Details and loose ends of the covid disaster

This is a mishmash of links related to covid-19. Like this one, zerohedge declare that Bill Gates planned this hoax. The virus is real, but the warning of carnage are hype meant to control the populace.

3M is exporting masks when the US doesn't have enough. Terrible but with a good explanation. It may be the main or only supplier to other countries that need masks too.

The conservative site Washington Examiner says that Trump is right to focus on reopening the economy. Maybe, but they also claim that he was thwarted from this task by 'collusion of the public health network, both political parties, and the media.' Clueless! Tin-foil hat theories of collusion with no realistic understanding of this disease's spread. This is a more serious report about the goal of the Trump administration to reopen. Trump may feel that it's necessary to his prospect of winning that the economy is in good shape again, but the virus may ruin those plans, and Trump won't be able to get around that.

A cogent analysis of Trump's attempts to grab the headlines. That's still the most important outcome to Trump, the huge egotist. And unable to handle criticism. Hopefully this is the last addition to this short list of people criticizing Trump for his egotism during this crisis. This time it's mild criticism from other Republicans. For a broader view of how Trump handled the beginnings of this crisis, see this article and this one.

What happens when non-experts drown out the experts: we have Trump touting a drug (based on an adviser's beliefs), that then gets bought up and creates shortages for the people who need it.

Slices from the crisis in New York. The field hospital set up at the Javits Center, the hospital ship, and protective clothing and masks being manufactured right in the vicinity. One sick person pushes another sick person, causing a fall and subsequent death. Not unforeseeable in crowded, chaotic conditions. Perhaps New York is over the hump of admissions, but the death toll drops much later.

Another concern. Covid is striking minority communities harder. Why?

Fallout from Wisconsin being unable to delay it primary due to inaction on the part of Republican legislators: many mail-in ballots won't be counted. Yes, the Republicans are looking like power-hungry charlatans, but that's what some people want. Lip service to fairness is ok, but the GOP needs to maintain its power (my interpretation). The country will need to consider how to run elections if this pandemic continues, but the GOP will be keeping an eye on what helps them electorally.

I intensely dislike that lying jerk Alex Jones and his conspiracy factory. He is at it again, this time with a mouthwash that protects you from covid-19. More ugh from a Florida police chief who connected a covid-19 death of a deputy to homosexuality in a long rant to other deputies.

A brouhaha over Dr. Fauci stating the obvious--that earlier distancing measures would have saves lives. Trump got petulant and retweeted someone who called for #FireFauci. But that could have been partly to stir the pot and capture eyeballs yet again. Scientists also warn that cheap easy immunity tests may not be coming soon. That's bad news for workers

Close to my home. The Soldiers Home in Holyoke had a growing problem with covid-19 and a director who didn't do anything about it, and didn't seek help. It spread through the workforce and the residents. Who knows how many will be dead when it's all done? So far about 20 residents but there's no reason to think that will be all. More local news.

Image: propublica.org

Extras and updates added free-form. It's worth seeing how CNN fact-checks Trump. How fair are they?

A nursing home in New Jersey handled its outbreak by stacking the bodies in its morgue and not telling state authorities. A short-term solution, not long-term.

Nurses suspended from their jobs for refusing to care for covid patients if they weren't given safety equipment. For workplaces have a safety first ethos where you're not supposed to put yourself into harm's way. I support that.

Important picture. Bodies laid out in a refrigerated trailer in New York City.

Image: talentrecap.com

Hotspots---------

South Dakota has a large cluster based around a large meat processing plant. Because there was a partial voluntary social distancing, the state government thinks it's in good shape to handle the cluster. Other meat processing operations are also having problems. Also other food processing operations.

Bus drivers are dying at higher rates, though not everywhere.

Lots of elderly are dying in Sweden. It seems like it was planned not to provide protective equipment to workers in elder care facilities. Or at least the lack of equipment didn't change in response to all the information blasting around the world.

In the US, longterm care facilities are sitting ducks. They don't have enough protective equipment, the right kinds of protective equipment, the extra personnel or time for gowning, and a population in close quarters that is ideal for spread. Lots of older people are dying in nursing homes (see New Jersey item above), including in my state, Massachusetts. Here's a report from Illinois, but it's going to be the same everywhere. There is at least one law firm ready to sue if Grandma died. Never mind that this is very tough to protect residents from. A reasonable list of precautions from a different law firm, but based on my experience, it's not enough. I'm very worried that the court cases after this epidemic are going to be a clusterfuck. And... New York fucks over nursing homes by requiring them to take covid patients. Yes, recovering covid patients need rehab, which nursing homes normally do. However, they are ill equipped to do the necessary separation, so separate facilities should have been set up. Cuomo screwed this one up. Let me emphasize that: SEPARATE FACILITIES. A long article about many facilities and the problems with staffing that they faced even before the virus hit. Reference materials for Massachusetts and the US as a whole.

Related: The lieutenant governor of Texas defends his view that grandparents would happily die to keep the economy going. I disagree that the choice was that clear or easy. Many people 50 and younger are getting sick too, and that's very disruptive to workplaces.

Also related: Another long term institution with crowding and vulnerable people: prisons. I support somewhat early release for those nearing the end of their sentences, but not releases in general. Criminals are imprisoned for the reason that they are a possible danger to society, and also because they are sserving time earned by their criminal actions. Those issues don't disappear because there's an epidemic.

Covid-19 is a weird virus with unexpected behavior, including causing clots and strokes in youthful adults.

One of the important turning points was when Trump started talking about potential deaths in a serious way. The first estimates that the administration released (when they got serious) was 100-200K deaths. That was revised down to 60K deaths by Aug. 4. Instead we passed the 60K mark on April 29.

A shooting/killing with racial overtones happened in February, but complications and covid has delayed the investigation and arrests. Also perhaps because it as a white-on-black shooting with a connection to law enforcement. Video has energized the issue, but it shows the very worrisome effects of covid-19 on fair and reasonable application of the laws. I hope this won't be an opening for backsliding in bad old habits of discrimination. (Not that discrimination in law enforcement has been eliminated.)

No, Bill Gates, don't give China a pass on what they did wrong, especially the coverups and misinformation.

Rats are suffering and getting desperate since restaurant garbage isn't available.

A church that defied social distancing norms was burned down in an arson incident. Congregants had been aggressive, even staging a mass gathering at a Walmart.

A third case of conservative distortion: The Attorney General

Benjamin Wittes, who writes for Lawfare and lately also for The Atlantic, rakes Bill Barr (the new Attorney General) over the coals. Barr is the successor to Trump's previous punching bag, Jeff Sessions. Incidentally, maybe no cabinet officer received such shabby treatment as did Sessions.

Wittes' complaint is that Barr misrepresents what Mueller's meticulous investigation found. A more concise version is also available from the New York Times. Both are worth reading. The NYT version has direct comparison of Barr's statements versus what Mueller reported. It's quite scathing, even though the author doesn't call Barr a liar. The author does highlight phrases from Mueller, and shows how Barr distorted them. Barr did it so shamelessly that he comes out looking horrible.

Wittes' takedown is more complete, pointing out precisely the twists and turns in Barr's distortions. For example, Wittes shows how Barr claims there was no collusion, when in fact Mueller found evidence of interactions between Russia and Trump's campaign. How is that nothing? Because there wasn't enough evidence to make charges with confidence of a conviction.

The conservative site Washington Examiner methodically rips Barr apart. Or moreso, it rips apart the idea that Trump should be the judge of whether he is being investigated unfairly:

"No man, not even the president, should be allowed to adjudge his own case... The very notion of such power runs counter to the entire basis of America’s constitutionally limited government... "

That is a simple, elegant explanation. Even the president has to allow an investigation to go forth. It's not for him to declare his innocence and shut down the process.

McGahn, the White House counsel during much of the investigation, is quite a contrast to Barr. He would push back against Trump, refused to fire Mueller, gave 30 hours of testimony to Mueller if I remember correctly. He also consulted with his chief of staff, who made written notes of McGahn's meetings with Trump. It sounds as though Trump didn't want notes taken, which hampers clear instructions and the ability to review what's been decided. McGahn has been subpoenaed to testify before Congress. I certainly hope he does. I'd like to hear some of what Mueller's investigators heard, directly from the source. But McGahn may not be willing to discuss private and privileged conversations. 

Image: foxnews.com

Extras. Reviewing how the Congressional response when Mueller was appointed from three sources (one, two, three). More wrangling over the Mueller report, this time by the lawyers for Roger Stone. They are trying to say "No collusion, so there was no cover-up, and obviously no lying to Congress." But maybe there was lying to Congress, and maybe some cover-up, and perhaps a wisp of collusion.

Update 6/7/19. Another good article showing precisely what the lies are.

Conservative media lies again

No big surprise. There's a splashy headline and then other assorted (and sordid) lies. This time it's the Washington Examiner. Here's the headline:

Details on Bill Clinton's ride on pedophile's 'Lolita Express' sought

Here's another probable lie:

According to news reports, the former president took several flights on the jet to the Epstein's island, and at least on one was accompanied by "4 secret service," according to a flight logbook first reported on by Gawker.com.

Amazingly, there's actually a link to a different story, this time at Gawker. However, the Gawker story makes no claims that Bill Clinton flew to Epstein's island. Instead, the plane was used on a "week-long anti-poverty and anti-AIDS tour of Africa." More important is the link from the Gawker article to actual flight logs.

If you check out the flight logs, as I did and the reporters at Gawker did, you don't find anything about Clinton going to some private island--only airports like those in Hong Kong, Portugal, Mozambique, Miami, and White Plains. So it looks like the Washington Examiner claimed something for which it had absolutely no evidence--in other words, THEY LIED. Well, surprise, surprise. I'll put this in the vault next to the conservative media lying about Shirley Sherrod, where Obama was born, and the millions of other lies they disseminate like plague.

Image: gawker.com

Update 7/9/16. This isn't about the Epstein Lolita Perv Island lie, but a new, different lie. As usual, I read about the issue in a throw-away comment from a conservative troll. Supposedly, a gun that was run down to Mexico in the Fast and Furious scandal was used in the Paris massacres. Except that the source information doesn't say that at all. One of the guns used in Paris was traced to a dealer in Phoenix who might have been involved in Fast and Furious though there is no direct evidence that this is true. Well, the conservative lie machine can't let that stop them, can they? Of course not.

Update 12/29/17. The Washington Examiner, that rag that pretends it's a news site, had an editorial about accuracy in reporting. Hahahahaha. Unfortunately, no comment thread where I can blast them.

Update 7/9/19. Jeffery Epstein is now facing the charges on trafficking underage girls. Bill Clinton hasn't been named in charges and neither has Trump. However, speculation abounds. The Miami Herald has been following it most closely, but there's this interesting piece from Vanity Fair. And a brilliant takedown of one of the prosecutors lame explanations. How to stop the spin cold!

Update 7/13/19. Many connected to the case and the sweetheart deal are now under scrutiny.

I've had the link to the flight logs in the post forever. I've checked where Clinton went, and it wasn't St. Thomas or the Virgin Islands. The airport code there is TIST, which is important to know.