Sad and infuriating:

A California megachurch has found itself at the center of a coronavirus outbreak after public health officials connected it to 71 cases , even as church leaders say they have been unfairly blamed for failing to take action to stop the spread among church members.

County health officials have put Bethany Slavic Missionary church, a Pentecostal house of worship in a suburb of Sacramento, at the heart of one of the largest outbreak clusters in the country. The church is reported to be the largest Slavic congregation in the US, with 3,500 members and a total attendance at some services of up to 10,000.

The county’s public health director said that a third of all coronavirus

Another press briefing campaign rally, perhaps the weirdest yet.

Trump criticizes New York for asking for tens of thousands of ventilators: "When they know they do not need it, they want it anyway. It gives them that extra feeling of satisfaction, but we cannot do that. It is not even possible. We are a backup." pic.twitter.com/h4g8LOinH9

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 4, 2020

At this stage of the rally, the early stage, he comes across as drunk, exhausted, sick, something – gabbling, slurring, and seeming to talk through a gallon or two of his own drool.

“…when thee brunt of it comes, which is coming quickly, you see it, you see it as sure as you can see it” [rising … Read the rest

The long haul:

“I think this idea … that if you close schools and shut restaurants for a couple of weeks, you solve the problem and get back to normal life — that’s not what’s going to happen,” says Adam Kucharski, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and author of The Rules of Contagion, a book on how outbreaks spread. “The main message that isn’t getting across to a lot of people is just how long we might be in this for.”

Predictions are that a vaccine will take 12 to 18 months, so that’s probably how long.

Long.

Very long.

Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, agrees

To the surprise of no one:

JARED KUSHNER’S family real estate company, which owns and manages thousands of apartment units, continued its aggressive eviction practices and debt collection lawsuits as Americans wait for government relief. Well into the coronavirus crisis, which has led to skyrocketing unemployment, court records show properties owned by Kushner Companies are still filing new eviction lawsuits.

No shit. Did anyone think Jared Kushner is any kind of humane or decent person?

At least 15 tenants in New Jersey and Maryland have been on the receiving end of lawsuits from Kushner-owned properties even after both states declared states of emergency. Gov. Phil Murphy, D-N.J., and Gov. Larry Hogan, R-Md., have both called for a moratorium on

Oh really?

Trump: We inherited "obsolete" "broken" tests from Obama admin. Now we have good tests. pic.twitter.com/oEGloP3lAE

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) April 3, 2020

Tests for a virus that didn’t exist until 3 years after Obama’s term expired. … Read the rest

This is an incredible display.

Wow. Trump unloads on a reporter who dared to ask him about Kushner saying on Thursday that the federal ventilator stockpile is "our" stockpile & not the states'.

"When he says 'our,' he's talking about our country … it's such a basic, simple question. You oughta be ashamed." pic.twitter.com/HWWkTWs00e

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 3, 2020

… Read the rest

Another campaign rally:

"We continue to study the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine," Trump says, reading, and will keep Americans updated.

Then, ad-libbing, he says, "I don't know, it's looking like it's having some good results."

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) April 3, 2020

Meaning, he wants it to have some good results.

Trump thanks the banks, says they're "incredible" and making sure that the money is getting to small businesses so we can get back to "where we were."

He adds, "Eventually, we're going to supersede where we were."

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) April 3, 2020

Yeah the banks. Let’s talk up the banks. They’re the real heroes here.

Also: no we’re not. We’re going to be in a deep deep hole … Read the rest

Daniel Drezner on Trump as toddler:

Trump’s toddler traits have significantly hampered America’s response to the pandemic. They aren’t new, either. In the first three years of his term, I’ve collected 1,300 instances when a Trump staffer, subordinate or ally — in other words, someone with a rooting interest in the success of Trump’s presidency — nonetheless described him the way most of us might describe a petulant 2-year-old. Trump offers the greatest example of pervasive developmental delay in American political history.

Or delay combined with deterioration. He’s always been stupid and ignorant, but word is he hasn’t always been this stupid.

[T]he Trump White House’s inadequate handling of the outbreak highlights his every toddler-like instinct. The most obvious

Ok this one shocked me. One keeps thinking shock has become impossible but they pull the football away again.

The official government webpage for the Strategic National Stockpile was altered Friday to seemingly reflect a controversial description of the emergency repository that White House adviser Jared Kushner offered at a news conference Thursday evening.

According to a brief online summary on the Department of Health and Human Services website, the stockpile’s role “is to supplement state and local supplies during public health emergencies. Many states have products stockpiled, as well.”

But just hours earlier, the text characterized the stockpile as the “nation’s largest supply of life-saving pharmaceuticals and medical supplies for use in a public health emergency severe enough

Let’s go through The Letter.

Dear Senator Schumer:

Thank you for your Democrat public relations letter and incorrect sound bites, which are wrong in every way.

He manages to dictate the first three words as an adult would, but then the enraged toddler breaks through. The adjective is “Democratic.” The letter was a request to expedite the provision of supplies IN A PANDEMIC – one that threatens the lives of millions or billions of people. It was not a public relations letter, it was a doing government work letter in a dire emergency. Imagine Franklin Roosevelt sending rude childish letters to Republican Senators a few hours after Pearl Harbor. It wasn’t “sound bites,” it wasn’t “incorrect,” it wasn’t “wrong in … Read the rest

Pinocchio-lookalike Jared Kushner takes the stage at a pandemic press briefing to say: “The President wanted to make sure that we had the best people doing the best jobs and making sure we had the right people focused on all of the things that needed to happen to make sure that we can deliver” while Anthony Fauci has to have a security detail.

The government’s top infectious disease doctor, Anthony Fauci, is now receiving security protection after becoming the face of the nation’s coronavirus response — and a target of some supporters of President Donald Trump.

…

HHS Secretary Alex Azar had grown concerned about the growing online attacks against Fauci — whose profile has soared since he started

Reaction to Jared Kushner’s new role as replacement for Anthony Fauci is not universally ecstatic.

Jared Kushner is at the coronavirus press conference. Dr. Fauci is not. So there’s definitely no reason for anyone to air this garbage. #StopAiringTrump

— Scott Dworkin (@funder) April 2, 2020

Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner at briefing, praises his father-in-law's response to the Coronavirus: "The president has been very hands-on…"

— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) April 2, 2020

The president has been very hands on the microphone, the podium, other people, but he has not been busy responding to the pandemic.

One takeaway from Jared Kushner briefing: we did not start active response phase of dealing with this crisis until 13 days ago.

Oh wait, it turns out Kushner is totally qualified to save us from the pandemic.

Here's Jared Kushner going for the world record of most meaningless corporate buzzwords used in a single one-minute video clip pic.twitter.com/Vy1QJEhLQa

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 2, 2020

Data, models, decisions, informed, people, focused, things, deliver, teams, barriers, lines of effort.

It’s a fucking pep talk. From Howdy Doody.… Read the rest

You’re fired.

The Navy announced it has relieved the captain who sounded the alarm about an outbreak of COVID-19 aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt.

Capt. Brett Crozier, who commands the Roosevelt, an aircraft carrier with a crew of nearly 5,000, was relieved of his command on Thursday, but he will keep his rank and remain in the Navy.

Crozier raised the alarm earlier this week that sailors on the ship need to be quarantined to stop the spread of the virus. His plea for assistance quickly made headlines.

And we can’t have people stopping the spread of the virus, so get him out of that command.

The move was announced in a briefing by Acting Secretary of the Navy

Nancy LeTourneau explains why many journalists were suckered into thinking Trump had changed simply because he managed to pretend to be serious for a few minutes on Tuesday.

It is infuriating to watch political reporters get sucked into the nonsense delivered by this president over and over again. But David Roberts recently described why that happens.

Ask someone who’s been in an abusive relationship with a malignant narcissist. One reason they’re able to maintain appearances/jobs/etc. is that they are relatively rare & unusual & the normal people around them simply can’t absorb that they are what they are…They try again and again, thinking there must be normal human intentions & emotions in there somewhere. It’s just remarkable how far someone

Juxtaposition.

Six hours ago:

…It wouldn’t matter if you got ten times what was needed, it would never be good enough. Unlike other states, New York unfortunately got off to a late start. You should have pushed harder. Stop complaining & find out where all of these supplies are going. Cuomo working hard!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 2, 2020

Soon after tweeting that, he retweeted this:

.@realDonaldTrump doesn’t care if you’re a Democrat or a Republican.

He has shown he is willing to work with everyone, and that’s why you are seeing governors in both parties praise the administration’s efforts to beat this virus. pic.twitter.com/coc3cwVeyZ

— Ronna McDaniel (@RonnaMcDaniel) April 2, 2020

On the one hand he … Read the rest

Well then we’re all doomed.

Dozens of Trump administration officials have trooped to the White House podium over the last two months to brief the public on their effort to combat coronavirus, but one person who hasn’t — Jared Kushner — has emerged as perhaps the most pivotal figure in the national fight against the fast-growing pandemic.

Jared Kushner is not a person you want as the pivotal figure in a pandemic.

I put that with careful, jaw-clenching restraint.

What started two-and-a-half weeks ago as an effort to utilize the private sector to fix early testing failures has become an all-encompassing portfolio for Kushner, who, alongside a kitchen cabinet of outside experts including his former roommate and a suite