"That ain't nuthin'" by Chip ProserYesterday, at a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing, Dr. Fauci responded to a question from Elizabeth Warren about how out of control the pandemic is becoming in the U.S. by saying that he "can't make an accurate prediction, but it is going to be very disturbing.
As Chris Cilliza noted for CNN, Señor Trumpanzee has been suggesting the coronavirus is under control for 156 days now, starting with an interview on January 22 in Davos when he said "We have it totally under control. It's one person coming in from China, and we have it under control.
38,386 new cases today-- you running from that, Pig Man?Yesterday saw a horrifying new high in cases in states across the country thanks to Trump and, in most cases, the foolish governors (and idiot citizens) who echo-ed his ignorant pronouncements about COVID-19. From the beginning, Trump refused to take the pandemic seriously, which s why the U.S. has been hit so much harder than any country in the world.
Kristian Right by Nancy OhanianAfter Trump attempted to label COVID-19 the "Chinese Flu" and then the "Wuhan Flu," he withdrew the U.S. from the World Health Organization in a snit and began pointing out that the worst hit areas were all Democratic-- New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Delaware, Rhode Island, Michigan...
An old friend of mine is a top academic at "the Harvard" of another western country. One of his colleagues is in charge of the pandemic medical response for the country. He told my friend that they really don't know as much about COVID as they need to know to combat it effectively. Nearly half a year in and they're still shooting in the dark! On top of that, even statistics are untrustworthy. China has probably been sharing fake stats for most of the time. Florida is worse and Texas may be as well.
Death Of A Salesman by Nancy OhanianAmericans so desperately want everything to go back to pre-pandemic normal that they're going to make the pandemic much worse. It's not a TV show with a happy ending; this reality could get a lot worse. In fact, it already is. There are still around 20,000 new confirmed cases in the U.S. everyday.
In his Bloomberg News column yesterday, Jonathan Bernstein noted that as America's upheaval mounts, Trump has no plan and recalled "The Ultimate Computer" episode from Star Trek (above) in which a rival captain calls Kirk "Captain Dunsel" after a fancy new computer takes control of the Enterprise, making Kirk superfluous; Spock explains that "dunsel" was cadet slang for "a part which serves no useful purpose.""This," wrote Bernstein, was "Donald Trump’s President Dunsel weekend.
Russia is battling it out with Brazil for the number 2 spot behind Trumpland for the most cases of COVID-19. Right now Brazil has taken the lead. Though the U.S. seems untouchable in the realm of caseloads-- blowing through the 1,700,000 make yesterday (with 19,790 new cases Sunday), Brazil has been steadily pulling away from Russia over the past few days.
You don't need to watch this whole long video. I have it started at a spot that explains how China has been able to successfully reopen businesses. That's the part that's important to listen to. There is a difference between opening up willy-nilly (the Texas and Florida model) and opening up safely (the China model). I left in a short intro by Chris Martenson, but the stuff about the epidemic prevention measures by the guy in the red shirt with the British or Australian accent-- at around the 7 minute mark-- is what we need to hear.
Polling has consistently shown that the vast majority of Americans-- e
