No Matter What the GOP Says, the Epidemic is Far From Over
The worst economist in the world will direct the Trump administration's economic recovery...
Yesterday’s news coming from the right side of hell was that Dear Leader had done a terrific job and we could get back to the business of business real soon.
Today we’re being told to believe that the statistics on the coronavirus have been inflated to make the administration look worse. This yet another lie, adding to the layers of bs being ladled out daily.
Speaking of bs, the administration announced that Art Laffer, the genius behind the "Laffer Curve," the theory that the more you cut taxes, the more tax revenue comes in will be leading their economy recovery task force.
Here are some of his thoughts, courtesy of an interview with Reuters:
Republican economist Art Laffer, an architect of the Reagan era tax cuts that paved the way for historic budget deficits in the United States, has a plan to rejuvenate today’s pandemic-crippled economy.
Tax non-profits. Cut the pay of public officials and professors. Give businesses and workers who manage to hold on to their jobs a payroll tax holiday to the end of the year.
What about the extra aid funneled to newly jobless workers by the $2.3 trillion fiscal rescue package? Such government spending, Laffer told Reuters in an interview, will only serve to deepen the downturn and slow the recovery.
“If you tax people who work and you pay people who don’t work, you will get less people working,” Laffer said. “If you make it more unattractive to be unemployed, then there’s an incentive to go look for another job faster.”
Misinformation central, or, as the majority of old white people call it, Fox News, had Dr. Scott Jenson as a guest to say reports of COVID-19 were being inflated by hospitals so they could collect more money from medicare.
The thinking here is that pneumonia, which is often a result of the viral infection, should be listed as the cause of death in most cases. This line of thought is kind of like saying the death of a gunshot victim should be recorded as heart failure when the body stops functioning.
Why are these folks trying so desperately to rewrite history? Because the numbers don’t lie. If anything the number of deaths from the coronavirus are being under-reported, since people who die in places other than a hospital are getting lost in the system.
Consider that South Korea (pop. 51,000,000) and the United States (pop. 327,000,000) both started recording the virus as a health issue on the same day. Seoul reports 204 deaths so far. By the time you read this, the number of deaths in the U.S. will have exceeded 15,000.
The miracle cure touted by the White House and others for treating symptoms, malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, turns out to be questionable at best. On Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention quietly removed previously posted guidelines for using the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a potential treatment for the new coronavirus.
Although there are investigational studies (and some care facilities are using the drug out of desperation) ongoing, there is no evidence other than anecdotal accounts of hydroxychloroquine’s effectiveness.
NBC reports that physicians who have used the drug on seriously ill patients have seen no improvement. (Yes, this is also anecdotal evidence, but who’s to say it’s not just as valid?)
I guess you don’t need evidence when the administration can send Attorney General Bill Barr to Fox News to criticize the “jihad” aimed at discrediting the drug following President Trump’s touting of it as a potential “game-changer.”
https://twitter.com/mmfa/status/1248019507328638977?s=20
The science behind controlling epidemics indicates that mass testing is the shortest route to success until such time as a vaccine is created.
The stock market zoomed up, and many Americans were hopeful back on March 13, when Trump held a press event featuring executives from Walmart, Target, Walgreens, & CVS promising drive-thru testing in parking lots across the country.
It was the same event where he claimed "1700 engineers" at Google were building a web site. Google corporate said “What? The hell? Are you talking about”” and then went silent, lest they face the inconvenience of antitrust investigations from the Department of Justice.
Only five sites ever opened, and all of them were only for first responders, not the general public. The web site mentioned was an experimental effort led by Friends of Jared, aimed at collating data from the Bay Area. It no longer exists.
Federal support for State and hospital operated drive thru testing locations is ending on Friday. Health and Human Services issued a statement in response to queries about the funding, including “Many state and local governments and private providers are opening drive-through testing, and they know best how to meet their community’s needs making testing available to more people every day.”
https://twitter.com/LaurieBlackSD/status/1248279946931236867?s=20
A shortage of critical, but simple, supplies like swabs and vials has delayed testing throughout the country. It should surprise exactly nobody that the pursuit of profit is at the root of supply issues during this crisis.
Rep. Katie Porter has been all business since being elected to office. Today, Rep. Porter released a report showing that in spite of growing concerns and warnings about the potential oncoming pandemic threat of the COVID-19 virus from top officials and experts, Donald Trump not only did nothing about it, he allowed ramped up exportation of much-needed medical supplies. The report, titled “EVERYONE BUT US,” charges Donald Trump with misapplying and mismanaging our nation’s medical supplies in the months leading up to our current crisis.
Rep. Porter, like many Democratic officials, has long pleaded with Trump to use the powers afforded him under the Defense Production Act (DPA) to ramp up production and supply chains for much-needed medical supplies. These essential medical supplies were needed weeks ago at the front lines of the battle to save lives. Trump has instead been stingy in his application of the DPA, trying to gaslight away the death count under his watch.
What’s worse are allegations that the federal government is either participating in or enabling the seizure of medical supplies ordered by states and allowing those items to be resold at higher prices by private companies. Reports in the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, and Talking Points Memo citie complaints by state and local officials in Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Kentucky, Texas, and Florida.
https://twitter.com/Amy_Siskind/status/1248286627971170304?s=20
It’s all about politics, folks.
https://twitter.com/NatashaBertrand/status/1248256768377008131?s=20
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Lead graphic by DonkeyHotet via Flickr