This is from my “GNR Annex,” which I write as a comment on Good News Roundup about 3-5 times a week. Today’s “roundup is written by 2Thanks.
It’s here:
www.dailykos.com/...
One of my biggest points about the whole thing is that it needs to be made into a movie, and pronto. Surely, some of the anti-Trumpites with money, like The Lincoln Project and Bloomberg, could fund this thing and make it available in time for the fall campaign. The theme of Trump-as-incompetent-mass murderer needs to be played up, big, and a documentary movie would do that. It could be titled, “A Scar is Born,” or “Dances with Idiots.” Other titles? The intro to the Times piece piece now sits on the entire upper left hand side of today’s NY Times.
www.nytimes.com/...
Btw, the Alternet also does a bang-up summary of the Times piece, which is clearly generating excitement as a way to “get at” Trump’s spectacular incompetence:
www.alternet.org/...
Bombshell NYT exposé flags 8 key exchanges in the ‘Red Dawn’ emails detailing Trump’s ‘faltering response to coronavirus’
Some of what was detailed in the report was based on “Red Dawn” email messages. Reporter Eric Lipton published a second story on the topic titled, “The ‘Red Dawn’ Emails: 8 Key Exchanges on the Faltering Response to the Coronavirus.”
“As the coronavirus emerged and headed toward the United States, an extraordinary conversation was hatched among an elite group of infectious disease doctors and medical experts in the federal government and academic institutions around the nation,” The Times reported.
“Red Dawn — a nod to the 1984 film with Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen — was the nickname for the email chain they built. Different threads in the chain were named Red Dawn Breaking, Red Dawn Rising, Red Dawn Breaking Bad and, as the situation grew more dire, Red Dawn Raging. It was hosted by the chief medical officer at the Department of Homeland Security, Dr. Duane C. Caneva, starting in January with a small core of medical experts and friends that gradually grew to dozens,” the newspaper explained.
As far as 2Thanks’ discussion of Neanderthals using fiber to make a rope, is that really more impressive than the Rethugs using the presidency to make a dope? And then to use lies and corruption to string along Trump’s base? It’s close, but the Neanderthals clearly were smarter. Probably better looking, too.
As far as the WaPo is concerned, they aren’t trying to compete with the Times’ Magnum Opus, but have their own, more nuanced and less compelling but still useful contribution, hot linked in the middle of the front page:
www.washingtonpost.com/...
Trump administration has many task forces — but still no plan for beating covid-19
The Trump administration still has no clear plan for ending the coronavirus crisis, but it does have many task forces.
There is the official task force led by Vice President Pence that meets daily and is supposed to oversee the government’s sprawling response to the pandemic that has cratered the economy and, as of Saturday, killed more than 20,000 in the United States alone. There is the “Opening Our Country Council,” an economic task force announced Friday that is focused on reopening portions of the economy as quickly as possible. There is the group that reports directly to President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, a cadre dismissively dubbed “the shadow task force” that helps Kushner with his roving list of virus troubleshooting.
And there is also the “doctors group,” a previously unreported offshoot of the original task force that huddles daily to discuss medical and public health issues, created in part to push back against demands that the health experts view as too reckless.
In theory, the task forces are all working toward the same goal: defeating the novel coronavirus and getting the nation back to work — and life — as quickly as possible. But the reality is far more complicated: a bureaucratic nesting doll of groups with frequently competing aims and agendas.
That one needs more explanation, I think. They are saying that Trump and his useful idiots have no clue about how to get a clue.
Btw, the WaPo also compares the unemployment outcome in Europe to that in the US—with the conclusion that perhaps the economic philosophies in Europe have their advantages in a full-blown economic crisis.
How Europe manages to keep a lid on coronavirus unemployment while it spikes in the U.S.
Then the terrific “Live Science” has an article about the usefulness of masks in preventing the spread of the disease:
www.livescience.com/...
For the first time, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recommended that even seemingly healthy people wear masks over their mouths and noses when venturing out of their homes into places where it is difficult to maintain distance from other people. But there is still major debate over how much masks — particularly the homemade fabric masks that the CDC recommends for the public — can slow the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
Researchers, writing in two new papers, attempt to tackle the efficacy of masks, one more rigorously than the other, and come to differing conclusions. One study examined the effect of masks on seasonal coronaviruses (which cause many cases of the common cold) and found that surgical masks are helpful at reducing how much virus a sick person spreads. The other looked particularly at SARS-CoV-2 and found no effect of either surgical or fabric masks on reducing virus spread, but only had four participants and used a crude measure of viral spread.
The bottom line, experts say, is that masks might help keep people with COVID-19 from unknowingly passing along the virus. But the evidence for the efficacy of surgical or homemade masks is limited, and masks aren't the most important protection against the coronavirus.
Related: 13 Coronavirus myths busted by science
"Putting a face mask on does not mean that you stop the other practices," said May Chu, a clinical professor in epidemiology at the Colorado School of Public Health on the Anschutz Medical Campus who was not involved in either new study. "It does not mean you get closer to people, it does not mean you don't have to wash your hands as often and you can touch your face. All of that still is in place, this is just an add-on."
I also like this Alternet story about Susan Collins trying to absolve herself of blame, and the disastrous results:
www.alternet.org/...
‘Very concerned’ Susan Collins tried to rally Maine with a hopeful COVID-19 message — and it didn’t go well: ‘You own this mess’
I am hopeful that this pattern among Rethugs will be replayed elsewhere, especially in states where the governor is being spectacularly incompetent, like Florida, Georgia and Tennessee.
I am also working on a piece to go up on LinkedIn and on my mailing list, that I will also link here somewhere, about the implications of the pandemic for state and local government credit quality and the implications for needed funding of infrastructure, such as climate-related resiliency projects. I have run into “Amadeus syndrome”: too many notes.
I also end by noting that some church and writer or other pointed out that having empty churches today is OK; after all, on Easter, Jesus’ tomb was reportedly empty, too.
www.al.com/...
- News
Empty tomb, empty churches: finding joy in online Easter
Hey, I’m a Jewish agnostic. What do I know? Btw, Boris Johnson was just discharged from the hospital, so his tomb is empty, too.
Have a great goodgnusEaster, 2Thanks et al.
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