Science Fiction

From FOX 5:

WASHINGTON – White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said on Thursday that “the science should not stand in the way” of schools reopening in the fall, despite concerns from health leaders regarding opening educational institutions amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which has been worsening in several states in recent weeks.

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Back to Cruel(la)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Trump administration could allow families to use federal education funding elsewhere if the local public school does not open during the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. education secretary said on Thursday as the Trump administration seeks to pressure states and cities to fully resume in-person classes.

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Good Mourning, Twitler!

(CNN) Republican strategist Jennifer Horn was up at 1 o’clock Tuesday morning writing an op-ed when she saw it: An angry tweet mentioning her by name from the President of the United States.
Donald Trump had name-checked Horn, alongside other advisers to the anti-Trump Republican group the Lincoln Project, in a late-night rant against the organization’s latest ad criticizing the President for his response to the coronavirus pandemic. Among Trump’s targets on Twitter were George Conway, the outspoken husband of White House aide Kellyanne Conway, and several veterans of John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign.

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WHO ya gonna call?

From Salon:

More than a dozen U.S. health experts based at the headquarters of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva provided real-time information about the new coronavirus in China last year, according to a new report.

President Donald Trump announced last week that the U.S. would stop providing funding to WHO, because it allegedly “missed the call” by not sounding the alarm “months earlier.” Trump, who also accused WHO of being “China-centric,” has ramped up his rhetoric against the organization after numerous media reports revealed that the president and his advisers did not head warnings about the emerging pandemic from intelligence agencies, health experts, economists and even top White House aides. The president continued to downplay the threat publicly in an apparent attempt to calm the stock market.

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Floridiot!

Go ahead and google the definition of fluffer, kids. I’ll wait.

From Fox 13 News:

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Thursday, President Donald Trump laid out his three-phase plan to re-open America. It’s a gradual, deliberate approach, first depending on, in part, a downward trend in positive COVID-19 cases and robust testing.

Friday, Governor Ron DeSantis said Florida would follow the federal guidelines — mostly.

”We will obviously use that as a baseline,” he said. “Doesn’t mean that Florida is going go do everything they say and not say. That’s a pretty good baseline.”

Translation: “I will do everything Twitler says.”

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Make them all go first!

From HIVE at VANITY FAIR:

America is just over a week into the White House’s “Slow the Spread” coronavirus initiative, which recommends citizens practice social distancing and refrain as much as possible from leaving their homes. But Donald Trump has spent the past few days whining about the struggling stock market and signaling a return to business as usual, despite warnings from his own medical experts that an additional several weeks are necessary to contain the still-growing pandemic. Sending the country back into full-time work mode would undermine efforts to curb the outbreak and will almost certainly lead to more Americans dying—one worst-case model found that 2.2 million people could die if the outbreak is allowed to spread unmitigated. Right-wing media outlets know this, but they’re still backing the White House’s ill-advised pivot in near unison.

In fact, the death cult speed-run to save the stock market already has its first round of volunteers. On Monday night, Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick kicked things off by telling Tucker Carlson that he is ready “to take a chance on [my] survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves,” i.e. one in which business is booming. Carlson, who commended Patrick’s comments as a necessary “conversation,” discussed the proposal on Tuesday night with his colleague Brit Hume, who concluded that it is “an entirely reasonable viewpoint.”

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Tom Cotton’s Balls

From BUSINESS INSIDER:

Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas said he was looking into holding China “accountable” for the coronavirus pandemic that has caused the US to enact strict travel measures.

“I have every confidence America will once again marshal the resolve, toughness, and genius of our people to overcome the serious threat to our health and well-being posed by the Wuhan coronavirus,” Cotton said in a statement on Thursday.

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Susan Collins, Person of InFLUence

From The Nation:

When House Appropriations Committee chairman David Obey, the Wisconsin Democrat who has long championed investment in pandemic preparation, included roughly $900 million for that purpose in this year’s emergency stimulus bill, he was ridiculed by conservative operatives and congressional Republicans.

Obey and other advocates for the spending argued […that…] pandemic preparation was essential to any responsible plan for renewing the U.S. economy.

Now, as the World Health Organization says a deadly swine flu outbreak that apparently began in Mexico but has spread to the United States has the potential to develop into a pandemic, Obey’s attempt to secure the money seems eerily prescient.

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