James.galbraith

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in the halls of the US Capitol on March 23, 2020. | Alex Wong/Getty Images

Most voters say coronavirus bailouts for American companies need to have some strings attached.

Most Americans agree: Coronavirus-related corporate bailouts need to come with some strings attached.

Washington lawmakers are currently negotiating a $1.8 trillion stimulus package to help boost the economy during the global pandemic that has brought much of the country to a standstill. One of the major sticking points of the debate on Capitol Hill: how to administer $500 billion in relief for big business and major corporations.

The proposal backed by the White House and Senate Republicans would give Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin wide discretion over which companies get money and when. Democrats in Congress are saying not so fast — they want some guardrails around what companies can and cannot do with the money once checks are cut. Otherwise, they argue, what’s to stop an airline from using its bailout money to give its CEO a bonus instead of paying its workers? Or to prevent a major hotel chain from laying off workers while engaging in stock buybacks?

Progressive pollster Data for Progress asked 2,328 likely voters about eight conditions laid out by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and backed by many Democratic lawmakers for companies getting bailout money. Their findings: By and large, voters agree companies shouldn’t get money without strings attached.

Nearly three-quarters of voters say companies receiving bailout money should commit to no layoffs, while just 11 percent oppose that requirement, according to the Data for Progress polling. And it’s an area where, at least among voters, there is agreement across the political spectrum: 82 percent of Democrats, 61 percent of independents, and 70 percent of Republicans agree on no layoffs.

Data for Progress

A majority of the voters surveyed on March 18 and 19 online also agree with the following conditions on bailout money:

• Companies should provide a $15 minimum wage “as quickly as is practicable” and no later than a year after the national emergency ends.
• CEOs should be required to certify that their companies are complying with these conditions and will be held criminally liable if not.
• Collective bargaining agreements should stay in place.
• Companies should be barred from paying dividends or executive bonuses while receiving relief and for three years after.
• Companies should set aside at least one board seat for workers.
• Companies have to get shareholder and board approval for political expenditures.

Only one issue did not get broad-based support among voters: the condition that companies receiving bailout money would be barred from engaging in stock buybacks. But that’s not necessarily because voters don’t think that should happen — it’s because many appear to be unfamiliar with the issue. Nearly half of voters said they weren’t sure about prohibiting stock buybacks as part of a bailout condition. Still, 36 percent of voters said they agreed with the idea while just 16 percent opposed.

It’s worth noting that even President Donald Trump appears to back the stock buyback prohibition, or at least that’s what he said at a press conference on Saturday. “I want money to be used for workers and keeping businesses open, not buybacks,” he said.

You can see Data for Progress’s full memo on its findings here.

Congress could listen to Americans on this. Will they?

Vox’s Dylan Matthews laid out what’s currently being negotiated in Congress in terms of relief for big business — $425 billion in loan guarantees, $50 billion for airlines, $8 billion for cargo air companies, and $17 billion for firms “critical to national security.” He also laid out why it’s become contentious:

While there is language meant to protect workers and prevent the money from being used on giveaways to investors, such as stock buybacks, Democrats think that language is far too weak; Mnuchin himself can waive it in some cases. “We’re gonna give $500 billion in basically a slush fund to help industries controlled by Mnuchin with very little transparency? Is that what we ought to be doing?” Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) asked Politico.

Add to this the fact that on Sunday, Trump specifically refused to rule out offering assistance to his own companies (“let’s just see what happens”), and you have Democrats worried not just about a corporate bailout but about potential corruption by a president they already voted to impeach.

We still don’t know the full scale of the economic implications of the coronavirus crisis, and we probably won’t for quite some time. In all likelihood, it will be devastating for businesses of all sizes, for investors, and for workers. In a time like this, it’s fair to want to make sure American companies can stay afloat. It’s also fair to want to make sure they’re taking care of their workers, customers, and consumers instead of lining their executives’ and shareholders’ pockets. The American public agrees.

In another effort to stop abortions in the state, Ohio lawmakers are using concerns regarding the limited amount of medical supplies in hospitals during the coronavirus pandemic as a reason for women to not end pregnancies. Ohio’s Attorney General Dave Yost has ordered healthcare providers in the state to stop all “nonessential and elective surgical abortions” referring to federal guidelines in place to help conserve needed medical supplies, Vox reported. “If you or your facility do not immediately stop performing non-essential or elective surgical abortions in compliance with the [health director’s] order, the Department of Health will take all appropriate measures,” Yolt’s letter to providers reads. 

The federal guidelines were issued Tuesday to cancel all “non-essential surgeries and procedures” effective 5 PM Wednesday. They did not mention abortion nor say such procedures were non-essential. The guidelines followed concerns that demands for hospital beds and equipment would exceed supply in the U.S. In a briefing, the administration asked “every American and every American hospital and healthcare facility to postpone any elective medical procedures.” While Yost is using this as an excuse to target abortion, abortion advocates are right to argue that while the medical procedures can be scheduled in advance, they are both time-sensitive and essential.

Reproductive health experts, including members of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Board of Obstetrics & Gynecology, supported abortion access in a joint statement. “The consequences of being unable to obtain an abortion profoundly impact a person’s life, health, and well-being,” they wrote. Planned Parenthood offices in Ohio also spoke up in regard to concerns of medical supplies and access to abortions. “Planned Parenthood can still continue providing essential procedures, including surgical abortion,” the organization wrote in a statement shared on Twitter, while “doing our part to conserve needed resources and to protect the health and safety of our patients and staff.”

Limiting access to abortion during a pandemic only makes matters worse, especially in a time of emphasized social distancing. Yost refuses to acknowledge the multitude of reasons that could lead to ending a pregnancy, in addition to the time-sensitivity of such procedures. Limiting access and canceling abortions would only force women to go out of their way or to travel out of state at a time where travel is discouraged. “People decide to end their pregnancies for a complex constellation of reasons that include the impact of pregnancy and birth on their health, ability to work, and strained economic circumstances. These are conditions that do not go away ― and are likely heightened — in pandemic conditions,” NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio executive director Kellie Copeland said, according to HuffPost. “Denying or delaying abortion care places an immediate burden on patients, their families, and the health system, and can have profound and lasting consequences.”

The federal order outlines several criteria for non-essential services, including procedures that can be delayed without risking a patient's life or health, or causing a condition to worsen. While other states including Washington and Massachusetts issued similar orders pausing elective and nonessential surgeries, those states clarified that the orders did not apply to abortions, The Washington Post reported.

Yesterday, Donald Trump again insisted that we "can't let the cruise lines go out of business." This has become conventional pundit wisdom after two commercial cruise ships became high-profile coronavirus hot zones. The cruise ship industry is in dire trouble, as are all travel-related industries.

That doesn't mean American taxpayers need to bail them out now. The cruise industry has done everything in its power to skirt U.S. laws, regulations, and taxes. None of the major cruise lines fly the flags of the United States—every ship is registered in another country, one with lax environmental protections, labor protections, and other rules that make it easier to squeeze out maximum profits at public expense. Now those foreign-flagged ships want United States bailouts? No. That was a choice these companies made; now they have to live with it.

There is a reason that the cruise you may have taken, on the ships of one of these corporations, never directly travels between two U.S. ports. As foreign-flagged ships, they are not allowed to. They must dock somewhere else, even if only for a few hours of "sightseeing" that will see few passengers bother to leave the ship, to skirt United States regulations.

The International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), provides the main framework for the operation of the international merchant fleet; it dictates minimum standards for ship construction, firefighting and fire prevention, life boats, inspections, and crew. Most nations adhere to these standards, and the United States is vigorous in its own enforcement; a "flag of convenience" nation is a nation that does not abide by those conventions. Fly the flag of one of those nations, and you can get away with things that most other countries would not tolerate.

To those companies, then, the advantages of flying a foreign "flag of convenience" are numerous. U.S. environmental laws governing ship discharges are nullified. U.S. crews would come with U.S. labor laws; those, too, no longer apply. Taxes are reduced. And both criminal and civil liability when something goes wrong, as recent cruise-goers are now becoming aware, can be minimized.

All of these advantages, however, come down to one thing: money. By reducing costs, cruise lines can make more money. Not enough to save for a rainy day, mind you, but enough to satiate shareholders who do not want American flags flying from those ships if it is going to reduce the value of their own investment.

But that was a choice. It was not a decision with unknown downsides; flying under the flag of a foreign nation is flying under the flag of a foreign nation. Want a taxpayer bailout after a worldwide crisis causes severe harm to your corporation? Ask the Bahamas to bail you out. You've been claiming for decades now that you're not under our purview; you're not our responsibility now.

This should be uncontroversial, but it of course is not. The United States government is targeted keenly at the interests of major corporations over all else; the people hobnobbing with White House officials at Mar-a-Lago, or attending top-dollar fundraisers with members of the House and Senate, are the nation's wealthiest investors and highest-paid corporate officials. It is they who have the ear of government, not their workers. It is they that the treasury secretary and other top officials insist need bailing out regardless of cost, not small business.

The cruise lines are an especially toxic bailout target, however. Even aside from the major lines being deeply damaging to the environment and the health of their own passengers, they are not and cannot possibly be considered an "essential" industry. If the major cruise lines shut down tomorrow and forever, their poorly paid workers would suffer—but the world would do without cruises. Easily.

We are fighting over whether Americans can survive on $1,000 for the duration of the pandemic—but we will bailout companies who incorporate overseas, who fly the flags of overseas nations, all to dodge as much of their American responsibilities as possible? No. To be blunt about it, pound sand.

There are several mechanisms for ensuring that what we will call, for the moment, "pirate" corporations now seeking U.S. taxpayer bailouts. We could demand that the ships be re-flagged to the United States—but that can be easily undone. Better would be to tie bailout money to corporate taxes. The metric of how much money a corporation ought to be offered in a U.S. bailout program should be directly tied to the amount in taxes that a company did or did not pay in the past ten years or so.

Or we can tell foreign-based companies that they are out of luck, regardless. That was the choice all along, after all: You claimed you were not a United States company. You claimed that was not a United States ship. So go ask your home country for help. Not us.

This cannot be another "bailout" of the worst corporate actors as it was in the 2008 Great Recession. This cannot be another shovel-the-money-to-Wall-Street event that sees small businesses in every town close forever while top Wall Street companies that have lived their every modern day seeing what they could get away with get red-carpet treatment from our collected lawmakers and administration officials.

Give the money to the consumers. Give the money to the small businesses, the ones that our towns hinge upon. It will "trickle up" to the larger companies in the form of the usual bills and purchases, and we will see which of those behemoths are truly essential and which can be done away with. The free market will do its work, as free market adherents have blustered during every good period while demanding the public provide them with socialism during the bad ones.

Corporate decisions have consequences. If they do not, we are an oligarchy, the wider public useful only insofar as it fattens the rich. Those consequences must therefore be enforced. Let the Bahamas bail out their own ships. Let Liberia pay those bills, or decide not to. Let those corporate officers—and shareholders—who valued small government when collecting the profits abide by small government principles now.

You did not pay for the disaster insurance provided by a strong United States government to its citizens and companies, because you did not want to pay for it. You said so. You insisted. It was your own calculated risk. Now that a disaster has happened, there are no claims to be filed. You have no contract here.

President Donald Trump speaks at a daily coronavirus briefing at the White House on March 22, 2020. | Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

No, Mr. President, using the Defense Production Act doesn’t turn America into Venezuela.

Last Wednesday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order invoking the Defense Production Act (DPA). That provision requires private companies to prioritize any federal government orders for products — including masks, respirators, and other critical items needed to fight the coronavirus — over other orders.

But as of Monday, five days later, even top Trump administration officials admit the government has yet to make a single order.

Health care workers across the country are desperate for masks, gowns, respirators, and other basic supplies they need to treat patients with Covid-19 and to keep themselves protected from the coronavirus. They’re pleading for him to use the DPA.

So what gives? Why hasn’t the Trump administration placed any orders yet?

Over the weekend, the president seemed to offer two reasons: 1) companies are already stepping up to make these products on their own; and 2) using this mechanism would be tantamount to socialism.

First, Trump argued that medical device companies like Baxter and GE Healthcare, as well as automotive companies like General Motors and Ford, are working around the clock to meet equipment needs. Because of their efforts, there’s no reason for the government to intervene. “We have tremendous numbers of companies also making equipment,” Trump said during a Sunday press conference at the White House.

Second, he insinuated using the DPA would somehow turn the American economy socialist. “We’re a country not based on nationalizing our business,” Trump said at the same event. “Call a person over in Venezuela; ask them how did nationalization of their businesses work out. Not too well. The concept of nationalizing our business is not a good concept.”

The problem is that both these arguments are deeply flawed.

While a lot of private businesses are upping their production, the lack of federal government involvement in the procurement and distribution process means that these products aren’t necessarily going to the cities and states in most dire need of them right now.

As Vox’s Jen Kirby writes, “State officials keep saying that without some sort of government guidance, they’re left competing for the same equipment (as opposed to having that equipment go where it’s most needed) and thus overpaying.”

Second, the DPA, when used as intended, doesn’t involve a government takeover of industry. “It doesn’t nationalize businesses, but rather allows the US government to contract with companies to prioritize manufacturing of critical goods — in this case, medical supplies,” Kirby notes.

“It’s a scalpel, not an ax,” James Hasik, a DPA expert at George Mason University, told me.

It’s unclear why Trump has convinced himself using the DPA is more dangerous than not using it. Some in the White House say he’s trying to lower the likelihood that he could be directly blamed for any mismanagement. “If something goes wrong then it’s on the president,” a senior administration official told me, “and that’s something he doesn’t want to happen.”

But that’s what presidents are elected to do: take responsibility for running the federal government. In the absence of that leadership, experts say, the supply shortage could get worse.

Why relying on business alone isn’t enough to address shortfalls

Many companies are already trying to rise to the occasion to make even more of the products patients will need.

As expected, some of those are top health care firms. “Our manufacturing teams are focused on making Baxter products that are in demand due to the pandemic and are needed by patients with chronic diseases,” Lauren Russ, a spokesperson for the Fortune 500 medical company Baxter International, which makes hospital care products, told me in an emailed statement.

Automotive manufacturers are also looking at ways they can use their considerable manufacturing capacity to contribute, including potentially retooling their factories to produce critical items such as ventilators.

But although Trump has been openly touting these automotive companies on Twitter, experts say it could take months for them to produce medical equipment at scale because they must train their workforces, get the right plans, and source the specific materials needed to make these new products.

Trump’s argument is that the government doesn’t need to tell these companies what to make, as they’re already making the needed products. That, in his mind, is reason enough not to put the DPA to use and allow states simply to order what they need from these companies.

“He is currently using it to drive the private sector’s response to this crisis,” a White House spokesperson told me. “And the private sector’s response, to date, to his direction has been overwhelming, fulfilling government-identified needs faster than anyone thought possible.”

But experts point to three major problems with this argument.

First, a private company is either going to sell to whoever placed their order first or to the highest bidder. It’s therefore possible that the places in America that most need masks, for example, may not get them in time because a mask-making company has other orders to fill first.

“Whoever picks up the phone first is next in line,” Brett Lambert, the Pentagon’s top manufacturing policy official from 2009 to 2013, told me.

If you’re New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, that’s a problem. His state may now have to spend more on masks to outbid someone else, or simply not get them at all if the order comes in too late.

This is already starting to happen in some places. “We’re competing against each other, we’re competing against other countries, it’s a wild west, I would say, out there, and indeed, we’re overpaying for [personal protective equipment] because of that competition,” Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday.

This where the DPA comes in handy.

The federal government could get involved and place an order for masks, which would get fulfilled first because a DPA order takes priority over all others. Then, because the government knows which areas have the most need for those masks, it can distribute them appropriately. New York would certainly take priority over other parts of the country not reeling as badly from the coronavirus (possibly including Illinois).

The second flaw in Trump’s argument has to do with materials. Yes, many companies already involved in manufacturing medical supplies are ramping up their efforts. But in doing so, they’re going to need additional materials and may be hampered in their efforts if they can’t get those materials.

Again, this is where the DPA comes in: The federal government can find other sources of those materials and then put in an order to have the company sell the materials to the federal government instead of using them to make their own products.

For example, a fabric company may typically sell most of its product to a dress-making company, but the cloth could be better used for masks right now. In that case, the federal government would pay the fabric company for the materials and then give them to a mask-making company so it can continue to make even more of them. “The government would have the authority to become the deliverer-in-chief,” Lambert told me.

Finally, there may be a company that wants to help build something — say, respirators — but doesn’t have the machinery or capital to do so. If the federal government thinks that company could be useful, it might give a loan or offer equipment under DPA so production can begin right away. That accelerates that company’s ability to help right now.

The issue, then, isn’t that companies are sitting on their hands. Problems arise in making the product and then delivering it to where it’s most needed in a time of crisis. Only the federal government coordinating the response has the insight and resources to help with that.

Using the DPA doesn’t turn America into Venezuela

Steven Grundman, who served as the Pentagon’s deputy undersecretary for industrial affairs in the 1990s, told me that using the DPA won’t realize Trump’s Venezuela fears.

“The use of the DPA not only wouldn’t, it couldn’t, socialize the American economy,” he said. As noted above, DPA allows the government to identify, prioritize, and allocate scarce resources in a time of emergency. That’s a far cry from a complete government takeover of private business.

“The DPA has nothing to do with nationalizing industry; it has everything to do with prioritizing industry,” Lambert said.

Indeed, the government isn’t seizing capital, labor, or equipment for itself and taking it without compensating private citizens and businesses that control them. It’s all about making sure those in trouble get what they need, and those providing the equipment still get paid for it.

Yet there are leading officials in Trump’s orbit, like trade adviser Peter Navarro, who believe the DPA is anathema to the free market. “We’re getting what we need ... without putting the heavy hand of government down,” Navarro said at the Sunday press conference.

If that’s the bet the administration is making, experts say it’s a bad one — and it could have disastrous consequences. “The DPA needs to be open for business,” Grundman said.

On Monday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi unveiled House Democrats' stimulus package to battle the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, which, critically, includes funding for states to carry out a mandate to ensure America can still hold its November elections as scheduled in a safe manner. Democrats' proposal includes unspecified "billions" in funding and a requirement that states offer 15 days of in-person early voting, remove any excuse requirement to vote absentee by mail, and mail every registered voter a ballot in case of an emergency like the current one. Additionally, the bill requires online and same-day voter registration be made available in every state.

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​Election experts have widely recommended that Congress use its authority to immediately require and fund the switch to extensive voting by mail (at least in federal elections) as a way to guarantee that elections still go forward and are conducted in a manner that minimizes potential exposure to the virus among voters and election workers. However, it will take time, effort, and organization to ensure that states can effectively implement such policies, and related measures will be necessary to ensure mail voting doesn’t disenfranchise anyone, which is why Congress must act as soon as possible.

Congressional Republicans have long been hostile to voting rights, and it's likely that they will oppose any efforts to make it easier to vote. But by making these provisions emergency measures rather than permanent laws, Democrats can demonstrate to the public that they are acting in good faith and not taking advantage of a crisis for alleged partisan gain.

Furthermore, because Republican-leaning states are least likely to make it easy to vote by mail as shown on the map at the top of this post (see here for a larger version), and because the GOP's elderly voter base is most at risk of serious illness, it's in Republicans’ own interest to ensure that voters have alternatives to in-person voting this year. Indeed, even Republicans in states such as Ohio and Indiana have called for a switch to mail voting.

Regardless, Democrats must make these voting provisions a red line that cannot be crossed when it comes to supporting a stimulus package. With the economy in free fall and Trump's re-election chances dropping along with it, Republicans realize that it's in their immediate partisan interests to stabilize our economic situation. Because of that, Democrats hold tremendous leverage.

Democrats must therefore hold the line and demand that any further stimulus measures include these voting provisions to ensure our elections go on. Donald Trump lacks the power to postpone the November elections, but they could become a catastrophe if millions of voters are unable to vote. As Congress fights our public health and economic crises, it must also act to avert a constitutional crisis as well.

On Sunday, Sen. Rand Paul became the first United States senator to test positive for the coronavirus now sweeping through the rest of America. While Paul is asymptomatic and appears likely to continue to be so, Paul's announcement caused a stir among his fellow senators because Paul had been mingling among them—even using the Senate gym and pool that morning, while awaiting his test results. Only when the test came back positive did Paul remove himself from the building and enter self-quarantine.

Paul is responding to the outrage at the apparent selfishness of suspecting he had been exposed to the virus but was still going about his routine until his test came back positive in the prototypical Rand Paul way. He released an extremely snotty statement.

Paul's statement, which can be found here, attempts to defend his behavior. He claims we was tested only out of caution, that he "felt it was highly unlikely that I was positive since I have had no symptoms," and that he did not have "contact" with anyone who tested positive. He further insists that he had "zero contact or proximity" with the two confirmed COVID-19 cases at a specific museum fundraiser he and they both attended, "even from a distance." Therefore, he says, he "was not recommended for testing by health officials."

All of this may be true. But this is Rand Paul, and he was quickly going to go into full asshole mode. "For those who want to criticize me for lack of quarantine, realize that if the rules on testing had been followed to a tee, I would never have been tested and would still be walking around the halls of the Capitol. The current guidelines would not have called for me to get tested nor quarantined. It was my extra precaution, out of concern for my damaged lung, that led me to get tested."

(The current guidelines were put in place because the tests are still, even now, being rationed, with reports of numerous symptomatic patients and healthcare workers having been refused tests after Trump's team botched even that most basic of pandemic preparedness efforts. As an aside, Paul's lung was damaged when an angry neighbor attacked him in a yardwork dispute.)

"Perhaps it is too much to ask that we simply have compassion for our fellow Americans who are sick or fearful of becoming so. Thousands of people want testing. Many, like David Newman of The Walking Dead, are sick with flu symptoms and are being denied testing. This makes no sense."

(While Paul is asking for compassion, the Republican Senate has slow-walked actual relief to COVID-19 affected communities and healthcare institutions. And it is now tying insufficient funds for those groups to corporate bailouts to be administered at the sole discretion of an administration the Republican Senate immunized only weeks ago from charges stemming from the White House blocking military aid to a foreign nation unless that nation would agree to operate to the benefit of their upcoming reelection bid.)

"The broader the testing and the less finger-pointing we have, the better."

As Rand Paul defends himself from anger directed at him mostly by other members of the Senate, there is a new push by the White House, by conservative pundits, and by his colleagues to consider easing "social distancing" orders in an attempt to limit economic damage—at the expense of considerably more American dead. Undoing attempts to limit virus spread now would likely result in double-crises, with both the flooding of U.S. hospitals with patients who cannot be treated due to shortages of supplies and the economic damage of quarantines imposed immediately afterward, after it has already become (yet again) too late.

The testing, however, has not been solved. The shortages of masks, ventilators, and other supplies has not been solved. The administration is struggling with the logistics of even the most urgent new needs, further ensuring the coming two months will be as deadly as is now the case in virus-ravaged Italy.

It is absolutely the time for finger-pointing. Finger-pointing is the only thing remaining that can goad an incompetent White House and Rand Paul's thoroughly corrupt and self-serving party into saving American lives other than their own.

Rand Paul himself sought to block the first of lawmaker's efforts to combat the virus: Now he is lecturing others on "compassion" because his feelings have been hurt. Other Americans are suffering far more.

That's just one of the problems with the "slush fund" the administration is demanding.

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The $500 billion corporate bailout slush fund bill from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and buddies that Democrats rejected Sunday has many, many shortcomings. Not just what it does do (unfettered giveaways to corporate America with no strings attached) but what it doesn't do, like provide funding to state and local governments, or food assistance, or health care, or worker protections, or expanded emergency leave, or adequate assistance to, you know, people. Lurking among all those provisions that aren't helping people is one from our old favorite, Maine Sen. Susan Collins. She and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio were responsible for the small business stimulus part of the bill, and included a provision that inexplicably and very specifically excludes nonprofits that get Medicaid funding from receiving any assistance.

The obvious exclusion is Planned Parenthood, Collins' longtime (though no longer) defender. But as Greg Sargent explains, Senate Democrats and aides "think the language means a lot more than" just excluding Planned Parenthood. They pointed out that it "would exclude from eligibility for this funding a big range of other nonprofits that get Medicaid funding, such as home and community-based disability providers; community-based nursing homes, mental health providers and health centers; group homes for the disabled; and even rape crisis centers."

The Senate Republicans are an immediate danger to the people. Please give $1 to our nominee fund to help Democrats end their majority.

In other words, groups that are going to be stretched to the limit to provide assistance to some of the most vulnerable members of the community. Many of them are largely funded through their clients' Medicaid, and are historically underpaid for the services they provide. Coronavirus is going to create a surge in demand for these services and potentially put those providers at risk, particularly if they're competing with hospitals and first responders for protective gear.

This provision would "prevent many small Medicaid-funded providers from accessing small business loans," Mara Youdelman, the managing attorney of the National Health Law Program’s D.C. office, told Sargent, noting that rural providers would also be cut out. "We should be doing everything possible to keep them in businesses, both to help manage the pandemic and to keep people needing routine care healthy and out of overwhelmed hospitals," Youdelman said. One such provider is The Arc, an advocacy organization for the disabled. Nicole Jorwic, senior director of public policy for The Arc, told Sargent that "It's a huge problem. […] Our chapters who provide services would all be impacted [making it harder to] provide home and community-based services all over the country."

"The last thing anyone should do in the middle of a public health crisis is restricting access to health care providers that women, people with disabilities, people with substance abuse disorders and more rely on," Democratic Sen. Patty Murray said in a statement sent to Sargent.

Meanwhile, Collins is bleating about how "It is essential that Congress stop its partisan bickering & work together to protect workers' paychecks. On the Senate Floor this evening, I implored my colleagues to deliver urgently needed aid for the employees of small businesses throughout our nation." Just not ALL small businesses. Only the ones that might cut her campaign fund a check.

It certainly wasn’t money that did Bernie Sanders in. In February—the first month of contests, Sanders raised $47 million and spent $45 million. Meanwhile, Joe Biden raised $18 million and spent $13 million—proving yet again, that money isn’t everything in politics. 

But how does a campaign that claims to have the largest grassroots army at its disposal, and to have raised more money than any other candidate in the field (not counting Michael Bloomberg, who had just a single donor to his campaign) fail so spectacularly? By truly running a campaign for its 30% supporters. 

None of this is a surprise to anyone who has followed my coverage of the Sanders’ campaign 30% strategy. But a new NY Times report into the problems with the Sanders campaign confirms much of what I’ve been arguing. 

But first, the good stuff: It seems that two of the campaign’s most corrosive individuals—former columnist David Sirota and top surrogate Nina Turner, were sidelined by the campaign after arguing that Sanders should go nuclear on Biden. “A small group of advisers—including [campaign pollsters] Mr. Ben Tulchin, Ms. Turner and Mr. Sirota—regularly pleaded with Mr. Sanders to attack the former Vice President,” reported Alexander Burns and Jonathan Marin of Politico. “But Mr. Sanders resisted, giving speech after speech scorching unnamed establishment Democrats but declining to pursue Mr. Biden directly.” Sirota was actually barred from traveling with the campaign. Good stuff!

But beside that, it’s clear as always that this was never a campaign built to expand beyond its core base. You can see it in their excuse for losing. 

To recap, the campaign decided early on that it wasn’t going to try and expand its support beyond its core base. “Sanders aides believe, he’ll easily win enough delegates to put him into contention at the convention. They say they don’t need him to get more than 30 percent to make that happen.” The assumption was that the field would remain fragmented. 

It was a stupid assumption for lots of reasons. But it was their bet, and they were shocked (SHOCKED!) when it didn’t pay out. “In the view of some Sanders advisers, the candidate’s abrupt decline was a result of unforeseeable and highly unlikely events—most of all, the sudden withdrawal of two major candidates, Senator Amy Klobuchar and former Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who instantly threw their support to Mr. Biden and helped spur a rapid coalescing of moderate support behind his campaign,” the Times wrote. “Mr. Sanders had been ‘on the brink of winning,’ Mr. Tulchin argued, ‘until the most unprecedented event in the history of presidential primaries occurred.’”

Ha ha, the most unprecedented event? Oh my f’n god, these people. 

In the 2000 Republican primary, 13 Republicans ran, quickly whittled down to George W. Bush vs. John McCain. In 2004, Democrats had nine candidates before whittling down to John Kerry vs. John Edwards as people dropped out. In 2012, Republicans had 12 candidates, which quickly whittled down to Mitt Romney vs. Rick Santorum. 

But they’re going to act as if two candidates withdrawing was the most unbelievable thing that no one could’ve ever predicted, then they seriously had no chance as a campaign. It is rank political incompetence. 

Some primaries have cleared fields (Al Gore in 2000, Hillary Clinton in 2016), so there’s either no real primary, or a two-candidate field. But every single primary with a large contested field narrows. What would have been unprecedented would’ve been a split fragmented field going all the way to the convention, and then having a contested convention. Every cycle we think, “is this the year it happens?” and then it doesn’t. Because that’s unprecedented in the era of the modern popularly elected primary system. (As opposed to when party insiders decided the nominee in smoke-filled back rooms.) 

But fact is, Sanders was running at about half the votes he revived in 2016. He wasn’t on the brink of winning. He was just leading a multi-candidate field with a fraction of his previous support. As I wrote previously, “He even managed to lose ground in Mississippi, where he’d only gotten 16.6% of the vote in 2016.”

There’s clearly some CYA going on here, as Tulchin, the pollster, claimed that Sanders was only behind Biden in South Carolina by 4 points (!) according to their internal polling, and that a public poll showing Sanders trailing by 20 was “an outlier.” Biden won by 29. 

So we had a campaign operating under the hope that the field will remain fragmented all the way to the convention, using data that was hopelessly wrong. What more could go wrong? Well, having a candidate that wasn’t interested in doing the work it takes to actually build coalitions. 

“[Sanders] has always been disdainful of the art of politics and had to be nudged into wooing even friendly Democratic leaders,” the NY Times reported. “As Ms. Warren relentlessly courted Ms. [Alexandria] Ocasio-Cortez last fall, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s advisers had to prod Mr. Sanders’s aides into having him call her—a conversation that eventually led to her endorsing him.”

But then the campaign ignored her pleas to be conciliatory toward Warren, which led to the bad blood that kneecapped him when she dropped out. Not only did she withhold her endorsement from someone she called “a friend,” but her supporters, tired of the abuse his supporters heaped on Warren (including the infamous snake emojis) moved over en mass to Biden, putting the final nail in his campaign. 

In fact, AOC felt so alienated by the campaign—over both disagreements on immigration policy and the campaign’s embrace of controversial podcaster/comedian’s Joe Rogan’s endorsement, that she stepped back from more actively promoting it, leading her campaign to blame her for Sanders’ problems. 

Ocasio-Cortez wasn’t the only key surrogate that tried to get Sanders to build bridges. “It was Mr. Sanders’s persistent lashing of the ‘political establishment’ that concerned Representative Peter Welch, a liberal Democrat and fellow Vermonter who was one of just a few members of Congress to endorse Mr. Sanders’s campaign,” reported Burns and Martin. “Mr. Welch said he had reached out to the campaign last month to implore Mr. Sanders to ease up on that rhetoric, which Mr. Welch believed sounded exclusionary to ordinary people backing other candidates. After all, Mr. Welch said, there were “a lot of voters who are just everyday voters, who decided to vote for other Democrats.”

But that was the beauty of the 30% strategy—Sanders never had any interest in changing his lifelong rhetoric, one that only got him to 43% of the binary primary vote in 2016. So if it couldn’t muster majority support against an (unfairly maligned) unpopular Democrat, why would it do any better in 2020? Well, it didn’t need to be better! They just needed 30%. 

It meant he could keep giving the same tired stump speech he’s been giving for decades. And no matter how true it is, if it doesn’t convince people, it ain’t worth shit. 

It meant that he didn’t have to make phone calls to try and win endorsements. Remember, they had to twist his arm to give AOC a call, and she owes her political career in large part to the Sanders movement (and Democratic Socialists of America, specifically). 

It meant that he didn’t need to step in when his supporters were othering other candidates and their supporters. It actually fit nicely into Sanders’ “with us or against us” viewpoint. 

And so what happened? Sander’s total popular vote count was at around 30% when there were dozens of candidates in the race, and when the field compacted, it was still 30%. Let’s call that unprecedented—how a candidate so alienated the entire Democratic electorate that he picked up no one when everyone else dropped out. 

If the left hopes to achieve power in the future, it’ll have to do a better job vetting candidates. Because we are doomed to eternal failure if people keep baking candidates who proudly refuse to build a majority coalition. 

Christina Animashaun/Vox

Goldman Sachs predicts more than 2 million people could lose their jobs very soon.

New Unemployment Insurance claims are pouring into state labor departments at a pace that’s so unprecedented it’s quite literally off the charts.

The surge is so large that there's basically no way to forecast what’s next for the economy since we’ve never seen layoffs occur at this pace in the past. It’s a scary situation that underscores the extent to which this recession is not the same as the 2008 Great Recession — it might be worse.

The Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry, for example, believes it will see somewhat more than 121,000 new unemployment claims. Last week there were only 281,000 across the whole country. And that was a rise from the previous week’s level of 211,000 claims.

Trump has asked states to stop talking about the data until the official federal report is released on Thursday. But, a note from David Choi, an economist at Goldman Sachs, based on what’s already leaked out, that new claims will reach 2.25 million when that report is finalized — a number that completely shatters all records.

The scariest unemployment chart ever

This chart (adaptation from one by Andy Kiersz) compared weekly initial unemployment claims going all the way back to 1967 when the data series begins, with the estimated 2.25 million new claims that Goldman thinks we’ll see. It’s a really big surge. So big that it’s going to basically ruin the y-axis scaling for all future charts of this data series:

Christina Animashaun/Vox

That doesn’t necessarily mean that aggregate unemployment will reach unprecedented territory. In a separate analysis, Goldman’s Jan Hatzius estimates that unemployment will peak at around 9 percent — in part because he’s counting on a significant fiscal stimulus — which would be very bad but still somewhat lower than the peaks reached in October 2009 or December 1982.

Nevertheless, the fact that we have never seen an increase in unemployment as rapid as the one we seem to be facing means that all our efforts to predict what will happen next are largely guesswork. Recessions have happened in the past, but they come on slowly. The kind of sudden stop in economic activity that we are looking at is well outside the realm of anything we’ve experienced. And it’s going to break the unemployment insurance system unless Congress takes some quick steps to inject funds and change the rules.

Traditional unemployment insurance won’t work

Unemployment insurance systems are run by state governments with a mix of state and federal money and governed by some federal rules with considerable state discretion.

But broadly speaking, the way unemployment insurance works is that if you have a job, then you and your employer pay into a fund. That fund then pays out benefits to people who lose their jobs. The benefits, by design, are only a fraction of the beneficiary’s usual earnings, are conditional on providing evidence that he or she is actively seeking a new job, and are only paid out for a limited span of time.

Basically, the system does a great job of helping individuals cope with the reality that in a healthy market economy there are always some businesses somewhere that are failing. Thanks to unemployment insurance, if your employer goes under you have a cushion while you go find another job — but the program is deliberately stingy to make sure you go out and get another one. During big recessions, Congress normally acts to extend the time limit in order to recognize that even diligent job-seekers will have trouble getting new work quickly.

The coronavirus pandemic is causing unemployment to surge, but given the unique situation, we don’t actually want people hitting the pavement looking for jobs.

Arindrajit Dube, a labor economist at the University of Massachusetts, has a proposal for broad changes in the structure of the program to come with the surging demand for help.

“Instead of [unemployment insurance] being a payroll tax financed vehicle to help workers modestly while encouraging them to look for work,” he writes in a policy brief for Economics for Inclusive Prosperity, “we want it to (temporarily) become a fully federally financed vehicle allowing workers to stay at home and companies to not go bankrupt.”

How to change unemployment insurance

That means making the program much more generous so as to come close to fully covering lost earnings, relaxing eligibility requirements so that people don’t need to be actively hunting for a new job, and also expanding the purview of the program to cover people who are having their hours cut rather than people who are being laid off. This last change is particularly important. All throughout the food service sector, employers are currently trying to grapple with conversion to take-out only and reduced demand, which combine to greatly reduce their need for workers.

Many business owners, recognizing that unemployment insurance helps you if you get laid off but not if you have your hours cut, are trying to do the right thing by laying off many of their staff.

Allowing unemployment insurance to be tapped by people who have their hours cut would instead allow for “job sharing,” where a business hobbled by the recession could keep its full staff on payroll, just with greatly reduced hours. That would be better for morale, would help people cope with the unique child care challenges associated with school closures, and also make it easier for businesses to spring back to full capacity when the emergency ends.

You wouldn’t want to completely replace lost income because there will be a few sectors looking to add staff (Amazon, Walmart, and many grocery stores are seeing increased demand, and hopefully we’ll be manufacturing more masks and other medical supplies soon). But letting workers and businesses go into a kind of hibernation mode is something the unemployment insurance system isn’t set up to do, but could handle with legislative changes.

For that to happen, Congress really needs to move quickly.

Things are happening really fast

The legislative process has its own logic, and that logic, fundamentally, is slow.

That’s why it’s critical for Congress members to understand that the labor market is currently collapsing at a rate that is completely unprecedented. One can hope that will be a self-limiting process — that we will experience five weeks’ worth of really bad initial claims all in one week and then bottom out — but it’s not obvious that it will be. The layoffs that are happening right now are the direct result of coronavirus measures. But if laid-off workers see their incomes drop precipitously, they will have to pull back on spending. And their spending is income for the rest of us.

Businesses that can stay open under quarantine conditions will have to shut their doors anyway if they have no customers. Waves of bankruptcies could devastate the financial system from the bottom up, rather than the financial crisis trickling down the way it did 12 years ago.

Politicians are clearly aware that the situation is dire, but the sheer pace of events has not thus far seemed to have really broken through in Congress. And unless it does soon, forecasting a rapid bounce-back once the virus is under control could prove to be an idle hope.

An Amazon delivery man in Paris, France, on March 19, 2020. | Getty Images

The e-commerce giant is prioritizing household staples and other high-demand items during the coronavirus pandemic.

Amazon announced earlier this week that it would start prioritizing the most in-demand essential items in its warehouses, as the e-commerce giant struggles to keep up with customer demand during the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic.

Now the other shoe has dropped.

On Sunday, customers and Amazon merchants posted on social media platforms saying certain non-essential items were showing April 21 delivery dates, even though they were listed as in-stock and shipping with Amazon’s Prime express shipping service. During normal times, Amazon Prime deliveries typically arrive in one or two days in the US. Now, some Prime deliveries for in-stock items are showing five-day delivery promises on the lower end, but those waits are as long as a month on some items.

An Amazon spokesperson confirmed to Recode on Sunday evening that the new April 21 delivery dates are not the result of a technical bug or error; they accurately reflect Amazon’s current reality.

“To serve our customers in need while also helping to ensure the safety of our associates, we’ve changed our logistics, transportation, supply chain, purchasing, and third-party seller processes to prioritize stocking and delivering items that are a higher priority for our customers,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “This has resulted in some of our delivery promises being longer than usual.”

The significant delivery delays showcase just how much shoppers are turning to online shopping during the global health crisis, and how even an online retailer as technologically-advanced and powerful as Amazon can only do so much to handle such an unexpected, once-in-a-generation shopping rush. On Tuesday, Amazon acknowledged the challenges it was facing when it said it would only accept new stock in its warehouses through early April if it was in one of six essential products categories, such as health and household goods or medical supplies. The company also said it was looking to hire 100,000 new workers to help sort, package, and deliver goods for customers.

The trade-off Amazon is making, for now, is that some items like printer ink and coffee makers — which don’t fall into the six different product categories Amazon is currently prioritizing as essential — are showing delivery delays unlike anything Amazon customers have experienced in recent memory. It’s unclear if Amazon will refund Prime membership fees — either partially or fully — if the delays continue. Amazon Prime costs $119 a year in the US, and comes with other perks beyond express shipping like video and music streaming.

On Twitter, customers cited April 21 delivery dates for items as varied as computer monitor cables to espresso machines. One person complained that he tried to order cables that he’d “normally go to Guitar Center and grab,” but Amazon could only deliver them by April 21. That’s the same date Recode found when we looked up similar cables on Sunday night.

For Amazon merchants who sell in categories outside of the ones Amazon currently deems essential, the delivery delays could be problematic.

“This has to be the biggest disruption to Amazon’s operations since they started,” said Joe Kaziukenas, CEO of the e-commerce research firm Marketplace Pulse. “And, unfortunately, it will have a big impact on sellers and ultimately customers, too.”

Sunday, Amazon sellers compared notes on Reddit message boards to try to figure out which items were showing delays and which weren’t. Some said their items were showing April 21 delivery dates even though they were goods in one of the six categories Amazon is currently prioritizing. Others said the same item was showing normal delivery times for some zip codes, but April 21 delivery for other zip codes.

Either way, this is the current reality for Amazon customers and Amazon sellers alike: five-day Prime delivery waits are the norm, and month-long waits are not uncommon. And it’s unclear how long it will last.

Update, March 22, 2020, 11:15 pm ET: This story has been updated to include a statement from Amazon.

NEW YORK — New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has lagged other state and local leaders in imposing restrictions amid the coronavirus pandemic, is calling on New Yorkers to make the right decisions about social distancing.

De Blasio, in a virtual press conference Sunday, said he's trying to avoid more draconian measures aimed at curbing the virus’ spread — hours after Gov. Andrew Cuomo earlier Sunday gave the mayor 24 hours to come up with a plan to reduce the number of people gathering in public spaces.

“We need to ensure that people [who] want a little exercise in their day can do that in the right way,” de Blasio said. “It is absolutely normal and human to want to get outside, get a little bit of exercise. But I remind you — the pause is all about social distancing.”

Playgrounds and parks will remain open this week, though NYPD officers will break up outdoor gatherings and tell New Yorkers to get their exercise and “get out of here” starting Monday, de Blasio told reporters.

De Blasio spoke after Cuomo decried New Yorkers living their daily lives — like going to farmers markets and picnicking in the park. The de Blasio administration said it will write up a directive that New Yorkers use common sense and send it to the governor’s office.

The mayor asked parents to be responsible for their children when they take them to city playgrounds, which de Blasio said are not being cleaned, and keep kids away from their friends and other families. Children are thought to not develop as severe symptoms related to Covid-19 as adults but could be vectors for the disease — spreading it to older family members who are more susceptible.

“If people are responsible about use of the playgrounds, and we believe it’s a good outlet for kids who only get a short period of exercise each day, we’ll keep them open” de Blasio said. “If we feel that they are not being handled properly, if we feel that people are taking advantage in the wrong way of the situation or are not paying attention to the rules … we’ll have to, at that point, strongly consider shutting them down.”

He added: “Not something I want to do. I really don’t want to do that.”

De Blasio issued his plan after earlier Sunday appearing on "Meet the Press" and saying the situation in the city is so dire that he was asking President Donald Trump to send medically trained soldiers to his city to address escalating shortages amid the coronavirus outbreak. De Blasio said he spoke with Trump and Vice President Mike Pence Sunday evening but declined to share the details of their conversation, he told CNN’s Don Lemon.

The city has 10,764 Covid-19 cases and 99 deaths as of Sunday evening, according to the de Blasio administration. Of those cases, 98 NYPD officers have tested positive and three are hospitalized, Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said at the Sunday afternoon press conference.

The virus has become so widespread in New York City that the de Blasio administration said it has not notified people who may have come in contact with those officers. However, the mayor said New Yorkers seem to be heeding the advice to stay home.

An audit by four city agencies Saturday found only 11 businesses out of 13,000 inspections violated orders to shut down, de Blasio said.

“That speaks volumes about what we’re dealing with,” he said.

The de Blasio administration is also releasing 23 inmates on Rikers Island on Sunday. They're 50 years old or older and at a low risk to re-offend, the mayor said. The city is awaiting the go-ahead from the state to release more prisoners in a way that is “humane and responsive” to the crisis, de Blasio said, amid worries of the illness spreading in the cramped quarters of correctional institutions.

The city is reviewing the release of an additional 200 inmates of about 5,000 people incarcerated at Rikers who officials believe are at high risk of dying from Covid-19, de Blasio said.

“I am confident now that we can figure out what the right number is,” de Blasio said. “There are people we won’t feel comfortable releasing.”

BERLIN — Germany will ramp up efforts to control the spread of the coronavirus by banning meetings of more than two people outside the same household and mandating the closure of nonessential businesses, Chancellor Angela Merkel said Sunday.

Speaking after meeting the leaders of Germany’s regions earlier on Sunday afternoon, Merkel was clear the new restrictions are not desirable but necessary. “None of us wished that we would ever have to face the people with such rules,” said Merkel.

The new regulations, the tightest in modern Germany’s history, will last at least two weeks, and mean restaurants, hairdressers, massage parlors and other nonessential stores should close. The measures stop short of a curfew.

Merkel also warned of consequences if people violate the new measures, but did not specify what that would entail. “These are not recommendations, but rules,” she said.

The new regulation says: “Spending time in public space is only permitted on your own, with another person who does not live in the household or with members of your own household.” When in public, people should stand at least 1.5 meters apart, Merkel said.

Some federal states, including Bavaria in the south, have already implemented their own lockdown measures.

Germany has already taken steps to try to reduce the spread of COVID-19 by expanding border controls to EU travelers and suspending various aspects of public life.

Also Sunday, Merkel said she will go into self-quarantine at home after a doctor who gave her a vaccination tested positive for the coronavirus.

A government spokesperson said the doctor had given the chancellor a “prophylactic pneumococcus vaccine” on Friday afternoon.

The chancellor was informed of the positive test after she announced strict new rules across the country on Sunday aimed at containing the virus, the spokesperson said.

She decided to immediately self-quarantine and will be tested regularly in the coming days, but will continue her official duties from home, the government said.

On Wednesday, Merkel addressed the nation in a televised audience with an empathetic plea for solidarity and an end to stockpiling. She also called on residents to accept temporary restrictions on their way of life in order to curtail the spread of the virus.

To date, there have been 24,714 cases in Germany with 92 deaths.

Every Senate Democrat voted against Mitch McConnell's rushed-through, Republican-written corporate bailout plan for coronavirus stimulus. The procedural cloture vote failed 47-47 (McConnell voted against it for procedural reasons, so he can bring the cloture back up later). Even Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin got salty over how bad this bill is. Not one known for his liberal thinking, Manchin blasted the Republican bill. "They're throwing caution to the wind for average workers and people on Main Street and going balls to the wall for people on Wall Street."

There is a raft of problems with the Republican bill, starting with the now mind-blowing $500 billion corporate slush fund that has almost no strings attached and almost nothing to help the workforce of those companies. The Republican bill doesn't even have money for state and local governments, or for increased food assistance under SNAP, no OSHA language to protect workers, no expanded emergency leave, and an inadequate 3 month extension on unemployment insurance. What is particularly galling for Democrats is that the language gives Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin effective carte blanche for distributing funds and hiding who those funds go to.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is moving forward swiftly with a counter proposal, with the House Appropriations Committee currently compiling language already developed by Financial Services, Ways and Means, Energy and Commerce and Education and Labor committees. The text could be ready as early as Monday, which should force McConnell to finally work with Democrats to improve the bill and get something both chambers can agree to. The unanimous Democratic opposition to the Republican bill gives Pelosi that leverage.

Five Republican senators are in quarantine, thanks mostly to Rand Paul who announced he had tested positive earlier Sunday, after he hung out at the Senate gym. He's driven Mitt Romney and Mike Lee into isolation. Cory Gardner and Rick Scott had already been in self-quarantine.

With every passing hour of this pandemic, the shortage of medical equipment—as hospitals prepare for a massive influx of sick Americans—becomes  more acute, and the need for such equipment and supplies becomes more dire. The Defense Protection Act (DPA), passed in 1950, grants a president extraordinary powers to order private industry to respond, on behalf of the nation, to an urgent public need, vital to the defense and preservation of the country.

In a White House briefing on Wednesday, responding to heavy criticism from Democrats for his lackadaisical response to the threat, Donald Trump finally invoked DPA, but after leaving the cameras and wandering off to wherever it is that he tweets from, he clarified that he really didn’t think it was necessary to impose on the private sector—unless things deteriorate further. "I only signed the Defense Production Act to combat the Chinese Virus should we need to invoke it in a worst-case scenario in the future," he tweeted, adding that ”Hopefully there will be no need, but we are all in this TOGETHER!."

But we really are not “all in this together.” Americans are “all in this” with a Hobbesian fantasy called “conservatism,” which has reared its ugly head at the precisely the worst moment possible in American history. In a crisis environment which literally threatens the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans, the extraordinary measures we should be taking to ramp up production of medical supplies would seem self-evident—except to that species of American blinded by a political ideology that abhors the very idea of government actually helping its people. 

As reported Friday by the New York Times, ”[S]ome of Mr. Trump’s advisers have privately said they are adhering to longstanding conservative opposition to big government, a view that reflects the administration’s conflicted view of how it should handle a crisis unlike any a modern president has faced.”

As of March 21, Trump acknowledged in his daily press conference that he still had not taken any measures under the Act.

It will be important for Americans to hold this moment forever in their memories. The nationalization of a few select corporations could have alleviated untold suffering among a huge swath of the American population, preventing an agonizing death for many of them, but there were people in this administration who believed it was more important to allow those same corporations the freedom to do whatever they want—including doing nothing, if they wished. They believed it was better to let thousands of Americans suffer and die than to repudiate—even for a moment—their “free-market” ideology.

This is the natural endgame of “conservatism,” because it is a philosophy that ultimately reduces the human condition to an afterthought. It is a philosophy that sells itself with fantasies about “personal freedom,” but the freedom being sold is really only the freedom for a few people to accumulate unchecked wealth. In the imaginary world that “conservatism” aspires to, there is no social compact and Americans are not responsible for each other. So for the vast majority of those who must live in American society, and who are not corporate CEOs or in possession of great wealth, ultimately the so-called “freedom” of conservatism amounts to little more than freedom to die. Boiled down to its essence, so-called “conservatism” believes that if someone profits even while another dies, that is simply the law of the jungle: fixed, immutable, and not to be questioned, certainly not by the government.

This is why instead of bold, decisive national action we see a president extolling the so-called power of cash-strapped state governors, while minimizing his own responsibility to do anything. In probably the most revealing statement of the conservative mindset, the president on Thursday declared “The federal government is not supposed to be out there buying vast amounts of items and then shipping. You know, we’re not a shipping clerk.” The Times expanded on that mindset.

The president’s advisers say they see the role of the federal government as facilitator, as opposed to chief producer and a national governor. They have tried to encourage states to get by with what they can, suggesting there will be support from the federal government but that this shouldn’t be the first option. And they have hoped that private companies will be spurred to increase production by the president’s statements.

So while we are being held hostage to this inane “philosophy,” while we “hope” for private corporations to exercise some semblance of civic responsibility, the days that we could be mass producing ventilators and other critical medical equipment slip by, one by one. Meanwhile the number of people infected by the virus grows by orders of magnitude each day, as noted by the mayor of New York City, now the epicenter of the pandemic.

“We’re talking about a president who is basically doing what Herbert Hoover did at the beginning of the Depression and minimizing the danger and refusing to use available federal action, and people are going to die, and they shouldn’t, they don’t have to, if we could get the support that we’re asking for,” [Mayor Bill DeBlasio] said in an interview with WNYC on Friday.

The fact that this will happen--is happening-- right before our eyes and still nothing whatsoever is being done is the harshest indictment of “conservatism” that could possibly be imagined. Here we see revealed in all its ignominy a hollow and meaningless philosophy, a flimsy excuse dressed up in noble-sounding principles to justify raw, human greed.  It does not adapt to crises because “crisis” implies shared responsibility towards others in the society. Its sole goal is to perpetuate itself, even as it leaves behind a wake of human carnage. And just like this administration, it can never admit when it is wrong.

Attorney General William Barr at the Department of Justice in March 2020. | Drew Angerer/Getty Images

The request has been rejected on a bipartisan basis, with Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez coming out against it.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has reportedly asked Congress for a host of new powers as the coronavirus spreads across the country, including the ability to ask judges to detain people indefinitely without trial during emergency situations and natural disasters.

The requests, first reported by Politico’s Betsy Woodruff Swan Saturday, come amid concerns the Trump administration is using the pandemic to implement major policy changes such as tighter border and asylum restrictions. Given President Donald Trump declared a national emergency on March 13, the powers requested by the DOJ would likely be in effect should its request be granted. However, the requests are unlikely to be approved — a bipartisan group of lawmakers has already signaled opposition to them.

In one document Politico obtained, the department suggested the US attorney general be able to ask the chief judge of any district court to stop court proceedings “whenever the district court is fully or partially closed by virtue of any natural disaster, civil disobedience, or other emergency situation.” The department’s proposal would also give judges the power to pause “any statutes or rules of procedure” at every stage of the justice process from pre-arrest to post-trial.

The DOJ reportedly argued that judges can already pause proceedings in emergency situations and that a congressionally-approved policy would just make processes more “consistent.”

Also reportedly included in the request was a proposal to put a hold on the statute of limitations for criminal investigations during national emergencies and for a year after the emergencies end; to expand use of videoconference hearings without defendants’ consent; to ban people with Covid-19 from applying for asylum; and to, in effect, bar people from the travel ban list from applying for asylum.

Legal experts and politicians on both sides of the aisle quickly condemned the request. Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) tweeted “OVER MY DEAD BODY;” Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (NY) wrote, “Two Words: Hell No;” and Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted “Absolutely not” — a sentiment Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-KY) chief strategist, Doug Stafford, agreed with.

The DOJ did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Vox.

The Trump administration has an opportunity to make sweeping policy changes during the pandemic

Trump’s declaration of a national emergency is a major boon to states struggling to respond to the crisis because it frees up $42.6 billion in federal funds that can be used for testing, medical facilities, and other supplies.

But a national emergency declaration also gives Trump access to more than 120 broad powers, many with few restrictions.

On Friday, the Trump administration cited coronavirus concerns as a reason to bar any non-citizens or lawful permanent residents from entering the US along the northern and southern borders, with few exceptions. The decision affects asylum seekers, who officials are directed to turn away at the border rather than taking them to a detention center for processing their claims.

“When held at border facilities, these migrants were spreading the virus to other migrants, to [Customs and Border Protection] agents and border health care workers and even the United States population as a whole,” said US Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar.

It’s unclear, however, exactly how the policy will work in practice. Mexico said last week it will not accept people returned from the US who are not Mexican or Central American, and instead, Immigration and Customs Enforcement would need to use chartered planes to return migrants to their home countries.

Trump has also used the crisis caused by the virus to promote ideas of a tax credit for companies bringing manufacturing from China back to the US (a favorite initiative of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich), a middle-class tax cut, a temporary payroll tax cut, and an interest rate cut from the Federal Reserve.

The Wall Street Journal reports that as the coronavirus pandemic began, America's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention "provided restrictive guidance on who should be tested." They're basing that on archived pages on the CDC's own web site. "While agencies in other countries were advising and conducting widespread testing, the CDC, charged with setting the U.S. standard for who should be tested for the virus, kept its criteria limited." Once the CDC deferred testing evaluations to individual physicians and rolled out testing widely, early data show a surge in positive cases, so public-health officials expect a clearer picture of the epidemic's scale to emerge... Containing a virus requires identifying and isolating those who are infected, infectious-disease and public-health experts say. "If we would have had a true understanding of the extent of the disease several weeks ago, implementation of social-distancing measures could have prevented the escalation of the disease," said Neil Fishman, chief medical officer at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and an infectious-disease specialist... Initially, the CDC recommended only investigating those who had symptoms and had recently traveled to Wuhan, China, or made contact with someone who may have the virus. As the outbreak worsened, it expanded the criteria for travel history slowly, but maintained its recommendation that symptoms be present, despite some cases having mild or no symptoms. Now, the CDC has turned over authority to physicians to determine who gets tested, but the testing rates vary widely by state. America's response was also hampered by "a botched initial test batch," according to the article, which meant there were fewer tests available until the agency allowed private laboratories to develop tests.

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Honestly, the original version of this story violates conservation of energy.

Today's News:

Inevitable that the sycophants of the regime of a wannabe autocrat would seek to turn a crisis into an opportunity to exercise more unrestrained emergency powers over the citizenry. The Department of Justice, ever more a tool of Donald Trump under the supervision of loyalist Attorney General Bill Barr, a great believer in unitary executive theory, has been quietly seeking more authority of a sort that is disturbing civil libertarians and other rights advocates, according to Betsy Woodruff Swan at Politico. 

Included in documents she reviewed are proposals to hold people indefinitely without trial, potentially to eliminate habeas corpus, to let judges pause trials, to extend the statute of limitations for a year after a national emergency ends, and to get Congress to specifically exclude people afflicted with the coronavirus disease from applying for asylum. The Justice Department would not comment.

Swan writes:

The move has tapped into a broader fear among civil liberties advocates and Donald Trump’s critics — that the president will use a moment of crisis to push for controversial policy changes. [...]  And even without policy changes, Trump has vast emergency powers that he could legally deploy right now to try and slow the coronavirus outbreak. [...]

The proposal would also grant those top judges broad authority to pause court proceedings during emergencies. It would apply to “any statutes or rules of procedure otherwise affecting pre-arrest, post-arrest, pre-trial, trial, and post-trial procedures in criminal and juvenile proceedings and all civil process and proceedings,” according to draft legislative language the department shared with Congress. In making the case for the change, the DOJ document wrote that individual judges can currently pause proceedings during emergencies, but that their proposal would make sure all judges in any particular district could handle emergencies “in a consistent manner.”

Norman L. Reimer, the executive director of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers told Swan, “Not only would it be a violation of that, but it says ‘affecting pre-arrest. So that means you could be arrested and never brought before a judge until they decide that the emergency or the civil disobedience is over. I find it absolutely terrifying. Especially in a time of emergency, we should be very careful about granting new powers to the government. 

The good news is that most of these proposals will presumably not be approved as long as Democrats control the House of Representatives.

President Donald Trump speaks on the latest coronavirus developments on March 20, 2020. | Alex Wong/Getty Images

As Trump reportedly received intelligence reports about the seriousness of the coronavirus threat, he continued to downplay its severity in public.

US intelligence officials reportedly warned President Donald Trump and Congress about the threats posed by the novel coronavirus beginning in early January — weeks before the White House and lawmakers began implementing stringent public health measures and as the president minimized the threat posed by the virus in his tweets and public statements.

The fact those warnings were largely disregarded — something first reported by the Washington Post’s Shane Harris, Greg Miller, Josh Dawsey, and Ellen Nakashima — suggests Trump administration officials failed to take action that could have prepared the health care system to handle an influx of patients, helped Americans avoid mass social distancing, and saved lives.

Top health officials first learned of the virus’s spread in China on January 3, US Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said Friday. Throughout January and February, intelligence officials’ warnings became more and more urgent, according to the Post — and by early February, much of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the CIA’s intelligence reports were dedicated to warnings about Covid-19.

All the while, Trump downplayed the virus publicly, telling the public the coronavirus “is very well under control in our country,” and suggesting warm weather would neutralize the threat the virus poses.

Privately, Trump reportedly rebutted health and intelligence officials’ attempts to get him to take action to prepare communities in the US while rebuking officials who were delivering sober risk assessments.

For instance, in late February, when Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said, “It’s not a question of if [community spread] will happen, but when this will happen, and how many people in this country will have severe illnesses,” Trump reportedly responded by calling Azar to complain “that Messonnier was scaring the stock markets, according to two senior administration officials,” the Post reports.

In a statement, the administration rebutted the Post’s reporting, calling it part of a attempt by the media and Democrats “to rewrite history” and claiming “President Trump has taken historic, aggressive measures to protect the health, wealth and safety of the American people.”

The administration did begin taking some limited action about a month after Azar says the administration first began receiving warnings, blocking non-citizens who had been to China in the last two weeks from entering the country on February 3 — a move public experts have argued at best bought the US time to ramp up its testing capabilities, which it did not use, and at worst had no beneficial effects at all.

Trump finally assembled a task force to address the virus, putting Vice President Mike Pence in charge of the effort on February 26, and declared a national emergency on March 13. And, just this week — nearly three months after first receiving warnings from his intelligence officials — the president’s public tone about the crisis shifted: “I’ve always known this is a real — this is a pandemic,” he said Tuesday as he admitted, “[the virus is] not under control for any place in the world.”

Ignoring intelligence reports contributed to the country being underprepared for widespread testing

Trump’s refusal to acknowledge the severity of the virus early on had real effects on how the virus spread throughout the US and how most Americans are experiencing the pandemic.

As the president and top White House officials dismissed the potential severity of the virus’s spread in the US, they failed to mobilize the national health system to prepare for widespread testing. Now, the country is struggling to scale up testing and lags far behind other countries — even those like South Korea, whose first cases were discovered around the same time as the United States’. As Vox’s German Lopez reported:

First, the Trump administration refused to use the tests deployed by other countries and offered by the World Health Organization, seemingly out of concern that those tests weren’t accurate enough. Secondly, the homemade test the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention went with had technical problems, leading to further delays in getting widespread testing off the ground. Finally, a series of political, technical, and bureaucratic issues in recent weeks have further stalled testing, even as the Trump administration has promised “millions” of tests.

All the while, most Americans continued about their daily lives, placing themselves at risk of infection. And the president’s laissez-faire attitude has had lasting effects even as he has shifted his tone: as recently as this week, after the White House asked all Americans to practice strict social distancing for 15 days, spring breakers took to Florida beaches to party despite warnings.

The lack of testing availability not only means people across the country beginning to show symptoms are clamoring for limited testing to get lifesaving treatment, but also that failures in providing testing has meant the US must rely more heavily on social distancing than it might have otherwise, Yale University epidemiologist Nathan Grubaugh told Lopez.

“Without surveillance, we don’t even know where to look [for concentrations of infection],” Grubaugh said. “We don’t even know where to employ self-isolation or social distancing. So now we’re stuck in this situation where it’s pretty much everywhere, and so we have to apply these methods across the board.”

Experts warn that distancing measures will likely be necessary for months, even as the country ramps up to more aggressive testing. And the need to rely on social distancing to reduce risk of infection has already caused stocks to plummet and started to have a massive effect on the US economy as the service, hospitality and, in many cases, manufacturing industries have ground to a halt. That’s left hundreds of thousands of workers without a paycheck and little safety net. Trump is finally taking the virus more seriously, but it’s still unclear how widespread the effects of delays in action will be.

Editor’s Note: The Atlantic is making vital coverage of the coronavirus available to all readers. Find the collection here.

Editor’s Note: The Atlantic is making vital coverage of the coronavirus available to all readers. Find the collection here.

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This is a tsunami, with a number of big waves dead ahead.”

Mark Zandi is not an epidemiologist, and he was not talking about the rapid spread of the coronavirus. He is the chief economist at Moody’s, an analyst highly regarded by both political parties, and generally not prone to hyperbole. Yet when I spoke with him on the phone yesterday, he immediately reached for the metaphor of a devastating natural disaster to describe the toll that the pandemic will take on American commerce—the businesses it will destroy, the jobs it will wipe out, the retirement nest eggs it will crack and shatter.

That there will be economic pain is already clear. The stock market has lost more than one-third of its value, giving up all of the considerable gains it’s made since President Donald Trump took office in 2017. The urgent call for social distancing across much of the country has forced the closure of just about any business where human beings congregate. The restaurant, live-entertainment, tourist, and airline industries are being crushed. Public and private mass-transit systems—many already unprofitable—are facing budgetary crises. State and local governments, legally required not to run a deficit, will soon be overwhelmed both by the strain on their public-health systems and by the ensuing burden on their balance sheets.

Yet the full scope of the economic ramifications of the coronavirus is, like its cascading effect on the health-care system, only just beginning to become apparent. On Thursday morning, the government reported that 281,000 people nationwide had filed unemployment claims in the previous week, a jump of 33 percent and the most in two and a half years. Add another digit to that number, and you’ll get the projection for how many people will file jobless claims in the weeks ahead.

Read: [This is not a recession. It’s an ice age.]

Economic number-crunchers are struggling to keep up with the speed of the slide. On Sunday evening, Goldman Sachs projected that economic growth would be zero in the first quarter of the year, which ends March 31, and that economic activity would fall by 5 percent in the second quarter. Just three days later, J.P. Morgan put out a new forecast: The gross domestic product would fall by 4 percent this quarter and then plummet a staggering 14 percent in the next three months.

“We’re talking really big numbers,” Heidi Shierholz, who served as chief economist for the Department of Labor during the Obama administration and is now a senior fellow at the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank, told me on Thursday morning.

By Friday, Goldman Sachs had revised its figures: The investment bank was now expecting a 24 percent drop in the second quarter. “Holy hell,” Shierholz said in an email flagging the update for me.

To put the data in perspective: These second-quarter forecasts would mean the deepest, fastest drop in economic activity since the government began calculating the nation’s GDP on a quarterly basis in 1947. Before now, the worst three-month plunge was 10 percent in early 1958, which happened to coincide with a flu pandemic that began the year before.

Shierholz and her colleagues have been working to translate the Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan projections into the statistics that people care most about—namely, jobs. A nosedive along the lines of what J.P. Morgan is predicting, she told me, would mean that 8.5 million jobs would be lost by the summer, spiking the unemployment rate from its current 3.5 percent all the way up to roughly 8.7 percent. Under the Goldman Sachs estimate, the jobs gone would total 14 million. By comparison, a rough total of about 8.7 million jobs disappeared in the Great Recession a decade ago, but those losses were spread out over years. This would occur in a single springtime.

And whatever data the government produces will likely understate the true reality of the economic hit, because the unemployment rate measures only people who are actively looking for work. Unemployed waiters might not apply for jobs when all the restaurants are closed. Neither, in all likelihood, would many hotel staff, casino workers, theater ushers, or others.

“All the economists I’ve talked to are as freaked out as they’ve ever been,” Jared Bernstein, who served as chief economist to Vice President Joe Biden in the Obama administration and informally advises his presidential campaign, told me.

Yet what is scariest about the new economic projections is that they are probably too rosy. Both Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan foresee big rebounds in the third quarter, over the summer, due in part to assumptions that the Federal Reserve will accelerate its moves to stabilize the financial system and Congress will soon enact another enormous fiscal-stimulus package. But the crisis might not be over by then. A federal-government plan to combat the pandemic estimated that it could last 18 months and hit in “multiple waves” that would require some degree of prolonged social distancing. Modeling by Imperial College London indicated a similar duration.

“The economy isn’t going to recover before the social distancing is over,” Shierholz said.

And even when life returns to some semblance of normalcy, the economic trauma won’t be over. According to Zandi, at least three big waves will hit American economy activity. The first is occurring now, as businesses close and the economy grinds to a halt. Next will be the job losses.

“The third wave will hit when people realize they are worth so much less, particularly the Boomers, who are focused on their retirement,” Zandi told me. “When they realize their nest egg has evaporated, they'll go into panic mode and cut back on spending, and that further exacerbates the problem.”

If there is any hope in this dark outlook, these economists told me, it is that the federal government likely has more power to soften the economic blow than it does to contain the virus. And unlike during the last economic crisis, in 2008 and 2009, both parties are in general consensus about the scope of the fiscal response required, deficits be damned. People who have lost jobs or who have seen their hours cut dramatically need immediate money to buy food and stay in their homes, while businesses need funds to stay afloat and postpone layoffs as much as possible.

“We know we’re going to cause a recession when we shut down huge parts of the economy, and it’s the right thing to do. It’ll make us better off in the long run,” Shierholz said. “But we need to make sure households are as whole as possible, so we don’t start to see a whole wave of foreclosures, bankruptcies—all the things that don’t have to happen.

“Those things don’t have to happen,” she emphasized. “We have total control over that.”

With warnings that the unemployment rate could hit a staggering 20 percent—by far the highest since the Great Depression—if Congress doesn’t act, Trump and his advisers have called for $1 trillion or more in stimulus spending. That’s in addition to the smaller emergency measures lawmakers have already enacted in recent weeks. On Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell unveiled a Republican proposal that would send one-time payments of $1,200 to individuals earning up to $75,000 a year (those amounts double for married couples) and an extra $500 per child. The plan also contains hundreds of billions in loans for businesses and corporate tax cuts to encourage big companies like airlines and hotel chains to keep their idle workforce on salary.

Democratic leaders immediately criticized the proposal as too heavily skewed toward corporations; they are pushing for a significant expansion of unemployment benefits and other measures that would more directly help laid-off workers and low-income Americans who are most vulnerable to the economic shock.

Read: [The coronavirus will be a catastrophe for the poor]

Yet even progressive economists like Bernstein agreed that just as individuals need fast help through cash payments or other means, so do businesses.

“Basically, we have to put the economy in a deep freeze or a coma to help meet the containment requirements of the virus,” Bernstein told me. “But to strain the analogy, you want to be able to thaw from the deep freeze or for the patient to be able to wake up from the coma. That means we have to preserve not just people, which are first on my list for obvious reasons, but businesses.

“There have to be businesses to bounce back,” he said.

And as unpopular as industry bailouts are, Bernstein said the government must step in to help both corporations and mom-and-pop shops. “Do we need Delta Air Lines to be alive on the other side of this? That’s one big question,” he explained. “But then do we need Joe’s Dry Cleaner around the corner to be there on the other side? And my view is we probably need both. I would err on the side of ensuring that businesses are held whole as possible.”

How quickly the economy can recover likely depends on time—how fast, and aggressively, Congress can act, and how long social distancing lasts.

The economists I spoke with all said that this economic free-fall was sharper than the financial crisis that sparked the Great Recession, but that because the government this time essentially turned the economy off like a light, the recovery needn’t be as long or slow. “So much of this depends on the effectiveness of the policy response,” a veteran Republican economist, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, told me. “I think we still have time. The clock’s ticking, though.”

RICHMOND, Calif. — As Americans stock up on toilet paper and food to adjust to new restrictions on everyday life amid the coronavirus pandemic, they've identified weed as another essential good — particularly in California.

Cannabis dispensaries and delivery services across California and other states have reported a huge boost in sales over the past week as governors and local officials increasingly shut down non-essential services this month.

When Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a statewide order Thursday night directing nearly 40 million people to stay home, data from Weedmaps — the Yelp of the marijuana business — showed the highest number of orders in the platform's 12-year history, blowing past average 4/20 sales by almost 50 percent. The company says sales in California alone on Thursday were up 204 percent compared to the previous Thursday.

“It's been kind of wild,” said Bobby Vecchio, CEO of Los Angeles-based delivery service HERB. “It began slowly, 20, 30, 40 percent increases over the usual and then on Thursday we just got hit. I think that that's really when folks started to panic.”

Even before Newsom's directive, the volume of orders within states across the country had shot up nearly 230 percent Tuesday, compared with the same day the previous week. The largest chunks of that increase came from Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley, where sales were up by combined 66 percent.

Along with the total number of orders rising dramatically, Weedmaps also reported seeing the average dollar-value of purchases made through its platform double on pickup orders and increase 37 percent on deliveries.

Those kinds of numbers have been recorded by cannabis operations from San Diego to the North Coast in what some businesses say is their strongest sales period since the opening week for legal marijuana in California January 2018.

Vecchio said that starting last Friday and continuing through the weekend, as Newsom declared a state of emergency and major sports league postponed their seasons, his company’s sales volume tripled.

HERB’s sales have tapered off just slightly from their weekend high, but Vecchio expects them to jump again after Newsom's statewide order. The state has yet to issue direct guidance for cannabis shops, but profits for delivery services and curbside pickup are likely to climb even higher if customers are given fewer options to obtain their purchases.

Delivery, in particular, has already seen the fastest growth in sales, according to Roy Bingham, founder and CEO of BDS Analytics, which closely tracks the cannabis business. As of Thursday, the firm reported a roughly 30 percent increase in sales volume at the dispensaries and delivery services it collects data from in California.

At Eaze, the San Francisco-based delivery giant, the number of first-time deliveries and website sign-ups were both up by more than 100 percent on Wednesday, compared to an average Wednesday over the last year, according to spokesperson Elizabeth Ashford. Overall deliveries were up by 19 percent, while the volume of product per delivery increased by 25 percent.

While the numbers point to high demand for cannabis as many Californians worry about supply being cut off, they have raised concerns in the industry that consumers would quickly turn to the illicit market in a scenario where retailers are told to cease operations.

So far, the counties that have instituted shutdowns of “non-essential” businesses have erred on the side of leaving marijuana businesses untouched, other than a quickly reversed order in San Francisco on Tuesday.

“If we shut down legal cannabis businesses in this state, people are still going to buy cannabis,” Vecchio said, pointing to the illicit market. “We can't really believe that that fixes the problem and that makes people safer.”

NEW YORK— Safety-net hospitals in central Brooklyn — hospitals of last resort that on their best days struggle for resources and staff — are getting clobbered with coronavirus patients days ahead of the expected surge.

“It’s a disaster,” said Dr. Conrad Fischer, residency program director in internal medicine at Brookdale University Medical Center. “We just had a half dozen staff just test positive. We have 17 ventilators left in the institution. Some staff can't come because they’re getting wiped out.”

The hospital has a dozen cases of Covid-19 and about 20 people under investigation, he said. Soon, Brookdale will be at capacity and doctors will need to open and expand floors, and convert office spaces into places for patients to get treatment. The hospital is down to one or two days left of personal protective equipment, Fischer said.

“It’s a pretty shocking thing,” he said before hopping off the call to intubate a patient.

New York City has about 20,000 beds that hospitals are working to make available for Covid-19 patients, though it's unclear what percentage of those beds are in Brooklyn.

“We don’t have any current data but we know there is a dire and growing need in Brooklyn hospitals for [personal protective equipment] and beds,” said Jonah Allon, spokesperson for Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo expects the surge of Covid-19 patients to come within the next 43 days, though Michael Donnelly, a data scientist at Facebook, believes New York City hospitals will reach capacity of 3,000 cases by Tuesday. Based on his modeling, hospitals could see 100 new patients an hour by March 28. Greater New York Hospital Association, which represents many private hospitals in the city, did not return a request for comment on the analysis.

The increase in caseload could not only overwhelm the bed capacity but also sicken front-line health care workers who have limited protective gear. Under mandates that all health care workers report for duty, even if those staffers were furloughed, units could fall sick to the virus should someone test positive, but show no symptoms.

“It’s always a consideration,” said Dr. Leonard Berkowitz, chief of infectious diseases division at The Brooklyn Hospital Center. “In fact, you can test negative today and test positive in a couple days. There are a lot of unanswered questions.”

To keep the workforce as healthy as possible, SUNY Downstate is having both its emergency department and inpatient units rotate staff and work in waves.

“It’s taxing both physically and emotionally to work on this unit,” said Dr. Ninfa Mehta, ultrasound fellowship director at SUNY Downstate.

The rotation also allows medical professionals to keep their protective gear on as they treat Covid-19 patients, though the health system does not yet have a shortage of personal protective gear, said Dr. Pia Daniel, clinical assistant professor of emergency preparedness.

The doctors said their biggest concern is reaching capacity and having enough ventilators for their patients. The system has about two dozen confirmed cases and patients under investigation.

“We’re expecting a surge of really sick patients and making sure that we have enough critical care beds for those,” Daniel said.

In a sudden turn of events, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has finally decided to close some popular beaches via an announcement to spring breakers that “the party is over.” After footage of Florida spring breakers ignoring calls to practice social distancing went viral, the governor finally decided to take action to end spring break festivities. DeSantis told reporters that his message for spring breakers is that they will not “be able to congregate on any beach in the state [...] for the time being.”

On Tuesday, the governor banned large gatherings, closed bars and nightclubs for 30 days, and ordered restaurants to cut their seating capacity in half. However, he refused to acknowledge crowds at beaches, claiming that “massive crowds” were not present at the shores, despite images showing otherwise. Local government officials, including the mayors of Miami Beach and Fort Lauderdale, took matters into their own hands and issued orders to close those cities’ beaches this past weekend.

Referring to the photos of spring breakers, DeSantis told Fox and Friends that some of the images may have been of people who came to the state prior to the epidemic, and claimed that tourism has decreased. “The bars are closed so you’re not going to have a place to congregate there, so we would just tell those folks maybe come back next year when things are better, but that is not what we’re looking for here in the state of Florida,” he continued. “Every single beach will have to abide by the CDC guidelines, no more than 10 people, you have to be socially distant, not every beach is going to remain open, but some will.”

College students seem to think they are immune to the virus in footage shown by local media. "If I get corona, I get corona. At the end of the day, I'm not gonna let it stop me from partying," Brady Sluder, a spring breaker, told Reuters."We're just out here having a good time. Whatever happens, happens." The widespread condemnation and outrage of images and video footage of young adults partying in the state despite the pandemic has prompted DeSantis to finally speak up. "Regardless of local decisions, you're not going to be able to congregate like those images that you saw," DeSantis said Thursday.

Over 300 people in Florida have tested positive for COVID-19 since Wednesday, and eight Florida residents have died, according to the state's department of health. Crowds of young people on beaches have been one of the biggest concerns for Florida residents. “These kids are asymptomatic,” said Bruce L. Boros, who owns three urgent care facilities in Florida. “They are not going to cancel spring break. They are going to come down here, drink beer and have fun. We have pretty much done ourselves in.”

While many young people believe they are immune to COVID-19 and that the virus only affects the “elderly,” a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) shows that up to 20% of patients hospitalized with coronavirus are between the ages of 20 and 44. Daily Kos reported that studies show the coronavirus may have spread more quickly in Italy due to young people going about their daily life, avoiding social distancing under the impression that they were less likely to become infected than others. “According to this study, this initial lack of social distancing from crowds, particularly in cities, and then going home to see older family members in more rural or isolated areas may be partially to blame for the illness accelerating in Italy to the degree that it has,” Daily Kos reported.

It is essential to remember that whether or not you are vulnerable to contracting the virus, you do have the ability to spread it. Social distancing slows the transmission of the virus and makes it less likely to spread from one person to another. Health experts are not telling individuals to stay home forever, but are encouraging people to avoid public gatherings to help slow down the spread of the pandemic. While it’s disappointing to temporarily cancel or postpone plans, think of how many lives, including your own, you could possibly save.

In a tragic turn of events, a 34-year-old California man died March 19 after being admitted to the ER less than a week earlier, becoming one of the youngest victims of the coronavirus. Jeffrey Ghazarian visited Walt Disney World and Universal Studios in Florida two weeks ago, his family told TMZ. He spent five days on a ventilator after testing positive for COVID-19 just days after returning from his trip.

According to Ghazarian’s family, he flew from Los Angeles to Orlando on March 2 to attend a work conference, then extended his trip to visit the popular theme parks. On March 7, he developed a cough; Ghazarian flew back to Los Angeles two days later and immediately went to the hospital, his family said. An X-ray found Ghazarian had pneumonia. He was then tested for COVID-19 and told to self-quarantine until his results were available.

His family told TMZ that results came back positive on March 13 and Ghazarian was provided a portable oxygen meter. He was taken by ambulance to the hospital on March 14 as his condition worsened, and quickly transferred to the ICU. The hospital found that approximately 70% of Ghazarian’s lungs were blocked with pneumonia. As a result, the doctors put Ghazarian on a ventilator in order to help his lungs heal. According to his family, Ghazarian was approved for antiviral medication, but it was never administered. "He suffered a lot and put up a good fight. We will miss our Jeff every day but we are thankful for all the fun happy memories of the times we had together,” his sister told TMZ.

While Ghazarian reportedly had a history of asthma and frequent childhood bronchitis, making him more vulnerable to the virus, his story highlights the horrific reality COVID-19 has created for many families nationwide. This news comes at a time when a new federal report shows that 20% of patients hospitalized with coronavirus are between the ages of 20 and 44. Prior to this report released Wednesday, many young people assumed they could only be carriers and were not at risk of COVID-19, and that only the elderly and immunocompromised lives were at stake.

Images of a crowded Disney World went viral on March 15 following a recommendation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to avoid gatherings of 50 or more people. The evening of the recommendation, hundreds of people watched Disney’s “Happily Ever After” fireworks show at the park. Disney sites and social media accounts proudly shared the images of large crowds even as health experts urged people to practice social distancing to stop the spread of COVID-19.

Keeping theme parks open and hosting such a large event in the midst of a pandemic was very irresponsible, as both visitors and park employees were put at risk. With the number of people who attend the parks on a daily basis, Disney should have shut down prior to Monday as news of the coronavirus outbreak spread. While both Disney World and Universal Studios closed that night until March 31, one can only hope that others were not impacted by the virus prior to the parks closing.

See the crowds at Disney on March 15:

While Donald Trump was busy downplaying concerns about the coronavirus, saying it was under control and even dismissing it as a “hoax,” U.S. intelligence agencies were warning him of just the opposite.

“Donald Trump may not have been expecting this, but a lot of other people in the government were — they just couldn’t get him to do anything about it,” one official told the Washington Post, for a bombshell report published Friday night. “The system was blinking red.”

From WaPo: U.S. intelligence agencies were issuing ominous, classified warnings in January and February about the global danger posed by the coronavirus while President Trump and lawmakers played down the threat and failed to take action that might have slowed the spread of the pathogen, according to U.S. officials familiar with spy agency reporting. The intelligence reports didn’t predict when the virus might land on U.S. shores or recommend particular steps that public health officials should take, issues outside the purview of the intelligence agencies. But they did track the spread of the virus in China, and later in other countries, and warned that Chinese officials appeared to be minimizing the severity of the outbreak. Taken together, the reports and warnings painted an early picture of a virus that showed the characteristics of a globe-encircling pandemic that could require governments to take swift actions to contain it. But despite that constant flow of reporting, Trump continued publicly and privately to play down the threat the virus posed to Americans.

Watch a timeline of Trump’s response to the coronavirus below.

As Trump pivots to coronavirus crisis mode, let’s not forget the months of downplaying and denial. pic.twitter.com/gH1xZAHXm5

— The Recount (@therecount) March 17, 2020

The post U.S. Intelligence Agencies Warned of Deadly Pandemic in January, But Trump Ignored Them: Report appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.

Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) talks with reporters in the Capitol after the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump adjourned for the day on Monday, February 3, 2020. | Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

As the economy slides toward a recession, some senators have already sold their stocks.

Multiple US senators are coming under fire for selling off their personal stocks before the coronavirus outbreak cratered the stock market, prompting questions about what they knew — and when.

Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) is under particular scrutiny, after the Center for Responsive Politics and ProPublica reported he sold between $628,000 and $1.7 million of his holdings in mid-February. That’s spurred questions about whether Burr, as the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, was acting on classified information about the coming coronavirus threat (something he vehemently denies).

But Burr isn’t the only one feeling the heat. Per her financial disclosures, Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) reported selling millions in stock she jointly owned with her husband (who is the president of the New York Stock Exchange) in January. And one new acquisition in Loeffler’s portfolio raised eyebrows: stock in a teleworking company called Citrix, according to the Daily Beast, which broke that story.

Both Burr and Loeffler are adamant they did not engage in insider trading, the buying or selling of stocks based on private or classified inside information. And two other senators — Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Jim Inhofe (R-OK) — who reported large trades around the same time also say the sales were unrelated to coronavirus.

There’s a long history of lawmakers profiting off stock trades, possibly from information they gleaned from their roles in Congress. So much so that Congress passed the Stock Act in 2012, which spelled out that lawmakers were expressly prohibited from insider trading and gave the House and Senate ethics committees the ability to implement new ethics rules. At least one lawmaker has received jail time in recent years over insider trading charges.

The reason these disclosures are getting so much attention now is that it’s happening at a particularly tense time: The stock market is in free fall, the economy appears headed for a steep recession, and thousands of Americans are getting laid off.

Even if senators are not technically engaged in illegal activity, selling off hundreds of thousands or millions of personal stock right before the stock market craters is not a good look as many Americans scramble to figure out how they will pay for rent or groceries.

What we know about the reported trades

Reports about Burr and Loeffler stock sell-offs landed one after the other Thursday night.

For Burr, the sudden sell-off of his personal stocks came on February 13 — when he dumped holdings worth between $628,000 and $1.7 million in 33 separate transactions, per recent financial disclosures with the Senate. Burr’s personal financial activity came days after he publicly projected confidence about the US response to the coronavirus, and around the same time as his committee was receiving daily briefings about the worldwide spread of the virus, according to a Reuters report.

For Loeffler, the sell-off of between $1.3 million and $3.1 million worth of stock she owned with her husband came starting on January 24, the same day the Senate Health Committee hosted an all-members briefing on the coronavirus (Loeffler sits on the committee). Loeffler’s husband, Jeffrey Sprecher, is the chair of the New York Stock Exchange.

Burr’s spokesperson told ProPublica that he “has been deeply concerned by the steep and sudden toll this pandemic is taking on our economy” while defending the transactions:

“Senator Burr filed a financial disclosure form for personal transactions made several weeks before the U.S. and financial markets showed signs of volatility due to the growing coronavirus outbreak,” his spokesperson said.

Burr tweeted that he “relied solely on public news reports to guide my decision” to sell his stocks.

Loeffler also pushed back in a statement on Twitter, saying she doesn’t have a hand in investment decisions for her portfolio and was informed of the stock sale two weeks after it happened.

Financial disclosures show other senators and their families sold stock around the same time. Inhofe, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, sold up to $750,000 worth of stock, saying it was related to a “continuing divestiture plan.” And Feinstein, the ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, reported a stock sell-off in the millions, which she said was made by her husband.

“Under Senate rules I report my husband’s financial transactions,” Feinstein said in a statement. “I have no input into his decisions. My husband in January and February sold shares of a cancer therapy company. This company is unrelated to any work on the coronavirus and the sale was unrelated to the situation.”

Members of Congress are privy to information the rest of us are typically not. They are expressly not supposed to use that information for personal gain. But insider trading allegations can be extremely complicated and cases difficult to prosecute, one expert told Vox.

“The line between illegal trading and innocuous trading is not bright — it’s often a murky line,” said Robert Long, a former senior attorney at the US Securities and Exchange Commission. “Subtle facts and legal issues can make the difference between having an insider trading investigation closed and being prosecuted and going to jail.”

At Burr’s request, his case will be looked into by the Senate Ethics Committee. It’s unclear whether it will get any more increased scrutiny, or a criminal investigation.

What the law says about insider trading — and what some lawmakers want to do to strengthen it

Members of Congress are bound by the Stock Act, which prohibits members of Congress from insider trading.

The bipartisan act was signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2012, after it became clear some members of Congress were using the classified information they were getting in briefings to get personally wealthy. Burr was one of just three senators at the time to vote against it.

“Any insider trading investigation involving the Stock Act will likely focus on did the member of Congress obtain ‘material’ ‘non-public’ information during the course of his or her official duties, did the member place the trades or cause the trades to be placed, or, alternatively, were the trades done through a blind trust with zero involvement by the member,” Long told Vox.

As the Atlantic’s Annie Lowrey wrote recently, there was plenty of evidence that members of Congress were profiting on stock trades in the early 2000s, before the bill was passed:

One analysis of 61,998 stock trades made between 2004 and 2010, for instance, showed that politicians outperformed the market by 20 percent, with the portfolios of high-ranking Republicans beating the market by a whopping 35 percent.

Initially, the Stock Act had two major provisions. In addition to banning insider trading, it also beefed up transparency rules designed to require financial disclosures be posted online in searchable databases.

But just as the Stock Act was signed into law with lots of pomp and circumstance in April 2012, it was quietly defanged — with the searchable financial disclosures stripped out — about a year later. Members of Congress quietly passed that bill by unanimous consent, and Obama signed it into law.

Former Rep. Chris Collins (R-NY) pleaded guilty to insider trading last year and was sentenced to 26 months in prison. Collins actively encouraged family members and friends to buy stock in an Australian drug company after receiving inside information on it. And other former members of Congress, including former Georgia Congress member and Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, have been accused of it. But as Long noted, prosecuting lawmakers is often difficult.

Now some Democratic lawmakers want to go a step further and ban lawmakers from owning individual stocks altogether. That’s what Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) proposed when she introduced a wide-ranging anti-corruption bill back in 2018.

“Enough of the spectacle of HHS secretaries and herds of congressmen caught up in insider trading schemes,” Warren said at a National Press Club speech in 2018 unveiling her legislation. “They can put their savings in conflict-free investments like mutual funds, or they can pick a different line of work.”

While House Democrats’ massive anti-corruption bill HR 1 also has some provisions tightening conflict of interest rules, it doesn’t go quite as far as Warren’s bill does. While HR 1 says no member should use their official position to introduce or pass legislation to further their own monetary interests, it doesn’t explicitly mention insider trading:

No Member, officer, or employee of a committee or Member of either House of Congress may knowingly use his or her official position to introduce or aid the progress or passage of legislation, a principal purpose of which is to further only his or her pecuniary interest, only the pecuniary interest of his or her immediate family, or only the pecuniary interest of a limited class of persons or enterprises, when he or she, or his or her immediate family, or enterprises controlled by them, are members of the affected class.

Warren wants to ban it outright — and after the fresh outrage surrounding Burr and other senators selling off stocks as millions of Americans prepare for the effects of a financial crisis, her bill could get a new look.

“We have laws to prevent insider trading, but members of Congress are inherently insiders,” Warren said in a recent interview. “So why should we let members of Congress trade individual stocks in the first place?”

Unemployment is skyrocketing as entire industries shut down or scale back dramatically in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Unemployment claims rose 30% last week, with 281,000 newly jobless people filing for unemployment insurance. But the numbers that are still to come are going to be much worse. How much worse? Well, the Labor Department is asking states not to give any numbers until the official report comes out, because the financial markets will see and it will be bad.

On Wednesday, the Labor Department’s administrator of the Office of Employment Insurance (a career official, not a political appointee) sent state officials an email telling them to “provide information using generalities to describe claims levels (very high, large increase).” Perhaps state officials should pay a visit to Thesaurus.com for some help, and tell the public, “We can’t give you exact numbers here, but there has been an enormous/giant/gigantic/hefty/huge increase in unemployment claims this week. For exact numbers, wait until the federal government releases them next week.” That will surely ease anxieties!

Washington state’s new unemployment claims rose by 150% last week—and while officials there aren’t giving numbers, they did say there’s an “even more dramatic increase this week.” In Pennsylvania, a state labor official told lawmakers and union leaders that there had been 180,000 new unemployment claims in recent days. That’s more than the state typically sees in a month.

It sounds like we might need to go back to the thesaurus to convey the magnitude of the job losses going on. How about gargantuan? Immense? Massive?

Or maybe—here’s a thought—numbers. Waiting until Thursday to know the scope of the economic crisis is not going to calm anyone down. We saw that when Donald Trump attempted to downplay the coronavirus crisis because he was worried about how the markets would respond, and the markets tanked anyway. Everyone knows things are really, really, really bad out there. Knowing that the government is being transparent would at least be one piece of good news.

You’re probably feeling a range of emotions these days. It helps if you can express them. This emotional word wheel by Geoffrey Roberts might help:

I work with people who have limited emotional vocabulary and as a result the intensity of their negative emotions and experiences is heightened because they can’t describe their feelings (especially their negative feelings). That’s why this list is heavily focused on negative emotions/ experiences. Being able to clearly identify how we are feeling has been shown to reduce this intensity of experience because it re-engages our rational mind.

Tags: emotion, Geoffrey Roberts, words