In The News (9)

Why a dawn of technological optimism is breaking The 2010s were marked by pessimism about innovation. That is giving way to hope .......... For much of the past decade the pace of innovation underwhelmed many people—especially those miserable economists. Productivity growth was lacklustre and the most popular new inventions, the smartphone and social media, did not seem to help much. Their malign side-effects, such as the creation of powerful monopolies and the pollution of the public square, became painfully apparent. Promising technologies stalled, including self-driving cars, making Silicon Valley’s evangelists look naive. Security hawks warned that authoritarian China was racing past the West and some gloomy folk warned that the world was finally running out of useful ideas. .................  Today a dawn of technological optimism is breaking. The speed at which covid-19 vaccines have been produced has made scientists household names. Prominent breakthroughs, a tech investment boom and the adoption of digital technologies during the pandemic are combining to raise hopes of a new era of progress: optimists giddily predict a “roaring Twenties”. ..........  The 18th century brought the Industrial Revolution and mechanised factories; the 19th century railways and electricity; the 20th century cars, planes, modern medicine and domestic liberation thanks to washing machines. In the 1970s, though, progress—measured by overall productivity growth—slowed. The economic impact was masked for a while by women piling into the workforce, and a burst of efficiency gains followed the adoption of personal computers in the 1990s. After 2000, though, growth flagged again. ............ Humans are increasingly able to bend biology to their will, whether that is to treat disease, edit genes or to grow meat in a lab. Artificial intelligence is at last displaying impressive progress in a range of contexts. A program created by DeepMind, part of Alphabet, has shown a remarkable ability to predict the shapes of proteins; last summer Openai unveiled gpt-3, the best natural-language algorithm to date; and since October driverless taxis have ferried the public around Phoenix, Arizona. Spectacular falls in the price of renewable energy are giving governments confidence that their green investments will pay off. Even China now promises carbon neutrality by 2060. ............... Such is the market’s optimism about electric vehicles that Tesla’s ceo, Elon Musk, who also runs a rocket firm, is the world’s richest man. ............ The pandemic has also accelerated the adoptions of digital payments, telemedicine and industrial automation ............. Eventually, synthetic biology, artificial intelligence and robotics could up-end how almost everything is done. .......... Ensuring that the whole economy harnesses new technologies will require robust antitrust enforcement and looser intellectual-property regimes. ......... The 2020s began with a cry of pain but, with the right policies, the decade could yet roar.

Biden Treasury pick Janet Yellen says additional stimulus and expanded unemployment insurance will provide the 'biggest bang for the buck'   Yellen emphasized the extent of the economic and human devastation the virus has inflicted on the US over the past year and warned of another recession without a set of fiscal policies to address the issues those most impacted by the pandemic face everyday. ......... Her plans align with Biden's $1.9 trillion relief proposal, which calls for bigger benefits for Americans struggling with hunger and $400 weekly federal unemployment benefits. Yellen called for the government to "act big" when it comes to providing stimulus, going along with Biden's $1,400 boost to the $600 stimulus checks.   ........ She will be the first woman to lead the Treasury in the nation's history. 

China builds massive Covid-19 quarantine camp for 4,000 people as outbreak continues  On Tuesday, China reported 103 new confirmed cases and 58 asymptomatic infections, which are counted separately, spread out across four provinces. Hebei province now has a total of 818 active locally transmitted cases, and more than 200 asymptomatic infections, according to the provincial health commission. Last Wednesday, a patient died in Hebei -- the country's first Covid-19 related death in 242 days. The total number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in mainland China now stands at 88,557, while the official death toll is 4,635. ........ In an effort to contain the outbreak, authorities placed Shijiazhuang under lockdown on January 8, with all 11 million residents barred from leaving the city. ........ In northeastern Jilin province, 102 cases have been linked to a so-called "superspreader," a salesman who traveled from his home province of Heilongjiang.

What a ‘wrecked’ polar vortex means for winter-starved Americans It’s been an easy winter on the East Coast, but that’s not guaranteed to continue ........... Experts now say that although the bout of unsettled wintry weather is delayed, it’s too soon to count it out. ........ surprises can be in store when the polar vortex is weak and wobbly — as is currently the case. ....... The stratospheric polar vortex is a whirlpool of high-altitude cold air that swirls around a low-pressure area near the North Pole. It’s born as a result of polar night, a months-long dark spell that accompanies the dead of winter in the Far North. The lack of sunlight chills the air, jump-starting the gyrating icebox’s spin every winter. It vanishes once spring returns, only to re-form by September or October. ..........  It’s not guaranteed that each polar vortex disruption or stratospheric warming event will yield unusually cold and snowy conditions, given how unique each event is. ......... The ongoing event, which kicked off in early January, has been complex. “Typically, when you get a large disruption, that’s it,” said Judah Cohen, a polar vortex specialist and director of seasonal forecasting at Atmospheric and Environmental Research. “[But this time] we got a split, then it recovered; it kind of split again, and now it’s displaced, and it could split a third or fourth time.” ........ One of the lobes has already brought extreme cold to Siberia, where temperatures in Yakutia, in eastern Russia, haven’t climbed above minus-40 in more than a month, according to the Associated Press. Delyankir, in northeastern Russia, dropped to minus-73 degrees Jan. 18. The concentrated cold has been fierce and extreme, and looks to remain in place in eastern Russia through at least early next week. ........ the messy split of the polar vortex may be causing it to play out differently than other years when the vortex was displaced. ........ “While the polar vortex has become very stretched out and wobbly, it has not displaced as strongly southward or split as clearly into two lobes as in other events,” wrote Butler. “[That] means it might not be able to influence the underlying jet stream quite as well.” ............... Signs also point to the vortex remaining unsteady and unstable for the remainder of the season. That bolsters the odds of wintry weather in the northeastern United States .......... it’s just too late in the season to expect the polar vortex to regain its former strength. “We will not get to the cold temperatures in Arctic [stratosphere]; the vortex will stay in a weakened warm state.” .......... “If it becomes disturbed enough, it could help nudge the jet stream south, allowing cold air to spill from Canada into the U.S. But this prediction is for a couple of weeks from now, which is still too far in the future for any guarantees.” .......... His gut tells him late January into February could be interesting. “It’s not over,” Cohen said. “I think it’s just getting started.” 

In The News (8)

Shadows on the Silk Road Finding omens of American decline on a long walk across Asia. ........ toxic polarization, mobocracy and global retreat ......... I have spent the entire Trump administration stepping over the rubble of another once dynamic but collapsed experiment in multilateralism: the Silk Road. ......... the Silk Road, a fabled 2,000-year-old trade nexus connecting the markets and minds of Asia, Europe and Africa through a complex web of commercial trails ........... the United States, under its most polarizing leader in generations, experiences extreme polarization over race and identity, the rise of white supremacist militias and an autocratic president assaulting the national institutions till his very last days in office. ..............  Seen from afar, my home country is ......withdrawing into a fetal position. ............  homicidal traffic on the 2,500-year-old Grand Trunk Road in India — probably the oldest overland trade route still in bustling use. ........... made the Silk Road a conduit of human innovation .......... Chinese paper — an invention crucial, like computers, for transmitting knowledge cheaply and quickly — traveled westward into medieval Arabia and Europe. ............ “For centuries before the early modern era, the intellectual centers of excellence of the world, the Oxfords and Cambridges, the Harvards and Yales, were not located in Europe or the west, but in Baghdad and Balkh, Bukhara and Samarkand” ..............  “A thousand years ago we had world-class astronomers, mathematicians and many other scientists here,” said Inessa Yuvakaeva, a cultural guide in the town’s walled old city. “We were more advanced than Europe.” ............... Ms. Yuvakaeva ticked off some homegrown Einsteins. Muhammad al-Khwarizmi, a ninth-century genius who helped formulate the precepts of algebra, has lent his name to the word “algorithm.” A century later, the brilliant polymathic Abu Rayhan Muhammad al-Biruni wrote more than 140 manuscripts on everything from pharmaceuticals to the anthropology of India. (A typical al-Biruni title: “The Exhaustive Treatise on Shadows.”) ................... Probably the most celebrated Silk Road sage of all was Abu Ali al-Hussein ibn Sina, revered in the West as Avicenna, who in the 11th century compiled an encyclopedia of healing that was still in use by European doctors as late as the 18th century. Avicenna’s “Canon of Medicine” accurately diagnosed diabetes by tasting sweetness in urine. Its pharmacopoeia cataloged more than 800 remedies. A millennium ago, Avicenna advocated quarantines to control epidemics. ................... Pacing off continents is an exercise in humility. You inhabit the limit of your daily strides. To the next tree shade. To the next horizon. ........... Back in the United States, the country seems to have U-turned into mustier Uzbek terrain. The government has erected its own fearmongering ads: Immigration and Customs Enforcement billboards in Pennsylvania featured mug shots of undocumented migrants charged with crimes. Federal agents interrogated American citizens for speaking Spanish in Montana. And a departing president with his own huge personality cult reportedly suggested shooting migrants in the legs at the Rio Grande. Mr. Trump’s mainstreaming of racism, xenophobia and science denialism doesn’t look very temporary. More than 74 million American voters endorsed it. And some even answered his call for insurrection. ..................... The Silk Road made our world. Ten centuries ago, incredibly diverse societies spanning a hemisphere extended an open hand — true enough, one holding the coin of commerce — and not a closed fist. Humanity’s capacity for curiosity grew. So, for a while, did intellectual achievement and open-mindedness. But by the 1600s, it had faded. ..................  blames Mongol invasions, shriveling patronage by wealthy sultans, rising European maritime competition and even climate change as factors of collapse. But he emphasizes a phenomenon that seems scraped from today’s social media: extreme polarization. ................ “By the late 11th century a full-blown cultural war was underway,” writes Mr. Starr. It was Muslim against Muslim, with “Sunni watchdogs of the faith making sure that no thinker strayed beyond the strict bounds of tradition, and Shiite watchdogs of the faith responding in kind. Free inquiry was caught in the crossfire.” .................. on the morning of Feb. 10, 1258: Mongol invaders breached the walls of Baghdad, massacred its civilian population and dumped the wisdom gathered across centuries — thousands of priceless manuscripts looted from 36 city libraries — into the Tigris. .......... A poll conducted over the summer revealed that almost a third of the American electorate would accept “a strong incumbent leader who does not have to bother with Congress and elections.” .................. And the ground slopes east toward an Asian century. ......... India, yet another democracy cartwheeling into an abyss of right-wing populism. Riding a wave of Hindu nationalism, one Indian state all but criminalized marriages between Hindu and Muslim citizens. 

Biden’s Covid-19 Plan Is Maddeningly Obvious It is infuriating that the Trump administration left so many of these things undone. ....... But vaccines don’t save people; vaccinations do. And vaccinating more than 300 million people, at breakneck speed, is a challenge that only the federal government has the resources to meet. ............ broke the plan down into four buckets. Loosen the restrictions on who can get vaccinated (and when). Set up many more sites where vaccinations can take place. Mobilize more medical personnel to deliver the vaccinations. And use the might of the federal government to increase the vaccine supply by manufacturing whatever is needed, whenever it is needed, to accelerate the effort. ............ Biden’s team members intend to use the Federal Emergency Management Agency to set up thousands of vaccination sites in gyms, sports stadiums and community centers, and to deploy mobile vaccination options to reach those who can’t travel or who live in remote places. They want to mobilize the National Guard to staff the effort and ensure that strapped states don’t have to bear the cost. They want to expand who can deliver the vaccine and call up retired medical personnel to aid the campaign. They want to launch a massive public education blitz, aimed at communities skeptical of the vaccine. They’re evaluating how to eke out more doses from the existing supply — there is, for instance, a particular vial that will get you six doses out of a given quantity of Pfizer’s vaccine rather than five, and they are looking at whether the Defense Production Act could accelerate production of that particular vial and other, similarly useful goods. ......... people who could’ve been saved by simple competence and foresight will die instead. ............... Even on the most optimistic timetable, it will take until well into the summer for America to reach herd immunity. ........... the coronavirus death toll in America will pass 500,000 by the end of February. And it will not end there. ............. Back in May, I wrote that we were operating, in effect, without a president and without a national plan. It is January, and that remains true.

Yellen Readies Big Changes for Treasury From financial regulation to minority lending, Biden’s pick is poised to change course sharply from the policies of Secretary Steven Mnuchin. ........... Ms. Yellen’s plans to revive a pandemic-stricken economy. .......... emphasized the need to create “equitable growth,” using the tools of the Treasury Department to combat climate change and rebuild regulatory institutions like the F.S.O.C. .............. She called last year for a “new Dodd-Frank,” arguing at a Brookings Institution event that existing laws were insufficient for dealing with problems in the “shadow” banking sector that emerged when the pandemic caused severe market turmoil. ............ “This is the worst economic crisis in 100 years, and nobody is better qualified than Secretary-designate Yellen to lead an economic recovery”  

In The News (5)

Meet the contenders for Biden’s Cabinet The president-elect is expected to nominate a mix of progressives, moderates and even a few Republicans as he seeks to satisfy a broad coalition. 

The Election That Broke the Republican Party By lashing themselves to the president’s desperate conspiracies of fraud, GOP officials have undermined their own legitimacy.  

How to be a statesman, in 4 mins. https://t.co/37PkmGis6Y

— Fareed Zakaria (@FareedZakaria) November 7, 2020

71,000,000 Legal Votes. The most EVER for a sitting President!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2020

"Relieved" is exactly the right word! https://t.co/ZncxI7aCc2

— Prof. Katharine Hayhoe (@KHayhoe) November 7, 2020

this dog sure has some moves
(jukin copyright management) pic.twitter.com/A5hVy3h5kM

— Humor And Animals (@humorandanimals) November 7, 2020

In The News (3)

Even If Joe Biden Wins, He Will Govern in Donald Trump's America The 2020 election did not go according to plan for the Democrats. It was a far cry from the sweeping repudiation of Trump that the polls had forecast and liberals craved. After all the outrage and activism, a projected $14 billion spent and millions more votes this time than last, Trump’s term is ending the way it began: with an election once again teetering on a knife’s edge, and a nation entrenched in stalemate, torn between two realities, two orientations, two sets of facts......  the congressional Republicans who enabled him instead notched unexpected gains ....... The GOP appeared likely to retain the majority in the Senate and cut into the Democratic House majority, defying the polls and fundraising deficits. Republicans held onto states such as Florida, South Carolina, Ohio and Iowa that Democrats had hoped to flip. They cut into Democrats’ margins with nonwhite voters, made gains with Latinos in South Florida and the Rio Grande Valley, and racked up huge turnout among non-college-educated white people, while halting what many conservatives feared was an inexorable slide in the suburbs. ......... “Democrats always argued, ‘If more people voted, we would win,’” says GOP strategist Brad Todd, co-author of The Great Revolt: Inside the Populist Coalition Reshaping American Politics. “Well, guess what? Everybody voted, and it didn’t help the Democrats. There is a multi-racial, working-class ethos that is animating the new Republican coalition.” ........... he will be governing Trump’s America: a nation unpersuaded by kumbaya calls for unity and compassion, determined instead to burrow ever deeper into mutual antagonism. Win or lose, Trump has engineered a lasting tectonic shift in the American political landscape, fomenting a level of anger, resentment and suspicion that will not be easy for his successor to surmount ..............  The COVID-19 pandemic has just entered its worst phase yet, rampaging across the country virtually unchecked. The economic fallout from the virus continues to worsen without new federal aid. ..............  something is completely rotten in the foundations of our democracy ........  our identity crisis continues. ....... He made little alteration to his bull-in-a-china-shop attitude, even though the hellscape he raged against was now one that unfolded on his watch. ......... Biden shattered campaign-finance records—his campaign hauled in $952 million, dwarfing the incumbent by more than $300 million ...... “These Trump rallies and Trump parades and all those kinds of things, they don’t strike me as the type that would be answering a polling call” ................. “He’s still going to be the leader of the party and the biggest voice, and he’ll at least flirt with the idea of running again. It’s going to continue to be a populist, grievance-fueled party.”  

US election 2020: Why racism is still a problem for the world's most powerful country  It's the mindset that led President Woodrow Wilson, in office from 1913 to 1921, to oversee the re-segregation of multiple federal agencies. This is the same president who publicly backed the Ku Klux Klan. It's the mindset that at the turn of the 20th Century saw the vilification of black people as wide-eyed "happy negroes" content with their lot as poor share croppers and shoe shiners. ..................  African Americans don't have that luxury. The past is the present, the racism is the same. ......... A big issue in the campaign was urban crime and the Clinton administration's controversial 1994 Crime Bill that critics say increased mass incarceration and led to the disproportionate jailing of tens of thousands of black men. Joe Biden helped get that legislation on the books, and his involvement has come back to haunt him. ..............  the fear of a bad encounter with the police lives in the mind of every African American. 

In The News (2)

Even if Biden wins, the world will pay the price for the Democrats' failures

The left just got crushed

Three Reasons Biden Flipped the Midwest Trump gave away his gains with key groups from four years ago and Biden reclaimed lost Democratic ground.

A Dreadful New Peak for the American Pandemic The country recorded more than 100,000 coronavirus cases today—the highest single-day total since the pandemic began.

Democrats frustrated, GOP jubilant in Senate fight

Biden Edges Close to 270

Despite ‘racist’ charges, Trump did better with minorities than any GOP candidate in 60 years

Can Republicans Become a Multiracial Working-Class Party?

Coronavirus News (217)

 Trump v American democracy: the real battle on the ballot this November According to one former senior FBI official, ‘The insider threat [to the election] is sitting in the Oval Office.’ ..........  Trump poses a more severe danger to the 244-year-old American experiment than any foreign adversary. ...............  Whereas in 2016 Vladimir Putin’s Russia meddled in an election, now it is the current occupant of the White House who seems hellbent on subverting an American election. ..........  Kamala Harris, the first woman of colour on a major party ticket, whom he has already dubbed “mean”, “nasty” and “a mad woman”. .......  Five states – Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington and Utah – already carry out elections almost entirely by mail. ...........  the postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, a Trump donor ...........  Republicans belong to “the party of voter suppression” .........  we’re still in the middle of a pandemic where showing up to vote in person could mean life or death for some people .......  US intelligence has warned that Russia is already interfering in the 2020 election with the aim of getting Trump re-elected. ............  a president gone rogue – a man who this week welcomed the support of believers in a baseless righting conspiracy theory that holds the world is run by a shadowy cabal of Satan-worshipping paedophiles. .................  “Who needs Vladimir Putin when we have Donald Trump? If you were Vladimir Putin and you wanted to disrupt this election, what would you do? You’d spread disinformation. You’d make people doubt the legitimacy of the vote. You’d peddle conspiracy theories and you might want to mess with mail-in voting. That’s all happening without him. Our president is doing that.”  ...............  if he loses, we will have a bitterly divided country with about 30% of the population angry, alienated, perhaps in the streets, something we’ve never seen here before   

 

How Donald Trump canceled the Republican party  After the election, political scientists and historians will study his obliteration of the Republican party as his greatest and most enduring political achievement...........  In 1980, Ronald Reagan opened his general election campaign at the Neshoba County Fair, the place where three civil rights workers had been murdered in 1964. Surrounded by Confederate flags, he hailed “states’ rights”. As brazen an appeal as it was, Reagan felt he had to resort to the old code words. ............  Central to Trump’s unique selling proposition is that he dispenses with the dog whistles. His vulgarity gives a vicarious thrill to those who revel in his taunting of perceived enemies or scapegoats. He made them feel dominant at no social price, until his catastrophic mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic and economic crisis. Flouting a mask is the magical act of defiance to signal that nothing has really changed and that in any case, Trump bears no responsibility. ...................  Trump is the only president since the advent of modern polling never to reach 50% approval. Despite decisively losing the popular vote in 2016, he said he “won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally”. This time, fearing an even more overwhelming popular rejection, he says the outcome will be “rigged” and he has pre-emptively tried to cancel the US Postal Service, to undermine voting by mail. ..............  Reagan represented free trade and western firmness against Russia. George HW Bush was a paragon of public service. George W Bush was an advocate for immigrants. John McCain was the embodiment of patriotic sacrifice. ......... After Trump, all that has been cancelled. .............  Since he first rode down the escalator at Trump Tower in 2015, to declare his candidacy against Mexican “rapists”, there has always been a new escalator downward. .......  the conservative Trump apologists, the adults in the room, as latter-day versions of Franz von Papen, the German chancellor who enabled the rise of Hitler in the complacent belief that he could be controlled ..........  He had earlier told the South Dakota governor, Kristi Noem, “‘Did you know it’s my dream to have my face on Mount Rushmore?’” “And I started laughing,” she recounted. “And he wasn’t laughing, so he was totally serious.” ...........  Trump’s cancel culture deals in aggressions, not micro-aggressions. The only safe space is where Trump is worshipped. Before, during and after the death of McCain, Trump unleashed tirades of insult. ................  For years, Trump has disparaged the Bush family. At the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, when George W Bush called for setting aside partisanship and embracing national unity, Trump tweeted, “but where was he during Impeachment calling for putting partisanship aside”. ............   Trump has constantly retailed a false story about Reagan supposedly remarking after meeting him, “For the life of me, and I’ll never know how to explain it, when I met that young man, I felt like I was the one shaking hands with the president.” The chief administrative officer of the Reagan Foundation felt compelled to note that Reagan “did not ever say that about Donald Trump”. ...............  Trump’s petty, vindictive and exploitative abuse of the Bush presidents, McCain and Reagan pales in comparison to his raging obsessions about Lincoln. He has boasted his poll numbers are better than Lincoln’s ever were (true), claimed he is more a victim than the assassinated martyr (untrue), and declared he has done more for Black Americans than Lincoln (untrue). ..............   Trump, the would-be Great Emancipator and upholder of Confederate monuments, has lately ruminated about giving an address at Gettysburg. ..........  What Lincoln consecrated, Trump would desecrate. ............  Bannon’s dark apocalyptic mutterings against the forces conspiring against him and Trump: the “Deep State”, rootless cosmopolitans, globalists and liberal elites. ..................  “This has been the experience of most,” she observed with the sagacious tone of a student of history. “Abraham Lincoln was famously, even within his own cabinet, surrounded by people who were former political adversaries.” Ivanka’s smug confusion was complete. She had mistaken the whistleblower whose memo triggered the impeachment process with Lincoln’s “team of rivals”. ...........  we’ll make America great again, again ..........  “Russia if you’re listening …” .........  To quote Marx – Groucho – “Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?” .........  quote from President Lincoln. He said … quote, ‘I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go.’” ................  The identity of the enemy may change – Muslims, Mexicans or Moms – but Miller is prepared to draw the sword for whatever clash of civilization may come. He’s just not prepared for a virus.   

Trump Builds A Wall .... Around The White House

@realDonaldTrump walled himself off from America. It’s the first thing he’s done that I agree with. 🥳 https://t.co/vcuohHB2zO

— Venture Capital (@kelly2277) June 7, 2020

Security Concerns Give the White House a Fortified New Look

The people's house has become the people's fortress 

Trump Built the Wall, Around Himself  

The state Senate is advancing a bill to name the state Thruway after Frederick Douglass. https://t.co/narGpH36uH

— Poughkeepsie Journal (@PokJournal) June 7, 2020

Trump Builds A Wall .... Around The White House https://t.co/pqHQir8ZPU #TrumpBunkerSongs #Trump #DonaldTrump #blacklivesmatter #BlackLivesMattters #BlackLivesMatterDC #protests2020 #protestsnyc #WhiteHouse

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) June 7, 2020

Coronavirus News (104)

Inside Trump’s coronavirus meltdown When the history is written of how America handled the global era’s first real pandemic, March 6 will leap out of the timeline. That was the day Donald Trump visited the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. His foray to the world’s best disease research body was meant to showcase that America had everything under control. ............ Shortly before the CDC visit, Trump said “within a couple of days, [infections are] going to be down to close to zero”. The US then had 15 cases. “One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.” .........

That afternoon at the CDC provides an X-ray into Trump’s mind at the halfway point between denial and acceptance.

........ We now know that Covid-19 had already passed the breakout point in the US. The contagion had been spreading for weeks in New York, Washington state and other clusters. The curve was pointing sharply upwards. Trump’s goal in Atlanta was to assert the opposite............ In his 47-minute interaction with the press, Trump rattled through his greatest hits. ...... He dismissed CNN as fake news, boasted about his high Fox News viewership, cited the US stock market’s recent highs, called Washington state’s Democratic governor a “snake” and admitted he hadn’t known that large numbers of people could die from ordinary flu. He also misunderstood a question on whether he should cancel campaign rallies for public health reasons. “I haven’t had any problems filling [the stadiums],” Trump said...........

South Korea had its first infection on January 20, the same day as America’s first case, and was, he said, calling America for help.

“They have a lot of people that are infected; we don’t.” “All I say is, ‘Be calm,’” said the president. “Everyone is relying on us. The world is relying on us.” ........... South Korea, which has a population density nearly 15 times greater and is next door to China, has lost a total of 259 lives to the disease. There have been days when America has lost 10 times that number. The US death toll is now approaching 90,000. ......... a president who ignored increasingly urgent intelligence warnings from January, dismisses anyone who claims to know more than him and trusts no one outside a tiny coterie, led by his daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner – the property developer who Trump has empowered to sideline the best-funded disaster response bureaucracy in the world...........

“America is first in the world in deaths, first in the world in infections and we stand out as an emblem of global incompetence. The damage to America’s influence and reputation will be very hard to undo.”

......... “Jared [Kushner] had been arguing that testing too many people, or ordering too many ventilators, would spook the markets and so we just shouldn’t do it” .......... “That advice worked far more powerfully on him than what the scientists were saying. He thinks they always exaggerate.” .......... Nobody expected this virus. It hit us like a meteor or a terrorist attack.” ........  Trump was warned countless times of the epidemic threat in his presidential daily briefings, by federal scientists, the health secretary Alex Azar, Peter Navarro, his trade adviser, Matt Pottinger, his Asia adviser, by business friends and the world at large. Any report would probably conclude that tens of thousands of deaths could have been prevented – even now as Trump pushes to “liberate” states from lockdown. ............. “It is as though we knew for a fact that 9/11 was going to happen for months, did nothing to prepare for it and then shrugged a few days later and said, ‘Oh well, there’s not much we can do about it,’” says Gregg Gonsalves, a public health scholar at Yale University.

“Trump could have prevented mass deaths and he didn’t.”

........... In fairness, other democracies, notably the UK, Italy and Spain, also wasted time failing to prepare for the approaching onslaught. Whoever was America’s president might have been equally ill-served by Washington infighting............ “Redfield is about the worst person you could think of to be heading the CDC at this time” .......... “He lets his prejudices interfere with the science, which you cannot afford during a pandemic.” ........ Dr Anthony Fauci – the infectious disease expert and now household name – is widely known to loathe Redfield, and vice versa. ........... Restrictions on testing narrow the options.

“Once you get to one per cent prevalence in any community, it is too late for non-pharmaceutical interventions to work”

......... Eleven days later, Boris Johnson, Britain’s prime minister contracted Covid-19. The disease nearly killed him. That was Johnson’s road-to-Damascus. ........... Trump’s mindset became increasingly surreal. He began to tout hydroxychloroquine as a cure for Covid-19. On March 19, at a

regular televised briefing, which he conducted daily for five weeks, often rambling for more than two hours

, he depicted the antimalarial drug as a potential magic bullet. It could be “one of the biggest game-changers in the history of medicine”, he later tweeted. .................. Scientists who demurred were punished. In April, Rick Bright,

the federal scientist in charge of developing a vaccine – arguably the most urgent role in government – was removed

after blocking efforts to promote hydroxychloroquine........... Other scientists have taken note of Bright’s fate. During the Ebola outbreak in 2014, when Obama’s administration sent 3,000 US military personnel to Africa to fight the epidemic, the CDC held a daily briefing about the state of progress. It has not held one since early March.

Scientists across Washington are terrified of saying anything that contradicts Trump.

........ “The way to keep your job is to out-loyal everyone else, which means you have to tolerate quackery” ........

“You have to flatter him in public and flatter him in private. Above all, you must never make him feel ignorant.”

.......... An administration official says

advising Trump is like “bringing fruits to the volcano” – Trump being the lava source. “You’re trying to appease a great force that’s impervious to reason,”

says the official..... When Trump suggested in late April that people could stop Covid-19, or even cure themselves, by injecting disinfectant, such as Lysol or Dettol, his chief scientist, Deborah Birx, did not dare contradict him. The leading bleach companies issued statements urging customers not to inject or ingest disinfectant because it could be fatal. The CDC only issued a cryptic tweet advising Americans to: “Follow the instructions on the product label.” .......... “The CDC has led the response to every disease for decades. Now it has vanished from view.” ....... “People turn into wusses around Trump. If you stand up to him, you’ll never get back in. What you see in public is what you get in private. He is exactly the same.” ......... “You don’t turn off the hose in the middle of the fire, even if you dislike the fireman,” says Bernhard Schwartländer, chief of staff at the WHO. “This virus threatens every country in the world and will exploit any crack in our resolve.” The body, in other words, has fallen victim to US-China hostility.........

The WHO can no more insist on going into Wuhan to investigate the origins of Covid-19 than it can barge into Atlanta to investigate the CDC’s delay in producing a test.

......... Fauci and other scientists say the pathogen almost certainly came from a wet market in Wuhan. ........ His overriding goal is to revive the economy before the general election. Both Trump and Kushner have all but declared mission accomplished on the pandemic. “This is a great success story,” said Kushner in late April. “We have prevailed,” said Trump on Monday. ........ Every week since the start of the outbreak, he has said a vaccine is just around the corner. His latest estimate is that it will be ready by July. Scientists say it will take a year at best to produce an inoculation. Most say 18 months would be lucky. Even that would break all records. The previous fastest development was four years for mumps in the 1960s..........

his once double-digit lead over Biden among Americans over 65 has been wiped out. It turns out retirees are no fans of herd immunity.

......... Trump’s poll numbers have been steadily dropping over the last month. For the next six months, America’s microbial fate will be in the hands of its president’s erratic re-election strategy. There is more than a whiff of rising desperation........... “In my view he is a sociopath and a malignant narcissist. When a person suffering from these disorders feels the world closing in on them, their tendencies get worse. They lash out and fantasise and lose any ability to think rationally.” ......... Yet without exception, everyone I interviewed, including the most ardent Trump loyalists, made a similar point to Conway. Trump is deaf to advice, said one. He is his own worst enemy, said another. He only listens to family, said a third. He is mentally imbalanced, said a fourth. America, in other words, should brace itself for a turbulent six months ahead – with no assurance of a safe landing.

Coronavirus News (104) https://t.co/dNHCz6uTsx #CoronavirusLiar #CoronaVirusUpdate #CoronavirusUSA #coronaviruskenya #COVID19 #COVID #COVIDIOTS #lockdown #pandemic #pandemia #TrumpVirus #TrumpHasNoPlan #TrumpGate #TrumpDeathToll88K #TrumpMeltdown #TrumpTrain

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 17, 2020

Dr. Bright Goes To Washington

Ousted vaccine director files whistleblower complaint alleging coronavirus warnings were ignored
Rick Bright, ousted director of vaccine agency, warns that administration lacks 'centralized, coordinated plan'
How Rick Bright grabbed the spotlight and angered the Trump administration

The crisis could worsen significantly without fast federal action

, Rick Bright says. ...... the Trump administration had failed to prepare for the Covid-19 outbreak and actively misled Americans on its response. ......... He’s the first federal health official to publicly criticize the Trump administration so harshly, and in such detail, given his prominent position in the biomedical world. ....... Trump defenders were nowhere to be found in the House hearing room because they declined to send someone, giving Bright hours of air time and a news cycle’s worth of headlines. ......... “And I believe that the best scientific advice and guidance was not being conveyed to the American public” in the early days of the pandemic. .........

Trump has tried to portray Bright as a disgruntled outgoing employee.

......... Bright — who alleges that he was abruptly removed as director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority in April because he opposed political pressures linked to malaria drugs — is the first official to actively undermine the president’s claims that the administration has done a “great job” handling the response. ....... “We did not forewarn people. We did not train people. We did not educate them on social distancing and wearing a mask as we should have in January and February.” ........ Bright also testified that he and his team faced pressure from political appointees after President Donald Trump in March began touting malaria drugs like hydroxychloroquine not proved to treat Covid-19, despite scant evidence and at the urging of his allies. ......

chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, the malaria medicines touted by the president as potential coronavirus treatments despite scant evidence that they worked.

....... The focus on the malaria drugs was “extremely distracting” for health officials, Bright responded. “It distracted from their efforts at developing other vaccines and drugs.” .......

"Our window of opportunity is closing,” he said. “If we fail to develop a national coordinated response, based in science, I fear the pandemic will get far worse and be prolonged, causing unprecedented illness and fatalities.”

...... “You and others were seeing over the horizon what was coming to our shores” ........ The Office of Special Counsel, which is investigating Bright's complaint, last week recommended that he be temporarily reinstated to his BARDA role until his complaint is resolved. The office said it found "reasonable grounds to believe" that the administration retaliated against Bright.

Humankind has never had a more urgent task than creating broad immunity for coronavirus. It’s going to require a global cooperative effort like the world has never seen. But I know we’ll get it done. There’s simply no alternative. https://t.co/lDRkgqJ39k

— Bill Gates (@BillGates) April 30, 2020

A Second Wave Is Inevitable

That there will be a second wave (and a third wave later, and a fourth) is a foregone conclusion. Until there is a vaccine, we will keep having waves. The only question is, when will that second wave strike, how big will that be, will we be able to control it when it arrives, and how much economic damage can we expect?

Trump's recklessness means we might not have to wait until Fall for the second wave to strike. If the second wave strikes during summer, people are going to be really scared during the Fall and winter. And if they are, the economy will take a much bigger hit.

But the worst-case scenario is not that a second wave might strike earlier, the worst-case scenario is that the second wave is so big it is pretty much out of control. Flattening the curve is no longer an option. Now we are no longer projecting 200,000 dead, but upwards of a million, and that just in the US.

Negative interest rates are like when oil prices went negative. People would give you the oil for free and then pay you for keeping it. If the second wave is large enough, the Fed could give you money and instead of charging you low or no interest rates, it would pay you, and people would still not come out of their homes to go to work.

What Donald Trump is attempting is not Sweden. In Sweden, they are protecting the elderly. What Donald Trump is attempting is not even civil war. The last civil war had two clean-cut sides. He is not even attempting chaos. He is delivering confusion. Only this confusion comes in body bags, lots of them.

It is not a choice between lockdown and an economy. It is about smartly easing the lockdown with circuit breakers in place so as to not suffocate the economy too much. There is nothing smart and gradual about the Trump rulebook.

A Second Wave Is Inevitable https://t.co/mYczSBPhkD #CoronavirusOutbreak #coronavirusinpakistan #CoronaVirusSA #COVID #LockdownSA #PandemicPlaybook #pandemic #TrumpVirus #TrumpIsALaughingStock #TrumpOwnsEveryDeath #TrumpCoronavirusTestFailure #DonaldTrump

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 14, 2020

Parscale Will Sink The Trump Boat

Parscale is like a star engineer who was so good at his job, he got promoted to Manager, and he was absolutely lousy as manager. He was a great engineer precisely because he was always going to be a lousy manager. But the boss did not know that. The boss thought promoting a great engineer is the logical next thing to do. Bad idea.

Irresponsible. .... South Korea never closed. I wonder why.

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 8, 2020

Flawless rollout @parscale! https://t.co/Cp4JAQBswZ

— TJ Ducklo (@TDucklo) May 7, 2020

Parscale: In October, 2019, Thomas B. Edsall wrote a long Times column called “Trump Is Winning the Online War,” listing several of the “technological advances that have allowed Trump and the Republican Party to leave Democrats in the dust.” If money were no object, some of these deficits could be overcome quickly; others might not be surmountable by November........ “In comparison to Trump’s operation, Mike Bloomberg is the only Democrat positioned to compete with him on every single digital platform.”

Trump campaign manager mocked for 'Death Star' comparison

@parscale Parscale Will Sink The Trump Boat https://t.co/SOkMrYdGXd @jomalleydillon @KBeds @rufusgifford @ZeppaKreager @schultzohio @SymoneDSanders @CristobalJAlex @brandonenglish @kurt_bagley @JTOBrown @TDucklo @RemiMYamamoto@jakehbraun @jnkrieger @IAMoskowitz @Meirabb #joe

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 8, 2020

@Parscale Will Sink The Trump Boat https://t.co/SOkMrYdGXd @vedantpatel90 @PaigeinTN @JoeBiden @TeamJoe #JoeBiden #JoeBiden2020 #JoeBidenForPresident2020 #Biden2020 #Biden #PresidentialElection #PresidentBarackObama #PresidentDeath

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 8, 2020

Best Biden ad so far.

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 8, 2020

They do know what happened to the Death Star right? https://t.co/gNgfLgph90

— Rufus Gifford (@rufusgifford) May 7, 2020

The Trump campaign is proud to announce that they built the Titanic, it will be sailing across the political ocean in a few days https://t.co/z7YmwwmPu6

— Megan (@MeganApper) May 7, 2020

https://t.co/hnNwePj7SY pic.twitter.com/G1wf6q5bA3

— Cristóbal Alex (@CristobalJAlex) May 7, 2020

The nurses on the front lines of this crisis are American heroes. We owe them more than we could ever repay, but we can start by ensuring they have the protective equipment they need to stay safe, emergency paid sick leave, and premium pay. #NationalNursesDay

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) May 6, 2020

Defunding WHO: A Crime Against Humanity

The WHO needs to be boosted. If the US was giving it half a billion, it needs to add to that 20 billion. But instead, the clown in the White House has decided to defund it. Not cut some funding. But totally defund it. This is a fascist's wet dream on its way to becoming true. Let Donald Trump's name on every stimulus check be a warning sign. One can not think of a better punch to the gut just when the global economy is seeing a possibly unprecedented low with no light at the end of the tunnel.

You can not resurrect the economy, any economy, without successfully fighting the pandemic. America never was an island. It is not one today. Either all economies will rise again together, or the American economy will go deep down with it. Donald Trump is taking America to Mad Max days.

America is printing money by the fistful. And the only way America is being able to print money by the fistful is because the dollar is the de facto global currency. As the emerging markets make their strides to become developed economies, the demand for the dollar has been ascendant. And so America can print money and not risk hyperinflation. To him much is given much is asked.

This guy Donald Trump is insane. He wants a Depression. Because that is what will be best for his truest political ambitions. He has fascist tendencies. This guy wants Hunger Games in America and across the globe. Why did you not impeach him when you could? There is a madman in the White House. President Snow?

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Trump's name will be added to stimulus checks
WHO says it regrets Trump's decision to halt funding, but remains focused on coronavirus response
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo orders all people to wear face coverings in public
Peaks for California hospitalizations, deaths could come this weekend, L.A. mayor says

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If you’re a gig worker, freelancer or self-employed, here’s how you can get unemployment benefits
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Why Isn’t Bill Gates Running the Coronavirus Task Force?

Defunding WHO: A Crime Against Humanity https://t.co/YtbtG3Udhs @BillGates @melindagates @gatesfoundation @realDonaldTrump @WhiteHouse @StateDept @WHO @UN @AOC @BarackObama @MichelleObama @JoeBiden @AndrewYang @PeteButtigieg @KamalaHarris #TrumpIsACompleteFailure

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) April 15, 2020

Defunding WHO: A Crime Against Humanity https://t.co/YtbtG3Udhs @narendramodi @SrBachchan @amitshah @BJP4India #corona #coronavirus #CoronavirusOutbreak #CoronavirusLockdown #CoronaVirusNYC #pandemic #stimuluspayment #TrumpCheck #BailoutHumans

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) April 15, 2020

The man standing behind the podium at the White House is stone cold crazy. There is no other explanation.

— Joe Lockhart (@joelockhart) April 18, 2020

Germany And South Korea Have Shown What The US Needs To Be Doing

Measures taken in China a few months ago might come across as "draconian" to some, but South Korea and Germany have also shown the way. There is real-time data to show the approaches taken by South Korea and Germany have been working. The best way to get people back to work is to test widely so as to track down people who need to be isolated. The US has not been able to decide that, yes, that means free testing. You should not have to pay for it. A $100 test is much cheaper than the $1200 check going out to everybody. This is not a cost thing. This is a being able to do it thing. There is disorganization. And, yes, the lack of leadership is apparent. The only social distancing Trump is practicing is with Dr. Fauci. It's not just on climate, Trump denies science also on the corona.

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T 3493 - When you see that the cause is greater than the idea you dreamt of .. there is just immense joy and gratitude for all my colleagues and friends in the making of this historic effort !

WE ARE ONE and WE SHALL OVERCOME ! Jai Hind ! https://t.co/WoquwkSyqT

— Amitabh Bachchan (@SrBachchan) April 6, 2020

Germany And South Korea Have Shown What The US Needs To Be Doing https://t.co/2eJa5f6hHm #Corona #CoronaVirusUpdate #TrumpVirus #TrumpVirusCoverup #DonaldTrump #TrumpPressBriefing #pandemic

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) April 6, 2020

The Virus And The Politicians

Something that is the Great Depression and World War II combined is going to be a tall task for anybody, let alone mediocre politicians elected to high office, but the scale and rapidity of the spread of this pandemic, now virtually gone to all countries and spreading fast still has particularly exposed deficiencies in leadership, both of individuals and political systems. This is no argument against democracy, for South Korea seems to have done pretty well so far. It is said the genius of the US constitution is that even an idiot can run the country. I never fully bought into that.

But those who doubted Trump's ability to deliver from the get-go now find themselves uncomfortably with front seats to the unfolding tragedy. And Trump is not alone. There is this guy in Brazil basically inciting riots. He is a Trump clone. Modi's three weeks closing down of the country was not a bad idea, but the implementation was so shoddy, there was no implementation, there was just an announcement; as if the demonetization disaster was not enough. India finds itself with crowds of people moving around reminding many of a similar phenomenon during partition. Instead of being inside homes, people are clogging the roads.

The NYC Mayor has been missing in action while he takes to the cameras like he were some opposition leader demanding action. NYC has become Italy and it still is not seeing lockdown.

It is always easier when you are not actually running a country. Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown went on record asking to set up a world government from scratch. That is the most sense any politician has made during this pandemic so far. Gordon Brown should rally as many former heads of state as possible to the idea and make it happen.

Angela Merkel is a chemist by training. And it showed.

Both China and South Korea, and also Hong Kong and Singapore, all with diverse political systems, have done a pretty good job.

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While we are all locked at home billionaires are still flying around in private jets and partying in penthouses. Confirmed and yes they are laughing at us. Can’t blame them.

— Ray Youssef (@raypaxful) April 1, 2020

Now more than ever, we must all demand equal access to health care. Your gift now will allow us to keep putting pressure on the U.S. government to respond to the pandemic with equal access to testing and critical care. https://t.co/1ZZiMcjuzm pic.twitter.com/mYaTdHgyAE

— Human Rights Watch (@hrw) March 30, 2020

A growing chorus of Tennessee doctors and local leaders want Gov. Bill Lee to issue a stay-at-home order, warning that the coronavirus outbreak will only worsen in the state if he doesn't https://t.co/LdLpv8zizd

— CNN (@CNN) April 1, 2020

News programs, game shows see spike in viewers amid pandemic https://t.co/MDCRRLt7WP pic.twitter.com/NoVezgSi4m

— The Hill (@thehill) April 1, 2020

"All of us uniforms" https://t.co/JZRpApdFX4

— Libby Brittain (@libbybrittain) April 1, 2020

This is not a drill. https://t.co/UXXGF62qFNhttps://t.co/AwjU7wM43t pic.twitter.com/2Fhd7LKkhZ

— Right To The City (@ourcity) April 1, 2020

How bad will this pandemic be?

One of the main variables is how effective social distancing is.

That means YOU can influence the outcome.

Stay Home. Save Lives.

— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) April 1, 2020

How many lives he could have saved had he done this a month ago? https://t.co/365Kv0r60f

— Elizabeth C. McLaughlin 🩸🦷 (@ECMcLaughlin) April 1, 2020

The Virus And The Politicians https://t.co/6BjfkPB9dg #realityendorsesbernie #TrumpVirus #DonaldTrump #TrumpPandemic #coronavirus #CoronavirusUSA #coronaviruskenya #COVID19 #COVIDー19 #COVID #covid19impactke #lockdownUKnow #pandemic #Narendermodi #IndiaDeservesBetter

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) April 1, 2020

Most people really don't get exponential growth, obsessing over current numbers and percentages.

Sad! https://t.co/34Eibt8a0B

— #Masks4All (@YangTerrence) April 1, 2020

pic.twitter.com/NACDzWXdMR

— Jay Johnson (@Michael96303310) April 1, 2020

If you’re a politician who suddenly believes that COVID-19 treatment should be free but patients confronted with a deadly brain tumor, aneurysm, stroke or an autoimmune disease deserve to lose all their life savings, there’s one important thing you need to do:

go to hell.

— Amir (@AmirAminiMD) March 31, 2020

Thankful that I’m still able to pay my rent during this time...shit is really wild

— Myaa 🍭 (@__myaamyaa) April 1, 2020

We are in a health care crisis. We need to provide health care. 30 million Americans may lose their jobs. The next stimulus, at least, should provide the unemployed with Medicare during this time. If it costs $50 billion a month, that’s still cheaper than the $500 billion bailout

— Ro Khanna (@RoKhanna) April 1, 2020

I have no doubt that China's coronavirus numbers are fishy, but I find myself a little bit perturbed so far in the lack of specificity in the reporting over what they did exactly; hopefully that will come later.

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) April 1, 2020

More than three-quarters of hotel rooms across the US were empty last week, according to new data from analytics and research group STR https://t.co/v1AUiEXDqz

— CNN (@CNN) April 1, 2020

JUST IN: Connecticut confirms death of 6-week-old baby linked to coronavirus https://t.co/gTr683lYE1 pic.twitter.com/svw2L0QMU9

— The Hill (@thehill) April 1, 2020

Science writer @edyong209 gives an overview of what we know about how the coronavirus travels in the air, mask safety, and how this pandemic might end. Listen or read here: https://t.co/KcWicfZ6qY

— Fresh Air (@nprfreshair) April 1, 2020

A second person held at the federal prison in Oakland, La. — which is seeing rampant spread of the coronavirus — has died of COVID-19.

It's the second inmate death from COVID-19 across all federal prisons.

Live updates: https://t.co/fUoEFPHAos

— NPR (@NPR) April 1, 2020

The S&P 500 is headed for its biggest drop in two weeks https://t.co/xLDPmPb6i7

— Bloomberg (@business) April 1, 2020

Boston College junior, back home in New Jersey, launches online project to help families in need https://t.co/Yz6EUpw2nD

— The Boston Globe (@BostonGlobe) April 1, 2020

@anglicanrichard @gdeguzman99 @TheNakedParty @Hoi_Pollois @kelly2277 @RighteousBabe4
Tantamount to the Daily Stormer calling Hitler a moron.

Trump’s Daily Briefings Expose His Inadequacy https://t.co/q7n5FselTB

— Bob Magaw (@BobMagaw) April 1, 2020

"Trump threatens Iran – again – if it attacks U.S. interests in Iran"
As I suggested months ago one of the White Swans in 2020 will be a war between the US & Iran! https://t.co/dXMRmr7Qo1

— Nouriel Roubini (@Nouriel) April 1, 2020

The basic pushup is still one of the gold-standard chest exercises that you can do anytime, anywhere with no gear. pic.twitter.com/PhJaB5c7Jl

— Men's Health Mag (@MensHealthMag) April 1, 2020