"A leaked unreleased White House coronavirus task force report showing cases spiking in areas across the country has undercut President Donald Trump's claim that cases are declining across the nation."
"It is shocking. Almost 60 days after the country’s first shelter-in-place orders, there is still no clear national plan for what comes next. “The lockdown is not meant to be a permanent state of affairs; it’s intended to be a giant pause button that buys you time to get ready for the next phase,” Jeremy Konyndyk, of the Center for Global Development think tank, says." Some will call this a failure of leadership, but with Trump it's actually a lack of leadership.
We're talking baseball (but without the fans)
Hey, remember when First Energy Solutions, the spinoff company that got "saddled" with First Energy's nuclear power plants, was in such poor condition that we Ohio Consumers needed to pay an extra surcharge to keep it solvent to keep our lights on? "Leaders of a former FirstEnergy subsidiary, which Ohio electricity customers will soon begin paying $150 million annually to subsidize under a nuclear bailout law Ohio officials passed last year, have moved to spend an extra $300 million on repurchasing the company’s own stock… The stock buybacks, meant to benefit corporate shareholders, come less than a year after an aggressive multi-year lobbying effort by FirstEnergy that culminated in Gov. Mike DeWine and state lawmakers approving $1 billion in bailout money funded by surcharges on Ohioans’ electric bills. The company and elected officials who backed the bailout argued without state money, the power plants and their parent company would become insolvent." They were lying then, they're lying now. They never needed the extra money, but conservatives were willing to use this to manufactured crisis to award their patron and dismantle any remaining "green energy production" and conservation rules. (Grokked from Ferrett Steinmetz)
"President Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort has been released from prison to serve the remainder of his sentence in home confinement because of concerns over the novel coronavirus, two sources familiar with the matter told ABC News." Don't do the crime if you can't do the time. Look, if people have to serve their full time for minor infractions, such as holding a few ounces of pot, that this asshole should have to serve his entire sentence in jail. Gee, too bad there's this COVID thing, but, you know, jail sucks. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
"A federal judge has put the justice department’s decision to dismiss a criminal case against Michael Flynn, Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, on hold – opening the door for legal experts and other outside parties to oppose the administration’s motion to exonerate Flynn of lying to the FBI." Well, at least a few judges still believe in the law.
"Republican Mike Garcia, a former Naval aviator, maintained a lead early Wednesday over Democrat Christy Smith in a special congressional election in the Los Angeles suburbs… Though Democrats have a voter-registration advantage of nearly 30,000, the health crisis has created conditions ripe for a GOP upset. Turnout in the runoff — thus far, roughly 143,000 votes have been counted — is on track to surpass most recent special elections in the region, but the electorate has skewed older and less diverse and thus more favorable to Republicans."
"Last Thursday, Justice Clarence Thomas suggested that a major First Amendment doctrine should be abandoned, and that the right to free speech be significantly shrunk in the process. It’s the second time he’s done so in a little over a year, and at least the third time Thomas has called for a major slice of Americans’ free speech rights to be cut away… His latest call to reduce free speech rights came in United States v. Sineneng-Smith, a case involving an immigration lawyer who fraudulently charged her clients a total of $3.3 million to file for a change in their immigration status that she knew they were ineligible to receive. The Court ruled unanimously, and on narrow procedural grounds, to toss out a ruling benefiting this immigration lawyer."
"When asked if there was a chance the presidential election could be postponed past November 3 due to the pandemic, (Jared) Kushner said that isn’t his decision. 'I’m not sure I can commit one way or the other, but right now that’s the plan,' he said… 'Hopefully by the time we get to September, October, November, we’ve done enough work with testing and with all the different things we’re trying to do to prevent a future outbreak of the magnitude that would make us shut down again,' Kushner continued. 'I really believe that once America opens up, it’ll be very hard for America to ever lock down again.'" Funny how people who shout about being strict Constitutionalists often don't know what's in the Constitution. Like the timing of the Federal Election. The Executive doesn't get to decide when to hold the election. Also, his comment about how heartbroken they are about the deaths from COVID-19, but there are more important things just twigged me to Jack Nicholson's Joker saying, "You can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs." (Grokked from Chia Evers)
"Last week, the House Intelligence Committee released a transcript of a once behind-closed-doors interview with Jared Kushner in which Trump’s son-in-law evaded a question about his relationship with Rick Gerson, a New York hedge-fund manager and a longtime friend of Kushner. In a curious move, Kushner downplayed his link to Gerson, who in late 2016 and early 2017, due to his connection to Kushner, was mixed up in secretive contacts between the incoming Trump administration, the United Arab Emirates, and Russia—a weird series of actions that were investigated by special counsel Robert Mueller." For there not being anything to see here, there sure is a hellofalotata stuff to see here. (Grokked from Chuck Wendig)
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