decorative plants, string lights, and a protective rug, which quickly went viral. Commenters have said they’ve been inspired by her project, and now she’s starting on a new one: transforming her parents’ garage into a hangout spot.

“Most of the stores are empty right now,” Stephenson says, “but you go to a home-improvement store and there’s so many people out, because they all just don’t have anything to do.”

Hardware stores across the country have indeed enjoyed a spike in business. With many of them turning to curbside pickup to limit human-to-human contact, owners say customers are buying items like paint, fertilizer, bird seed, and kids’ crafting supplies to keep busy at home. Data from Foursquare also showed that foot traffic to hardware stores was up 26 percent between February 19 and March 20. “Consumers are also diverting funds away from travel and entertainment to focus on spring home improvement projects,” James Bohnaker, associate director and economist at IHS Markit, told Newsday.

Even for people without backyards, gardening has become a way to spruce up indoor and outdoor spaces. “What all gardeners know, and the rest of you may discover, is that if you have even the smallest space, a pot on a window ledge, a front step, a wee yard, there is no balm to the soul greater than planting seeds,” Charlotte Mendelson wrote in the New Yorker on growing flowers during the pandemic.

Another hot quarantine item: peel-and-stick wallpaper. Google searches for the product are currently at their highest ever after rising rapidly at the end of March. Chasing Paper, a removable wallpaper company, says its web traffic has increased by 50 percent, while its online revenue is up 30 percent as of early May.

After a decade of mid-century modern furniture and Swedish minimalism, “Maximalism is back,” says Danielle Blundell, home director at Apartment Therapy. “Everyone is looking around their four walls, figuring out how to add a little more excitement to their design schemes.” Removable wallpaper offers the ability to create a fun accent wall or surface, one you can do yourself. And as fewer young people can afford to buy homes — we even rent our furniture now! — wallpaper that can be easily taken down is friendlier to both design-conscious renters and landlords.

Blundell herself has used quarantine as time to paint a peach-pink arch on the wall over her bar cart, inspired by the work of New Orleans-based designer Liz Kamarul. She used the pencil-and-string method to sketch the borders, and even though she’s renting, she says that’s the beauty of paint-based projects: “It can all be painted back, and still get you your security deposit!”

Other people Blundell’s seen on Instagram have painted the outsides of their doorways and added squiggles or stripes to the corners of rooms. “They’re giving your room charm and sort of faking the look of architecture without it being there,” she adds.

During our conversation, I found myself overwhelmed with the desire to likely destroy my walls with a paintbrush and my extremely limited artistic ability, so I asked how you can know when you’re stepping into potentially dangerous territory.

Blundell says the most common mistake novice crafters make when attempting a home project is skipping the preparatory phase: “In this Instagrammable age of instant gratification, you just want the project to be done now,” she told me. “But prep work is really important, and any time you paint, you really do have to clean the walls and make sure that your surfaces are primed to take paint on. [Take] the time to plan and know what you’re going to do, actually measure and trace things out — the pros do it for a reason. Good work does take time.” (Meanwhile, anything involving electrical lines, like light fixtures or even moving walls, should be left to the professionals.)

Even the experts, though, are feeling the oh-my-god-I-can’t-look-at-this-room-anymore malaise. Emma Crespo, an 18-year-old artist, was quarantining at her parent’s house in Massachusetts, surrounded by the roses and planets she’d painted on her bedroom walls a few years ago. “I came back to my house and I looked at my walls and I hated it,” she laughs. “Seeing it every day for like two weeks and not being able to leave made me really want to do something else.”

Instead of simply covering them up, Crespo decided to take advantage of the opportunity to transform the space into her “dream room.” She updated her TikTok every day with a different project: a series of wall paintings first, then an Instagram-ready backdrop made of CDs, then tie-dyed sheets. Within a few days she’d garnered nearly 500,000 followers. (Perhaps unsurprisingly, searches for “tie dye” are also at their all-time highest.)

Projects like these — hot tub clubhouses, dream rooms, or gorgeous wall arches — are, of course, on the more elaborate end of the quarantine home-project spectrum. But even the little things, like growing basil on a windowsill, moving a couch to the other side of a room, or buying a cat painting on Etsy, can fulfill the parts of us that are begging for novelty. It is impossible to be stuck inside a space and resist the human itch to make it more pleasant. It is, to use the therapy cliché, the one thing you can control in a time when, to use the pandemic cliché, we are experiencing an unprecedented crisis.

It’s not dissimilar to the experience of playing Animal Crossing, that other extremely popular quarantine pastime that’s since become its own coronavirus cliché. Often heralded as “the game we need now” because it requires zero skill and involves no scary things, Animal Crossing is essentially virtual homemaking. Its sole objective is to design an island cute enough to entice other animals to come live there, but just like real life, players can quickly succumb to aesthetic restlessness. I’ve razed and completely redone my island countless times over the 100 hours I’ve logged in the game, and with each viral image of someone else’s impossibly sophisticated island I question the quality of my own. This is possibly even more pathetic than the fact that I have spent the equivalent of five straight days playing a game for 10-year-olds.

A solid strategy for ignoring the horribleness of it all, though, is pretending like it’s a choice. Using your time at home to make your space look cozy is far nicer than the truth of the situation, which is that you have been stuck there so long that to occupy the same room for even one more second might feel unbearable. Here are my new shelves. Here is her new Drew Barrymore removable wallpaper. Here is her new hot tub hangout area, which nobody else is allowed to sit in for probably a few months and maybe more. But at least it looks nice online.

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Remember President Trump’s tax returns? It seems like a relic from the distant past, but only last December, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a trio of cases on whether the president could block his accounting firm and two of his banks from turning over eight years of tax returns and other financial records to Democratic-led House committees and New York City prosecutors. Trump’s lawyers have offered an extraordinarily expansive vision of his power as president, arguing that as chief executive he is immune from criminal investigations and congressional subpoenas. The cases were supposed to be heard in late March but were delayed over a month due to the COVID-19 crisis. Now, on Tuesday morning, the justices will finally hear arguments in one of the most momentous disputes over congressional power and presidential immunity in recent memory.

The timing could be bad for Trump, as the accounting firm and banks have already indicated that if the Supreme Court deems the requests for his records valid, they would turn over the documents. That would give Trump’s political opponents a new source to mine for information on how he makes and spends his money right before the 2020 presidential election. On the other hand, a ruling in Trump’s favor could ensure that his financial documents remain hidden for the foreseeable future.

But the outcome might not be that simple. A few weeks ago, the justices asked both sides to weigh in on whether the dispute between Trump and House Democrats is fundamentally political and, therefore, beyond the reach of the courts. A ruling that the courts are powerless to resolve this fight could translate into a loss for Trump since he wouldn’t have any power to stop his accounting firm or banks from handing over his records. But it’s not clear exactly what would happen if the Supreme Court stepped aside — and losing the courts as a referee in fights over subpoenas could also be a longer-term victory for the presidency, as Congress could lose its ability to make high-level executive branch officials actually comply with their subpoenas for documents or testimony.

“If Congress isn’t allowed to use the courts to resolve these disputes, we’d see even more brinksmanship on both sides,” said Steve Vladeck, a constitutional law professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law. “It would remove any incentive for cooperation or accommodation. And it would be a stunning, stunning blow to Congress’s oversight power over the executive branch.”

At the heart of these cases is a question that’s come up again and again during Trump’s presidency: Is the president really protected from legal and congressional scrutiny?

Trump’s lawyers argue that even though investigators aren’t asking him for the records personally — House Democrats subpoenaed Trump’s financial documents from his banks and accounting firm, and New York City prosecutors subpoenaed his tax returns as part of a broader criminal investigation into Trump’s businesses — the prosecutors’ subpoenas are still invalid because while Trump is in the White House, he is immune from criminal investigations. And they’ve also contended that the requests for his financial documents are outside of Congress’s legislative purview.

At this point, though, three trial court judges and three federal appeals court panels have all rejected those arguments, ruling that the banks and Trump’s accounting firm do in fact have to comply with the subpoenas. In the case involving the New York City prosecutors, a district court judge wrote that the idea that a president couldn’t be touched by a criminal investigation was “repugnant to the nation’s governmental structure and constitutional values.” Two appeals courts, meanwhile, ruled that the subpoenas did fall squarely under Congress’s oversight authority.

There are ways, however, for the justices to rule in Trump’s favor without endorsing his lawyers’ argument that the president can’t be investigated by law enforcement or Congress. One potential roadmap is in a dissent written by an appeals court judge, who said Congress could investigate potential wrongdoing by the president only as part of an impeachment investigation, not as routine oversight.

Any ruling that a congressional subpoena was invalid would still constitute a fairly clear win for Trump, though. And in a term in which the Supreme Court is considering a handful of other cases with significant political implications, the justices may be looking for an outcome that doesn’t notch an obvious victory for either side. Concluding that the dispute is a political fight that’s simply out of their hands — which is what the court did last year in a case involving partisan gerrymandering — could be attractive, according to Vladeck and others. That’s in part because it’s genuinely unclear what the short-term impact would be.

If the courts step out of the way, the fateful decision whether to release Trump’s tax returns to the House committees would be left up to his banks and accounting firm. But how they would proceed in the absence of a court order is an open question. “At that point, it’s all about whether the banks and the accounting firm are inclined to comply,” said Michael Dorf, a constitutional law professor at Cornell Law School. “If they are, Trump doesn’t have a way to stop them. But if they’re not, Congress doesn’t have a lot of other options to force them to comply.”

In theory, Congress would still have one card to play: It could exercise its “inherent contempt” power, which involves physically detaining anyone who ignores its subpoenas. But that power hasn’t been exercised since the 1930s, and House Democrats haven’t used it so far on other noncompliant witnesses in the Trump administration, signaling that they’d be unlikely to use it in this case, too — leaving Congress with functionally no power to enforce its subpoenas.

The stakes are high in the short term for Trump, but they’re arguably even higher for Congress. The New York City prosecutors might also lose, but Vladeck said he saw fewer long-term implications for that case. “The [New York] case is basically a Trump special that is unlikely to repeat for future presidents who don’t have the same kind of ongoing business interests,” he said. But a ruling that the courts can’t arbitrate disputes over congressional subpoenas involving the president would reverberate far beyond Trump’s presidency.

“It’s hard to imagine how they could write that opinion in a way that wouldn’t have major, major implications for other congressional subpoenas when Trump and his tax returns are far in the rearview mirror,” said Tara Leigh Grove, a professor at William & Mary Law School who has written about the history of the political question doctrine. “The ruling in this case could significantly diminish Congress’s oversight power over future presidents.”

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White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow on Sunday did not take kindly to former President Barack Obama blasting the Trump administration’s pandemic response: “I don’t know what he’s talking about.”

According to a recording obtained by Yahoo News, Obama told former members of his administration that combating the virus would have been difficult for even the best of governments. Still, Obama said, “It's been an absolute chaotic disaster when that mindset of ‘What's in it for me’ and ‘To heck with everybody else’ — when that mindset is operationalized in our government.”

On Sunday, Kudlow pointed to the relief packages President Donald Trump signed into law to send money for testing, medical equipment and businesses.

“With all due respect to the former president, and I really don't want to get into a political back and forth here. I just — I don't know what he's talking about,” Kudlow said on ABC’s “This Week.”

He later added, “Look, what we’ve done may not be 100 percent perfect. You know, these things happen once every 100 years. But the overall picture is we’ve created a massive health and safety infrastructure to deal with the pandemic here in the United States.”

The Trump administration has been accused of politicizing the pandemic response and even drugs that could treat the virus, as Democratic governors clash with the Republican White House — and Trump tweets about his standing in the polls.

In April, 20.5 million Americans lost their jobs. Unemployment is at 14.7 percent, more than four times the rate it was in February. It’s a level last seen during the Great Depression.

Most states have begun easing lockdowns and restrictions on businesses, hoping to breathe life into economies floundering under the weight of the pandemic and long stay-at-home orders. But cases are continuing to rise, with the total in the United States crossing 1.3 million.

Trump on Friday downplayed the record unemployment rate and claimed that "those jobs will be back and they'll be back very soon."

Asked whether that promise could be kept, Kudlow said Sunday that he didn’t want to sugarcoat the numbers, which will be very difficult for May.

However, Kudlow said, "Inside the numbers, there's a glimmer of hope ... about 80 percent of it was furloughs and temporary layoffs. That, by the way, doesn't assure that you will go back to a job, but it suggests strongly that the cord between the worker and the business is still intact."

He also pushed the Congressional Budget Office’s prediction for a strong second half of the year — "probably 20 percent economic growth" — and for a “tremendous snapback” in 2021.

"I’m going to leave President Obama alone. I just want to make the case that I think is the prevailing consensus case right now,” Kudlow finished.

Still, not everyone is sold on the idea that there will be a quick economic resurgence. Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank President Neel Kashkari, who appeared on ABC after Kudlow, said he wishes Kudlow’s view was realistic.

“Unfortunately, this is more likely to be slow, more gradual recovery” and the worst is yet to come on the jobs front, he said. “To solve the economy we must solve the virus. Let's never lose sight of that fact.”

In important weekend news, we learn that Trump is sad because it turns out killing 80,000 Americans (and counting) through rank incompetence is making him, personally, less popular.

Oh, and that Republicans are worried that killing off their own electorate might cost them the Senate majority, come November. Not because of the deaths directly, mind you, just because it looks kind of bad. Don't worry, though, they have a plan too: The plan is to argue that they're doing a great job despite all the dying, and also it's someone else's fault.

The Washington Post brings us both stories, but the news that Trump is Sad, as "deaths mount" and as the Trump team abandons efforts to fight the virus to instead focus on "reopening" the country, is surely the more important news. The administration has not been able to orchestrate the sort of widespread testing that other nations are relying on to determine when they should reopen their own economies, so the answer is to not try. There is no contact tracing plan. There is no evidence that anyone has been able to drum into Trump's empty head even the most basic facts about the virus—no, it will not "go away on its own"—or that Mike Pence or any of the other top Trump officials give a particular damn about trying.

And so Trump is sad. The Post reports that some of Trump's advisers "described the president as glum and shell-shocked by his declining popularity" and that "in private conversations, he has struggled to process how his fortunes suddenly changed from believing he was on a glide path to reelection to realizing that he is losing" in the polls to Biden. Truly, Dear Leader is having a moment here.

Oh—and we also learn that Dr. Deborah Birx is upset with the Centers of Disease Control for counting too many deaths. We learn that the administration's distribution of their new bet-everything-on-this wonder drug, remdesivir, is as botched as the rollout of the last one, with not even the task force being given a heads-up before the government shipped out supply of the drug to seven states before anyone apparently bothered to determine which states might most need it. We learn that Jared Fucking Kushner is inexplicably taking command of more bullshit he knows nothing about, and that not even Stephen Moore's only extended family is buying his calls for a little economy-boosting grandma murdering, and that everything remains chaotic, bungling, delusion-based and thoroughly incompetent.

But there is a plan. The new White House plan is that people are going to keep dying, and likely in larger numbers than even now, and Trump is somehow going to argue that that's fine. Or a victory. Or the price America must pay, to have someone as grand and as orange as Himself in charge of it. He's going to resume rallies and Americans are going to continue to die at the rate of 2,000 a day, likely rising higher in the next few weeks.

Is the public "willing to accept that?" frets an anonymous White House adviser to the Post. Yes, that is the real question here. Not whether it should be prevented, but whether the White House will be politically successful in selling it.

That has become the new Senate Republican plan too. In a separate Post story, we learn that Republicans are "increasingly nervous" they will lose the Senate majority as a result of, you know, their party's incompetence killing what could be, in November, anywhere from 100,000 (best case) to quarter million people (our new middle case, perhaps.)

But what if the economy recovers? Then perhaps killing a six-figure number of American civilians might turn out to be politically tolerable. Also, Republican senators plan to tout their support for the massive economic relief packages that they seem to presume are relief-ing far more Americans than so far have been the case. Also also, "efforts to target China will continue throughout the campaign."

It will be a stress test of just how far the Republican base has itself descended into xenophobic fascism, in other words. Is it all right that Dear Leader botched, absolutely, the most pivotal national disaster the nation has seen in a century? What if we claim it is the fault of foreigners? Is the giddy thrill of having an openly racist, boorish national shitposter as leader still so intoxicating that the base will stomach even people in their own neighborhoods dying in order to keep that intoxicating version of "winning" flowing through their veins?

Probably, as the white-nationalism heavy protests against pandemic safety demonstrate. But Republicans fret that their dreaded enemy, also known as absolutely everyone else in America, might have even stronger feelings about Trump killing large numbers of us. Can the party's digital operations nullify all those unpleasant cretins mumbling that maybe they didn't want the Spanish Flu combined with the Great Depression, no matter how much President Hairstyle insists on his victory? Will Republican donors continue to support the party's anti-competence, pro-catastrophe stance, if the party can sweeten the pot by promising to cut their taxes a wee bit more? The pundits will all be on edge.

In the meantime, Republicans are Sad nationwide, it seems, from the White House downward. Not because even after 80,000 deaths the arch-conservative Republican administration continues to not have even one damn clue as to how to stop Americans from dying in whatever proportions the virus wishes them to, but because it is cutting into their poll numbers.

It's very tragic. How very terrible, to live under such a constant feeling of dread and slow-moving disaster. The rest of us would be hard pressed to even imagine what that might be like.

JOE, a political site from the UK, has constructed a brutal parody of R.E.M.’s 1991 hit “Losing My Religion” as a commentary on Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.

“That’s me and corona,” Trump ‘sings’ on the track. “That’s me in the spotlight, / abusing my position /Trying to blame Chinese flu/ And I don’t care if you have caught it.”

And it gets more savage from there: “I thought that I heard you coughing / I thought that I heard you wheeze / I think I let the old folks die.”

In January, Stephen Colbert asked R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe about Trump’s use of R.E.M. songs at his rallies and campaign events: “Is there really nothing you can do?”

Said Stipe: “It’s a licensing problem and there’s nothing we can do except respectfully request that they not use them.”

Stipe did relish the fact that he got the opportunity to tell Donald Trump “shut up” to his face at one point in his life.

Mike Mills, who played bass on the track, also commented in January on Trump’s use of the music at his rallies, tweeting, “We are aware that the President* @realDonaldTrump continues to use our music at his rallies. We are exploring all legal avenues to prevent this, but if that’s not possible please know that we do not condone the use of our music by this fraud and con man.”

We are aware that the President* @realDonaldTrump continues to use our music at his rallies. We are exploring all legal avenues to prevent this, but if that’s not possible please know that we do not condone the use of our music by this fraud and con man.

— Mike Mills (@m_millsey) January 15, 2020

The post Brutal R.E.M. Parody ‘Losing My Civilians’ Takes Apart Trump’s Disastrous COVID-19 Response: WATCH appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
Feels like humans have been around a long time, but on an evolutionary scale we're just a sudden weird infection that keeps spreading.

Today's News:

On Thursday, CNN’s K-File reported that newly appointed White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany called Donald Trump “racist” and “hateful” in 2015 before becoming a fierce advocate for the president.

During a White House briefing on Friday, PBS NewsHour reporter Yamiche Alcindor asked McEnany about her 2015 comments — which also included her saying that it was “unfortunate” and “inauthentic” to call Trump a Republican.

“I’m actually glad you asked that, because for about the first four weeks of the election, I was watching CNN, and I was naively believing some of the headlines that I saw on CNN,” McEnany responded. “I very quickly came around to supporting the president. In fact, CNN hired me. I was on many eight-on-one panels where I proudly supported this president, who I believe is one of the best presidents, if not the best president, this country will ever have. But I would encourage the individual who did that analysis of my past, rather than focusing on me, he really should be focused on sone of the very guests CNN chose to have on their network.”

Watch it below.

McEnany, asked about previously calling Trump's language racist, says she was tricked into thinking that by CNN headlines

McEnany: "For about the first four weeks of the election I was watching CNN, and I was naively believing some of the headlines that I saw on CNN" pic.twitter.com/JLn7jriJn3

— Lis Power (@LisPower1) May 8, 2020

The post McEnany Claims Watching CNN Brainwashed Her Into Believing Trump Was ‘Racist’ and ‘Hateful’ in 2015: WATCH appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.

President Donald Trump’s former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn leaves the E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse on June 24, 2019 in Washington, DC. | Alex Wroblewski/Getty Images

“This is a pardon disguised as a technical legal matter.”

In an extraordinary move, the Justice Department has dropped its case against former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty in 2017 to lying to the FBI about several conversations he had with the Russian ambassador in 2016.

According to a filing signed by Timothy Shea, the US attorney for the District of Columbia, the DOJ concluded after “an extensive review and careful consideration of the circumstances ... continued prosecution of this case would not serve the interests of justice.”

The decision to toss out Flynn’s case is, to put it mildly, controversial. The DOJ is saying, implicitly, that they can’t prove that Flynn committed the crime he already confessed to, or that it’s simply not worth prosecuting even though he already pled guilty. Either scenario is, well, odd.

On the surface, there’s only one reason to drop this case: politics. Trump, and his Attorney General Bill Barr, think the Russia investigation was bogus to begin with. Flynn’s lawyers, for their part, have insisted that the FBI mishandled the investigation and entrapped him.

So what’s the deal here? Is there a legitimate legal reason for the DOJ to drop this case? And if not, what does that mean for the Justice Department moving forward?

To get some answers, I reached out to eleven legal experts. While there wasn’t a perfect consensus, every expert agreed that the DOJ’s decision was highly unusual at best and an attack on the rule of law at worst.

“Bill Barr has sacrificed the integrity of the Justice Department and undercut the rule of law for political ends,” Lisa Kern Griffin, a law professor at Duke, told me.

Ultimately, they said, this is likely to further damage the credibility of a Justice Department that has already become a deeply politicized institution in the Trump era.

Their full responses, lightly edited for clarity, are below.

Diane Marie Amann, law professor, University of Georgia

Under US law — though not necessarily that of some other countries — it is within the prosecutor’s discretion to drop a case for almost any reason. In that sense, the decision appears to be legal. To do so after a federal judge has accepted the defendant’s under-oath guilty plea is highly unusual, however, and in this instance the surrounding circumstances truly are extraordinary. All that spurs questions about the legitimacy and consequences of the Department of Justice decision. Even though the judge might make inquiries, at this point the ultimate answers seem likely to lie with the American electorate.

Renato Mariotti, former federal prosecutor, 2007 to 2016

It is highly unusual for the government to dismiss a defendant’s case after he has pleaded guilty, and the DOJ’s motion contains arguments that are inconsistent with long-standing DOJ policy and practice.

There are good reasons to consider changing how DOJ handles interviews of subjects, as well as when and how it charges people for lying to the FBI. But Flynn’s case is not unlike many other cases in which the FBI interviewed someone without their attorney present with the expectation that the subject would lie.

Any change to how the FBI handles cases like Flynn’s should be done across the board, for all defendants. What we’re left with is a criminal justice system that has different rules for Donald Trump’s friends than it has for everyone else. That’s corruption, plain and simple.

Jessica Levinson, law professor, Loyola Law School

Attorney General Bill Barr has been a wonderful attorney for the president, but not always for the American public. He has done a great deal to politicize the Department of Justice. At times it looks more like the Department of Trump than the Department of Justice.

Michael Flynn, who for a short time served as President Trump’s national security advisor, has been accused of lying to the FBI about his conversations with the Russian Ambassador. The accusations regarding Flynn came to light as a result of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. For those of you following along at home, lying to federal agents is still a federal crime. In fact, Flynn ADMITTED to committing to that crime, and then later withdrew his guilty plea.

There is certainly a good political reason for the DOJ’s decision to drop its charges against Flynn. This is welcome news for Trump, who has long decried the prosecution of Flynn as bogus, and his supporters. It also means Trump will be able to avoid the decision as to whether or not to pardon Flynn.

The federal prosecutors who recommended dropping the charges against Flynn have said new information and material coming to light. Much of this material includes the internal deliberations of the FBI about the case. It is worth noting that one of the career prosecutors on the case withdrew as the decision to drop the charges against Flynn were made.

If the new evidence truly shows that for years the prosecutors bringing the case, and the judge who accepted the guilty plea, were all lacking necessary information, then the DOJ made the correct call. But there are plenty of red flags here, and one wonders whether or not the DOJ would have reversed course on the prosecution of a Trump ally, one he has publicly supported, if we didn’t all have our eyes and ears turned towards news of a global pandemic.

Like so many other aspects of the Trump administration, the DOJ’s actions may not represent a long-term, paradigm-shifting approach to political sensitive prosecutions. In one or five years, when the next administration arrives, the DOJ may once again become a more independent agency seeking justice, and not as attuned to political wins and loses. And so at this point it is difficult to suss out the long-term consequences of this decision. This may be merely an ill-conceived blip; a decision made while we all had our eyes on curves and whether or not they are flattening.

Joshua Dressler, law professor, Ohio State University

On the face of it, this appears to be nothing more than another attack on the rule of law perpetrated by those working in the Trump administration. I can only hope that Judge Sullivan will conduct a hearing to determine whether there is any justification for Attorney General Barr’s remarkable actions.

In light of Barr’s politicized actions in the past, I suspect that this is more of the same. As for the effects, it will have no effect on Michael Flynn who would likely have been pardoned anyway. And those who believe in “deep state” conspiracies will simply nod their head and say, “I told you so.” But, this will be another blow to the morale of career lawyers working in the Justice Department and beyond.

And, lest we forget, when the rule of law is attacked, we are all at risk.

Miriam Baer, law professor, Brooklyn Law School

At this stage, it would be impossible to see the DOJ’s action through anything other than a political lens. The so-called failures described in the government’s brief are hardly so out of the ordinary as to cause high-level department officials to reconsider a prosecution that previously resulted in a guilty plea as well as a district court’s determination the false statements in question were in fact “material.”

The longer-term problem is this: as a general rule prosecutors should be willing to reconsider cases, particularly when it appears a miscarriage of justice has occurred. Moreover, whenever changeovers in administrations or personnel occur, we want new prosecutors to look at cases — even those cases in which the defendant has previously entered a guilty plea — with a fresh set of eyes and healthy degree of skepticism.

In this case, however, too much has happened to accord the DOJ that degree of deference. At this stage of the game, Flynn’s case will be perceived as another chip in the department’s veneer of neutrality and further evidence that the agency has become dangerously politicized. Not only will this further depress morale, but it will drive more career prosecutors to retire early or seek positions in private practice. Moreover, it will cause additional talented attorneys to forego applications to either Main Justice or the United States attorneys offices. It may take some time to see the downstream consequences of this “talent drain” but when we do finally realize it, it will take quite some time to cure.

Jimmy Gurulé, law professor, Notre Dame

The Department of Justice under attorney general William Barr will likely be remembered as the most politicized Department of Justice in history. In a matter of a few months, Barr has personally intervened in two cases to protect President Trump’s political cronies. In February 2020, Barr overruled the sentencing recommendation of career prosecutors in order to secure a lesser sentence for Roger Stone, President Trump’s long-time political ally.

Now, Barr has gone even further by dropping the criminal charges against Michael Flynn, Trump’s former National Security Director. As a former federal prosecutor and U.S. Assistant Attorney General, it deeply saddens me to witness the severe and incalculable damage being inflicted to the independence and integrity of the Department of Justice.

The rule of law is in imminent peril.

Ric Simmons, law professor, Ohio State University

All of the credible evidence points to the conclusion that the Attorney General dismissed this case for political reasons. Contrary to what the Department of Justice is now saying, this was a legitimate charge that was strongly supported by the evidence. Flynn presented these same arguments of entrapment and prosecutorial overreach to the federal judge in charge of his case — a judge who has a history of holding prosecutors accountable — and the judge definitively rejected them.

Unfortunately this decision is consistent with a broader pattern of how Attorney General Barr has been running the Justice Department. One of his first actions as President Trump’s Attorney General was releasing a misleading summary of the Mueller report to make it appear as though the report exonerated the President, even though it did not. During the impeachment investigation of 2019, a federal judge held Barr in contempt for refusing to obey lawful Congressional subpoenas. And earlier this year, Barr intervened in the sentencing of Roger Stone, another Trump associate, by overruling career prosecutors and recommending a more lenient sentence.

These actions are contrary to the longstanding tradition of an independent Justice Department that acts in the best interest of the United States.

Jens David Ohlin, law professor, Cornell University

This is an extraordinary 180-degree turn for the Justice Department to make. The new motion is predicated on a bizarrely narrow application of the concept of “materiality” — an application that is completely out of step with how the department applies that concept in other prosecutions.

Put simply, Flynn lied about the substance of his calls with the Russian Ambassador by saying that he didn’t discuss sanctions. The DOJ now says that these lies were not “material” to the department’s counterintelligence investigation. How could this be? The dismissal motion says that “Mr. Flynn’s request that Russia avoid ‘escalating’ tensions in response to U.S. sanctions in an effort to mollify geopolitical tensions was consistent with him advocating for, not against, the interests of the United States.” This is a particularly naive view of Flynn’s phone call.

Russia interfered in the 2016 election and the Trump administration wanted to reward Russia for this interference by unwinding any sanctions imposed by the Obama administration. Flynn’s phone calls — which took place while Obama was still President — must be seen in this context. Flynn’s interview was not “untethered” to the counterintelligence investigation, it was central to it.

Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, law professor, Stetson University

On the same day that the Supreme Court decided the Kelly v. US case, better known as the Bridgegate case, the Department of Justice’s dropping charges against Michael Flynn makes this a banner day for corruption.

In Kelly v. US, the US Supreme Court decided unanimously that Bridget Anne Kelly would not go to jail for her role in Bridgegate because even though “for no reason other than political payback, Baroni and Kelly used deception to reduce Fort Lee’s access lanes to the George Washington Bridge — and thereby jeopardized the safety of the town’s residents. But not every corrupt act by state or local officials is a federal crime.” The Kelly case is likely to make corruption prosecutions involving lying to the public more difficult, if not impossible, to prosecute.

Meanwhile, the Department of Justice’s choice to drop charges against Michael Flynn is disgraceful. Michael Flynn lied to the FBI and admitted that he lied both in his guilty plea and then in person to the judge in his case. Lying to federal authorities like the FBI is a federal crime under 18 U.S. Code § 1001. Dropping the case against him does damage to the rule of law which requires the DOJ to treat like cases alike and for the United States to be a nation of laws, not men.

DOJ’s own internal guidance on 18 U.S. Code § 1001 states that individuals convicted of violating this part of the law are eligible for up to five years in prison or fines of up to $250,000. The unmistakable impression that had been left by the Flynn affair is that he is being treated differently because he is close to the President. This is not the way the administration of justice should work in America.

Between Michael Flynn’s freedom and Bridget Anne Kelly’s freedom, this has been a stellar moment for white-collar criminals getting away with crimes for which others would have been incarcerated. Today is a mournful day for anyone who still had faith in the rule of law. But it is an election year, and the electorate has a chance to change who is in power in November. A new administration would bring a new Attorney General, preferably one who will enforce the law without fear or favor.

Christopher Slobogin, law professor, Vanderbilt University

Dismissing charges against a person who has already pleaded guilty to them on the ground that there was insufficient evidence to convict is virtually unheard of, unless new exculpatory evidence has surfaced. In this case, the DOJ purportedly has changed its mind about whether Flynn’s misstatements were “material”. An immateriality argument rarely wins in front of a jury, because it requires an admission that the statement is false and because the definition of materiality is very broad. This is a pardon disguised as a technical legal matter.

Lisa Kern Griffin, law professor, Duke University

Bill Barr has taken extraordinary steps to “erase” the Mueller investigation on the president’s behalf, from misrepresenting Mueller’s findings to the public, to intervening in Roger Stone’s sentencing proceedings, to attacking the federal agents and prosecutors who investigated Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Dismissing the charges against Michael Flynn — who has twice acknowledged under oath that he lied to FBI agents about his conversations with the Russian ambassador and voluntarily entered a guilty plea —i s the most brazen move Barr has made yet. It is openly corrupt and legally indefensible. To say that Flynn’s lies about contacting the Russian ambassador were not material to a national security investigation is inconsistent with precedents about what 18 U.S.C. 1001 requires and is a position the government seems to be taking for one case only.

The whole point of a special counsel is to insulate sensitive investigations from political considerations. But AG Bill Barr has sacrificed the integrity of the Justice Department and undercut the rule of law for political ends.

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Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers Kevin Hassett with reporters outside the White House on May 3, 2019. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

An extremely foolish way to forecast the pandemic.

The Trump administration’s decision to abandon efforts to suppress the coronavirus and even sideline its own task force’s guidelines in favor of a quick lift of restrictions on economic activity naturally prompted the question: why?

After all, models from both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation that the White House had previously relied on for guidance say that moving to reopen now will likely lead to a substantial increase in the death toll.

The answer, according to a May 4 Washington Post report by William Wan, Lenny Bernstein, Laurie McGinley, and Josh Dawsey, is that the president prefers a different model, which paints a rosier picture. Referred to in the original Post report as the “cubic model,” it was attributed to former Council of Economic Advisers Chair Kevin Hassett, and the Post reported that “people with knowledge of that model say it shows deaths dropping precipitously in May — and essentially going to zero by May 15.”

This report and follow-up reporting and controversies unleashed a cavalcade of online snark and jokes, but the core revelation is deadly serious: There simply is no theoretical or empirical basis for the belief that restrictions can be broadly lifted in May 2020 without a significant increase in loss of life.

Depending on whom you ask, the “cubic model” is either risible nonsense or not a forecast at all (or both). And while it’s hardly unheard of for political decision-makers to embark on a course of action that contradicts expert advice, an unusual hallmark of the way Trump conducts his administration is the way he often demands reasonably well-qualified people to humiliate themselves on his behalf.

Hassett’s “model” is a stock Excel function

Nate Silver, a professional builder of quantitative models, immediately (and, as it turns out, presciently) guessed/joked that the story of Hassett’s model was that he plugged some numbers into an Excel file and then had the computer draw lines until he got an optimistic forecast.

My level of competency with quantitative analysis is exactly high enough that I can do this kind of “modeling” and understand why it’s a bad idea, but not high enough to make a good model of anything. To understand what happened here and why it’s absurd just takes a little explanation of Excel functions, and you need to look at some charts.

To start, you download the US daily death data from the Covid Tracking Project and put it into Excel, where you can make a scatterplot of deaths by day.

One built-in Excel function lets you add a trend line to a scatterplot to see whether on the whole your data series is going up or down.

The way this works is that the computer, being good at math and without knowing anything about your data, calculates a line that minimizes the average distance between the lines and the points. It looks like this.

You can also, if you want, tell Excel to project this line into the future and you get this chart:

That gives you a “what if this trend continues into the future at its current rate of growth” hypothetical scenario to explore. The mere fact that you can draw a straight line like this is not a forecast or a reason to believe that the linear trend will continue. By monkeying around in Excel, for example, you can reach the conclusion that if we continue on this linear growth path, more than 10,000 Americans will be dying per day by Election Day 2020. That’s not a prediction, but it is a confirmation that a purely self-interested president should try to do something to alter the trajectory of the death toll.

But you also don’t need to draw a straight line. There is theoretical reason to believe that infectious disease outbreaks exhibit an exponential growth pattern, for example, so it might be better to have Excel draw a best-fit curve that features a parabola rather than a straight line.

This chart shows both the best linear fit and the best parabolic fit, and they look extremely similar.

That turns out to be an example where messing around in Excel (“exploratory data visualization” is the fancy term for it) actually tells you something informative about the data. The death toll is not currently exhibiting the kind of strong exponential growth the country saw between March 20 and April 10. That’s good news, and we actually learned something from drawing these lines. A real social scientist would make fun of me for doing this in Excel rather than using more professional-grade software like Stata or R, but it’s close enough.

The problem is that while the similarity between the linear and parabolic curves tells us the good news that the growth no longer appears to be exponential, it doesn’t tell us that it’s safe to stop worrying about public health.

Fortunately, modern computers are powerful, and Excel can draw all kinds of lines. For example, what if instead of a quadratic function, I asked it to draw a cubic function — in other words, a function where X^3 shows up in the math?

Why would a virus exhibit a cubic growth pattern? I have no idea. But it turns out that if you draw a cubic best-fit curve through the data, you see deaths dropping to zero in mid-May. Great news!

Now, I am not a virologist or a math wizard, but it’s obvious looking at this chart that one property of cubic functions is that after peaking they decline rapidly to less than zero. And we know that this is not how coronavirus or any other virus works.

You can draw lines through any kind of data, but to make models that provide meaningful information, your modeling choices need to make some kind of sense. It is not at all obvious to me what the best way to model the future course of the pandemic is, but it’s clearly not to use this cubic function. As far as I can tell, the only appeal of doing it that way is it happens to provide an optimistic forecast, though naturally the relevant players have angrily denied this is the case

Hassett says he was just “smoothing” the data

While economics Twitter was having a field day with this cubic model idea, the Council on Economic Advisers’ Twitter account was arguing that “curve fitting can improve data visualization” and that IHME forecasts have been fairly reliable.

Hassett himself explained this in a similar way to the New York Times’s Jim Tankersley, who reported that “deaths vary by the day, particularly on weekends. To smooth out the volatility, Mr. Hassett said he had employed ‘just a canned function in Excel, a cubic polynomial.’”

Both Hassett and the CEA, in other words, argue that this is not a forecast at all, just a way of taking messy data and smoothing it out to display the underlying trend better. One obvious problem with this is that the Post’s original sources seemed pretty clear that it was a forecast. After all, if it’s not a forecast, then what about it makes Trump think the bleak CDC forecast is wrong? Second, if it’s not a forecast, then why does the CEA chart shows the red line projecting into the future?

Last but by no means least, if what you want to do is smooth out noisy data to eliminate day-of-the-week effects, Excel has a handy function that will generate a seven-day moving average. It looks like this:

There’s just no plausible way to cut the data that says the epidemic is on the verge of tapering off in a week or two. What’s more, while the Hassett “model” is certainly more optimistic than its rivals, if you think about it for 10 minutes, you’ll see that it doesn’t support the president’s policy approach anyway.

Trump doesn’t want to own the implications of his choices

We are facing a classic bad political situation where the president has decided what policy he wants to adopt, but has also decided he doesn’t want to explicitly choose a course of action that could get tons of people killed, so he’s tuning out expert analysis.

The White House has, for example, shelved the official CDC guidelines for safely lifting restrictions. That’s because those guidelines say it is only safe for a handful of states to lift restrictions, but Trump’s policy is that they all should.

There is a case to be made for a decision to reopen, but it involves more people getting infected and more people dying. Consequently, Trump has taken to musing about how increasing testing levels might be a mistake because it makes the country “look bad,” while Axios reports that he is on the verge of beginning to publicly claim the official death counts are overstated.

The “cubic model” is of a piece with these tactics, a hope that the basic realities can be wished away or obscured — just where we started when Trump was promising the United States would soon go from 15 cases down to zero and hesitating to allow Covid-19 patients off a cruise ship because it would make the numbers look worse.

After all, if it were genuinely true that death numbers were about to begin plunging and new fatalities would be all but eliminated by mid-May, it would make very little sense to lift restrictions this week. The US could just wait 10 days, achieve total victory, and then open up under uncontroversial circumstances.

The projection validates an early reopening only in the sense of muddying the waters about the actual consequences, rather than validating the decision itself. And since it doesn’t make sense as a matter of logic, it doesn’t matter that it doesn’t make sense mathematically or epidemiologically either.

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Every day at Vox, we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you, and our audience around the world, with information that has the power to save lives. Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower you through understanding. Vox’s work is reaching more people than ever, but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn. Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation, but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles, videos, and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires. Please consider making a contribution to Vox today.

The Arizona Department of Health Services sent an email ordering an Arizona State University and University of Arizona team to “pause” the work they were doing compiling data on COVID-19 cases in the state. The schools were sent this order to stand down just hours after Republican Gov. Doug Ducey announced his grand reopening plans for Arizona, beginning May 8. 

At the time, Gov. Ducey told the press that "We're making decisions with the confidence that we are going in the right direction.” The data that Ducey seems to be working off of is FEMA’s secret modeling—which must clearly conflict with the universities’ data. The very robust modeling done by the university team argues that the only potentially safe time to begin reopening the state is at the end of May.

ABC15 reports that the email sent by ADHS bureau chief Steven Bailey came a few hours after Ducey’s announcement. The modeling team had been providing data to Arizona Department of Health Services up until this announcement. At the end of April their research showed that Arizona might see peaks in the pandemic between May and June. ADHS told ABC15 that "The reason that ADHS is pausing the internal modeling is, as we have said before, we are looking at several national models and have determined that FEMA is the most accurate to help us develop and implement public health interventions to respond to the COVID-19 outbreak."

AZ Central reports that a mathematical epidemiologist at ASU, Tim Land, explained that the findings in April show that the only scenario that kept the trajectory of the virus’ spread in the state from surging was based on the state reopening at the end of May. “I can say, scientifically, no, it's not safe to reopen unless you're planning on, you know, shutting down again after a couple of weeks, and we can help figure out what the appropriate amount of time is to stay open before we shut down.”

The need to control what scientific data is available to the public in order to help pervert the public’s perception of the risks involved in the bad decisions being made by conservative leadership across the country is not simply an Arizona Republican Party invention. Florida’s Republican leadership has been very shady in hiding the list of people who have died in their state over the past few weeks. 

According to state health director Cara Christ, the university team is not disbanded, and Arizona officials have not ruled out bringing them back at some point in the future. Maybe when cases surge again and Republican leadership needs to pretend it’s doing something?

As Arizona's cities are laying off and furloughing workers because of cratering revenues as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, their Republican senator is telling them to toughen up. She isn't going to help them by voting for any financial support for state local government, citing that "blue state bailout" bullshit.

"I'm just going to be frank with you guys, okay," she said in a virtual town meeting in Arizona. "This is not the time for states and cities—unlike Arizona, unlike Surprise—who have mismanaged their budgets over the course of many decades, for them to use this as an opportunity to see you, as a taxpayer in Arizona, as a cash cow for them in whatever city you want to talk about, whether it's Chicago or New York or whatever." Or Tempe, or Mesa, or Kingman, or Page, or Prescott, Arizona. Or Phoenix, which is a projecting a $26 million shortfall. Is she lumping all those towns in with the "cities that have nothing to do with coronavirus" but failed at budgeting and managing debt, and thus need to be bailed out? "This is not the time for us in Arizona and you in Surprise to be paying for mismanagement in Chicago," McSally continued. "That's what, actually, the left is advocating for right now. What we're advocating for is we provide specific relief."

McSally isn't helping Arizona, and she sure as hell isn't helping the country. Please give $1 to our nominee fund to help Democrats end the Republican majority in the Senate and to boot McSally.

McSally might have heard from some of those cities, because her office immediately issued a statement saying that those remarks that she made on a recorded public meeting "were not intended to be made public." Oh. Okay. Her office also said that "she was working hard to make sure towns and cities have the money and support they need during the pandemic." Uh-huh. Sure she is. If she can keep that funding from going to any of the states and communities hardest hit by the pandemic, so far.

In case you're wondering, Arizona was ranked in the top 10 most federally dependent states in 2019 by Wallethub. In fact, it was number 6 overall, rated at number 4 for the state government's dependency on the feds, and number 11 for state residents' dependency. "Arizona ranked sixth in terms of one of the most federally dependent states because right now its residents are receiving more money than they are paying to the government, which if you're a resident is more bang for your buck—it's not necessarily a bad thing," Wallethub analyst Jill Gonzalez explained.

For every $1 paid in federal taxes by residents as of last year, Arizona got back $1.72. Which would make them moochers, were Democratic officials as inclined to write off whole states as Republicans. There was a warning from Gonalez a year ago. "But essentially if anything were to happen with federal government, another recession, etc., Arizona would probably be in hot water." Just like New York or Illinois or California or Washington.

Researchers say the true number of COVID-19 cases is much higher than reports show worldwide. With limited tests available, the accurate count of positive cases and deaths associated with the novel coronavirus may never be known. A new report shows that while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed the United States’ first case of the virus on Jan. 21, health officials have found the virus began to spread in Florida in December. This means that although the U.S. confirmed its first infection—a man who returned from China—in late January, the pandemic had spread to thousands in the U.S. weeks before that.

Records from the Department of Health show that patients reported symptoms associated with the virus as early as Jan. 1, when the disease was allegedly thought to be confined to China. Approximately 171 people in Florida could have been infected by COVID-19 as early as two months prior to officials announcing the coronavirus had come to the state, an analysis of the records by the Palm Beach Post found. According to the news outlet, the records don’t clarify whether the patients reported the symptoms to the state until months later or if officials actively investigated at the time. It is also unclear how the state treated patients.

The virus spread through Central and North Florida in January under the guise of the flu and the earliest cases included both residents and visitors, the Miami Herald reported. Claude Dharamraj, former leader of the Pinellas County Health Department, told the Palm Beach Post that tracing the disease within the first two months of 2020 would have been difficult for state health officials. Patients were likely not tested for the virus at the time as there was a shortage of national tests. In addition to the shortage, testing was limited to those who had traveled from China. “It’s very possible that in Florida the virus was spreading and people, being at the peak of flu season, probably thought they had the flu,” she said.

While Florida reported its first case on March 1, the data analysis shows reported symptoms between Dec. 31 and Feb. 29. Of the 171 patients, 105 were women and 66 were men. The majority of them reported no travel; their ages ranged from 4 to 91 years old. None of the 171 cases were publicly announced. This data, which documented patients with symptoms or positive test results prior to March 1, was removed from the Department of Health website by the state Monday night without explanation.

Prior to deleting the information Monday, the state would publicly share information on each coronavirus case without identifying the patient. According to the Palm Beach Post, the shared information would include two important dates: one pertaining to reported symptoms and the other when the patient received a positive test result. While data on COVID-19 cases returned to the state’s Department of Health site later Monday night, it no longer included the date on which symptoms were reported.

“Many of us have long suspected that there were undetected cases in the U.S. long before we had our first confirmed case,” Eric Toner of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security told the Miami Herald. He added that the data “helps to explain what appeared to be a sort of explosive outbreak out of nowhere.”

This isn’t the only time Florida has been shady with its data. For weeks, news outlets and advocates sought access to a list of Florida fatalities as a result of the virus compiled by medical examiners. While the state finally released the records Wednesday, they were lacking sufficient information, the Miami Herald reported.

In addition to the illnesses resulting from the coronavirus and causes of death, names were missing from the documentation. The head of the Florida Medical Examiner’s Commission said this information was subject to disclosure under state law, but Gov. Ron DeSantis warned them to keep the information private. “The Department of Health is telling the medical examiners it cannot release this information that the medical examiners have been releasing on a regular basis,” Barbara Petersen, president emeritus of the First Amendment Foundation, told the Miami Herald.

“For whatever reason, our governor is trying to hide information — first about nursing homes, and now from medical examiners. They are trying to paint a rosy picture by refusing to provide us accurate information that allows us to make informed decisions about the health and safety of our families,” Petersen added.

As of this week, Florida has recorded more than 37,000 cases of the deadly virus, Palm Beach Post reported. DeSantis has been downplaying the severity of the coronavirus since it was first reported. In March, despite having cases confirmed in the state, DeSantis denied community spread and claimed Florida residents were safe and responsible while viral images of residents and spring breakers circulated online. It wasn’t until there were more than 100 deaths and 8,000 confirmed cases that DeSantis issued a stay-at-home order on April 1.

Our justice system is becoming just as degraded as our electoral system.

On Thursday, Mike Pence visited the Woodbine Rehabilitation and Healthcare Center in Alexandria, Virginia, to deliver a load of personal protective equipment (PPE). Setting aside how late in the game it is for anyone in the Trump administration to be setting up a photo op delivering the critical supplies healthcare professionals have been in desperate need of for months now, it is astonishing how careless Pence and his team were in dispensing the goods. 

From the moment they arrived, they violated all the CDC guidelines. Their actions were particularly egregious as they were visiting a nursing home, with the highest at-risk demographic of them all, only one or two days after a U.S. Navy service member who is detailed to the president himself tested positive for the virus. Nevertheless, not a single person involved in the delivery was wearing a mask. Nobody from the facility, nobody from Mike Pence’s team. Nobody bothered to practice social distancing. They stood together, sans masks, for the photo op.

But, that wasn’t the worst of it. It seems Mike Pence was wearing a microphone for the photo/video op and Jimmy Kimmel’s team caught a conversation that didn’t make it in the news clips seen widely on Thursday. After Mike Pence bravely carted over two boxes, he returned to the cargo van for more and that’s when an aide alerted him that the rest of the boxes were empty. Here is the exact conversation, which you can hear in the clip below.

Aide: Those are empty, sir. We are good to go.

Mike Pence: Well can I carry the empty ones? Just for the camera?

Aide: Absolutely

And they did. As you can see in the video below, Mike Pence bravely carried through his heroic delivery of empty boxes to a nursing home. 

Empty boxes, empty response, empty suit.

Here’s the version that made the nightly news. That hot mic moment is missing.

As my colleague Gabe Ortiz noted on Twitter, this would be a resignation-worthy event in any other administration. 

Attorney General William Barr claimed he was “doing the law’s bidding,” and not Donald Trump’s bidding, when he had the Justice Department move to dismiss charges against former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, who had pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Despite that admission of guilt, Barr claimed that “A crime cannot be established here.” 

But something else Barr said is far more revealing of his thinking—and of his determination to do anything he can to protect Trump at whatever cost to equal justice. Asked how history would judge his move, Barr answered, “Well, history is written by the winner.” He clearly intends for Team Trump to be writing that history, and dropping charges against Flynn is one step in that process. There are other steps planned.

The Flynn news came out on Thursday. What did Trump do on Thursday? For one thing, he had a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, telling reporters afterward that they had talked about “the Russia hoax,” i.e. the help that Russia gave Trump in the 2016 elections.

“Russia will see this as a huge victory. A sign both of American weakness and of a corrupt judicial system, in which they can continue meddling in our affairs and get away with it,” Marc Polymeropoulos, a former CIA official who oversaw Russia operations told The Washington Post.

It wasn’t just national security experts who were appalled. Legal experts—including many, many former federal prosecutors—were pretty much lining up to explain to the public how dangerous and unprecedented Barr’s action is. Highlighting what’s really going on here, former federal prosecutor and Duke law professor Samuel Buell told The New York Times that “A pardon would have been a lot more honest.”

Barr is “undercutting the law enforcement officials and prosecutors who investigated the 2016 election and its aftermath,” said Anne Milgram, a former federal prosecutor and New Jersey attorney general, and the effect is like “eating the Justice Department from the inside out.”

That’s the plan: help Trump win the 2020 election and consolidate power going forward by undoing the investigations against him. Trump understands that, telling reporters “Things are falling out now and coming in line showing what a hoax this whole investigation was.” He continued, “It was a total disgrace, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you see a lot of things happen over the next number of weeks. This is just one piece of a very dishonest puzzle. “

Where Trump says “I wouldn’t be surprised if you see a lot of things happen over the next number of weeks,” remember that Barr has assigned pet U.S. attorneys to look into undoing still other parts of the Trump-Russia investigations, so very literally there are more plans in action to place Trump’s political interests over the rule of law or the concept of justice.

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(337): Its pretty bad when you can tell twins apart by the size of their penises...

One day after CNN reported that a West Wing military aide tested positive for COVID-19, President Donald Trump plans to welcome eight World War II veterans — ages 95 to 100 — to the White House on Friday.

Alex Melikian, the granddaughter of one of the vets who will meet with Trump — Sgt. Gregory Melikian, 97 — is concerned about his participation in the event, which will mark the 75th anniversary of the German surrender, known as V-E Day.

“I think it’s very irresponsible to have the last remaining World War II veterans travel across the country to take a photograph during a global pandemic,” Alex Melikian told the New York Times. “People over the age of 80 have the highest chance of passing away from this. If he gets it, this could be the end. I know it’s his choice to go, but it’s irresponsible to even have an event like this in the first place. … When he comes back, he could pass it along to my grandma. He shouldn’t be leaving his house. ”

More from the NYT: As part of the celebration, the veterans will have their pictures taken at the White House with the secretaries of defense and state as well as the first lady, Melania Trump, and the president, according to a schedule prepared by the Greatest Generations Foundation, which organized the event. The schedule says the men, who range in age from 96 to 100, will be tested before they enter the White House grounds. The group is then expected to ride in the president’s motorcade to the memorial for the ceremony. 

Judd Deere, the deputy White House press secretary, assured the NYT that the administration will take precautions to keep the veterans, the president and others safe — even though Trump refuses to even wear a mask.

“Leave it to the media to question eight brave war heroes for joining the president of the United States at the nation’s World War II Memorial on the 75th anniversary of V-E Day,” Deere said. “As young men, these heroes stared evil in the eyes. No pandemic will stop them from joining their commander in chief for this momentous occasion.”

Read the full story here.

The post ‘Very Irresponsible’: Trump Hosts World War II Vets After Valet Tests Positive for COVID-19 appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.

A former professional poker player has launched a petition to recall Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman, in the wake of her comments last month offering to reopen the city as a “control group” in the COVID-19 crisis.

Doug Polk kicked off the recall effort this week, releasing a video and launching a website, RecallCarolynGoodman.com.

“I don’t want to recall the mayor just because she wants to re-open Las Vegas,” Polk wrote of the campaign on Twitter. “She also cares more about the ‘sensitive’ casino owners interests than the people of Las Vegas. Additionally, she was unable to maintain a conversation with functional sentences.”

Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman calls for businesses to reopen, while saying she won't provide social distancing guidelines on how to do so safely.

"They better figure it out. That's their job. That's not the mayor's job." https://t.co/kktKtDonFZ pic.twitter.com/R93lgQxDis

— Anderson Cooper 360° (@AC360) April 23, 2020

The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports: From the start of the pandemic, the mayor has resisted intense measures to slow the spread of the virus: She said statewide business closures would be “devastating”prior to Gov. Steve Sisolak’s edict to do so, and later called the shutdown “total insanity.”  But it was her appearances on national television last month — first with NBC’s Katy Tur, then CNN’s Anderson Cooper — that prompted the fiercest criticisms. Goodman said the city should be used as a control group to test whether social distancing measures were working and suggested that businesses that reopen and are hit hard by virus outbreaks would simply be swallowed by competition.

More from the Hill: Polk said he has 90 days to submit a petition with 25 percent of the voters from the 2019 election, which he said is about 6,745 people. On Thursday he tweeted he had received almost a hundred people request recall kits to sign the petition. … If enough valid signatures are collected by the Aug. 4 cutoff date, it would trigger mayoral recall election, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Goodman responded to the recall effort, claiming its Polk’s choice as an American to undertake the task. “Regarding recall effort: This is America. That’s his choice,” she tweeted Thursday. Polk wrote back to Goodman’s tweet, “Thanks for the support mayor!”

Last night (Thanks to some local news stations) we have already had almost a hundred people request recall kits to sign the petition!

If you want to help, you can find more information on how to do so at https://t.co/Q02hxnFRWp

Together Las Vegas, we can #RecallCarolynGoodman!

— Doug Polk (@DougPolkVids) May 7, 2020

I dont want to recall the mayor just because she wants to re-open Las Vegas.

She also cares more about the "sensitive" casino owners interests than the people of Las Vegas. Additionally, she was unable to maintain a conversation with functional sentences. https://t.co/6e6N39wyUg

— Doug Polk (@DougPolkVids) May 7, 2020

Thanks for the support mayor! https://t.co/ytQpwJ7DU6

— Doug Polk (@DougPolkVids) May 7, 2020

The post Las Vegas Mayor Faces Recall Effort After Offering City As COVID-19 ‘Control Group’: VIDEO appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.

Senate Republicans are quietly beginning to contemplate the possibility of an election-year confirmation battle for the Supreme Court.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s hospitalization this week and the looming end of the Supreme Court’s term raise the prospect of yet another prized vacancy for President Donald Trump. And if there is a surprise opening or retirement in the months before the presidential election, GOP senators plan to act on it, despite denying President Barack Obama a Supreme Court seat in an election year.

Republicans say they wish Ginsburg a swift recovery and have no inside knowledge of a retirement but are prepared to move if a vacancy presents itself.

“We’re going to fill it” if there is one, said Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), the No. 3 GOP leader. “With Justice Scalia ... people might not have thought he was the one, because he wasn’t the oldest at the time. You just never know.”

So in what’s already been the most consequential year for politics in a generation, with a presidential impeachment and a rampaging pandemic, Capitol Hill could get significantly crazier.

“If you thought the Kavanaugh hearing was contentious this would probably be that on steroids,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). “Nevertheless, if the president makes a nomination then it’s our responsibility to take it up.”

While no one says they expect a Supreme Court vacancy, GOP senators also acknowledge it’s plausible that Trump could find himself with a third nominee. And one thing is clear: Most Republicans have no qualms about approving a Supreme Court pick from a president in their own party, even if it is an election year.

In 2016, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said voters should decide in the election which president should choose the next Supreme Court justice because the Senate and White House were controlled by different parties. And in the Trump era, he’s repeatedly asserted that he would fill a vacancy in 2020.

McConnell and his allies argue the situation is different because Republicans control both the White House and the Senate. They say that makes the situation far different than when Obama was president and McConnell refused to even hold a hearing for Merrick Garland.

Democrats acknowledge they could get run over in the next eight months. Supreme Court nominees can now be confirmed by a bare majority after McConnell changed the rules in 2017 to overcome a Democratic filibuster of Neil Gorsuch, Antonin Scalia’s successor.

“They’re not troubled by inconsistencies,” said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.). “It would be completely inconsistent with everything that was said [in 2016]. But we knew when they were saying it they didn’t mean it. We knew that was a situational answer.”

The remaining months of Trump’s first term could also be the last chance the GOP has to put its stamp on the courts for years to come. McConnell could lose his majority or Trump could be ousted by former Vice President Joe Biden — which means Republicans would take no chances and move quickly to fill an empty seat on the high court.

“My guess is yes. That’s ultimately a decision the leader makes. But I think you’ve heard him speak to the subject before. He believes if there was a vacancy, he’d fill it,” said Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the GOP whip. “Confirmation hearings in the age of COIVD-19 would be very interesting but I’m sure no less contentious than the last one.”

Republican senators are not publicly pushing for a vacancy nor are they advertising their plans to fill any that presents itself. However, the last two vacancies occurred in election years. And Trump already has a list of potential Supreme Court picks.

In a brief interview, Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) declined to say there was a cut-off to when a new vacancy might be considered. His predecessor, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), declined to hold a hearing for Garland.

Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) said a Supreme Court opening represents the “ultimate hypothetical” — but one Republicans would be prepared to respond to whenever it occurs.

“There’s no cut off,” said Blunt, the No. 4 GOP leader.

In addition to Ginsburg’s health, senators are also keeping tabs on whether any other justices will retire. Four justices are 70 or older: Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.

When Anthony Kennedy retired in 2018 and sparked the confirmation fight over Justice Brett Kavanaugh, he made his announcement in late June after the spring term concluded. That allowed the Senate GOP to confirm Kavanaugh before midterms that threatened their majority.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), a former Supreme Court clerk, said he had heard no inside chatter about an impending vacancy. But he said that given the age of the court’s current members, “you have to be prepared.”

“I would be very surprised if we didn’t move forward with hearings and try to fill the seat. I’m sure it would be very controversial, principally because of the balance of the court,” Hawley said. “If it’s replacing someone like Justice Ginsburg, that would be a big shift, that would be a big deal.”

In that hypothetical scenario, the GOP would need the support of 50 of its 53-member majority to fill a vacancy. Vice President Mike Pence can cast a tie-breaking vote.

Still, at least one Republican senator believes the approaching election should weigh on any decision to fill an empty seat.

“You’re coming pretty close, though, to the presidential election,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), the only Republican to oppose Kavanaugh. “That is something that you factor into these discussions about how we move forward.”

The cabin was restless. It was a weekday afternoon in late April, and I was among dozens of people boarding an airplane that most of us had assumed would be empty. Flight attendants were scrambling to accommodate seat-change requests. Travelers—stuffed shoulder to shoulder into two-seat rows—grumbled at one another from behind masks. An ominous announcement came over the in-flight PA system: “We apologize for the alarming amount of passengers on this flight.” Each of us was a potential vector of deadly disease.

I arrived at my assigned row, and found a stocky, gray-haired man in the seat next to mine. When I moved to sit down, he stopped me. “Sit there,” he said gruffly, pointing to the aisle behind us. “Social distance.”

Not eager for a confrontation, I decided to comply. Within seconds, though, a flight attendant materialized and ordered me back to my assigned seat. My recalcitrant would-be seatmate, vigorously objecting to this development, responded by blocking my entrance to the row with his leg.

A standoff ensued, with the irate passenger protesting that there were plenty of empty rows where I could sit (there weren’t) and the long-suffering flight attendant all but threatening to kick him off the plane (she didn’t). Finally, he relented and I squeezed awkwardly into my seat as the man muttered profanities under his breath.

Why did I think flying would be easy right now?

In the days leading up to my trip, colleagues and family members had repeatedly expressed envy. “I’m so jealous,” one co-worker told me. “Taking a flight without kids sounds like heaven,” my wife said. The travel wasn’t anything extravagant; I was going on a short reporting trip that couldn’t be rescheduled. But I understood the sentiment. Like millions of Americans, I’d been social distancing for nearly two months—cooped up at home, growing a gnarly quarantine beard, and manically wiping down groceries with Lysol. The prospect of packing a suitcase, putting on real pants, and boarding an airplane sounded like a thrilling indulgence, a grand adventure. Travel by air! Who could even imagine such a thing?

[Read: Why the coronavirus is so confusing]

But flying during a pandemic turned out to be more stressful—and surreal—than I’d planned for. The scenes played out like a postapocalyptic movie: Paranoid travelers roamed the empty terminals in masks, eyeing one another warily as they misted themselves with disinfectant. Dystopian public-service announcements echoed through the airport—“This is a message from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ...” Even the smallest, most routine tasks—such as dealing with the touch-screen ticketing kiosk—felt infused with danger.

My trip took place in two legs, and the first was weird mostly in the ways that I’d expected. All but a few of the shops and restaurants at Washington National Airport were closed. Beverage service in the main cabin was suspended (though apparently serving ginger ale to first-class passengers was ruled epidemiologically acceptable). My first flight was so empty that the pilot warned we would experience “a very rapid acceleration for takeoff.” The plane leapt into the sky and my stomach dropped. I spent much of the flight using my baggie of Lysol wipes to scrub and re-scrub every surface within reach.

The layover at O’Hare was where my fellow travelers’ fraying nerves came more fully into view. In the restroom, men hovered over sinks like warriors returning from battle, fervently washing their hands and shooting menacing looks at anyone who got too close. At the food court, a shouting match broke out among several stressed-out strangers, and police had to intervene.

Outside the gate, passengers sat five or six seats apart, barely acknowledging one another, let alone attempting conversation. The eerie silence wore on me after a while. When my wife texted to ask how it was going, the best description I could muster was a grimacing emoji.

Flying has always been unpleasant, and rife with small indignities. It’s likely that I was more alert than usual to the agitation of those around me. But as America lurches awkwardly toward an economic “reopening” in the weeks ahead, my fraught travel experience highlighted an unwelcome truth: The glittering allure of “normalcy” that waits on the other end of these stay-at-home orders is a mirage.

[Read: I have seen the future—and it’s not the life we knew]

The things we miss most about our pre-pandemic lives—dine-in restaurants and recreational travel, karaoke nights and baseball games—require more than government permission to be enjoyed. These activities are predicated not only on close human contact but mutual affection and good-natured patience, on our ability to put up with one another. Governors can lift restrictions and companies can implement public-health protocols. But until we stop reflexively seeing people as viral threats, those old small pleasures we crave are likely to remain elusive.

I only had to sit next to my angry seatmate for a few minutes. Shortly after his tantrum, a flight attendant came back to our row and—after treating the man to a withering glare—informed me that I was being upgraded. I gathered my things and sheepishly made my way up the aisle while the aggrieved passenger sarcastically exclaimed, “Ooh, first class!”

As the plane ascended, I pressed my head against the window and peered down at the disappearing runway. I tried to ponder the miracle of human flight, to savor this rare privilege I was experiencing. But then an unhappy thought asserted itself: How many people have touched this window today with their filthy hands? I jerked back, and squirted some hand sanitizer onto my forehead.

Fox News’ Pete Hegseth is a special kind of stupid. He has been appearing on Fox & Friends for a while now and is known for bringing the world deep thoughts such as this musing on North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, saying he “probably doesn’t love being the guy that has to murder his people all day long. He probably wants some normalization—let’s give it to him.” Hegseth, like the rest of the Fox News crew, has been doing a lot of work to argue that the novel coronavirus isn’t so bad— while tens of thousands of Americans have already died from the virus, we need to get back to work!

On Fox News today, Hegseth spoke from the safety of his crazy jingoistic office setup at home—replete with all of the things to remind everyone that he is a military veteran—to tell Americans they need to have courage and go get sick and maybe die! For America’s consumerism-based economy!

PETE HEGSETH: I do think you’re going to need that kind of ethos and that kind of spirit to put freedom before fear. Listen, there’s a lot of anxiety, there’s a lot of misinformation. The “experts” have been telling us hundreds of thousands of people are going to die.

Yes. He put air quotes around “experts.” This is the man who bragged about not washing his hands for 10 years in order to develop strength against germs. The conservative misinformation machine is using its long-standing playbook of casting doubt. The fact is there’s still a lot we do not know about the 2019 novel coronavirus. But it is this gap in our knowledge that right-wingers play on. Of course, like all good propaganda ministries, they are also denying the things that we already do know about the pandemic.

Let me replay what Hegseth is calling into question here: “The ‘experts’ have been telling us hundreds of thousands of people are going to die.” As of this story’s publishing at the end of the first week of May, the United States is surpassing 75,000 confirmed coronavirus-related deaths while the world has confirmed almost 250,000 deaths due to COVID-19. So far, the “experts” have really nailed it. It’s a bummer that they have been correct, and I’m sure that 99% of them wish our leadership and other world leadership would have heeded their warnings earlier, but sadly that’s where we are.

HEGSETH: But now that we are learning more, herd immunity is our friend. Healthy people getting out there—they’re going to have to have some courage! 

Oh boy. You look like your hair is healthy, Mr. Hegseth. Why don’t you go outside and do whatever it is you believe counts as “courage?” The concept of promoting a vaccine-free “herd immunity” plan like the one that the United Kingdom played with before Prime Minister Boris Johnson was confined to an ICU with COVID-19 is insane. Epidemiologist have called this idea “satire.” (Albeit, very dark satire.) People like Hegseth have always been dangerous, but it’s during real crises like the current pandemic and looming economic disaster that we can so clearly experience their profound inadequacies and the lethality of their narcissism.

There's good news and bad news out of Germany. The good news is, the country’s cautious reopening appears to be working. Since the easing of restrictions implemented two weeks ago, infection rates are not only stable but decreasing. 

The bad news is, Donald Trump isn't German Chancellor Angela Merkel—and we're not Germany.

“We have reached the goal of slowing the spread of the virus, of protecting our health care system from being overwhelmed,” Merkel said Wednesday at a press conference, according to The New York Times. Germany had reached a point where most of its economy could be reopened and public life could be safely resumed. “We can afford a little audacity,” Merkel said.

Ever since the coronavirus hit Europe with varying degrees of ferocity and many countries in the region shut down their economies to slow the spread of the disease, Western nations have been wondering if a safe reopening could be achieved and some sense of normalcy could resume. The answer out of Germany appears to be: yes, there are ways to live alongside this virus—even before a vaccine emerges and it can be completely eradicated. 

The news also provided hope across Europe that as Germany's economy revs back up, some of the worst economic devastation caused by the virus can be avoided. Masks and some social distancing precautions will remain, but all shops will be free to open, including restaurants and hotels, and schooling will also resume for a bit before the summer break. Details of exactly how and when to reopen different aspects of society are being left up to the leaders of Germany's 16 states. 

But the successes of Germany's federal government are a stark reminder of the failures of the U.S. government under Trump, particularly in the area of testing. One of the hallmarks of Germany's recovery has been rigorous, systematic testing and tracing along with quick quarantining of people who test positive, and early interventions with patients who begin to experience complications. 

Merkel, for instance, announced an "emergency mechanism" that would kick in if any region reaches the point of surpassing a rate of 50 new daily infections per 100,000 residents. Restrictions would then be restored until the region was able to bring the new infection rate below 50 again for seven continuous days. 

“If locally something happens, we won’t wait until it has spread through the whole republic but we act locally,” she said.

Germany is enacting these guidelines because it has the infrastructure to do so—it has the testing resources, a high enough per capita testing rate, and the medical capacity to treat those infected in a safe and effective manner. Germany’s rate of daily new infections also peaked in late March and has been falling ever since, while new infections in the U.S. have effectively plateaued in the same time frame.

The lesson out of Germany is the polar opposite of the load of garbage Trump is selling. Germany is proving that the health of the population and the health of the economy are intimately connected, rather than the notion that they are competitors in a zero-sum game.  

Of course, Trump is foisting the false choice between the public’s physical health and a recovering economy on the American people because he has completely and utterly failed to provide any of the infrastructure necessary to get the two forces working in harmony amid a pandemic. 

Indeed, instead of laying out any specific guidelines for a safe reopening, the White House has purposely deep-sixed the parameters set out by the Centers for Disease Control. Harvard's Global Health Institute released estimates Thursday showing that just nine states (mostly larger and less populated) had achieved even the bare minimum of testing necessary to even consider reopening: Alaska, Hawaii, Montana, North Dakota, Oregon, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming. Still, having minimally adequate testing fails to address how any surges in infections would be addressed or even whether the capacity to address them exists. Trump is also ignoring the apocalyptic warnings coming from within his own administration about rushing to reopen before putting those controls in place. 

So instead of outlining a national approach to handling any new infection spikes, Trump is simply embracing increased mortality as a consequence of an economic reopening, saying more deaths "could very well be the case.”

It doesn't have to be that way, and Germany is proving it. Remember when America was the great innovator—the envy of the world? No more. Trump has consigned our country to a level of dysfunction that produces consistently less-than-mediocre and often dismal results. We are on course to be the envy of no one, ever, except other authoritarian regimes that wish they could plunder America’s resources the way Trump and his coterie of bloodsuckers are.

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A city councilwoman in Trenton, N.J. has apologized after calling the city’s openly gay mayor a “drug-addict pedophile” in a heated exchange during a conference call about the COVID-19 crisis on Saturday.

But Councilwoman Robin Vaughn is refusing calls for her resignation, and her colleagues voted 5-2 against a motion to censure her for the comments about Mayor Reed Gusciora, which he called “hurtful and vile.”

For a transcript of Vaughn’s comments, including audio, visit the New Jersey Globe. Here’s one segment of the meeting:

“I am deeply and specifically sorry for the language that has offended so many. It was also not my intent to attack anyone on the basis of any classification or personal preferences, but [I] should have been more sensitive to the potential implication of my words and how they might be perceived,” Vaughn said in an apology she posted to Facebook and Twitter on Wednesday.

pic.twitter.com/v0BclEofW1

— Robin M Vaughn (@trentonwestward) May 7, 2020

“I was wrong and I own that,” she continued. “As an elected official, my responsibility to the citizenry is to represent with dignity, decency and respect of all persons, no matter our individual differences, behaviors or presentations.”

In a subsequent post, Vaughn appeared to respond to calls for her resignation by declaring that she was “elected by the people” and is “unbought and unbossed.” And on Thursday, she expressed support for a rally organized by a supporter who alleges that Gusciora provoked her during the conference call with racially motivated remarks.

Gusciora said he regrets calling Vaughn an “idiot,” a “child,” a “little a–hole” and suggesting she should be lobotomized. But he denied the comments were based on race.

On Tuesday, the council declined to take disciplinary action against Vaughn.

The Trentonian reports: Legislators Jerell Blakeley and Joe Harrison were the only ones who voted “yes” in a 5 to 2 defeat. Vaughn called the mayor a “drug addict pedophile” and suggested he runs “young boys” through City Hall. She also accused councilman Harrison of sucking Gusciora’s “d**k,” suggested they weren’t real men and called Harrison’s mother a “whore,” among other insults. … Harrison, who moved for the censure, thanked some of the political heavyweights who demanded Vaughn’s ouster and said he hasn’t ruled out taking legal action against Vaughn and other council members making hateful and demeaning comments about his family. “You crossed the line,” he said, renewing his call for Vaughn’s resignation.

More from CBS Philly: Vaughn never responded to interview requests made by Eyewitness News. However, about a dozen of her supporters rallied in front of City Hall [on Thursday], with some holding signs that read “I Stand With Councilwoman Vaughn.” The West Ward councilwoman did not appear at the rally, but did post an apology online Wednesday night. … Still many, like Garden State Equality, want Vaughn to go further. “I would think the right thing to do here would be to resign given that her words are an attack on the diversity of Trenton’s community,” said Christian Fuscarino with Garden State Equality. Several religious leaders with the New Jersey Community for Conscience also want Vaughn to step down. “Councilwoman Vaughn’s use of homophobic language and homophobic tropes are unacceptable for an elected official and are part of a troubling pattern that included her defense last year of the use of an antisemitic slur by the Trenton City Council President,” the group said in a statement. Meantime, Gov. Phil Murphy and Sens. Cory Booker and Bob Menendez all believe Vaughn should resign, but it does not appear she will step down.

Sen. Booker said in a statement: “From her previous defense of anti-Semitic rhetoric in 2019, to her hateful words used against the LGBTQ community this weekend, Councilwoman Vaughn has shown a pattern of intolerance that has no place on the Trenton City Council. The people of Trenton deserve better, which is why I am calling on Councilwoman Vaughn to step down immediately.”

Watch CBS Philly’s report below.

The post NJ Official Apologizes, Refuses to Resign After Calling Gay Mayor a ‘Drug Addict Motherf–king Pedophile’ (WATCH) appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.

Vulnerable Republicans are ensnared in a trap of Trump's own making.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: As President Trump rushes to reopen the economy, a battle has erupted between the White House and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention over the agency's detailed guidelines to help schools, restaurants, churches and other establishments safely reopen. A copy of the C.D.C. guidance obtained by The New York Times includes sections for child care programs, schools and day camps, churches and other "communities of faith," employers with vulnerable workers, restaurants and bars, and mass transit administrators. The recommendations include using disposable dishes and utensils at restaurants, closing every other row of seats in buses and subways while restricting transit routes between areas experiencing different coronavirus infection levels, and separating children at school and camps into groups that should not mix throughout the day. But White House and other administration officials rejected the recommendations over concerns that they were overly prescriptive, infringed on religious rights and risked further damaging an economy that Mr. Trump was banking on to recover quickly. A spokesman for the C.D.C. said the guidance was still under discussion with the White House and a revised version could be published soon. [...] The mixed signals extend to reopening guidelines: On April 16, Mr. Trump's coronavirus task force released broad guidance for states to reopen in three phases, based on case levels and hospital capacity. But the more detailed C.D.C. guidance was seen by some members of the task force and other aides as a document that could slow down the reopening effort, according to several people with knowledge of the deliberations inside the West Wing. "Protections against religious discrimination aren't suspended during an emergency. This means the federal government cannot single out religious conduct as somehow being more dangerous or worthy of scrutiny than comparable secular behavior," said Roger Severino, the director of the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Health and Human Services and a social conservative who once headed the DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at the Heritage Foundation. "Governments have a duty to instruct the public on how to stay safe during this crisis and can absolutely do so without dictating to people how they should worship God." Several federal agencies that reviewed the guidance in draft form, including the Department of Labor and the Office for Civil Rights at H.H.S., protested, saying it would be harmful to businesses and the economy and too burdensome for houses of worship.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.