Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

“More of this”, i said to the dog.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

After roe, women are no longer free.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

Americans barely caring about Afghanistan is so last month.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

All your base are belong to Tunch.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

In my day, never was longer.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 Coronavirus / Trump the Killer

Trump the Killer

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Andrew Cuomo’s briefing today, which is still going on as I’m writing this, is grim. There was no joking around, no daughter present, no smiling. He’s pleading with the federal government to do something. Our apex – peak cases – will be happening in 14-21 days. It will be more than our current hospital capacity can handle. We need ventilators and the federal government has done next to nothing. We need 30,000 ventilators. There are 20,000 ventilators in the whole federal stockpile. FEMA sent New York 400. Cuomo wants the Defense Production Act to be invoked immediately to compel manufacturers to start making ventilators. He ridiculed the notion that companies are going to volunteer to do this, and pointed out that the Defense Production Act guarantees that the government will buy ventilators that it requisitions.

He addressed Trump’s ridiculous, early concentration on the economy with two points. First, no American wants to kill people to get the economy restarted. “My mother is not expendable, your mother is not expendable. We are not going to accept a premise that human life is expendable.” Second, the way to get the economy restarted is to develop a test to find the 80% of the population that will clear the virus, and presumably be immune, and send them back to work.

Finally, he offered that after New York was past its apex, he would send ventilators, and healthcare workers, to states that need them.

It’s hard to understate how many people Trump’s inaction and incompetence will kill, and Cuomo clearly recognized that today.

Reader Interactions

133Comments

  3. 3.

    Elizabelle

    Cuomo’s biggest audience is probably the dunderheads in the Trump administration.  Azar — you got name-checked.  He pointed out that your agency’s (HHS’s) first word is HEALTH.

    I hope Jared watches this stuff.

  4. 4.

    BobS

    This will be a little easier to weather if you just consider my advice- anyone planning on having a heart attack, stroke, kidney failure, fall (especially if you’re on an anticoagulant), bad car accident, etc- just postpone until after the hospitals aren’t overflowing with COVID-19 patients.
    Hope that helped.

  5. 5.

    cain

    also, aren’t a lot of wall st bankers and the like live in New York? By opening it up, these folks are all exposed. When a bunch of wall st executives start dying I’m sure that will change Trump’s mind too. :P

  6. 6.

    Elizabelle

    MisterMix:  maybe change the blogpost title to Trump the Murderer?

    Because he might smile at being called a “Killer.”  It has its positive connotations, to some.  Even used as a compliment in some senses.  Killer app, killer style, etc.

  8. 8.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    “My mother is not expendable, your mother is not expendable. We are not going to accept a premise that human life is expendable.”

    But this sort of empathetic thinking runs counter to the sage wisdom of the bean counters who decided that Ford could absorb some losses due to litigation over exploding gas tanks in Pintos, when it would have cost them X dollars more to simply make them a bit more safely….

  9. 9.

    BobS

    @cain: By now, most of them have probably left NYC and they’re at their second or third houses in the Hamptons, Aspen, Sedona, etc.

    The really successful ones brought medical staff and ventilators with them.

  10. 10.

    Brachiator

    It’s sad. We learned about the Spanish Flu in school, mainly about how deadly it was and how modern medicine has helped us deal with the modern flu.

    But we didn’t really learn as much about how that pandemic was made worse by the stupidity of some of our leaders.

    And now Trump is repeating the same tragic mistakes.

    ETA. The UK is trying to lock down. But there are stories about people insisting on going out on walks with their loved ones for Mother’s Day. Lots of crowds and little social distance.

  11. 11.

    catclub

    @Brachiator: insisting on going out on walks with their loved ones for Mother’s Day

     

    1) Is Mother’s day in march in England?

    2)Will they rename it kill mothers day?

  12. 12.

    lgerard

    @Brachiator:

    We learned about the Spanish Flu in school

    The one thing I remember was that the second wave, after everyone had relaxed a bit, was far worse then the first.i

  13. 13.

    Hummus Where The Heart Is

     

    @raven:

    He come dancin across the water mon. . .

    With his gals and (hamberder) buns….

    Time to send in the State Police and take over Trump Towers for a hospital and shelter.

  14. 14.

    Mike in DC

    COVID-19 gets a vote, possibly a veto, regarding what happens next.   We will have a six digit case count and four digit death toll by next Monday when this 15 day “campaign” ends.

  15. 15.

    cain

    @BobS:

    There is no escape from the virus, and by opening up the country all the infected poors will be amongst them. Plus the hamptons according to the NYT doesn’t have the infrastructure to deal with a lot of COVID cases. They are actually more fucked going there.

    Also some of these people dont’ give a shit about being sick, they feel entitled to get the care anywhere they go.

  16. 16.

    West of the Rockies

    I am prone sometimes to Picardesque optimism and am thinking that if some company, say Tesla, decided to churn out 100,000 ventilators, they would receive a LOT of warm public opinion.

  17. 17.

    dmsilev

    @cain: They’re running off to the Hamptons and Nantucket and so forth. All of which are lightly year-round populated places with minimal or no advanced hospital capability (since, in normal times, it’s straightforward to airlift someone to NYC or Boston). Wall Street excels at short term thinking…

  18. 18.

    Nicole

    Good for Cuomo, and props to how passionately he said seniors’ lives are worth more than the economy, but man, could he and Biden maybe, MAYBE touch base about when they’re planning to appear before the media?  He started a half hour earlier than usual today, and ran almost exactly one hour, which, coincidentally, completely preempted Biden’s appearance on The View, so no one in NYC could see it.

    I know I can see it later, and as an NYC’er Cuomo’s presser was more important, but this is two days in a row now.  I can really stand to see all the examples of competent leadership I can get, thanks.

  19. 19.

    Betty Cracker

    Hillary Clinton is straight-up trolling Trump now, and I am so here for it:

  20. 20.

    Baud

    @Betty Cracker:

    Haha.

    If I were more religious, I’d posit that the Old Testament God is smiting this country for the way it chose the Golden Calf Jackass over her.

  23. 23.

    Feathers

    The Texas Lt Gov reminded of Belle Waring’s coinage of “Donner Party Conservatism.”  It’s about how the immorality of so many conservative claims get hidden via what are largely aesthetic claims, aka we must allow grandparents to sacrifice themselves. She is analyzing a 1992 book by David Frum:

    Exactly how is this Frum? You don’t drive west through the snowy mountains in covered wagons, gee-yawing a hundred head of cattle. You rent a U-Haul and follow the interstate highway system (thank you, federal government!) Likewise, the welfare state is a machine. It exists. If it were abolished, it would still exist in potentia. It can be built. A number of versions of it exist around the world today. There are reasons not to use a great many of these, since they have a demonstrated tendency to guzzle economic efficiency. And a number of them are just disagreeably interfering, perhaps. On the other hand, it seems that the majority of the voters prefer some sort of safety net to none. They don’t want to shoulder 10-12 feet of snow worth of risk themselves. And a machine exists to shoulder that risk. Are we going to use the machine or not? Damn straight we will! So the argument is reduced to: cost-benefit analysis, and weighing of diverse preferences and degrees of risk-aversion, so forth. There are a lot of technical questions and doubts, and serious arguments about people’s values to be had and hammered away at and ultimately voted up or down. Meanwhile Frum is clean out in the cold. He doesn’t disapprove of the welfare state on economic grounds, so he will not be a participant in these rational debates about costs and benefits. He wants to abolish the welfare state on pretty-pretty arty crafty aesthetic grounds. (Stretching a point, these might be moral grounds. But they are largely aesthetic, I think.)

    This is a highly verbose blog post from 2003, for those who remember the style back then. Conservativism valorizes self sacrifice, which thus leads to creating situations which demand it:

    What will the bumper-stickers say? “It’s the economy, stupid! We need to bury it under ten to twelve feet of snow so that we will be forced to cannibalize the dead and generally be objects of moral edification to future generations.”

    Sigh. We really do need to frame this that they see killing old people as a good thing. What’s the joke about Cheney dreaming of cannibalism the moment the first snowflakes fall?

  24. 24.

    patrick II

    First, no American wants to kill people to get the economy restarted.

    Wrong. For example (one of many):

    Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick said that he’s willing to bet there’s plenty of senior citizens in America who would be willing to risk contracting COVID-19 if it meant getting the economy back on track.

    You haven’t been paying enough attention to libertarians on twitter.

  25. 25.

    Brachiator

    @catclub:

    In the UK, the date is linked to Easter, which is different each year as it is determined by the lunar calendar.

    The UK’s Mother’s Day always falls on the fourth Sunday during the period of Lent, when people typically give up things like certain foods or bad habits for the days leading up to Easter.

    March 22 this year.

  26. 26.

    Hummus Where The Heart Is

    How is this going to work (or not) on the back end? We will have all sorts of death. They will need proper causes of death (some of them), burials, estates settled, etc.? I know this is secondary right now, but how the hell will we clean up the mess?

    Not to mention there are all sorts of things that will never come back. Movie theaters (hell, stream it to my bigscreen at home, thank you, and besides, my popcorn is better).

    My flabber is gasted.

  27. 27.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    On another note – and I hope that the olds wind up understanding this when they begin to inevitably whine about moochers, young bucks and long term dependence on government programs – here’s an example of financial devastation:

    Wife has earned between 110K and 150K consistently over the past several years in travel, out of which we lived, traveled and educated and provided for our children and their education. Her income dropped by about 95% in the course of a week, and Friday, everyone was laid off with the exception of her and her branch manager – all in all, 8 people in her office alone were let go Friday – and they couldn’t even hug it goodbye through all the tears. She’ll babysit her files and the files of the laid-off on a part-time basis for the upcoming months, earning almost enough to keep our shitty high deductible health insurance afloat, and not knowing if her company will survive.  At the same time, all three of my daughters are unemployed, and the oldest, it seems, was the victim of misclassification and is thus ineligible for unemployment. At the same time, my income has collapsed as well, with a shuttered courthouse and clients unwilling to have be generate work that results in charges.

    So if I’m sometimes a bit callous, understand where I’m coming from.

  28. 28.

    Sebastian

    @Hummus Where The Heart Is:

     

    You can’t hide overcrowded hospitals and people drowning in a frothy mix of slime and blood on a hospital corridor floor.

    Red States will dissolve in an utter state of panic. They will start shooting each other in paranoia when the reality of the pandemic hits them.

  29. 29.

    download my app in the app store mistermix

    @patrick II: Any fucking Republican or Glibertarian who says we should let the olds die should get the response:  You first.  Dan Patrick has grandkids.  No ventilator needed for him, noted.  One more for someone else.

  32. 32.

    cain

    @dmsilev:

    Yeah, but to what? Cuomo reports that hospitals are full.. if they think that they get to move to the front of line they have another thing coming..

    More likely, I can see Trump creating a triage area at Mar-A-Lago and getting Wall St. execs lifted there for private (paid by the federal govt) hospital care with all the trimmings.

  33. 33.

    Kattails

    Someone at Kos did a brief post to this effect (tried to go back and find it to link, but haven’t been able to):  “The Bible predicted that Christians would follow a false prophet and that they would wear his mark on their foreheads”  Followed by a large image of a MAGA hat.  bulls-eye. Even the word-as-acronym, MAGA, is ugly.

  36. 36.

    cain

    @Baud:

    Notice evangelical leaders are quiet.. not one asshole has popped up suggesting that this pestilence is because of gay marriage or anything – they need to protect their god emperor, after all, if he is God’s choice, why send a plague? HMM?

  38. 38.

    Elizabelle

    @download my app in the app store mistermix:   Oh yeah.  I thought of Cortez the Killer too, on seeing the title.

    That said, why associate Trump with someone who is remembered and, to some extent, revered today as a brave conquistador?

    Killer implies great power, the power to deal life or death.  It’s true here, WRT Trump.  Leave “killer” to the virus, and call Trump a sociopath or a criminal.

    My two cents.

  41. 41.

    Rusty

    @Brachiator: It’s called Mothering Sunday.  When we lived there my wife insisted that we celebrate both Mothering Sunday and Mother’s Day.  With 4 kids she felt like she deserved at least one extra day.

  42. 42.

    L85NJGT

    Trump thinks the markets are still a bunch of traders on the exchange floor, instead of a bunch of data centers over in Jersey.

  44. 44.

    PenAndKey

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: So if I’m sometimes a bit callous, understand where I’m coming from.

    The only reason I don’t say precisely what’s on my mind on a daily basis is a recurring concern that doing so would get me added to multiple lists I don’t want to be on. My situation isn’t anywhere near as dire as yours, but with my wife having been laid off as of Friday and a hospital delivery in our future in less than a month you can bet that the thoughts running through my head aren’t fit for polite company.

  45. 45.

    BGinCHI

    The Trump Virus

    The Trump Virus

    The Trump Virus

    The Trump Virus

    The Trump Virus

    The Trump Virus

    The Trump Virus

    The Trump Virus

    The Trump Virus

    The Trump Virus is not just the virus, but the response.

  46. 46.

    trollhattan

    Local paper is shrill.

    Would you risk the lives of your parents, grandparents or friends to boost Wall Street profits during the coronavirus pandemic?

    There’s only one correct answer: “Hell no!”

    Yet President Donald Trump is now floating the idea of letting COVID-19 kill more Americans in an effort to boost the stock market. Against the advice of experts like Dr. Tony Fauci, Trump and an extreme group of Wall Street figures are publicly suggesting that we should scale back our efforts to contain COVID-19.
    https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/article241461091.html#storylink=cpy

    How uncivil of them. All sides should be considered!

  47. 47.

    Rusty

    The NYT Coronavirus Live Feed has a lovely post on how Kushner is involved with an effort where Oracle is going to running a drug trial on chloroquine.  ”
    The White House is partnering with the computer technology giant Oracle to promote a pair of malaria drugs that President Trump has touted in recent days to treat the coronavirus, even before the government approves their use for the outbreak, according to five senior administration officials and others familiar with the plans.
    An online platform designed by Oracle, in collaboration with the White House, is still taking shape. The president’s senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, as well as federal health agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services such as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Food and Drug Administration, are also involved, according to two senior administration officials.”
    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/24/world/coronavirus-updates-maps.html#link-1404547

    Tech Bro’s running drug trials, what could go wrong with the “move fast and break things” crowd dealing in life threatening drugs?  They really do want to kill as many people as possible.

  51. 51.

    L85NJGT

    @Hummus Where The Heart Is:

     

    They are using an ice rink in Madrid as a temporary morgue as the army picks up the bodies from old folks homes. The Italian army trucked them to regions where cemeteries and crematoriums weren’t overloaded.

    The death industry has a capacity, and when that is exceeded, surge capacity is digging a ditch.

  52. 52.

    dmsilev

    @Rusty: Oracle isn’t really a “move fast and break things” type of company. They’re more “We have our tentacles into to you and we’ll sue you if you even think about cutting back on our vastly expensive support contracts”. Also not optimal for healthcare in a crisis.

  53. 53.

    oldster

    I also liked the part where he said, “Republicans are the so-called “party of life”!” and then spit.

    Okay, that didn’t really happen, but I can dream.

  54. 54.

    germy

    How does banning firearms & ammo help the fight against Coronavirus? Oh wait- it doesn’t. It only prevents law abiding citizens from defending themselves, their lives & loved ones. This is so wrong, especially if lawlessness breaks out. #californialockdown #Covid_19 #2A https://t.co/VWE9Su5USr— Liz Joy (@LizLemeryJoy) March 21, 2020

    She’s on the ballot now.

    Thank you! To all that carried my petitions to help me get on the ballot in November. Together, we did it! We far exceeded all original #’s needed to qualify! “Elizabeth L. Joy,” will be on 3 lines: Republican, Conservative & SAM line. We filed 4,000 Repub, over 1,000 Conserv., pic.twitter.com/w750Bvx0pY— Liz Joy (@LizLemeryJoy) March 22, 2020

  55. 55.

    Sab

    @Brachiator: I never learned about the Spanish flu in school. I only learned about it reading a short story (by either Sir Arthur Conan Doyle or Rudyard Kipling, I forget which) when I was in my twenties.

    Asked my mom about it, since her mom was in her twenties during it. My mom said “You should know that the nice old lady next door to us right now was orphaned by it at age twelve, and shipped from San Francisco to relatives in Boston. Nobody talks about it because it was so traumatic.”

  56. 56.

    Gin & Tonic

    @L85NJGT: Fun fact, most of the data centers that moved to NJ years ago moved back into Manhattan. The extra millisecond or two of latency put the high-speed trading algorithms at a disadvantage.

  59. 59.

    Mai naem mobile

    I don’t know what the reason is but Trumpov is doing this maliciously. This isn’t incompetence. This is malicious.  I don’t know the legalities but it sure appears criminal. I don’t know if its because he’s figuring he is going to kill off enough NYrs and the Dem won’t get the popular vote..I don’t know if its because he’s jealous of Andrew Cuomos handling of the crisis. I don’t know if its revenge for NY being blue and not voting for him. This isn’t even a numbers thing because people are going to die. Also I don’t understand the FOX people. They live in NY. Does FOX have some private hospital somewhere just for their on air talent and executives? WTF?

  62. 62.

    Mai naem mobile

    @Rusty: when historians write about the Trumpov admin I have a feeling Jared Kushner is going to come out looking really awful. Incompetent, corrupt and an all around asshole. This will be from the emails , letters, notes and oral histories that will be available. Years from now but still..

  64. 64.

    Mai naem mobile

    @germy: I heard Pelosi talking about it on CNBC earlier and I get why she’s doing it but I don’t trust Mnuchin one bit. This guy has not agreed to any oversight so far. Not sent documents over. We are not talking about somebody you can trust.

  65. 65.

    Bill Arnold

    In the style of a Trump Tweet, with the mask pulled off:

    DEAR CITIZEN LABOUR UNIT
    REMEMBER THAT THE MARKET IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOUR PETTY CONCERNS ABOUT YOUR OWN MORTALITY
    GET BACK TAE WORK YE SLACKERS
    (and remember to invest in funeral futures!)— Charlie Stross (@cstross) March 24, 2020

  66. 66.

    Jeffro

    @germy:

    I’ll put this here and in the thread above: Fox News dot com is positively livid at all the things Nancy Smash managed to get into the COVID-19 relief bill that’s about to pass.

    Which means, as usual, that we should all drop to our knees and praise the FSM that she is Speaker.

  67. 67.

    Brachiator

    @Mai naem mobile:

    I don’t know what the reason is but Trumpov is doing this maliciously. This isn’t incompetence. This is malicious.

    It’s in his nature. Trump is a festering bag of resentments and petty jealousies and insecurities. And he lacks a moral center.

    He pretends to be great and magnanimous, but there is always a negotiated price in his head, and he demands to exact that price no matter what.

  68. 68.

    misterpuff

    @Feathers:

    Lt.Gov. Death Panel should go on Morning Joe and the Volcano and offer himself up to the Animal Spirits of the Market Economy.

     

    I would cheer.

  69. 69.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @Mai naem mobile: Problem is, Pelosi is always going to be at a disadvantage in these negotiations because she understands that the GOP doesn’t care how many people die, so they’re willing to drag this out as long as possible.

  71. 71.

    Sab

    My niece who was recovering from corona virus now has a fever again. Relapse? New bug? We don’t know.

  73. 73.

    Gin & Tonic

    @misterpuff: Way off topic, but I got drawn down a Wiki rabbit hole looking at the TX state government, and learned that Greg Abbott, the Governor, was a Delta Tau Delta in college. That may be the least surprising fact I will have learned all week.

  76. 76.

    LuciaMia

    First, no American wants to kill people to get the economy restarted.

    Down in Texas, apparently they do.

  79. 79.

    Mandalay

    @Nicole:

    He … completely preempted Biden’s appearance on The View, so no one in NYC could see it.

    That’s completely on Biden, and Cuomo didn’t “pre-empt” anything. Biden may be our next president, but right now he is an absolute nobody compared to Cuomo. Cuomo has much bigger issues to worry about than when Biden is planning to speak.

  83. 83.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    bean counters who decided that Ford could absorb some losses due to litigation over exploding gas tanks in Pintos

    My husband’s sister died many years ago in just such an accident, along with three other 20-year-old women. I’ll check with his 89-year-old mother to make sure she’s on board with sacrificing herself for the sake of our economy now.

    Can these people not hear themselves?

  84. 84.

    Soprano2

    A few weeks ago my stepson on Maui told us he had talked to Larry Ellison over the phone.  Evidently that guy owns a bunch of land in Hawaii.  He said Ellison had called the owner of the grocery store and ordered pies, but no one told the bakers.  He told Ellison that he had two macadamia nut pies that Ellison could come and get right now if he wanted them.  He also told us he met Pauly Shore a couple of days ago. He lives a strange, weird life.  Since he works at the local grocery store he should be able to get stuff as long as stuff keeps coming out there.

  85. 85.

    Mandalay

    @WaterGirl: So what? That’s Biden’s problem, not Cuomo’s.

    The notion that Cuomo should waste even 10 seconds worrying about Biden’s schedule right now is ridiculous.

  86. 86.

    germy

    Rand Paul's aides had never been told that Paul might have been exposed to the virus or had been tested for it, according to a person familiar with the situation, and some began to fear they could have contracted it and spread it to their friends & family. https://t.co/kB8ktN9FeE— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) March 24, 2020

  87. 87.

    bluehill

    If posted already, apologies for the repost. So many competent organizations and people Trump could have put in charge and then just stepped out of the way and take the credit later, but “only I can fix it.”

    Lt. Gen. Todd Semonite, Chief of the
    @USACEHQ, provides a ‘simple’ solution to the complicated problem of building temporary medical facilities to assist states with responding to #COVID19. This clip is from a press conference by Army senior leader on March 20, 2020.
    https://twitter.com/USArmy/status/1241185656094801923

  89. 89.

    germy

    Dr. Fauci has grown bolder in correcting Trump's falsehoods and overly rosy statements about the coronavirus. And now Trump’s patience has started to wear thin, NYT reports. So has the patience of some W.H. advisers, who see Fauci as taking shots at Trump. https://t.co/L0J7TmDJUA

    — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) March 24, 2020

  91. 91.

    joel hanes

    @Mai naem mobile:

    Trumpov is doing this maliciously

    Part of it is purely a tantrum — he’s frustrated and bored because he can’t go golf at Mar A Lago, and he can’t hold his fascist adoration rallies to bask in the love of his cultists.

    Part of it is Trump’s inability to conceive that other people are real.  When the Donald speaks about situations, there’s always an unspoken “for me”.  So what he said was “the cure is worse than the disease FOR ME”.  He (claims that he) tested negative, and clearly suffers the delusion that his uninfected status is permanent.  Thus the disease isn’t that bad FOR HIM.  But six of his hotels/resorts are closed, and are losing real money at a rapid clip, and are all “leveraged” with debt payments to be made to Deutsche Bank, and he can’t even go golfing.  So the cure is quite “bad” FOR HIM.

    And that’s all that matters to Donald Trump.

  92. 92.

    germy

    Pelosi tells @MSNBC that in a negotiation with Republicans and Mnuchin, she quoted Pope Francis' world prayer on responsibility.

    She said Mnuchin responded by saying, 'you're quoting the Pope, I'm going to quote the markets.' "I thought he was going to quote the Old Testament."

    — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) March 24, 2020

  94. 94.

    low-tech cyclist

    Impeach Trump.

    No, really. He is a clear and present danger to the American people.  This makes his Ukraine extortion look like small potatoes.  Hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of Americans will die because of his lack of leadership.

    The Senate will undoubtedly refuse to convict.  That is up to them.  But at least the Democrats in the House will have done what they could.  And each GOP Senator will have to face his/her constituents having taken a share of the responsibility for the upcoming carnage.

  95. 95.

    Mandalay

    @WaterGirl: I didn’t say whether Cuomo should or should not worry about Biden’s schedule.

     

    No, you are sitting on the fence picking a fight.

    The original post incorrectly stated that Cuomo “pre-empted” Biden, and I’m saying that’s complete fucking bullshit. Cuomo shouldn’t waste any time worrying about clashing with Biden’s schedule. As I said before, that’s all on Biden.

  97. 97.

    germy

    Cuomo hurt PEETUS’s feelings:

    Trump angrily complains about Gov. Cuomo: "We're building him hospitals" and adds "he should have ordered ventilators." Then he reads off opposition research about Cuomo from *2015*. Trump concludes his rant: "He shouldn't be talking about us." pic.twitter.com/Y5JqQqFl5M— The American Independent (@AmerIndependent) March 24, 2020

  98. 98.

    gvg

    I also think Trump is paralyzed by indecision. He doesn’t actually understand what is going on so he doesn’t know what to do, not even to make himself look better or save his voters.  That is partly why he can’t declare the emergency or use the Federal powers.  Even if he tried, he would do it wrong, but right now, there is no good answer even from his self centered point of view.

    Also he is terrible at living any other way than he has for years such as not being the center of attention and not having people say he is great.  Even other bad people who used to support him for their own gain, have better ideas than he does right now and they are too busy for him.

  102. 102.

    theturtlemoves

    @Rusty: Given the kick-ass job Oracle did on the Oregon ACA site, I’m sure they’ll do a bang-up job on this one, too.

  103. 103.

    PenAndKey

    @germy: “he should have ordered ventilators.”

    Seriously, what is Trump’s hang-up over actually using the Defense Production Act authority he has to order needed supplies? His fixation on states buying supplies makes no sense.

  104. 104.

    germy

    @trollhattan:  The View is broadcast live (unless it is a rerun).  They discuss things that have happened today.

    But nowadays viewers can watch things at their convenience.  They don’t have to choose between Cuomo and Whoopi.

  105. 105.

    Mel

    @Sab: My great grandmother (now long deceased) was in her 20s during the Spanish Flu epidemic. She sent her husband, my grandmother and my great uncle to live on an isolated farm with my grt grt grandparents, and spent most of both waves of the epidemic doing community nursing.

    She wouldn’t talk much about it until she was in her mid 90s, and close to the end of her life. She said at one point, she lost 5 of her same aged  friends, her two godchildren, her former schoolteacher, and her family’s doctor in a span of three days. Her brother sent his wife to the family farm, and volunteered to help move and lift patients, wash sheets, carry bedpans, and then to dig graves at the homes of those who died, because funeral homes were too overwhelmed to deal with the number of deaths. She remembered them both going without sleep for 20 hours a day, and crying themselves to sleep at night, until they were so exhausted and in such shock after a week or so that they were incapable of crying. She told me, “We had to die inside our hearts in order to be able to go back in the midst of all that death everyday.”

    I think about all the medical professionals on the front lines of this, and I imagine that they understand her meaning.

    My hubby’s great grandmother was a little girl at the time, and recalled seeing bodies from a nearby military base being loaded “like logs” into a freight train boxcar.

    Yet, we learned nothing about it in school, except a generic “it happened; it was bad” sentence or two.

  106. 106.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @PenAndKey:

    Andy Beshear has been trying to round up supplies for Kentucky, and routinely hears that he’s already been outbid by other states or the feds, and is invited to submit a higher bid.

  108. 108.

    Nicole

    @Mandalay:

    That’s completely on Biden, and Cuomo didn’t “pre-empt” anything.

    Look, I said Cuomo’s was the more important, especially for someone actually living in Manhattan, as I do; I just said that I sure would not mind getting to see both of them live at least once during this thing, and, as Biden is going to be the nominee, I’d love to think that my Democratic governor is in touch with him, because Biden and the states are going to have a shit ton of work to do if, FSM willing, he is elected come November.  Establishing him as an American version of a shadow gov’t is not a bad idea for the Dems; it’d be nice to remind America there’s another option besides Trump out there, and calling him a “nobody” certainly doesn’t help.  I’m allowed to want things, even if I don’t get them

    Yeah, I can watch The View tomorrow (the full episode isn’t currently available on ABC’s website; I looked), but I would have liked to have seen Biden’s interview today, because this is a very fluid situation and things keep changing.  That’s all.

  109. 109.

    beef

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Who told you that?   Pretty sure they were mistaken.  The data centers are still in NJ, mostly in Mahwah and Secaucus, because that’s where the matching of buy and sell orders actually occurs.  There’s nothing in NYC that they need to be near.

  111. 111.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Hey everyone,

    Some JPL people created this ARCGIS map of grocery stores to help people see what grocery stores have what, and how they are as far as social distancing/safety measures, crowds etc. You can submit a report here:

    https://survey123.arcgis.com/share/eb8101e3cde44e4782693460cb26097a?fbclid=IwAR1bOb2QmhcyKtxSIfB4WJYF3xT-3mRRtQYMKl3dyjS1BiIkR1oiZ0_kK2k

    And view the map here:

    https://htorpey.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html?fbclid=IwAR39P4ryIkTwyGs3vVxMa-HWVb71R9hoqx1V1VqEiyXdAi1Gi0al1r-x_CY#/1544144ccd6e4d4a8db71a8c74cc18b1

    Spread the word and tell people to help start submitting reports to populate it etc.

    Might even be worth a FP post, to signal boost.  Cheers–

  112. 112.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Trump’s Hetro-Sexual Life Partner Putin been forced to admit that their is trouble in the Land of the Oligarchy

    https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/putin-dons-hazmat-suit-moscow-151551841.html

    MOSCOW, March 24 (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin donned a hazmat suit and respirator on Tuesday during a visit to a hospital treating coronavirus patients and the mayor of Moscow said the outbreak in the Russian capital was much worse than official figures showed.

    The comments, by Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, marked the strongest statement yet by Russian authorities suggesting they do not have a full grasp of how widely the coronavirus has spread throughout the world’s largest country by territory.

    Russia has so far reported 495 cases of the virus, a figure that is much lower than in many European countries. One woman, who tested positive for the virus, has also died.

  113. 113.

    cain

    @PenAndKey:

    He’s busy outbidding the states for resources.. this would defeat all that. He’s trying to fuck over the democratic governors in some way.

  114. 114.

    cckids

    @gvg: I also think Trump is paralyzed by indecision. He doesn’t actually understand what is going on so he doesn’t know what to do, not even to make himself look better or save his voters.  That is partly why he can’t declare the emergency or use the Federal powers.  Even if he tried, he would do it wrong, but right now, there is no good answer even from his self centered point of view.

    The Pod Save America guys got it right last week, comparing this CF to how Obama handled SARS. After 3+ years, Trump & Co still don’t know the basics of how to make the government run. He’s used to his small business, where everyone makes his wishes come true. The federal government doesn’t work that way. A tweet doesn’t make shit happen; you have to have people in place who know which agencies to call, which orders to give, etc. He is a clueless moron who’s surrounded himself with his peers. WASF.

  115. 115.

    scav

    One of my mother’s friends is asking exactly which McDonald’s franchise he is being sacrificed for so he can direct the mourners to it.

  116. 116.

    joel hanes

    @PenAndKey:

    what is Trump’s hang-up over actually using the Defense Production Act authority he has to order needed supplies?

    He intends to grift off the companies that make the materiel, in a tacit quid-pro-quo for letting them charge profiteering prices for masks, PPE, ventilators etc. during the crisis.   The executives of those companies will understand that next year’s executive conference will be held in one of Trump’s properties, and the room fees and catering will be curiously expensive.   Or their NY City offices will purchase “services” from a shell company three levels down in the Trump organization, services that somehow do not really ever get performed.    These kinds of dodges are what Fred taught Donald, and exactly how Fred’s estate was conveyed nearly tax-free from Fred to Donald and his sister.

    If he orders production using the provisions of the DPA, that will be impossible.  The prices and production will all be official government contracts, public records.

    It’s a mob-boss setup.  “Mr. CEO, I’m doing you this big favor.  We both know it.   Someday, perhaps, you’ll have the opportunity to do me a favor, capische?    Come see me sometime at Mar A Lago, and we’ll talk about it.  Oh, by the way, I’d appreciate it if you talked to Don Jr. about the arrangments for that national convention you have every year — I’m sure he’ll have some good ideas, be very helpful. ”

    Same deal with the $500 B slush fund that was in the Senate so-called pandemic relief bill — Trump thought he was going to be the only “oversight”, the only person who ever really knew where the money went, or how.  It would have gone as quid to Trump allies who Trump thought would be able to later come up with some quo, or directly to Trump organization cutouts.

    It’s what he does.  It’s what he thinks “business” is all about.

  118. 118.

    Gin & Tonic

    @beef: For every Equinix in Secaucus you’ve got a 111 8th Ave or 325 Hudson on the other side. Plenty of very major data centers in Manhattan.

  124. 124.

    glc

    https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/24/21192206/snopes-coronavirus-covid-19-misinformation-fact-checking-staff

    —

    Here’s an interesting charity for the NY area (and expanding): https://www.invisiblehandsdeliver.com/

    NJ: See https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/gov-murphys-wife-launches-new-jersey-pandemic-relief-fund-to-fight-covid-19-war/2341471/

    WHO: https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/donate  (I would have thought they’d be looking more for large donations from institutions. I tend to think meeting urgent local needs is more of a priority for individuals.)

    —

    There was one line in an interview with the pre-dementia Trump that struck me, where he talked about the fact that he gets bored easily and is (was) lucky that he can work on whatever he feels like every day.

  126. 126.

    Elizabelle

    @lou:  That’s terrific. Dr. Craig Spencer.

    We were too late to stop this virus. Full stop. But we can slow it’s spread. The virus can’t infect those it never meets. Stay inside. Social distancing is the only thing that will save us now. I don’t care as much about the economic impact as I do about our ability to save lives

    You might hear people saying it isn’t real. It is.

    You might hear people saying it isn’t bad. It is.

    You might hear people saying it can’t take you down. It can.

    I survived Ebola. I fear #COVIDー19.

  129. 129.

    ballerat

    @cain: I have no doubt they got their own ventilators and med staff on standby at some undisclosed location. Those scumbag senators weren’t the only people to do something with that insider info.

  130. 130.

    ballerat

    @Mai naem mobile: I don’t know if its revenge for NY being blue and not voting for him.

    I think that’s part of it. The only person he really cares about is himself and he is petty and vindictive. So, yes.

  131. 131.

    ballerat

    @PenAndKey: I think he knows its a roadblock for the states, because so far the states that need him to act are not Trump states. Plausible deniability. And this plays well with his base — “Kick them libs in the nuts again! MAGA!”

    I honestly can’t think of any other reason other than spite.

    And there doesn’t need to be any other reason. Spite explains it well enough. His whole campaign appeal was about resentment and spite. It’s what MAGAs love him for. They love him because he hurts the people they want hurt.

    It’s not that we didn’t know he was a monster. It’s just the magnitude of the monstrosity, now being revealed, is mind-boggling.

    “Being president doesn’t change who you are, it reveals who you are.” — Michelle Obama

  132. 132.

    Avery Greynold

    Let’s do the math.  New York is about half the nation’s case total and half the daily increase in cases.  They have 6% of the nation’s people.  Government has 200,000 spare ventilators so let’s multiply:  200,000 times .06, times the “screw the Blue State” factor of one third … equals 400!  Republican math works out perfect!

  133. 133.

    J R in WV

    I went to Krogers today. Not too crowded for a Tuesday when quarantine is scheduled to start this evening at 8 pm. Out of quite a bit of stuff, clorox wipes, bleach. Milk was limited to 3/shopper, toilet paper 1 pack/shopper, etc. I did get a pack of toilet paper, a pack of paper towels, 3 half/gallons of milk, a small case of shelf temp milk packs, 2 units of powdered buttermilk for baking.

    Flour was very scarce, they had a few 5 pound bags of “all purpose” flour and 2 or 3 times as much self-rising flour, so I got one bag of all purpose. I have a 5 lb bag of King Arthur whole wheat unopened and one I’ve been dipping from for a month or two. There was plenty of goods in the produce dept, so I got a big head of red leaf lettuce, a caulflower, a batch of asparagus, which was .99c a pound, pretty stuff. Got a bag of potatoes, onions, carrots, celery, so fixed for all that.

    Most important was prescriptions, wife and I both needed several, and that worked out OK. Lots of people were wearing gloves, some both gloves and a mask. But not crosded. Ran into friends and acquaintances. A young woman who worked for me in the long ago chatted for a bit at a proper distance…  I was pleased to recognize her even with her mask on. Her oldest kid is now a junior at Cornell — she was 4 or 5 the last time I saw her, now 20 and doing well in a good school, back home for the Trump Plague.

    The guy who checked me out was new, I was his very first customer, and my buggy was FULL. After it was bagged up it took two buggies, and one of the Kroger staff helped me load it into the car.

    Then I went to the pharmacy. They had a small panic as wife’s meds were right there and they couldn’t find mine… turned out mine were in the same bag as wife’s were.

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