Got a shortage of N95 masks? Then the thing to do is give a huge packet of money to a bankrupt company with no employees that has never made masks. Problem solved!

In this chaotic effort to obtain supplies, the Trump administration awarded a $55 million contract to Panthera Worldwide LLC, a company with no expertise in the world of medical equipment, for N95 masks, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday.

Panthera’s parent company filed for bankruptcy protection last fall, and one of its owners last year said it had had no employees since May 2018, The Post reported, citing sworn testimony. It’s no longer listed as an LLC in Virginia, where its main office is, after fees

… Read the rest

The ACLU doesn’t already have enough to do, it seems.

Trans people belong in sports — and everywhere else. pic.twitter.com/KcJXatqxrO

— ACLU (@ACLU) April 16, 2020

Trans girls are girls, they tell us, superimposed on images of…two women. Not trans, not girls, just women. They’re actors: Blake Lively and Leighton Meester. Why is the ACLU telling us “trans girls are girls” with photos of two women?

Maybe the idea is that when we hear or read the phrase “trans girls” (or women? or have we officially reverted to calling women “girls” now, as if it were 1955 again?) we are supposed to visualize… Blake Lively and Leighton Meester. We’re supposed to visualize women, and not just women but young pretty … Read the rest

The other G7 countries don’t want Trump at their lunch table right now.

Donald Trump found himself isolated among western leaders at a virtual G7 summit, as they expressed strong support for the World Health Organization after the US’s suspension of its funding.

Health officials around the world have condemned the US president’s decision to stop his country’s funding for the UN agency, amid a crisis that has left more than 2 million people infected and almost 140,000 dead.

Yes but the infections and deaths don’t matter, all that matters is Trump.

Immediately after the hour-long conference call, a spokesman for Angela Merkel said that the German chancellor had argued that “the pandemic can only be overcome with a

… Read the rest

This is startling.

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1250807416872189952… Read the rest

The pandemic has been good to Jeff Bezos.

The Amazon CEO and entrepreneur, Jeff Bezos, has grown his vast fortune by a further $24bn so far during the coronavirus pandemic, a roughly 20% increase over the last four months to $138b.

Amazon is getting a lot of business of course because real world shopping is either closed down or restricted.

But the increased demand comes amid growing controversy over the retailer’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak.

Workers have reported severe strains on warehouse teams. Many are on the frontlines packing and shipping items at warehouses where Covid-19 can easily spread.

Meanwhile Amazon is running tv ads showing the workers grinning broadly as they skip and dance around the warehouse … Read the rest

There are protests and then there are protests.

Thousands of demonstrators descended on the state Capitol in Lansing, Michigan, on Wednesday to protest Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s restrictive stay-at-home order, clogging the streets with their cars while scores ignored organizers’ pleas to stay inside their vehicles.

Not staying inside their anything is the whole point. Mommy can’t tell ME what to do.

The protest — dubbed “Operation Gridlock” — was organized by the Michigan Conservative Coalition and the Michigan Freedom Fund, a DeVos family-linked conservative group. Protesters were encouraged to show up and cause traffic jams, honk and bring signs to display from their cars. Organizers wrote on Facebook: “Do not park and walk — stay in your

… Read the rest

Social distancing at the BBC:

https://twitter.com/OwainWynEvans/status/1250319769678409735 https://twitter.com/BBCRadio2/status/1250757339424198656… Read the rest

Well this is a hell of a thing. It’s local news, but it’s one of those big hit to a major city items of local news. A bridge that connects West Seattle to Seattle has turned out to be cracking, and it’s closed at best until 2022 and at worst forever. A major chunk of the city that has been sprouting high rises like crazy over the past decade or so is suddenly cut off from the rest of the city. It’s a bit like Hurricane Sandy…a reminder that big cities are far from invulnerable.

The key points: The high-rise West Seattle Bridge, closed for safety concerns 23 days ago, may not be fixable – SDOT “does not yet

… Read the rest

Trump’s threat to adjourn Congress isn’t going down hugely well.

(2,2) other Executive Branch nominees by "Recess Appointments". It looks like he actually can do this. It's in Article 2, Section 3 of The Constitution which says
" . . . he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper . . . " HE IS UNHINGED!!!!!!!!!!!!!

— Fred Guttenberg (@fred_guttenberg) April 15, 2020

https://twitter.com/Raisingirl_Indy/status/1250555113510449153

In middle of pandemic Trump threatens to adjourn congress if lawmakers don’t approve his nominees. WH says constitution allows him to do it. “I have a very strong power,” Trump says. Trump points to nominee to oversee Voice of America as if that justifies such a drastic move.

— Jim Acosta (@Acosta)

… Read the rest

More coup-threatening:

Fact check: Trump says he will execute constitutional authority to adjourn both chambers of Congress so he can make recess appointments to fill vacancies.

“If the House will not agree to that adjournment, I will exercise my constitutional authority to adjourn both chambers of Congress,” Trump said.

No president has ever used that authority.

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously in NLRB v. Noel Canning that the president cannot use his or her authority under the Recess Appointment Clause of the Constitution to appoint public officials unless the Senate is in recess and not able to transact Senate business. The Senate is in recess until May 4.

Trump was asked for details, and responded with his usual clarity … Read the rest

The BBC checks the evil pinhead’s assertions about the WHO:

US President Donald Trump has accused the World Health Organization (WHO) of mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus after it emerged in China.

Because that’s what he did, so he needs to accuse the WHO of doing it, because that’s what runaway narcissists do.

He added he would halt WHO funding while his administration reviewed its actions.

Because that’s what evil pinheads do.

People who are not evil pinheads are not impressed.

US President Donald Trump has been heavily criticised for halting funding for the World Health Organization (WHO) amid the global coronavirus pandemic.

Philanthropist Bill Gates, a major funder of the WHO, said it was

… Read the rest

A protest:

Hundreds of Michigan residents descended on the state capitol in Lansing on Wednesday in their cars and trucks for a vehicle demonstration labeled #OperationGridlock to protest Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s strict stay-at-home orders. 

Because what kind of totalitarian fiend wants to prevent mass deaths from a novel virus pandemic?

The order, one of the nation’s most stringent, included closing parts of big-box stores that sell gardening and home-improvement goods, limiting the use of motorboats, closing public golf courses, and curbing interstate travel, barring residents from fleeing the most heavily afflicted parts of the state to their cabins in rural Michigan.

I think maybe public golf courses should remain open for walking and exercise (not for golf), provided … Read the rest

The Post reports:

The Treasury Department has ordered President Trump’s name printed on stimulus checks the Internal Revenue Service is rushing to send to tens of millions of Americans, a process that could slow their delivery by a few days, senior IRS officials said.

Also a process that coddles and encourages Trump’s disgusting vanity and egomania.

It will be the first time a president’s name appears on an IRS disbursement, whether a routine refund or one of the handful of checks the government has issued to taxpayers in recent decades either to stimulate a down economy or share the dividends of a strong one.

Because normal presidents, even the very empty-headed ones like Bush and Reagan, understand that they … Read the rest

News from South Dakota:

Gov. Kristi Noem reiterated Tuesday that she won’t be ordering South Dakota residents to stay home amid the coronavirus pandemic, as another 121 confirmed cases were reported in the state. The majority of South Dakota’s 988 total cases – 768 – are in Minnehaha County, which includes the Smithfield Foods pork processing plant in Sioux Falls, the site of one of the largest known clusters of COVID-19 cases in the country. 

That’s ok. The people who work there are mostly immigrants, so nobody cares what happens to them. The virus won’t spread from the plant to the world outside the plant because Donald Trump would never let that happen.

CBS affiliate KELO-TV reports Noem

… Read the rest

That other captain is also reminiscent of our current pumpkin head.… Read the rest

The old classics are the best.… Read the rest

Who knew Trump was a fan of mutiny?

Tell the Democrat Governors that “Mutiny On The Bounty” was one of my all time favorite movies. A good old fashioned mutiny every now and then is an exciting and invigorating thing to watch, especially when the mutineers need so much from the Captain. Too easy!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 14, 2020

So is he identifying with Captain Bligh or Fletcher Christian?

But lots of people are remarking that he’s more like Captain Queeg.

He’s actually thinking of “The Caine Mutiny” and he’s the paranoid and insane Captain Queeg. pic.twitter.com/QgIYBxLGD6

— BevMarie (@evenbev) April 14, 2020

https://twitter.com/SheWhoRises/status/1250081830012928002

Bligh was actually not the demon the later stories portrayed him as. The … Read the rest

Won’t someone please think of the people who need to go to Whole Foods EVERY DAY??

WOW. Just had a police officer called over to me and my husband at Whole Foods bc we were not wearing masks. We come to this @WholeFoods EVERY DAY. Apparently beginning yesterday, it is now illegal to come in without a mask.
Total deaths in D.C from Covid? 69.

WTF if going on?

— Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO) April 14, 2020

WOW, just imagine, she and her husband are not free to ignore the rules during a pandemic, WHERE IS OUR PRECIOUS LIBERTY?

Especially when the total deaths are 69 and will never go any higher because that’s how this works.

https://twitter.com/AshaRangappa_/status/1250184272142532610

Of course she … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Bruce Gorton on This racially disproportionate rate of death.

One of the most disgusting responses to the virus I saw was – The View accusing Bernie Sanders of politicizing the crisis by pushing medicare for all.

Joe Biden sounding very much like he’d veto medicare for all if it ever actually passed the lower houses.

Biden had previously said medicare for all wouldn’t help – just look at how Italy’s healthcare service was over-run.

Well, if you go to Vox and look at their story from two days ago that included charts of infection rates, what you can see from their linear graph is that Italy has handled the virus significantly better than the US, … Read the rest

God’s eye is not on the sparrow.

Pastor Gerald O. Glenn, founder and bishop of the New Deliverance Evangelistic Church in Chesterfield, Virginia, died on Saturday evening after contracting the novel coronavirus, his church announced on Facebook.

Why it matters: Glenn snubbed social distancing guidelines and warnings about the danger of religious gatherings during the COVID-19 pandemic, even after Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam issued a stay-at-home order on March 30.

Glenn’s wife has tested positive for the virus.… Read the rest