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Updated March 27, 2020 19:45:42

If a week is a long time in politics, it's an eternity during a pandemic.

Last week, this column described Donald Trump as a changed man: factual, decisive, upfront.

It seems the transformation was temporary.

This week, the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson turned the health policy equivalent of the Titanic around.

He ordered his nation to hide in their homes after his advisers initially suggested "herd immunity" would see them through.

Over the same short period of time, Mr Trump was doing his second U-turn in as many weeks.

He suggested Americans could be set free and attending "packed churches all over the country" on Easter Sunday.

Indeed, on the very day the World Health Organisation warned America it could soon become the global epicentre of the pandemic, Mr Trump pushed for the US economy to be "opened up and raring to go" in just over two weeks.

"Our people are full of vim and vigour and energy," he told Fox News viewers.

"They don't want to be locked into a house or an apartment or some space. It's not for our country. We're not built that way."

Larry Brilliant, a veteran of the eradication of smallpox, told the New York Times ending the lockdown so early would be "an error of epic proportions".

Modelling suggests a nationwide lifting of restrictions by Easter would see 118 million Americans infected by October, resulting in more than 1.2 million dead.

That doesn't take into account the complete breakdown of the health system that would occur, increasing the mortality rate substantially.

Mr Trump insists the health of American citizens is forefront in his mind.

And his own White House advisers have watered down the suggestion of a nationwide lifting of restrictions.

Instead they're suggesting it could be possible in pockets where infection rates are low and only if much better data becomes available through widespread testing.

But the President has fallen back on misleading comparisons with the flu and fatal car crashes.

It seems keeping Americans alive during the most dangerous pandemic in a century isn't the only thing Donald Trump has to consider.

A national Gallop poll last week showed 73 per cent of Democrats feared exposure to the coronavirus, compared with just 42 per cent of Republicans a whopping 31 per cent difference.

That could be partly attributed to the misinformation initially pedalled by Fox News, which leans heavily toward the Republican side of politics.

But it probably has more to do with geography.

The early stages of the outbreak have had a much heavier impact in Democrat-leaning states like New York, Washington and California.

As the Atlantic points out, Republican-leaning states have displayed noticeably less urgency about the outbreak because most of them haven't been seriously impacted yet.

Republican governors and members of Congress have been urging the President to put the economy first.

"We don't shut down our economy because tens of thousands of people die on the highways," said Republican senator Ron Johnson.

"Getting coronavirus is not a death sentence except for maybe no more than 3.4 per cent of our population [and] I think probably far less."

Three-point-four per cent of America's population is 11 million people.

Despite his apparent willingness to accept those deaths, the Senator is right about one thing: the impact on the economy can't be ignored.

In the past fortnight, unemployment insurance claims in the United States have jumped 1,500 per cent.

That's not a typo.

More than 3 million Americans filed new unemployment claims last week.

That's nearly five times the highest level of claims seen during the global financial crisis of 2007.

As the world fixates on Wall Street's daily convulsions, the broader economy of the richest and most powerful nation on Earth is crumbling before our eyes.

It's a prelude of what might be coming for Australia, which has been about 10 days behind America in terms of city-wide shutdowns, according to data from mobility apps like Citymapper.

The instantaneous loss of income is frightening for anyone and especially so in a nation where around half of American families claim to be living paycheque to paycheque.

The US Senate has now passed the biggest economic rescue package in history.

Worth $US2.2 trillion ($3.6 trillion), it's worth half the entire annual budget of the United States and about 10 per cent of America's annual entire economic output.

And here's the thing: it's not aimed at stimulating growth.

Mailing $4,000 cheques to millions of families and significantly boosting existing unemployment benefits is primarily aimed at staving off homelessness and hunger.

Anger too.

The unprecedented support for business large and small, had to come with something for workers and the unemployed.

Bailouts for business but not workers in the wake of the 2007 global financial crisis helped give rise to the Tea Party on the right, which fell in behind Trump.

It also inspired the occupy Wall Street movement, which helped bolster support for Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders.

That seething anger remains in the hearts of millions of Americans.

And it can't have been soothed by news that Republican senator Richard Burr, head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, dumped up to $US1.72 million in stocks in mid-February, while receiving daily briefings about the coronavirus threat.

He'd previously expressed confidence in the country's preparedness for a COVID-19 outbreak.

Standing in the corner of the Oval Office, there's an elephant armed with an AR-15.

The threat of a social unrest is very real in the minds of American policy makers and police chiefs.

An angry nation, heavily armed and cooped up through summer without income, is a dangerous proposition if there's any real sense of scarcity on the streets.

Look what happened in New Orleans in the days after Hurricane Katrina when a slow emergency response left thousands trapped with little food or water.

Now the entire state of Louisiana is facing a new and potentially more serious disaster, recording per-capita the third highest rates of COVID-19 infection in the country, behind New York and Washington state.

In Louisiana, poverty is rife, the quality of healthcare is among the worst in America and levels of immune-compromising HIV are high.

Nationwide, the fear of looting, or worse, must be forefront in the minds of the President's security advisers as they watch lines at gun shops stretch around the block and businesses boarding up their shopfronts.

Perhaps that's why members of Congress started discussing the next economic rescue package even before this week's record-breaking stimulus was out the door.

And perhaps that's part of the reason the US President insists the coronavirus cure, involving months of social distancing accompanied by economic collapse, can't be allowed to be worse than the problem itself.

Topics:donald-trump,disease-control,infectious-diseases-other,business-economics-and-finance,economic-trends,globalisation---economy,united-states

First posted March 27, 2020 09:43:53

See the article here:
Coronavirus could shut down America for months, and that scares Donald Trump for more than economic reasons - ABC News

Rick Santelli is sick and tired of the coronavirus. In fact, he hates the coronavirus so much that hes willing to infect everyone on the planet with it including you. That way, we can bring the spread of Covid-19 to an early end, and the global economy can return to normal.

Im not kidding; this is exactly what Santelli wants (via Twitter):

In a bizarre rant on CNBC yesterday, he railed against the precautionary measures nations and businesses are taking to protect people from coronavirus. He says authorities should force everyone to contract Covid-19.

Following some short-term pain, the economy can return to normal in a month or so. Minus the estimated 261.8 million people who would die from the deadly disease, of course.

Being a key figure behind the Tea Party movement, I guess this is what Santellis means by free market economics: The U.S. government kills off a bunch of old, sick, and/or poor people so that the stock market recovers and corporations continue making billions.

Unsurprisingly, Rick Santellis moronic diatribe attracted a considerable amount of flack on Twitter. And with good cause, because it was utterly insane.

Santellis primary argument is that wed never quarantine everybody because of the common flu. So why should we do it for the coronavirus?

Obviously, the editors at CNBC (they have editors, right?) forgot to remind Santelli that flu has a death rate of only 0.1%. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization confirmed that the coronavirus has a probable death rate of 3.4%.

So Santellis argument is already beginning to fall apart. Assuming a global population of 7.7 billion, infecting the entire world with the coronavirus would result in roughly 261.8 million deaths.

Not great. But the icing on Rick Santellis blood-stained cake is that he thinks infecting everyone at the same time would be a good thing.

Because the mortality rate of this probably isnt going to be any different if we did it that way.

Um, thats not quite right, Rick.

Yes, certain experienced and reputable virologists have said that as much of 80% of the worlds population will sooner or later be infected by the coronavirus. So the coronavirus will infect everyone (used here very loosely) anyway. So why not give it to everyone now?

If everyone on Earth had coronavirus at the same time, the shock to the global economy would be catastrophic.

For one, the strain on the worlds hospital systems would be unthinkably immense. Not only would an estimated 261.8 million people die from the disease, but hundreds of millions more would need medical attention.

Meanwhile, the worlds economies would come to a virtual standstill. Millions maybe billions of people would be unable to work. And yes, the stock market the very thing Rick Santelli is trying to save! would likely fall off a cliff as a result. Assuming it isnt closed altogether.

Still, we should thank Rick Santelli for making such a harebrained proposal. Its perfectly emblematic of the libertarian politics he represents: superficially logical, ridiculously self-interested, and hard-nosed but actually illogical, self-defeating, and superstitious.

After all, whats the one way to ensure that everyone contracts coronavirus? By calling on central governments to take the lead. But in Rick Santellis libertarian fantasy world, shouldnt governments be as small as possible?

Ah yes, I forgot: Whenit comes to protecting finance and capital, government should be as big as possible.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of CCN.com.

This article was edited by Josiah Wilmoth.

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Tea Party Mastermind Wants to Give You Coronavirus to Save the Economy - CCN.com

90.5 WESA's "The Confluence" for Tuesday, Mar. 3, 2020

On today's program: Three decades into the ADA, Pittsburgh still has a long way to go; how fracking could influence the 2020 election; a new book explores how grassroots organizing is upending the democratic process; and questions remain about whether Allegheny County is pursuing facial recognition technology.

Celebrating the ADA, while making Pittsburgh accessible for all(00:00 10:15)

Thirty years ago, Congress approved the Americans with Disabilities Act to end discrimination in employment, housing and access to spaces open to the public. Advocates are celebrating the anniversary today at the Disability and Mental Health Summit in Pittsburgh.

Prior to 1990, if you were in a wheelchair and went to a movie theater, they could deny you entry because you were a fire hazard, says former California Congressman Tony Coelho, who wrote the original legislation.

Coelho, whos keynoting the event in Pittsburgh, says hes excited about the progress hes seeing in old Rust Belt towns like Pittsburgh, where accommodations like sidewalks, arts programming and building design are more thoughtfully considered than in years prior.

They make accessibility a key part of what theyre doing, as opposed to trying to provide accommodations after the buildings are built, he says.

Coelho, who has epilepsy, says the No. 1 need nationwide is jobs. According to Cornell University, 37 percent of Pennsylvanians with disabilities are employed, which matches the national average.

People need to look at us and see what we can do, as opposed to assuming what we cant do, Coelho says.

He says hed like to see the ADA expanded, but hes hesitant to push for any amendments since the House voted in 2018 to weaken the law.

Could an anti-fracking candidate win in PA?(11:26 17:52)

Climate change has become a key issue in the Democratic presidential primary, but it's tricky in Pennsylvania where fracking has become a controversial part of the economy. For StateImpact Pennsylvania, the Allegheny Front's Reid Frazier reports.

Political activism is flourishing in the 21st Century(17:54 30:31)

Since President Donald Trump's election in 2016, anti-Trump activists have responded by running for office, knocking on doors and building homegrown political organizations. A new book takes a look at that wave and the divisiveness that's affected nearly every corner of our democratic process.

For The Confluence, WESA political editor Chris Potter talks to co-author Theda Skocpol, professor of government and sociology at Harvard University, and essayist Lara Putnam, a University of Pittsburgh history professor who's been studying grassroots political movements in the Pittsburgh area.

Both will discuss Upending American Politics: Polarizing Parties, Ideological Elites, and Citizen Activists from the Tea Party to the Anti-Trump Resistance, now out in paperback, in person at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 19 at Riverstone Books in McCandless. Co-author and fellow Harvard historian Caroline Tervo will also attend. Tickets are free, and books will be available at the door.

What does the DAs office want from its surveillance network?(31:35 40:00)

Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala has built a five-county network of more than 1,000 cameras using $1.5 million in drug forfeiture money, and old emails acquired by the Harrisburg-based newspaper The Caucus suggest Zappala was considering enabling them to scan and store faces as far back as 2016.

Data journalist Mike Wereschagin reports that Zappala engaged the private facial recognition technology firm Biometrica in conversation that summer. An email immediately following an August meeting with Biometricas CEO asked whether its products were compatible with the Pennsylvania Justice Network, or JNET, which includes photos and personal data of people whove never been arrested. Only law enforcement agencies are permitted access to JNET, not private entities.

Wereschagin says theres evidence to suggest a potential partnership, which never materialized, between the county and Biometrica involved using facial recognition software to keep juveniles who are on probation out of certain areas, according to the reporting. Zappalas office has since said that the network doesnt employ facial recognition, and there are no plans to use it, but Wereschagin writes its the latest story to alarm privacy advocates, cybersecurity experts and civil libertarians.

He explains more about the network, the Chinese technology that supports it, and what he expects from a hearing Friday with the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas, which could compel Zappala to release more information.

90.5 WESAs Caroline Bourque contributed to this program.

The Confluence, where the news comes together, is 90.5 WESAs daily news program. Tune in weekdays at 9 a.m. to hear newsmakers and innovators take an in-depth look at stories important to the Pittsburgh region. Find more episodes of The Confluence here or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Tracing Political Counter-Movements, From The Tea Party To The Resistance - 90.5 WESA

CNN host Don Lemon reported Wednesday evening that many Republicans wanted to be arrested for storming the secure room where the House Intelligence Committee depositions were taking place.

Fox News reporter Chad Pergram tweeted that he was told there was never any chance [members] who barged into SCIF would be arrested by [capital police], but some members asked to be arrested. They wanted the optic of being frog-marched out of the SCIF in front of TV cameras. That would help w/GOP narrative of Dem process abuse.

Commentator Wajahat Ali called it the perfect example of martyrdom for snowflakes.

We laugh, I laugh, but we have to realize that we are looking at a Republican Party beholden to Trump which is not beholden to democracy, the rule of law, process or ethics, Ali continued. Its going to get a lot worse because Donald Trump they got him dead to right on the Ukraine crisis. They got the quid pro quo. Ambassador Bill Taylors opening statement is devastating. The phone call transcript is devastating. I just want to remind people that Donald Trump released that transcript thinking that would exonerate him. Just pause for a moment and reflect upon that.

He predicted that in the next year, Americans would see more obstruction of justice and more pundits willing to say whatever it takes to defend Trump.

We are going to see people like [former acting Attorney General] Matthew Whitaker come out and say that people like him cant abuse power, Ali continued. And were going to see his attorney come out and say something like, Oh yeah, Donald Trump can shoot someone on Fifth Avenue because he is president and above the law, which is by the way what Donald Trump said in 2016. Thats whats scary.

He went on to call the Republican Party an extremist minority party leaning authoritarian and predicted that it would ultimately sink everything for the president. He also predicted things would get a lot worse.

Opinion columnist Catherine Rampell explained that a full quarter of the boneheads that stormed the secure room are members of the committee and have access to participate in the depositions.

They didnt need to bust down the door figuratively or otherwise. They were allowed into this hearing, she said.

Republicans are basically turning into sort of a funhouse-mirror caricature of the left-wing cancel-culture college student that they love to make fun of, she continued. They claim to be all about not only free speech but also law and order and stand for all of these principles. And they condemn the snowflakes who cant take criticism of whatever their precious ideas are or their heroes are. And yet they are the ones who when the law isnt on their side and facts arent on their side just shout down the opposition.

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Trump Installs Homophobic Racist Tea Party Birther Who Promised to Send Obama Home to Kenya as New Chief of Staff - The New Civil Rights Movement

Newport, N.C

March 1, 2020

TO THE EDITOR:

As Im writing this letter I am a candidate for school board. When it is published, I will be a past candidate or the Republican nominee for Carteret County Board of Education, District 2.

I spent years educating myself studying legislation, educational policy, spending hours a week at the school and in our classrooms. Ive attended every Board of Education meeting for four years, since my oldest child entered Kindergarten. Ive worked hard to raise thousands of dollars for our schools. Ive advocated for the students and teachers, and Im willing to speak out even if I know it will be hit with opposition. Ive also been very open that I support non-partisan school board elections. Education isnt political. Kids arent political. School safety isnt political. Curriculum - not political. Kids arent partisan. And every one of them, every teacher, janitor, cafeteria worker, teacher assistant, librarian, administrator all deserve more. More than the pay they get and much more than the respect they get.

Saturday night, the Crystal Coast Tea Party made the decision to email, and post to their website, a Photoshopped image, of me (and Andrea Beasley) with Nancy Pelosi. They included the verbiage dont be fooled by fake Republicans promising to work with Democrats on Carteret County School Board in non-partisan school board elections. That would be like Senator John McCain promising to vote to end Obamacare, or these two Republican school board candidates shredding the Presidents State of the Union Address.

Not that I feel the need to defend my political history to the Tea Party, but political affiliation is public knowledge, as is which primary you vote. Therefore, its public knowledge, since I registered at age 18 Im a Republican. In addition to my conservative values, that I raise my three small children on, I have a couple things some members of the Tea Party are lacking -Decency and Morals.

With this campaign I was able to show my kids (ages 5, 7, and 8) how to play fair when we stopped to pick up signs that had blown over, we also picked up our opponents. I ran on my qualifications and strengths, not someone elses weakness. The most important thing I showed my three kids is that I will ALWAYS be their voice. I will fight for what is right, and I will fight to always give them the best.

To the Tea Party thank you for giving me the chance to teach my children not to trust anything without doing their research. Thank you for allowing me to teach my kids that you respect people until they give you a reason not to, and after that respect is no longer a privilege its now earned. Thank you for giving me a chance to show them not all people are what they claim to be and for them to be sure they associate with people that will build them up, and cheer them on. If at any point my children realize that their circle isnt cheering them on, they know its okay to walk away and find a new circle.

To the Republican Party Im sorry the Tea Party carries our name on their back. I stand with you disappointed that the Tea Party portrays themselves as true representatives of our party. We all know that the actions of a few on Saturday night do not represent the morals and values that we hold true.

We can do better, and our kids deserve it.

KATIE STATLER

Original post:
Letter to the Editor: Morals and decency | Letters To Editor - Carolinacoastonline