Live and Let Die

Makes You Give in and Cry:  When Trump visited Honeywell’s converted facemask production facility in Phoenix on Tuesday, Live and Let Die was blasting over the plant’s stereo system.  It’s not clear that Trump got the irony but one thing’s for certain,  the song aptly describes his administration’s policy.  It’s no coincidence that the CDC‘s detailed guidelines written to provide step-by-step advice to local leaders deciding when and how to reopen public places which was due to be released last Friday, has now been shelved.  The CDC’s scientists have been told that the report entitled “Guidance for Implementing the Opening Up America Again Framework”  will never see the light of day, except for press leaks of course.  Likely that’s because Trump has no interest in waiting for the sustained declines in new COVID cases, nor those decreases in hospitalization rates and deaths recommended by the report, he just wants to open the country up now to get “his” economy back in gear in time for November’s election.  As to those statistics, while the country’s total disease curve looks like it’s plateauing, it isn’t.  When New York, where things are improving, is removed from the curve, it becomes clear that the incidence of disease in the US is still on the upswing. Remember when Trump said that he’d be open to immigrants from countries like Sweden?  Well those Swedes aren’t clamoring to get in, but apparently we are now following their deadly COVID plan.  It’s worth noting that Sweden which refrained from imposing strict “stay at home” policies, opting instead to rely on a “principle of responsibility,” has the highest death rate in the Nordic region, 291 per million inhabitants, far higher than Norway's death rate of 40 per million, Denmark's rate of 87, or Finland's rate of 45.  The US is at 205 per million and climbing.  One piece of good news, because we need some good news, our favorite, the Notorious RBG participated in yesterday’s Supreme Court hearings, the one focusing on whether it’s okay for faith based organizations to deprive women of contraceptive coverage, from her hospital bed and later in the day was released back to her safe hermetically sealed cocoon.  

An Open Book:  Attorney General William Barr, of all people, has been trying to get Trump to back off from continuing to fully support the group of Republican attorneys general’s lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act, the case due to come before the Supreme Court soon, warning that now might not be the right time to take away health care coverage but Trump, with the support of his devilish twin Mitch McConnell, refuses to relent.  Yesterday he publicly repeated his mantra that “Obamacare is a disaster….what we want to do is terminate it.”  He then added that he wants to “give great health care” but of course he has no health care plan. It’s fair to assume that his on camera statement will appear in a Democratic ad sometime soon. Trump made those remarks during a question and answer period with reporters that followed yesterday’s Oval Office “National Nurse Day” confab. During the same meeting he contradicted one New Orleans based nurse’s assertion that the availability of adequate personal protective equipment had been sporadic, saying that maybe it had been sporadic for her but that everywhere else it’s been “tremendous.”  During the same meeting, when one reporter asked Trump about vaccine expert Rick Bright, the NIH official who has filed a whistleblower complaint, Trump of course called him out as a disgruntled guy who he hasn’t heard any good things about, just one of those people trying to help the Democrats’ election prospects.  In other news, the House’s Appropriation Subcommittee held hearings on the administration’s coronavirus response without the participation of virus guru Dr Fauci or any of the government’s other experts who were all directed not to appear. Committee head, Congresswoman  Rosa DeLauro pointed out that Fauci has appeared before her subcommittee dozens of times when both Democrats and Republican have been in charge, she called out the White House for being “frightened of oversight.”  Even Tom Cole, the Republican ranking member, agreed that Fauci should have been allowed to participate.

What Does it Matter to You:  One of Trump’s allies, Leroy DeJoy, a major Republican donor, was named the new Postmaster General yesterday.  DeJoy is expected to press for major changes including the renegotiation of the postal contract with Amazon, something that Trump complains about often, largely because he hates Jeff Bezos who also owns the Washington Post.  Trump who has been holding the Postal Service financially hostage over the rate issue may find that causing closures in rural areas during an election cycle is not all that helpful to his base who relies on mail service for things like prescription drug deliveries but since he’s the same guy who is trying to get rid of health care coverage for many of the same people, maybe he’s right about his base not caring?  In any case, causing mail delivery problems in the run up to an election that is likely to have more mail-in ballots than ever before would be totally on brand. On the international front, the Five Eyes, the intelligence network comprised of the US, Australia, the UK, New Zealand and Canada does not concur with Secretary of State Pompeo’s assertion that there is evidence proving that COVID 19 leaked from a lab in Wuhan China but then again who cares about evidence, right? Remember Iraq.