Jerry Falwell 2 is trying to punish journalists who reported on his endangerment of students at Liberty “University”:

Jerry Falwell Jr., the president of Liberty University, said on Wednesday that arrest warrants had been issued for journalists from The New York Times and ProPublica after both outlets published articles critical of his decision to partially reopen Liberty’s campus amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Arrest warrants ffs.

Photocopies of the two warrants published on the website of Todd Starnes, a conservative radio host, charge that Julia Rendleman, a freelance photographer for the Times, and Alec MacGillis, a ProPublica reporter, committed misdemeanor trespassing on the Lynchburg, Va., campus of the college while working on their articles.

…

Falwell, a fierce supporter of President Donald Trump, was among those who were portraying reaction to the virus as overblown as recently as a month ago, accusing opponents of the president of weaponizing the outbreak to hurt him politically and suggesting the virus might be the work of North Korea and China.

Hey, you know what? The only reason the pandemic can “hurt Trump politically” is because he criminally ignored and minimized it, making the outbreak in the US worse than it would have been had the government acted swiftly. That’s his doing, not Pro Publica’s or the Times’s. Trump criminally trespassed on all of our lives and safety.

[Falwell] contended that there were witnesses for both cases of alleged trespassing, telling Starnes that there were no-trespassing signs posted at “every entrance” barring everyone from the campus except students, faculty and staff, or those with official university business.

If that’s true it’s paranoid and weird and creepy. There’s a bible college at the bottom of the hill I live on, and I regularly walk through its campus, which has a very pleasant front lawn with tall trees. It’s wide open.

See? Nice trees, and wide open. It’s Christian, yes, but it’s also part of a big city, and it doesn’t try to keep the rest of us out. Does Jerry Falwell 2 have something to hide?

David McCraw, in-house counsel for the Times, said in a statement, “Julia was engaged in the most routine form of news gathering: taking an outdoors picture of a person who was interviewed for a news story.” McCraw said Rendleman had been invited to campus by one of the students interviewed for the article.

Does Falwell allow that? Are students required to get his permission to invite people in?

“Liberty” my ass.

H/t Sackbut

It was speed wot did it.

In his bestselling book, “Der Totale Rausch” (The Total Rush)—recently published in English as “Blitzed”—Ohler found that many in the Nazi regime used drugs regularly, from the soldiers of the Wehrmacht (German armed forces) all the way up to Hitler himself. The use of methamphetamine, better known as crystal meth, was particularly prevalent: A pill form of the drug, Pervitin, was distributed by the millions to Wehrmacht troops before the successful invasion of France in 1940.

And that’s how the troops were able to keep going all day and all night, which the French had not expected and thus had not prepared for. Bam, game over.

Developed by the Temmler pharmaceutical company, based in Berlin, Pervitin was introduced in 1938 and marketed as a magic pill for alertness and an anti-depressive, among other uses. It was briefly even available over the counter. A military doctor, Otto Ranke, experimented with Pervitin on 90 college students and decided, based on his results, that the drug would help Germany win the war. Using Pervitin, the soldiers of the Wehrmacht could stay awake for days at a time and march many more miles without resting.

Carrying all that heavy equipment. It couldn’t be done without the drug.

A so-called “stimulant decree” issued in April 1940 sent more than 35 million tablets of Pervitin and Isophan (a slightly modified version produced by the Knoll pharmaceutical company) of the pills to the front lines, where they fueled the Nazis’ “Blitzkrieg” invasion of France through the Ardennes mountains. It should be noted that Germans were not alone in their use of performance-enhancing drugs during World War II. Allied soldiers were known to use amphetamines (speed) in the form of Benzedrine in order to battle combat fatigue.

Better living through chemistry.

Speaking of levity…

Price Jones and Joel Dziak

Walter Shaub wrote a column in the form of a Twitter thread yesterday, and USA Today published it as a column today.

Oversight began only after the Democrats took the House. But Trump’s hold on the Senate was absolute. We don’t know what assurances he received behind the scenes, but we saw even longtime Republican senators abandon previously espoused principles to protect him in plain sight. With that protection, Trump engaged in a previously unthinkable level of resistance to congressional oversight. The collapse of this constitutional safeguard was a potentially mortal wound for our system of checks and balances.

I still don’t know why this happened. I still don’t understand why it’s worth it to all those longtime Republican senators to let this obviously terrible person – terrible in their terms as well as ours – do whatever comes into his rotting head.

A last line of defense in this war on ethics and law is the Inspector General community. They’re the eyes of the American people, objective investigators traditionally freed to pursue accountability by the safeguard of bipartisan congressional protection. But the Trump era is a bad time for safeguards. Trump’s eye has turned to the IGs, and Republican senators have forsaken them — no hearings, no media blitz, only a few meek chirps of mild concern. Even the self-anointed patron saint of IGs, Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, has abandoned them.

What began with the fall of the ethics program is entering the end game with the potential fall of the inspector general community. The government is failing us, safeguards that took two centuries to build have crumbled, and authoritarianism is eyeing this republic like lunch. It’s down to the people. There is a chance in November to reclaim this land for democracy.

But there is every sign that nothing will stop them.

Well this is horrifying.

I’ve just realized something about this whole situation – something very obvious and that we already knew, but I hadn’t quite noticed the issue before. I was doing yet another self-rebuke, of the kind I’m sure we’re all doing (Trump and the generic trumps excepted): the kind that goes “oh shut up, everyone’s in the same boat, stop whining, just shut up and get on with it”…and I realized there’s nothing to get on with. All we can “get on with” is being passive and hunkered down and distant. All we can psych ourselves up to do is stay inside and wait.

It’s seriously weird to give yourself or anyone else a shake and an order to stop complaining and get to…erm…nothing.

Not very inspiring, is it.

More glorious Trump in his glory.

Why is he doing that? Because “they missed the call. They coulda called it months earlier, they woulda known, and uh…they should of known, they probably did know, so we’ll be looking into that very carefully.”

Yes, it’s the WHO that knew about the pandemic and did nothing. Not Donald Trump, no no, the WHO.

“He made a mistake, he had a bad day.” Yes, it’s a mistake to try to get your crew off a ship infected with a deadly virus.

I’m sure he didn’t, but why is that?

Trump doesn’t find it awkward though. Trump doesn’t find anything awkward. Trump doesn’t know what “awkward” is.

MediaMatters on Kayleigh McEnany:

In Donald Trump’s White House, dishonesty and antagonism toward the press are requirements for the press secretary. And considering those requirements, no one is better suited for the job than former CNN commentator and Trump 2020 campaign spokesperson Kayleigh McEnany.

This all by itself is an out of the Nazi playbook type of thing. It’s reminiscent of the Museum of Decadent Art: appoint people “press secretary” who are dedicated liars who despise real journalism. It’s bad in itself and it’s also a poke in the eye to everyone who isn’t a monstrous liar and misanthrope.

McEnany has a long history of defending anything Trump says, no matter how brazen the lie may be. She couples that deceit with attacks on any source of information that is not Trump-approved.

And this isn’t just normal Partisan Bickering, or even intensified Partisan Bickering – it’s nihilistic destructiveness.

Recently, CNN reporter Andrew Kaczynski pointed out on Twitter that McEnany said during the February 25 edition of Trish Regan’s now-cancelled Fox Business show, “We will not see diseases like the coronavirus come here, we will not see terrorism come here, and isn’t it refreshing when contrasting it with the awful presidency of President Obama.”

Yes, our current situation is so refreshing.

In response to Democrats calling for Trump to do more to protect the country from coronavirus, McEnany wrote a Fox News op-ed on March 1 saying, “President Trump has proven himself the professional – the adult in the room as Democrats act like small children, incapable of stepping up to the task at hand and certainly incapable of leading the nation.”

And much more in the same vein.

Another sudden dunking in the pool of shit.

Her profile says she’s the national press secretary for Trump’s campaign, and it cites Phil 4:6, so I looked up Phil 4:6.

Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.

In other words, don’t bother Trump, just ask god for help.

Kyle Cheney and Connor O’Brien on Trump’s attack on the people overseeing the pandemic response:

President Donald Trump has upended the panel of federal watchdogs overseeing implementation of the $2 trillion coronavirus law, tapping a replacement for the Pentagon official who was supposed to lead the effort.

…

Fine’s removal is Trump’s latest incursion into the community of independent federal watchdogs — punctuated most dramatically by his late Friday ouster of the intelligence community’s inspector general, Michael Atkinson, whose handling of a whistleblower report ultimately led to Trump’s impeachment.

You know, if they’re really independent watchdogs, it should be impossible for the president to get rid of them.

Trump has also begun sharply attacking Health and Human Services Inspector General Christi Grimm, following a report from her office that described widespread testing delays and supply issues at the nation’s hospitals.

“Another Fake Dossier!” Trump tweeted, mentioning Grimm’s tenure as inspector general during the Obama administration. He didn’t mention, though, that Grimm has been serving as a federal watchdog since 1999, spanning administrations of both parties.

So fucking scary. His rancid hide comes before everything, including the survival of 327 million people.

Trump’s targeting of Atkinson drew an unusual rebuke from Michael Horowitz, the inspector general of the Justice Department who also oversees a council of inspectors general. Horowitz said Atkinson handled the whistleblower matter appropriately and defended the broader IG community.

“The Inspector General Community will continue to conduct aggressive, independent oversight of the agencies that we oversee,” he said in a statement after Atkinson’s ouster. Atkinson, too, issued a lengthy statement Saturday accusing Trump of removing him for following whistleblower laws.

But nobody can stop him, apparently.

Trump keeps saying nobody knew. People did know. People around him knew, and they told him.

On Tuesday, Axios published internal White House memos that make the statements from President Donald Trump downplaying the coronavirus before it became a full-blown crisis look even more willfully ignorant.

[In] A February 23 memo labeled as a “MEMORANDUM TO PRESIDENT” sent through the National Security Agency, then-acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, and the Covid-19 task force warns in its very first sentence that “[t]here is an increasing probability of a full-blown COVID-19 pandemic that could infect as many as 100 million Americans, with a loss of life of as many as 1-2 million souls.”

Three days later, however, Trump held a news conference in which he suggested the coronavirus would soon go away on its own in the United States.

“When you have 15 [coronavirus cases], and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that’s a pretty good job we’ve done,” Trump said.

This is the problem with putting a conceited ignorant corrupt incompetent in the White House.

The memo said stock up on ventilators and PPE now, as a matter of urgency. Trump of course never read it, because he never reads anything.

The Associated Press’s Michael Biesecker reported on Sunday that a review of federal purchasing contracts “shows federal agencies largely waited until mid-March to begin placing bulk orders of N95 respirator masks, mechanical ventilators and other equipment needed by front-line health care workers.”

“By that time, hospitals in several states were treating thousands of infected patients without adequate equipment and were pleading for shipments from the Strategic National Stockpile,” Biesecker added. When asked about the federal government’s slow response, Trump’s line has been that the states should have done more on their own.

…

Then, during a Fox & Friends interview on March 30, Trump said of the coronavirus pandemic that “nobody could have predicted something like this.” But the memos indicate Trump’s own advisers had not only anticipated it but tried to warn him about it.

Nobody could have except everybody.

Arwa Mahdawi on the Kushner threat:

On Thursday, Kushner, who has taken on vast responsibilities in the Trump administration’s response to Covid-19, made his first public appearance at the White House daily coronavirus briefing. His moment in the spotlight seemed to serve as a wakeup call for the US. All of a sudden, it was glaringly obvious how dangerous Kushner’s hubris is…

…Kushner was supposedly at the press briefing to explain the work he has been doing. However, despite him repeating the word ‘“data” 13 times, it quickly became clear that he has no idea what he is doing. He doesn’t even seem to know what the purpose of a federal stockpile of medical equipment is. “It’s supposed to be our stockpile,” he explained haughtily to reporters. “It’s not supposed to be states’ stockpiles that they then use.”

…

During his 39 years on Earth, Kushner has continuously failed upwards. Despite being an unremarkable student, he got a place at Harvard; according to spokespeople for Kushner Companies, this was unrelated to his dad giving $2.5m to the university. After buying a skyscraper at the very top of the real estate market, Kushner was miraculously bailed out by a company with links to the government of Qatar – just months before a potentially ruinous $1.4bn mortgage was due. Wherever Kushner is, questionable deals, questionable ethics and a crowd of yes men seem to follow. The world is constantly remade to reflect the reality that he wants to see. Indeed, shortly after the backlash to Kushner’s comments about the federal stockpile, the government’s website appeared to change to more closely reflect Kushner’s assertions.

And the stakes have risen.

Horribly sad and also terrifying.

Major supermarket chains are beginning to report their first coronavirus-related employee deaths, leading to store closures and increasing anxiety among grocery workers as the pandemic intensifies across the country.

You can see how it’s both. Horribly sad for the workers and terrifying for all of us (the workers included) because how will we get food.

A Trader Joe’s worker in Scarsdale, New York, a greeter at a Giant store in Largo, Maryland, and two Walmart employees from the same Chicago-area store have died of covid-19 in recent days, the companies confirmed Monday. In March, a Seattle neighborhood grocer died from the effects of COVID-19.

Though more than 40 states have ordered nonessential businesses to close and told residents to stay home to stem the spread of the virus, supermarkets are among the retailers that remain open. Thousands of grocery employees have continued to report to work as U.S. infections and death rates continue to climb, with many reporting long shifts and extra workloads to keep up with spiking demand. Many workers say they don’t have enough protective gear to deal with hundreds of customers a day. Dozens of grocery workers have tested positive for the coronavirus in recent weeks.

They should be getting hazard pay.

Another rally.

Yes. That’s right. It’s like movies. War isn’t actually a real thing, with real bullets and explosions and death and mutilation, it’s a thing you watch, with suited up guys running up hills. Then you have cookies and milk and go to bed.

Bit of a discrepancy there.

It always does.

I wish we had a fair president. We really don’t.

Shouldn’t be allowed to win. Interesting concept. I wonder what he has in mind.

Welllll, more than 100 billion a year is kind of like nothing. Not that different.

Johnson and his people have been lying a blue streak.

There was a rumor on Thursday that he was on the point of going into hospital, but they denied it.

Johnson’s aides were emphatic. His condition had not deteriorated, he still had only “mild symptoms”, he hoped to be at work from Friday when his coronavirus isolation period was up – and he had not been admitted to St Thomas’ hospital for treatment. When on Monday evening it emerged that contrary to reassurances about him getting on with his red box, he was being admitted to intensive care, the denials were coming under increasing scrutiny.

FDR and polio. Kennedy’s extremely bad health and addiction to uppers. Reagan’s dementia. Woodrow Wilson’s stroke. They keep doing this.

Thursday lunchtime, having denied the first round of rumours about St Thomas’, Downing Street floated the idea that Johnson might not be back at work on Friday as planned if his temperature remained high.

A cough was not mentioned, but his official spokesman told a daily briefing with journalists that he would only go back to work the next day if his temperature came down.

That evening at 8pm, despite his isolation, the prime minister appeared at the door of No 10 to applaud the work of NHS workers. Despite the appearance, the health rumours did not go away: St Thomas’ was on standby because Johnson’s condition had worsened, the first source insisted – only for Downing Street, when pressed, to deny that he was about to be admitted that night.

On Friday lunchtime, the situation began to unravel. An unkempt, gravelly-voiced and clearly unwell Johnson released a video in which he said, somewhat implausibly, “I’m feeling better,” before conceding he could not fully return to work. “Alas, I still have one of the symptoms, a minor symptom, I still have a temperature,” he insisted.

That’s ok, it’s none of our business if heads of government are dropping like flies, we just work here.

Shortly before 8.30pm on Monday, further news came: the prime minister had been admitted to intensive care at St Thomas’ 90 minutes earlier.

Several sources say Johnson has required oxygen to help with his breathing following his admission to hospital – an assertion that was not denied by Downing Street – although his official spokesman said that Russian reports that he was on a ventilator were “disinformation”.

He’s not on a ventilator yet.

Some Conservative MPs are worried that Downing Street’s evasiveness on the seriousness of the prime minister’s condition will undermine trust in what they say going forward.

Ya think?

Back in 1918…

NHS workers could do worse than examine the experience of another London hospital during the Spanish influenza pandemic just over 100 years ago. Today, that hospital is named St Charles and offers walk-in care at the northern end of Ladbroke Grove, Kensington. But in 1918 it was known as St Marylebone Infirmary and had 744 beds for the “sick poor”, many of whom had tuberculosis and other chronic lung conditions.

In October 1918, as a second wave of Spanish influenza spread across Britain, its wards were inundated with pneumonia cases…

“All training, and indeed every sort of trimming, went by the board,” Hood recalled in his notebook 30 years later. “The staff fought like Trojans to feed the patients, scramble as best they could through the most elementary nursing and keep the delirious in bed!”

The timing was bad because around half of all trained nurses were in military service.

“Each day the difficulties became more pronounced as the patients increased and the nurses decreased, going down like ninepins themselves,” Hood wrote. “Sad to relate some of these gallant girls lost their lives in this never-to-be-forgotten scourge and as I write I can see some of them now literally fighting to save their friends then going down and dying themselves.”

Hood made the nurses wear lint masks and advised them “not to interpose their faces too near the blast of those coughing”. But when it came to tending to a fellow nurse, many refused to wear the masks for fear of distressing their colleague.

In the case of one nurse, Hood noted: “Nothing I could do or say had the slightest effect in influencing her to diminish the risks to herself. She was consumed with a burning desire to save her … inevitably, the nurse developed a lung infection, dying soon after the woman she had been nursing.”

By December, Hood was exhausted and went on sick leave. When he returned in February, the epidemic was still raging and two more nurses had died, bringing the fatalities to nine.

“One poor nurse, I remember, with a terribly acute influenzal pneumonia, became so distressed she could not stay in bed and insisted on being propped up against the wall by her bed until she was finally drowned in her profuse, thin blood-stained sputum.”

Not something to look forward to.

Boris Johnson is now in intensive care.

Nebraska is still open.

The pretend Secretary of the Navy says his speech to the sailors was fine.

The crew doesn’t seem to have agreed with the pretend secretary.