There are three governors who have been judged so dangerously incompetent that none can be singled out as the worst pandemic governor in America and all three share the spot: Kristi Noem of South Dakota, Ron DeSantis of Florida and Brian Kemp of Georgia. Because all have opposed sane social distancing policies, thousands of their states' citizens have been infected. California now has 865 confirmed COVID-19 cases per one million in the population. South Dakota-- compliments of Noem-- has 2,031 cases per million (up from 1,950 yesterday). Florida has 1,335 cases/million (up from 1,314 yesterday) and Georgia has 1,931 cases per million (up from 1,884). The governors of these three states have implemented policies that will absolutely steepen the curve instead of flatten it. It's as if Noem, DeSantis and Kemp were all homicidal maniacs intent on causing their own populations to become infected.As Georgia hurtles towards the 20,000 cases mark-- another 482 confirmed infections and 24 more deaths yesterday-- Kemp has decided to re-open restaurants, movie theaters, hair salons, barber shops, tattoo parlors and gyms as well as other businesses in his state. He's using Georgians as an experiment in curve-steepening (and as a test of Darwin's "survival of the fittest" law).Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms told ABC News that she's "extremely concerned about the announcement the governor made. I hope that he's right and I'm wrong because if he's wrong then more people will die." Watch her short interview above with CNN's Chris Cuomo yesterday. Cuomo mentioned that the curve seems to be starting to flatten in Atlanta. She noted that "If we're in a better position, it's because we have been aggressive in asking people to stay home... As I look at the data and as I talk with our public health officials, I don't see that it's based on anything logical."Even the crazy right-wing senator next door, Lindsey Graham (R-SC), is hissing that Kemp is opening up too much and too soon, worried that the contagion from Georgia will engulf his ownstate.Nabilah Islam, the hands down best of the dozen candidates running for the open 7th congressional district seat in the suburbs north of Atlanta, wasn't exactly thrilled with Kemp's latest stunt. "For someone who claims to be pro-life," she told me last night, "Kemp's decision to begin to reopening Georgia after only recently finding out that asymptomatic people can spread the novel Coronavirus is anything but. Governor Kemp was one of the last to issue a shelter in place and is one of the first to open. To no one's surprise, the businesses he's choosing to open first are traditionally minority-owned businesses-- barbershops, nail salons being predominantly owned by populations of the electorate that voted against him in 2018. He has no desire to protect lives. His only desire is profit as with the rest of the Republican Party. Putting people first is not on their list of prerogatives."Fiends of mine in Texas have asked me not to leave out their state, where the Governor is a complete dolt. True, but the Lt. Governor, Dan Patrick, has more power and is an even bigger dolt. He was on Fox's Tucker Carlson Tonight Monday babbling away like an imbecile that "there are more important things than living." Money.In at least one state, though, an increase in infections can't be blamed on the governor. Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, though hampered by a legislature firmly controlled by the Republican Party Death Cult, moved to flatten the curve with regulations and tried to prevent in-person voting. The legislature took the case in favor of infecting the citizens of the state to the state and national Supreme Court-- each controlled by the Republican Party Death Cult-- and each court, by narrow party-line votes, ruled in favor of the pandemic.The April 7 primary was on a day when infections were dropping because of social distancing policies (138 new cases that day, down from 173 new cases the day before). The governor's executive order helped bring the rate of infection down to just 87 new cases on April 12. A week after the forced in-person election, the infection rate began spiking-- back up to 166 per day. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that Milwaukee Health Commissioner Jeanette Kowalik has said that so far 7 new cases in the city have been traced to the forced election-- six voters and one poll worker.
"As you recall, there were people that were in line for a very long time to get their vote in, so if you figure out around a range of time when someone was there or in the polling sites or in the line, connect to someone who was an actual case, that's when we would do notifications," she said.Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett said about 3,500 voters came to each of the city's five voting sites and dozens of workers were there as well."This will tell you why we were so adamant about trying to not have this occur," he said, referring calls to cancel in-person voting.
!function(e,i,n,s){var t="InfogramEmbeds",d=e.getElementsByTagName("script")[0];if(window[t]&&window[t].initialized)window[t].process&&window[t].process();else if(!e.getElementById(n)){var o=e.createElement("script");o.async=1,o.id=n,o.src="https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js",d.parentNode.insertBefore(o,d)}}(document,0,"infogram-async");Yesterday, the Washington Post released a new poll it did in conjunction with the University of Maryland. Scott Clement and Dan Balz reported that the poll shows governors winning "praise across the political spectrum for their leadership, which has sometimes put them sharply at odds with Trump and his administration."I wish it broke that praise down by state. It's hard to imagine that incompetents like Kemp, Noem and DeSantis could be winning much praise for their pandemic skills. This seemed to be borne out by most Americans-- 54%-- giving Señor Trumpanzee negative marks for his handling of the pandemic. By contrast, 72 percent of Americans give positive ratings to the governors of their states for the way they have dealt with the crisis.
Personal health concerns are widespread, with 57 percent saying they are “very” or “somewhat” worried about becoming infected and seriously ill from the coronavirus, including at least 40 percent of people in every major demographic and political group. For those most concerned, the fear was enough to override partisanship when it comes to the safety of public gatherings, particularly for Republicans....[I]n contrast with that overt pressure to reopen the country, the poll finds a clear majority of Americans expect social distancing practices will be necessary until at least the beginning of the summer.Asked when people expect the outbreak to be controlled enough that people can safely attend gatherings of 10 or more people, just 10 percent predict such gatherings would be safe by the end of April or earlier, while another 21 percent expect them to be safe by the end of May. More than twice as many-- 65 percent-- say it may take until June or later for people to safely gather in groups of 10 or more.Partisans divide on this question, with 77 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents saying they expect public gatherings will not be safe until June or later, compared with 51 percent of Republicans and Republican leaners who say the same. Yet Republicans split depending on personal health concerns.Among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who are less worried about becoming infected and seriously ill from the coronavirus, 60 percent expect public gatherings will be safe by the end of May or earlier. But among Republicans who are at least somewhat concerned about becoming seriously sick, 66 percent say this will take until June, not far from the share of all Democrats who anticipate such a delay.Americans are also pessimistic about how quickly the economy will recover after the outbreak is under control. A 63 percent majority expect the economy will recover slowly, while 37 percent think it will recover quickly. Trump has predicted a rapid recovery once businesses reopen, and his optimism is shared by 55 percent of Republicans. Most independents and Democrats expect a slow recovery.In the meantime, Americans are actively taking part in measures meant to stem the spread of the virus. Most-- 65 percent-- report wearing a mask or a face covering when leaving home in the past week. Another 17 percent say they did not leave home at all. Democrats are more likely than Republicans to say they had worn a mask or not left home at all.
The Republican Party-- even at a grassroots level-- is a death cult and is driven towards steepening the curve. If 82% of Americans say they wear a mask in public or don't leave their houses at all, that still leaves almost 20% of the population willing to risk death, risk infecting their loved ones, risk keeping the pandemic growing. They are a real danger. I was happy this week to see Louisiana psychopath-pastor Tony Spell arrested again. Hopefully this time they'll throw away the key instead of letting him out like they did last time. Unlike earlier reports that said he was arrested for encouraging large gatherings at his church so he could continue to fleece his flock, the money-hungry right-wing pastor was actually arrested for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for attempting to back a bus into a protester.
