The reporter asks the question and he does his usual know-nothing blather – “I would hope very soon” and variations on that empty bromide. We don’t care what you hope, bozo. He gets more and more bullshitty and at peak bullshit the reporter cuts in to point out a contradiction – and he holds up his flabby hand like a traffic cop and says “Excuse me, excuse me” and goes on amping up the bullshit. How dare this peasant interrupt Donald Trump’s string of bullshit and lies?!

Another White House press conference on the pandemic. Look how this festering sack of shit starts it.

Look at how he does it. Look at that pause after “defeat” – look at that guilty glance sideways before he says it.

It’s not written down. That’s what the pause and the glance tell us – along with who would do that? – they tell us he ad-libs it.

It’s racist, obviously, and it’s all the more racist given that he’s been told it’s racist repeatedly, but even more – it’s not even technically correct, it’s not what the health officials are calling it, it’s not the epidemiological or medical term for it, it’s not the generally-agreed name for it, and during a rapidly exploding pandemic a head of state should not be using his own whimsical racist nickname for that pandemic.

Ya know?

How are we supposed to be able to trust that the incompetent racist toad has finally stopped lying and is getting serious when he does this every day?

Fox News is getting credit for cutting back a little on the lies.

Rupert Murdoch’s Fox cable networks, amid this crisis, have not been diverted from their primary mission, even if misinformation is the price. Apologia and advocacy for both Donald Trump and the Republican Party has typically taken precedence at Fox News and Fox Business. Even at a time when such a collective public effort is required to combat a global pandemic, the danger wasn’t a deterrent. Some anchors and guests likened COVID-19 to the flu, which is patently false. Fox Business’ Trish Regan theorized that media alarm about COVID-19 was “yet another attempt to impeach the president.” They encouraged Americans to congregate and travel, ignoring safety advice from medical experts and even government officials.

Because which is more important – giving the public good information during a developing pandemic or propping up Donald Trump while he lies to the public during a developing pandemic? Who matters more, Donald Trump or all the other people on the planet?

Mixed in with the supposedly sober tone of the new Fox News rhetoric is the regularly served glorification for the president. Last Friday, prime-time host Sean Hannity, known to advise and fraternize with the president, sounded not unlike one of his counterparts on North Korean state television. Hannity argued that “a bold, new precedent is being set, the world will once again benefit greatly from America’s leadership,” despite the fact that we’re still desperately short on tests and vital hospital equipment. Hannity celebrated “the federal government, state governments, private businesses, top hospitals all coming together, under the president’s leadership, to stem the tide of the coronavirus,” all before any tide has actually been stemmed.

And long after all this coming together should have started. Oh thank you Donald Trump for finally admitting the pandemic is a problem after weeks and weeks of brushing it aside.

Two recent polls, one from Pew Research Center and the other from YouGov and The Economist, indicate that regular Fox News viewers both are the only American media consumers who believe Trump is doing a good job of responding to the crisis and that the press has greatly exaggerated the risks of contracting COVID-19.

There’s a loop here. It’s not just that Fox viewers think Trump is awesome because Fox tells them he is, it’s also that the kind of people who like Trump are the kind of people who like Fox News.

Misinformation can be fatal, and that’s why Americans need to be more vigilant and shrewd about the media that they consume, especially now. That is the lesson that we all should be conveying, particularly those of us in the press. We cannot rely upon the visceral danger this pandemic presents to encourage people to make smarter choices about citizenship, let alone what and who they allow to influence their thinking. And that starts with thinking critically about oneself, which too many Americans fail or refuse to do.

Thinking critically about oneself is unAmerican. I think it might be against the law here.

Owen Jones on the other hand found that wretched content-free “ooh somebody said” piece of dreck in the Independent a prompt to make another soaring declaration of allegiance.

To trans people, one of the most besieged, marginalised and oppressed minorities in Britain: you have few vocal allies in the media. But we are not going to stop using our voices to stand by and fight for you, whatever happens.

Who says trans people are one of the most besieged, marginalised and oppressed minorities in Britain? What does that mean? Is it true? It’s a claim that people make, in a similarly redundant fashion (most oppressed and oppressed and oppressed), so often and noisily that it’s become formulaic, but is it even true?

I don’t buy it, myself. I can believe that trans people are more subject to random street violence, but what about all the other ways of being oppressed? Are they systematically confined to specific neighborhoods that everyone else is warned away from, with the result that they can’t build equity by buying property? Are they systematically confined to underfunded schools in those neighborhoods, are they systematically confined to low-skilled jobs and kept out of unions, are they denied promotions and raises, are they stifled and stunted and stymied in every way a dominant majority can think of?

No.

I don’t think Owen Jones’s hackneyed formula is even true, and I don’t think the fact that one guy agreed with another guy about trans activism’s conflict with women’s rights is a good reason to recite the hackneyed formula yet again along with a boastful histrionic vow to “fight for you.”

I also wonder if Owen Jones ever gives a single thought to women.

The “Chinese flu” thing just won’t quit.

And not just agree but agree 100%.

This is not journalism, this is passive-aggressive finger pointing and hissing. Ellie Harrison in the Independent:

Jonathan Ross has been branded “transphobic” after he endorsed comedian Graham Linehan’s controversial views on Twitter.

Wtf is that supposed to mean? What’s it doing in a newspaper? Branded by whom? “Branded” how? Anybody could say that about anyone. It’s meaningless. It could mean that Ellie Harrison has “branded” Jonathan Ross that way by saying it just before she started typing.

New lede:

Somebody called somebody something.

You don’t say; what a shocker.

There’s also the sleazy “controversial” pasted onto Linehan. Controversial according to whom? Controversial according to what standards?

Newspaper editors should spike this kind of shit. It’s childish gossip and fight-picking and it doesn’t measure up as journalism.

She sticks to it though. All she’s got is “people do say.”

Linehan, the creator of Father Ted and The IT Crowd, has repeatedly been accused of transphobia. Last month, he was widely condemned for comparing doctors treating transgender children to Nazis conducting medical experiments on prisoners in concentration camps.

All passive voice, all no-agents passive voice – where is all this branding and accusing and widely condemning coming from?

Oh, you know – people on Twitter.

Useful.

Uh oh, Prince Jared’s in trouble.

(Kidding about the uh oh. I’d love to see him kicked back to New Jersey.)

Last Thursday, as the stock market was on the way to losing nearly 2,400 points—its biggest single-day plunge since the 1987 Black Monday crash—Donald Trump was worrying about the fate of the football season. NFL players aren’t scheduled to report to training camp for months, but according to a source, Trump feared that the league might preemptively announce it was following the NBA and NHL and suspend or delay operations due to the coronavirus. So Trump called NFL owners to see if any action was on the horizon. “Trump begged them not to cancel the season,” a source briefed on the call said.

That’s so Trump. Never mind the safety of the players and the people who go to watch them play, focus on the season. Save our football!

It reflected Trump’s magical thinking that he could manage the coronavirus pandemic by convincing people life would remain normal and sports would be played. (Last week, Trump also spoke with Ultimate Fighting Championship president Dana White and advised him not to cancel UFC events.) “Trump thinks this is a media problem,” a Republican close to the White House told me. Treating COVID-19 as a public-relations crisis put Trump at odds with the medical community…

And with rational human beings in general.

Trump is waking up to the reality that’s been clear to everyone: Coronavirus poses a once-in-a-hundred-years threat to the country. “In the last 48 hours he has understood the magnitude of what’s going on,” a former West Wing official told me. As Trump processes the stakes facing the country—and his presidency—he’s also lashing out at advisers, whom he blames for the White House’s inept and flat-footed response. Sources say a principal target of his anger is Jared Kushner. “I have never heard so many people inside the White House openly discuss how pissed Trump is at Jared,” the former West Wing official said.

Yes, it’s all Prince Jared’s fault, it’s nothing to do with Trump’s stupidity and ignorance and selfish indifference to everyone who isn’t Trump.

Interesting. As the virus numbers go up, the taking it seriously numbers go down.

In the face of the coronavirus worsening across the U.S. and reordering the daily life of millions of Americans, fewer people view the pandemic as a real threat, according to a new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll.

Just about 56% of Americans consider the coronavirus a “real threat,” representing a drop of 10 percentage points from last month. At the same time, a growing number of Americans think the coronavirus is being “blown out of proportion.”

The differences between political parties are stark, with a majority of Republicans saying it is overblown and the vast majority of Democrats considering it a legitimate threat.

A virus doesn’t care what your political affiliation is.

The result is that under half of USians are taking the precautions we’re told to take.

In February, a little more than a quarter of U.S. adults believed the coronavirus was being blown out of proportion. Now, that number has risen to nearly 40% of respondents.

Pollsters found that both shifts are largely driven by changes in opinion by Republicans. For instance, 72% of Republicanssaw the coronavirus as a real threat in early February, but that figure has now plummeted to 40% of Republicans now believing the deadly virus is a serious menace.

Let me guess. That’s because the worse it is the worse Trump looks, and they can’t have that.

About that 1918 flu pandemic…the CDC has some basics.

The 1918 influenza pandemic was the most severe pandemic in recent history. It was caused by an H1N1 virus with genes of avian origin. Although there is not universal consensus regarding where the virus originated, it spread worldwide during 1918-1919.  In the United States, it was first identified in military personnel in spring 1918.

It is estimated that about 500 million people or one-third of the world’s population became infected with this virus. The number of deaths was estimated to be at least 50 million worldwide with about 675,000 occurring in the United States. Mortality was high in people younger than 5 years old, 20-40 years old, and 65 years and older. The high mortality in healthy people, including those in the 20-40 year age group, was a unique feature of this pandemic.

Those stats are breathtaking.

Qu’ils mangent de la brioche.

I thought she had a “job” in the White House.

Also – okay you drape some sheets to make a tent; then what?

Games with tents and playing camp and stuff are fun with other kids or alone, not with Barbie Mommy in her makeup and earrings.

Plus it’s Princess Ivanka. Don’t nobody want to play with no Princess Ivanka.

Cushions available at Shop Princess Ivanka for $5000 apiece; sheets extra.

It turns out he didn’t take the COVID-19 test after all.

Here he is saying it.

It’s a swab. That’s all, just a swab. Even whiny Trump wouldn’t whine about that. He has no clue what it is. He didn’t take it.

He said that? Really?

Updating to add: yes he really said it.

Question: Was there a shift in tone?

Answer: I didn’t think, I mean I have seen that, where people uh actually liked it

She didn’t ask if people liked it, she asked if there was a shift in tone.

And then he proceeds to tell that ridiculous insulting to our intelligence lie.

David Frum is on a tear.

The author in question is Anne Applebaum.

Anne Applebaum points out that however good US technology may be, its political system is backward and primitive and thus renders the technology far less useful than it could be.

[N]o officials from the Chinese Communist Party instructed anyone in the United States not to carry out testing. Nobody prevented American public officials from ordering the immediate production of a massive number of tests. Nevertheless, they did not. We don’t know all the details yet, but one element of the situation cannot be denied: The president himself did not want the disease talked of too widely, did not want knowledge of it to spread, and, above all, did not want the numbers of those infected to appear too high. He said so himself, while explaining why he didn’t want a cruise ship full of infected Americans to dock in California. “I like the numbers being where they are,” he said. “I don’t need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn’t our fault.”

We could have gone all-in on testing weeks ago, but we didn’t because we have a childish self-dealing incompetent in charge. That’s not some weird fluke, it’s a product of the political system we have. Technology might as well not exist if someone like Donald Trump can prevent us from using it when it’s needed.

Without the threats and violence of the Chinese system, in other words, we have the same results: scientists not allowed to do their job; public-health officials not pushing for aggressive testing; preparedness delayed, all because too many people feared that it might damage the political prospects of the leader. I am not writing this in order to praise Chinese communism—far from it. I am writing this so that Americans understand that our government is producing some of the same outcomes as Chinese communism. This means that our political system is in far, far worse shape than we have hitherto understood.

Like…our political system is on a ventilator and probably won’t survive.

What if it turns out, as it almost certainly will, that other nations are far better than we are at coping with this kind of catastrophe? Look at Singapore, which immediately created an app that could physically track everyone who was quarantined, and that energetically tracked down all the contacts of everyone identified to have the disease. Look at South Korea, with its proven testing ability. Look at Germany, where Chancellor Angela Merkel managed to speak honestly and openly about the disease—she predicted that 70 percent of Germans would get it—and yet did not crash the markets.

The United States, long accustomed to thinking of itself as the best, most efficient, and most technologically advanced society in the world, is about to be proved an unclothed emperor. When human life is in peril, we are not as good as Singapore, as South Korea, as Germany. And the problem is not that we are behind technologically, as the Japanese were in 1853. The problem is that American bureaucracies, and the antiquated, hidebound, unloved federal government of which they are part, are no longer up to the job of coping with the kinds of challenges that face us in the 21st century. Global pandemics, cyberwarfare, information warfare—these are threats that require highly motivated, highly educated bureaucrats; a national health-care system that covers the entire population; public schools that train students to think both deeply and flexibly; and much more.

We don’t have any of that, because too few of us believe in it and because we have a voting system ever more weighted toward the people who don’t believe in it. We don’t believe in educated bureaucrats and universal health insurance and good public schools; we believe in money and profits and ruthless greedy “success.”

Of course he did. Pandemics and cratering economies and millions thrown out of work are one thing, and sticking to a habit of racist name-calling is another.

Fifteen hours ago. No one has deleted it so far.

Stronger and more racist! If he has anything to say about it.

Updating to add: he’s “you’re not the boss of me”ing. One hour ago:

Loathsome disgusting poisonous man.

The Guardian reports:

The Royal Shakespeare Company’s three theatres will close, in line with government advice. The Royal Shakespeare Theatre, the Swan Theatre and the Studio Theatre at The Other Place will all shut for an “undetermined period of time”, the company has said.

Shakespeare was used to that. Playing companies often had to hit the road to tour when plague in London closed the theaters.

Originally a comment by Bruce Gorton on Benefits and their absence.

Just a point here, this is not just a problem with Covid-19.

Look at how many of those people work with food.

Now go look at the CDC:

Sick food workers have been implicated in foodborne illness outbreaks caused by at least 14 different germs. Many of these outbreaks could be prevented simply by making sure that food workers don’t work while they are sick.

Now Covid-19 isn’t transmitted through food so far as anybody knows, but its quite startling when you read:

20% of food workers say they worked at least one shift with vomiting or diarrhea in the past year.

Oh yeah and they’re more likely to show up while sick if – it is a busy restaurant that doesn’t give paid leave. 19 states don’t follow the CDC’s food safety protocols, and of those that do they aren’t exactly well enforced.

This was in 2016, and Trump isn’t big on regulation, so I’m guessing not much has changed.

Food poisoning hits one in six Americans every year. In the UK it is closer to one in 66.

While comparing different countries in terms of food born illness isn’t exactly reliable (different countries have different methodologies) I think that big a gap says something in and of itself.

Think about Chipotle. It is famous for giving people diarrhea, as recently as 2018 it was found to be behind an outbreak in Ohio that sickened hundreds of people.

Well we’re in 2020, and here’s what The Guardian is saying about them:

Earlier this year, Chipotle settled with the city’s (New York) department of consumer and worker protection for firing an employee who took sick leave. The department is also conducting a deeper investigation of the chain’s workplace practices.

Chipotle isn’t the exception, in fact so far as sick leave is concerned it is better than those listed in the tweet – but it speaks to a deeper problem within the US workplace.

You can see that in Donald Trump’s election to president. He’s infamous for being an incredibly shitty boss, he was known for it before he became president, hell he had a TV show that centered on him being a shitty boss, but somehow this was never a big deal.

It was him being “tough” rather than him “having the temperament of a spoiled three-year-old”. And the results are bad, but there is such a culture of expecting the boss to be an asshole that I honestly think he’s going to get a second term anyway because that’s what someone who is in charge looks like for all too many Americans.

There is a recklessness that is actively harming America, that is actively sickening the nation, where being authoritative matters more than being effective. There has got to be a shift towards pragmatic “not being a bastard” at some point.